* Posts by Danny 2

2212 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Jul 2009

A flash of inspiration sees techie get dirty to fix hospital's woes

Danny 2

Dead kids

I once worked for an ICR/OCR "workflow" company in the mid 90s. Mostly it was fun, light work, interesting too.

Two of my worst working days were there though. They went after an NHS contract and wanted to prove they could scan in and record and label any type of NHS document, and a huge folder of sample material was dumped on my desk. I had to scan it all and then proof check the results.

90% of the material was dead children. A catalogue of their diagnosis, treatment, and death, with accompanying X Rays etc.

You all know what it feels like to pass a car crash and try not to look. This was 18 hours of that because I had to look to check for errors. I have no idea why the NHS was permitted to share those incredibly private details with an outside company, and I regret not just quitting on the spot rather than do that.

I guess NHS staff are just inured to that, death is in their face everyday. It just toppled me.

Danny 2
FAIL

I've a more applicable anecdote but I think this one is more telling.

I was unemployed after a long and illustrious career, and forced by the DWP to take a "work experience" placement. They first asked me any place I would refuse to work, and I said I wouldn't work in the Salvation Army. ( Bunch of C words, and the C word isn't Christian. )

Then the DWP asked me where I would like to work unpaid, and I said the NHS, I would be happy to clean toilets in any hospital or clinic, or do something more useful too.

The DWP told me I couldn't volunteer for the NHS because it had to be somewhere "useful for society, and some NHS trusts were private". The DWP told me that the NHS wasn't useful for society - honestly!

Guess where the DWP sent me - the Salvation Army! I didn't go of course, and haven't claimed JSA since.

I am unemployed because I was blacklisted irrationally, and initially I had a lot of money and spare time so I started filling potholes on country roads to keep myself busy. I bought the filler and did the work the best I could, but was collared by the local council who ordered me to dig up every repair I'd done. They could be sued by any motorist if one of my repairs failed. So I literally had to dig potholes to cover a councils arse.

A school acquaintance became the first head of web development at the Forestry Commission in Scotland. He now drives a top end BMW. He had no experience of computers beyond playing FIFA on our friends Amiga. He is a moron, but he is chatty and cheeky and that is what counts.

Wannabe Supreme Brett Kavanaugh red-faced after leaked emails contradict spy testimony

Danny 2

Why Technology Favors Tyranny

https://www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/568330/

It's already been posted on this thread, and I know he is attracting a lot of hype, but it is seriously good article. I've been saying for over a decade that tech is a multiplier of force for the state and corporations, not the equaliser we used to think it was.

Fourth 'Fappening' celeb nude snap thief treated to 8 months in the clink

Danny 2

Re: I'm not a particularly draconian 'eye for an eye' person...

(and yes - nudes and sex tapes seen by everyone I work with would be very damaging for example)

No, they are not, at least not to me. There are just so many nudes and sex tapes out there that I doubt any stranger would be interested in mine, or any relative would pass judgement.

You should spend an hour on a nudist beach, which you can do clothed normally contrary to public opinion, and you can look and look and look, and guess what, you only feel embarrassed for being clothed.

Danny 2

Gymnophobia:

An abnormal and persistent fear of nudity. Sufferers of this phobia experience undue anxiety even though they realize their fear is irrational. They may worry about seeing others naked or being seen naked, or both. Their fear may stem from anxiety about sexuality in general, from a fear that their bodies are physically inferior, or from a fear that their nakedness leaves their bodies--and their personalities--exposed and unprotected.

"Gymnophobia" is derived from the Greek "gymnos" (naked) and "phobos" (fear). The word "gymnasium" comes from the Greek "gymnasion" (a place for athletic exercises) and the Greek "gymnasein" (to train naked).

Danny 2

Re: unsavoury incident?

I'd explain but I don't want to "overshare".

Twelve year old me, Atari joystick pressed down on my groin for hours, it was an accident waiting to happen.

Oops, I overshared. Don't judge me if you have ever fancied Lara Croft!

In my day Ms Pacman was the best we got.

