Posts by Cynical Pie

Dual Tesla lawsuits pull Elon Musk into right-to-repair war

Re: About time

And even when they do you can go to any garage rather than being forced to go to a Toyota Dealership

It's been 230 years since British pirates robbed the US of the metric system

Re: Hooray for Avoirdupois and pounds, shillings and pence

It was never illegal to sell items by the pound, you just had to also show/also use the metric equivalent.

The most obvious example of this is the fact milk cartons in the UK show their volume in both metric and imperial

Ransomware severs 1,000 ships from on-shore servers

Re: "if it planned to pay them"

Except it isnt always that simple is it but then you know that.

A primary school I work with suffered a ransomware attack that had sweet FA to do with users so the training element is meaningless and the school had implemented all reasonable and expected security measures. I assume that was their fault?

I assume you will happily lose your business and livelihood for the greater good?

University of Texas latest US school to ban TikTok

Re: GDPR

The flaw in your argument there is that EU DP Authorities are starting to issue fines against TikTok including the ICO intention to issue a penalty notice to the the tune of £27m

Amazon graduate hires told they can't start work until next December

Re: Alexa in a drawer

Actually mine has pointed out special offers etc but only on items I have added to various wish lists on Amazon

San Francisco politicians to vote on policy endorsing lethal force for robots

Is anyone checking to see if Elon is building Starlink or Skynet?

Germany says nein to Qatari World Cup spyware, err, apps

Re: Clever thinking

James Cleverly... if ever there was an example that nominative determinism is utter tosh these days

If you think 5G is overhyped, wait till you meet 5.5G

In my personal experience 5G is a fetid bag of dog faeces and is actually slower than 4G in the few places I have actually been able to get it.

Collapsed Arecibo telescope to be replaced by school

I blame Pierce Brosnan

iPhone 14 car crash detection triggered by roller coasters

Re: Six Flags Great America in Chicago

So using Ryanair geography its slap bang on the lake front by Soldier Field

From today, America and UK follow new rules on how they can demand your data from each other

Re: GDPR ?

GDPR isnt applicable here as data for law enforcement purposes is specifically outside of GDPR's remit.

It falls under the Law Enforcement directive. Same principles in essence but different piece of legislation.

That is why we have the DPA 2018 as it effectively implements both GDPR and the LED.

Samsung sued for gobbling up too much personal info that miscreants then stole

Re: Any bets what Samsung will say?

C. We take our data protection obligations very seriously

TikTok faces $29m fine for 'failing to protect UK kids' privacy'

Two Points

The ICO is not a government agency - its an independent regulator appointed by the Crown and secondly it does not issue fines, it issues Monetary Penalty Notices (MPNs).

Pedantic distinctions but important as to how the ICO operates and there is far more flexibility on the size of MPNs that can be issued compared to 'Fines' which operate within a specific structure set by the MoJ.

Datacenter migration plan missed one vital detail: The leaky roof

Re: Assuming facilities wasn't contacted

The same is true of electrical sockets in new homes, never in the right place and never enough of them!!

Nadine Dorries promotes 'Brexit rewards' of proposed UK data protection law

Re: A cunning plan

Except Sir Humphrey was competent and knew what the hell he was doing

Burger King just sent spam receipts to customers

Re: It's not marketing

Given it isn't a marketing email there is no requirement for them to provide an unsubscribe link anyway.

Its a service email that in some countries they are obliged by law to provide so whether or not you want it is largely irrelevant.

Certainly in Italy companies were legally required to provide a receipt and I am not aware this has changed.

Marriott Hotels admits to third data breach in 4 years

Re: Motivation

In their defence 1 of the previous breaches happened with a smaller chain they bought out before Marriott took over and at the point of purchase the incident hadn't been identified

City-killing asteroid won't hit Earth in 2052 after all

Re: Aim it

Further proof of Boris the Cockroach's claim that Basingstoke has nothing of value

SpaceX staff condemn Musk's behavior in open letter

Re: Who FORCED you to work for Elon?

Elon... Is that you:?

Industry pushes back against India's data security breach reporting requirements

Re: Responding at 4am may not be effective...

You also forget reporting of incidents is a mandatory part of the DSPT for NHS organisations and was for its previous iterations under the IG Toolkit.

That's one reason why the NHS has always looked bad from a data security standpoint, they were the only organisation (and I use that collectively for all parts of the NHS) that was required to report its breaches.

In terms of the 72 hr reporting requirement the ICO take quite a pragmatic view in my experience and are happy as long as a basic notification if filed within 72 hrs and you can then update it after the window with more details.

Twitter faces existential threat from world's richest techbro

Re: Most of us don't give a toss.

Complete Freedom of speech should be permitted, if it isn't 'complete' then it isn't truly freedom of speech is it.

What shouldn't be stopped is freedom from consequences as a result of that speech.

Case in point being the Donald who used his free speech and suffered the consequences when he incited violence.

