Posts by dssf

China plans city 'twice the size of Wales'

They are going to need mega-police for this

Megalopolis...

That depends on what kind of poles they are measuring against...

Then, everyone could jockey for pole position (racing or otherwise...)

Hackers sell access to hacked .mil and .gov sites

said scammer may face death by a thousand

fleecers...

I wonder how he/she will fare when discovered.

Man killed by own cock

Wear-abouts unknown...

If it wears anthing, this cock(rel) will probably be wearing down other humans' throats... WIth every kill, this bad bird is probably doing a "jig" or "da funky chicken" routine somewhere.

Maybe an ex-cock-fighting-guru turned repentent might write a story on this periodic cockup?

Sure, but how about below the

waist?

In any case, he definitely is below the waist and deeper than much waste... I bet in the end he chickened out. Got ousted and roosted. What was good for the goose was good for THAT gander...

Microsoft Windows guru turns to cybercrime (fiction)

USS Yorktown....

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/USS_Yorktown_%28CG-48%29

http://gcn.com/articles/1998/07/13/software-glitches-leave-navy-smart-ship-dead-in-the-water.aspx

http://codingfreak.blogspot.com/2009/01/uss-yorktown-stuck-by-windows-nt.html

Somewhere along the way of the story causing much embarrassment, the blame went from WNT to a bad switchboard or somesuch. Anything to deflect failure from NT or bad, bad, BAD tech decisionmaking. Unfortunately, for some, the UK RN also later on chose to use windows as the combat direction/ship management system...

If people are worried about Stutnex overspinning Iran's centrifuges so fast the rip apart, imagine a traitor uploading a bad, intentionally targetting patch to the engineering system and overspinning the gas turbines (yep, you probably don't need windows access to do that... the misuse of controls and overrides might easily enable it without the fanfare). Or, imaine if one or more warfare-centric, networked ships were fed slighly erroneous targetting and navigation data... nothing big, but just fuel-wasting, or position changing...

I wouldn't hook up my toaster, either (if i had one)

To the Internet(s).

Imagine your toast being cripsed, possibly enough to start a fire. Imagine the fridge being made to cycle on and off randomly, or off completely so the food rots. (Might start conspiracy theories of grocery inventory buyers trying to pull more shoppers into the stores...). Imagine the toilets cycling over and over. Or, the garage door (if not mechanically locke) being made to open. Or, the fish tank over pumping or not pumping at all. And, if the oven is turned on early and too high when a turkey is in there supposedly going to slow-bake.

Playboy on iPad will be 'uncensored', says Hefner

"At least the pages won't stick together!"

This can be a lucrative opportunity to sell port blockers. Or, "iSheathe"... to protect one's fondleslab from frontal assault...

Say WHAT?

Talk about a "FONDLESLAB"... Now, elreg can say "Cupertinian Fondleslap" en(d)tails a (w)hole new meaning. Those accelerometers will be working overtime over time...

Microsoft explains Windows 7 Phone phantom data cockup

Is there a tool to help users self-cap?

When shooting videdo on my HTC EVO 4G, i have several options for recording length:

1 MB

2 MB

10 secs

30 secs

1 mins (yes, mins, not min, lol)

3 mins

No limit

There should be something such as this for controlling what moves off our phones and what directories are locked. I want a tool that lets me cordon off folders of my choosing, even if they are system folders. I renamed folders related to one of those lame games, and still the game runs. Most likely i didn't get everything, but something should have been crippled or displayed a complaint.

It would be nice if we can tell the phone:

-- NEVER offload from X folder

-- NEVER offload data or streams in excess of X kb, in any hour

-- NEVER offload data or streams in excess of Y MB in any minute

-- (pick your condition)

even if it degrades our individual user experience.

It is NOT enough to simply observe byte counts. WE, the USERS, should have tools that give US the power to control what comes off our phones and to unequivocally know what IP addresses are getting it.

Overloaded drug-smuggling pigeon nabbed by Colombian cops

Wait till there becomes

"Digital Cocaine". Would that emotion be triggered by certain crafted music? Imagine if music could be tweaked to brimulate the stain .... ummm, stimulate the BRAIN to the eggstint... extent of coke or ecstasy and so on. Why, the whold industry would be ruled by government and labels to a new level.

