Posts by JakeyC

Office 365, Hotmail and SkyDrive hit by outage

The Cloud

It's times like this when having your documents saved "in the cloud" really pays - I mean, imagine if someone didn't use SkyDrive and only maintained local copies of their docs!

Oh, wait...

Christ appears in phone advert, secular authorities act

98 people...

In other news, 98 people seriously need to find something significant to get upset about.

If your life is so easy that you have no problems to sort out besides complaining about a stylized cartoon of a famous dead guy - then I'm very jealous of you all.

If I'd spent my life uttering profundities and my image was still used 2000 years after my death, I'd be very chuffed indeed.

I expect Jesus feels the same and is now cursing those who got him removed from the Phones4U ad campaign.

Phone-hack plods arrest another man in pre-dawn raid

Not rich, powerful or famous

So, can we assume that whoever the latest suspect is, they're not rich, powerful or famous?

Because if they were, they'd have been arrested "by appointment at a local police station" like the rest.

'New laws not needed' to block / censor Twitter et al

Repeal date?

Wiki says 1973; you say 1967 - which is it?!

Nokia's Ovi wunderkind is off ... to Nokia-backed Vision+

Title+

In the same way that we got a flood of iEverything from Apple wannabes, has Google+ started the trend of 'Everything'+, I wonder?

Pre-paid Chinese users still anonymous despite new law

Troll-dar activated

I suspect you're a troll, but I'll say it anyway...

You might not be up to anything nefarious, but the same argument could be flip-reversed on the mobile operator: if THEY'RE really not going to do anything with my details, then why do THEY need them?

Whether or not you have "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" is not the point. They're MY details, I'll keep them close to my chest, thanks.

By the way, I have an interest in the phone number of those commentards whose comments I reply to. I assume you'll have no qualms about handing them over - after all, I can't do anything bad with just your phone number, right? Right?

I think I may be waiting a long time to get number...

UK cops charge alleged Anonymous hacker

Not once, but twice!

"PayPal, Amazon, Mastercard, Bank of America, PayPal and Visa"

Well, if he's going to attack PayPal twice he dserves all he gets!

Secret list of celebrity .xxx domains removed from market

http://whois.domaintools.com/jacquismith.xxx

So Jacqui Smith of porno-documentary fame is still good to set up her own site, seeing as she loves it so.

*shudders*

AlertMe network power-meter kit: Suitable for techies?

Not this one...

I'm sure some are widly inaccurate but this one's good to within 0.5%:

http://www.prodigit.com/pdf/2000mu.pdf

Don't bother

So, it measures consumption for the whole house and you can't break it down by applicance?

I just got myself a plug-in meter for £20 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Plug-In-Power-and-Energy-Monitor/dp/B000Q7PJGW) and it does the job much more accurately and usefully. (Not on comission here, btw.)

Not only does it let you see how much individual applicances use, it also measures the power factor (PF), VA, watts etc. so you can see the difference between what you're being billed for and what is "useful" energy, real/reactive power and all that geeky goodness.

Fair enough, you can't access it through the web or save stas after you switch off, but for £20 I'm not complaining!

Better ATM skimming through thermal imaging

Re: Why?

For the same reason we see how fast we can make cars go, or how stealthily we can make aircraft fly.

In other words, it's human nature - curiosity, innovation and just plain old finding things out.

If we stopped pushing the limits of what can be done for fear of the bad guys misusing our work, we'd probably be a whole lot less "civilised" than we are today.

The Real Hustle

I'm sure they didn't invent it, but The Real Hustle (BBC3...) did the same thing on a safe a year or two back.

They posed as shopping mall security guards and got the shopkeeper to open their safe to "check" it hadn't been emptied.

Then as soon as he'd entered the PIN, called him away on some "urgent" matter.

The other chap then took an IR image of the keypad, before entering the glowing digits into the safe, brightest last.

Trojan script gets stuck on superglue site

Today I learned...

...that Super Glue is, in fact, a registered trademark and not a generic type of glue.

I already knew about Sellotape, so I am disappointed in myself for not realising.

Mr Bean prangs £650k McLaren

I like to think he was sat on the roof

I reckon he was sat on the roof, steering with a rope and using a broom to work the pedals which subsequently got stuck, leaving him to roll down a hill.

First smut site erected on .xxx address

Yes, Love really does Change Everything...

