Posts by alain williams 2861 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
Ie how long it takes them to forward a copy of all your documents and spreadsheets to the NSA for analysis ? This is not just about personal data but also loss of commercial secrets to the USA.
If someone goes: please ask the questions and let us know what they say.
The recommendations appear to be to change passwords but not bother until the site(s) have patched the problem. As a result I have changed many passwords in the last few days, I have often used one of these vulnerability checkers to see if the site was no longer vulnerable (or maybe never was).
The intention is to protect my security, not to try to break in somewhere. Also scanning implies testing many machines, usually at random - I have done targetted testing of sites where I have accounts.
So, PC Plod: if I have done wrong email me via el-Reg and come to arrest me. My conscience is clear.
Disclaimer: I did not read the relevant acts before writing this.
simply because your body will cure itself of many illnesses given a bit of time anyway. The other thing that a homeopathic practitioner will do is to spend much more than the NHS 10 minute GP appointment with the patient, a bit of sympathy goes a long way to making people feel better.
OK: not really homeopathy working, but probably explains why some people think that it does.
Most people do not bother, partly because they are often long/hard-to-understand and partly because unlike a normal contract they are non negotiable - and most often because they are lazy/will-not-take-the-time.
Maybe people will slowly start to understand that they are agreeing to things, even if they can't be bothered to find out what.
What is needed are a set of standard agreements that have been approved by trading standards or similar ... they could have attached schedules to deal with thing like delivery times.
Some time ago David Cameron made a good analogy of us having overspent on the country's credit card and having to live within our means. Since the UK does have the skills and companies to provide the services that are talked of being off-shored; a good analogy would be of a plumber getting in another plumber to fix his bathroom tap as the other plumber has a B&Q discount card & so can buy the washer more cheaply - the job still ends up costing the householder plumber more.
We have a nice tree type heirarchical domain name system with only a few roots: .com, .org, .uk, ... this is now going to be turned into a bramble bush with roots all over the place. The only people who win out are the domain registrars as companies run to grab their name in multiple places. Everyone else gets confused.
Fail.
I think that the Year of code is a good idea in principle, but:
* why only one year ? It is a skill that will be needed by all kids from now on, forever.
* 'exclusive' ? Eh ? I see the main value of the year of code as giving people a clue as to how computers work; lift them up from the level of icon button pushers. This should make them more effective users since they will have some clue as to the limitations and strengths of computers. I don't expect many of them will want to become programmers. This insight is similar to the reason why history and geography are taught in school - education on matters that are important so that we understand our place in the world.
I was told that one large UK Gov't department has several values for gender: male, female, male was female, female was male & I think 'unknown' & a couple more where people had decided to revert to their original gender.
None of this is about preference of sexual partner - and is (or should be) of no interest in a corporate database.
I always look through the rubbish that comes through the letter box - just in case.
I had heard about this (here or on slashdot & friends emailed me) so I wrote to my GP, to be asked to fill in a form that contained the same information that I had given them in my letter. I had previously written to my GP to opt out of a similar scheme in 2010.
Would they appoint as head of the English Tourist Board someone who had never been to the country or even seen a map ? Of course not. However: the numpties who appointed her are so clueless that they could not understand that having some understanding and insight is necessary.
Pathetic!
Well, just slice something off government departments that do not really benefit mankind:
World wide military spending $1.7tn
NSA estimated $10.8 billion
USA armed forces 2011 $664.84 billion
GCHQ, MI5 & MI6 £1.9bn
Note that the above are annual budgets, a new collider would only be paid for once.
to be able to turn a profit, what hope us small, non multinational, businesses that don't have the ability (or desire) to evade tax by shuffling money around the world?
Politicians from different countries need to get together and agree ways of stopping this sort of thing, even if it does hurt donations^Wbribes for research^Wfavours.
Yesterday Iain Standen phoned me back after I called to complain about the fracas. He told me that the tours had been standardised and that 90 minutes was too long for visitors.
I said that visitors should be given the choice.
He seemed to know of the discussion on El Reg; I said that he should contact them to give his side of the story.
He must be referring to the church itself, after all it is an expert organisation at convincing people that its mythology is true -- in the fact of facts and lack of evidence.
The violent agression is what they threaten will happen to you in a supposed after life if you don't do what they say.
All disk fail sooner or later. I always mirror disks in machines, so my main concern is if the 2 disks fail close together in time. That is why I try to install disks that are likely to not have the same lifetimes, so preferably made by different manufacturers or at least different batch numbers.
given how hardware and software changes over the years, it seems to me the only real way to make sure all this stuff is archived for future generations is to print it.
That is why the UK government should madate the use of a properly specified document format such as .odt (Open Document Format). The use of proprietary or poorly documented formats such as that various changing Microsoft .doc/.docx should be outlawed (they are not properly documented in spite of Microsoft committing fraud by buying enough ISO voting countries to be awarded is ISO number).
The same should be applied to other storage mechanisms, eg: CAD & GIS - proprietary formats abound and the major vendors frequently change them so that users constantly need to buy new versions to be able to read what people send them.
then they should also make the following sorts of things proprietary and charge people a fee for building compatible parts: anything that uses a nut/bolt type thread; anything that uses an AAA battery; anything that uses a 3 pin plug; readers of books published in a new font; ...
The EU courts wisely say that APIs cannot be copyrighted. Hopefully the USA judges will take note.
So will Amazon have to pay back taxes ? They might claim that they should not because they did not collect them from the consumer in the first place - but the tax man could deem that 10% (or whatever) of what was paid WAS sales tax so please hand it over (correction: they would not use the word 'please').
That might be an interesting tussle.
Just don't sign the Apple contracts. Apple need you more than you need them.
When a new iphone comes out put a message on your web site saying: we cannot sell you an iphone as we refuse to agree to Apple's outrageous demands.
If the meme catches on with several mobile carriers, they will not lose out to their competition and Apple will have some incensive to behave properly.
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