Posts by Commswonk

Controversial American bigwig in London... no, not Trump: HPE ex-CEO Meg Whitman to give Autonomy trial evidence

It's not unusual.

Brilliant. Could almost be a song title in its own right.

Swedish court declines to detain Belmarsh prison resident Julian Assange

Master of his own destiny.

And, I suggest, Chief Architect of his own misfortune.

It's a Hull of lot more: Macquarie offers £563m for fibre network flinger KCOM

Re: Oh dear, that's them ruined

He who sups with the Devil should have a long spoon.

Facebook ordered to open internal docs for investors livid about losing cash following data slurp scandal

Re: A Joy to Behold

I wrote: I am still somewhat baffled that investors would put money into Facebook without getting the appropriate level of voting rights in exchange.

To postulate an answer to my own question... perhaps the investors didn't care while Facebook was making lots of money; nudge, nudge, wink, wink; know what I mean?

However when the revenue stream stalled the investors suddenly decided to make waves. If that is the case it might suggest that investors' ethical standards are not greatly different from Facebook's / Zuckerberg's.

Time, perhaps for the "which is more likely" test.

Re: A Joy to Behold

Costing investors money?

I am still somewhat baffled that investors would put money into Facebook without getting the appropriate level of voting rights in exchange.

To my untutored eye it looks more than somewhat foolish, but hell, what do I know?

A Joy to Behold

I simply lurve that haunted, shifty look on The Zuck's face...

IEEE tells contributors with links to Chinese corp: Don't let the door hit you on Huawei out

If it hadn't before...

The Thought Police have become a reality in the US.

Not nice.

Aside: I never know if it should be "Police has" or Police have"...

Tesla's autonomous lane changing software is worse at driving than humans, and more

Re: Autopilot is itself Incomplete

What do you mean, "does that include you?"

I am not for one moment trying to excuse bad drivers; they should be held to account for their mistakes particularly if damage or injury (or worse) is the outcome.

However I do not see why a driver should be held to account for a mistake made by the hardware / software built into the vehicle. If a manufacturer provides me (at my cost) with facilities that are supposed to make my life easier (for want of a better description) then if those facilities fail and they make my or other peoples' lives worse then it should be the manufacturer, not me, that should be held accountable.

Re: Autopilot is itself Incomplete

From the article A Tesla spokesperson retaliated and said: “Navigate on Autopilot is based on map data, fleet data, and data from the vehicle’s sensors. However, it is the driver’s responsibility to remain in control of the car at all times, including safely executing lane changes.”

A better example of trying to weasel out of any responsibility it would be hard to find.

Tesla is selling cars with supposedly fancy electronics badged as "driver assist" or somesuch, but attempting to divest itself of any blame if anything doesn't work as it should or as is expected. Has Elon Musk been given a Get Out of Jail Free card in respect of product liability laws? Another Ralph Nader is needed - desperately.

Who in their right mind would buy a Tesla after reading a slopey - shoulder statement like that?

Uh-oh .io: Question mark hangs over trendy tech startup domains as UN condemns British empire hangover

Re: No different?

@Simon B-52: If you don't see a massive difference between these two cases, then look again.

Perhaps it depends upon where the viewer is standing. From the Palestinian viewpoint it almost certainly looks just the same.

Disclaimer: I am not Palestinian; neither do I have any "middle east connections".

Re: Those who do not learn history...

@ Thoguht: So, sorry and all, but history is jam-packed full of stuff like this.

I'm not sure why you have attracted so many downvotes unless it is because you have stated something that is simultaneously true but unpopular and "unfashionable". History is littered with instances where a colonial power (sadly, often but not always the UK) has trampled all over indigenous peoples and dispossessed them.

For consistency the UN should castigate Spain for its ongoing occupation of Ceuta & Melilla (a move that could possibly result in the UK losing Gibraltar, although its status as British is the outcome of a treaty with Spain) while at the same time insisting that it (Spain) returns the gold that it plundered from South America centuries ago.

Again for some sort of consistency is the UN going to insist that Britain rescinds the Balfour Declaration and then demand that the country currently known as Israel be returned to its original occupants? I don't see that happening any time soon, although insisting that the Chagos Is be returned to the Chagossians is in reality no different.

