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3451

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by IainB on November 20, 2013, 05:59 AM »

...FWIW, it's my understanding that the Internet Archive's willingness to remove information from their collection 'on request' was largely motivated by the desire to avoid any legal challenges to their scraping content - even though I'm pretty sure they could make a successful argument for 'fair use' under US Law if somebody actually did go after them.

-40hz (November 20, 2013, 05:21 AM)

Yes, absolutely.
Unless and until they changed their charter to some different principles, they cannot be anything else other than "...the apparently less permanent/reliable archive".
An archive is generally only of any use if the stuff you would reasonably expect to have been safely stored in it is actually reliably and consistently available/accessible when you go looking to access it.
Otherwise, as I said, "What's the point?"

3452

Living Room / Re: What *Should* We Be Worried About?

« Last post by IainB on November 20, 2013, 03:05 AM »

Well, after my gloomy comment above, I have today read of something that offers a bright spark of hope. It's described in a blog post by an American woman living in Israel. If this episode does not soften the hearts of the people otherwise apparently bound to make war with an obligatory/statutory and remorseless hatred, then probably nothing can or will, and it probably makes a nuclear war in the Middle East that much more inevitable if/when the US takes the economic shackles off Iran.
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

The other mother and the grandfather in Gaza.
Sarah Tuttle-Singer November 19, 2013, 12:19 am

So on a day when my daughter puddle-jumps in boots with pink polka dots, and my son looks for snails, while I yell against the wind to my kids “hold my hand when we cross the street, dammit,” another mother waits in Gaza for word on her baby daughter.

Earlier, as the other mother’s daughter grew sicker by the minute, the baby’s grandfather asked for help.

Not such a big deal, right? Your kid is sick, you call for help. Duh.

But this is different. The little baby is the granddaughter of the leader of Hamas.

Hamas, whose very charter calls the Jewish people a “Nazi-like enemy, who does not differentiate between man and woman, elder and young.”

Hamas, that has sworn to create an Islamic State across all of Israel.

Hamas, whose mission is to “fight the Jews and kill them.”

But on this day, Ismail Haniyeh acted as a grandfather, the same way my babies’ grandfathers would act if their grandchildren were in trouble: The leader of Hamas asked for help. And without hesitation, Israel agreed, and that baby was transfered across enemy lines to Israel where a team of doctors was waiting.

The lines between Us and Them, blurry through a veil of the other mother’s tears.

I close my eyes and think about my own kids’ pediatrician: The smiling man who looks like Santa Claus with a yarmulke, who hands out kosher lollypops, who can lower a temperature with his cool hand, and can ease this mother’s frayed nerves with his beamish smile.

And I close my eyes and think about all the doctors in Israel who hover over this little girl.

He who saves a life saves the universe.

And as they work tirelessly over Ismail Haniyeh’s baby granddaughter, these doctors don’t care whose child she is.

I close my eyes, and I see that other mother: Her knuckles clenched, bone white, dry lips sucking air, her heart stutters.

Maybe it hurts her just below the bellybutton, where that baby grew not long before – that’s where it hurts me when my babies are hurting.

The other mother waits.

And waits.

And waits.

While I yell at my daughter to get her feet off the couch. While I tell my son that if I see one more freaking snail crawling on our table, I will liberate them in the garden.

The other mother waits.

As the seconds drag by way too slowly, and the phone doesn’t ring, she waits. Maybe she’s praying. Or maybe she’s too scared to move her lips to shape the words she wants to say:

Truly distress has seized me, but You are Most Merciful of those that are merciful.

And as hours pass with the shadows, and as the sky darkens, so does that last glimmer of hope.

Maybe it’s cold in the room where she sits, while I turn off the light and snap “go to sleep, already” as my kids giggle in bed.

Now, I’ve lived enough to know that turning the other cheek will sometimes get your ass kicked.

But I also still hope.

And while this baby girl won’t be cured, maybe — just maybe — the lines between Us and Them can stay a little blurry for just a little while longer.

3453

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by IainB on November 20, 2013, 02:28 AM »

...Clearly the people who drew up this policy put a lot of serious thought into the ethical, legal and historical ramifications of the policy. And they appear to have done so in an inclusive and open manner.
They aren't necessarily evil just because their goals aren't quite what you might have thought.
_____________________

-mwb1100 (November 19, 2013, 09:06 PM)

I suspect that @40hz might have had his tongue firmly in his cheek when he wrote:

...Bad practice. Bad policy. Bad move, Internet Archive. Shame!

-40hz (November 19, 2013, 05:49 AM)

Many thanks - the info. you provide helped reduce my level of ignorance about Archive.org and confirms and explains why Archive.org is "...the apparently less permanent/reliable archive" as I described it - that is, it's effectively incorporated in their charter.

By the way, I have since looked further into WebCite: ("...the apparently more permanent/reliable archive")

• Why it is thus is described in their charter as documented in the FAQ.
  
  
• They have a funding/donation site at FundRazr. The comments there are worth a read. They apparently plan to migrate to an infrastructure based on Amazon A3. There is a comment:
  

  Thank you! We are on track to reach our initial fundraising goal. Please keep giving to make sure we are able to archive new material in 2014 & beyond!
  

As discussed in their FAQ, WebCite seems to be focussed on an approach to creating more permanent records for academic citation purposes, of general academic information/knowledge/research, rather than the broad-brush "suck it all in" of the Archive.org (and remember the Pareto principle).

I always rather liked the idea of the mythical Hall of Records, said to be buried under the Great Sphinx of Giza,
rumoured to house the knowledge of the Egyptians on papyrus scrolls and the history/knowledge of the lost continent of Atlantis.
I reckon we have the technology and the opportunity to create our own Hall of Records for the future, but Archive.org probably won't be able to cut the mustard if the knowledge is progressively and relentlessly deliberately destroyed/expunged from it by people intent on covering the truth of their shame or criminal/political intent or propaganda, or whatever.

So @40hz could find in WebCite an approach to offer perhaps more than a glimmer of hope for avoiding the dystopian 1984 future that he is concerned about, though whether WebCite will succumb to an onslaught from an emergent 1984-type of Totalitarian fascism, only time will tell.
Some people (not me you understand) might say that the odds for WebCite in that regard don't look too good really, and they might further give the example of the American Constitution as an illustration of something existing that doesn't seem to have held up all that well against such an onslaught, but I couldn't possibly comment.

3454

General Software Discussion / Re: Does anyone know how I may remove Trojan Dropper:MSIL/Livate.A ?

