The company behind ads on dutch national news sites/tv stations is stopping with tracking ads.

The interesting reason behind that IMO is that they have this very simple 'banner' which asks in a very understandable way whether people want (or not) tracking shit/cookies placed/loaded on their browser.

Apparently 90% of all visitors go for the "No" option so they don't see the point in continuing to try it anymore.

Awesome!

So today I found a file share containing some super super sensitive information accessible to what I think was our entire user base (6,500 users) if you knew the server name and had an interest in nosing around.

I reported it to our head of IT and heard nothing after, although 5 mins after reporting I could no longer access...

I suspect the infrastructure lead is going to be a dick (because his one of them awkward non team player kind of guys) and not thank me for preventing our company from being in national news papers... but try to spin it on why am I nosing around his servers in the first place..

I actually feel 50/50 about if I should of told or not.. but on flip side, I guess the access logs of me listing the files as I flick through to confirm my suspicions would of caused s bigger headache.

Fucking useless infrastructure engineers!

Check in, check out, punch in punch, out, wax on (my balls), wax off. Do your duty. Be a good citizen. Work overtime. Conserve the environment: buy a tesla that runs on afghan lithium conflict minerals. Post your life to facebook. Get married. Have exactly 2.5 kids.
Use jquery. Use knockout. Use react. Use vue. Use svlete. Use heroin. Used needles. Used people. Used toilet paper. Toilet paper apocalypse. Social trends. Be a good citizen.

Watch tv. Watch nightly news. CNN says. Fox news says. Hey, did you read this article by important funny guy on tv? American taliban. Scary. Be afraid. Hey did you read this article on cute puppies? Funny! Did you see this meme? What a funny meme! HAHAHA. Do we need prisons for dissidents? Do we need to release all the prisoners in federal prison? Should we round up people who dont follow health authorities? Science says. Science is wrong. Science is right. Man in robe agrees with me. Man in robe disagrees with me. You're evil. These people are bad. Is doing bad always wrong? Should we tolerate intolerance? Its time to stop tolerating intolerance. Be an individual, like everyone else. Be you. Be the best you that you can be. Individualism. But we're all in this together. We're all different and unique. But we're all the same. Love each other. Love humanity. But not these guys over here. Punch a nazi. Punch a commie. Isn't it time we punched a nazi? Isn't it time we had socialism? Isn't it time the old get out of the way for the young? Why are the old hateful? Why do they horde all the money? Do we need rent controls? We need rent controls. Its time for rent controls. I think I believe what others believe. Believe different. Think different. Apple. An apple a day keeps the windows away. Open windows, a breathe of fresh air. Is climate change real? We need to have a national conversation about climate change! The world is freezing. The world is flooding. We're all gonna drown. The world is overpopulated. We need to talk about overpopulation. People who have too many kids are polluting the world. America doesnt have enough kids! Is it time to bring in more immigrants to have more kids? Who will work the fields? Thats racist. Is racism an epidemic? Is white flight an epidemic? Lets talk about epidemics. Lets have a conversation about mandatory vaccination. Lets have a national conversation about mandatory pandemics. I mean, vaccinations. Lets change the world. Trust the science. Don't trust the science. Bu-bu-bu-bu-bu I'm loving it. Love who you are. Live love laugh. If you don't love me at my best, then you can't handle me at my worst. People who disagree with [current year] are the worst. Is it time to regulate speech? Its time to regulate speech. Should there be laws against hatespeech. I think there should be laws against hatespeech. People who upset me should go to jail. Its current year. Think big. Think outside the bun. Have it your way. All the time, always. All for freedom, freedom for all. Because this is america, and current year. I like to work hard. But you have to remember to play hard too. Work hard. Play hard. With a childlike sense of wonder. Be you. Belong anywhere. Just do it. Challenge Everything. Because you're worth it. Save money...live better...have an abortion. You're in good hands. Democracy dies in darkness. Is it time to regulate hatespeech. Politician in current year is hurting our democracy. War is a racket. We need to liberate afghanistan. Why are we bombing afghanistan? Its there culture. They're oppressing people! Don't criticize anyones culture. Be kind. Rewind. Go further. Lets go places. Because Impossible is Nothing.
Lets change the world. I'm a smart passionate funny guy with a childlike sense of wonder and play. You ever want to travel? I want to travel. See the world. Eat new food. Eat. Love. Pray. Eat love. kill. Is meat murder? I think meat is murder. Go vegan. Go home. Order out. Support your local economy. Think global, act local. I'm a good corporate citizen. Be the change you want to see. Did you hear about this local brewery? Do you like craft beer? Hey try this new IPA. I shared it on twitter. Twitter is a very important part of my life. I think what other people say matters, and them reading what I think matters. What I ate for lunch matters. Hey what did you eat for lunch? I LOVE FOOD. You want to order door dash. There new commercial is amazing. Commercials are SO FUNNY. Hey did you see this meme of this commercial? I shared it on tiktok. Heres a funny dance. Watch these nurses dance. I wish I could dance like that. They're so overworked. So brave. Our hospitals are overflowing. People are dying. Hey did you see this new dance trend on tiktok? I like tiktok. I think its a very important part of life to share your life with others. Nurses are dying. Look at this image of hospitals. Scared. Very scary. Very bad. Bad and scary. Big thoughts! Thoughts and prayers!

