Posts by Stephen R
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Hard News: nz.general: a speech, in reply to Matthew Littlewood,
(although sadly I still buy CDs).
Same here, but I think for different reasons. I never really had a record player, and used to buy cassettes which (inevitably) got eaten by one player or another.
CDs were a massive step up, because I'd copy them to tape, secure in the knowledge that when the tape eventually died, for the price of a blank I'd be able to get another copy.
These days, I rip them to HD, but my backup/disk management between old/new computers is sufficiently haphazard that I never really feel comfortable without that CD backup sitting in the cupboard.
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Joe Wylie,
re: anti-nuclear policy.
Three years later it had become something that the majority were proud to endorse.
My memory of that was that the reaction by the US Government trying to bully NZ into backing down was what sold it to the majority.
I'm not sure what could produce a similar indignant reaction to support green policies by people who are currently not supporters.
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Dom Post/Stuff has totally jumped the shark recently on their political coverage. I have deleted them from my bookmarks and try not to visit them any more, so I don't curse at my monitor as often.
Complaining about Celia photo-shopping her pic because they reckon she looks wrinklier in person was pretty foul.
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I have some pgp keys and files encrypted with them on one or other of my hard-disks, which time and the fallibility of memory have erased the passphrases from my memory.
If my hard disks were searched and a theoretical investigator asked for the passwords, I'm assuming that since none of those files are less than 4 or 5 years old, claiming to have forgotten the passphrase is a plausible defence against charges of contempt for failure to decrypt?
I've occasionally forgotten the passphrase to a key that's merely days old. I guess it's less plausible in that case, though still (obviously) it has happened to me.
What level of evidence does a court need to decide if you're showing them contempt in this sort of situation? What possible evidence could you use to prove that you really have forgotten?
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Speaker: You ain't from round here, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
A council doesn't "lead the growth of the city into the bright pastures of a new tomorrow" - it disposes of shit and garbage (and runs other important services, regulates building development and use, etc). The task of council is do these jobs effectively - improving employee engagement would be a good start.
I approve this message.
How do I tell which Councillors have actually helped a) get basic services running and b) not shat all over council staff?
I heard Vicky Buck is running for council in Christchurch. I have memories no doubt polished smooth by time, but when I lived there, (And Vicky was Mayor) I appreciated the local council and its services in a way that Wellington hasn't really done for me. To quote someone from the time "If Vicky stood in a theater to let someone past, I'd vote for her"
(I'm still bitter about Max Bradford trying to screw over Christchurch with his electricity reforms. He promised my power prices would go down, and they doubled - Grrrr)
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There used to be a big poster down Cobham drive saying "VOTE JOHN MORRISON FOR STRONG LEADERSHIP" or something like that (I usually drive past at 70kmh, so only paid partial attention) in day-glow yellow.
Every time I drove past I muttered under my breath about defacing the sign to something like "JOHN MORRISON FOR A DICTATORSHIP", because that's how I interpret "STRONG LEADERSHIP" and it rubs me the wrong way.
Luckily for John, I'm usually running late for work.
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Hard News: The shaky ground of…, in reply to BenWilson,
Often, I've had them even sing my praises in a refusal, stating that they really liked me, I was second in line etc, etc. But there was someone else.
It's not you, it's me...
Also, I've heard it said that giving explicit reasons for not hiring someone opens up potential challenges, especially in the public service. Friends of mine involved in public sector hiring were always aware that they could be challenged by the applicant and needed to back up decisions by pointing at paperwork for process and evidence behind their decisions.
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The Herald tells me on its website
Prime Minister John Key is tipping David Cunliffe to win the Labour leadership.
I was thinking "Why does the Herald think JohnKey is any better informed about who will be leader than anyone else outside the Labour party? What sources of information might he have that nobody else does?"
And then I thought "Oh.... Minister for GCSB, of course"
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From der Spiegel:
The documents state that it is possible for the NSA to tap most sensitive data held on these smart phones, including contact lists, SMS traffic, notes and location information about where a user has been.
Do you remember that thing in the news about how Apple was storing all the cell-sites you went near while you were travelling?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704123204576283580249161342.html
The location data appear to be collected using cellphone towers and Wi-Fi access points near a user's phone and don't appear to be transmitted back to Apple.
The combination of that stuff seems to mean that if the NSA want to know where you've been, they can ask the portable tracking device you're carrying with you without having to ask the various cell providers you might have connected to on your travels...
Am I being paranoid to wonder if the reason the iphone keeps that list at all is for that very purpose?
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OnPoint: Ich bin ein Cyberpunk, in reply to Steve Withers,
The only really secure way to do this would appear to be to physically copy emails to some kind of storage media...and decrypt them on a second system that isn't EVER connected to any network of any kind.
As someone pointed out to me today, the Stuxnet worm that was targeted against the Iranian nuclear centrifuges worked across multiple computers and could use usb sticks as infection vectors. The computers that were the targets were air-gapped, and it required transmission via usb at least for some jumps in order to be infected.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that if the NSA were really targetting an individual, they could send a targeted piece of software that could migrate via USB, look for their desired information, copy that to the USB, and then send it home when the USB drive gets plugged back into the computer with internet connectivity.
It is less likely that they could do that on a mass scale, but I guess it's possible.