Posts by Sir Runcible Spoon

MS Word deserves DEATH says Brit SciFi author Charles Stross

Re: A De-strossing Article!

"anyone got any bat's blood?"

You'd never get the stain out of the parchment.

Brazil's anti-NSA prez urged to SNATCH keys to the internet from America

Re: I don't trust any of them.

"but at least they haven't tried to impose any large-scale censorship operations like many of the others would have"

An overt regime of censorship is something tangible that can be fought. A better idea would be to put the fear of God NSA into everyone and get them to censor themselves. Who would they fight against then eh?

Oh....

Re: Artic Veg @Matt Bryant Funny ..........

Shit me sideways, several posts in and no mention of Sheeple! That must be some kind of record.

"I just ask them about the events in Barcelona in May 1937"

So, Matt. What about the events in Barcelona in May 1937 then? What's your take on it?

NSA tactics no better than a CYBERCRIME GANG, says infosec'er

Re: Sir

I've had a good old search around, and you're right - I can't find a single legitimate reference to Goebbels actually having said this, it appears I am repeating oft quoted propoganda. Shame on me.

In my search I came across a lot of stuff he _did_ say, it's worth a read..

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Goebbels

Re: Sir

I said it was a fascist statement because it was a statement made by Joseph Goebbels, fascist.

Sir

"The phrase "if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" should be applied to government agencies not to ordinary citizens."

It doesn't matter who it's applied to, it's still a fascist statement whichever way you slice it.

Hollywood: How do we secure high-def 4K content? Easy. Just BRAND the pirates

Re: Does not scale

I reckon the only way you could understandably conflate copyright infringement and theft is when someone is selling copied stuff at full price. They have *definitely* deprived the owners of a sale at that point.

Obvious troll is obvious

However, he seemed so insistent that copyright infringement was actually theft I decided to put the terms together into a search engine to see if anyone, anywhere, anywhen had ever been charged, convicted or even to have been whispered as condoning 'copyright theft' and guess what...nothing.

"criminal charge for copyright theft" = lots of articles on copyright infringement.

So, brain-dead troll is obviously brain-dead.

WikiLeaker-in-chief Assange refuses to meet Benedict Cumberbatch

Re: "the two most discredited books on the market"

You leave JR Hartley out of this! Poor old sod.

Re: Cumberbatch as Kahn

"I spit in your face"...or something.

Re: would the techie readership that occasionally graces the forum

Or even the graphics of the cooling towers at Woodlong !

Boffins spot LONE PLANET roaming interstellar void

Re: Daleks

They still can't look up or down though!

...not sure that helps..sorry.

Nothing to sniff at: Cisco finishes $2.8bn gobble of Snort'ing guy's Sourcefire

Sir

I think I saw an implication in there that the NSA are happy with Cisco because they know they can force them to put in a back door to the IPS' blocking capabilities, but also that Checkpoint could not be relied on to do so when ordered by the NSA...interesting.

London plod plonks, er, pull request on EasyDNS

Re: This is nothing new

"The police state that because Nominet receive fees for domains, they are receiving proceeds from a crime when that domain is used for "illegal" purposes"

That's not a defensible position in a court of law - Nominet should have stumped up the cash for lawyers or started a fund.

I mean, if I use my car in a ram-raid, and my the insurance company is making money from me using that car 'they are receiving proceeds from a crime when that car is used for "illegal" purposes

Brits spend one in every 12 waking minutes online, say beancounters

Did I miss something

Does porn not come under entertainment then?

NSA using Firefox flaw to snoop on Tor users

Re: Thanks for the read

Actually I have changed the world in my own small way, but I think I should point out to you that continuing to suggest that if you cannot save the entire world with a single act then you simply shouldn't bother is simply defeatist.

I'm not objecting to you having this opinion of course, it just comes across as limited in scope fwiw.

Perhaps I should say to you: If you want to live in an idealist world in 25 years, then you should start now.

Re: Thanks for the read

The only thing I actually have control over in any real sense is how I react and deal with things that occur to me in life.

To my mind, not rolling over and kissing the governments arse *is* something that is in my control.

To the properly prepared mind, opportunities to further your intentions will always present themselves. I have no illusions that I can somehow single-handedly put the world to rights, but I will do what I can, when I can.

If *everyone* did the same thing, I believe that might add up to slightly more than a hill of beans.

Re: Thanks for the read

" It's too late to fight this kind of thing."

I'm starting to get tired of this attitude.

Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they are yours.

Re: The funniest part of the commentary...

"bought your firewall from any of the major manufacturers in the USA"

Or, indeed, Israel.

NSA justifies hacking world's digital communications

Re: AC@23:32

"strict legal framework that prohibits accessing information related to the innocent online activities of US citizens."

