The summary and article weren't specific about what type of tracker it was
And it's entirely sensible that a legal judgement be as inclusive as possible about the equipment, otherwise the law could just be circumvented by using different equipment.
TFA mentions this bug was in the glove compartment,
How many GPS devices can work inside a (plastic, or metal) lidded glove compartment? Not many, I think.
If you're the weird recombinant mutant programmer offspring of Ada Lovelace, Donald Knuth, Linus Torvalds, with gene snippets from the Ken'n'Denis'n'Bjarne... you're still not good enough to not benefit from code review. Even if the code is perfect and really, really gnarly, the documentation could almost always be clearer. It's really really difficult to see how someone new to the code would need to read the documentation that you've written while writing the code. "Clean" eyes on the documentation are essential.
When I'm writing code at work (and as the only repeat only person in the company who ever uses the documentation system) I struggle to get someone else to review my code before putting it out to customers and colleagues.
Well, assuming that you are a PC, I think you've got adequate grounds for posting AC.
Well someone is watching as 900 people have been caught and 243 prosecuted.
Or, to put it another way, 73% of those caught doing something the seriousness of which you acknowledge, are not prosecuted. That's a barely any better than the clear-up rate for burglaries. This is not terribly impressive.
the systems we use are able to be audited to a scary degree - the anti-corruption units really are hot on this kind of thing
I'm sure they are. That's about 3 "catches" per day, and nearly 1 prosecution per day.
and most Officers are well aware of this.
But nearly a thousand of them have been caught, which suggests that rather more than a thousand have been trying it. SO, either the average officer who tries misusing the database is pretty dumb ; OR they think that the odds of them getting caught are pretty low. (See previous comments re clear-up rate for burglary.)
Same figures, considerably different interpretation.
He did find out the mobile numbers of large numbers of people quite quickly it seems.
Did he (or they?) Sometimes they've had to act fast, but other times... they could have had the numbers for years, and only got round to "hacking" the voicemail when the phone's owner becomes a person of interest.
Filling a "contacts" book is SOP for a journalist ; you don't know when you'll need that number, but you do know that you'll regret not having it one day.
most people have voicemail setup to not require PIN if the caller ID matches.
If and only if they've read the manual beforehand. Which, to be honest, I haven't, because I don't use voicemail. ("If they want to speak to me, they'll call back.")
I still find it a bit hard to understand why you'd need to call your voicemail from a different phone? Phone's broken? Stick the SIM in a different phone. SIM broken? Order a new SIM. Voicemail at home? You listen to it when you get home, because it's going to be about the home, not about you (if it was about you, the caller would have used your mobile number.
the phone companies (how did they get everyones numbers)
Very, very likely that they did have moles in phone companies (note both plurals), but most celebrities - most people in business of any sort - have to pass their phone numbers out to quite a few people. Bog-standard journalistic techniques (e.g. plying a celebrity-hair-dresser's sweeper-upper with drink and getting an evening with the appointments book) will yield numbers, and you do this leg-work in advance. You've got hundreds of numbers in your little red book. You'll get the price of that drink back time and again.
Right answer ; inadequate reason.
For the non-celebrities... that's more difficult. But again standard journalism techniques will yield answers, though maybe not fast enough. School girl missing? Interview the worried parents and the police Family Liaison Officer will probably stop them from giving you the number. But Uncle Bert? Or the missing girl's hairdresser's sweeper-upper (who's in the same year at school, and partial to an under-age drink too) can get the number for you. There is a fine line in journalism between reasonable investigation and unreasonable prying, and that line is often crossed in what you do with the information after you've got it. Which is why my journalist friend used to spend considerable time teaching his student journalists about the ethics of their business as well as the techniques.
But having a mole in the phone company may well be quicker than doing the legwork.
Oh, damn. I can't find my yellow pages. I need them to find someone who can supply me with a shit to give.
Who the fuck is Kerry Katona, anyway? According to Wiki : "TV presenter, writer, columnist and former pop singer". Third-ark for her then. Big floppy plastic tits too. Third ark, third class.
