Archive for the ‘Rants’ Category
What Does The Digital Economy Bill Mean for You
On Wednesday April 7th 2010 a process that would normally involve several weeks or even months of legislative scrutiny was shoe-horned into a two hour House of Commons debate. A debate largely unattended by the vast majority of MPs. What was the debate about? It was about the proposed new Digital Economy Bill which among [...]
New UK ISP Laws Effectively End Civil Liberties
As of today ISPs in the UK are required by law to monitor and record all internet traffic. This includes the websites you visit and all your email and IM conversations. You know, private stuff.
ISPs are required by law to hand over any and all of this information to the security services, police and most [...]
OMGWTFBBC: This is how “Hackers” Steal Software
Below, I share with you an excerpt from quite possibly one of the funniest things I’ve seen on TV this year. These guys are real hustlers for sure. They certainly know what’s up.
And there was me using BitTorrent and Rapidshare to download installerz, keygenz and serialz. If only i’d known that I could just drag [...]
BBC IPlayer XOR Decryption
As has been widely reported, it is still possible to successfully download the x264 MPEG streams of BBC programmes from the BBC IPlayer service but that they are now XOR “encrypted” in such a way that they will only play on Apple mobile devices.
It’s not really encryption, is it
Long story short, the streams are [...]
XBMC BBC iPlayer Plugin
I’m sure the BBC won’t approve of this but within the last few days an XBMC plugin for the BBC iPlayer has been released for general consumption. Though it’s far from a finished product, it neatly lists and plays the H.264 encoded iPlayer streams designed for the Apple iPhone.
The BBC’s provision of non-DRM MPEG streams [...]
Save The Polaroid. Save The World
On February 8, 2008, Polaroid Corporation announced that it will discontinue production of all instant film. An understandable move in light of the proliferation of cheap digital compact cameras, but as disastrous move for many Polaroid enthusiasts, on anyone who simply wants to instantly create unique and interesting images.
There looks to be roughly enough stock [...]
Kevin Bacon is a Bastard
Do I need to write something to go with this?
BBC iPlayer, The iPhone and Illegal State Aid
No one could have missed the fact that the BBC has launched a new service called iPlayer recently. They stuff it down our throats after every pointless episode of EastEnders.
Most people (normal people) would be surprised however to learn of the ongoing controversy which surrounds the beeb’s most recent squandering of our money.

