Posts by VinceH

"because hashland would sound silly."

Not really - it sounds like an ideal name for the go to shop for a certain recreational substance.

"I think some of these are easter eggs put in by the developers."

^This. Possibly - and also possibly a buggy lookup related to it.

Also, upon reading this article and the first few comments (16, 17, 18 x dog) I went from one to I don't know how many. The first few just repeated the text to translate. Four dogs became three, and a few beyond that it began appending "reader email". Up in the twenties, it was variously inserting "krist" or "christian" in the translation. Beyond that it became more random, but repeating some of the earlier ones - for example at one point it showed the word dog n times followed by the 16 translation.

So I suspect, as AC said, an Easter egg, whereby the developer(s) responsible have triggered a lookup at certain points, and in some cases it's getting the count wrong, reading a pointer from the wrong place as a result and reading/adding these other words/terms.

Re: IoT

Ah, so you're a waffle man!

Re: Don't be Facebook

"I definitely don't want (to think that) you are serving up what some algorithm *thinks* I'm interested in..."

^This ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this ^this.

OTOH, I use the RSS feed so the layout of the front page is irrelevant to me. :)

Re: Webcam?

"Am I the only one who does this?"

Well, contrary to popular belief, I'm not completely paranoid - I don't do anything to the cameras in my laptops; they're intact, no dismantling, no tape. But that's largely because I almost never use the laptop's screen etc - most of the time I use them plugged into an external monitor/keyboard/mouse, with the lid closed.

The exceptions tend to be in clients' offices or in public - so if there were any questionable videos of me captured on the built-in camera, I would probably have been arrested already.

Note: I have received a scammy "we have a video of you wanking" email, back in May, though it was clearly less targeted and more random (generic address, didn't have the bonus of an old password, etc). I found it very amusing - so here it is for everyone's enjoyment. I particularly liked the euphemism "burp the monkey" and the fact that the scammer(s) apologised for their poor grammar.

Re: Backups and redundancy, FFS

"I did, and then most of the providers dropped MasterCard and converted them into Visa cards"

Why on Earth has someone downvoted that? From my experience, what AC said there is true. I have quite a few cards - they were a mix of different banks and spread between Visa and Mastercard. Now only one is Mastercard. (For example, the one attached to my main personal bank account was originally a Mastercard and was replaced with a Visa when the bank switched.)

Re: interesting

Wuh woh!

Re: Review of the impact of ICO Civil Monetary Penalties - 20140723

"Well, it's a report by the ICO on how effective ICO fines are, so it sounds like it should be relevant. As it turns out... not so much. The impact of penalties was assessed by interviewing a few organisations who had been fined. Amazingly, they all say that they've totally become more proactive in addressing their information rights obligations."

They probably received a discount against the fine for taking part in the survey and giving suitable answers.

Re: The Microsoft Slurpage has to STOP!

"By the logic of 'genie already out, give it up' - we might as well not try to fix any of societies woes and just retreat to our castles if we have them and let civilisation burn - people have looted raped and pillaged for centuries, why fight it? People have pick-pocketed and corps have ripped off consumers and abused their positions of power - we just let them continue?"

Very much this^ - have an upvote.

But also, going back to the post that mentions the genie being already out:

"Do you not think that the reassuringly tasty cookies this very Website serves up, doesn't also invade your pivacy again when you leave it? And, where there such an aurgument that this Site would never pertake in something so loathsome, then what about the next Website your get off to?"

Your browser, perhaps with the help of third party applications, almost certainly offers you controls that can curtail this - mine does. Learn to use those controls, and limit the potential invasion of privacy. The more people who do this, the less data those cookies provide, and the more worthless they become.

But if you take the "the genie is already out" attitude, you may as well drop your trousers and adopt the position ready for the next round.

Re: The people who run Wikipedia

This is news to you?

Re: Dates of birth

"Why some companies think they need your date of birth to sell you mince pies remains a mystery."

Quite - which is why whenever a site/form/whatever asks for my DoB, if I don't think they really need it I give them a false one and add it to the data in my password database in case they ever try to use it as some kind of security bollocks.

(I've tried to make myself ludicrously old a couple of times, but the sites I tried that on wouldn't accept that I could possibly be over five hundred years old.)

Re: I thought of the child(ren)

"A .22 doesn't really have enough stopping power to deal with an intruder."

It appears to have stopped the one this story was about.

Re: disappointed...

"If so they can still email you under the corporate exemption from PECR."

PECR was always stupidly flawed in that respect. I said as much when it came in, and I've continued to say it since.

"GDPR consent doesn't come into play because it's legitimate interests, not consent."

They themselves have made it quite clear that for marketing, they are operating a consent based approach.

Firstly, their Privacy Policy states:

"We may also process your personal data for one or more of the following:

• You have consented to us using your personal data (e.g. for marketing related uses);"

Secondly, they made that clear in the pre-GDPR emails where they said [digs around in the spam folder]...

"Very soon, changes to personal data laws mean you'll have to give us permission to stay in touch with you via email to make sure you don't miss out on our special offers.

Click Here to Opt In"

I mentioned this in my original post, though I summarised it slightly. They asked for consent using an opt-in button, I chose not to opt in, therefore I have not given consent.

"So if it bothers you, click on the unsubscribe link."

I shouldn't have to. I didn't click on the subscribe ("Opt In") link.

"Until you do that you haven't got a legal leg to stand on."

