Posts by VinceH

Re: users should never use the same password on multiple sites or services," said Yahoo!

"Users should never use Yahoo for anything serious, says common internet knowledge."

Try telling that to your partner!

"Of course, I'm not cool enough to leave my profile blank and let them wildly guess what I like either. I filled in my profile and chat with friends and acquaintances on there about things that matter to me so they have a little more to go on."

My profile was never blank. The information it contained may not have been entirely honest - which does give them something to go on, because they don't know what is and what isn't true about me - but it was never blank.

And, just as the AC poster says for the gambling ads, I clicked to indicate I wasn't interested in the dating ads.

And that, in itself, is something quite significant for them to go on: Their system didn't need to analyse my comments and profile information to try to determine whether or not I wanted that type of advertisement, it could have instead gone by the fact that I explicitly said "No, I don't want this type of advert" and from that drew the conclusion that, no, I don't want this type of advert.

Re: Squeezed Vacuum

How the hell do you squeeze a vacuum?

Put it in a vice, and make it really, really tight.

Re: How old?

"Am I missing something, or is this an old story? He starting tweeting from N_is_Stolen back in July 2011, maybe even further back than that but my browser stopped there and I got bored of scrolling."

This is just a guess, but perhaps he had more than one account; @N and @something_else, and only ever posted from the latter. Then, when the @N account was extorted from him as described in this article, he renamed @something_else to @N_is_stolen - when that happens, all the previous tweets on that account would show as being from @N_is_stolen.

Re: Ahem!

I thought I have to opt in to opt out of opting in out of opting out?

Is it possible to opt to shake it all about?

Re: So Sad

"and I'm not bothered to come too if you do go."

Quite. It's been one of those places I'd like to visit if I'm ever in the area - but now I'm not so sure I'd be inclined to bother.

They got the idea from the police.

You know how they sometimes offer people free bed and board for the night, along with a free taxi to get there.

Re: Yutu be or not to be....

No boom today.

Boom tomorrow.

There's always a boom tomorrow.

BOOM!

"You would be surprised how many non-tech literate people go to facebook by double clicking the big blue "e" then typing facebook into the search box that opens on their homepage."

For FaecesBook read any website they go to regularly, including their bank or credit card providers website.

Re: Have you spotted any Bing howlers?

"At least you can get the maps in OS format which can be really handy"

Ooh, I hadn't noticed that before - that is indeed handy.

Re: It sounds like...

'But I guess if it's loaded into a lorry, they can tag it with: "in a mobile device."'

They can't. Apple have a patent to use the phrases "on/in/with/using/under/behind/instead of/inside/outside/beside/around/in place of* a mobile device" in patents.

* Delete as appropriate. And I might have missed some.

"Although within the last few years I have had my wife rationalise my Email accounts"

I don't have a wife to rationalise mine (no woman will put up with me for long enough), so I recently did it myself (ooer).

I still have shedloads of addresses in effect (because of the unique address for each site/sign-up/whatever approach), but I've whittled it down to a couple of mailboxes. Day to day, I use just a couple of addresses.

Re: I'm not sure about this

"If I search for information about SUBJECT-X, then I start to see targeted ads about X. This is what happens (if you don't clear cookies etc.) They are saying that if X is personal health related, then my privacy has been violated. The privacy can only have been violated if a person made a decision - 'hey, this man has an interest in X and it's a health thing and lets make a note of who he is by his IP address and other info'."

Quite.

Before reading the article, I wondered if Google had somehow accessed private health information that had been exposed in some way.

But no, the complaint is that what we expect to happen (if you let their cookies reside on your system) happens: ads are targeted based on searches and sites visited, etc.

There is still an argument, sort of - if your use of your computer can be a mixture of private and in front of others, then if you search for something you consider private (health related or not), you may not want to have adverts related to that appear later. However, that's not an argument for slapping Google's wrist - it's an argument for educating users as to how to prevent that happening: Incognito/private browsing mode, and/or sensible cookie management.

Re: Hmm

No, he said never to trust a man who doesn't wear a belt.

Therefore, naked women are perfectly trustworthy.

Always use double-ROT13, just to be sure.

Re: "Dumb Parents"

"Require Password - options are EVERY TIME, or every 15 mins And this applies to any purchases made. Not too had to figure out."

