Posts by Invidious Aardvark

Viv Reding attacks 'scaremongers' opposing her draft Data Protection bill

In November last year, the House of Commons Justice Select Committee blasted the directive. It said that while data protection law in the EU needed a shakeup some of the plans "do not allow for flexibility or discretion for businesses or other organisations which hold personal data, or for data protection authoritiesdo not allow us to incorporate the reforms in such a way that we can still choose to ignore them and do whatever we want with the data we and our business friends are accumulating".

FTFY.

Australia ratifies cybercrime convention

"He also states that a warrant is required “to access the content of a communication”." Personally I'd rather a warrant were required before you start even monitoring my communications.

I thought I was supposed to have some sort of human rights, something about the right to private life without unncessary state interference? In fact, I'm pretty sure this convtravenes article 12 of the universal declaration of human rights:

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

Recording the fact that I'm communicating with people/servers/whatever (even being generous and assuming they don't do a Google and "accidentally" store everything I send rather than just the metadata) without a valid reason sounds like arbitrary intereference with my privacy to me.

Megaupload extradition bid - Feds WON'T have to hand in their evidence

Re: " I seriously doubt Balmer will be hauled into court..."

The big difference is the accessability of your data. Upload to dropbox and only you and people you allow access can see it. Upload a video to Megaupload video YouTube and everyone could watch it.

Mind telling me why YouTube hasn't been taken down yet?

Firefox to spit out third-party cookies

Re: Superior cookie handling?

What is this superior cookie handling of which you speak? I've used FF for years but I'm also aware that IE has had the ability to block/allow cookies per site for yonks. In fact, IIRC FF started out without this feature, which IE had for some time before FF finally adopted it.

Can't comment on Chrome as I never use it.

Rid yourself of Adobe: New Firefox 19.0 gets JAVASCRIPT PDF viewer

Re: Mixed blessing

How about having a paper copy of a manual so I don't have to lug my computer into the garden when I'm trying to set up the timings on my sprinkler system (or keep swapping between the program I'm running and its oh-so-helpful pdf manual)?

Yes, I know I could get a tablet device of some description or a second monitor, but paper seems to be a low-cost alternative that works in both cases. Or do I just not understand technology?

Amazon ditches 'neo-Nazi' security firm over alleged harassment of workers

Re: Bad Hersfeld! Bad Hersfeld!

> Nein Nein Nein!

Emergency services, how may I help you?

Wind now cheaper than coal in Oz: Bloomberg

I think you'll find that nuclear should be on that green grid too, as should hydro. Both are clean; nuclear has waste issues which need addressing and hydro can have environmental issues, but other than that they are pretty much clean and green from the "carbon price" (remember, it's not a tax!) perspective.

The obvious thing for Australia to do is go nuclear and solar, use hydro where feasible, and tidal if it becomes viable (most major urban areas are fairly close to the coast). We're actually pretty well suited to going "green" for our energy needs, we just need to bite the bullet and build some nuclear plants.

British games company says it owns the idea of space marines

From my reading on <a href="http://www.popehat.com/2013/02/06/the-popehat-signal-help-an-author-against-a-bogus-trademark-claim/">Popehat</a>, it looks like the EFF said "no". They're appealing for pro bono assistance (and have had a few replies) but they may start a fund if required.

Social networks give Australia a throat to choke

Re: Two sided sword

Then they are guilty of libel/defamation and can be pursued as such, should either my wife or I choose to do so. Part of that process would be a request to have the offending tweet removed, but quite frankly I couldn't care less what some random person tweets about my wife's extra curricular activities because I actually trust her.

To turn your example on its head, what if those tweets weren't false? Does my wife have the right to request that factual tweets be taken down? We can both lie and say they're untrue, even if they're not. How is the service provider supposed to determine what is true and what is not?