Facebook facing fall-down issues

computer name and email?

Don't they already KNOW the email from when we log in with the correct password? If they expire all the cookies and the user logs in, the user's machine name seems to be forgotten, too. I'm SICK of telling fb this info whenever i log in from my laptop, mobile, desktop, a different browser on each... They're driving me frackin nuts. SO, i just peck in non-text, non-numeric strings of symbols, somewhere between 50 to 200 characters. Waiting to see what happens.

And, yes, fb, get you head out of your backside! Enable SSL from log in to log out. Otherwise, don't TALK about how secure you are.

Government joins European fingerprint database

Imperilment?

On top of that, depending on the country from which the asylum-seeking individual came, said person could be imperilled. If that person is deported or denied or prematurely flagged on the side s/he abandoned, s/he could be "punished" or his/her family and friends back home could be put at risk. But, then, this wouldn't be anything new, although checking by computer might mean the people left behind may know sooner than later that they are being interrogated or ostracized.

Microsoft disputes Apple's 'App Store' trademark

APPle... My thoughts, too

I think mircosfot is just bitter. It's wasting time and money on a frivolous, bogut tangent. When will that company ever learn to succed on merit, not obfuscation, hijackery, lies, and so on. It's mostly successful due by brute force and default installation, not because people LOVE microsoft.

I'm not an Apple products consumer (although our IT guy was dumping an old G4, and i said, "I'll take it!", probably more out of junk collecting than actually expecting to be productive, and MacBooks/Pros are woefully beyond my affordability range, and while i do like some amount of fashion sense matching my hardware, i don't cravenly put it first, nor deify the makers of my software or hardware, and even as a Linux user, I don't deify Torvalds.... so, there you have that much...)

JEEz, ms, just shut up and make a "WinAppsStore", dammit. Quit kvetching at the distraction of USPTO and other courts! They're busy enough and already corrupted enough with IT/IP shenanigans. Get over it!

Italian bloke sneezes out .22 bullet

SBB to the Are-EE-Ess-See-Yoo-Eeee

One possible solution: Firing fully-automatic weapons from inside a "Stabilized Black Box", aka, "Ess-Bee-Bee"...

Mufflers inside the box could cancel and or redirect bolt and other noises. Whisper-quited rotating, timed slot covers could open to permit the round to fire out of the box, sort of how prop-driven planes' guns were timed to get the rounds between the blades rather than through the blades.

Visualization: heavy-assed, hip-slung Aliens-like gatling gun. Might need a tripod and caster wheels along with the recoil-and active-gyration kit...

Windows 7 Phone glitch spews phantom data

Wireshark

@HW1: Thanks. I've heard of it and others. I try to avoid the high-grade tools since i want to not be in the potential crosshairs of those watching those who download powerful, multi-use tools. I do run Etherape and Firestarter on my lappy. I did in past years occasionally dabble with tools similar to wireshark, but only to try to figure out why the hell my laptop would bog down and act as if it was reporting to some remote site. Spurious things like that send me into a rage, suspecting that someones d*cking around with my machine but being powerless to find out who, and what they're taking, and having no resources nor any clout to get real-time, genuine help. So, my response is to just minimize my surfing, and yanking the wire and the card. Not that I'm PARANOID. More that I'm ANGRY about it. So, it makes me want the digital version of itching powder or digital bedbugs to screw with the fracks who screw with or poke around live or with bots into my computer. Not suggesting boobytraps like booby-trapping a home's door or windows, but the digital bedbugs should be legal...

I suppose that part of the problem with my strenuous demand for knowing *what* is being looked at or lifted from our phones is that if the handphone is "part phone/part-packet-sniffer/part-data-logger", then the hardware specs will have to go up a few notches. Suddenly, too, anyone could in theory be a few tutorials away from severe misbehaving. In acknowledgement of that, I figure my demand should be met with restrictions on how the phone then transceives its reports, meaning, not over the air, since anyone could become victimized.

I'd like to respond to more, but i'm bogged down in work and it's draining me too much to think more clearly about what I want to say here.

Obviously never used Android...

If you're replying to me, then that's rather bold a statement to make considering you know not what phone I use. I'm on my second Android phone (HTC EVO 4G; my first was the Samsung Moment).

