Posts by Doctor Syntax

Black Horse Down: Lloyds Banking Group goes TITSUP*

Re: Johnny Cash

Maybe they thought his name was appropriate for a bank.

"Total Inability To Support Usual Pecuniary activity"

That's an improvement. Not long ago they were impecunious.

ICANN gives domain souks permission to tell it the answer to Whois privacy law debacle

Generally speaking, law overrides contract terms. If the ICANN contract requires the other party to do something illegal then surely that clause would be unenforceable.

Now let's think about the more complicated aspects: if an EU citizen registers a domain with a non-EU registrar is that registrar obliged to follow EU legislation? If so how does the EU bring the registrar to account if it has no EU residency and how does the registrar discover that citizenship of the registrant?

Landlubber northern council shores up against boat-tipping

Re: I wonder if...

"Doesn't anyone who own a small boat and trailer ever look in the rearview mirror?"

No point. There's a boat blocking the view.

Re: One of these days...

"I can't off hand remember a time when you would have been welcome at your local recycling centre with a boat"

If the site at High Wycombe is still being run on the lines it used to be you wouldn't even need to unhitch it yourself.

Re: One of these days...

"Mine did that, and now they're embroiled in a court case to work out if it's legal"

Do you have a link to any reports of this. I'm sure a lot of us would be interested in the outcome.

My local council instituted similar shenanigans a little while ago which included registering vehicles, limits on the size of vehicle that could visit the sites, the size of trailers and removing the rubble and plasterboard skips. Everybody told them it would increase fly tipping and end up costing them more but they went ahead. Oddly enough, fly tipping has increased.

Tesla share crash amid Republican bid to kill off electric car tax break

Re: The US has an inverted system

"Again, the wealthy liberals getting tax breaks in the name of the green movement."

You mean wealthy conservatives aren't allowed to get them?

TalkTalk glitch causing mobiles and landlines to go off at the same time

"They may be shite, but they are consistently shite"

That's ISO9000 for you. So long as the quality of performance is consistent it doesn't matter what the actual quality is.

One customer deserved the issue as "another **** up from TalkTalk". He said: "I have emailed the CEO's office as its an absolute joke! My broadband hasn’t worked properly for 5 months and constant issues, they are still happy to take the payment every month.

And he still can't work out what to do about it?

US says it's identified six Russian officials as DNC hack suspects

Prosecutions? I'd have thought Trump would have given them some kind of reward.

Guess who's now automating small-biz IT jobs? Yes, it's Microsoft

"But this might be tolerable compared to a situation ...where borking your password locks you out. If it's after 2PM, you may as well head to the bars because the IT department is on the other coast and won't arrive until 5AM."

What happens when the PHB who's running it locks himself out?

So, tell us again how tech giants are more important than US govt...

Re: Applying pressure on Twitter

"If they push too hard, Twitter doesn't have to be based in the US."

If they push too hard none of the multinational tech businesses have to be based in the US as legal entities. Running down the US-based resources could take longer but could happen. All the US govt would then be able to apply pressure to would be a local subsidiary or, for added distance, a local franchise.

Hardware has never been better, but it isn't a licence for code bloat

It ain't necessarily so

At least, not as far as program size is concerned.

This morning I've just installed upgrades for 3 graphicsmagic packages, 2 tzdata packages and wpasupplicant. Overall it reported freeing 116kB of disk.

Official: Perl the most hated programming language, say devs

"I can expect sh, awk and sed to exist ... and to behave exactly as they did a few decades ago. Two decades from now the same will likely be true."

Unfortunately one place you'd expect sh to exist is in /etc/init.d but that's looking dubious.

Re: Horses for courses

"hard to say whether perl or C wins the designed for obfuscation award"

I thought APL was the outright winner of that trophy.

Re: Perl's issues are not Perl as such

@ Adam 1

Can't agree more about Delphi. AFAICS it reached its best at about D7 & then rapidly headed downhill. As luck would have it that was as far as I needed to go with it but continued with some sporadic FPC & Lazarus on Linux and only then for my own use.

What you didn't mention was the way in which it (and Lazarus) build GUIs. I took a look at both the Gnome & Qt/KDE offerings before going with Lazarus.

Competition law could help solve data-slurping monopolies, peers told

Re: Fair point....

"The average age of a lord is 69"

Ah. The typical PC ageist is still with us. Would you make a similar statement using gender or race as a measure of competence?

Google Drive ate our homework! Doc block blamed on code blunder

Re: Swept away

"But you never hear about them because each one is a tiny, uninteresting event that affects only the person who did it."

It depends. If you lose your own data the part I've highlighted is true.

If, on the other hand, you're a DBA or sysadmin for your own company it can affect multiple users. If you're any good in that role it makes you a bit paranoid because they're colleagues and the potential effects on the overall ability of the company to function affects its ability to keep paying you. That's without the separate risk of being fired. But you'll never hear about those cases because unless they're serious enough to have visible knock-on consequences to the company's performance they'll not be publicised.

