The Yorkshire Ranter

A cracking post on why there are so many CCTVs, from the Cambridge University Computer Lab’s security research folk. Apparently it’s simply because the government put up a lot of money conditional on doing CCTV with it. The UK public sector historically loves use-it-or-lose-it accounting, despite the fact that it is completely fucking stupid. It’s…

Iranian foreign minister says “The Islamic Republic of Iran demands the immediate withdrawal of British forces from Basra”. Jesus, it’s my Jeff Wode theory of terrorism in action again. “That wouldn’t wash with Jeff. He’d like a bit of pleading. Adds spice to it. In fact, he’d probably tell you what he was going to…

There has been a certain amount of comments spam advertising a variety of sites that claim to sell hotel rooms. It comes in, of course, from a wide range of IPs around the world belonging to insecure PCs. As usual, the best way to deal with most Internet annoyances is the economic way: target the…

So there’s this great big bunker fulla bombs and shells an stuff left behind by ol evil Saddam’s roving ghost just downs the street in Baghdad. What do you think they did? That’s right, call in an airstrike by four (yes, four) F-15Es. Call it faith-based strategy.

Southern Thai rebels download bomb development environment from iraq.com. Apparently the in-thing is putting your IED in a concrete shell shaped like a roadside milepost – not only for camouflage but for containment and flying lumps of concrete. Does that count as glorification?

Kingdaddy’s Arms and Influence is one of the best blogs around. Check out this post on the US military’s problem with management consultant speak (itself essentially IT-speak with the clue taken out). It’s a relief someone else noticed it – for example, when I read Sean Naylor’s Not a Good Day to Die, I was…

Most readers of this weblog will be aware that a political scandal recently occurred in Greece after it emerged that persons unknown had been illegally intercepting the mobile phone calls of a wide range of prominent Greeks, including senior ministers and ex-ministers of the Interior, Defence, Merchant Shipping (a Greek touch), and many civil servants…

Well, as the title suggests, I’m back from the 3GSM World Congress, the monster mobile telecoms shindig held this year in Barcelona. The doctors tell me most of the bullshit should have passed through my system in a few days’ time. Some points: Video-sharing through the IP Multimedia Subsystem, demonstrated at the show, sucks so…

Oh Lord. Apparently Glenn “Instawhatsit” Reynolds has been advocating some fool’s paean to the Madman Theory, that wonderful old idea that you can and should get your way in international politics by deliberately projecting the impression of irrationality. The Crooks have (of course) already made the point that the current US government would have to…

Well, how’s that Operation Firedump thing going? Crap, would be a fair assessment. All it seems to have achieved is getting various bits of the Romanian government to read this blog, starting with the Foreign Ministry, moving on to the Civil Aeronautical Authority, and landing up with the External Information Service – that is, the…