Posts by big_D

Brits: Google, can you scrape 60k pages from web, pleeease

Re: Other search engines? @Raumkraut

That's the problem Invidious Aardvark, the source sites often can't take down the article or 'update' it, because it is public record.

They still have to be shown and shown in their original form (we are talking mainly about newspapers and other press here, bloggers are another matter, they probably would have to take down the articles if requested).and it is up to the search engines to remove links when searching with specific search terms.

For the spend conviction example in the article. Searching for 'Fred Bloggs offense A' wouldn't return results. Searching for 'offense A' would still return search results for Fred Bloggs, but buried among millions of other articles.

Re: Other search engines?

it covers all websites, but especially search engines and it isn't apecific to Google.

Google gets all the press, bevause a) they are the major search engine in Europe (in Germany they have around 93 -95% of the market) and b) they were the ones taken to court.

If the press was talkong about Bing and Yahoo! most people would probably ask 'who?'

EU privacy boogeyman unleashed by the very people with boogeyman-slaying weapons

Re: Opt out/in

I get regular calls from users as to why they are getting spam emails - usually because they signed up for something at a website and didn't notice that the site opted them in...

Google in 'right to be forgotten' snub probe: Ireland tackles moans

Re: @Ian Michael GumbyHere's the rub...

Except the court of law forbade them to delete the articles, as they are public record... So they can't (legally), even if they could (technically). Oh and they probably use a CMS, so no files to delete, just rows...

Re: @Ian Michael GumbyHere's the rub...

I never said that the newspapers should remove the stories from their websites. In fact I said that they cannot do this, which is why Google is being required to remove links under exceptional circumstances.

But just like in archives of old, the news is no longer on the front page and those wishing to research a story have to do a "reasonable" amount of digging. Just googling a persons name, to see what dirt is returned, isn't going to return these few "no longer relevant" links.

That means, if they are looking for articles on a murder, they will find the articles, including the ones about the arrest and trial, but searching for the individual's name won't bring up the articles about his arrest and trial, because he was wrongfully arrested and it has been "expunged" from searches for his name.

Re: @Ian Michael GumbyHere's the rub...

That's the problem Nuke, he can't. That is what the Spanish court said, the story is public record, so can't be removed, but links to it using the guy's name can be removed from search engines...

Think of it like a traditional newspaper. The story is big, gets lots of press and the papers in public circulation then get put in the trash. The longevity of the "public" viewing of the news is short lived. He is then pardoned and gets compensation, smaller headlines, some press, it gets forgotten.

Somebody researching the case can still go to the paper archives (or local library archives) and get copies of the original stories. Joe Public has forgotten and isn't reminded of the wrongfull conviction when they read today's paper. Search engines by-pass this "natural" process of the public conciousness forgetting older and irrelevant stories.

By removing the links from searches for the person's name, this "natural" forgetfullness is upheld. Yet somebody researching the story can still find the articles, because they aren't searching for the falsely accused person, but searching for news stories on the event.

E.g. Fred Bloggs accused of Frederika Bloggs murder.

Searching for Fred Bloggs after he was cleared and got himself "forgotten" won't return links to the trial. Searching for "Frederika Bloggs murder trial" will return those links.

Re: An early April fool's joke - right?

right to remember MBD? Yes you do and the original posts are not being forgotten. You can still navigate to them and you should still be able to search for them, if you use alternate search strings (i.e. do not include the person's name).

As to those dodgy photos etc. Here in Germany Facebook have to take them down, if the people in the photo have not given their permission for the photo to be uploaded and distributed. People really in the background of a photo in a public place cannot complain; but people who are "part" of the photo, as opposed to background noise, can request that the photo be removed - and if the photo was taken on private premises (or a telephoto lens used to photograph somebody on private premises), even those in the background can request it be removed.

Re: An early April fool's joke - right?

@AC have you read the ruling.

They can't just ask for unfavourable information to be removed. It has to fit certain criteria and it will only be removed in results with the applicants name in.

For example "Fred Bloggs, Clacton on Sea bankruptcy" would not return results of Fred's bankruptcs proceedings, but a search on "Clacton on Sea bankruptcy" should still return the results.

