* Posts by David

87 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Aug 2007

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Millions opted into UK mobile phone directory

David

Unregistered numbers

Presumably, an un-registered, non-contract, pay-as-you-go number is safe, unless given as a contact to other companies, in which case, how dare they sell it on! I've avoided "registering" my number with Vodaphone for that very reason. I contacted them once via the net, 'koz I was getting some mystery texts that were complete gibberish and they said they couldn't help me unless I was "registered" with them. No thanks. Problem stopped, anyway.

Police deny targeting kids for DNA

David

EU ruling

What happened to the EU ruling about this?

Judge backs Halifax in Chip and PIN clone case

David

Non-techie judge?

Perhaps yet another example of non-technicial judiciary? Did both sides have expert witnesses? Is the Halifax now inferring that Mr. Job made the withdrawals himself?

Beware 'mobile elbow', sawbones warn

David

Hands-free

Agree with Anonymous Coward. Hands-free is the way to go but then you wouldn't be able to actually see the latest line in phones that our sufferer is posing with. Have a vague suspicion that some folk think it's pansy-ish or soppy to use a hands-free unit. Hence the large number of drivers still hand-holding the damn things.

If they can break the law, why can't we?

David

Good article

That's what I like about The Register. When you're serious, you're VERY serious!!

Government rejects Lords' surveillance criticism

David

Snake oil, anybody?

"We take the protection of their personal information extremely seriously and we are committed to handling it safely and securely."

Well, they WOULD say that, wouldn't they?

NHS and tax office data-protection failings did I hear?

Child "protection" database next to be hacked, I wouldn't be at all surprised.

Police force eBay scammer to cough up ill-gotten gains

David

Police benevolent fund?

Why should the fuzz get any of it? I believe the payment for members of this esteemed and illustrious body is supported by our taxes. Sounds border-line despicable to me.

Hacked flight sim site in catastrophic crash and burn

David

Back-up

Same as everyone else! Can't believe there was no belt and braces (as we Brits call 'em!). Even my own personal stuff, including about 60 gigs-worth of music, is on no less than three separate external hard drives and is also stored elsewhere. Can't be too careful y'know!

Presumably everything is totally lost. No chance of a data recovery company being generous and having a look?

Gordon Ramsay breaches f**king broadcasting code

David

Mind your language, Timothy

"But Gordon had no intention of causing offence"

Yeah, like f*ck he didn't!

"and is sorry if Channel 4's scheduling of the programme upset some viewers."

And I'm the Queen of Sheba.

Kent council plans giant 'Hollywood' erection

David
Unhappy

Election............sorry...........ERECTION

Are we allowed to say that "E" word? Sounds like Medway council have been taking lessons from Maidstone council on how to waste money. They seem to favour odd erections, such as a "totem pole", a gigantic floral sheep and the latest monstrosity is an obelisk with lights on it that are supposed to vary according to the wind speed. Not sure about wind but there must have been plenty of hot air in the council chamber when THAT was approved. Complete waste of money.

UK fines for IP infringement to rocket

David

Another back-door revenue scheme

I'm sure this will help the conviction figures no end. Doubtess all the IP infringers will change tack and take to mugging old ladies and house-breaking, as it looks like the deterrents are obviously going to be less. Also saves the police from the arduous task of taking the trouble to solve "real" crimes. Do I hear the sounds of cash registers and much rubbing of hands together?

Jacqui's secret plan to 'Master the Internet'

David

Crazy world we live in

If true, I regard this is totally despicable. No wonder the government didn't seemed unduly worried by Phorm. That's a drop in the ocean compared to what appears to be going on behind our backs. Me for a proxy/tunnel and encrypted e-mail. Somebody tell me that they can't eavesdrop on that! They'll probably make THAT illegal next, 'koz if I'm using them, I MUST have something to hide, right? Now bracing myself for an early-morning knock at the door by the men in black (oh no - that's America or Russia - doesn't happen here, of course, except in the Houses of Parliament!). Mine's the one with the fully-encrypted hard-drive.

UK.gov to spend £2bn on ISP tracking

David

Payment

So the government are paying ISP's to do this? I would have thought the money would have been best spent on improving their infrastructure, like fibre to the home, for instance. Just HOW is this deluge of information going to be analysed and WHO is physically going to decide what's important and what's not? I can imagine this damn-fool scheme keeping an army of civil servants and clerks busy for a few hundred years!

US lawmakers to de-silence electric cars

David

Defeats the object

Rather defeats the object of the exercise, doesn't it? Nice, environmentally-friendly car that makes a non-environmentally-friendly noise? Hmm........dread to think what might happen if tech-savvy kids manage to pimp up their leccy cars. It's bad enough now, with their so-called car hi-fi booming away, with the doors bulging outwards on every bass note!