Danny 2

unsavoury incident?

"The whole unsavoury incident underlines the importance of multi-factor authentication in protecting sensitive accounts. ®"

I call bs. I've got three sets of nude / sexual photos and videos of three former lovers, strongly encrypted. Taken on their devices at their insistence, and I bet their copies aren't encrypted because none of them would listen to me when I lectured them on computer security.

The overwhelming, off-putting amount of self-published porn on the internet today strongly suggests nobody except stalkers would be the least bit interested in celeb photos.

Has anyone else here had sex with a millennial? I tend to think of millennials as the post internet porn generation, because in my experience they tend to have sex like porn videos.

In my day you did one position then stopped, they rotate every five minutes and do things without asking that we used to discuss for weeks. Sex used to mean a lot to us, for the younger ones it's more like tennis.

"I guess he's an X-box, and I'm more Atari" ~ Cee Low

I don't like X-boxes, I love Ataris. Ms Pacman was the first game character I came to.

Danny 2

You know what used to be safer than a camera phone? A camera. Either a digital camera or process the film yourself.

Jennifer Lawrence has breasts with nipples, she has a vagina too, how can she ever work in Hollywood again now we know that about her.

You know you can see Mary Poppins tits in S.O.B., don't you?

Nudity should be mandatory on sunny days.

Danny 2

Re: I'm not a particularly draconian 'eye for an eye' person...

A little light? You know what US prisons are like, don't you?

Your post forced me to look at these photos and videos for the first time, and I assure you she has nothing to feel embarrassed or humiliated about. I've seen worse on French and Dutch beaches or in Finnish saunas. Adult nudity is not the major problem that Americans and Brits assume it is.

Archive.org's Wayback Machine is legit legal evidence, US appeals court judges rule

Danny 2

Lost in time

Nothing good has happened in the past twenty years. I'm not one of those UKippers who want to return to the 1950s, but the 1990s were okay. Where is this 'way back machine' and how do I use it to get back?

Experimental 'insult bot' gets out of hand during unsupervised weekend

Danny 2

Re: Scotland wide

We used to have regional holidays (the Glasgow Trades, the Edinburgh trades a fortnight later).

In my first electronics job I was taught only to get drunk on the day before a work day, never before a holiday. I know in England you drink when you get a day off - up here we are professionals, we only get drunk when our hangover falls on a workday, our employers pay for that.

Voting machine maker vows to step up security, Fortnite bribes players to do 2FA – and more

Danny 2

Re: So easy

Exactly. What problem is a voting machine the solution to? Arguably they are quicker to return the count, maybe even cheaper, but they are no more accurate and they are a single hackable point of failure for democracy.

https://xkcd.com/2030/

Facebook admits it was 'too slow' to ban Myanmar regime

Danny 2

Dodgy

I started to post on The Independent comments section after The Guardian banned me, about 2010. I got dragged into a personal dispute by several long time posters and another pre-existing poster, let's call him CR. CR asked me to check him out because he claimed to be a Buddhist monk and an acclaimed artist who'd painted Aung San Suu Kyi while she was under house arrest. Everyone else said he was a delusional old racist.

So I checked him out, and because I had worked for search engine companies he soon regretted asking me to check him out.

His claims were all true, but so were theirs. His work is hung in prestigious galleries, he did paint Aung Sang Suu Kyi. I found all his previous posts there, and posts he made on other sites under other names. He was a 65 year old fascist, belonged to a group associated with the EDL that promoted and posed with firearms. He came from near Newcastle but lived in Thailand. He painted nude female children, like seven year olds, he claimed they were his neighbours daughters who loved him and his money. He'd also volunteered to teach art to a local primary school. He had taken offence at various people online and had harassed them in evil, mad ways. Utter expletive of a man.

He was not best pleased at me for revealing all of that with supporting links, tried too late to cover his tracks, and tried to come after me as far as he could - he couldn't though, I'd kept anonymous.

