Posts by Luke 55 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Apr 2008
Data is stored for this comedy government to look at whenever they feel like it. Perhaps the ISPs are less likely to leave all this information sitting on a train, but otherwise it amounts to the same thing.
I realise she probably likes to keep an eye on her husband's internet/tv/phone use these days, but leave us out of it!
It is hard to argue with success, but Apple really are a mean-spirited bunch. Microsoft get all the bad press and hate and Apple tend to be seen as a nice helpful lot. They have managed to treat their users like crap for years and actually have said users be grateful for it. Genius, but really...
The iphone is a great bit of kit, it works well and I wouldn't want another phone right now - all these new features are welcome (and massively overdue!). But Apple tie the hands of users so much (assuming you don't jailbreak). No custom ringtones without paying for songs twice on itunes or no custom alarms (kid stuff sure, but still should be an option). No user replaceable battery. Can't transfer music off the phone. These are all things that can be done on any other smartphone. And ipod touch users have to pay for a pretty basic software upgrade? Come on now, seriously...
Yes they make great hardware, they push everyone else forward, but they do deserve a healthy dose of hate to try and at least discourage them from being such Nazis with everything all the bloody time. I really hope for Android on a decent handset soon to at least introduce some element of competition.
I assume he either had a very simple password, or had real questions and answers in his security questions - yes really stupid for a high profile email address in the public domain, but not surprising.
But what a waste though! Imagine the fun that could have been had with this in the right hands. They probably didn't even know whose email it was...
Good to have some balance with all this environment nonsense - It has become a replacement for religion with the middle class and a tax raising blessing for governments.
Questioning the validity of man-made global warming seems to be treated on a par with holocaust denial these days.
Clean limitless energy is in all our interests, but it will not be achieved by limiting development and progress, that will just slow down the pace where humans either get to a place where we sort ourselves out, or implode. I'd rather get it over with either way. Ideally with a few overseas holidays thrown in en-route.
Also being forced to beg for carrier bags like an animal in the supermarket is surely a human rights violation?
More runways please.
I know they have this law in Korea - I think it is Samsung phones where it impossible to turn off the camera noise - also has to be above a certain decibel level as well? Never owned a Samsung though and all my old handsets have been silent when asked.
As usual, this law will punish the 99.9% of people who just want a quiet phone - and will be pretty easily bypassed by the people whose hobby is sneaking blurry upskirt pics (disconnect/break speaker or European/Asian handset). So by that logic, I expect this law to be adopted here in the UK also by Christmas.
An ISP censoring huge chunks of the internet because there may or may not be some dodgy content is like putting an entire town under house arrest because a few people may go out and break a law otherwise.
The internet should be completely uncensored – people who choose to break the laws of their country should be held accountable for the actions they chose to take.
Worst thing is that the UK government criticises China for this sort of nonsense - but allows it here.
Tempting though trolling around the comments, trying to wind up Apple fanboys must be, you have really missed your mark - I can't stand them.
The point I made was that advertisements DO NOT concern me. What bothers me is the fact that 17 complaints (probably by people such as yourself, who fly into a solid nerd rage when certain tech companies get mentioned) resulted in an advertisement being pulled. It doesn't matter if there were 30 similar stories that day - it is still inconsistent.
Let the market dictate what is acceptable, ban nothing - I am fine with offensive, crazy and misleading television and radio. I want deodorant companies telling people that dousing themselves in their will make bikini clad women flock to me. I want to see tampon advertisements promising women that their time of the month needn’t be an uncomfortable time, but rather a chance to go cycling and running along the beach. And dammit if I don’t want to be able to hear Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand leave sexually explicit messages on old mens answerphones. Why not? If I don't like it I turn it off.
The world run by people with the ASA etc bookmarked is a depressing sounding place to me.
(Mr Branson, is that you?) I never said I was losing sleep over it... The point I was making is that most adverts bend the truth, Virgin, Apple or Penelopé Cruz and her fake eyelashes - Picking on just this one is just inconsistent. Either stop all the lies or let them go wild - sensible people will do their own research anyway.
Ok, so they lost some naughty pics and had them posted online. Now we are talking a lady who dines out in McDonalds here, so I am guessing not exactly prime internet perv fodder- if they had just put it down as carelessness, and pledged to be more careful in the future this would have just gone away.
