Posts by Stephane Mabille

NHS tests COVID-19 contact-tracing app that may actually work properly – EU neighbors lent a helping hand

Cummings and friends

Hi,

How much of the requirements, designs, data collected, data usage and/or privacy policy has still be within reach of Cummings, Harding and their friends?

I'm sorry but unless we bought the app off the shelf (no change to design, requirements, data storage, usage and policy) from the neighbours and didn't get a copy of the source code to modify, there is no way I'm going to trust this thing.

The greatest achievement of this government is the gigantic push towards the public of "zero trust" initiative, never any government manage to get that through so successfully (/sarcasm)

Facebook suggests sharing everything all the time

News international

No surprise that News Corp signed up, lobbying telecom network to do the same with voice mail?

(obviously not with their internal email....)

Sharp shows off 8K4K hi-res prototype telly

Humm

Hi,

While I'm sure my girlfriend will be happy to get 8k4k picture, i'm not sure she'll be that happy with 24 speakers all around the living room. I think 7.1 is the best I could do, still have room for 2 on top around the screen, 2 hanging behind but anything above 11.2 and I'll have to live on my own.

At least, no more fight for the sweet spot and/or the remote.

Sky makes iPad trolley for square-eyed shoppers

Soooooo last year

Who is using supermarkets anyway??? iPad ordering while watching Sky in the sofa! (or put the iPad on the table and watch quality TV!)

Facebook facial recognition tech 'violates' German privacy law

Satellite??

Hi,

They might be able to do that with helicopters/drones and other relatively low altitude image sources that are able to take image with an angle.

Contrary to what TV shows/movies want us to believe, it's not possible to "Zoom in" from a satellite picture to read a number plate, as satellite picture are taken at (nearly) perpendicular angle from the earth. So even with the best possible resolution imaginable they would be able to count the number of hairs on you head, but for the moment "cranial recognition" is limited to bald or not!

Ubisoft insists DRM 'a success'

No internet = no games, laptop on the move = no games, DRM = Not my £££

So UBI is pushing so much hassle on legitimate customer that they are pushing them either to competitor or to a cracked version of their product.

For me it's easy I don't like to be punished and/or bullied, especially when I'm a paying customer, so I would never accept any DRM going further than "Microsoft activation" like process. Providing a one-off serial key for activation is an acceptable solution.

And of course, while I'm not a big (PC) games consumer any more I'll make a point that no UBI (or related companies) labelled product got into my console and/or iPhone.

Well done Guillemots brothers, you just lost yourself a customer.

'Unconvincing' Met top cop Yates: My phone was hacked

Well done

We must congratulate News International for productivity:

I have sometimes issues keeping track of my personal and professional voicemails, that's 2 accounts....

Imagine the poor investigators juggling with 4,000, and according to Rebekah Brooks they were only 2 of them.

I would love to know how many "targets" each analyst at GCHQ is handling! If her resignation is ever accepted we know where she should apply....

Doh!

So to summarise the inquiry so far:

- Rebekah Brooks is in charge of investigating internally at News Corp/News Int if she was aware of any wrong doing and if she received/read her email?

- The Met is in charge of checking if they were corrupted and/or blackmailed to pursue/close the enquiry?

Isn't their a law to protect you against "self incrimination"?

If only Al Capone was tasked of investigating his own finance.....

German chemical giant depending on biscuit-based security

Doh!

What about leaving the mobile (on or off) out of the room? A locked drawer in a pedestal (which by the way doesn't work well as Faraday cage, at least not mine!).

Pope says gravity proves technology can't supplant God

Or we are an ant farm

or God is sadistic and is drawing us / shaking us like an ASBOed pre-teen trembling on an ant farm and pouring what's left of his soda on it to see the ants running around in pain....

Natural disasters

Hi,

So the Pope use natural disasters as a proof that human is not that powerful...

Let me use the same natural disasters argument to prove wrong the base of Christianity:

"God is good and almighty".

With a bit of logic at least one of the three propositions don't hold:

- God is

- God is good

- God is almighty

Back to worshipping Cthulhu (at least he's not good) and/or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

iOS 5 falls back to autumn, say moles

Early November

iOS 5.0 will be pushed back to early November, after the 1st Sunday to be exact.

Apple found a bug in the beta that prevents alarm and clock to work with daylight saving time.

As 7 months is a bit short to solve the problem (Apple escalation team has already been working on the issue for 2 years now without great result (except changing the direction of the clock change)), they decide for the root cause of the issue to disappear (at last until early April, well after the holidays season $$$).

London's Olympic clock claps out

Apple?

