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Notes from Zoom meeting – 4th February 2021

A large attendance yesterday, touching nineteen as shown above. We started with this – The Blue Ball – it’s mesmerising; the digital equivalent of those steel balls that swung on a cradle on execs desks in the seventies, remember them?

I mentioned the emojipedia which I referenced in the last notes and offered to help anyone who wanted to get onto Signal at the end of the meeting. Then it was “round the screen” to find out what members had been up to, or were having difficulties, or issues, with.

Margaret reported on two scams, one from Lloyds Bank (spelt Lloyd) and an “internet interruption” call/text which on traceback (which David H had done having received the same one) appeared to come from Caerphilly! On a more productive note she had been able to transfer a lot of treasured photos from her old laptop – which she’d been unable to upgrade to Windows 10 unfortunately (for a number of reasons, lapsed time, lack of memory) – to their desktop. I mentioned that Linux was still a possibility to revive the old laptop, we could look at that agin when we were all together in person. She also told us about a very pleasant experience attending virtually the Destinations Travel event, and informed us about the Stanfords Travel Writer Festival and the videos from the event which finished yesterday will be online from that site.

Owen reported that following the last meeting, he’d replaced his Powerline Adaptors with new ones and was now getting much improved wired connection speed for his study.

Don had been decorating for the past three weeks, that is when he wasn’t standing in the garden at a safe distance from the lead gas pipe he’d fractured in a wall, thinking it was redundant!

Jim had got himself into “trouble” with Flickr for displaying a photo of some aubergines – this caused much mirth. He reported to me today that Flickr had apologised for slapping an “unsafe” rating on the picture, and it was now visible to everyone. He had also upgraded (on his new laptop) his copies of Audacity (audio editing) and PaintShop Pro (photo editing).

LetterA 1B2

Marie-Christine reported she was having a problem with her version of Lightroom and Windows. I offered to raise the matter on the Lightroom Queen Forum if she told me hat version of Lightroom, and the precise version of Windows she was having problems with.

Fred reported that a switch to Signal was not getting any traction with his friends, and that he’d had an instance of PayPal phishing to contend with.

David H added to Margaret’s description of the “internet will crash” scam. Someone asked where you should report such scams. The preferred method would appear to your ISP, in this case Sky, but Marie-Christine reminded us of Action Fraud (0300 123 2040) – is it a scam in itself? No it’s run by the police. Other tricks are to type the phone number of a caller into a browser and you’ll get an indication from Who Called Me? or Should I answer? Of course for an email you should look carefully at the email header address and type the domain into a browser to see if it’s genuine. David also asked whether it was possible to use WiFi for making telephone calls as the O2 signal in his apartment was so bad. The answer appears to be to activate WiFi calling for Android or iOS. David also reported that he was still not having any joy with his Times subscription on his iPad although it was working on his wife’s machine. I suggested that perhaps the subscription was limited to a fixed number of devices, and that perhaps deleting it from both machines and then re-installing it in order of preferences might solves the problem. Just a thought. Finally, he mentioned the possibility of adding people to a Netflix account and that his daughter had added them to her account and he was paying her £3 a month in gratitude – this being the cost of the extended subscription. It was pointed out that there was a similar option for Spotify, and the launch of Apple One scheme just recently was very similar. [NB The Spotify Family requires address verification; I’m not sure how this works but all members have to have “the same address” – work that one out yourself.]

Mike had nothing to report.

Renee reported some alarm issues ; problems with her satellite TV which required a factory reset eventually as the Italian channels had changed polarity (??) and just re-tuning didn’t solve the problem.

Stella had nothing to report.

John told us about the problems that have dogged them since he lost a bank card and the issues of not knowing whether a request to change details for a direct debit (because it use the former 16-digit number) was a scam or not. Just a nuisance. He wondered whether there were more scams at large currently because of Covid. Not sure. He reported with some delight success in transferring a SIM from an old phone to a new iPhone XR. There were some problems initially (with O2) but these were now resolved and he was getting the service he wanted at the reduced price of the service on the old phone. My standard advice is never to buy a phone on a plan, but to always save up for “the next one” when you purchase outright a new one. Also look at the plans that are available for SIM-only, or Pay as you Go. Measure up what you can get against the ones offered by GiffGaff (running on the O2 network and owned by them), which is my personal recommendation.

