Posts by GrahamsTenPenneth 39 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Oct 2012
I (just a person) pay more tax than some people earn as salary, even through PSC.
If these multi-million dollar businesses employing thousands of contractors like me each of whom pay tax... well it's not rocket science is it.
The coffers at the treasury would be nicely filled.
The HMRC are trying to turn high-earning contractors (paying lots of tax) into lower-paid employees paying less tax.
It's easy to see how ...er... they are ...er.. increasing the treasury's take. .. ?
I'm not seeing anyone winning with this IR35 legislation, but the train's left the station now, so there's no listening to rational arguments.
Just shut up and pay tax.
The same people who argue like "same as everyone else" guy also like speed cameras.
(Don't get me started)
So Microsoft are buying GitHub, no to own the source code, but to get it on Azure.
There next big target is to take some of AWS's business.
They don't really care about GitHub itself right now, so they'll let the GitHub guys play on their own I'm sure.
Soon we'll see a rebranding of "GitHub on Azure" or something.
Remember how they got rid of NetScape by leveraging Windows Desktops integration with IE.
But it doesn't always work.
Windows Phone anyone?
"Windows 10: it's only a little bit crap. And really, that's better than we could have hoped for."
O please.
Why would I want an OS which ... well basically I don't own.
Why don't Microsoft just come out and admit it's heart is just not in the OS market any more.
Take a wild guess which desktop OS I use? HINT: It's currently wiping the floor in the smartphone market.
"RC6 is not proprietary, it's algorithm is public. It's even on Wikipedia. "
"It is a proprietary algorithm, patented by RSA Security."
"RC6 is a patented encryption algorithm (U.S. Patent 5,724,428 and U.S. Patent 5,835,600)."
- wikipedia
"as it will look like a packet with noise in it. "
So we look for UDP packets with "noise", which are obviously the bulk of the internet traffic!
Thanks for making my points.
"Applebaum suggests that those interested should look for samples that use the RC6 block cipher and which emit encrypted UDP traffic."
If traffic is encrypted it will be TCP.
An proprietary non-standard cypher which is emitting rare UDP traffic.
Shouldn't be hard to spot.
Why would someone disguising traffic using such an easily detectable hack.
Just means this article is BS.
Actually I have had to organise several repairs to the fibre trunks that run under the Atlantic and Indian oceans.
This costs in the region of a million dollars to organise any work on even a single undersea trunk.
If they have a L2 hack they would have to send the data somewhere via something else.
If they are sending the data along the same trunk it would impact the limited bandwidth and stick out like a sore thumb.
We are talking of a large trunk here so exactly what would carry that data?
Another 100gig trunk?
That's a 1 billion dollar operation to construct and lay it.
All without even a Russian or Chinese satellite seeing it.
Valeyard, I'm also not stupid.
I don't run Windows and wouldn't have it in my house.
I also don't have an iPhone or a stupid Windows phone.
I like to be able to run something which I can see has no vulnerabilities, not something a secretive company tells me I can trust.
Alfred, I think you are somewhat missing the point.
The American government actively promoted aliens stories to explain tech created during wartime.
They are prone to this kind of misinformation.
I'm not stupid, I can do the maths (the English version, not the American "math")
I'm saying I'll get a good nights sleep tonight, nooooo problem.
"You foster parents are dead!"
O I have imagination all right.
I also have worked in the IT industry for the last 20 years, including in biometric, supercomputing , and security fields.
I current work in financial IT where I look after a great deal of Cisco ASA firewalls.
I have a good idea what is possible, and this is just another wet dream.
15 years ago there wasn't the tech to harvest and store this kind of data, nor did the consumer tech exist off which to harvest it.
Don't you think they would have block this articles release if they have that much IT power?
The guy would be in prison or dead before this article got out.
Next you'll say there are aliens walking among us :)
Think about it:
There are >7 billion people in the world.
If even a tenth have access to cellphones and computers that's >700million.
Exactly how many staff do the NSA have to monitor 700million people?
1,000? 10,000? 100,000?
Even at 100,000 staff that's one member of staff to monitor 7000 people 24/7/365.
Using supercomputers to filter down candidates you MAY get that down.
Heuristic biometric software is not that good, but lets say it is able to filter that down to 10% or even 1% (which is science fiction "universal translator" anyone).
Can one person monitor 70 people's phone and internet activity constantly all day, all year, day and night?
