Posts by Mad Mike

Hyper-V bug that could crash 'big portions of Azure cloud infrastructure': Code published

Risk factors

Whilst it's true that Microsoft or any other public cloud provider spends a fortune on security, there is also the factor that Azure (or whatever cloud) also has a much bigger target on it than the average on-prem datacentre. Plus, it is publicly accessible by anyone who wants to set up an account, which greatly increases attack surface in it's own right. Is the extra money spent on security enough to counteract the greater risks public cloud is exposed to? That's a matter of opinion. Whilst on-prem might be vulnerable as well, many companies are relatively anonymous on-prem and aren't obvious targets for attackers. Plus, they can put extra layers of security round themselves to control who can connect etc. Finally, an attack against an on-prem datacentre ensures only one company is hit, whereas an attack on Azure ensures the impact is so much wider. Question is, how long till someone exploits an issue in Azure or any other public cloud? It seems an inevitability it will occur.

UK.gov's smart meter cost-benefit analysis for 2019 goes big on cost, easy on the benefits

Re: SMETS2?

Mmmm.

Scotland certainly has a lot of natural resources that could be harnessed. Sadly, the interconnect you talk of is not being funded by the EU (bar a token 10 million euro). Not sure what you mean by the North Sea spine either, as it will certainly not be superconducting (at least in the scientific sense). To my knowledge, there's no idea for a spine as of yet, although it has been proposed the various windfarms could be interconnected, thus also connecting various countries at the same time. However, it's very much at discussion phase at the moment and far away from reality.

As to Scottish Indy. Well, your glorious leader (Sturgeon) is both a rabid racist (her constant abuse of the English in rants) and hated by quite a lot of the Scottish as well. I've met many a Scottish person who thinks she is the worst thing to have ever come out of Scotland. Now that the oil is drying up, good luck if you choose to leave, but you'll be doing it outside the EU (despite her claims), as there's no way you'll get membership, which the EU itself has said (you have to apply like anyone else). And, everyone knows the French and Spanish will refuse the application, as they're scared stiff of their regions doing the same (Catalonia, Basque etc.).

700km on a single charge: Mercedes says it's in it for the long run

Re: 350kW!!!!

The number of pure EVs around at the moment is still very small in reality. Hybrids don't really count towards this, as they don't rely on the electric side; can always switch to ICE. The solar on top of the house is irrelevant to the cars unless they don't use them during the day or have installed a decent sized battery to store the generated electricity before passing to the cars overnight. In reality, you're taking about a setup there into 6 figures and that's something for the minority only. Very impractical for the majority,

Click here to see the New Zealand livestream mass-murder vid! This is the internet Facebook, YouTube, Twitter built!

Re: Errr, censorship?

" take some actual effective steps to prevent your systems being wielded as a deadly propaganda weapon. "

So, who do you ban? Politicians for starters. All sorts of people and companies use these services for propaganda and affects hundreds of millions as a result, turning some violent. Who decides what propaganda gets banned? UKIP? Some say that promotes right wing sentiment, violent in some cases. What about extreme left wing propaganda? The whole problem is, who defines what is and what is not acceptable propaganda? Politicians? Sincerely hope not and nobody controlled by politicians.

Boffins discover new dust clouds in the Solar System, Mercury has a surprisingly filthy ring

Re: Make Pluto great again

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clearing_the_neighbourhood

By the above definition, the whole orbit of the planet must be cleared and therefore none of Mercury, Venus or Earth are planets, as their orbits are not cleared. This is the definition used by the IAU. So, the original poster is quite right. By current terminology, none are planets.

Drone goal! Quadcopter menace alert freezes flights from London Heathrow Airport

Incompetence

After Sussex Police made complete and utter fools of themselves, an opportunity for another police force to do the same!!

Our tax pounds are obviously being well spent........

Facebook settles landmark revenge porn case with UK teen for undisclosed sum

@Peter 2

"And you can't legitimately complain about not enforcing a law on offenses prior to the date the law was passed either, as retroactivity (the act of doing something, and then having a law made against it and being punished for something that wasn't illegal when you did it) is banned under both the universal & EU human rights laws."

I completely concur on your thought processes, but there have been several cases of laws in the UK that act retrospectively. Tax changes for instance have been made retrospective. Don't know how they expect you to avoid breaking a law that isn't even in existence at the time, but it's now happening.

