Posts by SImon Hobson 2539 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Sep 2006
"... would not be able to get at the private key a second-generation passport contains"
So lets get this right, every chip needs to know the public key used by every reader - which means that the reader key is effectively in the public domain (or will be soon). So no security there then.
And every reader will need access to the public key for every passport. I think we'll soon see how well that works !
Pah, I've had texts take 2 days (or more) to arrive !
I think the operators are right here, in the event of an emergency, the network will be heading for collapse anyway - so the idea of loading it up with millions of extra texts, prompting many extra calls by panicked users, seems like a particularly silly idea.
Play anywhere ? I doubt it !
"... lessons learned from the successful 'buy once, play anywhere' experience that we enjoy with CDs ..."
Probably means, learn where we went wrong in not locking this stuff down properly and start again with a better lock.
Me a cynic, nah, what makes you think that ?
Hmm, see a visual representation of messages, with IDs, and access them in any order ? Just like people used to do BE (Before Email) with those tear-out "message" slips and "message" post-its !
You get a pile of these slips with caller name & number and time, you look through them, and decide which to read first - just what this guy claims to have invented by the sound of it.
@ RotaCyclic
They won't need to arrest people and take them to court - this is another example of how they are bringing in "no courts needed" penalties. You refuse to get a card when told, you get slapped with a £1000 "civil penalty" - no legal action required. Refuse to pay the £1000 ? No problem, they just slap on another "civil penalty" until you either pay up and submit, or they declare you bankrupt.
@ David Webb
ID cards have never, ever, been intended to be anything other than compulsory. They will be compulsory in that over time you will find it harder and harder to do anything without one - but it will still be optional. Optional as long as you don't want to drive (ID card to get driving licence), work (ID card required as proof of being a UK citizen, so employer won't take chance of prosecution for employing you without proof), catch a bus, get treatment for illness, .... You only have to look at their current plans to see how ID cards are intended to become compulsory in everything but name.
5 minute recharge ? Forget it for the reasons previously quoted. There is NO WAY that the distribution network in pretty well any part of the country could cope with more than an occasional charging point (if that) - and definitely not rows and rows of them at Tesco. So we can't generate the sort of power required (not until we've build loads and loads of nuclear stations that the greenies will fight tooth and nail to prevent), and can't transport it to where it's needed - that is NOT going to change without a massive investment in the distribution network at all levels. If you think the roadworks now are bad, just wait till the leccy companies are digging up our streets to put the massive supplies in that these charging points would need.
Having said that, much of my milage would come in (well) under the "under 200 miles round trip" range. A solution to the longer trips could be to install a portable petrol generator to assist the batteries - and recharge them when required load power is less than genny output. Since the genny would only need to run at full power & one speed, it could be optimised for max efficiency at that speed & power. If you have the opportunity to plug in at the destination then fine, otherwise let the genny run on for a bit to give you enough capacity for the return trip. OK, it's not all that green to run a genny to charge the batteries, but since for many people this is a small part of their total milage, the overall saving would be very significant.
OK, so I'm not the first, but my first reaction was "Hmm, looks like a nice combination of features", then I saw it was running Windoze. I'm the lone Palm user at work, all the rest have Windows devices - and seem to be resetting them all the time when they crash.
Oh well, the wait goes on - the Treo 650 will have to do for a bit longer.
Well put. What all the "shouldn't have broken the law - let them burn in hell" types seem to forget is that under Teflon Tony's rule (and Crash Gordon doesn't seem to have any intention of doing things differently) we now have many thousands more offenses on the statute book. In fact, there are now enough vague offences that you could probably pick up ANY member of the public and find something to charge them with ! Add to that the fact that many of these are written in such a way that the accused has to prove their innocence, and people should start to see the problem.
Heck, I can think of a couple of offences I could be making just by writing this posting.
The days of having to actually commit a crime AND the prosecution actually having to put forward evidence before sending you to prison are long gone.
>> The Lake District?
What, you think that pile of self selected people running LDNPA will take kindly to these ?
>> Do you think they'd let me land it on lake Windermere?