It is still very, very, very embarrassing for Murdoch, however much cash it saves him. And not just embarrassing personally, but in terms of how the public and politicians see his empire of crap.
He'll sit tight and shut his trap for a couple of years, during which time certain politicians who didn't stay brought will find themselves on the receiving end of bad, bad shit. By the time that the public has forgotten (a couple of years, tops), he'll have a fair number of fresh, bloody political scalps hanging from his belt, and he'll be starting his conversations (purchase negotiations) with new politicians by slapping them in the face with a bloody scalp and showing them the photos that their spouses and children will be receiving if they don't stay brought this time.
Actually, give him his due ; Cameron has stood up quite strongly for Murdoch. Murdoch must have some really bad shit on Cameron. Any corpses associated with the Bullingdon Club?
so they close down one tabloid and move all the employees to another?
Taking advantages of economies of scale, not hiring back people with such good pension schemes and pay rates as they were on previously, simply not hiring some people they find troublesome and various other details, but fundamentally "yes".
Being prevented from closing it for a year would have hurt Murdoch much more. Still wouldn't have bankrupted the fucker, but it would have hurt. This'll just reduce his costs.
Unless they've changed the rules since I got a TV (and therefore didn't have to worry about why I didn't have a TV license), the license fee is not for "watching the BBC", or even for watching TV. The fee is not for using any equipment of any sort. The fee is for possessing apparatus capable of receiving and decoding broadcast TV signals. If you don't use it, you still need to pay the fee.
It's nearly 6 years since I stopped following this ; the rules may have changed.
I'm having trouble figuring out the fascination for knowing what the exact time is. Particularly when you're camping.
You've arranged to meet Dave on the summit of Mullach Choire Mhic Fhearchair at midday. Are you going to be there on time? Do you have to hurry or can you dawdle and spend half an hour photographing dragonflies at Lochan an Nid?
You're walking off the hill, and you're anticipating catching the Littleton to Conway bus at the Crawford Notch, which it should pass between 13:00 and 13:15. Will you make it?
You're not required to disclose cautions in most circumstances. If you're going for a job, that requires a CRB check, then the CRB check will come back OK, or not, and the CRB will know about the caution(s), but they won't (generally) disclose the reasons for you having passed or failed a CRB check, just that you passed or failed.
If you're going for a job working with vulnerable kids, for example, a caution for reckless driving is hardly relevant. But if you're going for a job as a taxi driver, the same caution becomes much more relevant. At which point, you really need to be talking to a lawyer, not Slashdot.
His actions may not have been illegal but he has been sentenced for something entirely innocent.
As you say, if he was innocent, he should not have accepted the caution, but called the police's bluff. If he didn't understand the law, then he should have got a lawyer. The system is perfectly clear (well, fairly clear), and the words the police use are perfectly clear and they mean what they say. Unfortunately, it's true that many people don't understand English or believe that the police don't mean what they say.
Being arrested here simply means that the police want to talk to you about [something] and they want to establish your identity. Refusing to give your identity information is an arrestable offence, but you're not required to give your identity information if you're not arrested. So, that's clear then? The police keep internal records of who they arrest, but being arrested itself doesn't actually mean anything.
If you're arrested and detained, then the police can take you to a location of their choice, for questioning, torture, whatever. But they've got to either charge you and bring you in front of a magistrate/ sheriff within a fairly short period of time. (8 hours, I think ; but I think it's slightly variable). Or they can arrest you and detain you "for questioning", then decide there's no crime, or not enough evidence, or that it would be not in the public interest to proceed against you. And they release you with no charge against you, and no stain on your name.
Being charged with an offence means that the police think that they have adequate evidence to take you to court over a significant matter. At that point they've got to give you access to a lawyer, if you choose, they've got to bring you before a sheriff within a short period of time, and if they thing that a crime has been committed and they have sufficient evidence, they've got to submit a report to the Procurator Fiscal (CPS in England ; don't know about Wales), again within a short period. The sheriff then has responsibility for deciding if you should be detained on remand, released on bail, released on surity, or on your own recognisance ("honour" effectively;I think there's another option in England ; still don't know about Wales).
