Skip Navigation
Pirated software send information about the fact of piracy to developers, the developers sues. How can this be prevented?
  • You don't need to give the VM network access to download the software if you have a linux host. You can directly mount a virtual box drive from the host, copy the file(s) onto the drive and then unmount it and start the VM as per normal.

    Search for qemu-nbd iirc (network block device) - I have the how to details saved on my host (ie not on me) so ping me if you want them. Note it's a qemu app that works for vbox

  • Major European think-tank urges Western allies to seize Russian sovereign assets to financially support Kyiv’s war effort
  • There's a simple reason the assets haven't been seized, we have a legal system in Western Europe. There needs to be a legal basis for seizure of assets and a legal process that allows the on-payment to Ukraine.

    It is blatantly fair and just that the assets should be handed to Ukraine, but if we don't carefully follow our legal principals principles then courts will unfortunately overturn the attempt.

    It's easy to say "Russia has broken international law" it's a tougher task proving it and working it through the courts then paying those damages to Ukraine. It needs to be done though.

    The only alternative to legal judgement and payment via that judgement is for laws mandating the asset seizure to be passed by the governments of the countries where the assets are held.

    The problem with that route is many constitutions forbid or severely restrict the ability of a government to seize assets.

    Those restrictions are there for a reason, it curbs the ability of nascent dictators (Orban et al) to seize private property on a whim or to punish enemies

    TL;DR freezing assets has a clear and well established precedent which thus has been done. Seizing assets however, while ever we have rule of law is rightly constrained

  • What are you reading/listening to this week? (February 8th, 2023)
  • Back in a hospital bed again so continuing a theme and am now doing tgeb"Witches" sequence. This is:

    "Equal Rites", "Wyrd sisters", " Witches abroad ", " Lords & Ladies", "Maskerade" and "Carpe Jugulum"

    I've just finished Wyrd sisters, I'll do a summary when I've finished the sequence

  • What are you reading/listening to this week? (February 8th, 2023)
  • Having been sick and in and out of hospital for the last month I've churned through a few.

    I've re-read the City Watch sequence from Pratchett's Discworld. Which is "Guards Guards", " Men at arms", "Feet of Clay", " Jingo" , "The fifth elephant" "Night watch", " Thud" and "Snuff"

    I don't think I can say anything more perceptive than a thousand reviews have but it was wonderful watching both the development of the main character (Sam Vimes) and the author himself. There's about 20 years and probably 40-50 books between Guards which was about his 4th book, and Snuff which was released in 2011 while still at his peak and before Alzheimers claimed him.

    His writing style becomes more assured but also more incisive, more cutting, and to some extent his anger at the injustices in our world that he satirises in the discworld domain becomes more forceful, more pointed.

    Sam Vimes progresses through a beautifully relatable growth cycle but remains a deeply flawed real character. Never a perfectly buffed and grommed character he does strive to be the best he can be.

    Highly recommended.

    If you've never read Terry Pratchett he's a satirist and humourist. He uses the device of a fantasy world to reflect the issues of our world back to us in a form that allows him to skewer the hypocrisies and mental double think we allow ourselves. All his books are onions. At the first layer is a light read any teenager can get a giggle out of, but there's always more layers: puns and plays on words, references to "roundworld" (our existence) and philosphical analysis.

  • No SIM? No Problem!
  • Simless phones can make emergency calls because the towers are configured to accept a request for an emergency call to any device that handshakes sufficiently (in Europe and most of Asia anyway, I assume also true of USA because it does work).

    The phone is able to contact the nearest tower and initiate a call because it scans for the nearest towers in the boot process in order to go to the next step (check sim details and connect to configured provider). In the process of determining available towers it provides the IMEI to each of them.

    If you live in a country where you have to provide ID to buy a handset then this definitely isn't anonymous, but even if you are in a country that doesnt, all the manufacturers track where every IMEI is shipped, and sku numbers on POS will easily allow determination of exactly when the device was sold. Even if you paid cash there will be CCTV footage of the purchase.

    TL;DR this will work mostly until you make a mistake against corporate tracking but will absolutely not protect you from three-letter-acronyms and law enforcement.

    Consider your threat model carefully before relying on it

  • EPP group vows to revise combustion engine ban ‘as soon as possible’
  • And there is also an unknown amount you can subtract from that demand which is the massive electric pumps that pump fuel into those ICE cars and between tanks in the petrol stations and from the depots into tankers that will no longer be needed.

  • What are you reading/listening to this week? (January 17th, 2023)
  • It's a great book but Heinlein is generally considered right wing not left I thought ?

    According to wiki while he started off leftish he was quite conservative/libertarian by the time of "moon is a harsh mistress"

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein

    "yet Heinlein became a hero to libertarians: Milton Friedman praised Heinlein's 1966 novel The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, which chronicled an anti-statist rebellion on a lunar colony, as a "wonderful" book and commended Heinlein "

    https://gizmodo.com/how-robert-heinlein-went-from-socialist-to-libertarian-1588357827

    Edit to add

    Having read the gizmodo article again it seems a more complicated shift than a simplistic left youth, right in middle age and for most of his books. Seems to have a complex view point although "starship troopers" is certainly a right wing oriented novel.

    Thanks for triggering further investigation. Interesting

  • InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)TH
    thanksforallthefish @literature.cafe
    Posts 0
    Comments 194