Nice article
One way to get around VPN ports being blocked is not to use the standard ports - use say, port 443 (https) instead. Of course, you have to setup your VPN client and server to support this.
1639 publicly visible posts • joined 27 May 2007
You are not under any obligation to respond to threatening letters from companies or their lawyers. If you are being falsely accused, you can safely ignore everything - except communications from a court. You are not a Defendant or a Plaintiff if and until they have actually filed something.
Discoverabe Bluetooth cannot possibly mean "connect to me" if, according to the Plod, connecting to the WLAN equivalent (an open and unencrypted SSID) is worthy of criminal charges.
Whilst I expect to see advertising/marketing material in shops, I do not see why I should have to tolerate intrusion into my private life my phone, email, bluetooth, or any other medium. If I want to buy something, I'll go looking for products on my own terms. I assume that any company that resorts to pestering by phone or spam, their products or services must be utter crap.
In case you aren't aware, visa applications at British Embassies are outsourced to Worldbridge (an American company). They also handle the acquisition of biometric data such as fingerprints from visa applicants. What's the chances the FBI will be snooping that database too?
"I am astounded at just how easy criminals are able to get access to Chip and PIN machines..."
It isn't difficult - try ebay - Business, Office & Industrial> Retail & Shop Fitting> Point of Sale (POS) Equipment> Credit Card Terminals
Several of these devices are up for sale there now.
It's pretty obvious that if a shop goes bust, they (or the baliffs) will sell EVERYTHING, including the POS kit.
A German court recently ruled that ISP should not release identities corresponding to IP addresses unless it was to the police or similar authorities for a criminal investigation. Their reasoning was that, as the EU had ruled that a citizen's IP address could be considered as personal information, the ISPs would be in breach of data prtoection law if they gave such information to third parties without the permission of the citizen/user concerned.
I am a bit puzzled how German and UK courts end up with such different decisions, given they are apparently working with the same European Rights charter and EU rulings.
Oh, you mean the Yanks then.
BTW Anyone thinking of going to war with Russia should remember that they are no longer poor, are highly motivated to defend those they see as their own citizens and will use all means necessary to defend Russia. One of their top generals reinforced this point a few days ago and made it clear that nuclear weapons would be used if Russia was threatened. It is a pity that the Yanks didn't ensure that the Georgian government went to the peace talks in S.Ossetia on 7th August instead of shelling it.
Given that NATO can't get enough resources together to deal with the taleban, taking on Russia at the same time would seem to be a really stupid idea.
...applies to people who have actually been charged with a crime. I suppose the "clever" part of the gossip records is that they deal in unsubstantiated allegations, where nobody is charged.
The most stupid thing about all of this is that the government has recently been complaining about the lack of men wanting to be teachers and a general lack of positive male role models for many children.
"....Russia invading small neighboring Democratically elected governments under the guise of "peacekeepers"."
1. The Russian peacekeepers were invited into Abkhazia and South Ossetia by the Georgian government 16 years ago, under UN sponsored agreements;
2. The Georgian president went on TV Thursday evening to say how they would never kill fellow Georgians - two and half hours later his troops started shelling the South Ossetian capital from dug in positions (i.e. they had planned this). As the Georgians were due to attend peace talks in the same place on Friday, they presumably expected to kill the people they were to talk peace with;
3. The USA pushed this idiot into power in Georgia via a revolution. In the re-election"" last year, he had members of the opposition arrested, broke up rallies of the opposition parties and denied them access to the media;
4. The USA has sunk about 1 billion dollars into beefing up the Georgian military - what a pity they didn't put it into building up the country's economy so as to give the separatists economic reasons to drop their calls for independence;
5. Over 2000 people have been killed. Less than 10% were Georgian - the rest were Russian citizens. B.T.W. How restrained would the US goverment and military be if 2000 US citizens were killed and over 30000 bombed out of their homes?
6. South Ossetia was forcibly separated from North Ossetia by Stalin (another mad Georgian) in the 1920s. He then set about moving ethnic Georgians into South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The locals were deported/killed in large numbers.
The net effect of US foreign policy in Georgia is:
1. Over 2000 people have been killed and 40000 displaced.
2. South Ossetia and Abkhazia will never be part of Georgia and the Russian military will stay to ensure that;
3. Georgia will not join NATO because of 2. and because other NATO members do not want to get dragged into a conflict with Russia
4. Russia is unlikely to cooperate with the US on anything e.g. supporting action on Iran in the Security Council. Expect the Russians to veto anything the US suggests in the UN.
5. Ukraine will not join NATO because existing members will see it as having similar risks as Georgia.
6. US influence in the Caucasus region is reduced and most of their 1 billion dollar investment in the georgian military has been destryed by Russia.
7. Georgia has lost substantial military manufacturing facilities like the Sukhoi factory near Tblisi and sustained damage to their transport infrastructure.
"Apple has admitted that Jobs knew of the backdating, but has said he didn't personally benefit from them and didn't know the practice was illegal."