Well apart from having takeoff/landing speed that's above 10mph, there's the legal problem that effectively stops amphibious aircraft in England - to use Windermere as a landing strip, you'd need permission from the owners of every property you would pass in front of as I believe they have some rights from their shore to the middle of the water. On the east side it's mostly owned by the tufty club (National Trust), on the other side it's mostly owned by enough people witht eh sort of money that allows them to have a "stuff you and your 'wrong sort'" attitude without anyone answering back.
So I'd say your chances of doing this legally are, on a good day, nil !
And that's before you start on the aviation law stuff, as it's not a licenced airfield, there's the 500ft rule to consider, there can't be many days you could take off or land without flying less than 500ft from a person or vessel on Windermere :-(
Not that I have anything at all against the national park or how it's run, the tufty club and how they do things, or some of the better off residents and how they contrive to have things run - I've no idea what might give you that impression !
On a BT ISDN line you CANNOT send an arbitrary number and have it presented to the callee - it must either be a number allocated to that line, or another one that has been validated. So you can't do this stuff just by hooking up an Asterisk box to an ISDN line.
When calls are passed around the network, the caller id number is accompanied by flags to show if it's 'trustworthy' (or withheld, a separate flag) - and if it's not from a trustworthy source or is withheld then it is not to be presented to the callee. "not trustworthy" should include any unvalidated number supplied by customer equipment - but it also is used wher ethe call traverses any carrier network that can't guarantee the integrity of the caller id data (don't forget that it took many years after introduction of caller id before all networks were properly equipped to handle it). The general rule is that any point in the chain can set to the flag to say the number is not trusted, but once set this way then it cannot be reversed.
For this service to work, they must have a carrier level connection into the network and be lying by setting the "trustworthy" flag. The simple answer is that any carrier they connect to is conspiring to support any criminal activity performed with it's assistance - so any competent carrier would immediately flag any call from them as untrusted. Oh, I see where that falls down !
But from a legal viewpoint, we don't actually need any new laws - just prosecute a carrier for conspiracy should this service be used for anything illegal AND the carrier carried their spoofed caller id flagged as trusted.
... is just one customer with the time and knowledge to really screw over VM.
Get first letter, reply (by recorded delivery) denying the allegations - plus you have proof of libelous action on the part of BPI.
Get second letter from BPI, you now have proof of illegal action by VM in passing over your personal details in breach of their data privacy registration.
All it needs is one test case by someone who knows what they are doing and this system is dead in the water - and no -one will dare try and resurrect it. All it needs is for that person to make it look like they are acting against the "law according to the BPI" to trigger the action in the first place. I'm sure it must be possible to rig up a torrent program to claim to have 100% of a file available but not actually send anything.
@ Stephen Gray - no, NGN numbers do not HAVE to point to a geo number. At work we have customers using VOIP and they have 0845 numbers which do NOT get delivered to a regular geographic number.
And people forget how these numbers came to be premium rate. At launch, 0845 was the same cost as a local call via BT, and 0870 was the same cost as a national call. Then came lots of price reductions, the abolition of a separate local rate, bundled calls, etc, etc. The cost of 0845 and 0870 numbers was never reduced accordingly, mostly being something similar to what the non-discounted BT rate was many years ago - but even at launch, many people were already in discount packages that made standard calls cheaper than the "same cost" 0845 and 0870.
Mobile carriers (and others) won't include these calls in the allowance for the simple reason that the termination costs to them is too high. They are frequently not callable from abroad either, which can cause problems.
The "simple" answer is to make it that calls to these numbers must be charged to the caller at the same rate as a 'local' or 'national' call - that's what they were made for, that's what they are still advertised at (in some cases). If the recipients don't like the new costs then tough, either accept it or change your working methods to suit.
>> Anyone who thinks they are in full control of 1000kg of weaving metal at 80mph is deluding themselves, its only because there are other people on the road who assume the same thing but err within caution that we dont have multiple piles ups every 10miles or so.
Replace 80mph with 69mph and see how much difference it makes to the sentence - err non at all !
>> Also - The ones most likely to die after being knocked down by speeding drivers are children, so i have NO sympathy for anyone who speeds.
Got it took a long time for the "think about the childrun" card to be played !
>> In fact IMO the law isnt strong enough in dealing with people like this.
