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Recent Posts

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4326
Spontaneous humour from a fast-food waiter:
So I said “I just bailed out of an attempt to induct me into a cult”. He replied – and I will now channel Dave Barry and assure you that I am not making this up:
“The Obama administration?”
(spotted here: How do you bait a trap for the soul?)
4327
^^ Page 2? That's EVERY page!
God, you can't make this up.
And if they do have a sense of humour, I wish someone would wipe the smiles off their faces. :P
Yes, and if I was an American citizen and I saw the FBI/State judiciary flipping someone the bird like that when given an FOI, I wouldn't stand for it. Why would you pay your government in taxes, just to have them do that to you?
4328
Living Room / Re: DOTCOM saga - updates
« Last post by IainB on January 18, 2013, 04:42 AM »
In techdirt: Megaupload to DOJ: Misleading Semantics Aside, You Told Us You Were Investigating Infringing Files, So We Preserved Them
Could be a valid point:
...Once again, it seems like the government simply rushed through the Megaupload case, ignoring many, many important details, and basing its case on the theory that if the entertainment industry hates Kim Dotcom so much, he must be all bad. And, if you're dealing with someone "all bad" apparently the DOJ seems to think it can take a bunch of shortcuts.
Some people (not me, you understand) might say that "...a bunch of shortcuts" could be a euphemism for "breaking the law", but I couldn't possibly comment.
4329
When it comes to style, Aussie singers can still show the world a thing or two:

Kylie Minogue + teddy bear microphone.jpg
4330
Redaction to the extreme as the FBI thumbs its nose derisively at the Law relating to FOI:
Justice Department 'Complies' With FOIA Request For GPS Tracking Memos; Hands ACLU 111 Fully Redacted Pages
Those guys might have a sense of humour.
This is Page 2:

FOI - FBI redacted page 2 - F3P72Y.png
4331
Did you really just set up that one for us?
Sorry. It wasn't very original, I know. It made me smile though.   ;D
4332
Clipboard Help+Spell / Re: CHS Note field display disappears [Bug?]
« Last post by IainB on January 18, 2013, 03:37 AM »
1. ... you mean that row that says "NOTE" is going completely, and you just have the text "By their fruits ye shall know them?"
2. the next time that happens can you try dragging the "Memo" bar above it to break out that part of the dialog and see if that has any effect?
1. Yes. The row disappears completely, like it has closed up. Everything else is there as displayed.

2. I shall try that and report back.

This has been happening for a long time (maybe over a year). It is a relatively minor issue - not a showstopper. It is episodic, but seems to have been occurring more frequently lately, which prompted me to mention it. I shall do a screen capture next time as well.
Sorry I couldn't be more informative.
4333
Clipboard Help+Spell / CHS Note field display disappears [Bug?]
« Last post by IainB on January 17, 2013, 08:30 PM »
CHS - Note field display disappears.png
4334
Living Room / Re: DOTCOM saga - updates
« Last post by IainB on January 17, 2013, 08:13 PM »
@Renegade: Yes, the duck analogy occurred to me too, as I was writing the above.    ;)
4335
Living Room / Re: DOTCOM saga - updates
« Last post by IainB on January 17, 2013, 08:37 AM »
Arstechnica reports that, curiously, an NZ media network pulls 500 radio ads touting Dotcom's new Mega service.
The NZ Herald reports that Dotcom: Music label pressure led to cancelled advertisements.
If that was done by the media network under duress and at the behest of the RIAA members - e.g., under threats to pull RIAA members' and record label business from the network - then it could be a restrictive trade practice or a monopoly practice.
I'm not sure about NZ - which to some, by now, might look a bit like the lawless old Wild West (e.g., after the Dotcom raid, etc.) - but I would have thought that such practices would be illegal in many/most of the developed countries.

Elsewhere Arstechnica reports that, in what seems like almost opposite form to the NZ government/police/judiciary, the Canadians may be made of sterner stuff and have got some decent laws and the integrity to uphold them, despite pressure from the US authorities: US rebuffed in effort to get copies of Canadian Megaupload servers.
4336
When news stories ARE the joke:
Satanists planning rally for Florida Gov. Rick Scott
http://news.yahoo.co...scott-231148312.html
 8)
That is funny. The comments in that link are quite amusing too.

