Posts by The Travelling Dangleberries

Linux lads lambast sorry state of Skype service

Re: Try...

Great if you could point me to a working TOX client that will run MacOSX Snow Leopard.

At the moment Skype works for my OS agnostic family, different users use various versions/flavours of Windows, MacOSX, Linux and Android. I don't know of any IM/Video chat client that supports all of these platforms and works when you install it.

Among the alternatives I have tried, Ekiga (could not get it to connect reliably on the same home network that Skype ran fine on), Jitsi, I like it the fact that the UI is consistent over platforms makes support much easier - this is important as it means all the menus on my Linux version of Jitsi are in the same place as Jitsi running on the OS of my elderly relatives computers. Jitsi with video chat is not a resource hog and runs fine on a Linux EEEPC 701. On the down side, a while back they cut support for older versions of MacOSX and then put it back. Then video chat (XMPP network) on the version for Snow Leopard did not work the last time I tried it. Google Hangouts require you to have a Google account (not all of the people I chat with have that), Pidgin seems to work fine but I am the only one using that as a way into Google Talk. TOX, I could not get it to run under MacOSX Snow Leopard the last time I tried it.

Besides the problems of trying to get all your contacts to switch to another IM platform, there are a range of other problems trying to run multiple chat messengers on the same machine. MacOSX seems to be unable to share a webcam between different programs that need it (reboot to start using Jitsi instead of Skype for instance) - maybe newer versions of MacOSX have solved that problem.

I think the only way forwards is to make sure that all widely available protocols (such as the ones that Skype uses) are open sourced and properly documented. Start with protocols that have a user base of 100,000 users or more. This would allow any IM/video chat client project (whether open or closed source, commercial or hobby) to implement connectivity to all of the major networks, thus allowing us to choose the client we want to use and support.

Linux Mint forums hacked: All users urged to reset passwords

Not the only problem

This thread http://lwn.net/Articles/676664/ is interesting and suggests that the website hacks are a symptom of the way that the LinuxMint team approach development and security.

Let Europeans sue America for slurping their data – US Senate

Re: Feed Our Lawyers

"And under whose jurisdiction does this fall? If europeans must file suit in an american court, presided over by american judges, interpreting an american law ... well, let's just say my expectations of a fair trial are pretty dim."

Funnily enough, that is the kind of thing my rather right wing fellow students at university used to say of Russia in the times of the good old CCCP.

“Be careful how you choose your enemy, for you will come to resemble him. The moment you adapt your enemy's methods your enemy has won."

(Michael Ventura's take on a much older sentiment.)

Remember Netbooks? Windows 10 makes them good again!

Re: Pah!

LinuxMint 13 XFCE works fine here on both my 701 and 901 EeePCs. I tried EasyPeasy before settling on EeeBuntu for a while until development stopped, then ran Xubuntu for a year or so until I got fed up of it not behaving as it should. I still have the original Xandros OS on the internal SSD on the 701 with the hacked desktop GUI. I fire it up every now and again to smile and remember the taste of freedom that ASUS gave me with that crippled version of Linux.

I once encountered a much more modern netbook with Windows 7 on it. Despite lots more RAM than my 701 and a much faster CPU the GUI and most other things were slower than on my 701 with Linux on it. That's progress for you.

I cannot see why I would want to install any version of Windows when modern distros such as LinuxMint install and work so well OOB.

We're going to use your toothbrush to snoop on you, says US spy boss

Re: Tough call

I'd forgotten about "winnets" completely. That's perhaps the only disadvantage of living away from the UK, you lose the finer points of your mother tongue.

AdBlock Plus, websites draft peace deal so ads can bypass blockade

Re: Is someone under the impression...

Re Element Hiding Helper

This functionality is built into uBlock Origin as standard and works just fine.

UK Home Sec's defence of bulk spying: We 'found' a paedo (we already knew about)

Re: I don't see what the problem is.

Your chances of losing your life/being injured in a motor vehicle accident in the next 12 months are much higher than your chances of being killed/maimed by a terrorist attack.

Your happy family home is more likely to be disrupted and irrevocably changed by the loss of your job and house during the next financial crash than by the actions of a (known) paedofile.

Sorry, what was your point again?

Facebook tells Belgian government its use of English invalidates privacy case

Re: For once, I agree with FaceBook.

So they will have to show the name "GezichtBoek" for the Flemish speakers of Belgium and something else for the French speakers.

As an organisation in Belgium you really don't want to annoy either language group in Belgium by persistently presenting them with the "wrong" version of your website. So that will present an interesting technical challenge for FaceBook if they are not allowed to set cookies in a user's browser.

