Posts by Doctor Syntax 40413 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
One of the metrics customer experience wonks use to measure their success is “first time resolution ratetime to close call”,
And because every customer interaction is an upsell opportunity to piss off the customer even further, customer service folk want their people to know what to suggest to delight you add insult to injury.
FTFY
"Tim Cook will have an easier time dealing at least with questions arising from the Quartz story, "
He'll have a good opportunity to explain that they take care not to let data get away, not even to the FBI - did you make a note of the Mr Congressman, I'll spell it: F B I.
Perhaps it was Apple who edited the report to make sure they got an invite to the party.
"The steps that followed suggest swift escalation to the C-suite, but by the time incident response processes kicked in the data was gone."
This implies that incident response had to be invoked by the C-suite and that the time involved was crucial. In that case there needs to be standing permission for sysadmins to respond immediately. It's an area the relevant regulator will need to check on in deciding what action to take.
"the dirty secret of data analytics, which is that - quite simply - about 60-80% of data is crap. And I mean really crap. Not only useless, but potentially dangerously so.
Ask yourself this question: How many times have *you* lied when submitting responses ? "
Lying to questions only explains user-submitted crapness. It doesn't even get near explaining how crap the typical application is even when genuine transaction data has been collected.
"One place to start is to make opting out just as easy as opting in."
If you're going to have a rant at least make it a properly informed* one. Under GDPR the default position is opt-out and if you opt-in opting-out again has to be equally easy.
* DavCrav has already pointed you to the concept of maximum fines under the law.
"They wont get off so lightly moving forward"
Ahh.... bless... you really really believe that dont you?
If it had been less than the maximum amount (and I'm not sure the maximum amount has ever been applied in the past) you might have had a point. Although the ICO can do no more than what amounts, given FB's scale, to firing a warning shot it is nevertheless a warning shot. If FB has any wit they'll anticipate very big penalties under GDPR. And it'll be no help to them that they've managed to piss off Parliament by the snubbing them so your reflex cynicism might well be misleading you.
"The fine payable, is determined by the ICO, taking many factors in to consideration ... between zero and the upper limit calculated from the company's global turnover."
The fact that the ICO went for the maximum here might be a good indication of how they'll respond to similar factors in the future. It should be a pretty good warning. Whether it'll be heeded remains to be seen but a max fine under GDPR should certainly get board level attention.
"And why aren't there prison sentences as an option for the judge?"
There are but you need to understand the processes at work here.
Although it's commonly referred to as a fine it's a Civil Monetary Penalty (CMP). The key word there is "civil"; the ICO can apply that, it can't apply a fine which would be a criminal matter. Criminal penalties are applied by a court of law and the normal ICO procedure doesn't go to court although it could end up there if the miscreant doesn't pay up.
Like a fine, it's only a court that can hand out prison sentences. Off hand I'm not sure what the process is for the ICO to take a case against the individuals to court in that way but there must be one because the relevant Act has provision for it.
"Give me some clue as to why it's worthwhile to visit an external site and download and read a PDF document of unknown content and length."
To find out what's in it. Or would you prefer to rely on someone you don't know and whose abilities you don't know understanding not only the report but also its significance to your particular situation - which they don't know. The latter doesn't really seem like a good way to keep yourself informed if it's your standard practice.
"It's worth noting that FB have shouldered the maximum possible fine under the existing legislation (£0.5M). GDPR has provision for far greater fines (4% of annual global turnover)."
Yup. Was going to say the same thing. Unlike many comments and the article FB should read this as a warning of what happens next time. We could also end up with the ICO and at least one EU regulator handing out 4% fines. A billion here, a billion there and it soon adds up to real money.
Rural areas should receive full-fibre connections as a priority, said the report, which noted that "long copper lines" cause signal degradation over great distances and "effectively render full fibre as the only viable infrastructure upgrade option for most rural areas".
Let's examine that carefully.
I live in a rural area. There's an FTTC installation in the centre of the village and has been for a few years We're about a couple of miles from the swtich (or exchange if you prefer) and there's and FTTC cabinet at most road junctions where a branch of the POTS network is taken off; say about once every half mile. Once that was installed it was easy to connect any premises that needed faster broadband by simply hooking up their line to that cabinet. We're a few hundred metres from the cabinet and the FTTC speeds are good. Our distance clearly isn't great enough to cause deterioration.
