We're living in a country with a bunch of incompetents in charge who are desperate to seek out any distraction they can find/engineer to divert attention from the chaos they've caused.
Just like almost any other country really (sigh) - though our parliament does seem to be aiming for the gold medal in stupidity and incompetence
The reasons behind this initiative have little or nothing to do with a desire to curtail free speech or start on a slippery slope to fascism or similar aims --if you just look at the UK government's track record you'd soon see it's not a beacon of planning, execution, efficiency or effectiveness -- their incompetence is a [very expensive] safety feature.
No, this is driven by the politicians' number one (only?) priority and that's re-election.
Given the state of the Brexit fiasco a good distraction is required.
Synthetic outrage is easily manufactured. It's a great way to divert attention.
News media who see the Internet as a threat to their business model are happy to jump on the bandwagon -- NOTE consistency is not a strong point; blatant hypocrisy is - just look at the most vocal complainers targets of outrage and then compare/contrast with their own output .
Whipped up populism and "you disagree? you must be a pervert!" ad hominem attacks on any politician who oppose it just increase the overall momentum.
Give it 6 months to a year and it will be 'old news'; the work-arounds will become widely know and ignored and a new "look squirrel !"distraction will be the flavour of the day.
London Transport already had a contactless card (Oyster) - adding debit/credit contactless brought no new intrinsic benefit.
As for other areas - I'm still not convinced. In a typical cafeteria, supermarket check-out, other retail service point the transaction usually comprises three phases:
(1) pre-payment actions (being greeted, looking at what you've bought, barcode scanning or entering details into a till...)
(2) payment
(3) post-payment actions (getting receipt, picking up / packing up purchased items, moving away from the service area, being told to 'have a nice day'...)
Given the usual amount of faffing around associated with steps 1 and 3 [3 in particular at supermarkets] the 2 or 3 seconds time saved at step 2 by going contactless is negligible.
Even on a quick day, with attentive staff and no queue I doubt you could buy £30 of goods at a supermarket (or even a coffee & cake at a coffee shop) in under 2 minutes, 3 would be more typical. A reduction from 120 to 115 [let's be generous in our assumptions] seconds isn't a huge leap forward.
If queue times in office cafeterias is an issue - local contactless payment has been available for years - often combined with the security chip used for door access into/within a building
Now it's in place we may as well use it, but - like so many things nowadays - on hindsight it seems to have been oversold for what it truly delivers.
"I often like tech advances, but in this case, I'm fairly happy to just lean over the pin-pad so no-one else can see. "
Agreed.
Contactless always seemed to me to be a solution in search of a problem. This initiative even more so.
Surely we haven't atrophied to the point where 5 key presses (4 digit PIN + confirm) is too heavy a burden !
Personally, I prefer a little 'friction' or effort when spending - it acts as a brake on impulse purchasing and a few seconds delay isn't going to hurt retailers (more time is wasted in other ways than this saves).
Are you talking about the services Google gives you for free.
Free in a monetary sense of the word only - you pay heavily with your data.
Now - try to get some support for your data handling - it's not easy (practically impossible). Google manages to weasel out of providing a contact point for data protection/GDPR enquiries and fobs you off with boilerplate text that doesn't address the issues raised or questions asked.
I guess they can get away with screwing over the 'little guy' but sooner or later a government official/plutocrat/oligarch/mafia boss will be affected and then we can all sit back and watch.
On the main topic - isn't it strange that big companies can find resources galore to avoid/evade taxes, yet are overstretched when it comes to sorting out customers' issues? There is a strong correlation [not necessarily a causation] between self serving behaviour towards customers and to paying for services their host nations provide and which they gladly consume.
In my experience, all of the companies I'm boycotting because of appalling customer service are also well known tax dodgers; conversely the companies where I've experienced excellent service are also known for their support for local communities etc.
"A lifetime of poverty is the only solution. Might also focus minds on improving conditions for those on low incomes."
I've long thought politicians should have their income restricted to the median wage; ALL other income should be held in trust and only released after a period of a few years after they stop being a politician.
