Also, the Computer Misuse Act prohibits using computer systems without authorisation regardless of whether you had to crack/guess a password. Even if there were no password at all but you knew you were not authorised to access something, it would be a breach of the Act (quite rightly in my view).
Trespass is merely wandering onto property without permission. Breaking and entering involves the use of force (which may only be sufficient to push open an unlocked door) to enter a property without permission with the intention of committing a further offence, usually theft.
Consequently, it's still breaking and entering (and therefore criminal) rather than trespass (which, as you rightly point out, is a civil offense) even if the door is unlocked if you do so with the intention of stealing something.
That's a very easy question to answer and the answer is that I might want to compute in more than one place.
I might want to sit on the floor by the fire. I might want to show my daughter a video in her bedroom. I might want to read my emails while I'm eating my breakfast. I might want to watch a video in bed. Very occasionally I may even wish to sit at my desk, but I don't do that very often.
I may also take my laptop on holiday. Have fun getting that 24" monitor into your suitcase.
The Pirate Party already has a dedicated TPB proxy. A quick search for "piratenpartij pirate bay proxy" will lead you to a big list of proxies. There you go High Court, fixed that for you.
I was just about to sign up for box.com after reading the discussion here until I saw the 25MB file size limit on free accounts - pathetic and useless.
Although there are security concerns with Dropbox (the data isn't encrypted and Dropbox staff are able - but not permitted - to access it) one big plus is the level of application support.
In my experience, Dropbox is the most widely supported cloud storage solution in both IOS and Android applications. So far I have only seen one app support box.com and none that support any of the others. In short, that's why I use it.
This is down to his misunderstanding and is not in accordance with the stance of the PCI Security Standards Council. The PCI SSC and most people who deal with the PCI DSS are perfectly aware that being truly compliant still doesn't mean a breach cannot happen.
The fact that there has been a breach is indeed good evidence that the organisation was not compliant but, as you say, it doesn't prove it. So far, no organisation that has been subject to a forensic QSA assessment following a breach has proved to be compliant with the PCI DSS at the time the breach occurred, but it could indeed happen.
What he should have said is "One minute you think you are compliant, then something like this happens and you realise that you were not.".
The first SIM FF was patently stupid in that it was clearly much too large for no purpose whatever.
However, since then, they have gone from small to tiny. If they get any smaller they will be hard to use and I cannot imagine that two cubic millimetres difference will matter to anyone.
At this rate, by the time we get to 5FF we'll have to be careful not to breathe the thing in by accident.
I honestly believe that the tide has turned against Microsoft. Vista was, by common consent, absolutely terrible and a huge mistake. Windows 7 is a big improvement but while Microsoft has been fixing Windows but otherwise stagnating, Apple has been going great guns with the world's most popular CEO, more cash than you can shake a stick at and lionised by the press.
In other news, the world has gone mobile and Microsoft are nowhere to be seen. Google and Apple have that one sewn up.
Corporations are starting to move to mixed environments more and more. I work for one of the Big 4 and spend a lot of time in a lot of other people's offices and I see Macs and iPads all over the place, particularly in the CEO's office. Five years ago only the designers used Macs.
This in one of many instances where airlines/airports do something pointless but annoying. A good example of a non-technical piece of idiocy is the one bag rule on some domestic flights. I have been through the charade of taking a large carrier bag out of my luggage, putting my two pieces of luggage into that bag in front of the security staff before security clearance and then immediately taking them out again. That apparently, is OK whereas having the same two separate pieces of luggage not in a large carrier bag is not OK.
Every other flight I go on either the flight crew (evidenced by the recognisable mobile phone interference on the intercom) or a passenger (evidenced by recognisable beeps and ringtones coming from luggage) has forgotten (or declined) to turn off their phone. You will not be surprised to hear that none of those aeroplanes dropped out of the sky.
If any of this really were dangerous, planes would crash on a daily basis. They do not so let's stop worrying about it.
When I was at university, when my father was at university and when my grandfather was at university we all had our own rooms like all students that I'm aware of in the UK. The idea of having to share a room with a complete stranger at an important time of your life is hugely unappealing.
Where do you take girls when you don't have your own room? I genuinely don't understand.
Since The Reg is a UK web site, I think it's time you stopped using the word bonking in this way. Bonking does not mean touching your phone against something (not here anyway). It's even more of a scam when you combine the word with a reference to a well-known lubricant.
This is the second time I've read a Reg story on false pretences - this has to stop.
My brother has a Kindle (and loves it) but I have two tablets (iPad and a Xoom - it was a tabletty Xmas) and happily read books on my iPad.
I do understand that some people find backlit screens hard on the eye. In my case, I find the poor contrast on my brother's Kindle makes it hard work to read. As I get older I am starting (like literally everyone of my age) to suffer from presbyopia and I need good contrast or my eyes get tired quickly. Having battery life measured in months is a great feature but realistically, as long as my battery lasts a day, I don't care - I can always charge it overnight. I also hate the slow page refresh. It isn't a real problem, but it looks ugly and bothers me every time I see it.
Horses for courses, but I'll stick with my tablets thank you very much.
It is a principle of both UK and US law that no-one can be compelled to give evidence against themselves and it always has been.
The idea is that the prosecuting authorities should be able to make a ca,se that stands up on its own and so does not have to rely on a confession, which can be extorted or made up. It may seem unlikely that someone would confess to a crime they didn't commit except under duress, but there are plenty of examples of that happening. There are far more examples of false confessions being forced out of suspects.