I don't like having to install a 3rd party tool and playing "whack-a-mole" to kill crap like Nascar, NFL, and a few other things we users are not allowed to delete. Somewhere in that machine of the provider, it was deemed we must be made to face branding. I realize the phones are heavily subsidized, but, hey, if they want subscribers, there must be inducements.

I don't think Google is trying to "steal" my soul. Hell, most of my private life FLOWS through Google to and from friends, so, once again, if you're replying to me, you know not what you say.

As for others posting for or against me, and particularly to those who felt it necessary to shoot me down to -14 on this post... Why? Are some of you beholden to hackers/crackers, or to law enforcement, or to marketing teams, or all of those? Why cannot a user know WHAT information is snatched off his or her phone. It doesn't matter to me WHO is taking it. If i didn't command it nor give explicit, case-by-case permission, then any lifting of MY data from my phone is tantamount to theft. Plain and simple. I don't push a button and broadcast it. If your data is lifted, then aggregated, and stuffed into some databank you never knew existed, and it isn't between you, your contact, and your respective service providers, then why would you accept that some miscreant is sleuthing out data between routers and switches?

400MB of data ?

What if the phone is in some sharing mode? It might be being blitzed by random in-range phones that see it as a hotspot -- if that feature is on.

Would be nice to know whether Android is doing the same thing...

This is where an outbound data logger would be very handy. We have the RIGHT t oknow whether a miscreant or an ISP is pulling data off our handsets. We need to know and have the RIGHT to know real-time when large amounts or discrete/discreet movement of data that no external collector has any right to know is occurring. Unfortunately, that means the law enforcement community will b*tch about it. They'll use excuses that it would make it possible for a person of interest to know that their data is being pilfer... umm, lifted.

Secondly, we need and have the right to a microsoft/google-created and god-like firewall and packet sniffer as well, not to SNOOP external sites, but to write to a data card or external device via cable or wirelessly over a meter or two the logs of data matching the footprint or fingerprint of our onboard data. If data is encrypted before transmission, we need phone behavior rules that command the phone to shut down if we are reasonably sure that that data movement was not instructed by own individual actions. If fingerprinted, non-caption onboard textual data is moving at the same time we upload pictures then we need to know that. If textual or other non-website data on our phones has been converted for external masking purposes to deny us an educated forensics capability, then we need to know that.

Failing that, we need blackhats and whitehats who will provide trojans that are timebombs on our phones to make life hell for those who pillage our phones. Give them something to think about. We wouldn't TRANSMIT by our OWN control these virii and trojans, but just make them available to be collected along wth the data that might be stolen from our devices.

What say ye?

Open source campaigners urge investigation of Novell patent sale

This is why there needs to be an escrow or "estate"

To protect patents from ending up in the hands of ms and oracle and so on, entities that would most assuredly lock them up and shut them down, and then cause a death grip on numerous (hundreds of?) open source projects and ongoing, currently thriving or potential activities, there needs to be an escrow environment run by something higher than corporate control.

This is scary.

Mum arrested for seducing teen on Xbox Live

She made the wrong connections...

It's xbox Kinect or CONNECT, not CON NECT nor CON Necked... Now, her intimate connections will be behind bars. She can now become a cell leb ratty...

Windows Phone 7 to get cut'n'paste shortly, says Ballmer

Copy and Paste, in a hand phone, so difficult for ms?

I once owned a Sharp V-402SH, back in 2004, and that phone had copy and paste in it. It chould shoot pics to a friend i was trying to meet in an Ueno train station while we were talking. 3-pic triangulation and meet-up, while copying and pasting in the phone while walking. The phone also had an FM tuner, an analog TV antenna and, more. Stuff that is passe today was in that phone back then. Why was it so low a priority for ms (or any phone maker) to get copy and paste into a handset?

Investors fight to buy secret special-offer Facebook equity

How much value can there be in profiles that are locked?

This probably is why fb keeps angling to expose ALL or as many profiles as possible. With all those games and apps exposing people's birthdays, comments, hobbies, and so on, fb is just TRYING damned hard to tear down quasi-anonymity. It's one thing to expose one's face and comments to friends, and much more a different thing when a company tries to THRUST those comments into open rather than respecting educated privacy concerns. Total privacy may be dying, but user-obtainable privacy should not be hacked up and distributed like hotcakes.

