Posts by alain williams

Garage worker prangs £200k Ferrari

New Top Gear presenter ?

Surely he has now demonstrated some of the talents needed for the BBC show ... do you think that they will give him an interview ?

.XXX accuses ICANN of 'lip service' on porn domain

.XXX is the wrong choice

Surely the correct choice for the porn TLD is .CUM ?

State senator eyeballs smut during abortion debate

Educational material

Sent to him by Jaqui Smith's husband to remind him what activities may have led up to the need for an abortion ...

Beijing security know-how rules irk suppliers

Did they recompile it ?

It is one thing to have something that is labeled ''source code to the product'' and to be sure that this is exactly what was used, eg no little extra ''tweak'' hidden in a system macro that leaves a security back door. If they are serious about this they will insist on compiling the source on one of their machines and check that it matches the binary that is shipped with the product.

All of this is a lot of work and will take a lot of time, who is going to pay for it ?

If they don't recompile it then the suspicion must be that they are more interested in getting/ripping-off the technology that doing a security audit.

Microsoft's Linux patent bingo hits Google's Android

Who owns Linux ?

The point is that it is not owned by any one person, so it cannot be bought or whatever. This is deliberate.

What could happen is that the in USA it becomes impossible to use Linux without payment to microsoft; but that will just damage the USA economy - the rest of the world where we do not have s/ware patents could happily continue.

NHS computers hit by voracious, data-stealing worm

Why, oh why ...

do people use Microsoft for systems of life critical function and hold sensitive information ?

This has happened many times before. Surely these muppets have learned that MS is completely unsuitable for a trusted system ?

'Gossips' say Apple will acquire ARM

Just stop developing it

The EU might stop it if Jobs killed ARM, but he can do much the same thing by starving the high end Cortex line from R&D funds, so it slowly looses ground to Intel. This would be much harder for the EU to police ... Jobs just says that limited funds go to the smaller chips aimed at embedded systems that don't complete with Apple's range.

UK IT job outfit punts 491 private email addys

Bullshit disclaimer

In spite of the stupid disclaimer - you can do what you want with the email, its contents, address list, etc. There is no contract implied by you receiving email and so you have not agreed to and terms & conditions and are thus not bound by them. Stupid disclaimer notices might be cheaper than properly training your staff (or employing people with functioning grey matter in the first place), but it is not really effective.

You are, of course, under privacy constraints although I am not sure what the *legal* ones are exactly, but I would conceal 3rd party addresses -- just as El Reg has done.

Fedora tempts fate with Apollo 13 beta

Zafara is not entirely free

See:

http://www.zarafa.com/content/prices

You will see that they want some 30 Euros/user if you want full Outlook support, the community (== free) version gives you webmail; so not quite what you said -- unfortunately.

Steve Jobs: 'Pad? That's my word'

Let me announce the easyPad

I'm not sure what it will do, but I will be attacked by Stelios and Jobs, both of who assume that they own common English words.

PDF security hole opens can of worms

Re : "by replacing the su or sudo"

"su and sudo may be world executable but they are only writable by root so they can't be replaced."

What he means is for the malware to execute the command ''sudo something evil'', ie use ''sudo'' in the executed command not ''su''. This may work because sudo can be configured to remember that someone authenticated recently and so not ask for a password.

Germany warns surfers against Firefox

Why are you an anonymous coward ?

Afraid to show that you are a MS employee ?

Whatever happened to the email app?

OOM killer

The OOM killer is only invoked if the system runs out of RAM and swap, it is not something that kills a process because it is busy doing something and not talking to the GUI subsystems.

Your comment is completely wrong.

EU ministers want new life for IP enforcement

But copyright is too long

This stops reuse that is often used to generate things in the first place, this lecture by Laurence Lesstig is worth listening to:

http://blip.tv/file/3283837

Ballmer: One day, Bing will actually make money

Comedy circuit

When did Ballmer start doing stand up gigs ?

Most resistance to 'Aurora' hack attacks futile, says report

Most businesses are defenseless ???

This may drive Linux to corporate desktops

MS botches Office 2010 prices, hikes Professional by £30

Stupidly expensive

I never realised that it was that expensive -- I'll just stick with OpenOffice if I need a word processor

Microsoft kills FAST's Linux and Unix search biz

How much more tin ?