Two benefits: firstly it would weed out those who seek to use a position of power for self gain rather than a genuine desire to help others; secondly, by pitching at the median income level they'd appreciate how their voters live rather than their circle of (mostly) rich, elite chums.
Some form of accommodation could be provided (possibly at reduced rental rates) plus travel costs pitched at standard class public transport season ticket rates for those who represent constituencies far away from parliament.
As it is we get the [least best] politicians money can buy.
On the flip side, the danger with such a scheme would be that it would attract the power crazy sociopaths who love telling others what to do more than personal financial gain - but experience with religious leaders (of all persuasions) has shown how we can deal with that.
I remember this conversation with an older worker and it struck me as sensible at the time and very wise now.
Without going full "four yorkshiremen *" on it...
Some years ago people sent typewritten memos; you could get 4, maybe 5 carbon copies if you were lucky - any more and a second copy needed to be typed. Result: you thought long and hard about what was said, kept it brief , and considered exactly to whom you would send the message - every addressee counted.
Then came the photocopier - you could easily send memos to 20, 30 people (more involved negotiation with the custodians of the copier and/or negotiations with the stationery dept.) - people were less rigorous about addressees and the volume of less relevant and less valuable info increased.
Then came email - the cost of sending to hundreds of people was minimal; it was quick and easy. Whilst increased communication helps the 'signal to noise' ratio took a nosedive and we got increasing volumes of decreasing quality messages.
Moving on from that conversation, we have social media where absolute crap is broadcast to the whole world and kept for eternity - but the majority of it is inane, inaccurate, disingenuous and unhelpful.
As it happens, I do know Heathrow very well. I live nearby and have used it many times. It's in an area of relatively high population density (apart from the reservoirs and lakes a few miles to the west).
The airport is bounded on two sides by major motorways with another major road to the east and it has terminal buildings in the middle. Aircraft are parked between the runways and along the side of the airport.
It would be difficult to draw a shot line that didn't run any danger of collateral damage.
Even a lower powered cartridge (which would mean dashing around on the ground to get closer to the drone, with all of the implications on safe movement airside of aircraft and vehicles) would pose a problem with debris.
If we took it to extremes and assumed that your shot was practically out of energy at the airport fence, a slow moving bullet hitting a car going at 70mph would still cause damage and may shock/distract a driver into swerving into other lanes [people in the UK not being accustomed to gun violence].
Why not come to the UK aglider? We could do with your magic expertise of hitting a drone first shot in such a way that no debris gets left behind on runways/taxi-ways to be sucked up into engines.
Of course, with your shooting being so accurate we needn't worry about missed shots carrying a rifle bullet onto the two major motorways around the airport (the busiest roads in Europe according to some sources) or into a terminal full of people, or into hotels....
Or maybe, just maybe, the UK authorities consider potential consequences beyond the trigger happy, knee jerk reaction and apply some thought to the situation.
"Employers should not be taxed" That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I would disagree (without gratuitous insults).
By the same token, absentee employers should get no benefits. If they see no obligation to share society's costs then society should see no obligation in providing support or dealing with their externalities.
If anyone went to these companies and demanded that they provide goods without payment they'd say 'No' -- yet they are quite happy to demand the converse situation.
The taxes paid by employees should 100% be used for their benefit - providing services to them. Taxes paid by employees (and others) shouldn't be used to enrich others who seek to take money out of the country.
For the avoidance of any doubt I do not condone arson, larceny or other illegal/antisocial actions.
That said, I would dearly love the following scenarios to play out:
A major fire to break out at an Amazon warehouse or Google office. When they call the (taxpayer funded) fire services they get told "oh we only operate the phones here - you'll have to source the water from Ireland, the crews from Luxembourg, the appliances from Bermuda... after all that's where you operate isn't it? You don't want to get involved with civil society - well provide your own protection through self funding then!"
Similarly for break-ins/vandalisation at Facebook's offices... "here's a crime number for your insurers... we'll get back to you when we've dealt with incidents affecting those who do engage with civil society and contribute to the common good".
