Posts by John Smith

Secret European project to battle online jihad

AC@16:11

"Every time i hear of another uber-database i picture a room full of Logica CMG salesmen hi-fiving and raising their pints...."

Yes, I can't quite shake that feeling either.

@Master Baker

"I for one think that Jacqui should get to know Islam better"

Absolutely.

She would learn that however bad the food situation the pig is inviolate.

British film board rejects 'disturbing' sexual torture film

BBFC calls it a sex film

NuLabour calls it an internal training film.

AC@15:36

Hard Candy was the first one that sprang to my mind. Maybe I'm easily panicked but I *very* strongly doubt any man can view it without wishing for some of the training of a Sumo wrestler.

One thing people forget about Secretary is that it is consensual. And then we have "The Night Porter," Dirk Bogarde, Charlotte Rampling. Disturbing (disgusting to some) theme and a few incidents that *might* be described as extreme porn (but are not really sexual).

And of course the whole Saw & Hostel series.

All (AFAIK) were released in the UK. I find the behaviour of the BBFCC bizarre.

Linux chief calls for FAT-free Microsoft diet

@Ray Simard

"It's not technology; it's attitude. "

Quite so. And it's one that works for them *very* well. Unthinking developers will continue to use FAT & may pay (or get their boss to license) LFN support. MS has no incentive to make this easy. Any company that does not want to pay off MS or get grief from their lawyers has to work for it. With the benefits I have outlined. Its a tricky problem, but not an apparently exciting one. Hence the status quo persists. I believe it will persist until someone adept enough becomes fascinated by the challenge of subverting Windows in this area enough to make it happen. *only* a license free solution will work. Anything else would exchange MS license fees (global gigacorp) for Joe Coder (Head Office, Cornhole Indiana) license fees. Why bother?

In the real world that is what users mean by "Ubiquitous computing."

AC@10:35

"and the software that came with the device does the reading."

Works for me. But.

People using specialised products are likely to *expect* to need a special app to talk to it.

For products which store or generate generic files (MP3, JPG, MPG etc) they expect to handle file management through the OS, which at present is Windows. Case in point. My digital camera. Of course it came with a CD of picture management SW which I lost. Stick USB cable into PC and I got a drive of JPG's to view. It seems to generate file names automatically so LFN may be unnecessary

I'm an EU (in this case) I did RTFM. It worked because the mfg probably has licensed off MS.

Not owing MS is a good policy but difficult to implement. Working out what your product *should* do in situations like this is a product development issue. Working out *how* to do it is a SW Development issue. It would be interesting to find out how Archos (who IIRC are well into Linux) handle this.

Its trickier than it looks.

@Mike Gravgaard

"replace the FAT file system"

I think your missing the point. It's not how the data is stored on the device. Its how you make an *unmodified* windows PC read it, without needing to store your data in FAT format, or write LFN's in FAT format.

If you can pull off this joint feat you retain market share, remain fully GPL2 compliant and avoid paying Microsoft license fees up front and per unit. You can sell your hardware cheaper and still retain your profit margin.

You may find this a little more challenging than you think.

all those "Why is MS so bad" questions

It depends who you are.

For end users this is academic. You will only care if whatever gizmo you bought (or its memory storage thingy) cannot be read by you PC.

For developers.

It's no longer a question of *just* the source code for the software. If you want to store LFNs Microsoft style IE in parallel with a short version and split into chunks your company has to get a license from MS for the privilege. If someone wants to fork a copy of your source (you got it under GPL2) *they* have to negotiate with MS for the privilege as well (unless you included it in you MS agreement. Giving 2 groups of people. Those with rights, and those without. Can you say "Divide & rule"?

The real killer is exchangeable storage. Does anyone make flash devices with an internal chip that can fool a Windows PC into thinking its looking at FAT/LFN drive but store the data in a *totally* different way?

AC@21:49

It depends who you are.

If your an end user this is academic. You will only care if whatever gizmo you bought (or its memory storage thingy) cannot be read by you PC.

If your a developer.

It's no longer a question of *just* the source code for your software. If you want to store LFNs Microsoft style IE in parallel with a short version and split into chunks for more efficient storage your company has to get a license from MS for the privilege. If someone wants to fork a copy of your source (you got your original source under GPL2) *they* have to negotiate with MS for the privilege as well (unless you included it in you MS agreement. Giving 2 groups of customers. Those with rights, and those without. Can you say "Divide & rule"?

Avoiding the MS method of file and LFN storage (while honouring Windows file requests) can lower your companies per unit hardware price. Which means more profit or unbeatable pricing. Thinking about this sort of question before you start is a Development Manager level issue.

