Posts by Malcolm Weir

Remember when Republicans said Dems hacked voting systems to rig Georgia's election? There were no hacks

Re: Move on

You will never know if your vote has been counted... ballot boxes get lost, electronic voting machines may or may not report tallies correctly, your name may not be correct on the register so they mark your ballot "provisional", etc. Think about the chaos of the Democratic primary caucus in Iowa this year!

However, for those who worry about those things, California has ways to deliver completed ballots direct to the polling station or (in my city) large collection boxes at City Hall.

Re: what do you expect when ...

A useful tactic I've used when (pro-Trump) colleagues complain about "presidential harrassment" and how mean people are being to the Cheeto-in-Chief is to observe that I think the 45th president should be treated no differently than the same as the 44th President was treated by Trump.

(Birth Certificate --> Tax returns, etc).

Re: Just one nose-picking minute

@codejunky... you appear to confusing whether both parties would be willing to engage in distorting the actual "will of the people" with whether both parties actually are.

I agree that there's not much daylight between the two on the willingness front.

But there's plenty of evidence that, as of right now, the Republicans are actually doing far more than the Democrats. This is maybe because the Republicans are better at it, but in criminal matters, most folks want the more efficient crooks convicted ahead of the less competent ones!

Re: Coup, one small glimmer of hope

... and I've seen some churches conduct "social distancing" services in their parking lots or on the football field of an affiliated school. So you can still have some kind of community get together without violating the rules. Communion is tougher, though!

Re: A dry run for trumps loss in 2020

I agree compulsory voting is problematic, but "compulsory returning a ballot (possibly spoiled, possibly containing a rousing endorsement for "M. Mouse", possibly blank) is not.

I am required (by law) to return a census form in the US, and some kind of annual equivalent thing in the UK that worries about jury duty etc. And of course many people in many places have to file tax returns even if they owe no tax.

So why not require all eligible voters to acknowledge, even if they elect not to exercise, their rights?

SpaceX Falcon 9 and Dragon cleared to hoist real live American astronauts into space

Re: Space Taxis

10 flights per year exceeds the design goals of the ISS. The station is designed to support up to 7 people for ~6 months (I think the limit is 13 for a few days), with the idea of rotating about half the crew every 3. So the requirements of the ISS can be met with 4 flights per year, each with 3 or 4 crew members (Soyuz carries three). Of course, the shuttle flights had flight crew that returned with the craft after a week or so, so shuttle manifests with 7 or so people weren't uncommon (which is presumably why Crew Dragon can carry 7).

Simultaneous, Boeing has a manned vehicle that they are debugging. And Jeff Bezos is trying to figure out how to deliver packages to space with Blue Horizons, too.

I believe SpaceX has 5 trips scheduled over the next 18 months or so, and the Russians are still in the business. So for a while, we'll have (hopefully) significant excess manned capacity to the ISS, effectively using manned vehicles in place of robotic craft.

But that's the point: the ISS is just a convenient test destination. Ultimately, for SpaceX, this is just a stepping stone to crewed BFRs on their way to Mars.

Linux desktop org GNOME Foundation settles lawsuit with patent troll

Re: I hope it's a good result

The pragmatist notes that, even if the lawyers were working for free, the hours of any organization's staff required to fight a legal action have value. I mean, if you have a task that would cost you $10K to do internally, or $8K to hire a consultant to do for you, it's obviously worth considering the consultant... and similarly if throwing that $8K at a troll shuts them up (permanently), it's probably smarter to pay them than to fight.

You overstepped and infringed British sovereignty, Court of Appeal tells US in software companies' copyright battle

Re: US Law applies worldwide

And the UK needs to join the US in the corner, in their case not least because of their habit of allowing libel tourism...

Funnily enough, the USA has a law known as the SPEECH act, which specifically voids enforcement of any speech-related judgment that would have unconstitutional if sought in the US.

So there's your model. Oh, wait, that business of only permitting compensatory, not punitive, damages is exactly the same sort of thing, enacted for the same sort of reasons!

Meanwhile I find the US judges getting whiny about UK judges interfering with their final order amusing, because the US judges got the case precisely because SAS didn't like the final Uk/EU order...