Or roadworks right outside the offices of Vodafone, Oracle, Microsoft - started and then de-prioritised to serve ordinary folk who pay their way - "yes, we'll get back to fixing your road in due course...".
After all disrupting these organisations wouldn't be a big loss because they don't pay much into society now anyway.
The "I'll keep whatever I can and get everyone else to cover externalities and emergencies" rejection of paying the same taxes as others do should come back to bite them when they discover they're neither all powerful nor an island sufficient unto themselves.
Now, whether the government provides good levels of service for the taxation raised is a separate debate; certainly there are many areas where it could do better. Enriching yourselves by demanding the same benefits as everyone whilst doing everything to avoid the common obligations is the behaviour of an antisocial bully.
And do you also have brooms and are quick enough on your feet to run out and check for debris and clear a whole runway in 90 seconds**, plus taxi ways...
The knee jerk response of "I've got a gun and will use it in any circumstance" doesn't help when known, well documented cases of ground debris being sucked into aero engines has caused catastrophe.
I am, of course, flattering you that you're a perfect shot. Airports are busy, crowded places and Gatwick in particular has a motorway running along one side and a LOT of long term parking spread around the perimeter -- any missed shot could cause a lot of damage, injury and even death.
** The rate of arrivals/departures at busy airports in the UK
I've also had a gmail account since it was invitation only. I also get emails intended for others.
I've developed an approach which is a copy & paste boilerplate reply
"This has come to the wrong address. Please check and resend so my namesake does not miss out. To protect your confidentiality, I will delete this e-mail and future ones of a similar nature. Thank you"
I might add the "you do NOT have my permission to retain or process this e-mail address" words to my boilerplate text -- if you don't mind me copying them:)
Responses received range from a few "OK Sorry to trouble you" ones to which I always reply "No problem - thanks for sorting it" to some arguments and [mostly] no response at all.
In all cases I just add them to a filter rule that deletes the message without reading. It's currently sitting with over 60 filtered addresses (and growing since someone with my name keeps asking folks for timesheets and the people concerned love to 'reply-all').
I've always aimed to behave honourably but there's scope here to really mess up some people if I did reply pretending to be them. I thought I was a relatively rare case but this thread shows it's more common and could be a worrying attack vector for those with malicious intent.
Long story short - I'm gradually migrating away from Google/Gmail [for this and other reasons] telling contacts to use an alternative address.
At a former employer we had an internal collaboration system. This had a rude words filter but it was "turned up to 11" which meant that some day to day discussions were rendered completely pointless.
For example: "Press down hard on the cover and release the screw" became "Press down ********* and release the ******" which wasn't any help to anyone.
It ended up with posts either being strangely formatted (e.g. sc r ew) or [esp. when they were aimed at senior management] using convoluted phrases [attachment device requiring rotational motion to activate the helical engagement system] to point out the silliness. This in a system which would never be seen by (and thus 'needing' shielding provided for) customers, children or others who could be offended.
Still, it "st i mu l at ed" creativity and entertained those who loved searching increasingly obscure words in a thesaurus.
"having ancient email addresses connected to those domains often means a long history of involvement with internet"
To you and me that shows experience, lessons learnt and a knowledge of what's good to be repeated and what's bad to be avoided.
To many recruiters and HR drones it raises flags of "this person's old", "they may know more than me", "they're probably prepared to be assertive and not just accepting", "they'll want an decent income"...
An "ancient" email address is great for nostalgia - I still keep a couple myself - but I can appreciate how it can negatively affect job hunting [it shouldn't but it does].
On the other hand, you could probably discern what I think about other businesses by the e-mail address that I give them: if I give you my gmail address, it means that I'm not that concerned about/don't highly value your business; my 'professional' address (a facade redirecting to proton mail) is used for most business purposes; my personal domain address is reserved for a very few special cases. If I give you a hotmail or yahoo address (yes I still keep them going) I really regard it as a throwaway and am not really likely to follow up. Personal e-mail is a different story:)
Well, since Google goes out of its way to hide any contact info for its Data Protection Officer and/or Company Secretary you can get a good idea of their likely level of concern.
