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User: Vlad_the_Inhaler

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  1. Re:Was it advertised as free? on Thousands of Germans Threatened With €250 Fines For Streaming Porn · · Score: 1

    I don't know if your 1/4 and 3/4 figures are correct, but the problem was that the Court in Köln rubber-stamped this crap and that T-Online (the largest provider in Germany) is based in Köln.

  2. Re:Bahahahahaha on Thousands of Germans Threatened With €250 Fines For Streaming Porn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That *is* their business model.
    I read up on this yesterday (German Language) and the situation is more complicated than it seems.
    The providers affected are all over Germany, so various local courts were involved. The one in Köln really screwed things up: what the people are supposed to have done is Downloaded the file(s), what they were accused of was Sharing them and Köln went along with this. The difference is that the provider does not have to give out addresses on Downloads but they do if Sharing is involved. The actual "Abmahnung" letters which went out said nothing about Sharing at all. The Law Firm based their claim on the Downloads being in Cache so they were available for others. To make things worse, the largest provider in Germany (T-Online) is based in Köln. Other courts rejected that argument, others asked questions and the Lawyers withdrew their request.

    I have a related problem at the moment - a couple of years ago someone accused me of sharing some other porno film, again T-Online was involved. My wlan is wpa2 with a 63-byte random, generated mixed upper/lower string and it accepts only one Mac address, I have checked both PCs which were on at the time for Trojans / Virii with a bootable scanner and there was nothing. Under German law there is no redress - if they claim it then I must have done it. I'm fighting this one out at the moment.

    For me this is a reason not to use T-Online. My main account is now somewhere else but I *need* Internet for when I work at home and two independent providers (Cable and DSL) made sense back when the Cable provider was unreliable. I think I'm going to have to dump T-Online which means dumping Telekom for my phone.

  3. Re:As Daniel Webster once said on Tech Companies Set To Appeal 2012 Oracle Vs. Google Ruling · · Score: 1

    A judge who has never used a hammer? Something like this?

  4. Re: Fine. on French Court Orders Google To Block Pictures of Ex-F1 Chief Mosley · · Score: 1

    Only a tiny, miniscule fraction of companies have French subsidiaries.
    "a tiny, miniscule fraction of" = "large, international"
    Of course Joe's Pizza Empire does not have a branch in France.

  5. Re:Why is he special? on French Court Orders Google To Block Pictures of Ex-F1 Chief Mosley · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Its like that court in Texas where the Patent Trolls always sue, France has made a few implausible rulings against Google so he went there.

  6. Re:sysvinit is dead; long live sysvinit!!! on Debian To Replace SysVinit, Switch To Systemd Or Upstart · · Score: 1

    Opensuse dropped sysvinit when the current level came out several months ago. Before that they had defaulted to systemd but allowed sysvinit.
    My considered opinion of systemd? I hate it. I don't have a server farm, I have a couple of desktop machines with Samba and nfs capability and sysvinit was ideal.

  7. Re:Wutend on German Report: Obama Aware of Merkel Spying Since 2010 · · Score: 2

    Spiegel does "wütend" frequently and well. I'm not aware they are any angrier about this than a host of other issues in the past.
    What got me here was that Merkel and Friedrich were playing everything down until it was *her* phone being tapped.

  8. Not in London on How Safe Is Cycling? · · Score: 2

    Having seen a number of near-misses in London, no way would I cycle there. The main arteries are simply scary, the minor roads take too long and cross the main ones too frequently. Maybe the Greenway would make sense if both ends of the journey are in its vicinity.

  9. Is this related to the Patent Trolling bill? on HP Seeks Buyer For WebOS Patents · · Score: 1

    First we have a Slashdot article on a bill to combat patent trolling and then 90 minutes later HP announce they are looking to offload some patents. There is an obvious connection there, not that HP were necessarily thinking of trolling.

  10. Re:How many false positive on Could Snowden Have Been Stopped In 2009? · · Score: 1

    I imagine most of their employees have raised flags at some point and that those who have not either have the creativity of a box of rocks or have been inserted by some intelligence agency.
    The CIA is involved in spying. You expect their people to be inquisitive.

  11. Re:Almost as good as Evil BIt! on Time For X-No-Wiretap HTTP Header? · · Score: 3, Informative

    The Evil Bit is only defined under IPV4, time to update the specs.

  12. Re:Larry on the NSA Spying on Larry Ellison Believes Apple Is Doomed · · Score: 1

    Just because he is an obnoxious (fit your adjective in here) does not mean he is wrong on this. As to your "More to the point", you are trying to obfusticate the message by vilifying the (insert same adjective here).

  13. Re:He's right - Android is eating iOS's lunch on Larry Ellison Believes Apple Is Doomed · · Score: 1

    I dislike the guy but things have been going that way for a while now. Apple under Jobs were innovative patent trolls, Apple without Jobs are no longer innovative.
    All the same, assessing the company on what your kids think is of limited value. Android products are usually more 'affordable' and are being aimed at older (30-something) kids with money to burn.

