Stonehaven home of battered chocolate, not Glasgow

Hi Mike,

In this article you stated: "The city that gave the world chocolate bars in batter has been named as the world's most intelligent community of the year by broadband boffins."

It was not Glasgow that gave the world battered Mars/Snickers/etc but a small fishing town called Stonehaven 15 miles south of Aberdeen.

I refer you to these articles: here and here.

Don't post name/email thanks!

Email is dead, long live spam

Hi Mike,

For obvious reasons, I won't reply directly to McFeelme Johnson; clearly, there's no guarantee it'd get through!

I think the article has some merit, but like many of these doom'n'gloom pieces, it assumes the technology in question exists in a vacuum:

There is a blindingly obvious solution to this spam issue and that is to switch email addresses from 'open to the public' to 'closed by default'. Instead of following the postal system's example, you nail your virtual letterbox shut and treat it like a night-club venue, putting a bouncer in charge of access to it. If your 'From' address and source IP doesn't match those on my bouncer's list, it won't get in.

How, you ask, do I contact my friend using this system? Or rather: how does he contact me, given that his email won't be let in without permission? Simply: you use the same technique night-clubs use and *use another communication system* to make the first contact! (You've heard of them newfangled mobile phones, right? Even Instant Messengers will do for this purpose!) Once contacted, you give each other a key phrase or passcode that the virtual bouncer is told to recognise. If he sees this passcode, he adds the email address and its corresponding IP details to his 'list' and lets any matching emails through in future. The same passcode system can be used to allow multiple email addresses through, since some users may have more than one.

An optional extension is to have third party "directories" that third parties can use to make a 'first contact' with a user by filling in a message on a form. (They don't get to see the email address itself.) This has the advantage of preventing 'harvesting' of email addresses, while still allowing contact to be made -- for instance, by a legitimate business, or a friend or relative who doesn't have access to email, but does have access to the web. Techniques exist to prevent mass form-filling 'robots' -- as Hotmail and Yahoo Mail have proved.

Marketeers love a catchy name, so I'll call this "v-mail", for "vetted mail".

It'll take a bit of effort to switch everyone over to this, but it's perfectly feasible and will work quite happily with the existing e-mail system without breaking any software. The server loads are much reduced, since complex filters are no longer needed; just a simple "your name's not on my list, piss orf!" algorithm will suffice.

Regards
Sean Timarco Baggaley

Broadband price/performance varies wildly in OECD countries

The OECD broadband report on New Zealand contains a notable error - it mentions that local loop unbundling has occurred for New Zealand. This is in fact not the case - the goverments minister for Communications, Paul Swain, decided against it after previously being in favour of unbundling. Asa result we're stuck with the same slow capped speeds. Telecom hopes to have a reasonably priced 512k broadband by 2007 apparently. Wonderful. At that point they'll have faster broadband on easter island.

AJ

Harry Potter meets the Pirates

"Since it is not DVD quality its commercial uses are somewhat limited, but will probably satisfy computer geeks who can't be bothered leaving the house to spend time at the movies alone."

That is a quote from the article “Harry Potter meets the Pirates” by Nick Farrell. I'm sorry that I feel like I must email you about this quote, but I feel like it is totally uncalled for. I spend a lot of time on my computer and I have a job that involves computer skills, and no, I'm not a secretary, I deal with tech support amongst other things. I do download movies, but only after I have spent my hard earned money to view them in the theater. Yes, there are some individuals who download movies and don't pay for them. There are many of us that are not part of that. I may enjoy a movie a great deal and rather than spend another $7.50, I'd like to download it to watch a many times as possible until I have the chance to purchase the DVD.

I have a DVD collection of over 300 movies which is proof that I support both actors and the companies that make them. Just because people download movies does NOT mean that they don't want to leave the house and spend time at the movies alone. Downloading a movie and watching it at home does not mean that someone has no friends to go see a movie with. Maybe these are the smartest people out there because how many movies are really worth seeing in the theater? I wasted my money on Garfield and I will NEVER purchase or download that one because a company just used a great franchise and made a crappy movie. Maybe it's just me, but I do believe that the latest installment of Harry Potter had the biggest drop on the 2nd weekend of the trilogy. I've heard several friends have issues with it while they didn't have problems with the first two. I saw the first two and did enjoy them IN THE THEATER, but I have no intention to see this third one because of all I've heard.

I would appreciate comments like the opening one being removed from any biased articles that your publication makes. All it does is fuel the underground scene. Reading that comment gives me the inclination to download any and everything I can because apparently Nick Farrell doesn't know who really downloads these movies.

