Posts by Ole Juul

That NSA denial in full: As of right now, we're not pretending to be Facebook or Twitter

I love it. Malware with ads.

Is the World Wide Web for luvvies and VCs – or for all of us?

Re: Some of this makes me want for "simpler" times.

I'm with you on the text. The web has gotten harder to read. Still, if you want (I do it sometimes) you can make an incredibly simple web page using /pre in the body. It will load in less than a blink and the viewer will be treated to something as wonderful as the old README file. I know you know this, but my point is that we the people can still do what we want.

Re: Berners-Lee and media luvvies?

"Neither Facebook nor Google are doing anything wrong or evil. All their users have been notified, often repeatedly, that they are the product those companies are selling. If you don't like how they run their businesses, stop using them. It really is that simple."

Indeed, users are the ones lending the power to these companies. But it isn't that simple. The problem is that people do not know that they have any choices. In fact they seem to have a deep rooted belief that this "technology" is beyond them. They will not take any ownership. I don't know how to solve this problem, but that is why things aren't "that simple".

Brawling neighbours challenge 'quiet' cul-de-sac myth

Re: Uh ...

"humans aren't built to live shoulder to shoulder ..."

Which is where cats come in. Humans can then be induced to get face to face over feline feces.

Tiny heat-sucker helps keep Moore's Law going

conductivity

If it conducts heat better, does it not also conduct electricity better? I thought the two were somewhat related.

New fear: Worm that ransacked US military PCs was blueprint for spies' super-malware

Re: Bluff, Double bluff, Counter Bluff

Yes, news is another vector for viral dissemination resulting in profit.

San Francisco says yes to GIANT Apple flagship store, public plaza

?

"Apple has previously said the new shop would be "more iconic" than its glass cube in New York City."

So which one is the Big Apple then?

Web inventor Berners-Lee: I so did NOT see this cat vid thing coming

TIM

It could have been "The Information Mine". (Though in my world global variables start with "O".)

Seven Great Moments in World Wide Web History

standoff

OK, I'll decide for you. You both get an upvote.

Five unbelievable headlines that claim Tim Berners-Lee 'INVENTED the INTERNET'

Re: Idiots

"Isn't TCP something you gargle if you have a sore throat ?"

You're probably thinking of Tri Codium Phosphate.

Indonesia plans 10 Gbps FTTP as part of 20-million-premises broadband project

Re: I applaud their ambition.

"but it is worth remembering that in practical terms we offer subsidies for non-urban roads, telephony, water, post, electricity and gas, and to a lesser extent for many publicly provided services that have higher costs/lower direct contributions in less densely populated areas."

I understand the economics are likely different in GB. "Rural" probably means something quite different over there. Where I live, the rural areas also subsidize the cities. We provide the coal, the electricity, the water, and the gas, and pay the environmental price when we deal with the flooded lands, logging trucks, coal trucks, dust, and disruption every day. These things work both ways. I don't see any reason why we shouldn't share.

Re: What use it is..

10Gpbs seems overkill for viewing cat pictures!

They're big cats.

Living in Canada I'm jealous too. Most of the fibre we get here is in the bran flakes.

Top UK e-commerce sites fail to protect 'password' password-havers from selves

Re: security education

"The biggest problem is the limited amount of space on a little piece of paper kept in your wallet versus the number of passwords people are likely to have these days."

Then put down that felt pen and grab a pencil. Without half trying, I can put 12 very long passwords on one side of a 1.5"x2" posted note. That's 24 all together, and I would likely squeeze a couple down the side if I felt I needed more. And then there's the part about losing your wallet. In well over half a century of using a wallet for serious stuff, I've haven't lost it once. I don't think that is something most people need to worry about. Besides, a lost wallet is not likely to end up in the hands of someone who will see a piece of paper that isn't cash as having any interest. In fact I believe that most stolen wallets end up in the hands of street people, muggers, and generally computer uninterested people.

I wouldn't disagree that a virtual wallet is unsafe, but would argue that it is less safe than a piece of paper. That, because it is stored in a place where those who would be interested in it have potential remote access and will put a lot of effort into getting at. That cannot be said for a piece of paper in your wallet where one of the very few people who would attack you would have to do so in person at your current location.

Re: Speaking of website logins

"Even the local Electoral Roll office's online registration form took exception to "é"."

Is this not because of simplified code page support? Until all the broken clients that don't support UTF all die we're going to still see a lot of ISO-8859-1 and Windows-1252 which are fine, but have differences that cause problems. In any case, it certainly is rude when one can't use one's real name. I find the same thing on some forums because I have a space between my first and last name - which incidentally is quite common as well.