People like what ? Have you actually looked at the real facts, rather than the lies and spin produced by those with a financial interest in the fines or those with an eye on progressing the march to wards the Orwellian style population control ?
>> "The fact that the general public *do* commonly speed defines the current speed limits as unreasonable."
>> No it doesnt, it means that people regularly break the law. and/or are sheep who all do what the others do.
Yes it does, if (picking a figure that's no less valid than the official lies) 90% of the population state that something is unreasonable, then why should it be FACT that the <1% who set the limit are 'correct' ?
Others have already stated it, but you clearly do not understand why the current intoxication with automated enforcement of an irrelevant number is KILLING PEOPLE. People like dodgyedgy are actively killing people by their support of stupid ideas.
Driving safely is a very complex activity, and speed is only one variable. The intoxication with speed cameras puts ut the very clear message that all other factors are irrelevant AND that driving can be reduced to nothing more than compliance with a set of rules. Since it is impossible to write rules to cover all situations, it's obvious (to most reasonable people at least) that every driver needs to make assessments all the time of what's going on and adjust their driving to suit - not just speed but road position, distance from other road users, and so on.
If your argument was true, then we could simply get in the car, set the cruise control to the speed limit, and be safe ! Unless you argue that this is true then you have to acknowledge that there is limited correlation between legal speed limit - so you have to accept that for any driver to be safe then they have to have the skills to assess what speed is appropriate for any particular situation. If you accept that then it's hard to justify a policy of explicitly trying to suppress such self assessment.
"excess speed for the conditions" is a small part of the stats, whether the speed is above or below some arbitrary number is very seldom of any relevance.
So it's time for a few people to decide which side of the fence they are on - they are either for the current policies, or they are for road safety. There is no middle ground - the current policies are anti-safety.
If you look at the picture, there is a door on the end of the 'duct' - it's just a corridor with some hot air in it.
I can't see what's special about that, it's just normal thermal management - a variation on 'cold aisle, hot aisle' where racks are back to back so that there are cold aisle fed with cold air, and hot aisles where the hot air is sucked out - and a means of keeping the two flows apart over the top of the racks.
>> The US Patriot Act as NO MERIT within the UK.
Oh yes it does !
Just think, our government imposes contractual restrictions etc etc etc. US snoops want to peek at the data, they invoke the PATRIOT act - what does US company do ? Tough decision what ?
Option a) refuse as they would be breaking their contract, senior execs get a free holiday in Gitmo
Option b) give them free access and tell no-one. Even if anyone finds out, the worst they'll get is a firm telling off - and unless they are stupid enough to actually visit the UK then absolutely nothing will happen to senior execs as the US won't reciprocate on the extradition agreement we have with them.
So if this goes to a US company then our Government CANNOT, I repeat absolutely CANNOT, guarantee that it won't be exported and handed over to whatever US authorities decide they'd like a browse.
Right, first off, anyone who has never made a mistake can stand down - and now you can p**s off because you obviously have never done anything constructive in your life !
As to the clueless f***wits slagging off Debian for making any change whatsoever to 'their' software - get a life. I use Debian and I have a good idea where to look for the config files for any package. Sometime I have to use a non-packaged app that hasn't made it into the repositories yet, and guess what, more often than not the various files are randomly scattered about the system according to the whim of the developer. Assuming I can find all the relevant files, I then have to sort out my own dependencies.
Surely every mainstream distro makes changes to the packages to fit in with that distro's view of what the world should look like - Debian is not alone in that.
Yes, it was a serious bug (and yes I've been busy making new keys), but having read some of the material available on the topic, it seems the openssl team must take a big chunk of the blame for not taking any interest in the query - and apparently not even being truthful about what the correct mailing list is !
Re: Hmmmmmm...
Well if you put the phone inside then it will turn up it's transmit power to try and get a signal to the network. So much more radiation - at least until the battery goes flat in a fraction of the time it normally lasts.
Re: Someone explain
It's simple, you just have to remember to use the marketing department physical model of reality and it all works nicely.
But no-one spotted the even better use for this - it would be interesting to see what it did to the tazer current. In theory, the current would just short along the wires and the wearer would be largely unaffected. Of course, it depends on closely the wires are woven.