  14. Re:This makes sense on Deutsche Telekom Moves Email Traffic In-Country In Wake of PRISM · · Score: 1

    I have never had that problem in Germany but I can imagine where a hotel which had that policy is coming from.
    The previous government implemented a law where you can get an "Abmahnung" (cease and desist, you have to pay the lawyers' real or imagined costs) if you have indulged in illegal file-sharing. There is no burden of proof. I got one a couple of years back for allegedly distributing some porno.
    I immediately got a lawyer on to it and defused it a bit but a couple of things came out.

    • It does not matter if it was you or not if they claim it was your access-point. That applies even if a Trojan was responsible (unless you can finger the people responsible) or someone cracked your Wifi connection.
    • They absolutely do not care if the allegations are correct or not.

    My Wifi was and is WPA2 with a 63-byte random upper/lowercase string as a key. I used a bootable CD virus scanner and made sure there was no trojan.
    I *was* online at the time they claimed but assume they asked for the wrong ip-address or the wrong time. I decided I had the wrong ISP and left T-Online.

  15. This is ridiculous on Imitation In Dogs Matches Humans and Apes · · Score: 2

    Mimicry is perfectly standard behaviour for animals. There have been studies on how parents teach their offspring how to hunt dating back decades. This applies on land, on/under water and in the air. Most of the studies I have heard about involve mammals or birds, I can't remember any involving reptiles, fish or (in particular) insects. Some larger spiders may have this ability - ones large enough to eat small ground-nesting birds for instance
    .
    The article itself is more about adapting behaviour by watching humans and that is self-limiting, apart from speech there is not much useful a bird can learn that way. I have a neighbour who used to look after the garden before it was turned into a lawn. Back then he had a fan - a blackbird which would hang around when he was digging, waiting for worms to be unearthed. It presumably recognised my neighbour as non-threatening and the digging as the same thing it would do but on steroids.
    I was attacked by a goose a few years back. We were sitting outside and someone had fun throwing it scraps, closer and closer to me. It tried to drive me off by driving at me while hissing and flapping its wings. I joined in the fun by advancing on it, hissing back and 'flapping' my arms the same way. Communication was achieved, goose withdrew to a safer distance.

  16. Re:Bullies like being bullies on Rise of the Warrior Cop: How America's Police Forces Became Militarized · · Score: 2

    There are supposed to be Checks and Balances but they have pretty much failed - police and prosecutors tend to work hand-in-hand in any country.
    It could be worse though, much worse.

  17. Re:Just as intended on Database Loophole Lets Legislators Avoid Photo Radar Tickets · · Score: 2

    oh no - their masters know full well what the rules are and accept protests immediately, it is the one handing out the tickets who does not 'get it'.

    This happened a couple of years ago and I caught the person responsible a day later. We had a friendly, civilised (really!) exchange of views on the subject and she went off to check. A couple of days later we saw each other again and she apologised, telling me exactly what to write when I objected.

  18. Re:Just as intended on Database Loophole Lets Legislators Avoid Photo Radar Tickets · · Score: 1

    Who did not RTFA? (I say this linked on fark.com a couple of days ago)
    The person with 33 is a woman.

    I'm having problems with the local authority here at present. Parts of the street are designated "residents only" (people have a residents' card which they display) and parts are not. A muppet handing out tickets hands them out although that part of the street does not have those restrictions. The part which does is a one-way street but after a road comes in from the (other) side it becomes two-way and he does not understand that the rules automatically change.

  19. The photos should include the driver on Database Loophole Lets Legislators Avoid Photo Radar Tickets · · Score: 5, Informative

    The way this works in Germany is that two pictures are taken - one of the numberplate and one of the driver. I received a letter several years ago saying that my car had been caught speeding and that the driver was obviously not me - their face recognition software recognised a female driver. The photo was included and my (by then ex-) girlfriend paid the fine.
    German courts do not consider the numberplate alone to be adequate ID, a practice going back decades.

  20. Re:Braaaaaaaiiiinnns! on SCO v. IBM Is Officially Reopened · · Score: 1

    Somebody hammer a stake through that vampire's heart. Hell - Full Moon is *next* Sunday.

  21. Re:What is patentable? on White House Announces Reforms Targeting Patent Trolls · · Score: 1

    That would cost money. Taxpayers' $$$. So they offload the problem onto the courts and the consumers end up paying for it that way.

  22. Re:Hardware vs Software on Facebook Cancels UK Launch of HTC First · · Score: 1

    Were HTC *that* committed? I thought it was only one of their lines and that they also have both Androids and WinPhones. Of course Nokia also have multiple platforms, it was announcing their intent to vacate the others that got them into the current mess.

  23. Re:Unconstitutional as heck on Senate To Vote On Internet Sales Tax (For Real This Time) · · Score: 1

    That is not a problem which needs to be addressed now, yo! This discussion is also wandering off topic so I'll try and rope it back: The founding fathers screwed up in not considering internet commerce.

  24. My case is worse - the FSF have software on my computer. The horror of it all.

  25. Re:The Scoop on S. Korea Says Cyber Attack From North Wiped 48,700 Machines · · Score: 1

    Really nasty, if you run it as root. How do they escalate their privileges?