Posts by jonathanb

Costa Rica launches investigation after reports hackers ‘rigged’ 2014 election

Re: Costa Rican here

You can hack the campaign process so that when people go to the polling stations, they choose their vote based on incorrect information. That is what is alleged to have happened.

Nest bricks Revolv home automation hubs, because evolution

Re: Are they legally allowed to do that?

And in the context of things like light switches and thermostats, it is still relatively "new" at 10 years old.

Bash on Windows. Repeat, Microsoft demos Bash on Windows

Re: This isn't Nan friendly

Apparently it has been replaced with "rd /sq c:\"

Re: This isn't Nan friendly

Isn't there something similar in DOS? From memory it may be "deltree" but it is ages since I used it.

Calm down, dear: Woman claims sexism in tech journalism

Re: I do believe....

The problem here is that the "T" community faces a lot more discrimination and transphobia from the LBG community than from the general population. The "L" and "G" communities also hate the "B" community and the "L" and "G" communities don't like each other very much either.

Microsoft introduces yet another Skype for Windows 10

So that you can answer incoming calls on whatever device is most convenient at the time.

Glasgow boiler firm in hot water for cold calls, cops £180K fine

Re: Glasgow boiler firm in hot water for cold calls, cops £180K fine

They had £381,791 in the bank at 31st March 2015, still plenty left of that after paying the fine.

Why I'm regulating the 'sharing economy': An Italian MP explains

Re: Uber/Lyft to become Monopolies? Oligopolies? Puh-leeze

Somalia's mobile phone coverage is very good, and very cheap.

You say I mustn’t write down my password? Let me make a note of that

My deskside bin is only used for coffee cups and banana skins. We have a recycling sack for waste paper.

'Microsoft Office has been the bane of my life, while simultaneously keeping me employed'

Re: the original developer of most of it for Excel 2000

Anything up to 2003 has a maximum of 256 columns and 65536 rows.

Facebook paid £4k in tax. HMRC then paid Facebook £27k – for ads

Re: Wait, why does HMRC advertise at all?

Two things, tax return deadlines, and whichever tax evasion initiative they are running at the moment. They pick a group of people they think aren't declaring all their income, and encourage them to make a voluntary disclosure before they get caught. They haven't done one for large American multinationals yet, but they have done groups such as builders, plumbers, e-bay traders and dentists.

Re: Fecalbook deciding on the amount of tax paid again.

They have an office in the UK, so they are not based 100% outside the UK.

UK.gov could reopen Google's £130m HMRC tax deal, says Parliament

Re: Tax money transfers

There is withholding tax if you transfer money to the Cayman Islands in this way. That's why the money goes via Ireland.

The problem with a transaction tax is that you can avoid it by reducing the number of transactions.

For example, if you want to get a kitchen fitted, you could give a kitchen fitter a load of money, and tell them to buy the stuff and get on with it. Alternatively, the kitchen fitter could tell you want to buy, you pay the supplier direct, and you pay the fitter for their advice and installation services.

Re: Pour encourager les autres

The argument is actually that Google Ireland had a permanent establishment in the UK, and should therefore be paying UK tax on its sales.

Re: It's time this was laid to rest.

The rules were changed - https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/385741/Diverted_Profits_Tax.pdf

Terrified robots will take middle class jobs? Look in a mirror

Re: Terrified robots will take middle class jobs?

Robots can create meaningless mind numbing powerpoint presentations much faster than any human.

Telemarketers hit with £70,000 fine for cold-calling pensioners

If the directors didn't follow proper procedures to take money out of the company bank account, by for example operating a payroll system and paying tax+NI on the money, then they are required to pay it back to the company, and that is a company asset.

Apple must help Feds unlock San Bernardino killer's iPhone – judge

Other parts of the FBI want Apple to make it impossible to do this so that phones are useless when stolen, and therefore people don't steal them. If Apple can overcome their own security, anyone else can.