Sadly History is messy, and not always "fair". Unravelling it might prove even messier.

Coverage concerns dog UK Emergency Services Network as boss admits scheme too ambitious

Re: 3 billion pounds?

...a private equity company bought it so they could make a profit, and they now have a monopoly position and can charge monopoly prices.

Which private equity company would that be then? Please tell...

Airwave is owned by Motorola, which is not a private equity company.

I agree that Airwave is a monopoly, whoever actually owns it. It's a sad fact - but a fact nonetheless - that something like a national radio network for the blue light services is a natural monopoly, and thus once up and running the contractor is all too well placed to have a firm grip around the reproductive parts of whoever is paying for it, i.e. the UK taxpayer via HMG. As another commentard mentions somewhere in this thread it would have been far better if the first few years of such a contract were comparatively expensive so that the CapEx incurred by the provider (site acquisitions and mast building, etc are rather expensive) is paid off reasonably promptly, followed by reduced payments that better reflect the actual cost of keeping the system running (including fixed equipment replacements where necessary) plus a "fair" profit but sadly that is not the way the world works. With a contract like this the Principal effectively has to sell his soul to the Agent (the provider) just to get the contract signed, never mind the outcome actually implemented and working.

A 25 year contract would be financially insane; it would mean long term lock - in to a technology that really would be in need of some significant changes before the contract was even halfway through, and we all know how much contract variations cost...

It is worth noting that when (If more like) EE's ESN is up and running it too will be a monopoly contract, and by that time so much water will have flowed under the bridge that EE will be able to jack up its prices and HMG will be unable to do much about it; the only option would be to cancel and start the entire process all over again.

Re: Red Button

...and that it (Airwave) offered "peer to peer" facilities (I presume this is what you mean by Gateway operation?) which would be very handy in areas of poor coverage.

Some understandable confusion in there. (Not a criticism, BTW.) "Peer to Peer" is more correctly called Point to Point (P2P) but it still needs the "network" to operate; it enables an individual user to commuicate with another individual user but without involving anyone / everyone else within a Talkgroup. (The downside is that both users become incommunicado from whatever Talkgroup they were previously sitting on.) By definition a Talkgroup operates in Trunk Mode Operation, TMO.

I'll get to "Gateway" via Direct Mode Operation, DMO. DMO can be used between Terminals (a/k/a portable or vehicle radios) in the event of a network failure or in an area of very poor coverage; in this mode they behave very much like conventional radios, and "very much like" includes a significantly reduced range. It is very much a fall - back operation, and would not be anyone's first choice!

Gateway gets complicated. It can be used in areas where network signal strengths are simply not good enough for a portable terminal to function satisfactorily because of its suboptimal aerial* and modest transmitter power, but are good enough for a vehicle radio to operate because of its (hopefully!) better aerial and more powerful transmitter. In this case it is possible to set up a configuration in which the vehicle radio acts as a "repeater" between the network and the portable; the vehicle radio operates primarily in Trunk Mode, with the link between it and the portable terminal operating in Direct Mode. The vehicle terminal thus acts as a Gateway between the portable terminal and the wider network.

I think there was some gnashing of teeth about radios not working properly underground during the Kings Cross fire.

There were a lot of problems, but they did not (would still not) originate from anything mentioned so far. Underground stations are (by definition) underground and poor radio performance in tunnels (which for all practical purposes includes not just the railway tunnels but all the pedestrain passageways and platforms) is a known problem and has been more or less forever. The solution is to install (at considerable cost) "continuous" underground aerials called leaky feeders with either a proper base station at the end of them or a cell enhancer which piggy backs coverage from the nearest serving external cell / base station. The result is that radio users are never more than a few feet from a cable ("aerial") that provides the connection they need. No leaky feeder, no coverage.

Returning briefly to Trunk Mode, Direct Mode, & Gateway, changing between them requires some button pushing and getting it right necessitates remembering what was taught in training. If not done regularly training fade inevitably takes its toll. I've been retired a few years now but getting Gateway right was not straightforward and the outcome not entirely satisfactory; hopefully things have been made easier now, but who knows..?