Re: Should FB be held responsible?

@Cynic_999

Totally different scenario. Facebook was created and exists solely for the purposes of allowing people to post pictures, comments etc. in order to share them. In return, Facebook gets information and marketing. The council puts up the lamppost to provide light and not as a forum for people to post things. I appreciate some people do, but that is not the point of the lamppost. So, there is a world of difference between the intents of Facebook and the council. One is touting for people to do it, the other is an unwanted side effect.

Re: Interesting questions

@RancidOrange.

An interesting observation. If Facebook aren't being treated as a publisher, I see no good reason why other organisations that do similar should not claim the same. After all, if someone asked everyone to send them photos, simply bound them and sold them in a book, what's the difference. Both are making money out of it. One by selling the book, the other through advertisements alongside the material. However, one would probably be prosecuted and one wouldn't. Why? Strikes me that a lot of internet companies are actually being classed incorrectly and getting away with dubious practice simply because the law has not caught up, or because they are too big to take on.

It seems internet companies are granted all sorts of special exceptions or classifications through no real good reason.

Re: As she is 14 years old

@AC

Part of the issue with the internet in general, but especially here is exactly that. The difference in culture and laws between different countries, yet the internet does not differentiate. You're right that in some countries, a girl of 14 would have been married off and probably bearing kids by that age. Not saying it makes it right, but how can you have laws governing something that crosses so many and disparate legal boundaries? This is something no government is, of yet, willing to tackle. Not just for material relating to children, but lots of other areas. What's legal in one juristiction is not necessarily in another, but what law does the internet follow?

Re: Interesting questions

@rh587

I hear what you're saying, but I think you're mistaking their business model with the requirements of the law.

For a magazine, they can be held liable if they print an inappropriate image of a minor and there have been prosecutions to show this. Therefore, they go through a rigorous process (probably not entirely fullproof) to check the content before publishing.

Just because Facebooks business model allows anyone to submit and they can't be bothered to employ enough people to do the vetting doesn't stop them being accountable and prosecutable. They need to obey the law and just saying 'it's not practical within our business model' should not be an excuse.

Why should magazines not take the same stance and simply say we'll do something about it when it happens and not bother checking. Would save them a load of money and given that magazines are generally not very profitable these days, why should they not change their business model to this and claim the same exemption as Facebook?

A business model is only valid if it allows the company to stay within the law. Business models cannot and should not be used to try and absolve a company of responsiblity for obeying laws. What if car manufacturers decided their business model didn't allow for the cost of testing etc.? Then, people are killed in faulty cars. Does this render them not liable? Of course not.

Re: As she is 14 years old

@JimmyPage

They are not common carriers, as they are also hosting the image. Royal Mail simply moves stuff from place to place. Any hosting is purely incidental during that process. Facebook on the other hand hosts the pictures etc. ISPs may be common carriers, as again, they simply move the data, hosting only temporarily as necessary to perform that function. So, no, Facebook should not be exempted under common carrier.

They are, however, exempted under the 'they're a huge and powerful and rich company' defence.

Interesting questions

This raises several interesting questions.

Without doubt the person who put up the images should be held to account and why Facebook can't/won't identify them is a very good question.

However, are Facebook liable as well. Some people are citing carrier exemption, but we'er talking about two different scenarios. With the Royal Mail and ISPs, they are simply transporting the goods and do not 'host' them. This is somewhat different to Facebook, where they are actually hosting and providing services for the images to be seen. To my mind, this is entirely different. After all, you could equate Facebook to a magazine. In both cases, they're providing the material and hosting it, not just transporting it. Now, if someone sold a magazine with a picture (presumably compromising) of a minor, would they not be prosecuted? What's the difference? If someone sent a photo into a magazine and they published it, what's the difference?

It rather strikes me that Facebook are guilty of breaching several laws in this country, just as much as any other site hosting material such as pictures. After all, if you sent material into a magazine, they simply automated into the magazine and then distributed or sold it, would you not expect them to check the content? What's the difference? Obscene publications, child abuse etc.? Would we accept excuses such as this from a magazine producer?

Sky customer dinged for livestreaming pay-per-view boxing to Facebook

Re: Foster, versus Foster's iPad-wielding friend

@AC.