This is a difficult area and I have to say that, on balance, I don't agree with the Supreme Court. The police aren't asking the suspect to incriminate himself but to facilitate the analysis of evidence. I don't think that is the same thing. It doesn't take a genius to work out why he refuses to divulge his passwords/encryption keys, but until he does, no-one will know for sure.
I am a VM customer but I also have a Gmail account. I did wonder why I got this message twice and now I know.
Having said that, come on people. Google already knows who you are, how many times you have sex every week, what your favourite brand of chocolate is and what you do with all that olive oil you buy. Trying to prevent Google assimilating you is like trying to order back the tide.
I'm with you Olaf. I put my phone in my left pocket (I'm left handed) but I wouldn't even put a piece of paper much less change or my keys in the same pocket.
I had an iphone for 3 years and when I sold it, you would have needed a magnifying glass and bright sunlight to see any marks on it at all. I hate screen protectors with a passion and I'm not much keener on cases. Why buy a pretty and slim phone only to stick the thing in a fat and ugly case?
Phones are expensive so it makes sense to treat them with care. I do and it works. It's also cheaper than buying a case.
I have read (usually in the US it has to be said) a lot of promotional literature offering parents ways of spying on their children as if this were something that responsible parents should be doing.
To my way of thinking (and I'm a parent of three children) such behaviour is a disgraceful intrusion into children's privacy and something I would never countenance. I have absolutely no sympathy with him and if, as seems highly likely, he loses his job, it damn well serves him right.
Something that seems to have passed a lot of people by (cf the furore over whether parents should be allowed to beat children) is that children are people and should be afforded the same rights as anyone else. Were someone to plant spyware on another adult's computer and get caught, there would be serious consequences. I don't see why this should be any different.
I can't wait for the Raspberry Pi to come out in a few weeks for two reasons.
Firstly, it's an exciting project the principal aims of which are educational so it doesn't matter if someone beats them to it (highly unlikely) or makes one cheaper (good for everyone including the Foundation). I shall be buying at least two and I know quite a few other people who will be doing the same. These are going to be nifty little devices that are very capable and very cheap.
Secondly, all the nay-saying ACs (grow a pair you lot) here are going to look pretty silly.
I bought an Acer Aspire One when they first came out. It was cheap (£190), quick enough to do anything I wanted it for and was delightfully and conveniently small. I have used it every day for more than two years although I am using it less and less now.
The low screen resolution wasn't a problem and although I am fairly tall, I don't have wide fingers so the small keyboard never caused a problem either. Optical drives are stupid and I don't want to see another one ever so I certainly didn't miss that.
All in all, my AAO has been cheap, reliable and has done what I wanted it to. It's not the best computer I have ever owned (my MacBook Pro costing 8 times as much wins that distinction) but it was the best value.
Now there's an appealing self assessment from Medvedev. "I'm slightly less brutal and unreasonable than the greatest mass murderer in human history." How's that for low standards.
I feel sorry for the unfortunate people of Russia.
It is outrageous that the operators can use the word "unlimited" when it is not unlimited. I don't care whether that limit is apparent to most customers or only one. If there is any sort of limit to how much data anyone can download (within the constraints of the speed of the connection) then it is not unlimited.
I have had conversations with idiots at various ISPs and mobile operators that have gone along these lines.
Me: Is there a limit on how much I can download?
Them: No.
Me: So I can download as much as I like.
Them: Yes, subject to the Fair Usage policy.
Me: So there is a limit then.
Them: No.
Me: If there is not limit, that means I can download as much as I like.
Them: Subject to the Fair Usage policy.
Me: So there is a limit.
etc ad infinitum.
Unlimited means they will not impose restrictions on usage. Any restrictions mean that there is a limit and so calling it "unlimited" is a complete lie and the ASA (toothless paper tiger that it is) should not permit this.
I know a lot of Christians and none of them believes any of that. Only young children believe that God is a sky fairy. Anyone who has given the issue any thought (a group that clearly does not include you) has a far more sophisticated idea of what God is than that. Only lunatics in the US believe that the earth is 5000 years old. The Pope and the Roman Catholic church certainly don't and I have never met anyone who did (including in the US). Finally, where did you get that mixed fibres bit from?
Christianity is pretty safe if the naysayers have to make up bilge and attribute it to Christians to discredit their opinions.
There are plenty of troublesome aspects of Christianity but you have completely missed the mark and not identified any of them. Perhaps you should try to learn something about what you are attacking first. Otherwise, you just look foolish.
In almost all countries in the world, cash is not backed by assets. Sterling certainly isn't and hasn't been since we relinquished the gold standard after the war. If it were asset backed, the government wouldn't be able to engage in "quantitative easing" (ie printing money) because it would have needed to acquire assets first.
Your £1 is worth £1 because the Bank of England promises to pay £1 for your £1 and everyone believes that it will. If you go the to BoE they won't "cash in" your money for gold, it's a purely theoretical amount of money that only works because people believe in it.
Bitcoins are no different. They are worth something if people accept them in payment, otherwise, like cash, they are completely worthless. Examples of this happening are not uncommon. Two prominent ones being Germany before the second world war and Zimbabwe, both of which suffered from hyper-inflation as a result of printing huge amounts of money that was not asset backed resulting in a justifiable loss of confidence in the currency.
I suspect that this won't be a popular opinion amongst the commentards but I don't believe that a person is or can be complete without having children. A job is what you do to put food on the table and is necessary but certainly not a fundamental part of life.