For the avoidance of doubt; I am not and never have been a Police Officer, but I spent a few years as a civvy in a Police Force working on, er, radio systems both old and new.

* Another thought... I hope Samsung's radios do / will actually have visible external aerials and aren't going to rely on a bit of PCB track inside a shiny case. That takes "suboptimal" to an even lower level. :(

Re: Never going to work

Not a surprise to see lots of anon supportive AstroTurf popping up on this one. El Reg should really bin the anon option as it just attracts the turf layers.

While I sympathise with that opinion I don't actually agree with it. I know ACs' posts can be on occasions frustrating, on others they really do add to the discussion. There don't appear to be many contributors (AC or otherwise) supportive of the ESN plan as it stands, and your post rather suggests that there are.

Anyway everyone knew this would never work - commercial commodity consumer systems are never going to work in a way adequate to completely replace a dedicated radio comms system.

Everyone except the Home Office and EE, that is. It would be interesting to know the views of the National Police Chiefs' Council and those closer to the sharp end. Perhaps - just perhaps - they are some of the ACs. :)

Re: Red Button

Not just the button itself, but all the attendant functions such as x seconds talking without the PTT being required, ambient listening and so on.

I also wonder if the HO in its infinite wisdom specified that batteries have to be user changeable; there was a photo on El Reg some months ago with a red (well, orange actually) button which I think was claimed to be a Samsung offering of sorts but it looked horribly like a smartphone, and we know how easy it is to change batteries on those...

And while I'm at it has a vehicle set been designed yet? And will it act as a Gateway should the need arise? I have been reliably informed that no sort of Direct Mode is available, which sort of buggers up Gateway operation.

The cost of running airwave is substantial

Undoubtedly true, but I strongly suspect that by the time the ESN is functional and providing what the end users actually require the cost differential won't be anything like what was originally envisaged.

On top of which the costs incurred by the end users in converting from one system to the other are likely to be significant, as will be the disruption to "normal service" while everything (e.g. control rooms and vehicles) is converted. It is also highly likely that training costs will be a bit eye - watering as well.

Oh FFS...

Rutnam said: "One of the characteristics of programmes is that they – and the people running them – tend to optimism.

Then they are stupid; plain and simple stupid. As anyone with an engineering / technical background knows all too well there is one correct working outcome and multiple routes to failure. That one outcome will only be attained if those in the chain are fully aware of all the things that can go wrong and are more or less permanently on the lookout for them, ready to work on solutions as and when the need arises.

It makes me wonder if they have even heard of Risk Registers; they certainly don't seem to have recognised that there might just be things they don't know they don't know. (Thank you Donald Rumsfeld)

What is really depressing is that EE seem to have fallen into an identical trap, and EE is supposed to be the technical authority on this, but having said that I still can't decide whether I am actually surprised or not. I wonder if this project was fronted for EE by marketing or engineering; at the moment it looks more like the former. EE thoroughly deserves some serious reputational damage for this; the Home Office's reputation is probably beyond further damage anyway.

Grr...

EE switches on 5G: Oi, where are your Mates? Yes, we mean the Huawei phones

@ AC: New technology roll-out should begin with the rural areas with no usable coverage.

And it must incorporate proper installation standards as well. If the caption under the picture in the article is correct, that that really is an EE 5G installation then a few cable ties on the coax cable from the GPS aerial wouldn't come amiss; the whole thing looks as though it has been thrown together with little attention to good installation practice.

And I assume that we are talking about the same EE that has so far failed to get the ESN working, with no obvious prospect of a breakthrough on the horizon.

I wonder if it is spreading its engineering skills a little too thinly for anything to be done properly.

Revealed: Facebook, Google's soft-money 'blackmail' to stall Euro fake news crackdown

Re: And that's why research should be funded by government grants

That might work were it not for the fact that governments themselves are all too easily swayed by soft words being whispered in their ears by big biz.

The cynic* in me wonders if they actually encourage it...

* Or should that be "realist"?