For a company built on finding data they are very keen not to reveal their own details (unlike most other responsible companies) -- a real insight into their ethics -- plenty of protection for us but none for you.
I don't know why they're doing this but as a separate yet related question:
Who would put anything sensitive into Dropbox, Google Drive... without encrypting it first?
Even if you have the "I use Linux but I have to share files with Windows / MacOS clients" scenario it's still perfectly feasible to use a TrueCrypt (or VeraCrypt) container to hold your files (from experience, it's better to use a lot of smaller ones rather than a big container as it's likely that any change will involve transferring the whole thing each time).
I believe that there are some Android apps that are compatible with a subset of TrueCrypt settings but I've not tried them.
bcrypt and ccrypt seem to be portable between Linux and MacOS [haven't tried with Windows].
Bonus points for renaming the file to hide any give-away info in the extensions; if you get a message saying 'mydoc.pdf appears to be corrupted' you'll know that someone's tried to spy and just hit a load of binary data:-)
So, for anything remotely sensitive, I'd do encryption under my control before using anyone else's remote storage.
All that being said - I'm considering moving what very little I have in off-site storage into an instance of ownCloud or NextCloud on a spare machine under MY control.
On yet another side issue (although still related to use of off-site storage):
For remote storage I'm looking for a good waterproof/airtight lockable box so I can keep my weekly rsync backup away from my house [current USB hard drive is wrapped in multiple plastic bags and seems to survive OK but I'd like to improve on this]. Anyone got any recommendations?
An interesting topic and relevnt for science and nerdy types -- yet the first 15 or so comments are all off topic, snide remarks and the inevitable (and tiresome) ad hominem attacks.
Not a single reply which bore any relevance to the topic.
I don't see where Google has the authority to dictate domestic commercial law to the EU (or anyone else).
If Google doesn't like the business environment it should leave - but then (a) they'd lose the use of their low tax havens in Ireland and Luxembourg and (b) risk someone else grabbing a section of the market bigger than the US.
Personally, I'd shed no tears to see the back of this tax evading, privacy hostile behemoth.
I can easily see the downsides for the guests but it's a huge risk for the hotel too:
Using the publicised attack mechanisms of passing commands to Alexa which are inaudible to humans (I'd look up the reference but it's late at night where I am and I'm tired) one could have great fun with a cheap phone and a command loop.
Something like this should cause some disruption and hurt the hotel's maintenance budget:
"Alexa TV Volume up... Alexa TV Volume up... Alexa air-con set to 10 degrees C... Alexa lights on... Alexa lights off... Alexa TV Volume up to maximum... Alexa curtains closed... Alexa lights on... Alexa lights off...... Alexa TV mute... Alexa aircon set to 35 degrees C... Alexa curtains open "
Even if management went up to an empty room in response to guests next door complaining about the noise or the hotels building systems alarms about the air-con they probably wouldn't associate it with an apparently silent phone innocently plugged into a charger.
Actually the inaudible command could be used to order food and drink which could be denied (see my earlier comment) -- having multiple orders sent to empty rooms would be expensive and wasteful.
With poorly paid and generally demotivated cleaning staff around, placing low cost speakers in rooms is feasible if you wanted to do a wide-scale distributed disruption of service.
Slashdot Mirror
Au contraire!
We're living in a country with a bunch of incompetents in charge who are desperate to seek out any distraction they can find/engineer to divert attention from the chaos they've caused.
Just like almost any other country really (sigh) - though our parliament does seem to be aiming for the gold medal in stupidity and incompetence
This is the most insightful response so far.
The reasons behind this initiative have little or nothing to do with a desire to curtail free speech or start on a slippery slope to fascism or similar aims --if you just look at the UK government's track record you'd soon see it's not a beacon of planning, execution, efficiency or effectiveness -- their incompetence is a [very expensive] safety feature.
