* Posts by JohnG

1639 publicly visible posts • joined 27 May 2007

Swedish judge explains big obstacles to US Assange extradition

JohnG

Re: THE HONEY TRAP

"...what Assange owes the UK in terms of court appearances , prison time and fines. Assange probably feels he doesn't feel owe anything"

Assange skipped bail, which is an offence. I think courts in most countries take a dim view of being ignored.

JohnG

Re: Yeh right.

"All Assange did .... ....Sweden should drop this farce ASAP."

Their country, their laws. If the Swedish electorate wanted their laws changed, I guess they would vote accordingly.

The irony with this whole thing is that if it ever ended up in a Swedish court, Assange's defence team would likely be able to pick enough holes in the case to have him acquitted. Assange made everything more complicated by doing a runner before the prosecutor had a chance to question him.

I am NOT a PC repair man. I will NOT get your iPad working

JohnG

Re: Community?

"Some of the replies and downvotes prove my point."

No they don't. When was the last time your doctor or paramedic neighbours performed a time consuming medical procedure for a non-life threatening condition for you or anyone else who is not their patient? I would suggest never (not least because they wouldn't have the relevant medical records nor the authority to treat another doctor's patient). It seems more likely that they might give some advice like "Ask you doctor about seeing a relevant specialist" or "If you don't trust your GP, get a second opinion".

It's one thing to ask someone for advice but something else entirely to be expect them to work for hours for free. It is a different matter if someone has a genuine emergency (e.g. "I have to hand in this report tomorrow but my printer isn't working") but they are on their own if it is something like "I bought this gadget and can't be bothered to waste my time reading the two page Getting Started instructions booklet, so I thought I would waste your time instead".

Attention, CIOs: Stop outsourcing or YOU will never retire

JohnG

Re: UK Companies are getting exactly what they desrerve

AC @Thursday 14th March 2013 11:31 GMT

That's exactly what I was going to say. The difference in my case was that I left the UK in 2001 after many months out of work. Despite the post Y2K slump (everyone had all new gear before Y2K) and telcos/networking companies making thousands of people redundant, the government started to bring in people from India to solve "the shortage of skilled people in the IT sector". I went to Germany and stayed.

I still get emails from UK recruitment agencies, offering me daily rates which are about half that which I received in the UK in the 1990s and more importantly, considerably less than I make now in Germany.

Google to pay laughably minuscule fine over Wi-Fi slurp across US

JohnG

Re: Consumers have a reasonable expectation of privacy

"Errm, then they should have switched on their Wifi security then..."

No, that''s not how the law works and if a private individual captures and stores payload data from someone's WiFi, they can expect a criminal prosecution if caught. If you or I are expected to know and comply with the law, how much more a big multinational corporation with many technical experts and lawyers at their disposal?

Google's "unintentional" defence was blown out of the water by the fact that they only stored unencrypted payload data - so, the application bothered to check for encryption, discarded that which was not useful and stored that which was unencrypted. If the goal was simply to link access point MAC addresses with physical locations, they need not have stored any payload data whatsoever.

Coca Cola in the dock over illegal China GPS map claims

JohnG

Re: In the interest of our national security

The funny thing is, many of these GPS vehicle tracking systems are manufactured in China.

Infinite loop: the Sinclair ZX Microdrive story

JohnG

Re: What happened to the innovation of the 80's

We were busy paying back a huge loan to the IMF and living under the austerity demanded by the IMF as a prerequisite for that loan, following the disastrous Labour and Lib/Lab Pact governments of the 1970s. Many seem to have forgotten that inflation peaked at 26% in Harry Wilson's second term and the resultant pay demands of 30 - 40% ultimately lead to the IMF loan and the Winter of Discontent.

Congratulations, copyright infringers: You are the five per cent

JohnG

"The Digital Economy Act, passed three years ago..."

...in the last few hours of the previous government's parliament. This ill-considered legislation was apparently prompted by a foreign media mogul over lunch with an unelected member of the last government and tacked onto the end of a debate on entirely different issues. It is hard to feel sorry for foreign media companies when they engage in such shameful manipulation of our democracy. The protection of intellectual property is a civil matter for all sectors of industry or business - except now for film and music. This is not right.

Bacon sarnies can kill: Official

JohnG

Other factors?

"Other enlightening facts to emerge from the survey were that "men and women in the top categories of red or processed meat intake in general consumed fewer fruits and vegetables than those with low intake", and were "likely to be current smokers and less likely to have a university degree"."

Are we therefore to understand that the analysis of the survey did not take account of other factors that might affect life expectancy? One might expect that wealthier people are eating less processed meat and probably enjoy healthier diets and lifestyles than their poorer counterparts. People with the least money are quite likely to be eating the cheapest processed meat products.

