Posts by JimmyPage

WTF is the Internet of Things and how insurers will use it against you

Re: security by ping

*You* said security by ping not me. I didn't say I was using it as a security measure. My experience of CCTV is that it's not a deterrent, and it's never of any use to the police in getting any stolen property back - let alone catching the scrotes.

I just happen to have a CCTV camera hooked up to my server so I can play around with Zoneminder. I did toy with the idea of sending an email or SMS when the phone was out of ping range, but it was easier to issue a "service zoneminder start" command, than trawl through the sendmail or bluetooth manuals.

Yes, my Smartphone has a fixed IP - or rather my router gives it a fixed IP. And regarding any power saving mode (which it does have) that's kind of a failsafe anyway. There's no downside to the camera being activated erroneously, so it's a risk I'm managing to live with.

It irritates me when people fail to account for all factors before picking fault. As a 100% reliable presence detector, is this suitable ? No. As something cobbled together with what was lying around to illustrate how we can always find new tricks for old dogs is it of interest ? Yes.

Re: Making 1+1=3 ?

Not really, it seemed so bleeding obvious ... just a tiny bash script which runs on a cron ...

Making 1+1=3 ?

I would suggest that technology goes in bursts. Massive advances, then a hiatus as people start to find weird and wonderful ways of mixing it up. Case in hand, is a combination of my home server, and a WiFi router. Who would have thought that by setting up a ping to my smartphones WiFi IP address, I would have a crude - but effective - presence detector. Now, my CCTV setup is switched in automatically, if there's no response to a PING after 2 minutes.

Boffins: Bonkless Brits fondling slabs, not each other

"I haven't had sex in 300 years ..."

"... 310 if you include my marriage"

Woody Allen - "Sleeper"

Wintel must welcome Androitel and Chromtel into cosy menage – Intel

+1

when I was at Uni, in the 80s, I thought the x86 architecture was damaged in the name of backwards compatibility (remember the Extended/Expanded memory fiasco ?).

Now the 68xxxx from Motorola. THERE was a processor. Incredibly logical instruction and addressing modes.

Lavabit founder: Feds ORDERED email providers to stay open

Off the top of my head.

(Bearing in mind exchange of encrypted data is always vulnerable to the initial key exchange)

1) Choose a book*, obviously in digital form

2) Parse the book into a database. You need to be able to search for words and letters.

3) Encrypt your plaintext by matching words from your book, and noting the position. Obviously you will have many exemplars for common words, so your algorithm should try and use different word positions for repeated words (e.g. "The"). For words not in the book (technical, foreign) you escape and insert letter positions (again mixing them up).

4) You now have a text document which is meaningless without knowing which book was used. (And - see Sherlock Holmes - which edition).

Now you could just generate your own hash table. But then you'd have to distribute it. With the book system, you can distribute the DETAILS of the book by a separate, trusted channel. Say a face to face meeting.

However, my understanding is that the spooks are less interested in the contents of messages, as the sender and recipient relationship. In which case, posting to newsgroups would avoid the link.

*Magazine, newspaper, research paper.

"Forced" to stay open ..

I wonder who has to pay in these circumstances ?

GALACTIC YO-YO: Doctor Who’s trips to Earth... and beyond

Re: How about Wales?

Wasn't there an old legend about actors from Dr. Who running away from something on an alien world (i.e. disused quarry) and bumping into the cast of "Blakes 7" running the other way ?

Re: Budget

AIR a lot of the 3rd doctors adventures were filmed outdoors - which is very expensive compared to a studio. One of the conditions of Blackadder 2, after the lukewarm reception to "The Blackadder" (which had a *lot* of film scenes) was that it be filmed entirely in a studio.

Google, Microsoft to drop child sex abuse from basic web search

@bigtimehustler - "moral" duty

chimes with that ludicrous attempt by Harriet Harman (what was her previous occupation ? Oh, yes, a barrister) to subvert our legal system by claiming that it was OK to bash Fred Goodwin, because he was guilty "in the court of public opinion".

Harm ?

Well, effectively, what is happening, is Google (et al) will be distorting reality, by messing with their search results.

Once you accept the principle, all else is, to quote George Bernard Shaw "arguing about the price".

Maybe Google shouldn't return searches for politicians names ? After all, there's no need to know what they got up to in the past.

Or how about searches for government misconduct. Maybe searches for British troops breaking the Geneva convention. After all we wouldn't want to help terrorists, would we ?

