* Posts by Anthony Sanford

24 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Jun 2007

Chinese to censor Olympic press net access

Anthony Sanford

They are bitching because..

Promises were made and are now being reneged on.

From what I remember it was going to be free and uncensored access to the internet.

Now it seems its going to be free and uncensored access to the internet if its Olympic games related.

Microsoft Mojave 'outs' secret Vista lovers

Anthony Sanford
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The only reason I run Vista is...

Because of DX10.

I run dual boot systems Xp / Linux for work and Vista for DX10 games, thats it.

Now if someone would come out out with an open source equivalent of DX10 which is supported by the games manufactures, I'll uninstall Vista.

Dismissed deputy head launches legal fight

Anthony Sanford

Nobody in their right mind

Would teach now.

Even an unfounded accusation can ruin your life, so why risk it.

Wait till the Kids catch on.

UK.gov plans central database for all your communications

Anthony Sanford
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Guess who gets to pay for this

So we are heading towards a recession, the treasury says it doesn't have have any more money, we are already breaking our governmental borrowing rules, so who gets to pay for this pink elephant?

One guess, you and me.

I'm totally fed up with these ill thought out, grandiose, schemes, that we have to pay for.

Number crunching knife crime and online ID verification

Anthony Sanford

Um. I thought the internet was international

Well, how is Ms Smith going to impose her rules on the whole internet?

The only sites this is going to impact are UK sites, this is another stupid law.

Extreme porn bill gets final reading

Anthony Sanford
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So who do we ask if somthing is legal?

So how are we the 'Public' meant to check if an image is legal?

Do we take it down the local nick and get arrested if it isn't legal.

This is a stupid law, I think we should all take piles of magazines down to the local police station and go over every image with them so we will know if the images are legal.

How many staff has HMRC caught snooping on records?

Anthony Sanford

Is everyone in the government incompetent?

Is everyone in the government incompetent?

It does look like it doesn't it, even the most stupid of sysadmins should be able to produce a list of users by role.

Lets face it, if any commercial boss couldn't get the answer for that question for their board of directors they would be fired.

BTW, these are the same jokers that want the Identity register.

'Extreme porn' law could criminalise millions

Anthony Sanford

Dosnt this mean?

(a) an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person’s life,

Would make it illegal to watch a whole raft of mainstream movies that I can think of:

Clockwork Orange and Reservoir Dogs come to mind.

Stupid, unenforceable laws just make the Government look stupid.

Anyway, isn't there a potential conflict with the human rights act, maybe a Lawyer can give their opinion.

China blocks YouTube

Anthony Sanford

I'm curious about somthing

From what I know both China and Tibet surrendered to the Mongol empire in 1246.

How does this event equate with China laying claim to Tibet?

On that basis someone could claim most of Europe on the Basis of the Roman Empire, even though it has not existed for centuries.

Anthony Sanford
Unhappy

Um

The Chinese government may think of Tibet as part of China, what about the people? Maybe they should have a referendum, Oh wait!!

Anthony Sanford

To MXS

I'm guessing English is not your native language.

Anyway to answer your basic question, in the west we have choice, we can get news and analysis from anywhere in the world.

I would guess that many of the regular members of this site don't get their news from just one source, I don't.

The point is, we have the choice as to where we get our information and make our own minds up as to its veracity I can guarantee there would be tremendous outcry if the government tried to restrict the news for political reasons, it is one of out fundamental rights.

Oh we know that politicians has tried to hide things, but they know (or should know) that the skeletons come out of the cupboard eventually and somebody is held responsible.

Anthony Sanford
Stop

Yea gods, its like going back in time

"No tub-thumping English imperialist has any moral authority..."

Wow, its like going back in time, nobody uses terminology like that, especially as it is semantically meaningless.

In the end, this is about choice, the choice about what to believe what to say and to whom.

The ultimate expression of that freedom of choice is the freedom to criticize, moan, Bitch and satirize our own government and leaders.

So do any of those freedoms, stated above, exist in China? if so please give us some examples to look at.

Please don't try and tell us that the Chinese government and leaders are perfect and therefore there is no criticism.

Anthony Sanford
Alert

Do you get the feeling there is a bt of Chinese damage control going one here

Reading the posts here, I get the strong impression that somebody is trying to engage in damage control.

Well I have some bad new for them, we have grown out of believing simplistic propaganda.

We have enough reports and blogs from people and NGOs that have been to Tibet to get a good idea of what is going on there.

