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Best of the rest: a delicious assortment

Reuterspeak, Oftel, shouting man and a train rant

Win2k successor Whistler to beta in October

If one deciphers these seemingly benign paragraphs of Reuterspeak with a) the Bible Code, b) Blowfish [passphrase: bytemebytemenow], and c) the decoder ring in specially marked packages of Cinnamon-Raisin Poofy-Wheat Crispies, one realises quickly that this apparent random gibberish is, in fact, detailed instructions on opening a wormhole within the Pentagon central courtyard which links Earth to an M-class planet orbiting Zeta Leonis, whose warmongering humanoid inhabitants (rumoured to resemble Kathy Lee Gifford) will immediately swarm/worm their ways here to inflict hellish torment upon us all. How dare you unleash this hideous knowledge upon the Earth!

Anonymous



Porn sites face credit card fraud fines
Dow Chemical sacks 50 over porn emails
Net pornographer jammed up in Federal probe
Porn mongers WAP off online
Live online orgy promised
Children-for-sex offered for sale on Net
Brits big on net porn and gambling

I enjoy seeing what is new in computing on your site but do not see the reason to put anything on here having to do with sex and porn. If people (or you) want that stuff, why not go where it is and quit littering up this site with that garbage.

Thanks,

Joe



US Navy carrier to adopt Win2k infrastructure

The Navy's next-generation aircraft carrier will use Microsoft Windows-based operating systems to run its communications systems, aircraft and weapons launchers, and other ship electronics, after Lockheed Martin Corp. officials chose Microsoft earlier this month.

SOURCE: Government Computer News

ahem, .... my take on this:

Q257666 "Windows 2000 Launches Cruise Missiles at Novell, Oracle and Lotus and RedHat"
The information in this article applies to:


  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional


SYMPTOMS:
Aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, technicians discovered a hitherto unrevealed bug in the fire control system and as a result of applying a hotfix......

This behavior is covered by EULA (End User License Agreement) and is mentioned in Q257665 " Windows 2000 shoots down passenger airliner after running unsafe ActiveX control"

BY INSTALLING, COPYING OR OTHERWISE USING THE SOFTWARE COMPONENT, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT ("EULA") FOR THE APPLICABLE OS PRODUCT (AS DEFINED BELOW). IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY OR USE THE SOFTWARE COMPONENT.
NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY CONTAINED IN THE EULA IDENTIFIED ABOVE, TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE SOFTWARE COMPONENT IS PROVIDED TO YOU AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS AND ALL DISCLAIMERS OF WARRANTIES IN THE EULA IDENTIFIED ABOVE APPLY WITH RESPECT TO THIS SOFTWARE COMPONENT.

CAUSE
When a Windows 2000-based Active Directory-Integrated Fire Control System (ADIFCS) server or client detects a pre-programmed hardcoded target (including but not limited to Senior Executives of the above companies) within 100 miles and in range ( See MSDN "Fire Control" SDK) deregistration of specific target records may not succeed.

MORE INFORMATION:
This behavior is by design and is hard coded into the product and as such cannot be changed, however targeting information CAN be modified, before hand, and before targeting final commit by editing the registry and with ADSI for those of you that have read the 4000 pages of the SDK, you just may have a chance.

NOTE: This requires a reboot to take effect, if you are operating in an environment where rebooting is not realistic, the above EULA applies.
RESOLUTION: As this behavior is by design it cannot be modified except as shown above.

STATUS:
Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem with targets getting too close to the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article. This problem was first implemented in Windows 2000 Service Pack 17c.

Additional query words:
Keywords : kbtool kbADSI kbnavy kbdieforallah
Version : WINDOWS:2000;
Platform : WINDOWS winnt
Issue type : kbhowto
Technology :



[Stop SHOUTING!!!]



RE: "UK" RIP BILL

DOES THIS MEAN EVERY TIME I VISIT YOUR WEB SITE, THE "UK" GOVERNMENT COULD REPORT IT TO MY EMPLOYER ? ALSO, IF I BUY ANYTHING FROM A "UK" COMPANY, WILL THAT INFORMATION BE REPORTED BACK TO THE "US" INTERNAL REVENUE SERVICE?

I ENJOY "THE REGISTER" VERY MUCH BUT ME THINKS AS OF NEXT WEEK, I WILL NOT BE VISITING ANY MORE "UK" WEB SITES. THE OLD "USSR" GOV. WAS NOT AS PARANOID AS THE BRITS ARE NOW. THE PENDING BILL, AS WAS DESCRIBED ON "US" TV BROADCASTS, WILL CERTAINLY SLOW "UK" E-COMMERCE AS MOST COMMON FOLK VALUE THEIR PRIVACY AND FREEDOM NO MATTER WHERE THEY LIVE IN THE WORLD.

