* Posts by Mostor Astrakan

173 publicly visible posts • joined 23 Apr 2007

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Firefox 'Do Not Track' header wins first convert

Mostor Astrakan
Go

It's one step of a Plan.

If you want to implement law against tracking, you need the Public(tm) to speak out against it first. The presence of a Do Not Track header in every request lets you do that. If you don't, then the scum can defend themselves saying: "But how were WE to know that he didn't want us to unzip his fly and rummage around inside?" Which would start a whole long and tedious discussion about opt-in, opt-out, reasonable expectations and what-have-you, during which business continues as usual, and then, oh, the government changes and nothing happens.

This way, when someone is caught tracking people who have enabled the Do Not Track header, they are demonstrably wrong.

Ubuntu board rejects slippery Flash installs

Mostor Astrakan
Linux

I'm also looking at...

The Windows Update window with the "Express install (recommended)" setting, which would result in me installing the "malicious software removal tool" over what Norton already gives me, most likely breaking it in the process. I am also looking at the check box which says "Don't remind me about this update again". In fact, I look at it every bloody time. I am also looking at Windows Media Player, which keeps trying to install later versions I don't want.

It sodding works for now. Stop trying to change it.

Well done to Canonical for *not* doing that.

Interwebs stunned by musical atrocity

Mostor Astrakan
Thumb Up

Oh come on...

It isn't that bad when you turn down the volume as low as it will go. It's a cute girl imitating a goldfish. I bet you, if Beethoven had been around at the time, it would have cheered him up no end, and convinced him that his ironic condition could be a source of joy as well as sadness. And she got the days of the week in their proper order too, producing a work of chronological excellence. After all, even the Mamas and the Papas didn't dare go beyond monday, the Bangles famously put "Sunday" *behind* "Monday", to universal ridicule. All you haters simply don't understand the deeper meaning of this piece. The passing of time. The reflection upon the fragility of existence. Philistines!

Obama to overhaul heinous US patent system

Mostor Astrakan

Weeelll...

On the one hand, the patent system can do with a good overhaul. On the other hand, is Gitmo closed yet? So how long is *this* going to take?

Apple to Microsoft: 'App Store name is not generic'

Mostor Astrakan
Flame

Grrrr...

"App" is short for "Application". "Store" is just short. A hardware store is a store where you buy (or indeed, *store*) hardware. A drug store is where you buy drugs. A general store is where you buy generals. An app store is where you look at apps, then recoil in disgust.

I would mightily prefer it if people with more money than scruples would bloody well stop trying to patent and trademark the use of the BLEEDING OBVIOUS! Yes, I'm looking at YOU, Mr. "You've Got Mail(TM)". Stop snickering in the back, Mr. "IS NOT operator" (patent pending).

For the love of the FSM, can we get this banned under the same kind of treaty that bans the use of landmines? Patents were created to help the truly innovative minds of our age to profit from their brain child, like James Watt and his steam eng... Um. Edison's light bu... ah. Marconi and rad... Oh fuck it.

If this sort of thing is allowed to grow and fester, pretty soon you won't be able to move at all without some bloody patent/trademark troll going "Ah HA!"

Storm brews over Chinese synchronised goldfish

Mostor Astrakan

Indeed.

The malicious rumours spread by eco-terrorists about a stealthy trip to the pet shop in those days is vile and evil and should be quashed at its source.

Anonymous pwns security firm that probed its membership

Mostor Astrakan

Pah. Security consultants.

The last security auditor I had to deal with suggested that we turn off FTP, because apparently it sends passwords across teh networkz in plaintext. No, really? Well, given that you've been *told* that this is a print server, and all they can do with FTP is waste our paper, also that it doesn't have a password, and even if it had one, they could still print stuff using port 9100, I don't think we'll prioritise on manually logging in on ~50 print servers.

Run the script, take the output, cut and paste it into Word, profit!

There are security experts out there who really deserve respect, don't get me wrong. But they don't work for the kind of outfit that ends every report with "And therefore you need to install our spiffy security package".

