Posts by GIRZiM

Re: My carefully curated online presence

Wow!

I think you're taking yourself just a little too seriously.

The fact that you had such a knee-jerk reaction to being "told what to do" (without even being told what to do by anyone) is telling. That's not simply putting words in my mouth, but thoughts in my head! Is there any Schizophrenia in your family - is it you?

If you think I'm attempting to set out any rules then you really need to look more closely at your own mentality, not mine. I proffered my opinion on the matter, no more and that should be self-evident - anyone who needs 'IM(H)O' after everything has reading comprehension issues that really aren't anyone else's to cater for or pander to (not even me).

You're right, your opinions don't matter one jot. So why are you here telling me that? I don't GAF whether you like my opinions or not, you don't think they matter, why are you wasting your time in that case? Could it be that, despite your protestations to the contrary, actually, your opinion matters a great deal to you? I think it could. Otherwise, you wouldn't be voicing it. Or rather, you might, but not the way you are doing here and now.

You clearly have something to prove, you're just too cowardly to do so as anything other than an anonymous voice. A propos of which, thanks for the lesson in sucking eggs - I don't know how I've got by all these years not knowing what the purpose of anonymity was!

And do you really think it easier to steal someone's ID in the digital era?

My goodness! Forty years in I.T. and I hadn't once given that any thought myself! Thanks for the heads-up!

No, I don't regard it as a popularity contest; I don't care about popularity, just respect and submit that you'd do well to contemplate the difference - the fact that you have such high self-esteem does not mean that you have any reason to have the same degree of self-respect. The fact that you regard it as, in your own words, a popularity contest, sheds a great deal of light on your own thinking and what kind of person you are; the fact that you hide behind anonymity doesn't mean you don't crave popularity, just that you have some half-arsed idea that you are somehow superior for not having the courage to stand up and be measured for who you are - like I said, even if your screen name is fake, stand up and be counted (otherwise nothing you say is worth anything because, for all anyone knows, in the next post you'll contradict yourself).

Oh, dear, I seem to be caught up in a mentality, do I? Oh, please tell me more, oh, guru ... I'm sorry but I've just pissed myself at that one - would I be right in assuming you are still rather young and on a mission to enlighten us poor, lumpen souls who have yet to attain the peaks of wisdom you have yourself scaled?

My relatives are more than capable of taking me to task for calling them retards, if that's what they so wish to do; they don't need any help from you. But, as it happens, I think you would probably benefit from their help, were they so inclined to offer it to you - you see, unlike you, they don't have reading comprehension issues, can spot a hypothetical a mile off and don't mistake it for a propositional.

Should l I choose to enter into banter with my friends and family by suggesting they'd be retards then they are more than capable of responding in kind and putting me in my place if they feel like it; neither I nor they need your permission to speak to one another in any manner we care to and you can feel as free to mind your own business as you like, provided you keep your mouth shut about anything that is not directed at you personally - and, trust me, neither they nor I are ever going to want to speak to anyone like you unless it's to tell you to go away and stop bothering the adults.

You're entitled to your opinion but first you need to have one. And that requires you to have the least idea what you're talking about. And as everything you have said here is simply a reflection of your reading comprehension deficit, your developmentally arrested need to tell others where they are going wrong and police their language for them, nothing more than the petulant screech of the narcissistically disordered personality, it would be very difficult to find anything based on sufficient fact in amongst all your verbal diarrhoea to actually constitute an opinion.

Your 'opinion', such as it is, isn't wrong, no. It's so far from wrong as to be not even wrong.

You're a gutless, wannabe SJW without even the nerve, never mind the courage, to stand up and be counted - not even behind a fake, but at least consistent, persona. You're self-satisfied, self-congratulatory and don't even possess the saving grace of being witty with it.

You stepped in and insulted me, using my loved ones as your excuse for doing so. How dare you take my family and friends in vain! You are a sanctimonious prig, not worthy of their mention. Nothing else you have said here is of any note; not one iota of it has troubled me, because you have no honour and are, therefore, of no significance. But don;t you dare attempt to pass your dishonourable deeds off in their name or pretend that anything you have said was for anyone's benefit but your own or served any purpose than to pamper your own overinflated ego!

And I won't lose any sleep over you either - you are, after all, nobody.

Re: My carefully curated online presence

> People get their identities stolen when they're alive.

