gvurrdon

When assisting friends of elderly relatives I was surprised to see that one of them had managed to set up a password of "a1".

This was happening to me on the desktop. I've not tried on a phone (I try to avoid PayPal).

Sadly, their website now appears to require an app in order to sign in. Even before that it would often block me with text along the lines of "We don't know who you are, call our support number."

I notice that their user identity verification involves "Entrust":

https://help.curve.com/en_gb/your-curve-account-verification...

https://www.entrust.com/products/identity-verification?edc_r...

As the second URL suggests, Entrust used to be called Onfido.

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/onfido.com

Oh dear...

In general I'd agree.

Curve demand a "video selfie" and I've never been comfortable with sending companies such biometric data.

I agree with you that iOS is just as not acceptable, and don't plan to switch to it myself.

Android does indeed still look better. But, I would not consider having to send a copy of my government ID to Google, or having them be able to block apps when so ordered by government, to be acceptable.

When I bought a Thinkpad a few months ago there was an option to order it with a smaller battery (which I selected).

Would there be any means of preventing apps from seeing one's phone number, IMEI etc.?

Definitely. I have spent the last few days trying to get a replacement "Digipass" device for a bank account I run for a small sports club. The bank was very reluctant to issue a new one as they want to move everyone onto their app to generate codes for logging in to their website. Trying to argue that even if their app worked now on a de-Googled Android device there was no guarantee that they wouldn't require Google's safetynet etc. at some point in the future was a failure. They did not understand this and decreed that the app not working, or possibly not working, on one's phone was "not a valid reason" to be excused from using the app. Luckily because the account is a business account I was able to claim that using banking apps on phones was against company policy (I set the policy myself), which is an excuse they were willing to accept. For now.

Years ago I worked for another BOINC project, climateprediction.net and I'm pleased to see that they are still operating (see: https://main.cpdn.org/). IIRC SETI@Home was well-known back then - I'd always mention it if people asked what I did, and they usually recognised it.

There has been very little change for me. The one area where AI has been of use is for providing debugging suggestions in those circumstances when I am so short of ideas that I am contemplating posting a question on Stack Overflow. Only once has Chat GPT actually found a bug directly, but on a handful of occasions it has made suggestions which have yielded results when investigated further in traditional way (e.g. reading documentation). Still, At least the AI actually does something rather than ignore me or scold me for the way I have posed my question.

Indeed; I could probably get away with the minimal uBlock Chrome now offers, but it's no good for me without the containers.

Containers are also very useful indeed; I have to log into various different Google and Github accounts and can do this in a single browser window.

Normally I have had very good experiences as well. My colleagues almost always speak very good English and even those who don't are understandable. Everyone is happy to conduct meetings (with many nationalities, as I work in a scientific field) in English.

Only once have I encountered a problem. A colleague berated me in front of others for speaking "difficult English" and accused me of doing this on purpose to cause trouble for them, instead of speaking proper international English like everyone else did. But, I am a native English speaker with an RP accent and we were all in England at the time, working for a British organisation. I was simply speaking normally and otherwise had no issue with this colleague, whose English was very good. I don't recall their having been any misunderstandings between us before.

I lived in Dundee during the 1990s and they were available. I'm told that they were popular at the Victor (https://maps.app.goo.gl/9g3je56Gt7spifo26) though I don't see them on the menu today.

Readers may be interested to know what my MP had to say when I got in touch about this:

Thank you for your email.

The UK has a strong tradition of safeguarding privacy while ensuring that appropriate action can be taken against criminals, such as child sexual abusers and terrorists. I firmly believe that privacy and security are not mutually exclusive—we can and must have both.

The Investigatory Powers Act governs how and when data can be requested by law enforcement and other relevant agencies. It includes robust safeguards and independent oversight to protect privacy, ensuring that data is accessed only in exceptional cases and only when necessary and proportionate.

