Posts by onefang

US websites block netizens in Europe: Why are they ghosting EU? It's not you, it's GDPR

Well, my brother will be pleased at least. He was pissed off that I was eligible, and he wasn't, coz our father became a naturalised aussie between our births.

From what I have been reading, GDPR applies to people in EU, not to EU citizens outside of EU?

I'm eligible for adding German citizenship to my Australian citizenship. If it applies to citizens, I'd be inclined to keep a close eye on how this all pans out over the next year or two, and maybe take up that German citizenship.

Re: Stop spamming

"I had no idea I was actually signed up to all these ML services - an excellent way to get myself removed!!!"

Most of the emails I have gotten from companies about this I have read, and figured I can just ignore them, they are not actually asking me to do anything. One reminded me about a site I had joined years ago and forgotten entirely about. Forgotten so much I had to look them up to remind me what it is that they do. So I logged on, deleted my data, and deleted the account.

The odd one out is the Australian web site, that is for Australian citizens like me, mostly living in Australia, telling me all about how this new European law might be something we should worry about.

Re: THIS IS AN AWESOME SOLUTION TO #GDPR

"Why don't they throttle the bandwidth too whilst they're at it?"

Ah, but if they show a plain text site, with no tracking JavaScript, no graphic / video adverts, AND throttle bandwidth as well, you'll likely still end up with a much faster download of their web site.

Re: Whither Cornwallis?

"Even a simple enabling of VPN in Opera allows me to view the Virginian Pilot from Blighty."

I have the exact opposite situation. I'm outside EU, using a VPN that's in EU. I've never been to any of the sites listed here so far, but checked one just now, and got told it's not available to EU people. VPN working fine. B-)

"Happy Towel Day by the way. Are you a real hoopy frood who knows where his towel is?"

I'm sitting on my towel.

You know that silly fear about Alexa recording everything and leaking it online? It just happened

Re: Most of us knew that this was going on

"That's right. Plenty of times some company would *demand* my phone number for some web-form. Just to mess with them I'd look up the corporate HQ's own phone number and put that in the form. Or use an email address like bad.email@<company's domain name here>."

For reasons that I wont go into here, I have a landline that I never wanted, and doesn't have an actual phone connected to it. The only good use I have for it is to hand it to such web forms. Spread it around telemarkerters and such all you want, no ones answering that phone, no one can hear it ring.

Re: Smart TVs?

"a bit of foam tape should dort that out"

I dunno if you have noticed, but a lot of microphones used on stage have the business end wrapped in foam. You might want something with a bit more ability to block voice.

Re: You realize that you've got to enable this type of messaging?

"have regular contact with sales and marketing types"

I try to avoid them, with a lot of success.

Re: And that....

"I pity anyone that has an accent."

Apparently my aussie accent is so thick, other aussies can't understand it.

Re: 'I physically disabled the built in microphone'

"Then see if one or more adverts turns up on your phone, etc, which relates to your previous conversation. Well ?"

Well, I have ads blocked on my phone, so none turned up.

Re: Still Unimpressed with IoT

"It sits on the headboard of my bed"

I hope you don't talk in your sleep, you could wake up to a nasty surprise.

Re: Smart TVs?

"Surely, there's less chance of it having been exploited by someone if you get it from the Play store?"

Less chance of downloading a similarly named bit of malware from Play, by getting it direct from the authors.

Re: And that....

'or a nice word like "ekki-ekki-ekki-ekki-ptang-zoom-boing-mrow"'

Dammit, that's my girlfriends name, wouldn't want a machine to respond to that.

Paris Hilton, coz I wish my girlfriend looked like that. Sorry Ekki-ekki-ekki-ekki-ptang-zoom-boing-mrow.

Re: Anyone else reading between the lines?

"to avoid this from happening in the future..."

Yes, reading between the lines they mean "to avoid being caught in the future".

Re: "extremely rare occurrence"

"yes, I'm sure that it happens only once every 1 million transactions or so,"

Don't forget that million-to-one chances crop up nine times out of ten.

Insert PTerry icon here ->

Re: What could go wrong!

Careful what you wish for, you might find your Alexa waiting to ambush you next time you visit the toilet, followed by evil laughter from Bezos as he cackles "Stick it where the Sun don't shine, good one.".

"One day I'll get a frequency generator and go up the tones until I find it."

There are frequency generator apps, and computer programs you could use.

About to install the Windows 10 April 2018 Update? You might want to wait a little bit longer

Re: PC Updated itself last night

"Mint seems a bit better, and is apparently based on Debian"

Mint is based on Ubuntu, which in turn is based on Debian.

Re: PC Updated itself last night

"Linux is quite bloated nowadays, in most distros. Sad."

But at least you can choose to use one of the popular non bloated distros. Or if you have the time, and a large bottle of geek juice, LFS and friends.

