Posts by JohnG

Gadget makes bombs, mines go off 'on average' 20m away

AC Wednesday 16th February 2011 21:04 GMT

"Captured Argentinean soldiers were indeed used for "mine clearance" duties in contravention of the relevant articles in the Geneva Convention by the parachute regiment."

Do you have any links for this? I understood some Argentinian sappers volunteered their assistance to mine clearance (because they had the maps) and also helped to repair water treatment equipment - but your comment implies coercion, so it would be interesting to know the source of this information.

What sealed Nokia's fate?

Nokia is still No 1

Nokia still leads the world in cellphone market share, Samsung follows with about 10% less and LG is in a distant 3rd place. None of the rest, including Motorola, Apple and RIM, achieve even a tenth of Nokia's share. If Elop is on a mission to make Nokia like one of their American competitors, he will effectively be turning a successful world leader into an "also ran" - perhaps this is why some believe this guy isn't acting in the company's best interest.

Man pockets $8m running computer fraud ring

Dialup?

I am surprised he managed to find enough people (who had any money) in Germany still on dialup.

Boffins demand: Cull bogus A-Levels, hire brainier teachers

Engineers become the management?

No they don't - the upper echelons of most companies are filled with people who specialised in finance, law or sales and marketing.

I’m not a Trojan horse: Nokia’s Elop hits back at neigh sayers

Nokia, Samsung and LG

"Building phones that Americans like has always been a struggle for European manufacturers."

Building phones that enough people like is a problem for US manufacturers. Nokia has about a third of the global cellular phone market, followed by Samsung and LG. None of the rest (including all the US manufacturers) manage to achieve much more than a tenth of Nokia's market share.

Wooden spaceship descends into Moscow sandpit

Nothing to look forward to?

"...another monotonous ‘interplanetary cruise’ without a highlight like the Mars landing to look forward to."

Assuming the three guys aren't gay and keen on each other, sex (with someone else) might be something they would be missing after several months.

Kid spanks a grand on Xbox using Mum's bank card

@Jeremy 2

"The whole thing is ultimately her liability as well she probably knows."

Maybe not. Distance Selling regulations and other UK consumer law offer considerable protection for online transactions. For starters, the card issuer must be able to prove that each and every card transaction has been authorised by the card holder. The supplier should provide a record of the transaction to the cardholder i.e. a receipt showing the date, what was purchased, the VAT and the total.

Proof of transaction

Whilst this woman may have been a bit dim in not checking what she was signing up for, she may have a case against her bank. IANAL but as I understand it, the card issuer has to be able to prove that EVERY card transaction was authorised by the card holder. They may ask the supplier to show that they had provided the card holder with a record of the transaction i.e. a receipt with date, VAT, etc. Without this, they might have to refund the card holder.

Italian white van man nudges sound barrier

Here it is in Italian with a copy of the ticket:

http://www.quotidianodipuglia.it/articolo.php?id=137968#

Wii Countdown conundrum brands family 'SH*THEADS'

The Sun, guardians of our morals

After Victoria shows little Oliver his picture and the related article in The Sun, is she going to let him check out the Bulgarian airbags on page 3?

Re: How middle class?

"Daniel and Victoria from Hampstead were building up their son Oliver's word bank? Something tells me they read the Guardian and listen to Radio 4."

But it was The Sun that they called, they of the Page 3 jubs. I didn't know one could even buy The Sun in Hampstead - I thought this was strictly a Daily Telegraph, Financial Times or Jewish Chronicle area.

The other thing that surprised me was the remarkably sensible responses in the article comments in The Sun.

DEC founder Ken Olsen is dead

Ethernet, Pathworks

It is worth remembering DEC's cooperation with Xerox and Intel in giving us Ethernet.

Pathworks was for networking PCs with VMS servers. Based on LAN Manager, it was rather late to market but to my knowledge, was the first that allowed DOS/Windows and Apple machines to share the same VMS file shares and printers.

Assange fights extradition in court

Re: As I understood it...