SWAT team besieges Illinois school in 'butt dialling' incident

There were "ASSUMPTIONS" here...

"Talk" about an "ASS" and making "ASSUMPTIONS"... his "ASS" made an "ASS" of the parties endvolved in the ASSUMED hostage-taking...

(Know what happens when you ASSUME It makes an ASS out of U and ME... )

Facebook stat flood gives hope to mateless, dateless

xxxx yyyy

NNnnottt if those Xs and Ys are related to changed and injected chromosomes...

Man caught w*nking over Alan Sugar's autobiography

Sugar-High?

Awwww. Lord, it must've been sweet, lol! Wanking over Lord Alan Sugar's autobio. Must've been a sugar-coated expose...

Sheriff's Department database leak puts snitches at risk

Wow. This could spawn a new leaks site:

"WiCKED Leaks"

I bet Mesa County i in a MESS. The DOJ and DEA probably are in a cataleptic fit, or are out taking some form of drug now just to be able to wake up sane over this horrible mistake.

Didn't the sysadmin believe in post-work-check-ups? Actually, when databases of this type are moved around, the DEA, FBI, and DOJ should be checklist-partners to make sure the connections are secure. Not necessarily they would access the data itself (never know if one of their own is playing both sides), but just to verify as a sanity check that nothing was overlooked.

Microsoft joins protest against Google web travel buy

ROTFL

I am relishing Michael C's comment. I love it!

Ford secrets thief caught red handed with stolen blueprints

Maybe Hussein is still on it because

The CIA secretly (or secretedly) believes in life after death? Apparently, it's not enough to hang or execute or push/shove a target "from a height of 80 feet to assure death" anymore.

Either that, or they don't know how many exist of each "model"...

Ovi discovers the price of popularity

It will never be ovi on time

But ovi late...

US man slips into perv scanner-busting undies

James Bond wouldn't like it, but,

P. Galore might en(d)joy it... de(e)pending...

A wad "O" cash up there?

Avoid paper cuts, or you'll have "blood money" in yer bunny..

Silicone is banned, but, what if someone shows up

with a non-silicone-based "toy" deeply imbedded? It might be a great way to turn the tables on what they define as 'non-offensive". If the TSA agents become offended at scanning a "pleasure device" inserted into a flyer, then becomes offended (off-ended?), then it stands to reason that the other flying public has grounds to deny exposure of his/her genetalia to a scanner and possibly to the Internet(s).

What the TSA SHOULD DO is go back to the boneheads who designed the software interface and say, "Redesign the software to black out sex organs and breasts and ONLY expose them if the scanner detects anomalies, and expose them ONLY after offering the passenger a hand-check option or a digital scan option so as to prevent image capture of the sexual organs. All other body parts can be exposed to the display."

VAT fraudster gets 9 years for refusing £40m bill

Crime against the entire tax paying population

Certainly the ranking politicians want their cut before the public gets a go at the money. Seems like if one has great, seductive oratory skills and convinces the public individuals they have a DUTY to hold on to their cash, such an orator would be declared an enemy of commerce and state stability. By a stretch, such orators would be locked up and charged with treason...

Apple scraps 'never-formed plans' for iPhone SIM in 2011

Which is worse?

Which is wors: being sent back to the drawing board with your tail between your legs (to which it ALREADY is attached), or with your legs between your tail (which would take only a wee bit of imagination to visualize)?

Dirty PCs: How much filth can you take?

I usually give my laptop a good

Blowing out. I try to keep a can of compressed air on hand just to keep the fan coils clear.

It also helps if the machines are on the desk, or some intermediate ledge or shelf and in good airflow, rather than on the floor. On the floor or carpet, dust and fibers get circulated, and heat buildup just worsens things. I keep low-speed air blowers beneath or adjacent to my two laptops' ducts, but i stll blow them out every few weeks. Plus, i like to hear the fan go "ZZZWEEEEEEE!!!!!" I think i blow more air on the sound effects than on getting out the ghost turds (dust, in US Navy Sailor parlance, hehehe).

But, yeh, those rat and mud-laden machines are HIDEOUSLY DISGUSTING.

