21 comments

  • welder an hour ago

    I wish govt would put a condition on the mobile carriers to fix SS7 vulnerabilities.

  • oytis 30 minutes ago

    For the context - what US, UK and China do?

  • hk__2 an hour ago

    EU, not Europe.

    • embedding-shape an hour ago

      The Register, being British, should probably have gotten this right, but people constantly get this wrong. Even a lot of people living in the union don't even realize the different between EU, Europe, EEA, Schengen and all the other layers, so maybe it's hard to blame "outsiders" from not getting it either.

      I'm guessing maybe the "European Commission" threw them off, because it's an EU entity (basically the executive branch), not "Europe wide" one, which the name kind of implies. But then "EU" also implies "Europe wide" in its name, and people seem to kind of get the difference most of the times.

      • rsynnott an hour ago

        The Register know very well what the EU is. However, in practice, the EU is colloquially referred to as "Europe" in many contexts in the UK.

        The rules the EU establishes will also apply to the EEA, and in practice will almost certainly also be adopted by the UK, which has tended to take its lead from the EU on such matters since Brexit. So, while pedantically these are not rules for Europe, _for practical purposes_ they likely will be.

        • a2800276 11 minutes ago

          Also, most people are aware that "Europe" the continent is unlikely to make such decisions, so it's pretty obvious what's meant by context.

      • NoboruWataya an hour ago

        I think most people realise there is a difference. If nothing else, Brexit made it very clear to those who didn't already know that you can be in this part of the world but not in the EU. But rightly or wrongly, people still use "Europe" as shorthand for "the European Union". It's no different to referring to the US as "America".

        I do think the media should aim to do better so agree that the Register should have used the correct term.

        • jb1991 31 minutes ago

          I find your comparison not so convincing. While there is some common misidentification between the EU and Europe, I’ve never heard anyone in the world refer to “America” in a way that was not for the United States.

          • wongarsu 4 minutes ago

            "In 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered America" is a sentence I've certainly heard before, but he didn't at any point land on any area covered by the United States of America (except maybe Panama)

            That ambiguity disappears if you call it "the Americas", but many places see America as one continent (including Latin America, parts of Europe and the Olympic flag)

          • KAMSPioneer 17 minutes ago

            In my personal experience, people from Latin American countries will sometimes point out that they are American because they come from North or South America.

            Which is, of course, true; however, in English conversation, it's often nothing more than pedantry. In Spanish it makes more sense, since there is a separate demonym for a US person that doesn't co-opt the term "American."

            Outside of Romance language speakers born on the American continents, I agree that everyone seems fine calling US-born persons "Americans" without much confusion nor gnashing of teeth.

          • umanwizard 15 minutes ago

            It is normal in Spanish-speaking countries (and probably others) to consider the entirety of North and South America to be one continent called “America”.

            One of the most famous soccer teams in Mexico is even called “Club América”, obviously this doesn’t refer to the US.

      • mschuster91 6 minutes ago

        And on top of that, when it comes to anything radio, ITU has quite the lot to say as well, and you got the ham radio community / IARU as well.

        Radio, by virtue of physically not caring about borders, is a really really hot mess, with lots of very powerful and very monied interests floating around.

      • umanwizard 17 minutes ago

        You’re right, but this is probably a losing battle. People are probably never going to stop colloquially referring to the political entity that contains most of Europe’s land and population as “Europe”.

        And, being on an island, British people are probably never going to stop thinking of “the continent” as at least a little bit of a different thing from themselves.

    • cromka an hour ago

      As others mentioned, this is British press and Britts tend to colloquially refer to EU as 'Europe'.

    • StopDisinfo910 an hour ago

      It’s called a metonymy and is purposeful.

      Everyone understood that it was the relevant nearly pan-European political entity which was actually designed by the geographical designation.

      • Zironic 42 minutes ago

        It's essentially exactly the same as when people refer to the US as 'America'. While the US does not encompass all of the American continent, there is only one political entity called 'America' so it's not ambigious.

  • mvandermeulen an hour ago

    Thank you Europe?