Google after six-year tax foot-drag: No they're fine about the fine. We're fine. No fine

Re: Ah

No, provided you fully disclose what you have done on your tax return, and the reason why you treated it the way you did, they can't charge a penalty if they disagree with your treatment.

Arrow: Fraudsters impersonated one of our execs to steal money

Re: Irrational....

No, usually you are dealing with someone much further down the food chain who thinks they are following orders from their boss.

It killed Safe Harbor. Will Europe's highest court now kill off hyperlinks?

You can link to something that has been published with the permission of the copyright holder, even if the copyright holder doesn't want you to link to it. That was the previous case.

This case asks whether or not you can link to something that wasn't published, or was published without the permission of the copyright holder.

Girls! Girls! Girls! Intel brags about diversity push, Silicon Valley tells itself it's doing great

Re: Proof of concept? @AC

I don't know anout the US, but in the UK, the vast majority of candidates would tell you they don't belong to any political party, and would either give a non-specific answer or flat-out refuse to answer if you asked them about voting intentions.

BT dismisses MPs' calls to snap off Openreach as 'wrong-headed'

Well if the government wants you to file your accounts and tax returns online, they need to make sure there is an internet connection at a reasonable price in the same way that they make sure everyone has access to a postal service.

Data centers dig in as monster storm strikes America's East Coast

Re: ...advising customers to keep their phone batteries charged...

Well yes, but a couple of meters of water on the roads is getting much more common, and is much harder to deal with.

Eighteen year old server trumped by functional 486 fleet!

Re: And stores receipes...

Don't see any problem, as long as your phone is always within Bluetooth range of this machine.

It's 2016 and idiots still use '123456' as their password

Re: Easily remembered...

Password1! is a good choice for those sorts of sites. It meets the "difficulty" criteria, and is easy to remember.

Afraid of getting your iThing pwned? Get yourself iOS 9.2.1

Re: OMG

38.7MB for my iPad Air 2

Amnesty International accuses tech giants of battery bastardry

Re: Cue lots of Apple hate

Vodafone aren't a consumer electronics company as far as I'm aware. They will sell you a phone from one of the big or not so big manufacturers, but don't, as far as I'm aware, get involved in manufacturing them.

Eight-billion-dollar Irish tax bill looms over Apple

Re: Actually there will be ZERO cost for Apple to pass on

If they make $100 in foreign profits, they can claim up to $39 in double taxation relief for foreign tax paid on those profits. If the case goes against them, they will have to pay $12.50 in tax on those profits. At the moment they have paid a lot less than that.

Re: Penalties?

Apple uses a different scheme, in Ireland rather than Belgium.

Apple Operations International is registered and tax resident in Ireland. It pays money to Apple Investments International which is registered in Ireland, but controlled from Texas. It isn't tax resident in Ireland because no activity takes place there, and it isn't tax resident in Texas/USA because it is registered in Ireland, so pays no tax anywhere in the world. This is known as the "Double Irish" loophole.

Watchdog says yes to BT's EE takeover deal. Shrugs. No 'significant' harm in it

Re: How Awful

You can get fixed line broadband from EE. It is the company originally known as Freeserve who were very big in the dial-up days. I don't think they have a particularly huge market share now though.

Council of Europe gets tough on net neutrality

They can offer different speeds as long as all traffic goes at the same speed.

Re: Calm down! Pay attention to which organization we're dealing with!!!

YouTube don't need to pay my ISP for the data I use. That goes on my bill. Obviously they pay their own ISP to connect their servers to the internet.

Re: Calm down! Pay attention to which organization we're dealing with!!!

What does it have to do with human rights?

Quite a lot actually. If a consumer can only watch videos hosted by big corporates with deep pockets who can afford to bribe telcos to let them through, then there are freedom of speech issues.

SlemBunk slamdunk: Mobile banking Trojans found worldwide

Re: Explain to me again...

I am not at all convinced by the claims that Trusteer makes.

