* Posts by Evan Essence

282 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Dec 2010

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NSA admits slurping thousands of domestic emails with no terror connection

Evan Essence

Re: NSA is doing it wrong...

"And now a word from our sponsors. We at the NSA prefer Microsoft Windows because it's so easily hackable."

APNIC boffins may enlist TCP to defend DNS

Evan Essence

Compromise

Use UDP normally, but switch to TCP only if a DNS server is under attack. Might even deter attacks, if attackers know the results will be limited.

Evan Essence

Re: Nope, this won't work

Are you ignoring the eight countermeasures listed in the Wikipedia reference you gave?

UK mulls ban on tiny mobiles to block prison smugglers

Evan Essence

Anyone who remembers The Man From U.N.C.L.E. knows they have to ban pens as well. Open Channel D...

Oh, and shoes too, of course, as Get Smart afficionados know.

Evan Essence

The National Trading Standards Board has also asked British retailers to stop selling the tiny telephones. It also points out that such small devices are "electrically unsafe meaning they could cause fires and injure consumers through electrocution."

The National Trading Standards Board is "a group of senior and experienced local government heads of trading standards representing all trading standards services across England and Wales. The Board was established by the Government to improve the enforcement of laws intended to tackle rogue traders operating both regionally and nationally who are causing harm to consumers and legitimate businesses."

It also points out. So what was their main argument to British retailers? I mean, within the terms of their remit, of course. What was their main argument concerning consumer and business protection?

Evan Essence
Thumb Up

Re: OOOH credit card sized.....

Nice.

Evan Essence

Re: crippling the signal

Faraday cage? Metal tinting on the windows?

Evan Essence

Re: Jammin'

> Better to install pico/femto cells

Far too technological and subtle. The authorities want a solution where they can throw their weight around, just... because.

Evan Essence

Re: Illegal?

Talk about Streisand effect! I'd never heard of these things, and now I want one.

Bureaucrats foil Nestlé's bid to TRADEMARK KitKat's chocolatey digits

Evan Essence

I wonder how much of the Quaker influence/ethos of Rowntree's history carried forward into Rowntree-Mackintosh and thence to Nestle. Or was it all lost along the way.

Good point. I would hazard a guess and say: none, and yes.

Obama appoints intelligence boss to run 'independent' review of NSA

Evan Essence

Re: "Depends on what the meaning of "is" is...."

The issue was one of semantics in how you interpreted the meaning of the word "collect," he suggested.

Was Clapper lying? That depends on how you interpret the meaning of the word "lie". Wikipedia lists 28 classifications of the noun, starting with "bad failth", "barefaced lie", "big lie", "bluffing" and "bullshit", and including, yes, "economy with the truth".

Werner Herzog's latest film warns drivers not to text while driving

Evan Essence

Re: The UK seat-belt PSA

Also deserving of an honourable mention is the original Think Bike ad from 1975, presented by the late Edward Judd. I drive a car, I don't ride a bike, and I've never forgotten this ad from nearly 40 years ago. 47 seconds of low-tech brilliance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ojHWOiA4Xk

Evan Essence

Master Craftsman

Short, snappy and hard-hitting is one way to make a film of this kind. Extended, deeper and more personal is another way, and I think Herzog's done a brilliant job here. Respect to AT&T, Verizon, Sprint & T-Mobile for funding it (see the credits).

Evan Essence

Re: It's not advertising

Watch it through to the credits.

Presented by: AT&T, Verizon, Sprint & T-Mobile

Obama proposes four-point plan to investigate US data spooks

Evan Essence
Headmaster

Re: The NSA has naught but garbage

> It's terrabytes of garbage.

Terabytes. The word is terabytes.

‘Tera is derived from Ancient Greek τέρας (teras), meaning “monster”. ’

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tera-

US Department of Defense throws lifeline to beleaguered BlackBerry

Evan Essence

"With foreign entities – governmental and criminal – ramping up attacks on electronic communications and information systems,

Of course, he absolutely doesn't have the United States in mind, no.

Snowden's secure email provider Lavabit shuts down under gag order

Evan Essence

The best bet, find an attorney the government would not want to turn information over to

Glenn Greenwald?

Webcam stripper strikes back at vicious 4Chan trolls after year of bullying

Evan Essence

I'm not sure I understand. They're paying her so they can access the board to troll her?

Bloke in shed starts own DAB radio station - with Ofcom's blessing

Evan Essence

Nice work. I'm in two minds, though, as it's more lockin for the inferior DAB (inferior to DAB+).

WAR ON PORN: UK flicks switch on 'I am a pervert' web filters

Evan Essence

Cost?

No word yet from ISPs about how much all this is going to cost, and how much will be added to all our monthly bills?

Evan Essence
Pint

Big Brother Nanny State

Cheers, Dave, have a pint of... something... on me.

Evan Essence

Re: Better get busy

Scunthorpe!

Ex-prez Carter: 'America has no functioning democracy' with PRISM

Evan Essence
Thumb Up

One of the good guys

Jimmy Carter is still working strongly for the public good, and he's 88! He gets a huge amount of respect from this Brit.