NASA hails 'amazing' exoplanetary system

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Mr. Lissauer dates himself.

Lissauer said: 'These data will enable us...'

These days, "data" is treated linguistically like water: "How much data" rather than "How many". Only the old hands might refer to such a thing as a "datum". We have an old school scientist here.

Yes, completely tangential. Simple minds are easily amused.

Doctor Who to marry Doctor Who's daughter

Mostor Astrakan
Heart

Isaac Asimov speaks...

Oh, give me a clone

Of my own flesh and bone

With its Y chromosome changed to X.

And after it's grown,

Then my own little clone

Will be of the opposite sex.

Clone, clone of my own,

With its Y chromosome changed to X.

And when I'm alone

With my own little clone

We will both think of nothing but sex.

There's more: http://members.tripod.com/~bardic_circle/aclone.htm

Firefox ahead of IE in Europe, boosted by Chrome effect

Mostor Astrakan

Good.

Hopefully, this will finally convince the last remaining few followers of the "This Site Is Best Viewed With Internet Explorer 6 on A Colour Monitor" school of web design that it's not the customers that suck, it's their web development platform.

Mind you, it has improved a lot in recent years. It's also a nice comeback for the idiots at "why firefox is blocked.com". Several big players in the browser market makes for an environment where you can't favour one, and are therefore more or less forced to stick to standards.

PARIS concocts commemorative cocktail

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Pint

Impossible!

Can't be! Guinnesses are bigger than that!

Mostor Astrakan
Pint

About that last photo...

What on Earth are they drinking? It looks like some kind of stout, only smaller...

Primary school miss flashes porn vid at kiddies

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Joke

Well...

What about a kiss, boy? We don't go galloping for the clitoris!

Unfeasibly vast amphibian found croaked on video card

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Coat

Chuckle

"Bus - derivation Greek. Plural buses."

You spend ages waiting for a bus, and then all of a sudden loads of bi come by!

Diary of a Not-spot: One man's heroic struggle for broadband

Mostor Astrakan

My BOFH-senses are tingling...

"But not, fortunately, when his own phone started playing up. Suddenly it was perfectly safe to work under the tree, and the nice BT engineers (with whom I was quite chummy by this point) were able to connect me up while they were fixing my neighbour's fortuitously faulty phone line."

What, *bulllet holes*? Tchah! Kids these days. No respect for their neighbors' property. I blame the parents.

Oracle asserts non-existent open source trademark

Mostor Astrakan

Acquiring open-source projects...

You're doing it wrong.

The way you do it is to persuade the people making it to come and work for you, then proceed to make those people the happiest people in the world. Surprisingly, this does not *always* involve giving them lots of money, but it does involve letting them do their thing.

Buying the company that is doing this, then telling everybody that, oh, Open Office is now Your Intellectual Property, then asking the makers what they're going to do about it, is less than perfect, as the obvious answer is for them to say goodbye, and continue their much appreciated work for someone else. Leaving the company with a heap of source code, and not the people who made it what it is today.

MS preps service pack blocker tool for Windows 7, Server 2008 R2

Mostor Astrakan

The two previous respondents are missing the point.

Let me splain.

In sane places, you download the fixes for the fuxes. You store them in a central place so as not to over-stress your Internet pipe. You then give your TEST servers a little poke, and they partake of the alledgedly fixed software. You very carefully test whether this makes them fall over in interesting ways. If they don't, then you give your PRODUCTION servers the same little poke and hope that you didn't miss anything.

In insane places, every server wants to be connected to the Internet to function at all, and to acertain that you're not a filthy pirate. As an aside, these boxes will then automatically download the MS fixes as soon as they become available, and politely ask you whether you want to reboot or yes. Only NOW, for people who have a screw loose and actually allow this to happen to any server they care about, there is an ADDITIONAL tool that PREVENTS this thing from happening, should you lack the wit to keep it from happening in the first place. Which will be automatically installed at the next automatic update. Are you with me so far? Well, then. When six months have passed, the fixpack blocker will then cease to block the fixes that you shouldn't have let the machines install in the first place, presumably causing them to be installed automatically after all, unless you have had the notion to disable that behaviour in a more permanent way in that time.