Only if the data is that of other companies where, as here, the data is that of clients will the situation be immediately and conspicuously public.

It's as well to remember that the number of staff won't scale as fast as the size of the system. The in-house staff for a small business might still be one, just as with the individual data holder. With a larger business it will still only be a comparative handful. At Google scale the staff to user ratio will be minute. Providing the situation can be retrieved in bulk it's not a problem but if it had to be handled on a case-by-case basis sorting out a "small percentage" at Google scale could become nigh on impossible.

Re: It wasn't just the flagging, it's Google scans your documents

"For these cretins, they were only being blocked FROM VIEWING AND SHARING these docs"

AIUI one of the purposes of Google docs is to allow online editing by multiple users which requires viewing and sharing rather than downloading.

Re: Vapourous clouds

"Are you sure about that? Because I'm not."

We're on the same wavelength. The OP wrote "Yours [i.e. your computer" doesn't do that [i.e. shard data and store it in multiple geographically dispersed data centres]." He was right. My computer doesn't do that. It stores it out of Google's reach. Even my mail service provider is UK-based.

Re: Misreading the problem

"Not really sure why people are downvoting you."

Because the implicit argument is that it's no more difficult for a company to control another company's policies than it is to control its own.

Re: Misreading the problem

"Companies are making their content so secure that not even the users can access it "

That, when it happens, is in the control of the company concerned. It's not only the responsibility but also within the power of the company to manage it. When it's another company doing it it's not so easily resolvable.

Re: Modern day serfdom

I would rather have that than "real" property rights by paying for Office on a PC... until the next version of Office comes out and everything is incompatible.

You do realise, don't you, that there are similarly free good, working alternatives that you can run on your own computer? Or maybe you don't.

Re: Vapourous clouds

"Gmail for instance encrypts and shards the database for your email across hundreds of servers across multiple geographically dispersed data centers. Your computer doesn't do that."

No, it doesn't. It keeps it out of US jurisdiction. Even out of extravagantly claimed US jurisdiction.

"Your Google car has been halted on the overtaking lane of the M1 for violating its T&Cs"

UK.gov: Snoop laws not 'significant' obstacle to EU data protection talks

Re: @ Rono666

"'If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.' - Melchett"

The Leavers to a tee. You must have seen the light, Codejunky.

Re: Should not?

"Whatever happened to evidence and certainty?"

You simply commission the evidence providers to get you the result that you know, with certainty, that you want. See PHE.

Car insurers recoil in horror from paying auto autos' speeding fines

Re: From the department of stupid ideas

"As for wrong side of the street Chloe, you could just park on the other side to avoid trailing cables."

Streetlights on one side of the street- or alternating - only are a thing. So that would mean trailing cables across the whole street.

I get the impression that Williams hadn't thought about the possibility of this question in advance and wasn't very good at thinking on his feet. It's a pity he didn't get the obvious follow-up questions. "The vehicle is doing 70mph in the overtaking lane when a software update becomes available. What happens then? Does this mean that the vehicle veers off the road to apply the update? Isn't that the scenario you were trying to avoid and now you've caused it? And what happens when there are several adjacent vehicles of the same model in close proximity, all trying to get off the road to apply their updates?"

Re: I thought my opinion of MPs could go no lower

"TV presenters don't know a thing."

Generalise much. Let's start with a certain David Attenborough. And then let's follow up with a certain Brian Cox. Now I've pointed you in the right direction I'm sure you can think of more exceptions to your rule.

"There was a nearby town (Hampton) that was nearly disincorporated (dissolved) for being a speed trap."

Many years ago there was a scandal involving traffic police in one UK metropolitan area and another force loaned some officers who didn't know the area to take over. The husband of a colleague told us that he'd just been stopped for speeding.

"What speed do you think you were doing, sir?"

"Forty."

"And what is the speed limit on this road?"

"Forty"

<gulp?

"Oh!"

Hells door-bells! Ring pieces paralyzed in horror during Halloween trick-or-treat rush

Re: Advertise you are out

"crap actor pretending to be a parcel delivery drone on the ads."

I wouldn't see such an ad. What made it crap? Did he actually deliver parcels?

Algorithms, Henry VIII powers, dodgy 1-man-firms: Reg strokes claw over Data Protection Bill

Re: A problem for democracy

"reading about what the local parties are doing"

Reading about what local parties are doing is not the same as being prepared to receive spam. In fact, what they do may well not be the same as what they say. I'm old-fashioned enough to rely on the former.

Re: A problem for democracy

"Any candidate who tried to "engage" me that way would be granted a swift lesson in rules of engagement."

Well, at least it's swift

For avoidance of doubt, there is only one rule of engagement: we do not do business with spammers.

Re: A problem for democracy

"What form? I've never filled in any form giving politicians, local or otherwise my email address nor would I."

Then you won't be getting any e-mails. Also, the local political parties will know nothing of your views.

You haven't answered the question. What form? Let me rephrase my explanatory sentence: "I've never seen any form etc"

Where would these forms be?

clicking an unsubscribe link so they never e-mail you again that you'd silence important democratic communication then you've no-one to blame but yourself when the politicians ignore your views.