Sure there is an inner circle that runs the underground scene, but there's a reason that Kazaa users are getting sued…..because there are so many of them downloading music, movies, and games (and yes I know there are no lawsuits against the last two listed, but I've seen the requests from companies to ban people sharing those kinds of files so they aren't far behind the RIAA). Grow up and don't make stereotypes….that's the last thing we need.

Thomas Farrell IV [No relation, Ed.]

Google goes places others shouldn't

Hello Mike, I am an avid reader of the INQ and really enjoy the hard work you guys put into your stories. I often read security related stories on your site that make me shake my head in bewilderment. So I came across two simple google searches that when executed will yield very interesting results-and LOTS of them! It seems to me that people should be aware of the power of search engines and that their "ostrich's head in the sand" mentality of "if they can't see me they can't hurt me" is not a good security policy. Judging by the access database query, you can derive a lot of useful information on how to compromise people's precious databases...

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=filetype%3Amdb+admin&meta= http://www.google.com/search?q=intitle:%22Index+of%22+web.config

These are just two simple queries...imagine what some kiddy could do if he put down his gameboy/playboys long enough to cause some serious damage!

Anyhow I hope people wake up and smell the coffee or else you could find your ass suddenly punted from your employer for being, quite simply put....dumb!

By the way, I located these google queries on a web site called http://weblogs.asp.net/peter_koen/ so as far as I know he gets the credits for these queries.

Sincerely
Drew F

AMD chip strategy shakes Intel to the core

I just read your article and do not think that Intel is screwed. Here's why. If I remember correctly, their dual core technology will be based on the Pentium-M, a low power (electricity) high IPC chip. Using about 20 watts in a notebook with 2 MB lf L2 cache, I mean while I still do not think that was their target thermal envelope, (I was disappointed when I first read though, but reading more about it, it's pretty good).

Now, adapting that to the dual core part. Their dual core chips are said to use about 45-90 watts. That's reasonable as the Opteron uses 89 watts. Intel has a lot of technology at their disposal. They have HT, SSE3, and that company that is good at making high IPC chips, not to mention about a year to tweak their 64-bit architecture.

If they wanted to and their dual core Pentium-Ms got killed by the AMDs (hard to imagine) they could add HT (They would actually have to lengthen the pipeline a little bit and add more execution units), and if they still got kill ed, tweak the FPU, and add the Rapid Execution Engine.

See, they are not screwed. There is a lot that goes on internally that only the people at Intel know about. While half the time they appear to be in chaos lately, they know exactly what they are doing. Now, on to AMD. AMD recently released the Prescott survival guide, which included a pair of earplug (so you don't go deaf with the fans) and oven mitt (so you don't burn your hands), a USB fan (to help cool off the Prescott) and jokes mocking Intel about its general lack of 64 bit instructions.

Now, 90 nm AMD chips as of now are going to put out 104 watts of heat so I don't get how they are going to mock Intel, unless they have started production of 90 nm chips and have been tweaking them forever. If you have a dual core 2.4 GHz 90 nm Operton/FX/Athlon64 and each core is putting out 104 watts of heat that is roughly 212. (Cause you have to add some stuff to it. Xbitlabs was talking about dual cores and dual Pentium-Ms running at 2.0 GHz don't put out 40 watts, its more like 45).

Take AMD's latest line, the low power chips. They will work, but still they are not AMD's main line. AND what if they fail? AMD is totally screwed. Intel has been planning dual and multi-core chips for a long time now. They planned a 16 core Itanium 2 core a while back. Now, the EPIC is said to put out a lot of heat, but somehow Intel can manage 16 cores on there with out having it burn itself out.

The Pentium 4 architecture is an excellent archicture. The weaknesses are the pipeline length and the weak FPU, and maybe the inclusive cache structure. Other then that, it is an excellent product, which shows Intel's ability to create a good CPU. They are just good! In addition, it has been said that the Hyper transport and the integrated memory controller of the Athlon64/FX/Opteron boosts performance by 15% (check me on that please). The most likely reason that Intel is not using an integrated memory controller (although they are a company that seems to adapt really easily).

They had the team in Israel developing a low power processor with a built in video and memory controller. That processor was canceled and never saw the light of day. I'm guessing that since Intel was and is able to implement 64 bit extensions so quickly (like 4 months even though they are bad, but as posted on your site, will be excellent eventually...I'm guessing that by next year, it will be excellent), if they see the need to, they will implement the integrated memory controller, and thus get the same performance boost that AMD got.