And yes, I agree. That is madness.

But then again, I also think that putting a firewall on your machine to block people from haxoring into your system's less secure facilities, should be a practice abandoned in favour of fixing the sodding leaks in the faulty facility in the first place, or not running that facility in the first place.

So yes, while people are crowing that here MS has given us yet another feature to control the deployment of their shit on our servers, I would argue that there should be only one way. One that works properly.

Our PARIS becomes GLOBAL MEDIA SENSATION

Mostor Astrakan

Followed by...

RELEASING PAPER PLANES IN SPACE: NEW CURE FOR CANCER

Ah.... The good old oncological ontology blog.

Reg reader stitches PARIS right up

Mostor Astrakan
Thumb Up

Well, you've made it now...

On my morning Tube ride, I spotted the familiar scavenger logo in that bastion of journalistic excellence that is the Metro. Gentlemen, the Vulture has now well and truly landed. If any dates and wild parties with supermodels ensue, we will of course expect full Playmo-coverage.

iPhone 4: the best built smartphone...

Mostor Astrakan

Reading these comments...

It just struck me. Are there really, well, I suppose we must call them people, who, upon the release of a new iShiny device... INTENTIONALLY damage their current iShiny, and then, blue eyes shining innocently, claim to their insurers that their property was damaged only by Cruel Fate itself?

Please tell me, if such people exist at all, how are they punished? What circle of Hell is reserved for them? How, in a Universe ruled by a Being that is both omnipotent and good, can such an evil be allowed to exist?

Google snips Facebook's Gmail line

Mostor Astrakan

What about...

Not putting it up there in the first place, ye stupid buggers?

XP? Thanks for the memories

Mostor Astrakan

With all the people gushing about XP

XP sucks. It's just that it sucks in ways that users throughout the last ten years have gotten used to. For crying out loud, I had to do a complete OS reinstall this month because a game misbehaved, and hosed the entire box. Thing is, when XP goes Windows and needs a wee re-install, I'm fairly sure I know the voodoo to fix it. When 7 goes Windows, I haven't a clue. Chances are, neither does your IT department.

OOo's put the willies up Microsoft

Mostor Astrakan
Flame

Quality standards of Word documents

Ogods... I just spent about two days hacking and wading my way through a big Word document, the information in which will have significant influence on my future work. It had lots to comment on, being written by a non-native speaker[1], and I didn't even start on the actual layout.

Fonts changing willy-nilly. Margins floating between Zero and Two Inches with no clear reason why. No two bullet lists looking the same, presumably to illustrate all the beautiful different ways in which Our Lord and Mircosoft allows you to list things. Some of the pages on A4, where others are on Letter landscape, maybe to accomodate a picture that Word thought wouldn't fit on A4 size paper. Headers and footers appearing, changing and disappearing at random (which is really handy if you have to write comments on it. "About Page Unnumbered about three down from where you suddenly switch to Helvetica").

I'm sure the person wrote it with the same amount of pleasure as I read it.

This is why, when I have a big document to produce, I use Komposer, a WYSIWOTSIT web page editor. Its most important feature is that it doesn't have all the formatting crap that MS (or Sun) bestows on us. When I'm happy with the words, I'll cut-and-paste it into a Word document. At least that way, I won't have to deal with all the editing damage that you can inflict on your document with mis-aimed clicks and I can concentrate on, you know, actually producing the words and the pictures.

[1] And damn you, *I* am a non-native speaker. It doesn't excuse the crap English.

Spycam school to pay damages for kiddie snaps

Mostor Astrakan

Mens Rea

It's there for a reason.

Facebook is 'killing privacy for commercial gain'

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Big Brother

How to annoy Facebook...

I'm sure that you can use some kind of crypto-tool to encrypt your posts *before* you stick them on facebook. You can then give the decryption key to people you know and trust and Zuckerberg et al keep their filthy word-searching ad targeting mitts off them. All we need is something with pretty colours that's easy enough for the mouthbreathers to use.