I rather like this bit:
"This is a great country. Everyone has a voice," Gov. Scott's press secretary wrote in an email to ABCNews.com.
Yes. A voice - and they can get a drivers' licence, buy a gun and vote as well. How cool is that?
I don't know what possesses these people.    ;D
4337
Hilary - health update:
Hilary Clintons head - joke.jpg
4338
Living Room / Re: In support of the Internet Archive
« Last post by IainB on January 16, 2013, 12:05 AM »
I came across what I reckoned was a really great idea to actively support the work of TIA by, in effect, becoming a local scanning centre: The Scanning Brigade Comes Home

Hmm I wonder if they have/need a New Zealand node...?
4339
Living Room / Re: DOTCOM saga - updates
« Last post by IainB on January 15, 2013, 08:10 AM »
The public denials against allegations of entrapment begin: Megaupload’s Planted Evidence Allegations are Baseless, U.S. Says
4340
Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable
« Last post by IainB on January 13, 2013, 07:21 AM »
Interesting. Never seen the destructions on one of those before. Thanks.
4341
Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable
« Last post by IainB on January 13, 2013, 04:57 AM »
Wow! That Avo meter is a real multimeter.
I actually prefer the old mirrored meter dials to digital readouts. They were ergonomically more suited to providing a relative readout, and the mirror got rid of parallax, so the reading could be pretty accurate.
I read somewhere that the Universal AVO Meter was dead accurate. What model is that one - a model 40 or something?
I presume it requires some kind of obsolete dry battery? What was it?
4342
After making this comment:
@Curt: Yes. I use Textarea Backup, from userscripts.org. Seems to work unfailingly, and well.
There are more scripts there of the same/similar name, but this one has over 58,000 downloads, so has presumably been found to work well by lotsa people.
- I was reminded to revive/update this thread with a picture of current userscripts that I use: Re: Top Greasemonkey userscripts that you use
4343
General Software Discussion / Re: Top Greasemonkey userscripts that you use
« Last post by IainB on January 12, 2013, 10:25 PM »
After mentioning the Textarea Backup userscript in making this comment:
@Curt: Yes. I use Textarea Backup, from userscripts.org. Seems to work unfailingly, and well.
There are more scripts there of the same/similar name, but this one has over 58,000 downloads, so has presumably been found to work well by lotsa people.
- I was reminded to revive this Top Greasemonkey userscripts that you use thread with a picture of current userscripts that I have got enabled in Firefox v19ß:

Greasemonkey Userscripts as at 2013-01-13.jpg
4344
Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable
« Last post by IainB on January 12, 2013, 09:36 PM »
Mmm, Fluke!
(Drool, drool.)
4345
...  I wouldn't be a bit surprised to find out the gov't was behind it all, paying them for the service.  DHS has no bounderies...
Goodness! Do you really think so? Surely not?...  ;D

/sarc off
4346
Well, well, well, what a surprise! (NOT)    :o
Now I wonder who could have put Nokia up to this naughty thing with their handset browsers, and how many other phones have the same "security" feature?
Hmm, tricky. Probably a criminal gang, or something?    :tellme:

Some people (not me you understand) might suggest that at least we now have an indication that there is potentially a high probability that all phones are thusly deliberately made insecure, so it could be prudent to remember that for the next time you do your "secure telephone-banking" - which is now apparently the latest new oxymoron in the Lexicon of Telecomms and the Internet.
And they might go on to advise that we steer a wide berth around Nokia as well - that's a boycott - but I couldn't possibly comment on what these people might suggest or advise.

Post from falkvinge.net, copied below sans embedded hyperlinks/images:
Death Twitches: Nokia Caught Wiretapping Encrypted Traffic From Its Handsets

Nokia, the cellphone manufacturer, has been listening in to all encrypted communications from its handset’s browser. Every connection advertised as secure – banking, social networks, dating, corporate secrets – has been covertly wiretapped by Nokia themselves and decrypted for analysis.

Security researcher Gaurang Pandya posted an article in December about some unexpected behavior with their Nokia handset. It would appear that the browser traffic from the handset would get diverted through Nokia’s servers.

Then, a followup article on January 9 dropped the bomb, and the article goes into quite technical detail: It wasn’t enough that Nokia diverted all traffic from its handsets through its own servers, it also decrypted the encrypted traffic, re-encrypting it before passing it on, issuing HTTPS certificates on the fly that the Nokia phone has been instructed to trust as secure.

This means that Nokia has deliberately been wiretapping all traffic that has been advertised as encrypted on these Nokia handsets – including but not limited to banking, dating, credit card numbers, and corporate secrets – and looking at your secrets in cleartext.

This means that Nokia puts itself between your bank and you, and presents itself as YourBank, Inc. to your phone. This wouldn’t normally be possible, if it weren’t for the fact that the phone had been specifically designed for this deceptive behavior, by installing a Nokia signing certificate on the phone.