Internet Explorer 9 preview thinks inside box, outside browser

Chakra? For a sec, my mind went spinning

So, Chakra is causing a new sensation, right after IE9's 6th release caused a stir. But, can IE 9 do "the swirl"? Will it reach epic, tantric-saspanda proportions?

Will Facebook target ads across the interwebs?

That can change on

Markedly external forces, too, hehehhe

Of those "500 million users"

I bet they are really looking at 500m ACCOUNTS. Probably 20% are spam-related, just to get a presense IN facebook. Probably 30% of the total "accounts" are abandoned, or duplicates that were set up to do "settings and privacy checks" to see what facebook is up to now...

I'm only there to post or repost links of stuff i find interesting, and to post some ascerbic comments about a few companies, and to "like" some situations my friends feel happy about.

I ignore 99% of the ads. If i'm interested in something i'm thinking about, i'll look it up. Just because i TYPE about something doesn't mean i'll be "impressed upon" by sleuthfully or stealthily-targed ads. I ignore most of them out of spite, and sometimes generate junk notes or junk comments to see what happens.

Facebook set to unveil 'Gmail killer'

I brute-force logged joined fb WITHOUT giving them my gmail pwd

I was livid and infuriated to the point of wanting to STRANGLE the decisionmakers at fb. How DARE they want my password. I would never know whether they would log in and out randomly for not only my accounts but also my messages.

I'm still infurated that android sucks in ALL of my gmail contacts when i know some are dead-ends or one-off message contacts and some are just product related, but that a$$wads at google insists that it happens, and it appears the only ways to avoid it are to delete the contacts from the phone, which deletes them from the server, or just not let the phone synch from the server contact list anymore. Dumb and invasive, and infuriating.

I am very sure i never gave fb my gmail pwd. I think i injected a bogus password some 10 times and i think the authentication/registration just gave up. For all i know, fb may have surreptitiously injected code into the browser to sniff pwds. Even if that is not true, it's probably best to change passwords as frequently as 3 months, or sooner so long as your memory is good.

iPhone 4: the best built smartphone...

Hmm.. let's slice and dice the possible facts not shown

I'd say the iPhone has more drop rates because their owners are always flashing their bling, whipping them out and checking messages, and then hitting the suspend button. Or, they are so popular (or so they think) and are always responding to sites and friends (or fiends?) and so increase the risk of dropping the damned phone just because its exposed to air so much.

Putting them into back pockets and looking so ohh-ahh-i'm-sexy also risks the phone being squished when sat on.

And, no, that so-called 20x-stronger-than-plastic glass is NOT. Walk one or sit on one made of glass and one made of plastic. I've seen plenty more shattered iPhones than non-iPhones.

And, i've heard of more people dropping their iPhones in the toilet than non-iPhone users dropping them into the toilet.

And, being a shrewd, finnicky bunch of users, they are keen/crafty in "breaking" their iPhone right around warranty expiry time to cash in on the Best Buy "no-questions-asked" replacement policy, which almost assurely (and whispered but not spoken aloud) guarantees a NEW model iPhone rather than one of the same age (even if unopened) phone.

I dare say MOST of the iPhone physical damage comes from users who are either clumsy and careless or cunning and devious, or all 4. After all, it's one of if not THE most coveted gizmos on Earth.

MS freebie anti-virus scanner auto-downloads provoke more anger

Maybe Avasssst sounds to them like

A Voiccce....?

LOL!

Facebook engineer bashes Google for Gmail block

Part of my feelings

‎""Email is different from social networking because in an email application, each person maintains and owns their own address book, whereas in a social network your friends maintain their information and you just maintain a list of friends.... Because of this, we think it makes sense for email applications to export email addresses and for social networks to export friend lists.""

INT WTF you FOOL! If a person establishes contact with another person, voluntarily, then said persons have A RIGHT to know with whom each is communicating, you dick. That means fb users DO have the right to en-mass defect. Got it? No, you don't. Or, you do, but you're protecting your nearly vapor-ware, dubious business model. Wake up!

INT WTF? This dumba$$ actually works at fb and claims to understand the "product"?