It'd get banned within seconds, of course, but oh, the delicious Daily Mail headlines you can make from that.

FACEBOOK BANS PRIVACY TOOL

USER SECURITY NOT ALLOWED ON FACEBOOK

ZUCKERBERG: DON'T TRY TO KEEP YOUR DATA FROM <i>ME</i>... BITCH!

And then, of course Facebook stumbling over itself screeching that crypto is only used by child molesters and pirates and will nobody think of the <i>children</i>?!!

Sorry, sorry... just my pervy thought of the day.

Legendary steampunk computer 'should be built' - programmer

Mostor Astrakan

Pray, Mr. Babbage...

"On two occasions I have been asked, – "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."

The first luser support calls in recorded history.

Fruitcake profs demand strict curbs on killer robots

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Happy

Cake is...

Cake is science for hungry people!

Las Vegas death ray roasts hotel guests

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Coat

Surely...

They should have run this past their customer focus group?

PA school district avoids charges over webcam spy scandal

Mostor Astrakan

I disagree.

Someone needs to lose their job over this.

Spying on underage kids in their bedrooms is something that's Just Not Done. If It were my child in the same situation, then I would not be interested in money. I'd want to make sure that nobody in that school would ever want to fit a webcam on a laptop again, and that the word "webcam", mentioned by newbie teachers in the teacher's lunchroom would result in a sudden hush, and stares.

My dad was once a swimming trainer to kids in the age range of, oh, 12 to 16. He once told me that he would not go into the girls' changing room for any reason, up to and including one of the girls bleeding to death in the shower (which might have been a slight exaggeration, but not much). If you have any kind of authority over other people's children, you simply do not put yourself in a situation where you might have even the slightest chance of seeing them naked.

In this light, having laptops take random snaps when you know full well that they are likely to be in childrens' bedroom is such a monumentally stupid idea that it should have been killed with fire as soon as it was tabled.

Trained teachers should know better.

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

Mostor Astrakan

Mind you,

I was in the queue at the supermarket a while back, and the lady in front of me asked for some fucking lamb chops because she was doing a Gordon Ramsay recipe.

'Toothed' condom hits rapists where it hurts

Mostor Astrakan
Grenade

Up yours.

"How about encouraging men to comprehend that women are humans, not animals or material possessions, and they shouldn't be treated or thought of as the latter in any form of civilised society"

Strangely, most of us "potential rapists" are already aware that women have been acknowledged to be in the Human race, thank you very much. The problem is with the people who are NOT civilised members of this society.

These things are a disaster waiting to happen, and to advertise them as a "rape prevention device" is a bald-faced lie. Correct me if I'm wrong, but this "device" only does its thing when the actual rape is well and truly under way. I daresay that the experience is traumatic for the victim long before that, especially when rapists learn to check the victim for potentially harmful devices. Any "rape prevention measures" should start functioning before the would-be assailant separates his intended victim from the herd.

Which means, simply, that we need to look after each other. Yeah too bloody hard, I know.

---

She concluded: "I believe something's got to be done ... and this will make some men rethink before they assault a woman."

---

Yes, it will make them think "I'd better stick in this broom handle first". Thanks for making the world a more violent place. But hey, if it gives you the warm fuzzy feeling that you've made a difference, even if that difference is a step backwards, then that's what's important, isn't it?

Ubuntu v iTunes: the music playoff for Applephobes

Mostor Astrakan

Not quite

It's not really that Linux distributors WANT to move people away from patent-encumbered file formats. It's more that if they stick support for them in their product, they will get a phone call from the patent trolls^Wholders, begging for money and offering lawsuits. So yeah, playing MP3s and DVDs right there and then would be nice, but... The people who think they own your music collection say no.

DoS attack stuffs Turkey's internet censors

Mostor Astrakan

Censored.

You've put your finger on the sore spot there. Rape, beheadings, child abuse, should not be happening to be filmed at all. Still, they happen. People should respect each other regardless of their station in life, the colour of their skins, what deity they choose to worship or not to worship. Still, we have racism and religious intolerance.