The old adage "Be careful when you wish for something" springs to mind...

Microsoft: We’ve taken down the botnets. Europol: Would Sir like a kill switch, too?

Skype auto translation

"Hello Sir, I am workering with Microsoft support for you..."

There you go, it works a treat!

Swivel on this: German boffins build nanoscale screwing engine for sluggish sperm

Re: Bad Bad Bad

@Big John

"I myself have bad eyes, which normally would be weeded out of the gene pool. Lucky me!"

Not necessarily. The problem with the re-interpretation of Darwinism is that it has been explained the wrong way round. Natural selection involves the extinction of the "weakest" rather than the "survival of the fittest".

Skype now translates in real-time into seven languages

Fewer jobs for translators at the NSA...

...that is the main reason for auto translation, right?

Or maybe something that international dating agencies could make good use of?

Or useful for offshore call centers selling fixes for all those terrible trojans on your computer. There is no need for your employees to even speak the language of the person they are helping scamming any more.

We're all really excited about new smartphones, laptops, tablets – said no one ever

Re: I could be excited

"And if a new Car appeared that could drive me home while I slept in the back

And avoided traffic brilliantly

And went off and parked itself after it dropped me off. And came and fetched me when I was done."

And locks you in itself after a fracas outside the pub after closing time and drives you to the nearest nick.

And drives itself back to the dealer when you fail to make the payments for a couple of months.

And displays video ads on the inside of the windscreen, specially tailored for you on the basis of the places it has driven you to recently.

Oh yes, so many things to get excited about.

You ain't nothing but a porn dog, prying all the time: Cyber-hound sniffs out hard drives for cops

Re: porn dog

Wow! I had no idea that there are police officers with an IQ as high as 22.5!

Microsoft in 2015: Mobile disasters, Windows 10 and heads in the clouds

The integration offered with Office 365 and Cortana linking phone to desktop devices shows the value of their surveillance ecosystem.

FTFY!

I did an audit of the tools and software I need to do my job. All that I need Windows for at work is to run SharePoint Designer 2013 which is part of Office 2013. The rest I can do from a LinuxMint or pretty much any of the other mainstream Linux distributions. Come to think of it even Debian on a Raspberry Pi would do.

Office 2013 was not WINE friendly the last time I checked, so I am a bit stuck there.

Mozilla looses Firefox 43, including Windows 64-bit variant

Old style search engine picker only available with CTR

The new style search box is now "compulsory" as the about:config fix has gone. You need Classic Theme Restorer to get the old drop down search engine picker back.

I usually have six DDG and six Google search engines for searches in different countries/languages installed in my browsers. The new search engine picker just presents me with six identical icons and I need to hover over each to see which one it which. The old search box drop down allows me to see the titles of each search engine which makes locating the right one very easy.

Yet another unhelpful UI change from Mozilla for no obvious benefit.

James Clapper has found another reason why he lied about NSA spying

@Adam 1

"If a program can be so insignificant to effective intelligence gathering that the relevant director can totally forget its existence..."

...it begs the question just what other things the NSA have been up to that would make the director forget something as insignificant as merely gathering data on all Americans' phonecalls.

Facebook to Belgian data cops: Block all the cookies across the web, then!

Duh!

"We're disappointed we were unable to reach an agreement and now people will be required to log in or register for an account to see publicly available content on Facebook."

So how can it be called "publicly available content" if it isn't publicly available anymore?

Microsoft encrypts explanation of borked Windows 10 encryption

So, if I understand you correctly, you believe that it is OK that MicroSoft dropped the ball on this one because no other OS offers the same features?

Microsoft Office 365, Azure portals offline for many users in Europe

Re: Fucked for us too....I would love to have avoided this

It has been down for us today too, in our little bit of Norway and it is rather slow at the moment. It is used in all the schools in the valley so I guess there are a few annoyed teachers out there today.

'Dear Daddy...' Max Zuckerberg’s Letter back to her Father

Re: Perhaps, just perhaps...

@Daniel Hall

Let's take a look at the US of A as an example of a developed country that can "afford" children.

1) Remind me how much per capita external debt the US of A has (USD 58,255*)?

2) Remind me how much per capita external debt Somalia has (USD 386*)?

What you seem to be suggesting is that citizens of "developing" countries with a much lower per capita external debt than "developed" countries (such as the US of A) don't have the right to have children whereas citizens of the US of A do have that right?

