I still can't stand FF as a browser - it simply isn't as good as Mozilla for my uses. If I'm going to use both the browser and mail components then why the hell would I want to sacrifice performance and features (such as opening email links in a new Mozilla tab by middle-clicking) by running two seperate programs?
IIRC wasn't there some discussion between Europe and the US that ran something along the lines of:
US: If you want our permission to have your own GPS system then you have to let us disable it, as and when we want, for whatever reason. EU: Awww, do we have to? US: Yes
In the UK alone, over 20 billion SMS messages are sent each year. Which means over the whole of the EU you're looking at at least 10 times that number.
That's 200 Billion SMS messages, times 7 years. Even at only 1kb per message, that's 1.3 Petabytes just for SMS messages - and that's a conservative estimate.
And you miss the half-paragraph that I devoted to this fact
Now I know that they only have to log the traffic and not store everything I download/upload (although that would make for a more amusing example) so let's make it 1/10th of that actually required to log all my data (40Gb).
Now even assuming that each user only generates 40Mb of data a year in logs - which is rubbish as my firewall logs alone are 200Mb+ a day - you're still looking at 26 Petabytes of data, which just as impractical to sift through.
For the sake of argument, ignoring phone records, etc and just focusing on the internet.
There are over 100 million broadband users in the EU - plus countless milllions of dialup users - but we'll ignore the dialuppers too for the moment.
Now I download about 300Gb/year and upload about half that. So we'll say about 400Gb/year of traffic. Now I know that they only have to log the traffic and not store everything I download/upload (although that would make for a more amusing example) so let's make it 1/10th of that actually required to log all my data (40Gb).
That's 3.7 Exabytes of data per year for all the broadband users in the EU alone. Assuming they haven't changed the proposal too much since I last read it, they required storage of data for 7 years, that's ~26 Exabytes of storage required to hold all this stuff.
How the hell do you find anything of use in 26 exabytes of data?
Microsoft clearly has a monopoly in the OS market, which is where their anti-trust lawsuits are focused.
Kazaa, on the other hand, clearly doesn't have a monopoly in the P2P market and therefore can bundle whatever they want with it without fear of anti-trust violations.
I make a point of not adding Google's adverts to my adblock list - they don't annoy me, so they get to stay.
I virtually never click adverts anyway, so it's not like anyone's losing my custom, but the sooner websites learn that flashing "Punch The Monkey" banners just piss visitors off, the better.
That's because it only rips the first and last 15 seconds of each track, the rest of the time is filled up by RIAA brand Insta-Noise for your listening enjoyment.
Correct, you can claim that CmdrTaco is an asshole without any legal worries. However, if - for example - you claimed that he was an asshole because he was using the Slashdot subscription money to fund his drug habit, then you would open yourself up to a libel lawsuit.
Sorry, but the data protection act doesn't apply outside of the EU - once your data is in a country that hasn't signed up to the DPA it's a free for all on it.
That's why there was such an uproar about the US demanding passenger information from European airlines because there would be no protections on the information once it was "in the US".
One of the highstreet banks (I forget which) is currently being sued for sending customer data to one of its call centres in India without explicit permission, thus violating the DPA.
Problem is that the government is above the DPA (and most other legislation) when it's dealing with "Terrorism!" because whatever they're doing is "neccessary to protect our freedoms" and to ensure that our way of life isn't threatened and so on and so on.
What, someone thinks that people will honestly believe that Hotmail wants them to forward an email to 20 people or their account will be closed down.
People will believe anything that they read on the internet - the fact that everyone is still falling for phishing scams and getting rooted via email tojans should be proof enough of that fact.
GDS doesn't send any of your personal data over the internet, it merely runs a webserver-esque service bound to localhost. Blocking GDS from accessing the internet won't change the fact that it can still search and index areas of your multi-user computer that aren't "yours" - just as the normal Windows Search can.
I know Google is US-based, but given the relative popularity of mobile phones (cell phones to you Americans) in Europe - especially the popularity of SMS (Almost 1 billion a month sent in the UK alone) - would it not have made sense to at least include Europe in the initial roll-out, if not focus the service there entirely?
Slashdot Mirror
I much prefer the suite to FF/TB.
I still can't stand FF as a browser - it simply isn't as good as Mozilla for my uses. If I'm going to use both the browser and mail components then why the hell would I want to sacrifice performance and features (such as opening email links in a new Mozilla tab by middle-clicking) by running two seperate programs?
IIRC wasn't there some discussion between Europe and the US that ran something along the lines of:
US: If you want our permission to have your own GPS system then you have to let us disable it, as and when we want, for whatever reason.
EU: Awww, do we have to?
