Ok, Facebook do appear to have been doing something very stupid here, but let's get a list of all the vendors involved. Can we not have a list of all the vendors (Amazon and the like) who are happy to release your private sales information to a third party without your express permission?
I think it would be very important to promote a list of online retailers who it's NOT safe to shop with. Ignore the fact that Facebook are showing the information where they shouldn't be, the retailers who are offering the information out in the first place are the ones to really be angry with.
And if it isn't in cooperation, and there's some kind of stealth applet in the browser (as it sounds like there might be) listening in on third-party site traffic then that sounds like either a browser security hole (which should be patched) or some kind of malware that should be removed from systems.
Unless, this is just some overblown incident of user stupidity where they are telling facebook more than they should be. I haven't seen the thing in action myself.
Of course, if I happened to be running the Stocks and Weather applications on my iPod Touch it wouldn't have an IMEI number to send, would it? Not that I am running those applications on my ipod, because that of course isn't allowed.
Interesting, and possibly very valid in knocking-down J&J's trademark symbol. However, wouldn't the same thing prevent the ARC from licencing the logo for commercial use to others?
What you did is what every normal and well-brought-up person should do. Now, I can't deny that if someone is being a complete asshat to me and they make a similar mistake, I'd be sorely tempted to not point out their error. But in general, behave to others as you'd expect them to behave to you.
So... you didn't do anything wrong, but you could probably do with finding new friends. Friends who think like that are (in my experience) usually just users.
When I talk to "normal" people and mention GIMP, I'm always careful to call it the "GNU IMP graphics software". It is, otherwise, one of the most ridiculous names in modern software.
Having a deterrent is pretty pointless unless everyone knows that you have it. I'm sure they wouldn't have left this boat out in the open unless it was their intention for people to see it.
The real mineral is called "Jadarite", or at least it will be officially when it's published later this year. At the moment it has the official memorable name of "IMA2006-036" - but as the name "Jadarite" has leaked out onto the internet already, there's no big surprise about the forthcoming announcement. In fact these leaks on the internet pushed the Natural History Museum to release this press release now.
A while ago I ran an Amiga software development company. Our designer (Mark) had an Amiga 4000 with various external SCSI devices running off a notoriously unreliable Commodore A4091 SCSI card.
I went to his desk once trying to access a file on his external drives, and I kept getting disk errors. I called him over, and he said "Oh! That disk won't work unless you open up the system clock and resize it to this kind of size, and put it on the screen here". He opened the old analogue-face clock program that came with the amiga, resized it to about 200 pixels square, and stuck it in the top right of his screen.
I stood there smiling. He was, after all, a designer.
The file opened fine though after he did that.
I did some messing around on his machine afterwards. I was convinced there was some kind of obscure problem that we were missing - incorrect termination or bad cables maybe. I put the clock incident down to coincidence.
I could find nothing else wrong - but I still couldn't access the disk. So, I opened the clock application. I tried it on one side of the screen. File would not open. Moved it to the top right corner. The file opened. I did this about ten times as I couldn't believe the results myself. Every time I had the clock in the top right corner, the external SCSI disk behaved itself. I tried different applications, none of them worked in the same way - it had to be the clock.
I was completely spooked by the whole thing, and decided this was something sent by the Gods of SCSI to taunt me. The logical side of my mind believes that it is probably some obscure DMA issue, the rest of my mind believes the machine was possessed.
The thing I was never able to figure out was how Mark discovered the SCSI-healing properties of the Magic Amiga Clock and why he felt it was perfectly normal behaviour for his machine!
Slashdot Mirror
Could well be!
In which case, that would probably work on the UK's previous stock of nuclear weapons too.
See:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/7097101.stm
Why are we still allowed to buy these dangerous biros?
Jolyon
Do they really think this sounds more impressive than "paperclip" ?
Jolyon
Ok, Facebook do appear to have been doing something very stupid here, but let's get a list of all the vendors involved. Can we not have a list of all the vendors (Amazon and the like) who are happy to release your private sales information to a third party without your express permission?
I think it would be very important to promote a list of online retailers who it's NOT safe to shop with. Ignore the fact that Facebook are showing the information where they shouldn't be, the retailers who are offering the information out in the first place are the ones to really be angry with.
And if it isn't in cooperation, and there's some kind of stealth applet in the browser (as it sounds like there might be) listening in on third-party site traffic then that sounds like either a browser security hole (which should be patched) or some kind of malware that should be removed from systems.