No, this is driven by the politicians' number one (only?) priority and that's re-election.
Given the state of the Brexit fiasco a good distraction is required.
Synthetic outrage is easily manufactured. It's a great way to divert attention.
News media who see the Internet as a threat to their business model are happy to jump on the bandwagon -- NOTE consistency is not a strong point; blatant hypocrisy is - just look at the most vocal complainers targets of outrage and then compare/contrast with their own output .
Whipped up populism and "you disagree? you must be a pervert!" ad hominem attacks on any politician who oppose it just increase the overall momentum.
Give it 6 months to a year and it will be 'old news'; the work-arounds will become widely know and ignored and a new "look squirrel !"distraction will be the flavour of the day.
And reality has rarely easy answers.
Which is why engineers answer most questions with "it depends".
London Transport already had a contactless card (Oyster) - adding debit/credit contactless brought no new intrinsic benefit.
As for other areas - I'm still not convinced. In a typical cafeteria, supermarket check-out, other retail service point the transaction usually comprises three phases:
(1) pre-payment actions (being greeted, looking at what you've bought, barcode scanning or entering details into a till...)
(2) payment
(3) post-payment actions (getting receipt, picking up / packing up purchased items, moving away from the service area, being told to 'have a nice day'...)
Given the usual amount of faffing around associated with steps 1 and 3 [3 in particular at supermarkets] the 2 or 3 seconds time saved at step 2 by going contactless is negligible.
Even on a quick day, with attentive staff and no queue I doubt you could buy £30 of goods at a supermarket (or even a coffee & cake at a coffee shop) in under 2 minutes, 3 would be more typical. A reduction from 120 to 115 [let's be generous in our assumptions] seconds isn't a huge leap forward.
If queue times in office cafeterias is an issue - local contactless payment has been available for years - often combined with the security chip used for door access into/within a building
Now it's in place we may as well use it, but - like so many things nowadays - on hindsight it seems to have been oversold for what it truly delivers.
"I often like tech advances, but in this case, I'm fairly happy to just lean over the pin-pad so no-one else can see. "
Agreed.
Contactless always seemed to me to be a solution in search of a problem. This initiative even more so.
Surely we haven't atrophied to the point where 5 key presses (4 digit PIN + confirm) is too heavy a burden !
Personally, I prefer a little 'friction' or effort when spending - it acts as a brake on impulse purchasing and a few seconds delay isn't going to hurt retailers (more time is wasted in other ways than this saves).
Are you talking about the services Google gives you for free.
Free in a monetary sense of the word only - you pay heavily with your data.
Now - try to get some support for your data handling - it's not easy (practically impossible). Google manages to weasel out of providing a contact point for data protection/GDPR enquiries and fobs you off with boilerplate text that doesn't address the issues raised or questions asked.
I guess they can get away with screwing over the 'little guy' but sooner or later a government official/plutocrat/oligarch/mafia boss will be affected and then we can all sit back and watch.
On the main topic - isn't it strange that big companies can find resources galore to avoid/evade taxes, yet are overstretched when it comes to sorting out customers' issues? There is a strong correlation [not necessarily a causation] between self serving behaviour towards customers and to paying for services their host nations provide and which they gladly consume.
In my experience, all of the companies I'm boycotting because of appalling customer service are also well known tax dodgers; conversely the companies where I've experienced excellent service are also known for their support for local communities etc.
Just an observation...
You are absolutely correct and I made a mistake - in mitigation, they did perform it at their Drury Lane show.
"A lifetime of poverty is the only solution. Might also focus minds on improving conditions for those on low incomes."
I've long thought politicians should have their income restricted to the median wage; ALL other income should be held in trust and only released after a period of a few years after they stop being a politician.
Two benefits: firstly it would weed out those who seek to use a position of power for self gain rather than a genuine desire to help others; secondly, by pitching at the median income level they'd appreciate how their voters live rather than their circle of (mostly) rich, elite chums.