If you want to protect speech, you have to deal with speech you would rather wasn't said but still needs to be protected regardless. There are limits, I agree, and where such speech crosses those lines it needs to be dealt with. However, the proper place for such arguments over what is illegal is in the courts. I do not believe that service providers should have to interpret laws (over many jurisdictions) to determine whether people using their services are breaking those laws. That's what judges/magistrates are for.

In what way is Twitter "responsible for much of the damage caused online"? The government may well want Twitter to allow users only to post about flowers, rainbows, and fluffy kittens but in the real world people have free will and their own causes to pursue. If, in the course of their pursuit, they break any laws, then by all means punish them using the same process as used for everyone else who breaks the law.

I really don't think that a government approved programme for the speedy removal of stuff that offends the government Australian minor celebs citizens is the way forward. If someone does something that is illegal, prosecute them - that's what the law is for. Speech can be offensive without being illegal and noone has the right not to be offended by speech.

Blame the users, not the carriers.

Schmidt 'very proud' of Google's tiny tax bill: 'It's called capitalism'

Re: Do no evil

"...proscribed standards...". That word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

Internet Explorer tracks cursor even when minimised

I am missing something here? Every virtual keyboard I've seen jumbles up the keys so knowing where the mouse was when I clicked is completely pointless since you still have no idea which key I clicked on.

I'm with the first AC on this too - which ad companies are using this? It's not something you can do accidentally (unless it's google, when of course it's just a rogue engineer leaving proof of concept code in the project and they're accidentally storing all that mouse location data unwittingly, the poor dears).

UN's 'bid to wrestle control of internet' stalled by asterisk

Re: Fiscal cliff is not an actual cliff......

I'm not American but I was under the impression that actual debating and proposing laws, etc. was the work of Congress. The president has the power of veto over whatever comes out of Congress, but the (hopelessly divided along party lines) Congress is the place where the real action happens.

Blame the senate and reps for the impasse. If they'd start thinking of the country and stop being so bloody partisan some actual progress might be possible.

As for "paying their true share", the fact that > 50% are not paying taxes (assuming that is true) should be ringing alarm bells - the most powerful nation on the planet appears to be failing > 50% of its population by paying them so little for the work that they do that they need state subsidy to survive. Proposing to tax these people, who are earning so little that they actually need state assistance in the first place, is a pointless exercise. Far better would be to improve their standards of pay so that they can survive without state assistance and can actually contribute to the state via taxes themselves. It may mean some businesses earning less profit, but it would increase the number of people with disposable income who will, presumably, go and dispose of this income by buying things.

'Kids' apps STILL siphoning too much info from mobes' - FTC boss

Re: What I don't get is...

Because "think of the children" is so compelling. It's a battle cry that is used for both good and bad causes. I get equally annoyed when the news runs a story that, e.g. 3 children were killed. Oh, and 10 other people too.

Kim Dotcom shows off new mega service

@Psyx

From what I can see so far, Kim's intention is to make money from people by offering a secure, cloud-hosted, file storage service. Your suspicion that he's creating this as a place for illegal content is not based in fact and, sad to say, the law does actually require facts to prove a case.

Kim can easily point out that he has no knowledge of what data is stored on his service (nor should he know) and that it has substantial non-infringing uses. As long as he cooperates with any legal requests by law enforcement agencies (though what he could do is questionable if all content is encrypted and he doesn't have access to any means to decrypt the data), he's in the clear.

"...it's not likely to be particularly difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the new site's admins know that it's being used for illegal purposes." Really? If every file is encrypted, how can this be proven? Using your logic you could argue that google knows that YouTube is being used for illegal purposes and thus should be in the dock beside Kim.

There's nothing to stop the user passing the key in the URL, I guess, except it seems a somewhat insecure method of transmitting your key. Encryption only works when your key is secret, if you're broadcasting it to the world every time you request a file then why bother encrypting at all? The server definitely doesn't want to be seeing the key (they don't want to be able to decrypt your data) and I can't see why the client would be built to look for the key in the URL - transmitting the location of encrypted data and the means to decrypt it in the same message would be a massive security hole and would remove any hope of getting "serious" businesses to use your solution.

