Posts by paulm

YouTube cares less for your privacy than its revenues

Unblock and get infected

The last time I disabled my adblock for a site that I very explicitly wanted to support, it took about 5 minutes before my antivirus flagged up than an ad was trying to breach containment and access information that it shouldn't have.

That's the big issue for me. I don't mind (too much) having uninteresting ads. The problem is that ad networks are STILL bad at preventing malicious ads.

Oh, and ones that break out of their spot on the page and cover up content.

Ads should be adding value. If your ad is preventing me from doing what I want to do, then I'm not going to want to purchase your product. You've just annoyed me. If anything, you're now blacklisted. If I happen to notice your ad while I'm doing stuff and it peaks my interest (without interfering with my activity) THEN I might further investigate your product.

UK to block Kodi pirates in real-time: Saturday kick-off

Re: I take 2 things from this.

2. The football season ends in May.

Unfortunately, the next season starts in June.

Sysadmins: Poor capacity planning is not our fault

Re: But....

Java dev here. That's a config problem. When configured correctly, log4j will roll over log files based on time or size, and I'm pretty sure it supports removing/archiving old log files too.

If the system grinds to a halt because it ran out of disk space, then someone wasn't monitoring the production system's disk usage properly. Something like Nagios to catch this in advance isn't that hard.

Yes, log files can be large, and some devs do put too much into them, but they're preferable to having that one case when something goes horribly wrong and you not being able to explain what happened because you don't have them. Enabling them after a problem and hoping it happens again to catch it this time isn't practical.

Mozilla's trying on seven hot new spring/summer logo looks

"The Eye": Looks like eye of Sauron. Also seems to imply a big brother style thing. The "All hands" variant reminds me of something very NSFW.

"The Connector": If I squint I can see a... well, a blur. It just looks like a mess.

"Open button": Is that a power switch? An elevator? A hobbit hole?

"Protocol": This one isn't too bad.

"Wireframe world": Is that a Newton's cradle?

"The Impossible M": Not as bad as some of the rest, but I'm not sure what it's trying to convey.

"Flik Flak": It's like someone took Jenga and did something unseemly to it. What were they thinking?

The only one that looks vaguely professional is Protocol.

Spying on you using fake social media profiles: One Scots council could

Legality?

Wouldn't deliberately creating an account with false details be in breach of Facebook's user agreement, and therefore constitute unauthorised use?

Wouldn't that in turn be illegal under the Computer Misuse Act?

If the want information on peoples' Facebook account, they should get a secret court order and/or intercept the data like all the other agencies seem to be doing.

Open APIs for UK banking: It's happening, people

Banks implementing a consistent API?

Having previously worked with banks (payment processing) the idea of the banks all implementing an API in a consistent manner is laughable.

They already have the APACS "standards" for transaction handling. Every bank implements it differently. Even if they did implement a common API they'd probably all interpret the same values in different ways leading to every consumer of the API having to put in special handling for every bank.

I've seen a bank implement it's own version of a standard inconsistently with their own documentation, let alone the standard itself.

Microsoft WINDOWS 10: Seven ATE Nine. Or Eight did really

Can't count

Microsoft evidently can't count. Maybe this explains why the time remaining jumps all over the place when copying files around.

comiXology's Phantom Zone breached by villainous Haxxor

Subscriptions?

I've emailed them seeking clarification, as I have a couple of subscriptions with them. So, they've must have my payment details stored somewhere to be able to charge me for them when issues are released.

Maybe stored with a third party payment provider?

Besides, it's possible to buy things directly on the site, so not all purchases go through the iOS or Android apps.

Google rivals GAGGED from exposing ad giant's EU search peace offering

Surely, since it's the public that have (supposedly) lost out due to Google's actions, it should be the public who get consulted on this? Asking their competitors isn't going to get an unbiased opinion.

The Spherical Cow lands, spits out Anaconda

Huh. Maybe that explains my upgrade problems. I don't use Gnome as the desktop, but GDM is the display manager being used.

Upgrading problems

I tried to upgrade my local server last night using the new "fedup" tool (appropriate name), since they've removed the old preupgrade method.

It downloaded over 3000 packages before prompting me to reboot to perform the upgrade. Rebooted, let the upgrade run (took about 2 hours) after which it rebooted, and then failed to boot properly. Freezes at some point fairly late in the boot process and becomes completely unresponsive.

Guess I'll be booting a live CD at the weekend to see if I can tell what happened from the logs and then do a clean install from DVD (something I've been putting off since around Fedora 10 as I didn't fancy re-configuring this machine from scratch).

Cloud-building Fedora 18 goes into beta

Might have to try it again...

