Posts by The Central Scrutinizer

Australia to force Google and Facebook to pay for news and reveal algorithm changes before they whack web traffic

Double edged sword. How will this skew search results here in Australia?

And the thought of anyone, even Google, paying Murdoch and his cronies for search results makes me want to puke.

Two large flightless birds walk into a bar... The pub's owner was not emused *ba-dum tsh*

Apparently the lifespan of an emu is about 10 years, so they're underage and shouldn't have been in the damn bar anyway.

Pokémon Go players fined for breaking down-under COVID-19 lockdown rules

Yeah, the virus is all nonsense bla bla....

Human stupidity never ceases to amaze me.

I live in Melbourne. These people are morons, pure and simple. While the vast majority of us are doing the right thing, people like them put us all at risk.

Enjoy your $26,000 bucket of KFC, dickheads.

After 84 years, Japan's Olympus shutters its camera biz, flogs it to private equity – smartphones are just too good

Truly sad to see Olympus go. I've always been a Nikon guy, but those OM1s and 2s were beautiful film cameras.

I absolutely hate phone cameras. Farnarkeling around trying to hold the damn phone steady with your arms outstretched. Good for snapshots but blech.

Hopefully we still get real cameras for a long time to come.

After huffing and puffing for years, US senators unveil law to blow the encryption house down with police backdoors

If this ever happens....

They will have to prevent Americans (somehow) from being able to download anything other than government approved software. It's not like the Internet is a global network or anything.... oh, wait.

Good luck with that.

Re: LAEDA is sponsored by US Senators ...

Unfortunately there is no law against crass stupidity. When I rule the universe, however....

How do you run a military court over Zoom? With 28 bullet points and a ceremonial laptop flunkey, of course!

Ah, the British, still living in the 11th century while struggling to grapple with the 21st.

If you're despairing at staff sharing admin passwords, look on the bright side. That's CIA-grade security

Re: Don't Panic

It sounds like they back doored themselves.

Mortal wombat: 4 generations of women fight for their lives against murderous marsupial

Come on.... seriously?

"Dubbo Photo News"? I suspect this is a highly suspect story about the marsupial suspect. Wombats are much loved here and are generally considered friendly, curious creatures. Gotta go.... have to park the kangaroo for the night.

Smart fridges are cool, but after a few short years you could be stuck with a big frosty brick in the kitchen

A solution looking for a problem

All these "smart" devices are basically shit, from everything I've read about them. Look at the recent Sonos speaker debacle. They wanted to intentionally brick them, just because. You don't own them. Who wants to rent their fridge from some clown, ffs.

Hey Mister Prime Minister ... Scott! Can you get off my lawn please, mate?

Re: Might be me

You're clearly not old enough. I used to (a long time ago) drink it from cans,before I knew better.

Re: Might be me

We ship Foster's overseas and keep the good stuff for ourselves. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a can of Foster's anywhere.

Snapping at Canonical's Snap: Linux Mint team says no to Ubuntu store 'backdoor'

Jesus the bloody mount points. I couldn't believe that when I realised what was going on. I got the wire brush and dettol out and scraped it off my drive. Never, ever again.

Surprise! That £339 world's first 'anti-5G' protection device is just a £5 USB drive with a nice sticker on it

I have a bridge in Sydney for sale

Just saying.... message me for info and pricing.

US lawmakers get a second shot at forcing FBI agents to obtain a warrant before they leaf through web histories

It is 2020 isn't it, not East Germany in 1963?

Record-breaking Aussie boffins send 44.2 terabits a second screaming down 75km of fiber from single chip

Re: Cool.

Yeah, not much, just things like wi-fi, black box flight recorder, spray on skin, bionic ear.... etc.

Microsoft announces official Windows package manager. 'Not a package manager' users snap back

Snap.... gag. Tried it and spat it out.

Fancy some post-weekend reading? How's this for a potboiler: The source code for UK, Australia's coronavirus contact-tracing apps

Well surprise surprise regarding the Australian app. No customer support, the developers not listening to or responding to legitimate concerns from other developrs, etc. Typical tone deaf government response to legitimate concerns.

And they wonder why the download count has stalled.