I find it hard to believe that someone at the top of a large company would not be aware that providing false information in company accounts is a crime or that forgery in any document presented to any branch of government is likely to drop them in all kinds of trouble.
I don't know about the US but ignorance of fiscal and other law affecting companies is not a defence for company directors in the UK. If it was me, the first question I would have asked when someone suggested backdating would have been "Is it legal?".
How about someone having copies of launch codes for Britain's nuclear weapons "for research"? Or how about a manual describing how to make and use date rape drugs effectively? Someone involved in pharmacology might have a legitimate use for such information but it would probably depened on the context of their research.
I don't see why books should have some kind of immunity. If someone has a slide-hammer and a screwdriver whilst working in their garage, that's perfectly reasonable. On the other hand, if someone is found to be carrying the same tools in a car park at 2am, they will probably be arrested for "going equipped to steal". If someone has a book providing instructions on how to make bombs from household materials, it doesnt seem unreasonable for them to explain the context.
Given that Al Qaeda has used British citizens with origins in various Islamic countries to commit acts of terrorism in the UK and abroad, it would seem particularly stupid for someone of that demographic to be in possession of such material.
.... at the proposed installation site for a representative period of time would be a prerequisite before pissing away a load of money on a wind generator.
From David Edwards: "I'm off to plant some trees, they burn lovely in 5 years time!"
Agreed - me too.
...if they can't spell basic words after 12+ years of compulsory free education.
I notice that about half of the recruitment consultants that send me emails use "their" and "there" incorrectly.
Why don't we save the taxes spent on eduction, let the kids fuck about for the 12 years and give them all a Media Studies degree if they're still alive at 21?
"Demon Internet was reported as potentially being vulnerable, because a Firewall or NAT in front of the DNS server "appears to be interfering with its port selection policy," according to Kaminsky's test."
I would guess Demon's firewalls INTENTIONALLY interfere with the port selection. Our Checkpoint firewalls alter both the port and the Id number used, specifically to mitigate the issue under discussion (and the server guys have applied the necessary patch) but the Check My DNS site still thinks we are vulnerable.
How many Russian porn sites are going to follow UK legislation? Or simlar legislation from any other counries? These politicians are all thick as shit.
Maybe nulabour plans to have a great firewall of the UK, along the lines of the Chinese one. They could then filter all kinds of undesirable traffic - like election results, for example,
...and the Heathrow expansion is fine by me. Like others have said, if you move next to the busiest airport in the UK, there will be some noise - and the airport will probably have to expand over time.
It was only the night flights that pissed me off - if they can build more runways, they can shift more aircraft during the day - that's fine with me.
There's also the jobs issue - LHR provides employment for many people in the surrounding area and injects considerable money into the local economy.
This is the same nonsense as the idiots who move to tne country and then moan about the smell of the (long established) pig farm down the road.
Whatever his background, personality and moral traits, Moseley has a right to privacy like everyone else. Whenever the papers set out to destroy someone in this way, the damages should be equivalent to the paper's turnover for every day they printed stories about their victim(s). Their shareholders would soon adjust the editorial direction - or the paper concerned would soon cease to exist.
.. the public transport were adequate, safe and a reasonable cost-effective replacement for driving. When I worked in London, I spent 3 hours a day travelling by car - the train and tube alternative would have been more than 4 hours a day. Now in Germany, there are plenty of trams, trains and buses. In my case, a commute by tram plus a short walk takes 10 minutes.
"UK phone companies are long overdue ...."
The UK operators are relatively enlightened compared to some of their continental equivalents. For example, the prices in Germany are higher and the contracts automatically renew for one year if you fail to give three months written notice of termination. I would be chuffed to have the same prices and conditions offered by the UK operators.
Jeremy Clarkson was talking bollocks (again) - The hybrid parts add 147KW to the maximum output of 250KW. Although the batteries would not allow this to be sustained for extended periods.
The "solar panel for the Prius" idea has already been done by some companies in the USA.
There are probably quite a few families where one or more children are using filesharing to download music and/or films - and where the parents are completely clueless as to what is happening. If said parents cannot get to grips with controlling the filesharing, the whole family will be punished - including the family members who weren't doing anything wrong. That doesn't sound like justice to me.
Is it just me or has anyone else thought that nobody cares about the regular copyright violations performed using photocopiers in companies everywhere?
'...But demanding that German domain name servers refuse to resolve the US address www.gmail.com to an IP strikes me as unfair restriction on trade.'
No it isn't! Why should Google be able to use this guy's registered trademark in any form?
If I registered the domain hersheys.co.uk, do you think an American court would agree that I could have customers use it in the US or do you think they would want me to relinquish all domain names with someone else's trademark or tradename?
.. stuff looks pretty cheap in the UK right now.
Having lived in Germany for the last 7 seven years, I have seen the previously high UK prices eroded to the point where it is checper for me to buy stuff in the UK. Petrol is now about the same price (it used to be about 40% cheaper).