I can actually see this p(l)aying into Googles hands. How long before they offer a paid-for "premium" search facility ?

Politicians seem to struggle

with the difference between the contents of a location, and the contents of a location pointed to by another location. Somehow I can't see them developing as C programmers any day soon.

The ULTIMATE cuppa showdown: And the winner is...

Re: Earl Grey - VOTE NOW

Ah, Earl Grey with a spoonful of set honey ... I'm in heaven

Murdoch stands between your kids and filth with BSkyB network-level SHIELD

@Smurfette: *Do* opt out

For those who want to protest silently, I'd say sign up for the smut filter and just continue to access the material they claim they can 'block' anyway.

The problem is (and it's intentional) if people do that, then the government will claim the fact that only 5% opted out "proves" they had public support for the measure. Which they will then use to crowbar other asinine laws into the statute books.

Despite what they say, *somebody* is watching all that porn.

It's the same with the brain dead "war on drugs". Almost daily you will read of the police busting another "cannabis farm" claiming they have public support. Well, *somebody* is buying all that dope .....

MANUAL STIMULATION: Whack me with some proper documentation

+ signs are valid in email addresses.

so are apostrophes, as I discovered when a "O'Connell" tried to register in a program I once inherited.

I had to post, to salute the title ..

"Manual Stimulation", fnarr fnarr

Bitcoin mining rig firm claims $3m revenue in just FOUR DAYS

No, it's a good question ...

it's a little like buying machines which turn lead into gold without asking why the seller doesn't just use the machine to make his own gold.

Hackers steal 'FULL credit card details' of 376,000 people from Irish loyalty programme firm

Out of interest ..

Why did a "loyalty card" scheme need credit card details ?

Re: parent company

The parent company appears to be based in Slough www.affinioninternational.com and regulated by the FSA, wonder will there be any fallout from this?

ITYM "FCA" - FSA is no more.

Three Men in a Tardis

Do I get a biscuit ...

when I saw the (full) title: "Three Men in A Boat (to say nothing of the dog)" I immediately recalled "Montmorency"

Google makes Gmail EVEN NOISIER, or should that be nosier?

From a satisfied Google+ user ...

YouTube video

NSFW (depending where you work)

Doctor Who nicked my plot and all I got was a mention in this lousy feature

However ... "Logopolis"

still stands as one of the most haunting and elegaic pieces of television science fiction ever.

Fiery bits of Euro satellite to rain down on Earth this weekend

Time to dust off ...

my Skylab protection hat ...

Lavabit, Silent Circle form Dark Mail Alliance to destroy email snooping

Or ...

why not have a system which posts encrypted text to usenet, with a subject line containing your public key ? Added advantage is it's waaaay harder to link conversations together, or to know who's read the message.

EU tsars rubbish Brit PM over attempt to delay beefed-up privacy rules

Re: "Cameron's Conservative party have promised...

What's the saying "Fool me once ..."

ISTR a certain Cameron promising a referendum about the EU *after* an election in 2010.

When was it ?

Blighty's laziness over IPv6 will cost us on the INTERNETS - study

Y2K all over ...

reading the original report, and the comments here reminded me that the world ended in 2000.

TECH WAR: Brummies say firms 'lose out' in London's Tech City

Re: Brums not so bad ...

I rarely go into town, as it is. Main haunts being Town/Symphony hall, Rep, Alex and (very rarely NIA).

The point being these are *all* 15 minutes from where I live.

Brums not so bad ...

Being smaller than London, there's a best of both worlds situation. I live in SW Brum, and can be on Broad Street in about 15 minutes from where I live. Yet 10 minutes the other way there's the beautiful Lickey Hills and Worcestershire countryside.

And the convergence of the M6/M5/M54 doesn't hinder things.

Speaking as an ex-pat Londoner, the only things I really miss are: tube trains, foreign films, and a decent Italian delicatessen.

Swedish teen's sex video fine slashed: Unwilling co-star girlfriend furious

Tulisa Contostavlos

I heard the video was like one of her concerts in that nobody came.

Met Police vid: HIDE your mobes. Pavement BIKER cutpurses on the loose

@Lusty

I bet you talk about "loopholes" too.

Currently, in our criminal justice system, it is up to the state to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that a person is guilty of a crime. If they can't do that the person goes free. Why do you blame their lawyer for doing their job. Why not blame the CPS lawyers for NOT doing theirs.

