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Comment: Re:Bad Reporting (Score 2) 51

by ve3id (#41863887) Attached to: iPhone Interface For Ham Radio Mates Old With New



I agree about the bad reporting. I am left with more questions than answers from this article. Is it the RF side that is interfaced? Are the apps on the iPhone communicating with an OSI level 1 and 2 interface that is the ham radio, or is the ham radio being controlled, as in CIV, through the iPhone with communications going through the air. Or are they just using the iPhone as a microphone and speaker for the ham radio? It is nice to see a "good bit of publicity for us operators" *, but this article literally has no useful information. That's my opinion and I am unanimous in that! 73 de ve3id * Hancock, Tony: "The Radio Ham", BBC 1964

Comment: Re:Trick or treaters who visit... (Score 1) 437

by ve3id (#41648397) Attached to: Hallowe'en is coming. Trick-or-Treaters who visit ...

If American cultures wasn't superior, it wouldn't be winning.

If American culture is so superior, why do they use imported actors to represent it? Like William Shatner as Captain Kirk (Canadian) and Hugh Laurie as House (English), Lorne Greene as Ben Cartright in Bonanza (Canadian), Raymond Massey as Dr. Gillespie in Dr. Kildare (Canadian)? Let's face it, America does not really exist, it is all mocked up in a Hollywood studio back lot. Or, one could say, America is a melting pot of world cultures and has none of its own.

+ - Coin a new term: Dumbwall

Submitted by ve3id
ve3id (601924) writes "After talking to my ISP about an outage which affects several of my friends, and finding them totally unaware of the fact that they had thousands of users out of service, they told me to remove the TCP/IP stack from my windows box and reinstall it, When I said that I did not have any windows machines, and the problem was happening in several PCs running linux and a VAX running NetBSD, they were thoroughly confused. I went out and got drunk, and when I came back all my systems were back running without me removing anything.

Can we coin the phrase "dumbwall" for this system where ISPs provide help desks with people who cannot do anything except read from a set of prepared scripts?

We have firewalls, and paywalls, why not dumbwalls, designed to keep the people who can solve problems isolated from the people who have information about the failures!"

+ - Meebo closing down-> 1

Submitted by
ve3id writes "For years I have used meebo to make an ssl connection past my local subnet to all my IM services, so nobody there or at my ISP can see what I am saying.

Now they say they are shutting down their chat as they have been bought by google.

Can anybody suggest a way to access Y!IM, MSN messenger, Gmail chat and others using ssl? Preferebly something native linux."

Link to Original Source

Comment: This gets to the core of the subject (Score 1) 111

by ve3id (#39317143) Attached to: IBM Scientists Measure the Heat Emitted From Erasing a Single Bit
In 1961, resetting a bit involved passing a huge current through the wires surrounding a toroidal core which represented one memory bit. So to say that it releases heat is ridiculous, it actually consumes orders of magnitude more heat than could possibly be considered in theory or measured in practice.

Comment: Re:Great... (Score 5, Interesting) 382

by ve3id (#28200985) Attached to: UK Police Want Plug-In Computer Crime Detectors
One principle of computer forensics is that if a computer is manipulated in any way, the evidence may be corrupted by such operation, and this could be used by defence attornies. Real computer forensics involves getting the computer powered down, removing the disk, setting it up in a test jig with write protect enabled, and reading the complete image from the disk onto a sterile environment for analysis. I don't think Mr. Plod will meet the test of admissibility into evidence! How is he going to prove to the court that the suspected data were not on the USB key to start with? If he has interfered with the computer in any way by plugging in a USB key, then the evidence is contaminated.

Comment: Re:Great... (Score 5, Informative) 382

by ve3id (#28200901) Attached to: UK Police Want Plug-In Computer Crime Detectors
This reminds me of another idiot device they gave to the British bobby: back in the 70's and 80's, there was a glut of illegal CB sets in England. They never legalised the use of 27MHz AM/SSB CBs and all the units sold were marked 'for export only' When they legalised CB, units that were approved could only transmit FM. Instead of overworking the radio inspectors, they gave bobbies on the beat a box that detected if a close transmitter was AM or FM, with two LEDs. The only problem was amateur radio operators can legally use AM and SSB (after all, they invented it!). One beat p.c. stopped a ham and asked him to talk in the mike, and, you guessed it, the illegal CB light lit up! Only when the amateur radio operator started cursing and swearing at the p.c. and getting red in the face did he consult another p.c. over the police radio who was a ham. This being the appropriate behaviour for a ham accused of being a CB'er, he let him go with an apology.

Error in operator: add beer