Some form of accommodation could be provided (possibly at reduced rental rates) plus travel costs pitched at standard class public transport season ticket rates for those who represent constituencies far away from parliament.
As it is we get the [least best] politicians money can buy.
On the flip side, the danger with such a scheme would be that it would attract the power crazy sociopaths who love telling others what to do more than personal financial gain - but experience with religious leaders (of all persuasions) has shown how we can deal with that.
I remember this conversation with an older worker and it struck me as sensible at the time and very wise now.
Without going full "four yorkshiremen *" on it...
Some years ago people sent typewritten memos; you could get 4, maybe 5 carbon copies if you were lucky - any more and a second copy needed to be typed. Result: you thought long and hard about what was said, kept it brief , and considered exactly to whom you would send the message - every addressee counted.
Then came the photocopier - you could easily send memos to 20, 30 people (more involved negotiation with the custodians of the copier and/or negotiations with the stationery dept.) - people were less rigorous about addressees and the volume of less relevant and less valuable info increased.
Then came email - the cost of sending to hundreds of people was minimal; it was quick and easy. Whilst increased communication helps the 'signal to noise' ratio took a nosedive and we got increasing volumes of decreasing quality messages.
Moving on from that conversation, we have social media where absolute crap is broadcast to the whole world and kept for eternity - but the majority of it is inane, inaccurate, disingenuous and unhelpful.
Seems like we have an analogue to the gas law:
Volume x Quality = Constant
----
* Monty Python -- a classic sketch
As it happens, I do know Heathrow very well. I live nearby and have used it many times. It's in an area of relatively high population density (apart from the reservoirs and lakes a few miles to the west).
The airport is bounded on two sides by major motorways with another major road to the east and it has terminal buildings in the middle. Aircraft are parked between the runways and along the side of the airport.
It would be difficult to draw a shot line that didn't run any danger of collateral damage.
Even a lower powered cartridge (which would mean dashing around on the ground to get closer to the drone, with all of the implications on safe movement airside of aircraft and vehicles) would pose a problem with debris.
If we took it to extremes and assumed that your shot was practically out of energy at the airport fence, a slow moving bullet hitting a car going at 70mph would still cause damage and may shock/distract a driver into swerving into other lanes [people in the UK not being accustomed to gun violence].
Why not come to the UK aglider? We could do with your magic expertise of hitting a drone first shot in such a way that no debris gets left behind on runways/taxi-ways to be sucked up into engines.
Of course, with your shooting being so accurate we needn't worry about missed shots carrying a rifle bullet onto the two major motorways around the airport (the busiest roads in Europe according to some sources) or into a terminal full of people, or into hotels ....
Or maybe, just maybe, the UK authorities consider potential consequences beyond the trigger happy, knee jerk reaction and apply some thought to the situation.
"Employers should not be taxed"
That is your opinion and you are entitled to it. I would disagree (without gratuitous insults).
By the same token, absentee employers should get no benefits. If they see no obligation to share society's costs then society should see no obligation in providing support or dealing with their externalities.
If anyone went to these companies and demanded that they provide goods without payment they'd say 'No' -- yet they are quite happy to demand the converse situation.
The taxes paid by employees should 100% be used for their benefit - providing services to them. Taxes paid by employees (and others) shouldn't be used to enrich others who seek to take money out of the country.
For the avoidance of any doubt I do not condone arson, larceny or other illegal/antisocial actions.
That said, I would dearly love the following scenarios to play out:
A major fire to break out at an Amazon warehouse or Google office. When they call the (taxpayer funded) fire services they get told "oh we only operate the phones here - you'll have to source the water from Ireland, the crews from Luxembourg, the appliances from Bermuda... after all that's where you operate isn't it? You don't want to get involved with civil society - well provide your own protection through self funding then!"
Similarly for break-ins/vandalisation at Facebook's offices ... "here's a crime number for your insurers... we'll get back to you when we've dealt with incidents affecting those who do engage with civil society and contribute to the common good".
