Posts by VinceH 3483 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Nov 2009
Quite so - the advertising industry is the parasite that needs to be wiped out.
Advertisers and publishers need to talk directly to each other and come up with a solution that works for both sides of that equation, and which will not annoy or compromise us on the receiving end - and cut out the parasites currently sitting between them.
^ This.
As I've said many a time, I do not use an ad-blocker on my own kit; I use a script blocker, and it has the side effect of blocking post ads - and that's a good thing due to the risk of malvertising.
Simple, static, inlined advertisments not served up with Javascript will appear on my screen - the soft sell that Doc Ock refers to.
Not necessarily. If it was a legit company that approached the bank and offered these 'security services' then maybe - but it's more likely that the offer of security services was a case of "We were able to get into your systems. We have all this data as a result. Pay us to tell you how we did it, and we'll all live happily ever after, and we promise - no, really, we definitely promise - not to do anything nefarious with the data later."
Payment would have been by the same method as now, because they'll have wanted not to be found then as well.
To be fair, this isn't about the customers' security per se*, but only about potentially not providing them with a service, based on what the article says happened with Deutsche Telekom - and why would TalkTalk need to worry about that? They'll undoubtedly have the customer money for each billing period in advance. It will therefore only matter if and when it happens to them, and they have to ensure they'll get the customer money for the next billing period.
* Although technically, it is: If this equipment can be hijacked and crashed, then it can be hijacked to create a way into other devices on the LAN - but just based on the issue reported in the article, it's effectively about being denied a service.
Quite. Given that the real purpose of these schemes is to help the retailer build up a profile on customers, classing Amazon Prime as one is completely nonsensical.
Since their customers have to log-in to purchase, Amazon are able to build those profiles anyway regardless of Prime membership.
I've also noticed a (so far small, but it'll probably grow) trend whereby some places ask at the checkout if you'd like the receipt emailed to you - ostensibly to 'save paper' but really to:
(a) Get an email address for marketing purposes
(b) If you do it once, you'll do it again - and thus they'll be building up a database of your purchasing habits just like they would if you used a loyalty card.
No, I would not like the receipt emailed to me. Print it for me now.
"attackers cannot steal data that is not stored, and cannot use data that is encrypted.”
This is a point that not enough people are considering, as well. Too many things require a log-in for no reason other than to get our information to store for future [marketing] reference, and/or for the benefit of ne'er do wells in the event of a breach.
"Like most people with small businesses, I run my complete accounts and invoicing system in the cloud and it costs me barely £15 a month."
As someone whose 'day job' is in that field, I dispute this. Not that you run your accounts in the cloud, obviously - that "most people with small businesses" do.
I've seen a survey by a cloud accounts provider which basically asked business owners if they used a cloud product (any cloud product, don't show me the cloud product) - worded such that if they used just Dropbox, the correct answer was 'yes' - and most probably do use at least something, so most would have answered yes.
The published results were worded slightly differently, leading people to infer most used cloud-based accounts.
'"their US-supplied system still had the factory default locale."
I think they'd notice if they couldn't enter dates later than the 12th of any month.'
Depends on the 'brains' (and I use that term laughingly) behind the software.
I have the misfortune of having to use some cloud accounts software, developed by a British firm, and (AFAIK) all the customers are in the UK. Its date parsing is quite comprehensive - but it does suffer Overpuddlian Date Syndrome when entering purely numerical dates.
So I can enter 30th April, and that would be recognised without a problem. I can enter 30/4 and it'll recognise that as well. 5th April will also be correctly recognised - but 5/4 becomes 4th May.
Which means that just because it gets it wrong when the first number is 1-12, doesn't mean it won't work for dates where the number is higher than 12.
"> There is a free/pay filter
Not on the Amazon app on my Samsung TV, alas."
I didn't know there was a filter - but you should be able to prevent accidental purchases. I didn't even realise this was an option until I bought a Fire Stick, but you can add a PIN for parental controls, and specify that it's required for purchases. AFAICS, it's not a Fire Stick thing, but an account thing (presumably because of 'smart' TVs and the like)
Log into your Amazon account on a normal computer, and click on "Your Prime Video" from the "Your Account" menu. A nav bar appears under the main Amazon header bar - click "Settings" which is somewhere over to the right on this bar.
Scroll down to parental controls, and set a pin - and underneath that, there is a "Purchase restrictions" option - turn on PIN on Purchase.
Ditto - but I'm slightly annoyed that the Urban Dictionary page for (Reverse) Dutch Steamboat mentions the Sorcerer's Apprentice, but with no link to a page to reveal what that is.
I'm guessing it might involve brooms (or broom handles).
Or buckets.
Or both.
I wonder if Paris knows?
"but what about the rest of the populace who will just want to be able to surf their porn sites without worrying some snooping nosey gubbermint bastard is watching everything they do"
They just need to download their porn now, and keep it on a hard drive stored in a brown paper bag in the cupboard under their stairs.
Or in the hedge, for added security.
"In a paper [PDF] published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers found that by sampling chemicals deposited on mobile phones through regular usage, they could learn about the device owner's health and habits."