Newspeak translation : So, we collect it but are prohibited from 'accessing' it. Oh, and it only relates to 'innocent' online activities, and how will we know they are innocent unless we put them under the microscope?

Laymans English : We collect everything, access everything, and we are the law, so it can't be illegal. So you all you whinging commies terrorists can go fuck yourselves. We will have the video of it from your hacked laptop webcam to use against you, so fill your boots. CommieTerrorist bastards.

30 years on: The day a computer glitch nearly caused World War III

Sir

"I was in the right place at the right moment."

That's what makes you 'that' guy.

I think the world owes this guy and his poorly wife a few quid to live out the rest of his life in comfort.

EasyJet wanted to fling me off flight for diss tweet, warns cyber-law buff

Re: Alarm bells

"we reserve the right to select our customers"

That can't be legal. After all, what if they decided to choose only white English people as their customers?

UK's Get Safe Online? 'No one cares' - run the blockbuster ads instead

I had to complain to HSBC credit card support about this* a few years back.

When it happened again I escalated it to their manager who told me that they had been trained now and should be adopting new processes.

Next time it happened they called and gave me a number to call that I knew was their number so we could discuss things - but they still wanted me to verify stuff on my CC that was hard to keep track of even with my statement in front of me! So I suggested that next time they call we exchange bits of info that only each other would know.

Now that's what they do each time they need to call. They give me one part of my info, I give them the rest.

So sometimes they learn.

Mind you, I don't know who programs their systems because once I had to go back into a shop to buy the load of bread that I forgot and it got flagged, yet when I bought a £7k motorbike it went through without a blip - go figure.

*this = the 'bank' calling me to ask me personal questions

Re: The user is not the only fault

"However, I still have a rudimentary duty of care - checking oil, checking tyre pressures etc.

Unfortunately now what the 'great unwashed' are looking for in IT is the same as in any other area of their lives - absolution of responsibility."

Totally agree. After all, who crashes into the tree if the brakes fail?

Absolution of responsibility is not actually possible when it comes to your own safety - all you are doing is saying to the world "look at me, I am not in control of myself - please do it for me" (just with a more arrogant tone)

Re: Bring back the early 90's

just not the 14k modems though yeah?

Re: UK's Get Safe Online? 'No one cares'

Great idea...instead of a series of rapidly disappearing flashing images when people FF the adverts on their SKY/Tivo boxes etc. if the advertisers just put a static screen up for 30 seconds I bet people would still notice what it was advertising etc. even though they are wizzing past it.

THE TRUTH about beaver arse milk in your cakes: There's nothing vanilla about vanilla

Sir

People will be going off Caviar next.

Teen buys WikiLeaks server for $33,000 – with dad's eBay account

Re: Can I get in on the act?

Surely the hosting company would have entered into some kind of legal agreement with Wiki to rent them a server. I'm pretty sure that data protection should prevent you from advertsing who your customers are/were and which servers they are using etc.

What's to stop them selling an HSBC international transaction server next time? Even though it's been wiped clean if they try and sell it as such surely it's breaking confidentiality at the very least?

I'm prepared to be corrected :)

Now we know why UK spooks simply shrugged at SSL encryption

Re: Using broken encryption is like putting a red sign on your warehouse "vault lock broken"

"so why go to the bother?"

The whole point of getting *everyone* to take up encryption, is so that *no-one* stands out.

Geddit?

Hands on, er, heads on: We take a gander at Sony's gaming goggles

If you're going to compare the OR with the T1 then you could at least mention your OR is dev-kit and doesn't match what they will be releasing for retail.

Science fiction titan Frederik Pohl dies, aged 93

Re: zearly ?

warrt de fook yew honour bart? eetz aardvark tar getting innt.

Microsoft and Google unite to sue US gov't for more transparency

Tom 7

Whilst the cynic in me thinks you are probably right, I can't help feeling that it's exactly that kind of defeatist attitude that plays into their hands. It's the old classic of divide and conquer writ large I suppose.

When was it never about the money for a business?

In a capitalist society the only way to make your feelings truly felt is to vote with your wallet.

If the million or so people who marched in London to object the Iraq war had instead decided to take a month off work, buy no unnecessary petrol, and buy only basic food-stuffs (no frivolous items) then you would truly have seen a reaction* from parliament.

*probably would have branded them all econo-terrorists or something, but you know what I mean.

Snowden journo's boyfriend 'had crypto key for thumb-drive files written down' - cops

Re: Highly sensitive UK documents? Really?

" "highly classified UK intelligence documents"."

This is the bit that's really confusing me. The Uk Gov keep going on about how Snowden has all these top security uk documents, but didn't he just dump a large part of the NSA database?

At what point did he access UK GCHQ servers?