@Mark Quinsey, @Hugh_Pym , @Albert, @Cameron Colley

@Mark Quinsey

"why are Microsoft getting away with the blatantly anticompetitive practice"

"Cuz I can," to quote PInk.

@Hugh_Pym

" file system that appears to the OS as FAT but in fact isn't"

My point exactly

@Albert,

"If the OEMs install the driver - it will just be there"

But whose?

"something in USB that when a new device is recognised will allow it to go out onto the internet to find a suitable driver."

You might like to look up Universal Plug & Play, along with some of its security issues.

@Cameron Colley

FAT/LFN is part of the MS tax regime.

In Mexico the paying of bribes is known as "Mordida." This roughly translates as "The little bite."

HW mfgs will continue to pay Microsoft tax unless someone can work out a way to serve files to a FAT/LFN reading OS without *storing* it in that format and without needing to get the user to load a driver.

I note 2 things. 1) Given modern integration levels *anything* which can do storage can do a file system emulation. The ARM was implemented in <25k gates. 2) *none* of these cards/sticks/keys/rubber sausage(its the format of the future) has a real IDE/ATA/SATA connector hanging off it. All interfaces which the PC talks to them through are emulations of the original HDD interface anyway. Inside the mfg's box the only true way to know how data is laid down is to strip the shell and probe with an electron microscope.

Novel & Innovative. No. Common. Yes

Which appears to be the problem.

Making your gizmo look like a disk drive to Windows is the simple approach to UI problems. Camera, MP3 players, etc.

The high level design question is "How good an illusion (of being a disk) do you want to create?"

Good enough that people can use Explorer to find stuff or good enough that GRC SpinRite thinks it really is a Windows hard drive with the correct sector formats to support LFN?

At the core its a question of mapping Windows idea of what platter/ring/sector it puts out to get data to wherever the real data is. The fact your PC thinks its talking to a dumb hard drive, but is actually talking to a processor simulating one is irrelevant. One you break that link how you *really* store the data on your device is none of Microsoft's business. As others have commented there are multiple other (non patented) ways to do this. You don't have to invent a format of your own. Proven formats with most (if not all) the bugs wrung out.

Thinking about questions like this (and how they can bite you in the ass) before you start distinguish architects and developers from coders. Feeding a hungry troll is never a good idea.

IPS misses its ID cards for foreigners target

So roughly speaking

They issued 50% of the number th planned to issue in the time scale they allowed themselves with the resources they had. And the whole amount is 0.06% of the whole UK population.

But wait. This is the semi-dry run. Things will be better in the main event they say.

I've a better idea. Let us ditch the main event.

"potentially use it"

So 5 years in they *think* it might be useful to put C&P on the card?

Conspiracy theory. This was planned all along as an additional "incentive" to carry the card.

Cockup theory. Senior civil servants really are clueless on IT and as they have hit resistance at every stage (Remember they were *supposed* to be rolling out to the *whole* country by now. that became every airport and now its 2, which BALPA & BAA still seem to be resisting) they are desperately scrabbling round to find something, anything which might add enough value to this

I hear the sound of a "re-scoping" exercise in progress.

Mine will be the one with a copy of the Prince 2 handbook in the pocket.

That's £650m up front

And I bet they are still not done yet.

Report: Legalising drugs would save UK plc huge packet

@4irw4y

Come on guys. Enough with the AMFM simulator trials.

But watch out for that lethal skunk

It'll kill you. It's *true*. Gordon Brown said so in a speech.

@Rob

I'll take a whack at this one as it was outlined on a Channel4 Cannabis evening some time ago.

My memory of things is a bit hazy but it dates to a world congress on drug use IIRC sometime after 1900 and before 1920. BTW at this time the Coke still had extract of Coca leaf in it (Coke really did add life) and Irvin Berlin's "I get a kick out of you" did not include Champagne.

Various drugs were on the table (metaphorically) but it was the Egyptians who were having trouble with (in their opinion) too many stoner Arabs (Egypt was still part of the British empire at the time). They described it as a drug that was highly addictive, caused madness and eventual death and needed banning world wide, now.

Heroin less sure about but may have also happened then. Laundenum (Opium in alcohol) had been on sale in the UK throughout the 17th, 18th & 19th centuries at least. Very popular in the Fenns apparently as there's not much to do in Norfolk apart from sleep with your relatives.

No idea about cocaine.

Amphetamines were on sale over the counter in the US from 1945 onward (looking at some old Reader's Digest can be hilarious for this) but things did tighten up in the 1960s. The death of a British Cyclist in the Tour De France after having downed 6-8 pills seems to have pushed the UK to make it Class A. I'm not sure MDMA (the active ingredient of E) had even been synthesised at that time.