The way they've phrased the encryption/decryption side of things, it appears to be entirely client-side. There's no reason to post the key to the server if all encryption is done prior to submitting to the server and all decryption is done as the file is received. Again, I'm assuming that security and/or limiting liability is their concern here - they don't want to be taken down like last time and not knowing what you're hosting is probably a good starting point.

Given that the first screen is a logon screen, I'd guess that the field with the key icon is your password. Why you think that this refers to an encrytpion key is beyond me, especially since the key isn't actually generated until a later stage. It even looks like a password field, with the password starred out.

The key generation being strengthened by "entropy from your mouse movements and keystroke timings" is just a variation on a theme, where some additional inputs are used to add randomness to the key being generated, e.g. TrueCrypt does something similar.

Note that they state that "You hold the keys to what you store in the cloud, not us". This suggests to me that the encryption key for the files is stored by the user, a move designed to prevent third parties accusing them of knowlingly infringing copyright? If they are storing encrypted data only and have no way of decrypting that data to find out what it is, they really can argue that they are not liable for the content they host since they cannot even view that content. Some would say that this is a sensible move, not only in a self-preservation sense (they really don't know what the user is uploading so they can't be held liable for it) but also because it should, if implemented correctly, ensure some degree of security for the end-user's data - even if someone manages to get access to the servers where the data is stored, all they get is a load of encrypted data.

One question that springs to mind is: If all the data is encrypted and the key is stored at the user's end, how is this going to replicate the success of megaupload? You can no longer just upload a file and post the URL, you now also have to post the key so other users can decrypt the data. It's not a huge extra burden, but it's one more hoop to jump through and may discourage the less technical users from using the site unless they make it really easy to use. There are some hints that you'll be able to share files and folders with other users, but part of the success of megaupload was that you didn't need an account to download stuff.

It'll be interesting to see how this all pans out and whether this is a real change of direction from the original megaupload. It certainly sounds like they're moving from a free-for-all file hosting model to more of an encrypted file system approach with access to the service limited to registered users only but I guess time will tell.

This is out of hand now: Apple attempts to trademark the LEAF

If by "deteriorated" you mean "allows people to register trademarks" then it's been this "broken" for quite some time...

There are many examples of marks that have been registered that are simple shapes. The point is that these shapes, after much use, become an identifying feature in their own right and become a symbol that people recognise and (if you're lucky) trust. The way you protect these marks is to register them, thus preventing other people from abusing the recognition and value you have built up by using the mark on their own products.

This really isn't that sinister. If anything, you'd have to be asking why they've registered this mark now. Could it be that there is a new product line on the way?

Google's ethics, cosy UK.gov chats under Westminster scrutiny

Re: As many people have said here many times

I don't care how much tax any firm pays, nor where it is based - no firm should never have heavy influence in legislation via lobbying. Governments should (I'm not saying that they always do) pass legislation based on what is good for the country and its people; companies invariably want to have legislation that is good for them.

Entire US Congress votes against ITU control of internet

Re: Well, obviously . . .

So any denial is confirmation of intent to do what is denied? Do you work for the Spanish Inquisition by any chance?

Ready for ANOTHER patent war? Apple 'invents' wireless charging

Re: I recall....

Apple are now busy applying for a patent for "Transmitting kinetic energy into a (male) legal scholar's gonads as a way of signalling extreme disagreement with the activities of the recipient of the energy transmission using a mobile device."

Apple sticks finger in dyke, cuts off Dutch flood of Galaxy S, SII, Ace

Re: it's all about the device and how it manages certain interactions

They could indeed change how it works, but then it would no longer be covered by the patent in question, assuming the patent is valid in the first place.