My partner has opted to stay at home and look after our children so I get to work (yippee) but I'd stack shelves in Tesco if having children had meant that I couldn't have a career.
When you look at the statistics for child well-being (the UK comes appallingly low down on the list of developed nations) you can see the consequences of employers' not being family friendly. It may be good for their profits but it's a disaster for the future of the nation.
Amazon is selling the Kindle Fire at a small loss so presumably, they are hoping to make that up in content sales. Allowing people to use it for whatever they wish will clearly put a dent in their long-term profits.
However, this attempt to thwart the more technical goes against Amazon's statements at launch.
PC Magazine reported that Jon Jenkins (director of Amazon's Silk browser) told them that "it's going to get rooted, and what you do after you root it is up to you." so it is surprising (and disappointing) that Amazon should be starting to get awkward.
With any luck, Amazon's attempts at stopping the devices being hacked will be as bootless as such attempts normally are.
The stupid aspect is that the woman had a cup of hot coffee wedged between her thighs while driving (she was actually the passenger but the point stands). Apparently, if you pour boiling water all over your vagina, it hurts and isn't very good for you - who knew?
This strikes me as idiotic beyond belief and I have zero sympathy for her.
The slightly less stupid aspect is that there are regulations in US about the maximum temperature that retailers can sell coffee. Apparently, people in the US don't know that coffee is hot, so in order to protect them from their own idiocy (see above) they can only buy lukewarm coffee. McDonalds sold coffee that was above this temperature. The rule may be daft, but McDonalds was in breach of the regulation, which is why the silly cow was successful in her legal action.
The graphics on the new "sims" as you choose to call them are amazing and if Forza 4 can provide as good a driving experience as GT5 without the slow load times and crappy menus it will be well worth a go.
Sadly, none of the games I have played since Grand Prix Legends (now 13 years old) has matched it for realism. Driving a racing car is difficult and GPL was also difficult. It took real skill just to get round a lap without spinning off, never mind win races. Games like GT5 and Forza just don't cut it when it comes to realism. They are much better than stupid games like GTA but they are too easy and calling them sims is rather generous.
What like the way that the iPhone 4 was replaced by the iPhone 4s?
The Samsung Galaxy SII was completely different from the previous version (so most certainly NOT an incremental) and is still a better phone than the iPhone 4s despite having been released months earlier.
Steve's been dead for a few days and Apple is already losing its way. New iPhone, pah, what a let down.
You clearly know nothing about the Mothers' Union. It is indeed an organisation consisting almost entirely of women and it is represented in a large proportion of churches in the UK by actual mothers.
Furthermore, they are not trying to foist their ideas on anyone else. The issue of early sexualisation of children is widely discussed by people who have no religious agenda and a quick trip to a children's clothes shop where sexy underwear for 9 year olds is on display may result in anyone reasonably wondering whether this is appropriate, Christian or not.
The Mothers' Union would like to make it easier for concerned parents who do not have the technical ability or understanding of the way the internet works to be able to block porn if they wish. They are not trying to make it compulsory so why the diatribe?
One only has to mention the word "Christian" on the Register to have a series of ill-informed rants most of which display exactly the same lack of open-mindedness and intolerance that the Christians always seem to be accused of.
The whole concept of Intellectual Property is flawed and this is yet another example of what's wrong with it.
Big companies rip off small inventors (who cannot afford the huge cost of litigation) with impunity so patents and copyright offer almost no protection to them.
IP laws stifle innovation. If companies didn't rely on legal bully boys to do their dirty work for them, they would have to keep innovating to stay ahead. Instead, we have the unedifying spectacle of serial litigators like this lining the pockets of lawyers at the expense of the end customers.
The whole concept of IP has outlived its usefulness (not that I am saying it necessarily had any in the past).
Why would the assembled commentards bother actually reading the story and obtaining evidence for their unwarranted attack on the churchgoers of Norfolk? It never ceases to amaze me how ready people are to attack the church or churchgoers without any recourse to the facts for not basing their beliefs on the facts before them. Perhaps faith is good enough for Reg readers but not the "God botherers".
The whole concept of intellectual properly is flawed.
The world (by which I mean everyone except for lawyers) managed very nicely without it for a very long time. There are drawbacks to ditching IP law but in practice it's the big boys (and their lawyers) who benefit and everone else (ie smaller content producers, inventors and us the paying public) loses.
The concept of IP has had its day. It's time to ditch it completely.
There is no way on earth that this is going to sell at GBP800.
Most tablets are bought for execs and they all want an iPad. No techie worth his/her salt will want Windows and consumers won't pay that much.
When (and not if) this totally fails to sell and they slash the price, it still won't sell. Acer must have a screw loose if they think anyone will pay way over the price of an iPad for a fat, slow tablet running Windows.
In English law a marriage is voidable (rather than actually being void but it is capable of being annulled at any time) "if the marriage has not been consummated due to incapacity of either you or your spouse to do so; " so yes, sex is a requirement.
Further, for a Roman Catholic marriage, the marriage can be annulled by the Pope at any time for non-consummation regardless of the reason.
In neither case is physical handicap a valid reason for preventing an application for annulment being granted either by the courts or the Pope as appropriate.
Sex is central to marriage in the eyes of English law, the Catholic Church and in almost all cultures around the world. You may not believe that to be appropriate, but that's how it is.
Religion is not to blame for everything religious people do...
