Posts by kevin biswas

Schmidt: Google is the 'inverse' of Apple

Dont make me choose !

Greedy corporate b***ards vs batshit crazy "augmented humanity" enthusiasts ? Might be time to p-p-pick up a penguin.

How do you copy 60m files?

Roadkil's Unstoppable Copier

Is great too.

http://www.roadkil.net/program.php?ProgramID=29

Intel trials downloadable CPU upgrades

As the proud owner of a Reliant Robin

I take umbrage at your post

O2 shocks customers by slashing iPad data allowance

Mobile telcos are all scumbags

And there is no way I would ever give any of them my bank details or a signiture on a contract. PAYG all the way for me.

Email worm wants to party like it's 1999 (almost)

Anything that got me out of bed at 5am

Would be an "If you have to ask the price, then you probably can't afford it" deal

Bye-bye to bizarro bye-laws, says UK.gov

As soon as I saw the story in the UK media I thought

HA ! it's *clearly* a a charter for busybodies and control freaks to regulate the minutiae of our everyday lives. Anyone who knows anything about most local government types knows they are generally petty tyrants who make the late and unlamented Jaqui Smith look reasonable and sane.

PC World, Currys to offer cash for clunkers

And amazingly enough

It will still work out as a bad deal.

Thai mobe outfit warns of deadly roaming charges

stuff that....

PAYG all the way for me. Would I give those kind of f**kers my signature and my bank details ? No way not never.

Apple eyes kill switch for jailbroken iPhones

Maybe they could flog their hardware as

"licenced, but not sold".

As an aside, I can't imagine what anyone sees in their overpriced, low-quality, non-repairable products. It seems pretty clear to me they are a bunch of evil corporate jerks.

Fear as motivator: why Intel acquired McAfee

Well, at least they didnt buy...

Norton/Symantec

Schmidt: Erase your identity to escape Google shame

Sounds like someone forgot...

..to take their haloperidol this morning.

Council staff breach DWP database

Tip of the iceberg.

Dont they mean 124 council employees *known* to have illicitly viewed personal data ? Surely the ones who get caught will be the merest tip of the iceberg.

ASA: You can't say 'f**k'

unsolicited bulk mail...

Of ANY kind more or less DEFINES 'serious or widespread offence' as far as I am concerned, irrespesctive of whether they ****ing well ***k or not.

Apple bars radiation nanny from App Store

Everyone knows that a radiation from a phone could never damage health

Unless the antenna were designed by a complete bumbling amauter. And of course, Apple are known worldwide for their exceptional antenna design, yes ?

Microsoft dubs Windows Phone 7 'ad serving machine'

dubs Windows Phone 7 *what* ???

Not on my watch........

Mobile phone masts not such a menace

@AC Teenagers

When not actually engaged in a call a mobile will only transmit for about 3 seconds every 10 minutes just to check where the nearest tower is. That is the bip-bi-bi-bip-bi-bi-bip noise you will near periodically if u leave yr phone next to a speaker. The rest of the idle time it emits zero zilch none whatsoever radiation. (hence standby time is much longer than talktime)

I was concerned about masts untill consulting a friend working in a technical capacity for ericsson who told me that even the scary ones with the 2m high transmitters draw only 30w per segment at full capacity, end even then that low power is dissipated over a 120 degree angle. A mast never has to be able to transmit much further than a phone can (what would be the point ?) Each big scary transmitter is composed of hundreds of little transmitters individually no more powerful than the ones on a regular phone.

Bangladesh cuts off Facebook

You should check your eyes.......

Because you read a lot of things there which I certainly didn't write.

I pointed out that the reported facts were incorrect, incomplete, and poorly researched. In my eyes that constitutes shoddy journalism (sorry el Reg).

Then I reported the BD Government's stated reasons for the actions they took. I did not say that I approved of those reasons, or with the action. I merely reported them for the record.

Finally, AFAIK the Bangladesh Daily Star is unrelated to the UK Daily Star (Which is indeed a shameful rag). It is a perfectly serious broadsheet with a mild to middling left wing bias. (Maybe comparable to the UK Guardian or Independent). It is Bangladesh's leading English language newspaper.

@ Richard: You should check your eyes.......