This has changed. Up until 2010/2011-ish, IIRC, all that was required was the device being linked to the iTunes account - and people complained. It was around that time that Apple added the need to enter the iTunes password - and people complained because of this 15 minute window.

I don't know, but strongly suspect, that change didn't include an option to always enter the password, and that came later still.

Certainly, looking at the actual FTC complaint is interesting. That mentions the complaints since March 2011 about the 15 minute window - which ties in with what I remember above.

The bottom of page 4 also points out that if the child 'clears' the pop-up about an in-app purchase outside of the 15 minute window, the password prompt is displayed with no information as to why the password is needed. And if the parent doesn't realise, and enters the password, that's another 15 minute window.

The next page mentions that "In September 2013, on devices running Apple’s latest operating system, Apple reversed the order of the process described in paragraphs 15-17, displaying the Password Prompt before the Charge Popup." - so they must have realised this was an issue by that point. (For all we know, they realised in April 2011, and it took them that long to make the change!)

"The other thing is what John said. an excellent tap to zoom essentially renders desktop ads useless on a mobile device as you see the content and nothing else. Low click through rates means less income for the site and google."

On the other hand, if they effectively make web browsing (and, judging by other comments further up, reading emails and ebooks) difficult, less people are likely to use that function of their phones - which is therefore unlikely to increase click through rates; people won't be clicking on adverts they still won't be seeing. ISTM that Google are throwing the baby out with the bathwater, here.

Re: Judges usually don't like to be played for fools

"All it does is make them look like they don't give a fuck about court orders"

They don't... except when the court finds in their favour.

Re: maybe it's the idiot to ipad ratio..

"What utter rubbish, how exactly do android use their stuff? in their pockets without taking them out?"

See that bit where I said "when it may not be necessary"? Can you guess what that means?

I'm not saying people should leave their devices in their pockets and never use them. That's just silly. If your phone rings then, obviously, you may need to take it out to answer it.

Based on the iDiots I know, though, Apple users have a habit of getting their devices out when they don't need to do so, and I put it down to the same mindset that causes them to refer to their devices as (for example) "my iPhone" instead of just "my phone"; the mindset that says "LOOK AT ME! LOOK WHAT I HAVE!" - and if that mindset then leads to them subsequently thinking "Oh, I no longer have it - the thug who just stole it does!" then it serves them right.

"Perhaps a standard of suitable password options should be enforced because the times i have had to use a weak(er) password as some sites wont allow special chr$. If you want us to use strong password then don't limit those password to letters and numbers only."

Only a week or so ago I encountered a badly designed system that not only put stupid restrictions on passwords, but didn't check the validity of those passwords properly and, in some circumstances, would let the user carry on as though a password had been accepted when in fact it hadn't.

(Also: A massive three choices of security question. Wow.)

Re: Its almost as if Google wants Google+ to fail

"A couple years ago I signed up for Google+, hoping it might be an alternative to Facebook's ever increasing anti-privacy and pro-creepy changes. Probably 10 or 15% of my Facebook friends also did so, or at least that's how many found me or I found when I'd login a couple times a week those first few months. Yeah, throwing my lot in with Google was naive, but I figured it couldn't hurt."

Likewise. I also held the view that Google were providing some useful stuff - the price of which was letting them into a few nooks and crannies, but I could tolerate it.

Then they killed stuff I found genuinely useful, while at the same time increasing the number of nooks and crannies they wanted into, and increasingly far to boot.

Now, Google sees a lot less of me.

"I thought it was already known that it only worked for spherical chickens fired from a vacuum cleaner?"

FIFY!

Re: what to write

"so, suggestions for what to write on these million year disks?"

Lies, and random nonsense.

Re: Nah, Andrew had it right

In that case there's no need to specify the type of shop. Since it was specified, adding the sweet tooth emphasises just how futile the excercise is.

Not dissimilar to exaggerating how badly something is going by adding first "like an elephant on skis" to the statement that it's going downhill fast. And the next time, "like an elephant with a jetpack on skis", then "like an elephant with a jetpack on skis on a vertical incline."

"There's nothing wrong with the dashboard now. We don't need cars with message updates, email and SMS notifications"

Or yet another means for Google/Apple to track our every move.