I agree mostly, but there's an important thing here. Nobody is under a legal obligation to enforce someone else's civil contract or to prevent a ciminal act. You certainly shouldn't facilitate it (aiding), but even if you're of it going on, you don't have to take any steps to stop it. Of course, if asked by a suitable legal authority what happened, you must tell them the truth etc.

So, even if he was aware of his friend streaming it and knows his friend was breaching the copyright (civil matter), he is not obliged anywhere to take actions to stop it. The issue here is that by allowing his iPad and broadband to be used, he could be argued to be aiding it and effectively involved rather than simply dormant in the matter. They would argue he has supplied material help. However, in any event, he is at worst an accomplice, but the real perpetrator is whoever did the streaming.

Re: The real point

@Roland6.

When you report the car stolen is largely irrelevant in that sort of case. It's really around whether the police believe (and can prove) that you actually reported it stolen to avoid any connection to the incident. There are plenty of instances of peoples cars being stolen and used for crimes whilst they're on holiday. They don't report them stolen until they get back and sometimes the police actually tell them before they've found it missing!! Does that somehow make them liable.....no.

His agreement with Sky for TV and broadband is only relevant if he has breached it in some way. Assuming he denies doing the streaming, how has he breached it? As long as he has plausible deniability in it, he's golden.

Re: The real point

@Lost all faith.

I don't think that's any closer at all. The chaps admissions afterwards are smoewhat stupid. He should have denied knowing what was going on. Using his iPad and FB account is irrelevant and nothing like using someones shotgun. If someone asked to borrow your shotgun for unspecified reasons, you'd naturally be somewhat suspicious. If someone asks to borrow your iPad, you just assume they want to look something up. Whole different ballgame.

They should have all denied all knowledge and just said it must have been one of the others mate. Sky would then have to show who it was and go after them. How they going to do that. He could have even registered a complaint of computer misuse aganist an unknown person for misusing his iPad for good measure!!

As usual, the big corporation is just issuing threats and going after someone too small to effectively respond and scaring them into paying. It's nothing to do with justice, not that I'm defending what they did. It's all about big corporation bully boy tactics.

Re: The real point

@Jason Bloomberg.

I think there's a fundamental issue here that is being missed. People are under no requirement in law to stop offences occurring. They are required not to commit offences themselves, but not to actively prevent someone else committing one. So, the fact he knew his friend was doing it and that it was illegal is not really relevant. I can sit next to someone and watch them commit fraud, but provided I don't take any part, I'm not under any legal obligation to inform anybody, let alone the police.

So, the perpetrator is actually this persons friend. He is the person Sky should have gone after. Also, bear in mind what type of offence this is. It's a copyright offence. This is civil, at least at the scale implied here. He wasn't making DVDs by the thousand and selling them. So, he's not under the normal criminal investigation requirements.

By using his iPad and FB account, at worst he's an accessory. Providing material aid to the offence. Of course, he could always deny giving permission for the iPad to be used. To succeed, they would need to show he provided the tools freely and knew what was happening and that it was an offence. His candid honesty is probably his downfall there. He could simply have said I didn't know what was going on. Different friends used my iPad at different times during the night. I assumed they were simply surfing the web at the time. His FB being logged on all the time on his iPad explains how they gained access to his FB account, which he should show shock over!!

A bit more thought on his behalf and he could probably have got away with it. Just get everybody to say nothing to do with them and say it must have been somebody else. Me, didn't do it, don't know nothing about it. Must have been one of the others!!

Re: The real point

@rmason.

Agreed it could have been the chaps iPad and FB account. However, he wasn't actually doing it. So, how is he liable. That's like saying if someone steals your car and runs someone over, you're liable as it's your car. The person actually doing it is liable, nothing to do with the device or account involved.

Maybe they're arguing he helped facilitate the crime. However, this would mean they should sue his friend for the offence and him as an accessory. Strikes me that the case could be argued, but it's the old issue of costs becoming stupid, so easier to settle as he's done.

The real point

Reading the posting, I think people are missing the real point here.

