Posts by Doctor Syntax

Re: Shutting down the wrong server

Best reply would have been "Not everyone" said very meaningfully. After all, someone was.

Re: In-house

That raises two questions.

1. Should it have?

2. What in-house talent does it actually have?

Re: a really stupid way to run a country?

"AWS isn't magically secure against people who don't know what they are doing and do things insecurely."

True. But then this stuff gets marketed to non-IT people who don't know what they're doing so as to bypass the inconvenience of those who do.

It wasn't actually an Oxford comma to which he objected. He probably rather likes them; Oxford = good after all. It was a comma after "and" and, as it happens, I don't see anything wrong with that.

Re: She seems an ideal host for whatever the Home Office inserts in the brain of their so-called...

It wasn't for want of trying on nulabour's part.

Re: Estonia tells you who in government has been looking at your data

"You can formulate a response"

And much good may that do you. However it persuades the little people that ID cards are Good Things I can see why the Estonian PTP had it built that way. There is, of course, the underlying assumption that it actually does work the way the little people have been told it does.

Re: Yep, Patel continues age-old tradition

"I suspect that this is simply a very extensive dossier"

Something like that. The last Home Sec, shortly after being appointed was interviewed in the Times describing being shown an alleged chat room and a child being groomed. This, he said, persuaded him. In other words he described the brainwashing without even realising that that's what was being done to him. He didn't even stop to wonder whether the entire thing was staged. Nor did he stop to ask whether, if this wasn't encrypted why breaking decryption should be necessary. This is the standard of thought that makes a good Home Sec from the HO's PoV.

Re: Estonia tells you who in government has been looking at your data

"If someone in government looks up your data, you can find out who did and for what purpose."

And exactly what can you then do about it?

Re: the golden age for electronic surveillance

And even less to process it into wisdom.

Re: RE: encryption from my PC to its destination PC/server

"At least with a decent Linux kernel you can check your keystrokes aren't watched and build up from there."

You need a decent userland around it. You can start with that kernel but then wrap it in layers of opaque binaries and it doesn't matter what the kernel is.

It's only a change of organ grindermonkey. The tune organ grinder is always the same.

Home Secs are quickly brainwashed by the Home Office into doing what they're told.

Or on the same WiFi access point.

Re: "Cost" of switching

"the domain of their provider as opposed to web email"

They may well be using the web mail of their ISP but I know what you mean.

One reason for moving ISP not listed was the ISP being taken over, perhaps repeatedly with downward steps in customer service and service provision until, as happened to me, it ended up in the hands of an ISP whose name has a couple of Ts in it. At that point I realised it was a good idea to shift the email domain first and, rather than get to depend on a branded email provider*, get my own domain with a registrar who would also provide an email server. That made it easier to move ISP again.It also made it easier to move the domain registrar when they kept having a lot of outages.

So I now have ISP, email domain and MSP independent of each other. In addition it's possible to give different companies their own email address so you can see who leaks (hi there, eBay, hi there PayPal) and temporary addresses for one-offs.

It would have been easier to start off this way but otherwise you only have to bite the bullet of changing email addresses once.

* Actually it's just as well to have a free branded provider as well, even if it's only to provide cover whilst the MSP is being swapped or to give out to people you don't even want to go near your domain addresses.

Re: I was harvested like that.

"FaceSpam spent the next 6 months advertising mattresses to me."

You know why, don't you? Because you let it.

Re: How about the "Web Analyst" business now?

NoScript blocks them. I won't be opening it up so it will continue blocking them.

Re: Truly excellent news

"In nearly every case they will carry on, claiming they are in the right, and will ignore requests from visitors and the ICO until the last minute."

This is behaviour which will result in the biggest fines. It will probably take quite a few big fines, well publicised before boards start to realise the risks presented by the self-narcisists in their marketing departments. Then there'll be the businesses owned by self-narcisists but those will always be with us.

Re: The big problem remains

"Legislation is toothless unless those constrained by it actually care."

Legislation with sufficiently large penalties is far from toothless if those enforcing it care to use them The whole principle of penalties is to make those constrained care whether they want to or not.

"when a customer likes and shares on social media its free marketing for the business."

The implication of this ruling is that it's no longer free. It's potentially very expensive. It will take a while for this to filter through to marketroids given that their standard MO seems designed to put the business at risk post GDPR.

Re: simple solution!

"You shouldn't have to run No Script to protect your privacy."

Agreed but there are good reasons to run it for security purposes. There are folk out there who couldn't care one way or another about your privacy, just your money or the use of your PC for mining.

Re: No f in button?

"Most websites are usable to an extent without Javascript enabled, although the pretty bits might break."

And those that aren't I generally consider useless.

The third problem is not knowing what not to restore if there are some good up-to-date files undamaged.

Re: Well... I was expecting something more

I was expecting a full-on BOFH retribution.