Got a few spare terabytes of storage sitting around unused? Tardigrade can turn that into crypto-bucks

Tardigrade doesn't have the key, either. Only the owner has the key, and that's neither you nor Tardigrade.

The core of your assertion fails because it's not actually the "you versus plod", but rather your brief versus the DPP's, and as a matter of fact the plod would have to show that they have:

"reasonable grounds—" .. "that a key to the protected information is in the possession of any person,"

(RIPA, Section 49, Section 2, subsection (a)).

Your suggestion is that the "reasonable grounds" requirement is trivial to show. It isn't -- Apple is the poster child for this, as they have backups from millions of phones and tablets to which they have no access, due to not having the key, and the plod having no reasonable ground for believe they do.

Happy birthday, ARM1. It is 35 years since Britain's Acorn RISC Machine chip sipped power for the first time

Anyone know if Furber's brain-mimicing thing has a future, given that the Human Brain Project was an EU thing, and obviously Manchester isn't in the EU anymore?

If at first you don't succeed, fly, fly again: Boeing to repeat CST-100 test, Russia preps another ISS taxi

Re: "Not enough pressure in the LOX tank ullage to maintain stability"

While Starship is intended to be the Mars mission launcher, it first has a career as a orbital launcher. 42,000 Starlink satellites wont launch themselves...

Ransomware scumbags leak Boeing, Lockheed Martin, SpaceX documents after contractor refuses to pay

This sort of data sounds like sensitive, but not classified, information (a category called "controlled unclassified information", CUI). In the US, the prevailing attitude is not that suppliers "should be barred" so much as noting that they (Visser) may have difficulty getting new contracts from their customers (whose data they allowed to leak)...

As Zoom bans spread over privacy concerns, vid-conf biz taps up Stamos as firefighter in totally-not-a-PR-stunt move

For many, many years the typical PC (WIndows or Mac or Linux) didn't bother with passwords. Oh, sure, you could set them, but why would you bother to protect files that were also sitting in the unlocked filing cabinet next to the PC?

Zoom is very, very good for many use cases. In my orbit, it seems like individuals generally use the free accounts, and "meeting organizers" (akin the admin folks who schedule conference rooms) have the paid-for versions. Operationally, it's no more or less secure than Webex was (back when it was usable, before Cisco decided to jam all sorts of junk down your throat): if you create a meeting without a password, people can join if they know the number, and if they know the number and the password they can join even if you create it with one.

Obviously, it's flaws have been thrust into the spotlight because of the sudden demand (and kudos to Zoom for scaling to meet it). But I'd guess that most of the alternatives have operational or architectural flaws that could be (theoretically) exploited...

Overall, who really cares if a 5th form remote learning session might have some information gathered that theoretically be shared to the Chinese?

UK judge gives Google a choice: Either let SEO expert read your ranking algos or withdraw High Court evidence

Re: Hobson's choice

Ignoring the anti-big-company bias we generally see...

My initial thought was that, as with the Coca-Cola recipe issue, that this creates a genuine conflict between trade secrets and and public policy with an adversarial legal system. Absent the adversarial thing, the court could appoint a neutral expert, but that's something we (US and UK, particularly) only do when it's the legal system's own secrets at issue (e.g. the courts routinely appoint special masters to examine claims of "legal privilege" which are fundamentally the same sort of idea, but they won't do that for non-lawyers, because... reasons!)

But then I thought again, and realized that there must be people who used to work on Google algorithms but don't anymore, and those people would already have the special SEO insight that Google claims that they're worried about.

So either Google is genuinely hiding a smoking gun (which doesn't seem too likely, because the papers in question have already been filed, by Google, and the fact that they are willing to allow a different third party to look at it), or this is a larger play in order to add credence to whatever the papers say ("they must be the crown jewels, because Google wanted to keep them under wraps").

Therefore, my conclusion is that this is a "line in the sand" to limit how deep into Google's code this (and future) courts can pry...

Marriott Hotels hacked AGAIN: Two compromised employee logins abused to siphon off 5.2m guests' personal info

Re: Expectation

The breach was through unauthorized use of otherwise authorized credentials. So the statement makes perfect sense and indicates an unexpected level of anomaly detection!