Censorship seeks to sweep these and other problems under the carpet. Does anyone seriously think that scanning incoming posts for what is called, in hushed voices, "The N-word" and quietly disposing of them for the good of others, actually has any impact on racism at all? Do child molesters die when you disable their LiveMyFace account? No. What censorship does is to allow people to pretend that the Bad Things aren't happening, or worse, that The Government is Solving the Problem.

NASA: Civilization will end in 2013 (possibly)

Mostor Astrakan

Hah!

You don't think the Government will let you buy REAL tin foil, do you?

Apple slapped with lawsuit over 'iAds' monicker

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iSticking an "i" iBefore an iWord.

Not *very* iNtellectual, that iProperty.

Microsoft picks over Google's Windows exit strategy

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Bollocks.

"Someone who hasn't missed the point entirely! the security risk to ANY OS is directly proportional to market share (ubiquity)."

What a load of old rubbish. The security risk to any operating system is *inversely* proportional to the amount of Clue applied to the subject by those who make it. You're assuming that every programmer is as stupid as the MS ones.

There's a few people at MS who know what they're doing.

If there were a LOT of people at MS who knew what they're doing then Windows wouldn't top the pwned charts quite so reliably.

Google blames developers for lousy Android battery life

Mostor Astrakan

In der beschränkung zeigt sich der Meister

Ye gods, it's been a while since application developers had to worry about the use of resources, has it? When was it again that the phrase "Your program is slow" got replaced by "My program requires a powerful machine"?

So app developers didn't quite realise that using the Internet uses milliamps did they? Well, then *don't* check if there's bugfuxes for your app every thirty seconds, or upload your <strike>sucker</strike>customer's position to the web every minute.

Germans plan to make 'synthetic natural' gas from CO2

Mostor Astrakan
IT Angle

Yay windmills.

I notice that Greenpeace suggests wind energy prominently in their plans for a clean future. So... Can we get rid of gas energy plants and replace them with windmills? Let's see.

Your average STEG-type energy plant, such as the one planned in Diemen in the Netherlands (Unit 34), can produce at the same time 500 megawatts of electricity and an additional 250 megawatts of heat, which is piped to people's homes. Keep in mind that there's also Unit 33 at that site, which does 266 MW electrical, 180 MW thermal. Year-round, all-weather.

For some reason, I've never been able to get a very clear answer to the question: "How much power does a wind turbine produce?" Partly due, no doubt, to the wind being inconveniently variable. We should invent better wind. Still, I've found a web page. It has figures on it. I'll use them.

According to HowStuffWorks, a wind turbine with a rotor diameter of 80m. can produce 2.5 megawatts (and what a pleasure it is to work with a unit where you can actually convert kilo to mega by dividing by 1000, without all the "commercial" fluff, but I digress).

So you would need two hundred wind turbines with an 80m rotor to replace one single STEG plant. That's assuming that the windmills would always produce their maximum output, which they don't. It also ignores the 250 MW of heat, which would be another hundred or so windmills.

There would hardly be any place left to live anymore, I think.

Refs:

- http://www.nuon.com/nl/het-bedrijf/kernactiviteiten/opwekken-energie/centrales/diemen34.jsp

- http://science.howstuffworks.com/wind-power4.htm

Missing Soviet nuclear electrocar FOUND ON MOON

Mostor Astrakan
Thumb Up

So...

http://www.ebay.com/users/Gagarin/MoonBuggy.html (Customer pick-up of course)

(No, I'm *not* sticking in the Joke Alert icon and if someone at Ebay could inform me how many people actually followed that link, I'd be most appreciative).

A user's timetable to the Digital Economy Act

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The last CD I purchased... let me see.

I think it was Robb Johnson's "all that way for this". I bought it from the man himself when he was playing at the folk club. My tenner straight from my wallet into his calloused fingers. That's about the only way I'll purchase music these days.

I'll never enter a "free" record shop again. I don't download music either, legally or otherwise. I don't have iTunes. I wouldn't know where to download illegal music because I cannot be arsed to google for it. What these recording industry types need to understand is that first, it's very easy to do without their products, and second, my buying any of them depends on my liking them.

