Posts by Psyx

Our Milky Way galaxy is INSIDE OUT. Just as we suspected, mutter boffins

I think they missed out a crucial coma.

Who said us grammar-nazis are too picky, eh?

"probably the worst "chocolate" I have ever tasted"

Not had Hersheys, then?

NSA: It's TRUE, we grab 200 MILLION of your text messages A DAY globally

Re: "Lawfully collected"???

"That is why women are allowed to drive in the UK"

But only badly.

I'll get my coat...

Re: Most useless Job ever !

If you think space exploration is a waste of time, you're a waste of oxygen.

Re: Even if it were effective...

"No, that was Blair"

I don't like him, either. I despise him more, on reflection. But I'd be stupid to think that he hates the concept of freedom and rights, too. He just thought that taking a few of them away caused less fuss and made it easier to catch 'bad' people, which is good for votes. In action he stamped on Rights, but he did it because of political reasons and not some personal dislike for freedom.

Re: @Psyx

"Yes I believe you are talking to the clan intellectual."

Clan with a big 'C', or a little one?

Re: Tragic

"It's tragic that so much money and man-power goes into this stuff."

In the grand scheme of things, it's spare change down the back of the sofa.

And the intel community will tell you that it's woefully underfunded these days... partly due to this kind of thing. COMINT is such a big deal these days that other forms of intel get sidelined.

To my mind it's more worrying how much is spent on the military compared to how much is spent on intelligence, international diplomacy and aid. If we spent all the cash we spend on war-toys on finding out what other nations are doing, rooting out trouble before it hit the fan, making other nations happy and reducing international poverty then there'd be less people pissed off at us, and less requirement for all those tanks.

Re: "Lawfully collected"???

"But who made it legal in the UK for a foreign power (the US) to snoop on us without a warrant issued in the UK (and the same applies to every other non-US country)?"

I hate to break this to you, but intelligence agencies generally don't give a sh1t about the laws of the nations that they are spying on. They'd not get much done if they didn't. They get away with it especially easily if they tacitly agree to share the information with the host nation and pretend it came from other sources.

It doesn't need to be done in the UK, though: International fibre optic links fall outside the national borders, and data gets shunted through dozens of nations.

Electromagnetic waves don't just stop at the border, either and can be picked up by neighbouring ears. The US has aircraft (RC-135) specifically designed for loitering outside airspace and picking up ELINT. Those aircraft also fly from the UK (or used to), and who says they don't turn on their ears the moment the wheels are up, instead of later in the flight, over international airspace?

We also allowed the US to build listening posts in the UK, and don't audit them. Obstinately they are to pick up overseas traffic, but that's obviously not the whole story (and let's not throw a paddy too much, because we own such facilities overseas as well). And although it's against the Vienna Convention, all major players use embassies as SIGINT listening posts for too, and there is nothing that can be done about it, because you can't search other people's embassies (and rightly so: It would do far more harm than good). There's also the traditional method of parking 'fishing trawlers' off coastlines in international waters packed with receivers and linguists.

"It seems to me that if the NSA has taps into infrastructure in UK territory, then they are breaking UK law."

If they physically tapped in: yes. But SIGINT 'ears' doesn't need to be hardwired. There are plenty of passive ways of getting it, as outlined above.

"In that case, the likes of GCHQ should be involved in searching out these taps and turning them off. After all, who do GCHQ work for, us or the NSA?"

How would you go about auditing every telephone exchange in the nation for the latest NSA spy-tech? GCHQ isn't made of money and would be failing in its priorities if it shifted funding from gathering data on our real enemies to finding out what our allies are doing. It would also be self-harm, as we have intelligence-sharing pacts in place that allow us access to that NSA data.

I don't support or agree with the measures, but those are the plain facts.

Re: Even if it were effective...

"e.g. 'right to bear arms'"

I'd really like more hair on my arms. And claws.

Re: Even if it were effective...

"President Obama, of course, hates our constitution and is wont to stamp on it every chance he gets."

If you genuinely believe that, you Sir are a moron.

I hate Cameron, but I'd have to be stupid to think that he is deliberately grinding the Magna Carta into to the dust because he hates it. That kind of thinking sweeps aside rational thought and really makes you not worth debating with, because no matter what evidence you see or are shown, your opinions are cast in stone and supported by the hand-jobs of your peer-group.