Nokia has confirmed this behavior in correspondence with TechWeek Europe (my highlights):

    “The compression that occurs within the Nokia Xpress Browser means that users can get faster web browsing and more value [...blahblah...] when temporary decryption of HTTPS connections is required on our proxy servers, to transform and deliver users’ content, it is done in a secure manner”, a Nokia spokesperson told TechWeek Europe.

The issue affects at least the Nokia handsets with Nokia’s own browser, the Nokia Xpress Browser mentioned above.

So why is this a big deal?

It is a big deal because banks rely on having a secure connection all the way to you. As do corporate networks. As do news outlets’ protection of sources. Anybody listening in to the conversation in the middle breaks the whole concept of secrecy – and the phone was specifically designed by Nokia to allow Nokia to listen in without telling you.

My, my. Secure connections are presenting themselves as secure end-to-end, and a handset manufacturer breaches this most basic of trusts? We’d have a very hard time trusting a company that says “yes, we’re listening to all of your encrypted communications, yes, bank passwords and dating habits and all of it, but we’re not doing anything bad with it. No, really.”

If Nokia was in trouble over its handset sales already, this complete breach of trustworthiness has to be a death twitch.

UPDATE 1: [obsolete with Update 2]

UPDATE 2: Well, that was fast. Pandya has updated his original article where he discovered this so-called Man-in-the-Middle attack, stating that Nokia has pushed out a new version of their browser which removes the Man-in-the-Middle attack – the wiretapping of encrypted communications – from the browser’s behavior. Apparently, it took being caught with the hand in the cookie jar to stop this behavior in just hours.

You still have to remind yourself, though – if they can turn this wiretapping off with a simple browser update after having been discovered doing it, there’s not much stopping Nokia from turning it on just as silently again at some point in the future, is there?
4347
^^ <-- Very good point. Humorous too.

Meanwhile, in the Faraway land of Godzone... (via slashdot, with my emphasis):
New Zealand Three-Strikes Law To Be Tested
Dangerous_Minds writes "Next month, tribunals will begin for the first people receiving their third strikes in the New Zealand 'Three Strikes Law.' In all, 11 people will have their cases heard, including one who said that her connection was used without her knowledge. Freezenet notes that there has been a long history of controversy for the law from the Internet blackout protests of 2008 to the cablegate leak which revealed that the law was financed and pushed by the United States."
4348
Living Room / Re: Electric shock from USB cable
« Last post by IainB on January 12, 2013, 02:30 AM »
...Antenna sockets on the backs of TVs are a really good place to get hit with this  :(  ...
...in close proximity to 25-50 subscriber lines, any one of which might get an incoming call....90VAC doesn't exactly tickle.

@Fred: Just as a matter of interest, do you have an RCD, (safety switch), installed ?

Maybe a bit off-topic but following on from what you said:
(a) TV antenna feeds: Yes, I have been zapped by domestic TV antenna feeds - the shock came off the outer (Earth) shield of the 75ohm (?) coax cable. If it happens, I always earth them (in the junction box) to mains Earth, because the shock could harm a toddler, even if not an adult. It's enough to hurt and make the spark jump a gap (same as the USB spark in the opening post).

(b) Telephone lines: Yes, you need to take care with those. Playing around with modems can give you a healthy respect for the voltages/currents involved. When a ringing signal is being sent there is an AC voltage pulse superimposed on top of the normal DC voltage. This AC "ringing voltage" pulse would nominally be around 90vAC at at a freq of 20Hz, but could peak at around 130vAC at different frequencies.
The potential difference (voltage) across the tip and ring wires is usually around 50vDC when the telephone is not being used (i.e., is "on hook"), and this drops to drops to around 6vDC when it is in use (i.e., is "off hook").

These voltages could be quite handy! I recall seeing one early example of a nifty and compact digital phone with several memories (presumably a hot new feature at the time it was designed) that seemed to have no independent power supply of its own, and was completely parasitic off the phoneline's DC supply. It worked very well too. I think it's illegal to attach such parasitic phones to the PSTN now though.
4349
And then this one a few days later:
________________________________
January 11th, 2013
H-Day

████████████ No.10 news grid ██████████████████ Chris Huhne ████████████████ Monday morning.

████████.
4350
Hot off the press blogs comes this informative post from order-order.com:
_____________________________
January 7th, 2013
Chris Huhne █████ ██ ████ █████

███████████████████████████████ Chris Huhne ██████████████████.

████████████████████████████████ tomorrow ██████████████.

████████████████████████████████.

████████████████████████ former bi-sexual, ████████████████████!

██████████████████████████████!
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