Blaming defence lawyers for successfully defending their clients is akin to blaming a winning team for the fact the other side lost. "Why, it's Manchester Uniteds fault for scoring more goals that Fulchester City lost."

Brit PM raps Facebook for allowing GORY beheading vids

Out of curiousity

I wonder if more, or less people have watched these videos than would have before this news ?

MoJ fined £140K for EMAILING privates of 1,000 inmates

Re: Once is careless, but three times?

Oh we are so close to an Oscar quote:

"To lose one parent is unfortunate. To lose two starts to look like carelessness"

-The Importance of Being Earnest.

Snap-happy blogger babe posts catcalling blokes' mugshots online

Re: The only thing I got from this is that parts of Philadelphia

When "The Wire" came on, I had to double check that the flats where D'Angelo held court (with that sofa incongruously sitting outside) weren't the flats I first lived in when I moved to Birmingham.

And the streets of Baltimore are a dead ringer for a part of Manchester (Santiago Street IIRC) where my brother stayed for a year, when he was at Uni ....

'Please, steal my phone' TV ads by T-Mobile US slammed by legal eagles

Based on reality

Over much arguing, the only phone I will provide for my 17 year old is an old Nokia 5800. My reasoning being he is a fucking kid, and (a) never looks after anything (even stuff he's paid for) and (b) never ever listens to adult advice (such as not to wave your phone out every 5 minutes).

A couple of months ago he was walking through a local park when a couple of hooded youths stopped him, asked the time (I mean really !?) and then demanded his phone. As soon as they saw what is was they went "no man, dat's a sick phone, we don't want none of your Nokia shit man!"[1] and fucked off. To (according to the policeman who took his statement) mug someone else for their Blackberry a few minutes later.

Much to lads chagrin, policeman praised my attitude in ensuring lad didn't have a mug-magnet phone.

[1]This is what lad claimed they said. I guess people really do talk like that. Innit ?

Price rises and power cuts by 2016? Thank the EU's energy policy

Now watch how politics works ....

The pie is shrinking, so there needs to be rationing. I can't see any government risking domestic power cuts except as a measure of absolute last resort. Also I see a media battle between the government (who will try and persuade people that it's all the fault of the power companies) and the power companies (who will blame the government, the EU and "the market").

Bad move for the government, unless they decide to wade in with chequebook and legislation - the power companies will have dictated the contractual landscape, and made sure it's industry that goes offline first. Factories, big office complexes (and hopefully a few government departments ;) ). At which point (those of us who remember the 3 day week) you will start seeing the lay offs.

And that's the price you pay for not educating the population properly AT SCHOOL so they had enough grasp of science to debate nuclear power rationally. Still, maybe if we burn a few media studies graduates, we can keep some lights on.

I grew up in the 70s, and recall getting home from school, and lighting the candles for when my Mum got home from collecting brother from playschool. Giving thanks for a gas cooker (a preference I have never lost) and for my Dads inna te distrust of electricity (he was born in Southern Italy, where power cuts are a way of life) which meant he insisted on gas central heating. Being a real engineer, he rigged it up to run off a car battery, so it could run without mains.

No power cuts in the 80s, no power cuts in the 90s, but in the past 4 years we have had at least 3 outages of over an hour. My suspicion is lack of capacity makes it harder to route around stolen cables.

Funny how no one understands basic economics

The less you have of something, the more it costs. It really is that simple.

Laptops Snowden took to Hong Kong and Russia 'just a decoy'

Re: @Schultz & @ShelLuser

for the sake of historical accuracy, the UK actually planned the Berlin airlift and played a major part in it too. QDOS to the US, but please, they weren't the only ones.

ECHR rejects free speech plea over offensive online comments

Re: European acronym soup

"Spitting Image" did a good explanation of the whackiness of the European arrangement back in the 80s ..

Rubbish broadband drives Scottish people out of the Highlands

Could it be ..

companies are holding back investing until they know the score on independence ?

MI5 boss: Snowden leaks of GCHQ methods HELPED TERRORISTS

The problem is

"terrorist" like "criminal", is whatever people want it to mean.

And there's the rub.

And we have a long and glorious list of examples of powers being given to the state "for extreme instances" only to discover them being abused*. Take the councils who used RIPA to investigate that heinous crime of putting bins out on the wrong day.

*Why does a dog lick it's bollocks ? Because it can. Same logic with abusing powers.