How much more hardware will you need to buy to get a comparable system when you replace *nix with MS Windows ? I seem to remember that when moving Hotmail from freeBSD to MS Windows the replacement ratio was 5::1.

Manchester cops clobbered by Conficker

Stupid coppers

I never cease to be amazed about people who run mission critical systems on top of MS Windows machines. How long before someone dies as a result ?

Microsoft ends Windows and Office 2007 rental restrictions

Re: Is this legal

I think that what this is talking about is the special case of someone *renting* out a machine running MS s/ware, be that by the week or by the hour. I suppose that this sort of like Blockbuster renting out DVDs of the latest film and (I suppose) having to make some payment to the studio.

However: with a film, once you have seen it you are unlikely to want to see it again - so some fee back to the studio is reasonable (since they won't go to the cinema). I don't see the same analogy with s/ware.

Boys in blue caught breaking IT rules

We only know about those who were caught

''The Police Federation said it was surprised the figures were so high''

What about those who were not caught ? I would be surprised if many times more got away with snooping on those who they should not have -- but the police will pretend that they don't exist.

Sex in the Noughties: How was it for you?

article rating

How could I rate it anything other than: orgasmic!

We have lost a lot of liberty in the last decade, this is all part of the same story. We won't regain it until the majority of sheeple in this country wake up.

Monty launches frantic 'save MySQL' web campaign

Thanks for the publicity

as a result I have signed it and posted on to a few hundred others who are likely to be interested.

UK judges reject Lucas' appeal in Star Wars helmet case

Extradition shortly ...

Wait 'till the US is granted an extradition against Andrew Ainsworth - something that the UK courts will not be able to prevent -- thanks to the supine laws that were agreed by Tony Blair as part of his George Bush ass liking.

Durham police demonstrate DNA will stuff you

Arrest themselves

After arresting someone for possession of something legal, presumably the Durham PC Plods would need to arrest themselves for carrying out an illegal arrest: then take their own DNA. Would that affect their own continued employment ?

LHC knocked out by ANOTHER power failure

How complicated is it ?

It would be nice to know how many components there are in the LHC, then compare that to a car/aircraft/... Then how many of these are non-standard (ie not well tried & tested). This might help people to understand why there are failures.

NHS hurls iPhone into booze abuse fray

Who knows the strength of the wine in your glass ?

When did you last ask your mate about the strength of the booze that they have just given you ?

Which of your mates would know the answer if you were to ask them ?

EU to approve more banking data for US spooks

Complain to the data protection registrar

Do it here:

https://forms.ico.gov.uk/data-protection-complaint.aspx

Vendors to push 12in netbooks in 2010

They dont understand

The reason that I like netbooks is that because they are small, great for being out & about; not something that I want to use as a main desktop.

Making them 12" is removing my motivation to buy one.

Kent Police exceeded powers in too-tall photographer case

DNA destroyed then

Since the arrest is now declared illegal, then the DNA sample that they would have taken on arrest is now deemed taken illegally. So: has the sample been destroyed ?

Government rejects call to secure snoop data

Citizens data does not matter

But they did get mightily upset when the Telegraph published some of their data ....

Nutt sacking row deepens

Honesty in government decisions

is what they are asking for -- that would be novel; highly desirable but novel.

Boffins fawn over dirt cheap server clusters

Now build it with ARM chips

what is the number of instructions per joule that you get ? -- corrected for you needing less ARM instructions than X86 ones to get some work done.

DARPA, Microsoft, Lockheed team up to reinvent TCP/IP

An abortion in the making

What a stupid way to do this. Have 3 groups go into a secret huddle and try to invent something that meets very difficult to achieve objectives. The muppets probably also believe that by keeping the details of their new protocols secret that no one will be able to reverse engineer it. What is needed is a public competition along the lines of the ones that resulted in the DES and AES encryption standards.

This is assuming that their aims can't be met with IPv6, possibly with some additions.

See this to learn about AES:

http://www.moserware.com/2009/09/stick-figure-guide-to-advanced.html

Landmark ISP piracy case could kick thousands offline

@Precident

Someone ought to tell the postal workers that they could be prosecuted for delivering an ''illegal'' copy of a film on DVD -- that ought to keep them on strike 'till well past Christmas.

Judge rebukes copyright enforcer in ringtone case

Limits on the exclusion of copyright please

''that's also good news if your car radio is on with the windows down''

Please, please - I hope that exclusion doesn't apply to those who you can hear what they are playing with the car windows up and you are in the next street!

