Posts by Cynic_999

Routes taken by UK prosecutors over supply of modified TV set-top boxes

Seems easy enough to circumvent

The seller just needs to ensure that the box is not sold with the infringing software, but that it can easily be loaded onto it via an Internet download by the purchaser.

I recall buying a Dream Box some years ago. I asked if it could be used to watch encrypted channels without a card. In a very carefully phrased reply, I was told by the seller that he was obviously not permitted to sell equipment that could "hack" subscription channels, and the box was pre-installed with basic software, but that I could do a web search to find firmware downloads that would provide "additional features". Within 5 minutes I had found where to get software that automatically fetched the keys to decrypt many of the major satellite channels (apart from Sky, which uses a pretty hack-resistant encryption method).

ISTM that that particular seller has not broken any laws.

Dodgy dealer on Amazon lures marks towards phishing site

Re: Worrying

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Remember when Amazon just sold stuff and it turned up a day or two later?

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They still do. Last year I bought scores of items from Amazon ranging in price from a few £ to over £1000. Almost everything that had been listed as next day delivery (>50% of my purchases) indeed arrived the following day, with most of the rest arriving within a week. Only a single item that I ordered failed to arrive - and Amazon gave me an immediate refund. The exception was items shipped from China which usually take over a month to arrive - which I expected and which is clearly announced when the order is placed.

Overall I am extremely happy with Amazon's service, and the majority of items I have bought are considerably cheaper than the same item ordered from a UK web site.

Insane blackhats behind world's most expensive ransomware 'forget' to backup crypto keys

Re: Sounds like...

It's not necessarily a government, but I can see that it could be someone who has done this in order to prevent further attacks by making people decide that there is no point in paying up because it won't get their data back. i.e. by poisoning the well.

Publicly kill the hostages and you can ensure that nobody will pay the hostage-takers.

How the NYE leap second clocked Cloudflare – and how a single character fixed it

Re: the code was updated to check if rttMAX was equal to or less than zero

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Then it is not a clock showing UTC...

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Huh? What position would the second-hand be when displaying a second count of 60, and how would that position be different to displaying a second count of 00?

It's not the 24 hour system that's the issue, it's the fact that an analogue dial has 60 divisions (for seconds & minutes) rather than 61 ...

Re: the code was updated to check if rttMAX was equal to or less than zero

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I still don't follow how a time difference between successive "now" instants on the same system could ever be negative if it's measuring UTC.

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Due to how it is implemented.

Imagine you have an analogue clock that shows the exact UTC time. Before, during and after the leap second, the times will be 23:59:59 - 23:59:60 - 00:00:00

But an analogue clock cannot display a time of 23:59:60 There is no number 60 on the dial. The second-hand will always move from second 59 to second 00. So in practice you will have to either stop the clock for a second as it reaches 00:00:00, or knock the second-hand back a notch. If you use the latter method, then it is possible to get the illusion that time is running backwards - look at the clock just before the hand was knocked back, and again just after it was knocked back, and it will seem that time has gone backwards. But both methods will cause strange results in a system that is looking at the current time frequently and using the result to calculate elapsed time.

Drones will be able to carry 120GB footage of you in the shower if Seagate has its way

Re: @Cynic_999 - being seen from the air while naked

There is a magnitude greater probability that the guy in his garden will be seen by someone cleaning his gutters (or the kids next door deliberately looking through/over the fence), and the person in the room seen from a passing lorry or double-decker bus. A drone's useless for that type of thing. Drones can't carry telephoto cameras until you get to the extremely expensive professional camera platform variety (too much vibration & instability for a long lens), and a normal CCD camera would in any case adjust it's exposure to the outdoors and show the inside of the room as a black hole.

And in any case so what? People who are so body-shy that they would be hugely upset by the idea that they might be seen while undressed should not indulge in naked activities in any place that has line-of-sight to anywhere outside the property.

Re: Where are the Drone Jammers then?

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I do, as I've witnessed it.

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Exactly what have you witnessed, and where?

Re: Where are the Drone Jammers then?

