Posts by Andy Non 1422 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Jul 2014
A counter argument would be that as Google's search results turn into an open sewer, folks may be less inclined to use Google search and hence will be clicking on fewer ads, generating lower revenue for Google. When sites become too enshitified folks tend to start avoiding them, rather like X/Twitter. Facebook also has a credibility problem with all the shite in the feeds. (I quit both X and facebook due to all the crap)
I guess you aren't being serious based on your icon. Click fraud is a big issue, so a button on browsers is just fodder for more click fraud. Many years ago didn't something like what you suggest actually get tried out? Web of trust or something?
In the end I can see search engines being so bogged down with spam and scams they will become unusable, just like many of the public USENET forums of old.
I'll just add that they didn't clone the hash code for my software... they gave it a new one to match their "offering"! I suspect most folks don't check hash codes anyway, and those that do also need to be sharp enough to see that they are not on a legitimate website in the first place, despite being sent there by Google. I'm guessing that the cloned site used SEO techniques to push the ranking of their site high in Google search.
In the end my reputation took a hit as folks kept going to the cloned site. As the software was more a labour of love rather than serious income, I quit and stopped selling it, pulling it from my site. I noticed the clone/scam site was still up and offering malware versions for years afterwards.
A decade ago I was selling some French language / translation software via my website which I'd developed. One day I stumbled across a review saying it had malware in it, which it did not. After a little digging around I found a site (based in China as I recall) that had cloned my website and put their own installation wrapper around my software installer but given it the same name as mine. After the dodgy wrapper installed the malware it went on to run my software's installer. More alarmingly the dodgy cloned site was appearing high in Google's search results for anyone looking for my software. I found it impossible at the time to resolve the issue with Google.
I thought Cybermen had human brains as the only remaining vestige of human bodies? Hence the emotion and pain dampening gadget on their front. There was an episode or two around humans being herded into Battersea power station to have their heads chopped and brains inserted into the mechanical bodies.
an "infinite loop" I inadvertently created decades ago with an email auto-responder. My code replied to an incoming email with an "out of office" message, which bounced back again from the original sender as undeliverable (or they were out of office too, can't remember now), which generated another "out of office" reply from my end... several thousand loops later... oops.
I was somewhat surprised with the last hotel I stayed in to find my room door wide open upon my return; along with every other room door on the same floor, as the cleaning team were doing their thing. I could have gone in any of the rooms on the floor unhindered. Not very reassuring, especially as I'd left my laptop in my room.
Thank you for your unbiased review into Smark Jelly. I've just subscribed to a lifelong supply which gave me an incredible 30% off the normal price. I've opted for the crunchy version which has organic live beetles in the jelly. I'm so looking forward to trying this on toast. Thanks again for your recommendation.
I'd just got off a ferry and was famished. McD was handy and I wondered if, after my experience two decades earlier, they had relented in their strange menu restrictions. Turned out not.
The earlier visit to McD's was etched in my memory as the guy behind the counter, presumably the franchise owner, got quite angry when I said, "No problem, I'll get one from the burger van twenty yards away in the market." He was livid that someone else dared to sell burgers within proximity to his outlet.
"it relies on every country agreeing and implementing an effective ban."
No it doesn't. If county X bans paying ransoms then the scammers will quickly get the message and just concentrate on countries Y and Z. They aren't going to waste their time and effort in a country where they won't be paid. Other countries would be likely to follow the example if successful. As someone else mentioned, paying a ransom in country X should mean the CEO of that company goes to jail. It would be very difficult for larger companies especially to hide payments to scammers without also fiddling their accounts too, opening them up to an even bigger can of worms if their accounts are audited.
I had a similar experience recently at my doctor's surgery. I had to go in for an ECG. A nurse appeared in the waiting room, there were only two or three people there, she made eye contact with me and queried "Andy?" I followed her into a room and she was about to take a blood sample when I pointed out I was there for an ECG. She just said "OK, I'll go find the machine". A minute later a different nurse came in followed by another patient who was wondering why his nurse had attached heart sensing cables all over his chest. I said to him "Is your name Andy as well?". Yep, he was only in for a blood test.
Another data catastrophe that occurs now and then all over the world is if someone is accidentally or maliciously declared dead and the automatic data updates that follow... closure of bank accounts, cancellation of pension, benefits, credit rating, driver's licence, passport etc. Most organisations lack facilities or procedures to make someone "undead" causing considerable suffering to those affected while the bureaucrats just keep repeating "the computer says No".