BTW ever noticed that legal drugs tend to need quite carefully cultivated plants for raw material but illegal ones seem to be more weed and creeper like?

@Tim Hughes

"To get the kind of money you were getting from importing drugs, you have to start knocking over banks, or operating large frauds, neither of which is particularly easy."

You forgot becoming a rapper.

Mine's the one with copies of "Get rich or die trying" & "Notorious" in the pockets.

£13.9 crime ->£3.7bn drugs purchased

Drugs are not necessarily bad. The huge number of annoying, possibly violent crimes commited by desperate addicts are.

Something to think about when your DVD/Big screen TV/PC goes walkies out your back door. Or your car goes missing. Again.

Obama & Gates vs the US military-industrial complex

@Frank Gerlach

"ultrasilent U-Boots"

You have self-propelled Wellingtons?

The classic word of caution is

That the threat profile that this stuff was being developed for could re-appear.

Russia (not the whole Soviet Union) could continue to be more outward looking. China is a superpower (could you imagine a US land invasion of them?)

Perhaps the US has more to fear from the growth of competition in the arms, sorry defense, market. Not in a war of course but through lost business (ITAR does quite a good job of this but there's always room for handicapping US defense companies a bit more).

<cynicism>

On the C17 front you have to admire the Lockmart lobbying machine. Killing off a a much later, faster heavier lifting design.

</cynicism>

Sounds dull but good

OK Training more helicopter maintenance techs is a big yawn. Unless you happen to be waiting evac or rescue and its not coming because all the birds are in the shop.

It sounds like a budget that ground troops might vote for.

But there's a lot of hogs in those troughs.

Phorm moves beyond privacy - except when slating rivals

As Kent said

"if users really object to Phorm, the company and its technology will simply fade away"

I think you know what you have to do.

Subsidized netbook model could sweep away 20 years of PC history

Please accept your free PC with our cell service

Its complimentary, it ain't free.

MPs lambast Forces' new personnel database

AC@19:00

"Could have written it for 100K in two months. "

The correct question was, why write it in the first place.

BT blocks up to 40,000 child porn pages per day

A couple of Sysadmin questions

Does the IWF mandate the 404 message or is this up to the ISP?

I've never configured a web server so please forgive my ignorance. Is it that difficult to change the error message page served given certain conditions? I've had "Forbidden" on some page requests to some websites. This seems honest to me. Is checking *each* incoming URL request against the list and short circuiting to a "Forbidden" page *that*complex?

So on those numbers & market share

Assuming 10m UK (maybe a bit generous) broadband users that would be 1 access per 72 users per day. Say 1.5-1.75% of the population. This does not seem unreasonable.

But a list that no one can audit? And this 404 message? The IWF acts like its ashamed of what it's doing.

Thumbs up for giving some figures but it could just as easily be thumbs down for the secracy.

US Defense Dept shuffles self

Oklahoma

Like Arkasas. They farm a lot of pork there.

BT does Italian Job on London traffic lights

AC@18:18

"You really expect BT to put 2 lines to every sodding building in the UK?"

Er, you do know the standard BT consumer cable can support 3 separate lines as standard? And sometimes have to if one of the pairs get damaged.

Historically BT has multiple routes in its trunk network between exchanges. Partly to allow for growth (they did think telephone use would grow) and partly for resilience as at one time the telephone unions were apt to down tools regularly. Electromechanical re-routing. Who'd have thought it possible?

A tunnel 30m down sound like its a trunk line, as its a hell of a way to burrow to hook up some subscribers.

whatever happened to

The idea of a central database to track who and when one of the 200 companies who are allowed to dig holes were going to dig so they could all synchronise their work? Would this also have (indirectly) built up a profile of what and where pipes & tunnels are located over time?

Of course setting up all those black boxes for the IMP is probably hitting the BT budget quite hard.

V.Poor

UK transport minister's website pwned

@Mark York

Ah, but is Jobserve an official government site?

If it is that is pretty staggering. Jobs (and enquiries about same) from the biggest (or 2nd biggest) economy in the world (with arguably the best net access) hosted in a country which clearly isn't.

OTOH if its commercial that's just BAU.

Thanks for the thought. It's put a spring in my step.

labourisworking

With 2m+ unemployed?

And not even hosting in the UK?

Clearly asking for it.

UK.gov to get power to force ISPs to block child porn

@Paul

I will proceed on the assumption you have genuine concerns and are not a troll.

