* Posts by Brent Longborough

151 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Jun 2008

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UK.gov eyes up virtual currencies, fingers red tape dispenser

Brent Longborough
Headmaster

Whether it should be regulated

Yes, good luck with that, uk.gov, even after you've solved your IT competence issues...

While you're at it, you could try regulating hurricanes and thunderstorms.

Russia sends SEX-CRAZED GECKOS to SPAAAAACE!

Brent Longborough

I'm worried about this

A number of less-than-fortunate consequences may follow from this. Many of them sound like the names of films, like "The Geckos came from Outer Space" or "Invasion of the Geckos". Of course the worst one would be "Invasion of the Lizard People".

Oops, I think we may have had that one already...

MPs wave through Blighty's 'EMERGENCY' surveillance laws

Brent Longborough
Headmaster

Re: Priceless

So, then, you would be happy, for example, if you were a teenage girl who successively phoned her doctor's surgery, an abortion clinic, and a suicide help hotline?

No content, of course, so no-one could possibly imagine what she was saying.

What's your game, Google? Giant collared by UK civil lib minister on 'right to be forgotten'

Brent Longborough
Mushroom

Google's an INDEX, FFS

Can anyone tell me what use is an index when it's full of holes?

Marc Andreessen: Edward Snowden is a 'textbook traitor'

Brent Longborough
Unhappy

Oh well...

So Marc Andreessen joins a bunch of other doubtfuls like John Kerry and Jim Gilmore.

These people need to stop cussing the toilet paper, and start examining the faeces.

TrueCrypt considered HARMFUL – downloads, website meddled to warn: 'It's not secure'

Brent Longborough
Headmaster

If you were the NSA...

If you were the NSA, how would you set about neutralising things like Truecrypt?

One option might be what we see today.

Food for thought.

Welcome to Heathrow Terminal, er, Samsung Galaxy S5

Brent Longborough
FAIL

Who uses Heathrow anyway?

#Rathole

#Meh

Bitcoin blockchain allegedly infected by ancient 'Stoned' virus

Brent Longborough
Alien

Conspiracy Theory #42

In reply to "This is not good"

'... put data into the blockchain, if you've enough processing power ...'

Heard of "social connections"? How's this for a chain of them?:

Big Banking <==> Government <==> FBI etc <==> NSA/GCHQ <==> Enough processing power?

"Of course, when everyone's out to get you, you must expect to feel a bit paranoid"

Kaspersky warns of imposter mobile security apps

Brent Longborough
Headmaster

No thayt's extremely naughty and careless

As I've told you before, imposter is not a word. You are probably searching for impostor.

Now, go and write out 'Impostor is a word which does not contain the letter "e".' five hundred times, without using a word processor.

Urinating teen polluted 57 Olympic-sized swimming pools - cops

Brent Longborough

Re: Ask people in London

... Not to mention how much homeopathic cocaine...

Surprise! Google chairman blasts EU's privacy ruling

Brent Longborough
Big Brother

Forget-me-not

"The Right to be Forgotten" is BS for Whingers, or worse.

If it's on the internet, it'll be found, with or without Google search

The right place to attack this, first, is to look at when and how it gets published in the first place

The next best place to sort it out is at the website that's publishing it, not breaking Google search

Rewriting history is dangerous. Mario Costeja Gonzalez *may* have the "right to be forgotten", but Bashar al-Assad definitely doesn't. Now, where do you draw the line in between?

Obama: I'm the CTRL-ALT-DEL President

Brent Longborough
Alien

Re: Anyone can be president

Right. I've often wondered, the first day after a new pres gets settled into the White House, does (s)he get a "helpful induction powerpoint presentation" from the True Mafia®?

Brent Longborough
Megaphone

Re: Anyone can be president

Sure, all you need is a couple of gigadollars in loose change.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! Friday is Pi Day

Brent Longborough

Re: "Of all the many and varied stupid things in the world"

Thank you. +1

I think you're referring to the Swiss system. I use it for almost everything (even in the UK, where we have it in order, but backwards).

Of course, "America" (that is, the USA), is the spiritual home of the semi-buttock.

Brent Longborough
Unhappy

Thank you for irritating me so early in the day

Of all the many and varied stupid things in the world, the USAmerican way of writing the date and time must be in at least the top ten.

Everyone knows that 3/14 is the Third of Novebruary.

Netflix coughs up to cruise on Comcast

Brent Longborough

Monopolistic Bullying meets Pusillanimous Cowardice

Nothing else to say. FTW

Cameron: UK public is fine with domestic spying

Brent Longborough
FAIL

Missed the point, didn't yer, Dave?