Welcome to our Wi-Fi: Devicescape reinvents landing page

JohnG

Re: wi-fi providers their own worst enemy

@Gene Cash

You seem to be overreacting a bit... If an establishment advertises free wifi for customers, it isn't unreasonable to have a step which establishes that users are indeed customers. This doesn't equate to "jumping through a dozen hoops", just one. There are no end of offers which require punters to fulfil various requirements to obtain something for free.

BBC's new bosses - the lawyers - strike out Savile probe testimony

JohnG

"As I understand it, the redactions were for legal reasons..."

No - it was the lawyers that pointed out that most of the redactions had no legal basis, were solely to save faces of BBC senior management and that these sections should not have been redacted.

Woman nails 'cheating boyf' on Russian 'Street View'

JohnG

"...looking over fences isn't against the law either."

It's not that simple. It is about "expectation of privacy". If you look over someone's fence as you walk or drive past - fair enough. If you put up a ladder to have a look over someone's fence, the situation is different. The issue with Google's Streetview is that their cameras are at a height considerably higher than that of a person walking along a street.

US woman cuffed for 'booking strippers for 16th birthday bash'

JohnG

Re: I would not be so sure

"...you would have had to go somewhere more civilized - to continental Europe."

Like this story of a 14 year old boy who stole and sold his Mum's jewellery so that he and his mate could go on a binge and visit a brothel:

http://www.thelocal.de/society/20121009-45439.html

Notice it is the theft that is the big issue here, not that a pair of 14 year old boys visited a brothel.

Nature pulls ‘North Korean radioactivity’ story

JohnG

Re: And what about that "stone" that crashed into Russia?

In a poll on the RIA Novosti website, just over a third of voters apparently believe that the object over Chelyabinsk last week was some kind of US secret weapon.

Amazon ditches 'neo-Nazi' security firm over alleged harassment of workers

JohnG

Amazon not out of the woods yet

The security firm and its apparent neo-nazi connections may be the most shocking part of the story but there are many questions as to whether Amazon and the companies supplying them with agency workers are in breach of employment and taxation laws.

Asian political activists whacked in Mac backdoor hack attack

JohnG

Re: Inaccurate.

"Most OSes tend to attempt to stop bad things being installed or executed. But if the hack is via some tool you already have installed then how on earth is the OS going to guard against it?"

Why would an OS allow an application like MS Office the privilege escalation necessary to install some remote control/spying software?

Public told to go to hell, name Pluto's two new moons

JohnG

Re: offenbach

...but Offenbach is just a small shitty town to the east of Frankfurt, fast becoming yet another Turkish enclave.

Dead Steve Jobs 'made Tim Cook sue Samsung' from beyond the grave

JohnG

Re: Jobs

"Removing 8bn of revenue from Samsung by changing to another, non-mobile making supplier..."

Which other supplier though?

The snag is that Samsung have been coming up with really essential innovations, hence their patents which Apple needs to use under FRAND. Because Samsung have put time and money into technical R&D, they may have an advantage when designing components to exploit the technologies and standards which they have developed.

JohnG

Re: Well I never...

"like the pair of firms would be better off burying the blunt hatchet and getting on with making mobes in peace"

Yes but a whole load of lawyers wouldn't then be able to live in the lap of luxury, so they are not about to let that happen.

Multi-billion Euro broadband fund obliterated by EU budget cut

JohnG

Re: Dose of Reality?

It's never going to happen. There are fewer net paying countries that there are net takers - and with Qualified Majority Voting, the net takers will always be in the majority. They are never going to vote to receive less, in the same way that our MPs always vote themselves pay rises. The only way to fix this is for us to leave the EU and keep our relationship with the EU as a trade deal, rather than a debt union.

Tennessee bloke quits job over satanic wage slip

JohnG

Re: @AC 10:36

"Just fire the ignorant idiot. He's a hazard to the corporation."

The bloke may be a bit weird in his religious belief but there was no suggestion that his employers were dissatisfied with his performance and I fail to see how requesting a different payslip number makes him "a hazard to the corporation". That the number in question was restored to him twice suggests that some at the company were engaging in deliberate provocation, which is probably a hazard to the corporation. What happens when someone thinks it would be funny to give black employees references containing the initials "KKK" or "SS" for the jewish?

US diplomat: If EU allows 'right to be forgotten' ... it might spark TRADE WAR

JohnG

Re: Trade War?

"A reason to consider carefully how you use SAAS and cloud based storage."

Agreed. The lack of control and security for commercially sensitive data makes the use of such cloud services inadvisable for any company with US competitors.

Wikileaks reveals Icelandic FBI shenanigans

JohnG

Re: Well...