...any more than science is to blame for the deaths of those killed at Hiroshima.
Perhaps those of you who are so ready to condemn religion without (as far as most of the posts suggest here) having spent more than 4 seconds thinking about it, might benefit from considering some of the positive messages contained in the New Testament.
Many religious people are unduly sensitive and precious about their religion but to condemn all religious people because of the actions of a small minority is no better than being a racist because your brother's girlfriend's uncle was mugged by a black man 15 years ago.
Marrying someone does indeed imply a sexual relationship. Apart from anything, the marriage is not valid (in English law and the eyes of the Catholic Church) until it is consummated so having some sex is an absolute necessity for a married couple.
It is not reasonable on a specific occasion to say "You married me, you must have sex with me now" but it is perfectly reasonable to expect to have an active sex life and by the same token, it is a perfectly valid reason for a divorce if there isn't one.
After all, what sort of a relationship between a man and a woman is it if there is no physical expression of love. A piss poor one in my view.
This incident was handled in an absolutely disgraceful fashion.
It is wholly unacceptable that RSA has not given enough information for their customers (of one which employs me) to assess the implications of the breach and their pathetic security advice is absolutely worthless.
If I were a customer of RSA, I would be demanding replacement SecurID tokens at the very least. Having seen how seriously they care about their customers' security, only a fool would work with RSA again.
I have three children, the oldest of whom is a teenager.
My role is to educate them as to sensible online (and of course offline) behaviour in the same way that I taught them to cross the road. I have NO right to spy on them, particularly without their knowledge. I absolutely disagree that parents have a responsibility to snoop on their children that betrays a complete lack of either trust or respect.
If I had found out that my parents had done something like this (I suppose the equivalent in my generation would have been reading letters and diaries) I don't think I ever would have forgiven them. Beware, if you don't trust your children, they will amply repay that lack of trust.
To all of those complaining that BitCoins aren't real because they aren't asset backed may I ask whether you take cash?
Banknotes are not backed by assets and haven't been since we dropped the gold standard after the war.
Cash is worth something because people accept it in payment for goods and services. Exactly the same is true of BitCoin. Neither cash nor BitCoins have any intrinsic value and are essentially little different from each other in this respect.
I am a satisfied (so far) customer of CrashPlan, which has a backup of most (ie everything that is not easy to replace) of my family's data. This tots up to about 1TB. I have paid about $300 for the next four years. That is much more than a 1TB disk would cost.
However, that's not why I use CrashPlan. I have full local backups of all of our data too but if my house burns down, I'm stuffed without the cloud. I could faff about taking backups off-site, but I have nowhere secure to store them. CrashPlan keeps my data up-to-date more or less in real time and trying to mirror that with off-site backups is just not possible.
I don't really care about the cost of disk space. I do really care about the possibility of losing all my photographs of my children growing up.
I have a VM 50Mbps connection and although I never get 50 I regularly see 30 down and 10 up so in my area at least, there is nothing wrong with the bandwidth. It's not the most reliable service ever having been down three or four times in the last year but never for more than 12 hours.
There may be latency issues but fortunately for me I don't game online (see first comment for one of the reasons) nor do I use any other latency dependent services.
Can someone please explain to me how Virgin's network specificially discriminates against Black Ops traffic but not MW2? I'd be interested in the technical detail behind that.
The urine of someone who does not have an infectious disease is sterile. It's completely harmless. You could safely wash a wound with urine. This was presumably done solely for publicity reasons.
To all of you commenting about open reservoirs. They are everywhere in the UK at least. Those of you who live in London may not be as familiar with the sight but elsewhere, most reservoirs of water that is ready to be piped straight to the tap are open to the elements. I know where the reservoir is that feeds my taps. There is little to stop any number of animals (human or otherwise) pissing into my tap water and I have somehow survived so far.
Any miscreants could have got hold of a list of my son's choir practice dates and a complete database of all my passwords.
Fortunately, one of these was encrypted.
The lack of client-side encryption is precisely why I don't trust Dropbox with anything sensitive. I also have a full backup of most of my family's data (>1.5TB) on Crashplan's servers. Crashplan (which, BTW, I strongly recommend) implements client-side encryption with the option of a user generated key.
One of these companies got my money, the other didn't. Guess which was which?
Register
75 posts • joined Wednesday 26th May 2010 14:22 GMT
Page:
Re: Digital equivalent of breaking and entering.
Also, the Computer Misuse Act prohibits using computer systems without authorisation regardless of whether you had to crack/guess a password. Even if there were no password at all but you knew you were not authorised to access something, it would be a breach of the Act (quite rightly in my view).
Re: Digital equivalent of breaking and entering.
That is not correct.
Trespass is merely wandering onto property without permission. Breaking and entering involves the use of force (which may only be sufficient to push open an unlocked door) to enter a property without permission with the intention of committing a further offence, usually theft.
Consequently, it's still breaking and entering (and therefore criminal) rather than trespass (which, as you rightly point out, is a civil offense) even if the door is unlocked if you do so with the intention of stealing something.
Lame
The fact that a fifth preferred porn to real sex surprised me. They clearly aren't very good at it.
My father once opined to me that he would rather do it than watch pictures of other people doing it. That sentiment runs in the family.
Re: Why would I want to do that?
That's a very easy question to answer and the answer is that I might want to compute in more than one place.