Royal Mail website goes on strike

Latest Demands

of the postal workers are here:

http://newsarse.com/2009/10/13/well-strike-until-you-let-us-deliver-all-your-email-say-postmen/

Trojan plunders $480k from online bank account

Not using MS Windows is good advice

Look at the numbers: Linux users tend to not be prone to the problems that plague MS users.

That is all that matters. Why is not important. Move to a Linux desktop and enjoy not having to always worry about infection.

Many have said that when more desktops run Linux that it will fall prey to malware. I agree that there will be more attempts; however the whole design is inherently more secure. But to you it should not matter - you should be concerned about your security today and the best way of achieving that is to move to a Linux desktop. What will happen in the future is another thing.

Don't get me wrong: I do keep my machines patched & up to date, that is easy under Linux.

Tories oppose charges and speed cameras

Speed is easy to measure

There is too much an emphasis on prosecuting people who drive too fast and as a result other things seem to be ignored, eg: people who drive too close to the car in front, or: people who undertake (overtake on the inside). I am not saying that speed is not dangerous, but so are other things.

Probably the best server survey in the world

x86 servers only

Why is this only about X86 servers ? There are more server architectures than that, you will miss an important part of the story unless it is opened up. Is the survey from someone who has never seen anything else ?

EU bodies to discuss IP barriers to innovation

Another attempt to bring in s/ware patents

this is something that would stifle innovation, large companies would sue small ones to oblivion, small & large would be attacked by patent trolls - society in general looses.

While they are looking at it, why not reduce the copyright term on things like books: life of author + 70 years is absurd; also Disney's Puff Boat Willie should be in the public domain by now.

Time for a change on the desktop?

Wrong question

to an extent they were trying to answer the wrong question. They were asking ''What about moving the desktop to Linux ?''

There is a much more interesting one: ''What about using more Open Source applications ?''

This is much easier. People move over to Firefox, OpenOffice, Thunderbird, .... under MS Windows, that can happen gradually, an application at a time when appropriate. When their PC comes up for renewal -- you look at what apps they are running; if they are all available under Linux - replace their box with a Linux one.

For some people - this won't work; they need proprietary apps (that can't be virtualised, run as thin client, ...); maybe they really need MS Office (because of macros, ...) - you leave them with MS Vista or whatever.

The point is that you go for the low hanging fruit - do the easy stuff first; do the applications first. You may not get 100%, so what ?

Database containing 1.8m UK postcode locations leaks online

It should be freely available

nothing else to add to the title

Rights commission slams police DNA database advice

Not until tried & found guilty

More to the point: a swab should NOT be taken until someone has been TRIED and found guilty. Current police practice is to take a swab when someone is arrested, way long before to court, often when the police know that they are going to release them anyway.

If the police continue to take swabs: then surely they are guilty of breaking the law and all of their DNA should end up on the police database ?

Machine rebellion begins: Killer robot destroyed by US jet

USAF response

I am still waiting for the USA forces to assure us that no one was in danger and that this will not happen again.

Brit inventor wants prison for patent crims

It is the lawyers at fault ...

as usual. Reduce the costs of litigation and suing someone who has really infringed a patent would be affordable.

Large companies employ expensive lawyers to scare off smaller rivals. The lawyers deliberately wind up costs and the small rival (who may well be in the right) will back off rather than face the risk of losing and having to pay ruinous legal fees.

The result is that he who has the deeper pocket wins - not he who is right.

Not much different from school playground bullying is it ?

Linux chief challenges Microsoft to pony up on patents

M$ being nice in some areas

They would help with ports of MySQL & PHP since they are behind in those areas -- so it is to their advantage. They won't help in an area where they are ahead.

Besieged by attacks, AT&T dumps celebrity hacker

What about AT&T's other customers ....

who report breaches in security ? I fully expect that AT&T will just tell them that it is their fault and that they must have given their account details to someone else.

The loss of customer security is not really paid by AT&T so they don't care. MK's crime was probably to try to hold them accountable.

Minister attacks drunken topless lovelies with tangler-bazooka

Today's enemies ...

if that is what today's enemies are envisaged to be, then it might be worth signing up and hoping for a bit of hand to hand combat ...

Faster broadband for free?

Anybody tried one ?

Me being someone who instinctively does not believe what large corporates say - without verification.