@Falanx Malice would imply some ill will from the FBI towards the authorities of Iceland. I would suggest that "arrogance" is more likely i.e. it probably never occurred to the FBI that other counties have their own laws and procedures and that perhaps they should check before just turning up.

BT to end traffic throttling - claims capacity is FAT

JohnG

Welcome to this century, BT

Here in a small town in Germany, my Internet and phone service of the last 5 years has no limit of any kind and (according to Glasnost at http://broadband.mpi-sws.org/transparency/bttest.php) the ISP does not shape traffic. I pay 25 euros a month for telephone with flat rate national calls and VDSL with a measured 30M down and 10M up. With the wife watching TV and films in Russian all day, we shift about 120Gbytes per month. Oh - there's no 18 month contract - I can cancel at any time with one month's notice.

We're not making this up: Apple trademarks the SHOP

JohnG

Re: Prior art ?

"The Apple shops are very different to all others. There's a far higher concentration of pillocks among staff and customers."

Yes - but they haven't made that distinction clear in their application.

I watched Excel meet 1-2-3, and beat it fair and square

JohnG

"People learn one tool and try to apply it everywhere."

Yes - and in the late 1980s, every accountant I met wrote all their letters and their CVs in Lotus123. Not a single one them used a wordprocessor. I don't anyone who took MS Word or Excel seriously for years - the MS products got their chance when the incumbents screwed up moves to 32 bit.

Samsung demands Apple's iOS 6 source code in patent case

JohnG

Re: Karma's a bitch

"Thou what?"

How about: Thou shalt finish words and sentences and not just tail off in the middle.

JohnG

Re: Why...

"Why can't we all just get along?"

Because all the lawyers would starve - and the lawyers won't let that happen.

UK 4G auction kicks off in total silence

JohnG

Who cares? Who will pay?

The only people I know who discuss 3G, 4G/LTE etc. work in IT. Nobody else cares - they just want to update their FB status, play with Twitter, etc. - they neither know nor care which technology is used and they don't expect any increase in their monthly mobile bill. This is pretty much the same scenario as industry analysts described in the lead up to the 3G auction: Users expect new features and/or service improvements to be introduced over time but will not pay higher monthly charges.

JohnG

Re: 3G debt

".....shouldn't the companies that put in massive bids for the 3G pay those off first before doing the same again for 4G?"

Yes - and those that had to sell their mobile operator when they spent too much on the 3G auction should probably sit this one out.

EU-wide mega-Leveson 'needed' to silence Press, bloggers

JohnG

Linguistic, cultural and political pluralism?

"There should be a provision of state funding for media which are essential for pluralism (including geographical, linguistic, cultural and political pluralism), but are not commercially viable. The state should intervene whenever there is a market failure leading to the under-provision of pluralism, which should be considered as a key public good."

As the panel is chaired by the former president of Latvia, I guess they will start by encouraging participation of Russian speakers and other Slavs in Latvia and other Baltic states, as opposed to the racist discrimination currently allowed by the Latvian Nationality Act.

JohnG

Re: A united Europe is a good idea

If Europe is united enough to avoid going to war with each other and to cooperate on some big projects that would be too expensive or otherwise impractical to complete in isolation, that's enough unity.

Telefonica Germany starts bonking with friends

JohnG
Headmaster

Re: It's advertising.

Yes but "they're all bastards"

Germany's RTL pulls free-to-air channels off terrestrial TV

JohnG

Re: what i'd like to know is

"The "restriction" part of it comes into play when you try and access bbc or itv content without a vpn using a UK ip address."

That directive isn't talking about the BBC, ITV or other broadcasters restricting how or to whom their content is broadcast. The directive says that member states must not prevent the retransmission of other member states's TV channels e.g. watching BBC World on a TV in a hotel in Germany.

Luckily for those living away from their home country, there are some other directives and clarifications from the EU regarding rights to access broadcasts in one's native language and to use services via a satellite dish. This allows (within reason) expats to have a dish sized to receive TV from their homeland.

Google pulls 'racist' Make Me Asian app

JohnG

Re: BEWARE

"That is the way free speech and free opinion is stifled."

All the more reason to push back. It is a bit like accusations of witchcraft a few centuries ago. In a free society, people have to be able to discuss what is or is not discriminatory.

Brits' privates furtled in TWO-THIRDS of UK fraud cases

JohnG

Re: Businesses have to prove their identity to customers too

"I kind lady with an Indian accent phone me and asked the same questions my bank asks to confirm my identity"

If my bank (or anyone else) phones me and starts asking for information, I tell them that I will not divulge any information to someone on the telephone and that they can contact me via some other means or they can ask me to contact them.

Why no one wants to Joyn GSMA's Skype-killing expedition

JohnG

A number of operators ban the use of certain technologies or types of applications (e.g. VOIP) in their Ts&Cs. A number of them don't police this but they might start blocking things that they feel threaten their livelihood.