Trespass is not a criminal matter in the UK, and prevention of trespass would certainly not be a valid defence to a charge of criminal damage to property worth several £100. I think that the guy with the fishing rod is far more likely to find himself hauled before a court than the guy flying the drone.

Not to mention who would be held responsible should you cause the drone to crash into an expensive car or kill a child.

Re: Where are the Drone Jammers then?

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Given the propensity of the listed types to take advantage of available technology,

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Except that drone technology is unlikely to satisfy that particular goal. Firstly, there are very few places where a person would be visible to a drone while involved in a "private act". Are *you* usually able to be seen from the air while doing anything sexual (or even merely naked)? Secondly the skill required to get a drone to record clear images from close enough to see much even with an HD camera is not trivial (even in auto-pilot mode). Thirdly drones make a fair amount of noise, so getting close enough without the person noticing is unlikely. Fourthly the battery life is measured in minutes, so by the time you have flown to & from location you won't have much time to record much.

If your goal is to take photos of naked people, just take a holiday at a naturist resort and carry a camera in your swim bag.

Hapless scouser scours streets for lost Crimble drone

Re: Generous reward

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Meanwhile a Specsavers voucher for the tool who didn't understand the meaning of line of sight at all times.

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It's easy to lose a drone that is well within line of sight. You can see the thing clearly, but become unsure of which way the thing is pointing. So you move the stick to bring it back, and it promptly disappears into the distance.

Re: Perhaps "geo-fencing" isn't quite the correct term...

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How about "Upon Loss of Signal, Return to Launch Location".

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Most have that feature. Also "return to home when battery gets low" The operator does, however need to switch on the required feature(s) in order for them to work ...

Apple sued by parents of girl killed by driver 'distracted by FaceTime'

Re: Lawyers...

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If you recall Kenneth Noye walked free from court after killing a police officer, later he murdered Stephen Cameron.

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That's because (1) The killing of the police officer was legally justified and therefore was not in fact a crime and (2) courts are not equipped with crystal balls that enable them to see what the defendant will do in future and (3) a trial deals with whether what a person actually did was illegal, it is not about what they might do in future (no matter how likely), and should not convict on the basis that the defendant is a really nasty person who deserves to be punished even if he did not actually break the law (though sometimes that happens).

Joe Public likes drones and regulations, finds UK.gov 'public dialogue'

Re: I'm all for regulation ..

And when the drone you shoot down goes through the windscreen of your neighbour's car, who gets the repair bill?

Bitcoin breaks US$1,000

Re: Some questions...

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If your wallet gets corrupted your, BTC are lost unless you backed it up or can otherwise recover the data.

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Yup. And if your physical wallet gets lost or put in the wash, your £ notes are lost unless you ... erm ... no, they are lost no matter what precautions you might have taken. No way to back up a £50 note ...

And physical wallets are tempting things to steal. No gain for a person who steals my bitcoin wallet - only I (and people I have trusted to have the PW) can use it.

Re: Some questions...

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But when the value of a currency is expected to rise over time, it doesn't circulate -- people hoard it instead.

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To an extent, but not everyone sees Bitcoin as just an investment, and the annual loss of bitcoins will be low enough to make the rise in value extremely slow, meaning that there will be plenty of far better investments. It would be worse than holding cash in an interest-bearing bank account. Land would make a far better investment, for example. It is attractive as an investment at present due to its volatility, not its eventual long-term slow & steady increase. If Bitcoin becomes as popular as the various currencies, the percentage hoarded for long-term investment will become miniscule compared to the amount used for transactions. More foolproof ways would also be devised to prevent the loss of Bitcoins. At present my Bitcoin wallets are backed up in 5 different places, so I am unlikely to lose them, but I must admit that I am the only person who presently knows the passwords, so should I get run over by the proverbial bus, those BTC will be permanently out of circulation ...

Re: Sudden crash coming again?

Huh? How is Bitcoin a fiat currency? Which government or entity do you claim is backing it? On the contrary, Bitcoin is, by design, actual money. Money is anything that people have decided to use as a medium of exchange, but in order to be workable it must have the following qualities:

1) Inherently limited in supply and not abundant

2) Durable

3) Divisable

4) Agreed to be used by sufficient people as a medium of exchange.