Oh, shoppin’ HELL: I’m in the supermarket of the DAMNED

Re: just as these tills are driving us mad.......

I doubt it will bankrupt the supermarkets. They calculate very carefully how much "shrinkage" they can bear.

After all you could achieve 0% shrinkage if you put all the goods behind a counter and customers had to ask for them. You know, like in the 50s ? But that costs waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much in staff. And also doesn't give you an arena to tempt customers to buy something on impulse.

Supermarkets have long ago figured the price of profit is a little shrinkage.

Re: A watched a TV program where...

Slightly related, but we bought the FiL a bottle of premium whisky for Xmas a couple of years ago. One that comes in an aluminium lined presentation cylinder. Wrapped it up without checking it inside.

Come Xmas day, opens pressie, takes out bottle, it still had the anti theft tag on. It dawned on me that some genius in the BWS section hadn't worked out that putting the radio-transmitters in a Faraday cage *might* just stop it working.

I wonder how many shoplifters hit that store ?

I did email head office like a good citizen.

Re: Easy solution...

+1 for online shopping. But then MrsPage uses a wheelchair, so shopping is already a chore.

Tesco ran (are running) an offer where you pay £10/month (IIRC) and you get as many deliveries over £40 as you want Tue-Thu. Which kinda cancels out delivery charges if you play it right.

Also there is an option to say "don't substitute" you can set if you like. Although IME it's no problem to reject a substitution on the doorstep if you like.

For me, the next step forwards should be supermarkets targeting households that are geographically clustered, and try and see if they can arrange a "neighbourhood drop" system. Free delivery for 10 households in the same road. I say this, as every day in my little cul de sac *someone* has a delivery from Tesco. Given the cost of fuel, if they could combine those into a single journey ...

Also the supermarkets could hook up with Amazon* and eBay* and offer to deliver stuff with the online groceries.

*Other online retailers are available

British support for fracking largely unmoved by knowledge of downsides

People are starting to realise

You can have the lights on, or the polar bears.

Exciting MIT droplet discovery could turbocharge power plants, airships and more

Re: Nothing will make airships viable.

Bit "nobody needs more than 640K" of you there ?

"Namely that existing material strengths are simply inadequate to deploy lightweight large structures, and that's what you need for serious lifting capabilities."

FTFY.

Who knows what lies ahead ?

Nielsen-Twitter axis, Facebook to brief TV lords on what online gobshites think of telly

Perhaps there's a sense that TV

is changing. We no longer have "shows". We have "products" of which only a small proportion is the actual airtime of the TV element. We then have "exclusive online content". Plus media tie-ins with "Hello", "OK !", "Take a Break", and even the "Radio Times" printing "stories" from the show. Then you have the official FB pages, and Twitter feeds - cunningly balanced with the official "unofficial" FB pages and Twitter feeds. All of this hot air generates enough media energy it becomes a self-sustaining reaction with other non-affiliated media sources having to report on the "news" that is the product.

X-Factor

Britains Got Talent

Call the Midwife

Dancing on Ice

Strictly Come Dancing

TOWIE

Geordie Shore

Doc Martin

plus the regular soaps. "Corrie", Eastenders, Emmerdale ...

However, my TiVo

also has a "like" AND "dislike" functionality. The idea being you can "train" it, so it can record "suggestions". Programmes it thinks you might like.

So Virgin Media already had a scoop on what *it's* punters do and don't like. And given the "dislike" feature, it's probably more valuable to TV execs than FBs rather late entry to the party.

Analyst says Brit rail broadband plan is TRAIN CRAZY

Clearly spoiled on the Chiltern line

Free WiFi in all trains, and 240V power points for charging phones.

It was only meeting a colleague recently who has to travel Swindon->London that I realised this is uncommon ....

e2a:Just read another posters comment. Yes WiFi can be temperamental, but it's still better than nothing.

NSA in new SHOCK 'can see public data' SCANDAL!

Why you don't want spies spying on *your* side

Should be obvious really ... do you seriously see a politician saying to the spooks "Rummage around all you want in our dirty laundry" ?

Remember there were very serious allegations that the spooks spied on Wilsons government in the 60s. Who knows what juicy "leverage" they gained over MPs ...

Re: I'm Shocked

@Havemysay99

Sorry, I have to call you out on "No one complains" ... a lot of people have complained. Even here, on El Reg. So please don't make sweeping statements like that.