The only time a VPN would help is if you are on an untrusted Wifi connection and are concerned about MITM attacks. It doesn't help at all if your PC is infected.

Lovelace at 200: Celebrating the High Priestess to Babbage's machines

Re: Sexist shite

She invented computer programming. Babbage just wanted to make a better abacus. Lovelace saw that it was capable of much more than that. That is not a "bit-part" in the history of computing.

Smartphone hard, dudes, like it’s the end of the world!

Any cheapo landfill Android device would fit the description. But you can get a semi-decent one for about £100 so not much point paying £65 for a rubbish one.

BT and EE, O2 and Three: Are we in for a year of Euro telco mega-mergers?

Re: Is it a losing battle ?

Tesco have their own shops and distribution network. Vodafone have their own phone masts. No matter who you buy your electricity from, you get exactly the same electrons through exactly the same cables.

Imagine if you went to your local supermarket and could choose between an Asda till and a Tesco till at the exit. That's what competition in the electricity market is like.

Day 2: Millions of HSBC customers still locked out of online banking

Re: Really?

HSBC is, as far as I'm aware, the only bank that lets personal customers do international payments online, which can be useful, but does make it extra valuable to phishing attackers.

What did we learn today? Microsoft has patented the slider bar

Yes, adding "on a computer" or "over the Internet" to anything makes it patentable.

Assessing the UK’s Government Digital Service

Not everyone has a National Insurance Number. What if you are a non-resident who has to register for tax in the UK for one reason or another? You might be issued with an NI number as part of the process, but you won't have one when you first make contact with HMRC.

Dear Santa: Can gov.UK please stop outsourcing?

Re: Law against offshoring

I don't think Cornwall County Council is going to "go global", or even expand into England. The Tourist Board might want to take telephone enquiries from people in Asia, but that's about it as far as global reach is concerned.

Software bug sets free thousands of US prisoners too early

Re: Looks like there wasn't a good incident tracking system in place - and followup

You could get the calculation logic wrong in any language surely?

Strict new EU data protection rules formally adopted by MEPs

Re: Right to be forgotton

If they published a press release saying you had been prosecuted for tax evasion, then yes you could ask them to take it down after a suitable period of time had passed. If they leaked your tax return data, you could complain in the same way that you could complain about anyone else leaking your data.

iOS banking apps security still not good enough, says researcher

Re: Banking on a phone?

How does it compare in terms of security with banking on a website, with all the security problems web browsers and the operating system thy run on have?

No root for you! Google slams door on Symantec certs

You can tell Chrome to trust any certificate you want. Most people prefer to leave it to someone who knows what they are doing.

Uber fined $150,000 and forced to embarrass itself by French court

Re: RE: Honestly, I think Uber have kind of a point here...

A bit like Silk Road. Ross Ulbricht is in prison for that and will remain there for the foreseeable future.

VTech's Android tablet for kids 'hopelessly insecure'

Re: Why bother with security

Information of interest to people who like 7 year olds for the wrong reasons - contact details for their friends, birthdays, their photo and video collections, stuff like that.

Competition watchdog dismisses plans by TfL to uber-regulate Uber

Re: I believe Über claim that your contract is directly with the driver

Yes, "Invoice issued by Über BV". They have a problem. The journey starts in London, therefore it is subject to UK VAT regardless of who does it. If Über doesn't have a permanent establishment in the UK, then there is no registration threshold, so they have to start charging VAT from the first £1 of UK income. If they do have a permanent establishment, they get the £82k registration threshold, but they have to pay UK Corporation Tax on their profits.

Free HTTPS certs for all – Let's Encrypt opens doors to world+dog

Re: "browser histories out of the hands of eavesdroppers"

The DNS lookup is a separate request, and they may or may not have access to that. If they are looking at the https request, they only know the IP address, not the individual website or page on that website, though knowing the IP address and the size of the file coming back may give them some clues as to what you are doing.