Unless, this is just some overblown incident of user stupidity where they are telling facebook more than they should be. I haven't seen the thing in action myself.
Jolyon
Hammertime?
Of course, if I happened to be running the Stocks and Weather applications on my iPod Touch it wouldn't have an IMEI number to send, would it? Not that I am running those applications on my ipod, because that of course isn't allowed.
Jolyon
That sounds useful! I use /dev/null as a write-only database. Very efficient.
Jolyon
This seems like an excellent way of avoiding attention to the real problem - why a modern OS takes so long to boot.
Jolyon
Then we could have http://slashdot.slash/
Jolyon
Well, if people are only as mad as "heck" then it shouldn't be a big worry for Jobs. Once they get as "mad as hell" perhaps he'll change his mind.
Seriously, any blogger who can't use the word 'hell' in their blog and feels obliged to tone it down loses serious respectpoints from me.
Jolyon
Either that or some kind of favour for a favour. And exactly what that involves I really don't want to know.
Jolyon
Interesting, and possibly very valid in knocking-down J&J's trademark symbol. However, wouldn't the same thing prevent the ARC from licencing the logo for commercial use to others?
Jolyon
Well, I know that Australia are ahead of us because of the time difference, but this is ridiculous!
Jolyon
What you did is what every normal and well-brought-up person should do. Now, I can't deny that if someone is being a complete asshat to me and they make a similar mistake, I'd be sorely tempted to not point out their error. But in general, behave to others as you'd expect them to behave to you.
So... you didn't do anything wrong, but you could probably do with finding new friends. Friends who think like that are (in my experience) usually just users.
Jolyon
Or something like that.
Jolyon
This was announced at the Google Developer Day back in May, and has been pretty much public knowledge since then.
Jolyon
When I talk to "normal" people and mention GIMP, I'm always careful to call it the "GNU IMP graphics software". It is, otherwise, one of the most ridiculous names in modern software.
Jolyon
Um...
Having a deterrent is pretty pointless unless everyone knows that you have it. I'm sure they wouldn't have left this boat out in the open unless it was their intention for people to see it.
Jolyon
The real mineral is called "Jadarite", or at least it will be officially when it's published later this year. At the moment it has the official memorable name of "IMA2006-036" - but as the name "Jadarite" has leaked out onto the internet already, there's no big surprise about the forthcoming announcement. In fact these leaks on the internet pushed the Natural History Museum to release this press release now.
More information about Jadarite at: http://www.mindat.org/min-31570.html
Jolyon
Why on earth couldn't they have launched them on May 4th.
Jolyon
The Constitution Service Pack 1
Truly the most innovative patent of all time.
Jolyon
Seems like the following patent application may be more suitable for stopping DRM
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Time_Travel_Patents
Jolyon
A while ago I ran an Amiga software development company. Our designer (Mark) had an Amiga 4000 with various external SCSI devices running off a notoriously unreliable Commodore A4091 SCSI card.
I went to his desk once trying to access a file on his external drives, and I kept getting disk errors. I called him over, and he said "Oh! That disk won't work unless you open up the system clock and resize it to this kind of size, and put it on the screen here". He opened the old analogue-face clock program that came with the amiga, resized it to about 200 pixels square, and stuck it in the top right of his screen.
I stood there smiling. He was, after all, a designer.
The file opened fine though after he did that.
I did some messing around on his machine afterwards. I was convinced there was some kind of obscure problem that we were missing - incorrect termination or bad cables maybe. I put the clock incident down to coincidence.
I could find nothing else wrong - but I still couldn't access the disk. So, I opened the clock application. I tried it on one side of the screen. File would not open. Moved it to the top right corner. The file opened. I did this about ten times as I couldn't believe the results myself. Every time I had the clock in the top right corner, the external SCSI disk behaved itself. I tried different applications, none of them worked in the same way - it had to be the clock.
I was completely spooked by the whole thing, and decided this was something sent by the Gods of SCSI to taunt me. The logical side of my mind believes that it is probably some obscure DMA issue, the rest of my mind believes the machine was possessed.
The thing I was never able to figure out was how Mark discovered the SCSI-healing properties of the Magic Amiga Clock and why he felt it was perfectly normal behaviour for his machine!
Jolyon
WTF!
Much of the content I see on the web would be better tagged with a 'WTF' tag.
Jolyon