Bitcoin has by design the first 3 of those qualities, and the only question is whether point 4 will continue to hold true.

Currency OTOH is something that is supposed to *represent* money while not itself having the qualities of money, but just being more convenient to use - bits of paper are easier to carry around and exchange than pouches of gold dust that must be carefully weighed out for every transaction.

Cash notes are obviously not limited in supply - the mint can print as many as it is ordered to print regardless of whether the money it is supposed to represent exists or not. Its value depends on the government who order its printing to play fair and ensure that no more cash is printed than the government holds a reserve of money of (used to be gold). Which it in fact has not been the case for many decades, making the currency fraudulent and all trades using it an act of faith.

Re: Sudden crash coming again?

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In the UK, and I expect in other countries, it is illegal for employees to be paid in tokens other than cash

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Rubbish. Many people are paid at least part of their remuneration with things other than cash. Share options. Company car. Lunch tokens. Housing. Free or reduced company products. Duck ponds. Moat cleaning etc.

Still others receive their income in currencies other than GBP. So long as all of the remuneration is declared to the tax office - which will put a taxable value on it no matter how it is paid - it is not illegal. I could certainly be paid in bitcoins if I so desired and my employer agreed. I would simply declare the amount in my tax return and the tax office will decide how much income tax I will need to pay (which I have to pay in GBP of course).

Re: Sudden crash coming again?

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Seeing as there is still no material grounds for the valuation, and that with no underlying asset the exposure is 100%

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You could say exactly the same about the British Pound. Which, unlike Bitcoin is currency, not money.

Meet the Internet of big, lethal Things

Re: Do you own it, or not?

Quite a few devices are factory sealed so the user has no access. Many of the mains connectors I use have moulded plugs & sockets so I have no access to the wire-to-terminal connections. Cases are glued together because the user is not expected to ever open it up. Electronics are potted in silicon or epoxy for sound engineering reasons. Heck, I own my double-glazed windows, but that does not mean I should expect to have easy access to the space between the panes.

Firmware can be thought of in the same way. Just like the above examples, you do have access, just not easy access. I can cut open a glued or moulded housing, and I can reverse-engineer protocols and firmware.

Tesla set to up prices by 5% in new year because of 'currency fluctuations'

Reminds me of

A Chinese guy who complained to his bank that last month his Chinese pension was £20 more than this month, despite his pension fund sending the same amount from China.

"Fluctuations," explained the teller

"Well, fluck you Blitish too!" retorted the Chinaman.

Don't pay up to decrypt – cure found for CryptXXX ransomware, again

Re: Follow the money. @emmanuel goldstein

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I'm struggling to think of a legal activity that can be conducted with bitcoin that cannot be done with traditional currency

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That's like saying that you're struggling to think of any legitimate activity that can be done with Linux that cannot be done with Windows. Why shouldn't Microsoft and governments be able to see what you are doing on your computer? Only criminals need to hide their data. If you have nothing to hide .... etc.

But to address the point - Bitcoin is not at all about anonymity. That's just a by-product. It is in fact less anonymous than cash.

Today's traditional "money" is not money at all, it is currency (look it up if you don't understand the difference). The pound sterling doesn't even *represent* money any longer. The value of what you have in the bank is controlled by your government. If your country's economy goes down the pan, so does your life savings if you have been foolish enough to keep it in the form of currency.

Bitcoin is real honest-to-goodness money. Just like gold or cowry shells. It cannot be manufactured in huge amounts by any government, and it cannot be devalued by any government. It's value is dependent only on the World market - i.e. the ordinary people & companies that use it. As most currencies are being continuously devalued (because governments routinely spend more than they have and effectively print currency to make up the deficit, diluting that currency), if Bitcoin becomes sufficiently established, it will see a steady rise over time compared with any currency. I bought £100 of Bitcoin just 3 weeks ago. I could now sell it for £114. Had you bought Bitcoin this time last year, it would be worth almost double today. How does that compare with the interest you are getting from your bank? If I use Bitcoin to buy goods from another country that has a different currency, I will not be giving a significant percentage of the transaction to a millionaire banker for performing a trivial currency exchange. Instead I voluntarily pay a very, very small amount per transaction to a large group of global "miners" for their work in doing the (highly distributed) book-keeping work and ensuring that the transfer is not fraudulent. So long as governments do not sabotage Bitcoin (e.g. by making it illegal or heavily taxing it), it will be an excellent investment and means that you can use all of your money for transaction rather than keeping bankers supplied with yachts and champagne.