There has to be a better way - some sort of transmitter/receiver device to say where the car is for blind folk maybe, although I suppose if there were loads of leccy cars in the area, that wouldn't work. Doh! In any case, can blind people tell where all the conventional vehicles are in the street? Would all the leccy cars sound the same? That could be confusing. Have they had problems in the past locating silent cycles or existing electric vehicles?

Sounds like some politician is trying to make a name for themselves.

MPs to probe ISP snooping and throttling

David

Non techies

Given the well-documented technical incompetence of most poiticians, judges, etc; who don't seem to live in the real world, is this going to do a jot of good? Will they know anything about what they are supposed to be discussing?

Info Commissioner contacted 74 times over Street View

David

Expectation of privacy on the street?

"Google may have breached the Data Protection Act while collecting images for Street View because people were not informed that photos were being taken"

I don't understand that. I have commented many times here and elsewhere that it is my understanding that it is perfectly legal to take photographs of anything on a public highway or on public land. I believe there may have been some alterations recently, regarding pictures containing members of our astute police force (if this is the case, it's pretty outrageous, in my opinion) but people that just happen to be on the street are incidental to Google's main aim and I believe they have set a dangerous precedent by offering to blur faces, number plates, etc; out of goodwill. Are all the tourists in London up in arms about being caught on OTHER tourists' cameras? Of course not. Again, if you on the street and in the public eye (don't forget, we are ALL public, you know!) you must expect that other people will see you and whatever it is you happen to be doing. No expectation of privacy, there. What's so different about a camera?

Criminal Records Bureau launches e-disclosure service

David

Data loss?

Oh dear - MORE data to be lost, hacked or just simply recorded inaccurately. (Perish the thought!). As a taxi driver, I dread having to go through this routine every few years with the local council on my licence renewal. What REALLY annoys me is the fact that I now have to pay THEM a significant fee just to be told that I don't have anything registered against me, whereas, in the past, I gather it was just a simple phone call from council to local plod. That's progress for you.

'Let me use poo-flinging Roman siege engine against burglars'

David

Scary dairy

More power to his..........er.........device, I say. Burglers, villains and footpads deserve a damn' good thrashing. Cads and bighndahs, the lot of `em!

Farmers furious at EU's sheep-chip scheme

David

Sheepish

A wooly problem, no doubt about it. A flocking nuisance, it would seem. Farmers are going to be fleeced.

Student sentenced for F-ucked up grade hack

David

Gawd 'elp us

"Act of God" ?...................... Blimey, that IS the sound of a desperate woman. Must speak to Richard Dawkins about that. Mine's the one with the mitre hanging above.

Bacon sarnies cure hangovers: Official

David

Old knowledge!

Well, I knew this all the time, of course. Many years of bacon sarney sampling have proved their worth. Should be a nice big mug of tea to go with it, though.

BBC fined £150k over Manuelgate

David

Wossie

Ross should have been given the push - preferably over a very high cliff.

Emotional arguments do not make Street View illegal

David

Streets are not private

If you are out on the street (cue for a Shakatak song), whatever you do is not private and is fair game to be photographed, which is perfectly legal in the UK on public land and highways, so far. If you want to be private, go indoors, lock all the doors and pull down the blinds and do whatever you need to do that mustn't be seen.

Police ad urges: 'Trust no one'

David

Cracks.

Don't walk on the cracks in the pavement. I expect that's "reasonable grounds" for being a terrorist.

Privacy campaigner vows legal challenge to Google Street View

David

Piccies

I would have thought that, as the law stands at the moment, that the action will not succeed. It is quite legal to take photographs of anything on and from UK public highways and land (except certain "sensitive" government installations - how do we know what THEY are?), despite some peoples' objections. From my layman's point of view, surely If someone is in a public place or viewable from a public place, then surely they realise that they are in full view for anyone else to see them and whatever it is they are doing? If they are doing something which they do not want anyone else to see, don't do it in public! Go home and pull the curtains!

Police law-interpretation: What next?

David

Draconian stuff here

Arrested for "walking on the cracks in the pavement" !!!!!!!!!

The Equalizer prowls Albert Square

David

Soapy stuff

Can't stand soaps. Never watch 'em. Seems characters have more happen to them in a week than happens to most folk in a whole lifetime!

AA sniffs out Blighty's best bacon sarnie

David

Vital research

Sounds like the sort of research I could easily do. Where do I sign? Just for the record, Mickey's Diner (best toilets!) is near me and is not actually in Aylesford village. It's on the the A229, halfway up Bluebell Hill in Kent, north-bound carriageway, next to the Shell garage. I'll call in for the cheque later.

BCS accuses UK.gov of grabbing 'draconian' data powers

David

Nice government. Sit!

Trouble is, we, the great British public, voted these nutcases in - except me - I don't vote. Can't stand politicians, don'cha know. Devious lot of ********

Vatican endorses Darwin, slights intelligent design

David

Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins for president (or maybe pope next time?)