Because Yes we can!

Beep boop.

These days i like to think of our data privacy as that of an amazon package delivery between person A to B

- Person A wants a packet of condoms and guns, but don't want society to know about it
- person B wants to send guns and condoms to B
- Amazon is willing to provide transportation with a pinky promise that it won't tell anyone about the delivery.
- Thus B gives the condoms and guns to Amazon wrapped up in hard box hoping that Amazon or anybody else won't open it. Similarly A receives the packet hoping that nobody else got to know about it.

But the problem is a LOT of people could possibly know of the contents, even if A or B aren't willing to share details
- Amazon can look into it.
- government can stop the amazon car transporting the packet and force them to look into it.
- some 3rd person(aka hacker) could fool the delivery truck and get access to packet contents.

=======================================
and this morning, my neighbour, A very radical hindu supporter, frustrated by the recent tablighi jamaat fuck-up , gave a very strange statement "you know in future, the government would pass a law which will allow them to hear these ppl's calls /whatsapp messages. This will allow government to detect and take actions on every of these anti-national scums"

I wanted to say WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU HOPING FOR, BOOMER? THAT'S CENSORSHIP!! but i couldn't say because his illiterate vision is no longer a hope, i can see it becoming reality.

Personally i am equally angry with that whole incident and how that community handled it. But how can anyone ask for censorship, just because a few elements misused it? The problem lies with thise elements and people who support their thoughts not the whole community or the communication medium.

From what i have heard in the recent US and indian law news, they are essentially trying to peek into the data we send to each other legally.

So going by the package delivery analogy, its like government now wants to have every amazon delivery happen in transparent boxes in a transparent truck, just because a few people ordered illegal items via amazon delivery.

This world is going crazy and stupid.

So, I browse to a video livestream and an annoying ad starts before the livestream is shown. Furthermore, the page jumps around because of a cookie notification that also blocks some UI elements at the top.

Note: this is the website of a public (government-paid) national news website with very high standards and a good reputation.

Action 1: refresh page; I hope the ad is skipped. Nope, annoying ad restarts. Page jumps around again because of the cookie notification.

Action 2: accept cookies to remove notification blocking the top UI (it's OK, I know it can't actually save any cookies on my machine). Instead of some nice JS doing it for me in the background, the page refreshes because you know, HTTP requests and whatnot.

Annoying ad restarts again... FML 🤬

Lessons to be learned from this for any web dev: these annoyances can and *will* exponentially get worse if used simultaneously against your users, instead of being used to help or inform your users.

As a user of you website, I want to watch a livestream. I don't care what stupid legislation forced you to shove a fucking cookie notification in my face. Make sure it is not annoying me to the point that I close you website and take minutes to rant about it!

Also, give me the freedom of choice to watch an ad or not. You and I both know that some ads simply are not for me. Better save yourself and myself the bandwidth.

And go get good at web development. You're a news site. That's more than just text and images. If you want great apps, social media coverage, videos, live streams, blogs, etc. go get some better web devs. Your current web frontend devs only qualify to get fired.

Guys, as professional developers, what are your views on WannaCrypt or WannaCry? That ransomware is a national news in my country right now

The latest news report makes my stomach turn. South Africa moves this month from a level 4 to a level 3 lockdown. No more curfew.. still no traveling or renting accommodation for leisure though. Ban on public gatherings, gyms, dine-in restaurants, tobacco sales remains in effect. Sale of alcohol is limited in capacity and sale can only occur between certain hours of the day.. its such bullshit, of course there's going to be an upsurgence of Corona as they lower the lockdown level, which will make them panic and possibly raise the lockdown level again.. or just keep us at a level 3 until they think we've successfully "defeated the curve".... for those of you who don't know, our presidented declared a national state of disaster ar the onset of the covid-19 scare! 🙈 vok my lewe