The NatWest Three were extradited to the USA for things they did in the UK (allegedly) that were not crimes in the UK but were crimes in the USA.

As Assange's case has such a high profile, maybe it will have the positive effect of showing up deficiencies in the European arrest warrant and extradition arrangements.

Stephen Fry cans Japan trip over nuke survivor quip

"The Japanese were prepared to surrender"

No, they were not. Whilst the civilian government were keen to surrender, the military had made it quite clear that they had no intentions of surrendering - and that they expected the same "death before dishonour" attitude of ALL Japanese. An extract from the War Journal of the Imperial Headquarters translates as:

"We can no longer direct the war with any hope of success. The only course left is for Japan's one hundred million people to sacrifice their lives by charging the enemy to make them lose the will to fight."

Many people also seem to forget the attempted coup by a number of Japanese officers, AFTER the two atomic bombs were dropped, with a view to preventing the Japanese surrender.

World shrugs as IPv4 addresses finally exhausted

Nested NAT

I am using nested NAT now. I have one router NATing from my ISP and another router NATing from the first, connected via a long Ethernet cable.

My mother-in-law has a broadband connection in Ukraine where she receives a private NATed address (10.*) from the ISP - this is then NATed again by her router.

Google Docs morphs into once and future 'GDrive'

GMail Drive

Someone (not Google) produced a Windows shell extension to use a GMail account as a disk drive:

http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

Microsoft hits autistic Xboxer with cheat evidence

Whats the harm?

Making false accusations on national TV that her son received unfair treatment from Microsoft.

Also, perhaps it is unwise to allow an autistic child to avoid all real world social interaction and retreat into a virtual world of violent games.

Israeli firm readies pocket-friendly desktop PC

"...Linux-on-ARM is at a relatively early stage in its development"

People have been using Linux on ARM devices for a while now. There's the old SIMPad from Siemens and many other WinCE/PPC PDAs and PNAs which can successfully run Linux, not forgetting the TomTom devices. Linux may provide a new life for an old PNA for which the manufacturer no longer provides map updates. Although few of them have WLAN interfaces, some can be networked via Bluetooth.

Passenger cleared after TSA checkpoint stare-down

Driving license as ID

Taken from http://ec.europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/entry-exit/eu-citizen/index_en.htm

"Please note that the only valid ID is the one delivered by national authorities. Driving licences, post, bank or tax cards are not accepted as valid travel documents or proof of identity."

However, the UK does accept a photocard driving license as valid ID for the purposes of entering the country as a British citizen (because you have to provide a valid passport to get one and the photocard driving license shows your citizenship). I actually did this once when I found I had left my passport at home when I turned up at Frankfurt airport. On return to Germany, I used my German residency permit to gain entry (not possible now as the Germans don't issue them to EU citizens any more).

UK tech retailers are rubbish

Online/Mail order vs. high street

"That's why when I bought a telly, I checked it out at several retailers, then saved £100 by ordering it off amazon."

This is the crux of the problem - going to a retailer to see the product and then buying it online/mail order. We all do it but this is why the traditional stores that actually knew about the TVs and other electrical goods they sold (and even how to repair them) all went out of business over 20 years ago*. We are left with a bunch of box-shifters who employ the cheapest school leavers they can find, so as to be able to compete with the online stores.

*For those too young to remember, before online shopping came along, people used to buy mail order stuff from adverts in magazines.

Couple crash into church, curse satnav

Navigator smarter than driver?

According to reports in Germany, the police said he went straight on when he should have made a turn. When combined with the driver's own statement, it appears that the navigator was correct but the driver failed to follow the navigator's directions.

It is amazing that anyone could find a building to hit when driving between hamlets with about 20 buildings between them. I am also puzzled as to why they were bumbling around the icy back roads when there is a perfectly good autobahn nearby. I hope the cops checked for the presence of winter tyres - driving without them in Bavaria at this time of the year would be both foolhardy and illegal.

German docs develop remote-control stomach submarine

U-boat numbering

U2 ?

