Posts by John Imrie

Is Europe's war on Islamist terror running out of terrorists?

@Phillistine

In the gold old days when Blighty went to war against our traditional enemy, France, we came up with the long bow. This was the WMD of its time as it allowed a highly trained peasant to kill French amour waring knights at a distance.

This was considered unsporting by the French.

In order to discourage this practice any English archer caught by the French would have his first and second fingers, those used to draw a bow, of his right hand cut off.

English archers, and then other English troops, would therefor wave these two fingers at the opposing army before a battle.

The meaning being that a French knight in armor was going to end up as a foil wrapped kebab.

T5 opening turns into Airplane 3.0

Another British Cockup

I wonder if we will get the Olympics right.

Lonely Paris Hilton seeks new best friend

@John Macintyre

You obviously need to watch more sex tapes :-)

Caution - FBI fit-ups of Muslim patsies in progress

First they came ...

for the Muslims, but I did not complain because I was not a Muslim.

Now where have I herd something like that before.

Gilligan's bomb: Is it time to panic yet?

Plane v's Train

To get on a plane I have to go through check in where I can get my terror quotient boosted.

To get on a train I can turn up and go.

No wonder the Government wants more air ports and less trains.

Eye-o-Sauron™ man-tracker masts now fully online, says DHS

Cameras to check if it's a man or a cow?

I think I'll start a pantomime cow franchise down by the border

UK rattles 'three strikes' filesharing sabre (again)

eDonkey

Any one remember eDonkey. If you go to the web page you will see that the RIAA think the have shut it down.

Tell that to the 600 odd people on my eDonkey clients queue.

US judge arranges summary execution of Wikileaks.org

@Where there's smoke

Where there's smoke there is a BOFH plotting revenge.

The flame Icon for smoke, fire ... humm may be I should have used the coat icon instead.

Armed police swoop on MP3-packing mechanic

Product Recall

HMG has notified all UK citizens that the product 'liberty' has been permanently withdrawn due to incompatibilities with the 'War on Terror' product.

In a press release a government spokesperson said the new War on Terror product had conflicted with the older product and as the new product was proving to be so lucrative to to the UK economy the Government had been forced to withdraw it.

The press release went on to state that the following products would be developed to replace liberty.

Detention without trial

Deportation to countries with the death penalty

Enforcement of democracy in the Middle East

Support of dictators supporting enforcement of democracy in neighboring states in the Middle East

Retention of DNA samples of people convicted of nothing

The spokesperson said that in order to develop the above products all UK citizens would be required to voluntarily accept an ID card. Obviously any one not volunteering would be classified as a terrorist and forced to carry an ID card if they where ever released from prison.

DHS official moots Real ID rules for buying cold medicine

Can't enter a federal building....

Humm,

Tried to pay my taxes but you would not let me into the building :-)

Local copper: Met secret police requested MP bugging

@Steen Hive

You are quite correct.

I was getting on my high horse because once you drop the word suspected in front of certain crimes; terrorist and pedophile, come readily to mind; there appears to be an assumption of guilt to such an extent that normal legal protections no longer apply.

The charge of terrorist has been extended to such an extent that computer hackers are now classified as terrorists http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/02/20/hackers_are_terrorists_says_uk/ as well as taking photos of motorways or trespassing on a cycle path http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/10/uk_terrorism_la.html

@Master Baker

This chap visited a suspected terrorist in prison

Yes a suspect. The last major organization to declare that suspicion was prof of guilt was Spanish and had an Inquisitive nature.

How about I shop you as a terrorist suspect, right to trial, what right to trial, you are a suspected terrorist and we can detain you indefinatly.

Straw launches inquiry into Muslim MP bugging case

@Mark Jan

I accuse you of funding terrorists

Good, now we have that out of the way, All your civil liberties belong to me.

Et tu, Gmail? Simple hack defeats last barrier to decades-old attack

Re Matt:

The main problem with SSL is that you can not use name based hosts with it on your web server.

Each host that uses SSL has to be assigned a unique IP number. This is because the SSL negotiation happens before the HTTP headers of the request are parsed an d SSL requires that the host name in the certificate matches the host name of the IP address.

Because of this many websites have one domain name for SSL such as secure.example.com and once the user has logged on there, future requests can be passed of to any of the other URLs the site maintains.

Email trail from navy man to London 'terror' site goes fuzzy

Obsessed with security

Oh goody, so having PGP on my computer gives me another plus on the 'lets give him an orange jump suit' scale.

If I thought the US was out to extradite me, because of some emails I sent from work, I'd be obsessed with security to.

Ryanair battles ASA over 'saucy schoolgirl' ad

So how the Hell ...

did the St Trinion's movie get advertised then.

High Court approves software patents

I think I speek for the majority ...

in giving the response Private Eye gave in the Arkell v Pressdram case.

ID cards delayed until 2012

Identyfying foreigners

Why don't we just get all the foreigners to ware little yellow or pink triangles on their jackets. Then we wont even have to ask to see there ID cards.

The dead bird icon for the death of liberty.

Microsoft tries to CTRL-W WordPerfect lawsuit again

Poor business decision

Microsoft is right in calming that Novell scuppered WP by poor business decisions.

The decision in question being to believe Microsoft

Sun pulls MySQL into its orbit

Making Money From MySQL

MySQL AB made money from the traditional FOSS methods. Support, training etc.

They also came up with a novel way of making money from their development cycle.

If you wanted something that they did not offer then you could wait for them to develop it, or pay them to develop it for you. Several features made their way into the MySQL code base because someone was prepared to fork over the cash for a developer.