Or roadworks right outside the offices of Vodafone, Oracle, Microsoft - started and then de-prioritised to serve ordinary folk who pay their way - "yes, we'll get back to fixing your road in due course...".
After all disrupting these organisations wouldn't be a big loss because they don't pay much into society now anyway.
The "I'll keep whatever I can and get everyone else to cover externalities and emergencies" rejection of paying the same taxes as others do should come back to bite them when they discover they're neither all powerful nor an island sufficient unto themselves.
Now, whether the government provides good levels of service for the taxation raised is a separate debate; certainly there are many areas where it could do better. Enriching yourselves by demanding the same benefits as everyone whilst doing everything to avoid the common obligations is the behaviour of an antisocial bully.
And do you also have brooms and are quick enough on your feet to run out and check for debris and clear a whole runway in 90 seconds**, plus taxi ways...
The knee jerk response of "I've got a gun and will use it in any circumstance" doesn't help when known, well documented cases of ground debris being sucked into aero engines has caused catastrophe.
I am, of course, flattering you that you're a perfect shot. Airports are busy, crowded places and Gatwick in particular has a motorway running along one side and a LOT of long term parking spread around the perimeter -- any missed shot could cause a lot of damage, injury and even death.
** The rate of arrivals/departures at busy airports in the UK
"every European passport already has the passport authorities taking fingerprints"
Citation required -- I certainly didn't need to submit fingerprints when my passport was renewed recently.
A lot of browsers have a reader mode which just displays text and inline images - no adverts, no flash....
It's a real pleasure to see some pages 'old school' without all the rubbish.
You're not alone.
I've also had a gmail account since it was invitation only. I also get emails intended for others.
I've developed an approach which is a copy & paste boilerplate reply
"This has come to the wrong address. Please check and resend so my namesake does not miss out. To protect your confidentiality, I will delete this e-mail and future ones of a similar nature. Thank you"
I might add the "you do NOT have my permission to retain or process this e-mail address" words to my boilerplate text -- if you don't mind me copying them :)
Responses received range from a few "OK Sorry to trouble you" ones to which I always reply "No problem - thanks for sorting it" to some arguments and [mostly] no response at all.
In all cases I just add them to a filter rule that deletes the message without reading. It's currently sitting with over 60 filtered addresses (and growing since someone with my name keeps asking folks for timesheets and the people concerned love to 'reply-all').
I've always aimed to behave honourably but there's scope here to really mess up some people if I did reply pretending to be them. I thought I was a relatively rare case but this thread shows it's more common and could be a worrying attack vector for those with malicious intent.
Long story short - I'm gradually migrating away from Google/Gmail [for this and other reasons] telling contacts to use an alternative address.
At a former employer we had an internal collaboration system. This had a rude words filter but it was "turned up to 11" which meant that some day to day discussions were rendered completely pointless.
For example: "Press down hard on the cover and release the screw" became "Press down ********* and release the ******" which wasn't any help to anyone.
It ended up with posts either being strangely formatted (e.g. sc r ew) or [esp. when they were aimed at senior management] using convoluted phrases [attachment device requiring rotational motion to activate the helical engagement system] to point out the silliness. This in a system which would never be seen by (and thus 'needing' shielding provided for) customers, children or others who could be offended.
Still, it "st i mu l at ed" creativity and entertained those who loved searching increasingly obscure words in a thesaurus.
"having ancient email addresses connected to those domains often means a long history of involvement with internet"
To you and me that shows experience, lessons learnt and a knowledge of what's good to be repeated and what's bad to be avoided.
To many recruiters and HR drones it raises flags of "this person's old", "they may know more than me", "they're probably prepared to be assertive and not just accepting", "they'll want an decent income"...
An "ancient" email address is great for nostalgia - I still keep a couple myself - but I can appreciate how it can negatively affect job hunting [it shouldn't but it does].