Welcome to your sci-fi dystopia: Sonic firewalls to crumble inaudible ad-tracking phone cookies

You should check your belfry, I think you lost a few.

Boffins: Michael Jackson's tilt was a criminally smooth trick

Last time I watched Dr Who, becoming a Cyberman was usually an involuntary "upgrade".

FBI agents take aim at VPNFilter botnet, point finger at Russia, yell 'national security threat'

"Removing that second layer will, however, force the device to try and reconnect to the command and control servers. The hope, says the FBI, is that by trying to reconnect the devices will give away the location of those servers, allowing for further takedowns and potentially letting them cripple the botnet entirely."

So let me get this straight, the FBI wants every one to paint a big target on their chest that says "REINFECT ME!!", so that the ever watchful FBI agents can see where the bad guys are shooting from? Instead of, oh I dunno, doing that themselves with some of their own routers, coz actually protecting the innocent is a good thing.

Advanced VPNFilter malware menacing routers worldwide

Re: remind me who the bad guy is

It's Eurasia, it's always been Eurasia.

Welcome to Ubuntu 18.04: Make yourself at GNOME. Cup of data-slurping dispute, anyone?

Re: Linux Unplugged

I dunno, my Windows 8.1 development box is all but completely firewalled off from the Internet, specifically from Microsoft update servers. I wont be able to upgrade it. I'd not call that an adverse effect.

I don't think it's just a list of tech used that's important to them, but what's popular. If only a very tiny fraction uses a particular CPU that has only recently been revealed to have a certain bug, it becomes a very low priority to get a fix for that pushed out as an update. If the great majority of users have 4GB or more, not much point working on squeezing things into 2GB. It's all about setting priorities based on what sort of equipment the bulk of their users use.

Re: I've opted out of 18.04

I opted out of Ubuntu some time ago and went upstream to Debian. Though once Devuan ASCII is fully released (any day now), I'll switch to that.

Hold on. Here's an idea. Let's force AI bots to identify themselves as automatons, says Cali

Re: Will there be an exception...

The Two Ring Test? The Touring Test?

Re: Protocols

"How is a bot in a public forum (think IRC, for instance, where our favourite bot has been occasionally mistaken for human for about 20 years[1])"

As an ex maintainer of IRC bot software, I've seen plenty of examples of simple bots fooling humans into thinking the bot is human. I guess this legislation is gonna make the Turing test illegal.

President Trump broke US Constitution with Twitter bans – judge

Re: First Amendment Violation?

'at best "Choice A or Choice B"'

I think you meant Choice A or Choice a, they try to look different, but are basically the same thing.

Re: Does this mean...

I thought Twitter recently increased the limit? Not a Twitter user, so dunno really.

Re: a Landlord can deny you entry to his pub

At least in this country, the landlord can deny you entry on all sorts of trivial reasons, coz it's private property. I've been kicked out of enough offices and shopping centres for being barefoot to know. I rarely go to pubs, but the last two I tried, they wouldn't let me into the first one coz of being barefoot, the other one (being in a very barefoot friendly area) didn't even comment.

And no, health and safety, broken glass, are not valid excuses. I go barefoot for my own health and safety reasons, and when you walk around barefoot for a few decades, your feet get tough. Walking barefoot through broken glass doesn't even slow me down. I even have a medical certificate, which every one ignores.

As for offices, I guess it's well known that feral computer monitors will leap of desks and attack poor unsuspecting people, so wearing thongs (flip flops for non aussies) is suitable protection. It's OK, honest, I'm an experienced sysadmin and computer programmer, I can handle feral computer monitors in complete safety. Maybe this explains why some computer equipment is chained to the desk?

Church of England will commune with God for you via Amazon's Echo

Re: Makes sense....

'They may do it in church, but in my experience your average bell ringer is rarely described as "godly".'

I used to play handbells, got a lot of gigs playing in churches. Being an atheist, I'd probably not be described as "godly" either.

Though technically I am a god, of the OpenSim world I run, coz that's the technical term for the admins. A term invented by Second Life, and inherited by OpenSim, coz they use the same viewers, and that's the term the viewer software uses. I guess it fits, I can wander around the virtual world, and if something needs fixing, some one "prays" to me, I "put on my halo", wave my arms, and it magically gets fixed. Or in other words, I request admin access from the server, which gives it to me, the viewer says "Entering god mode", and adds an Admin menu, with an option to bring up the "God Tools" window. shrugs

Incidentally, good luck with the Google version - your most likely responses are going to be "I don't understand 'God'", "God is not available in your area right now" or "You need to configure a default God provider".

"The Google Omniscience Department will get back to you shortly."

Re: "Alexa, is there a God?

"A cure for cancer; the blind seeing; the lame walking; the dead resurrected; winning a lottery?"

