Posts by Criminny Rickets

Norway's Consumer Council takes aim at enshittification

Well Done and Humourous

I saw this about 5 days ago when it was pushed on Loius Rossman's YouTube channel. They did a brilliant job on it. Louis' video is called - Norwegian Government comes out swinging on enshittification.

FTC to probe whether Microsoft's cloud clout crosses the line

As someone that has used both for years, I prefer Linux. As for the desktop app, it is much more convenient to access the cloud storage account using a desktop app from the company than nautilus or a 3rd party app. I currently use Expandrive to access it right now and was doing so back when it was a paid for program. If Dropbox, PCloud, MEGA and others can offer a Linux app for accessing their cloud storage, why couldn't Google?

Pretty ironic seeing as Google still doesn't offer a desktop app for Linux users to access Google Drive.

Firefox is dead to me – and I'm not the only one who is fed up

So what would the author of the article recommend using instead? I did not see any alternatives listed, though I may have missed it.

Google backs down after locking out Nextcloud Files app

Re: They will wait a few months

Why is that just a Linux problem?

Donald Trump proposes US govt acquire half of TikTok, which thanks him and restores service

National Security

Wasn't the point of shutting down TikTok or divesting Chinese ownership was to protect US National Security interests. Well there you go, easy fix, If they don't want the Chinese to know any national security secrets, don't post them to TikTok. There you go Donald, I just saves you 20 billion dollars. You can send some of those savings my way.

Judge tosses publishers' copyright suit against OpenAI

Every time a student reads a book, they are copying the information from the book into their brains. Every time one of those students goes on to create something based on what they learned from those books, it is creating a new work.

The AI is not reproducing the original book word for word, the same way a student when doing something, is not reproducing what they learned word for word.

What about schools that use books to teach kids, who then use that knowledge to go on to get high paying jobs. Should the companies be able to sue schools as well? The schools or students buy the companies books, but so do the AI companies.

Meta kills Facebook News in the US and Australia

Re: What is news ?

Not necessarily, META has a blackout on all news links in Canada, which goes for the rubbish ones as well. There were some that got blocked that proved to META that they were satire news sites, such as The Beaverton, so those have been allowed again.

Apple slams Android as a 'massive tracking device' in internal slides revealed in Google antitrust battle

The slides are even evidence in Googles favour. It said Apple went with Goggle as their default search engine as they felt Google was the better search engine. So could it be that the only thing (in this particular case) Google is guilty of is making a good search engine.

Mint freshens up its Linux garden for Ubuntu and Debian fans

Re: In a galaxy far, far away...

I've checked out Ubuntu CInnamon but much prefer the Linux Mint version of it. Linux Mint CInnamon is my main distro,

Amazon accused of being a monopolist in FTC lawsuit

I do quite a bit of shopping on Amazon myself. The biggest reasons I do so is that a number of the things I am looking for I am unable to find locally, or I can get a much better price for it on Amazon. I would rather pay an Amazon reseller $100.00 for something than pay a local company $500.00 for the same item.

Usually though, If I can get it locally at a decent price, I will buy local first.

Re: Ebay exists.

There's also Yahoo Search, DuckDuckGo and a few others. How is Google monopolistic if people decide to use them for doing their searches? Do they send squads out and force people to not use other search engines? It's peoples freedom of choice which search engine they use, so why should a company such as Google be penalized for people utilizing their own freedom of choice?

With version 117, Firefox finally speaks Chrome's translation language

Re: Drool

I use both Firefox and Reddit and have not noticed any issue. What bug are you referring to?

Three signs that Wayland is becoming the favored way to get a GUI on Linux

From Canada here and I got the reference.

Linux app depot Flathub may offer paid-for software

Abandonware

Maybe if some authors are receiving compensation for their software, we will not have as much abandonware of really good programs. I'm looking at you Banshee.

Mega's unbreakable encryption proves to be anything but

Re: Still better than others

Which is my I have a folder encrypted with Encfs in Dropbox. At least it's better than what they themselves offer.

Why the Linux desktop is the best desktop

Something must be compelling for so many businesses to use Microsoft Windows

Software requirements.

I currently work at a place that uses a cloud based front end system. The system requirements are Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 version 1607 or higher, Microsoft.NET framework, and either Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome must be set as the default browser on the system, though they highly recommend Internet Explorer.