AC, if you are going to call people numpties, then get your own facts straight first !
Almost anything will burn in an oxygen rich atmosphere, even concrete ! That's why precautions are taken wherever oxy is used. It doesn't even need a spark, just the friction of high pressure oxygen passing along a pipe can make the pipe surface reach self ignition temp when in contact with pure oxygen.
It is quite possible that there would be an oxygen rich atmosphere around the guy, add in a spark and you could ignite the bedclothes, his gown, the plastic pipe carrying the oxygen - allsorts really.
So tazering someone on oxygen is a REALLY stupid thing to do. And ignoring standard safety precautions like this is also a stupid thing to do. Hmm, will they be prosecuted for their flagrant disregard of safety procedures while oxygen is being used ?
that Sky does so much. They generate their own content, they run the transmission system, they control the receivers, and they control the EPG. For anyone else to get in on the satellite market, they effectively have to start their own network (loads of dosh) or pay whatever Sky writes on their blank cheque ! And of course, if Sky doesn't like the competition, they can just not accept a channel for it's EPG.
The solution proposed, and which I agree with, would be to force Sky to :
a) use open standards so that they don't have monopoly control of hardware supply to their subscribers - thus allowing innovation in receivers.
b) separate the transmission from the production side.
c) offer access to the platform to anyone on equal terms - and that includes it's own channels which will now come from an independent company and NOT the company that runs the transmission system.
However, that's possibly a bit late now, the time to be doing that was years ago when it was first discussed and (as usual) our watchdog simply rolled over and let Sky tickle it's tummy. Now that freesat has launched, give it a while and we'll start seeing some commercial services on it once people have got 'open' boxes - many of the boxes coming soon will have CAM slots so they will be capable of decoding paid-for transmissions, but that will be the users choice and they will not have a base subscription to pay first.
Only a couple of commenters so far have seen what this is about !
With Sky you use a SKY box, with SKY software, that does what SKY allow you to do<period>. With freesat you get to use a receiver of YOUR choice and it will "just work".
Yes, you CAN knock up your own system - but Mr Average from Anytown just wants a box like you can get for Freeview. Plug it in, switch it on, see an EPG on screen.
Give it a while and you'll be able to walk into a high street store and walk out with a multi-tuner, high def, PVR - and as long as you already have a dish (just like Freeview requires you to already have a terrestrial aerial) just plug it in and go. Want different features, simply buy a different box - you aren't locked into what Sky limit it's manufacturers to.
THAT is the point. It's free as in OPEN specifications.
A couple of days ago an aquaintance was telling me how his bank card has been cloned - and he even knows who by ! He's only used it once since it arrived, and for some reason the chip&pin machine "wasn't working" - so the cashier had to swipe it, but had great difficulties (yeah, right). Sounds like under the guise of all the difficulties, the guy had skimmed it.
Anyway, aquaintance only finds out when cash machine won't give him anything and he's up to his overdraft limit - even after just having been paid. Bank doesn't want to know and expects him to prove that he didn't spend the money as it was all spent locally. Police don't want to know either - will "get round to it sometime". He points out to police that severl of the laces where card was used have CCTV, wouldn't it be a good idea to see what the guy looks like that was using the card ?
In short, Police will only "get around to it", and if my aquaintance goes to the places to ask them not to wipe the tapes before the police can be bothered to look at them, they will nick him for interfering in the investigation ! WHAT ? The Police won't do their job in timely manner, yet they'll nick the victim if he tried to prevent vital evidence being erased !
In that situation, I think my next words would be "I arrest you for aiding an offender, you do not have to say anything ....". I think THAT might get a response from the Police.
By charging to use the network ? The key bit is OPEN, not FREE. You make calls, you pay. You use data, you pay. Get the idea ?
What the networks over there like is being able to control what you do and what you do it with - ie you get phones with ONLY the services/software they like because they can charge more for it that way.
One example that comes to mind. Supposing someone comes up with a nifty bit of software that can download and display maps and satellite images - including of exactly where you are stood if you have a GPS available. On an open network, you "just use it" and pay your network for the data transferred. On a closed network, you only get to use it on the networks terms - typically by paying for some form of premium services package at many times the price of the data transfer.