I might want to sit on the floor by the fire. I might want to show my daughter a video in her bedroom. I might want to read my emails while I'm eating my breakfast. I might want to watch a video in bed. Very occasionally I may even wish to sit at my desk, but I don't do that very often.
I may also take my laptop on holiday. Have fun getting that 24" monitor into your suitcase.
Dutch Pirate Party
The Pirate Party already has a dedicated TPB proxy. A quick search for "piratenpartij pirate bay proxy" will lead you to a big list of proxies. There you go High Court, fixed that for you.
box.com useless file size limit
I was just about to sign up for box.com after reading the discussion here until I saw the 25MB file size limit on free accounts - pathetic and useless.
I'll stick with dropbox thank you very much.
App support
Although there are security concerns with Dropbox (the data isn't encrypted and Dropbox staff are able - but not permitted - to access it) one big plus is the level of application support.
In my experience, Dropbox is the most widely supported cloud storage solution in both IOS and Android applications. So far I have only seen one app support box.com and none that support any of the others. In short, that's why I use it.
Re: It's not about milking the parents of disabled kids.
And this is a perfect example of why such patents should not exist.
Re: wtf?
This is down to his misunderstanding and is not in accordance with the stance of the PCI Security Standards Council. The PCI SSC and most people who deal with the PCI DSS are perfectly aware that being truly compliant still doesn't mean a breach cannot happen.
The fact that there has been a breach is indeed good evidence that the organisation was not compliant but, as you say, it doesn't prove it. So far, no organisation that has been subject to a forensic QSA assessment following a breach has proved to be compliant with the PCI DSS at the time the breach occurred, but it could indeed happen.
What he should have said is "One minute you think you are compliant, then something like this happens and you realise that you were not.".
4FF - will we need tweezers?
The first SIM FF was patently stupid in that it was clearly much too large for no purpose whatever.
However, since then, they have gone from small to tiny. If they get any smaller they will be hard to use and I cannot imagine that two cubic millimetres difference will matter to anyone.
At this rate, by the time we get to 5FF we'll have to be careful not to breathe the thing in by accident.
Monopolies fall
Just like empires.
I honestly believe that the tide has turned against Microsoft. Vista was, by common consent, absolutely terrible and a huge mistake. Windows 7 is a big improvement but while Microsoft has been fixing Windows but otherwise stagnating, Apple has been going great guns with the world's most popular CEO, more cash than you can shake a stick at and lionised by the press.
In other news, the world has gone mobile and Microsoft are nowhere to be seen. Google and Apple have that one sewn up.
Corporations are starting to move to mixed environments more and more. I work for one of the Big 4 and spend a lot of time in a lot of other people's offices and I see Macs and iPads all over the place, particularly in the CEO's office. Five years ago only the designers used Macs.
What does that leave Microsoft? Not much.
Frustrating
This in one of many instances where airlines/airports do something pointless but annoying. A good example of a non-technical piece of idiocy is the one bag rule on some domestic flights. I have been through the charade of taking a large carrier bag out of my luggage, putting my two pieces of luggage into that bag in front of the security staff before security clearance and then immediately taking them out again. That apparently, is OK whereas having the same two separate pieces of luggage not in a large carrier bag is not OK.
Every other flight I go on either the flight crew (evidenced by the recognisable mobile phone interference on the intercom) or a passenger (evidenced by recognisable beeps and ringtones coming from luggage) has forgotten (or declined) to turn off their phone. You will not be surprised to hear that none of those aeroplanes dropped out of the sky.
If any of this really were dangerous, planes would crash on a daily basis. They do not so let's stop worrying about it.
Me too
I know it happens but it does still amaze me too.
When I was at university, when my father was at university and when my grandfather was at university we all had our own rooms like all students that I'm aware of in the UK. The idea of having to share a room with a complete stranger at an important time of your life is hugely unappealing.
Where do you take girls when you don't have your own room? I genuinely don't understand.
Punctuation
I stopped reading after the second incorrect use of "it's".
Drop bonking references
Since The Reg is a UK web site, I think it's time you stopped using the word bonking in this way. Bonking does not mean touching your phone against something (not here anyway). It's even more of a scam when you combine the word with a reference to a well-known lubricant.
This is the second time I've read a Reg story on false pretences - this has to stop.
Poor contrast on e-readers
My brother has a Kindle (and loves it) but I have two tablets (iPad and a Xoom - it was a tabletty Xmas) and happily read books on my iPad.
I do understand that some people find backlit screens hard on the eye. In my case, I find the poor contrast on my brother's Kindle makes it hard work to read. As I get older I am starting (like literally everyone of my age) to suffer from presbyopia and I need good contrast or my eyes get tired quickly. Having battery life measured in months is a great feature but realistically, as long as my battery lasts a day, I don't care - I can always charge it overnight. I also hate the slow page refresh. It isn't a real problem, but it looks ugly and bothers me every time I see it.
Horses for courses, but I'll stick with my tablets thank you very much.
Re: I don't get it...
It is a principle of both UK and US law that no-one can be compelled to give evidence against themselves and it always has been.
The idea is that the prosecuting authorities should be able to make a ca,se that stands up on its own and so does not have to rely on a confession, which can be extorted or made up. It may seem unlikely that someone would confess to a crime they didn't commit except under duress, but there are plenty of examples of that happening. There are far more examples of false confessions being forced out of suspects.
This is a difficult area and I have to say that, on balance, I don't agree with the Supreme Court. The police aren't asking the suspect to incriminate himself but to facilitate the analysis of evidence. I don't think that is the same thing. It doesn't take a genius to work out why he refuses to divulge his passwords/encryption keys, but until he does, no-one will know for sure.