Tag-a-lag: Chip implants mooted for UK prisoners

NewSpeek Dictionary update

Citizen you appear to be using an outdated version of the NewSpeek Dictionary. This is double plus un-good. The double plus good form of Ministry of Justice is MiniJuse, not MoJ. Further lapses will result in a visit to room 101 in MiniLuv.

BB.

Escape from New York anyone

Why does this remind me of the film Escape from New York.

All the Government has to do is add an explosive charge to the chip and move its location to the back of the neck and then the prison population can be reduced by having the chip detonate if it does not receive an encoded signal every 30 minutes or so.

MoD sorts out 'turkey' helicopters for Xmas

@ Chris Morrison

When Scotland finally does get Independence can you please invade England at least as far as the Humber. That way us Yorkshire men will get a decant government in stead of those w*nk*rs in London.

Space brains resign over efforts to attract ET attention

@ Roger Kynaston

There is all ready a bunker on the Yorkshire Mores. The ultra top secret RAF Fylingdales. http://www.raf.mod.uk/raffylingdales/

HMRC offers £20k reward for ID goldmine CDs

Other CDs

The Met said the search had been particularly difficult due to how common computer discs are and the number and size of offices which needed searching.

I wonder how many other 'missing' CD's have been found.

Perhaps an FOI request is required.

Paris and Britney top US kids' Santa naughty list

Sharing

These children are being encouraged to share by this 'Father' Christmas.

Does the RIAA know about this.

US woman fingered for Porky Pig drugs outrage

@Ross Fleming

You could give the child a unique name by finding out what there child ID number is going to be and calling them that

UK pushes token security line on child database

Think of the Children

When do they become adults and get removed from this database.

And what happens to the pour kid who ends up with ID number 666?

Senior officials now in frame for HMRC data fiasco

Letter to My MP

When this story broke I wrote to my MP asking for a bunch of details, including the file format and the current password protection policy.

I'll forward onto El Reg any info I recieve

Lost HMRC discs pop up on eBay

The end of the Auction

It appears that the person who set up the Auction has terminated it.

The reasion given was that the itimes have been lost or are broaken.

Oh well, there goes Alister Darlings chance of getting them back :-)

ISPs baffled by Gordo's 'plans' for web terror talks

How the WOT works

Attempting to overthrow the government is Terrorism

Voting is attemptying to overthrow the goverment

Voting is Terrorism

Linking to this comment is aiding and abetting a Terrorist Activity

Brown announces new counter-terror plans

Baggage checks at rail stations

Thats realy going to work.

I can get on a train at my local unmanned station and get into London with out going through a ticket barrier.

No who is going to check my rucksak as I wander from Kings Cross to St. Pancress

Mum sends stripper to teenage son's school

Ciggies

I was under the impression it was legal to buy them under the age of 16, just not legal to sell them to anyone under that age.

Cops expose cross-dressing Catholic school principal

Ah bondage ...

That great Catholic tradition :-)

Plants will make greenhouse effect flooding worse

Cloud formation

Mainly comes from evapouration from the oceans. As global temperatures rise two interisting things happen.

1) The water in the oceans expands, causing sea levels to rise and increasing the serface area of the ocean from which evaporation can take place

2) The rate of evaporation per square meter also rises.

These two events will increase rainfall.

RIAA gets some class

TVLA

Phone them.

Their call center staff are friendly and have update rights on their database.

I got the tipical letter from them when my gf baught a TV. (The licence is in my name). So I called the number on the letter.

The person in the callcenter was friendly, appoligised for the letter, and I've never heared from them since.

SCO 'disappointed' as shares plunge 70 per cent

What goes to court

We still have Novells counter claims + IBM's summary judgments and counterclaims to get through yet. All though Novell can stop SCO from suing IBM I can't see anything this side of Armageddon stopping IBM and its counterclaims.

I get the feeling IBM is taking this personally and on top of that its lawyers are having a ball.

US court says just viewing child porn is not a crime

How to view Cache files.

Oh boy,

Well the Judge was right. You do need some specialised software to view the web browsers cached files. It's called a web browser.

What does this Judge thik he's doing. If its in the Cache file then it was downloaded from the Net by the browser.

Israeli futurologist predicts terror horror

'Europe is naive with its love of privacy'

I wondered why that latest Jonny Dep film did so well over here

2012 Olympics logo debuts to whalesong

I think...

That they could have got banksy for half what they paid for this crap

Strange spoofing technique evades anti-phishing filters

A minor gripe

You wrote

We left messages for representatives of eBay, Symantec and Microsoft late on Thursday, but had not heard back at the time of writing.

But you were writing this early on Friday. At least give the poor PR wonk time to get in to work and finish their first coffe before assuming they have nothing to say.

Met staffer arrested over Al Qaeda terror report leak

Yes Minister had this worked out years ago

Bernard Wolly: That's another of those irregular verbs isn't it.

I give confidential briefings.

You leak.

He/She/It has been found guilty of breaching section III of the Official Secrets act.

Terminator-style flying-HK killbots join US, UK forces

Make like a cow

All you need to survive this attack is some livestock.

Its highly unlikly that the US/UK army will want to spend the huge amounts that each of the arouments these flying robots use, blowing up cows. And its also highly unlikly that they will fly cloce to the ground, where they can be shot at.

So it will be up to the pilots, human/machine to spot a human at a distance, at speed.

Following a herd of cows around should fool the pilots.

Orange doles out an IOU to Christian pareidolians

Re: Why oh Why

Actually it dos not remind me of iraq under Sadam Hussein.

Under Sadam Iraq was a progressive secular sociaty. They even allowed their wimin to own property and be educated.

Humm No wonder the US invaded.

NHS patient site set for summer launch

Librians?

Since when where Libery staff qualified to help with medical conditions?