See also:

- Jesus Christ Pornstar

- Starfish Express

- Pussies

- The Pound of Music

IT boss jailed for plundering Scottish library

Baptists?

"Dinham has already paid back £150,000 and is involved with the Baptist Church"

Fair enough, that is quite a harsh sentence. I'm sure he'll learn his lesson once the Baptists sort him out.

Netflix splits DVD, streaming offers in 60% price hike

640k

"there will NEVER be a time when an online service can offer to stream every film ever made"

Really? And 640k ought to be enough RAM for anybody, right?

US Marine gets date with Meg Griffin on YouTube

FAO Paris

Paris, if you're reading this, do you fancy going to the pub sometime?

I have a VERY exciting new film project I think you'd be just right for.

Go Daddy in the hands of private equity giants

BT

Clearly you've never done business with BT...

Coalition axes Central Office of Information, 400 jobs

Keep Britain Tidy

Isn't that just a logo featuring a stick figure using a dustbin?

If scrapping that saves money, what on earth was it being spent on?!

Travelodge hacked, investigating

Only one email address leaked

I noticed this today, as it was addressed to the name of someone I booked on behalf of once, using a [e-mail] address. So it's not just the email address, but also the account holder name they've pilfered.

I also have another account with them using [e-mail] but no email has been sent there (so far).

Google identified it as spam, so unless they've not shown me the 2nd mail then it could be that it's an 'old' dataset that got taken?

Agreed, except...

...too many sites (incorrectly) reject emails with a + in them, so I have to create ANOTHER throwaway address!

Man infects college PCs to steal huge database

They stole an entire person too?

"the username and password of a pilfered university staff member"

These keyloggers are getting sophisticated nowadays. A WHOLE staff member? Good work!

US air passenger cuffed over low-flying pants

Was the complaint from Alan Partridge?

"Lynn, please have a word with the builder because the other day his jeans were so far off his backside you could more or less see his anus."

Go Daddy sued over email alerts

Re: Cat tax

Is that what you pay to avoid getting sued for breach of a pussy patent?

Facebook value hits $100bn, to go public in Q1 2012

Buble?

NEWS JUST IN: Michael Buble is worth $100bn and is about to burst.

More at 10.

Twitter forced to hand over user details to English council

@Chris W, Wild Bill

"Under the order, plantiffs obtained the name, address, email address, telephone number and geographical location of the users behind the five Twitter accounts."

No IP addresses mentioned there.

Even so, an IP address ties your username to *AN* ISP account.

-1 for not understanding how the internet works.

*REAL* user details?

Who signs up to twitter using real personal info*?

What do the council hope to do when these details come back?

NAME: Bob

SURNAME: Monkey

ADDRESS1: 99 Nostreet

ADDRESS2: Nowhereville

PCODE: F4 1SE

*Besides the foolish, that is.

3D fad fades for Yanks

As a Pirates fanboi...

...I have to elaborate on that.

1st Pirates film: Ace, works as a stand-alone film

2nd Pirates film: Highly entertaining, but its existence serves as a plot bridge to the 3rd film

3rd Pirates film: Very clever resolution of intricate storylines, best action, effects and score of the three. Not as funny as the first, mind you. Watching 2nd + 3rd as if they are one film is highly recommended!

4th Pirates film: Going to see it this week, judgement reserved...

Lock up your lungs, here comes Grimsvotn

Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis

Yeah, and watch out for Grimsvotn-induced Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis while you're at it.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis)

Journos 'risk charges' for covering Parliamentary debates

Master of The Rolls

I don't see what the sandwich guy has to do with any of this...

LinkedIn goes ballistic following IPO

Boo.com

Saw Evan Davis talking about the fall of fashion retailer Boo.com last night on his Business Nightmares programme. Yes, it was over-inflated before having sold a thing or even launching, whereas LinkedIn is established, but the parallels are there.

I think they said that despite a worldwide launch and much hype they took 80 orders in the first day.

As a commenter asked in another story, how can I make money from knowing the value of tech shares are due to fall off a cliff?

Apple to support reps: Don't confirm Mac infections

@Ralph 5 Fanboi

That may very well be the case, but your comment history outs you as a Fanboi of the highest order. I will therefore be taking your anecdotal evidence of Apple's good service with a pinch of iSalt.