Pay by bonk?
This article turned out to be a lot less interesting than it first looked.
Was it written by an American because bonk appears to mean something very different (and altogether more interesting) to me?
Let's be realistic about this
I am a VM customer but I also have a Gmail account. I did wonder why I got this message twice and now I know.
Having said that, come on people. Google already knows who you are, how many times you have sex every week, what your favourite brand of chocolate is and what you do with all that olive oil you buy. Trying to prevent Google assimilating you is like trying to order back the tide.
Just relax, it will be less painful that way.
Care not case
I'm with you Olaf. I put my phone in my left pocket (I'm left handed) but I wouldn't even put a piece of paper much less change or my keys in the same pocket.
I had an iphone for 3 years and when I sold it, you would have needed a magnifying glass and bright sunlight to see any marks on it at all. I hate screen protectors with a passion and I'm not much keener on cases. Why buy a pretty and slim phone only to stick the thing in a fat and ugly case?
Phones are expensive so it makes sense to treat them with care. I do and it works. It's also cheaper than buying a case.
Serves him right
I have read (usually in the US it has to be said) a lot of promotional literature offering parents ways of spying on their children as if this were something that responsible parents should be doing.
To my way of thinking (and I'm a parent of three children) such behaviour is a disgraceful intrusion into children's privacy and something I would never countenance. I have absolutely no sympathy with him and if, as seems highly likely, he loses his job, it damn well serves him right.
Something that seems to have passed a lot of people by (cf the furore over whether parents should be allowed to beat children) is that children are people and should be afforded the same rights as anyone else. Were someone to plant spyware on another adult's computer and get caught, there would be serious consequences. I don't see why this should be any different.
You made your bed; now lie in it.
I can't wait
I can't wait for the Raspberry Pi to come out in a few weeks for two reasons.
Firstly, it's an exciting project the principal aims of which are educational so it doesn't matter if someone beats them to it (highly unlikely) or makes one cheaper (good for everyone including the Foundation). I shall be buying at least two and I know quite a few other people who will be doing the same. These are going to be nifty little devices that are very capable and very cheap.
Secondly, all the nay-saying ACs (grow a pair you lot) here are going to look pretty silly.
Aspire One - best value computer I ever bought
I bought an Acer Aspire One when they first came out. It was cheap (£190), quick enough to do anything I wanted it for and was delightfully and conveniently small. I have used it every day for more than two years although I am using it less and less now.
The low screen resolution wasn't a problem and although I am fairly tall, I don't have wide fingers so the small keyboard never caused a problem either. Optical drives are stupid and I don't want to see another one ever so I certainly didn't miss that.
All in all, my AAO has been cheap, reliable and has done what I wanted it to. It's not the best computer I have ever owned (my MacBook Pro costing 8 times as much wins that distinction) but it was the best value.
RIP netbooks, you were fun while you lasted.
Slightly better than Uncle Joe
Now there's an appealing self assessment from Medvedev. "I'm slightly less brutal and unreasonable than the greatest mass murderer in human history." How's that for low standards.
I feel sorry for the unfortunate people of Russia.
Unlimited should be
It is outrageous that the operators can use the word "unlimited" when it is not unlimited. I don't care whether that limit is apparent to most customers or only one. If there is any sort of limit to how much data anyone can download (within the constraints of the speed of the connection) then it is not unlimited.
I have had conversations with idiots at various ISPs and mobile operators that have gone along these lines.
Me: Is there a limit on how much I can download?
Them: No.
Me: So I can download as much as I like.
Them: Yes, subject to the Fair Usage policy.
Me: So there is a limit then.
Them: No.
Me: If there is not limit, that means I can download as much as I like.
Them: Subject to the Fair Usage policy.
Me: So there is a limit.
etc ad infinitum.
Unlimited means they will not impose restrictions on usage. Any restrictions mean that there is a limit and so calling it "unlimited" is a complete lie and the ASA (toothless paper tiger that it is) should not permit this.
You are an idiot
Which Christians believe this nonsense?
I know a lot of Christians and none of them believes any of that. Only young children believe that God is a sky fairy. Anyone who has given the issue any thought (a group that clearly does not include you) has a far more sophisticated idea of what God is than that. Only lunatics in the US believe that the earth is 5000 years old. The Pope and the Roman Catholic church certainly don't and I have never met anyone who did (including in the US). Finally, where did you get that mixed fibres bit from?
Christianity is pretty safe if the naysayers have to make up bilge and attribute it to Christians to discredit their opinions.
There are plenty of troublesome aspects of Christianity but you have completely missed the mark and not identified any of them. Perhaps you should try to learn something about what you are attacking first. Otherwise, you just look foolish.
Cash not backed by assets
In almost all countries in the world, cash is not backed by assets. Sterling certainly isn't and hasn't been since we relinquished the gold standard after the war. If it were asset backed, the government wouldn't be able to engage in "quantitative easing" (ie printing money) because it would have needed to acquire assets first.
Your £1 is worth £1 because the Bank of England promises to pay £1 for your £1 and everyone believes that it will. If you go the to BoE they won't "cash in" your money for gold, it's a purely theoretical amount of money that only works because people believe in it.
Bitcoins are no different. They are worth something if people accept them in payment, otherwise, like cash, they are completely worthless. Examples of this happening are not uncommon. Two prominent ones being Germany before the second world war and Zimbabwe, both of which suffered from hyper-inflation as a result of printing huge amounts of money that was not asset backed resulting in a justifiable loss of confidence in the currency.