I went to Boots opticians for an eye test, having not used them for a number of years. Surprisingly they found my record on their computer system from only a couple of years earlier. I was somewhat baffled, but the optician proceeded to test my sight based on "my" previous visit. I couldn't even read the first big letter at the top of the chart. I said there must be a mistake somewhere. He checked my address on their system and it was my address, but from somewhere I'd lived twenty years earlier, my ancient phone number and my date of birth but not the same medications, medical history or eye test results. The optician was convinced there must be someone living there now with the same name and DOB as me, which I thought highly unlikely. It seemed blindingly obvious to me that Boots had somehow merged two patient records into one. Not used Boots opticians since, wasn't impressed with their service either.
"But what will come after that ?"
A) Quantum powered AI blockchains.
Re the article, I was just thinking the other day that if someone does jump onto the AI bandwagon, they are sure to regret whatever hardware they buy as it will be obsolete when the latest greatest chip based AI comes out weeks/months later.
Lack of signage sent me on a merry route more than once: Leaving a holiday camp near St Ives Cornwall, I followed the road signs which were great until they took me to a T junction. No signs, had to guess turn left or turn right. Took the wrong one and ended up near Land's End instead of heading North.
I've had issues with my TomTom on occasion despite the maps being fully up to date. It managed to get me stuck in a busses-only bus station in Beeston, Notts much to the chagrin of the bus drivers. On other occasions it has tried to send me the wrong way down one-way streets. Tried a Garmin one time and it completely lost the plot and tried to send me down a narrow dead-end side street instead of my programmed destination ten miles away. Sometimes the route these devices give is too creative for their own good, instead of leaving you on fast moving dual-carriageways they can send you down narrow twisting country roads, covered in mud, following farm tractors for miles on end and dodging nutters driving too fast from the opposite direction.
"Japan".
If memory serves, Fukushima had backup diesel generators to keep the cooling system going in the event of mains failure, however, the tsunami also knocked out the generators leaving only the battery backups, which only had one hour's worth of power stored in them. One hour later... the rest is history. Must be a lesson or two there somewhere.
Unfortunately that won't work as Google say they will verify the number given either by sending a text message code to it, or in the case of a land line, a spoken code. I'm not overly concerned, I never trusted Google enough to use gmail for anything serious. They burned me with that once before a number of years ago after I set up POP3 on my then Gmail account and they suspended it shortly afterwards claiming it had "unusual activity". Any "free" service can be rescinded at any time, so can't be relied on.
I've been caught out with that. Bought an electrical item through Amazon marketplace that failed after a couple of months. The third party vendor more or less said tough luck as it was outside the 30 day return period. I complained to Amazon and they totally ignored me. Since then I make a point of buying such items from the high-street. Amazon have already lost out on a couple of grands worth of purchases. My relationship with Amazon has really soured over the last few months.
have ceased to be my go-to company for buying stuff. To use the new word, I'm sick of the "enshitification" of their service. Constantly shoving the suggestion of a Prime subscription in my face at each and every opportunity, to giving poor search results and poor customer service if you need to return anything, especially from a third party vendor. They ignore the UK's 12 month warranty laws and just won't respond to complaints. So feck you Amazon, I've gone back to buying stuff from the high-street, at least I can take things back if faulty and not be ignored.
"Enshitification" of the tech sector really has become a thing. I'd had a Google account for a number of years but only used the gmail account for non-important stuff and remembering my music taste on YouTube, but now they refuse to let me log in unless I give them my phone number, claiming it is for my own benefit for security purposes, bollocks, it is so you can associate more of my online activity to the profile you hold for me. Tough luck, you're not having my phone number, so my Google account will be left to rot.
Facebook can't tell the difference between legitimate posts and spam. So I got loads of shit in my feed for crap like crypto currency traders, investment scams, relationship scams, and magic incantations and spells to bewitch a lover, yet some of my own normal, group specific posts were rejected by their bots for reasons unknown. I gave up and deleted my Facebook account in the end.
As for X/Twitter, that is just an open sewer of shit from top to bottom, though I'm sure the leadership will find even more ways to increase the shit content.
As has often been said, a hacker only needs to be successful once in gaining access to your network, but a security pro needs to be successful all of the time in stopping such intrusions. It would be too much stress for me, especially if management were complacent and tied my hands with inadequate resources to defend the organisation with.
I never use my landline but it is TPS registered. I tell them I am interested in their home improvement proposal and arrange for them to visit a non-existent house number on my road. Can lead to interesting follow up calls from them on my answering machine, as they demonstrate a fluency with profane language.
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