Special Ops satellite-bitchslapping hydrogen strato cruiser flies

Limited?

Iraq started 2003 with a coordinated air defence system but this UAV could have been used after the second week of operations, by which time, the Iraqis had no useful aerial assets.

California's green-leccy price system will stifle plug-in cars

Cold

You also need to burn something (typically propane and kerosene) to get heating and demisting/defrosting in an EV used in cold weather.

Man nabbed nude pics from women's email accounts

Quelle surprise

"Police have emailed 3,200 questionnaires to potential victims, but so far only 46 women have come forward."

"You have numerous pictures of me in the buff so to get the full humiliation, I'd like to come down to the police station to make a report and have all your officers have a good laugh at my expense"

@Jim59

Yeah - that's all true but....

"That doesn't mean she would be happy for the pictures to become public property."

So don't put those pictures on the Internet at all if you hope to keep them private. There's a difference between how the world should be and how it is in reality.

Spain grovels to penguins over 'Linux' anti-terror plot

Linux: a brand of washing powder

"Linux" is a brand of laundry detergent from Switzerland:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_(Waschmittel)

Maybe the Spanish thought their Operation Linux was some kind of cleanup.

Lawyers fear Assange faces death penalty in US

US Extradition Treaties

"The US-Sweden extradition treaty allows for extradition on suspicion of offences commited outside of the jurisdiction of the requesting nation and in some cases without the customary requirement that the offence for which extradition is requested be a punishable offence in both nations."

The US-UK treaty is similar. Additionally, the UK has form when it comes to handing people to the USA on request - think of the NatWest Three or involvements in renditions to Guantanamo Bay.

Yorks cops bust Bradford guinea pig farm

....less harmful than .... tobacco....

Uh - no. Cannabis gives users more tar than tobacco, more carbon monoxide and more carcinogens. There is plenty of evidence for this, and whilst your local pusher may disagree, he may have a vested interest to protect.

WikiLeaks lawyer dubs US subpoena on Twitter 'harassment'

Twitter and US law

Twitter is a US company and as such, they must comply with federal and state laws. This is clearly indicated in their Ts & Cs and one would have thought that this would have been fairly obvious to a group of activists/hackers/politicians when they signed up to Twitter. One might also want to think how US laws may impact other services based or located in the USA, like Facebook, Gmail, etc.

These social networking sites don't seem to worry much about their users' privacy when passing their details to advertisers.

"Citizens should have a right to privacy and governments shouldn't."

What about citizens bad-mouthed by US consular staff in the reports released by Wikileaks? Which citizens have rights and who should decide?

Feds subpoena Twitter for info on WikiLeaks backer

Always read the Terms and Conditions

"These Terms and any action related thereto will be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to or application of its conflict of law provisions or your state or country of residence. All claims, legal proceedings or litigation arising in connection with the Services will be brought solely in San Francisco County, California, and you consent to the jurisdiction of and venue in such courts and waive any objection as to inconvenient forum"

Maybe she should have taken time to read and understand Twitter's terms and Conditions when she signed up. Like any company in the USA, Twitter will probably comply with US law - if this comes as a surprise to Ms Jónsdóttir, then she must be a dim.

Disappearing filth leads to dropped charges in extreme smut case

"...and when the computer was checked, the image was no longer there"

Was it in a browser cache which got cleared by a scheduled cleanup, shortly after the PC was powered up for the first time in several months?

Assange 'threatened to sue' Grauniad over leak of WikiLeak

Ownership?

"...arguing that he owned the information and had a financial interest in how and when it was released"

Surely, the point is that the documents being released belong to the US government - unless Assange is now claiming they are his creation and therefore, forgeries?

'Operation eMule' feds bust duo with 500+ eBay, PayPal accounts

Operation eMule?

DHS now helping to promote file sharing. Do the RIAA and MPAA know about this?

Who will rid me of these obsolete PCs?