We do MORE than just "maintain a freind list", dip*$#*. We comment to each other publicly and privately. We may someday need to defend our words or challenge what another claims we said or failed to say, you nitwit. If a user has to go to court, and you prevent said persons from en-mass exporting files, you're forcing them to constantly make copies of every message. Sure, we can search, but we may need to do more.

GETTHIS THROUGH YOUR HEAD: WE OWN THE DATA WE MAKE; WE OWN OUR AND THE OTHER'S INTERACTIONS *WITH US* -- OTHERWISE WE HAVE A DEAD END, 1/2 STORY ITEM WHEN WE MAY NEED TO RECALL SOMETHING.

FACEBOOK OWNS AN INTERFACE, NOT THE DATA THE USERS GENERATE.

In this coffeeshop era, better get Blacksheep

I am not sure i'd touch firesheep, but i would/will/do use Blacksheep.

Facebook serves '23% of all US display ads'

Most of those ads are probably like leukocytes

Swirling around and lodging into cracks in a sewer. By now, since 1997, many of us just by second nature ignore MOST of them. Even popups get smacked or never seen. If i choose to follow an ad link, i usually mouse over it and note its source and then search independently of the page it showed up as a link. Not to deprive ad placers of revenue, but to avoid being fiendishly and improperly "counted" as a valid impressionee. Most of the time, the ad STILL ended up being not worth the time i spend investigating it. But, in maybe 13 years+, i have probably bought 1 or 2 items in TOTAL after clicking a link, and even then, i already knew of the product off-line.

It's a tough, miserable slug-fest to capture impressions that follow through and lead to genuine revenue. Sustained revenue is elusive for some, sporadic for others. A few lucky ones or malicous dupesters proably fare better than most. Just presuming, though.

Disguised impostor clears international flight

A high-priced rent-boy probably would not go through that much trouble, either.

But, if he's a gangster, he's so innocent-looking. If he's some sort of entertainment or banking scammer, his looks might help him get away with things. If he's wealthy and bored, he's gonna be incarcerated and "bored", if luck turns against him. Either the mask got too hot on the plane, or he saw a hottie and had to unmask for an exchange of contact info. hehehehe

One technique to try:

Unmasked by a thousand cuts.

Another: brief, but INTENSLY hot spot-torch... Loudly-popping balloons can be used to test reflexes, or lack of composure to intense noise. Anyone wearing a mask and feigning age that wide might be discovered by the lack of cloudiness in the eyes.

Shut up, Spock! How Battlestar Galactica beat Trek babble

Gives rise to the need for a "time bomb"

One that goes 2.4 seconds into the future or some such. But, recoverable weapons would be useful, if say, you carry a mind-boggling slew of them, fire off some percentage, remote detonate only what is close enough to make a constructive or actual kill, and then mop up and recover the non-exploded ordnance. As long as your ass isn't going to be jumped by an inbound hostile Raider or Base Star, it could become feasible to "bracket" a target with some sort of predictive shots. Much like "anticipation shots" of today. But, due to gravity and all, not many would trust ordnance that fell to the ground and might explode on the slightest disturbance.

It kinda grows on you...

I too felt that Season 3 was quite slow. But, after having watched the series (the entire production, not just 8 or so months of episodes, or a "season") 4 or 5 times (or is it 6 or 7?) or about 3x a year since 2006, i like it more and more.

Considering that "God" or "god" and Christianity, and other forms of religion are intertwined in the creation of and violent demise of humans, i think it's appropos that BSG's religion is a major theme. After all, if BSG's humans and Cylons are the beings we are, then surely, if we were to descend from them, when we could also screw the pooch (religiously) on religion and "God" and "god" and so on.

I REALLY like the part when, while on Kobol, Starbuck says, something to the effect of "Don't get her started...something about multiple gods...", to which which later-Athena rapidly responds with "WE KNOW MORE about your religion THAN YOU DO." I kind of took that as a nice, surgical, subversive bombshell against current religeous types who think they KNOW what their god wants of them.

Yet, that the Cylon believe in A GOD, whereas the "humans" belive in multiple gods, and the ultimate merger of the species, oh... that is nice.

MySpace quivers under News Corp axe

Maybe they'll follow the "Bebo" route and hire...

"An unscrupulous Russian Astronomer" to beam a humanity-dooming message to Gliese... hehe

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/09/30/alien_world_gliese_581g/page2.html