windowliker
windowliker on Hacker News
This is definitely not the place for people who want to talk about a Butlerian jihad.
Would you prefer your iPhone still had a proprietary charger cable?
>What's the rational point of existence of Ofcom?
They are supposed to regulate domestic broadcasters and communications companies, and frankly have done a terrible job of it to date, like all the other 'independent' regulators set up after the waves of privatisation which sold off our public utilities (huge conflicts of interest involved when ex-regulators frequently move into board positions in the companies they were previously responsible for keeping in line). This new mandate to police the internet is a recent one for Ofcom which has greatly widened the scope of their remit, and as we all know, authoritarians never complain about being given more power.
The UK already has a very extensive block list which most ISPs already implement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_blocking_in_the_United_Kin...
I don't see the need for extra tooling like DPI when the willingness and methodology to outright block sites at a higher level is already in place. Also bear in mind that the groups who have compiled the most widely implemented block lists are also major sponsors of the bill which this 4chan story refers to, so they have largely gotten what they wanted.
>4chan was already blocked by ISPs and you need to call them to unblock it on your connection.
Correct. UK ISPs already implement a fairly wide-ranging block list (which even includes archive.org) for any subscribers who do not explicitly opt-in to 'adult' content access privileges.
>4chan actually lost its case in the US District Court on 15 September 2026
Correct, but this update is in regards to Ofcom's evidence of 20th October in front of the parliamentary select committee to which they have to report, and at which they conceded that their ability to make legally binding cross-jurisdictional enforcement actions is limited when faced with the laws of another country. The wording she used is in fact very interesting: "If foreign courts decide to try and get in our way, there will be a point at which we have to accept that we won’t be able to recover that money."
>Still, I suppose he needs to show he did something to earn his fees.
They have taken on the case pro bono.
It's the NPRificiation of everything. I had to stop listening to BBC Radio 4 because most documentary programmes have basically just become This American Life with British accents.
A lot of the infrastructure of pirates in the UK is intimately linked to the urban environment of high-rise residential tower blocks, which housed the studios (often in abandoned flats), with the height of the building providing excellent coverage for transmitter aerials which would be mounted on the roof.
The pirates got very advanced over the years, and one of the most important tactics was to separate the studio and the transmitter, using separate tower blocks for each connected via microwave linkup. It got to the point where they would have multiple transmitters available so that if the DTI (UK government body responsible for finding and prosectuing illegal radio transmissions) found the transmitter currently in use, they could then switch quickly to a different one and carry on broadcasting. There would be people monitoring the frequency to check that it hadn't been taken down, and once mobile phones were more common it made it quite easy to quickly abandon a transmitter or studio if necessary. The tactics of the DTI are actually quite fascinating in themselves, involving triangulation and all sorts of interesting gizmos.
If you're interested in learning more, the YouTube channel Ringway Manchester[1] has been documenting the techniques used over the years, and is an excellent channel for info on radio in general, especially with regards to the UK, including some brilliant interviews with the people involved in running the pirates, with stories of the crazy things they got up to in those days. There are also a couple of excellent documentaries from the 90s on the topic, one of which, specifically about Kool FM, is featured on this channel about Jungle & Drum n Bass Documentaries[2] (First Sight Pirate Radio).
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC67TJP9i84zbCi2h1aaSO6Q
[2] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfR5Ng7DuOjRYsVOOtgodPg
Very Kool!
Pirate radio is such an important part of London for me. I used to move around a lot, back and forth between the surrounding counties and London, and every time we hit Streatham High Road I'd whack the car radio on and start scanning around to see what was on the airwaves. Many of my most beloved tunes were first heard on pirates whose name I still don't know. Coming home as the sun was going up and putting the radio on while thinking back over the night before has made a beautiful end to many special nights in my life.
>You can just record a real one and play it back.
A real what?
Phil Rees products were an absolute godsend in the 90s when most hobby and budget studios were still mainly all hardware being recorded to tape of some description. You would often find multiple little red and black boxes doing various conversion and routing jobs. And they all powered straight off the mains without a big heavy internal linear supply, or external wall wart, which was a great help during late nights where the right PSU may have gone walkies.
Isn't it more likely to be saying that the app is running with root privileges?
Got it years ago when Gmail was still in beta. My friend sent me an invite and yes I was actually excited to get invited to use the new 'Google Mail'. 1GB mailbox? Wow cool! How times change. The address is mostly dormant but still required for certain services/accounts so I can't just delete it. Probably better to squat it anyway, all things considered.
Gmail filters are very good. But if someone with the same name as you starts using your e-mail address for everything because they don't understand or care about needing to see the e-mails they receive then there's very little you can do to stop it other than unsubbing from lists they sign up for (where possible).
