Posts by Cynical Observer 463 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Dec 2007
In discussions with a parent, the child said the platform had not attempted to verify their age. The parent therefore requested the platform close their child’s account. The platform responded by asking for a legal letter to prove the parent’s status, a costly exercise the parent chose not to pursue.The 14 year old remains able to use their ill-gotten social media account.
From Experience - One of the quickest ways to destroy a social media account is to deliberately set the date of birth to be younger than the permitted age.
In a different role, I had a fleeting interaction with some social media (Been in remission for years :-D ). When the time came to trash said accounts in a way that would be permanent, changing the D.O.B to appear to be 5 years old instantly locked them pending appeal. Appeal required providing copies of state approved identification - and that was never going to happen.
Had the above parent done some parenting and required their offspring to make the D.O.B corrections to their account, while standing over their shoulder, one must imagine that the account would have been suspended immediately
This is not to excuse the social media companies from implementing correct controls - but as to how they achieve that.... That's a whole other comment
... minister Mike Tapp said last month that the government has worked extensively to communicate the changes.
The late great Douglas Adams got this.....
It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Reminds me of one of my more memorable moments in a consulting life long ago....
Estimated time to repair on a directory service that was very badly mangled - 20 hours.... to which the spreadsheet jockey who had somehow managed to end up the role of the client's Directory Services Manager replied with the above title.....
My practice manager who happened to be sitting in on the meeting had to ask me to step outside momentarily - "for the sake of the relationship". The fix was assigned to someone else - and yes - it took c. 20 hours of intensive effort to sort it out.
When I were a lad...1 (It is in fact more than half a lifetime ago.)
My first permanent & pensionable job included the work hours defined as Thirty seven and a half hours per week taking one week with another. 2 What was extra in one week could be balanced out the week after. A couple of hours this week for an external reason could be made up next week.
My then manager took me aside after a couple of months and explained, that if the job didn't broadly fit the hours defined in the contract then one of two things was wrong.
Either the role (including tasks and time) was badly defined.
Or the employee's approach to the role and the work as wrong 3
Figure out which it is and address it
Has stuck with me since - to the extent that when work mobiles became common place I'd power down the phone shortly after getting home. Out of hours was not categorically ruled out - but it is the exception not the rule and it involves a quid pro quo.
1Takes brief diversion for Monty Python sketch....
2Those of a certain age and/or background may recognise the phrase
3Including the possibility that they just didn't have the requisite skills
OK - as you asked. The name in Irish (which indicentally is Gaeilge - not Gaelic) is Éire
That accent on top of the E is called a síneadh fada (or more commonly just a fada) It changes the sound of the vowel, lengthening in.
Eire - that's a completely different word. It means Burden. (And yes, one would have to be a smartarse to reply to this with a post about Ireland being a burden so save it - they're old)
Just in the same way that you would not drop España into sentence written in English, it's poor form to drop Éire into a sentence written in English.
And the Republic of Ireland - That's the football team.
The country is called, in the English language, Ireland. (Section 4 of the Irish Constitution refers.)
It's almost as if they want the uptake with the contact tracing app to fall short of the 60% needed for efficacy.
Almost as if they are baking in a reason for failure from the beginning.
Making choices and announcements that work against adoption of the solution....
From the articles defining the Board....
The European Data Protection Board (the ‘Board’) is hereby established as a body of the Union and shall have legal personality.The Board shall be represented by its Chair.
The Board shall be composed of the head of one supervisory authority of each Member State and of the European Data Protection Supervisor, or their respective representatives.
This is going to be no different to Euratom, Europol etc
If you're not in the EU, you're automatically not in the agencies whose membership is drawn form EU states.
It was claimed that the best view of Suffolk could be had from the top of the Martlesham Tower - because, according to the seasoned veterans, it was the only place in Suffolk where you couldn't see the bloody thing.
There has been no shortage of opinion in the El Reg fora when the EU focused its baleful gaze on the operations of Irish tax law. And that gaze is always provoked in the first instance by a whiff of inequality in the application of tax law. That inequality is adjudged to amount to state aid. So... in Ireland, foreign owned companies used to benefit from a lower level of corporation tax than the indigenous companies. The EU said fix it and lo, they did. The Apple deal was adjudged to be state aid and the EU said collect the taxes, and lo, they must (though they would rather not!)
Similarly, the EU said that the deal that Amazon had with Luxembourg amounted to state aid and that it must be set aside so that the playing field is level.
And now the EU says that a tweak spun into existence by George Osborne is unfair - because domestic UK companies cannot avail themselves of the same benefit that foreign owned companies can.
But hey - this is the big bad EU picking unfairly on the UK...
Because that's a better tagline than pointing out that the UK Gov screwed up.
