Posts by Gordon861

RIP Dyn Dynamic DNS :'( Oracle to end Dyn-asty by axing freshly gobbled services, shoving customers into its cloud

Re: Time to find another solution

Just signed up to a NOIP free service for my CCTV a couple of months ago, so far so good.

UK police want to Airwave hello to some more mobile devices – survey

Re: "shifts where officers could choose when, and when not, to switch on the cameras"

The default position should be that the camera is turned on when interacting with the public, if it is to be turned off there should be a clear discussion/agreement with the member of the public that the camera is being turned off.

Also, storage should not be a problem, a 32/64GB memory card should cover a whole shift in HD quality. The bigger problem will be battery life, perhaps a charging station in the car would solve that problem when they are mobile?

We knew it was coming: Bureaucratic cockup triggers '6-month' delay of age verification block on porno in the UK

Time

Even if this wasn't going to be 'delayed', how the hell did they hope to have this up and running by mid-July?

Zavvi tells customers: You've won VIP tickets to Champions League final! And you've won tickets, and you've won tickets, and you, and...

So tomorrow we will have the person responsible relating the story in the 'On Call' or 'Bootnotes'?

Let 15 July forever be known as P-Day: When UK's smut fans started being asked for their age

So in that case we will have a return of the old username/password list sites offering 'working' details to various sites, half of which never worked.

Easter is approaching – and British pr0n watchers still don't know how long before age-gates come into force

Re: Tor-ing their hair out

The problem is as more people start using TOR the traffic the gov really want to monitor will get lost amongst the general porn traffic. It'll be a bigger crowd to hide in.

Artificial Intelligence: You know it isn't real, yeah?

[…takes a slug of Relentless…]

Does anyone still drink this stuff since they changed the recipe a while back ... it's now syrup.

xHamster reports spike in UK users getting their five-knuckle shuffle on before pr0n age checks

Government Pass

How long before the, currently non-existent, Government Porn Pass code is just shared amongst groups of friends or over the web?

London's Gatwick airport suspends all flights after 'multiple' reports of drones

Pictures?

Why has no one come up with any pictures yet?

We have an airport with loads of CCTV and lots of people looking for them but no one has decided to try and take a picture of it.

Time for a cracker joke: What's got one ball and buttons in the wrong place?

Re: I can beat that upside down mouse story.

Evesham Micros - wow that's a name from the past, I think I remember buying a 512k expansion for my Amiga from them.

NASA's Mars probe InSight really has Mars in sight: It beams back first pic after touchdown

Re: Wind

From what I've heard the very high winds shown in movies is just fantasy.

Shocker: UK smart meter rollout is crap, late and £500m over budget

Reduction in Customer Bills or Cost to Suppliers Collecting Data

If this is really supposed to reduce the money that the public are paying in their bills by encouraging people to turn things off, just buy every household something like the basic OWL meter and job done. You might need someone to install them in the houses of little old ladies but this could be done during a yearly visit.

But I suspect that the real reason this is being supported is that the suppliers will be able to get readings a lot cheaper and if they do need to disconnect you they can probably do it remotely.

Appx 27mil homes in UK, basic OWL meter £35 (probably cheaper if you need a few million of them)

So total cost £945,000,000 or less than 10% of the budget for the Smart Meters

UK.gov to press ahead with online smut checks (but expects £10m in legals in year 1)

Non stop Ben Dover etc

Samsung: Swanky hardware alone won't save a phone maker

Re: £549

Bought the Xiaomi M1 A1 from an EU supplier, great phone, and fully protected as it's EU import (at least protected for now).

Re: Samsung/Huawei

'four' not 'for'

Samsung/Huawei

Not tried a Huawei phone yet but bought one of their 10 inch android tablets for just over £200 and very impressed.

And the Samsung response to the competition is going to be seven different phones, oh great you'll spend ages just trying to work out which one is the one you actually want. I remember HTC when they announced the ONE phone to have less models and then released about 6 models on the ONE phone.

New Nvidia cards, MSI just announced for 2070 models and ASUS will have seven. That's just the 2070 what the hell will they do with the higher end cards.

All these companies are doing is fracturing the market further, customers don't want to have to spend ages pouring over datasheets to find the device is missing some feature you want, that you sort of assume they will all have.

Convenient switch hides an inconvenient truth

I had similar at an old job, boss was setting up projector system for the directors on an away day. Following 30 minutes of them trying to fix the system I get the call to bring the spare laptop and projector to the event.

30 second look at the setup with senior management crowded around, spotted that the VGA from the laptop was plugged into the VGA OUT of the projector, plugged into the correct port and TA-DA all working fine. Boss didn't look too happy.

Why are sat-nav walking directions always so hopeless?

Re: Determining South (in the Northern hemisphere) from a clock

24hr watch, used to have one, great for confusing people that ask what the time is in the street. You just flash them the watch and they look and walk off happy, they get about 50m and then stop and look very puzzled when they realise that the time they read doesn't make any sense.