Another example, on an open network you can use a phone as a 'modem' and have internet connectivity for your laptop wherever you are. The networks don't like that as they'd rather you bought a separate data tariff for the laptop (thus paying them two lots of monthly 'line charges') - and so the phones they allow you to use on the network have the 'modem' functionality disabled or removed (yes, I know for a fact that they did this with the Treo 650).
The networks can still make money if they price their services right - but without the open network clause they effectively have a duopoly (in many places monopoly) and can charge exactly what they want, for the service THEY want to have available.
watching a program on telly about the sewers under Paris.
Huge spaces, nicely tiled, and strung along the walls were the other pipes and cables for the other services. Water in along the pipe, waste out along the bottom ! All the branches had street signs, and each connection point for a building had the number on a nice enamelled sign.
Like someone has already pointed out, if we'd had a standard system of putting in a large duct under all new streets for a few years, then a lot of estates would now have large ducting with easy access by now. That's the problem, no foresight for god know how many years.
"Even better would be if the company using the patented technology went to the patent holder - before releasing to market - and licensed the technology..."
You assume that the manufacturer actually knows what patents are held ! That's one hell of an assumption. Large corporations, and not so large, now use patents as a weapon - the idea being that if you hold enough of them, on obscure topics, with wide-ranging claims, then sooner or later whatever you want to block is bound to infringe on one of them.
OK, so all you have to do is read through the patents, or do a search. Ha ha ! There's thousands, if not millions, of current patents - so that's a problem to start with. And then you get to the scope - have you ever actually tried to read one ?
Note that Microsoft is a prime example of this, they CLAIM that Linux infringes on a couple of hundred of their patents, but will NOT say which ones - because if they say then people can a) apply to have invalid patents declared invalid, and b) just work around them. One of the useful things to come out of the EU documentation settlement is that MS now state which of their patents they claim apply to what bits of their networking.
The only better strategy is if you can have your patents violated by a standard - while "accidentally" forgetting to mention it while the standard is being drawn up. That way you have people in a position where they have to pay you to implement open standards - it's happened.
I would say that it's not practical to find out beforehand what patents may be claimed to apply - so realistically the only way to is carry on and wait till someone makes a claim. Hopefully it will be in the form of "by the way ..." rather than "here's your summons" !
... I also disagree with the degree of control now being imposed.
Before this total ban came in, the previous measures (having separate areas for smoking and non-smoking) actually increased my exposure to smoke ! Since nearly everyone I had any interest in talking to in the canteen used to sit in the smoking area, that left me with the choice of going in the smokey area and having a conversation, or sitting on my own. previously, and this could very easily have been imposed as a more flexible and less draconian option, I had the option of sitting upwind of the smokers and so being able to join in the conversation while not breathing their smoke.
All it required was a rule about all places having a smoke free area and suitable airflow controls - it would have worked much better.
It's interesting to note that the authorities chose to introduce the total ban in an underhand way - make smokers go outside when the weather is warm and many of them would have been outside anyway ! No doubt there have been figures produced somewhere to show how effective it was.
No offence committed ? What crap !
It's a statutory nuisance, plain and simple. There is ample care lore to show that lesser nuisances have landed the owners in trouble, so I can't see why this is different.
In my home town, we have an old clock tower - which has chimed the quarters for as long as I've lived here (over 20 years). Not long ago, some incomer moved in, and then complained about it - in spite of the protests from longer term residents of the town, the clock was silenced under threat of costly legal action. Personally I think we should have banded together than "persuaded" the incomer to change her mind.
So if it's OK to complain about a noise which was there before you moved in, why isn't it OK to complain about a deliberate nuisance created after you moved in ?
Oh FFS, grow up !
"... Boeing & the CAA stop procrastinating & publish the cause of that near tragedy"
It's not about procrastinating or trying to hide something, it's about doing a proper and thorough investigation and coming up with real facts backed up by real evidence. If you want fast, just go back and watch the news reports at the time, there were plenty of "armchair experts" ready to speculate there and then about the cause - and guess what, they were mostly very wrong ! Our AAIB is respected around the world for the quality of it's investigations, you would be amazed at the lengths they will go to in finding the true cause of accidents.
