Posts by Malachy

Salesforce.com to empower corporate Twitter snooping

Yawn a Twitter/sales force press release

Seriously, is no one bored of twitter articles yet?

If someone can show me even 1 relatively sane way that this service could ever show a profit I'd look at it again, but it just looks like a fad that slipped by the credibility filters of some well known people.

@Pete: I think you are right. Twitter is just holding on so another company can pick them up as an on-going concern.

Although I doubt anyone would make it a pay service, was thinking maybe myspace, facebook or a mobile telcom might take it on and offer it as a free service

Obama releases Dubya's secret anti-terror memos

@Kevin - Not quite mate

Kevin instead of sticking up for a looney who systematicaly tried to remove every single part of the constitution, you know the document that America was founded on? The one that goes on about "freedoms"?

CHECK YOUR FACTS

Patriot act signed into law October 26, 2001

only two of the 9 nine leaked memos were dated before this, and arguably the scarier ones like allowing US Army to operate on american soil were well after the act was made law.

Alos the supreme court never intervened in any parts of the act. And as the were SECRET memos yes this is news.

Music industry's Irish ISP shakedown letter leaked

Fecking Eircom

I don't understand why eircom capitulated after a day in court, they are only encouraging the bastards.

Like a lot of the posters have previously mentioned, I would ask them to detail EVERY url they wanted to ban. Of course to speed that process up I would give them a standardised form of at least 26 pages for each url they wanted to block. Explaining why it needed to be blocked, what proof they had, mothers maiden name and independent verifcation from 26 seperate legal offices and the pope (we are in Ireland).

Plus no where in the legal documentation does it say that you are not allowed to charge for the work (blocking the url's) or a monthly service fee for every url blocked :-)

BlackBerry takes Monday afternoon off

@Clemens Wachter

Rule of three?? Anyway, you have an arbitary figure of 0.001% = 20 hrs. Ignoring the fact you used 0,001 and therfore 1 and also 99,999% where did you get a period of 20hrs?

US wants trucks mounted with frikkin' laser beams

re: Ned Ludd Lives

Regarding the Enigma code breaking.

I dont think anyone on a tech site would even pretend that any type of encryption is unbreakable, and would probably have better ideas than brute force attacks.

This isnt WW2, this is a time where America has to come up with new tech because they are being slapped about by people with tubes that shoot little bombs that decided they wouldnt use the latest gear but old gear and old tactics.

You seem to be calling people that have doubts about the technical aspects of the project neo luddites, however there are some posts that have made very interesting, very technical points. Also you have provided no counter-claims/information. In fact the only point you have made is the speeds of various munitions, completly ignoring the complexities of tracking and hitting the objects. Nuff said indeed

..AND AL QAEDA BUY TRUCK MOUNTED PRISMS

lol, what about chaff? surely by having a large amount of mettalic fragments in the area over/near a target would both disupt the laser but also its tracking radar? chaff ($100) - laser (a hell of a lot more). just a thought.

Breakfast with bin Laden

Arrrghhh...

ifyoudontlikethistypeofarticledontreadit </rant> ahhhh, and relax. Seriously though, everyone keeps looking at america and going "oh they are terrible, they elect bush again and then he takes away all their freedoms". Do you think Blair/Brown (I've stopped being able to tell the difference) have any other ideas?

We may not be losing as many freedoms by law, but those same freedoms are now 'monitored' and thats no different at all. Also the government want to monitor more and more every week.

Mid year resolutions.

-Next census I'm going to put in the most random data I can think of.

-Lie blatantly to any government agency, telemarketer, survey or anyone who asks me for information about myself.

-Change all of my streets numberplates to the same number.

-constantly wear a balaclava

etc.(you get the idea) if the databases are filled with invalid data, then they become disinformation tools and useless.

Becta gives schools biometric data guidance

What is the point?

Cube stole some of my thunder here, but, as stated do we really belive that this data won't be used for any other use?

And also the amount of money that these systems will cost would be huge. Knowing government tenders (NHS system anyone?), this will be a disaster. Plus, the only uses they've stated is to:

speed up lunch queues - how exactly? Knowing how effective biometrics have been so far, imagine how many '404 - fingerprint not found' msgs kids will get. Plus how is a kid going to get his lunch if the computer decides its not him?

remove the stigma of school meals - I didnt remember anyone giving a crap about that in school, and surely an effective anti-bullying policy would deal with the matter more effectivly than a large IT project (and cheaper).

speed up register taking - how long does it take to read out a list of names?

prevent access - give me a break! If people want to get in they will. Grab a first year, march him to a door and grab his finger, end of.

Basically some people have attended some seminars saw lots of flashing lights and thought:" that would be so cool". Plus who is going to pay for it, the schools themselves, or will it come from the education budget (all 10p) as a whole? This is such a bad idea i dont know where to begin.

Belgian ISP will appeal order to block file-sharing

Precedents

I think that this is a bad decision. Forcing ISPs to start monitoring traffic for copyright infringement is a first step to even more restrictions on the flow of information. I would love to see what governments would do if more of the populace started becoming a lot more tech savvy. i.e. using encryption, anonymising services etc.

Also it is worth noting that if Belgian law is not based on precedents then this ruling only applies to the ISP named in the judgement. Should SABAM wish other ISPs to fall into line they will have to take them to court as well, and of course the previous ruling can have no effect on the outcome of subsequent trials. It'sx just bullying by SABAM