Locking out does not "deny" service

There are many ways to do it, but locking someone out for 60 seconds is not a serious denial of service, and it makes it completely impractical to do a brute force attempt. Even locking them out for 10 seconds would do the trick. Give people three or five chances, then make them wait a minute.

Re: security education

I'm all for security education, but logging into people's other services (automatically or not) does sound a bit on the shady side of legal, although I do see the humour.

Seriously, it can't be that hard to teach someone who otherwise can write their own name, to use some kind of half acceptable password. I like Bruce Schneier's suggestion of writing it on a little piece of paper and putting it in your wallet - based on the fact that people are usually very good at keeping little pieces of paper in their wallet from getting lost or stolen.

Foxconn preps for Peak Apple with FIFTEEN THOUSAND new hires

Re: But, but, but...

Certainly 15,000 workers is more than a molehill. Though I do admit it sounds a lot like an ant hill.

Snowden: You can't trust SPOOKS with your DATA

done it well?

"They've only done their job as mandated by US politicians, and done it well. Disbanding and reforming would achieve nothing except temporarily destroy the US expertise in signal surveillance."

I'm not understanding what you mean by doing their job well. For one, they haven't been very successful at increasing or maintaining national security. In fact one could argue that they have seriously decreased everybody's security. Also, doing "one's job" without questioning the ethics is often looked down upon in civilized society. A person (like Snowden) who's got guts, does not continue down the wrong road once they realize what's going on. And then there's the little matter of what they've been doing being illegal.

The government has changed its talking points

The government has changed its talking points on this away from the public interest to the national interest," he said.

He speaks well. I'm just so disheartened at the seeming impossibility of convincing the great majority that "national interest" does not include them any more.

NASA to programmers: Save the Earth and fatten your wallet

Re: "dinosaurs didn't have a space program" - look what happened to them

We do seem obsessed with organisms that look and act in ways that are similar to ours. However, spore producing organisms have been around even longer, and shown superior survival abilities. In fact it is quite possible that they do have a space program.

Bletchley Park board member quits amid TNMOC split-off spat

Smoke?

After the first few bureaucrats go up in smoke the rest should get on nicely.

They all need a toke.

Got a Netgear router from Virgin Media? Change your admin password NOW

Re: No security for home networking

I think you're right, this is pretty standard. People pay good money for stuff they expect to work as advertised and they're getting screwed.

As for Netgear, I've got a WNR3500Lv2 here. It too doesn't live up to their claims, but I bought it knowing what I was getting and never even as much as looked at the original Netgear firmware. I'm personally very happy with what I got, but if these companies are going to market to the average user, they should mark it "as is".

Wanna make 15 bucks? Assimilate someone into the Google Apps BORG

Shrewd analysts

From the aricle: "When Facebook shelled out a staggering $19bn to acquire WhatsApp in February, for example, shrewder analysts observed that the sum was equivalent to $42 per user, which is high but isn't out of line with the per-user valuation of other past social media acquisitions. With its $15 referral bounty, Google will be paying practically a third as much per user."

That doesn't sound like a "shrewder" analyst to me. Since "Google won't actually pay the bounty until a referred customer has been a paying subscriber for 120 days", they will be paying out $15 once they have gotten $20. Perhaps I'm not so "shrewd", but getting $5 does not sound like the same as paying a third of $42.

IOW: Give me $20 and I'll give you $15.

Get out your Allen keys: Facebook's cooked up flat-pack bit barns

roof

Indeed, I see data centres moving into my part of Canad, specifically because of the cooler weather. Recent years have been less predictable and roof loads are building up at times when they didn't in the past. Even a warm spell at an inopportune time can cause ice buildup and stressed seams.

Surely

There's an allen key in the package.

Police pen shortage threatens Irish public order

I speculate that there are ridiculous bureaucratic hurdles to getting new stationary.

Then just go buy a box of pens, and fight the bureaucratic fight where it belongs. (hint: that's not at the front counter)

formalities

"to sign on as a condition of his bail relating to a separate matter"

Surely a gentleman's agreement would suffice.

Sysadmins and devs: Do these job descriptions make any sense?

Re: hard to search for a job in it isnt it?

. . . all these bring up mostly elderly care, waitresses or glazing jobs.

Yep, sounds like IT to me.

Technobabble

The architects of this paper simply divided the problem into two parts. Techno and babble. In order to take advantage of their own expertise, they decided to focus on the second part.

Court allows EFF to keep donor list secret from patent troll

Trolls

An inflated sense of entitlement is a common disease.

Plod foils drone drug drop down under

Hurling stuff over the fence is hardly original

A version of this has been used over the US borders for a while. People shoot drugs out of a small cannon mounted on the back of a pickup. Kinda funny. A slingshot (catapult) would work too.

