Posts by Captain Hogwash

Digital ID brain trust will meet behind closed doors as minister ducks cost questions

Re: Reform could simply say...

They could and probably will. But you've heard the story of the scorpion and the frog.

UK digital ID gets brain trust to 'challenge' ministers on policy

"to ensure the system works for everyone"

...in the cabal who are pushing for this.

'Resistance is futile,' says Qualcomm CEO. AI agents will be become invisible, inescapable, follow you across devices

Re: The Waymos actually ignored the lights more

That's the problem with the way everything has been gamified. They get a ticket and think they won a prize.

Tony Blair and the Reform party both want AI in government, though they can't agree on what for

Re: taking backhanders from dodgy plutocrats and oligarchs

Each of his recent pronouncements on digital ID and AI suggest it's quite likely that he is doing exactly that.

California may let Linux bypass age check

Re: One response: Strike.

16 year olds have driving licences now? What a time to be alive.

Re: Zuck and Meta

They're pushing it so that they don't have to implement the age check stuff while, at the same time, being able to grab the ages of all of their users for profile accuracy and better ad targetting. If the device reports an age later found to be incorrect then they have plausible deniability if any court case comes their way. They are evil.

EU's digital sovereignty boo-boo may be the best thing to ever happen to the project

“You have zero privacy… get over it.”

But if they're interested in you, make them work for it.

This browser add-in doesn't just hide ads, it tells you to OBEY

Re ...having just bought something...

So you want more tracking, IRL?

Veteran network architect proposes IPv8 – to improve IPv4, not leapfrog v6

I have looked at the proposal and, as I expected, it's way over my head. The thing that caught my attention though was that it won't break CGNAT. I am concerned that, if adopted, it would discourage any move away from the evil that is CGNAT.

UK gov pays public £550 to discuss Digital ID – then bans journalists from the room

"You don't need to know anything about this topic to take part,"

In fact, we'd really prefer it if you don't.

You too can build a nuclear battery from junk you have lying around the house

Tin Foil?

I'm in!

Britain gives Rolls-Royce the nod to sketch out its mini reactor future

Re: No info on the technology?

My point was to treat any technology reports from nonspecialist news outlets with scepticism.

Re: No info on the technology?

That is how it was sold to us by the main news outlets.

Fewer than 3 in 10 register for HMRC's Making Tax Digital shake-up

Re: Rude

There are free ones. They all seem to be web based though so HMRC are probably not the only ones looking at your submissions.

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

Individuals too.

Re: MTD = Making tax difficult

I came to say the same. How is moving from one to four submissions per annum freeing up anybody's time?

'People's Panel' to check if UK wants controversial Digital ID will cost £630K

Re: with the output "weighed alongside the broader consultation feedback"

If it's coming anyway then the later it is, the more successful I will consider it.

US foreign router ban criticized for being ‘industrial policy disguised as cybersecurity’

Backdoors

are also easier to put in routers if you mandate that they must be made in your own country. Just saying.

UK wants to know if banning under-16s from social media does anything useful

Re: Banning stuff

Algorithms are developed by people. People make choices as to what algorithms do. If they can't make better choices then perhaps they shouldn't be permitted to make any.

Re: Banning is all well and good...

Did you forget the joke icon?

Re: Banning stuff

I see your point. But as I said earlier "If people just saw what they chose to follow" shouldn't be too hard to legislate.

Declaration of interests: I am not an account holder on any of these things.

Re: Banning stuff

Or at least ban the algorithmic feeds. If people just saw what they chose to follow, as in the early days, then the harm would be reduced significantly.

Calling out corporate BS? There's a steaming pile to aim for

Re: Quornell

This is why I read the comments.

Nanny state discovers Linux, demands it check kids' IDs before booting

Re: on-device age verification in that there was in the 2000s on computers

I've been using computers since 1979 and never saw that.

Re: Down the rabbit hole

Programming will be done by government approved AI and generated code will be automatically submitted to another government approved AI for review prior to release to the prompter.

Motorola partners with GrapheneOS for future phones

Moto of the future and Moto of the past.

Hide from Meta's spyglasses with this new Android app

Things like this have existed for some time

Have a look on F-Droid.

Hardly anybody bought Samsung's last smartphones for AI. It hopes this year's models change that

Re: So if the privacy display

As long as data continues to be extracted from the phone via the network this is just pure theatre anyway.

Re: Uber thankfully have no licence to operate in my area...

Nor in mine but the young people I know will summon them anyway and they'll quite happily come from 30 miles away to service the request.