We already got bionic ears, eyes, and limbs, and people winning lotteries happens all the time. Recently actors have been acting in movies after they die, and see my previous post in another thread about Micheal Jackson touring Australia after his death. I guess that leaves curing cancer?

OK, wasn't Asimov after all - http://www.roma1.infn.it/~anzel/answer.html is the story I meant.

Been way too long since I read any Asimov.

So if you can get computers to do your praying for you now, can they do it really really fast? A new unit of measurement for El Reg, Mega Prayers per second.

And at those sorts of speeds, will the effectiveness of these prayers increase? I'm no theist, so no idea really. Any one care to donate some time on a super computer for a little experiment? We may be able to prove the existence of God if after running this little experiment, a loud voice is heard coming from The Cloud - "AAARRRGGH, shut up already!".

I'll get my coat, it's the one with the micro dog collars.

Re: How long before...

Two nanoseconds, three tops.

Re: I'm sure it will end like in...

That's the story I mean, thanks for naming it.

Edit, OK having read through the link AC posted, not the same story I was thinking of. I've read that one before as well. The one I'm thinking of as waaay shorter.

Re: "Alexa, is there a God?

If I remember correctly, there was a very very short story by Isaac Asimov with that plot.

Doc 'Cluetrain' Searls' privacy engine project is just the ticket for IEEE

Re: Who rates the raters?

I had an idea long ago for a PGP style web of trust, that was generalised and included negative trust. Who rates the raters, you do. You pick who you trust, and who you don't trust, for a variety of things.

I trust Alice's taste in comedies, but not her taste in chocolates, and I think she has no concept of how politics work. I don't trust Bob at all. I trust Jonno has a good idea about who to trust in the local city council. Jonno trusts Charlie's knowledge of traffic congestion, but doesn't trust Charlie to know anything about tree planting. We all plug such things into our web of trust.

Alice tells the world that this new comedy movie is great, that turns up through my web of trust as a recommendation to watch that movie. Alice raves about how great some particular chocolate tastes, I'll avoid it. The city council holds a vote about building a new road. Charlie thinks it's a great idea, which info wanders through Jonno's web of trust to mine, and I have no other reason to vote against it, so I'll vote for it. Bob's been campaigning against this new road, I feel more confident that voting for it is a good idea.

Who rates the raters who rate the raters? Everybody does, but since you picked who you trust and who you distrust, you get an individualised trust score for people you don't know.

Oz sports’ pee-samplers outed buying Cellebrite phone-crack kit

Re: Legality of the substances

"Stuff like Salbuthamol comes to my mind. My kid had a series of nasty respiratory infections this winter and he got a prescription for this stuff."

I'm thinking you meant Salbutamol, the active ingredient in your average asthma puffer.

Kids and the web latest: 'Won't somebody please think of the children!' US Congresscritters plead

Re: Well thats one way to up the social media entry age.

"I promise I'm over 13, honest"

On one of my web sites I have a "I'm allegedly an adult in my country. " tick box.

EmDrive? More like BS drive: Physics-defying space engine flunks out

Re: An aside...

"In the laser case you also have to get the sharks up there so you can mount the lasers properly, of course."

Luckily they have found more water on the moon then.

"I'm rather surprised Faux Science Slayer isn't here to explain why this is all true and that' its a conspiracy to keep cheap energy from the peons."

Shhh, don't give it ideas.

"Anyone here called Zefram Cochrane?"

I can change my name if that helps?

Re: 'Ye cannae break the laws of physics!'

"The real disappointment here is that it's looking like we won't be able to make spaceships with just paperclips and a couple of AA batteries*."

No, you also need a cardboard tube, and some super glue.

Re: The device is very light.

Doesn't seem very practical as a drive then.

'Facebook takes data from my phone – but I don't have an account!'

'"It's up to everyone to figure out they'd rather have their phone be a super kick-ass multi tool that embeds itself deeply into their mortal existence,"

That's what most people want (myself included; on-the-spot research is very valuable these days), so you're outvoted.'

I use a dumb phone for actual phone stuff, and a smart phone for my super kick-arse multi tool.

Though a small part of the reason for that is that sometimes I use my smart phone strapped into a Google Daydream to give VR demonstrations to senior citizens. I don't want the thing suddenly ringing loudly while it's strapped to some poor octogenarians noggin, who was quietly sitting near a virtual pond feeding virtual ducks, then to rip it off her face, quickly pull it out of the headset, and answer with "Um, hang on a minute while I call an ambulance, little old lady right in front of me is having a heart attack, and I think I just broke her nose." while hungry virtual ducks quack loudly in my ear.

Swiss sausage sizzler 4.0 hits 200 bangers per hour

Re: 1400 degrees?

"Still it does sound impressive if it will vaporize any flies attracted to the smell of cooking sausages."

Do you want flies with that?