But because Bitcoin is not under government control, there is unfortunately a good chance that it will be sabotaged. No doubt with you cheering because you "Don't see the point, except for criminals." I bet you are also quite happy with a few big companies controlling what happens to your data and allowing the government to snoop on your computer activities as well. Because criminals.

Strong non-backdoored encryption is vital – but the Feds should totally be able to crack it, say House committees

Genie & bottle

The idea that releasing a new encryption application or standard that has a backdoor will prevent people from using an existing encryption application that does not have a backdoor is a bit daft. Sure, casual users who have nothing (seriously) illegal to hide, and are perhaps concerned about their wife finding stuff on their PC or their list of passwords will use the default OS encryption software (e.g. "bitlocker") or whatever other encryption software comes as default or has been pushed as the "go to" solution.

I thought that governments might have learned a lesson from (1) the export ban on encryption that was completely ineffective or (2) the clipper chip fiasco - but it looks like instead they are doomed to repeat history.

Most people who are involved in anything seriously illegal will ignore any prohibitions and will be using applications that they trust not to have any back-door. Or steganography so that the authorities will not even know that there is anything that needs to be decrypted.

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@Roland6 ... by placing an obligation on those who retain encrypted data at rest, to retain the keys.

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There is no such obligation under UK law. It remains a defence to the charge of failing to decrypt data that you do not have, nor could you reasonably be expected to recover, the means of decrypting the data.

Like many laws, this law is likely to catch out people who intend nothing illegal, whilst being simple to circumvent by those who do.

Non-existent sex robots already burning holes in men’s pockets

A more achievable solution ...

A realistic AI is a long way off. However, you don't need that at all. All you need is a realistic mechanical body to use as a physical avatar. By placing suitable sensors on both the human and the local avatar s/he is interacting with, the remote avatar can be arranged to mimic all the muscle (and hydraulic) movements of that human, corrected for differences in size & shape between the human and the remote avatar s/he is controlling. A duplex audio link can also be included. This will make it possible to have extremely realistic (and anonymous risk-free) sex with someone else via the Internet.

I'm fairly certain that the technology exists to make a mechanical body that has the same movement capabilities, skin texture and temperature as a person. Facial & tongue movements are probably the most challenging, but I doubt insurmountable.

This is your captain speaking ... or is it?

Nothing in the article suggests that a hacker could get anywhere near any of the flight systems. At most they might get a phone link to the pilot - but you can do that via any of the (unguarded) crew phones.

It's round and wobbles, but madam, it's a mouse pad, not a floppy disk

The source code for a commercial product we sold was safely backed up to 3 floppies, with a master in the fire safe, and several "working copies" throughout the department. This was in the days before desktops had hard drives, and floppies were the only storage we used.

One programmer needed to work on the code, so loaded one of the working copies. The load failed with a disk error - which was not unusual. So he got another working floppy. Same result. Eventually he had determined that none of the half-dozen or so working copies loaded, so he fetched a backup floppy. That failed. So did the next, and so did the last remaining backup. That's when he asked me for the key to the safe to try the master. I did not believe that ALL the disks were faulty, and so tried them in my machine - and sure enough, none worked. But before fetching the master floppy, I took a look at his computer - and discovered that his floppy drive was faulty with the head being permanently supplied with write current ... so every floppy he had tried to load had been erased.

View from a Reg reader: My take on the Basic Income

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Not really. Some people who are willing to work 70 hours for £350 will be so pleased to get £500 for doing nothing that they'll just put their feet up and open another beer. That will make it harder to find people willing to do those low-paid jobs, and will inevitably push up the wages in that sector.