*source https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

Apple pays two seconds of quarterly profit for wiping pensioner's pics

Re: Backup? What's that?

FFS!

The hot Macdonalds coffee in the lap is NOT an example of a spurious lawsuit brought on by a greedy pleb. Neither is it a good reason to stop people from suing powerful multinationals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald's_Restaurants

VW's Audi suspends two engineers in air pollution cheatware probe

Re: Interesting justification.

@jonathanb

DEFA is your friend.

Cops use terror powers to lift BBC man's laptop after ISIS interview

Re: bullying ...

Well good news on this front. The PST lost their case and have had to return all the material to the film maker Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen. Still, he acknowledges might have problems completing the film as his sources may not wish to carry on working with him.

http://www.nrk.no/kultur/rolfsen-_-na-kan-jeg-fortsette-a-lage-film-1.12664113

Re: bullying ...

The PST (Norway's feeble attempt at emulating MI5) recently did the same to a Norwegian film maker who has been working on a documentary on "jihadists". One of his interviewees has been arrested for trying to travel to Syria and the PST wanted all the dirt they could get on this young man for the court case.

The film maker has not just lost all his work but also the chance of working in a similar area in the future. Who in their right minds will speak to that film maker now? Self censorship is much easier to enforce than state censorship.

Re: Works for me

So, if you really believe what you just posted, why post as an "Anonymous Coward"?

Cyber-terror: How real is the threat? Squirrels are more of a danger

Re: I think that squirrel image needs an offensive "thumbs up, black flag!" icon.

Although if you read the article the attack was as a result of a successful phishing attempt not a brute force attack on the company's firewall. That the company had not air-gapped the network controlling production machines is an example of bad practice which made the situation worse.

Re: Forget Cyber terrorists

@tiggity

"You would be better with a rag dangling drone or some other device that could be human steered."

I don't think so. The cat runs as fast as it can away from the fire. A cat will cover a considerable distance before it either tires or the rag burns out. A cat cannot be hacked into nor disabled in the same way a drone can. A cat can run through a forest much faster than anyone can fly a drone through a forest. You would be unlikely to be able to trace the person who set fire to the cat in the same way you could gather data on the person controlling the drone. A cat runs on the ground thereby maximising the contact between rag and the ground. Finally, a cat is much cheaper than a drone and can be acquired without leaving a trail of evidence (financial transactions etc).

Re: Forget Cyber terrorists

Take a leaf out of the CIAs handbook. You need a cat, a piece of string, a rag soaked in a mix of volatile and less volatile hydrocarbons, a match and a tinder dry forest.

Tie the rag to the cats tail with a piece of string, set light to the rag with the match and watch that cat run through that tinder dry forest.

A few cat arsonists running around on a dry summers day in say California would cause the local firefighters to empty the local water reservoirs a lot more quickly than any potential cyber attack on the dam sluice gates.

It is just another attempt (probably a successful one at that) to enslave us with more draconian cyber laws that will remove that last vestiges of privacy from our lives.

EE plans to block annoying ads on mobile network

Re: Eh?

Eh? There are adverts on The Register?

Apple's Watch charging pad proves Cupertino still screwing buyers

Re: This kind of crap is why I won't buy Apple products....

Given the unreliable nature of the MagSafe chargers as supplied with and from the first generation Intel macbooks I am not going to be surprised if/when any Apple designed charger turns out to be less than perfect.

A macbook bought in 2008 is now on its third (generic MagSafe) charger after the first two Apple branded ones failed. Failed as in just stopped working one day without any warning as opposed to the more usual failure brought on by the cable fraying where it enters the MagSafe connector. We have started buying the cheapest generic chargers with the best rating on Amazon as the Apple chargers seem to be no more reliable, just more expensive.

As a contrast two EEEPCs, one bought in 2008 and the second in 2009 (with similar uptimes to the macbook) are still running their original chargers.

How Microsoft will cram Windows 10 even harder down your PC's throat early next year

Re: Idiots

It is probably going to be worth my while to take the long day to get to where my father lives (3 hour train, 2.5 hour flight, hour by hire car) and another long day back, just to spend a couple of days setting up Linux Mint on his W8.1 laptop before he accidently upgrades it to W10.

Re: Evil

@ Badvok

"When you do get around to looking at it you'll find that you don't have to use any of the new UI stuff, in fact you can pretty much make it look and behave just like Windows 7."

Well it is good to know that MS have reinstated the clean and simple "Classic" W95/NT4 grey UI, that went footsie when Win 8 was introduced. That is how my Windows 7 looks and behaves.