I *very* strongly doubt anyone here thinks this stuff is anything less than a permanent record of a serious crime. We don't like the idea *not* because the crime is not bad, but because the proposed "solution" is grossly misleading.

It does not stop the root cause (web sites hosting these images). It does not catch the makers. It does not catch the viewers. It does not catch the webmasters. It *does* give the government another weapon to control access to stuff-they-don't-like(TM). It gives the *illusion* of something being done while the real behaviour continues. Despite the image of ElReg's readership I also suspect several people here do children of their own.

Paedophiles as a group seem highly adept at diversion strategies. "I saw these pictures and started thinking about it," or "I'm sick. I need help. I can't help myself," along with the classic "I was abused as a child myself." My experience of the subject is limited but I've never heard one say "I like looking at young boys/girls. They make me horny." Disgusting, nasty, but honest.

You seem to buy the argument Paedophila is a communicable mental abberation. That suggests offending rates among members of Scotland Yards Child Pornography squad would be sky high. I don't know but I rather doubt it.

AC@14:55 put it simply.

"This measure is intended to achieve that objective, and since that objective is good, the measure itself is good and it's wrong to oppose it." Such arguments are a recognized hallmark of totalitarianism.

Mine's the one with a copy of the complete "The Thick of It" in the side pockets.

@Michelle Knight

“We know from our work with offenders that it can often start with an accidental exposure and curiosity,"

I find this statement quite extraordinary. Who is this person? It implies kiddie p0(n is a highly infectious mental condition.

Curious indeed that people who do watch this stuff on at least a semi-regular basis have described the experience as distressing, disturbing and vile, which they prefer not to do on their own. This claim implies that they actually embarrassed at their real reaction.

Would it not also imply that any prosecution under the Obscene Pubs Act was in the bag? 1)Check the jury has seen no kiddie p0(n 2) show them the suspect material. 3)Get them to confirm they are aroused. Maybe kiddie p0(n prosecutions under the OPA are not handled that way.

“no matter who is in Government, these twits in these departments will not change and will carry on regardless”

That I can believe. They sound like soul-mates to the characters who champion ID cards and the NIR.

How odd

I did not think it was time for the UK to hold the Presidency again so soon.

Is this from the same nation that had some MEP say that kiddie p0(n was 50% of all criminal internet activity?

And what is their nations translation of TOTC?

Epic fail.

EC publishes Q&A on overseas data transfer

Still not to worry

As long as they're worked too hard to not copy your details and no one has got screen capture software loaded they have no problem.

Oh wait..

DARPA: Give us solar cells you can use to build stuff

cut-to-size power storage & generation

Neat. If you can make it work of course.

"Project Pluto." That would be the nuclear ramjet?

Wagoner: EVillain or EVictor?

An American tradition

6mpg

Tories fear legal dodge over comms überdatabase

Jacqui ("5 Bellies") Smith

As unappetising as an eighty year old pole dancer

Please note

The EU Data Retention Directive is *not* the IMP

This confusion is quite deliberate government spin.

EU DRD. Requires Internet and other service providers to retain "Call records" for a period.

It does not mandate *any* central database but does state information stored is for "National security" purposes only. IE it would be *more* limited than the current RIPA regime of nearly any official jobsworth. A fact this government may overlook.

IMP. Effectively on demand phone tapping of any land or mobile phone number. It is actual access to what's being said, and presumably what's being sent. I doubt that would be allowed outside of the Police, Security and Intelligence services, Customs & Excise or the SOCA (I know C&E is now part of another dept, but I think you'll find they retain some specialist powers).

We *still* do not have a a split out of the cost of the hardware for IMP versus the cost of the database, which I stress is *not* needed for IMP and will not support it.

BTW I wonder if the phone companies will bill the govt for the back bandwidth they will want. If the whole network is IP then in principle every tapped call represents bandwidth suppliers could be using for either better net access or more calls. Possibly the only thing that what curb this surveillance happy goernment and its fellow travelling senior civil servants.

The EU Data Retenion Directive is *not* the IMP

This is quite deliberate government spin.

EU DRD. Requires Internet and other service providers to retain "Call records" for a period.

IMP. Effectively on demand phone tapping of any land or mobile phone number.

DRD does not *mandate* any central database but does state its for "National security" purposes only. IE it would be *more* limited than the current RIPA regime of nearly any official jobsworth. A fact this government may overlook.

IMP is actual access to what's being said, and pressumably what's being sent. I doubt that would be allowed outside of the Police, Security and Intelligence services, Customs & Excise or the SOCA (I know C&E is now part of another dept, but I think you'll find they retain some specialist powers).