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In most cases it will replace the human unskilled worker with technology. In many cases the technology exists already, but the employer has no incentive to make the necessary capital investment in equipment while he can get a few immigrants to work for next to nothing. In other cases it will create a market so that the tech companies have an incentive to develop the necessary technology.

The former unskilled labourer will be free to do things that may or may not make any money, and some of those will end up doing very worthwhile work that they actually want to do.

Christmas cheer for KCL staffers with gift of extra holiday after IT disaster

Teachers doing timetable planning? It must have been a very small school (with only two teachers). In most schools timetables are drawn up by the admin staff and handed to the teachers. A second's thought would tell you that it would be impossible for each teacher to draw up their own timetable! Mr. Figgs could plan to have IIIC on period 3 every Tuesday, and I might timetable a double physics lesson for that form at the same time.

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It never ceases to amaze me how many people think that staff at schools, colleges and universities only work during term time.

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That's because it's usually perfectly true. I used to be a high school teacher. Preparation for the following term took maybe 4 days. Tops. The rest was pure holiday. That's if I didn't manage to get it done whilst invigilating exams during the last fortnight of the previous term. Maybe a few new teachers go overboard with preparation, but after a couple of years you realise that it doesn't make the slightest difference to the kids, and you can re-hash last year's preparation anyway.

Murdoch's 21st Century Fox agrees £18.5bn Sky takeover deal

Whoever controls the media controls the country

Which is why it's never a good idea to allow one person to have the monopoly.

Poor software design led to second £1m Army spy drone crash

Lack of communication

So it seems that basically the manufacturers did not design the drone to land under such a low cloudbase, but the operators were not informed of that fact.

Reminds me of the pilot's defect report, "Autoland requires adjustment - touchdown was extremely firm!" The engineer's note stated, "This aircraft is not fitted with autoland."

Blue sky basic income thinking is b****cks

Why is work "good"?

Work is often necessary, but why should it be considered a virtue? Not doing work that needs to be done I can agree is bad (lazy), but doing work that is unnecessary is just stupid. If automation has resulted in less work in total being needed to be done, then I do not see any benefit in demanding that everyone works 40+ hours per week.

Perhaps the answer to the situation where there are insufficient (necessary) jobs is to double-shift every job. Then everyone has a job, but works half the number of hours per week. That would result in a huge saving in benefits, so tax can be reduced, meaning that people will be just as well off with half their present salary so business don't have a bigger salary bill. Well - at least that's the general idea, in practice the sums won't quite add up, so we'll also need an adjustment to our present economic model.

The present method of making up for the lack of necessary work by inventing unnecessary jobs doing unnecessary work is screwing with society. Because a lot of the people in unnecessary jobs try to justify their work both to themselves and others by creating problems that didn't need to exist and applying solutions that mess up society. e.g. almost all of the problems blamed on drugs are a result of drug prohibition, and would not exist if drugs had never been declared "a problem".

P0wnographer finds remote code exec bug in McAfee enterprise

Great spyware platform

And AV products make great spyware platforms. It has access to all your files and is not seen as suspicious if it periodically scans all your HDDs. It is also expected to "phone home" on a frequent basis.

Samsung SmartCam: Yes, those eyes really are following you around the room

Re: Letting a small kid alone at home is criminal

If a parent is away and wants contact with their child, the obvious solution is to set up a Skype call. That way the child and stay-at-home parent is not talking to a black camera. Or is the concept of a stay-at-home Dad being able to operate a PC well enough to access Skype too alien to the feminists?

DDoS script kiddies are also... actual kiddies, Europol arrests reveal

Re: Prevention campaign

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Hardly ruining a life by locking up a young adult (ADULT being the key word) for a couple of years.

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Prison changes a person's personality and entire outlook on life. Usually for the worse. Do you also argue that there are no lasting effects of being raped, because the body soon heals?

Think back to Christmas 2014. Think of what you have done & learned between then and now. That's how long a "couple of years" is. More than enough time to become indoctrinated by the people you are locked up with. Enter slightly anti-social. Leas a psychopath. That'll make society better.

