'Open source just means big companies can steal your code.' O RLY?

CoTW In a simply shocking turn of events, two of the less popular comments on El Reg this week both came from Anonymous Cowards...

The first of our be-masked brethren introduced some welcome levity into the net neutrality bunfight, commenting on someone who filed the entirety of a Lord of the Rings script as part of an FCC complaint:

Well, surely it's George, the original poster that's at fault here. Fortunately, he left his address on the submission. The MPAA can just stop by 123 Fuck You Lane Cuntville, CO 13372 and serve him with his copyright infringement notice.

Full marks for style, control, damage, aggression* and gratuitous use of naughty words, there, AC.

Meanwhile, in housing news, this particular Anonymous Coward makes a rather good point about demolishing Britain's lifeless high streets and replacing identikit shops with housing:

All towns these days have exactly the same shops (mostly owned by the same group, so there's no real competition) and the only thing you can buy in them is overpriced women's clothing. There's no good reason to try save them. Bring in the bulldozers and put up some houses.

And you know what? He's right. High Streets are full of charidee shops punting unwashed clothes that other people's great aunts popped their clogs in twenty years ago, back-of-a-van "pop up shops" where dodgy blokes punt suspiciously cheap mobile phone accessories with mis-spelled brand labels and identikit fast food chains greedily gobble up vacant space while contributing to the nation's obesity crisis. Come, friendly bombs, and fall on the High Street.

Meanwhile, we couldn't help but giggle childishly at this old-fashioned missive. It was almost (but really not) worth resurrecting the much-beloved Flame of the Week:

From: xxx@yyy.zzz Sent: 12 November 2014 To: sales@theregister.com Subject: Your article is appauling!

Your writers are dumb and you don't know why your writers are dumb.

The reason is that your paper doesn't know some things. (article)

Flash memory is only warrantied for two years. Why is that? It is because the crystal in your flash memory is only warrantied for two years. The crystal may not last more than two years which means it doesn't matter how long your flash memory will last.

Do you know how to repair flash memory? Do you know which crystal to replace a dead crystal with?

Repairing Dead USB Flash Drives

http://somerandomwebsitewe'renotgivingclicksto.con/year/month/date/repairing-dead-usb-flash-drives/

You need to have a program that can read and tell you what kind of crystal you need. You need to know where to buy the crystal and you need equipment to replace surface mount components and you need practice at replacing surface mount components.

Your correspondent is surprised and a little alarmed to discover that El Reg is, in fact, a paper. Moreover, someone who sends what seems to be a correction to our sales team probably knows fuckall a tiny bit less than our august scribes and the IEEE International Symposium boffins about flash and storage. Not, we note, that the article in question actually endorses or even suggests repairing flash memory. Hey ho; another day, another one who hasn't read the article.

The Wooden Twig of Fail

Yet ANOTHER Anonymous Coward. Sigh. Anyway, he thinks anyone can pilfer open source code without so much as by-your-leave.

Just goes to show the problem with open source. Even commercial implementations may refer to the open source code and just copy bits of it rather than actually think about the algorithm and consider any weaknesses.

And lo! did many infuriated commentards gather, and repeatedly did they thump the downvote button. Yea, verily unto the Rage of the Internets did the mob's inflamed passions overspill at the Heretic who Sullied the Sacred Name of Open Source.

And this week's winner of the Golden Vulture Dropping of Excellence goes to...

A suitably furious moiety (recipient of a silver badge of commentardery, no less) tore into one-time Labour Home Secretary David Blunkett, after hearing that the visually impaired politician thinks tech companies are helping terrorists through switching on encryption-by-default.

Everybody starting to encrypt everything is just a reaction to the massive, massive overstepping of bounds by the various letter agencies.

If you get burgled, you have a look at better locks and maybe an alarm system. If you get your private emails plundered, you start looking for solutions there too. If the letter agencies hadn't been taking the piss on an epic scale; they wouldn't be getting the reaction that they are now seeing.

Blunkett can go fuck himself.

We wouldn't want to comment on Mr Blunkett's masturbatory habits, but your correspondent can certainly see why 83 of you heartily upvoted that one.

Goodbye, ye commentards. Print safely. ®

Ye Note of Boot

* A virtual pint for anyone who spots the reference. Clue: Late '90s/early 2000s TV show, likely to have been very popular with the more practical Reg readers.