As to how much it is costing Google, they manage to pull down millions of copyright infringing links every day, so less than half a million links in a quarter is chicken feed.

Hey, non-US websites – FBI don't have to show you any stinkin' warrant

Re: A USA Inc marketing ploy?

The FBI's claim that they can do it "without a warrant" is quite interesting. If that sticks it means that US foreign policy, a matter for the political leadership of the US, can be completely undermined by their law enforcement agencies without the political leadership having any visibility or control over what's going on.

Most countries have laws against this sort of hacking attack. The FBI are opening themselves and their employees up to prosecution in those other countries. The FBI and the judge are correct, they don't need a US warrant in order to look at / hack overseas servers. They are wrong to think that makes it legal; what they need is a warrant issued in the country where the servers are!

Re: A USA Inc marketing ploy?

Shame the servers weren't in the UK, they could get the FBI arrested and extradidted to the UK under RIPA... Finally something RIPA is good for!

Windows 10 feedback: 'Microsoft, please do a deal with Google to use its browser'

Chrome or Firefox? On an Atom Windows 8 tablet, give me IE every time. It is fast and touch optimised. Firefox is slow and doesn't have any touch functionality and Chrome is porky not touch friendly.

On a "proper" desktop with Core iN processor Firefox is great, but on a low powered tablet, you just can't beat IE at the moment.

Revealed: Malware that forces weak ATMs to spit out 'ALL THE CASH'

Re: Eh?

But you can only do that once AC. If they manage to get access to the internals without anyone knowing, they might get away with emptying the machine on several occasions, before the bank notices and takes action - although each repeat visit increases the risk of getting caught.

No tiles, no NAP – next Windows for data centre looks promising

Re: But

It is a dev preview, so you agree to automatic updates being pushed as part of the testing process...

Oi, lobbyists. Cough up your details – EU's new first vice-president

Re: A statement of account

Lobbying should never involve money... It is just legalised bribery.

I always think of Frank Herbert's God Emperor of Dune - there are two major sins, corruption by an official and attempting to corrupt an official; both punishable by death.

It would certainly make things much clearer and perhaps we won't end up with the broken US system, where big business steamroller their views into law, trampling the "little people" that the government and the laws are supposed to be representing and protecting.

PEAK APPLE: iOS 8 SHUNNED by refusenik fanbois

Hmm, maybe 8 is an unlucky number in computing terms? Windows 8, now iOS 8 slow adoption?

New EU data chief: 'We share common targets with the United States'

Re: Safe Harbor

Safe Harbor is a sop to the US to allow US based cloud businesses operate in Europe. Without it, we wouldn't have GMail and Google services, iCloud, Microsoft web services, Azure, Amazon AWS etc.

It isn't a good solution, but it is a solution that allows some convinced, without breaking the law.

There needs to be some more controls on the US Authorities, especially the TLAs - although the US currently seems to be doing everything they can to destroy international business for American companies.

Nokia Lumia 735: Ignore the selfie hype, it's a grown-up phone

Windows Phone 8 did away with iTunes, you can just copy the photos off the phone, just like Android.

What’s the KEYBOARD SHORTCUT for Delete?! Look in a contextual menu, fool!

Re: Bigger on the inside

1-2-3 was great at making things up.

A colleague produced a mock-up of a reporting system in 1-2-3. The customer liked it, but instead of letting us write the complete system in C++, we had to do it in 1-2-3, 'because all of the users have that.'

After repeatedly saying this was a bad idea, we were forced into doing it in 1-2-3. It downloaded data from a VAX finance system and calculated sales forecasts and let the user fine tune them. It opened around 40 different worksheets. All went well, until it got to a certain size. Then it suddenly started doing random things - having dynamic macros that modified themselves on the fly probably didn't help, but running it debug mode was fine. The results were as expected. Letting it run gave different results each time.

In the end, we got permission to send it to Lotus for analysis. Their response was, 'wow, we never intended 1-2-3 to do anything that complicated. You should think about redoing it in C.'