Re: Prevention campaign

Every study that has been conducted shows that excessive sentences do not prevent crime. Fear of getting caught deters crime. If a criminal does not seriously believe they will be detected, it doesn't matter what sentence is imposed - in fact most 1st time criminals have no idea what sentence they would get if caught. What's most likely to stop you speeding - a heavier fine, or a lot more (hidden) speed cameras?

TalkTalk hacker gets iPhone taken away by Norwich Youth Court

Re: Ridiculous

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if I have a frontdoor made of cardboard (not the case) and somebody kicks it and nicks my stuff, it is the burglar who is responsible. Not the victim.

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However, if you have a Ming vase on a low table, and a 2 year-old deliberately picks it up and drops it, who is to blame? How about a 3 year-old? 4? 5? The law in England and Wales says the magic age is 10. It's a different age in Scotland and other countries.

But criminal responsibility is not something that magically appears at the age of 10. It develops over time. Sure, a teenager should know that hacking is wrong - but how seriously wrong? Could he have foreseen that the consequences would be quite so serious? Driving at 45MPH in a 40MPH zone is also criminal, but is only seen as serious if it results in someone being killed or seriously injured. Should we lock up everyone who drives 5MPH over the speed limit?

Russian hackers got Trump elected? Yeah, let's take a close look at that, says Obama

Re: What would be really funny ...

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He did mention how having nuclear weapons remain unused made no sense to him.

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Does he also think that having fire extinguishers and airbags remaining unused is similarly senseless?

UK.gov has outsourced tech policy to Ofcom because it is clueless – SNP techie

Re: Britains' Open Prison.

"leave us in a whole world of pain if an authoritarian government gets in to power".

I quite agree. That ship sailed long ago.

Bluetooth 5.0 emerges, ready to chew on the internet of things

Old hat

Hams have been using QRP for long distance comms for decades. Hook a bluetooth device to a decent sized** parabolic dish in China, and it could probably connect to a phone in New York via Moonbounce.

** http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/2016/1-chinacomplet.jpg

Sysadmin told to spend 20+ hours changing user names, for no reason

Why not just do your job?

Yes, doing something you think is stupid and without purpose is frustrating, but if that's what the boss wants, just do it. After all, you'll be paid just the same as if you were doing something you consider useful. As others have said, CYA by sending an email detailing how long it will take and the potential pitfalls and asking for confirmation that you should still go ahead. If you get the confirmation and it is something that is possible and you are capable of doing it, then just do it to the best of your ability - what's the problem? Nobody is going to blame you for someone else's decision.

If you don't like doing things that you do not personally believe is necessary, then become self-employed or start your own company. Otherwise you are being paid to do whatever the boss wants you to do (within your job description), and unless you are a director, however you think the company should be run is irrelevant.

On the flip side, how would you like it if your subordinate or employee refused to do what you asked (or deliberately made it fail) because they thought your idea was stupid? Maybe the idea really is stupid - or maybe you have a bigger plan in mind that you don't want to disclose just yet.

Ugh! Is that your security budget? *Sucks teeth and shakes head*

Money is not a sensible measure of effectiveness

A company who employs a very clued-up I.T. person might have excellent security for an outlay of under £100K p.a, while another company might have terrible security after spunking £millions on a rip-off consultants, a team of "experts" and the latest shinies from Cisco. Security is more down to configuration than equipment.

In almost all things there is only a very loose correlation between cost and effectiveness.

Solar-powered LoRa IoT node: Nice idea but it won't replace batteries

Re: Supercapacitor ?

Supercapacitors have a finite MTBF, max number of cycles and they deteriorate over time just like rechargeable batteries. Capacitors storing voltages under 2V at room temperature have extremely long lifetimes, but if you want to provide 5V in an ambient temperature of 45 deg C, their life can be measured in weeks. http://www.mondragon.edu/en/phs/research/research-teams/electrical-energy/news-folder/workshop/Mondragon%202012_06_22_Gallay.pdf

90 per cent of the UK's NHS is STILL relying on Windows XP

Re: So what?