So you can have fast or correct - I'll take correct if you don't mind.
>>> To quote from Alex Brown's blog:
"Recently my standards colleague Inigo Surguy wrote a blog entry advising readers how to submit comments on the DIS. Guess how many good technical comments we received. I'll give you a clue: it was a good round number. In fact, guess how many truly meaningful technical objections were emailed to BSI over the whole course of the project. I can remember two. By contrast of course, there were a gabillion emails which were either form letters of MS origin, or copy-and-paste jobs from noooxml.org."
>>> I would have assumed, given the huge rumpus these proceedings have generated, that the BSI would have been inundated with solid technical reasons why OOXML shouldn't become a standard. Evidently this didn't happen - I can only conclude that most of the anti-OOXML zealots are all mouth and no trousers.
Well I did email my objections, but guess what, you can expect most of the objections to look similar when they are objecting to the same points ! So I can only conclude from the comments quoted that anything objecting to one of these common dung-piles must be "... copy-and-paste jobs from noooxml.org".
So THAT's how the situation turned around ! Label all objections as meaningless copy-n-paste jobs and dismiss them, about the only plausible alternative explanation for the BSI changing tack so unexpectedly (the primary explanation being that they were bought).
In all the comments, I haven't seen mentioned the biggest issue with this :
If this passes, then OOXML is 'a standard', and therefore any government agency etc that declares "all documents must be in an open standard" is immediately open to carrying on using MS formats. Nothing else matters, it means no government agency, anywhere, will be able to say "no Word docs, they aren't an open standard".
This immediately means that ANY decision to require (for example) ODF and not OOXML can (and I predict will) be challenged by any vendor who feels that the decision 'unfairly' discriminates against it.
Look forward to a lot of legal wrangling as agencies that want to use open standard have their decisions challenged, and probably end up being forced to accept OOXML as an acceptable document format. It matters not a bit if MS aren't fully compliant, they can simply point out that no-one else is either and therefore they can't be held to higher standards than the rest of the world.
"When the text of a bill is completed, it would be copied to a server outside the parliamentary network. A script on the server would parse the text into the basic XML structure Mysociety has designed."
Surely the right way around would be for the text to be created in XML to start with, which can then be automatically parsed into all the formats required - text, html, pdf, ... and with no requirement to proofread the results since there won't be any scope for errors IF* it's done right.
* Oops, I see where this all falls down now !
I know someone working there on construction. There's loads of work 'missing' !
As an example, someone was told to connect up the electrics for a door, and given directions for the supply panel to get the electrickery from. Trouble was, the supply panel didn't exist - it's cupboard did, but no panel. All the sparky could do was wire up what he could and leave a cable dangling ready for when someone notices that the door doesn't work and figures out that they'd better get one of the contractors to install the panel.
Apparently they had to modify some of the light fittings because the glass was in danger of dropping out. This hazzard was pointed out to management who simply ignored it as that's what the architect had specified. Then management changed their mind when a glass did fall out, and smash on the floor a looong way below - right next to a manager !
And of course, when multiple trades, working for different contractors, are involved, you get the minor details like team A installs something and fixes it properly, team B find fixings from team A in the way and remove them. There's a few items that have had their fixings removed after installation - but no-one knows where.
So when they tell you about all the gloss, just remember that you can hide a lot behind a layer of good gloss - where's the Dulux Dog icon ?
Wake up and realise that the internet is not the same as the web !
OK, it might be 'helpful' when web browsing, but consider what it does to all the other internet applications out there. With properly configured DNS, you get an immediate failure if you mistype an address (and what you type doesn't exist) - but with these wildcard stunts, things just fail to work in odd ways giving unexplained timeouts.
It's bad and needs stomping on.
That will NOT detect this intrusion. It will detect ISPs that modify pages (eg by adding banner ads), but it won't tell you if the ISP has intercepted the page, read it's contents, and then passed it to you unmodified.
As in response to the very first post (Why I use OpenDNS), that will not help you one bit - the ISP will still see and intercept your traffic, it doesn't need you to use their DNS.
Something no-one has mentioned yet - particularly the ISPs now claiming that they will have a "proper" opt-out that stops the data going to the fishing servers ...