Paul had nothing to report, having been too sore to think of anything else but finding a comfortable place to sit since his accidental encounter with his loft.

Phil told us about a Facebook page – Strange things found in walls, including a safe and a gothic arch. He also told us about his experience (relating to Jim’s Flickr episode) of the poor performance of content-filtering for schools internet when he was working.

Ted told us about Just Watch – a really useful website that tells you which streaming service you should look on to find films, etc. He also mentioned how useful he was finding the Snipping Tool in Windows to cut-out an element from an image. I was able to say that the Screenshot Utility in MacOS did the same thing, but there were also short-key sequences for the Mac that did the same thing.

Sianed relayed the sad story of the Smart TV that had lost its smart functionality. For many of us that’s a cause for celebration as the smart functionality decreases with the age of a set as manufacturers don’t keep their apps up-to-date. So now she is in the happy position of using possibly an Amazon Firestick, a Google Chromecast (although Paul doesn’t rate it as there appears to a lot of US-content), a Now TV dongle, a Roku device or an Apple TV. Here’s a recent review of all of the ones available in the UK.

Finally Jenny described the National Pensioners Convention (Wales) event that she was participating in on Tuesday (9th February). You are encouraged to sign-up and take part in the webinar – I’ve circulated details by email earlier. She particularly noted the work of the Good Things Foundation and the Carnegie Trust in supporting digital inclusion activity and projects. She recommended looking at the former’s website.

I concluded the meeting with a gallop through home networking and router configuration which is all written up in this article which builds upon earlier ones.

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Home networks – some notes

I’ve written and talked about this subject on a number of occasions. I’ll bring these together in one place, before delving into the specifics of router configuration which prompted the subject for the meeting on Feb 4th, 2021.

For many of us home networking means WiFi, and the first article I wrote was on the subject of “Flaky WiFi” on October 11th, 2016. Members of the group had commented on their WiFi connection appearing to drop and in this article I tried to explain how all the bits and pieces hung together and how you could test your network to see it was working the way your Internet Service Provider (ISP) was proclaiming it should be!

Then, later on (January 26th, 2017), we discussed “Broadband speeds, WiFi routers (their type and security), and extenders or boosters” and as the title suggests we focussed on networking in the house and how it is provided by Internet Service Providers, such as VirginMedia, BT, Sky or TalkTalk.

I described “How the Internet works” in this post on June 29th, 2017, with links to a few videos and policy documents which hopefully explain the topic better than I could. Not much has changed since then; IPv6 is still to appear in the domestic market, so we still use IPv4 for internet addressing.

Finally, on July 27th, 2020, I wrote about “Improving home network performance” which is really what I’m going to revisit in this post.

So … what do you need to take a look at?

On your router:

If you’re using an integrated modem/router – often called a hub, typing in the IP address 192.168.1.1 will bring up a screen something similar to this …

… mine is different because I’ve disabled the router functionality so that I can use my own router – a Netgear Orbi Mesh Network – so to just access the modem part of MY hub I use the IP address 192.168.100.1. You can see from the above that only the Modem is active.

So for most users with an integrated modem/router, the first thing you need to be able to do is to access your Router’s Admin Dashboard. This article explains how to do it using the cmd prompt in Windows, but it is probable that your hub/router has an application you can start to do this, or that you can access it from a browser window. For most you would just enter the IP address 192.168.1.1 and supply the UserID admin and the password that I’ve created – the default is quite commonly ‘password’, so you ought to change that!!!

The above screen is for my mesh network, but non-mesh would be similar. Clicking on Internet will give you the ability to change some of the settings for your connection.

Of these the most useful to change is the Domain Name Server (DNS) – these are the servers that translate a URL (eg thoughtgrazing.org) into an IP address. I’ve chosen to replace the default DNS supplied for my VirginMedia (ie 194.168.4.100) Hub (I’ve disabled the router functionality on the SuperHub so that it only acts as a modem) for two servers run by Google (1.1.1.1 and 8.8.4.4). The reason I’ve done this is that these servers are replicated around the internet and will almost certainly be closer to my router than VirginMedia which I think the closest one is in Bristol.

All the other settings can probably be left as they are. The next option is where you configure the name of your network and the channels you’re going to use.