FRIEND OF "THE REGISTER"



Oftel is a joke (with a crap punchline)

We are an operator rolling out DSL in Germany & France, and thoroughly agree with your article

The Oftel / BT unbundling is a pile of c**p - totally biased and totally impossible.

You missed a few of the issues: the orders have to be submitted this Sept, for BT to install by next new. Not only do we have to order COs (which is reasonable - where are they going to build the colo rooms), but we have to give forecasts of usage. Why ? What difference does it make on colo ? No-one else in the world asks for this. The only beneficiary is BT who get a year's headup on competitors business plans...

Worse yet, the deployment is controlled by BT. If they want to slow down an aggressive competitor, they can - and there's nothing we can do. They have no obligation to configure the exchanges quickly - indeed they coined the phrase "bow wave" to describe the difficulties and how they will s-l-o-w-l-y
support operators.

Finally - to add insult to injury - these forecasts are binding, and we pay a penalty if we get them wrong.

So, we forceast a year in advance to tell our main competitor everything we are hoping to do, they control our deployment - and hence whether or not we could meet our plans - and then after they've destroyed our business case they fine us for the priviledge of being over-optimistic !!!

And Oftel's reaction: "seems reasonable to us"

Compare this to Germany or even France, where the regulator just said "No excuses - unbundle your loops by this date and do it. If you fail, we'll punish you". No sweetheart deals, no "ooohhh we understand it is so hard, have a couple of years to discuss it". As a result Germany is >2 years ahead of UK in broadband.

Ever time I hear politicians talk about "Broadband Britain" I want to gag (between this & RIP) When they boast about how pro-competitive we are and "schlerotic" Europe I giggle...

We are a British company, and we'll have invested several hundred million in Germany & Frence on DSL before we are allowed to do anything in out home market.



[And finally, a rant. Great]



After recently deciding to hang up my car keys, and take to the initiative of public transport, I have been dumbfounded by the blatant inoperability of public transport services.

Deciding to travel from Cornwall to Wales next weekend, I make note of the fact that if you book 1 week earlier, then such travel is a mere £33 return compared to the normal £51. Jubilation, I decided to check the train times at www.rail.co.uk. Not a problem, found my train times, but coincidentally, found no place to book these tickets on line. So I ring the number specified, which put me directly through to an operator, who the proceeded to inform me of another number for which to ring, to book. This number is to be my worst nightmare.

Note ... 0870 9000 773. A number I will never forget as I have probably dialed it well over a thousand times now. For the first 300-400 goes, I continually receive an engaged tone. Alas, another dial, and I hear a ringing tone. Immediately presuming I had dialed a wrong number, I continued to call for my curiosity was indulged. (Even if it was the wrong number, to hear someone's voice would have been a breakthrough in my engaged enraged world). I hear a voice, "Welcome to Wales and West Travel" ... Excellent I thought ... "I am sorry but all our operators are busy at present" ... OK, recorded message, but I was ready to be queued. ... "Please call back again later". Nice one I thought. 1 in 400 calls makes it through the engaged barrier, only to be told to "Bugger off, and come back later". And to be charged for that call too.

Off I dialed again, only to be faced with another 300-400 engaged tones, before receiving the same answer message again. I attempted to call right up until 7.45pm Wednesday night (02nd) only to be finally faced with the answerphone message "Sorry, our offices are closed now. Please call between the hours of 07.00 and 19.45".

First thing Thursday morning (07.13am to be precise), I continue my finger training on the keypad of my phone, only to find the first dial leads to a ring. Bravo ... another bloody answer message, same voice, "...call back later".

It is now 8.45am, 1.5 hours later, I have decided that there are 3 phone lines and three answerphones to Wales and West Travel, all the operators are busy, cause they have other bloody jobs.

I even went to the Wales and West site www.walesandwest.co.uk. The site is about as helpful as a spoon in my ear, and the contact page sums up the service of our public transport. "For Ticket Reservations please call ... 08457 125 125". Dial it ... have a laugh, not engaged, no message, just a dead tone.

If the government wants to get more people back into public transport, then I persuade them to either

(a) Give people deductions on their phone bill for constant answer messages that basically tell you to bugger off and cost a minimum of 5p
(b) Give people free physiotherapy for their fingers and hands and free ear tests after using the phone too much
(c) Sort out our bloody public transport system.

By the time I manage to get a ticket to Wales, I would have raised a £50 phone bill.

Thought you should know. I feel better now.

However, got to go, need to make a call ...

Jason Higgs

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