Bear in mind this is 100,000 staff (same as the whole of Microsoft) and using estimates of filtering based on 24th century techniques.
"Person of Interest" is a fantasy TV show, not reality.
AC your a cock.
"when they want to use a version of Office that actually works"
I'm using LibreOffice in a Windows only environment at work.
I'm the only person in this company of (100,000+ staff) who doesn't have problems opening and editing Visio files ...in LibreOffice Draw!!!
I'm the only person in the same company who doesn't have problems opening and EDITING pdf files.
Everyone else is locked into MS Visio in the virtual application centre or some BS, or having IT tell them to get lost when they request Acrobat.
I'm the only person who doesn't have issues using MS Communicator or Lync or whatever, because I use Pidgin instead.
I'm in a large company which is a closed Windows shop.
I asked IT if I could install VirtualBox and they were fine with that.
I now run Ubuntu on top of Windows and it runs applications faster and more reliably than the Windows 7 installed corporate equivalents ON THE SAME MACHINE.
So MS can stick it as far as I'm concerned.
Case closed!
It was Windows 98 actually.
Mandrake 8 (I believe)
..then Fedora (2 at the time)
..then Debian Sarge
..then Ubuntu (Fiesty was the first version used)
Currently Xubuntu Saucy
I believe Windows XP came out some time between Windows 98 and now.
I have a VirtualBox copy somewhere I use for testing.
O by the way, my clients are all windows shops.
Sorry, your point ..?
What distribution offers 10+ years of support at a price lower than Windows?
---Ubuntu (LTS support + repositories still live from first version)
---RedHat/CentOS
---shall I continue?
What distribution runs the standard software most business users need?
---Most mainstream distros (LibreOffice/CIFS/Wine)
What distribution runs my games?
---You games ...? iPad? Xbox?
What distribution supports my hardware and my usage pattern? Voice/pen?
---Linux kernel has wacom tablet support, TTS (espeak) and voice recognition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_recognition_in_Linux take your pick)
What distribution is better at running my developer tools than Windows?
--Your developer tools? Eclipse has fully support for MSVC development?
Oh wait - none of them. So what IS the benefit once I strip fanatism and rhetorics?
--Really which planet are you on?
---Pot calling the kettle black, maybe?
I have a TV, but it's connected to a laptop so I can watch stuff I've downloaded.
I can't remember the last time I actually watched something which came via the aerial.
There just doesn't seem to be any point in watching some dripfeed dribble the broadcaster happens to have aired at the time I'm actually seated infront of the box.
I'm going to get a big monitor or projector which I will pay for in saved licence fee.
British Broadcaster of Crap.
Your foster parents are dead
Not talking about Windows, I mean the company.
There was an email a while back from Bill Gates complaining about the website experience.
I think this was generally met with a "whatever...!"
This was when he was still CEO.
Google is getting with aggressive marketing campaigns and Apple is having yet another second wind.
It appears MSFT is looking stagnant (the share price) and dividends are no longer competitive.
I hear even in the background IBM have woken back up from hibernation now that it appears the behemoth is heading toward heat death.
I expect them to bring out OS/3 next year.
Everyone and his mother is join the tree huggers: Google, Apple, Samsung, ... to name but a few.
Of course Intel, AMD and ARM have always had thriving open source projects.
Goodbye Microsoft, it's been fun.
"No, they behave like Linux. Looks aren't very important honestly, your Desktop Environment may emulate Microsoft's efforts, but the underlying OS does not. Its a fragmented disaster at best when everything's playing nice. Its an unusable non-functional monster when things are not working well."
"Of course, this is all heresy and its unlikely to win me any friends, but its the truth and truth hurts."
Speaking(typing?) as someone who deploys Xubuntu to every Windows user who comes with problems I can say this is NOT the truth.
I suggest Linux to most people who have problems with Windows.
These are your average non-tech users, like mother's of young children, psychiatrists or church members who want a stable machine to show and play hymns.
All of the above have apprehension when I set up dual boot and I demonstrate how it works.
All of them have long since abandoned Windows (even though it is still easily available) and are still using Linux exclusively through their own choice.
When I ask them, they sing the praises of the fast OS which doesn't lock up, crash out or get viruses and just keeps working.
These test cases alone show that give the user a real choice they go for the stable, secure OS which will work tomorrow as it does today.
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