We still do not have a a split out of the cost of the hardware for IMP versus the cost of the database, which I stress is *not* needed for IMP and will not support it.

Incidently I wonder if the phone companies will bill the govt for the back bandwidth they will want. If the whole network is IP then in principle every tapped call represents bandwidth suppliers could be using for either better net access or

@Night Troll

" how many statutory instruments this lot have passed"

You've missed the point. No statutory instruments have been passed.

Essentially they are included as part of a Bill which, on Royal Assent, becomes an Act.

However as clauses in a bill don't have to have much (if anything) to do with the alleged subject of the Bill (Justice & Coroners anyone) so the instrument might have very little to do with the Bill either.

The theory is all the bits which are likely to change over time, need to be rolled out at a later date or are uncertain are enabled through an instrument. The Bill acts as a wrapper for this.

However there seems no actual limit on what an instrument can enable a Minister to do, unless they are included in the Bill (and they don't get filleted before it becomes an Act).

Enable her Wackiness to spend Parliament and institute direct Cabinet rule IE an elected dictatorship. No problem.

This government does seem to have been very fond of this particular wheeze. How many Acts have clauses invoking SI's? How does that compare with previous govt's? Good questions.

@Night Troll

" how many statutory instruments this lot have passed"

You've missed the point. No statutory instruments have been passed.

Essentially they are included as part of a Bill which, on Royal Assent, becomes an Act.

However as clauses in a bill don't have to have much (if anything) to do with the alleged subject of the Bill (Justice & Coroners anyone) so the instrument might have very little to do with the Bill either.

The theory is all the bits which are likely to change over time, need to be rolled out at a later date or are uncertain are enabled through an instrument. The Bill acts as a wrapper for this.

However there seems no actual limit on what an instrument can enable a Minister to do, unless they are included in the Bill (and they don't get filleted before it becomes an Act).

Enable her Wackiness to spend Parliament and institute direct Cabinet rule IE an elected dictatorship. No problem, in principle.

This government does seem to have been very fond of this particular wheeze. How many Acts have clauses invoking SI's? How does that compare with previous govt's? Good questions.

This consultation

Seems to getting further away. The implementation of her Wackinesse's grand plan however does not.

ContactPoint rollout grinds to a halt, again

But its real "benefit"

Is a clean upload to the NIR, and possibly the PNC as well.

Clean data is so important when your starting a new database.

British steam car completes final testing

OK the goal is bonkers

OK the goal is bonkers

However they have lined up a pretty serious group of sponsors and the web site runs smoothly.

There appears to be some fairly serious engineering going on here. Dumping this much energy into that amount of water over that time scale is challenging. Not sure what the Nexfor MDF is for though.

Sex crime 'lie detector' pilot could prompt wider use

@MinionZero, @Gareth Lowe

@MinionZero,

"This isn't just about sex offenders. Its that dream of getting another crime fighting tool to use in all crime"

Now that sounds more like it. I wonder if they realise they have chosen the criminal group most able to fool this nonsense.

@Gareth Lowe

"Aldrich Ames the Soviet mole in the CIA passed two polygraph tests while spying for the other side"

Yes the fact that he fooled the CIA, an organisation which likes it and presumably hire top quality operators to run it, does suggest it can be fooled.

Of course the sort of people who can fool it are likely to have atypical personalities which don't react in the same was as *normal* people. Like being sexually aroused by children for example. Or who can practice a mild form of self hypnosis. "I believed every word I said at the time I was saying it," as one politician put it.

Miss Universe pops into Guantánamo Bay

We had something rather similar in the UK

We had something rather similar in the UK

It was called detention without trial. It was carried out in Northern Ireland roughly 1970-1976. Various assorted interrogation methods were used in the same period by both the army and the NI police or RUC. IIRC most of them have turned up down Cuba way.

The MoD lessons learned report on "Operation Banner" stated that it was one of the biggest (if not the biggest) mistake made during the troops 38 year deployment. It politicised "A generation of young men" and provided a ready recruiting ground for both Loyalist and Republican sides. If they weren't terrorists when they went in a hell of a lot of them wanted to be when they were released.

I was told a long time ago to beware of simple solutions to complex problems. Locking people up without a trial sounds like a simple solution, but only to the simple minded.

Cybersecurity law would give feds unprecedented net control

United States critical infrastructure information systems or networks

So that's basically everything the Prez, or his advisors, are a bit concerned about.

For those who voted for Obahma. Would you have trusted shrub with this sort of power?

The *intention* is not unreasonable. Too a point.

Dept of Work and Pensions isn't working, says report

It's simple

Computer says no.