Vladimir Putin denies penchant for Abba

David

Look-alike?

Well, if the group was a look-alike, perhaps the audience was too? Rumours abounded years ago that look-alike Russian presidents were wheeled out and used when the real thing was indisposed, or maybe dead!

Jacqui Smith cracks down on gangs via computers, closets

David

Noddy and Big Ears' gang strike.

Is this woman really living in the real world? She is rapidly becoming a laughing stock.

Irish ISP Eircom in 'three strike' filesharer crackdown

David

Are record labels the law, these days?

I too find it difficult to reconcile the idea of foreign record labels apparently taking it upon themselves to implement some sort of parallel quasi-legal system that has its own rules and regulations and seems to run independently from the main courts. Kangaroo courts, I believe is the phrase.

Definition: "A self-appointed tribunal that violates established legal procedure; also, a dishonest or incompetent court of law. For example: The rebels set up a kangaroo court and condemned the prisoners to summary execution. This expression is thought to liken the jumping ability of kangaroos to a court that jumps to conclusions on an invalid basis. [Mid-1800s] "

I rest my case, m'lud.

Monster.com suffers database breach deja vu

David

Incompetents

Amazing, ain't it? If big and presumably tech-savvy corporates keep "losing" stuff like that, what chance have we got with incompetents like our UK government keeping data safe on an ID card database? I wouldn't mind betting that, even as I speak, hackers are rubbing their collective hands together in anticipation of an early-morning milking

David

Further

Further to previous post - small example:

"We are deeply sorry," said Joe Rafferty,

chief executive of Britain's National Health Service for the Central

Lancashire region. "This should never have happened." An NHS employee

lost a computer memory stick containing the health information of as

many as 6,360 patients. But the good news is, the clerk who lost the

memory stick made sure the data on the removable device had been

encrypted for privacy. On the other hand, when he lost the device,

there was a sticky note attached to it with the encryption password

written on it.

From "This Is True" (http://thisistrue.com)

If this sort of thing happens at this low level, saints preserve us when "they" get cracking on an ID database.

Kentucky reverses 141-site net casino land grab

David

Judge Thomas Wingate

I will be first in line to remove Judge Thomas Wingate's stripes, rip off his epaulettes and break his sword. What a ludicrous decision. The man obviously does not live in the real world and should be suitably admonished.

Council to crack down on Cracknuts Lane

David

A Hucking nuisance

I live near a village in Kent called Hucking. Wonder what they would make of that, along with another nearby area called Pratt's Bottom? In my opinion, these quaint old names, that have probably been around for centuries, should survive and to hell with namby-pamby councils who seem to want to protect us against...................er...............what, exactly?

NASA rovers survive five years on Mars

David

Thirteen miles in five years?

Sure they're not a pair of Sinclair C5's in disguise? On second thoughts - maybe not. They probably wouldn't have even made 13 metres!

BT to be freed from service obligations

David

BT doing nowt

Gawd knows what BT will be like if this goes ahead! Gone are the days of it being a public service and a government department after the sell-off (or perhaps "sell-out" would be more appropriate!). I was an engineer in those halcyon days when the job had a some status and there was actually some half-decent service to the public. My current experiences of the present BT incarnation have not been good, as they have cocked up two house moves - one of which should have been the simplest job imaginable, as I moved about 600 metres down the lane and the existing line (the physical wires) went past the premises. "Easy peasy", I told the obviously non-technical girl on the end of the line. "Just get the engineer to ring me first and I can make life easy for him", quoth I. It was, literally, just a case of diverting the existing line into the new place from the pole outside and altering the paperwork to suit. It didn't happen. My broadband got cut off in the exchange and the performance to get everything back to the way it was had to be experienced to be believed. They also managed to chop my neighbour's line off in the process. Doh!

In the ditch with DAB radio

David

DAB dead duck?

I have it on good authority from an industry insider that DAB radio is considered something of a joke and I would agree. When it was first proposed, the buzz-words were “CD quality or better”. Perhaps the word “potentialy” should have been added as it hasn’t happened. As usual, the great god of money has intervened and we now find extra stations being shoe-horned into each multiplex at ever-decreasing bit-rates. To really add insult to injury, some channels are actually in MONO! BBC7 is one such. Although I would agree that quite often it doesn’t matter, as a lot of the nostalgic output was originally recorded in mono, there are numerous, more modern plays, etc; being broadcast that can now only be heard in their full stereophonic glory on their satellite outlet or from the BBC iPlayer. Furthermore, hideous amounts of audio compression and processing are still used. Again (unless I had a dream) I seem to remember a proposal that compression would be user-controllable at the receiver/tuner, some sort of control signal being sent out with the DAB signal to facilitate that idea, which really appealed to me. Again, it didn’t happen. I also gather that in-car units are somewhat variable in their ability to give a clean signal, without the characteristic “burbling” that is a dead-give-away of a lousy DAB signal. So, once again, an opportunity to establish a really high quality audio broadcasting system has been squandered by the suits.

