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User: delinear

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  1. Re:Wisdom of the crowd. on Fark Creator Slams 'the Wisdom of Crowds' · · Score: 1

    Nevertheless it's a common enough misconception that it's not wrong for a character to voice the myth. Certainly I've heard enough people repeating it (who then look at me like I'm insane when I point out that they're wrong).

  2. Re:Wisdom of the crowd. on Fark Creator Slams 'the Wisdom of Crowds' · · Score: 1

    Depends if they were on their own or in a crowd.

  3. Re:Civil Rights on UK Police Threaten Teenage Photojournalist · · Score: 1

    I'd be inclined to delete it for him anyway. Then use some image recovery app on the card later and plaster the image all over the web, but that's the geek rebel in me exploiting his lack of understanding :)

  4. Re:it's not a bad idea, and it's not costly on UK Police Threaten Teenage Photojournalist · · Score: 1

    Even simpler than that, every guy you can legitimately lift for taking snapshots at a festival shifts the crime clean-up rate away from all those inconvenient unsolved stabbings. Generally the average guy on the street who didn't even realise he was doing wrong is a prime catch for the police, he's unlikely to know the ins and outs of the law so he's more likely to hold his hands up to whatever the "crime" was, whereas a career criminal will be harder to catch, and because he knows the ins and outs of the legal system and likely has a bunch of alibis lined up, harder to convict, so it makes budgetary sense to harass members of the generally law-abiding public.

  5. Re:it's not a bad idea, and it's not costly on UK Police Threaten Teenage Photojournalist · · Score: 3, Funny

    The guy became "a total prat" after he was rouged up for taking a picture

    They rouged him up? Okay, that's cruel and unusual punishment right there.

  6. Re:"antagonising the police" isn't a crime on UK Police Threaten Teenage Photojournalist · · Score: 1

    Sticking your hand in a lion's cage at the zoo isn't a crime, but it's a pretty bad idea. I don't disagree with what you're saying, but anyone who has spent any time in this country knows the average dibble is just a thug with a badge, so winding them up isn't a hobby I'd recommend - that's not to say we shouldn't speak out when there are genuine civil liberty issues at hand, but when the issue is one's right to act like a dick, prudence might suggest leaving them to it.

  7. Re:loophole on 36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist · · Score: 1

    They specifically made it a condition of the cease and desist that, if he complied, they wouldn't pursue him over any copies that had already been distributed. They can always go after the torrent uploaders, that's worked out really well in putting a stop to distribution in the past.

  8. Re:Fuck Sony on 36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist · · Score: 1

    I dare say their hardware isn't too bad, but their practices towards their paying customers and their bullying tactics to reshape the industry and nations' laws to help further feather their own nest are sufficient for me to not want to give them any more of my money. I'm sure blood diamonds are nice and shiny, but I still wouldn't knowingly buy one.

  9. Re:Poor guy... on 36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist · · Score: 1

    I think that only works with Android for apps within the market, and certainly it was never approved for the Apple market so anyone who has it installed would have done so on a jailbroken set - again I don't think the kill switch works in this scenario (otherwise Apple could render jailbreaking moot by just killing any app that's not in the app store).

  10. Re:May I be the first to say: on 36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist · · Score: 1

    They're not doing him a favour by issuing a cease and desist - it's a requirement of them demonstrating later that they mitigated against frivolous litigation by at least giving him the chance to rectify his actions. That's not "being nice" it's Sony playing CYA in case this does go to court. Nice would have been a personal response along the lines of recognising he's obviously a great fan but pointing out why this is harmful to their business and they have to protect their rights - the outcome would still have been the same but at least they'd have given the guy a little recognition for the fact that he did what he did out of genuine affection for their game, instead of just playing the usual monied-bully card.

  11. Re:slashdot worthy? on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    Google Earth - hack the planet!

  12. Re:OP Notes On Post on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    To be fair, he did say he was a convicted hacker - maybe it's the "not getting caught" bit that he's rubbish at, in which case his post and your own aren't mutually exclusive and he can expect a knock on the door any time now :)

  13. Re:They Deserve It on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    Yeah, I recently had to to this when switching carriers from Vodafone to O2 - it wouldn't let me check my voicemail because I'd not set a password, but once I set it, it never asked for it again unless I try and access my mail from a different number. An average user will likely think the password is only for that situation, there was nothing to prompt me to enable the password when dialling from my own number, it was just assumed I'd want this turned off as a convenience.

  14. Re:They Deserve It on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    There's also no AT&T figure in his analogy. If you're paying someone to look after the security of your house and you have a reasonable expectation that they've locked the doors (or added some external security that negates your need to lock your doors) then it's still responsible of you to check your own doors are locked, but it's less irresponsible if you just assume it's been taken care of on your behalf.