Mt Gox fielded MASSIVE DDOS attack before collapse

exaggerated values

I love how the press throws around numbers like this when there is a loss or a crime. For instance, every time a shipment of illegal drugs is seized by the police in America, the press quickly declares that the shipment "had a street value of $50 million dollars" or some such.

Blank cheque found . . . worth billions of dollars. (until you cash it)

Re: The headline is rather misleading...

Misleading, perhaps, but it could also be bang on. We still don't know just how complicit they were. Sometimes where there's smoke there's fire, and a "massive" DDOS attack does create a smoke screen.

Google's mystery barge flounces out of San Fran, heads to Stockton

End of world SALE

. . . or even a new kind of Biblical ark, so all the oompah-loompahs can sale off two by two when the world finally ends.

Sounds like a two for one.

China to blow away smog with DRONES

State deodorant

Beijing is already employing giant deodorant cannons to deal with landfill odour. I suspect this is part of their national defence strategy. Nobody is going to want to go there.

PayPal mudslingfest TELEVISED: Icahn and Donahoe go on telly

Re: And..

Even when there are alternatives to the big names, it doesn't mean someone won't come along and screw them up . . .

And I sincerely hope someone does.

Windows 8.1 Update 1 spewed online a MONTH early – by Microsoft

Someone left the barn door unlocked

And some people started horsing around.

Happy 75th birthday, Adam Osborne

first true portable

There's lots of love for Osbornes in the vintage community. The 5" diagonal, 52 character wide screen looks particularly cool.

Blimey! ANOTHER Bitcoin bleed brouhaha

Need more eyes

I think it's about time we get an open source bitcoin exchange solution.

Your 'funny' cat pics are weighing down the web, so here's a better JPEG encoder from Mozilla

Re: Ahh, the luxury of the few.

People in cities do tend to be smug about their 5 mbps (and up) connections. Rural wireless here in Canada tends to be 1.5 mbps and I understand that large areas of the USA are the same. There are a few percent on this continent who are still on dialup, but that is often by choice, so they don't have great expectations. The world is much bigger than UK and NA though.

I'd have to agree that jpegs are not much of a problem. A few years ago when I was doing dialup, me and the missus were both able to surf at the same time. Of course we now pull down lots more, but the rural 1.5 mbps "highspeed" will still allow audio streaming, Youtube, and surfing all at the same time. People in cities do tend to be smug about their 5 mbps (and up) connections though, and high definition video streaming is not going to happen in much of NA any time soon.

Hundreds of folks ready to sue Bitcoin exchange MtGox

Re: Surely if Bitcoins are

Surely if Bitcoins are ... An alphanumeric data sequence, then it's an IP theft issue? or am i missing something?

Like Mark says, IP theft should probably be copyright infringement. However, there is indeed something missing here, because fiddling the "alphanumeric data sequence" of somebody else's Visa account doesn't really fit into the "three strikes" meme - although a few people might consider a first offence warning letter to be preferable to jail time.

BT's IPv6 EXPIRED security certificate left to rot on its website

Re: " ... failed to spot ..."

Send them a pad of sticky notes. (proven technology)

Windows XP market share GROWS AGAIN, outstrips Win 8.1 surge

Re: As we are talking about anecdots...

". . . but you know how these old people are. They don't want to listen - reminds me of some software company."

Do I know how old people are? As a matter of fact I do. I'm an old fart and I don't intend to listen you young fellows any time soon. I'm going to stick to my FreeBSD. Now get off my lawn.

Crack Euro banker team to probe whether virtual currencies should be regulated

Re: Let's ask bankers

Indeed, they start off with invalid assumptions and FUD, so we know it's going to be a kangaroo court.

US gov claims it spent TOO MUCH on wiretaps – and blames SPRINT

A jury trial huh?

That is indeed interesting. I believe that a jury trial is normally requested if you don't feel that a judge will rule in your favour based on facts of law. With a bench trial, the judge is often assumed to favour the government - yet they want to take their chances with a jury?

Chinese government builds its own 'ChinaSo' search engine

Chinese search engine

Should have been called Noodle

Flying fondleslab causes injury after plane hits turbulence

where do you see any attack on Apple?

I guess you need to read between the lines. Perhaps even between those.

Re: Typical reg

What is this, some kind of social experiment pitting Yet Another Anonymous coward against Yet Another Anonymous coward to see what the response is? Unless this is the same YAAc, may I suggest that YAAcs don't respond to each other so as to avoid confusion.

Crap hospital databases next goldmine for cyber-crooks, say Microsoft's botnet slayers

$60 per person?

I'll gladly sell them mine. (a buck's a buck)