« Last post by IainB on November 19, 2013, 07:06 PM »

My suggested approach: I have used Malwarebytes with great success when cleaning other people's PCs of viruses.
Sometimes Malwarebytes could be installed and run on the infected machine, but if it was a hijack virus it would usually lock the infected PC so I just removed the infected drive and connected it to my PC and cleaned it with Malwarebytes.

To do the latter, for safety, you ideally need to have a decent virus package running (I use Microsoft Windows Security Essentials) and Malwarebytes PRO (the paid version) running on your PC, with Malwarebytes Real-time protection Enabled (the free version does not have Real-time protection).

See here: Malwarebytes FREE and PRO - Mini-Review.

Make sure you run Malwarebytes and then the virus package over the infected drive, and re-run them both over the infected drive again, after it has all been cleaned up. (Belts and braces.)
Could be worth checking the Malwarebytes website for notes on Trojan Dropper:MSIL/Livate.A, before proceeding with my suggested approach.

3455

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by IainB on November 19, 2013, 06:39 PM »

This discussion reminded me of the case of Prof Richard Parncutt, who revealed himself as an éminence grise Climate Fascist at U-Graz:

per Wikipedia:
Richard Parncutt (born 24 October 1957 in Melbourne) is an Australian-born academic who specializes in the psychology of music. He has been Professor of Systematic Musicology at Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz in Austria since 1998. He attracted international media attention in 2012 for his advocacy in favour of the death penalty. (Discussed in the Thermageddon thread in the Basement.)

Amongst the types of people he considered should be put to death for their perceived sins, Parncutt especially had in mind "climate denialists" for the death penalty - to be adjudged by a suitable panel of climate "scientists" - I kid you not.
His simultaneously revealing and damning "rationale" (if that is the correct term) for this was documented for all to see in a page on his university website from 25 October to 24 December 2012.
Of course, after that date it was taken down from the university website, and expunged from Archive.org when people belatedly, but probably unsurprisingly objected to it, and Parncutt has since apparently been "disciplined" (QED) by the university board. However, the offending page showed up in Google Cache for a while and can still be seen in all its splendiferous context at Webcite: WebCite query result

Unfortunately: WebCite will stop accepting new submissions end of 2013, unless we reach our fundraising goals to modernize and expand this service.

So it looks as though the apparently more permanent/reliable archive (Webcite) may be about to be shut down, whereas the apparently less permanent/reliable archive (Archive.org) has recently been (apparently) quite well-funded.
Now I find that a little strange, in light of the above discussion.

Parncutt could no doubt be pleased about it though:



One lesson here is probably to be a habitual archivist for the important stuff that catches your attention whilst reading news feeds, etc., and to share those archives publicly.

I have faith in one thing...
there are fanatical archivists all over the world.  

-superboyac (November 18, 2013, 05:22 PM)

3456

Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CLIPBOARD HELP+SPELL LATEST VERSION INFO THREAD - v2.23.01 - Nov 22, 2013

« Last post by IainB on November 19, 2013, 04:07 PM »

Very nice. I had been needing these changes for quite a while. Thankyou very much.   

3457

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by IainB on November 19, 2013, 03:18 PM »

@40hz: Ah! Sorry. I think I see what you mean now.
I had originally thought that the Wayback machine might be a permanent one-way archive, but then I realised that quite a lot of stuff never seemed to make it into the archive in the first place, and then I later discovered that was probably because the rules set up in the  robots.txt file (or something) were things that robots/crawlers would have to obey (apparently not because of any statutory obligation, but because of a "professional" obligation). Later, when I was researching a "bad science" investigative website that had shut down because of legal threats from lawyers acting for some of the bad/fraudulent scientists whom it apparently exposed, I discovered that, though most of the website was in the archive, the offending parts of it had apparently been expunged.

What that seemed to indicate was that, not only was http://wayback.archive.org/ a necessarily passive robot custodian of what website owners wanted to permit its crawlers to access by default, but also that they would action any and all subsequent requests for expunging archived content.

I could be wrong in some of the above, because I have deduced a lot of it from experience. I don't know it for a verifiable fact.

What I was unaware of until reading the posts I linked to, was that putting a rule into a website's robots.txt or something, to block the Archive from crawling that website, could/would necessarily be used to force a retrospective expunging of all previous archived material from that website.

My new awareness on this point means that I have just turned from being a strong supporter of Archive.org to being an indifferent non-supporter.
I mean, what's the point? Humanity's creative drive to monetize everything has led to an entirely new and dominant market for ubiquitous e-commerce that has been created and developed in the www. However, according to the Pareto principle, roughly 80% of website content is likely to be puerile rubbish and 20% of it useful facts/truth. The www has moved from the original state of being a repository of, and a communications medium for scientific truth/research, to the point where facts/truth would seem to have become victims of a wave of absurdity/irrationality. For example, you only need to look at the evidence of irrationality/absurdity in comments and information posted in the Science/Peer Review and Thermageddon subject threads in the DC Forum.
Sure, it's great to be able to have a sort of discussion - e.g., like in this particular discussion forum thread I am posting to now - with different people somewhere else in the world whom you've never met and might never meet. That at least is something we couldn't so easily do in pre-Internet times; but is the quality of the discussion really any better than if you were face-to-face? Is there less absurdity/irrationality or more? Take it to an extreme and ask the same questions of Twitter. There is a stochastic tendency in Nature for things to "regress to the mean" (e.g., with IQs). On the Internet, it seems to be regression to mediocrity/orthodoxy of content (e.g., as in Wikipedia).

The reality that "...putting a rule into a website's robots.txt or something, to block the Archive from crawling that website, could/would necessarily be used to force a retrospective expunging of all previous archived material from that website" means that truth (history) will be and is already being deliberately expunged/manipulated, as in the 1984 scenario.
Which I guess is the point you were making.      

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

“But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”

“Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

― George Orwell, 1984

3458

Living Room / Re: Reader's Corner - The Library of Utopia

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 10:26 PM »

Looks like a piece of good news here:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Google Books ruled legal in massive win for fair use (updated) | Ars Technica
Scans that show snippets are legal—they don't replace the full book.

by Joe Mullin - Nov 14, 2013 4:32 pm UTC

A long-running copyright lawsuit between the Authors' Guild and Google over its book-scanning project is over, and Google has won on the grounds that its scanning is "fair use."

In other words, the snippets of books that Google shows for free don't break copyright, and Google doesn't need the authors' permission to engage in the scanning and display of short bits of books.