I sent my evidence to the local primary school that had allowed him in, and the headteacher said she was horrified but it had been before her time. I networked the victims of his online trolling. I didn't do anything to help his Thai neighbours because I couldn't think how to credibly warn them.

Anyway, he claimed to be a friend of Aung San Suu Kyi, and she certainly let him paint her for months, so I strongly suspected back then she too was dodgy.

Everybody dance now: Watch this AI code fool friends into thinking you can cut a rug like a pro

Danny 2

Re: OLD NEWS

At least several months?

20 years ago we could insert ourselves into our favourite movies. I always wanted to be in a scene from Cat People with Nastassja Kinski but I couldn't afford it. I figured when she got old enough she might lower her standards and we could recreate it in reality, but in reality I got old too, and older faster.

Artificial intelligence was used to precisely model how Mr Obama moves his mouth when he - well, you know!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmUC4m6w1wo

Danny 2

Re: Oh boy

His ugliness was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable beauty, there was something heraldic about his lack of it. ~ W Gibson, Neuromancer

His dad dancing was the stuff of legend. In an age of affordable dance classes, there was something heraldic about his lack of rhythm and grace.

Chap asks Facebook for data on his web activity, Facebook says no, now watchdog's on the case

Danny 2
Joke

Why Does it Always Rain on Me?

Is it because I Facebooked when I was seventeen?

Danny 2

@big_D

Software firewalls won't cut it if the OS is compromised. You could crippleware your laptop through a designer Pi hardware firewall on the go. I know it is not ideal but it is do-able. While it is fun to discuss technical things some of us could do, the issue in the article is how this affects everyone else who can't do.

Danny 2

@big_D

Windows 10 ignores host file blocking of Microsoft metric sites, which is why nobody could block Microsoft monitoring and updates. Now I have no reason to suspect they have offered that opt-out to other companies or TLAs, but I have no reason to trust in it, and it is certainly something they could sell to Facebook or whoever.

Winner, Winner, prison dinner: Five years in the clink for NSA leaker

Danny 2

Obligatory XKCD on voting software

https://xkcd.com/2030/

I warned the SNP before the 2007 Scottish election that the OCR counting machines were a hackable single-point of failure that were unnecessary and dangerous to democracy. The SNP were fairly interested until they won that vote hands down.

That's the paradox of warning about voting risks, the winning government who can change things is never interested.

The Intercept certainly were criminally incompetent as a media outlet by failing to disguise their source material. As IT workers we find that ignorance unforgivable, but bear in mind that Snowden had to explain to Greenwald how to encrypt emails at a time we all would have assumed every journalist already regularly encrypted emails. Reminiscent of the time The Guardians' Leigh published a Wikileaks passphrase as a chapter title in a kiss and tell book.

Reality Winner bears some responsibility for failing to disguise the source material herself, as it was her ass on the line and she should have anticipated the incompetence of the journalists she was trusting her fate to.

I note her five year sentence from the US matches the five year sentence that Vietnam gave John McCain.

Oh, and as for daft American names, Zephyr Teachout is the Democrat candidate for New York - but she'd only be in the house for four years.

What happens to your online accounts when you die?

Danny 2

Rosetta

Jeez, that was bleak. I've read The Register since forever and that is the first comments section that made me cry. It's easy to forget that behind every witty poster is someone with relatives who die, and not every poster who disappears has just got bored.

I have to say that I've enjoyed and been enriched by your company and I wish you well.

I recently started digitising my favourite stuff that I've managed to save through my travails, my travels and my mostly misjudged charity. Everything that I have left in my flat that I value will be tossed in a skip when I kick it. Letters, photos, books that I doubt will make any sense or interest to anyone else, but I value it so I may as well record it.

When I was 11 my history teacher told me history suffered because they didn't have enough histories of poor people, just rich and powerful people. I just hope future historians have a decent IT support able to recreate a USB-A port, software support to recreate readers for PDF, jpegs etc. Maybe we should send a crappy laptop to the moon.

I hope all you people die clean, with your porn history cleared, and have your good stuff backed up for posterity.

Boffins get fish drunk to prove what any bouncer already knows

Danny 2

Re: so they drink like a fish?