The point is not whether the man in the street is worried about it, Dave, it's whether you and your mates, and Clegg and his mates, and Milliband and his mates*, all realise that politicians are (a) meant to serve the people who elected them rather than control them; and (b), uphold the law rather than break it.

*A black plague descend upon you all.

Those NSA 'reforms' in full: El Reg translates US Prez Obama's pledges

Brent Longborough
Big Brother

In a century or so...

All this will never have happened.

(For those that haven't already understood, the NSA/GCHQ complex will rule through puppet administrations bent to their will through blackmail. One of their early actions on taking power will be to erase all record of what we know today.)

Acer C720 Chromebook with Haswell battery boosting goodness

Brent Longborough
Holmes

Is that enough RAM?

Don't know enough about the difference between W*ndows and *nix memory requirements for Chrome, but on Windows a working set of 2Gb or more, just for Chrome, is pretty easy to get.

British Second World War codebreaker Alan Turing receives Royal pardon

Brent Longborough

Re: Pandering

I couldn't agree with you more.

If we issue a Royal Pardon for Turing, then logically we have to issue pardons for everyone who was convicted under the mediaeval law in force at the time.

If we issue a pardon for everyone convicted under that law, then logically we should issue pardons to people convicted under *every* law now seen to be barbaric. Pardons for the shot shell-shocked accused of cowardice in WW I; pardons for all the suffragettes; pardons for all the children hanged for stealing a loaf; the list is endless.

Then, once we legalise the consumption of cannabis, we have, logically, to pardon all those convicted under the present law. And so on.

This idea is called "re-writing history". Orwell satirised it in '1984'.

People, the damage is done! Although all these laws were abominable, they were the law at the time these injustices happened, and the injustices happened within a valid, if barbaric, rule of law.

We have to learn, improve, and move on. Pardons, and even apologies, just don't make sense.

Racing Post p0wned, accounts accessed and passwords pinched

Brent Longborough
Headmaster

ZOMG! Spelling is dead! (Again)

'P0wned' ??? WTF?

Do you mean 'pwned' ?!?

Microsoft touts SCROOGLE merch: Hopes YOU'LL PAY to dump on rival

Brent Longborough
Unhappy

That's Rich

Coming from the people who gave so much help to the NSA

Google, Microsoft to drop child sex abuse from basic web search

Brent Longborough
Black Helicopters

Isn't Technology Wonderful?!

Good! Now that's fixed so successfully, here are a few more suggestions for searches that Google and M$ can block on behalf of those in power:

"MP's Expenses"

"GCHQ Internet Hoovering"

"HS2 Budget increase"

"Social services neglect"

"Care home failure"

... to name but five...

This article has been deleted

Brent Longborough
Big Brother

Have the TORIES ERASED THE INTERNET?

Not yet, but they're working on it, together with their friends and/or blackmailers at GCHQ and NSA

UK.gov BANS iPads from Cabinet over foreign eavesdropper fears

Brent Longborough
Mushroom

The Ultimate Clusterfudge

See, .gov.uk? Now you know how it feels to have strange untrusted persons hoovering up your junk.

You can run, but you can't hide.

BTW, .uk.gov includes Lab, Cons, Lib Dems, and Sir Malcolm Rifkind. A plague o' both your houses.

Pimp my office: 10 cubicle comforts

Brent Longborough
Megaphone

Listmania

What a pile of useless, expensive tat!

Must be for Mac people

MPs to review laws on UK spy-snoopery after GCHQ Tempora leaks

Brent Longborough
Megaphone

Why didn't he answer the question?

On Hard Talk, Stephen Sackur asked Malcolm Rifkind whether he and the ISC knew the extent to which NSA and GCHQ were hoovering up the Internet. If you listen carefully to his answers, you'll see that he never actually said 'Yes' or 'No'.

Now, if he'd said 'Yes', we all might shout at him and argue that it was grossly excessive and why did he allow it -- a courageous answer, but at least honest.

If he'd replied 'No', however, that would have been an excellent sign of ISC's failure to exercise adequate oversight.

What's my conclusion? Well, 'Yes' would have been bad, but 'No' would be a complete disaster. As I don't see how answering 'Yes' would have in any way compromised security, I begin to suspect the true answer would have been 'No'

WhatsApp crypto snafu drops trou on users' privates

Brent Longborough
Big Brother

Re: Nothing to see here, move on...

Perhaps, one fine day, when the G4S National Health Awareness Community Outreach Police come knocking at your door to invite you away for the Alimentary Re-Education Internment Programme, just because you organised a meet-up of your mates to eat pizza, you'll realise what was wrong.

NSA data centre launch delayed as power surges 'melt metal, zap racks'

Brent Longborough
Big Brother

Conspiracy Theory 2013#42

Anonymous sez: "O hai"

Google: Thanks for the billions in revenue, UK. Here are your taxes, that's ... £11m

Brent Longborough
Megaphone

Stop moaning already...