Microsoft's nightmare DEEPENS: Windows 8 market share falling fast

Re: *

Interesting that Vista market share rose. And according to Netmarketshare Windows 8.x has overtaken Xp...

Apple, Google mobe encryption good news... for TERRORISTS – EU top cop

If the law enforcers did their job and ensured that mobile device theft was reduced by 100% and they stuck to only looking at phones with a valid search warrant, then there would be no need for encryption on mobile devices.

Until they can effectively combat crime and until agencies work within the law, they only have themselves to blame.

German data commish makes a Hamburger out of Google

Re: Idiots

Amazon isn't any better, they target me with adverts for products I've just bought!

But I must say, I've yet to see a single relevant advert come from Google. Maybe I'm not feeding them enough information, and Google Analytics resolves to 127.0.0.1...

Re: Idiots

The problem is that, after getting users to sign up to individual services, Google then migrated them all into a single silo, with a new, combined privacy policy and people didn't have a choice.

While they might have been happy for one service to have information on the sites they visited and another service to see where they were etc., the user was suddenly faced with a single service that could see everything and they had no options, other than to throw away their Android phone, which they would still have to pay for, for the next 2 years and find another email service and find another video service and...

If the information was still siloed as it was before the amalgamation, there would be no problem.

If the user could decide which information could be amalgamated, there would be no problem.

What Google did is against German and EU privacy laws. As a Data Protection Officer for my company, I don't see why Google should get a free pass, when every other company has to follow the rules or face a big fine.

Apple finally patches Bash Shellshock vuln that WAS NOT A WORRY, OK?

Re: Is this really relevant for OS X?

Okay, by Internet service gateway I mean an Internet facing CGI. One that is restricted to an Intranet could cause problems long term, but it isn't a priority one, stop the service now, until we get a patch, type of bug.

Re: Is this really relevant for OS X?

I've heard reports, although no confirmation, that OS X uses BASH for DHCP request purposes, so a malicious DHCP request in a coffee shop etc. could cause problems; but I agree, generally, most Apple users won't have been at immediate risk, if they aren't running something like an Apache stack or using their OS X machine as an Internet service gateway using BASH as the gateway.

What's a Chromebook good for? How about running PHOTOSHOP?

1TB $9.99 a month? For 3-4 months fees I can get "permanent" storage from our wholesaler (plus tax).

Okay, "permanent" is maybe 3 to 10 years, but given the low costs of drives, I can keep multiple backups.

Actually, I do have cloud storage, I have 5TB for around 6€ a month as part of my MS Office 365 subscription and I have "unlimited" on my Carbonite account.

I keep a copy of everything on my PC, a backup and general access for the family on the NAS, an external drive for on-site backups and Carbonite for offsite backup. But even with my 5mbps upstream, I wouldn't want to use Creative Cloud for image processing, I'd stick with local processing and syncing it to the cloud in the background.

Netflix bullish after six-country European INVASION

Re: signed-up for free trial in France - still feel it is bad value for money

Here in Germany they don't even have the rights for some of their own material. House of Cards is a Sky exclusive at the moment! Until that deal runs out, there will be no House of Cards on Netflix... :-S

On top of that, I don't know what the general pay-TV rates are like in Germany, but I don't know anyone that pays for channels. Those using cable internet, that I know, seem to just take the FTA channels. Likewise I don't know anyone with satellite that has a Sky subscription over here, they just get the FTA channels - and with over 50 German language channels, there is plenty of choice, so most don't bother with pay-TV.

The only advantage Netflix would bring, for me, would be original sound track. I currently get Amazon Prime Instant Video as part of my Prime subscription (which I use for the free next day delivery and the Kindle Library), but that seems to currently only be German language.

Given that I've watched less than 1 film a month on average with Prime, I don't see me getting much out of Netflix. Although I have ordered a FireTV at 49€, so I might start watching more...

Renault Twingo: Small, sporty(ish), safe ... and it's a BACK-ENDER

Re: Nobody will buy the smaller engine

Normally rear wheel drive is better in snow, because of the better weight distribution and you aren't trying to put all the power through the wheels that are doing the steering. 4 wheel drive is better still.