Re: The defense for Billy Catriger

"'My political party is an Angel, yours is the Devil' type of rant will normally fall on deaf ears in the UK."

Hush, you evil Tory. :D

We also don't agree with you because we think it was blinkered, so biased by pre-formed opinions as to make any rational balance of evidence moot, and total drivel.

The interesting number for me is the 6 million SIM card changes per day that they pick up on. That's clearly more than happens in the US each day (assuming the average person keeps a phone for more than a few months), and also far more than would show up on even a large target list (even if there are a million targets for active surveillance, they won't all be changing SIM cards 6 times a day).

So we can see that it seems that the NSA is widely interested in any change of SIM card, because although most will be routine, a pattern of card-swapping is indicative of someone trying to partially sanitise and separate their communications channels. In short: If you change cards, you might be hiding something, so it's worth pulling your data and flagging you. Nice.

Likewise, we can see that they have a very broad interest in currency transactions that carves well into the usage patterns of honest citizens.

The missed calls is interesting too: Call chaining means that they are using the meta-data of a follow-on call to tie to numbers together. Make a call to a targeted phone and if it's not picked up, then it's likely that the next number you phone in the next couple of minutes will either be an alternative number, or someone who can also tell you what you want to know/hear and so has close links to the first number.

Re: The defense for Billy Catriger

We just don't like barely coherent rants (when they aren't funny).

Re: Six Billion?

"Eh? That's 20 texts per day for _everyone_ in the USA. Shurely shome mishtake!"

Clearly you are not intimately familiar with the texting habits of the younger generation.

Re: "Lawfully collected"???

"With a blanket hoovering up of everything? How is that lawfull? "Wiretaps" have to be done on individual phone lines... I would expect the same of SMS data and messages..."

As stated very clearly in the article, this isn't everything. Even basic common sense will indicate to you that the world sends a lot more texts than are intercepted. So it *IS* targeted... kinda. Given maybe 200 'blips' from affected targets per day though, that still indicates a target list of a million.

As to how it is legal: Easy. Firstly the NSA can legally spy on any non-US citizen, whenever it likes. End of.

And GCHQ can spy on any non-UK citizen. And every member of the happy intelligence-swapping community can do the same thing. And then they can all swap information, effectively giving everyone a handy way of legally spying on their own people.That's how it works.

By all means downvote if you don't think that's how it goes down, but if you don't agree with it, spare me the click because I don't like it either, but the truth isn't 'wrong'.

And whereas wiretaps have to be authorised individually, the metadata does not. There is no legal protection against hoovering it. That's how it's legal.

Sucky, but legal.

Re: @Billy Catriger

He probably can't and certainly doesn't know what it means.

Clink! Terrorist jailed for refusing to tell police his encryption password

Re: The Golden Thread

"Pillars of justice that had stood for centuries were removed in the space of about 10 years between 1994 and 2004 after terrorist attacks that killed, in this country, rather fewer than the number dying in road accidents in two weeks."

And yet, we'd suffered far more deaths from domestic terrorism in the twenty years prior to the cited period, without our rights being so smartly whisked away.

Apple coughs up 7 hours of profit to refund kids' $32.5m app spend spree

Re: In game purchases

Up-voted purely for the use of iridescent nodes.

Surely if you can afford to spunk £400 on a phone for a 7-year old, then a few App purchases don't matter...

Modern spying 101: How NSA bugs Chinese PCs with tiny USB radios - NYT

Re: Secret computer technology?

"As in, if the perps can never be sure they are being spied on, they're less likely to use 'computers' for communication."

No vast difference then from instilling in people the idea that an omnipotent entity can see what they're doing all the time and that if they do something wrong they'll be painfully tortured for all eternity...

Just sayin': Authorities have always used invisible policemen and fear to keep us in line.

"security agencies and governments deserve to keep SOME secrets"

And if they hadn't abused their position to a point where a private citizen felt the need to ruin his own life to expose them, it still would.

Like kids with toys: If they use them for hitting other kids around the back of the head, you take them away.

Re: A license to do what they please and no oversight - perfect combination

Advise a holiday in Monaco.

"So the Chinese military will make it a standard procedure to enclose their air-gapped systems in Faraday cages."

Dude: Everyone ALREADY DOES.