You clearly haven't grasped the difference between specific emails and spam. I have, on several occasions, had email conversations with my MP of the day - inevitably with no useful outcome - but neither of them has used that opportunity to spam which was sensible of them. But at least they had my views to ignore. Spam, on the other hand does not provide them with my views to ignore, it simply clutters up my in-box with theirs.

Ask yourself this: if you can tell a man by the company he keeps what does it tell you about a man who keeps company with Nigerian princes, Viagra merchants, phishers and all the other slime at the bottom of the internet?

Re: Bah!

"Magna Carta"

We EoLed that on its 800th anniversary. Legacy legislation. It had all that non-Agile stuff about due process of law.

Fine, OK, no backdoors, says Deputy AG. Just keep PLAINTEXT copies of everyone's messages

Re: Lots of criminals in here

> sexagenarian

It's an attitude, not necessarily a physical age. Some people refuse to grow up and accept the world as it is.

Some of us seem to have seen rather more of the world as it is than yourself.

Re: Lots of criminals in here

"I have nothing to hide"

You must have given that one password is no information at all. Either that or you make no use of online facilities at all.

It's also possible that you haven't read the T&Cs of any online services you use because unless they were written by teenagers they'll forbid you from disclosing log-on credentials. Even if you don't see the significance of hiding stuff yourself you'll find yourself contractually bound to hide it nonetheless and bound by people who do see that significance. You will actually be helped in this, in spite of yourself, by the fact that these days any competently provided remote log-in will use an encrypted link.

Finally, you should reflect that some of us have spent years investigating crimes and really don't see why TPTB should facilitate the commission of crimes by having sensitive material flying around in plaintext. We're also well aware that those who are already intending to break laws are not going to be inconvenienced by being provided with more laws to break when they choose some non-govt-sanctioned communication system.

"Many cyberattacks are directed by foreign governments. When you are up against the military or intelligence services of a foreign nation-state, you should have our federal government in your corner,"

I am not a US citizen or resident. The federal government is a foreign government as far as I'm concerned*. For me this is a cyberattack by a foreign nation-state.

Freudian slip? I typed cynerattack.

*This is probably a very difficult concept for any US politician or government lawyer to understand as they don't seem to be aware of their own borders except when they want everywhere in the US to be within 100 miles of them

Re: Lots of criminals in here

OK, unwanted triumphalism. Please post here, in plain text, all your banking details: bank name, account number, login credentials, same for any Amazon, eBay, PayPal and any other financial or trading accounts you have. Also, if you log into any work computers, post your login names and passwords. And also for Twatter, Farcebook and anything else.

After all, you're not a criminal and YOU HAVE NOTHING TO HIDE. But first, go and read the T&Cs of all those accounts and also read up on what the https:// in the forum (inter alia) URL means.

IBM's Phase Change Memory computer can tell you if it's raining

"Without all the interconnectedness"

Sure, you'd have to add the interconnections. As it stands it's not complete. But the ability to do this at the density of memory cells does shove it well up the parallelisation scale and could make it an enabling technology.

This sounds like a technology for building neural networks with something like the degree of parallelism that the brain uses.

Advisory body to 'reconsider' ethics of hanging onto 'mugshots'

" left on a bus/train/ wine bar/strip joint and tattoo parlour...."

.. under a pile of leaves.

If the subject is innocent then it's difficult to see how the policing provisions in the data protection laws can apply. Time for the ICO to start fining a few police forces.

Bored 'drivers' pushed Google Waymo into ditching autopilot tech

Re: Attention Test Required

"in some of the software I develop I use deliberate random errors in certain dialogues, to spot humans trying to answer questions without inspection or thought."

You work for Microsoft?

Health quango: Booze 'evidence' not Puritan enough, do us another

Maybe these are the experts Gove had in mind when he said not to trust them.

C'mon, edgelords: The APIs are ours to command – do we do good or evil?

"The APIs are yours to command."

That's what they want you to think.

Updating Things: IETF bods suggest standard

Re: Seems sensible

How about a standard that mandates that a device will stop working 12 months after deployment or the last update whichever comes later? On the face of it IoT vendors will love it and fall over themselves ti implement it: built-in obsolescence. Then hit them with merchantable quality cases when they don't distribute upgrades.

Microsoft slowly closes Outlook Premium's door while Office 365 winks at you across the street

They may have closed subscriptions but my /dev/null Hotmail page is still trying to offer it to me. And, having discovered that I'm running an ad-blocker, trying to offer me an ad-free account.

Boffins befuddled over EU probe into UK's tax rules for multinationals

Re: It might still be relevant after Brexit, just not necessarily for the Brits

"the EU is already of the opinion that a guy in Wisconsin selling his online fishing guide to visitors from the EU should charge and submit accurate VAT reports to all 28 member states"

That's reasonable. It ensures the IRS will get complete tax reports on him as the US govt. is entitled to copies any data it wants held in all EU states.