Tesla's chief accounting officer drives off after just a month on the job

So he smoked a joint ... so what.

It's legal, would there have been all this shit if he'd been sitting there with a beer or spirits?

Tax the tech giants and ISPs until the bits squeak – Corbyn

Re: Wolfetone

I thought the general agreement here was that Wikipedia is only marginally more accurate than the Sun or Daily Mail?

US voting systems: Full of holes, loaded with pop music, and 'hacked' by an 11-year-old

Re: Old joke!

I've worked on nearly every election in my area for the last 20 years and every year we get some nut coming in claiming that the whole thing is a fix or that we can change the votes if we want. It got even worse during the Brexit vote when we had a visit from the police to warn us that some groups were planning to follow staff when they left the station to make sure we didn't stop somewhere.

Even if you could fix the vote in one polling station, which would involve a lot of work and chances to be caught, you would have to hit a lot of stations at once to make any real difference. On top of paying off the staff you'd also need a printer willing to spend some serious time inside if caught to print the papers, which would have to match the real ones accurately. All it would take is a candidate or agent to come in an apply their own seal to the box and you'd be screwed.

The UK elections are about as secure as you can make them, except for the postal votes.

Nah, it won't install: The return of the ad-blocker-blocker

Re: CARS!

When I last bought a new car I was very direct during the early paperwork signings.

1. If the car has any own brand stickers or badges on it the deal is off, you can put your name on the number plates, that's it.

2. If I find the number plate holes have been drilled pissed then the deal is off. There is very little as annoying as a new car with a number plate that is just slightly pissed, you can never not see it.

Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist

Re: "My keychain has 2 sizes each ..."

As the law is written, any non-locking blade under 3 inches does not need a 'good reason'. However the moment you say it's for defence you are now breaking the law no matter the size of the blade.

User spent 20 minutes trying to move mouse cursor, without success

Re: Dishwasher

Or you want one of the little bags you used to put washing tablets in and add them to your next washing machine load.

Woman sues NASA for ownership of vial of space dust

Re: Nice idealistic treaty.

Iron Sky ... damn I wish they'd hurry and release part two.

Re: So... uhm...

Not muddy at all.

They went there with an aim to collect materials as part of the mission. As with most companies, if you produce something whilst doing your job the stuff you produce/collect belongs to them.

Have to use SMB 1.0? Windows 10 April 2018 Update says NO

Network Shares

Is this why a bunch of my Network Shares have stopped working?

Oddly enough, when a Tesla accelerates at a barrier, someone dies: Autopilot report lands

Re: Not an "autopilot"

My only use of 'cruise control' in my car is for average speed camera areas, set the speed from the satnav gps and take my foot off the throttle. Otherwise it's too easy to drift up to breaking what is often a overly low limit.

Hmmm, we can already seize your stuff, so why can't we shoot down your drone, officials mull

Re: I would have done a full rant, but why waste the effort.

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/quanum-rtr-bomb-system-1-6-scale-plug-n-drop.html

Nokia 8: As pure as the driven Android - it's a classy return

Xiaomi Mi A1

I just replaced my old HTC M8 with a Xiaomi Mi A1 and very impressed, 4GB RAM, 64GB storage, all for around £200. It's on the Android One programme too so it get the latest updates.

The bigger the drone, the bigger the impact

Re: airships versus drones

I think the 'drone' is more likely to be a similar design to the Osprey with four rotors, probably carrying a standardised container cargo which could be swapped out easily for a new payload.

Mega VR roundup: Lots happening in the virtual and real worlds

Re: AR or VR? That is the question?

I agree these VR systems should be moving towards some form of AR. With an AR setup there is no reason I couldn't use a full HOTAS setup and be able to see what I'm doing with my hands whilst using the VR part to look out the windows etc.

You need a pair of cameras on the headset that allow you to see through the VR into the real world. This could also stop you falling over the dog or furniture when you move from your seat.

Brace yourselves, Virgin Media prices are going up AGAIN, people

I've been with Virgin for a while now, currently on 200mbs down which I get most of the time.

I did have a problem with slowdowns and lag after being connected for a while and have solved the problem by fitting a timer plug to the router. Now the router switches off every night at 4am for 5 minutes and it seems to have solved the slowdowns.

I'm also running in router mode too if that helps.

Virgin Media admits it 'fell short' in broadband speeds ahead of lashing from BBC's Watchdog

Re: Virgin Media customer here.

On Virgin200 here and get 200 speed most of the time. Using the Superhub in modem mode and an ASUS router, the only problem I find is that the Superhub needs rebooting once in a while as it seems to slow down so added a timer to power it off/on at 4am every day.

Huawei Honor 8 Pro: Makes iPhone 7 Plus look a bit crap

Re: Only the imminent OnePlus flagship is likely to give it any competition?

The only problem with the Oneplus5 is the leaked price is $650 (£500), and that's probably going to need tax added on top. I really hope this turns out to be wrong.

We are 'heroes,' says police chief whose force frisked a photographer

Re: Again?