If you don’t like the name supplied to your network by your ISP, you can change the SSID. I did to make it a little more meaningful. You should then consider changing the 2.4Ghz Channel. If you can set the channel to Auto – you should do so because generally the router will then find the best channel for your network. If that’s not possible and you have found your WiFi to be “flaky” due to you and your neighbour using the same Channel(s), try setting the channel manually to one that’s not being used. The article I mentioned before describes how you can find the best Channels for a Mac, and this one identifies a Windows Tool that does the same thing – there’s a Download link at the bottom of that documentation. Here’s an article that describes all the possibilities.

Generally 2.4GHz has a wider range of signal but lesser bandwidth (throughput), and 5Ghz the opposite – shorter distance, but higher bandwidth. On my system my 2.4GHz channel gives me 400Mbps and the 5Ghz channel 866.7Mbps.

You’ll want to look at your Security Options and make sure that you choose the best for the devices that you’re going to connect to your router. Generally, for a home network, WPA2-PSK [AES] should be sufficient.

This article from the Apple website provides a very thorough and detailed examination of what settings you should deploy for your router, and why. Worth a read, even if you’re not an Apple Fanboy!

On your device …

Make sure the security settings match that you’ve just set on your router; remember the SSID and Password you’ve created, and re-connect to your network.

And that’s about it … I hope. Questions??

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Notes from Zoom meeting – 21st January 2021

Apologies (again) for the late arrival of these notes. Covid is certainly slowing me down – is that the same for you!!?? We kicked-off by going round the screen, several members had nothing to raise, no IT-problems is a Critical Success Factor for the group. Am I doing something right? {Don’t answer that.}

Owen described the installation of his Vodafone 5G Broadband service which he’s written up in this post. It’s an interesting development and points to the future of rural broadband as well … maybe. Certainly a more environmentally friendly alternative, but you need to ensure that there’s take-up/adoption, and of course hills can make construction of such a network very costly. But, for rural Pen-y-Lan in a cable desert it’s a winner!

Sianed had been having problems with OpenReach after damage to the cable feeding her property. Hopefully that’s now been resolved.

Ted was experiencing contention issues due to the increased number of devices using his home network with his son now living in the house as well. The same son had improved the performance by disabling one of the channels on the router. This led to a short discussion on wavelengths and channels used by the router and suggests that a repeat session on that topic might be worthwhile. {I’m going to do that at the next meeting on Thu 4th Feb.} He was also having some difficulty with adapting to the new WordPress Block Editor for his Family History blogs. I sympathised, but urger him to stick with it, I’d now made the switch and was finding it SO MUCH better! I suggested that perhaps a “special” extra session on WordPress might be worthwhile and possible?

David Hughes was experiencing problems with getting The Times on his iPad, whilst it was running on his wife’s. We ran through a number of possible solutions, which David had already attempted, so we were left with a puzzle which was not very helpful for David as he had been experiencing language challenges with the offshore IT Support Desk. {Is that me being sufficiently political correct?}

Fred praised the steps that Cardiff County Council had made towards inclusivity for those who were threatened by digital exclusion with the distribution of tablets, and adoption of new policies. He was also having much more pressing difficulties with a kitchen roof which he’d not been able to have fixed until a date in February. We sympathised with the challenges of someone moving to a new area and not having the list of useful contacts. To this end Christine offered me the contact details of a roofer – thanks!

Mike was enjoying his better broadband at reduced price. Great!

Renee had an interesting problem which was she had a satellite receiver dish with no manual and was having difficulty in making it work. I offered to supply a link to a manuals site that I’d used to good effect. Here are a couple – https://www.usermanuals.tech/ and https://www.manualslib.com/ – there are others. Someone (Paul or Phil ??) did suggest perhaps using a laptop with USB, rather than trying to connect to her TV. We await developments with interest. She also wondered whether there was anywhere you could look to find the meaning of emojis, there is – here it is Emojipedia.

Jim reviewed his difficulties with using an additional SD-Card for his new phone and thanked Paul for resolving the problem. He was now saving his photos on the card, and not using it as extended SIM memory. he also told us about his decision to take out a subscription to Google Drive/Photos to ensure that he could save his photos (taken with his phone) on Google at Original Quality. I expressed the view that perhaps this would not be an issue for smartphones as the limit for High Quality was 16Mp {most smartphones being 12Mp}. I sent him this link – Google Photos “High quality” vs “Original”: What’s the difference and should you care – which you might be interested in which compared different compressions with Google Photos.