Reading between the lines, Apple sold you a dodgy iPhone that should never have passed the factory QC check and not even the battery in your laptop works properly. To me, that's "truly awful".

The BBC struggles with concept of 'tech bubble'

I told you so

The Social Media bubble (and it is a bubble) will burst, even if social media as a concept remains. There, I'm now on record as having predicted it, but that doesn't make me the cause when it does!

UK tax system takes a little break from the interwebs

Quietest time of year?

Their quietest time is at the transition from one tax year to the next?!

Alrighty then.

Government shells out £2m for ID card compo

Lesser of two evils

I'd rather pay a couple of million quid to NOT have ID cards than several billion for having the 'privilege' of owning one.

BA jihadist relied on Jesus-era encryption

Silly terrorist is silly

Hello Mr Terrorist,

We kaffirs all know about encryption so if you want my advice you should use lemon juice as invisible ink.

When your mate warms the paper in an oven it will show up your secret message. You should definitely do this because no one else uses it so it's more secure.

P.S. We also know about explosives so next time, use water bombs because we won't be expecting that and we'll be very afraid.

Play.com spam points to malware downloads

Spam 'from' GSN?

I received this lame apology from Play too. Really annoyed, because I'd kept my address 'clean' for years and now through no fault of my own it's going to get a ton of spam and I need to change passwords etc.

Interesting that you mention the GSN link because I got spam yesterday purporting to be *from* GSN (offering Acrobat X PDF Reader). I've never been to GSN.com in my life let alone signed up.

I haven't bought anything from Play in a couple of years now, but certainly won't be again after this!

Euro police smash online paedophile ring

Won't somebody think of the terrorists?

So, "it operated as a legal 'discussion-only' forum where people could talk about their sexual interest in young boys without committing any offences"

Hmm, I'm pretty sure the same wouldn't be tolerated of a "legal 'discussion-only' forum where people could talk about their interest in planning terrorism without committing any offences"!

Russian republic in sex bomb alert

No bulging package?

Surely their suspicions were "aroused by a bulging package", no?

Just a suspicious packet? Shame.

Microsoft pushes back cut 'n' paste update

Wait, no Cut & Paste?

I don't have one - can't Windows-based "smart"phones cut/copy/paste?! Really?

My Motorola V500 could do that years back!

Govt working on 'browser-based' solution for new cookie law

ASP.NET?

I concur - escpecially when using ASP.NET - it sets session cookies without any explicit developer input.

To ban these until consent was granted would put great swathes of websites out of action!

Facebook lets users report friends who post suicidal content

Emo, Twilight kids?

The attention-seeking noise generated by the "I wish I was dead so I could come back as a werewolf" crowd is in danger of drowning out the genuine cases!

Mind, you I'm not on FriendFace so I could be talking balls.

Teen cybercrime forum boss jailed

Shakira, Shakira

# I won't deny, her scripts don't lie #

Labour forum leaks email addresses

Anonymous?

Was your source Anonymous or anonymous?

CNN flashes gay todger over interwebs

No, not on the Reg!

You must be new here, straplines are rarely all they seem!

Woah there!

Could we not have got a NSFW (really NSF anywhere) tag on this please?!

Really don't want to see a close up of bum fun (gay or otherwise) while having my lunch!

There's a time and a place for this sort of thing, and that place is the Graham Norton show.

Scareware cold-callers target 1 in 4

Amiga Virus

I feel I need to confess, because while I can't understand how anyone can be so dumb as to fall for these scams, I myself was once dumb too.

My first computer was an Amiga 500. I'd read in Amiga Power (or was it Amiga Format...) that a virus was going to be relased on a specific date. We didn't have a network connection.

To avoid my poor little Amiga 'catching' the virus, I didn't turn it on all day. Worked, though...

1 in 4?

I don't believe the 1 in 4 statistic.

Let's say only half the UK are 'web users'. That's about 30 million, 1 in 4 of which have allegedly been cold called in an anti-virus scam.

In other words, they reckon 7.5 million people have answered the phone and it was a call about a fake AV. Even using autodiallers and professional outbound call centres, that's still going to require a lot of manpower and outlay.

While I'm sure the scam exists in many forms, I call shenanigans on the stats.

Hacker sinks Royal Navy website

Muphry's law

Of course, I meant 'maintenance' page...