But no, they sue. Now the international media has the story, and I am pretty sure the said picture/s is a mere Google image away (I am at work, so despite my own morbid curiosity probably shouldn’t check, but I am sure a fair chunk of readers already have). By now every single person they know will have heard about it.
The fact that money is obviously more important to them than their own dignity, really defeats their already tenuous case.
False positives are going to happen once in a while. The main problem with AVG is that it used to be much better, it is getting too fat. The same happened with Ad-aware, the same is true for iTunes. AVG doesn't even update properly any more.
Come on guys, you are supposed to make these things better not worse! It is software, not sweet manufacture. I want sleeker, faster, better software - I want my Wham bars back the the giant, fat pink, sugary goodness they were when I was 8.
I am sure that they will spin this as being part of their increased prudence.
But somehow I suspect this is really just aimed at filtering out the less profitable customers. Those that don’t rack up overdraft fees, pay credit cards in full and on time. The ones who take advantage of 0% offers as free loans but are organised enough to pay it off before the interest kicks in.
They will still throw credit at the people that make them money; it is the prudent people that will struggle to get a credit card etc because of this. This is just another way to up the profits at the expense of more of our data being pimped around.
I have a Monty Pythonish mental image of the 500 complainers wearing mud encrusted peasant outfits, flaming torch in one hand, copy of the Daily Heil in the other.
Who will be next for the medieval witch hunt? Brand is gone, Ross is on his way, Clarksons' departure is in progress. I think Alan Titchmarsh stepped on a beetle the other day - BURN HIM!!
What vivid use of language, the raw anger seething from every letter. You can almost hear these words echoing off the walls of his family basement, the Sarah Palin posters gently fluttering in the breeze created by this furious discourse.
I am touched by this almost Byron-like representation of angst in this confusing modern world. I don’t mind admitting that I cried a little inside.
They had this coming - hope they lose.
It's stating the obvious I know, but EA are just encouraging a whole bunch of people to pirate a game, people who would normally pay for it. How does it deter or prevent a real games pirate exactly?
It clearly encouarges extra piracy, any idiot can see this.
Is this not a bit over the top? Seems a bit harsh taking it this far, I am sure 100's of webmail accounts get hacked every day. I get the impression that the person who did this didn't really expect it to work and hadn't really planned out what they would do if it did.
Obviously this woman isn't the sharpest tool in the box, but anyone in the public eye foolish enough to use yahoo mail for anything important, and stupid enough to use secret questions and answers that any idiot can find on the internet, is asking for it to be honest.
The authorities should really be investigating why someone in this position was using a webmail address and avoiding the (monitored and archived) one they were supposed to be using.
What we need is clear (not hidden on an obscure url) information across the board as to what type of traffic management and FUP there is on a package, and what will trigger it. These unlimited packages need to go away – people need to be told exactly what they get for their money and then they can decide if it is suitable and agree, or if they need to pay more for what they want.
For all those people saying you get what you pay for, yes you are right. But we have a situation now where services are advertised as one thing, but fail to provide this. Price of these services is irrelevant until things are made clear to Joe Public.
Imagine Ford released an advert saying “All new Focus, 0-60 in as little 2.5secs” -
but the small print on page 17 of some handbook 90% of people will have thrown away says, “acceleration figures are subject to the cars operation in a frictionless vacuum”.
No difference really than BT saying "up to 8mb unlimited broadband" -
Small print – “you could get 8mb, if you live inside the exchange itself. Unlimited only if you download less than 40gb a month. Oh and if you do certain things (exactly which, we will not tell you) we will cap your bandwidth. We will also be giving all your internet history to Phorm. Thanks.
Paris because she exceeded her fair usage policy a long time ago.
Perhaps self driving cars are nearer than we all think. Computers couldn't do worse than a good 50% of the drivers in London.
I am sure the EU is planning on banning swearing, salt, meat, sex etc too at some point in the near future. So average action movie? Or prophetic vision of the future?
I just got caught by one of the imperial corsa's on Chiswick high road. I think I managed to slip behind a parked van before it sucked out my soul.
This was about 20 mins ago - it is heading towards Hammersmith. For the love of god people of west London, close your blinds and lock-up your children!
If I did pay him to spear me, then wouldn't he still kill me anyway? My friend has already paid to have me killed, if he doesn't kill me then my friend will be pretty annoyed. The killer just wants to double his money before he kills me anyway...