Christine was still having difficulties with her WiFi still losing service when she was trying to play chess with another user (her husband) in another room in the same house. I suggested that this might be an issue which we could solve with our session on router configuration {see above}.

Phil was revelling in having discovered how good Google Docs is! {He ought to look at LibreOffice as well} It’s good to have a personal recommendation and I concur … why people are still paying money to Microsoft for Office when there’s free and open source alternatives that read .docx formats (and in the case of LibreOffice – write .docx), is a puzzle to me! He was also wondering whether anyone had come across an online version of Cluedo; he had updated his favourite gadget – his Firestick; and showed us how to move Zoom windows. Oh! Bliss!

That means that Marie-Christine, Ann (who had to leave the meeting), Margaret and Marilyn had no issues to raise.

So what have I been up to? The greatest success has been able to get my new Sony Bluetooth headphones working so that I can listen to music and not disturb anyone! Other than that I’ve been in organisation mood. I’ve sorted out my cloud drives – Google, iCloud and Dropbox so that they all have a distinct and different purpose; respectively photos and webwork, documents and archiving/backup. A lengthy job that I couldn’t have managed without dupeGuru, a rapidly favourite bit of Mac software. I then went on to start deleting duplicate (of which there were many) family history records. Duplicates are a pain in the neck – you never know whether you’ve got exactly the right one. That’s where dupeGuru comes in. I did have an anxious moment however when Dropbox informed me I’d deleted over 20,000 files. I restored them just in case, which put me back half-a-day; I hadn’t made a mistake!!! A neighbour across the road stores a backup disk of my photos and so I recovered that and did a backup and returned it to them. I do this every year. I have back-ups on an external disk connected to the computer as well for day-to-day use.I upgraded a few apps; removed Flash – hope you’ve done that too! However most of what I did was connected with my concerns with WhatsApp and it’s changes to it’s Privacy Policy.

We had a discussion on this – or rather I spoke at length of my concerns. They appear in three places – this blog; on the public – Thought grazing and my personal blog – Just thoughts. I won’t say any more at this time, but I will be reviewing my use of WhatsApp (in particular) before the new deadline of May 15th; and will be considering leaving Facebook and instagram after removing my content – a subject for a meeting at a later date when they decide to move away from Ireland.

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The right way to change Ts&Cs – Google learnt it’s lesson

It’s not long ago that Google was described as “the evil empire” because of its perceived intent on hoovering up all the data it could about us in the endeavour to “provide the best search experience for its users”. Baloney of course – they just wanted to drive the monetisation of their platform as far as they thought they could get away with, and by now you shouldn’t pay too much attention to the search results that appear at the top of a Google search – they’ve almost always been “paid-for”.

However, out of bad publicity they learned a lesson. When changing terms and conditions of use, or service, its best to explain clearly, and in advance, what they want, and expect, to do, and invite comment. That was most certainly missing from Facebook’s recent debacle with WhatsApp. So to show how it perhaps should be done, I’me including some recent screen shots from Google over the past few months …

A very recent change to Google services that is being proposed and communicated to users in an email. This was the first email sent …

… which was followed up with this one, which prompted me to do something about it!!!

Once into the application, you receive a screen like this one …

I’ve now switched off these personalisations, but what I was doing was very clearly explained.

Then there is this advance warning of changes to the storage policy that covers your Drive and Photos accounts. [I must do something about this as I have a number of Google accounts knocking about.]

A clear explanation of changes to YouTube – not ones I like, but there’s no attempt to hide what they intend to do, and it provides a hint that they will apply to us later this year when Google leave Ireland for the US.

Changes to the Google Photos policy which is causing some distress, but is explained clearly and gives you a lot of time to work out how to use the service after June 1st 2021.

Early notice of the intended changes to Google Drive, and how files will be deleted.

Finally, another company explains clearly how and why it’s changing it’s Terms and Conditions – not something WhatsApp did. Shame on them!

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Moving to Signal [Updated – Jan 16th]

I hope you’ve managed to read the recent blog posts I’ve written earlier. One sets out my concerns about the Facebook ecosystem, the other on the changes to the WhatsApp Terms and Conditions of Service. I won’t go over the points I make in those posts. I do urge you to look at them however.

