Posts by bronskimac

International police shut down 15 server infrastructures as part of VPNLab.net's takedown

Are all VPNs on the hit list?

It could be argued that any VPN enables criminals to operate safely. Are they going to close them all down?

Not only MSPs: All cloudy firms are in line for UK security law crackdown

It took to the third paragraph for me to figure out that it wasn't Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs) being singled out.

Booting up: Footballers kick off GDPR case for 'misuse' of their performance data

Taken to its logical conclusion, this means reporting of their goals, or any professional sports person's performance, would require their permission and possibly payment for the privilege. Live commentary would be impossible unless the permission of everyone playing, all officials and, very possibly, the crowd watching, was obtained in advance. The death of professional sport, if you can't show it or report on it, why would anyone put any money into it? Personally I'd quite like for sport to disappear from our screens and newspapers, but it might upset a few folk ;)

Sir Tim Berners-Lee and the BBC stage a very British coup to rescue our data from Facebook and friends

Not going to happen

Great idea, but it's not going to get the support of the lawmakers. Global businesses like Facebook and Google will, 1. Lobby like hell against it and, 2, threaten to withdraw their immense corporate sponsorship of politician and their parties. Especially in the UK where the government have declared war on data protection post Brexit.

Google emits Chrome 94 with 'Idle Detection' API to detect user inactivity amid opposition

The last straw

I've not been happy with Chrome's privacy/snooping for a long time. I finally deleted it last night when I read about "Idle Detection". If there are Chrome features/extensions you simply cannot live without, then Comodo Dragon is a Chromium based browser that doesn't tell tales to Google.

LA cops told to harvest social media handles from people they stop, suspect or not

Fourth Ammendment?

If only they protected their fourth amendment rights as strenuously as some other amendments. Unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

Amazon Game Studios to its own devs: All your codebase doesn't belong to us

Bloody Hell! So it's not just warehouse staff that they treat like slaves. If I knock up a shed in my back garden, are Amazon going to call dibs on that too? I guess it show that you really do need to read the contract before you sign it.

Taxpayers foot the bill: HMRC signs up Cognizant for £150m low-code, automation project

I hope their foray into "low-code" goes better than Government's recent history with agile methodology. The NAO report in a few years should be entertaining reading.

Palantir abandons any attempt at curating nice-guy image with 'Global Information Dominance Experiments'

Just cut to the chase, you're building Skynet aren't you?

Without a trace: Baroness Dido Harding to step down as chair of NHS Improvement

I would apply, but I've not donated to the Tories, married a Tory, slept with a Tory, I didn't go to a private school, and I'm not a banker.

Apple is about to start scanning iPhone users' devices for banned content, professor warns

Fourth Amendment?

I'm pretty sure the US courts would view this as a breach of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. There needs to be "probable cause" to carry out any search. I don't see "You've got a phone" without any other evidence, as probable cause to search it. "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

Of course in the UK our Members of Parliament (MPs) will love it and rush through any changes to legislation needed to make it happen, whilst continuing to exclude themselves from any such searches.

8 years ago another billionaire ploughed millions into space to harvest solar power and beam it back down to Earth

What could possibly go wrong?

Verified: UK.gov launching plans for yet another digital identity scheme

Got to keep the gravy train rolling

Serco or Crapita for the megabuck contract?

Nominet claims effort to replace its board with 'safe hands' is invalid, refuses to put it to member vote

Gravy train heading for the buffers

It seams that people become so accustomed to acting with impunity and feathering their own nests that they come to think that it is normal and their right. The Trump reference fits perfectly.

A 1970s magic trick: Take a card, any card, out of the deck and watch the IBM System/370 plunge into a death spiral

Brilliant student let loose with SQL

I had a student working for our small web design business. Despite a strict instruction to keep SQL queries simple, so I could understand them, he created a monster that spawned a gigantic and ever growing temporary table from a surprisingly small dataset. It took me far longer than it should have to figure out why our server kept falling over.

.uk registry operator Nominet responds to renewed criticism – by silencing its critics

Problem is that the big domain companies have the biggest share of the votes and they are happy with the way Nominet is run to their advantage. Even if the vast majority of the members try to make any changes the big few can always outvote them.

Apple commits to support human rights - 'We believe in the critical importance of an open society'*

Re: Place your bets...

Doesn't make it right.

NHS Digital sets aside £800m of taxpayers' pork to inject a bit of Agile development into its 'ongoing live services'

Agile development?

Didn't their last big foray into Agile development go tits up spectacularly? Someone is going to get rich.

NHS tests COVID-19 contact-tracing app that may actually work properly – EU neighbors lent a helping hand

Added bells and whistles? They haven't learned have they? So if the contact tracking part works but one of the add-ons doesn't, I imagine that may delay the release of the app. They should have built the basic app or better still bought a working one, tested and released before adding any shiny bits.

Who's got the WD-40? Owners of Motorola's rebooted Razr whinge about creaky hinge

Re: People just want to complain

Is it faulty though? It performs it's functions perfectly as far as I can see. I don't remember any of the publicity material saying it doesn't squeak :)

When flip phones came out, way back in the twentieth century, we loved the whole Star Trek communicator thing but now, really? Sounds like some kind of ratchet thing going on. People are happy to pay inflated prices to have the latest and "greatest" I'll stick to my Huawei midrange. last year's model, great value and it rarely squeaks.

Your mobile network broke the law by selling location data and may be fined millions... or maybe not, shrugs FCC

Surely at some point the politicians are going to do something about that man? My bad, that would upset their donors/owners.

Creative cloudy types still making it rain cash for Adobe

I switched to Coral for photo and video editing. Thee months worth of Adobe subscription paid for them outright.

FCC boosts broadband competition by, er, banning broadband competition in buildings

The FCC are a very bad joke. Fox in charge of the chicken coop comes to mind. FCC - For Corporate Corpulence.