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After all, there MUST be a way to transfer information in or out or it's useless as a device. As long as method exists, a method can exist to infect it. Not even Sneakernets are immune.

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The I/O can consist entirely of keyboard, VDU and local storage, it does not have to include a plausible attack vector.

So what?

Software does not wear out. It will continue to do the same tasks today as it was doing 15 years ago. Many bugs have been found in that time, but if those bugs did not affect the operations 15 years ago, they won't affect the same operations today. There has of course been more malware developed, but that will only affect systems that are vulnerable to malware attacks - dedicated systems that cannot be seen on the Internet and don't get new applications installed won't get infected with malware. Besides which, malware that is being deployed today is far more likely to be targeting more modern OS's anyway.

So yes, it is bad if the PC's in question are directly on the Internet and/or having new stuff installed, but for PC's on a secure closed network or no network that are used only with original dedicated applications, it really doesn't matter how old the OS is. Some of my CNC machines are running the same OS (usually a Unix variant) that they were supplied with 25 years ago, and I have a Windows 3.11 PC I use very occasionally to make changes to old FPGA designs because the CAD software will not run on anything later, and the more modern FPGA CAD applications can't read the original design files (and probably don't support long obsolete Xilinx chips anyway).

What would you like to do? Spunk £billions of taxpayer's money on 1) upgrading hardware, 2) buying new OS licences, 3) contracting a software company to re-write all your bespoke applications for the new OS 4) Re-training staff for the inevitable differences in the way it works and 5) compensating for the inevitable delays, bugs and screw-ups?

Sometimes the saying, "If it works, don't fix it" is very relevant.

Earth days are getting longer – by 1.8 milliseconds per century

Re: margin of error

Then the result would be out by about 0.001mS. I was working backwards precisely to determine the level of accuracy that was required.

Re: margin of error

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A margin of error of 1 second/century would completely screw up this entire calculation.

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No it wouldn't. If the day is longer by 1.8mS per century, then that equates to an accumulated time difference of about 33 seconds over that century (average difference is 0.9mS per day, accumulated difference is therefore 100 * 365.25 * 0.9 mS = 32872.5 mS)

Over 1000 years the average accumulated change would be nearly an hour (average change over 1000 years = 9mS, accumulated change is therefore 1000 * 365.25 *9 = 3287250 mS)

I trust that the boffins have taken into account the change in the Moon's orbital period, which will also have been affected by tidal forces and so alter the time of the eclipses.

Could this be you? Really Offensive Security Engineer sought by Facebook

Indigenous need not apply

Ever since I read a poster in a police station advertising, "Asian man wanted for rape," I realised that all the good jobs get given to foreigners ...

Information on smart meters? Yep. They're great. That works, right? – UK.gov

Re: estimated net "benefit" of £5.7bn by 2020

@Blotto

ISTM that it is you who needs your bum wiping if you cannot save during Summer to cover your Winter bills. My experience is that even if you supply your reading every month, your DD payments are only adjusted at the end of the year. As for knowing how much you are using and will be charged at the end on each month - that's exactly what the smart meter will tell you - it keeps a running display of energy usage in both kWh and £s

Re: Umm....

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Since I've had a Solar PV (1.8Kw) array installed I monitor my consumption and generation quite keenly. Even at this time of year the old style meter runs backwards during the daylight even if it is pretty cloudy.

"

A 1.8kW solar panel in the UK will generate about 1700kWh per year (if you are lucky)

(source http://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/how-much-electricity-does-average-solar-panel-system-generate)

1700kWh of electricity bought from a supplier will cost about £250 in my area

(source - my electricity bill)

A 1.8kW PV panel will cost about £3000

(source http://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/2kw-solar-panel-system-costs)

Therefore you might break even after 12 years. Assuming the PV panel is still functioning at close to full power (unlikely).

Of course there may be additional benefits in government subsidies, but you cannot rely on the taxpayer being milked to give you some free energy forever. If electricity costs rise (almost certain), you will break even a bit sooner. But there are also interest charges if you are paying for the panels in instalments.