No shit, Sherlock - depending on whether or not Sherlock washes his hands properly.
@veti and @codejunky
Ref published material - by which I mean anything that is put online somewhere public by the originator or someone acting on their behalf - I agree.
But the material that is the subject of this article isn't published material, it's the underlying database of people's accounts - their unpublished email addresses, passwords, and so on.
"Never give em your real name...NO NO NO"
Real name? Don't even use your 'real' (or primary) email address!
I'm sure I'm repeating myself, but IMO the approach of using a unique, per company/site/whatever email address is now as much a security* precaution as it was its original purpose of keeping a track on which buggers were playing fast and loose with the rules on trading data and marketing.
* I could add privacy, but in my case looking up the domain is all someone needs to do. However, it wouldn't be difficult to ensure privacy as well.
"The data-mining gold-rush has gone on long enough, and now it's time to rein it in. "
Agreed. I'd say enough is enough, but IMO things have already gone way past the 'enough' stage, and has long since left even 'more than enough' behind.
BrexitDelete means BrexitDelete!
"The £189 "Plus" variant buys you a larger display, 32GB of internal storage, and a 16MP main camera."
Except it does't does it, it gets you 3gb/32gb vs 2gb/16gb and a 16MP camera against a 13MP. Screen size stays the same at 5".
Icon for the review saying that, because it even says the screen size is the same at the start of the review: " There are two models, the Swift 2 at £159 (list) and dual SIM Swift 2+ at £189 (list), both the same size."
That aside, however, I have a WileyFox Storm - the larger of their original models - which I bought when they were first available. I have two regrets:
1. At the time, I wanted a bigger screen than my previous phone (the Samsung Galaxy S3) - and it didn't take long for me to realise that, no, I only thought I wanted a bigger screen. In practice, it's a pain because it doesn't fit in the ideal pockets of any of my jackets. So I want a smaller screen again.
2. The non-replaceable battery. I found the battery life was crap at the start - but somewhere down the line an update improved it - but over time it's gone crap again. I now tend to keep a spare charger in my laptop bag, because on days when I make a lot of use of the phone as a phone I find that without the charger the phone might not last the day.
So I may be in the market for a new phone because of both of these points - but point 2 means I will definitely steer clear of anything with a battery that can't be replaced. Lesson learnt.
Yes, what they really mean is:
"Plus, it says with wide puppy-dog eyes, bundling its other products with the app increases the likelihood that people will use those instead of alternatives, which in turn increases their ability to track every possible thing the users do, and it is that valuable data that means that it can give people everything for free."
True - but it's also a bit limited in terms of the amount of data that can be transmitted.
However, with some improvement, it could be possible to carry quite a bit more data.
Then it could be useful to transmit that data over telephone lines, using the MODulation/DEModulation approach d3vy suggests.
It could also be stored on an external medium - such as audio cassette, for example, which we can load into the device by playing it back. I expect it'll make an awful noise when it carries a lot of data, though, so it'll probably be sensible to connect it using a short lead going from the headphone socket of the cassette deck.
The future looks really cool!
"One thing though I can now appreciate how Hitler and Mussolini were able to win power, are we fated to repeat the same stupidity every 80 years?"
Saw words to this effect elsewhere earlier:
Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it - while those who do study history are doomed to stand by and watch in horror while history is repeated by those who don't.
" the drive could be used to keep satellites aloft indefinitely or even to journey to other planets – if you stacked a lot of them together."
Wouldn't you need to get to the planets first, and then need some very powerful equipment indeed in order to move them around and stack a lot of them together?
I did indeed. Unfortunately, though, with the population of this country being what it is, I can't remember how to spell everybody's name...
Which is why I looked up the spelling of her last name, and completely failed to notice the spelling of her first name. D'oh! Obvious icon is obvious.
"Directors of churn and burn spamming marketing outfits could be personally fined up to £1 million under Government plans, in what the ICO says will prevent liquidation as a means of escaping paying hefty fines."
Ah, so at least someone at El Reg has noticed that, then! I was starting to wonder.
A step in that direction has been taken - it's only a small step (it's directors of dodgy call companies) but it's a step nonetheless.
Last time I mentioned it, I got a downvote - a knee-jerk reaction, I think, from the mention of El Gov and the suggestion of mission creep - but that is what we need: Mission creep to expand the range of company directors who can be fined (instead of the companies) to include those who abuse the data they have on us.
(Also surprised El Reg hasn't covered the subject AFAICS, since they have in the past had articles on the dodgy callers themselves - I'm sure I forwarded them a link to that page on gov.uk.)
"There's obviously a lot of dinosoars on here with too much time on their hands who just don't get it, and trot out the same old same old"
Or: There are a lot of people with years of experience in IT, and who can see the emperor's new clothes for what they really are.
Handy tip - ta. I know bugger all about CRM software, and a client's salesman uses an ancient copy of Sage ACT! which threw a brief wobbly with the Windows 10 anniversary update. I've just glanced at their site and emailed a link to him suggesting he give it a look as a possible alternative.
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