It would be exciting if Intel did that because right now the Xeon MP is being killed. I'm guessing that it's due to a lack of bandwidth as Intel keeps on adding more and more cache (L3) which speeds up access to the memory. I'm guessing that as the Xeon MP gets more then one core, they will start either changing the type of bus its got (shared bus) or integrate a memory controller.

Chris

Gamers: don't die alone

Dear Mike,

I have been feeling very uneasy after reading the article "Gamers: don't die alone!" The author calls the gamers "Sad-Cases", and makes fun of their seclusion in the gaming world. Albeit, im more a strategy/FPS gamer over MMO, but the principles are still the same. The final insult was the end paragraph: "I have a sneaking suspicion this website was set up by some kind of shady government type, to stop these gamers breeding with the rest of us."

You bring us news on the latest graphics cards, Half-Life2, Doom3 etc, and then go on to complain about how sad us gamers are?

Judging from the author's preaching tone, I doubt they have ever tried the gaming world, yet think they posess the right to diss everyone who has.

A few things:

TheInquirer.net is on the internet, most people that visit it are gamers.

MMO- Massively Multiplayer Online: You play/talk to/develop relations with online with thousands/millions of other players, who exist without skin colour, sex, height, or any other boundry limiting our societys. FYI, just because we do not go out ans spend all our hard earnings getting drunk and making fools of ourselves a couple of nights a week does not mean we are any less "normal".

So, there's a web site whre gamers can get together. This is the virtual equivelent of an online pub, only at a much larger scale. I do not think the author grasps the basic concepts, the idea of online communities, social structures, and relationships that gamers have when playing on-line, yet still, thinks its alright to write an article which will be read all over the world, making fun of us. Did the author not learn to be tolerant of other cultures? Online gaming is a culture after all.

The article is so out of character in comparrison to the usual amazing you bring us, that it is just plain wrong. I, as many gamers, cannot express in writing how we feel after reading the story as we lack the savvy play with words that you writers posess, though perhaps "Betrayed" would be an appropriate word.

Videl

The eternal Hardware Software Conundrum

"Intel president Paul Otellini said in a call to analysts earlier this year that he did not expect iAMD64 to take off until such applications were widespread."

Just another red herring to allow Intel to avoid admitting they were wrong about 64bit. Honestly, which is likely to come first, 64bit x86 hardware or 64bit x86 software? There's absolutely no point in making 64bit software when there is no hardware to run it on. But if you can make 64bit hardware backwards compatible with 32bit software and platforms, then it's quite obvious that has to come first, if only to seed the market and create an install base for 64bit software. Otellini's comment that they're waiting for OS and apps is as transparent as they come.

Byron

More on AMD and Intel

Great analysis.

However, you made it sound like this is just about 64-bit extensions, which really don't matter until the MS OS. I think you're underestimating AMD's success here.

First they have stolen the architecture away from Intel. If this sticks, it will be one of the biggest blunders in the history of computers. The loss of prestige and repect for Intel is incalculable.

Second, AMD's Hypertransport really seems to be much better than Intel's alternative.

Together with the 64-bit extensions this is a game changer at the medium-high end.

And the applications neede for their target market, enterprise servers, are there now. 64-bit Linux with open source applications, Oracle or DB2 is all you really need. At the same time, by partnering with IBM, AMD appears to have solved their manufacturing problems.

Therefore, AMD now has a complete solution to take share from Intel's Xeon, and from Sun, HP and IBM Unix soltutions at th 4 & 8 way level. That's a huge step up for AMD.

Intel is on its heels with Xeon and Itanium both 2nd class offerings in their highest margin markets.

This is much more than a border skirmish. AMD is going to be making serious money for a while, which they can use for R&D to keep the pressure on Intel. Intel's not going away, but the string of blunders here suggests a deeper problems with their management. Intel needs to execute perfectly just to catch up quickly enough to prevent the loss becoming permananent.

Douglas T

Intel: Core blimey

Hi Mike,

Intel should realize it has two completely different architectures competing for the same race: P4 and P-M are targeted at the desktop and desktop replacement market. Both cores have significant advantages when looking at different tasks. Low power consumption, highly advanced cache and branch prediction for the P-M and very efficient and fast execution of repetitive operations for the P4 core.

A dual core P4 would be unmanageable with a power consumption of 200W ore more. A dual core P-M would make little sense either. The combination of both architectures in a combined core would add much more value and could be potentially optimized further for the specific job.

Will I get any credits when Intel will pull a multi-technology-core out of it's hat and take over the lead in desktop computing again?

Cheers
Michael Chollet