Scientist seeks smartphone snappers to scrub satellite searches

Evan Essence
Thumb Up

Citizen Science FTW

Compare and contrast this use of the Internet with that other story about the whining ad man.

'New' document shows how US forces carriers to allow snooping

Evan Essence

Re: Now broadband, the customers and the owner

Real terrorists won't start assuming Big Brother is watching: real terrorists always have assumed it.

Texas teen jailed for four months over sarcastic Facebook comment

Evan Essence
Joke

Somebody set up us the bomb.

Osbo jacks up spending on spooks to keep us safe from TERROR

Evan Essence
Stop

Re: What terrorists?

> The UK survived the blitz, the IRA, and the entire cold war

Keep calm and... Oh, bugger that! DON'T PANIC! DON'T PANIC!!

Evan Essence
Alert

Re: What terrorists?

Joke alert icon??

The people of Iceland: all terrorists

Thousands of fingered crims, informants spaffed in web security COCK-UP

Evan Essence
FAIL

Re: Hire peanuts, paid monkeys

The URL to which you referred us has been closed as this is no longer in use. said the chairman.

Great, so this site allows people to upload potentially sensitive information and they've deliberately closed the SSL site. Un-fucking-believable.

House bill: 'Hey NASA, that asteroid retrieval plan? Fuggedaboutit'

Evan Essence
FAIL

Taliban

Maybe the Taliban can knock some sense into the Yanks in the forthcoming talks.

NSA Prism: Why I'm boycotting US cloud tech - and you should too

Evan Essence

Re: Absolute Power....

> What do others think....?

I think Brillo's an arse, with that constant backchat of his all the way through the interview.

Evan Essence
Thumb Up

@RcR

Also, use HTTPS everywhere, everywhere you can. Many services support it, even if you haven't noticed.

The easiest way is to use the Firefox or Chrome extension from the EFF.

Evan Essence
FAIL

Re: A cloud the government can't get

Headquartered in the US.

Evan Essence
FAIL

Re: Silent Circle

Headquartered in the US.

BBC boffins ponder abstruse Ikea-style way of transmitting telly

Evan Essence
Flame

Re: The first thing I'd want ..

@This Side Up - My thoughs exactly. I already get rid of most of the crap by only watching iPlayer, not live or recorded off-air programmes.

COLD FUSION is BACK with 'anomalous heat' claim

Evan Essence
Trollface

Re: Having not read the paper yet

At least it's not Comic Sans.

Comic Sans was good enough for the ATLAS spokeswoman to use in her presentation last year at CERN about the Higgs Boson.

Why UK slid £150m to tax-exempt phone-mast master Arqiva

Evan Essence
FAIL

Re: Maybe it's just me

We should follow South Korea. Government says to install 1Gbps fibre to all homes, and it gets done. Bish bosh.

But no, we dick about with ridiculous dodgy-sounding schemes like this.

Frenchie bean-counters sweet-talked into slipping on Trojans

Evan Essence
WTF?

Anti-virus?

The accountants wouldn't have looked at the "invoices" without prompting?

Aren't the firms using anti-virus software on their networks and PCs?

Marlinspike: Saudi mobe network tried to recruit me to sniff citizens' privates

Evan Essence
Big Brother

Theresa May

has the skillz.

M&S shoppers make quarter of a million NFC payments a WEEK

Evan Essence

Re: spuds

> £5 for two baking spuds

Eh? They're about £1.75 a kilo.

BT unleashes SIP licensing troll army

Evan Essence
Headmaster

Re: How does this work?

Or, indeed, "Britons' ", as there's more than one of us.

Another blow for Flash as Unity gaming engine kills support

Evan Essence
Happy

@David D. Hagood

LOL!

Evan Essence

Re: 4oD

> You need to install hal for it to work.

Yes, I know, but I'm not going to risk screwing up my machine just to watch 4oD.

Evan Essence
Meh

4oD

Channel 4's Flash-based Digital Restrictions Management means I can't watch 4oD on Linux. Result? Meh, I hardly ever watch Channel 4 now. If there was something really good on, I could power up the PVR... but meh.

Virgin Media: SO SORRY we fined your dead dad £10 for unpaid bill

Evan Essence

Re: Is there a Doctor in this article?

Yes, if only Virgin Media had managed their Facebook and Twitter accounts in a better way, this fiasco would never have happened.

Evan Essence
Happy

@Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

There are smaller energy companies with very good customer service and high standards generally. Not the cheapest, obviously, but not way out of line either. They're just a quick Internet search away.

US House of Representatives passes CISPA by 288-127

Evan Essence
Big Brother

Octogenarians

Bunch of octogenarian fuckwits, not on the Internet, but in the pockets of big business.

Reg man goes time travelling at iconic observatory

Evan Essence

Whispering dishes

@Gordon 10 - yep, there are whispering dishes at Jodrell Bank, too. Didn't try them out, though.

Evan Essence
Go

Postcode

Note they say the postcode for satnav users is SK11 9DW, which is different from their postal address. Check out the Directions PDF on their Web site.

ICO clamps down on nuisance calls, slaps £90k fine on Glasgow firm

Evan Essence
Thumb Down

Enduring pain, the inconvenience of double-incontinence and a diet of Spam. A boring, monotonous diet of nothing but Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam. And Spam.

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