This all smells to high heaven, and I personally think that the uk spooks just wanted to know what the US spooks knew about them (they don't tell each other *everything* obviously).

As a bonus they get loads of US-centric stuff too to boost their own intel. All the while they are dressing this up as some kind of crime by Snowden against the UK. They haven't said that exactly, but that seems to be the impression they are trying to portray.

Dopey dope-growing dope smoked out by own dope dope-growing vid

Re: "manufacturing a controlled drug".

This one has got me thinking since I've ingested in the past (when I gave up smoking).

It's hard to get hard and fast figures, but averaging all the info out I think it would take around 15-30mg of THC to be considered a 'single' medical dose (of decent quality I presume). I would think that this would get a 'non toker' pretty stoned for around 2-3 hours. Again, hard to be precise but this sounds reasonable.

I've also looked up what is going to be available in Colorado as the poster above mentioned. Again, hard to get specific info, but it seems that products are being marketed as being anywhere between 50-250mg per item, even if it is just a chocolate sweet.

I found one online shop in colorado that apparently won some award in 2010 (@Kushcon)for strongest edible at around 48mg.

If sweets are being made that can be 250mg, then I think the risk of children eating them is quite real. I have no idea what effect it would have on a 5 year old to ingest enough THC to knock out a hardened stoner, but it does seem to be something the 'pro legalisation' people should take into account - otherwise it will be banned again as fast as you can say 'whinging mothers'.

Hmm, a server farm you say?...

http://pcgrowcase.com/

Boffin snatches control of colleague's body with remote control brain hat

Re: "Rent a Paris for my holiday!"

"Rent a local for your Paris holiday."

There are a series of books that cover just this possibilty.

See Kirlian Quest etc.

Tor usage up by more than 100% in August

Re: Phaedrus99 probably because ...

So, the TOR browser is just used for downloading copyrighted material, is that what you're saying Matt?

Poison Ivy RAT becoming the AK-47 of cyber-espionage attacks

Re: What to do about these RAT things?

Considering some of the other lyrics in that song, I felt the final verse to be rather fitting (if aimed at certain entities)..

"You invade my space

Make me feel disgraced

And you just don't give a damn

If I had my way

If I had my say

I'd like to see you hang "

Botched court doc outs Google as respondent in national security flap

Re: winds of change

"So much for Obama being the transparent President."

He looks perfectly transparent from where I'm sitting.

Acorn’s would-be ZX Spectrum killer, the Electron, is 30

Re: Got two in a box...

If they haven't been powered up for a long time you may be disappointed.

Old chips had pnp layers with large depletion zones. Powering up removed these zones and allowed current to flow.

Over time, the depletions zones can actually get so large that when it draws enough power to ovecome them, the chip fries :(

Re: Wrong market?

" later Gates tells Amstrad that they can have MSDOS for nothing! Hence the PC1512 ended up being shipped with both OS's!"

Yeah, that was obviously a mistake on Bill's part eh? Where is he now I wonder?

Nasty BOFHses. It burns us! It burns...

I'm not so sure I'd like to fall into it though....

</spssised??>

" 'Johnny Cash 10th anniversary memorial chicken Vindaloo' as the meal of the day?"

"The Ring of fire!" the PFY gasps in hushed tones."

Priceless :D

Cisco goes public with major vulns

Sir

This is going to affect an awful lot of SME's who wouldn't necessarily be thinking of patching their cisco kit first and foremost.

Snowden journalist's partner gave Brit spooks passwords to seized files

Re: Matt

Matt, I have no objections whatsoever to you holding whatever political stance you like and voicing that opinion on here. If I have an objection, it is simply the way in which you go about it. You ascribe words and motives to people without knowing the first thing about them.

If you stayed away from the ad hominem attacks and stuck to the points you are trying to make it would make reading your posts a little less grating. Make of that what you will.

Here, have a pint and chill out a bit.

Re: Re:Sir Runcible Spoon DanDanDan spanner

Who rattled your cage Matt? I can only assume you believe my comment was about you, but then that fits with your narcissistic profile I suppose.

US court rules IP address cloaks may break law

Re: @condiment

"So Google are actually saying that what UK users do on US servers is subject to US law."

I performed a traceroute to www.google.co.uk earlier today and got a wonderfully low 32ms response time.

That server farm is *not* in the US.

I also know that different 'Google's for different countries deliver different results for the same searches based on laws in those countries, which means that they are offering a bespoke service to each country.

In my book that means the UK Google servers are operating under UK law.

Guardian lets UK spooks trash 'Snowden files' PCs to make them feel better

"how far down their list of priorities are fine details like public accountability and freedom of expression in this septic isle?"

You seriously believe they are even on a list?

"Bigus dickus."

He has a wife, you know....