It says he paid £19.95 to watch the fight with four pals. ONE OF HIS PALS decided to stream it on facebook. So, this guy didn't actually do the streaming. Now, this leads to an interesting issue. Is it his responsibility to ensure nobody streams it? Would he necessarily be aware they were doing it? What if someone streamed it using a camera outside his window, maybe in a public place looking in. The fact his subscriber number or whatever was showing isn't really relevant. The offender is the person streaming it, not the Sky subscriber, unless they are one and the same.

So, why not go after his pal?

Royal Bank of Scotland website goes TITSUP*

Re: RBS?

No, no. Fred Goodwin did it another way. He simply leveraged the bank to a stupid extent and then purchased a load of sub-prime (ABN AMRO). Cue huge losses and writedowns etc.etc. Then, the next lot implemented the cut, lose customers, cut again, loose customers again, cut again cycle.

KVM? Us? Amazon erases new hypervisor from AWS EC2 FAQ

I suspect this has nothing to do with technology, but is simply financial. If these giant clouds used VMWare, they would have to pay licensing etc,. which would cost a pretty penny. With KVM and Xen etc., there is no licensing to pay. Being able to modify it to your needs is potentially also a benefit.

Equifax execs sold shares before mega-hack reveal. All above board – Equifax probe

Mmmmm

When people at this level are selling, they normally need to identify why they are selling. What are they going to do with the money. Pay off the mortgage, buy a second home, buy a new yacht etc.etc. So, three execs sell at the same time because they all need money for what? Anytime multiple execs sell at the same time, it should be investigated, especially when it's three. It's not impossible, but highly unlikely they all suddenly need money for something at the same time.

As to the timing of the day before. I bet rumours of something being seriously amiss would have been swirling around for several days, probably a week or more before it became official. Apart from anything else, they'll want a tranche of meetings to discuss how to reveal the information, which will take several days. So, the day before is no defence at all. It would have been common knowledge for several days before the actual date of announcement.

Your future data-centre: servers immersed in box full of oil, in a field

Re: 70cm x 70cm x 70cm is a reasaonably sized chip fryer.

Doesn't have to mean open fields to be passively cooled. Just means no roof, or substantially no roof. Given that, the wildcard issues would probably only be of the flying type.

Ex-Harrods IT man cleared of stealing company issued laptop

On the face of it, the employee was a bit silly about how he went about things. He should really have asked Harrods to erase the personal data for him (say in his presence), at which point he hands it back. As a data subject, he has the right for it to be deleted unless they can show a valid business reason for keeping it there, which sounds unlikely.

Given they didn't know he had the laptop, that's a pretty poor state of affairs for Harrods as well. The shop was certainly being somewhat over zealous and actually acting wrongly. They suspected a criminal offence was being committed, which means they should have secured the laptop and contacted the police. That ensures the evidential chain. If they suspected something that wasn't criminal, they could contact Harrods. After all, the police investigate criminal matters and pass files to the DPP, not Harrods.

You can quite easily ask a shop to perform actions on a laptop that isn't yours (say a company one). There's nothing wrong with that at all. After all, businesses need work done and sometimes local shops can be as good a route as anyone.

The theft charge simply seems to be an extrapolation of the attempt to access, with the assumption being he wanted to retain use of the laptop and not just delete the personal data. That's one hell of an extrapolation unless there was additional evidence showing motivation. Having just been made redundant isn't evidence of this at all. So, no party really comes out of this well. The employee was somewhat stupid in his actions, Harrods have shown a lamentable grasp on who has their kit and the prosecutor seems to be into knee jerk overreactions.

Hence, we end up wasting god knows how much time all round (police, DPP, courts etc.) for something really trivial. Guess it's easier than persuing real, personal crime though........

Azure fell over for 7 hours in Europe because someone accidentally set off the fire extinguishers

Re: The insane thing about it is...

@garetht t

"Audited and certified systems and procedures"

Yeah. Like they worked really well here!! Reality is that cloud providers are proving themselves to be no better at running datacentres and systems than in-house staff.

Oracle wants you to drop a log into its cloud, so it can talk security

'Drop a log'

Am I the only person who would dearly love to drop a log onto Oracles cloud or indeed, Oracle as a whole? Given the 'love' for them in the industry as a whole, they could soon be waist deep in ................. 'logs'.

Home Sec Amber Rudd: Yeah, I don't understand encryption. So what?

Re: Mad Mike

@Flocke Kroes

"Not convinced the solution you and Amber propose will work. If you use violence to get rid of the politicians (or the experts) they will be replaced by people who are more ignorant."