Oh 4G, I'm speechless: EE network outage smacks rare breed of customer that talks into their mobile phone

WTF..?

BT's EE, <snip> is said to be set to ink a deal this month with the Home Office for its much-delayed Emergency Services Network migration. Plans for integration and testing are underway.

What "ESN" deal could the Home Office legitimately sign with EE when unless there has been a miracle in the last few days the much - hyped ESN is reportedly not materially closer to working than it was years ago?

Tesla big cheese Elon Musk warns staffers to tighten their belts in bid to cut expenses (again)

Re: Servicing

A fair point, but...

Think "brakes" for starters. It also depends on how one chooses to define "servicing". Most of the visits my current car makes to a garage are unrelated to routine servicing but are to deal with things that have gone actively wrong, and (touch wood) none of those have been ICE related. Silly things like the tailgate release or the satnav no longer working and the like.

@jmch commented I would have thought that servicing is a revenue generator and my experience would support that; with "every" query needing a "diagnostic check" (circa £70) followed up by a later visit to have some eye - wateringly expensive work done (IIRC fixing the tailgate release came in somewhere around £150) someone somewhere is profitting handsomely.

And my car is not a "top of the range" model.

Re: Headcount

Since when did considerations of taste prevent people posting things here?

Gets worse, doesn't it...

From the article: earlier this year it closed most of its dealerships and shifted to online-only sales.

Might make servicing a bit of a problem. though. Who is going to buy a Tesla if the neaest servicing agent is <Deity> knows how far away?

Dedicated techie risks life and limb to locate office conference phone hiding under newspaper

Re: The boss who knows best

I've kept the team anonymous as the boss died a few years later from a heart attack..

Um... delayed karma doesn't seem like karma at all.

Essex named sexiest British accent followed closely by, um, Glaswegian

Milngavie, Bearsden, East Kilbride etc are not Glasgow.

Extra points for those who know that Milngavie isn't actually pronounced, er, Milngavie.

Home Office cops an earful for emergency network feck-ups - £3bn overbudget and 3 years late

Re: Shambolic

Capacity is resolved by the special status GOLD sim cards, allowing civilians to be dumped out of the network. It still gets tricky on nationwide events like New Years Eve etc

Apples & Oranges, IMHO. That technique works on existing mobile networks (see MTPAS, previously known as ACCOLC) and is used sparingly, IIRC. Note that in this scenario the emergency & ordinary networks are distinct and separate. In the event of a sudden major emergency there is a delay before it can be invoked, for practical if not entirely technical reasons.

With the proposed ESN civil users and emergency services would be sharing a network so there would be a period of confusion with overload likely until civil users could be inhibited; it cannot be done purely on the basis of special SIM cards. (IIRC CESG would not allow the use of SIM cards in TETRA terminals anyway, so the SIM card route might be "out" anyway.) From a commercial perspective - given that there is a single network supplier (EE) - the supplier is not going to want civil users to be at material risk of being locked out to satisfy emergency service needs so for the system to be effective there will need to be significant excess capacity to cope with demand surges without needing to shed civil load more than very occasionally.

Airwave has built - in surge capacity; unless ESN has more or less the same provision then there will be an inevitable degradation of service for both categories of user, and that will be unacceptable to both categories as well. I fear that what is being planned is the equivalent of a single lane motorway on the basis that it will cope with the traffic provided that demand is evenly spread over any 24 hour period with no morning and evening peaks.

I don't believe the emergency services really need streaming video.

I remain to be convinced as well; perhaps they really do need it but I would very much like to see the actual user requirement. Quite apart from guzzling bandwidth it will also guzzle battery power and that can be a precious commodity.

A doctor once told me that a camera pointing at an accident victim just shows blood, he actually wanted to see data from the EEG, something even TETRA can right now

One of the limitations of TETRA is data capacity, because as designed data transmission uses the control timeslot, and that can degrade other users' access to the network. It can be made to use traffic timeslots (again possibly to the detriment of voice - only users) but TETRA data speeds are by modern standards woefully low; I have a feeling that the ability to transmit data was a TETRA feature that was over - sold at the outset, but that might be my memory playing tricks on me.