Because you read a lot of things there which I certainly didn't write.

I pointed out that the reported facts were incorrect, incomplete, and poorly researched. In my eyes that constitutes shoddy journalism (sorry el Reg).

Then I reported the BD Government's stated reasons for the actions they took. I did not say that I approved of those reasons, or with the action. I merely reported them for the record.

Finally, AFAIK the Bangladesh Daily Star is unrelated to the UK Daily Star (Which is indeed a shameful rag). It is a perfectly serious broadsheet with a mild to middling left wing bias. (Maybe comparable to the UK Guardian or Independent). It is Bangladesh's leading English language newspaper.

Shoddy journalism..

Am I the only person here posting from Bangladesh ? Access to facebook was primeraly blocked because of insulting cartoons of the prime minister (Hasina) and the leader of the opposition (Zia). The originator of these particular cartoons was arrested by RAB (the elite police force). AKAIK the issue of insult to Islam and the availability of porn on facebook were very much secondary considerations. (Bangladesh is indeed a Muslim majority nation but the curent Awami League government are devout secularists). The Daily Star's report is available here. http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=140613 (The Daily Star is Bangladesh's premier english language newspaper).

Contractors dodge ID cards axe

"The only ID card contractor facing the exit is Thales"

So a fail (sorry, a thail) for Thales then ?

McKinnon family awaits final, final extradition decision

What's there to decide?

What there is to decide is if the potential punishment is just, and and if fits the crime. Stealing paperclips from your employer is 'wrong' and murder is 'wrong'. They are both wrong, and both against the law. Therefore anyone committing either offense should be hanged ? Or anyone committing either offense should be fined ? Of course not. Any punishment should be proportional to the crime committed. Seems to me that the poor chap has been through so much shit already with this that what he has gone through would constitute a cruel and unusual punishment anyway.

AC You are a bastard

Next time you get done for speeding or whatever trivial thing I hope you fall into some legal black hole and they decide to use you for medical experiments.

Perfectly happy.

Why not have him sentenced to help me tidy up for a couple of days and then be sent on his way, not have his life ruined by living under a sword of Damocles for 8 years or however long this has been hanging on for the poor bugger

National Archives preserves Labour government websites

WayBack Machine ?

My comments are

Firstly: Does anyone give a shit about the lies and propaganda the govt publish on their websites anyway ? (beyond it's comedy value)

Secondly: Couldn't we save the taxpayer millions by letting the WayBack Machine do the job for free as it will probably do anyway. Then, maybe, I dunno, save the relevent pages as an mht or print them out and file them somewhere if we felt the wbm might not make the grade ?

Broadband boss: 'The end of freeloading is nigh'

HaHaHAhaHA

Yeah right ! keep popping those LSD tabs, you far-out dreamer ! Good grief, next this loony will be suggesting audio broadcasts by frequency modulated wireless telephony, or point to point voice conversations over single-purpose fixed wired infrastructure.

Should all hard drives be encrypted?

Really gone

Problem with really good security is it really works. A few years back I came across some HP laptops with bios-level boot-time passwords that couldn't be reset except by paying HP megabucks to replace a chip on the mobo. Of course, by the time I (in IT disposals) got them they were bin fodder, despite the fact they were in perfectly good condition and hardwarily in GWO. Passwords get lost. All the time. Normal users simply do not understand the concept of none-reversible, irretrivable, no-way-in-hell-really-and-truly-gone-forever.

Lords: Analogue radio must die

Wont someone think of the old people.....

Who are the most avid radio listeners and the least likely to be able to manage the new technology effectively. I too love radios for their simplicity. One dial for tuning, one for volume and maybe an am/fm switch. Great UI.

Commodore 64 reincarnated as quad-core Ubuntu box

Isn't this just....

A laptop with the screen torn off ?

Home Sec says 17m ID cards in circulation by 2017

Anyone remember...

The Poll Tax riots ?

Microsoft dodges multi-million dollar WGA payout

If I had £5 for every troll I spotted...

My personal GDP would be larger than China's !

Ahhh, bless the USA

Still offering the finest justice system that money can buy after all these years....

New Labour bring old Nuremberg Laws to Britain

Proper constitutuion ?

