Posts by Inspector_Morse

If you REALLY want to be depressed....

....read this:

http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-559597

It's the Privacy International Dec 1997 report on surveillance around the world.

Worst infringers of privacy (where data are available):

UK, US, Russia, China, Thailand, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia,

while the best country in the world appears to be Greece. Anyone fancy partnering me in farming olives?

Latin = Dead, English = Alive

Living languages constantly change. Live with it.

Geoffrey Chaucer wrote, circa 1580, The Miller's Tale:

Original (modern English version is below):

This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart,

As greet as it had been a thonder dentght

That with the strook he was almoost yblent.

And he was redy with his yren hoot,

And Nicholas amydde the ers he smoot.

Of gooth the skyn an hande-brede aboute

The hoote kultour brende so his toute

And for the smert he wende for to dye.

Converted to modern English:

Nicholas then let fly a fart

As great as if it had been a thunder clap,

That with the stroke Absolon was almost blinded;

But he was ready with his hot iron

And hit Nicholas right on the arse.

Off went about a hand's breadth of skin,

The hot coulter so burned his butt,

And he thought he would die of the pain.

Finding gems like this when studying O level Eng. Lit was great fun!

NOW tell gov.uk.....

.. how good you feel about:

The NHS Spine

HMRC

Identity & Passport Service

Work and Pensions

and so on and so forth

In a sane world gov.uk would wind the clock back, dump internet transactions, and revert to hard copy snail mail*. The e-vermin are VERY smart, and the good guys are always playing catch-up.

I am not a Luddite. I probably grasped the internet before most readers of this post. But above all else a government's role in a democracy is to protect its citizens. Right now we are being exposed to fraud by inept (and probably overpaid) civil servants.

Enough is enough.

*Added Bonus: Post Offices saved.

Well, I'm buggered -

- a politician talking sense, and a Frenchie to boot!!

I am off to go and lie down in a darkened room.

Paris, obviously ..... French Presidency, dark room.......

Itfuo17062008wId-lff10DS&tapwktcs!

The only way to come up with a memorable secure password is to think of a life-changing event and then take the first letter of each word, include numbers and non-alphabetic characters, and vary the case of the letters.

In Hazel Blears case, a good password would be:

Itfuo17062008wId-lff10DS&tapwktcs!

The life-changing moment: "I truly fucked up on 17/06/08 when I down-loaded files from 10 Downing Street and thought a password would keep the contents safe!"

Use that password to access the files encrypted by TrueCrypt as others have already suggested. Job almost done. "Almost" - because it's still not perfect, but it's a lot better than trusting in Redmond.

And a thousand times better than trusting in gov.uk.

Virii ve Viruses and 10.5.x permissions

Virii = more than one virus. Trust me, I really am a microbiologist. Honestly!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plural_of_virus

Granted, languages change, and the origins of virii (Latin) are from a dead language, but the word is scientifically correct, even today.

Meanwhile, as a Mac user of some 20 plus years, and now having read Madra's comments, I am so pleased that I stuck to my guns of NEVER upgrading the Mac OS until at least x.x.3.

Thanks Madra! I will now stick to 10.4.11 until 10.5.4 is released, at the earliest.

Am I alone in thinking that Apple and Microsoft are as guilty as each other in pushing out new OSs with features that they deem to be great, but with insufficient market research / testing among their captive customer bases? Vista has been widely panned, and it seems, Leopard also. If it ain't broke don't fix it, especially if all you are offering is a clone of the competitor's product (yes, I am referring to Vista v 10.4.x) or more bells and whistles that nobody has actually asked for (yes, I am referring to 10.5.x).

For the benefit of the "I hate Mac Fanboyz" brigade, I also run 2 Windows XP Pro machines in addition to my 3 Macs. Both OSs have their pros and cons, but overall, and in my opinion, Mac wins hands down had I to choose a single OS.

Enigmatic patriots unite

XBITJF BWQKPQ! "F XRGODPS GIHS PTBDDB MZ SMUCQ VV RCVBQZ TBY TPSHQYN XCFNFRA EKD FVGJOCJPRZ."

SESFOV UGNXB

CLUE 1: Download from here: http://www.xat.nl/enigma/

CLUE 2: REG

CLUE 3: F>U; C>K; W>I; T>S

Next, steal* a mobile phone and text the clues to fellow bad guy/girl. Dump phone in ocean / incinerator....

Next, steal another mobile phone and text the encrypted message. Dump as before.....

Job done.

* alternatively buy a cheap PAYG phone, paying with cash, and dispose of as above (100 fathoms or gas mark 200 is recommended).

Have fun with the Enigma simulator - it's excellent tip-ware. Meanwhile, despair at the ineptitude and knee-jerk reactions of the UK & US Governments.

If you cannot be arsed with the Enigma simulator, the encrypted quote is:

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."

Edward Abbey

Building new verticals!