Now, the "caution" comes between being detained and being charged. On the decision of an officer, if the crime is minor or the evidence is weak, the officer can give you the option of accepting a caution relating to that matter. This means that you admit that a crime was committed, and that you did it, and that you recognise that it was a wrong thing to do, and that you accept and understand the police's warning ("caution") that if you commit the same sort of offence again, then you're much more likely to get charged with it and taken to court. In court, the previous offence would be "taken into consideration", quite likely meaning increased fines or other penalties. The "caution" goes on your police record, but unlike criminal convictions, you're not required to admit to being cautioned if asked by anyone (other than the police). In contrast, many classes of conviction (you've been arrested, charged, tried and then convicted), you are required to admit to having, if people ask you.
Still as clear as mud? An example :
Consider two identical traffic offences :
offence A, I lose control of my car due to speeding at 34mph and crunch it on a corner ; a police officer sees the crash, identifies me and informs me that in his opinion I was driving recklessly.
offence B, I lose control of my car due to speeding at 36mph and crunch it on a corner ; a police officer sees the crash, identifies me and informs me that in his opinion I was driving recklessly.
I do offence A, accept a "caution". Later, I hire a car and the paperwork asks me "do you have any convictions for motoring offences other than speding?" I answer "no", rent the car and answer a similar question on the insurance paperwork. I drive away. I'm legal ; I haven't lied on the hire agreement, and the insurance is valid. Now I do offence B. Have I learned my lesson? Clearly not. The officer sees that I have an outstanding "caution" for reckless driving, and decides to treat this one more seriously. I'm detained, and charged with "reckless driving". If I'm convicted, no hire company would consider me. My existing car insurance contains a provision requiring me to inform them of any convictions, so I've got to tell them, and they may (at their choice) refuse to renew the insurance, or charge me
A good point ; I'd expect them to not have been listed.
If they were listed with a "being placed today" tag, then a sub-sport of geocaching would have been developed , geocacher-catching : "You're 'Cacher-Joe' and I claim my £5! A pint would do."
Or even geocacher-jailing : "Hello Police, I'm at [location] and there's an oddly-behaving guy wearing a red bobble hat and a green rucksack. Oh hang on, he's just taped a tupperware box under a park bench and he's walking away towards [wherever]. Ah, I can hear your sirens now. I'm going to hang up while you do your job. Video will be on GotYou!Tube in a few minutes."
The video could be fun.
Hey, that actually does sound like good fun. Challenging too, spotting the new post and getting to the location before the cacher.
Slashdot Mirror
That would cost too much money. Are you some sort of pinko commie radical longhair hippie?
Same could be said of Dome C, which is also an extremely dry desert being evaluated for IR telescopes.
FTFY, this is America after all.
What's the body count required each day for an officer to get his blood bonus?
And it's entirely sensible that a legal judgement be as inclusive as possible about the equipment, otherwise the law could just be circumvented by using different equipment.
How many GPS devices can work inside a (plastic, or metal) lidded glove compartment? Not many, I think.
When I'm writing code at work (and as the only repeat only person in the company who ever uses the documentation system) I struggle to get someone else to review my code before putting it out to customers and colleagues.
Or, to put it another way, 73% of those caught doing something the seriousness of which you acknowledge, are not prosecuted. That's a barely any better than the clear-up rate for burglaries. This is not terribly impressive.
I'm sure they are. That's about 3 "catches" per day, and nearly 1 prosecution per day.
But nearly a thousand of them have been caught, which suggests that rather more than a thousand have been trying it. SO, either the average officer who tries misusing the database is pretty dumb ; OR they think that the odds of them getting caught are pretty low. (See previous comments re clear-up rate for burglary.)
Same figures, considerably different interpretation.