Infosys fires employee who Facebooked 'let's hold hands and share coronavirus'

Re: Ah, that old chestnut.

No, I'm not. But anyone using the "fire in a crowded theater" trope is (see the comment to which I was replying). And if you use that trope, you should at least have a vague clue about freedom of association _as well as_ freedom of speech.

Re: Ah, that old chestnut.

Gawd, that old chestnut: fire in a crowded theater. It fails totally here because who the feck is going to act on these sorts of comments from some rando on the internet?

Anyway, this argument is based on the 1st amendment, which _also_ allows for freedom of association (the "peaceably assemble" bit), so while the dude has (should have) the right to make an ass of himself, so too does Infosys have the right to decline to associate with the ass!

Re: Background

Ahem... that should be FREEDOM!(tm)

Grsecurity maker finally coughs up $300k to foot open-source pioneer Bruce Perens' legal bill in row over GPL

Re: Travesty of Justice

Not really. Perens at least nominally owes the lawyers the amounts claimed; those are the damages that they are asking the court to award. If Perens and the lawyers agree to settle the debt with a lower amount, that's up to them and unrelated to the anti-SLAPP motion.

(Typically, when a settlement is reached for a lower amount than is asked, the lawyers typically agree to accept the amount in full payment of the debt. But they could insist on being paid the full $526,000).

Drones intone 'you must stay home,' eliciting moans from those in the zone: Flying gizmos corral Brits amid coronavirus lockdown

Re: (e)to donate blood;

OK, so granted you may be in a lower-risk group than your age alone suggests... but (a) how does the NHSB&T org. know that (they do know your age), and (b) it's not unreasonable to note that people of your age tend to have greater notions of social obligation than people in theie 20s and 30s, and even if you are good to go, what about people who may take your acts as encouragement to put themselves (and people with whom they live) at higher risk?

Setting an example works by, err, setting an example. So please stay home and hoard that luverly O- stuff, so that when the worst of the peak is over, you are in a position to drop off a pint...

Remember that clinical trial, promoted by President Trump, of a possible COVID-19 cure? So, so, so many questions...

Re: New French study confirms results

Not really: there was no control group, so we have no idea what the prognosis would have been without the treatment (and I acknowledge that this is a horribly tricky issue for clinicians: if you believe a treatment will work, how can you ethically withhold it from the control group?).

The potential issue is the same as that which homeopaths have been using to scam people for ages: was the improved outcome a function of the treatment, or of other factors incidental to the treatment? (With homeopathy, the source of the improved results wasn't the magic of the treatment, but the fact that the "treatment" was clean water, while other patients got untreated water!)

This is really accurate. Trump didn't state they should be tested, he stated they had been and were looking good, and invoked the FDA's name to added credibility.

I completely agree that there is a very reasonable comment that a leader could have made along the lines of "There has been some indications that an existing drug therapy for another disease could be beneficial to COVID-19 patients, and the FDA is doing great things to help investigate that"..

The trouble is that Trump is apparently congenitally incapable of saying "good" when he could say "best", or "unhelpful" when he could use "bad". The man doesn't do nuance, and that's a problem in a world where nuance directly translates to (perhaps fractions) of a death rate; if a remark from a leader reduces / increases the fatality rate between (say) 4.21% and 4.20%, that's a difference of 32,000 bodies, i.e. the population of a small city...

Re: Echo chamber aside

OK, so given the third part of your comment is true, let's go back to the claim you're trying to substantiate with that comment: do diseases care about nationalities?

And the answer is, still, that they don't.

You lose.

Turns out that "nationality" and "ethnic/racial groups" are different things... many people spot that fact based on the words being different and all! So Luxembourgers are not French/German/Belgian in nationality, but have pretty much identical "racial/ethnic" makeup with their neighbours.

Oh, and while you're trying to be a smartarse, you missed the fact that many _cultures_ behave in ways that help or hinder propagation of illnesses. So in this particular situation, China's more authoritarian society and more communal housing policies facilitated some of the tactics they used to help control the spread of the virus, which tactics have little applicability to, say, rural America, but might have some relevance to housing in NYC.