I'm not saying I agree with the patent, or the case, or that I even like Apple. All I'm saying is that the patent appears to be related to a portable device used to manage photos and goes into some detail about how certain elements of such management would be implemented, taking into account the screen size and other limitations presented by working on a mobile device as opposed to a workstation. It appears that the contention is that Samsung has used one or more of the methods described in the patent.

IANAL and to me it does seem that what Apple has done is attempt to gain a sort of software patent by describing methods of operation on a physical device that would obvioulsy be implemented in software. Whether that is valid is for the courts to decide and, if it is invalid, then I hope Samsung's lawyers will pursue that argument strongly. Not being a lawyer, I'm not sure where the distinction between describing a method for doing something that requires software and an actual software patent is drawn.

A more interesting point to me is how do you protect a novel way of handling interactions on a device? You seem to be saying that software is just, well, software so it's fine if someone takes my novel approach and just uses it without any reward for my work in coming up with said approach?

Re: Aren't the Netherlands in the EU?

You've heard of hyperlinks I take it? Click on the one in the article and you'll be taken to the actual patent in question. It's for a "PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICE FOR PHOTO MANAGEMENT" and describes a number of scenarios related to how photos can be managed on small form factor devices with limited screen sizes. You'll note that it's nothing to do with software, it's all about the device and how it manages certain interactions. You may even, if you read the article, notice that it's a European patent and thus, presumably, is valid under EU law or it wouldn't have been granted.

Oh, and if you're about to use the "Apple paid the corrupt system to grant this patent", please don't - it just sounds childish. If the patent is invalid, you'd think Samsung's legal team could get it invalidated.

The alleged infringement would seem to be related to one or more of the many examples of how the device will function (there's quite a list).

I know that as soon as the Reg prints an "Apple sues X" piece almost everyone jumps onto the comments and tells everyone else how evil Apple are and how they'll never buy another iDevice, etc. and how anyone who says differently is an Apple fanboi and can't be believed because they're on the kool aid but really, if you can't even be bothered to read the article and get your facts straight you just look like a fanboi from a different church.

Belgian finds missus was born a MAN after 19 YEARS of marriage

Re: Good to Hear..

At the risk of suffering death by a thousand downvotes, I'm failing to see where the article is "small-minded, bigoted, and practically condoned domestic abuse". The article relates the facts of the story (albeit in El Reg language) and doesn't seem to suggest anywhere that violence is acceptable, nor offer any view on the rights or wrongs of transgender issues.

I can see that Jan doesn't come across as all that enlightened but calling the article bigoted seems a massive overreaction.

Android seven-inchers swipe rug from under Apple

Re: "a trend given extra momentum"

You do realise that Apple haven't patented "a means or method for taking out an advertisement on television" (yet) so these other players could have upsized their profile and embiggened their media presence by making adverts and getting them on the telly?

Nowhere to hide for Google users as Play is given Plus treatment

Re: Dangerous...

The solution to the problem you propose is not to use Google services when blogging, maintain mulitple accounts or, and I realise the Google men will track me down, torture me, and dump my mutilated body in shallow grave for even suggesting it, use a pseudonym?

What Google is doing is not great for a number of reasons, but aiding the torture and mutilation of of these anonymous bloggers is not one of them as anyone in that situation is going to be using a modicum of common sense to avoid detection in the first place and signing up for a service using your real name when you intend to piss off the shadowy powers that be is, well, asking for trouble.

Liberals propose law to regulate social media

Re: Simple answer

Here's an idea, make parents responsible for monitoring their children when they're online.

They would have to sit with/near their spawn and monitor what they're doing and even, perhaps, do some parenting when their beloved little ones come across something distressing. They could teach them how to cope with such issues and the appropriate actions to take. Hell, perhaps even the parents of the 'cyber-bully' could stop their spawn being an obnoxious fuckwit in the first place by monitoring what they do too.

This means parents get to spend more time with their children and the government doesn't need to piss my taxes away paying for yet another quango.

That'd fix it in no time.

