Yellow Pages Group Latest to have a Data Security Problem
Another case where the use of unique, hard to guess mail addresses reveals a problem with data security. This time the co-victim and/or offender is the Yellow Pages Group. (more…)
Canada Computers and Electronics Appears to Ignore Serious Security Breach
What’s worse than a security issue? Ignoring it and hoping it will go away.
First a bit of background. For years, I’ve been tracking spam by generating unique forwarding addresses every time I register on a site. The intent was to be able to track the sources of spam and easily disable a compromised address. In practice, it’s proven to be a tool for detecting all sorts of misbehaviour. (more…)
Bell Canada: You can Target. Hurray. Now use it to STFU!
“Great news Bell Fib TV is now available in your building.” [spelling error intentional]
You know what, Bell? That’s just freakin’ amazing! You now have the ability to target your marketing right down to the building! Let’s ignore the fact that the least competent direct marketers in the country have been able to do that for a few decades and just stick to celebrating your new-found skills, shall we? (more…)
Lots Going On
Instead of maintaining an increasingly diffuse presence on this site, where not knowing what the hell I’m going to do next gets mixed visitor reactions, I’ve been branching out to multiple web locations, each with a clearly defined focus.
This blog will remain diverse in topics and erratic in frequency, but instead of following the “about everything” tag line so literally, I’ve started moving new things to their own topic-specific places. I figure this will make this blog slightly easier to label and the new locations will benefit from a tighter focus. (more…)
So NOW is Climate Change a Clear and Present Danger?
For years – for decades – climate scientists have been telling us that global warming was going to have some seriously bad, seriously expensive effects on the environment. Slowly, the population at large has gone from considering this a “unproved theory” to a “concern”, but it’s never been a real “problem”, at least not in the sense that a ten cent increase in the cost of gas is a problem bordering on a crisis. (more…)
Feel Free to Ignore this Link
In his article If You Can’t Understand The Difference Between Money And Content, You Have No Business Commenting On Business Models, Mike Masnick takes a shot at some “logic” advanced by Canadian IP lawyer James Gannon, who wrote “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Copy”.
Masnick is justifiably unforgiving in his analysis: “It’s brilliant only if you don’t understand all of the following: money, economics, copyright, business and value. If you understand any of those things, you might recognize that the analogy makes no sense. Misunderstand all of them… well, then I can see how this argument might make sense.”
Then Gannon stopped by to claim that it was rude or discourteous for Masnick to link to his content.
Newsflash: It’s neither. It’s what HTML was designed for! Seriously, welcome to 1990. Personally I think it’s rude to advance obviously illogical arguments in defence of legacy content providers, but that’s just me.
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