The porn blackmail scam—ignore it if you receive it

I’m not saying I can’t be conned—because by my own admission, I have been—but sometimes when you’re very sure of your position, scammers’ lies don’t work.    Here’s a fascinating one that came in today, a lot more aggressive than the usual request for helping someone move millions of dollars of bullion out of the […]

Read More… from The porn blackmail scam—ignore it if you receive it



Facebook’s ‘clear history’ option: why should I begin believing them now?

Maurizio Pesce/Creative Commons At the F8 conference, Mark Zuckerberg says that Facebook will offer a ‘clear history’ option.    Considering that opting out of Facebook ad tracking does nothing, individually deleting the ad preferences that Facebook claims it would not collect only sees them repopulated, and hiding categories of ads does nothing, why would I […]

Read More… from Facebook’s ‘clear history’ option: why should I begin believing them now?



The path of least resistance: we humans aren’t discerning enough sometimes

I came across a thread at Tedium where Christopher Marlow mentions Pandora Mail as an email client that took Eudora as a starting-point, and moved the game forward (e.g. building in Unicode support).    As some of you know, I’ve been searching for an email client to use instead of Eudora (here’s something I wrote […]

Read More… from The path of least resistance: we humans aren’t discerning enough sometimes



Social media: not the evolution you might have expected

I’m getting a buzz seeing how little I update social media now. Around February 2016 I began updating Tumblr far less; I’ve gone from dozens of posts per month to four in December 2017 and seven in January 2018. (Here’s my Tumblr archive.) Facebook, as many of you know, is a thing of the past […]

Read More… from Social media: not the evolution you might have expected



I don’t do paid blog posts here (so don’t ask)

  I know we all get these emails from time to time, but they still annoy me.    If ‘Peter’ had visited this blog, he would know that every single post since 2006 has been my own, unpaid, unsponsored thoughts. Why would I change that now?    You may say it’s a fair question, and […]

Read More… from I don’t do paid blog posts here (so don’t ask)



Could the fight against phishing be shifted?

I wasn’t able to find anything about this online, and I wonder if anyone was already doing it. If not, maybe someone should.    Could the big players, e.g. Amazon and Apple, not provide the public with a fake email address and password (or a series of them) that we can feed in to phishing […]

Read More… from Could the fight against phishing be shifted?



Everything’s perfect with those Auckland systems, nothing to see here

I contacted Auckland Airport through its Facebook on Tuesday over the matter in my previous post, and got an immediate reply from someone monitoring its social media. She tells me that she will ask them to furnish me with an urgent response. I am still waiting. It’s a bit of a worry when this is […]

Read More… from Everything’s perfect with those Auckland systems, nothing to see here



When it comes to mass surveillance, forget specificity

Be careful what you say on social media in Britain.    English law permits mass surveillance of the big social media platforms, according to Charles Farr, the director-general of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism, in a statement published last week responding to a case brought by Privacy International, Liberty, Amnesty International, the American Civil […]

Read More… from When it comes to mass surveillance, forget specificity



It’s still wise to bet against Facebook

A non-peer-reviewed academic article from Princeton predicts Facebook will be toast by ’17, and Facebook has very cleverly responded using similar methodology to say that Princeton will have no students by 2021. The lack of review on the former left it wide open for the Facebook attack.    However, it’s not unwise betting against Facebook. […]

Read More… from It’s still wise to bet against Facebook



In praise of Zoho Mail

  Now that all of our email, bar a handful of client accounts, are going through the paid version of Zoho Mail, I couldn’t be happier.    When we shifted things over, my friend and web development expert, Nigel Dunn, suggested either Google or Zoho. He’s a big fan of Google, and I can see […]

Read More… from In praise of Zoho Mail