I've been getting someone else's e-mail traffic for about 5 years now, on two separate Gmail accounts, and while occasionally hilarious, it is somewhat scary to see how much I can know about their lives from the type of e-mails they get. I have replied to inform some of the senders about the situation with the suggestion that they could tell the other person involved to use a new e-mail address, but it is still happening. You'd think that they would need to see some of the important work-related mail they receive yet they are apparently utterly oblivious.
I occasionally also get similar mail to my own domain through a catch-all filter.
It's quite funny how little some people understand about what an e-mail address is, or how it's supposed to be used, even today.
I often forget how browsing the web looks for most people. Can't understand why they put up with it, or do they just think that it's part and parcel of the internet to have every page look like a slot machine from hell?
>I was idly thinking about something else and put an item in my bag without scanning it.
A likely excuse!!
But the cameras on the UK self-checkouts only point at your face. How does that stop anything other than casual opportunistic theft of low value items by inculcating some kind of pre-crime guilt feeling? Professional shoplifters (if that isn't an oxymoron) have much more subtle means to carry out their trade, or not as the case may be, depending on their target, usually carried out long before they reach any kind of till.
Fair enough, sounds like a reasonable compromise, but I still question the entire premise of having these cameras in the first place, especially since they do not film the area where items are being handled. Tallying a loss of stock to a specific person would seem to be really quite difficult to do with only a set of photographs of the faces of everyone who utilised the self-checkouts within a certain period.
Yes, this has been under consideration when thinking just how much raw footage would have to be stored for 4 or more self-checkout cameras for every shop. Probably multiple terabytes per day, per chain, just for London. There is also the classic 'plastic camera with blinking LED' CCTV installation, intended to deter theft in a more lo-fi manner.
As an aside, the artist John Baldessari made an installation in the Tate Modern where you were filmed walking into a room and the image was projected on the wall, but with about a 10 second delay, so that the feedback loop between seeing yourself 'on screen' and being able to influence it was completely broken. It was quite interesting to experience.
Yes, but as I said it is possible to use a separate ID for entry and exit, so unless they were willing to perform a CCTV trawl then your entire journey could not be assessed. The penalty for this kind of anonymity is paying top fare for entry and exit, so only a very rich tube user could bear the cost. The thing that got people to use Oyster in the first place was 'discounted' prices, as in they bumped the price for a paper ticket when Oyster cards were introduced and kept the old prices for Oyster only journeys. Make of that what you will. Paper tickets are still available as of 2026 last time I checked.
There was a similar data trawl when Boris bikes were introduced, and some of the information gleaned from that was quite hilarious but I can't find a link because it was from the old world and now lost in enshitted search.
Do the cameras stop people stealing?
Why would they need to do anything so explicit and crude? Everyone carries a smartphone on them at every waking moment and they chose to do it willingly (though unwitting of the implications for personal privacy). They are also ready to use them for surveillance almost on a hair-trigger impulse these days. Thankfully this works against state services almost as much as it works against the public, as channels like Crimebodge are able to show us. But the point is that the state already knows what these devices represent to them in terms of data collection, and are subtle enough to avoid making this a mandatory situation... For now.
Oyster is still anonymous, in the sense that no details are required to buy a card, and it can be topped up using cash. The cards can be returned or disposed of as necessary. But as you say, it knows your movements at least in so far as your entry and exit point in the system, with a timestamp, though you can use a separate card for each if you don't mind paying the full fare that gets charged when a journey is 'incomplete'. The barriers also still currently accept paper tickets, but for how long will be anyone's guess. I would assume that as Travelcards can be tied to paper National Rail tickets, it will still be some time until that goes away. I see a lot more people using eTickets these days, and trains even have adverts now reminding people to keep their phones charged to be able to show their ticket to inspectors.
I truly detest the self-checkout cameras. When first introduced it felt like such a blatant intrusion, and the way they have a screen to show you what is being captured is an extra humiliation. Nobody asked them to install self-checkout machines, and yet now we seem to be treated as suspect just for using them.
As for your overall point, yes we are utterly over-surveilled, and have been for decades. It will only get worse, in spite of the fact that there is no clear proof it has made Britain any safer. Most people seem oblivious to it. But then again, they have been finessed into carrying a tracking device with them at every waking moment of their day with little care for the implications, all in the name of safety and convenience, so why would it be any surprise. The default stance for most of the public seems to be 'I don't do anything wrong so why would I mind being watched'.
Police have been using it in London for several years, mostly at protests, but also in other 'test' deployments. They are currently required (it seems) to place signage around the catchment area to notify the public that facial recognition is in progress. Private companies may well have been using it for longer in their shops without having to notify anyone. Sainsbury's, for instance, quickly attracted suspicion that they were doing trials of it at certain locations.
Yes, I remember that table with the T800 skull. It was indeed epic.
You are correct, sir. See the link bluedino posted!