Open conversation
" ... of course there is no interest in having an open conversation with the public."
Yet this would bring greater security than almost anything else that could be done. It's one of the factors that keep democracies stable.
1321 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007
Isn't it also fairly easy to recognise the arrival of a swarm of zombies, and in this case to log most of the 200,000 to plot the spread of the farm that's spawning them? The ratio of password rejections to traffic is presumably quite low and fairly constant, so an increase when the plague starts shouldn't be too difficult to recognise. Or is there something else of which I'm unaware?
Is there not some fairly simple way to test that repeated attempts are being made to crack the login? And is it not it possible to deny 'password1' and similar to users and then route logon requests which use it to fake data, logging all details of the connection and add later adding this to a blacklist?
The can be but few in El Reg's readership who are not now eagerly awaiting Ms Stob's analysis.
See, e.g.,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/13/verity_stob_open_university/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/14/verity_stob_further_eduation/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/07/18/verity_stob_pgpdip/
I'd taken a look at this some weeks ago after being surprised to see a viagra sales link on an NHS page. A quick search with [site:nhs.uk paypal viagra] suggests that despite the NHS saying Google had been working with them on the problem of hacking by internet pharmaceutical vendors the dodgy dealers are still in there.
>> And then there's UKIP who want to rescue us from the EU and ECJ "interference" that is the only thing actually protecting us from the "Snooper's charter".
Maybe you could take a look at the EU treaties and check how Europol has been set up and what options it has been granted. From what I remember, 1993 or so, they were given a mandate to do more or less anything they want.
The benefits of increased competition, so often touted as a reason to support the European dream, are rather swiftly ignored as soon as there is even a mild threat to profits.
But would sales of wine really be affected by a change of domain name suffix? Do many people even notice what a site's URL when they have put [wine], or whatever, into Google Shopping? And wouldn't the serious producers be using .fr or .it etc., or .com, in any case, while the serious buyers would mostly be going on the basis of reputation.
Sainsbury's are after a slice of this data too, using a somewhat different angle. At the pharmacies in their large stores they are offering free advice about prescriptions. As part of this service customers are asked to sign a consent form which allows Sainsbury's to contact their GP; and obviously they store the data.
There will be more ploys to persuade people to use facilities which allow harvesting of their personal health data in coming months and years.
It's perhaps worth noting that Sainsbury's now offer, or rather seem to press on customers using their pharmacy, an 'advice service'. They 'check' that the use of medicines is appropriate.
It looks as though the unwary will be encouraged to sign a consent form which, as far as I could see, would give them permission to discuss details of a prescription with the customer's GP. There wasn't any obvious limitation, so it's hard not to imagine that they may be intending to use this as implied consent to access medical records at any future date.
Despite offering advice, the pharmacy where I had gone could not provide information about interactions between two medicines, failed to access the manufacturer's data, and provided incorrect information about the appropriate timing of taking one of the medicines and eating
It looks as though they are using or perhaps working with the NHS promotion of the electronic prescription service to increase their share of this lucrative market, making it seem both normal for people to wish to share their medical information and convenient. I won't be signing up.
When there are multiple items on a prescription form the law currently requires that they must all be dispensed by the same pharmacy. Clearly this can cause problems when one of the items is out of stock and the patient will be in a different place the next day. It's necessary either to wait until the following day to collect both/all items from somewhere else, going without all the medications in the meantime, or make a return journey to the first pharmacy, which may be inconvenient.
Given that electronic prescriptions can now be sent direct from the doctor who authorises the script to a nominated pharmacy, it seems a bit absurd that the law has not been changed to allow pharmacies to forward the unfulfilled part of a script in the fairly rare circumstances when an item is not in stock and it's not easy for the patient to return to collect this from the same pharmacy which dispensed the other item(s).
The problem is well known to pharmacists and it would not be technically difficult to solve. Presumably all that would be needed on the legal front is a Statutory Instrument to modify the Act. But like much with the computerisation of health, the needs of the patient seem not to be given much attention.
Given that El Reg is about IT and stuff it might be expected that readers will generally have at least some basic knowledge of electronics even if they never studied science or mathematics. It's surprising that quite a few seem incapable of understanding the notion of feedback loops.
6.3 uWh per mm^3 is 6.3 kWh per m^3, if I'm doing the sums right. So for running a car, which to be useful needs something like 25 kWh capacity, this would take up about four cubic metres plus connections and case etc.. It looks as though there is still some way to go, though it might be on target for regenerative braking, power tools and similar applications.
The sugar is probably the least of our worries. Take a look with your favourite search engine at the various emulsifiers, extenders and so-called improvers that are added to industrial bread.
It's small wonder that increasing numbers of people suffer from coeliac disease and gastrointestinal disorders.
Healthwatch was set up not so long ago to provide feedback from the public on health matters. Whether they really do this or are there simply to act as a buffer and keep complaints at bay I don't know, but if enough people contact them and make representations to their local offices then it might have some effect.
They charge the battery via a transformer in the base, and it should be possible to get two or three watts through this with reasonably efficiency. Such toothbrushes lift off their stand easily enough.
To measure the temperature a non-contact thermostat can be rigged up with an LED/photodetector pair and a small mirror on a bi-metal strip, perhaps also using a couple of lengths of fibre-optic to allow the electronic bits to stay inside where it's warm.
In just the same way that there isn't any obvious trace when a miscreant uses this method to try to collect data from a site, maybe the NSA had silently monitored selected sites to capture details of attackers who were exploiting the security hole. By allowing the leak of relatively non-critical data through what would in effect be a set of giant honeypots they could have been compiling details of their enemies.
As to the costs, a) it wouldn't be their money; and b) this would go to show just how important their work really is.
IANAL but it does look as though they changed their terms without proper notification and without agreement. Whether it will be possible to reclaim all or part of prepaid hosting charges on the basis that the existing contract is thus cancelled I don't know. But Mayne Design's blog, mentioned in the article, is definitely useful as it has a screen copy of 123-reg's "We don't rip you off ... No hidden charges to transfer away".
For anyone unfamiliar with the Small Claims procedure, the Trading Standards Office at the local council can be quite helpful. And if there's no response or no success in response to an initial formal letter asking for refund and the promised free transfer the court procedure is fairly straightforward.
Perhaps Jonathon Green's three volume dictionary of slang isn't selling quite so well these days in the face of urbandictionary.com. So an agent has been sending provocative emails in the hope of getting editorial mention that it is available online to subscribers and that there is also an abridged single volume edition in addition to his seminal work, 'Crooked Talk: Five Hundred Years of the Language of Crime.'