That is what you meant, right?

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella is paid $18m – and would trouser $20m if sacked

Re: @Lost all faith "Windows 10 was successfully launched"

Clonezilla is your friend. Run it from a live CD or USB stick. The resulting resulting restorable image is a lot smaller than the size of the original partition.

Twitter reduces BBC hacks to tears with redundancy notice

Re: When the licence fee goes ...

@Hollerith

That's just about when I stopped listening to the BBC World Service. It changed suddenly and not for the better. If I listen talk radio then it is most likely to be NRK P2 (the nearest thing to BBC Radio 4 in Norway), either over the ether or via the internet. Although I suppose that P2 is no longer safe given that the Blue-Blue minority coalition government has proposed a cut in real terms in funding to the NRK in its latest budget.

If this trend continues then in a few more years internet based brain fart publishing networks Twitter and the like will be the only way to get any "news".

Dry those eyes, ad blockers are unlikely to kill the internet

Re: Sadverts

Cough, mumble, post VW emissions scandal.

"Why the hell would I believe anything beyond even the basic spec that any manufacturer says about their product? "

FTFY

Re: Umm

As far as I am concerned, a web browser without full ad-blocking is just an electronic advertising billboard that I pay to look at.

Google's .bro file format changed to .br after gender bother

Re: What is it really named after ?

@alain williams

"Several compression algorithms were named after a Swiss bakery product, brötli. In German 'bread' is 'brot', the 'li' suffix is (IIRC) a diminutive, ie something small, buns are small bits of bread. Even more idiotic in a multi language world."

Speaking of the joys of a multi-lingual world, I was cycling in Denmark one day and passed a sign placed on the side of a shed by a Danish energy company. The energy company had decided, in its infinite wisdom, to call itself "Dong Energy".

https://www.dongenergy.dk/privat

Re: Really?

...which is rather close to the Norwegian word "bråk" which means "noise" (the type of noise that occurs when there is a kerfuffle outside your appartment block at night) or "problem" as in cause problems for others (å lage bråk)...

So in this context, "brak" is entirely appropriate as a file extension to replace .bro

Mozilla to boot all plugins from Firefox … except Flash

Re: Cisco WebRTC plugins?

@MacGuyver PS: "Bring back my ability to have the tabs below the location bar, jerks."

You mean natively rather than via CTR?

I moved over to SeaMonkey some time ago, The interface is stable and sensible and uBlock Origin, Compact Menu 2 and Ghostery work so that covers my needs for extensions. Well Ghostery works most of the time until an Australis/other Firefox invoked change causes problems for the SeaMonkey and Ghostery teams.

Fortunately CTR does the job on IceWeasel and TenFourFox as well. So I can have a sensible browser user interface on my ARM boards and PPC macs too.

You want a 6% Google Tax? Get lost, German copyright bods told

Re: intellectual property...

@ Larry F54

That book should be a compulsory text for everyone who goes through the school system. For so many reasons. It is one of my favourite books. I have only read it in English and Norwegian translation. When reading it in Norwegian it took me three attempts to get through the first three or so pages the "disclaimer" at the start of the first chapter. I had forgotten how densely written the mock legaleese was. A modern classic well worth reading (in any language of your choosing).

Malvertisers slam Forbes, Realtor with world's worst exploit kits

In a related story, Advertising Age editor Ken Wheaton once said...

“Sorry ad-blockers, I assume you mean well and you have a point about page-load times and ads junked up with tracking tools and Trojan horses and the like,”...

Yet again another good reason to keep blocking ads. I mean we are talking about the Forbes website, not some badly maintained Wordpress blog running on an old server in a basement flat in Basingstoke.

Lessig to NZ court: Dotcom charges would fail in the US

Cardinal Richelieu got there first...

@ FozzyBear

"Give me six lines written by the most honest man in the world, and I will find enough in them to hang him."

UK terror law probe stresses 'safeguards' amid MI5 plot claims

PC Savage rides again

@Vimes

"In the US they just arrest somebody for showing any sort of ingenuity by building a homemade clock whilst committing the crime of being brown..."

Pre-emptive policing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chOtJdiBZR4

Ahmed's clock wasn't a bomb, but it blew up the 'net and Zuckerberg, Obama want to meet him

Dual use technologies

The school should also arrest all pupils coming to school with rucksacks as this type of technology was used by the London 7/7 bombers when making their bombs.

Then there was that attempt to blow up a plane with explosives in a pair of sneakers. The school should immediately arrest all pupils wearing sneakers as this is a technology used by bomb makers.