Facebook's stock rally may be shortlived: Small advertisers enraged

Re: When can we get this on El Reg?

I imagine that paying to say that you like MS and Apple products and dislike Android and Linux would result in so many people downvoting you that it would look like a DDOS on El Reg's servers.

Bloke jailed for being unable to use BlackBerry Messenger freed

Re: Guy was a bit daft BUT

Except, as previous posters have said, this offence is strict liability. You can rant all you like against the judges and CPS (though accusing them of being paedophiles or having such tendencies makes you sound like a Daily Mail reader) but their hands are tied.

In fact your rant missed the people responsible: the politicians. The only way to stop this kind of stupidity is to get these kinds of strict-liability laws repealed and replaced with ones that allow the judiciary more discretion.

Mac malware Crisis as Apple lets slip its Mountain Lion

Re: How Much Redmond Money Did Flow For This Crap News ??

From where did you get the requirement to enter any password? All I see in the article relating to passwords is: "The threat can install itself on Mac systems without requiring a password.". The linked article also makes no mention of requiring passwords.

Brooks, Coulson to be CHARGED over phone-hacking

Re: but, but they weren't "in transmission"...

I think the fact that one of the phone owners was dead at the time her voice mail was accessed probably helps with that, but IANAL.

Anonymous hits Australia

Re: Actually, "Anonymous" hasn't really ever done anything.

How politics works:

1) Lick arses of people in the particular camp you agree with until you get a nomination.

2) Get elected.

3) Vote self pay rise (amount set by "independant" committee, so that's alright then!).

4) Pass laws for your mates in various businesses "to encourage growth and help the mum and dad shareholders".

5) Leave politics and get cushy job with businesses mentioned above.

There are very few politicians over here that I trust (mostly the independants because they don't have to toe a party line and seem to actually listen to their electorate). The choice is basically get shafted by Labor or get shafted by the Libs and neither option is that appealling.

As to the actual issue being protested, I was under the impression that there was a presumption of innocence in criminal law. These proposals seem to be assuming guilt by all (until they are proven innocent by the data gathered). If you suspect I'm plotting nefarious deeds then by all means apply for a warrant to monitor my communications, otherwise leave me alone - you have no right to invade my privacy and that of the vast majority of the population because you may capture some evidence against a tiny number of criminals

I'm not saying I agree with their methods, but the fact that this is in the news shows that the defacement has done its job - the issue is now in the media again and hopefully more people will read about it and protest.

P.S. Voting in federal elections in Australia is mandatory, so the people who defaced the sites, assuming they are Aussies and old enough, will be voting too rather than sitting on their "fucking high-horse arses".

Samsung SMACKDOWN: US appeals court keeps ban on Galaxy Tab

Re: Koh is an idiot.

The SCA is designed to limit what may be lawfully disclosed about wire or electronic communications held by third parties. The data LinkedIn was disclosing was not data the user had lodged with LinkedIn, it was data that LinkedIn generates (user id) or tracks (urls visited) based on their users' interaction with LinkedIn.

Koh found that the data LinkedIn supplied did not fall under the terms of the SCA and thus LinkedIn could not be considered either an SCA or an RCS. The case was therefore dismissed with prejudice, since no amount of refiling would make it workable.

If you're going to call the judge an idiot, it would be more helpful to your cause to choose a case where she was obviously wrong in her judgement. Using selective quotes, failing to check the contents of the linked page (which itself contains other links to the detailed judgement where her opinions are stated quite clearly, citing precedent, etc.), and ranting about how LinkedIn must be an ECS and/or RCS because you say so make you look like the idiot.

tl;dr; Arguing someone is stupid by citing an example where they have acted correctly makes you look stupid.

Google ordered to censor 'torrent', 'megaupload' and more words

Re: Word of Mouth

"Just a few billion USD would save the whole Euro Zone". Are you serious? Have you seen how much money they've already squandered invested to help Greece, Spain, etc.? A few billion is a drop in the ocean.