I don't like them anymore.

Booby-trapping PDF files: A new how-to

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Welcome

When I were a lad...

It was impossible to get a virus from a document file, because it didn't get executed. Who was it again that thought embedding executables in document files was a good idea?

Heathrow security man cops perv scanner eyeful

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Git.

Why exactly should anything tit-like have to appear on-screen for the male in question to comment as he alledgedly did? Large breasts have the property of being detectable even without expensive equipment. If the account is correct, the male in question was being a prick. This may just have been the last episode in a long list of such indiscretions. Sod him. He's the kind of guy who gives the rest of us a bad name.

Microsoft: Oracle will take us back to 1970s hell

Mostor Astrakan
Grenade

Huh.

Would that be the 1970s hell where you'd hit the enter key and you'd actually get an answer within one second?

Computer Engineer Barbie coming soon to a toy store near you

Mostor Astrakan

Hmm.. Shows willing but must try harder.

Real computer engineers do not look like this. She has a HAPPY SMILE for Eris' sake! You want the expression that says "How am I going to explain to these morons that you can't have a hundred people all video-conferencing over a fucking 512Kb/sec ADSL line."

Windows 7 upgrades Vista laptops to lower battery life

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Well...

"But the company also says that in some cases, the new tool may be working properly."

It's good to see that Microsoft's QA department is still doing its stuff in the way that we've come to expect of them.

Bloated Office 2010 kicks dirt in face of old computers

Mostor Astrakan

Oh gods...

Never in my life have I been closer simply to write "This" and leave it at that. You've been there. I want a word processor that has a big red button that says "Keep your sodding mitts off what I write." I've learnt to type on a real typewriter. I know what I'm doing.

Don't: Replace my double quotes with stupid quotes that show up as ?'s on compliant browsers.

Don't: Try to improve my writing for me by capitalising the names of the Unix commands EVEN if they are at the start of a sentence, you morons. Some OSes DO know the difference between A and a.

Don't: Introduce errors into my document by changing things when I run the cursor past them. And *especially* don't re-introduce the same fucking error after I correct it.

Also... REALLY, REALLY don't assume that I am a Damnyankee and therefore want my output on letter size paper. 1:sqrt(2). It's that size for a reason, you idiot.

It's things like this that make me write anything important in flat text files with an editor that I have used for twenty years.

IFPI wants another stab at OiNK

Mostor Astrakan
Flame

Incomplete quote.

"It would be great to report that these innovations have been rewarded by market growth, more investment in artists, and more jobs. Sadly, this is not the case,"

He went on to say that "We blew all the money we made as a result on expensive wine and even more expensive prostitutes and didn't give a cent to the musicians, as God intended." Reappearing from behind the smoke of his Cuban cigar, he added, "Now we've spent it all. Give us more."

Mozilla tries to silence add-on developers' scream

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Thumb Up

I have this great idea!

"while your completely free to block ads, some websites depend on them."

Well, for those with unlimited bandwidth, why not make an advertisement management system that will download and in some cases click through the ads for you, storing the relevant data in a pre-determined space for later perusal at your leisure, without actually showing them just yet?

The websites would still get their revenue, the advertising company would still get the click-throughs they crave so much, the users would enjoy a content-rich environment with no distractions... Everyone's a winner!

Actually, I'm amazed that such a thing doesn't exist yet.

Record-fine Napsterer wants retrial with RIAA

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Thumb Down

Has anyone ever asked RIAA...

Just how many songs were actually downloaded from this guy, or have they been allowed to flap their hands and go "BILLIONS AND BILLIONS OF SONGS COULD HAVE BEEN..."

Just curious.

Watchdog files complaint over Facebook 'privacy' settings

Mostor Astrakan

Oh for crying out loud...`

This may come as a shock to some of you, but my mother did not name me Mostor, nor is she married to a man named Astrakan. There are several businesses out there with a legitimate reason to know my true name and address, but LiveMyFace is not one of them. Neither is El Reg.

It's only a frikkin' computer. Lie to it.

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