Unfortunately there's no app for fixing stupidity.

Australian contact-tracing app sent no data to contact-tracers for at least ten days after hurried launch

Re: Australia 2.0

You clearly missed the 2.1 update, dude.

Re: @The Central Scrutinizer

Rots o' ruck.

<smug mode>I absolutely bloody knew something like this would happen, given the government's shitty record on just about anything IT related.<end smug mode>

I will absolutely never download their knocked up over the weekend crap, despite Scotty's pleas.

I fear that a lot of the lemmings rushing to download it have no idea of the implications for their privacy and security.

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

Re: Hanlon's razor

You want paternalism, come to Australia, where Scotty from marketing says it's the equivalent of national service to download our app.

India makes contact-tracing app compulsory in viral hot zones despite most local phones not being smart

Here in Australia, the government is dangling the carrot of earlier easing of restrictions being based on how many people download the covisdafe app. It is not compulsory to download, but that's a sneaky way of sort of trying to make it compulsory. Our PM even likened it to national service or buying war bonds. Seriously? And then there's this thought. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2020/05/me_on_covad-19_.html

Google is a 'publisher' says Aussie court as it hands £20k damages to gangland lawyer

Re: Right to be forgotten?

They forgot.

You can get a mechanical keyboard for £45. But should you? We pulled an Aukey KM-G6 out of the bargain bin

Ducky Zero with the red switches here. I thought the blue ones were the really loud ones?

I wouldn't be without my mechanical keyboard. The thing is built like a battleship and the typing experience is great. It's black, it sits on my desk and just works. No stupid gaudy lighting nonsense or anything like that. It's probably hard to explain to someone who's never used one, but if you type a lot, then they are definitely worth the extra cash.

Australia's contact-tracing app regulation avoids 'woolly' principles in comparable cyber-laws, say lawyers

The government has made it clear that the server is here, not the US. No court order can be used to access the data, so law enforcement is barred from it.

Still, given the government's atrocious track record in the digital domain and the lack of source code so far, I am not downloading it.

They need to earn our trust, not take it as a given.

We're in a timeline where Dettol maker has to beg folks not to inject cleaning fluid into their veins. Thanks, Trump

You're all fake news.

You have one job, Australian PM tells contact-tracing app, and that’s talking to medicos

As I said in a post 2 or 3 days ago, the central problem is that the government has consistently and maliciously shafted people on a ton of issues, i.e. the 2016 census debacle, the appalling Robodebt targeting the most vulnerable, the My Health Record fiasco and the combined clustetfucks of metadata retention and encryption busting legislation.

Suddenly we are supposed to just trust them because there is a health emergency.

You know what would engender trust? Making the code open source, not just bits of it.

Governments of all stripes have an appalling record of safeguarding data, even with the best of intentions.

Law enforcement has already been knocking on the door, requesting access to data from the app.

No thank you.

Web pages a little too style over substance? Behold the Windows 98 CSS file

I love it. Who doesn't like a bit of retro computing? Now if only I could turn my Linux UI into something resembling an Irix workstation or similar.

Academics: We hate to ask, but could governments kindly refrain from building giant data-slurping, contact-tracing coronavirus monsters?

Re: In the Antipodean version...

The central problem is that we have been shafted over and over again. Metadata retention, the encryption back door legislation, the My Health Record fiasco, etc. Why the fuck would we voluntarily install a government mandated app, just because Scotty from marketing asks us to? Successive governments have consistently and maliciously undermined the publc's trust in them. Now they have the gall to tell us that this is a big "Team Australia" moment and to just trust them. Not. Gonna. Happen.

Australia to make Google and Facebook disclose ranking algorithms and pay for local content

Re: too few Australian eyes

Jesus, the population jumped 3 million overnight! Lockdown's really producing some surprises.

Wanted: An exit strategy from the overt surveillance of smartphone contact tracing

The Strayan' government is now openly talking about trying to get us to download the same type of app in a fortnight or so. Apparently at least 40% of us will have to do it for it to be effective. Yeah, good luck with that. IF there is ever a hint of this even remotely becoming mandatory, I'll unplug the smartphone and buy a $40 burner dumb phone. Good luck getting your spyware app on that.