I certainly didn't have any problems with the BMW rental I had in Munich when it snowed.

Having winter tyres is important though. No car handles well on snow with summer tyres.

Out daughter drove a 12 year old example and we have a couple at work which have over a decade behind them and still run reliably.

Re: Nobody will buy the smaller engine

You seem to have the wrong idea about German Autobahns. Most people seem to drive between 100 and 130km/h (60 to ~75mph). Some people do drive faster, although large parts of the network now have speed restriction of under 70mph, as they need to be repaired or due heavy traffic.

Around here, the A2 to Hamburg is limited to 120km/h during the day for most of the way (and HGVs can't overtake) as it is the main route to and from the ports where HGVs are loaded and unloaded.

The original Twingo has always been very popular here, it is still a very sought after car and holds its price well - the second version doesn't seem to be as popular though. The old Twingo is great fun to drive, but very basic.

Google hits back at 'Dear Rupert' over search dominance claims

Re: Worrying

Not strictly true. The EU commission's point is that they promote their own services ahead of their competitors, not that they don't show or, to use RM's word "steal" other's content.

And the reason that is a problem is that they have over 95% market share in many countries.

Re: Worrying

It also works if you ask how things are done or work. Google are putting more and more of this "content" type result in place.

Except, half the time, Google seem to be taking them down of their own volition, without waiting for a takedown notice. In Germany they got taken to court by the equivalent of the MIAA, GEMA, because YouTube was displaying a link saying the GEMA had asked for the video to be removed, only they hadn't.

Google lost the case and now they say that they have removed the video as a precaution, because they haven't asked GEMA, whether they would object or not.

Worrying

what is worrying is the way that Google is starting to deliver content, instead of results.

Try "how old is william shakespeare" (or any other well known personality) or similar sorts of search.

They are returning enough information, that you don't ever need to leave the Google results page. This is great for the user, in the short term, but the more Google do this sort of thing, the less original content there will be, because the sites that used to create such data won't get impressions and won't get their advertising revenue, so they will slowly die off.

Galaxy Note 4 latest: Samsung rushes iPhone 6 Plus rival to China as Apple flails in dark

Re: Does it bend

What? Bending phones? Samsung and LG charge their customers extra for a bent phone. Apple users should consider themselves lucky, that they haven't been landed with an extra bill. ;-)

@FredBloggs61

I gave up on the contract upgrade cycle. I just buy the phone I want now, last time I bought mine over Amazon Warehouse Deals and saved around 200€ over how much it would have cost on the contract.

jQuery site popped to serve malware slop

Re: What's going on here??

A technicality, the malware wasn't hosted on jQuery, but somehow the attackers had managed to get it to link to another site, which did have malware and that site downloaded the malware onto unsuspecting visitors. E.g. they managed to inject a script or link tag or an Iframe.

Le whoops! Microsoft France boss blows lid off 'Windows 9' event

Re: Time flies

Different strokes, I guess.

I find it great. I like the new flat style and the start screen doesn't bother me - I use it about as often as the start menu; a couple of time a week. Most of my apps are pinned to the desktop.

In tablet mode it works very well, I much prefer it to iOS and Android tablets - the big advantage is, I can put my tablet in a desktop dock and it runs multiple external displays with full Windows desktop, no having to worry about syncing data, everything is just there.

The additions in multi-monitor support are worth the upgrade alone, if you use multiple monitors.

There are lots of subtle changes to Windows 8 that really make it a better experience.

And automatic background data throttling on a metered (E.g. 3G / LTE) connection is a boon.

Apple's new iPhone 6 vulnerable to last year's TouchID fingerprint hack

Re: Biometrics are broken

Exactly Slap, biometrics are unique "usernames", they are not good passwords, once they have been "cracked", you can't change them!

Microsoft vs the long arm of US law: Straight outta Dublin

Re: Will the German government be sensible?

@I ain't Spartacus

Yep, financial (tax relevant) data cannot be exported anywhere outside of Germany without a special dispensation from the German Finanzamt.

Re: Will the German government be sensible?