Wasn't it in the "Lady Chatterly" trial that the judge described the book as (paraphrasing) "Not something one would want one's servants to read"
Did he (or they?) Sometimes they've had to act fast, but other times ... they could have had the numbers for years, and only got round to "hacking" the voicemail when the phone's owner becomes a person of interest.
Filling a "contacts" book is SOP for a journalist ; you don't know when you'll need that number, but you do know that you'll regret not having it one day.
Indeed.
If and only if they've read the manual beforehand. Which, to be honest, I haven't, because I don't use voicemail. ("If they want to speak to me, they'll call back.")
I still find it a bit hard to understand why you'd need to call your voicemail from a different phone? Phone's broken? Stick the SIM in a different phone. SIM broken? Order a new SIM. Voicemail at home? You listen to it when you get home, because it's going to be about the home, not about you (if it was about you, the caller would have used your mobile number.
Nope, I don't get this at all.
Very, very likely that they did have moles in phone companies (note both plurals), but most celebrities - most people in business of any sort - have to pass their phone numbers out to quite a few people. Bog-standard journalistic techniques (e.g. plying a celebrity-hair-dresser's sweeper-upper with drink and getting an evening with the appointments book) will yield numbers, and you do this leg-work in advance. You've got hundreds of numbers in your little red book. You'll get the price of that drink back time and again.
Right answer ; inadequate reason.
For the non-celebrities ... that's more difficult. But again standard journalism techniques will yield answers, though maybe not fast enough. School girl missing? Interview the worried parents and the police Family Liaison Officer will probably stop them from giving you the number. But Uncle Bert? Or the missing girl's hairdresser's sweeper-upper (who's in the same year at school, and partial to an under-age drink too) can get the number for you. There is a fine line in journalism between reasonable investigation and unreasonable prying, and that line is often crossed in what you do with the information after you've got it. Which is why my journalist friend used to spend considerable time teaching his student journalists about the ethics of their business as well as the techniques.
But having a mole in the phone company may well be quicker than doing the legwork.
Who the fuck is Kerry Katona, anyway? According to Wiki : "TV presenter, writer, columnist and former pop singer". Third-ark for her then. Big floppy plastic tits too. Third ark, third class.
He'll sit tight and shut his trap for a couple of years, during which time certain politicians who didn't stay brought will find themselves on the receiving end of bad, bad shit. By the time that the public has forgotten (a couple of years, tops), he'll have a fair number of fresh, bloody political scalps hanging from his belt, and he'll be starting his conversations (purchase negotiations) with new politicians by slapping them in the face with a bloody scalp and showing them the photos that their spouses and children will be receiving if they don't stay brought this time.
Actually, give him his due ; Cameron has stood up quite strongly for Murdoch. Murdoch must have some really bad shit on Cameron.
Any corpses associated with the Bullingdon Club?
So do I.
Probably "Tommy Sheridan is a perjurer!", and then everyone would know that she is lying and trying to misdirect the court of public opinion.
Taking advantages of economies of scale, not hiring back people with such good pension schemes and pay rates as they were on previously, simply not hiring some people they find troublesome and various other details, but fundamentally "yes".
Being prevented from closing it for a year would have hurt Murdoch much more. Still wouldn't have bankrupted the fucker, but it would have hurt. This'll just reduce his costs.
[Sarcasm]Never! I'm shocked! Shocked I tell you![/Sarcasm]
Must remember to get today's Lebedev Pravda this afternoon.
Then why didn't they return a verdict of "Not Proven"?
It's nearly 6 years since I stopped following this ; the rules may have changed.
Ah. Sarcasm.
No wait, you're serious?
(I'm seriously considering a job in Iraqi Kurdistan ; I'm an oil geologist.)
You've arranged to meet Dave on the summit of Mullach Choire Mhic Fhearchair at midday. Are you going to be there on time? Do you have to hurry or can you dawdle and spend half an hour photographing dragonflies at Lochan an Nid?
You're walking off the hill, and you're anticipating catching the Littleton to Conway bus at the Crawford Notch, which it should pass between 13:00 and 13:15. Will you make it?
