Re: Sigh..
And that's the problem: so many people are happy to share their contacts list and don't consider that the data in it isn't theirs to share.
168 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Mar 2020
... on the dark web.
>The letter said the tech company had hired a consultant to check data had not been sold on the dark web.
So that's OK then. Just like if someone holds a gun to your head: your're totally safe if an expert can find no evidence that the trigger has already been pulled.
I'm in a lot of people's contact lists. I would like to think that every one of them who installs Threads will ask me my permission for them to share my details with Threads before granting it access to their contact list.
Just like they did when installing Facebook. Not.
Don't forget post/deliveries.
I would always pop round to the post room in early December with a tub or two of chocolates and wish them "Merry Christmas" just before the annual "do not use the company address for personal deliveries" email came round.
They never delivered obvious Christmas purchases to my desk where the boss could see, instead a quiet phone call would advise me to bring my car to the delivery entrance at the end of the day and they'd help me load up.
I've posted this story before...
Many years ago (12+) I test drove a BMW 7 series with indicators that did not self-cancel mechanically by having the steering wheel reset the control stalk; instead the electronics cancelled them when it detected a big turn of the wheel.
The problem was that I couldn't figure out how to manually cancel when the auto cancel failed to detect gentle turns such as motorway lane changes: I kept setting off the opposite indicator and so I gave up using them.
No, I didn't buy the car.
I recently replaced two of these and set out to dispose of the old ones. My local council website does not differentiate different types of detector and says to use the metal and plastic wastebin.
When I phoned them I got the same answer; I tried to explain that they have a little radioactive warning sign on them but I don't think the lady believed me.
They're still in my garage.
Nematoad: make a small cut (5mm) in the edge of the card. This will break the antenna and disable the contactless feature. I do two opposite cuts to be sure; it's something I've been doing for years. I've never found typing in a PIN a big inconvenience.
I started because I knew two people who had their purses stolen and had the thieves go from shop to shop buying easily resellable goods (cigarettes and booze) with each card. They both got their money back, but it was a lot of hassle.
Mind you, after reading this, I may have a rethink.
I used to like the Samsung tune because I knew what it meant and didn't need to investigate which appliance wanted my attention.
However I echo the "don't buy Samsung" comment because it stopped working after about 5 years and every repair person that I phoned simply said "buy something else" as soon as I told them the brand.
I thought my washing machine had the right idea: it can be controlled using Bluetooth, so no internet access required.
The thing is, I downloaded the app and the first things it wants are internet connectivity and my email address. App deleted. I was only doing it out of curiosity and didn't even know the machine had Bluetooth when I bought it.
Two years earlier:-
Tech: So, in conclusion, factoring in design, planning, development, testing and installation this should cost $x. We then have added confidence that live and DR cannot degrade each other's performance. Does the panel have any questions?
Beancounter: surely it's cheaper just to write a line in a process document somewhere saying "do it like this" and file it in a locked filing cabinet in a disused lavatory...
I've almost* given up trying to tell people that. I inevitably get a reply along the lines of "So what? My life is not that interesting."
They don't realise that we all have different ideas about what's interesting. With this sort of attitude so prevalent, it's only going to get worse.
*If I had no children whose future I care for, I would give up.
If carrier B is terminating a call from carrier A, it doesn't need to know if the originating number is genuine (or even sent), it just needs to bill carrier A for its (B's) share of the bill. Billing the caller is carrier A's problem.
A may not be in the same juristiction as B so things get complicated.
With the redundancy used, I'm surprised they didn't put a bit of thought into the power distribution and connect each side to the mains with a separate plug. I appreciate that the setup may not deserve independently resilient redundant feeds but, with the design used, the fuse in the plug was a SPoF, sign or no sign.
> and it's (sic) companion app
I take it that you are using something to check what the app is really doing.
Since using Duck Duck Go's App Tracking Protection I find it quite shocking what unrelated* data some apps try to send to unrelated* destinations.
I say "try" because the tracking protection and I take steps to stop it.
*Unrelated to the apps's purpose
1. Point your watch's hour hand at the sun* and South then lies half way between the hour hand and noon (or 1 o' clock during BST).
2. Use the fact that Sky TV dishes point South. It used to be 22 degrees East of South if my 30 year-old memory of the time when I helped to install them is any good.
3. Use the fact that moss is usually found on the North side of trees. Is that really a thing?
*Yes, I know sun is a rare thing in the UK but I once used this trick quite a bit to help navigate whilst driving in Morocco from Fez to Tangier, all the while accompanied by a look from SWMBO that translated as "remind me again why you didn't pack the satnav".
I don't know the exact junction layout, but I get the impression that it is unlikely that a Prius could make the turn at 40mph. This should have been enough to tell the Cruise AV that it wasn't turning or to make the turn quickly, keep right and be prepared for an out-of-control Prius to enter its path. Or better still, don't even attempt the turn.
If too much for an AV then it's not ready for real-world driving.
One summer job I had was at a distribution company, basically putting goods ordered into boxes. I started on a temp's wage but after my first week the foreman said that my output matched that of the permanent employees so he would pay me the same as them.
There were two conditions:
1 Don't tell them.
2 Don't exceed Jim's output. "He is proud of being number 1 and will sulk all summer of you better him. I don't need that."
I was working at a UK mobile network operator, whose new CTO was an arrogant individual. He had some bad ideas and also some good ones, many of which were issued as JFDI diktats.
One of his ideas arrived on my desk. The requirement was that it should not be possible for a user to make changes on a switch without change control authorisation; this was to be managed by disabling all user access and providing change control with a scheduler to enable relevant users’ access as per the change schedule. My job was to write the scheduler and front end; end of conversation: do it now!
To be sure that my system was meeting the requirements I created a second utility that periodically downloaded the switches’ change logs and checked to see if any changes were being made that my scheduler could not account for. I found something...
An unknown user was using an unknown access port to run unknown commands. The penny didn’t drop and so, not twigging what department this might be and me being in a rush to plug the hole I’d found, I asked various people I knew throughout the business to try to identify the miscreant.
Next thing I knew I was standing in front of the CTO with some individuals from “lawful intercept”. It turns out that a config error (not mine) had made visible to my log checker their supposedly hidden activities: I shouldn’t have seen what I had seen and certainly not gone asking questions. The CTO, who, up to that point, knew nothing about the intercept activities or my second utility, hated being shown to not know everything.
I got a proper dressing-down from the CTO that afternoon for having gone the extra mile and written the log checker, but nothing more came of things after that so I assume I hadn’t ruffled too many feathers. I deleted the logs I had uncovered and, given that no more showed up, the config error must have been fixed, not that I got any thanks.
"three million times less memory than a typical modern smartphone".
One time less would be zero, so that must be -2,999,999 more.
I wonder what negative memory looks like; two's complement?
I'll leave "38,000 times slower" as it makes my brain hurt working out what that means.