* Posts by Matt Bradley

330 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Apr 2007

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I'm just not sure the computer works here – the energy is all wrong

Matt Bradley

Similar story

Similar story. Apple iMac; small flat; tumble dryer.

Rackspace goes TITSUP in global outage outrage

Matt Bradley

Not over yet

Over the past few days, we've had disks on various Rackspace cloud devices become inaccessible. It is not over yet...

GET pwned: Web CCTV cams can be hijacked by single HTTP request

Matt Bradley

@FFD8FFDB

@FFD8FFDB is worth a follow on Twitter. A bot posting images from unsecured CCTV cameras around the world. Some really quite astonishing stuff in there.

EU bureaucrats claim credit for making 'illegal online hate speech' even more illegal

Matt Bradley

Re: Over reach.

AC: what you or I may feel about the words of Ken Livingston, the fact is that a large number of people were arguing he was both trivialising and and being revisionist about that period of history.

For precisely this reason having such broad language in one's definition of "hate speech" runs the risk of catching language such as that used by Ken Livingston. The point I am making is that this probably a BAD THING.

Matt Bradley

Over reach.

The EU hate speech definition includes:

"Publicly CONDONING, DENYING or GROSSLY TRVIALISING crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes as defined in Articles 6, 7 and 8 of the Statute of the Inter­national Criminal Court"

(my emphasis)

It could be argued that under this definition, both Ken Livingston and Boris Johnson are amongst those guilty of "grossly trivialising" crimes of genocide. Much as I am amused by the idea of large numbers of public figures and politicians all been dragged into police stations and having their Twitter accounts shut down, I'd humbly submit that this might be something of an overreach in the the definition of hate speech, and represents a fairly significant interference with the principle of free speech.

This makes me deeply uncomfortable.

Guccifer fesses up to Clinton hacks

Matt Bradley

Journalism

I would have thought that in any sensible legal system, you'd be able to plead mitigation for this activity as public interest journalism. It seems pretty likely that the information uncovered was never going to become public by any other means, and it does appear to indicate that Clinton's department wasn't conducting itself in accordance with the law.

Not making any judgements either way about Clinton here, but I'd be extremely uncomfortable about the idea of this sort of public scrutiny being criminalised and backed by a sizeable custodial sentence.

BT blames 'faulty router' for mega outage. Did they try turning it off and on again?

Matt Bradley

Re: Horsefeathers -- was it a DDOS or a failed upgrade?

Ooh. Interesting. I did not notice that. Good spot.

US Navy's newest ship sets sail with Captain James Kirk at the bridge

Matt Bradley

Imperial Star Destroyer, anybody?

Can it be true? That I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of PUREST ... BLACK?

Matt Bradley

How much more black could this be?

All very informative stuff, but what we really want to know is: can you make an album sleeve out of it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46kXH6GGtT0

Piketty thinks the 1% should cough up 80%. Discuss

Matt Bradley

Re: Some well made points

It would certainly be interesting to measure these figures properly. Thanks Tim.

Matt Bradley

Re: Some well made points

Completely agree. I meant that it was irrelevant in terms of the value of those services in the equation.

Matt Bradley

Some well made points

Some very well made points in there, but...

The effects of state services and benefits on inequality is only a factor where those services or benefits are /means tested/ - in the case of both state education and the NHS, the economic input of those benefits is equal for every member of society. The fact that some individuals have enough surplus income to be able to opt out of the state provision and into a private paid for alternative is largely irrelevant, as they still have access to that same level of economic benefit whether they use it or not.

So, whilst it is useful perhaps to measure the metric of inequality after state benefits and services, we should be mindful that the largest and most significant of these are not means tested and therefore effectively cancel themselves out in the equation.

How Britain could have invented the iPhone: And how the Quangocracy cocked it up

Matt Bradley

What you need to understand about this article (although it is extremely well researched and well written), is that Andrew is determined to find examples of where the British government's approach to funding technology has failed.

Clearly this is one such example. However, the question which SCREAMS out of every paragraph of this article is "why did the inventor not go to the private sector in the first place?"

I guess we'll never know the answer to this question. What we do know is that a state funded technologist arrived at the same technology which was being explored by numerous different bodies at the same time, and that he ultimately failed to commercialise it.

Was this the fault of a quango? Only part 2 of this article will reveal.

Apple iOS 7 makes some users literally SICK. As in puking, not upset

Matt Bradley

Re: HUH???????

