Posts by Sebastian A

Powertoys

Isn't powertoys more of a "Here's what Microsoft is too stubborn to include but we all want" package? Surely letting them design it by committee is going to result in missing features because MS is notoriously stubborn about listening to feedback.

I especially like how any user that actually reads the privacy statement is lead to believe the admin has explicitly chosen to lock them out of changing them, instead of the admin not having configured this setting.

Decades of "not configured" meaning "user selectable" out the window.

Since Firefox and Palemoon have recently removed the option to allow or block cookies on a per-site basis, I've had to switch to cookie-handling addons, and most of my browsing these days is done in private windows, with only my core trusted sites allowed in a normal window. Close the window, and the cookies are gone.

Don't sites realise the more draconian their policies get, the greater the inevitable backlash will be?

He exit-scammed all the way off the mortal plane!

Interesting. I got an email from houzz about data loss but I've never used them so I deleted it thinking it was a phishing attack.

Did they buy up something else earlier on which may have given them my data?

"I'm convinced that rewarding sites that deliver positive experiences is the path forward,"

I'm sorry, but I'll never see it. Because I browse with an adblocker. The web may slowly, a bit at a time, improve so everyone has the experience someone with an adblocker already has. The only problem I ever run into is a message that says "Disable your adblocker to access this content" which makes me evaluate "Do I wanna read that page if it has ads?" and invariably, that answer is "Nah."

Are companies/developers/platforms not simply going to say "Sorry, complying with these rules in order to access a market as small as Australia is not worth compromising our ability to do business with 7½ Billion other people. We decline your demands for access and will make our product unavailable in your region."?

Typical behaviour really.

Do as we say, not as we do. And nothing (of consequence) is going to happen.

Are there any people in the NSA who've had the epiphany "Wait, are we the bad guys?!?" yet?

Few people will turn it off, but I bet just as few actually bother updating the firmware on their router.

We're all just lining up for this.

Right? Aren't we?

Bueller.

Bueller.

Bueller.

Thank you for posting both sides of the story. Far too often these days a media outlet will pick up a tale of woe and try to whip up some outrage. Then, the next day, it's forgotten about and they've moved on to something else, never giving the accused company a chance to present their side.

I won't make any assumptions as to what actually happened, I'll wait for the court case to be settled.

I'm amazed that sending this crap is still actually profitable. Why are people STILL purchasing spammed products and services? You have to know you're dealing with disreputable people, you must realise that the chances of getting what you paid for are low if they're not flat-out zero. Why does this business model continue to work despite more and more people being brought up with the internet and supposedly being tech-savvy?

X blames Y, Y blames X, and the customer gets shafted.

Wow, a Cannon Fodder reference. I'm showing my age here (and so is Iain).

I've been disabling uPnP on the router for years, as I imagine many technically-minded folks do. But the millions of home users are left with no idea of the risks. :/

I'm almost certain that any VR or AR developed by Microsoft will be stealth-patched to include advertising on any available space. They've demonstrated with Windows 10 that they have zero respect for privacy so there's no chance in hell I'd ever let them augment *my* reality thankyouverymuch.

So that's a "yes, they will." then.

If there was one thing Apple could claim it was quality over everything (including price competitiveness). I guess a 100% markup on each device wasn't enough and they've decided that surely the consumer won't notice a few compromises here and there.

I'm assuming they were intentionally scalped? Perhaps a little too aggressive though, heck one of them lost his eyeballs.

Do consumers have any rights left in America other than the right to consume?

It should just headquarter itself in the USA.

Sure, it might pay a few actual dollars in tax, but at least these behaviours are praised as virtues there, being a shining example of capitalism and how "the market" sorts out everything if it's just left to regulate itself.

I guess it's worth a shot

Making every potential target financially non-viable to engage with can't be any worse than trying to educate people not to respond to spam. There's a constant flood of new idiots jumping online just waiting to be approached by a saviour proffering gigantic genitalia and a Google paycheck of $9,000 per week.

one of his clients had already seen dodgy activity on their credit card which had been attributed to the attack

"Look honey, that transaction from hotandhornypodiatrists.com must be because my Yahoo account got hacked. There can be no other explanation."

Isn't trying to lock people in via SA just as likely to give them the push they needed to jump ship?

If I'm weighing up options, adding some ridiculous contract term to one of them makes me far more likely to lean the other way.

I have serious doubts about Google honouring any incognito or privacy settings at this stage.

Hands up anyone who's surprised. Nobody? Gee I wonder why that is.

Ask a politician to craft a law to fix an accounting loophole and I'd be surprised if you get anything more effective than a "please don't do that".

Surely any business that gets caught storing passwords in plain text deserves to be shut down no questions asked. How can this still be happening?