Posts by Matt Bradley

Cameron blames Labour naivety for NHS IT woes

Hmm, sound familiar anybody

'Cameron said much knowledge was being added by patients themselves - and "distributed horizontally from patient to patient".'

mediwikipedia.com is only just around the corner...

Former beauty queen cuffed for torturing ex

I think I've spotted the IT link

"a promising first- or second-year law student who hopes to go into entertainment law"

.. Obviously, with heavy handed tactics like those, she's merely bolstering her CV for when she applies for a job in the RIAA's download copyright infringement legal team.

Chinese shun sex for a good, old-fashioned bank

Fishy

"Oh, alright then, we made that last one up"

... As opposed to the rest of the stats, which were made up by chinese.gov?

Google.cn does still cooperate with the local government does it not? I wonder who approved these stats?

Power cut hits Rackspace UK

@Coward

Speaking as somebody who hasn't had a single sleepless night or major incident since my move to Rackspace 2 years ago, I'd have to say that it IS worth the extra!

I've had hosting with a couple of other managed hosting providers, and they've all had outages which have caused me major headaches (shouting customers, etc), but I've breathed a hell of a lot easier since we moved.

Rackspace have had a couple of incidents recently, but they all seem to have been resolved in a very timely fashion. This kind of a thing is going to happen (to expect 100% uptime is extremely foolish IMHO), but as Dr Who says, Rackspace do have the incentive to make the extra effort, and it shows.

World's Dumbest File-sharer megafine gets DoJ thumbs-up

@Neil

I think Neil makea a valid point about speeding fines above: perhaps we need to have a STANDARD fixed penalty for individuals for each file uploaded; set at a figure which is more realistic.

To fine an individual into permanent penury for a relatively minor offence like this just makes mockery of copyright law in general, and HAS to ultimately lead to some kind of change in the law.

Who knows? Perhaps by pursuing this ridiculous case (and other like it), RIAA is going to force the legislature to re-examine the whole issue of copyright enforcement. Maybe in the end, they'll end up shooting themselves not just in the foot, but the head?

I'm a musician, and software developer, so I can appreciate the importance of copyright law and its enforcement, but personally, I'd rather have my music stolen than be murdered, and this ruling implies that murdering me is the lesser offence. Not terrible sensible, if you ask me.

Bought some uranium ore? You'll need the anal douche, then

Litvinenko

Now we know how the radiactive material was introduced into Alexander Litvinenko's body...

Nigerian keyboard firm sues One Laptop per Child

@Nigel

Whoa there Nigel!

Not all of the stuff you have listed in your post is coming from Nigeria, and the bits that are are coming from a *very small* minority of the population.

I sure nobody would advocate cutting off the entirety of the US just because a few of the worst Spammers in the world have been based there!

And the following phrase:

"You cant even escape the f**kers wen on holiday cause they are trying to flog you fake watches and sunglasses all the time."

Just isn't a nice sentiment. I'd expect that kind of statement to come from a foaming at the mouth BNP voter, not an intelligent, reasoning member of the IT community.

Celebrity spam gang whips up a storm

@Outcast

I have promposed the same solution on numerous occasions. I suspect that it is the only silver bullet for this problem.

Rather than a full system wipe, perhaps just deleting the windows directory, and replacing it with a simple Bootloader that outputs the words "Please take your machine to a local PC repairer and tell them you are an idiot"

MoveOn tells Facebook to stop shining Beacon

Privacy / Schmivacy

Anybody who thinks that the average Facebook user gives a shit about privacy needs to see this page:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7280590949

(face book login required)

For those who don't have a login: The above is a PUBLIC facebook group (I.E. visible to anybody who joins), into which (mostly) young users have posted their own mobile phone numbers. About 48 and counting so far...

The mind boggles.

Canadian Taser death caught on camera

@Frank Bough

"I'm just glad that nothing like this would ever happen in the UK."

Ahem... Jean Charles de Menezes? IF you don't know who he was, Google him.

But perhaps more interestingly in this case, you might want to look at this:

<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/7096456.stm>

How I wrote an iPhone application

I'm sure I'm not missing the point here when I say:

<?php

$change_to = $_GET['change_to'];

$fp = fopen([document]);

$document = fread($fp , 10000000);

fclose($fp);

echo preg_replace("\biphone\b/i" , $change_to , $document);

?>

... and you don't have to have bloody iPhone either.

Student taser victim spared electric chair

@Michael

1. To control a dangerous or violent subject when deadly force does not appear to be justified and/or necessary;

Clearly he wasn't dangerous. Strike 1.

2. If attempts to subdue the subject by other conventional tactics have been, or will likely be, ineffective in the situation at hand; or

Hmm. Three large security staff can't subdue a skinny kid effectively using "conventional tactics"? Strike 2.

3. If there is reasonable expectation that it will be unsafe for officers to approach within contact range of the subject

Maybe it's just me, but I wouldn't regard approaching an over excited teenager whilst backed up by 2 large colleagues of mine as unsafe. Strike 3.