So how do the coronavirus smartphone tracking apps actually work and should you download one to help?

Re: State surveillance

Just wait till countries in the so called first world try to force people to install a tracking app. You can't leave home without it, otherwise you get arrested or fined. Then the fun will really start.

OK brainiacs, we've got an IT cold case for you: Fatal disk errors on an Amiga 4000 with 600MB external SCSI unless the clock app is... just so

Re: 600MB?

I ordered my 68030 A4000 with the 80 meg drive cos the 120 pushed the price up too much. When the guy from the computer shop rang to tell me it had arrived, he said that it had been shipped with the 120 meg drive at no extra cost. Happy days.

Europe calls for single app to track coronavirus. Meanwhile America pretends it isn’t trying to build one at all

So you've swallowed the whole bottle of conspiracy theory Kool Aid, huh?

COBOL-coding volunteers sought as slammed mainframes slow New Jersey's coronavirus response

Re: No so much COBOL as the tools

Don't even start me on YouTube tutorials. What a waste of disc space and viewers' time. There are precisely 9 useful tutorials out there.

Someone should make a tutorial on creating tutorials. No, wait....

Why is ransomware still a thing? One-in-three polled netizens say they would cave to extortion demands

Re: One in three

In my experience with friends and relatives, your average computer user is mostly technologically illiterate. Computers are just appliances these days unfortunately, or at least most people seem to treat them that way. Actually knowing how they work is just too much bother.

Australian state will install home surveillance hardware to make sure if you're in virus isolation, you stay there

Re: Let's have a little fun today

Problem is, nobody can actually afford 100 mobile phones anymore.

Sunday: Australia is shocked UK would consider tracking mobile data to beat pandemic. Monday: Australia to deploy drone intimidation squads

This was actually reported on the TV news last night, with video footage of said drone. My first reaction was WTF?! OK, we need to be extremely careful about social contact etc. I get it. This sets a very dangerous precedent for societal control though. Once the pandemic is over, I wonder how long it will take for these things to disappear from the sky, hmmm? And if you don't want to be tracked when you go shopping etc, leave your damn phone at home.

Cops charge prankster who 'corona-coughed' on aged officer and had it filmed

Yeah well, our federal government is known for its high level of technical acumen.... not.

Who could possibly, possibly, possibly have foreseen that hundrrds of thousands of people would be rushing the Centrelink website after they'd lost their jobs?

Stuart Robert should be sent into permanent social isolation. He is unfit for purpose.

Reach for the sky: Pixar founders win Turing Award for pioneering 3D animation – and getting rid of jagged edges

Don't forget Catmull Clark subdivision surfaces, which are still heavily used today.

Don't be fooled, experts warn, America's anti-child-abuse EARN IT Act could burn encryption to the ground

Like I've said before, the stupid truck just keeps rolling down moron street. Oh yeah, I want me some of that back doored encryption. Pen and paper is fast becoming an attractive option.

London's top cop dismisses 'highly inaccurate or ill informed' facial-recognition critics, possibly ironically

"I would say it is for critics to justify to the victims of those crimes why police should not be allowed to use tech lawfully and proportionally to catch criminals."

Ah yes, turn it all around and blame the critics armed with facts. It's almost like a reverse form of victim blaming.

Jeff Bezos bungs $10bn at climate change after chump change for Oz bush fires

Re: A rich man...

Gonna have to call you out on all that bullshit. Basically every real, actual climate scientist on the planet agrees that the science is settled, so your rantings won't change anything.

And can you ever construct a sentence without all the screaming caps?

Call us immediately if your child uses Kali Linux, squawks West Mids Police

Re: what about Tails

Geezes, I've used Tails. I must be a criminal mastermind/terrorist/evil hacker.

Bada Bing, bada bork: Windows 10 is not happy, and Microsoft's search engine has something to do with it

So many reasons to hate Microsoft

and so little time.

I haven't used their shit for years anyway.

Ding-dong. Who's there? Any marketing outfit willing to pay: Not content with giving cops access to doorbell cams, Ring also touts personal info

And the stupid truck just keeps rolling down moron street.