Re: Shambolic

Add to that coverage is till pathetic - if you cannot use a EE cellphone on 4G somewhere, this system won't work.

It's not just coverage; it's also capacity - the capacity to handle normal "civil" traffic while still handling a potentially high emergency services demand in the event of a major incident.

They have not started the aircraft (helicopter) coverage part. This was hard enough in TETRA as an aircraft has line of sight to too many base stations. My suspicion is that it will require a new overlay network, not costed yet.

It was a problem with TETRA, but IIRC the matter was resolved in software by forcing airborne terminals to ignore the majority of fixed sites (or timeslots within sites) and vice versa.

I've commented previously about politicians and technology not mixing well (if at all) but in this case the civil service is so heavily involved (as was bound to be the case) that there is almost no hope.

What became Airwave spent a long time in development (as PSRCP if memory serves) back in the mid to late 90s with proper proof of concept trials and all the rest of it before any major contracts being placed. Even then some promised caabilities never materialised because they were too demanding of time and bandwidth and were thus incompatible with ordinary speech traffic. Sales triumphing over engineering realities once again...

I suspect that in the case of ESN engineering realities were firmly locked out of any discussions so that only Sales were involved, with the consequences being all too predictable. As far as I can see contracts were awarded without anyone being required to demonstrate a pilot system or equipment working, and the outcome is that with a lot of time having passed and a lot of money spent we are no closer to having a working system rolling out than we were several years ago.

One thing ought to emerge at the end of it; a classic object lesson in failed procurement that can be studied in minute detail without any significant chance of the same blunders being avoided on some future project.

One of UK's largest pension funds goes to Hull, bids £504m for broadband firm KCOM

Re: Typo?

No I suspect "guaranteed cash returns (to) ford shareholders" would have been correct. I cannot for one moment see why Ford shareholders would be involved, other than fortuitously.

As long as there's fibre somewhere along the line, High Court judge reckons it's fine to flog it as 'fibre' broadband

Re: How broadband services are sold today

...it has educated the public (at least those who care about these things)

I admire your optimism, but do not share it. As far as I can tell "most people" would rather swallow marketing hype than sip an engineering truth.

...because most people "don't understand" it's ok to mislead / lie to them.

You have just summarised the ethos of marketeers throughout time.

Unfortunately.

Brit Watchkeeper drone fell in the sea because blocked sensor made algorithms flip out

Re: Like AF447?

From the article: The unmanned aircraft, tail number WK042, fell from the sky in February 2017 while trialling a new ice detection system.

From John H Woods' post: wouldn't one expect these to be prone to freezing?

In a word... yes, which is why pitot tubes have heaters to prevent icing; I am less certain about the accompanying static vents but ISTR an aircraft falling out of the sky because a static vent was blocked by ice.

I find myself wondering if (functioning!) heated pitot tubes were specified; if part of the testing procedure involved flying around looking for icing then having unheated tubes would seem negligent beyond belief.

Perhaps it really was a software problem, but applying Occam's Razor points to the possibility of an altogether simpler failure in what is, furthermore, a known failure mode.

I wonder if "Pitot Heaters On" (if the heaters actually exist and are supposed to work) is a function buried in all the other data the drone is feeding back.

Trouble is that even if the wreckage had been found there would have been no physical evidence that a frozen pitot or static vent had caused the crash.

Get the smell out of here! Gaming tournament bans players who raise a literal stink

They reeked. The stale smell of BO, dirty clothes and virginity. The acne and neck beards were putting me off my food as well.

Can we have a "do not read just before or after eating" icon please?

Cops use bread and riot shields in desperate bid to contain crazed swan running amok in streets

Meanwhile...

Someone (and the last I heard nobody knew who exactly) in Bowness on Windermere put up a sign saying "please do not feed bread to the swans" (or similar) and the swans took exception to it. They promptly decamped from the lakeside and marched (slowly!) the 100 - 200 yards into the town and parked themselves outside takeaways, foodshops (inc Tesco, I believe) and more or less demanded food with menaces.

The Law of Unintended Consequences strikes again...

