Posts by OhDearyMe

UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

Re: Of course, being centrally controlled

Being centrally controlled it could be adapted to ignore bad actors - like botnets spamming it with false notifications.

I am fascinated to see how Germany manages to build its app and central server in a way that protects it from that sort of abuse, the anonymity seems so baked in that it lacks the information to protect itself. Downloading all the keys for everyone who has tested positive is one thing, downloading a bulk of fake keys from a malicious actor could easily render the thing unworkable.

Any suggestions on how you have an open source app with no identification that cannot be spoofed?

Q. If machine learning is so smart, how come AI models are such racist, sexist homophobes? A. Humans really suck

But is it dope?

Linguistic analysis is ludicrously hard and I struggle to believe that a researcher can just sit there and associate words as positive or negative and then run an algorithm.

Is dope and insult or a compliment?

Depends on who is saying it. Mostly if it is an old white person it means they are insulting someone as foolish or stupid. If it is a young black person they are complimenting someone for being awesome. If dope is in the database as negative then it will skew the results based on different use of language in different sub-cultures. Garbage in, garbage out.

So what sort of dope is this study? Awesome or dumb. You decide.

Good luck deleting someone's private info from a trained neural network – it's likely to bork the whole thing

Sounds a lot like academic studies

This honestly sounds like the same problem as trying to have you data deleted from an academic study. By the time it is the published paper it is so detached from your identity and yet there are so many derived numbers and conclusions that they could not remove you without redoing the entire piece of research.

So the balance of privacy and practicality here is all going to be around the correct process to anonymize the data on its way into the process. This is a pretty well understood process for academic papers I do not really think it should be that much of an intractable problem for AI researchers or developers.

Supreme Court of UK gives Morrisons the go-ahead for mega data leak liability appeal

Re: Liable

I suspect that the case hinges on the fact that the employee in question was an IT auditor. To remove their elevated access would render them unable to do their job, it would be constructive dismissal even if they did not actually fire him.

Is it reasonable to (effectively) fire someone for a relatively minor disciplinary offence because of what they theoretically might do if they go rogue? Almost certainly not as ruled by many industrial tribunals over the years.

So they may argue that the law put them between a rock and a hard place. Unless they have actionable intelligence that he was going rogue - that would stand up in a tribunal - they were kinda stuck.

I don't want companies to be able to escape liability for data leaks but I do not think this case is quite as simple as that. As always the specifics of the case are what a court should rule on and I think that these are interesting specifics that are worth considering in the highest court. The legal question is - does data protection law require employers to over-react to minor disciplinary matters where an employee might foreseeably have access to personal data? That affects a lot of us in the IT industry and would have a serious impact on the employment rights of anyone with such access.

Freelance devs: Oh, you wanted the app to be secure? The job spec didn't mention that

Paid peanuts - got monkeys

For that money what do you expect - you get the least work that could possibly fulfil the requirements. Then if you suddenly realise you needed security you get to pay more for it, because you were a cheapskate in the first place.

Get the requirements right. Get the payment to fit the requirements. Then you might get a decent job done.

CEST la vie, IR35 workers: HMRC sets out stall for ignoring Mutuality of Obligation

Re: where does MOO fit in?

@jmch it is about as complicated as you would expect from something never properly legislated but instead built up over years of precedent from previous rulings. IIRC some of the more senior judiciary have publicly thrown their toys out of the pram and asked parliament to clear up the irreconcilable mess that precedent has made of employment status.

In terms of contractor MOO it is typically restricted to fulfilling a contract of a limited period. At the end of your contract you can walk away with no notice and no repercussions, similarly at the end of a contract the business contracting the services has no obligation to offer further contracts or to give any notice whether they will do so. Towards the end of a contract it is common for contractors to not know if they will have any work the following week - for an employee there are notice periods which apply at any time and they should not be in that position unless their employer goes bust.