* Posts by diodesign

3493 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Sep 2011

YouTube escapes Google's piracy site smackdown

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

It happens more often than I care to remember, but one example was this one that appeared and then vanished: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/29/google_account_activity_tool/

Not actually that critical, just a rude headline that GN didn't appear to appreciate.

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Lone config file in Mac OS X SIGNALS DEATH OF THE DVD

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Dupe

"it was also already said that the same plist file also lists other models WITH optical drives"

I'm not sure how that makes a difference; the point is some file has listed USB booting so OBVIOUSLY Apple is going to ditch optical drives. I think the cynicism is clear.

(As for the HardReg dupe, Chris's angle is on the storage side rather than possible new expensive laptops.)

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London Fire Brigade: This time we'll send the NEAREST fire truck

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: WTF is a fire truck?

Duly noted.

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Sick of juggling apps on biz PCs? This install tool will save your sanity

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Tom

We can't hate /all/ technology. It's Trevor's opinion.

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Chinese Twitter shuttered during murder trial

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: subhead?

She did not contest the allegations.

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Jimbo Wales: Wikipedia servers in UK? No way, not with YOUR libel law

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Totally confused

UK law is pretty simple on this: everyone involved in the process of publishing a defamatory statement to a third-party is technically liable for libel. There is a defence in the schedule to the Defamation Act that exempts, say, ISPs from being liable for libel committed by their users over their networks. The same defence is used by websites that allow unmoderated comments.

So if you want to sue a newspaper for libel, you can sue the writer, the news editor, sub-editor, the revise sub-editor, the production editor, the editor, the publisher and anyone else who participated in the story. Usually, though, you go after the money: the publisher.

Similar goes for websites: the comment poster, the web master, the host, etc. Having Wikipedia based in the UK makes it easier for a claimant to pin down those in the chain - but not having a server in the UK doesn't make it immune to proceedings in England, it just makes it harder to get someone into court.

And as for Twitter, that was a criminal investigation by the police into threats made over electronic communications. Libel is a civil matter and totally different.

PS: For those suggesting adding "I think" to a sentence makes it immune to action, consider the case of a music concert reviewer who was successfully sued for an opinion that wasn't substantially based on the truth.

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RIM, Samsung thrash Apple in UK fondleslab sales growth

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: "idiot tax"

Have you seen how much Apple charges for RAM?!

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diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Retarded Maths by the reg as usual

RIM sales up 63pc, Samsung up 50pc, Apple up 36pc. There's the thrashing, in terms of sales growth.

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Russia slashes space station ship trip to just six hours

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Ummm

You are correct. Oops. Article amended.

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Apple iPad fondlers are about to enter a THIRD DIMENSION

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Re: "...similar to Microsoft's Xbox Kinect games controller."

"Apple Patent != forthcoming product."

But who could resist writing a Twilight Zone headline?

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Dropbox blames staffer's password reuse for spam flood breach

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Erm

"How does this relate to the corresponding passwords getting lifted?"

Assuming you're being serious, I had hoped this was obvious: if not, then I've failed as a sub-editor.

If, say, you have a Dropbox account and a CrappoMail web mail account, and you use the same email address and password for both, and then CrappoMail is compromised and the hackers have your email address and password - they can log into the Dropbox account.

From there, the hacker can find a document with Dropbox users' email addresses. These are then turned over to a spam bot for fun and profit.

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Tesco in unencrypted password email reminder rumble

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: encryption, hashes, etc

Hello,

Yes, you're right - there was a misunderstanding at the editing stage. We do know the difference between encryption and one-way hashing functions. It's been fixed.

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O2 dropped the ball in Olympic cycle race Twitter fiasco

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: O2 Stratford to Liverpool Street

Yes, I also get borderline zero reception on that line with O2. It's sad. When I told O2, they told me they spend £1m a day improving their network.

I suggested they spend more.

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Forget 'climate convert' Muller: Here's the real warming blockbuster

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Re: Not likely

"That said, I was under the impression that that entire image came directly from NOAA"

The heat maps come from NOAA, the in-graphic comment is from Watts - as the caption says.

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Apple takes $2.2bn hit as Chinese resellers snub iPhone 4S

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Re: takes a bath?

"Apple didn't make a loss, they just didn't make as big a profit as last quarter"

OK, lesson learned. I stretched the idiom too far.