London court tells Julian Assange: No, coronavirus is not a good reason for you to be let out of prison

Re: @DougS

To the extent that this is true (which is not very far, but it has a kernel of truth), it's worth remembering that the same was broadly true of the last occupant: the MSM went after Obama since he took the oath of office, for the precisely the same reasons!

It's what the media does.

Sure, Fox is sycophantic towards Trump and was/is hostile to Obama, but I'm have a hard time remembering when Obama got the full sycophant treatment from the allegedly left-wing media (drone strikes, etc.)

It is entirely possible that some of the "going after Trump" stuff is caused by, I dunno, stuff Trump does / does not do.

And to those who applaud Assange for wikileaks: compare and contrast with the way Snowden disclosed his leaks, notably avoiding naming people, unlike Assange who jeopardize people by dumping without editing out extraneous material (which is what the media does.).

After 20-year battle, Channel island Sark finally earns the right to exist on the internet with its own top-level domain

And now... I guess Alderney gets to try for their own?

SpaceX beats an engine failure to loft another 60 Starlink satellites

Re: Figures

Also... Falcon 9 (and Falcon Heavy) are only interim vehicles; Starship aka BFR is the direction SpaceX is heading, as you'd know from the video: they want 3 launches [i]per day[/i] While a Falcon 9 can put 60 Starlink satellites in orbit, the Starship is expected to carry about 400...

As to the economics of 4, 5 or 100 launches: I believe this is a reference to the economics of Starlink, not regular commercial launches. But even then, the economics are soon to shift: they have 300 "v1" satellites in order, with another 58 "production ready".... and 420 is the number they need to start providing service aka generating income, with 780 to provide "moderate" coverage.

Of course, one of their target markets is "aircraft in flight", and that depends on the airlines surviving the virus.

Yelp finally gets its chance to tell US Congress how Google screws its listings service every minute of every day

Re: Repeal Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act

Oh, that's particularly ignorant in this context: repealing section 230 would make websites liable for the content of commentards. You may or may not think that's a good thing, but in this context, it would do precisely what this article is complaining about: Yelp and Google's "organic" search results would both die (particularly Yelp), as their results would be considered speech, and Google's "sponsored" listings would be all that's left.

Remember when you submitted your website to directories, like Yahoo!? And then along came Alta Vista, then Google...

Also, "hewhoshallnotbenamed" would have been unable to post what he posted, as it could be seen as defamatory to Mike Lee, Google and Facebook. It's probably not _actually_ defamatory, but who'd want to go to court to defend that post?

Section 230 created the internet as it exists today. Politicians and big businesses eager to control discourse want to stifle free speech in favor of strict liability rules, because there's no-one with a greater interest in limiting the First Amendment than the Establishment!

Rocket Lab wants to break free, hopes next mission is more 'A Kind Of Magic' than 'Another One Bites The Dust'

Re: Ring any bells?

Well, fly them from Chicago to Florida on a 737 MAX. The 747 MAX has none of the issues of the 737 MAX, mostly due to the essential non-existence of the former...

NSO Group fires back at Facebook: You lied to the court, claims spyware slinger, and we've got the proof

Re: Does US Jurisdiction = planet Earth?

Well, yes... anyone "doing business" in a jurisdiction is liable to someone asserting that they're subject to that jurisdiction.

See also every ruling from the EU against Microsoft, Google, Facebook, etc...

NSO will very likely not be able to _prove_ their version of events to the level needed to prove "fraud on the court"; that challenge was just thrown out there to ratchet up the rhetoric. The "Hail Mary" that they're trying for is for the court to dismiss with prejudice (so Facebook loses permanently), but that's a very very long shot!

If NSO's claims are factually correct and the service of the subpoena was actually deficient, then the most likely outcome will be that the judgment will be vacated and remanded for further proceedings and the "did Facebook's attorneys knowingly perpetrate a fraud when they claimed that the subpoena had been served?" will be mooted.

Note that the NSO argument is that allegedly 2 days prior to the hearing, Facebook's Israeli attorneys were informed that service was not complete, which seems awfully close, and it seems very likely that Facebook would simply argue that they believed that (a) the subpoena had been served, and/or (b) the suggestion that it may have been deficient was itself deficient (i.e. what we have here is two lawyers arguing about the law, which is normal and what courts are for).