The suggestion that cybersecurity and access to data by law enforcement are at odds is false. It is possible for online platforms to have strong cybersecurity measures whilst also ensuring that criminal activities can be detected.

It should be noted that the Home Office cannot comment on operational security matters, including confirming or denying the existence of any notices it has issued. This has been the longstanding position of successive UK Governments for reasons of national security.

I support the responsible use of data and technology to drive economic growth, create new jobs, and empower individuals. It is essential that data is used safely and wisely, and that individuals remain in control of how their data is used.

Additionally, I welcome the Government’s transparency regarding how data is used, including on the algorithms that process this information. Several algorithms have already been published for public scrutiny, with more to follow—as resources allow—across multiple departments.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this important issue.

Recently, I was referred by my family physician to a healthcare provider. That provider required a mobile phone number for registration. I emailed them to complain about this and their reply was that if I did not have a mobile I should contact the referring medical practice to find an alternative means of treatment. I did, and their response was that I should take it up with the provider. But this is, of course, just one anecdote. I would also be interested in seeing more information.

Pixel watches are pretty good now, and I didn't much like the changes made in WatchOS 10. But, it's a fair point.

I've encountered a similar issue in academia - PI's don't want to make their data available to be scraped (or, at least not easily) because the amount of grant funding is limited, and a rival who has scraped one's data could get the grant money instead by using that scraped data to bolster their application.

iTunes used to be extremely buggy for me, and things got a bit better with the Apple Music app. But, within the last week a bug which messes up all the album artwork on a synced iPhone struck my partner's device - I've not seen that one since iTunes.

> personalised StackOverflow without the negative attitude

Phrased in that way, it does sound very tempting. Over the past few years it's become pretty much a waste of time to post on SO (well, in my experience, anyway).

Do you have any references for either fascist sympathies or alternative frameworks? I'd be interested in taking a look if so.

Interesting. I don't think I've noticed that, but I have run into various issues with SMS when there's poor signal. On one occasion I could receive but could not send, just at the perfect time when someone was waiting for me and I was unable to get to them.

Indeed. Pretty much everyone I know is "texting" with their friends and using whatever is the default app on their phone. Some people will use Whatsapp for specific groups/events, but that default text app is very commonly used.

This reminds me of a conversation with an iPhone-using elderly relative who wanted to text friends in their retirement home:

ER: Why is it that when I send text messages to my friends they sometimes never get them?

Me: When you get messages are the bubbles green?

ER: Yes.

Me: Is there bad phone signal in this area?

ER: Yes.

Me: OK, that means your friends are using Android phones, so your messages are being sent by a method called 'SMS' which isn't very reliable, particularly when phone signal is poor.

ER: I don't really understand that. What I can I do to fix it?

Me: You and your friends could install an app such as Whatsapp or Signal and send your texts with that.

ER: No, I'm not installing an app!

Me: You could persuade your friends to buy iPhones.

ER: They won't do that.

Me: You could wait a few months and Apple will most likely activate a new system called "RCS" on iPhones which might make messages with your friends a bit more reliable.

ER: That's no good, I need to fix it now.

etc. etc.

A Pebble 2 HR with a colour screen would do the job for me, I think.

It's a major use of the watch for me also, but something like a Pebble 2 HR would tempt me to abandon payments. Do you have any links to examples of these bands you've found useful?

I've managed to persuade some people and groups to use Signal. If I could find a way to use Whatsapp without Meta being able to identify me via my phone number and ransack my contacts then I would, reluctantly, give it a go.

I tried Feedly after Google Reader shut down but eventually settled on Feedbin - that might be worth a look.

The main application I have to work with now ended up, for various reasons, as a Rails API with a Vue client.

The Rails part has been easy to maintain and adapt to users' frequent changes, the main issues being feature requests for very complicated queries which then end up being slow. Vue has taken up a lot of time with the migration from 2 -> 3 (still not finished).