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diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: takes a bath?

Hm, I took it to mean any kind of financial loss - such as wiping $2.2bn off a previous quarter's revenue. For the sake of pedantry I've tweaked the headline.

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The Higgs boson search continues ... into ANOTHER dimension

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Re: If you knew SUSY like I know SUSY...

"The thing is that when you get this deep into it, you can't explain or understand it in terms of familiar, everyday examples and analogies"

Indeed - a mathematician friend once tried to begin an explanation for some system with: "Imagine a 2D space. Now a 3D space. OK? Now imagine an N-dimensional space where N is greater than ..."

We try our best to explain science stuff; it's often a fun challenge to squeeze a complex subject into one sentence. But that's for lunchtime reading, not all-night study.

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Google HARVESTS African mobile numbers with Gmail SMS

diodesign Silver badge

Re: Aaron Em

Having had a pint after a long day, I realise I probably suffered a knee jerk reaction. So, sorry. I think we all learned a lesson here, or something.

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diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Aaron Em

I think you strayed over the line from funny to excessive. Nice try, though.

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IT pro to storm Everest in Bletchley Park cash quest

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Phil

I suppose you get to keep your badge.

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diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: In accurate headline and article

Sorry, 'Everest South Base Camp' was too long for the headline. Luckily the article makes it clear right away where she's going - so zero pedantry points for you.

Leave your badge on my desk, thanks.

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Ice island snaps off Greenland: Just a fifth the size of 1962 whopper

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Conversions to Reg scale...

"However, the question of why the contributor didn't use correct measures remains?"

We're beta-testing a new unit. Standby for action.

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

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Hashing is not encryption

I admire the pedantry; we do know the difference between encryption and hashing. But the word 'encrypted' by the dictionary simply means to 'conceal information or data' and it's there to hint to new readers, or the less technically able, what hashing means without having to bulk up every story with a detail description of how one-way functions work.

If you know what a hash is, brilliant. We've told you the passwords were hashed (quite possibly MD5d). If you don't, then 'encrypted' will help you out.

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McDonalds staff 'rough up' prof with home-made techno-spectacles

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Re: More shocking...

It was an error, sorry. The article has been changed.

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UK snoop system had 1,000 COCKUPS - including 2 duff cuffs

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Bloody hell...

Hi - Yes, sorry, should have reminded new readers what a CSP is: it was on the todo list.

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Nvidia admits forums hacked, user data swiped

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Cracked, not Hacked

Yes, yes. It's a bit sad that someone needs to point out that language evolves and now 'hacked' means 'cracked' as well.

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Fake sandwich shop's big fake Likes leave Facebook looking flaky

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: So, headlines written to suit webscrapers...

It's a hard job: yes, we write headlines that we want to write because no one else in the IT/Science/Business/Politics world will dare write them. Yes, we channel tabloid humour. Yes, we high five ourselves when someone hits headline gold. No, we don't worry if a Google bot doesn't get the joke.

As far as Google News is concerned, headlines aren't the be all and end all.

PS: I know of one print-based publishing house that urges its writers to get the word 'torrent' into online headlines to boost traffic..

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BBC mulls seizing the wheel of Local TV

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Shouldn't that read Arqiva?

Yes. God damn it. I rather hastily 'checked' the spelling by popping it into Google, but the blasted thing autocorrected it and told me everything was fine - should have known, lesson learned.

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O2, GiffGaff network goes titsup for unlucky punters

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Giffgaff?

Thanks - it's just that we were able to confirm quickly that O2 and GiffGaff were affected.

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UK.gov to clear way for Britain's first SPACEPORT

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Less of the CRAPITALS please

"when you do it all the time.."

Out the 45 headlines on the front page right now, just FIVE have a capped up screamer - not including the headlines with acronyms and the like.

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Museum of Computing recognised as PROPER MUSEUM

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Macs and PCs..

"Now if only some of the reg hacks can visit it and learn that there was something other than Macs and PCs in the 80s and 90s... ;-)"

Ha. Don't worry, some of us were using Acorn RISC OS kit through the 1980s and 1990s.

Also, as for the museums, Bletchley Park, The National Museum of Computing (also in Bletchley) and Swindon's Museum of Computing are all separate things. Correct me if I'm wrong.