The ruling (PDF) was published this morning by US District Judge Denny Chin, who has overseen the case since it was filed in 2005.

The parties tried to settle this case, but the judge rejected the settlement as unwieldy and unfair. Now, the case has instead resulted in a hugely significant fair use win, opening the door to other large-scale scanning projects in the future.

Along with the First Sale doctrine, fair use is the most important limitation on copyright. It allows parts of works to be used without permission of the copyright owner to produce new things: quotes of books used in reviews or articles for instance.

Legal disputes over what or what is not "fair use" are often complex, and there are four factors that judges consider. But the one that's often the most important is what kind of effect the fair use will have on the market for the original product.

Judge Chin seemed to find the plaintiffs' ideas ignorant, if not nonsensical, in this regard. He wrote:

    [P]laintiffs argue that Google Books will negatively impact the market for books and that Google's scans will serve as a "market replacement" for books. [The complaint] also argues that users could put in multiple searches, varying slightly the search terms, to access an entire book.

    Neither suggestion makes sense. Google does not sell its scans, and the scans do not replace the books. While partner libraries have the ability to download a scan of a book from their collections, they owned the books already—they provided the original book to Google to scan. Nor is it likely that someone would take the time and energy to input countless searches to try and get enough snippets to comprise an entire book.

Seeing the project as a boon to researchers

Before Chin gets into the deep legal analysis, he begins with a section noting the many benefits of Google books. The giant book-scanning project has already become an "important tool for researchers and librarians," noted Chin. Through data mining, researchers can do things they've never been able to do before, examining "word frequencies, syntactic patterns, and thematic markers to consider how literary style has changed over time."

The program expands access to books, particularly to "traditionally underserved populations," he notes. The books Google scans provide the potential for them to be read in larger text formats or with Braille or text-to-speech software. And the project could save old out-of-print books that are literally falling apart in library stacks.

Chin runs through the four traditional factors that decide whether use of a copyrighted work is "fair use."

First, he found Google's use of the works was highly transformative. "Google Books digitizes books and transforms expressive text into a comprehensive word index," he wrote. There's already legal precedent allowing large-scale scanning in order to create indexes and search services—created, in part, by Google. Chin cited the Perfect 10 v. Amazon case, which ruled the scanning of images and publication of "thumbnails" in Google image search is legal.

He also found that Google Books "does not supersede or supplant books because it is not a tool to be used to read books." The service adds value to books.

Chin notes that Google is a commercial service, which weighs against a finding of fair use. But while the service may draw more people to Google websites, Google isn't engaged in "direct commercialization" of the copyrighted works. The company "does not sell the scans it has made of books for Google Books; it does not sell the snippets that it displays; and it does not run ads on the About the Book pages that contain snippets."

Another factor is the amount of the work used. Google is scanning full books. But "copying the entirety of a work is sometimes necessary to make a fair use of the image," wrote Chin, citing a case involving the use of reduced-sized Grateful Dead posters called Bill Graham Archives v. Dorling Kindersley.

Important, of course, is the fact that Google is showing limited amounts of text to book searchers. Blacked-out sections and other technical measures prevent full-book copying.

In the end, the full-book scanning weighed only "slightly against" a finding of fair use. It was overridden by the other factors. Especially important was Chin's view, discussed above, that Google Books would not hurt, and may in fact help, the market for the original books.
A nearly-settled case will now be fought on appeal

The parties tried to settle this case but were unable to. A proposed settlement not only involved a complicated set of compensation rules for authors, it also had sections dealing with unaddressed copyright issues like "orphan works." But Chin rejected the settlement in 2011, saying it wasn't fair. Fundamentally, it was just too big—issues like orphan works were best left to Congress, not to a class-action lawsuit.

In the long term, the failure to settle may result in more scanning, not less. If Chin's ruling stands on appeal, a clean fair-use ruling will make it easier for competitors to start businesses or projects based on scanning books—including companies that don't have the resources, legal or otherwise, that Google has.

"This has been a long road and we are absolutely delighted with today’s judgment," said a Google spokesperson. "As we have long said., Google Books is in compliance with copyright law and acts like a card catalog for the digital age, giving users the ability to find books to buy or borrow."

Authors' Guild Executive Director Paul Aiken expressed his disappointment with the ruling, saying that Google's book-scanning project is a "fundamental challenge" to copyright.

"Google made unauthorized digital editions of nearly all of the world's valuable copyright-protected literature and profits from displaying those works," said Aiken. "In our view, such mass digitization and exploitation far exceeds the bounds of the fair use defense."

The Guild is going to appeal, he added.

That means the issue will end up at the New York-based US Court of Appeal for the 2nd Circuit. That appeals court has decided several key legal battles between content and technology companies in recent years, including the Cablevision decision. That ruling legalized remote-DVR services, which has aided other tech companies, including Aereo.

Fundamentally, the fact that this case was finally decided on its merits, and not settled, is a better result for the public, argued Paul Alan Levy of Public Citizen in his reaction this morning.

"Unlike that settlement, which could have ensconced Google as the only search engine entitled to digitize books without the consent of their authors, this ruling provides a road map that allows any other entity to follow in Google’s path," said Levy.

It's judges' decisions in hard-fought cases—not overseeing secret negotiations between giants—that truly benefit the public.

"[T]he main job of a federal judge is not to supervise settlements, and especially not to bully parties into settling their cases," he wrote. "The judge’s job is to decide cases, so that every member of the public, not only the parties, can benefit from the public resources that go into the judicial system."

3459

Living Room / Re: The most disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 08:27 PM »

@40hz:
The issue as you described it seemed to be that it was a dystopian 1984 moment - "The most disturbing news story I've read all year", you called it.

Now, I apologise if I had not conveyed the points very well, but, at the risk of repetition:

• Apparently Entire Conservative Party Web Archive Still Available - at the British Library - though both Cons and Lab sites have scrubbed their websites (and why shouldn't they?).
• The Register covers this in their (rather silly) post (see above) but with what seems to be a bit of ad hom.
• At Guido Fawkes There's also a post which follows on from The Register's post, here: Labour Delete Entire Pre-2010 History From Their Website. (I'm not sure whether the Lab site material is saved in the British Library too, like the Cons one.)

So, if it's in fact not "the most disturbing news story you've read all year" after all - as seems to be the case - then does the erasure of the history of the Cons and Lab parties' websites (and the Cons material at least is in the British Library) have any real significance other than that it is housekeeping on the run-up to the elections?
I can't see that it does - though I could be missing something here, of course.
What is the issue now?