See also Nick Griffin's appearance on Question Time several years back. The BBC got heavily criticised for giving him a platform but by doing so it exposed his total lack of credibility to the masses and saw him and his bunch of racist thugs, at least in the guise of the BNP fracture and disappear without a trace.

I did read somewhere after it happened that he was warned what would happen if he went on QT but he chose to believe his own hype and went on anyway.

Emma Sleep Company admits checkout cyber attack

and... 3... 2...1...

'We at Emma take our data protections responsibilities very seriously....'

Privacy Shield: EU citizens might get right to challenge US access to their data

We aren't subject to GDPR since we left for the sunlit uplands (still waiting to get there). We are now using the snappily titled 'UK GDPR' which has had all references to the EU and EU Institutions removed.

That includes any Europe wide remedies.

Mines the one with a copy of the Keeling Schedules for GDPR in the pocket.

UK Home Secretary Priti Patel green-lights Mike Lynch's extradition to US to face Autonomy fraud charges

Re: It's complicated

Rees-Mogg, is that you?

UK data watchdog slaps Ministry of Justice with Enforcement Notice for breaking GDPR law

Re: Valid and invalid purposes

It goes further than that - the Information Tribunal have been quite explicit in their rare DP involvements (most of their cases involve FOI) that a SAR should not be used as a substitute for discovery.

What seems to escape people making SARs for this purpose is discovery is likely to actually get them more information than a SAR!!

SlimPay fined €180k after 12 million customers' bank data publicly accessible for 5 years

Surprised the penalty is so low...

As the CNIL have a habit of being one of the more robust DP regulators when it comes to amounts.

Its a wholly expected sum if it was the ICO but unusual for mainland European regulators

Luxembourg judge hits pause on Amazon's daily payments of disputed $844m GDPR fine

Re: I may be wrong, but I think Amazon deliberately obstruct CCPA requests

'Get Stuffed' How eloquent you are.

The fact is they have done what they are legally obliged to do but not in a way you find convenient is a you problem not a them problem.

Yes the downloads take time and yes it is no doubt a pain but the information is there so suck it up sunshine as they have met their obligations.

Just be glad its all electronic and not physical files as well as if you think 60 links is constructive obstruction Christ knows what you would make of the SARs of over 25k pages and 1000+ documents I have dealt with previously that have taken weeks to sort out due to the mix of media involved.

Could they do it differently? Almost certainly.

Do they have to ? No they dont. it really is that simple

Re: I may be wrong, but I think Amazon deliberately obstruct CCPA requests

They could have done what you suggested but all the law requires them to do is make the information available to you.

They've done that so they have complied with their legal obligations as far as can be seen so the fact you don't like the mechanism they have chosen is irrelevant.

Also if you were to challenge their approach through the courts the first thing you'd be asked is 'did you look at the stuff' and as it seems you cant be bothered to put in a little effort to do the downloads the courts will say bugger off and come back when you have.

I'm no fan of the Amazon's of this world but there is nothing in these laws that say they have to spoon feed people everything.

Re: Redeployment

To be fair to Amazon court ruling normally gives details of the infractions and then explicit requirements as a result of those infractions.

However in this case this seems to have been more along the lines of 'you've been naughty so sort it' with no more meat on the bones.

No doubt there will be an out of court settlement at some point that keeps everyone happy, especially the lawyers

UK's antitrust watchdog is very angry and has written a letter telling Apple and Google how angry it is with them

Next to Useless

Given the CMA and their predecessor, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission are next to useless this will die down and nothing further will happen.

Case in point early 90s they looked into the ferries to the Isle of Wight after the 2 main providers collaborated to put a new company out of business despite it running a route neither operated.

The MMC agreed what had happened was effectively a monopoly (yes I know by definition a monopoly is usually 1 company but it isn't always the case) but as the new company was now defunct they said was no point them taking the matter further.

Since then ferry services have got far worse and it will come as no surprise that the decline in service is matched by an increase in price. In effect its more expensive to cross the Solent per mile than the Atlantic in the Queen Mary 2!

Re: Well....

Given the entire UK media said exactly the same thing at the time how exactly is this the BBC's specifc fault?

Rupert... is that you?

UK watchdog's punishment for Blackbaud, Easyjet, other big privacy lawbreakers was slap on the wrist in private

The ICO doesn't issue fines and it never has done. It issues Monetary Penalty Notices, essentially the same thing but legally different as there is no set banding of fines levels among other things

Its a pedantic thing not helped by the outgoing IC being fond of the term fine during her myriad of public appearances but now she has gone back to Canada hopefully the new incumbent will at least use the right language and be less fond of a public appearance

Crypto for cryptographers! Infosec types revolt against use of ancient abbreviation by Bitcoin and NFT devotees

Re: But it is crypto

Surely it depends if they are paying for the coffee and if they will let you get an industrial strength one with nothing more than hotwater and ground beans in it or a poncy one with syrups, creams, frozen bits and dust sprinkled on top

Joint UK-Oz probe finds face-recognition upstart Clearview AI is rubbish at privacy

Re: Right of removal

Well if they are spending 40 days answering a SAR they are screwed as it hasn't been 40 days for over 3 years.