We're one of the last reasonably closely spaced houses, after that it's fields and a few houses every few hundred metres in a network of lanes They probably do have a deteriorating signal. There's underground ducting leading from the village past the house up to a point a few hundred metres further on past the next road junction with a manhole just at the corner of out property and in the last couple of weeks there was a team preparing that ducting to blow fibre in as far as the ducting goes.
I don't know what they propose to do with that but I suppose one option is another FTTC cabinet at that point. Whatever it is they can make provision for the more difficult set of premises out there. It may even be that it's as convenient to connect some of the more remote premises direct by fibre.
But consider what the situation would have been if they'd decided to build out an FTTP network to replace the FTTC. To get to the point where the fibre reaches our house they'd have had to install it in about 80 premises that don't really need it before getting to those that do - they'd probably still be working on it. And if the FTTC had never been used and FTTP had been the approach from the outset I doubt it would have reached our village yet because we'd probably be a few million houses down the list as the network got built out. Not only is full fibre not only not "the only viable infrastructure upgrade" it's a good deal less viable for many purposes than continuing to extend the FTTC and make use of the copper network for individual premises because it will just add to the waiting time to get the benefits of fibre to where they're most needed.
"Ammend the housing act to require Fibre communications (or atleast the ducting for it)"
No need to nationalise it to achieve that, not do you need to amend any Housing Acts. Just add it to building regs. for new build.
Of course if you want to go back to the decades of under-investment that preceded privatisation you could nationalise it to do that.
Well but then only one phone would work, and only if you unplugged it, plugged it directly into the NTBA (which depending on the type of your line your phone may not support) and configured it to work with the "emergency power" mode which not all phones support.
I think we're at cross purposes here. The UPS at the switch (or exchange if that's what you prefer to call it) powers the entire local POTS network. True if you only have cordless the base station will die without a local UPS. But it's simple and easy to have a POTS phone plugged directly into the line as well as the cordless set-up. Provided you don't exceed the REN you can have multiple phones plugged in.
On my road almost every house except mine is cabled overhead although the main distribution is underground and ducted.
But on estates built since, say the '60s like my daughter's the entire telecoms network is buried. Unless the houses have individual ducts into which the cables can be blown there's going to be a choice: dig up every drive and garden, dig a trench into the street at every house at least on one side of the street and reinstate it all properly or tkae the cheap and nasty option of installing a mess of overhead cables.
I wonder which it will be.
There's something to be said for this decentralisation stuff. If I rely on credit cards to finance transactions from a centralised bank they only work if everything in the entire payment chain doesn't have a TITSUP - card network, bank, everything. The possibility of that ideal state of affairs these days seems to be getting more remote. So, my lords, ladies and gentlemen I present my own, novel solution: Compensation Asymmetrically Serverless Hosted.
"Capt May has hit the iceberg but continues to order full steam ahead"
As reality sinks in I think it's slow astern to the only reasonable Brexit; one where we keep just about everything intact in trading terms to minimise damage but, not actually being in the EU, have no say over the rules. It's called taking back control.
I think it was Matthew Parris who said reality will do the heavy lifting.
BoJo was right for once. The compromise was turd polishing but I don't think he'd quite cottoned on to the fact that the turd is Brexit itself.
So you have the option to report to the ICO and look like a good boy or not report and line yourself up for the top tier of fines for not doing so if the ICO disagrees with your risk assessment of the breach. Deciding whether to report or not is also a risk assessment, of course. Does the quality of assessment on whether to report indicate anything about the quality of assessment of the breach?
We have a projector at work which hands out DHCP even though its address is configured manually and the DHCP function shows "off" in all the relevant menus. Panasonic just deny it's possible.
Had the same problem with an extra wireless access point at home. DHCP off but still handing out addresses. No, can't happen according to vendor.
"Is that the collective 'we' of humanity or the ditto scientists who carried out this waste of time."
Complain to HR, manglement or whoever about what almost every office dweller knows and you'll be told you're wrong. They'll tell you that "studies show" you're wrong.
The "studies" are almost certainly going to be unreferreed reports by consultants who'll charge to come out and re-plan your workspace into an open office or office furniture manufacturers who'll sell you the hardware to do that. Having something with the intellectual weight of Proc. Roy. Soc. B behind it should strengthen your arm - unless, of course you're dealing with PHBs who don't know the reputation that journal bears.
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