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RJBrad

Listed below are comments made by RJBrad between Tuesday, 9th December 2008 and Thursday, 23rd July 2009.

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The spinning of Spinvox 2:58pm on 23 Jul 2009 The issue here isn't that it's insecure because humans are listening to your voicemail and texting it to you. Don't fall into that trap!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's secure, just that the transcribers don't make it any less secure. SMS messages are encrypted before they leave your phone and get transmitted across the air. However once they leave the air (i.e. once they hit the base station) they are transmitted in clear text across any number of networks, before finally being encrypted again and sent over the air to the destinatinon phone.

If you're using SMS to transmit business critical information then some guy in an Indian sweatshop is the least of your worries. Your first point of call should be to crucify your CIO.
Networks and the iPhone 3:03pm on 17 Jul 2009 Two points.
1) O2s exclusivity. Apple are in the business of selling stuff. They care about turnover, which is usually linked to units shipped. O2 clearly "did a 3G" and waived a big number in front of Apple to get the exclusive rights to ship the iPhone. Apple said thank you very much, O2 got lumbered with an expensive deal, which pushes the iPhone price up having a limiting effect on units shipped.

Now Apple will see that there's a bigger market for iPhones than is being exploited by O2 so they'll be happy to open the market up and see an increase in units shipped and thus bigger profits (which they are bound by law to maximise)

2) Mobile data rates. Data deals really need looking at by the OfT. There's too much of this "unlimited" rubbish that is no where near unlimited as the mobile phone (and broadband) co's don't have anything like enough bandwidth. It's just been a race to the bottom. What we need is honest pricing. The best way to achieve that on mobile contracts is to differentiate burst and streaming data.

If they offered deals with no or limited streaming data on the cheap (for web access and lightweight apps) , and more expensive deals with streaming data allowances for peeps wanting to stream film and music you'd see much better use of the current limited bandwidth. You'd also see the well managed mobile co's using the extra money they make to improve their data networks, which should see extra custom as people realise that company A has a great data network with fair pricing, whereas company B is stuck in 1998.
Piracy: Did someone blink? 2:32pm on 15 Jun 2009 It's unlikely that anyone will be monitoring downloads - much more practical is Virgin providing a list of their user assigned IP addresses to an investigator who will then monitor uploads looking out for those IP addresses. They just have to download what you offer for upload, confirm it is protected intellectual property and the job's done. No packet monitoring required.

The beauty of the solution is that it doesn't hit downloaders directly, it limits the number of files being seeded (which is the core of the problem). No files being uploaded = no files to download.

I like the fact that whilst they take away the illegal source of music with one hand, they offer a subscription service in its stead. At least they're learning (slowly). The other advantage from the ISPs perspective is it involves little extra work.

I don't buy the arguments that file sharing is ok because file sharers allegedly purchase more music. They only monitored internet purchases. Who's to say that the non-filesharers don't buy twice as much music as filesharers but from traditional sources?
The culture of copying 1:46pm on 29 May 2009 I'm amused by "the piracy debate". It's basically the capitalism vs communism debate. We know communism can't work in practice (why would you clean drains or work in a mine for the same pay as a pencil pusher?) so long term, piracy can't work.

Piracy relies on other peoples work (both in the artistic sense of the word and the 9 to 5 sense). If you take peoples work and don't pay them for it they get unhappy and don't work anymore (would you keep turning up to work if your employer told you they weren't going to pay you any more?)

If we enjoy films and music, we therefore need to pay the people that create it, otherwise they won't bother - they need to pay the bills and eat just like you and I. How much and how we pay is certainly up for debate, but that we must pay is not.

The answer to the whole sitation is over 20 years old and has been touched upon above already - copyright tariffs. A DVD player costs a tenner, a VHS recorder costs GBP60+. Why? There's a tariff on the VHS as it can record copyrighted material. Just stick a tariff on either PCs or internet connections. Job done. There's a similar system in effect in most shops - they increase the cost of the things they sell to offset their losses through shoplifting.

You can't stop piracy any more than you can magically stop shoplifting - all other things being equal most people will choose to get something cheaper (and what's cheaper than free?) rather than paying more. Charge everyone and if they complain just point out that it's those pesky "unauthorised downloaders" making us all pay extra just like it's the shoplifters making us all pay extra for our Coco Pops. Suddenly piracy ain't so victimless...
First Septic Bank (revisited) 2:08pm on 16 Jan 2009 The best solution would be to pass a law that requires all financial institutions trading in the UK to publish their liabilities. People could then see where the risks were, where they weren't, and thus trade reasonably confidently. The problem is they don't know their liabilities - instruments like CDOs were explicitly designed to hide them.

There is a solution at the housing market level, and it nicely punishes the two parties at fault - the mortgager who took out a debt they did not reasonably believe they could repay, and the morgagee who gave them the money recklessly.