@vilemeister
So if your car inexplicably fails to install a safety critical update, you get blamed? Because I'll bet that the software vendor will say it works just fine.
Possibly not. One argument used in another jurisdiction to beat escalation in fines due to speeding tickets could work here. There was an issue about proving that the original ticket had been delivered - because they were sent out unrecorded delivery.
Argument ran - "All my other post has been and is delivered satisfactorily, the ticket cannot have been sent correctly as it was not received." Judgement was that the ticket was not correctly served in accordance with the law and case was thrown out.
Software vendor/car manufacture could/should be required to prove that the recipient car has successfully installed the patch - checksum or some such calculated from the patch and the VIN might be a start.
Had similar thought - on slightly different timelines. Patch released at (for argument's sake) 12 noon. Accident at 2pm. Is that negligent? Or is it a reasonable delay?
If it's the second, what constitutes a "Reasonable Delay?" What if I don't update for 1 day? 2 days? Where exactly is the threshold?
Do autonomous cars come with a data tariff and 3g connection? What if I'm in the Scottish Highlands or the Welsh Hills where coverage is poor?
This has shades of being as poorly drafted as the Government's psychoactive substances abuse bill.*
A recent prosecution for using nitrous oxide was thrown out as it has a legitimate medical use. The accused wasn't using if for that purpose but case dismissed nonetheless.
@ James 51
No training in case they get poached and people get treated as interchangable.
In another life, I was a software trainer (most enjoyable job ever) and your point came up one day in class. This was the first course one of the delegates had been sent on for years - for the very reason that his boss was afraid that the staff would get trained and leave.
Quick as a flesh, one of the other delegates responded
"Go back and ask him, how bad might it be if they don't train you and you stay?"
No. Not really. Take for example Dyson and JCB. You voted out because they recommend it? But Dyson has offshored how many jobs? His faith in the country is that robust?
JCB lost court cases in Europe - are we really to believe that this didn't colour their opinion?
Some of your reasons would seem to stem from personal dislike of individuals. But people come and people go. Jean Claude will be gone in a few months.
Security - how does diminished cooperation improve security?
And trade - Oz has said its first priority is a deal with the EU because of the market size.
I appreciate it's a big ask but please, more than just a list of words, why did you make the choice you made?
@ Uberseehandel
The EU is the largest trading bloc in the world. Placing a data centre on its periphery in an isolated nation with poor infrastructure and an under-educated workforce only makes sense if the sweetheart deal lasts.
To answer this in Irish - What complete and utter shite!
Under-educated? Time was the only thing Ireland had to export was graduates - and even today, its education system punches way above the country's weight.
By dint of being a good European nation, Ireland has benefited with structural funding which has seen extensive improvements to the major arterial roads. And, as been pointed out, once this is up and running, infrastructure is largely immaterial. The irony is that Ireland, especially if is "accepts" the Apple windfall, is about to tip over and become a net EU contributor rather than a beneficiary .
As others have schooled you on the error of your post, probably best that you just let this one go.
How many will be suitable for unemployed local youngsters? How many will go to highly skilled incomers, who move to the area, buy a house (and inflate prices for said local youngsters), and then fail to blend in to the community. Sure, some extra business for the village shop, but at what a price?
Derrydonnel, the site for the data centre, is approximately 20 miles from Galway City, a city with a population of c80,000, a university with 18,000 students, a long record in drawing tech companies to the region - go back to the days of DEC before Compaq swallowed them, Northern Telecom before their woes, Cisco and others.
The other towns in the area are smaller with many of them acting as feeders to Galway but the next largest Tuam has a population of 8000 and is only 15 miles away from the site, Athenry with 4000 is even closer - 5 miles away.
It's more than likely that the population will be able to supply a competent workforce - beyond the extra demand in a local shop.
Like or loathe Apple, at least they didn't shove this into Dublin suburbia as so many things in Ireland seem to.
Brian McDonagh (a landowner in nearby Wicklow)
That's like saying Peterbourough, a town that's near Birmingham.
According to this article from Irish media outlet Fora, it looks like McDonagh had hopes that a data centre would be built on his Wicklow land.
Two locals, Allan Daly and property lawyer Sineád Fitzpactrick, have joined up with Brian McDonagh, a landowner who bought a €22 million site in Wicklow from Ulster Bank in 2007.McDonagh’s idea was to develop the area into “the world’s largest data centre”. It was not to be and he was denied planning permission.
For that reason, it has been suggested that the site Wicklow would make a more suitable location for Apple’s data centre.
The reader is left to draw their own conclusion.
@tin 2
Doubt it.
The App was discontinued by its original authors when they sold it. The new authors never successfully brought the "New Super Revised Improved Version" to market.