Like the dysfunctional one the US-ians have ?

Welcome to the out-of-control decade

I want a computer with a toggle switch.

That's all.

Software fraudster 'fooled CIA' into terror alert

Guessed they must have run out

of goats to stare at.........

Multiple travel firms refuse ID cards as passport alternative

non-person ?

If I remember my Orwell aright, the term is 'unperson'.... :-(

expect ? duty ?

"We expect all carriers in the UK to accept National Identity Cards for travel as a legal duty"

= Unenforceable ?

If participation in this scheme were really, enforce-ably compulsory, wouldn't the language be a LOT stronger and less equivocal mere expectation or duty ?

Ferry giant refuses ID card

Well yes, if you have an IQ lower lower than

the total number of cards issued to date then you ARE a second class citizen in some way.

UK e-Borders scheme thrown into confusion by EU rules

Instead the UK Border Agency (UKBA) will check passengers once they arrive.

Erm. Isnt that what they do anyway ?

ID card minister forgets ID card

Of course.....

No-one would EVER expect those who make the rules for others have to follow them themselves, now would they ?

Lets get this straight....

Someone with no ID card is at the door, claiming to be the minister in charge of ID cards. Maybe she has a superficial resemblance to the minister in question, but it seems much more likely she is a random lunatic. Another sad case for the MHA section 2 squad, methinks.

Liverpool declares itself an ID-free zone

Yay !

Evidence of a spine-like growth detected in an organism previously presumed to have been related to slime-mold.

Accused phone thief snared after phone sends pic to victim

Shouldn't he have been aiming the gun...

...at his foot ?

EU agency runs rule over ID cards for online banking logins

Number of the beast

rant, froth, gibber etc

Windows 7 saves Dixons

Dixons have long been a watchword for 'worst of breed'

eg...

'AOL are the Dixons of ISPs'

'Hotmail are the Dixons of free email'

Police Intelligence may be a thing of the past

I was recently surprised to find out,,,,,,

That the oft quoted, quite powerful and much vaunted ACPO are actually a private company and NOT a government or state institution. I bet you didn't know that !

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Chief_Police_Officers

Filesharing laws to hit websites and newsgroups too

another possibility

Well, if I ever heard of anyone getting charged 30 quid by an ISP to receive a complaint letter, I would be round at the bank canceling the direct debit to my ISP within seconds. If one of these 30 quid charges pushed someone into overdraft it could end up costing them hundreds of quid. My next step would be to dig out a dial-up modem on a penny-a-minute plan like UK2 in order to check my emails and read the reg, and wait a year or two for everyone to go back to sneakernet with 64gb USB3 pen-drives like the old days of copied floppies and music tapes. Hell, 64gb in half an hour to go round a mates house to copy some files is better bandwidth then broadband.

Apple voids warranties over cigarette smoke, users say

Whilst nicotine addicts machines *are* horrible

And fail faster that they otherwise should, I had a friend who was delighted to pull half a 'teenth (a 'tooth, if you will) in blimlets from a customers keyboard. Any yes, he was cheap-ass enough to smoke it.

MS denies Win 7 backdoor rumours

@Whilst I have no love for Microsoft.

I tend to agree with this. Although I myself am only a barely competent network admin, a *really good* network admin will know exactly what packets are going where, and what process sent them. Even if the backdoor were built into the tcp-ip stack so an endpoint viewer wouldn't register them, the suspect packets would be picked up by the firewall/router logs somewhere and dissected manually if they were suspicious. If a *really good* admin got suspected odd behavior, he wouldn't rest till he found out what it was all about. When a few others had confirmed the findings, there would be a shitstorm that would make the sony rootkit issue look like a church coffee morning.

Massive net surveillance programme on schedule

I wish the UK govt

would f**k off and die.

Election makes net snooping a pariah policy

*even* moral objections

"Their reactions to the IMP consultation - some expressed publicly, some off the record - reveal a deep resistance to more regulation, added costs and even moral objections to the scheme".

*even* moral objections ?

even *moral* objections ?

sigh........

I feel pretty dejected that in their minds the only thing stopping them from becoming a total surveillance state is the cost. I am slightly reassured by the fact their proposals are bat-shit crazy insane and of dubious technically feasibility.