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Immigration and broadband suffer unpopular limitations

And we're moving to France

Next up, some unconventional wisdom on the life saving properties of the odd sneaky fag:

Huzzah - and I want a T-shirt that says that, as I've been banned from wearing my "Smoking leads to Heroine Addiction, Paedophilia and Suicide Bombing" T-shirt at work.

I'm happy going outside in -20F - being a touch cold is significantly better than giving my co-workers, friends and family cancer and heart disease - but I feel I should be allowed to wear my T-Shirt in protest to the snarky remarks made whenever someone feels I'm only standing 19.9 feet away from a doorway, instead of the mandatory 20 soon to be required in Anchorage.

So a big Huzzah and a Blue Peter badge to the woman that showed the world that sometimes smoking can save your life.

To my knowledge the only other notable instances of cigarette life saving were the countless lives saved during both world wars by cigarette holders and lighters handed down from grandfathers. Strategically placed in pockets, which in turn were placed precisely where Germans always seemed to shoot you - it seems every family in Britain and the US had a loved one saved in this manner.

Andy


As a follow-on from that, alcohol saved a colleague’s life some time ago. It was the day before my birthday and we went to a local purveyor of alcohol, otherwise known as the Pulpit wine bar and shared a pint jug of port (that’s how it was in those days…) Anyway, it slid down a treat and my colleague, also called Alan, suggested that we had another one.

Well, after a little convincing, I agreed and so we had a second one. And then we staggered our respective ways home. Or rather in his case, didn’t, because there were a rather large number of fire engines, ambulances and such like surrounding his station.   Yes, it was Kings Cross on the 18th of November, 1987.   If he hadn’t bought the second pint of port, who knows what might have happened to him.   So there we have solid proof that booze and fags can save lives.   Alan


The grammar police are after Cody Webb, now that the actual police have released him in the greatest daylight saving cock-up this year:

"Me and God know I didn't do it." If I were Cody Webb's family I know that I would sure consider a law suit against the school if that is the level of English being taught.

Sincerely, Arah


Tsk tsk. If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear. Except, of course, 12 days in jail being bullied into confessing to "a felony charge of threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction" (given "weapon of mass destruction" is now being equated to "bomb" can we now admit that we failed in preventing Al Qaeda getting hold of WMDs?).

K.


Kids these days and their new fangled rock and roll probably all deserve a stint in jail just to teach them a lesson on manners and how to eat in restaurants. Bring back hanging and public flogging, and stick more children down chimneys is the only answer. When I wur a lad just being up at 3:12am would be enough to see us put in jail for a month - before being flogged and shipped off to Australia. I hope he's learned his lesson good and proper. Andy


Ignorance is no defence. So say the lawyers in the P2P pinball piracy case. We reckon this bodes poorly for our government post the missing WMDs, but that might be an issue for another day:

Surely they should be suing the ISP, then, since their tubes were used to pirate the content.

Sue MS for hiding so many internet sharing protocols behind SVCHOST and hiding the owner of the machine of the scary information that would help them see the infection.

Sue the copyright owners for putting the game in the public view so that people were able to copy the content illegally.

And so on.

Mark


I do wonder if we are legally responsible for misuse of our equipment without our knowledge. For example, if someone broke in to my car because I parked it in a dodgy neighbourhood, then hotwired and stole it, running over several fire hydrants, killing a few pedestrians - then crashing it into a hospital, would I be the one responsible (ignorance is no defence), or would the thief be the one to blame? Furthermore, what could I be expected to do about it? Run after my car, calling "Stop, thief!"? As far as my home network is concerned, it's not always so easy to batten down the hatches. Does this make me guilty for not running a bank?

The situation is complicated somewhat by the network equipment vendors. Sometimes, I *have* to run a weakened security WLAN, simply because my wireless devices don't all support WPA2 or something sparkly like that.

I run several devices over Ethernet, and finding a good bridge that will allow me to encrypt traffic at anything more than WEP strength is bloody difficult. And I'm one of those people who actually care (and can afford to buy such kit). Millions more couldn't give a damn about their network security / can't afford to buy secure kit - if it just works, that's usually enough cause for celebration.

Personally, I hate wireless networks - I wouldn't even be using one if I could re-wire the flat I'm renting with ethernet cable. However, I can't rewire my flat - and so I have to use wireless. Does that make me a criminal?

Usually, you will find many wireless routers that support a gazillion security protocols. However, try and find an Ethernet bridge that also supports the same network speed, and the same security protocols - from the same vendor. USB, PCI and PCMCIA devices don't count - I'm talking about devices that connect a wired Ethernet network to a wireless LAN, without the need to install any additional drivers on the client.

If such laws become standard, the likes of Microsoft will have much to fear: The legal liabilities of running a Microsoft operating system will be too great for many corporations, and the swift migration to Linux will be unabated by the "advent" of Windows Vista or anything else Microsoft tries to release upon the hapless masses.

Hell, the EU might just pounce at the chance to declare MS Windows an "illegal" operating system...

Oliver


Just read your article that P2P pinball lawyers say ignorance is no defence.

Wow Lawyers eh?

If we extend that argument a little: That means if my car is left unlocked and then stolen. And then the thief mows down a mother taking her kids to school then I should go to jail and not the thief.

Well that's alright then, we’ll just prosecute the victim of crime and not the perpetrator. I mean, it’s not like there are any laws about perversion of the course of justice or anything.

As long as the lawyers can bill by the hour, all is right with the world.

Keep up the good work mate. I love article like this on El Reg

Cheers Jon


Sweet! If it truely is your responsibility, that means that you can now sue those Fortune 500 companies that send spam for spamming you. It was their internet connection, so therefore their responsibility!

John


We hear from an ex pat about how healthcare ought to work. Of course we'd have to move to France, but then that would have its compensations. Still, we hope Connecting for Health is reading this too:

Reading these type of stories make me embarrassed to be British. Here in France they never seem to have such issues.

I recently had some back troubles. After an initial visit to my GP, he wrote me a prescription for some x-rays.

I phoned up the local x-ray centre and they gave me an appointment that afternoon. I was there for 1 hour and had 12 x-rays of my spine taken and a 10 min session with a consultant who also gave me an envelope with my x-rays and 2 copies of a letter explaining his medical opinion.

I didn't even have to pay, they just swiped my "Vitale" health smart card.

All in a day, no need for a million euro centralised IT system. (Well Vitale was quite expensive, but it works great!)

Second visit to my GP got me 10 weeks of massage and "Kinesthérapie"

Not that difficult really.

Regards, N.


And finally, you let us know just how much sympathy you have for anyone who got stung by Malware masquerading as footage of the Virginia tech shootings:

I don't think I can find any sympathy for people who infect their PCs with malware when they were trying to surf the net for footage of people being killed.

What sort of person actually wants to see another being killed? It is not somehow ok because it's a small, jerky image on a computer screen or a mobile phone. The people who look at and look for these images are cu*nts.

Fraser

Short, sweet and to the point. Have lovely weekends, all. ®

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