3460

General Software Discussion / Re: EverDesk stores emails in your normal folders with other docs

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 07:31 PM »

2013-11-19: Please see also DCF thread: Everdesk (Google Edition) - Mini-Review

3461

Mini-Reviews by Members / Everdesk (with Google Add-on) - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 07:19 PM »

Originally posted:	2013-11-19
Last updated	2016-04-06

Basic Info

App Name	EverDesk with Google Add-on
Description	EverDesk Standard is a client-based email tool that can handle any/most of the webmail services except Gmail, but the version with the Google Add-on supports full integration with Google Gmail and with related Google services e.g., including Google Drive. (This can be far more useful than one might at first realise.) Their website at https://www.everdesk.com/features points out the unique characteristics of EverDesk, where it says: (my emphasis) EverDesk is the first and only email client on the market which stores email messages together with your other files and documents, so you can keep all the information related to the same subject together in regular Windows folders and work with it in a simpler, more flexible, and more powerful way.
Thumbs-Up Rating	After extended trial and retrial.
App URL	https://www.everdesk.com/
App Version Reviewed	Everdesk v5.8.7 (Google Edition)
Test System Specs	MS Win7-64 HP, Win10-64 PRO
Supported OSes	PC Windows (various)
Support Methods	Support on Everdesk website: https://www.everdesk.com/support
Upgrade Policy	Free incremental upgrades within a main version number.
Trial Version Available?	Yes - fully-functional (uncrippled) copy with 30-day licence life.
Pricing Scheme	Everdesk with Google Add-on - US$44.95

Intro and Overview:
For me, the biggest nuisance about web-based email is that email and its attachments are stored in a peculiar proprietary manner in the cloud, whereas I usually want it all on my local client device too (a laptop), where I can access it easily and back it up. Where this is possible at all (rarely), it is difficult/time consuming to organise with most client software. I want my email integrated with and accessible via my PIM (Personal Information Manager) system - which latter comprises a set of tools on my laptop.

Taking advantage of a GAOTD 100% discount offer for EverDesk Standard, I had tried out EverDesk following a post about it on the DC Forum by @Curt:: EverDesk stores emails in your normal folders with other docs
However, I discovered:

..doesn't work with Gmail

-Bruce Fraser (October 25, 2012, 10:15 PM)

According to EverDesk's own notes that I read, this is true.

-IainB (October 25, 2012, 11:15 PM)

So I realised that I would need EverDesk with Google Add-on, not the EverDesk Standard, so I downloaded EverDesk with Google Add-on and had an extended trial. I then changed laptops and reinstalled a trial version on the newer laptop, and I am currently trialling it again and this time am wanting to buy it, because it is rather good - if not excellent - at what it does.
Here is a link to a comparison of the features between EverDesk 5.6 Standard and EverDesk 5.6 with Google Add-on  - https://www.everdesk.com/features

Example screenshot: of the Main GUI window:
(Arrows to some noteworthy points.)




Who this software is designed for:
Anyone who wants:

• To be able to operate their Gmail account(s) from a desktop email client.
• To have copies of all Gmail emails stored on the local client in non-proprietary format, and all attached documents stored on the local client in original format, all of which is to be accessible from the client via Windows Explorer (or similar), and able to be opened by the relevant desktop applications.
• To have full integration between the desktop email client and Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Contacts.

The Good:

• Very nice and user-friendly GUI.
• Amazingly useful functionality - needs to be experienced firsthand to be appreciated.
• The application is stable (no crashes) and gives an incredibly useful integration between a desktop email client and the Google services mentioned. It lets me quite easily do what I have often wanted to do with my Gmail, but could not do before, or that I could only do with considerable difficulty/mucking about.
• Exercise prudent caution re bandwidth: For any email account you set it to operate, EverDesk can automatically download your email and any attached files from the webmail server. If one has a cap on bandwidth utilisation - as I do - then one needs to be conscious of this. For example, where I am on a mailing list for a newsletter of interest, and which periodically emails newsletters with unsolicited/unwanted and sometimes quite large video files attached, I take the precautionary step of deleting those emails and/or their video file attachments online before starting up EverDesk.

Needs Improvement:

• No notes on this as at this stage. I have not seen any drawbacks in the software.
• I have had one error recently where a polite message popped up giving a full report of a non-critical error ("index out of range") that it would "send home". It then gave me the option to continue or restart. I restarted.

Why I think you should use this product:
If you are interested in taking control of your Gmail as a client-based tool (application and data) and moving a step ahead in management of your own Google account data (including integration between the desktop email client and Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Contacts), then this email client/PIM could well be of interest to you.

How it compares to similar products:
I have no experience/knowledge of alternative/similar products, because there isn't one (as I have established), however, in the DCF thread linked to above, mention is made of DreamMail, but this gives the notice:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Spoiler

END OF SUPPORT

Hello,
I have been supporting DreamMail for almost 8 years, but as you may know, I am not the developer. I created DreamMail Europe Community website, because I thought DreamMail was one of the best email clients. So I used to spend some time translating into French and creating this website and forum.

But now, it's been more than a year I have no reply from Zeng Xiquan, and I cannot continue supporting this software without him. So I decided to end this adventure, and move forward.
So, I will *NOT* reply to future emails, and this page will disappear soon.

Also, a vulnerability has been found, and a Proof of Concept is available here : http://www.exploit-d....com/exploits/27805/ (thanks to loneferret)
I receive spams with trying to use this exploit now, so you MUST change your email software.

There are many email software available (Thunderbird, Opera Mail, ...), so you can check one of these to get support.

This community website is now over, so do not blame me, but I cannot continue this.

BUT, I will let the forum available, so you can continue to ask question and help others.
You can access it here : http://forum.dreammail.eu/

Thank you and see you on new projects.

Clément

One of the OutlinerSoftware discussions in the references below refers to SquadMail, which is more of a nifty group collaboration tool using Gmail and DropBox (as a paid service).

Conclusions:

• I have been pleasantly surprised and impressed with what this email client does. It definitely seems to live up to its description.
• I have yet to discover the limits of its potential. It is arguably more of a PIM than just a simple email tool, though it seems to be an excellent email tool in its own right.
• It is No-fuss, simple and quick to download and install, with the only tricky thing being the installation of the Google IMAP settings and security - one has to disable Gmail 2-step verification and enable "less secure application access". It is relatively straightforward if one follows the clear installation instructions - which I did not do, at first.   
• Good news!: I really wanted to have a licence for this EverDesk-Gmail version and had decided to await a BDJ or GAOTD discounted offer or similar - due to the cost. Then I wondered whether I could get a discount from EverDesk directly, so I emailed their support desk, asked them if they could give me a discount, pointed them to this review and expressed my real interest in their product over the years. I have just received an email from them. They have had me on their database since my 2012 EverDesk-Standard licence, and they gave me a licence for the EverDesk-Gmail version FREE because I had effectively been promoting their software by extolling its features and benefits. I am very grateful for this.   