I, for one, think the effect on LSD on budgies has been seriously understudied. They probably get to the top of high buildings and think they can fly.

https://www.sciencealert.com/spider-on-drugs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effect_of_psychoactive_drugs_on_animals

Danny 2

Buckie

We've studied this in the west of Scotland for decades. The Catholic abbey of Buckfast in Devon produces an alcohol/caffiene brew called Buckfast Tonic Wine which it uses to poison the Protestant working class in and around Glasgow. I have my tongue in my cheek but barely.

Buckfast: a drink with almost supernatural powers of destruction

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/feb/27/buckfast-drink-with-supernatural-powers-destruction

Alcohol makes many lustful and aggressive. Which is great because it also makes anyone fall unconscious. Caffeine keeps you awake, and the worst drunk is an insomniac, energetic drunk.

Anecdote.

I was tricked into handling a west coast councils BACS transfer of employee wages that coincided with an Orange walk. I'd been employed partly to repair old mainframe terminals, partly to introduce PCs - none of their computer department had ever used a PC! I had never used a mainframe, and I had never experienced an Orange walk. All the operators and managers had declined, so I was volunteered.

I had stupidly got drunk the night before so I was handling a hugely important operation hungover alone the next morning not at my best, but I was fairly confident because I'd been walked through the procedure and it was fairly simple, more tedious than challenging.

Then the Orange walk started. I never actually saw it because I was inside working all day but I can describe it. 16 unmusical bands marching around my building playing six tunes continuously for six hours, blasting sectarian songs that got progressively more drunken and out of tune while being cheered on by a huge crowd who descended the evolutionary ladder with each rotation.

There were idiots standing on the very high smoked window sills of our operations room, so high that wouldn't be safe if they were sober, and the awful music, the hateful shouting and my throbbing hangover were making changing the tape reels and typing in the arcane instructions increasingly difficult.

At one point I turned on the radio for some relief from the chaos outside, Radio 4, spoken word, very quiet. One of the nutters on the window sill took offence, banged on the window and told me, "Turn aff that fuckin music or ah'll pan in these windows and slash ye".

The idiot parade finished before I finished, but when I left and locked up I looked down this long, posh street and the entire road was covered with broken green glass from all the Buckie bottles.

Caffeine is an antidote to alcohol, not a supplement.

America's top maker of cop body cameras says facial-recog AI isn't safe

Danny 2

Trial and error

Burr-Brown threw away serious money at this in the '80s. DSP over the VMEbus.

It kind of worked. Their system was 100% accurate at recognising the four design engineers, utterly useless at recognising the rest of the factory staff.

It mistook me for a girl, which was wrenching because she was a very pretty girl. Didn't know whether to feel insulted or complimented. It was a conversation starter at least, but not a conversation that led to positive results.

Dear alt-right morons and other miscreants: Disrupt DEF CON, and the goons will 'ave you

Danny 2

Re: Since this is a technical event why not just make them pass a test to get in

"If the experts cannot seperate themselves from the amatures"

Separate. Amateur.

For someone anonymously advocating competency tests for admission to an event then why haven't you been able to install a spell checker?

Danny 2

Re: Irony

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_democracy

For most of history the word democrat was demeaned just as brutally as anarchist is today, but anarchy is simply pure democracy without representatives.

UK privacy watchdog to fine Facebook 18 mins of profit (£500,000) for Cambridge Analytica

Danny 2

Re: Max Fine

@davcrav

It's tangential to my point but I was being serious with my examples. I did prisoner support a dozen years ago and met people inside for not paying their TV licence, stealing a sandwich and possessing marijuana.

The Ministry of Justice said that from 2005-2014, a total of 353 people were handed custodial sentences for not paying fines for not having a TV licence. That's just England and Wales so add another 35 for Scotland. I fully admit they were jailed for not paying the fines but if they can't afford the licence then they can't afford the fines, so it's a distinction without a difference. I think the licence fee is unnecessary, and the BBC should be self-funding by selling it's content and cutting its costs. There is no logic in why it is illegal to watch live ITV.