Its a month from date of receipt under GDPR but this can be extended to 3 months for complex requests which I can't conceive this would be... if it is then their marketing blurb is a lie (I couldn't comment)

Weeks after Red Bee Media's broadcast centre fell over, Channel 4 is still struggling with subtitles

Re: Missing a few key points here

AFAIK it needs rapid release to effectively drive the oxygen from the environment and suppress the flames.

Thats certainly how I was told it works in an archive such as the TNA and their storerooms

Judge in UK rules Amazon Ring doorbell audio recordings breach data protection laws

Re: Surely they have to go shopping?

GDPR & DP - the minute it is for anything other than personal use, which is a specific exemption, it becomes subject to GPDR/DP.

So using a Ring doorbell to answer the door while you are in the garden or away from home is exempt processing. The minute any recorded footage is then passed to the Rozzers you are no longer processing for personal use and you need to satisfy Art 6 and potentially Art 9 of GDPR to allow the processing to be lawful.

Its a classic Information Governance 'it depends' situation,

No return of the JEDI: Supreme Court declines to hear Oracle's challenge to now-dead cloud deal

Re: Leisure Sue Larry

I'd wager both

Chocgate: The fallout. Partially taxpayer-funded £6k+ staff luxury treats land ICO in lukewarm water

Particularly because ICO jobs as a rule pay at least a 1/3 less than an equivalent role elsewhere

RIP Sir Clive Sinclair: British home computer trailblazer dies aged 81

Re: Fraudulent too...

You mean like Apple.... and any modern crowdfunded project... or in fact pretty much any company out there?

UK promises big data law shake-up... while also keeping the EU happy, of course. What could go wrong?

That the Minister of State nominally responsible for Data Protection thinks that Cookies are covered by data protection law (they aren't, they fall under PECR) should be worrying but given the current crop of idiots in Whitehall its par for the course so I'm not surprised.

What is more worrying is the fact they don't seem to realise that any significant changes to UK GDPR increase the likelihood of the UK losing adequacy status and crippling any businesses that rely on any kind of personal data transfer to/from the EU.

Still as long as their donors make a few quid its all good

Zoom incompatible with GDPR, claims data protection watchdog for the German city of Hamburg

Re: Great Data Purging Revolution

GDPR is not, and never has been, about privacy.

Its about ensuring the appropriate and lawful use of personal data.

Yes that has privacy implications but it isnt the purpose of the legislation

Hungarian tech store closed by World War II bomb

And doing £ millions in improvements to the local area in the process

Autonomy founder Mike Lynch loses first stage in fight against extradition to US

Donations

The cynic in me wonders if HP's UK subsidiary or one of their directors might have made a donation to the Tory party to grease the wheels here...

I would put nothing past the current bunch of immoral liars and chancers occupying the various Depts and State and Downing Street

Troll jailed for 5 years after swatting of Twitter handle owner ends in death

Re: The sentence should've been the electric chair

But with no internet access the inmates will need to get their 'adult' fun another way.

Paris? well you do the math (not maths, we are in Tennessee after all)

Hundreds of irate UK Parliamentary staffers sue IPSA over 2017 salary spreadsheet publication snafu

You have to consider what is already public as well

Many of these staffers would be working in MPs offices so the salaries paid would be declared through the accounts etc the MP submits to parliament when claiming their expenses to pay for the staffers.

Also if the job is advertised the salary is in the public domain via the advert.

People also need to realise the salary you are paid is not always personal to you, it goes with the job. What is personal to you is the take home pay after tax, NI and other deductions as this can vary between people on the same salary..

Its even more transparent as a public sector worker as your pay is based on nationally agreed pay-scales which can be found on the internet so if you know a person's job grade (google for their job advert) then you can get a ball park figure for their salary (I'm assuming a 3 or 4 spinal point pay range for a job grade) .

Hubble, Hubble, toil and trouble: NASA pores over moth-eaten manuals ahead of switch to backup hardware

Where's the KAboom?

UK's data watchdog probes use of private email to discuss government business at the Department of Health

Re: While she's at it

As she is Canadian I would suspect she will be back in a DP style gig in one of the Provinces there.

Im not sure she is even in the UK at the moment as she has been back in Canada for great swathes of lockdown

Re: While she's at it

Thats not in the ICOs remit either.

There remit is to ensure all official Govt business is managed effectively and accessible but its not up to the ICO how that is done

they can only prosecute under FOI if there is evidence of information being destroyed to avoid disclosure which is hard to prove.

Anything else is a decision notice. Even then the Govt will just use the Ministerial Veto within FOI that means they dont have to provide the information regardless.

‘Fasten your seat belts, raise your tray table, and disconnect your Bluetooth headsets from the entertainment unit’

Re: They can buy as many new planes as they like

Same, thats why our family trip to LA next year is being done a) via Calgary and b) at increased cost just to avoid flying United.

As a bonus going the way we are we also get Premium Economy rather then bog standard... so better legroom and extra baggage allowance for all the tat my offspring will want to bring home