Posts by Doctor Syntax 42420 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jun 2014
"Twitter shouldn't have it so a CS employee can unilaterally delete *anyone's* account under any circumstances. There should be something like a two-step process that requires a supervisor's approval."
Maybe a whole lot of them got together to do it and then blamed someone who was leaving.
"The senior management never learn, or they are in another world. How people with a previous reputation of messing up still keep on getting top positions"
Two possible, and not mutually exclusive, explanations:
1. They move on on the basis of the projected savings of what they did in the last place.
2. People value people who look like themselves so wankers in management appoint more wankers instead of workers.
Generally speaking, law overrides contract terms. If the ICANN contract requires the other party to do something illegal then surely that clause would be unenforceable.
Now let's think about the more complicated aspects: if an EU citizen registers a domain with a non-EU registrar is that registrar obliged to follow EU legislation? If so how does the EU bring the registrar to account if it has no EU residency and how does the registrar discover that citizenship of the registrant?
"Mine did that, and now they're embroiled in a court case to work out if it's legal"
Do you have a link to any reports of this. I'm sure a lot of us would be interested in the outcome.
My local council instituted similar shenanigans a little while ago which included registering vehicles, limits on the size of vehicle that could visit the sites, the size of trailers and removing the rubble and plasterboard skips. Everybody told them it would increase fly tipping and end up costing them more but they went ahead. Oddly enough, fly tipping has increased.
One customer deserved the issue as "another **** up from TalkTalk". He said: "I have emailed the CEO's office as its an absolute joke! My broadband hasn’t worked properly for 5 months and constant issues, they are still happy to take the payment every month.
And he still can't work out what to do about it?
"If they push too hard, Twitter doesn't have to be based in the US."
If they push too hard none of the multinational tech businesses have to be based in the US as legal entities. Running down the US-based resources could take longer but could happen. All the US govt would then be able to apply pressure to would be a local subsidiary or, for added distance, a local franchise.
@ Adam 1
Can't agree more about Delphi. AFAICS it reached its best at about D7 & then rapidly headed downhill. As luck would have it that was as far as I needed to go with it but continued with some sporadic FPC & Lazarus on Linux and only then for my own use.
What you didn't mention was the way in which it (and Lazarus) build GUIs. I took a look at both the Gnome & Qt/KDE offerings before going with Lazarus.
"But you never hear about them because each one is a tiny, uninteresting event that affects only the person who did it."
It depends. If you lose your own data the part I've highlighted is true.
If, on the other hand, you're a DBA or sysadmin for your own company it can affect multiple users. If you're any good in that role it makes you a bit paranoid because they're colleagues and the potential effects on the overall ability of the company to function affects its ability to keep paying you. That's without the separate risk of being fired. But you'll never hear about those cases because unless they're serious enough to have visible knock-on consequences to the company's performance they'll not be publicised.
Only if the data is that of other companies where, as here, the data is that of clients will the situation be immediately and conspicuously public.
It's as well to remember that the number of staff won't scale as fast as the size of the system. The in-house staff for a small business might still be one, just as with the individual data holder. With a larger business it will still only be a comparative handful. At Google scale the staff to user ratio will be minute. Providing the situation can be retrieved in bulk it's not a problem but if it had to be handled on a case-by-case basis sorting out a "small percentage" at Google scale could become nigh on impossible.
"For these cretins, they were only being blocked FROM VIEWING AND SHARING these docs"
AIUI one of the purposes of Google docs is to allow online editing by multiple users which requires viewing and sharing rather than downloading.
"Are you sure about that? Because I'm not."
We're on the same wavelength. The OP wrote "Yours [i.e. your computer" doesn't do that [i.e. shard data and store it in multiple geographically dispersed data centres]." He was right. My computer doesn't do that. It stores it out of Google's reach. Even my mail service provider is UK-based.
"Companies are making their content so secure that not even the users can access it "
That, when it happens, is in the control of the company concerned. It's not only the responsibility but also within the power of the company to manage it. When it's another company doing it it's not so easily resolvable.
I would rather have that than "real" property rights by paying for Office on a PC... until the next version of Office comes out and everything is incompatible.
You do realise, don't you, that there are similarly free good, working alternatives that you can run on your own computer? Or maybe you don't.
"Gmail for instance encrypts and shards the database for your email across hundreds of servers across multiple geographically dispersed data centers. Your computer doesn't do that."
No, it doesn't. It keeps it out of US jurisdiction. Even out of extravagantly claimed US jurisdiction.
I get the impression that Williams hadn't thought about the possibility of this question in advance and wasn't very good at thinking on his feet. It's a pity he didn't get the obvious follow-up questions. "The vehicle is doing 70mph in the overtaking lane when a software update becomes available. What happens then? Does this mean that the vehicle veers off the road to apply the update? Isn't that the scenario you were trying to avoid and now you've caused it? And what happens when there are several adjacent vehicles of the same model in close proximity, all trying to get off the road to apply their updates?"
"TV presenters don't know a thing."
Generalise much. Let's start with a certain David Attenborough. And then let's follow up with a certain Brian Cox. Now I've pointed you in the right direction I'm sure you can think of more exceptions to your rule.
"There was a nearby town (Hampton) that was nearly disincorporated (dissolved) for being a speed trap."
Many years ago there was a scandal involving traffic police in one UK metropolitan area and another force loaned some officers who didn't know the area to take over. The husband of a colleague told us that he'd just been stopped for speeding.
"What speed do you think you were doing, sir?"
"Forty."
"And what is the speed limit on this road?"
"Forty"
<gulp?
"Oh!"
"What form? I've never filled in any form giving politicians, local or otherwise my email address nor would I."
Then you won't be getting any e-mails. Also, the local political parties will know nothing of your views.
You haven't answered the question. What form? Let me rephrase my explanatory sentence: "I've never seen any form etc"
Where would these forms be?
clicking an unsubscribe link so they never e-mail you again that you'd silence important democratic communication then you've no-one to blame but yourself when the politicians ignore your views.
You clearly haven't grasped the difference between specific emails and spam. I have, on several occasions, had email conversations with my MP of the day - inevitably with no useful outcome - but neither of them has used that opportunity to spam which was sensible of them. But at least they had my views to ignore. Spam, on the other hand does not provide them with my views to ignore, it simply clutters up my in-box with theirs.
Ask yourself this: if you can tell a man by the company he keeps what does it tell you about a man who keeps company with Nigerian princes, Viagra merchants, phishers and all the other slime at the bottom of the internet?
"I have nothing to hide"
You must have given that one password is no information at all. Either that or you make no use of online facilities at all.
It's also possible that you haven't read the T&Cs of any online services you use because unless they were written by teenagers they'll forbid you from disclosing log-on credentials. Even if you don't see the significance of hiding stuff yourself you'll find yourself contractually bound to hide it nonetheless and bound by people who do see that significance. You will actually be helped in this, in spite of yourself, by the fact that these days any competently provided remote log-in will use an encrypted link.
Finally, you should reflect that some of us have spent years investigating crimes and really don't see why TPTB should facilitate the commission of crimes by having sensitive material flying around in plaintext. We're also well aware that those who are already intending to break laws are not going to be inconvenienced by being provided with more laws to break when they choose some non-govt-sanctioned communication system.