On the other hand, you could probably discern what I think about other businesses by the e-mail address that I give them: if I give you my gmail address, it means that I'm not that concerned about/don't highly value your business; my 'professional' address (a facade redirecting to proton mail) is used for most business purposes; my personal domain address is reserved for a very few special cases. If I give you a hotmail or yahoo address (yes I still keep them going) I really regard it as a throwaway and am not really likely to follow up. :)
Personal e-mail is a different story
Well, since Google goes out of its way to hide any contact info for its Data Protection Officer and/or Company Secretary you can get a good idea of their likely level of concern.
For a company built on finding data they are very keen not to reveal their own details (unlike most other responsible companies) -- a real insight into their ethics -- plenty of protection for us but none for you.
I don't know why they're doing this but as a separate yet related question:
Who would put anything sensitive into Dropbox, Google Drive... without encrypting it first?
Even if you have the "I use Linux but I have to share files with Windows / MacOS clients" scenario it's still perfectly feasible to use a TrueCrypt (or VeraCrypt) container to hold your files (from experience, it's better to use a lot of smaller ones rather than a big container as it's likely that any change will involve transferring the whole thing each time).
I believe that there are some Android apps that are compatible with a subset of TrueCrypt settings but I've not tried them.
bcrypt and ccrypt seem to be portable between Linux and MacOS [haven't tried with Windows].
Bonus points for renaming the file to hide any give-away info in the extensions; if you get a message saying 'mydoc.pdf appears to be corrupted' you'll know that someone's tried to spy and just hit a load of binary data :-)
So, for anything remotely sensitive, I'd do encryption under my control before using anyone else's remote storage.
All that being said - I'm considering moving what very little I have in off-site storage into an instance of ownCloud or NextCloud on a spare machine under MY control.
On yet another side issue (although still related to use of off-site storage):
For remote storage I'm looking for a good waterproof/airtight lockable box so I can keep my weekly rsync backup away from my house [current USB hard drive is wrapped in multiple plastic bags and seems to survive OK but I'd like to improve on this]. Anyone got any recommendations?
Weeks of clear skies and sun.
Yet the evening of the eclipse and it's cloudy and raining in the south of the UK.
Why today? why? The 'law of universal irony' strikes again.
Still at least the garden's getting a much needed watering and there are recordings of the event being put on the Internet.
An interesting topic and relevnt for science and nerdy types -- yet the first 15 or so comments are all off topic, snide remarks and the inevitable (and tiresome) ad hominem attacks.
Not a single reply which bore any relevance to the topic.
Come on Slashdot, you are better than this !!
I don't see where Google has the authority to dictate domestic commercial law to the EU (or anyone else).
If Google doesn't like the business environment it should leave - but then (a) they'd lose the use of their low tax havens in Ireland and Luxembourg and (b) risk someone else grabbing a section of the market bigger than the US.
Personally, I'd shed no tears to see the back of this tax evading, privacy hostile behemoth.
Well that's a good idea !! (sarcasm)
I can easily see the downsides for the guests but it's a huge risk for the hotel too:
Using the publicised attack mechanisms of passing commands to Alexa which are inaudible to humans (I'd look up the reference but it's late at night where I am and I'm tired) one could have great fun with a cheap phone and a command loop.
Something like this should cause some disruption and hurt the hotel's maintenance budget:
"Alexa TV Volume up ... Alexa TV Volume up ... Alexa air-con set to 10 degrees C ... Alexa lights on ... Alexa lights off ... Alexa TV Volume up to maximum ... Alexa curtains closed ... Alexa lights on ... Alexa lights off ... ... Alexa TV mute ... Alexa aircon set to 35 degrees C ... Alexa curtains open "
Even if management went up to an empty room in response to guests next door complaining about the noise or the hotels building systems alarms about the air-con they probably wouldn't associate it with an apparently silent phone innocently plugged into a charger.
Actually the inaudible command could be used to order food and drink which could be denied (see my earlier comment) -- having multiple orders sent to empty rooms would be expensive and wasteful.
With poorly paid and generally demotivated cleaning staff around, placing low cost speakers in rooms is feasible if you wanted to do a wide-scale distributed disruption of service.