Break free of Ring's servers, earn a five-figure bounty

Re: I assume that Ring has been asked ...

My Tapo cameras are blocked from the internet at the firewall. My Frigate installation grabs the rtsp streams and records them, alerts me to intrusions by people, cats, dogs, birds etc. They needed net access for setup but after that just block them. I did use Raspberry Pi cameras initially but they didn't prove robust enough to handle being outside in all weathers.

Scientists show it's possible to solve problems in your dreams by playing the right sounds

Re: hijacking of an internet-connected device

They don't need to hijack anything. These devices are owned by those who would do this. You just have a licence to use them. It might have already been happening for some time.

Matrix is quietly becoming the chat layer for governments chasing digital sovereignty

I keep reading that...

people are shutting down Matrix servers all over the place because they are being polluted by CSAM. Apparently it's something to do with the way rooms work by sharing content across servers. Anyone have an up to date take on this problem?

Openreach turns up the heat to force laggards off legacy copper lines

Re: Your "Ham Radio" is powered by what?

Diesel?

Euro firms must ditch Uncle Sam's clouds and go EU-native

Re: Russia as heir to the Soviet Union, went home without firing a shot

They were broke. They couldn't afford to stay. Now that they've had a couple of decades of oil and gas revenue...

Cops get more facial recognition vans as UK bets big on AI policing

Re: Brave New World

This kind of thing was a feature of both novels. I've said it before but I'll say it again, we are living in both visions simultaneously.

If you tow the line and do what you're told then you'll only ever see Brave New world. Step out of line and you'll see 1984.

ICE knocks on ad tech’s data door to see what it knows about you

Re: unalive

“It’s a beautiful thing, the Destruction of words. Of course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well. It isn’t only the synonyms; there are also the antonyms. After all, what justification is there for a word, which is simply the opposite of some other word? A word contains its opposite in itself. Take ‘good,’ for instance. If you have a word like ‘good,’ what need is there for a word like ‘bad’? ‘Ungood’ will do just as well – better, because it’s an exact opposite, which the other is not. Or again, if you want a stronger version of ‘good,’ what sense is there in having a whole string of vague useless words like ‘excellent’ and ‘splendid’ and all the rest of them? ‘Plusgood’ covers the meaning or ‘doubleplusgood’ if you want something stronger still. Of course we use those forms already, but in the final version of Newspeak there’ll be nothing else. In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words – in reality, only one word. Don’t you see the beauty of that, Winston? It was B.B.’s idea originally, of course,”- Orwell

AOSP on a diet plan as Google halves Android code drops

Re: Sovereignty

China would probably prefer that Harmony OS was more widely distributed.

HSBC app takes a dim view of sideloaded Bitwarden installations

Re: "Potential" Risks

Expect that to soon be seen as a problem, the solution to which is Just In Time bog roll drone delivery for a very reasonable monthly subscription.

Once enough people sign up expect it to be near impossible to buy it in a shop.

BBC tapped to stop Britain being baffled by AI

Re: Except

Culture exists in high, low and intermediate forms. Ballroom dancing sits somewhere on that continuum. If humans invented, rather than discovered, it then it's culture.

Re: Except

They didn't detect your VPN and tell you to sling your hook?

Memory is running out, and so are excuses for software bloat

This argument has been going on for at least the thirty years I've been in the industry. I have to agree with those earlier posters that those who call the shots seem to care about time to market more than anything else. So nothing will change.

Cornish recycling drive sows confusion among Reg Standards Bureau

Re: flogging overpriced own-brand groceries

Better that than peasants as in days of yore.

From pr0n to playlists and paperclips, trio of breaches spills data of millions

Re: Boomers think just having to create an account to access a web site is out of hand

So does GenX!

Roomba maker iRobot gets cleaned out in Chapter 11

They have had for more than a decade.

Denmark takes a Viking swing at VPN-enabled piracy

What happened to you Denmark?

You used to be cool.

Australia bans teens from social media, but nobody thinks it'll really work

Re: Great Firewall of Australia

Great Carrier Reef?

Outdated Samsung handset linked to fatal emergency call failure in Australia

Re: Update

Indeed. Android used to have SIP calling built in.

UK agri dept spent hundreds of millions upgrading to Windows 10 – just in time for end of support

Ahem ->

ISPs more likely to throttle netizens who connect through carrier-grade NAT: Cloudflare

Re: IPv6 solution...

Damn Stonecutters!

VodafoneThree to offshore UK network jobs to India

Re: What to do??

MVNO