Category: Internet

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Right, Google, you stupid cunts, this is simply not on!

[Stilgherrian writes: Oh dear. This post has generated a lot of interest. Thank you for that interest. But if you’re visiting for the first time, I strongly suggest you also read my lengthy response to commenters and the fair warning before posting your own comment.]

I knew this would happen sooner or later. Google, a data mining company in the United States, has the ignorant arrogance to tell me, a citizen of Australia, that my name — my legal name — doesn’t fit their scheme for how names “should” work. Well fuck you, arseholes!

What’s worse, this is how they tell you.

They suspend your profile, tell you your name is wrong, and tell you to change it.

Your profile has been suspended.

It appears that the name you entered doesn’t comply with our Names Policy.

The Names Policy requires that you use the name that you are commonly referred to in real life in your profile. Nicknames, maiden names, and so on, should be entered in the Other Names section of the profile. Profiles are currently limited to individuals; we will be launching a profile for businesses and other entities later this year.

Your profile will be suspended until you do edit your name to comply with the Names Policy: you will not be able to make full use Google services that require an active profile, such as Google+, Buzz, Reader and Picasa. This will not prevent you from using other Google services, like Gmail.

We understand that Google+ and it’s [sic] Names Policy may not be for everyone at this time. We would hate to see you go, but if you choose to leave, make a copy of your Google+ data first. Then, click here to leave Google+.

Listen, Googlecunts. This name precisely fits your Names Policy.

Continue reading “Right, Google, you stupid cunts, this is simply not on!”

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Weekly Wrap 62: LinkedIn and Hacking edition

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, one day late and without a picture. I find it hard to get excited about creating these posts, but I suppose they’re useful.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 100, “Cybersecurity: past, present and future”. A conversation with Dr Paul Nielsen director and CEO of the Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburg, parent of CERT.

Articles

Media Appearances

None.

Corporate Largesse

None. Again.

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.

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LinkedIn’s inadequate response to privacy stupidity

LinkedIn has responded to criticism over their opting-in of everyone to their “social advertising” program with a self-serving blog post. I’m less than impressed.

I wrote two articles yesterday. For Crikey, Sorry too hard a word for LinkedIn over privacy faux pas, in which I describe LinkedIn’s response as bullshit. And for CSO Online, Five lessons from LinkedIn’s opt-out stupidity, which reminds people to keep an eye on social networking services for unannounced changes to the rules of engagement.

Paul Ducklin from security vendor Sophos gives them an easier time, praising them for a quick response. He’s nicer than I am.

In the cold, clear light of Saturday morning, what depresses me most about this whole episode is not that a supposedly-professional service would pull a trick like this and, when caught out, just smear PR bull over the top. It’s that they’ll probably get away with it, and imagine they handled it well.

Continue reading “LinkedIn’s inadequate response to privacy stupidity”

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Crikey: LinkedIn pulls a Facebook-style privacy swifty

“Social advertising”. It sounds so innocuous. But it isn’t. It means that simply by “liking” something on LinkedIn, or if you “take other actions”, they can use your name and photo in third-party advertising. Pricks.

I’ve written about this in Crikey today, LinkedIn pulls a Facebook-like swifty on ‘social advertising’. I called them “exploitative”. I compared them to the “consumer-grade arseholes at Facebook”. I stand by all of that, and more.

I asked how LinkedIn could be so stupid. But it’s more than that.

Just what sort of mindset do LinkedIn’s executives have if they reckon this is an acceptable way to do business with people?

To me it indicates that they have no idea how people might react to discovering their face in someone else’s advertising. Or, if they do realise that, a disturbingly callous disregard for others, putting their business profits before their basic responsibilities as human beings.

Is that antisocial personality disorder? That seems to be what we call being a psychopath these days.

If you’re a LinkedIn user and want to opt out of all this, go to where your name is displayed on the top right of your LinkedIn screen and click on “Settings”. Click on “Account” at the bottom left of screen, then “Manage Social Advertising”.

[Disclosure: I receive a free LinkedIn Pro account as part of their media outreach program.]

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Patch Monday: Cybersecurity: past, present and future

Last week I had the very great pleasure of interviewing Dr Paul Nielsen, director and chief executive officer of the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburg. This week’s Patch Monday podcast is that entire interview.

SEI is the parent organisation of CERT, the original computer emergency response team set up with US Department of Defense funding after the Morris Worm scared the bejesus out of everyone.

Before joining SEI, Dr Nielsen had a 32-year career in the military, reaching the rank of Major General. For a time he commanded the US Air Force Research Laboratory at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where he managed an annual research and development budget of more than US$3 billion. We got on rather well.

For Patch Monday we talked about everything from worms and hacking to password management, the problems that local police face when prosecuting online crime, why Apple has so far had a better security experience than Android and dealing with security issues when the internet is populated with so many different kinds of devices.

We even talked about the evolution of hacking, and I’ve pulled out that part of the conversation for a story at CSO Online, LulzSec, WikiLeaks, Murdoch: hacking’s fourth wave.

You can listen below. But it’s probably better for my stats if you listen at ZDNet Australia or subscribe to the RSS feed or subscribe in iTunes.

Please let me know what you think. Comments below. We accept audio comments too. Either Skype to stilgherrian or phone Sydney +61 2 8011 3733.

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Weekly Wrap 61: Exhaustion in the forest

A weekly summary of what I’ve been doing elsewhere on the internets, two days late and without a picture. After the intensity of the previous three weeks, I’d predicted a slow-down, and here it is. I was simply exhausted last week, and spent a couple of days staring at the eucalypts from Rosella Cottage.

Last week also marked six months since I moved from Enmore. Living at Bunjaree Cottages was originally intended to be a temporary measure, or so I thought. I’ve ended up settling into the routine quite well, though I’ve found it impossible to save money for moving house. That said, I’m really not sure where I want to live now. But that’s a story for another time. Maybe later today.

Podcasts

  • Patch Monday episode 99, “When apps go wild: beyond the SOE”. Dr Paul Ashley from IBM’s Gold Coast Security Development Laboratory talks about their new technology that sniffs packets to identify applications, and Neil Readshaw, cloud security lead architect with IBM Global Services, talks about, erm, cloud security.

Articles

Media Appearances

  • On Thursday I appeared with Paul Wallbank on Phil Dobbie’s BTalk podcast, an episode called Google Plus, Inside Out. I got to spout my anti-Google stuff again.
  • Also on Thursday, I made a small appearance on Phil Dobbie’s Twisted Wire podcast. The episode was called The battle for mobile dominance, and if I remember correctly I gave some sort of opinion about Apple iOS versus Android versus Nokia.

Corporate Largesse

None. What is going on here?

Elsewhere

Most of my day-to-day observations are on my high-volume Twitter stream, and random photos and other observations turn up on my Posterous stream. The photos also appear on Flickr, where I eventually add geolocation data and tags.