Posts by ao7

Spotify tethers future to Facebook

£5

Same here.

First month of paid for Spotify for me. I've gone for the £5/month option, which isn't that much, though it hurts that there's a better quality stream available. I hate ads, it's helped with some morality problems, Fb appears to be completely ignorable (fortunately, as I'm one of the 6bn without an account).

It has made me more interested in alternatives, in case things become more intrusive / compulsory. I like Pandora, but I mostly don't want something similar to what I want, I want what I want and that probably needs paying for.

Hacked Sun site greatly exaggerates Murdoch's death

Sun

Can't see this as positive, at all.

No one else's business what newspaper or news/sport/entertainment/comic I choose to look at. A few dozen people imposing their will on a few million, very unpleasant.

Don't like the state or little groups (not so keen on big groups either) restricting access to media and communication.

EU cloud data can be secretly accessed by US authorities

Verisign: .com .net

The Telegraph reports today ("British website owners targeted by US anti-piracy officials") that a director of a customs enforcement agency "said that all “.com” or “.net” websites were fair game" because if they touch Verisign's space they are subject to US law.

My technical knowledge is sketchy, but isn't this a more sweeping jurisdiction grab than that done by accessing various clouds?

Egypt switches off the internet

network unavailable reason?

How come we don't *know* the answer to this rather than making educated guesses?

Like many people, I was near King's Cross when it was being evacuated and tried using my mobile to tell work I was going to be late, but couldn't.

I think I'd be understanding if the network was overloaded by freakishly high demand or the emergency services took priority, but I'd like to know.

UK passes buck on Europe's cookie law with copy-paste proposal

optional behaviour

Easy enough to have a tick box for "remember me" (persistent cookie for the website) or "know about me" (info shared with advertisers across sites), and an option to leave boxes unticked? That's an optimistic attitude.

For web sites, if there is an option to continue or enhance PII data gathering without penalty, we should expect them to take it. Why wouldn't they choose what they want? All they have to do is declare that it is necessary, or possibly construct the website to make sure it is.

Which begs the question why does the EU bother with this? To have something to point to when trying to gain popularity? To tick the "something must be done box".

IP address-tracing software breached data protection law

interesting but limited analogy

An IP address is not a license to do anything?

No one ever died or lost a limb in an IP accident?

IPs are not a major source of tax revenue?

I think in the USA there exists the concept of "expectation of privacy". Although I don't know if there's a British equivalent, there can't be for license plates on vehicles.

private -> personal

Your post makes more sense if you substitute "personal" for "private".

Incidentally, in London it's increasingly awkward to pay cash for public transport.