References/links:

• EverDesk website:
  
  • Home page
  • Support on Everdesk website
  • Comparison of the features between EverDesk Standard and EverDesk with Google Add-on
  
  
• DCF discussion:
  
  • EverDesk stores emails in your normal folders with other docs
  
  
• OutlinerSoftware discussions:
  
  • Everdesk Optima - Is It Still Being Developed? - refers to SquadMail
  • Everdesk Quickboard alternative?
  • Everdesk
  • EverDesk on Bits

3462

Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 02:57 PM »

Ripples - relevant interesting headlines from around the world. Now nothing surprises, where once one might have been hugely surprised. Perhaps a glimmer of hope here and there, but mostly it looks like what you might usually find when you turn over a flat stone that has been lying on top of the ground for a while - all those wriggling, writhing, creeping and crawling things trying to scurry away from the light.
This seems to look like corruption on a grand scale, and the demand for more of it is apparently coming from the US government and several other totalitarian states/governments. This is a picture of our potential future, if we want/accept it - the new normal for "freedom".

• Schneier tells Washington NSA broke Internet’s security for everyone | Ars Technica (Who'da thunk it?)
• Internet architects propose encrypting all the world’s Web traffic | Ars Technica (That'll be the day!)
• “We still don’t encrypt server-to-server data,” admits Microsoft | Ars Technica (How did that not happen?)
• The NSA asked Linus Torvalds to inject covert backdoors into GNU/Linux. (How would we know whether the backdoors were now in place?)
• Private firms selling mass surveillance systems around world, documents show | World news | The Guardian (Surveillance becomes ubiquitous - a public utility mandated by the State.)

The more that is progressively revealed on this, the more it seems to substantiate that what Snowden did was arguably a genuinely selfless act of whistle-blowing. This corruption, which is so wrong and on so many counts, needed to be shown up for what it was/is. One wonders if one would have had the courage to do the same if one had been in Snowden's shoes, and how one might have coped with it.

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Living Room / Re: New Zealand bans software patents

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 02:27 PM »

But how effective will this be in actual practice?  Doesn't this only apply to such litigation brought to NZ courts and within its bounds?

-wraith808 (November 18, 2013, 12:10 PM)

Yes. It's a start at least, with NZ getting it's own house into more sensible order.

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Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 04:10 AM »

Very droll cartoon from the UK press:

You had to wonder what they were smoking over at the Co-op, and now you know. It was crystal meth…

The humour might need some explaining. The background to this is an utter fiasco.
One Reverend Flowers - the Chairman who retired from the Co-Op bank after it lost mega-millions - had been obliged to attend a Parliamentary Select Committee hearing into the bank's losses/collapse. Some short time afterwards, he was apparently caught on video buying meth and other drugs with a mate (who secretly took the video) - BANKING BAD: Co-Op Boss Caught Buying Coke & Crystal Meth

Also: Crystal meth shame of former Co-op bank chief Paul Flowers | Mail Online

Counting off £20 notes to buy hard drugs, this is the man who ran the Co-op Bank... three days after telling MPs how it lost £700m.

•     Methodist minister Paul Flowers, 63, was caught on camera buying drugs
•     It was just days after he was grilled by MPs over his bank's performance
•     He is seen in his car discussing the cocaine and crystal meth he wants
•     He then counts out £300 in £20 notes and sends a friend to make the deal
•     The video handed over by an acquaintance 'disgusted by his hypocrisy'
•     Last night MPs demanded Rev Flowers appear before them again
•     Flowers boasts of using ketamine along with cannabis and club drug GHB

Other quotes:

   "Flowers' stunning lack of knowledge about the Co-op Bank raised fears that it had lacked basic oversight from its chairman."

    “Rev Flowers confirmed he had been involved in authorising the payment of £100,000 to Mr Balls and his Parliamentary office, though he said the money had come from the Co-op Group and not the Co-op Bank as the lender was “politically neutral”.”
[Amongst the many outgoings approved by Flowers was that payment to the Labour Party.]

"Doing all that gear after his Select Committee appearance was not the only bad life choice that Rev Flowers has made recently..."

"What was it that first attracted this coke snorting, meth buying, fiscally incompetent cluster of a banking boss to Ed Balls? And lets not forget that Labour owe the Co-op millions. You have to have a heart of stone not to laugh."

I quite agree with that last bit. You gotta larf bout it. I had a huge LOL moment over this. You couldn't make it up. Maybe Rev Flowers will be voted in as the next PM. You at least would know where you stood with him.

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Living Room / Re: The most non-disturbing news story I've read all year

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 03:10 AM »

^^ Might be much ado about n'owt. Apparently Entire Conservative Party Web Archive Still Available - at the British Library - though both Cons and Lab sites have scrubbed their websites (and why shouldn't they?).
The Register covers it here, but with what seems to be a bit of ad hom:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images.)

Oh My GOD! Have the TORIES ERASED THE INTERNET?*
Pass the Lizard-proof tinfoil, I need to make a hat
By Andrew Orlowski, Kelly Fiveash, Lewis Page, 13th November 2013

A story that the Conservatives “made the internet disappear” has ignited news channels today. In fact, the story demonstrates yet again how ignorant most journalists are of the basic workings of the internet - and it demonstrates how the thirst for conspiratorial thinking dominates political news.

Perhaps not surprisingly, this story comes from freelance blogger Mark Ballard, writing for twilight IT site Computer Weekly. Mark used to be a journalist here at The Register: he had to leave some years ago, but we remember him well.

Ballard reports in classic style that the Conservative Party has "erased" a bunch of old speeches from the "internet". Sky News, picking up Ballard's post, tells us how “the Tories had used something called a robot blocker to remove speeches”, echoing the crazed conspiratorial tone of the Weakly's coverage - which adds:

    The erasure had the effect of hiding Conservative speeches in a secretive corner of the internet like those that shelter the military, secret services, gangsters and paedophiles.