I really hope the EU don't bring German consumer protection to the UK - essentially, there isn't any consumer protection in Germany. Companies do what they like and treat customers like shit.
".... subsequent forensic investigation discovered that malware was responsible... Computer experts hired by both the defence and prosecution agreed with this analysis."
But you would prefer to believe he is guilty. You are happy to believe in his gulit without having seen that evidence but you are not prepared to believe in his innocence without seeing evidence of it. That is the crux of the child porn problem - it has become the new witchcraft. Once accused, the individual is guilty.
I have seen the results of trjoans and other malware that were considerably more complex than uploading load of pictures - and the users were always unaware that their systems were infected.
They never said they wanted to do away with the Latin domains, did they. Russian brides and more importantly, Russian gas would continue to be found via .ru. The Cyrillic domains would most likely be for more Slavic-centric topics.
The Chinese have been angling for something in their languuge as transliteration to Latin script is less popular there. Not unreasonable for one fifth of the worlds population.
...may not be beneficial in gaining future business.
Or maybe the Tories should take an example from Harry Wilson's Labour government of the 60's. When Ferranti invested heavily in semiconductor technology and managed to reduce their costs in a major missile contract, the then Labour government promptly accused them of profiteering and refused to pay the contracted amount, paying only a fraction. Ferranti was then heading straight for receivership so the government bought up 50% at a knockdown price and then carved them into smaller bits.
...will have to go, due to the cartoon scenes of the character O-Ren Ishii as a child prostitute. Blockbuster and other should probably hold public burnings of the DVDs - although I guess that would contravene Health & Safety legislation. Perhaps they should ban anything by Quentin Tarantino, just in to be safe.
This government will probably go down in history as the one which introduced the most ill-conceived legislation.
Prior to Bluetooth, serial or USB cables for mobile phones were an expensive optional extra. Bluetooth has made the use of a cable with some weird connector unnecessary (unless you want to change the phones firmware).
Interestingly, my latest Nokia had the USB cable included but I typically use Blutooth to transfer photos, transfer edited contacts and so on - it's quicker.
I do agree about the whole discovery, pairing and profiles business though - I know many non-technical users who just can't be bothered with it.
"..any compromised system could be noticed by a professional..."
If the responsible professionals don't notice someone logging in using admin privileges and then installing the rootkit, they aren't going to notice anything short of the box fallling over, are they? They aren't likely to notice an additional username, for example.
You'll find Bell (like most ISPs) do not guarantee bandwidth - their terms indicate that speeds will be UP to the amount quoted. You'll probably also find some statements about acceptable use which mention the use of applications that might hog bandwidth.
As for DPI, it isn't possible to shape things like Skype without DPI. Skype is really quite clever at getting through whatever ports are available. The only way to know whether traffic on port 80 is regular browser traffic is to "look" for html. It doesn't matter if encryption is used or not - what counts is if the traffic looks like html code or not. If not, it is not going to be treated as regular web traffic.
"2) Making it virtually impossible to remove IE" and "But MS took another step.....they don't let you remove it anymore."
In XP, Start, Control Panel, Add or Remove Programs, Add/Remove Windows Components, uncheck the box next to Internet Explorer and click "Next".....
Doesn't seem "virtually impossible" to me.
The point is that Microsoft was rightly criticised for their tactics concerning the bundling of IE (and even taken to court). Apple should expect to receive the same treatment for the itunes update fiasco.
Personally, I think pretending it was a required update for itunes will backfire on Apple - many people will assume Safari must be crap if Apple have to sneak it onto their computer in the same way they might get some adware or spyware.
As an expat, I can only vote in national elections, not the local ones. (I am supposed to be able to vote in the local ones here in Germany but that's another story). When I was registered for a postal ballot, they would only send it quite late such that it would most likely not arrive on time when I returned it. It is a system that is really easy to manipulate - it should either be cleaned up or dropped altogether.
Boris - his madness seems less harmful to others than Ken's.
.. and the council was supposed to look after the roads, collect the rubbish and so on. If they're out following their citizens about, no wonder they have no time or money for the mundane stuff.
One wonders if it might also be cheaper to employ more people to clean the streets and parks, rather than employ people to follow other people about.
If the dog license was restored, maybe there wouldn't be so many irresponsible dog owners.
When in range of a free WLAN (i.e. at home and at work), it uses a local landline number with a SIP provider. Otherwise, it uses GSM as usual.
It is also useful when on holiday - I used the SIP service via WLAN from a hotel in Thailand. Much cheaper than either hotel or roaming charges.
Visitors to the London often fancy going to see a show in the West End and then find out they have to cough up stupidly high prices (100 quid +) for a seat which was supposed to cost about 30 quid.
Some ticket touts have resorted to methods like DOSing the official website offering tickets, so Joe Public will never have a chance to buy them online.
Whilst I don't normally agree with anything this government gets up to, I think the ticket touts are bunch of c*nts and would happily see them put out of business.