Supposing I visit a friend (or customer, or hotspot, or ...) and plug into his network, and he hasn't "opted out" because he doesn't know he should (OK that's hypothetical because any of my friends on the relevant networks will have been told) ? So I have in no way whatsoever given even implied consent and my data would be intercepted.
Since the person paying for a broadband connection cannot give consent on behalf of everyone that MAY use his line, the whole thing should be illegal anyway.
Ho hum, off to add legal "non-consents" to my websites !
Ho, ho, ho, what a laugh !
I think you "missed the point" by quite a large margin. Just because you want to keep an IM client running, doesn't mean that you are going to be interacting with it. The idea is that you can fire up the IM client and leave it running, and any time you are connected to a usable network, you will appear to be available to the network - and hence all your pals.
And of course, for 99% of the time that's all there is to it. Of course, someone could want to contact you at any time, so the client would be sat there in the background ready - and when someone 'calls', it can pop up and ask you if you want to chat.
If you can't leave an app running in the background, then you will have to remember to re-launch the IM app EVERY time you finish doing something else. If you don't then you will be unavailable.
And as for the first comment, while VoIP might not be usable on the current GSM network connection, it will be usable from many wireless hotspots (I wonder how many filter that out ?), and of course sooner or later the iPhone will get 3G and then it would be too late to put a VoIP client genie back in the bottle. AT&T, O2, et al, will NOT want to allow VoIP applications to eat into their call revenue - you only have to look at their T&Cs for data services to see that. It's nothing to do with usability (but 200kbps is more than enough bandwidth BTW), it's all to do with politics and market protection.
>>> Hence the fact the Samba guys would much rather have a look at the source than being told 'hot it works'.
I'm not sure that's true. One of the first things I believe they do with a protocol is to build a test suite around it - and then test the existing implementations to see what doesn't work. Now, under the terms of the EU settlement, if it turns out that the shipping MS products don't implement the protocol as documented, MS are REQUIRED to fix the documentation.
So, the Samba team really do not need to see the source code, and as other have already pointed out, it really is in their interests not to ever have access to it (so there is no opportunity for even unintentional plagiarism).
"... access to Microsoft's protocols and APIs will help speed development, as developers don't need to re-invent the wheel ..."
That is fundamentally wrong - access to something done by Microsoft isn't in any way required to write good and innovative software. What access to these document WILL do is allow people to write software that will connect to Microsofts stuff with a bit less hassle than at present.
Unfortunately, because of the huge market share Microsoft has, third party products are forced to work with Microsoft products if they want a chance in the corporate arena - not because Microsoft products are neccessarily good or best in class, but simply because they are so ubiquitous.
... is busy locking people up for trying to sell their services from abroad in competition with homegrown American business ? I refer of course the the gambling spat with Antigua.
So yet again it seems to be a case of "one law for us" (we will ignore domesyic and international law to protect our own businesses) and "another law for them" (how dare they try and protect their own businesses).
Doesn't do much to improve my opinion of the US. And as for why on earth our lot are joining in with this, there are worse competition issues closer to home between supposedly open EU countries.
Someone with the cash and inclination sues their ISP for intercepting and altering their data ? For this system to work, the network must force all web traffic to go through a transparent proxy which then alters the pages to insert the ads. The mere interception of the traffic has to be on dodgy legal grounds, modifying the pages even more so.
Mind you, it brings in another defense to various charges - "No Mr BPI representative, I didn't download that tune, it must have been some malware accidentally inserted into my web pages by my ISP !"
Thanks, it's nice to see a couple of people (Matt and Rob Uttley) do get this - it's a simple, easy to set up backup for people that normally would have no backup at all. Yep, it may be a shock to many of you, but the average home user does NOT have ANY backup at all, absolutely NOTHING.
Like a few others on here, I'm not normal - I backup my network to a few grands worth of SLR tapes that I store off-site (I didn't buy them, I got them as part of a settlement from a past employer). I take a portable drive with me every week or two and backup my makes computer. But that is the exception and TimeMachine wouldn't be a sensible option for me, but for the majority of home users it's a 100% improvement on the backup that they don't have now !
>>> BitTorrent screws other applications which need low latency and are upset by jitter, particularly on a shared cable segment.