Youi may be right. However, it would enable people to release their pent up anger and thus become less stressed, which can only be a good thing. Also, if politicians were replaced by people more ignorant, continuing with the eradication policy would do more to raise the average IQ of the country than the education system ever has.

I vote for putting it all on telly as well. Prime time viewing.

@Rockburner.

Glad I re-read your posting. For a second there, I thought you were calling her a ratchet spanner. 10 out of 10 for restraint.

Re: Fashionanle Ignorance

@Doctor Syntax.

"In the middle ages a talent for violence was also handy."

This would solve all the problem now. All the experts being ignored could remove the problem permanently.........

Dim isn't anywhere near right

You don't need to understand encryption at any level to understand why breaking it isn't a good idea. You just need to have a brain and a small amount of logical thought.

When transacting services online (let's say buying something), you need encryption to secure the transaction and provide non-repudiation. Otherwise, everyone can just insist it wasn't them. Obviously, encryption doesn't do it all, but it does the secure communication bit. So, therefore, if you allow anyone to break the encrpytion, every transaction becomes questionable. Bang goes your online economy!!

Now, that didn't require any thought beyond that found lurking in the average pond. All goes to show that Amber Rudd is not the missing link, but something far further back. Perhaps she's just crawled out of the primordial soup. If she keeps getting in, says something about the voters in Hastings and uselessness of our electoral system.

Ancient fat black holes created by belching Big Bang's dark matter

Re: So...

"Nonsense, they know exactly what Dark Matter is. It's the thing which conveniently resolves all equations that otherwise don't add up. Kinda like a physicist version of Unobtainium."

It's the matter that's required to make any of their calculations work when they don't currently. I always thought dark matter was actually glitter. After all, it was around once and then everywhere you look, it keeps cropping up in the most odd of places years later. Even a good hoovering won't get rid of it.

Re: So...

Long and short of it.......they haven't got a scoobies.

Next, they'll be telling us that the silver surfer was born there.

When something contains so many assumptions and guesses, it's basically just rubbish. After all, they haven't really got a clue what dark matter is, how it interacts or even if it actually exists. Yet, they're making predictions about what it does?

Cops shut 28k sites flogging knock-off footie kits and other tat

Re: what about..

I'm not quite sure why people think they have a right to something at a reasonable price? I agree the amount charged is stupid, so I simply don't buy them. If people stopped buying them at these prices, the profits would dry up and they would either stop selling them or sell them at a lower price which people are willing to pay.

Any vendor can sell anything at any price. It's a case of supply and demand (without competitive marketplaces anyway). Vendors always raise the price to the highest the market will bear, as that's the most profitable price. A fool and his money are easily parted and persumably those selling football kits know this.....

Re: So...

Either corporate money going into election funds, or lucrative jobs after leaving politics. Either way, same effect.

Oracle promises SLAs that halve Amazon's cloud costs

Re: "the 30 minutes a year the database won't work will be planned downtime"

No, Larry is a lover of puppies and kittens. That's why he kicks people instead.

Yet more British military drones crash, this time into the Irish Sea

Accident reasons

I do love the reasons given for the accidents!!

Turned off the anti-crash and guess what happened......it crashed.

Also, what use is a facility that allows the drone to think it's landed, but is still at 300 feet? I guess during initial landing testing during development, there might be reason for it, but production?

Both reasons seem pretty lame to me.

Ex-EDS bod at DXC Technologies? Sign up to new pension scheme - or else...

@Arthur the cat.

I suspect they're in the clear. Not defending the practice, but companies aren't required to give you a pay rise etc. So, the worst the employee could do is try and prove some sort of discrimination in their pay reward (equal pay for equal work etc.). This is quite difficult, stressful and takes a long time. Also, unless you fit certain categories (minority, sex, age etc.), you can't really claim anyway. It has to be part of a bigger discrimination claim. So, in practical terms, they're probably OK. Worst case, give the employee a few quid to avoid the fight and job done. Sad, but true.

Re: Constantly competing?

I never really understand why companies use voluntary redundancy schemes. Whilst it may help control unions and generally makes you look better than using compulsory, it also ensures you loose your best talent. In general, those that go for it are those who know they can get another job or have other plans such as retirement. Surely, you shold try and shed your worst performing employees?