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'Apple is corrupting App Store downloads', warn angry devs

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: ®

They're at the end of every Reg-written story! It's a style thing.

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Leap second bug cripples Linux servers at airlines, Reddit, LinkedIn

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: AdamWill

"That suggests you're wrong"

With respect to version numbers, probably - it was a range some had suggested through experience rather than a triaged ranged. The reason why is more or less there - see the LKML.

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diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Its a kernel bug

As I understand it, the system ideally should be a multicore machine on a 2.6.32-3.3 production kernel for the bug to occur: if one core grabs a high-resolution kernel timer lock while setting the time via the adjtime() system call and another core holds two other related timer locks. This will livelock the kernel, manifesting in services burning up all available CPU time.

I'm not entirely sure so I'd rather not say for certain at this stage; last time I looked there was a lot of discussion on exactly how the crash happens. You have to be fairly unlucky to encounter it, but if you've got a server farm, you will see machines dropping off.

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Blighty's new anti-bribe law will do more HARM than good

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: What a shit headline

Well, it is rather warm, so why not?

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Hitchhiker shot while researching 'Kindness of America'

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: What does this Anti-American news item have to do with technology

Anti-American? I think not. And we do carry non-IT news from time to time, mostly on Fridays just before Pub O'Clock, admittedly.

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Thief open-sources Richard Stallman's laptop, passport, visa

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Tim

That was pretty much the sentiment of the comment: Stallman's netbook isn't well-known hardware, doesn't have a particularly user-friendly setup (gNewSense and Emacs), and is altogether not a particularly great environment for an opportunistic thief.

I dunno about Anna's past experiences with FOSS, but I know that pissing about with codecs wasn't particularly enjoyable - so I just couldn't resist inserting the jibe.

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diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: @David Neil

Hi Tim - I'm not sure many Argie bag thieves would know how to install a video codec on a fairly obscure MIPS64-powered netbook..

Hardy handymen handed handy hardened handheld hardware

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Better, Reg Headline Dept.

Back of the net!

O2, Be Broadband axe Pirate Bay access

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: janimal

Your argument falls apart on the censorship point: we're not stopping you from finding a solution to the blocking. In fact, we assume everyone knows, anyway. The ban on workarounds isn't permanent, just a precaution for now.

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diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: janimal

TBF the 'workaround' is pretty close to 'move to another country'. Where do you draw the line? Answers on a postcard to the High Court.

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Windows 8: Not even Microsoft thinks businesses will use it

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: WTF am the 'channel'

The Channel used to be called Channel Register, and it's been around for a while. :-)

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diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Re: RE: WTF is the channel?

It's on The Channel because that's our dedicated sister site for channel news - in the same way hardware and consumer tech deserves its own site, Reg Hardware.

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diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

RE: WTF is the channel?

In a nutshell, the channel is the chain of companies linking vendors to end-users. From distributors with warehouses to resellers bundling extra services for business customers or to retailers flogging kit.

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Apple seeks resurrection of HTC importation ban

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Argh!

What if he's pointing out a statement of fact?

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Sean Parker launches Chatroulette killer: For why?

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: That's all very well

Very good, but it's the Financial Times.

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Missed the Venus solar flyby? It's only 105 years to the next one

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Hubble

I admire your pedantry, Axe. However, I think you read a bit too much into "took images of it" - the Hubble did take images of it using, as you say, sunlight reflected off the Moon.

I've tweaked the wording for future generations, anyway. Cheers.

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Strong ARM: The Acorn Archimedes is 25

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Help?

Yes - I loved finding the easter eggs in Acorn's code. That particular one is a reference to an old novel that starts off with the protagonist squeezing some toothpaste onto his toothbrush and seeing a message in it that read:

"Help, I'm being held prisoner in a toothpaste factory!"

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HP 'overcharged New York City by $163m' on 911 system

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Ouch. Thanks for the wake up call. It was a mild oversight. The copy has been tweaked.

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'Super-powerful' Flame worm actually boring bloatware

diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

Re: Confusing article

It's possible to get a big team to write a huge piece of software that then doesn't do anything earth-shatteringly evil. Yes, it does bad things, but so does a lot of malware. It's not the weapon of annihilation first feared, although there is still a lot of code to get through.

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