Yes, it's been happening for (probably) longer than either of us has been alive, but it's certainly one of the scourges of the post everything's-connected world.

> It's probably a lot easier to steal them if the owner is not still around to challenge the theft.

It certainly is - I'm a little hazy on the details (it's not something I've ever been involved in myself) but, apparently, the most successful such thefts involve babies that died very soon after birth but not so soon that a birth certificate wasn't produced.

> In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if there is a whole new criminal awareness of how to take advantage of some stranger's death.

No, it's not new: it has, as I said, been going on since long before the advent of computers and (probably) for longer than either of us has been alive.

> Granted, it won't affect you (you're alright, pull up the drawbridge),

Well, if you want to term being dead 'alright' then yes, I suppose so.

> but it may adversely affect your loved ones.

Which is why you should prepare as much as you can before you die - which has been my point all along.

> Assuming you have any, which considering your attitude, is debatable ;)

Oh, come now, surely you can do better than that.

If you're going to cast aspersions upon how attractive a proposition I am as a mate/life-partner, family member or even friend then

1. make it at least witty - a winking smiley does mitigate a little, I suppose, but it's hardly a substitute for an insult that made me laugh myself because it was clever.

2. have the courage to do so with your name attached to it. I haven't once posted anything anonymously here, nor do I anticipate ever doing so either - right, misguided or embarrassingly wrong, I stand up am counted.

Never, ever say or write anything (honest, dishonest or anything in between) that you wouldn’t want the person whose opinion you value the most in all the World to hear read out (or, worse yet, played back) in court/on international television, or see quoted in the international press, turned into an Internet ‘meme’ (you get the idea).

No matter how drunk (or otherwise fucked up) you get, if it doesn’t pass that muster, it’s a bad idea: don’t do it.

So, there's no need for anonymity, is there?

Have some self-respect: even if your screen name is fake, use it; have an identifiable presence when you're here - otherwise you're nobody and you might as well not be here because no-one else can ever form a positive opinion of you and have any respect for you.

Re: My carefully curated online presence

@Doctor Syntax

Having, in the not so distant Past, been through some bereavement situations myself, it's not that I don't appreciate what you're saying and I am truly not trying to be disrespectful, but, unless it was a timing thing and, all else being equal, under normal circumstances you'd have spoken after Christmas as part of being in frequent contact with them, if the only contact you had with them worth speaking of was a Christmas card then really...

Re: Huh?? (Off Topic)

There's at least one person on this site who does that.

I can only imagine that (if they're not a rogue bot) they are thirteen years old and/or have some deep-seated psychoemotional issues that remain unresolved due to arrested development (at around the age of thirteen, I suspect).

Re: My carefully curated online presence

> What about the many people who die suddenly and unexpectedly?

What about them?

This is all an exercise in trying to control the nature of our lives to the benefit of others.

Well, if that's what you want to do then do it: get your finances in order, make a will, assign an executor, keep records up to date, plan as though you were immortal, live as though today were your last day - you don't have to be seventy to do that!

If you don't want to do that then, fine, don't, but you're not in a position to whine about the technicalities of your 'carefully curated online presence' as a result - if you couldn't be bothered to deal with it when you were alive, why should anyone else care about when you're dead?

It's FUD, as though life were something that could (and, therefore, should) be quantifiable and deterministic and, oh, won't somebody think of the grandchildren?

No, you can't be sure you won't get run over by a bus tomorrow. So, what are you going to do about it?

The same as people did before computer technology: everything/something/nothing.

In other news: dog bites man.

Re: I Ate Hitler's Love-grandchild

Magnificent!

You should write that story and submit it!

> Online systems like PayPal should have such a deadman's handle. When it times out then any remaining funds should be automatically transferred back to the user's bank account.

Except that, in the intervening years, they closed the associated bank account and never bothered to update their PayPal account for the sake of £34.27.

Re: My carefully curated online presence

> She then made a reference that was a bombshell. Oops! I didn't know that one - even though I should have guessed from the facts I had already.

Eva Braun secretly had Hitler's love-child without his knowledge and you are its grandchild?

Re: My carefully curated online presence

@Dan 55

The fuss being made about people's 'online presence'? I hate to use the term 'snowflake' (and generally don't) but seriously, in this instance, it's just first world problems for those with nothing better to worry about than what the neighbours will think of their hairdo.