Attack on Titan: Four Japanese Manga publishers sue Cloudflare

So based on their claim, when are they taking all the ISP's to court?

Scam-baiting YouTube channel Tech Support Scams taken offline by tech support scam

Them getting him to do something that would cause him to delete his account didn't ring any alarm bells with him?

Google fined €500m for not paying French publishers after using their words on web

Turnabout

Google should just pay the fine and negotiate a fee with the publishers, of course Google can then turn around and charge these same publishers a "nominal" fee for driving web traffic to their sites. If that fee Google charges the sites happens to be more than the publishers are charging Google, well, that is the cost of doing business on the web.

Biden order calls for net neutrality, antitrust action, ISP competition – and right to repair your own damn phone

Must be seen to be doing something

"signed a sweeping executive order directing government agencies to take steps"

So basically smoke and mirrors. Biden is directing the agencies to do something, but it is up to those agencies of whether to follow through. and by how much. So Biden can now say he did something, and if things don't happen the way people expect, he can turn around and say that he wasn't to blame.

Australian cops, FBI created backdoored chat app, told crims it was secure – then snooped on 9,000 users' plots

I am wondering if Australia jumped the gun on this disclosure, by announcing this before the FBI and Interpol were ready.

Red Hat pulls Free Software Foundation funding over Richard Stallman's return

What's the deal?

Now I don't know the full story about the hate on for Richard Stallman and am only going on the words attributed to him from this article..

"Stallman suggested Minsky might somehow not have known she'd been forced to do"

" he also referred to Epstein's victims as a "harem."

What is so bad about suggesting Minksy maybe not knowing the girl was forced?

As for the "harem" comment, if Epstein had a stable of girls, willing or not, that would still technically be a harem, so Stallman was not out of line with this comment.

Now I realize there is probably more to the story, but from just reading this article, I do not see anything that warrants these people being upset at the FSF over Stallman\s reinstatement.

Trump administration bans eight Chinese apps

I wonder what the impetus was on banning WPS Office? I have the free version of this running on some work computers, as I find it preferable to LibreOffice.

Twitter, Mozilla, Vimeo slam Europe’s one-size-fits-all internet content policing plan

Moderators can overcompensate

User posts on online blog: Blue is the new Green

Moderator: - Hey, that user is using Blue as a racist term... click click, there this little program will get rid of all articles with the word blue in it. What do you mean, what colour is the sky?

Internet Explorer fails to make the cut, banished from Microsoft Teams for good

Re: Still required in places

I wish, especially considering it has the look and feel of a program from the early 1990's. Like how can you have a program that can run only instance at a time. If I am using the editor, I can't open something else until I first close the editor. So I am not surprised that it requires Internet Explorer to run.

Still required in places

The company I work for requires us to use a cloud based app that ONLY works on Firefox 73.0 or Internet Explorer 11. We've never been able to get it to work with Firefox, so are stuck with Internet Explorer 11.

This is how demon.co.uk ends, not with a bang but a blunder: Randomer swipes decommissioning domain

Why?

Being from the other side of the pond, I was never a Demon subscriber, but do fondly remember, back in the day, visiting some sites on that domain. The yearly cost of a domain is not that much, and, as far as I know, it does not cost anything to have an extra domain on a mailserver. So my question is, why couldn't they just have kept the demon.co.uk subdomain running for the people that had that address, without accepting any new users of that domain?

You may be distracted by the pandemic but FYI: US Senate panel OK's backdoors-by-the-backdoor EARN IT Act

Re: Not Good.

You are forgetting that this is the Trump Republicans, who believe that hard scientific facts, are only suggestions.

How many? 28 million fewer PCs and tablets to find a home in 2020

I do have a PC. The laptop is for when I am on the move and being able to work on personal things at work (approved by the boss).

My older laptop has been acting up lately and I've been looking into getting a new one. My problem, they are asking WAY too much for what I am looking for. I'm not looking for a high end machine, just something I can read install Linux Mint on, read email, browse the web (with a few tabs open) , listen to music and watch or stream videos on. I also want to use it offline, which rules out Chromebooks. However, I am not going to pay over $600.00 CDN (354 GBP) for it.

Broadcom sues Netflix for its success: You’re stopping us making a fortune from set-top boxes, moans chip designer

Sue Happy

Does this mean I can sue Netflix. Amazon, and the other streaming services for curtailing my ability to resell all my old VHS tapes? It doesn't matter that I only have 5 tapes, each of those companies owe me millions of dollars each for preventing me from selling my tapes.