I realise the prosecution of possession of marijuana has changed in the past decade, and so has the categorisation. They all are just labelled 'drugs offences' now in the official documents I can find, regardless of class. I met various prisoners who were in for possession back then, and I can point to numerous cases of people in prison for growing. Complete waste of police and prison expense.

One of my friends was imprisoned for stealing a policeman's sandwich, after he'd arrested her for stealing a sandwich from a shop. She was a persistent shoplifter but was only charged with the one sandwich. Albeit she also pointed out the officer was a "fat peeg". She'd lived on the streets with no income for a year because the DWP wrongly told her she couldn't claim benefits as a Spaniard. Again, now all the data just lists 'shoplifters' rather than the seriousness of the thefts.

Danny 2

Re: Income Vs Profit

"You can have a huge income and still not turn a profit."

Often deliberately in this sector.

Danny 2

Max Fine

£500,000 is the maximum fine, and yet it is parking ticket for the uber-rich. Why is there a maximum fine? And why aren't there prison sentences as an option for the judge?

There are people in British prisons for stealing sandwiches when they are hungry, smoking a joint or not having a BBC TV licence. Let those losers out and make some space for some corporate criminals.

Spidey sense is literally tingling! Arachnids detect Earth's electric field, use it to fly away

Danny 2

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/horse-latitudes.html

A fine vintage: Wine has run Microsoft Solitaire on Linux for 25 years

Danny 2

Re: "We live in a *nix world now"

Ah, I get it now.

WINE Is Not an Emulator

LINUX Is Not UniX

WINDOWS Is Not Dos, Or Windows Soon

WannaCry reverse-engineer Marcus Hutchins hit with fresh charges

Danny 2

Re: Some poeple accept their duty

@Lucre Lout,

Just because I'm not earning or on benefits doesn't mean my time is any less precious to me, or my service is any less cogent. Each juror is doing the same job and deserve equal pay for an equal job done. If we were fined for refusing to attend then we'd both face the same fine.

Something else not mentioned in the very positive view expressed in the article is that some trials leave jurors traumatised by the evidence, and some trials can lead to intimidation or abuse by criminals.

Danny 2

Re: Some poeple accept their duty

@Clunking Fist,

Scotland, your system sounds much better.

https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/coming-to-court/jurors/expenses-for-jury-service

Danny 2

'No good deed goes unpunished'

Danny 2

Re: Some poeple accept their duty

I'd been unemployed and broke but not claiming when I was put through a farcical 20 month trial. 13 court appearances I wasn't reimbursed for travelling to, three nights in the cells, yet it was dismissed the first time I was allowed to speak. It was a trial of a trial that left me rundown and even more impoverished. (I actually made a headline here because it coincided with my bronze badge award).

Anyway, during the trial I was summoned for jury duty for the first time in my life, and I got an exemption because I was on trial. The week after my trial ended I got my second summons for jury duty and I just ignored it because frankly I would rather go to prison at that point than attend court as an unpaid juror.

I had always been keen on being on a jury when I was working and well-off, and would have loved it when I was on benefits, but because I was neither earning nor on benefits I would only have been paid £5.71 for my lunch and my bus fare.

My point being if jury service is mandatory then each juror should be paid an equal amount.

For the record, I got away with ignoring it.

Tor-forker Joshua Yabut cuffed for armoured personnel carrier joyride

Danny 2

Re: I'm curious..

Well, two cops per car and they don't know what killpower is in the back of the APC. I admit the tactic makes no sense chasing OJ or whoever, but in this case it does make sense.

Super Cali goes ballistic: mugshot site atrocious

Danny 2

Re: Don't do what we do....do what we say you can do.....

The one time I encountered this site was when I searched on the name of a perfectly lovely girl I'd had a holiday affair with in California when we were teens.

Her mugshot was there for being in a car in Florida when the police arrested someone else in the car for having a small amount of cannabis in their pocket. She was never even charged with any crime herself.