My suggestion is to stick to selling your propaganda to to your own people, we don't buy it.

Home Secretary in ID card gaffe

Anthony Sanford
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I think she ment

I think she meant that the database would not be accessible over the internet.

Having a database that no-body can access, well it is the sort of thing this administration would come up with, ultimate security an off-line database.

Never mind it would be useless and still does not address the problem that it could be abused in the future.

Why don't they just scrap the database project and save us all a lot of money.

'Boil a frog' ID card rollout to continue until 2012

Anthony Sanford
Stop

Why are they still bothering with this?

So, the cards will not be compulsory and a passport will do instead.

Yeh, so now they want me to carry my passport around 24/7.

Yes airport workers have ID Cards and are meant to be vetted, so what will the new ID cards add to the equation for Airport workers?

The administration should just put their hands up and admit the whole idea is dead in the water and save the taxpayers lots of money and cancel the project.

Alleged Kiwi botnet mastermind in court

Anthony Sanford

Hacking Software

Well there is something similar in the UK.

Sensibly, TBTB in the UK have not tried to prosecute anyone for it yet since almost all so called 'hacking' tools also have legitimate purposes, like port scanners.

Report into MP bugging: MP was bugged, no laws broken

Anthony Sanford

Brown changed the rules last summer

It seems that Gorden Brown changed the Willson Doctrine last summer to exempt the police.

So we know now who to blame for this mess.

Ban booze in supermarkets, says health adviser

Anthony Sanford

Bring back Off-licences I say

Since I don't really drink here is what I think.

Only sell alcohol in off licenses.

Off-Licenses should close at 8pm

All transactions to be videoed so it can be used as evedence.

Off-licenses that sell to underage people should have their license revoked automatically for a month.

I think thats draconian enough for the moment.

Top cop urges RIPA review in coded attack on snoop code

Anthony Sanford

Um

I really don't believe that it should be police officers that should be authority but judges,

That way the police would have to explain why they need an intercept.

Brits split on ID cards

Anthony Sanford

How about

How about them taking a survey of IT professionals and asking them the same questions.

I can guess what the answer would be.

Showdown over encryption password in child porn case

Anthony Sanford
Stop

European Court

According to the European Court, the privilege

"is primarily concerned, however, with respecting the will of an accused person to remain silent. (...) it does not extend to the use in criminal proceedings of material which may be obtained from the accused through the use of compulsory powers but which has an existence independent of the will of the suspect such as, inter alia, documents acquired pursuant to a warrant, breath, blood and urine samples and bodily tissue for the purpose of DNA testing."

From what I can see this means that you have the privilege of non self-incrimination as long as its a matter of will, i.e. a confession.

This may be the reason that the RIP bill has never been tested in the UK, it could be ground for appeal and the UK government just want the RIP around to scare suspects.

Only Sky can save digital TV

Anthony Sanford
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He cant be watching the same SKY as I watch

There are two points I'd like to make.

Sky is already a Monopoly for satellite TV, and what do we get for this? Over priced Drivel.

Oh yes they do manages to buy some nice series, but mostly its repeats or drivel.

And now somebody want to hand over terrestrial TV to sky, would just create a bigger monopoly than Sky already is, and do you realy believe we would get better programming for this, I think not.

Brit spooks: Yanks are frightful cowboys

Anthony Sanford

Moral High Ground

Well personally I believe the moral high ground is vitally important.

Why? Well two reasons

First it is one of the things that defines who we are as a society i.e. what our values are, for years now "who we are and what we stand for" has become vague but there was still a core, things like an independent judiciary and the rule of law (international or otherwise)

Second: We become hypocrites, we go around nagging various countries about their record o human rights, when we ourselves are guilty of the same things. so why should they pay any attention to us, I wouldn't in their shoes.

In fact one can make a strong case for this sort of behavior playing into the hands of the terrorist recruiters, we have at least one example of this when the UK had a policy of interment in Northern Ireland, what happened? It just swelled the ranks of the IRA, it was totally counter productive and I suspect it will be the same thing with this.

Now all of the things we have talked about have been going on for years (way before 9/11) but the difference was they knew it was wrong and if caught would suffer the consequences (not that it ever happened, but the threat was there) now its officially sanctioned.

Byrne explains the UK's wondrous, biometric, ID card future

Anthony Sanford

Just wait until....

The data for half a million people's gets ether deleted, assigned to the wrong person or corrupted.

Suddenly these people will ether; cease to exist, become de-facto terrorists or iligal immigrants.

I just cant wait.