  15. Re:passwords.. on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    If that's true, how can I drop my SIM into an unlocked but unregistered phone and still get billed? There must be some other way the phone company is identifying me for billing purposes, it's not by my number and it's definitely not by MAC or I'd get a prompt to register whenever I got a new handset. If there is money involved then there will be a reliable, secure system at the root of this, and if they have it for billing there's no reason they can't leverage it for voicemail.

  16. Re:Any other phone? on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    Well hopefully some good will come of it in the form of it raising people's awareness to the point where big telcos can no longer just ignore the problem and hope it goes away.

  17. Re:Placing blame on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    ANI can be spoofed too...

    And people can pick the locks on your doors, it doesn't mean you shouldn't fit locks. If one method is slightly more secure (and it appears ANI is) then it pays to use that method even though it's still not 100% bullet proof.

  18. Re:Placing blame on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    No, it is all their fault. Similarly, if Verizon are doing the same thing, then it's all their fault, too. Just because someone else is doing the same idiotic thing, that doesn't reduce their blame quotient. Even if it was industry wide, it would still be the fault of every company that didn't fix it (I could understand if it was an unknown or not-widely known issue, but seriously, this has been going on for years), the only thing that would make this "not all [their] fault" is if there was some overriding reason that they couldn't do things a different way (some law inhibiting the use of better authentication, for instance, but even there they could negate a lot of their responsibility by just insisting customers have to have a password).

  19. Re:Placing blame on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    Google shouldn't have to do anything about the applications - not only are they not in violation of the TOS, but they enabled what is currently a perfectly legal (albeit incredibly shady) practice. The problem is when articles come along that make some tenuous connection and the bad press might not be something they want when they can just nuke the apps. Of course, we all know that's just brushing the issue under the carpet anyway, since people who are "hacking" other people's voicemail aren't likely to be bothered that they have to download the requisite apps from outside the market place. The correct response is to stop relying on caller ID and to enforce a password for new users by default.

  20. Re:Placing blame on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    The spoofing services are doing you a favor by educating people about how easy it is to spoof CLI. Would you rather be totally naive and completely trusting when you get a call from your banks number and a guy with a nigerian accent cheerfully takes down your account details?

    And the guy who steals a car that's been left idling in the drive is doing the owner a favour by highlighting how lax their security is, but that doesn't make his actions right. The people behind spoofing services know that they're going to be used for no good, and they're complicit in this. Of course, that doesn't negate your main point, that a more secure form of authentication would render the issue moot in this instance - my guess is that there's some cost overhead associated with this that AT&T are just trying to avoid.

  21. Re:Placing blame on Hack AT&T Voicemail With Android · · Score: 1

    You REALISE that "REALISE" is the correct ENGLISH spelling and "REALIZE" is an Americanism, meaning both are equally valid on a forum with an international user base with a significant number of users from both the UK and the US, right? There were plenty of other issues with GP's post, but to specifically pick up on this one demonstrates a pretty high degree of ignorance on your own part.

  22. Re:So what did he expect.. ? on 36-Hour Lemmings Port Gets Sony Cease and Desist · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Much as I welcome any opportunity to highlight what a generally crappy corporation Sony is, and how little regard it has for its customers, I have to say there can't be anyone who didn't see this coming. But then if the point of the process was to get a little self promotion going then he's achieved that, he can comply with the cease and desist and for the sake of 36 hours of his time he's got the kind of publicity big companies pay big agencies big monies to attract, so depending on his motivation, maybe he fully expected this outcome but for him it's still a win.

    And of course, once the code is in the wild it pretty much doesn't matter that it's removed from the original source, Sony's lawyers might be busy playing Whac-a-mole for years to come.

  23. Re:So basically... on Neutrino Data Could Spell Trouble For Relativity · · Score: 1

    I'm always dubious whenever someone backs up their argument with "real science". What's wrong with just science? It reminds me of those awful injury lawyer adverts on TV, "We're real lawyers"... trying too hard guys, too hard.

  24. Re:Relativity is just a model on Neutrino Data Could Spell Trouble For Relativity · · Score: 1

    And if the title attribute is to be trusted, you're having way more fun while getting there.

  25. Re:How #$@#$ hard is it? on Chase Bank May Drop Support of Chrome, Opera · · Score: 1

    I've started using the OSK when using operating systems I'm not fully in control/the main user of (i.e. work, parents). Here in the UK it seems banks are specifically moving away from security in favour of ease of use, which is all well and good but it would be nice to have the option of a little added security for those of us who don't mind taking the additional required steps (for instance, using some kind of secure dongle/key generator to authenticate).