Might they have poached the "engineer" responsible for the Apple iPhone Clock application?

Will probably restart tomorrow but counting up...

Traffic-light plague sweeps UK: Safety culture strangles Blighty

Disabled fault?

"Mayor Ken's parallel policy drive to cut down the time it takes to cross the road in London, and in particular to make the streets safer for the disabled"

So RAC solution: drive over any wheelchair, you'll be at the office 10 seconds earlier????

Midnight theft left Vodafone users bereft

Single point of failure?

Hi,

14:45 still unstable around Reading.

This poses serious question about disaster recovery plan at Vodaphone... If the Basingstoke datacenter was destoyed by fire it seems it would bring south (eastish) UK network down.. for how long?

I suspect other key premises are in the same situation.

Any SLA / compensation planned?

MobileMe packages disappear from Apple's shelves

Apple / Free ????

Euh... those two in the same sentence? That's from the company that charge for a 802.11n firmware update!

So probably moving from $149 subscription to $0.99 per transaction application charge

Fire safety gaffe knocks out Webfusion data centre

No DR site?

Don't they have a DR site? What would happen if there was a real fire (and the related flooding)?

Wireless HD video sticks demoed

Want one

Finally the solution I have been looking for nearly a year.

Want Sky HD in the bedroom, can't cable either sat antenna or HDMI from main room...

In view of the few reaction it seems I'm not the only one interested and there might be a market for it after all!

Labour moots using speed cameras to reward law-abiding drivers

Car registration?

Hi,

I'm I wrong when I remember that average speed cameras not used for speed enforcement (as road work speed restriction area) but for traffic monitoring were not supposed to record full number plates but only the last 4 or 5 digits to be able to average speed but not identify cars? So they are also another source of ANPR?

Walmart falls in with Washington's war on terror

What's next?

Assange picture on McDonald's Coke cup? 1984/Brazil is coming....

Police-baiting website Fitwatch returns

It is destruction of evidence

The fact that you haven't been accused/arrested yet doesn't determine if you destroyed evidence.

If you kill someone, have your tshirt full of that person blood and you burn it, you destroyed the evidence...

On the other hand, while I usually support FitWatch action against the police building up files of peaceful political protesters (just in case...), I believe they should have stick to the usual arrest sheet reminding people of their rights, that they don't have to answer any question and should contact a lawyer.... telling them to shave their head and grow a beard sounds a bit childish :-(

iPhone glitch gets US fanbois up on wrong side of bed

Fixed mine....

Hi,

Fixed mine... by accident:

My 1000% super stable that never freeze device (iPhone 3GS), crashed forcing me to keep home and lock button to reset, kept those pressed another 10 sec after reboot and got the "Plug to iTunes graph", at that point did a normal reboot (home+lock) as I didn't had access to iTunes.

Since then everything works again....

As usual... take a backup first! I'm not responsible for anything iPhone great coding might loose.

Apple coughs to time zone problems

Clean code

That just prove how "clean" Apple code is....

It probably look like this:

If alarm.repeat = yes then

if repeat <> daily then

if date < US time change then

alarm.hour++

endif

endif

endif

Seriously, sounds like very complicated code for just repeating alarm, something than Nokia (and anybody else) can do since..... their first phone!

I can't imagine how messy the rest of the code probably is!

Facebook investor aims for $5.7bn float

Bad investment

$200 millions for 1.96%, that's just above $10 billions valuation... looks like they are going to loose half of their money and that's if they find people stupid enough (in my opinion) to buy a company that makes no/little money, selling advertisement with a freetard user base...

BT bids bumpkins to beg for better broadband

Doesn't work for villages

Hi,

So you need a "village" of more than 1000 premises.... shame that most crappy BT exchanges that are REALLY in need of an update serve less than 1000 premises (mine 727 residencial + 29 non-residential), which put mine out of reach for an upgrade.

Video vigilante site emerges from legal battles

Business Model

So, if I'm right (and I think I am): I (actually not I, someone, euh no one) would pay 50p to watch (work) for them for 60 hours.

Are the SMS alert sent to a premium number (to avoid false alert of course...)?

Sounds like the company has a great future... When is their IPO? I already missed Phorm I don't want to pass another great opportunity!

Flaming work laptop toasts cottage

Not vendor battery?

Maybe if the employer provided third party battery, I'm sure any laptop manufacturer clearly state in the manual "Only use our $$$ batteries". This might give some ground for court action. If your employer provide you with unsafe equipments (as against the manufacturer recommendations).

End of the day it's the laptop that burned down the cottage, laptop provided by her employer. If Ofsted then wants to turn against the manufacturer their choice....