Scientology refuseniks sue over compulsory workplace courses

David

Beliefs

Everyone is entitled to their own beliefs, provided that's exactly what they are - their OWN, and keep 'em that way! I like to think I'm a reasonably tolerant person, but when religous fanatics of varying persuasions turn up on my doorstep (despite a clear, LARGE sign on the door saying no unsolicited callers, leaflets, etc.), trying to force their vague, ethereal and nefarious theories on me, something snaps and I invariably tell them to go away in terms which cannot be mis-interpreted!

Oh - and by the way, after reading the article, I shall not be touching DisKeeper with the proverbial barge-pole!

RIAA won't sue, but will throttle

David

Judge, jury and executioner

How dare they set themselves up as judge, jury and executioner!! Does seem to me that they thnk they are above due legal process.........no.........wait, they think they ARE the law! It is certainly not up to them to try and intervene in a process which should rightly be decided by a court, in my opinion. Great tactic - get the ISP's to do all your dirty work. Doesn't cost anywhere as much as taking folk to court!

BT silences customers over Phorm

David

BT down the pan

The rot set in when they were privatised. I can vouch for that, being an ex BT maintenance man, I go right back to the days in the 60's when the "firm" was a government department and called "Post Office Telephones". Quaint, huh? Running around in little green Morris 1000 vans the staff used to take care of customers and the job carried a bit of status. Not any more. They brought in "managers" who knew next-to-nothing about the engineering work ot the systems they were supposed to be over-seeing and changed complicated and unnessary paper-work procedures almost daily, which did nothing for staff morale and contributed an equally big zero to the day-to-day running of the organisation.

Looking at them with my consumer hat on, I have had aggravation on two house moves where there were cock-ups with the line provision, appointments broken, etc. I am not impressed with the current state of BT, as you can probably gather and this Phorm debacle only strengthens that view.

MP calls for Jezza Clarkson's head

David

Wossie syndrome?

Sounds like the Jonathan Ross syndrome - under the illusion he can do what he likes. Probably get away with it - just like Ross.

Porn breath tests for PCs heralds 'stop and scan'

David

Australian?

Australian, eh? Hmmm - sits very well with previous items about the "authorities" over there wanting to censor the internet, doesn't it? Can't see this working.

Roadpricing satnav spybox trials under way

David

Motorways are supposed to be fast

Gawd `elp us, guv`nor! Have the powers-that-be lost their minds? They seem to have completely lost sight of the fact that motorways were supposed to have been built to facilitate high-speed motoring in order to get from A to B quicker. Now what do we get? Instead of improvements to achieve this goal, all we get is pussy-footing around with variable speed limits and other useless "remedies". I see there are now traffic lights appearing on the M25 "on" slip roads, anti-clockwise at junctions 6 and 8! I really look forward to seeing just exactly how these are going to ease congestion. I drive to Heathrow a lot and the stretch from the A3 junction, clock-wise, which just happens to have variable speed limits, is always a pain in the you-know-what. In my opinion, the limits cause more problems than they solve. The knock-on effect is similar to the aftermath of an accident and what is the point of that? Yes, there may be more traffic on a given stretch but what`s the point if it's virtually at a stand-still? The more I drive, the more I despair!

French Senate passes bill to disconnect filesharers

David

Trois strikes

Encryption, anyone?

Thomas tells CEOs told to sort out data protection

David

ID cards

Is this the same government that`s pushing ahead with the almost-universally despised identity card scheme? Sounds like the suits need a few lessons on data protection themselves but I agree 100% with Jimmy Floyd - don`t gather the data in the first place. I despair, sometimes. We`re all living on the same planet and don`t the powers-that-be who are actually trying to introduce all this spying (for that`s all it is) legislation realise that they too are also subject to these absurd laws. Don`t they also find them objectionable?

UK.gov says: Regulate the internet

David

All in the best possible taste

I boil over any suggestion of internet censorship but where do you draw the line? Child porn sites and instructions for bomb-making/terrorism are unacceptable, in my opinion but other sites containing perfectly legal porn, (which may not be unacceptable to some folk, but they don`t have to look at them) should not be restricted. It`s all a matter of taste, y`know! Anyway, how do you police it, without having an army of cross-eyed civil servants glued to a screen (or maybe three or four, if government can find the money for that many) all day?

David

More publicity needed.

Forgot to add something to my previous comment. Just how much does Joe public (non-geeks) know about all these proposed censorship/interception schemes? I don`t suppose they get to read specialised newsletters. Doesn`t seem to make the mainstream TV news or tabloid newspapers. It`s about time it did.

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