In fact, it's simpler than that: the Tories just dumped all their old speeches off their website and put notices in their robots.txt file notifying webcrawlers ("the robots" that the Tories "blocked", if you've wandered in here from somewhere else) to do the same in their parent archives around the internet**. Mark and other scribblers at the Beeb, Sky, Guardian, BuzzFeed etc were stunned to find that this meant the speeches were no longer available at the Wayback Machine, which they had fondly imagined to be "the internet", and to serve as an imperishable archive of everything ever published online.

But this is business-as-usual. The shock and horror is generated by a misconception: that the internet in general, and the Wayback Machine (aka the library hosted by non-profit firm Archive.org) in particular, are bulletproof repositories of information. The word "archive" implies permanence – a fortress of data integrity impervious to time, war and large egos. But Archive.org is not an archive. It never has been.

We found this out nine years ago. The Wayback Machine is very fragmentary, and - of course - removes information on request. On that occasion the PR department of chip giant Intel had requested that a three-year-old interview with an engineer be removed. Wayback complied – as it does every time. After all, it seldom has any right to copy and republish content scraped from other people's websites.

There are other reasons why it's no surprise that the Wayback crawlers comply with robots.txt files on websites: if a crawler doesn't, it is liable to be blocked by all right-thinking webmasters. Dubious bot crawlers often try to pretend not to be robots, so that they can ignore robots.txt, but this isn't simple - they are often detected by alert web admins or their systems - and that's a dangerous route to go down when you're claiming to be a reputable organisation.

So there are good bots and bad bots, on the real internet. But not on Mark Ballard's. He writes:

    The bots were what made the democratization of information possible. It was bots that inspired Cameron and Osborne. It was bots that were going to free us from serfdom in the way they said we would be. Without the bots you just had pockets of power and privilege for those in the know. Without the bots you just had the same old concentration of wealth and power there had always been, since long before the Internet Archive started taking snapshots of the Conservative website in 1999.

Knockabout stuff. And the Tories taking all their old promises off their website - and updating their robots.txt to reflect this - would almost be a small piece of news on a slow day, though all the "erasing the internet" and "criminals and paedophiles" foolery is absurd.

Except it would only be fair to note that the Labour Party has "erased the internet" too. Labour’s housecleaning has removed almost everything prior to the start of the current leadership, and the Wayback Machine (sorry, "the internet") is pretty empty of Labour's past as well as that of the Tories.

So, not really even news: "political parties scrub away all their old promises as long run-up to election begins". Boring.

If we’re to hold politicians to account then this means proper, rational debate. That means, yes, keeping a record of what they say - but you're better off taking your own copies than relying on robots and the varied cloud systems they serve to do it for you - and then complaining that someone has "erased the internet" like a "criminal paedophile" when you are let down.

But people would normally much prefer a conspiracy to blame. Once it was the Right that dealt largely in the language conspiracy theories, as Democrat historian Richard Hofstader wrote in his famous 1964 essay The Paranoid Style in American Politics. There were Reds to be found under every Bed. But listen to any academic venting about “neoliberalism” and you can just as easily erase the word “neoliberal” and substitute the word “Illuminati”. It's escapism and a form of narcissism, really.

Every conspiracy theorist finds the conspiracy their heart desires, eventually. Readers may be interested to note that when Mark left the Reg, he took with him several folders of notes, and left behind quite a lot more.

The ones he took with him were all labelled "Military Industrial Complex", followed by sequential serial numbers. ®

*Headlines to which the answer is no.

** Newcomers might care to have a look here to learn more about the robot exclusion protocol, which "is not intended for access control, so don't try to use it as such. Think of it as a 'No Entry' sign, not a locked door."

At Guido Fawkes There's also a post which follows on from The Register's post, here: Labour Delete Entire Pre-2010 History From Their Website.
(I'm not sure whether the Lab site material is saved in the British Library too, like the Cons one.)

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Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 02:20 AM »

I'm not too well up on American politics and current affairs, but I gather from this video (below) that there seems to be evidence that the US government is using the somewhat draconian ant-terror laws ...

-IainB (November 17, 2013, 04:01 AM)

Now I know why the little bastards have got into the pantry recently ... I've been targeted by the USA.

-4wd (November 17, 2013, 11:37 PM)

Is that a problem with mice, or rats in the pantry?

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Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 02:01 AM »

Some humour and some truth...
Things we may learn as we mature. (consolidated Dec. 2007)