Because you didn't read the article properly.

There are 2 issues:

[1] Parallax

[2] Zoom effects

As the article states (even including a MASSIVE screengrab, which you somehow missed), the accessibility option to minimise animation disables to parallax, but for some reason, the more intrusive and more visually disturbing zoom effects remain.

It should be clear to anybody that the zoom effects are more frequent and more intense, and the acessibility option should really be deactivation (or at least reducing the intensity of) this effect. But it isn't.

That what the ENTIRE ARTICLE WAS ABOUT. And somehow you missed it.

I, for one, welcome our robotic communist jobless future

Matt Bradley

Nice to know I'm no the only one.

I've been boring people with this line of thinking for some time. It is nice to know I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Mystery of Guardian mobos and graphics cards which 'held Snowden files'

Matt Bradley

Symbolism

My guess was that the "security specialists" knew this was a pointless exercise, but nonetheless one which they had been ordered to perform. As such they probably didn't particularly care which computers were destroyed, or whether they actually had copies of the data on, provided they could go back to base and say that they had witnessed the destruction of some computers and had directed their destruction in accordance with department guidelines/best practice.

Rest your head against a train window, hear VOICES in your SKULL

Matt Bradley

Subliminal advertising

This amounts to a form of subliminal advertising. As the video states, this is designed for tired commuters resting their heads on the glass, which means that the ads would be targetted at people in a drowsy, semi hypnotic or even unconscious state.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep-learning

Thirty-five years ago today: Space Invaders conquer the Earth

Matt Bradley

Images of War

Seems to me perfectly plausible that a 70's Japanese company might shy away from making a game which represented modern warfare (as opposed to a one on one cowboy shootout) - Hiroshima would still be in living memory for a lot of that generation of execs. I could understand why they might not have a desire to represent warfare even in a heavily pixellated form. They would also perhaps have the understandable and probably accurate fear that a lot of their domestic customers and customer's parents, might shun such a game.

Texan contends iPod EXPLODED IN HER FACE

Matt Bradley

Has nobody said "iInjury" yet?

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'llgetmecoat

Ethernet at 40: Its daddy reveals its turbulent youth

Matt Bradley

Oh dear

I was already starting to dislike this guy by page 2 of the interview. Then I got to the bottom of page 3...

After Sandy Hook, Senator calls for violent video game probe

Matt Bradley
Black Helicopters

"Guns protect our freedom"

Isn't it interesting that the US will happily limit freedom of expression if it means they get to keep their guns? So much for the second amendment securing the freedom of the people.

Siri: Can you make a Raspberry Pi open a garage door?

Matt Bradley

Pod Bay Doors

... missed opportunity.

Nokia uncloaks Lumia 620: A 'budget' $249 Windows 8 mobe

Matt Bradley
Flame

Platform Rage

Platform rage is funny. The majority of the comments in this thread are hilarious. And also depressing.

It is rather poignant to realise that one of the most significant impacts of the the arrival of the iPhone is to spread platform zealots from the desktop OS space into the mobile space. Isn't humanity wonderful? Now we can spend more of our time arguing over which mobile phone software is the anointed and righteous path. Fabulous.

Littlest pirate’s Winnie-the-Pooh laptop on the way home

Matt Bradley
Flame

Re: Gotta love it

I think we found our industry shill, folks.

[1] Lets not get into the question of blame here. the issue is RESPONSIBILITY. Specifically criminal responsibility. I would suggest that granting powers to an enforcement body exact substantial summary fines on minors (or the carers of minors) based upon their internet activity is at the very least highly questionable, at the worst, illiberal and chilling. and to allow said enforcement agency to perform confiscations of equipment, refusing to return said equipment on the basis of an alleged attempted commission of an offence by a minor? Are we talking about serious criminality here? No: we're talking about a child listening to a pop song.

[2] Whether this was the first time, 100th or the 1,000,000 time is immaterial. The fact is that this entire action took place on the basis of one alleged failed attempt to download a song. There doesn't even appear to be a suggestion that there was any intent involved here: just a child misunderstanding the illegality of the source and/or copyright law. Were this action to be based upon /pattern/ of behaviour, maybe there would be less of an outcry, but there is no such allegation here.

[3] Sure, they could have fought the recording industry with all its lawyers and vast budgets all the way through the courts. They could have done without the child's laptop for maybe another 2 years while they did so, and perhaps had not only this Christmas, but next Christmas and even each Christmas for the rest of their lives ruined by this, or they could have taken the expedient route which they chose, which was to roll over to powerful bullies behind this action.

