Posts by Doctor Syntax 42407 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
sounds like a complex undertaking done badly for good reasons.
FTFY
I'm not a customer either - I escaped that fate. If I were I'd certainly be agitated.
There's an old saying, "if you fail to plan you plan to fail". What does the present situation tell you about their plans?
"Shame really as the local branch have good long term staff"
It was one of the staff of a local branch when it was part of Lloyds that prompted me to leave Lloyds although the damage had been done when Lloyds closed my preferred local branch. Just as well I did - maybe I'd have been transferred over to TSB when they split.
"No-one explicitly voted for what T. May and her cabinet are doing / proposing in terms of N.I., GFA, ECHR, ECJ, customs union, single market, Euratom etc."
No one voting leave explicitly voted for any particular thing because the only explicit option was staying in. The other was a load of unicorn droppings which would have meant different things to different people.
I'm one of those people that don't see any need to change them at all, unless you're suggesting that the EU won't let "us" use "their" standards?
That's fine for existing standards. What about standards that get made in the next few years? Do we make out own or do we use the EU's? How much would it cost to make our own? If we made products conforming only to our own standards how would we persuade others to accept our exports? Would it be economic for manufacturers to produce two lots of products, one conforming to our own standards and those of the EU? Would that then mean it would be more economic to just accept future EU standards as well as existing ones? What input would we have into the EU's future standards? What was all that about taking back control?
"the remainers rejoice"
No, we don't. We're saying "we told you so" because - well, we did tell you so. That's not the same thing at all.
We didn't rejoice about the result because we could see what would happen. We're not rejoicing now that what we said is starting to become obvious because, frankly. it's nothing to rejoice about: it never was, it isn't now and it isn't going to be.
A bit of mea culpa from the leavers would be appropriate but I don't think it'll happen. At some point it'll transpire that nobody actually voted leave because nobody can be found who'll claim to have done so and the result of the referendum will appear to have been some odd fluke of mathematics so we'll end up going back in. Giving up the pound in favour of the euro will, of course be the price, referendum day anniversary will be celebrated by burning effigies of Farage and the anniversary of leaving day by burning effigies of Gove. Something will have to be thought of the BoJo and the rest of them.
"the plan was to leave the building in which the documents were stored in."
There are other parts of government with other buildings who store documents with similar significance. The GRO, part of the Passport Office and, in turn, also part of the Home Office would have been entirely appropriate. John Reid wasn't wrong.
"Regardless of how, or what, you think of the Home Secretary at that time in 2010 (the British prime minister Theresa May herself), a minister or high-ranking civil servant overseeing the Windrush files should never have had to sign off on any data disposal. Good data administration policy should have been in place and meant it was part of a run-of-the-mill activity done once a month, or maybe once a quarter, without the need for upward reference."
And who signs off on the policy in the first place?
Each class of material needs its own policy. A sensible policy for these records would have been to treat them as being in the same class as BMD material and GRO are still storing everything in that category right back to the start of civil registration on the first of June 1837.
"Watch a video, film or documentary about people from 50 or a 100 years ago. Do you feel connected? Can you understand how they feel?"
Ah, youngsters and their sense of time. Had it been the custom back then a video from 50 years ago could have been our wedding video. And a cousin-in-law's home movies from further back still have the teenage me on them. So when I see photos of similar village events from 100 years ago of course I feel connected to those as well.
"that places the IoT at a dilemma"
OTOH I don't think it places most of us in a dilemma in respect of IoT. We wouldn't trust it with or without encryption. In fact, without makes it easier for the users products to see that it's up to. It's the vendors who need to be trusted and anything that makes it easier for them to hide what they're up to is a good thing. For instance, would anyone have discovered that a smart TV was analysing the user's LAN and reporting back what files it found if the communication had been encrypted.
"But what about foreign businesses with no physical presence in the EU?"
If they want my custom they have to compete with businesses in the EU who are playing by the rules. So either they play too or else they lose out. What GDPR provides is a set of rules respecting the rights of the European customer. Within Europe that provides a level playing field. I can choose vendor A, B or C and be sure I have the same protection for my rights and, depending on their competence, must have more or less similar costs to achieve it. So why on Earth, if I value those rights, would I choose sleazy vendor D who provides an inferior, cheap and nasty product?
"Still waiting for the balkanization of the Internet, where businesses who refuse to play ball and can't be fined by the EU (due to lack of presence) are simply blocked wholesale."
You've overlooked market forces. If as a European resident I want the protection of GDPR and I'm currently registered with such a business I simply move my registration to where my privacy is protected*. The rogue US registrars can either play ball or lose customers.
*I did this a long time ago anyway.
"As either one of these functions is quite complex and requires specialization, it is a very rare person who can reliably pretend to be both"
Pascal, I rarely disagree with you. But in this instance I have to. I found it easier to to mix the two roles. Where I've been DBA for a system with an external vendor and a developer where the roles were split. I found each role more challenging than combining the two. Being DBA for what you develop feeds back into ensuring that what you develop is right and as a developer you understand what the database is doing. As DBA for someone else's code I've had to spend time going through the code to find out what they were doing to crash the engine (why did it become by job to teach someone else's devs what they should know?).
One thing about large banks and building societies is that instead of educating customers to recognise and delete phishing emails they're training them to respond by sending out emails, or having 3rd parties send out emails which is even worse, with lots of links to click.
It's bad enough that this trains customers to be phished but even worse one must assume that whoever send out such emails sees nothing wrong in them, would see nothing wrong in receiving one and would happily click on a link to expose their employer's system to whatever nasty was lurking there. It doesn't matter how good their passwords are if they've just installed a key-logger.
"But don't take the governments word or my word on this, educate yourself with the tools available to examine them for yourself."
But I don't own either so unless I buy them I wouldn't be able to examine them for myself. Have you done so?
"My bank rang me the other day, using what appeared to be an internet phone number, they wanted me to identify myself."
They get very confused when you point out that they rung you and it's up to them to prove who they are and no, telling you half of your post code isn't good enough.
"I get those from UB/RBS. They may be real as it happens the same evening when we have visited the branch. "
I used to get those ostensibly from HSBC when I had a business account with them. I always insisted that as I'd told my bank that I wouldn't take such calls they couldn't be who they said they were and in fact I wasn't either confirming or denying that HSBC was my bank. Always followed up by a letter from HSBC saying they'd really like to sell me some unwanted services discuss things with me.
"You should have tested the systems properly"
I suppose it could be tested by moving accounts over in tranches. Whose accounts should go in the first tranche? How about senior managements'? Second tranche? Senior management of any big consultants and audit firms involved? What - none of them bank with TSB?
"Clearly there is little point complaining as they are not listening so just move to another bank that does listen, where is the problem?"
Finding that other bank that does listen. Most of us are running out of choices.
"Presumably it costs so little for them to keep hounding you, on the off-chance that if you haven't bought it"
That doesn't explain car dealers from whom you've just bought a car keeping spamming texts etc. The people who place these adverts don't seem to be thinking at all, they're just addicted to advertising.
"GDPR means MADNESS."
Not really. It's just another set of rules as to how you do business. You have to comply with accounting rules for instance. If you sell food you have to make sure you're not poisoning people. If you sell electrical equipment you have to make sure you're not electrocuting people.
Basically all GDPR says is that you don't abuse the trust people place in you when they provide data for some purpose. If you were planning to do that then the madness lies with you. If you weren't it's stuff you should really have been doing already.
"I really whish I was not living and working as an IT consultant in Europe."
In that lots of businesses weren't treating personal data properly already you should be pleased to be working as an IT consultant in Europe. It should mean more clients.