Besides, you might want to keep that money and use it to pay off that $15 trillion debt you're sitting on. Should cover a few months of interest whilst the US sorts out balancing its books and gets its economy running with a surplus...

Valve to raise Steam for Ubuntu

Re: I do wonder though

Usually because the installer is a little rubbish. See https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=5357-FSQM-0382 for how to install games from disc.

Hacktivists lift emails, passwords from oil biz in support of Greenpeace

Hashing is not encryption

Why are they encrypting their password hashes, or is it the passwords that are encrypted then hashed?

The Reg seems to be confusing encryption with hashing quite a lot lately. Encryption results in a ciphertext that you can later decrypt, hashing results in a digest/checksum/hash code that is useful for checking that a given value matches the value that was originally hashed. Confuse the two and your encrypted cache of state secrets/porn collection/secret santa shopping list will turn out to be a set of completely useless (but conveniently smaller and easier to store) codes...

Apple fails to block stolen iOS in-app content

@Droid on Droid

There's this thing called "humour", you should try it some time...

Indian software pirating suspect faces US extradition

"Indian software pirating suspect faces US extradition", thunders the headline.

"It's unclear if US authorities will seek Kablekar's extradition...', says the story.

Do try to have some sort of internal consistency in your articles chaps!

Oatmealer rubs Operation Bear Love cash in troll's face

Philanthropy > Douchebaggery

As someone who has followed this on Popehat, I can allay your fears:

1) Around half of the money that was raised was sent directly by IndieGoGo to the charities.

2) The rest of the money was sent by cheque (or check, for our public wig American friends). This is backed up by a sworn statement from Oatmeal's attorney.

3) The money pictured is actually Matt Inman's own money, the money raised by the Bear Love campaign having already been deposited with the charities as promised to avoid the charming Mr Carreon making an issue of it as part of a frivolous suit he filed pro se, and which he has since dismissed.

Beer because it's already Friday here and because Mr Inman deserves a toast for his excellent efforts.

Study: Climate was hotter in Roman, medieval times than now

Re: Stuff Lewis Page and his idiotic agenda

I'm not sure you read the OP's post correctly - I can't see any reference to "Climate Deniers" or anything of that sort.

The name calling in the comments is (sadly) to be expected; people generally apply labels to groups in any debate and, if that group is opposed to your views, that label is sometimes derogatory. Journalists should, by and large, report the facts and avoid the appearance of bias. That's all OP is asking for.

Naked Scarlett Johansson pic snatch 'is worth 6 years' porridge'

Re: Hang on.

What is it with some of you people? Being a "celebrity" does not automatically mean you lose all rights to privacy. The way some of you are going on about it, you'd think it was the fault of the victims that they got hacked.

There was me thinking that all this phone-hacking stuff in the UK was a scandal that had to be investigated. Turns out that Levenson should just have said "They're vaguely famous, they have no right to expect people not to hack into their phones, this investigation is closed.".

I agree that the sentence being sought is way too harsh, but blaming the victims for being hacked is getting rather close to the "Dressed like that she was asking for it" defence.

Facebook changes data-use policy despite 87% poll opposition

@Graham Marsden

Pissing off enough of your customers is a bad idea. However, if you have 900,000,000 customers and you piss off about 298,000 of them, you're doing a reasonable job. Or do you think that significantly less than 0.5% of your customers actively saying "no" should be setting alarm bells ringing?

I don't like Facebook but your argument is weak, to say the least.

UK websites: No one bothers with cookie law, why should we?

Re: While we are on the subject...

Perhaps an advertising cookie could be classified as that ginger-haired step-child of the biscuit world: the jaffa cake.

Hackers expose 6.5 MILLION 'LinkedIn passwords'

Re: REverse Hash

But not hugely slower, especially since you have to store the salt somewhere (or generate it somehow, presumably running some function on the user/pass combination and hope that when you're breached your salt generation logic isn't filched too).