The installed version (on my and the other's devices) was installed from an APK and the permissions were subsequently stripped.
To use your words from another post in this thread ...
Also means that nobody thought to put in a billion lines of every-movement code by then so we're good :)
...reaffirms my belief that picking a simple Bluetooth speaker with half decent sound quality was probably the right decision in the long run. Yes it may be limited in functionality compared to the Sonos - but it's a damn sight cheaper and will continue to function quite happily for many years - at least until the Bluetooth specs deviate wildly at some future date.
Symantec was the first to jump, with its CEO Greg Clark telling Reuters this week it will no longer let governments inspect its source code. Clark said: “Saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to let people crack it open and grind all the way through it and see how it all works’” poses an unacceptable risk to customers.
Can't see that sitting sitting well with 45 Orange and Co. With the latest pronouncement by the Deputy AG that "...there has never been a right to absolute privacy", US TLAs are not going to be happy with the loss of any attack vector.
Expect a Twitter rant from The Orange One in the not too distant.
Oooh Popcorn! ------------->
You employ these people at a fairly stiff day rate to discover exactly the kind of shenanigans that this guy is now in the dock for, and it is clear they didn't do their job at all.
Woah there AC! That's a dangerous assertion. If it's clear that they didn't do their job, then it might also be asserted that it's clear that the so called shenanigans have taken place. Conversely, if they did their job, and if they did it correctly then someone in HP badly screwed in structuring the deal.
That's what Mr Hussain is going to be court for - to determine if said shenanigans did take place. But until that happens (assuming that the US courts take the standard "We are the World" approach and insist on proceeding), he has a right to the presumption of innocence.
Fully agree that it wouldn't take a dedicated miscreant very long to retrieve such info but here's the question that follows the suggestion that people should use some other value.....
Who is going to feel happy telling lies to a credit rating agency - knowing that the leeches share info and that getting wrongly flagged with one can make life just that little bit awkward.
The better approach is surely to educate the agencies (and others) so that they stop asking for it in the first place?
Any answers to security questions – such as your mother's maiden name – given to Equifax during an account signup should now be considered compromised, the NCSC warned, and should be changed for other websites, if possible.
About five years ago, we started to see large UK public sector bodies reject things such as Mother's Maiden Name when configuring security questions. As others have pointed out, it's too easily known and some users will simply consider it to be immutable - they will refuse to misrepresent mum's maiden name. Date of Birth falls into the same category.
The silly thing is - this isn't friggin' brain surgery (or rocket science). Ten years ago, at least one UK bank saw the merit in allowing customers to define their own memorable question - it can be as simple as first Car/first pet/first office location/first love. It strictly speaking doesn't actually matter as at the end of the day, it's only a string of alphanumeric characters.
Perhaps it's about time we started to define a list of questions that are best avoided - and point to the Equifax incident as that watershed moment when it was decided that things had to change.
@DJO
Not enough - that's only 56p per message.
If the ICO/HM Gov really want to stamp this out then fines should be in the order of £2 per message sent (text or email makes no difference) and the liability for these fines is transferable to company directors in the event of the company liquidating/going bust. Hound the bastards all the way into personal bankruptcy if necessary.
Except, that's not the case.
I'll admit, I was of a similar opinion, that the only people who locked down FB etc where those who had a close relationship with some hoary old IT bod. However, when I went looking for supporting evidence, it turn out to be not the case.
5 Myths About Teens and Technology Every Parent Should Ignore
The Truth about Teens and Privacy
Apparently, not only do today's youth get the concept of privacy, it is in fact a multilayered, multi faceted part of their on-line existence.
I recall one former work colleagues surprise when he found out that his teen age son had about a dozen FB accounts - all active for very different connections.
This local council paid HOW MUCH for an SD card?!
I don't know - the article doesn't actually say and I couldn't find a link.
I'm sure there's some really juicy numbers in the survey - but please why not actually give at least the equivalent of they spent £#### on an Xgb card.
Bearing in mind that 100% margin is a doubling in cost price, coughing up a 1095 per cent margin on an SD memory card. is 11 times bigger than that. But on what starting price?
Devil's in the detail.
The quote is my comment on last year's version of this story and pretty much stands without needing to be modified. Either a link to the survey or some indication of actual prices paid would provide some much needed context.
Edit: The Link to the Survey (Email Registration Required) IT margins benchmarking study 2017: The avoidable cost to business
Marvellous idea - now if only there were a Universal Service Provision requirement on all the broadband providers as well.
When you have a choice of one path back to the exchange - because there are no competing wires, this might serve to keep the buggers a little more honest in their marketing spiel - but will in reality do feck all to make it go faster.
So while a good start - it gets a Could do Better from me