Family > job
I suspect that this won't be a popular opinion amongst the commentards but I don't believe that a person is or can be complete without having children. A job is what you do to put food on the table and is necessary but certainly not a fundamental part of life.
My partner has opted to stay at home and look after our children so I get to work (yippee) but I'd stack shelves in Tesco if having children had meant that I couldn't have a career.
When you look at the statistics for child well-being (the UK comes appallingly low down on the list of developed nations) you can see the consequences of employers' not being family friendly. It may be good for their profits but it's a disaster for the future of the nation.
Bollock to Bloomberg and the like.
Amazon making a loss on each Fire
Amazon is selling the Kindle Fire at a small loss so presumably, they are hoping to make that up in content sales. Allowing people to use it for whatever they wish will clearly put a dent in their long-term profits.
However, this attempt to thwart the more technical goes against Amazon's statements at launch.
PC Magazine reported that Jon Jenkins (director of Amazon's Silk browser) told them that "it's going to get rooted, and what you do after you root it is up to you." so it is surprising (and disappointing) that Amazon should be starting to get awkward.
With any luck, Amazon's attempts at stopping the devices being hacked will be as bootless as such attempts normally are.
McDonald's coffee
This is both more and less stupid than it seems.
The stupid aspect is that the woman had a cup of hot coffee wedged between her thighs while driving (she was actually the passenger but the point stands). Apparently, if you pour boiling water all over your vagina, it hurts and isn't very good for you - who knew?
This strikes me as idiotic beyond belief and I have zero sympathy for her.
The slightly less stupid aspect is that there are regulations in US about the maximum temperature that retailers can sell coffee. Apparently, people in the US don't know that coffee is hot, so in order to protect them from their own idiocy (see above) they can only buy lukewarm coffee. McDonalds sold coffee that was above this temperature. The rule may be daft, but McDonalds was in breach of the regulation, which is why the silly cow was successful in her legal action.
It's not Grand Prix Legends
The graphics on the new "sims" as you choose to call them are amazing and if Forza 4 can provide as good a driving experience as GT5 without the slow load times and crappy menus it will be well worth a go.
Sadly, none of the games I have played since Grand Prix Legends (now 13 years old) has matched it for realism. Driving a racing car is difficult and GPL was also difficult. It took real skill just to get round a lap without spinning off, never mind win races. Games like GT5 and Forza just don't cut it when it comes to realism. They are much better than stupid games like GTA but they are too easy and calling them sims is rather generous.
"...by an incremental."
What like the way that the iPhone 4 was replaced by the iPhone 4s?
The Samsung Galaxy SII was completely different from the previous version (so most certainly NOT an incremental) and is still a better phone than the iPhone 4s despite having been released months earlier.
Steve's been dead for a few days and Apple is already losing its way. New iPhone, pah, what a let down.
Balls
You clearly know nothing about the Mothers' Union. It is indeed an organisation consisting almost entirely of women and it is represented in a large proportion of churches in the UK by actual mothers.
Furthermore, they are not trying to foist their ideas on anyone else. The issue of early sexualisation of children is widely discussed by people who have no religious agenda and a quick trip to a children's clothes shop where sexy underwear for 9 year olds is on display may result in anyone reasonably wondering whether this is appropriate, Christian or not.
The Mothers' Union would like to make it easier for concerned parents who do not have the technical ability or understanding of the way the internet works to be able to block porn if they wish. They are not trying to make it compulsory so why the diatribe?
One only has to mention the word "Christian" on the Register to have a series of ill-informed rants most of which display exactly the same lack of open-mindedness and intolerance that the Christians always seem to be accused of.
Stuff IP
The whole concept of Intellectual Property is flawed and this is yet another example of what's wrong with it.
Big companies rip off small inventors (who cannot afford the huge cost of litigation) with impunity so patents and copyright offer almost no protection to them.
IP laws stifle innovation. If companies didn't rely on legal bully boys to do their dirty work for them, they would have to keep innovating to stay ahead. Instead, we have the unedifying spectacle of serial litigators like this lining the pockets of lawyers at the expense of the end customers.
The whole concept of IP has outlived its usefulness (not that I am saying it necessarily had any in the past).
Why would the assembled commentards bother actually reading the story and obtaining evidence for their unwarranted attack on the churchgoers of Norfolk? It never ceases to amaze me how ready people are to attack the church or churchgoers without any recourse to the facts for not basing their beliefs on the facts before them. Perhaps faith is good enough for Reg readers but not the "God botherers".
Intellectual property = giant fraud
The whole concept of intellectual properly is flawed.
The world (by which I mean everyone except for lawyers) managed very nicely without it for a very long time. There are drawbacks to ditching IP law but in practice it's the big boys (and their lawyers) who benefit and everone else (ie smaller content producers, inventors and us the paying public) loses.
The concept of IP has had its day. It's time to ditch it completely.
Poor Brian
I think one can draw only one conclusion about a man who has spent £500,000 telling the world how much he disapproves of homosexuality.
Doooomed
There is no way on earth that this is going to sell at GBP800.
Most tablets are bought for execs and they all want an iPad. No techie worth his/her salt will want Windows and consumers won't pay that much.
When (and not if) this totally fails to sell and they slash the price, it still won't sell. Acer must have a screw loose if they think anyone will pay way over the price of an iPad for a fat, slow tablet running Windows.