Monkey selfie case settles for a quarter of future royalties

Re: Interesting principles behind this

@jgarbo

"Very nice point of law. Now go for a swim in North Australia and debate law with the next Saltie or Bull Shark you meet."

I guess if you could discuss things with a shark, they would consider the seas and oceans their equivalent to a farm and therefore eating a human swimming there is just the same as taking a cow from a farm to slaughter and then eating it. They cut out the middleman a bit, but same principle.

Re: I see a simple solution

@Tigra 07.

"Postpone this important legal case a few million years until a monkey has evolved enough to present their case."

That was what they said a few million years ago!! We're the evolved monkeys!!

Re: I don't understand

Absolutely none. PETA have arrogantly decided they speak for all animals....non-human ones that is. Another example of mankinds arrogance towards other species and nature in general.

Re: Interesting principles behind this

@jake

"Mike, get back to me when the animal can make the point you just made for itself. Until then, you're babbling about what-ifs piled upon what-ifs. "Turtles all the way down" isn't a valid argument."

You're admirably showing the arrogance that pervades human beings and will ultimately be our undoing. You're assuming because they don't use the same language as you, it doesn't count, which is silly. I'm sure if you were to ask them, they would say the same in reverse. We know from many studies that adminals are far more intelligent (obviously depends to some extent on which one) than perviously thought and also create their own societies, langauges, rules and behaviours. Exactly the same as humans. The fact we don't understand their communications (as in what each grunt or whatever means.....although this is beginning to change) doesn't change this.

It wasn't that long ago that people were going around saying humans were so much better than animals, as animals don't use tools, but that has been comprehensively trashed now, with many species using and even creating tools. Again, particularly true of primates and the like. Why should we deny them things because we don't understand them? If that's the case, we're going to be in real trouble if aliens ever reach this planet. They'll be classified as animals by your definition and denied everything. Difference is, their probable technological superiority would probably make the result less to our liking!!

Re: Interesting principles behind this

@DavCrav

"No. It's more akin to redesigning a bad junction, callous as that sounds. There's no trial, no jury, etc. Instead it's a safety issue: there's a threat to human safety and that threat is removed."

Mmmm. Depending on the issue in human world, there isn't necessarily a trial and jury. Was Osama Bin Laden brought before a court, found guilty and sentenced to death? Executive actions often have no trial or jury. So, maybe killing one of these animals is simply an executive action?

Re: Interesting principles behind this

@jake

"I got yer "interesting principle" right 'ere: Get back to me when the monkey (dog, cat, elephant, orca, whatever) asks for their royalties. Until then, the argument is kind of pointless."

I specifically didn't bring royalties into this and broadened it to the law in general. Royalties is just one part of the law and people get the whole law, but don't need to use it all. Plenty of people won't use the royalties part. How do you know it hasn't asked for royalties. You're making the assumption that because you can't understand it's speech (animals have languages and communicate in them, so effectively speech) doesn't mean it hasn't. Are you saying just because they can't speak english, it doesn't apply. Think where you're going with this. Take it to conclusion and you end up in an interesting place.

Re: Interesting principles behind this

@goldcd

"Once we start trying cats for murder, then we can argue over their intellectual property - but until then.."

An interesting point, but we sort of do, but not with cats. Take a bear or lion for instance. If one killed a human, it wasn't uncommon to hunt it down and kill it. Now, is this not effectively finding it guilty of killing a human (murder) and then exacting a punishment (death row) just like if it was a human being?

"DNA bit is a bit of a red-herring - most of it. We share 60% of ours with a banana."

It's not a red herring as it's all about degrees. It doesn't matter if it's 60% or 99.9% commonality. Who or what decides that 99.9% the same DNA as a 'standard' human being gives rights to the law, whilst 99.8% does not or whatever the figures are.

Daily Stormer binned by yet another registrar, due to business risks

Re: Not censorship

@h4rm0ny

"I can give you a "this year" example. Criticism of Israel is legally part of the definition of anti-Semitism in the USA and the same definition was adopted in the UK."

Precisely the problem. These things grow arms and legs and before long, it's gone places you never intended or believed it could. It's also used as a weapon by people of that kind of mind.