Possibly the world's most pointless review

"I"PCC review maybe

Why not try to review UK police accountability? That will be pointless and quick....

UK.gov scraps stop'n'search terror power

Tell them

In view of the strong belief by PCSO around the country that "all your photographs are belong to us" even with repeated message from ACPO/Met that it's not the case. I predict another 5-10 years before your local CCTV on foot have a basic grasp of the change

And anyway, carrying a backpack is probably enough to seriously suspect that you are a terrorist (as is having a pants as proved recently....).

STOP because Stop&Search.... The only thing they'll found on me is a bust card with all my rights (and theirs)....

Police complaints body gets a kicking for FOI law-breaking

As usual

Business as usual, Police ignoring the law with a strong belief they are above it...

Maybe the IPCC is not that proud of hushing everything, worst case scenario, giving a slap on the wrist... (Be warned: 5 times and you get a blame, 5 blames and you might not be eligible for bonus).

How many murders (Ian Tomlinson for example), assaults (any Climate camp), abuses of the law (blanket stop&search, section 44) have just been pushed under the carpet or even worst returned against the victims (yeah, you were looking for trouble, taking picture of your 6yo niece on Oxford street... not sure to charge you with paedophilia or terrorism) ?

A great to restore faith in Policing by Consent... download your fact sheets, know your rights, limit your interactions with the police to the strict minimum imposed by the law (which isn't much); tell them why: "It's nothing personal but I won't be more cooperative while I don't have trust in the force. It might only be some rotten apples but when you do everything to hide them at the bottom of the basket after a while the whole basket stink". (Show/prove them that you know your rights first... just in case).

STOP: Because of Stop & Search and because it has to stop!

Boobquake fails to destroy planet

Iran 1 - Boobs 0

Earthquake, 6.5 on Richter scale, at 02:59 GMT this morning in Taiwan.... looks like the Boobs really upset Iranian leader Imaginary Friend.....

Paris: only 0,1 on Richter...

Hull Daily Mail exposes depraved local porncoder

Classified

Quite funny coming from a "newspaper"/"website" with a escort section in is classified ads pages (would have passed the link but the link is extremely long, and I don't really want to generate them any traffic)

Sony ships Freeview HD Bravia TVs

No 3D

Hi,

The NX703 is NOT 3D ready, only the HX903 are 3D Ready and the LX903 are Full 3D.

Solicitor General takes fresh pop at PunterNet

French law

Hi Michael,

This law exist in France ("proxenetisme hotelier") where people renting hotel rooms and/or apartments to prostitute are committing crime and can end up in court. The same is true for anybody "benefiting" from prostitute earning.

While to law was designed to target people profiteering (like charging extortionate rent and pimping), it can also be used against any body renting out (at normal price) to a prostitute and living off immoral earning can apply to the non-sex worker half of a couple if they split bills (or share incomes) like any other couples... Making normal/social life of prostitutes even harder (no apartment, no boy/girl friend/partner).

Prostitution / Procuring

If you want to tackle sex trafficking and exploitation you should target procuring/pimping not prostitution....

Pushing prostitution underground and behind close doors will only allow criminal activities to develop even more.

Thinking that you can eradicate the sex trade is a total illusion, it's not called the world oldest profession for nothing.

Having a clean, visible, safer regulated industry (for workers/client) is the only way to tackle the problem, along with increased sentencing for pimps/traffickers (as long as it's far safer and profitable to traffic women than drugs the choice is obvious...)

Does Harriet really think that closing every clothes factory would solve the sweat shops problem????

But is there any point trying to explain that to a DailyMail obsessed government that still believe that drug prohibition is working particularly well.....

Manchester ID staff suffer isolation as new dawn fades

Viagra / 419ers

Sounds indeed closer to a 419er or Viagra spam response rate... So will Jackie Smith relocate to Nigeria soon? Can't wait...

PM: UK airports to get perv scanners next week

Ion detector

Hi,

Aren't Ion detectors far more efficient and without intrusion/imaging issue.... just detecting any ridiculous trace of explosive and/or narcotic.

I suspect they are far far more expensive, especially taking into account the quantity required as they can hardly process more than 2 or 3 passenger/minute.... That would make a huge array to deploy at Heathrow...

Now let's be realistic, isn't the first goal of terrorism to make people live in fear and the associated reduction in freedom? Sounds to me like they managed it quite well (to the pleasure of some political and industrial).

How many dead by terrorism in western nation each year? How many killed by alcohol? Might be worth spending that money on education and development, here and abroad, tackling the root causes.