99% of the time when something isn't working in your house, one of your kids did it.
Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
Computing: 665.9238429876 - Number of the Pentium Beast.
Computing: A hacker does for love what others would not do for money.
Computing: A printer consists of three main parts:  The case, the jammed paper tray, and the blinking red light.
Computing: Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later.
Computing: All wiyht.  Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?
Computing: As a computer, I find your faith in technology amusing.
Computing: At the source of every error that is blamed on the computer, you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.
Computing: Beta - is Latin for "still doesn't work."
Computing: Beta - software undergoes beta testing shortly before it's released.
Computing: Computer analyst to programmer:  You start coding.  I'll go find out what they want.
Computing: Computer Science:  Solving today's problems tomorrow.
Computing: Do not unpack unit before reading instructions.  They're inside the sealed box.
Computing: Enter any 11-digit prime number to continue...
Computing: Error:  Keyboard not attached.  Press F1 to continue.
Computing: Helpdesk tip #2:  When the support analyst says:  "Click," wait for the rest of the sentence.
Computing: Hidden DOS secret:  Add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS.
Computing: Hit any user to continue.
Computing: I have yet to meet a C compiler that is more friendly and easier to use than eating soup with a knife.
Computing: If your computer says:  Printer out of Paper, this problem cannot be resolved by continuously clicking the "OK" button.
Computing: Intel:  We put the "um" in Pentium.
Computing: Life's unfair - but root password helps!
Computing: Microsoft Windows:  Computing While U Wait.
Computing: My software never has bugs.  It just develops random features.
Computing: Of course my password is the same as my pet's name.  My macaw's name was Q47pY!3, but I change it every 90 days.
Computing: Press any key to continue or any other key to quit.
Computing: Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots.  So far, the Universe is winning.
Computing: Real programmers don't document.  If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
Computing: Smash forehead on keyboard to continue...
Computing: Standards are industry's way of codifying obsolescence.
Computing: The programmer's national anthem is "AAAAAAAARRRRGHHHHH!!"
Computing: There are two ways to write error-free programs.  Only the third one works.
Credentials on the wall do not make you a decent human being.
Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
Either you control your attitude or it controls you.
Even when you think you have no more to give, when a friend cries out to you, you will find the strength to help.
Ex's are like fungus, and keep coming back.
Heroes are the people who do what has to be done when it needs to be done, regardless of the consequences (ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances).
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy it.
It is not what you wear; it is how you take it off.
It isn't always enough to be forgiven by others.  Sometimes you must forgive yourself.
It takes years to build up trust, and it only takes suspicion, not proof, to destroy it.
It takes years to build up trust, and only seconds to destroy it.
It's a lot easier to react than it is to think.
It's hard to determine where to draw the line between being nice and not hurting people's feelings, and standing up for what you believe in.
It's not what happens to people that's important.  It's what they do about it.
It's not what you have in your life but who you have in your life that counts.
It's taking me a long time to become the person I want to be.
Just because someone doesn't love you the way you want them to doesn't mean they don't love you with all they have.
Just because two people argue, it doesn't mean they don't love each other and just because they don't argue, it doesn't mean they do.
Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had and what you've learned from them and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.
Money is a lousy way of keeping score.
My best friend and I can do anything or nothing and have the best of times.
No matter how bad your heart is broken the world doesn't stop for your grief.
No matter how good a friend is, they're going to hurt you every once in a while and you must forgive them for that.
No matter how much I care, some people are just assholes/jackasses.
No matter how much I care, some people just don't care back.
No matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.
No matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get arrested and end up in the local paper.
No matter how you try to protect your children, they will eventually get hurt and you will hurt in the process.
No matter the consequences, those who are honest with themselves get further in life.
One good turn gets most of the blankets.
Our background and circumstances may have influenced who we are, but we are responsible for who we become.
Regardless of how hot and steamy a relationship is at first, the passion fades, and there had better be a lot of money to take its place.
Sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down will be the ones to help you get back up.
Sometimes the people you expect to kick you when you're down will be the ones who do.
Sometimes when I'm angry I have the right to be angry, but that doesn't give me the right to be cruel.
Sometimes you are sad, and no-one sees your tears; sometimes you are happy, and no-one sees your smile, but if you fart just ONE time...
The people you care about most in life are taken from you too soon.
The people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon and all the less important ones just never go away.
The people you care most about in life are taken from you too soon, whilst all the less important ones just never go away and the real pains in the ass are permanent.
There are many ways of falling and staying in love.
There is a fine line between genius and insanity.
To not to sweat the petty things, and not to pet the sweaty things.
To say "F#ck 'em if they can't take a joke" in 6 languages.
True friendship continues to grow, even over the longest distance.  Same goes for true love.
Two people can look at the exact same thing and see something totally different.
We are responsible for what we do, no matter how we feel.
We are responsible for what we do, unless we are celebrities.
We don't have to change friends if we understand that friends change.
Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.
Writing, as well as talking, can ease emotional pains.
You can do something in an instant that will give you heartache for life.
You can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better have a big d#ck or huge b##bs/t#ts.
You can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes. After that, you'd better know something.
You can keep going long after you can't.
You can keep puking/vomiting long after you think you're finished.
You cannot make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest is up to them.
You cannot make someone love you. All you can do is stalk them and hope they panic and give in.
You should always leave loved ones with loving words. It may be the last time you see them.
You should never tell a child their dreams are unlikely or outlandish. Few things are more humiliating, and what a tragedy it would be if they believed you.
You shouldn't be so eager to find out a secret. It could change your life forever.
You shouldn't compare yourself to others - they are more f#cked/screwed up than you realise.
You shouldn't compare yourself to the best others can do, but to the best you can do.
Your life can be changed in a matter of hours by people who don't even know you.

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Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on November 18, 2013, 01:28 AM »

"Here's a funny joke. ..."

"Tisn't true."

"My joke is so true!"

"Tisn't."

"Tis so, and can't say it back." ... etc.

Sure, this in itself is also rather funny, like the joke, but could be somewhat tedious unless deliberately done for the amusement/entertainment of others.
There would seem to be a possibility that the amusing joke could either be true or false, so couldn't we just leave it at that? There is such a thing as "killing" someone else's joke, after all.

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Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on November 17, 2013, 07:03 AM »

Per The Irish Independent:

Syria al-Qa'ida rebels apologise for beheading the wrong man.
Mohammed Fares, left, who was mistakenly decapitated by Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham militants.

Spoiler

Richard Spencer – 15 November 2013

Militant Islamist rebels in Syria linked to al-Qa'ida have asked for "understanding and forgiveness" for cutting off and putting on display the wrong man's head.
Also in this section
Netanyahu tweets his opposition to potential nuclear deal with Iran
Albania will not host destruction of Syrian chemical weapons
Christianity may become extinct in its place of birth

In a public appearance filmed and posted online, members of Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), one brandishing a knife, held up a bearded head before a crowd in Aleppo.

They triumphantly described the execution of what they said was a member of an Iraqi Shia militia fighting for President Bashar al-Assad.

But the head was recognised from the video as originally belonging to a member of Ahrar al-Sham, a Sunni Islamist rebel group that often fights alongside ISIS, though it does not share its al-Qa'ida ideology.

After inquiries, an ISIS spokesman admitted he was Mohammed Fares, an Ahrar commander reported missing some days ago.

The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights, which monitors deaths in the Syrian conflict, and several activists on social media said that ISIS fighters misunderstood comments Mr Fares made referring to the Imams Ali and Hussein, the founding fathers of Shiism.

An ISIS spokesman, Omar al-Qahtani, confirmed Mr Fares had been injured and, thinking he had been captured by members of a Shia militia against which he was fighting, asked them to kill him in terms misunderstood by the ISIS members in fact taking him to hospital.

In explaining the error, Mr al-Qahtani made reference to a story in which Mohammed said Allah would forgive a man who killed a believer in error.

The mistake, of a sort commonly cited as an argument against the death penalty around the world, is indicative of the chaos within rebel ranks, particularly since the rise of ISIS over the summer.

Its ferocity has given rise to an exodus of moderate and secular activists, and brought to an end an uneasy truce between the Free Syrian Army and Kurdish militias, the most prominent of which has in the last month taken on ISIS and driven them out of a number of towns in the north-east.

Meanwhile, Mr Assad's forces have used the internal rifts in their enemies' ranks to make progress on a drive south-east of Aleppo.

This week, a group of Islamist rebels put out an appeal for a mass mobilisation against the advance, while there are repeated rumours that major Islamist militias which do not support al-Qa'ida are about to declare a common front. (© Daily Telegraph, London)

Irish Independent

Was this a wrongheaded act?     