And tell yer Members of Parliament to fix the laws, as in "do your job".

GitHub code repository rocked by 'very large DDoS' attack

Brent Longborough
Megaphone

Re: Deserved.

OK, if you love svn, you'll *really* enjoy something even newer and more modern -- cvs!

Apple asked me for my BANK statements, says outraged reader

Brent Longborough
Headmaster

Re: Private companies DO do this

Nice post, but one minor error:

"When you're buying an iPhone you own it"

should read:

"When you're buying an iPhone ït owns you"

Brent Longborough
WTF?

"Apple" and "Subsidized" in the same context?

That's pretty challenging! Don't people realise that there are other options than handcuffing yourself to Apple?

Charity chief: Get with it, gov - kids shouldn't have to write by hand

Brent Longborough
Thumb Down

And so...

The Dumbing-Down of Britain can be satisfactorily completed.

Feedly now home to 500,000 Reader refugees

Brent Longborough
Thumb Down

Can't say I'm happy

Immediately after the Google Reader Death Announcement, I went hunting for an alternative. I ended up on Feedly, but not because I like it -- rather because it's less crappy than the alternatives.

Google, you suck!

Irish Senator suggests net users register passport and IP address

Brent Longborough
Thumb Up

The luck of the Irish

Wow, in your country do you have one IP address *each*? That's brilliant.

Bacon sarnies can kill: Official

Brent Longborough
Paris Hilton

Just like olden tymes...

I have a suspicion this is something left over and adapted from the middle ages.

Do you remember when the parson used to tell us "you mustn't enjoy sex, it's bad for you, it's only for making babies"?

Just that now they're doing it for food.

Reg readers brew up the ultimate cuppa

Brent Longborough
Headmaster

Re: It all depends on the water!

Yorkshire Tea (*not* the decaffeinated one) and Paned Gymreig do nicely in South Wales, too.

But make sure you also include Builders' Tea, please!

Drone quadracopters throw and catch inverted pendulum

Brent Longborough

Don't worry about that, they'll just take the batteries out of all the remote controls...

Lenovo, PayPal, launch post-password plan

Brent Longborough
Go

Re: Just got a Yubikey (Fanboy alert)

Yes. I've had one for nearly three years, now, and love it.

I recently bought a Yubikey Nano, which has challenge-response and can be used as an additional token for Windows logon.

I just have one concern about the original (one-time password) Yubikey. The AES encryption key lives in the Yubikey, where it's safe, and on the authentication server, where, in principle, it isn't. Maybe a challenge-response arrangement might be better.

YouTube's hilarious cat videos could soon cost you $5 a month

Brent Longborough
Megaphone

Video???

Isn't that the cr*p that's clogging up teh Internetz?

'We are screwed!' Fonts eat a bullet in Microsoft security patch

Brent Longborough
Headmaster

I'm all right, Jack

Just recently moved from Computer Modern to Latin Modern

Brit physics student debuts zombie flick shot inside LHC

Brent Longborough
Joke

Paris

Yeah, but she did eat his *brains*

Jubcropgate: El Reg in snake-fondling nude nipslip outrage

Brent Longborough

Re: I, for one...

And Ed, and Ed, and Ken, and David, and Tessa... the list is endless

McKinnon will not be extradited to the US, says Home Secretary

Brent Longborough
WTF?

Re: excellent news

Atlantic? Isn't that somewhere in Georgia?

Final decision by Home Sec on McKinnon extradition due today

Brent Longborough
FAIL

Re: Cruel and unusual punishment - "Defending Western Values"

Unfortunately, poor ol' Homer Bush, and a whole bunch of other people, fell neatly into the trap that Osama set for them.

Result: they destroyed their own democracy, almost without him having to lift a finger.

Protestors target Google over that video

Brent Longborough
WTF?

I'm an atheist, but...

I don't believe this is a problem of religion, organised or disorganised.

What we have here is a sty full of murderous pigs hiding behind "religion" and exploiting the ignorant and stupid to further their own greed for political power.

Am I the only one to see the parallels with Northern Ireland? Or Bosnia?

The Register iPhone and Android apps: Maintenance update

Brent Longborough
Megaphone

Re: We're used to it - Godwin's Law

If you have to compare your app with the Beeb's, you've already lost the argument...

Assange granted asylum by Ecuador after US refused to rule out charges

Brent Longborough
FAIL

Independently of the merits of the case...

... this is such a stupid own goal by the government.

There was obviously an internal conflict in the Ecuadorian government as to whether or not to grant asylum. UK threatening so send in the Plods was all that was needed for Ecuador to come together and decide.

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