UK.gov told to get a brain in wake of £1bn IT deals collapse

JohnG

Re: Sour grapes?

"The complaint was that they did lots of work to beat their competitors, and then had the government withdraw the stuff they biding on."

Yes - but that is always a risk. ITTs can be withdrawn and the customer is not obliged either to issue a contract or to sign a contract. I've written a few tenders that weren't successful - there's no point crying over it. If you don't like the risks, don't tender for public sector work.

The harsh reality is that some ITTs are issued because open competition is demanded by procurement rules but the folk writing the ITT have every intention of giving the work to an incumbent supplier - the competitors tendering are wasting their time.

If the customer knew how to build systems that could manage their tender process, they might not need need the services of contractors to do such things for them.

Security audit finds dev outsourced his job to China to goof off at work

JohnG

Re: Office Space

I think this is what can happen when bright people are told things like "You're too technical for management so that's why we are placing an arts graduate with no relevant experience in charge of the team".

Viruses infect vital control systems at TWO US power stations

JohnG

Re: "The subsequent cleanup operation was complicated by a lack of backups."

This can happen if the cheapest of available quotes is always selected. It an also happen if a contract is awarded to a company on the basis that a director's relative works there.

JohnG

Re: Just the facts mam.

Maybe some operations and maintenance contracts are up for renewal at the plants in question....

Bloke blasts Sprint for fingering his home as phone thieves' den

JohnG

Re: That poor bastard...

Seeing as this chap lives in a country and a state where suing is popular, I'm a bit surprised he hasn't already got a lawyer involved.

Wanna really insult someone? Log off and yell it in the street - gov

JohnG

How about posting a video of someone standing in a street and dishing out insults?

Is that allowed?

Or, how about someone on some online forum or social media recalls the details of their earlier public verbal insults?

Is that allowed?

Belgian watchdog barks at Apple: Take care when you flog that warranty

JohnG

Re: Here we go again

"The Belgians seem to be complaining only that this information isn't sufficiently well publicised in store."

No, I think the Belgians are complaining about the statement that consumers only have one year of warranty when EU law dictates that they have 2 years of warranty. Apple is being economical with the truth (presumably because they want to sell more extended warranties). The stupidity of this is that some of those who have purchased extended warranties may claim now or in the future that they were misled into buying them and reclaim their money.

Sheffield ISP: You don't need a whole IPv4 address to yourself, right?

JohnG

IPv6: not enough incentive to move

There is just not incentive to move to IPv6. Companies which already have sufficient IPv4 allocation (i.e. most companies) don't need to move to IPV6, they also know that a migration would cost them money and that it would carry risks that some of all of their services might not be universally available following a migration to IPv6. The ISPs won't move as they don't want to be in a situation where some of their customers have trouble accessing specific services or using particular applications under IPv6. That some other startup company is having trouble getting online due to a lack of IPv4 address space is not going to encourage any company to take the plunge.

The only way to get people and companies to move is to have some substantial incentives - some things that are available under IPv6 but not under IPv4. I know there are some usenet servers offering free access to binaries newsgroups but that is not enough. If governments offered a limited period tax break for companies or individuals demonstrating that they had completed migrations to IPv6, that might generate some interest.

BT's shock new wheeze: Make phone calls from smartphones

JohnG

My German ISP provides telephone via VoIP. Apart from removing the need for a splitter, I can connect multiple VoIP telephones to my landline number using the same credentials. This allows me to use my German landline from a mobile using a standard SIP client and handle both incoming and outgoing calls.

Satnav blunder sends Belgian granny 1,450km to Croatia

JohnG

Re: If she couldn't figure out...

"...that on your average 80km road trip the road signs usually do NOT magically change languages, "

Although, in Belgium, signs do switch between three languages and is damned confusing if you are not used to it. Having said that, German is not a language used on Belgium road signs and she might have realised something was amiss when cars started whizzing past her at speeds well above 200KmH. Then there's the snow - one might have thought she would have noticed that the world had turned white when approaching the Alps.

Disney World slaps pay-by-bonk stalker cuffs on grown-ups

JohnG

Disquieting?

Disney's voluntary scheme doesn't worry me as much as the RFID tags now embedded in passports. Some experiments suggest that these can be read over a distance of several metres, rather than a few centimetres.....

Cisco sued by East Carolina University

JohnG

Re: Try a slightly slower google

Yes - I guess ECU will look forward to suing Intel, the Japanese government and the Christchurch Earthquake Appeal, who all apparently believe that "Tomorrow starts here".

Twin brothers nabbed for scrap over sex with 'shared' girlfriend

JohnG

Re: IT angle?

resource allocation error?