The rest of your points, fine, although see my reply to Neil: this isn't a technology problem but simply the same problem that has always existed and the solution is the same as it has ever been: make sure that the necessary information will be made available to those who need it when the time comes - use a solicitor/lawyer and keep their records up to date.

But as for

> Your family might GAF if accounts are used to steal someone's ID or as part of a Russian retweet campaign in the next elections.

Talk about trying to shoehorn in some pointless prejudice. What next? Nobody had my R.S.P.C.A. account password and the E.U. destroyed some dogs as a result?

Russia has sweet FA to do with any of this but even if it did, if it really wants to steal my ID, it isn't going to wait until I'm dead.

Re: My carefully curated online presence

> the issue of occasional contacts and social groupings whom you would like, perhaps, to be advised of your death.

There is that, yes, but you can always put up an online memorial to the person in question for interested parties to find when researching whatever happened to that person they (in a completely uncharacteristic manner) haven't bothered to call for six months despite having been in regular contact for the last thirty years - and if they weren't in contact with you frequently enough for them to notice that you haven't spoken in six months and make enquiries, just how significant is it that they don't hear of your death anyway?

Besides, what about the people in ye oldene dayes who didn't keep a written contact list either? How did people resolve the issue then?

Or those who hid the key to the chest?

Or didn't mention the combination to the family safe before getting run over by a bus?

Seriously, you'd think this were a whole new class of problem that had suddenly arisen thanks to the advent of technology when it isn't - Malibu Stacey has a new hat and that's all there is to it.

Yes it could, under the right circumstances, be a serious matter if someone can't log into your online account but, no, it's not new, it's just the same old issue of your heirs not having the combination to the safe containing the deeds to the house because you never gave it to them and (sensibly) didn't write it down in a little, black book with entries like "Mistress who will need to know why I'm not paying her rent any more", "Secret gay lovers who might want to attend my funeral", "Blackmailers I'm paying not to mention my paedophile activities to anyone" or "The combination to the safe behind the rather tacky Constable Haywain print in the ugly frame on the back wall of the study on the second floor of the house."

This is all a fuss by people who really have nothing better to do than pick lint out of their navels. The problem here isn't one of technology but of information distribution and the solution is the same as it has ever been: give someone the information required to deal with whatever issues they (not you) might be confronted with upon your demise and the job's a good'un.

If you're worried about them abusing the privilege then keep a list of all your accounts/passwords with a solicitor/lawyer and update it whenever you add/delete/change account details and they can give it to your appointed next of kin upon your death.

But worrying about your 'carefully curated' online presence? Get a job!

Re: Ban Google

> Apart from the Google blobs embedded in the OS.

Yes, but that's like saying "apart from the shared culture of the West".

Sure, compared to somewhere like China, Japan or even Russia, at a pinch, we in the West have shared 'blobs' of culture (wars we've fought amongst ourselves, U.S. Imperialism McDonalds in every town centre, etc.) but beyond that there are an awful lot of significant differences the firmware of English culture is pretty different to that of Spain, even if there is a shared framework of Roman Empire in the background of both.

Likewise, my Motorola is not the same as your Sony and neither of us has access to Bixby.

We have different cameras, different audio subsystems, different interfaces, different bloatware. Our devices may or may not have unlockable bootloaders and, even if they do, there may or may not be an alternative ROM available for them. We may get security updates on a regular basis or we may not. We may have devices by the same OEM but won't both get a piece of Pie when the time comes.

There may be some uniformity thanks to the blobs, but even that is far from uniform.

Re: Count me in!

Yeah, until you discover that it's about as stable as Win95 (first edition) and even when it does work, everything is so slow that by the time you've managed to get a contact record up and call the number, the postcard you sent has already been delivered.

Re: Old Linux ?

> 8MB? Luxury! I remember running Acorn OS on 32K, and counting myself bloody lucky!

Right.

1K ZX81.

But you try and tell that to the young people today!

Re: baud rate

> A spherical one in a vacuum

Oops - wrong answer :-O

Re: Disadvantages everyone—except the actual bad guys

"In other words, while trying to create impossible and useless backdoor policies, you've proven that there are actually no magic technology bullets and that you should have concentrated on proper police work in the first place."

Colour me cynical if you like, but so what?

Are other agencies doing it?

Are they getting a bigger budget than mine as a result?

Right, well, we've got to do it too - can't have those other bastards lording it over everyone with how they've got a bigger budget .