When somebody defaults on a mortgage issued to a bank that has taken Gov handouts the property reverts to the Govs possession. The Gov lend the property to the relevant Local Authoritys housing ALMO who promptly evict the previous owner, put them in empty (i.e. unpopular) Council housing, and allow existing Council tenants with good standing to apply to have the repossessed house as their Council house. The rent goes to the LA. It can be ringfenced for housing or supporting local small businesses.

When the house is sold the amount raised would go to Central Gov. Given that you don't get a Right to Buy for a few years it would give house prices time to recover, increasing Govs chances of making some decent money back.
Vulnerable small firms 1:07pm on 13 Jan 2009 I guess nobody took history at school.

With regards to the armageddon comments from the1beard et al (progress will kill us all) - I remember something about looms and Luddites.... Yes, advanced tech removes basic labour jobs. However the machine needs someone to design, make, fix and maintain it. As has been pointed out here and in other places, Britain can never compete on cost grounds with the Far East etc when it comes to labour costs. We do invention and progress quite well though.

In respect of the "small businesses get screwed by Tesco" comments I would like to put forward a whole new idea called the co-operative! You club together, set your prices, and improve your bargaining power. I heard someone called OPEC might be trying the same thing...

The solutions are there - if you can't be bothered or are you would rather see your business go to the wall than ask for help then so be it.
Nationalising Tories 3:20pm on 09 Jan 2009 "That said, the pre-Christmas hysteria about the meltdown of retailing was overstated (though the shopkeepers have themselves to blame for this hysteria, with their characteristically neurotic seasonal gloom about their prospects)."

Ermmm...I can't decide what word I'm looking for. Irony? Hypocrisy?

In article which includes the phrases "very painful", "truly shocking", "precipitator of our misery", "lethally bad", "chronic" and "more draconian" I find it somewhat amusing that you are able to write such things with a straight face.

If the shops say such things, how do we plebians hear of it? Through the media. Who "spice it up" with the above words to try to get an awar...errr the message across.

I know the Beeb website has a red band along the top, but that's no reason to write like the NotW. Let's stick to facts, and leave the flowery writing to the book writers 'k?

Numbers wise, a good, useful piece, but the doom and gloom filler can go.
Canvas and the connected home 1:59pm on 12 Dec 2008 Re: DougieLawson This is from 2001 - [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] A more recent (and less academic) view from ICANN is available here - http://blog.icann.org/2008/07/circular-dependencies-dns-and-impediments-to-ipv6-adoption/ In 7 years we don;t seem to have gone very far as far as ipv6 is concerned. The reason is very simple - ISPs run on tiny margins. If they were to upgrade their gear to offer widespread ipv6 support they risk losing money. After all, how are they to recoup the expense? If they charge more for ipv6 connectivity then at best, customers stick with ip4, at worst they move to another ISP. Then there are the mass of customers that are happy to stick with what they've got until there is a reason to upgrade. To bring this back to home entertainment networks, no ipv6 = a nightmare for most people trying to set their gear up. Which means little take up. Which means no ipv6. Argh!
Canvas and the connected home 12:23pm on 12 Dec 2008 I think the main problem with this concept has to be connectivity around your house. I know people that struggle to figure out how to connect their Sky box, DVD recorder and tele together correctly. Asking them to set subnet masks, gateway and network addresses is just ridiculous. is everyone going to need an N+ certificate before they can buy one of these new boxes?

What we need is a simpler method of setting up wi-fi that allows people to easily and securely pair devices, preferably with no more than 1-2 button presses.
Kosmix - searching for optimism 5:16pm on 09 Dec 2008 Not my cup of tea. Any search engine that doesn't fit in 1024x768 isn't focusing on its job. From the article it seems that it's main selling point is that if you search for one thing it also brings up links to information it thinks you might also like. In other words, it gives you links to stuff you never searched for. Since when was that a good thing?

Frankly Googles model is going to be extremely hard to beat. The page is simple, uncluttered, fast to load and execute your search, and it returns decent results. I admit that it works best with a well engineered search query, so the only real improvement I can think of is some conversion between "granny speak" and a proper search query to improve Googles chances of finding what you actually want. The advantage of that kind of business is Google may actually pay for your know how.

How they got $20 mil I'll never know. Must be based purely on the lads name rather than any strength in the business model.

Give us proper media searching (e.g. "picture of Dallas skyline at night" bringing up appropriate images based on their content rather than keywords attached to them), give us searching in foreign language sites (e.g. I seach for "dalmations inherited diseases" and it brings up not only appropriate English language sites but translated French sites about the issue too), give us searching by website class (e.g. specify that your search results should only be returned from media sites, or from consumer advice sites etc) but gluing together a few queries and returning their results in a page littered with trash isn't what people need right now. Ok, it's not what I need right now.

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