@A Non e-mouse

yes, but we are talking Irish law here, and EU law. Both trump US law in Ireland!

Re: Will the German government be sensible?

Ross,

EU Data Protection law says that Microsoft cannot hand the data over to a third party outside of Europe without an EU warrant or written permission.

That is the problem. Microsoft US might have to concede and hand over the data to US Authorities, but THAT act is illegal under EU law, where the data is held, so they open themselves up to prosecution in the EU.

Re: Will the German government be sensible?

My understanding is, if Microsoft lose and Microsoft US has to hand over the data, which "belongs" to Microsoft Ireland, as it is on Irish soil in a data center owned by MS Ireland, as far as I am aware, then the executives in Ireland will be liable to prosecution under EU data protection laws.

MS will have handed over the data to a third party outside the EU, without a valid EU warrant and wihtout getting written permission from the account holder and anybody identifiable in his correspondence. The account holder could also find himself facing prosecution in the EU for "allowing" MS to hand the data over - although that will probably be the least of his worries then...

Google grand fromage Eric Schmidt: Backing climate denier lobby a 'mistake'

Irrelevant

To me, it is irrelevant, whether man is solely responsible for climate change, or whether we are just a (small) contributor to climate change.

We live on a planet with very complex and fragile ecosystem and that ecosystem is constantly changing, so climate change is inevitable. The question is, do we ignore it and possibly accelerate the process through industrial excess or do we do our best to minimize our affect, whilst trying to find ways to stabalize or neutralize the natural effects?

Germany strikes again over Amazon warehouse pay

Re: The 'Jack Boot' is on the other foot now!

As well as wanting collective bargaining, Verdi is trying to force through that those working in thr warehouses aren't,warehouse workers, bur retail workers, because Amazon is a retailer.

That would mean that the workers don't have to work late or if they do, they get a much bigger shift,bonus, because shop workers aren't expected to work after about 20:00.

Bill Gates, drugs and the internet: Top 10 Larry Ellison quotes

Re: Thought Experiment.

A matter of perspective. ;-)

Re: Thought Experiment.

Matter and anti-matter don't react well, when they come into contact with each other.

Re: Love him or hate him...

I heard on TWiT today:

What is the difference between Larry Ellison and God?

God doesn't think he is Larry Ellison.

He has ego the size of a planet. I can't say I like the man, but you have to admire his success.

EE buys 58 Phones 4u stores for £2.5m after picking over carcass

Re: Smash and grab

My first thought as well, force them into receivership, then buy up the stores cheap...

iPhone 6: The final straw for Android makers eaten alive by the data parasite?

Re: lets look at this in another way..

I switched from iOS to Windows Phone 7 to Android to Windows Phone 8.

All the apps I used were available on all platforms. I had to reinvest a few quid in apps, but other than that, it was fairly painless - I currently run a Galaxy S3 with KitKat and a Lumia 1020 with Windows Phone 81. Update 1 - the Galaxy is a company phone and doesn't have any additional apps installed, the Lumia is my private phone and I have the apps installed on that.

I would say that Android and Windows Phone are about even on features and ease of use. There aren't as many apps for WP, but everything I need is there. Both of them are ahead of where the iPhone was with the 5S and iOS 7. I'll wait and see what iOS 8 and the iPhone 6 bring; we have one on order here for the CEO, so I'll get a look-see when it arrives.

So far, I haven't seen anything that would make me want to trade in my Galaxy or Lumia for an iPhone 6.

One of the nice things with the Lumia and the Galaxy is I can use my YubiKey NEO (NFC enabled) OTP generator to authenticate with.

Man buys iPHONE 6 and DROPS IT to SMASH on PURPOSE

Re: All about build quality

My old Galaxy fell 6' onto a marble floor, it landed face down, but perfectly flat. No damage to the display - although the aerials were disconnected.

My Lumia 1020 has had a couple of smaller drops. There is a slight wrinkle on one corner, but otherwise it has survived very well.

My old iPhone 3GS was also dropped several times, no display damage, although the casing around the headphone broke away and the headphones started cutting out.