Damien Mulley

My predicition: The Data Protection Commissoner will “investigate” and do sweet fanny adams. Which apparently is their job really. The same Data Protection Commissioner that did nothing when Talk Talk harassed people for weeks. They said they did wrong but it was the first time so they let them off. The same Data Protection Commissioner who said there was no data loss when the Blood Transfusion Service lost 170,000 records. See the records were encrypted so that’s fine. Not like encryption can be broken. If it really was encrypted.

So now we have 10,000 records that contain financial details, medical records, names, addresses. Gold for someone that wants to assume your identity and siphon money from your accounts. Hell, depending on your medical history, they could blackmail you too. But Bank of Ireland says nothing was accessed and nobody was conned, so move along here. Uhm. You only told the public yesterday, how do you know the data wasn’t used for another con?

The spokesman said there was no evidence of any fraudulent or suspicious activity relating to any of the 10,000 customers’ accounts since their records were stolen.

Actually, the DPC were informed but BOI says they’re just wanting to hear how things go, wow, proactive:

The spokesman denied reports that the data protection commissioner and the financial regulator were investigating the bank’s loss of customers’ records.

However, he said that both regulators had asked to be kept informed of the bank’s investigation into the matter.

Update: Seems the DPC is investigating now.

Remember when Clarkson got scammed?

It’s time for Data Breach Notification laws here. We can’t let banks and comapnies decide whether to tell us or not about these breaches.

So in case you missed the memo, Facebook allows companies and individuals to basically create profiles for brands which they call pages. Instead of friending them like you do on Bebo or mySpace you “fan” them. What’s really clever (or maybe awful depending on your viewpoint) is that when someone friends a brand it shows up in the newsfeed of their friends. A nice viral way of spreading the world. BUT you can also run ads based on this action. Sinéad mentioned it before when a friend of hers became a fan of Phantom.

This is what it looks like:

So anyways, I thought it would be a hoot, yes a hoot, to create a page called Cock so that you could see “Mary has become a fan of Cock” on news feeds. Alas, Facebook have a naughty filter. BOO!

So screw it, I created the fanpage for Gnéas, the Irish word for sex. Aren’t I almost clever? Why not become a fan of Gnéas?

And this is how it’s seen in the Newsfeed:

As well as that I have ads running too so when someone you know is a fan, you’ll see an ad like the one for Tim above, though it’ll look something like this:

Yes, it’s accepted I have too much time on my hands.

To extend broadband to more of the country they want schools to open classrooms in the evenings and weekends so the greater community can avail of the broadband the school has:

In the context of leveraging resources, in particular technology for all of our benefit, Dr. Coughlan continued “One way to equip communities with the skill sets needed in the global economy is to extend the schools broadband service to enable all community stakeholders to enjoy the benefits of technology out-of-hours, thereby extending the footprint of broadband services throughout the country in a cost effective manner.”

Most schools have a satellite dish to provide broadband. It’s got a speed of 512k download. It’s almost useless. In areas where schools have proper broadband people themselves can get it at home. Why open the schools? It’s not as if there is a problem with convincing people to use broadband. The issue is availablity not demand.
Most schools don’t have good computers, the public adding wear and tear will make things worse.
Most schools don’t have the resources to pay someone to come in out of hours to supervise the public.

This would be the same Chambers that I met the EU with who were smug enough to suggest rural dwellers can always move into the cities to get broadband and rural dwellers should have to pay higher line rental because it was unfair on city dwellers to have to subsidise them.

And then the Chambers jumped on the Collison bandwagon:

Citing the example of the Collison brothers from Castletroy, Limerick who recently sold their web based start-up to Canadian company Live Current Media, Dr. Coughlan continued, “It is vital that we invest in communities to ensure that they achieve the very best of their abilities. Young people such as Patrick and John Collison remind us of the talent that there is in Ireland,” Dr. Coughlan concluded.

Bertie, Take Enda With You Facebook Group – 302 members
Iron Man Competition to go to UK Premier Facebook Group – 204 members
Mr Tayto for President – 296 members
Dear L drivers, shut the fuck up and take the damned test – 587 members

Hi Ican!

Photo owned by hownowdesign (cc)