Both experiences from my mountaineering.
He can't take it to court. When he accepted the caution HE ADMITTED HIS GUILT OF THE OFFENCE NAMED IN THE CAUTION.
Which part of "he admitted his guilt" was unclear?
"He"?
"Admitted"?
"His"?
"Guilt?"
If you're going for a job working with vulnerable kids, for example, a caution for reckless driving is hardly relevant. But if you're going for a job as a taxi driver, the same caution becomes much more relevant. At which point, you really need to be talking to a lawyer, not Slashdot.
As you say, if he was innocent, he should not have accepted the caution, but called the police's bluff. If he didn't understand the law, then he should have got a lawyer. The system is perfectly clear (well, fairly clear), and the words the police use are perfectly clear and they mean what they say. Unfortunately, it's true that many people don't understand English or believe that the police don't mean what they say.
If you're arrested and detained, then the police can take you to a location of their choice, for questioning, torture, whatever. But they've got to either charge you and bring you in front of a magistrate/ sheriff within a fairly short period of time. (8 hours, I think ; but I think it's slightly variable). Or they can arrest you and detain you "for questioning", then decide there's no crime, or not enough evidence, or that it would be not in the public interest to proceed against you. And they release you with no charge against you, and no stain on your name.
Being charged with an offence means that the police think that they have adequate evidence to take you to court over a significant matter. At that point they've got to give you access to a lawyer, if you choose, they've got to bring you before a sheriff within a short period of time, and if they thing that a crime has been committed and they have sufficient evidence, they've got to submit a report to the Procurator Fiscal (CPS in England ; don't know about Wales), again within a short period. The sheriff then has responsibility for deciding if you should be detained on remand, released on bail, released on surity, or on your own recognisance ("honour" effectively ;I think there's another option in England ; still don't know about Wales).
Now, the "caution" comes between being detained and being charged. On the decision of an officer, if the crime is minor or the evidence is weak, the officer can give you the option of accepting a caution relating to that matter. This means that you admit that a crime was committed, and that you did it, and that you recognise that it was a wrong thing to do, and that you accept and understand the police's warning ("caution") that if you commit the same sort of offence again, then you're much more likely to get charged with it and taken to court. In court, the previous offence would be "taken into consideration", quite likely meaning increased fines or other penalties. The "caution" goes on your police record, but unlike criminal convictions, you're not required to admit to being cautioned if asked by anyone (other than the police). In contrast, many classes of conviction (you've been arrested, charged, tried and then convicted), you are required to admit to having, if people ask you.
Still as clear as mud? An example :
Consider two identical traffic offences :
I do offence A, accept a "caution". Later, I hire a car and the paperwork asks me "do you have any convictions for motoring offences other than speding?" I answer "no", rent the car and answer a similar question on the insurance paperwork. I drive away. I'm legal ; I haven't lied on the hire agreement, and the insurance is valid.
Now I do offence B. Have I learned my lesson? Clearly not. The officer sees that I have an outstanding "caution" for reckless driving, and decides to treat this one more seriously. I'm detained, and charged with "reckless driving". If I'm convicted, no hire company would consider me. My existing car insurance contains a provision requiring me to inform them of any convictions, so I've got to tell them, and they may (at their choice) refuse to renew the insurance, or charge me
If they were listed with a "being placed today" tag, then a sub-sport of geocaching would have been developed , geocacher-catching : "You're 'Cacher-Joe' and I claim my £5! A pint would do."
Or even geocacher-jailing : "Hello Police, I'm at [location] and there's an oddly-behaving guy wearing a red bobble hat and a green rucksack. Oh hang on, he's just taped a tupperware box under a park bench and he's walking away towards [wherever]. Ah, I can hear your sirens now. I'm going to hang up while you do your job. Video will be on GotYou!Tube in a few minutes."
The video could be fun.
Hey, that actually does sound like good fun. Challenging too, spotting the new post and getting to the location before the cacher.