Re: Free Speech

@Yet Another Anonymous Coward.

"So can a gay baker refuse to make a straight cake if they are the protected class?

Is it the protected class of the customer or the business that matters?

Can a Jewish baker refuse to make a christmas cake without violating the protected class of the customer or is it illegal for the customer to ask the baker to break a commandment?"

Absolutely. This is what's so dangerous about giving certain people special protection based on some sort of attribute. Also, even when protections are put in place for all parties (say sex discrimination), society and the legal system often applies it only or more one way than the other. Try being a man going to an employment tribunal for sex discrimination, compared to a woman doing the same. Whole different experience.

Re: The Paradox of Tolerance summarizes my opinion:

@ac

"OK, for entertainment's sake, I'll bite. Next time we go trekking in some jungle we'll take you along. You'll be feeding the mosquitos so they don't bite us, and we reserve the right to still swat the little blighters. Or are you planning to discriminate against those animals because they're small and plenty available? Or does your anti-murder stance not extend to insects (and if so, why)?"

There are two issues at play here. Firstly, can thy feel pain etc. like the creatures I was talking about. The second and by far the most important was I said killing without reason. This means killing for fun or the challenge etc. If you're being bitten to death by mosquitos, you're not killing them for no reason, just the same as shooting a bear if you attack it is perfectly reasonable. Similarly, as mosquitos are a significant risk to human health, trying to stop them spreading malaria by killing them is actually self-defense. However, going out, getting a bear in your rifle sights and opening fire from 500 yards away is not.

"Now, let's look at the discussion which is now about animal abuse proving mass murder tendencies vs a simple company refusing service to a bunch of people it deemed a business risk. Don't you think that that is becoming a rather awfully involved argument to maintain your claim that that refusal amounted to censorship?"

No, what I'm doing is truly thinking the core underlying principles and playing them through to a conclusion rather than knee jerking a position based on arrogance, your belief your morals are superior to everyone elses and your intolerance to other views no matter how distasteful WE might find them. There are plenty of hunting sites that promote killing animals for fun. There is a known correlation between people that do this and murderers. Therefore, are these sites no promoting activities that causes murders (incitement) just as much as the DS website? Not so directly, but the end game is the same. So, why should they not be banned?

Confirmed: Oracle laid off 964 people from former Sun building

Re: I need new glasses..

@AC

"The niche Solaris / AX / HP-UX and all other Unix has, is large scale-up systems. Fact is that x86 does not scale well. Only recently the first 16-socket x86 servers has arrived to the market. Meanwhile we had 64-sockets Unix RISC servers for a long time."

I don't disagree with much of what you say, but 16 socket x86 has been around for ages. IBM (when they made servers) produced them (from memory) 10 years ago at least. However, I do agree with your principle, as x86 generally doesn't have the interconnects required for effective scaling.

"There are numerous stories of companies migrating from Mainframes to x86 and saving loads of money and increasing performance many times, as Mainframes have much slower cpus than x86."

This isn't true. Mainframes have higher clock speeds than x86, but more importantly, they do more per clock tick than x86. When I was working on mainframe (some years ago now), I saw so many applications migrated onto x86 that then performed like a dog. The straight line performance of a x86 thread is nowhere near that of a mainframe thread.

Re: I need new glasses..

Whilst each persion will have their favourite(s) operating system(s), each has its pros and cons. Depending on the use case, some may be more suitable or better equipped to deal with things than others. Certainly Solaris had it's pros as well as some cons.

The issue here is where do we want to end up. In the hardware world, we're pretty much in a monopoly position. Intel has the majority of the market and can largely drive it. Other manufacturers (IBM, Oracle etc.) are very niche. It's lucky that ARM has come along to drive some competition in areas, but this is limited and each company is to some extent staying in its own territory, albeit with occasional raiding parties into the other.

Do we want the world of operating systems to become the same? With all these operating systems being stopped, are we likely to end up in a world with only RedHat and Windows as the operating systems for companies? Is this a good thing? Personally, I'd like to a healthy ecosystem of say 6 choices in each of hardware and software to choose from to ensure competition is strong and drive innovation. Once you're in a monopoly position, the need to innovate and enhance your software drops to some extent and you can just sit tight and harvest all the money.

I really don't like this choice shrinkage we're getting more and more at the moment.