What's holding up the 5G utopia in Britain? Quite a lot, actually

Re: 5G is going to matter

I don't think so.

It's mostly hype.

I wonder if 5G qualifies for the term "vapourware" yet. I would argue that it certainly deserves to...

Top personnel general joined Capita months after firm won its Army recruiting IT contract

Re: Lobbying and corruption in the defence industry

@JagPatel3: Very well said...

We (the electorate) are being played for fools because there is virtually nothing that we can do about it, and "they" know it.

My only quibble might be the inclusion of the word "defence" in your Title; it's far more widespread than that. Far, far more...

Boeing big cheese repeats pledge of 737 Max software updates following fatal crashes

Simply Ghastly...

Whatever happened to the stick shalers of old that used to warn pilots of an imminent stall? Dispensed with as "old hat" by the look of it.

I am more than a little alarmed that given the number of other flight characteristics being monitored by both pilots and software (forward air speed, rate of climb, attitude, altitude) this MCAS seems to have been fully autonomous in that it wasn't paying any heed to other inputs, and having decided on a course of action kept putting the nose down despite the pilot(s) applying manual corrections. It seems to have been functioning entirely on its own without reference to anything else.

I know that it is in woefully bad taste to make any sort of joke about it, but it wasn't designed by an E*** M*** was it?

Maybe it's the way the article was written but to me it signals very long term trouble for Boeing.

Two in five 'AI startups' essentially have no AI, mega-survey of nearly 3,000 upstarts finds

Re: Same as the blockchain hype

I consider the expression "a fool and his/her money" a default for the whole early investor market.

Which reminded me of this:

https://dilbert.com/strip/1999-01-15

And that was 20 years ago... plus ca change, and all that.

Santander hands over $700m to IBM in hopes of becoming incredible banking machine

Re: The old quote

or, in this case, a fool and stockholders' money....

I think not... a fool and the customers' money would be closer to the mark.

Accused hacker Lauri Love to sue National Crime Agency to retrieve confiscated computing kit

Re: Representing himself

Note that for all the ground-breaking work, he had lawyers.

Now, not one of them is present.

The "ground - breaking work" was to fight extradition following an allegation of criminal conduct, and he would thus qualify for Legal Aid. IANAL but I don't think he would get Legal Aid for a civil action. As a result he would have to pay for any properly qualified legal support himself.

Interesting that there is no hint of any legal eagles lining up to present his case pro bono.

How AI can help halt human sex trafficking – by identifying victims' hotel rooms from pics

@ x 7: You seem remarkably well informed.

Is there something you're not telling us?

Nothing 'unites teams' like a good relocation, eh Vodafone?

Re: At least they are not "uniting them" abroad.

Egypt and South Africa.

In the interests of some sort of balance I once (well more than once in fact, but that's another story) had trouble getting my Voda Data Dongle to behave and contacted the helpdesk.

The lady to whom I spoke (once I got round the ghastly voice - driven menu system; again that's another story) not only sorted the problem out but spoke beautiful clear English with an accent I could not quite place.

It turned out that she was in Egypt, and her accent was slightly American.

So it isn't all "bad by definition". Given a free choice I would have extended the conversation by quite some time.

The most annoying British export since Piers Morgan: 'Drones' halt US airport flights

Re: 500g Drone vs 100 ton airliner

@ DougS: During takeoff/landing when drone encounters around an airport would occur?

Have you looked at the youtube video that diodedesign posted? Now I have no connection to the aviation industry but to my untutored eye (and ears!) that looks and sounds like a masterpiece of professionalism on the part of the flight crew and Air Traffic Control, as well as the ability of the aircraft to remain in a climb with a seriously defective engine. It would seem that the strike occured either just before or just after the wheels left the ground (and I do mean just) and yet disaster was avoided.

I am not condoning the use of drones near airports; neither am I suggesting that the loss of an engine at exactly the wrong time cannot lead to disaster, merely querying your implied assertion that a crash is inevitable.

Go back and look at the video.

Brit comms regulator Ofcom: Disabled left behind by tech

"Disabled left behind by tech..."