[4] It is not a technical note. there is a significant difference in law between attempting or conspiring to commit an offence and actually committing it. That's before one gets into the issue of the age of criminal responsibility, or, for that matter, intent.

For the record: I am an ardent supporter of copyright and the right for copyright holder to be able to exploit their works however they see fit, and the be able to enforce that right in law. But THIS action was wrong. It actually makes me think twice about my entire position on the music industry and its right to perform copyright enforcement.

Adobe demands 7,000 years a day from humankind

Matt Bradley

Re: The value of Free Software

"If you don't compare to a reference copy, how do you know that it is the proper GPL license and not one that has a "now we own your first born" clause?"

Because the package is distributed with the terms "this package is licensed under GPL2" or whatever. In other words it does not bundle it's own license copy, rather instead references a single common immutable document.

Troll sues Apple for daring to plug headphones into iPhone

Matt Bradley

The right to withdraw a work

Creators have on occasion chosen to withdraw a work because of a change of heart about it. Maybe they don't feel it is up to their usual standard, or even in some cases they fell it to be morally or socially dubious.

Recording musicians often record works which they choose not to release for one reason or another.

Authors frequently bin works or work in progress for one reason or another.

Software houses invariably withdraw older versions of their work when a new version is released.

Copyright should continue to protect the owner's right to choose when and how to make their work available. It is fundamental to the principle of copyright.

How can the BBC be saved from itself without destroying it?

Matt Bradley
Flame

Too balanced, that's the problem

These are the kind of comments I frequently see on social media:

"The BBC are a bunch of lefty pinko socialist commies. No balance at all SHUT DOWN THE BBC"

"The BBC aren't challenging the cuts at all, those horrible right wing sock puppets OCCUPY THE BBC"

"There's not enough women on this panel, misogynist scum! BOYCOTT THE BBC"

"The BBC is just a liberal lefty inclusivity box ticking exercise. PRIVATISE THE BBC"

....etc, etc. Seem some people aren't happy unless the channel they are watching is a constant 100% echo chamber for their own beliefs. This is why the world has news providers like Fox News and The Daily Mail: why challenge your beliefs when you can just pump your eyes and ears full of self validating claptrap?

Tesla Model S named '2013 Automobile of the Year'

Matt Bradley

Touchscreen

There's a very good reason why other cars have buttons instead of a huge touchscreen.

Physical controls give tactile feedback, and can be operated by the driver by feel, without the user needing to look at the controls. This is why temperature knobs are better than digital buttons in climate control systems, for example: I can FEEL what temp I have just set, rather than having to look down to a readout.

Controlling the majority of in car systems using a touchscreen? Dangerous. Give me a switch, knob or toggle button, please.

iPad Mini: Why is Apple SO SCARED of the Kindle?

Matt Bradley

Re: I will laugh so much...

Umm. That's already been done.

http://www.rebirthapp.com/rebirth-for-ipad/

Facebook, Twitter, ordered not to spoil murder trial

Matt Bradley
FAIL

Re: A prediction

> We are talking here about a company making a profit from breaking the law and in the process prejudicing the rights of an individual under trial.

Ok, we have one or two assertions to deal with here:

"making a profit from breaking the law" - No it isn't, although some its users may be breaking the law, Facebook does in fact comply with local law enforcement where this occurs. They also prohibit criminal activity in the Terms of Use, and have even been reported to be actively policing for some types of criminality.

"prejudicing the rights of an individual under trial" - I don't know how many times I have to say this before it sinks in: I have no problem at all with enforcing contempt of court legislation and seeking to do so on social media as well. But the realistic fact of the matter is that people WILL talk about public court cases, be it online or offline. The important principle in contempt of court legislation is to ensure that such discussion does not enter a realm where it becomes accepted as widespread fact, and thus prejudice due process. I'm not at all convinced that this is achieved by asking Facebook to remove all references to the case. In fact, I'm fairly certain that such a request is impossible to implement effectively.

> Your argument seems to be that breaking the local law is a-OK as long as the excuse is good enough.

No. My argument was simply that just because occasionally the needs of due process and the power of social media clash, it doesn't mean that we should routinely regulate and/or block social media. People talk about high profile court cases in the pub, but we don't routinely regulate that kind of speech. As has been pointed out elsewhere, it will be easier to keep jurors from seeing FB than to keep this kind of content off FB altogether.