I have heard some corporate BS in my time, but this takes the biscuit. I presume that Quincy Smith has discovered that brown tongues are inferior to [STOP - CENSORED!]

Paris, because she really does know how to build new verticals.

Don't beat about the bush, Lester....

... tell us what will really happen to the first 'where's the IT angle' poster.

Paris, because she doesn't have a bush to beat around.

@ Alexander Hanff

Good luck with the injunction; I think it's the only sensible way to stop this.

As for the No.10 petitions route, does any reader have a single example of this tactic working (i.e. our beloved leaders - past and present - actually taking any notice)?

You know, being democratic?

No?

I thought so.

El Reg - keep it up.

Let's Face the Truth

Apple now pays the price by distributing an OS that has an in-built Firewall that is disabled, by default.

That's it.

End of story.

@ Peter

Thanks!

I had missed that irony, probably because I am weary of the BBC-sponsored eco warriors, but I defy any one to feel ashamed of the rubbish that washes ashore on any beach. That is pure vandalism.

Yrs

Morse

SSH & Rogue Amoeba's Audio Hijack Pro (and Airfoil, NiceCast)

From the Rogue Amoeba Knowledge Base:

Application Enhancer Technology

Several Rogue Amoeba products optionally make use of Application Enhancers technology, also known as APE, from Unsanity Software. The Instant Hijack component utilizes Application Enhancers to pull in audio from applications that are already running. By default, this component is not installed. If you attempt to hijack audio from a running application, you will be prompted to install the Instant Hijack component or relaunch the application. You can install or uninstall Instant Hijack from the Install Extras... window, under the application's main menu (the Audio Hijack Pro menu in Audio Hijack Pro).

Applications that use the optional Instant Hijack component:

Airfoil

Audio Hijack Pro

Nicecast

Maybe it's Unsanity's problem, not Rogue Amoeba's?

BTW, the older (original) Audio Hijack does not have instant hijack, only the Pro version (current release). As I have the legacy version, I will now install the patches.

@ Man Outraged & Iain

Thanks very much, but not what I wanted to read!

Lewis is pretty pissed off as well......

More gems of comments here

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/B0002CYTL2/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

@Lozzyho

I wouldn't pay for Ultimate, but Home Premium is good value... considering Apple manage to charge shedloads for a service pack, I mean.

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What??!!!

Apple has never charged a penny for any update, ever. Upgrades, yes. Updates, never.

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Moving on:

What I believe that the entire industry is missing, is that enough is enough. Whether we are on Windows or OSX, there is vastly more functionality than most people can handle, let alone, understand. Simply throwing more and more features at any OS does not hack it any longer.

"OOOh look at that!" The window spins!"

"Oh man! That is sOO yesterday! Where's my Evian water, and Burberry condom?"

In terms of a GUI, OS 10.5 still beats Vista, yet as a lifelong Mac user I will neither be upgrading to 10.5.x, nor switching boxes. As far as I am concerned I have exactly what I want: a stable platform. a suite of (expensive) applications, and a small but valuable host of very satisfied clients serviced by my 10.4.x. box, if you will pardon the expression.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Leopard offers this die-hard Mac user nothing other than cost of upgrade, grief in getting early releases to work properly, and expensive upgrades to several applications to get them to work on 10.5, only to discover they work just like they did before. And what is the benefit to my customers?

Four fifths of five eighths of FA as far as I can see.

Apart from spinning windows, when I demo a new marketing campaign. I can anticipate the yawns right now.

Client: "Wow! The window spins! Cool! Now how does this solve my problem?"

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Cut to scene 2:

Vista?: Exactly the same.

@ Kevin Kenny, Editor et al

Yes, I too thought it was Bulmer, and never looked at the mouse-over texts.

Anyway, mea culpa.

And your homework today is

Compare and contrast this statement (extracted from the story you have just read):

"The PC runs on Windows Vista, Ultimate edition of course"

with this earlier El Reg posting:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/30/french_open/

Submit your essay on the back of a MacDonalds napkin and gain points towards your MacDegree. You may even get an Hons double-whopper.

All entries should be sent to:

The First Lord of the Treasury, London.

@ Eddie Johnson

Thanks for reminding me of Scroogle. I have now added this to my search engine options in Firefox.

http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html?name=scroogle&sherlock=yes&opensearch=yes

@ Anon "Q&A"

Spot on!

I was going to place similar comments, but you have beaten me to it.

Well done!

So, no different to CB Radio back in the early 80s....

.. when cretinous school kids totally killed CB radio's usefulness for professional drivers when in suburban areas. Maybe you, dear reader, were one of them?

Who feels their Nat ID data will be safe now?

I'd like to write "un-effing-believable", but sadly it is totally believable. Someone remind me how much has been spent so far. Is it £20bn, or am I confusing that spend with the other white elephant - the NHS spine - to which many GPs are refusing to upload patient files, for fear of data loss / breach of confidentiality.