Beancounters and residual value

"...giving away a decommissioned PC is considered to be a “taxable benefit” . This means determining the “current market value” of the beastie in question and notifying the beancounters such that they could perform some dark rituals and incomprehensible accounting voodoo. This was a no-go."

Swap the beancounters' desktops for the obsolete ones that they claim have residual value and see how quickly they can depreciate IT hardware to zero. This also applies to printers.

Greek police cuff Anonymous spokesman suspect

Evidence

Leaving his name in the PDF is enough to get the guy arrested and give the cops a reason to confiscate all computers they think he has had used recently, along with any form of storage. If he was careless enough to leave his name in the PDF, he is probably careless enough to have left some other evidence of his activities with Anonymous.

British lags less chatty on mobiles

Femtocells?

Maybe the prison service could have some femtocells where connecting phones not on a whitelist get directed to some premium rate service where the lags can hear weather forecasts for places they cannot visit.

WikiLeaks' Assange to be indicted for spying 'soon'

re Now we know why he was remanded

I think you will find Assange was arrested on behalf of the Swedish government, not the US government. He has been remanded because there are genuine fears for his safety. If some loony decided to shoot him or otherwise injure him, there would be a load of finger pointing that this was part of some dastardly government plot to assassinate him.

Walmart falls in with Washington's war on terror

People of Walmart

http://www.peopleofwalmart.com

ASSANGE ARRESTED in London - in court later today

Swedish law on rape

Swedish law makes the definition of rape very broad. AFAIK, Assange is accused of having sex without a condom = rape in Sweden.

I'm not sure that this is bad for Assange though. Whereas the UK is a member of NATO and a staunch ally of the USA, Sweden is a neutral country. Furthermore, unlike the UK, Sweden does not have a fast track extradition treaty with the USA, where many are quite vocal about what should happen to Assange.

WikiLeaks: Intel strong-armed Russian apparatchiks

Quid pro quo?

Would the US authorities would allow a Russian company to import and use some unknown encryption in the USA?

Does anyone know what type of encryption Intel are using? Is it some exotic in-house creation?

WikiLeaks dubs Amazon 'The Cowardly Liar'

Publishing US classified material in the USA

IANAL but Amazon may be worried that publishing large amounts of US classified material may be illegal in the USA.

My Droid EXPLODED mid phone call, says Texan

Mossad?

Didn't they do something like this a few years ago?.

Renta-spook: GCHQ commercialisation 'is a live issue'

GCHQ encryption services for industry

Your secrets are safe with our cryptography. You have one key, we have another! What could possibly go wrong?

DDoS attack, sex warrant won't stop Assange's leaky discharge

Bin Laden hunt not successful

Palin should have picked a better example of a manhunt, as Bin Laden has not been caught after ten years of hunting.

Assange may have less to worry about from the USA or Sweden than from countries in the Middle East or Central Asia, where the concept of free speech is unfamiliar and people with wealth and power do not tolerate criticism.

Canada steps closer to legalising sex work

Legalisation

I live in Germany where prostitution is legal, subject to a number of restrictions. Brothels are not allowed near schools or churches and planning constraints mean brothels are typically located at the edges of towns or in industrial areas. Girls have regular health checks, pay taxes, have health insurance and pensions - they even have their own trade union.

The advantages are that there are fewer opportunities for criminals to control or exploit prostitutes, there are fewer girls working streets and trafficking is more difficult. Whilst I would not want to see a daughter, sister or other family member working as a prostitute, the German approach seems much better than that seen in the UK or the USA.

Feds seize 70 'filesharing, dodgy goods' sites

Google?

Google's search seems to be good at finding torrents - are they going after Google as well? :-)

Stuxnet code leak to cause CYBER-APOCALYPSE NOW!

Shutting down the transport network across the UK

A bit like snow but without the snowmen and snowball fights?

What is quite funny about the comments on the Sky news site is that many have commented as if they are true experts in computer security but their comments indicate the opposite.

MS drops drive pooling from Windows Home Server

No active routing since Vista

MS also removed active routing protocols from Vista onwards.