Sex can (and in fact is) be a requirement
In English law a marriage is voidable (rather than actually being void but it is capable of being annulled at any time) "if the marriage has not been consummated due to incapacity of either you or your spouse to do so; " so yes, sex is a requirement.
Further, for a Roman Catholic marriage, the marriage can be annulled by the Pope at any time for non-consummation regardless of the reason.
In neither case is physical handicap a valid reason for preventing an application for annulment being granted either by the courts or the Pope as appropriate.
Sex is central to marriage in the eyes of English law, the Catholic Church and in almost all cultures around the world. You may not believe that to be appropriate, but that's how it is.
Religion is not to blame for everything religious people do...
...any more than science is to blame for the deaths of those killed at Hiroshima.
Perhaps those of you who are so ready to condemn religion without (as far as most of the posts suggest here) having spent more than 4 seconds thinking about it, might benefit from considering some of the positive messages contained in the New Testament.
Many religious people are unduly sensitive and precious about their religion but to condemn all religious people because of the actions of a small minority is no better than being a racist because your brother's girlfriend's uncle was mugged by a black man 15 years ago.
Baffled by responses
I'm baffled by most of the responses here.
Marrying someone does indeed imply a sexual relationship. Apart from anything, the marriage is not valid (in English law and the eyes of the Catholic Church) until it is consummated so having some sex is an absolute necessity for a married couple.
It is not reasonable on a specific occasion to say "You married me, you must have sex with me now" but it is perfectly reasonable to expect to have an active sex life and by the same token, it is a perfectly valid reason for a divorce if there isn't one.
After all, what sort of a relationship between a man and a woman is it if there is no physical expression of love. A piss poor one in my view.
Disgraceful
This incident was handled in an absolutely disgraceful fashion.
It is wholly unacceptable that RSA has not given enough information for their customers (of one which employs me) to assess the implications of the breach and their pathetic security advice is absolutely worthless.
If I were a customer of RSA, I would be demanding replacement SecurID tokens at the very least. Having seen how seriously they care about their customers' security, only a fool would work with RSA again.
People should learn to trust children
I have three children, the oldest of whom is a teenager.
My role is to educate them as to sensible online (and of course offline) behaviour in the same way that I taught them to cross the road. I have NO right to spy on them, particularly without their knowledge. I absolutely disagree that parents have a responsibility to snoop on their children that betrays a complete lack of either trust or respect.
If I had found out that my parents had done something like this (I suppose the equivalent in my generation would have been reading letters and diaries) I don't think I ever would have forgiven them. Beware, if you don't trust your children, they will amply repay that lack of trust.
Cash is not backed by assets
To all of those complaining that BitCoins aren't real because they aren't asset backed may I ask whether you take cash?
Banknotes are not backed by assets and haven't been since we dropped the gold standard after the war.
Cash is worth something because people accept it in payment for goods and services. Exactly the same is true of BitCoin. Neither cash nor BitCoins have any intrinsic value and are essentially little different from each other in this respect.
Goodbye Sarah
You may not be sorry to see the back of us, but we shall be sorry to see the back of you.
Good luck with the cakes.
Just in time...
...for me to start looking for an alternative to Skype now it's part of the evil empire.
Yup, fully paid up, card carrying MS hater here.
Nothing to do with the price of disk space
I am a satisfied (so far) customer of CrashPlan, which has a backup of most (ie everything that is not easy to replace) of my family's data. This tots up to about 1TB. I have paid about $300 for the next four years. That is much more than a 1TB disk would cost.
However, that's not why I use CrashPlan. I have full local backups of all of our data too but if my house burns down, I'm stuffed without the cloud. I could faff about taking backups off-site, but I have nowhere secure to store them. CrashPlan keeps my data up-to-date more or less in real time and trying to mirror that with off-site backups is just not possible.
I don't really care about the cost of disk space. I do really care about the possibility of losing all my photographs of my children growing up.
VM speed fine
I have a VM 50Mbps connection and although I never get 50 I regularly see 30 down and 10 up so in my area at least, there is nothing wrong with the bandwidth. It's not the most reliable service ever having been down three or four times in the last year but never for more than 12 hours.
There may be latency issues but fortunately for me I don't game online (see first comment for one of the reasons) nor do I use any other latency dependent services.
Can someone please explain to me how Virgin's network specificially discriminates against Black Ops traffic but not MW2? I'd be interested in the technical detail behind that.
Urine is sterile
The urine of someone who does not have an infectious disease is sterile. It's completely harmless. You could safely wash a wound with urine. This was presumably done solely for publicity reasons.
To all of you commenting about open reservoirs. They are everywhere in the UK at least. Those of you who live in London may not be as familiar with the sight but elsewhere, most reservoirs of water that is ready to be piped straight to the tap are open to the elements. I know where the reservoir is that feeds my taps. There is little to stop any number of animals (human or otherwise) pissing into my tap water and I have somehow survived so far.
Encryption FTW
Any miscreants could have got hold of a list of my son's choir practice dates and a complete database of all my passwords.
Fortunately, one of these was encrypted.
The lack of client-side encryption is precisely why I don't trust Dropbox with anything sensitive. I also have a full backup of most of my family's data (>1.5TB) on Crashplan's servers. Crashplan (which, BTW, I strongly recommend) implements client-side encryption with the option of a user generated key.
One of these companies got my money, the other didn't. Guess which was which?
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