Yes: He was very naughty boy. Did he deserve to be subjected to electric shocks for being silly? Personally, I think not.

The US can be an example to the world in many ways. However, I think I'm with majority in saying that this incident is NOT one of them.

Appropriate force, seriously?

3 security staff need to use a taser to remove a scrawny kid from a school hall?

If that was appropriate force for those guys, then I guess they need to be fired. They are clearly wimps, and therefore not suited to the job of security.

When are we going to start talking about regime change in the US? Torturing people for political dissent? I thought that used to be Iraq's bag?

W1NNT number plate vendor mocks L1NUX

Nice choice of motor

Somehow, it seems appropriate that this plate should be found on Alan Partridge's car of choice, the Lexus IS200.

Facebook bug dishes out notes designated private

"This is not a bug"

I think I've heard that one before. Allow me to translate:

"To clarify, this is not a bug. This user most likely set their Notes privacy settings to 'Only Me,' however, they include Notes on their Limited Profile. Therefore, the people on their Limited Profile list can see their notes."

... or to translate:

"This is not a bug, it's just stupid, misleading labelling of the privacy setting options"

Since when did "Only Me" mean "Only me, my family, my friends, and my friends friends who I met a party once... and that girl I met in a pub who seemed pretty hot, but turned out to be a complete wierdo, and will probably torch my house if I remove her from my friends list"

'Fiendish' Trojan pickpockets eBay users

Ebay refuses to take responsibility AGAIN

So ebay hosts an auction for scammer, connects victim with scammer, and then because the actual transaction involves the use of a trojan which redirects the final transaction through a spoof site, they simply shrug and says "Wasn't us guv"

Surely there's some sort of criminal law that covers this kind of activity. Something along the lines of "aiding and abetting" here in the UK?

Google launches YouTube video-blocking contraption

So THAT'S why they bought youTube...

Remember when Google bought youTube, and many (including Reg) pundits said they were committing commercial suicide?

I was inclined to agree at the time, but after hearing about this widget, I'm wondering whether perhaps Google hadn't already thought of this when they bought youTube.

Video / Audio downloads online are fast destroying the conventional Music / Film industry, and one company who might stand a chance of monetizing online audio and video is Google through their advertising schemes. I'm sure they've been keen to get in on the action for quite some time.

This is pure genius. Google makes a living by selling advertising off the back of other people's content. Up to now, they've only been able to do with HTML. Now they can do with Music videos, TV Shows and Hollywood films. Brilliant.

Now what was all that about doing no evil again?...

US smut spam duo jailed for five years apiece

Excellent News

We need more of these prosecutions. 1-0 for US Justice. Well done guys.

Russian spammer murder hoax exposed

Kill all botnets

What we need is a good old fashioned style internet worm that propogates through (inherently vulnerable) machines on botnets, and renders exploited computers inoperable with a simple single line dos command:

rmdir windows

Users don't lose their valuable data, but their machine is permanantly taken out of the botnet... and possibly the repair engineers at PCWorld will sell the hapless users a copy of Norton when they take the machine in to be fixed.

Vista Business sales soar like leaping dachshund

AManFromMars

I don't have either the time or inclination to decode AManFromMars' remblings, but I suspect that anybody so inclined might do well to google "Fibonacci", and also perhaps read the following article on TheRegister:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/28/da_vinci_decrypt/

PFFT!!

Radiohead lets fans price new CD

Manufacture / Distribution Costs and Advances

I imagine that after repaying their advances (plus interest), manufacturing and distribution, and promotion costs, and the label's cut, most new signing major label bands would be extremely lucky to see 1p per copy (on average) of their record sold.

I imagine the Radiohead's cut was considerably better than that, but perhaps this is an illustration of just /how much/ of the a cost of the retail price of an album is being spent on something other than the music.

Attacking multicore CPUs

re: No news at all

Well done De Zeurkous - have a sticker.

Personally, I DIDN'T know about this, as I'm not security researcher. I therefore found the article interesting and informative.

Indeed, I might have found your original comment interesting an informative had it:

a] cited a source for your prior knowledge.

b] gone into some (indeed any) detail as to how this problem had already been addressed.

... unfortunately it didn't, which made look a bit like a puerile attempt to massage your ego.

Of course, we all know that it wasn't that at all, don't we? And you're going to prove that by making a mature and reasoned response, rather than just adding further well worded personal attacks and calling people n00bs

Right, I'm off out to enjoy the sunshine now.

McKinnon earns Lords appeal

Soft target

Nobody seems to be suggesting the McKinnon had any intention to cause damage.

HOWEVER, had this been a serious attack from an unfriendly nation, the US would have no authority over the attacker, and would have to bow to the authority of the foreign legal process.

It seems to me that McKinnon is an easy target, and despite thet fact the he had no malicious intent, the opportunity for US.MIL to finally catch SOMEBODY and try them in a US court is too much to resist. Even though he isn't a terrorist, treaties supposedly intended to fight terrorists are being used to extradite him.