LastPass stores passwords so securely, not even its users can access them

Re: Seems a bit cheap

I have an encrypted folder in my cloud account that I keep my Keypass db in, which I can also access from all my devices.

Google touts managed Linux, gets cosy with Dell in Chromebook Enterprise push

Cloud

Yet they haven't yet been able to manage a native Linux app for running Google Drive.

Watch as 10 cops with guns and military camo storm suspected Capital One hacker's house…

Darwin Award Contender

Wow, if she actually did as described in the story about doing the hack then logging into her Github account from the same VPN connection, the police didn't have to follow any breadcrumbs, they just had to follow the BIG red arrows the the words "Hacker Here" pointed right at her.

Facebook celebrates Independence Day by lighting up American outage maps

I's not just the US, It's North America. I'm in Canada and also experiencing the issue.

UK pr0n viewers plan to circumvent smut-block measures – survey

Alternate Sources

I wonder if this means Usenet will be making a comeback, for those that do not plan to go the VPN route.

YouTube's pedo problem is so bad, it just switched off comments on millions of vids of small kids to stem the tide of vileness

Oy Vey

So they are saying... rather than surgically remove this skin blemish the tip of your nose, we are just going to fire this bazooka at it. That should clear it up.

'Occult' text from Buffy The Vampire Slayer ep actually just story about new bus lane in Dublin

Re: pro-Buffy flame war.

"Once more. With Feeeling.

Best episode ever :)"

I still listen to the Soundtrack. :)

The ink's not dry on California'a new net neutrality law and the US govt is already suing

Re: Why companies can regulate interstate commerce, and States cannot?

bombastic bob wrote: "If you want to talk about 'corporations' running things, I suggest starting with the Demo[n,c][R,r}at "'

TROLL, There's a troll in the comm... oh wait, this isn't Harry Potter... Carry on.

Do not adjust your set, er, browser: This is our new page-one design

Nice job

While I normally use an RSS reader for El Reg (have for years), there are times that I do visit the main site. I have to say that I actually do like the new layout. I find it is cleaner looking, and doesn't look as cluttered. It's also easier on the eyes to scroll through.

Tardis Reference

Ah, you've went and changed the front page around. I don't like it.

ICANN't get no respect: Europe throws Whois privacy plan in the trash

Slippery slope

"If they store data of Europeans it applies regardless of where they are based"

What if a pay grumble website is in a country with relaxed laws that says someone only needs to be 15 to view the content. Yet, in the EU, the law is that one has to be 18 to view such content. Does that website have to restrict people under 18 from seeing the content as it violated European law, even though it is legal in the country is is based? Can the EU fine that website for allowing under 18 yo's to get a subscription and view the content of the site, even though it is not based in the EU and is following the local laws?

US Supreme Court blocks internet's escape from state sales taxes

How will this affect companies that are headquartered outside of the US? All Amazon orders will now be processed by Amazon Canada. They can then say, "Sorry, we are not an American company so are not obligated to collect State taxes."

Oracle demands dev tear down iOS app that has 'JavaScript' in its name

Self Promotion

I prefer to use Coffeesscript myself.

How sure is the author of the article that Guo actually did receive a cease and desist letter, and it is not just him saying this so as to get free promotion for his app?

Sorry spooks: Princeton boffins reckon they can hide DNS queries

Do you connect to the ODNS Stub server with your request, which then encrypts it and sends it on.

Great, so then TPTB just need to watch the ODNS stub server to see what everyone's DNS requests are, and the originating IP.

What do Cali, New York, Hawaii, Maine and 18 other US states have in common? Fighting the FCC on net neutrality

Re: And the daily letters are: FUD

"About the only thing any did was throttle torrents"

Other that block Google Wallet, as it competed with their own, or blocked video sharing sites as it competed with their own, or throttled online radio station as it competed with their own.

Net Neutrality is not Net Regulation

Government is not taking over. The Net Neutrality rules do not regulate the Internet, they regulate the providers of said Internet to do just the opposite of net regulation. Net Neutrality says that providers cannot do anything to discriminate against internet traffic, be it VOIP, video sharing, file sharing, gaming etc. It is basically telling the providers that just as the government cannot, they also are not allowed to regulate the Internet.