As I also pointed out in my original post, my legal legs are irrelevant, because I have to be careful not to annoy a source of some of my income, who use this supplier very regularly.

Re: Ahem

I thought that was XXX

Re: Pedantry

"Seems pretty explicit?"

On first reading 3.6.3 I thought the same - however, now read section 5, then go back to 3.6.3, and you'll pick up on something you may have missed the first time.

Specifically. it describes three ways a BCC field can be used, and you need to look at the second.

In the second case, recipients specified in the "To:" and "Cc:" lines each are sent a copy of the message with the "Bcc:" line removed as above, but the recipients on the "Bcc:" line get a separate copy of the message containing a "Bcc:" line.

I initially interpreted 'a "BCC:" line' to mean one containing just that recipient's address, and didn't register what the next sentence said:

(When there are multiple recipient addresses in the "Bcc:" field, some implementations actually send a separate copy of the message to each recipient with a "Bcc:" containing only the address of that particular recipient.)

Some implementations do what I automatically interpreted the preceding part as meaning - but if it's mentioning that as something that some implementations do, it follows that some systems may allow some BCC'd recipients to see other BCC'd recipients' addresses.

And then the key bit from section 5:

When the second method from section 3.6.3 is used, the blind recipient's address appears in the "Bcc:" field of a separate copy of the message. If the "Bcc:" field sent contains all of the blind addressees, all of the "Bcc:" recipients will be seen by each "Bcc:" recipient.

It's effectively saying this is a bad way to do it - but it prompted me to go back and read the 'second method' again, and pick up what I missed.

Re: Come back Clippy

"Ahem"

There is a very strong temptation to add clippy.js to my own website - if only to make the point: This is why it's a good idea not to have JS enabled by default.

Re: Optional

FTA: "The “IPv6 Launch Day” that happened on June 6, 2012, was a cross between official switch-on by a bunch of US service providers, and promotional exercise.

The fifth anniversary brought Vint Cerf out to grouch that the v6 rollout is still too slow, but others wanted to Look on the Bright Side of Life™."

Re: Dennis the Menace and Lord Snooty.

"I'm not sure that Lord Snooty gets many outings these days..."

Isn't he currently the MP for NE Somerset?

Re: Hopefully they will start at the top

"Investigate and fine the big companies first, rather than pick the low hanging fruit of smaller organisations that may not have had the money or even the knowledge to get things sorted in time. The operation of HMRC gives no confidence that this is the way that things will be done."

Your lack of confidence is shared.

Worse, I suspect what we'll see is pretty much more of the same when it comes to the size of fines issued to those who truly deserve it - don't forget the magic words in the amount they can be fined: "Up to".

"It's that simple. The biggest reason for finding compliance a nightmare is because you weren't compliant with data protection but previously knew it wasn't going to cost you anything."

Well, to be fair, there's also just plain old not being fully aware or realising it applies to them. You may or may not wish to label that under the term "ignorance".

Case in point, where I was working today. They've been running around like headless chickens to make sure they're compliant - a bit of a last minute thing because they didn't know. (Technically, they did: I pointed out to them when discussing this today that I told them a very long time ago - problem is, it was me that told them, so it almost certainly went in one ear and out the other.)

Their argument is that there has been no attempt to officially notify anyone that this law is coming - no significant campaign. I couldn't really argue the point; it seems to have been well publicised to me, but that could very easily be down to the channels I read etc, so I don't know if they're right or not.

That aside, they believe it to be nonsense because if there was a breach, they think the only thing that would be stolen is email addresses. (!)

Um.

In my book, "only" email addresses is bad enough - but in this case, depending on exactly what was compromised, those email addresses could come with names, phone numbers, addresses... hell, it could include specific information about the services the customers have received, which in turn could include addresses of third parties again! Why they think it would only be email addresses, I don't know, but I couldn't be bothered to argue: by this point in the conversation I just wanted to do some work. (And I'm a lazy bastard - so that's how exasperated I was!)

Re: I can imagine this happening

While watching that I kept thinking "At the end of the day, that's just an over-elaborate plotter" - and yet I carried on watching it to the end. It's strangely fascinating to watch.

I expect it was just an off the hoof remark.

Re: 3 more days people

I'd forgotten all about Yandex Zen - I found out how to disable (or at least hide) it soon after it appeared. Looking now, I can't see any trace of it anywhere; I note the phone is on Android 7.1.2 so I wonder if WileyFox removed it in that update? If they did, it rules out Yandex Zen because I triggered a very brief change in the apps that show up in my ad preferences on Facebook a couple of weeks ago when experimenting.

But if not - if it's still there and I'm just not seeing it - then that could easily be the real answer.

My actual suspicion was TrueCaller - another piece of absolute crap that appeared in the same update as Yandex Zen, can't be disabled, and replaced a perfectly good contact manager/dialler.

Its privacy policy contains this gem:

"By accepting the TrueCaller Privacy Policy and/or using the Services you consent to the collection, use, sharing and processing of personal information as described herein."

However, since it was foisted on WileyFox owners with no real choice (short of rooting phones and dealing with it that way), there is no option but to consent. Further down, it says:

"When you install and use the Services, TrueCaller will collect personal information from you and any devices you may use in your interaction with our services. This information may include e.g." followed by a list that includes "applications installed on your device".

There is a new privacy policy coming into force on (you guessed it) 25th May - and in the installation and use section, it still says the same.

Under the circumstances, I can only read it as "Since you use a phone on which TrueCaller has been forced on you, TrueCaller will collect..."