I am not going to dispute the raw data, but I find myself wondering if Ofcom has eliminated the effects of the availability of disposable income as a factor. By definition different socio - economic groups have differing amounts of cash to splash about, and it would not be unreasonable to suspect that anyone with a disability will have rather less money than others, irrespective of the socio - economic group to which they ostensibly belong.

I am well into the 65+ age group and run this (elderly!) PC on FTTC broadband, and while the PC is incurring no direct costs, when it finally conks I would want to replace it, and having the money to replace it is more important than paying for a smartphone as well. I also have a laptop for use when away from home (currently quite often for family reasons) and if that conked I would want to replace it as well. My fixed line B/B costs are more than I would like, as is the cost of running a PAYG data dongle on the laptop when away.

I have a cheap PAYG cellphone for phone calls & texts when away; I simply have no need for a (costly) smatphone as well. I am not selfie - obsessed and am perfectly happy paying for things with a bank card, credit card, or (heaven help me) with actual cash. I see no value in seeking some sort of social status in brandishing a smartphone around.

Ofcom may be right, but I would rather see a more comprehensive analysis of the raw data to find out what is really going on as opposed to what seems to be a snap conclusion that might well not be telling the whole story.

Drone goal! Quadcopter menace alert freezes flights from London Heathrow Airport

Re: Time to get real

@Pseudonymous Howard: It's not drones, it's phones which are the real thread. (snip) It is like the old school prank to issue a bomb thread to the school in order to get a day off or to evade an exam or whatever.

D is not adjacent to T.

So are the "threads" typos or are you suggesting that the whole thing is a stitch up?

Huawei CEO defiant on security claims, vows to be so good, 'no market can keep us away'

From the Article...

We have a very strong track record in cybersecurity. Huawei has never and will never present a security threat."

To (mis)quote Mandy Rice - Davies:

He would say that, wouldn't he.

GDPR: Four letters that put fear into firms' hearts in 2018

Re: Oh No It Isn't...

"We take users privacy and security very seriously"

Has anyone ever seen some management drone say this, or does it always emerge in written form?

I suspect that the sentence is impossible to say without at the very least having to pucker up the mouth to prevent an outburst of laughter, particularly if the words "are our first priority" are added.

I would love to see someone from an errant organisation actually speak the sentence.

Oh No It Isn't...

The already tired adage "if you're not paying, you're the product" has been so over-used this year it must be fit for retirement.

It may seem to get used a lot (perhaps to the point of tedium) by those who understand the implications of it, but there are far, far, too many people (mainly, I suspect, "the young") who need the message ramming home time and time again because they either don't know or don't care about their privacy enough to care.

There was a hint yesterday (yes, Christmas Day) that a 15 year old was about to take a picture of a family gathering and upload it to Snapchat or the like so I stated quite firmly that I did not give my permission for my image to be uploaded anywhere. Yes there were one or two perhaps cross faces, and no photograph was taken AFAIK; Christmas Day or not I was not going change my opinion about what I firmly do not want to happen with my likeness.

The "if you're not paying..." mantra can wait for another day, although I suspect it will be wasted until said 15 year old is about 50, by which time it will be too late anyway. With parents who cannot see any downside to social media in between, what chance do grandparents' have?

Bugger all, I fear...

Could you speak up a bit? I didn't catch your password

Re: I don’t know why I’m reading this except...

On reflection I should perhaps have commented that even if it was white faux fir it still looked very spruce.

Re: I don’t know why I’m reading this except...

It’s the red one with the white faux fir trim.

Nice typo that; very seasonal.

'Year-long' delay to UK 5G if we spike Huawei deals, say telcos

Re: Do we need 5G?

And I've never found a mobile as easy to hear or indeed to hold, as my landline.

Thanks for confirming that I am not the only person who finds mobile phones hard to listen to when using a fixed line phone; IMO it's a situation that has become steadily worse with the passage of time. It is the inevitable outcome of trying to cram more traffic into as little spectrum as is possible; at some point the unintelligibility threshold is crossed.

As it happens I don't use a mobile often enough to find holding one a problem; whatever "addictions" I might have being glued to a mobile isn't one of them.