Also note that NSO is also arguing that they are operating under Israeli government sponsorship in producing their malware, and gosh, the Israeli government is the party asserting that the service of the subpoena is incomplete. Golly.

Even from just reading NSO's filing, they acknowledge that they're well aware of the case and it's calendar, and that they're claiming that they aren't subject to the court's jurisdiction. Now, point to ponder: is a California court more or less likely to view a party's filinigs in a favorable light if they make their objections known in a timeley manner, or if they wait until after the court has wasted time issuing a judgment of default?

The simplest (and cheapest) approach for NSO would have been to have an attorney show up in the courtroom, note that they arent waiving jurisdiction claims, but by the way Facebook hasn't managed to serve them yet, so see you in 90 days (or whatever).

To be honest, this looks like NSO is trying to drag things out as long as possible, which is suggestive of, shall we say, a certain awareness of risk...

Assange lawyer: Trump offered WikiLeaker a pardon in exchange for denying Russia hacked Democrats' email

Re: And losers they are

While it's fun to claim the reason people used personal email addresses was to circumvent records laws, the much more likely explanation is the one that multiple people have offered: the US Government is crap at IT

Colin Powell, when he had Hilary's job as SecState, gave the same rationale as Clinton on the use of personal Emails: the security folks had gotten confused about who the boss was. It is not IT's job to tell the boss what to do, but rather to facilitate delivery pf the boss's needs. Clinton asked for a secure "blackberry" (actually made by General Dynamics, as Obama used), and the twats at State refused. So she used her own setup. SecState is the most senior cabinet post in the government...

As regards the classified information issue: precisely three (of 30,000) emails contained even partial security markings, and those were the (C) for Confidential ones. A total of 110 messages contained classified material at the time.

HOWEVER, the effort to throw political mud at Clinton ignores the fact that those 110 messages should not have been sent on unclassified email, regardless whether the unclass email servers were run by the State Department, Clinton, or AOL! So this is not an issue concerned with personal servers, just a perfectly conventional "information mishandling" issue. The State Department is also obfuscating this point because they don't want to look to see who else has been sending sensitive information on the wrong side of the red/black divide...

Re: Warning: This is fake news!

Point of fact: Rohrabacher is a _former_ member of congress. He failed to get re-elected in a fairly conservative constituency.

Re: And losers they are

Hi, little coward!

Yes, I would support the prosecution of Democrats.

But sadly for your desperate efforts to muddy the waters, the HRC/subpoena issue was one raised by TRUMP, and is not even vaguely actionable. The subpoena, a copy of which you can read for you little self online (Google "Kendall.Clinton Subpoena - 2015.03.04.pdf" and pick the one from the house.gov server) specifically requires production of documents related to the Benghazi attacks in Libya.

It is not, as you wish to imply, a some kind of blanket records preservation order. So there was no issue whatsoever in deleting emails PROVIDED that they had nothing to do with the subject of the subpoena.

Obviously, because you're a deranged half-witted troll (possibly in the pay of Russia), you'll assert with no evidence that all the deleted emails contained TOTES TOPPIMOST SUPER DUPER SECRETIVE info that should have been disclosed, but there is no evidence that they did (and given that emails typically leave copies around the place -- both at the sender and receiver's end -- it's hard to sustain that claim absent, say, evidence!

Meanwhile, note that Trump's daughter has been selecting which emails are required to be preserved, but I haven't noticed you getting all excitingly frothy over that (I know, your boss only pays you to obfuscate Trump's wrongdoings!)

Lastly, it's not even a teeny-tiny stretch to prove that the man who paid Stormy Daniels via Cohen didn't report it! We KNOW this because TRUMP said he repaid Cohen (first via Giuliani, then directly stating that was via $35K retainer payments...).

We also have the "oops" about the criminal Trump Foundation paying for campaign expenses...

Re: His name is Seth Rich

Sorry, had a life to lead!

Anyway, here's a nice summary: https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/

Here's a report on actions that the US Government took (before the election) following the conclusions of the Intellgence Community: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/oct/07/us-russia-dnc-hack-interfering-presidential-election

Now run back to Moscow, AC!

Re: How?