Traffic Management Act 2004 (c. 18)

Part 6 — Civil enforcement of traffic contraventions

86 Prohibition of parking at dropped footways etc.

(1) In a special enforcement area a vehicle must not be parked on the carriageway adjacent to a footway, cycle track or verge where—

(a) the footway, cycle track or verge has been lowered to meet the level of the carriageway for the purpose of—

(i) assisting pedestrians crossing the carriageway,

(ii) assisting cyclists entering or leaving the carriageway, or

(iii) assisting vehicles entering or leaving the carriageway across the footway, cycle track or verge; or

(b) the carriageway has, for a purpose within paragraph (a)(i) to (iii), been raised to meet the level of the footway, cycle track or verge.

This is subject to the following exceptions.

(2) The first exception is where the vehicle is parked wholly within a designated

parking place or any other part of the carriageway where parking is specifically

authorised.

A “designated parking place” means a parking place designated by order under section 6, 9, 32(1)(b) or 45 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 (c. 27).

(3) The second exception is where the vehicle is parked outside residential premises by or with the consent (but not consent given for reward) of the occupier of the premises.

This exception does not apply in the case of a shared driveway.

(There are a bunch of other exceptions that all relate to emergency services or deliveries.)

Re: Again?

@ Adam52

Technically you are totally wrong. The law relating to blocking of a dropped kerb makes a point of stating that the homeowner may park there, or anyone with permission of the homeowner (but not for reward).

Of course, this is dependent on there being no other rules being broken like blocking the carriageway or yellow lines.

Scottish court issues damages to couple over distress caused by neighbour's use of CCTV

Re: Re Blocking in

Technically if you can show the DVLA that you have a justifiable reason for requesting an owner search from a reg number you should be able to get it. They may require you to start the County Court proceedings first against 'The owner of XXXX vehicle' but it should be possible.

Landmark EU ruling: Legality of UK's Investigatory Powers Act challenged

Re: Simple solution...

I thought MPs were just exempt from the act so their data wouldn't be stored.

Screensaver Browsing

What we need is a small program that visits random websites when your screensaver is running, similar to the old one that used to help with SETI.

If this database can be filled with so much crap data and junk it will be totally useless to anyone trying to access your data.

Give us encrypted camera storage, please – filmmakers, journos

Re: Encrypted USB Datastcks

Yes, but it stops the locals being able to access it which is what I thought the goal was.

Encrypted USB Datastcks

Would it not just be simpler to add a USB port or adaptor lead that would allow you to write the images onto a hardware encrypted USB stick? Tech that already exists.

Alternatively, if the encryption is actually done by the PCs CPU on the sticks, could a device not be produced that uses a lower power CPU like a Pi with a card reader/USB connector on one end, and a USB slot on the other end to slurp the data from the camera/card, encrypt it, and write it to a USB stick. Considering that these camera users already have access to power it should only need fairly limited battery life built in and be fairly portable. It would also mean that you don't need to replace all your existing cameras with new ones and the device would be able to encrypt any data rather than just pictures.

If you wanted to be even more secure you could have the decryption key stored on a third microSD and send that out via a different source or destroy it. A copy of this key could already be stored back at home so the data is impossible for the camera user to access once you have copied it and destroyed the key. Carry multiple preset key cards for each time you encrypt and the device could be designed to destroy the data on the key card once used once.

Why your gigabit broadband lags like hell – blame Intel's chipset

Re: VM to gig BB in the UK

Another problem with the SuperHub 3 is that port forwarding doesn't work, I had to downgrade back to a hub2.

Social media flame wars to be illegal, says top Crown prosecutor

On the plus side

It should shut up that damn Katie Hopkins woman for a while, but I doubt they'd try to prosecute here.

Generally though, bloody stupid idea!

Edit : Just looked at the CPS Guidance "Communications which are grossly offensive, indecent, obscene or false will usually fall to be considered either under section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 or under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003." - Doesn't that pretty much describe the whole Brexit Campaign, or anything produced by the Daily Mail.

There is no way this is going to work.

Google may just have silently snuffed the tablet computer

+1 for another person waiting on a new tablet that is running stock Android so that it'll be updated (hopefully better than the v5 update on the Nexus7 though.

EU U-turns on mobile roaming fees: No 90-day cap after all

Brexit

Well the way things are going, by the time this actually comes in we'll have left the EU and will instead continue to be screwed by the roaming charges.

FBI overpaid $999,900 to crack San Bernardino iPhone 5c password

Built in Obsolescence

"Skorobogatov says his set up could help Apple and others find hardware security problems and reliability issues, citing his discovery that some NAND chips from broken iPhone 5c main boards had specific blocks that had failed due to excessive rewriting."

What are the chances Apple already knew of this built in in fault and have not fixed it so that the phones have a maximum life span before you need to buy a new one?

United States Air Force grounds F-35As after cooling kit cracks up

New Carriers

It is going to be so funny when they have to drop these new planes because they don't work and then we end up with two carriers and nothing capable of flying off them.