Re: "China is a totalitarian..." blah, blah, blah.

"They have invaded: Vietnam, Korea, Tibet, Several small islands. And had a small war with India."

None recently. And in the same timespan, we can also cite America for: Grenada, Panama, Iraq (twice), 'Stan, Viretnam, Korea, Haiti, Yugoslavia, the Dominican Republic, and an attempt on Cuba.

Re: Proving His Enemies Right

"Whilst the US has the highest prison population per head of any country in the world, and highest total prison population, way more than China does."

To be fair; China saves prison space by flat-out shooting severe offenders.

Re: Proving His Enemies Right

"The People's Republic of China is a totalitarian dictatorship which oppresses its people in general and minorities in particular; it menaces the liberty of the people of Taiwan."

So your media tells you. Just as their media tells them that we are the aggressors. But that's ok: Neither of us have been there and we can totally take Murdoch's word on it, because he's a nice guy.

I'm not seriously saying that China is a happy place of freedom, but I am saying that you are blithely painting your own team as the good guys, despite the fact that China isn't the one currently sticking its military into other nations.

"Remember the time, not long ago, when an American airplane over international waters was disabled by a Chinese pilot, forcing it to land on Chinese territory - causing the plane, containing classified technology, to be taken apart while in China?"

I also remember all of the totally illegal flights over Chinese territory and invasion of their airspace by American recon aircraft. How do you justify that level of aggression?

"But at this point, the people who have been saying from the start that he deserves to be shot as a traitor finally have something they can point to."

Bullshit. This isn't a revelation. You acknowledged that you are a layperson in the field and hence only know what the media tells you. So how do you make the judgement that this is a step too far?

Truth is, everyone knows that even an airgap doesn't secure a system and never has. Do you honestly think China hasn't figured it out and takes precautions, too?

Or you just put your IT gear used for classified material inside a TEMPEST shielded room... just like we were all doing 20 years ago.

Parisian cabbies smash up Uber-booked rival ride

Re: circumventing the heavily regulated systems

"cabs needs to be clean and well-maintained, drivers fit, properly licensed and trained, and fares assessed fairly and clearly posted. Service should be prompt, swift, and direct within reason and non-discriminatory."

Have you *been* in a French cab?

"The cabbies have a point. "

They lost it when then physically assaulted and intimidated people. So...fuck 'em. I have no sympathy for violent thugs.

Twitter: It's JUST LIKE Elder Scrolls (no it's not)

Re: >> Mr Dabbs, do I spot a little bit of green eyed monster?!

I'd agree that some people do measure their self-worth in clicks received. And at the extreme end of the scale are awards for models, authors, artists or whatever which are based on votes or 'likes'. They aren't about the artistic or creative medium at all, but are instead popularity contests. Competitors don't write "Please look at the competition entrants and vote for the best one" on their pages, but instead "Vote for me here!".

However, it's a minority activity, on the whole. Most of us aren't narcissists and are social creatures. And even narcissists don't 'game' the system to the point of having league tables or bragging about their most liked posts. So, I see the documentary's statement as fallacious.

<straight face>

All the instructions you ever need are in The Bible.

</straight face>

One could argue that the number of asshats in life is WAY less than the average round of MW.

Life running slowly is nature's way of telling you that your CPU is getting old.

And depending on what continent you're on, you might get a cripplingly disadvantageous amount of lag.

"..."a computer game... being on the whole childish and pointless..."

Get out.

Re: >> Mr Dabbs, do I spot a little bit of green eyed monster?!

I wasn't aware that I used social media to score points and level up based on the number of likes and followers I had; I thought I was just talking shit with friends!

Either Mr. Brooker is a sociopath, or... well, everyone except me is!

Furtive ebook readers push Hitler's Mein Kampf up the charts

Re: Much worse.

I picked up a David Ike hardback about reptiles ruling us a while ago, second hand.

I don't intend reading it: I just leave it on my bookshelf at eye-level to alarm people.

Woman whipped gun from vagina in SPACE ALIEN spat, reports Officer Zook

Re: Space Aliens?

They both did. It's just that one of them was backing the whole 'greys' thing, while the other was more of a 'reptiles run the planet' type of nutcase.

Two guilty over 'menacing' tweets to feminist campaigner

Re: Great...