Precisely: Pardons are generally written to be inclusive of unindicted crimes as well as indicted ones, in theory to avoid any double jeopardy confusion (does jeopardy attach if you're convicted of a crime for a related act, and then pardoned?).

For example, racist ex-sherrif Joe Arpaio was technically not convicted, as although the jury had found him guilty, the judge had not sentenced him (in certain circumstances, a judge can overturn a jury conviction... that wasn't going to happen with Arpaio, but it's why he had not technically been convicted as he awaited sentencing -- found guilty, but not yet convicted). Trump pardoned him as a sop to his fellow racists and as part of Trump's strategy of demonizing Latinos.

Trump's pardon included the phrase "for any other offenses under Chapter 21 of Title 18, United States Code that might arise, or be charged, in connection with Melendres v. Arpaio".

Oddly enough, Trump pardoned Arpaio "for his conviction" before he'd actually been convicted (see above, he was awaiting sentencing), so a purist might argue that the part of the pardon was moot, and it's only the second part ("for any other offenses...") that truly applies. Of course, it doesn't actually matter, as no Federal prosecutor or judge is going to try to upset that particular apple cart.

Fortunately, though, no state prosecutor need give a flying fig what Trump did, as the Trump cannot pardon anyone for state crimes. Which is unfortunate for, err, him...

Re: And losers they are

Oddly enough, this Anonymous Coward is demonstrating a comprehension failure!

The claim is that the email incident _was credited_ with altering the result. It is NOT that the email incident _altered_ the result.

The first is undeniably true, even if the AC doesn't approve of the people who did the crediting (oddly enough, AC discounts all democrats, which includes people who know far more about it than he does, such as the President of the United States at the time).

I generally agree that it it's impossible to determine, and generally unproductive to spend a lot of time considering WHETHER public opinion turned enough to change the election result. But it is certainly prudent to note that Comey's failure to follow policy had an impact.

Personally, I think it appropriate to criminalize and prosecute officials who disregard policy with regards to elections, an I think the statute of limitations should be longer than the term of anyone being elected (perhaps being suspended for the duration that the accused is in office). So I think Trump's violations of campaign finance laws should be prosecuted once he leaves office...

Re: His name is Seth Rich

Neither. Have a nice day, you disgusting sociopath!

Re: His name is Seth Rich

@romandog In the words of the late Mr Rich's parents, you're a "disgusting sociopath".

The amount of evidence that the DNC server was hacked is enormous.

The amount of evidence support the disgusting sociopath's vile conspiracy theory is basically nil, beyond claims by other disgusting sociopath's like Newt Gingrich.

All you really need to know about this disgraceful attempt by romandog to further this vicious attempt to use Mr. Rich's death to further their political ends is that, even though Fox News reported the conspiracy theory, they, Fox News, later retracted it. So this is garbage that not even Fox News will print.

I'll close with statements from the victim's family:

"We simply want to find his killers and grieve. Instead, we are stuck having to constantly fight against non-facts, baseless allegations, and general stupidity to defend my brother's name and legacy." (Seth Rich's brother Aaron Rich)

"At this point, only people with transparent political agendas or sociopaths are still perpetuating Seth Rich conspiracies." (Family spokesman).

Google lives in an Orange submarine: Transatlantic cable will get by with a little help from some friends

Dunant joins the Curie cable – Google's other private transatlantic link named for Marie Curie, which links the US and Chile

Not entirely sure how a TRANSATLANTIC link gets to Chile...

Steve Jobs, executives shot down top Apple engineers' plea to design their own server CPU – latest twist in legal battle over chip upstart Nuvia

Re: I find this rather sad

Not really... Apple's strength has historically been in "technical marketing" rather than true innovation. Of course, they have innovated from time to time, but what makes Apple impressive is their ability to combine a bunch of existing stuff into something they can sell as special.

Uncle Sam tells F-35B allies they'll have to fly the things a lot more if they want to help out around South China Sea

Which well known air force is buying new versions of an old eagle....?