The last time I tried the updated installer (in an alpha form) it wasn't particularly usable on my netbook. It was painfully slow (I'm willing to let that slide and blame the netbook), but some screens (package selection for instance) didn't size to fit the screen at all, with critical controls inaccessible off the edge of the display.

I like Fedora - it's my Linux of choice - apart from on said netbook, which now runs Mint instead.

Microsoft flags Firefox and Chrome for security failings

Apparently, my browser "benefit(s) from Windows Operating System features that protect against arbitrary data execution". I suppose the lack of a Windows operating system might count in that regard.

Ten free apps to install on every new PC

VideoLan Client?

From the VLC FAQ:

"VLC is the official name of VideoLAN's main product, often named VLC. VideoLAN Client is an ancient name of this product."

It is NOT formally known as the VideoLan Client - it is officially VLC.

Gmail Labs' experiments: What's in, what's out?

Locked the group

They've already locked down the google group for the fixed width font feature. Just went to try and post an argument against retiring this useful feature and found "You cannot post messages because this group is only available as an archive."

So, they kill a useful feature, and make it immediately impossible to discuss the matter. You also can't comment on the official gmail blog. Way to handle feedback Google!

Gmail in massive web outage

Back up?

Seems to have come back up in the last few minutes... but for how long?

Virgin mail struggles to its feet

Didn't notice

Despite being a virgin customer, I hadn't even noticed. Maybe that's because I do the sensible thing and keep my email separate from my ISP, so I can switch providers without having to tell allk my contacts.

UK border control can't count

Re: To infinity

" 'real' numbers (i.e. positive, integers) "

Actually, those are "natural" numbers. 'real' numbers include everything that isn't imaginary - decimals, irrational numbers like pi.

And if imaginary numbers worry you, have a look at quaternions. Those things are nasty!

Millions opted into UK mobile phone directory

4 weeks?

What kind of crappy database are they running that takes 4 weeks to delete a record - or to set a flag next to it? It's not the sort of thing that should require any human intervention, so it should be able to take effect immediately.

Virgin Media trials longer bandwidth throttling

Stop overselling then

Maybe their network team should get their marketing team to stop selling bandwidth that they plainly don't have.

'Bloody' is an offensive word, declares ASA

Offended?

Quite frankly, I was disgusted at the linked page on the ASAs website. The word "bl**dy" was visible on at least 5 occasions! How dare they offend my eyes!

Bloody inconsiderate tossers.

Inside Microsoft's 'New Xbox Experience'

Install to HDD

I installed Far Cry 2 to my Xbox's HDD, expecting it to improve loading times. Made no difference what so ever. Sure, the console was quieter thanks to the disk drive not running, but I wanted faster loading times. Now, is Far Cry 2 programmed in some rubbish way where it simply will not load faster, or is Microsoft's virtual DVD drive (which I assume is how it is done so games don't need modifying) only runs at the same speed as the physical one?

Ubuntu 8.10 - All Hail new Network Manager

NetworkManager is SLOWER than it was

At least on my laptop. Previously, the laptop would connect to my wifi as the panel loaded. So, by the time the desktop was useful I was almost always connected.

Now, typically, I have to wait up to twenty seconds for the network to connect after the desktop has become overwise useable. This is very frustrating when I've just turned it on to quickly check my email.

Also, previously, I could log and and log back in to my bare-bones session that I use for running virtual machines and still be connected to the network. Now, the act of logging out disconnects me. I've had to make my bare-bones session less bare-bones (it now loaded up an XFCE4 panel and nm-applet) to ensure that my virtual machines get network access.

T-Mobile wins iPhone Germany exclusive, paper claims

Unfair Monopoly?

I can't help but feel that locking consumers into a single operator (Vodafone, T-Mobile, AT&T or otherwise) is promoting an unfair monopoly.

The iPhone is a phone, therefore is should work on any phone network. Artificially restricting it to a single network is unfair to consumers.

Survey: young Brits ready to embrace evoting

I wouldn't

I fit into that age bracket (23). I certainly wouldn't be happy with eVoting given the fiascos that have occurred elsewhere in the world.

Unless, upon entry to the polling booth I was with a good couple of hours to look over the source code of the software being used and examine the hardware personally. I don't think I would be willing to trust an official certification that the machine in use was up to scratch.

Give me a paper ballot any day.

Chocolate the key to uncovering PC passwords

How did they know...

... that the given password was real? For a bar of chocolate I'd make up a password.

Skype IM malware smut surfaces

For further information, follow links in articles

If you follow the link in the article you'll find that the full name of the virus is IM-Worm:W32/Pykse.A according to F-Secure - almost certainly windows only.