That wasn't doing society any good having her mugshot online, and I am heartened to read these scumbags have been belatedly arrested.

Ex-CIA man fingered as prime suspect in Vault 7 spy tool manuals leak

Danny 2

Re: consent is not involved in the definition

The OED definition of prudish is "Having or revealing a tendency to be easily shocked by matters relating to sex or nudity; excessively concerned with sexual propriety."

Being concerned about child abuse is not prudish, unless you approve of child abuse - in which case post so under your actual name.

Your letter was only the start of it

One letter and now your part of it

Now you've done it

Jim has fixed it for you

And you and you

They must be something that you always want to do

The one one thing that you always want to do

Now you've done it

Jim has fixed it for you

And you and you and you

Danny 2

Re: Encrypted container?

There are two theories in this boingboing article - https://boingboing.net/2018/05/15/joshua-schulte-cia.html

One was him saying to user in a chat log that got him arrested that his encryption could be broken.

The other was a claim that he stored his passphrases on his phone.

https://twitter.com/KimZetter/status/996500530691112960

RIP: Sinclair ZX Spectrum designer Rick Dickinson reaches STOP

Danny 2

I was really disappointed when I got a ZX Spectrum for Christmas because I wanted a record player, but I thought at least I could play games.

My dad wouldn't allow me any games until he could flip open the Spectrum manual and ask me to recite and explain the contents of the page. It was a hefty manual with a lot of scientific and mathematical functions, so I was writing my own games before I was allowed to buy any.

So thanks, Rick Dickinson, I could've been a rock star or a DJ or a groupie, and instead I ended up in IT. I can't even type well now because there are no proper keyboards like the one-handed Spectrum ones. In fact despite being labelled a programmer at prestigious employers I think the only money I ever earned from coding was a £15 book token from Home Computing Weekly for a diary/array that crashed on the 16K Spectrum if you had more than a couple of events a day - luckily that wasn't a problem for me.

Bloke fruit flies enjoy ejaculating, turn to booze when starved of sexy times

Danny 2

Re: I thought...

Fruit flies like a banana daiquiri.

[True story. I left a banana out in my flat and never returned until it had rotted, and when I did return the flat was full of tens of thousands of fruit flies. For a night and a day I tried to swat them but they are basically unswattable, so in frustration I poured myself a whisky but then they started dive-bombing my glass so I fled. I returned a few days later and they'd all drowned themselves in my whisky.

So my take on that is fruit flies with easy access to sex still drown themselves in booze when it's available, even the females]

Tech bribes: What's the WORST one you've ever been offered?

Danny 2

A £150 bottle of Macallan

I'd been sent to Germany to take over the network of a subsidiary, part of which meant supervising a contractor doing their wiring cabinet. The contractor was fairly shoddy so I had to correct them several times, which distracted me from my job, and I guess their owner guessed I would not be recommending them. He also sussed I like whisky so he offered me an old, expensive Macallan malt that he just happened to have at home - an unwanted gift since he personally didn't like whisky.

I refused it. My boss told me I should have accepted it and given it to him but screw that. Firstly, if the briber had taken the time to learn my soft spot was whisky then he should have learned that I like Islay, not Speyside. Secondly, £150 is not an appropriate bribe on a contract worth tens of thousands over years. Thirdly, any bribe is a personal insult an even if it had been a £3000 Islay malt I would still refused.

I had worked briefly in a local council where corruption was endemic, and the IT director for all his other faults at least had a zero tolerance approach to it. If any contractor offered him a bottle of whisky then he barred them forever.

Facebook admits it does track non-users, for their own good

Danny 2

Anybopdy got a good cussing out for Facebook in Welsh or Gaelic? Or Scottish?

Falbha ghabhail do aghaidh leabhar airson cac

Away and take your face book for a shite

GCHQ boss calls out Russia for 'industrial scale disinformation'

Danny 2

Re: Since then I've been a financial drain on the UK taxpayer.

Refusing to pay tax on principle is just not practicable.