Fed-up air safety bods ban A350 pilots from enjoying cockpit coffees

If you pop over to Airbus' virtual cockpit viewer at https://ccntservice.airbus.com/apps/cockpits/a350/ you can see part of the problem: there _are_ no good cup holders. But wait, there's more: there' are pull-out keyboards (as shown in this from an A380: https://airbus-h.assetsadobe2.com/is/image/content/dam/products-and-solutions/interior/A380_Airbus_cockpit.JPG?wid=1920&fit=fit,1&qlt=85,0) So pull out the keyboard, put your coffee on the nice sturdy bit furthest from the side-stick controller, and ... oops!

Brits may still be struck by Lightning, but EU lawmakers vote for bloc-wide common charging rules

Apple are not dumb, but are profit motivated!

Macbooks are already powered via USB Type C. The only reason to phase the transition from Lightning to Type C is non-technical: there's nothing in Lightning that's not in Type C, and plenty in Type C that's not in Lightning. For example, Lightning has two lanes, Type C has four high speed "lanes" (signal pairs) plus four low speed "lanes" (pairs). [OK, so by the current standard, the low-speed pairs are fully allocated with relatively little room for innovation, but two of the high-speed ones are, by design, unallocated -- or rather, can be allocated to a number of different interfaces, including Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, HDMI, Ethernet and others to be defined.

So why wouldn't Apple dump Lightning? Probably precisely for the reasons the EU wants to legislate: Apple _wants_ a nice, controlled private ecosystem and doesn't want customers to be able to use their iPhone accessories with non-iPhone devices.

It's been one day since Blighty OK'd Huawei for parts of 5G – and US politicians haven't overreacted at all. Wait, what? Surveillance state commies?

"being out of the EU allows Britain to have a go at the rest of the World unfettered"

Which of the world would that be? I'm sure we could get a great deal with Nauru, but I'm not totally convinced that it would make up for the lost trade with Europe....

Maryland: Make malware possession a crime! Yes, yes, researchers get a free pass

I read the bill as permitting the possession of ransomware as long as you are researching how to make lots of money from infecting people with it....

One-time Brexit Secretary David Davis demands Mike Lynch's extradition to US be halted

Not Menwith

Anne Sacoolas killed Harry Dunn as she left RAF Croughton (Northants) not Menwith Hill (Yorks).

The headline of this article is poorly crafted. It should probably be "david davis says stop extradition of mike lynch to US".

But Davis is right about the extradition treaty imbalance.

Beer necessities: US chap registers bevvy as emotional support animal so he can booze on public transport

Re: The service animal scam is about to come to a very abrupt end

I've heard a number of people make this claim about "service animals" being a scam. First, they're talking about _support_ animals, which are not the same as _service_ animals, hence the different words.

Second, even if you are talking about _support_ animals, who, precisely, is (or should be) the judge of the benefit that the animal brings?

For example, if having a dog means you don't need to take anti-depressant medication, is that enough to qualify the dog as a "real" support animal... I know several people that were long-time patients taking doctor-prescribed meds, like Welbutrin, who quit the meds when they got the dog. Sure, the mechanism is probably that taking Fido for a walk everyday relieves the depression, but if it's the presence of the dog that inspires the walking, well, who's to say that's worse than popping pills?

I certainly accept there are some people with support animals that want the beast as a "petcessorary", but it seems to me that most of the regulations against (say) dogs are based on unsound motives. For example, the airlines hate emotional support animals because they don't get to charge ludicrous fees to transport them... and use their staff's tired "a dog bit me once" line as a justification (penalize the owners of dogs who bite, not everyone).

To catch a thief, go to Google with a geofence warrant – and it will give you all the details

Re: Wait a minute

(Ditto Apple, of course)...

The problem I have with this viewpoint is that it's "just" picking on the largest players (Apple and Google). But the issue is generic: what about the CCTV, Wifi base stations, Bluetooth beacons... the latter at least potentially collecting metadata even from individuals that don't connect/pair (the mere fact that a device is in range is collectable).

You're assuming the primary goal of the intelligence is to identify the suspects. Sure, that would be nice, but a more likely outcome is to track the suspects to their next stop, and then start again with the video analysis to see who got out of the car and where they went next...

EU declares it'll Make USB-C Great Again™. You hear that, Apple?

Re: Thunderbolt

True, but the USB spec does define how Thunderbolt should use the Type C connector!

(And DisplayPort. And HDMI. It's pretty nifty...)