Graham, there's a big difference between saying "X person on TV should be shot" and personally mailing them to tell you that you're going to do it.

I think it was mostly because they were being nasty little pricks who thought that it was ok to threaten people because nothing would ever come of it.

Data scrapers used Amazon cloud to reap biz bods' CVs, wails LinkedIn

Re: Publicly available PI

Although it's true that it's legal, would you -if you owned a shop perhaps- like someone to come in with a clipboard and write down every single price, measure everything and cull as much business intel from you as they possibly could, or would you sling them out and call them a c***?

Amazon scrape the hell out of our site, and it's rather aggravating to see copy outright stolen, too.

Sony seeks mojo reboot with 147-inch 'honey-you-can't-afford-me' 4K home projector

Re: noise

Less than the fucking brilliant surround-sound system that anyone who could afford one would have.

Re: dark colours anyone?

"The issue is whether you can keep light 'leaking' out from those areas you do want to project onto, to those areas you don't"

If you can afford the TV, you can afford thick curtains, I'd suggest.

Re: why?

"That means in a well-lit room, it might look pretty but it's not going to be realistic."

Since when has quality mattered when dwarfed by sheer mega-ness, though! :)

Apple asks judge to axe ebook price-fixing watchdog

Re: Mummy Mummy...

It's more that the babysitter is charging $200 an hour and deciding that they should also hang around to make sure your MOT is valid, see the kids to school, rifle through your undies drawer, do a H&S study on your house, grass you up to the local council about putting stuff in the wrong bins, let the police know about your stash... and bill you for doing so.

I don't think there's much argument about Apple needing oversight. I'm not weeping for them over that. But it does suck that the Court appointed a scam artist to do the job.

Bay Area plots Googlebus tax after local residents riot

Re: Fair's fair

"a private company wouldn't be exempt from them, or treated like a public bus, no matter how much you argue that it's more convenient."

Not true, though. Private coaches get to use bus lanes and I've seen plenty pick up from bus stations, too. Which seems... perfectly fine.

Ok, if our public transport was better and the private vehicles were cluttering things up and jamming bus lanes, it would be an issue. But I'm failing to see why a bus stopping at a 'public' bus stop is inconvenient, or less convenient than it stopping 20 yards down the road.

Re: Excuse me?

"if public transport was better for everyone, this problem wouldn't exist."

So it's a case of 'those guys get decent 'public' [well: shared] transport to work and we don't, so we're going to protest *at them* instead of our municipal authority?

Well, that makes sense...

Re: Fair's fair

"These bus stops are normally reserved for public transportation, as in buses that anybody can ride on. If the tech companies want to use these bus stops, it is normal that they pay for their use."

But...why?

Rationally, why should a bus that is registered to use public roads, which is doing the City a favour by reducing traffic and pollution, have to pay to 'rent' a few hundred square feet of tarmac for less than an hour a day, broken up into 30 second chunks and dozens of locations. That's a quite absurd thing to charge for.

I object enormously to parking charges as-is [Oh, so it's worth £1.50 to borrow this car-sized zero-maintenance piece of tarmac for an hour in order to come and spend money in your town, is it:?], and this is a seemingly absurd escalation to that.

Re: House Calls?

"The logical response from the tech companies running these shuttles would be to arrange to collect from workers private residences instead, and not use the public bus stops at all. "

Maybe because:

"35,000 people board the buses per day"

And re-routing coaches off major roads where they make pick-ups and down every sidestreet someone happens to live on would cause a shit-ton of congestion?

I really can't see what the issue is. It seems to be "Waaah...those bastards get a free ride to work". I don't see how that is anyone else's business.

ATM hacker Barnaby Jack's death blamed on accidental drug overdose

Re: Commence conspiracy theories.

More worrying is that the SS is alive and well in America...

Intel ditches McAfee brand: 'THANK GOD' shouts McAfee the man

"Hang on. McAfee thinks McAfee is the "worst software on the planet"? Hasn't he heard of Windows 8?

Where has he been living for the past few years - in the jungle?"

Too young to remember AOL installs?

Yeah: Remind to start doing hard drugs if someone starts putting my name on stuff and giving me money.

"Get the name of that crack-smoking, gun-toting, batshit whore-monger off our machines!"

- Anonymous Intel board member(s).