> You can help someone in an oppressive regime but you must accept that that WILL be illegal, and you WILL face penalties for it.

Agreed. I don't see how this equates to an argument for increasing controls on social media. Precisely the opposite, in fact. Why should we all be seeking to emulate those oppressive regimes? Shouldn't we be broadly welcoming to free and open discourse online?

Matt Bradley
Flame

Re: Comparison

So basically what you're saying is that democracy and accountability is a top-down process from government through law to the people, that rather than a process of empowering the people to speak up with social media, etc, etc, we should instead keep them quiet, and trust that government regulates the licensed press appropriately?

You know what I think? Those MSM institutions are kept far more honest by everyday people who fact-check their stories and publish blogs about them, by the Fleet Street insiders who report on what's really going on via Twitter and blogs. By collective action empowered by social media.

But feel free to go back to your 20th century press barons if you like. Just don't spoil my century with them, please.

Matt Bradley
Flame

Re: A prediction

If I understand your argument correctly, I think you are saying that Syria, Libya, Egypt government were right and justified to seek to block Blackberry, social media, etc when the people rose up against their oppressive regimes.

And, presumably that China is right to block certain website which discuss ideas which it does not like its people to know about, or which tell a different narrative to the official line.

I'm guessing that's what you're saying. Or are you saying it is only OK if Western governments do it?

Matt Bradley
Flame

Re: A prediction

> The UK has the laws in place to do the blocking already...

Note for ordinary everyday speech, it doesn't. Only for sites who can be proven to exists for the primary purpose of facilitating or committing an offence.

> Going into a cinema and shouting bomb or something like that needs to be illegal. Publishing lies and abuse about someone should be illegal.

And they are.

> Both could be claimed to be 'freedom of speech'...

No they couldn't. Inciting a public order problem, defamation and harassment are not forms of protected speech under any human rights legislation. Nor should they be. Ditto contempt of court / prejudicial publication.

> The point is, the line between protected speech and disallowed speech is drawn in a different place in different countries - who are you to disagree with the line drawn by this part of AU?

I guess it is no more my business that my concern over the great firewall of China, or free speech limitation in Iran, etc. I can be concerned, but it is ultimately up to citizens of the country to take the lead in fighting such measures.

What surprises me is your willingness to be regulated. You seem to be starry eyed by the idea the social media in Australia could be effectively shut down in your country by legislation. You WANT it to happen. That is tragic.

Matt Bradley

Re: Comparison

You say that as the UK is awaiting the report of an investigation into routine corruption, abuse of power and interference with government and law and order by the mainstream media. Activities which were largely exposed by whistleblowers.

May I humbly submit that puttiing the power of publication in more people's hands is ultimately going to prove preferable to allowing to remain the hands of only the Rupert Murdochs of this world.

Matt Bradley
Flame

Re: A prediction

Interesting. First time I've heard such unqualified support for government control over speech.

Of course, this particular case is slightly different to normal, as we're discussing contempt of court / prejudicial publication, which is not, and should not be a form of protected speech.

But the notion that we should happily wave through government "regulation" of what people normally say ona days to day basis online? Really? You might be happier in China or Iran. I can't say I would be.

Apple slapped with patent lawsuit over iOS 6 Passbook app

Matt Bradley
WTF?

Patent 6384850

So Ameranth have been granted a patent for the generation and display of a list of items and hierarchy of documents in a flowed fashion on a variety of devices a different screen resolutions? Seriously???

This has GOT to stop. This basically a description of the WWW. The only thing that makes this even remotely unique is the fact that their patent only applies to lists of food items. Insane

Bloke jailed for being unable to use BlackBerry Messenger freed

Matt Bradley

Re: Get out clause for paedophiles

Precisely the kind of knee Dail Fail reader idiocy that I was referring to in my comment above. Thanks for illustrating rather eloquently why such draconian legislation has come into existence.

Matt Bradley

A shame, shameful prosecution

I don't know how CPS can possibly have concluded that prosecuting this case was in the public interest.

I don't know all that much about this case, but I'd suspect the reason the man was convicted is because this is probably tried as a "strict liability" offence, in that his intent is not a factor in his conviction. This is an indicator of why pandering to the kneejerk Daily Mail style sex offender obsession has led to some truly awful, awful legislation.