Will the people paying the budget understand why we aren't solving any more crime than before or can we baffle them with bullshit blind them with science (toss some 'hi-tech' sounding buzzwords around, throw in a few 'procedural's, 'transaction's, 'target's and 'acquisition's), scare them with a few bogeymen ('anonymous actors', 'invisible intentions', 'public failure') and get the ignorant, simple-minded stuffed shirts to fund another two-to-five years before we have to talk to anyone again and, if the latter, what's the minimum time-frame to ensure the next people we speak to will be new to the role and just as gullible as the last lot were at the start?

Re: David Ike was right

So this is what a psychotic break must feel like then - except that it's reality that's bent not my mind.

You know that the entire universe has jumped the shark into unknown territory and disappeared down the rabbit hole in the middle when sentences like "David Ike was right" actually make sense.

Re: baud rate

Is that a fully laden tin cup?

Re: "all intensive purposes"

I could be wrong about this but, given the mention of the Veterans' Association/Administration and being a 'prisoner', you can probably safely assume that it was a deliberate play on words based around being hospitalised/incapacitated in some way, rather than a grammatical error.

It does help to stop and apply some reading comprehension before firing V2 grammar-rockets at people.

Re: The Holy Trinity

"Unless you can make it turnkey easy AND bulletproof at the same time (which I bet you can't--security and ease of use tend to be on opposite ends of the scale: see front doors), there WILL be weaknesses that a state (where money isn't always an object) can exploit."

Football matches are pretty loud - you can probably communicate with your criminal compatriots by word of mouth at one of those without too much difficulty, provided you use a (not necessarily too complex) code.

I believe spies/secret agents used to talk to each other F2F in bathrooms with the shower/bath taps running in the days before email/IRC/Facebook.

It may not be bulletproof: I may be wrong but football scarves aren't generally so to the best of my knowledge and it might be a good idea to plan your crimes in countries where the police/locals aren't armed (just in case, you know).

But, unless one (or more) of you is deaf/mute, It's pretty easy - I'd go so far as to say 'turnkey easy' myself.

Re: The Holy Trinity

"If a [sic] these governments cannot do this then what do we have?"

Good question, Vlad.

What were Donny Boy's thoughts on the matter?

Re: The Holy Trinity

"the government wants to apprehend terrorists, paedophiles and organised crime"

Well they certainly don't seem to do anything about disorganised crime, that's for sure - muggings, burglaries, stolen cars, if you're not robbing Rotarians/Masons/local councillors, you can pretty much do what you like in the name of agile/flexible individual enterprise.

As old fashioned as I probably sound

Too right, you do!

What'll you be telling us next, grandad, that you use passwords rather facial recognition on a Facebook login to access everything?

You probably even have a front door with a regular key instead of NFC, because of some nonsense about how you're worried you won't be able to open your door if your phone gets lost/stolen (just call the lock OEM's tech support and they'll open it for you remotely, duh!).

How about contraception? Use that do you? I bet you do - 'cause you haven't got on the GOOP avocado diet to reduce your sperm count the modern way.

What a dinosaur!

Re: Easy solution...

Good point(s).

Of course it probably won't surprise you to learn that I'm pretty larey of mounting filesystems of data that are then wide open so long as they''re mounted.

FDE is great when the drive's unmounted but the drive might as well never have been encrypted in the first place once it's mounted. The same goes for EncFS type solutions (VeraCrypt/whatever).

Mostly I don't worry about it (assume my defences are largely sufficient to deter the casual port-scan and to mitigate a 0-day browser exploit might do by not browsing with elevated privileges) and convenience trumps security for most stuff (FDE will do) but if the data is seriously worth keeping private then I encrypt individual files - they might be compromised whilst I'm working on a copy of them but at least none of the others can be.

Re: Easy solution...

Just wanted to say something along those lines myself.

In fact, if you're sharing your data with DropBox in the first place, never mind EncFS, you should be encrypting your files individually - otherwise, every time you open the EncFS 'vault', as long as it's open, they've got access to the unencrypted datastream traversing their network anyway, so, it's academic what you do.

An iron neck, you say?

Fine, blast it with liquid nitrogen - we'll get the f**kers one way or another, if I have to dedicate the rest of my life to hunting them down with the aid of an extraordinarily attractive young woman who (completely coincidentally) isn't my sister.