2016 bug hits Windows phones

4 bits

Hi,

0-15 value is for 4-bit integer, not 16-bit, 16-bit =2^16=65536, which with your theory would be valid until year 67523... I'm sure we all be using God phone or Android by then!

Hex/Dec

Sounds to me like someone see 0d10 as 0x10 and convert it to 0d16.... then put a 0d20 front...

Legal highs now illegal

Pointless

Just another proof that prohibition is not the way forward...

Banning natural and/or well known products just force people to experiment with far more toxic chemicals.

Pushing issues underground might make them disappearing form the Daily Mail front page but don't solve the problem.

Obviously this government (and I bet the next one either) is not ready to take a sensible approach to the drug problem and prefer to let people resort to crime to feed an habit on diluted crap product.

Cost efficient, quality controlled products provided along information and social support is the only way to tackle the problem.

Drug should be a health issue not a criminal matter...

'Friends with Benefits' sex does no psych harm - profs

doh

So exactly how long did it take for those boffin to realise that a fulfilling confident sexual life is not more traumatising than years of brainwashing, bible bashing, frustrations,... well done!

Paris 'cause she got loads of (best) friends and benefits....

Tivo to return to UK in 2010

Bring it back...

Hi,

If only TiVo could come back in a dual HD tuner for Sky..... MY serie 1 TiVo was sooooo much better and stable that my Sky HD box.

Not in a Virgin area (and not kind on Virgin anyway) I'll probably be stuck with my Sky HD for the time being, can't really see Sky opening the market to any other vendor, even TiVo...

Apple voids warranties over cigarette smoke, users say

Tech support

Just called God's Angels for a question regarding the regular crash of my Jesus Phone.

Unfortunately I was having a drink while on the phone... The technician being an highly logical mind asked me what I was drinking... rum... so his logical steps were rum -> Cuba, Cuba -> cigars, or at least that's what I believe. Anyway he asked me to confirm that it was the sound of a lighter he heard earlier (probably during half the pack of cigarette I smoked while on hold -- oops no sorry that was with British Gas). Once he got his confirmation he whispered "sorry, can't talk to you anymore..." and shouted "God hate you, you smokers are all going to Hell" before hanging up.

O2 could impose out-of-contract iPhone lock-in

Moving abroad?

Hi,

Wasn't aware of Ofcom removing the mandatory unlock clause.

O2 being the exclusive vendor of iPhone.... in UK. What about moving abroad with MY iPhone (I'll have more than reimbursed my sponsorship) after the end of my contract?

What with Pay-as-you-go iPhones, aren't they supposed to be unlocked as they aren't sponsored at all.....

Tattooed Swedish devil girls sexually molest cyclist

Israeli chewing gum

Sounds like someone in Gaza strip is already exporting the latest Isrealian weapon to Sweden...

Builder blacklist boss hit with £5,000 fine

Laughable

So the maximum penalty you might get is about 1% of the money you made... sounds like any drug dealer would have to pay 30p per gram of cocaine he sold....

Sounds like the perfect deterrent to me.

Gaza youth 'corrupted' by aphrodisiac chewing gum

OMFG

A Palestinian man reported his daughter had suffered "dubious side effects" from the sinister chewable...

Last time someone got cough being pregnant by her husband (who obviously wasn't involved) she blame it on "God" and see how we are 2000 years later.

Same place, different excuse, probably same effect... but at least we'll have chewing gum at church (except in Singapore).

Police headcams burst into flames

Excuses?

Sounds like the convenient first step for the "sorry we don't have any picture", after the Tube CCTV were not working, we lost the tape, there is no CCTV in the City and we were not there....

And we should seriously trust those guys to protect us... They lost my confidence a long time ago!

Yes it's probably a few rotten apples but if you hide them at the bottom of the basket after a while the whole thing just stinks!

Office admin sacked for Blears abuse

Anonymous

Hi,

So basically, any anonymous post (or probably any that forget to mention how GREAT OUR LEADERS are and/or PRAISE OUR LEADERS) is traced??? What's the anonymous part of this then?

What's next? Send the Territorial Support Group to your home to beat you up (hey a nice way to save on travel, no need to go to protest any more). (I can see some UK style swatting coming...)

Tories research increased net censorship

NETCU

Hi,

We can "trust" the National Extremism Tactical Coordination Unit to provide a list going far beyond the Islamist "Make you own bomb" web sites.

But of course as they are a "private company" (founded by the Home Office (so by us) and deploying police officers) they are exempt from Freedom of Information act, so just another layer of surveillance and soon censorship....

Might be time to send "V for Vendetta" DVDs to our (shadow) government....