Rainbow tables, whilst useful, are not the poster child they used to be - there is so much processing power around these days that, given the hash, you can quite quickly test millions of candidates per second on a fairly standard GPU.

SHA-n, MD5, etc. are built for hashing large streams of data quickly - great for ensuring that it hasn't been tampered with, but hopeless when it comes to storing passwords because their inherent speed is a disadvantage. As a general rule, I use something like BCrypt when hashing passwords - this allows you to slow down the hashing function using a factor, which makes generation of rainbow tables/brute forcing a very slow exercise. The down side is that it also slows down validation slightly, but speed vs. security is always a tradeoff and I'd rather it takes a few seconds longer to log me on to a system if it also makes it harder to brute force my password should security be compromised.

Apple seeks resurrection of HTC importation ban

Re: Hasn't Office had this since Office 2000 or Office XP?

Excellent recall. Now examine the patent (the link is right there in the article) - it was filed in 1996.

I agree that the patent sounds ridiculous, but it may actually have been novel back when it was filed and it is a little more involved than "highlight strings" - it's describing both the parsing engine(s) and a method for hooking up relevant action processors that can undertake actions on those elements deemed of interest.

Sadly this patent still has 4 years or so to run (US patents last 20 years I believe), so expect it to be milked some more before it expires.

Advertisers slam Microsoft over 'Do not track' decision

Re: More likely reason

Do you seriously think Google won't do the same data gathering for their logged in users?

Facebook stock plunge leaves tax-dodge Saverin WORSE off. Haa ha

Re: Small question....

I didn't know that the US$ was so devalued that they'd resorted to using socks as a form of currency!

I need to multitask, but Windows 8's Metro won't let me

Re: Not necessarily about multi-tasking

I think you're missing the point that was being made - that the user may be working on a single task that requires multiple applications to be running, thus even a single task could require more viewable apps than Metro provides. Or, to put it another way, the user doesn't need to be multi-tasking to require that multiple applications to be running concurrently.

As for the slightly snide "one app per task" comment, I take it you think that Outlook shouldn't exist? After all, it is providing a diary, address book, task list, and an email client. Surely we should have at least 4 applications for this in your "one app per task" fantasy land (conjured up, it seems, to belittle the person to whom you were responding)?

I usually find your responses to comments helpful; this one falls well below your usual standard.

Google warns against ISPs hard on web filth

She goes to PornHub and is appalled to find porn there? What was she expecting, pictures of fluffy kittens doing cute things will balls of wool?

In other news, I visited the news agent and picked up a copy of the Mail and was appalled at what I found there. Someone should censor this rubbish before innocent children pick it up and mistake it for a newspaper.

Pirate stomping by Google et Cie won't work, says expert

@Blarkon

So what you're saying is that we don't need to worry about the courts adjudicating on matters of law, we can just let companies and/or individuals promise to be truthful when issuing takedowns?

The search engines do have a point - removing a link is kind of pointless when the content is still out there; I appreciate that removing links from search results makes it harder to find the material, but surely the best way to stop infringement is to remove the material from the offending website altogether? If you just remove the page/site in question, the rights holder is going to be in the same situation again when someone creates a page that links to the offending page, possibly via a URL shortening service so that the search engine doesn't even know that it is referring the to the already expunged page and thus can't automatically not index the page. Remove the source and the problem goes away (until another source pops up).

The problem with a rights holder contacting a search engine and just saying "this is my work, please remove it" is that the search engine now has to verify identity of the user and that they are indeed the owner of the material in question, otherwise *anyone* can contact the search engine and get pretty much anything removed with no evidence that they are entitled so to do. A court order is a much more reassuring document on which to act when removing items, since ownership and identity have presumably already been proven.

Finally, your point about court costs, while probably true, is a problem with the legal system and is not limited to the issue being discussed. I'm sure there are lots of scenarios in which the cost of litigation deters people from pursuing a case, this doesn't mean that we should bypass due process.