Next time a government tells you that their new anti terrorism legislation is there to protect you, and that it will never be abused, you'll know what to expect.

Remind me again what the benefits of this "special relationship" are?

Martian ice swaps poles every 25,000 years

Thour our planet wobbling could be a reason for me to keep my car?

"Think that our planet wobbling about on its axis could provide an answer as to why climate change is happening without getting all hysterical about carbon footprints and farting cows ?"

Tr: "Please can I bury my head in the ground amid the mounting scientific evidence, because I *really* like my car, and don't want to give it up."

How's the government supposed to defraud us all out of our money with "Green taxes" if that's the case? ;-)

Tr: "... and road safety cameras are just a stealth tax on motorists. I *LIKE* driving at 50mph through residential areas, and it is my god given right to continue doing so"

Look, guys, I'm no tree hugger myself (I drive a 2.8 petrol gas guzzler at the moment), but perhaps we should be listening to the huge numbers of QUALIFIED SCIENTISTS who say that CO2 is impacting on our thin atmosphere?

Yahoo!'s pink liberation army a threat to America's youth

Sailing a bittoo close to the wind

Otto - I do like your flame bait writing. It is usually good for a laugh. But this REALLY is just bigoted claptrap, and it doesn't come across as being ironic, though I'm sure you intended it to.

However, if Tom Cruise past litigious history is anything to by, then this story may disappear fairly shortly anyway, so you'll be saved any further embarrassment...

Day-of-silence protest hits Net radio

Profiting from other people's content

Surely the argument here is that Internet Radio Stations profit from other people's content / intellectual property, and therefore should make some contribution back to the rights holders.

This being the case, can we please see legislation that requires Google to pay $0.0019 per web page which it caches / links to? Surely they too are profiting from other's intellectual property, and should therefore be subject to a similar system of royalties.

Flaws galore in IE and Firefox

Re: Another Firefox Bug

IE 7 Seems to display the same bug... how wierd is that? And both browsers display two number threes in the source code view as well!!!!

Freaky! :D

Paris and Lara share a cell with rude speeder

unless you ask for our help

"You folk across the pond are totally safe from us unless you ask for our help"

Yes, we in the UK had noticed this problem with aim that US.MIL seem to have. Despite widespread ownership of firearms, you still can't seem to shoot straight. Seemingly practice does NOT make perfect...

... Sorry cheap shot (no pun intended) - couldn't resist.

And the centre of your desktop is...

Re: Jason, you're an idiot.

Hi Chris,

As Jason said:

"While OOo/the open source movement in general is a wonderful thing, please don't do cut-and-paste rants. Try to keep an open and objective mind. ... That sort of shallow ignorance is what will really end up destroying the open-source scene "

Did you miss that part? :D

I quite agree that Microsoft is largely responsible for the interoperability problems. I'm sure nobody could disagree. But you see, I don't think there's any mileage in responding to the legitimate complaints of genuine business user by calling him "an idiot" - Somehow I think this might be counterproductive for the Open Source movement.

It doesn't matter *whose* fault these compatibility problems are (be they Microsoft, Sun, or anybody); they exist: and until they don't exist, users like Jason will not be able to use OOo. Calling him an idiot isn't going to change that, and it may well cause him to question the general professionalism of the Open Source movement.

Arguably, your response was bit of an embarrasment of the Open Source movement as a whole.

Finally: is Microsoft responsible for OOo's lack of quality language support, and lack of features which Jason needed? The only way OO can compete is by being realistic about the needs and expectation of the end user. If it can't meet these, it is dead in the water.

'Cops help kill 32 Students', claims furious blogger

a citizen militia can abolish oppressive governments when necessary

"a citizen militia can abolish oppressive governments when necessary"

This ties in nicely with the previous comment about needing guns to keep tyrants in check.

One has to wonder whether these "tyrants" include such individuals and John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King, or those unfortunate 32 young people.

Clearly bad people can and do get hold of firearms, but this is not the problem. The problem is that when you make firearms readily available to EVERYBODY, then situations that might otherwise have let to nasty beating or a stabbing become a shooting, or even a mass shooting.

I life in a fairyl rough Northern English town, and on Friday / Saturday nights there are regular fights in the town centre caused by people getting too drunk and losing their sense of perspective. I dread to think what my home town would be like if these kinds of people could walk into a shop and buy an automatic pistol. This is the problem which the US is having the deal with, and until handguns are made less readily available, this will continue to be problem, of this I am certain. The statistisc alone speak for themselves.

Sure, we have gun crime in the UK. Bad people do bad things. But we don't have anything like the number of day to day shootings per capita that occur in countries where weapons are available to one and all.

Even though the shooter in this case was clearly not in a sound state of mind, it strikes me as unlikely that he would have been as capable of obtaining these kinds of automatic weapons if he first had to make to pretty heavy black market connections first, and then raise the necessary capital to buy serious weapons such as the ones used illegally. That would require a great deal more planning, and a much greater risk of being caught before he even fired a shot.