* Posts by Paul 70

13 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Aug 2009

'Copyrighted' Java APIs deserve same protection as HARRY POTTER, Oracle tells court

Paul 70

God, I wish Groklaw were still around

Many a happy hour spent going through this case last time around - it's all still there if you want to have a look. Oracle are playing a dangerous game in my opinion and I hope they do not win. The API "copied" if just the headings etc - the building blocks of how to interface nicely with other programs and it is this interface specification which makes the IT world talk and tick.

Card skimmers targeting more than ATMs, says EU

Paul 70

Re: What no solutions?

I've always thought that the problem is that the PAN and PIN are too closely coupled and easy to get at. If one of these was changed to some other method then problem solved

1) One Time passwords (bank gives you a dongle or incorporates it in the card)

2) Challenge responses at the ATM

3) Anything else.

I'm convinced that (even online) just having a 16 digit number - which can be obtained photographically as well as magnetically - and a 3 digit verification number (again photographic) or 4 digit PIN (we know how easy it is to get that) is not enough. The banks insist on making the PAN unreadable/unstorable for PCI reasons for retailers, but not just make it completely valueless.

I know this will need a complete overhaul of the card industry, but if the banks are really into solving fraud then this is what needs to be done. I've got a feeling that the banks do not consider it to be in their interest so nothing will happen - except throwing the liability for fraud squarely on teh retailers and customers. The miniscule amount that can't be lobbed in that direction will hardly dent their profits, so why bother?

Visa and MasterCard warn of credit card data breach

Paul 70
FAIL

Track 1 and track 2!!!

This looks like it is pretty fundamental in the manufacturing of the cards and the compromise would have happened at this point. Millions of T1&2 data released to the wild must be big news to them. And they are always going on about retailers getting PCI compliant - this kind of drives a truck through all this.

Perhaps the time is getting near where the numbers on a credit card should not be the valuable bit of the credit card. Other methods to validate the cards must be made available to make the storage of the PAN completely irrelevant.

Job application scam fleeces company of $150,000

Paul 70

....but business needs suggest otherwise

All businesses (of which this is an example) need to pay people such as suppliers and staff. They have automated BACs systems which fire the money away from them. I don't think I would want to pop down to the bank to set up a payment for every new supplier etc.

However, you would have thought that the BACs system would be secure enough to not allow these things, and the company should check that the right payments are going out.

Blighty suffers 'real shortage of serviceable conkers'

Paul 70

Let's import them

Well, let's import them. I was in France the other week and they have no concept of the game and billions of fantastic conkers just lying on the street. I wish I had bought a bag or two back with me - although I'm bound to have broken some EU regulation or other.

'Huge airships to carry freight starting 10 years from now'

Paul 70

Seems like a good Idea to me - why not expand it?

We should also consider the huge amounts of shipping traffic that slurps around the world. These would surely be faster and, if big enough, be able to carry vast weights.

Also, wasn't the US going to vent its reserves of helium (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/02/05/helium_dome_forever/)

Seems a bit of a wasted opportunity there.

Wiseguys net $25m in ticket scalping racket

Paul 70
Happy

@AC

And what is wrong with that? We can't all afford Rolls Royces, some of us have to make do with something a bit more basic. If the market will support the high cost items then those who can't afford it might have to settle with the cheaper, but less derireable alternatives.

By the way, it is not the wealthy who win here, it is the concert promoter or band or whoever (but I agree that they may well be wealthy). Once the high price market has gone all other tickets (presuming there are some) will sell at a lower price. Touts won't buy them because the people who will have bought pricy tickets will already have done so so the market disappears, and they also will not be making such a high margin - who would buy an already high priced ticket at an even more inflated price?

We have to remember that these goods are not essential items, they are pure luxury (we don't need them to live) and as such there should be no price fixing to artificially make them more available to everyone.

Paul 70

Nothing to See here ... move on.

In the ticketing industry there are so many shouts against the secondary market - mainly, though, I suspect it is a call of "not fair" from the primary market ( read "Greed") for someone selling tickets at a higher price than they dare.

Essentially, though, the touts are just exploiting the free market. If they can get some goods at price x and sell at price y and make some profit then why not. If the primary industry wants to get rid of the secondary then they need to price their tickets better (at a level that the market will buy at). This puts the secondary guys out of business, but puts more pain on the final purchaser if they want cheap tickets.

Perhaps the industry should move towards more of an auction buying model then everyone wins.

I can't really see what these guys have done wrong - except contravene the T's & C's of the tickets they've bought.

New inside out hover-magnet fusion reactor debuts at MIT

Paul 70
Boffin

It's the best chance we have got - PLEASE invest some money

Of course it works - it is based on pure science which has been proved (and demonstrated) beyond all doubt. What we are trying to do now is to get the right box to put it in - and get the energy out.

OK, it's not perfectly clean - the neutrons etc flying out at whatever rate of knots are going to irradiate the surroundings and turn them radioactive; the fusion products won't be stable but they all will have significantly shorter halflives than plutonium for example (10's of years rather than thousands). And no-one can make an atom bomb out of slightly radioactive steel (or whatever is chosen to make the box.

The advantage over solar energy is that if we want more energy, we make more or bigger reactors. Once we've covered the world in solar cells, that is it. What is wrong with wanting more energy?

We are incredibly close, and the road map is clearly defined. Let's get the political guys to invest some money into this rather than the latest flim-flam thing like ID cards!

Come on World - do something right for a change!

Eggheads solve England penalty-shootout crapness riddle

Paul 70
Pint

Wish it worked for Golf though

I'm concentrating incredibly hard on putting the little ball into the hole from any distance from 6 inches to 30 feet and rarely does it go when I expect it to. Perhaps I'm just too good.

Home Office shifts feet as vetting database looms

Paul 70
Headmaster

And what about music?

I play in a number of brass bands and orchestras, regular rehearsals etc, and there will inevitiably be children in them (some of those 16/15/14/13 year olds can play a mean fiddle/cornet etc). I guess that all the members of the orchestra (100 players?) will need to go through the checks as well - or do we just chuck out the kids?

And what happens if one of our members fails? Why get rid of the best musician money can buy because of something that might have hapened in the past - but they are no threat to the kids? Once the pandora's box is opened it will lead to other disqualifications. What if they were falsely accused of something - still get a fail on the ECRB.

I'm not going to stop my music - most music organisations could not afford the £5000 fine (and why should they have to pay if one of the people who joins them has not bothered with the check) and ..... oooooohh, I'm starting to get annoyed!

Forget solar panels, it's time for rooftop slime-tanks

Paul 70
Troll

real vs artificial trees

Not only will artificial trees soak up vastly more CO2, but they'll do it 24 hours a day (no need for photosynthesis). And if they are in nice containers, why not stack them up on top of each other to reduce their land footprint (each doubling of hight will reduce the floor-space by one half). I guess we could fit most of them into a few large car parks if we tried.

As someone said before, stick them next to the sea (or a river/lake) and bubble the CO2 through it - some will get absorbed painlessly (apart from slightly fizzy seas? I think they are fun! See the sea around Vulcano in Italy for proof)

We could go on and on and on... Nice to know some people are thinking about it though; it' a much more sustainable solution that attempting to reduce emissions - volcanos throw out hugely more CO2 than us humans could ever hope to achieve.

Legal ruling may hit outsourcing claims

Paul 70
WTF?

How far?

Hardly a huge shift in location - Camberwell to Beckenham is only about 7 miles driving (and a train from Herne Hill takes approx 10 minutes). How this involves the M25 is beyond me unless she lives really far away and then the difference between the two locations is really minimal (and probably Beckenham is easier as you're further out.