In 2002 about a dozen of us pledged to pay no tax until British troops left Afghanistan. That was an easy pledge for me because I was already blacklisted, but it was impossible for my fellow pledgers and I witnessed them paying taxes one by one. None of us expected British troops to be in Afghanistan in 2018.

To be clear, after 16 years I would happily break my pledge and accept a job if I could. I seriously underestimated the idiocy of my government.

US pressures Britain to send more troops back to Afghanistan to bolster efforts against Taliban

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/10/05/us-pressures-britain-send-troops-back-afghanistan-bolster-efforts/

Danny 2

I did eventually become a peace protestor and I certainly got some special treatment. One time I went to a Trident X Berth public meeting late, and the police had saved me a seat and the RN officers who spoke looked right at me. Even at protests I never attended police officers would ask for me by name. While I'd love to be a Bond super-villian I am just average, innocent, inconsequential.

Like I said I had a great job history, security cleared despite being openly anarchist, but I was only average in C / OS / network / assembler etc.

I met one guy whose mate had given him a job working the gardens at a naval college, who lost that job because he'd signed a CND petition. I've seen very nasty criminals who infiltrated the peace movement who have been rewarded to the tune of at least £100,000. Snitches get ISAs.

I was the first innocent male Briton this century to be chatted up by a female undercover police officer, as far as I can determine. Which is kind of flattering but I'm not a dangerous revolutionary. I am very glad I am an innocent victim of the British state rather than a poisoned victim of the Russian state, but I'd still far rather live in a genuinely participative democracy.

The builders who were blacklisted were either union officials or workers who complained about health and safety violations. This is all admitted now in court, and apparently that particular blacklisting company was closed in 2009. For all I know I am no longer blacklisted from IT because after eight years absence from employment then who would get employed? This has been going on in the UK for more than a hundred years.

Put it this way, in the last month I worked I paid £2000 in tax. Since then I've been a financial drain on the UK taxpayer.

Danny 2

"I think the number of the UK citizens with 5+ years of C + OS + network + assembler is somewhere less than 10k."

I'm one of those, I suspect there may be more than 10,000 of us, maybe closer to 50,000. I was blacklisted in 2001 though due to British security service paranoia after 911. I keep getting invited to apply for jobs at MI5, but I've always assumed they are just being sarcastic.

[Edit : actually, blacklisting in IT might make for a good El Reg article if other folk chip in. Personally I kind of invited it on myself, but I've heard of other cases too. There is the legal case about blacklisting in the building industry that has progressed, but it's not just one industry]

Mark Duckerberg: Second Congressional grilling sees boss dodge questions like a pro

Danny 2

Re: Personal information is the Internet Dollar

It was a big mistake to make computers easy to use for morons, but once we did then it should be a crime to allow the smart to trick the stupid into throwing elections.

Danny 2

Worst ever episode of 'Silicon Valley'

It turns out "It's complicated" is Zuckerberg's relationship to his business practices. Gavin Belson pretending to be Nelson Bighetti.

It's April 2018 – and Patch Tuesday shows Windows security is still foiled by fiendish fonts

Danny 2

Dead Songwriters Fonts

Someone's just released fonts based on the handwriting of dead songwriters: https://www.songwritersfonts.com/

So now you can choose how you want your device to die:

Heart attack - Serge Gainsbourg;

Assassin - John Lennon;

Suicide - Kurt Cobain;

Cancer - David Bowie.

I chose Leonard Cohen because I want it dying of old age but still working happily if slowly to the end.

'Housemate from hell' catches 24 new charges after alleged nightmare cyberstalking spree

Danny 2

The Next Web discussed the VPN angle of this case:

Some, we knew about. There’s PureVPN, a company whose privacy policy explicitly states that it keeps no logs on users...

This is patently false, as 24-year-old Ryan Lin can attest to. Lin was arrested late last year after these non-existent logs were turned over to FBI agents. The logs — the same ones PureVPN promised not to keep — were instrumental in the man’s arrest.

https://thenextweb.com/security/2018/03/27/26-popular-115-vpns-keeping-tabs-saying-theyre-not/