US: Yes
In the event of a terroist attack, cause large scale panic by shutting down a primary means of navigation.
What's next? Cutting off electricity so that the terrorists can't use it against people?
In the UK alone, over 20 billion SMS messages are sent each year. Which means over the whole of the EU you're looking at at least 10 times that number.
That's 200 Billion SMS messages, times 7 years. Even at only 1kb per message, that's 1.3 Petabytes just for SMS messages - and that's a conservative estimate.
And you miss the half-paragraph that I devoted to this fact
Now I know that they only have to log the traffic and not store everything I download/upload (although that would make for a more amusing example) so let's make it 1/10th of that actually required to log all my data (40Gb).
Now even assuming that each user only generates 40Mb of data a year in logs - which is rubbish as my firewall logs alone are 200Mb+ a day - you're still looking at 26 Petabytes of data, which just as impractical to sift through.
For the sake of argument, ignoring phone records, etc and just focusing on the internet.
There are over 100 million broadband users in the EU - plus countless milllions of dialup users - but we'll ignore the dialuppers too for the moment.
Now I download about 300Gb/year and upload about half that. So we'll say about 400Gb/year of traffic. Now I know that they only have to log the traffic and not store everything I download/upload (although that would make for a more amusing example) so let's make it 1/10th of that actually required to log all my data (40Gb).
That's 3.7 Exabytes of data per year for all the broadband users in the EU alone. Assuming they haven't changed the proposal too much since I last read it, they required storage of data for 7 years, that's ~26 Exabytes of storage required to hold all this stuff.
How the hell do you find anything of use in 26 exabytes of data?
The UK is the same - adverts always use "Another leading brand" or similar - or an older version of the same company's product - to compare to.
Take a look at the list on the MS website of apps that are broken by SP2.
Microsoft have more applications on there than any other single vendor.
Microsoft clearly has a monopoly in the OS market, which is where their anti-trust lawsuits are focused.
Kazaa, on the other hand, clearly doesn't have a monopoly in the P2P market and therefore can bundle whatever they want with it without fear of anti-trust violations.
Kazaa hardly has a monopoly on P2P software
I think you'll find that was October 2004
I make a point of not adding Google's adverts to my adblock list - they don't annoy me, so they get to stay.
I virtually never click adverts anyway, so it's not like anyone's losing my custom, but the sooner websites learn that flashing "Punch The Monkey" banners just piss visitors off, the better.
That's because it only rips the first and last 15 seconds of each track, the rest of the time is filled up by RIAA brand Insta-Noise for your listening enjoyment.
Correct, you can claim that CmdrTaco is an asshole without any legal worries. However, if - for example - you claimed that he was an asshole because he was using the Slashdot subscription money to fund his drug habit, then you would open yourself up to a libel lawsuit.
Shouldn't that be:
"People who infringed this patent also infringed..."
Sorry, but the data protection act doesn't apply outside of the EU - once your data is in a country that hasn't signed up to the DPA it's a free for all on it.
That's why there was such an uproar about the US demanding passenger information from European airlines because there would be no protections on the information once it was "in the US".
One of the highstreet banks (I forget which) is currently being sued for sending customer data to one of its call centres in India without explicit permission, thus violating the DPA.
Problem is that the government is above the DPA (and most other legislation) when it's dealing with "Terrorism!" because whatever they're doing is "neccessary to protect our freedoms" and to ensure that our way of life isn't threatened and so on and so on.
"Nothing to see here" and they're already slow - or maybe it's just me.
So much more stealthy in fact that they avoid infecting machines in case they get caught - it's the only explanation.
What, someone thinks that people will honestly believe that Hotmail wants them to forward an email to 20 people or their account will be closed down.
People will believe anything that they read on the internet - the fact that everyone is still falling for phishing scams and getting rooted via email tojans should be proof enough of that fact.
Who modded this informative?
GDS doesn't send any of your personal data over the internet, it merely runs a webserver-esque service bound to localhost. Blocking GDS from accessing the internet won't change the fact that it can still search and index areas of your multi-user computer that aren't "yours" - just as the normal Windows Search can.
It's always easier to focus on the wrong problem if it makes a better news story.
"Libraries not sufficiently locking down workstations" isn't anywhere near as good a headline as "Google in desktop spyware scandal!"
And how many users of MSN are totally ignorant when it comes to computers?
Answer - the majority of them.
Even better, it's money.iwon.com :)
It would appear that AC is posting from beyond the grave.
I know Google is US-based, but given the relative popularity of mobile phones (cell phones to you Americans) in Europe - especially the popularity of SMS (Almost 1 billion a month sent in the UK alone) - would it not have made sense to at least include Europe in the initial roll-out, if not focus the service there entirely?