I would be better off hiring someone myself to try and get this guy before he gets me. Far better investment of my hard-earned usd. Perhaps I could also find out which of my friends is trying to bump me off and perhaps try to discover how I so offended him/her.
two words that really only go together in that context.
@Anonymous Coward
I don't read the Sun myself, so if true, is useful to me. I like hearing about confused truck drivers ending up at the opposite end of the continent due to the failings of good old-fashioned common sense.
I would be scared of a world where only one news source could report a single story!
They could have just done 3G in the first place. But no, they had to take advantage of their fanboys as usual by selling them something that was obsolete out of the box.
This is a big step forward though. Still should not be tied to only one network, but ah well.
I am still waiting for the far better iphone they are undoubtedly sitting on right now.
The more of these systems competing the better – as long as I can get a film with decent resolution and decent sound online, then I am a happy shopper.
No more going to Blockbuster and being asked if, for an extra £2, I would like a Galaxy bar and a tub of Haagen Daaz. Do I have any games I would like to trade in? Would I like like to donate money to their charity of the week? Would I like a used copy of 300 for £5? etc etc.
One thing though - will the US isp’s be demanding money from Amazon and co because people are using their unlimited connections too much? Or is that just the UK?
I agree.
It is far better for most of us to have Microsoft and Google trying to out-shine each other in a technological cold war than another period of one giant company destroying everything in its path. Competition is always good. For me, I just want as many options as possible so I can at least pick and choose.
I have no major issues for or against Microsoft or Google. But it should be made clear to all the people for whom MS = bad and Google = good that Google give things away for free so as to sell advertising, collect your personal information and to destroy competiton - simple as that. That is just how their business model works, and it works well. Big companies are all big and evil, that is life.Times have changed though and Microsoft are finally trying catch up.
It isn't really about telling BT to go away and getting a new isp. Yeah we can/have done that already, but these guys have done something that is clearly illegal, and they have done it on a massive scale.
If BT get away with this, then eventually everyone will be doing it. There will be no hiding with whoever the 'best' isp is at the time.
BT and Virgin are both involved in Phorm. Between them they are in charge of pretty much every bit of telecom cable in the country, can you imagine what else they could start doing if this was effectively given the go-ahead by no action being taken?
Yes it is worth it, far better picture.
It is quite expensive though that is the problem. People who are already paying for SKY etc, don't want to have to fork out again for the extra HD options, plus the HD box.
Shame really, I hope it picks up quickly like widescreen did. Ad revenue from a few HD channels should increase enough to pay towards the extra costs.
Make it the same as films. It might stop some of the “ban computer games they are corrupting my kids” people from whining. Computer games have moved beyond toys and should be treated like any other form of entertainment.
If you wouldn’t get your kid an 18 cert dvd, don’t get them 18 cert games either. Easy.
Kids will still go off and play these games and watch these films anyway. But they always have done and always will.
I am surprised he got as far as he did – there must be have been alarm bells ring like mad in some security office.
Two things surprise me more:
1 – If there were others involved, what were they doing to deserve a cut? And why didn’t he just do it solo?
2 – 9 Years? Bit harsh really when murderers and rapists get away with less.
Banks are pretty much fair game I say - nice to hear about someone trying to steal money from them for a change rather than the other way around.
Porn spam just dried up didn't it? Either the jazz sites are not making the money they used to, or the filters got really good at blocking porn.
Shame really, as I would prefer that to the thousands of stocks and pharma ones I now get instead.
At least I still have the occasional Nigerian classic to keep me entertained.
Back on topic.. I had to kill my orange emails years ago - worst I ever had for filtering spam.
Many reasons:
Hopefully there is too much competition in Europe.
People will use the phone less - I know I would think twice about making some semi-pointless call if I knew the person I was calling would have to pay for it.
How much money do the phone companies make from those dodgy 3rd party guys that call to let you know your phone can be upgraded? Those guys would be out of business.
American mobile market is a totally different beast.
Those numbers seem pretty high to me. I don’t ever see 50% of people using phones to read barcodes here in the UK – even when we start getting these technologies.
We have had camera phones (albeit poor ones) for a fair old while now - I am pretty sure that camera usage is nowhere near as high as Japan.
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