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Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by IainB on November 17, 2013, 04:01 AM »

I'm not too well up on American politics and current affairs, but I gather from this video (below) that there seems to be evidence that the US government is using the somewhat draconian anti-terror laws to criminalise legitimate democratic protesters by associating them with "terrorism".
The State's pursuit of hacker Jeremy Hammond seems to be a case in point.
Hedges: Jeremy Hammond Exposed State's Plan to Criminalize Democratic Dissent

Though I don't understand some of what the guy being interviewed is talking about - e.g., when he talks of JH being a product of "the black block" or something - it did seem to me that when he drew parallels between JH's treatment and the treatment being meted out to (for example) Snowden and the Guardian journalists who were detained/investigated under laws related to terrorism, there were some troubling similarities.

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Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on November 16, 2013, 03:13 AM »

Jean-Claude Van Dammmmmnnnn

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Living Room / Re: Knight to queen's bishop 3 - Snowden charged with espionage.

« Last post by IainB on November 15, 2013, 08:43 PM »

Potentially relevant to this thread - I just received this email (follows) from Google:
(Copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images, but I have given just the basic links without all the concealed Google/NSA ID coding that was in the hyperlinks.)

From: [email protected]
Google regularly receives requests from governments and courts around the world to hand over our users' data. When we receive government requests for users' personal information, we follow a strict process to help protect against unnecessary intrusion.

Since 2010, we have regularly updated the Google Transparency Report with details about these requests. As the first company to release the numbers, as well as details of how we respond, we've been working hard for more transparency.

The latest update to the Google Transparency Report is out today, showing that requests from governments around the world for user information have increased 106% since we launched the report.

It's a startling fact that everyone who uses the Internet should know about:
(Link: https://takeaction.withgoogle.com/)

+106%
Since 2009, requests for Google users'
information from governments around the
world have more than doubled.

Share on Facebook         Share on Google+         Share on Twitter

It's important for law enforcement agencies to pursue illegal activity and keep the public safe. We're a law-abiding company, and we don't want our services to be used in harmful ways.

But laws that control government access to user information should also protect you against overly broad requests for your personal information.

It's time for the Electronic Communications Privacy Act to protect our privacy in more than name only -- a warrant should always be required when the government wants to read your email or any other form of online communication.

Share the Google Transparency Report, and help the Internet community stay empowered and informed.

Share on Facebook: https://takeaction.w...google.com/fb-global
Share on Google+: https://takeaction.w...m/google-plus-global
Share on Twitter: https://takeaction.w...gle.com/tweet-global

Sincerely,

Derek Slater
Google Inc.
_______________________

Of course, it's a very sincere letter. You can tell that, because the person sending it signs off with "Sincerely".

"So, I immediately clicked on all the links and went crazy 'liking' it. Nice to see Google championing The Cause of Internet freedom."

Yeah, right.

In a basement discussion here, we discussed a case: Could this be a cynical suppression of (political) free speech in the US?

Some people (not me, you understand) might say that the Google email above is a pathetic, whining and belated attempt by Google to create an artificial defence by inference that it is free from responsibility for "opening the kimono" to State/NSA surveillance, and to suggest that - golly gosh - they've even been campaigning like mad to fix this for ages don'tcha know and thus have been all along helping to make the world a better place. However, I couldn't possibly comment.

"Censorship is shown to be most effective when we dare not speak about it openly."

There's an interesting comment about this by Jack D. Douglas (a retired professor of sociology from the University of California at San Diego), from November 29, 2005: None Dare Call It Censorship

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Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: FreeFileSync - automated backup - Mini-Review

« Last post by IainB on November 15, 2013, 05:27 AM »

Latest version update is FreeFileSync v5.23.
Still an excellent backup syncing tool.

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Living Room / Re: silly humor - post 'em here! [warning some NSFW and adult content]

« Last post by IainB on November 15, 2013, 04:44 AM »

Do you think this company has a hiring policy?

http://archive.is/KDtBJ

-app103 (November 14, 2013, 08:52 PM)

Haha! To put it in words, Hire White-ish women, up to the Glass Ceiling, then hire White Men at the top?
   
____________________

-TaoPhoenix (November 14, 2013, 10:52 PM)

The mind boggles.
Look at what they have on that page now though:

Meet the Staff
14 Nov 2013

You may have noticed that we no longer have a ”meet the staff” page. Following a rise in visits to our website and mentions of the company through certain media channels in relation to our recruitment policy, we have chosen to remove it from the website indefinitely.

We took this decision in consultation with our staff who are rightly concerned about being posted around the internet by people making inaccurate and inappropriate comments about our staff and our recruitment policies. The “meet the staff” page was designed for our clients to put a face to the name of the people they deal with here and now that page has been taken out of context we feel it is no longer appropriate.

We are an equal opportunities employer and will remain so. We are proud of our team and remain committed to their individual development.
________________________

"Meet the bimbos and the MCPs"?

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Living Room / Re: YouTube finally forces creation of google+ A/C to comment

« Last post by IainB on November 14, 2013, 07:49 PM »

...So where you're using Google, it's because, in one way or another, you believe they've got a superior product.
______________________

-CWuestefeld (November 14, 2013, 04:15 PM)

I'm not sure that's necessarily a true/provable statement - e.g., in my case, it wouldn't be.
It's presumably based on the assumption of consumer choice and ease of switchability.
However, there are likely to be cases where, at the time one started using a Google product/service, Google might have been the only provider of such a  product/service of its type, so there would have been no option/alternative - until maybe later, that is. If that is what happened, then one might currently be stuck using said Google product/service - e.g., waiting to migrate to some better option that might be currently available but which one feels one cannot access due to lock-in or time/effort invested in the said Google product/service.
Banks, which are always p#ssing off their customers by milking them through the use of usury and of extortionate practices, have a whole marketing strategy that relies on this - it's called "customer inertia"; "The devil you know" for example.

There's a thing called "Brand Loyalty" that they teach in Marketing 101. It's a combination of two concepts:
(a) "Brand".
(b) emotional bias/loyalty/attachment to a specific brand.

I would suggest that Google could have managed to offend/p#ss off so many users by now (especially post SnowdenGate) that there could probably be minimal or no brand loyalty amongst the greater majority of them.
The product/service might be regarded/used as just a utility now, and there are others/alternatives out there - and utilities don't engender brand loyalty.
Microsoft arguably led the way in this offending - e.g., I wonder how many people recall that admitting to having a "hotmail" address could often be something of a social embarrassment? No wonder the "hotmail" brand has been quietly expunged. A lot, if not most people would probably have regarded it with distaste at one time or another and probably would not have touched it with a bargepole.