More worryingly, although it isn't mentioned in any of the reports I've seen, the accused has probably ended up on the sex offender's register, which is an effective life sentence.

The likelihood is that this poor man will be unable to successfully appeal his conviction because in this case, the law is indeed an ass. This CPS decision to prosecute arguably needs to be subject to judicial review.

Appalling abuse by the CPS here. Keir Starmer really needs to sort out his office.

Politico's locked room mystery Linux install crime solved

Matt Bradley
Black Helicopters

Hmm....

New York Daily writes:

"Grimm, a Republican who is under investigation by the FBI for alleged campaign finance violations, claims he’s the victim of a Watergate-style break-in that targeted polling data and other information on his computers.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/teenager-arrested-vandalizing-congressman-michael-grimm-office-article-1.1168006#ixzz27k4aCoXe"

...so Grimm is under investigation by the FBI over his campaign finances, and one of his staffers somehow "inadvertently" overwrites the disks on his campaign HQ computers? Well gosh.

Not wishing to put 2+2 together and get 5, but when I do wonder how anybody could accidentally reformat and install Ubuntu on not one, but SEVERAL machines. Hmm....

Raspberry Pi production back in Blighty

Matt Bradley
Flame

Re: Meh

Ok. I'm biting.

The fact that it is a small (undepowered?) cheap computer is precisely WHY it is notable for being built in the UK. UK plants can do big, powerful and expensive no problem at all (ask Roll Royce Aerospace or MacLaren) - they haven't been able to do small and cheap for some time.

Firefox, Opera allow crooks to hide an entire phish site in a link

Matt Bradley
FAIL

And yet...

And yet the final destination for any user input still has to be a hosted web site on a routable domain.

Thus, this technique achieves precisely NOTHING in its supposed aim of avoiding the need for a hosted component to the attack.

Google gets hands on 'glove-cam' patent

Matt Bradley
FAIL

I think you rather missed the (aha) point here

" the method may include using a detector to record a series of images of an environment and detecting a predetermined motion by comparing two or more images in a series.”

This is NOT a description of an aid for the visually impaired as you imply, but a method for capturing gestural inputs without the need for dedicated surface against which to perform them. Kind of an optical mouse built into the finger.

Startup pitches £64 hackable Android console

Matt Bradley
FAIL

Have I missed something?

A touch optimised OS on a device with no screen?

Why?

O2 leaks 3G users' mobile numbers to every website visited

Matt Bradley
FAIL

Even worse

If an O2, GiffGaff, or Tesco users visits wap.o2.co.uk from a 3G network, they will be automatically logged into their account, and be able to see billing details, etc.

If looks to me that O2 are using a combination of the 'x-up-calling-line-id' and the incoming user IP to authenticate users into their accounts on the wap.o2.co.uk website.

Fanboi called 911 repeatedly because iPhone didn't work

Matt Bradley
FAIL

I'm going to speculate here

... and guess that the user in question had accidentally locked his phone with a pin which he could not recall (or perhaps didn't properly understand), and therefore the only thing he could get it to do was to make an emergency call.

This being the case, it may well be that the user didn't fully appreciate that his phone was calling the emergency services. He may in fact have thought that the "Emergency Call" button on his lock screen was making a support call, and was perhaps too drunk to realise his mistake after the first couple of attempts.

This might not be as clear cut as it at first appears.

Reg hack desperately seeks deeply frustrated pensioner

Matt Bradley

This is definitely the best article I have read on ElReg for some time. Maybe I'm just getting too used to using Twitter as my primary source of news.

Moderatrix kisses the Reg goodbye

Matt Bradley
Pint

So long and good luck

Thanks for the laughs and the put downs. ;)

Travelodge still doesn't know who hacked it

Matt Bradley
Joke

Not Mr and Mrs Smith

They should have got suspicious when one of Little Bobby Tables' relatives booked in under his full name.

Schmidt: Android will bring DEMOCRACY to the WORLD

Matt Bradley
Grenade

Information can't set someone free; it is inanimate

”He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future."

Orwell, amongst other political commentators, observed that the control of information allows the few to control the many. It is undeniable that freedom of communication (and therefore information) makes it increasingly difficult for a powerful individual or a state to filter that information in order to influence people.

Whilst a state can use the flow of information to profile its population, this isn't much use if a large proportion of your population is gaining access to precisely the kind of information which you dan't want them to have.

Ultimately, the increasing freedom of access to information, opinion and likeminded individuals will always be a force of good.

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