No, a number of high throughput transfers of ANY time will do that. BT is just unusual in opening a number of connections in parallel.
>>> Comcast's solution is the least-bad, given what it has available.
The fact that it has failed to invest in it's network is not an excuse for this. By the same argument, you could say that a highway authority would be reasonable in not putting tarmac on a new road and blaming the traffic for making the bare rubble full of potholes.
And I disagree with a statement made in the original article :
"... peer-to-peer uses the Internet's classical mechanisms in a novel way ..."
No it doesn't, it uses a TCP connection in the classical way - open a connection, stream some data through it, close the connection. I suppose you can argue that opening multiple connections is novel, except that web browsers have done that as a matter of routine for many years. There has been software that will open multiple FTP sessions and download different files in parallel. So the only thing novel about BT and P2P in general is the fact that it uploads significant traffic and opens more connections than normal.
But each of those connections will follow normal control methods - if you drop packets or delay packets, it will slow down. "Normal' methods of delay, queue, and ultimately, drop DO work on BT - so if there is a bandwidth shortage all you have to do is queue packets to constrain the client to what you can provide.
What Comcast, and it's supporters, are trying to do is justify failing to invest in a network capable of sensible management and use that as justification for what is downright nasty to the network.
But the biggest problem of all is that people are missing the point - that the ISPs are selling something they can't provide<period> It's time they started selling on committed rates, based on what their network can actually support. Once they do that, then it's much easier to define what's "fair" - anything up to your CIR is fair, anything over that is game for management as spare capacity allows.
AC asks "Does anyone know why the structure of all the pages is retained but the content isn't?"
My guess is that the pages are generated by a content management system, and individual items of information have been flagged as 'exempt' or 'not for public internet'. When the CMS build the sites, it includes the correct text for their internal systems, but shows the FOI exemption text for any item flagged as such - hence a page full of such notices.
"However, the civil law on this is less of a problem to ISPs and rights-holders; if they cut off your internet access it will be, at worst, breach of contract by them. The most they will have to do is refund your contract. Home use broadband doesn't carry any guarantees for consequential losses (loss of business, enjoyment of internet porn etc.) so the punter isn't likely to get much in the way of damages, even if he can prove to a civil court that the ISP is in breach of contract when cutting him off."
Well I'd disagree with that. If your ISP cuts you off after you have told them that you are in compliance with their T&Cs (ie you dispute the BPI/whoever version of 'evidence') then they open themselves up to all sorts of problems. Yes, they can cut you off with no comeback if you breach their T&Cs, but if you aren't then they open themselves up to any costs or losses incurred by you as a consequence - even if their contract specifies that they are NOT liable.
You see, a valid argument would be along the lines of : they disconnected your account, in breach of their contract, with the sole purpose of causing you losses. Unless they have proper evidence then they would lose in court - their threatening letters would be proof of their intention to disconnect you.
So simple tactic no 1 : if you get one of these letters simply respond stating quite clearly that a) you are not engaged in illegal or unlicenced activities, b) you will hold them liable for all losses and costs incurred as a result of their proposed actions, and c) their continued actions as threatens will be taken as acceptance of said terms.
Remember that you can take your claim for losses through the small claims court as long as it's under (IIRC) £5,000 - and in the small claims court things are very much easier for you, and a LOT harder for the ISP. They are NOT allowed to use expensive legal councel, and even if they do, then you will probably not have to pay their legal bills if you lose. And, all you need to show (and it's a 'balance of probabilities' thing, not 'beyond reasonable doubt') is that they caused you harm, they reasonably knew that they were going to cause you harm, and that you've done everything reasonable to minimise the harm caused.
"Won't all pictures that is assumed to show a violation be examined by a person?"
You mean, just like all Gatso pictures are (supposed to be) checked by a human before the ticket is sent out ?
I went to Leeds - once. What a f***ing horrible place to try and get anywhere ! I thought Oxford was rabidly anti-car, but Leeds was far worse. I spent 1/2 an hour or more trying to get to my destination (yes, adding to all that congestion) because everywhere I went I kept coming up against bus lanes etc. So half an hour of driving round to get about one mile - so much for reducing traffic !
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