The web’s original Travel Blog.
Categories
Category: Uncategorized
Categories
Spam with good security message
Bit of spam that I received that contains a good message about security.
A true story:
This lady has changed her habits after her handbag was
stolen. Her handbag which contained her mobile, credit card,
purse etc was stolen. 20 minutes later when she called her husband,
telling him what had happened, he said ‘I’ve just received your SMS asking
about our Pin number and I’ve replied a little while ago.’When they rushed down to the bank, the bank staff told them all the
money was already withdrawn.The pickpocket had actually used the stolen mobile phone to SMS ‘hubby’
in the contact list and get hold of the pin number. Within 20 minutes
he had withdrawn all the money from the bank account.Moral of the lesson:
Do not disclose the relationship between you and the people in your
contact list. Avoid using names like Home, Honey, Hubby, sweetheart, Dad,
Mum etc, and very importantly, when sensitive info is being asked
through SMS, CONFIRM by calling back.Vidya
——————————————————————————–
Exclusive Marriage Proposals! Find UR life partner at Shaadi.com Try it!
Very odd but I can’t argue with the content of the message, it is pretty good advice about how to avoid identity theft.
Categories
Super Mario in 14kB Javascript
Super Mario in 14kB Javascript
This is pretty impressive work to have done it all in Javascript.
Categories
The 21 Steps
The 21 Steps by Charles Cumming is a short story which owes something to John Buchan told via an interface using Google Maps which allows you to follow the protagonist through his adventure.
[via]
Arman Noory’s “The War on Terror” is a short film that he created for his senior-year (Canadian) Politics class and it includes amongst other pieces of video safe-for-work scenes of a 1980s porn video. [via]
Kid Does His War on Terror School Project using Porn (Clean) from Arman Noory on Vimeo.
Categories
Iraq five years on: Epic Fail
British people deceived on entering the war and deceived about our withdrawal.
We have left a mess of Basra and Southern Iraq.
Iran and disparate militias have control basically, and former translators are being abducted and killed.
Violence is down in Baghdad but the new Iraqi parliament is a failing system and many MPs having suffered threats and attempts on their lives are not attending parliament and due to sectarian division very little agreement can be reached on any legislation.
Former enemies are being paid to secure their own neighbourhoods, the insurgents have been given territory.
The US is effectively governing Iraq through Concerned Local Citizens (CLC) militias
Numbers of Al Qaeda will dwindle when the US pulls out as the locals get reabsorbed into civil society or join militia and foreigner will return home.
The Kurdish north has become a self governing autonomous region. Iraq has broken up.
Cheney again links Iraq invasion to 9/11 attacks as bombing victims are buried
“The improvement may be due at least in part to the “surge”, the increase in US troops”.
The downturn in violence has nothing to do with the surge. The downturn in violence is due to;
– the ongoing cease-fire with Muqtada, a cease-fire that he recently extended;
– most of the internecine fighting is over with and the Shias and Shiites now live within their own ghettoes and will not travel outside them. Baghdad today is a collection of hostile Sunni and Shia ghettoes divided by high concrete walls. Different districts have different national flags. Sunni areas use the old Iraqi flag with the three stars of the Baath party and the Shia wave a newer version, adopted by the Shia-Kurdish government. The Kurds have their own flag.
– Americans paying and arming those they were fighting a few months ago. The Sunni defeat in the battle for Baghdad in 2006 and early 2007 was the motive for many guerrillas, previously anti-American, suddenly allying themselves with American forces. They concluded they could not fight the US, al Qa’ida, the Iraqi army and police and the Mehdi Army at the same time.
——-
Five years of occupation have destroyed Iraq as a country, but the media carries on and reprints Bush’s mendacious claims of victory and a noble cause without even blushing.
The Guardian: There must be a reckoning for this day of infamy
Put young children on DNA list, urge police
Primary school children should be eligible for the DNA database if they exhibit behaviour indicating they may become criminals in later life, according to Britain’s most senior police forensics expert.
Gary Pugh, director of forensic sciences at Scotland Yard and the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), said a debate was needed on how far Britain should go in identifying potential offenders, given that some experts believe it is possible to identify future offending traits in children as young as five.
‘If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large,’ said Pugh. ‘You could argue the younger the better. Criminologists say some people will grow out of crime; others won’t. We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.’
Unproven science and surely any children that exhibit such behaviour should be helped in some way to prevent them from becoming criminals in later life rather than waiting until they commit crimes and then banging them up because they’re in some database.
Categories
Audiobook publishers to dump DRM
New York Times reports that Audiobook publishers are dumping DRM.
It’s about time too and I think this move will be good for the entire audiobook industry and as I’m in the business myself albeit as a minnow compared with Penguin books I’m pleased by this news.
DRM does nothing to stop piracy it just pisses off those consumers who have legally purchased audiobooks, music or whatever other digital media who wish to use that media in some way not sanctioned by the publisher. All it takes is one individual with the smarts to crack the DRM and the file becomes available to everyone that has installed a bittorrent client and can perform a simple search on Google.
If you stop treating your customers like criminals then they will be happier purchasing from you in the future and any increase in piracy is likely to be negligible and will in the end have cost you far fewer sales than the increase due to having dumped DRM.