I’ve reflected on what might be the best way forward for me, and for us. I accept that for us in the short-term we could accept the new Ts&Cs and wait and see what transpires as we are still, apparently, in the European Region – but for how long! And once we’ve accepted those Ts&Cs what does it mean long-term, after our data is repatriated to the the US from Ireland.

But … we’ve been here before.

The demise of Google+ was a great shame and disappointment to me and I think the group as well. We’d just started to use it in some degree and when Google closed it down in April 2019, I started this private website, with the forums following last year, as the least worst immediately available alternative. We added the WhatsApp group for more instant communication in September 2019. However there is so much that WhatsApp doesn’t have, that we used to have in Google+ – threaded discussions, communities and close links to Google Photos to name but three.

This blog, with its Forums and Topics, addresses a lot of the shortcomings of WhatsApp but its’ main failing is its lack of notifications. I’ve tried to find ways round this limitation – using IFTTT, or installing the WordPress app to provide notifications – but neither of these are truly acceptable. So I cannot suggest we ditch WhatsApp and move to exclusively using this website.

I’ve reviewed the alternatives and have come to the conclusion that moving to using Signal would be the least painful transition if we were to make a move away from WhatsApp for instant messaging. The alternative in my opinion would have been an app called Telegram which has many virtues, but these are outweighed (again imho) by some of the people who have accounts on it – the Presidents of Brazil and Turkey to name but two!

The user interface of Signal is very similar to WhatsApp, so the learning curve should be relatively easy. The functionality is basically the same. The encryption method (end-to-end) is actually the same one that is used by WhatsApp – they adopted it because the code written by Signal’s developers is open-source – and indeed the founder of Signal was one of the founders of WhatsApp.

What makes Signal a really attractive proposition is that it is a publicly funded Foundation. As such, it cannot be taken over by another company, so this could be the last move we have to make. Furthermore, it is open-source which means that the software is supported by its users and its developers, in the same way as this platform (WordPress) is.

So I feel comfortable about making this move. I’m recommending to you that we move to use Signal instead of WhatsApp for instant messaging, but would encourage you also to look at the Forums and Topics on this site to use as a resource for problem-solving. The move is, and must be, a personal decision however.

I won’t abandon WhatsApp just yet, as some people I know won’t move immediately, so I’ll need to accept the Ts&Cs, but I will be on a clear path to move away and encourage others to move as well. To this end, I most certainly will not be “active” on WhatsApp, but just lurk in the same way as I use Facebook, Facebook Messenger and Instagram currently, and if this Group wants to continue using WhatsApp, it would seem sensible to seek someone to take over the administration of that WhatsApp group rather than me.

I will be setting up a U3A Computer Group on Signal later today that you are very welcome to join. I will post a link to the current WhatsApp members to enable them, or any other Group members, to join if they so wish, after they’ve first downloaded the app from this link and created an account – which is surprisingly easy. Once you’ve done that and allowed access to your Contacts – which will pick up others in your Contacts who are Signal users – you’ll probably see me. Please feel free to drop me a message to ask any questions about using Signal, and I suggest you also look at this useful article that explains how Signal works. I will be writing another article on a public blog later today which follows on from the earlier articles mentioned at the top of this article but will go into more detail of my reasons for moving away from WhatsApp.

In the course of time, probably at the time that Facebook data is moved from Ireland to the US, I will almost certainly cancel my accounts connected to Facebook Inc. That will be a hard decision to take as I will lose connections to many long-term friends who I dip in occasionally to see what they’re up to, and I will miss the annual “Happy Birthday” messages from many of them. Still the time is approaching when I should make that move.

Update

Further to this post yesterday it appears WhatsApp have realised they have not communicated the reasons for their proposed changes well enough citing “misinformation”, I would say poor communication. So read this …

https://blog.whatsapp.com/giving-more-time-for-our-recent-update

… you all have more time to make your own personal decisions. I would still advise not AGREEing just yet, you may not be able to change your mind! I will reflect and report back later. Meanwhile Signal is struggling under the pressure of a huge influx of new users – teething problems one hopes.

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Home Broadband using 5G

I have for the years of my retirement chafed under the yoke of slower Internet access compared with when I was at work. Although I have had fibre from the cabinet as soon as it became available, I have rarely had more that 18-20 Mb/s download speed and commensurately slow upload speeds. I have also suffered with intermittent halts on the network where a succession of routers have decided to drop the connection back to the ISP, sometimes for several hours. And not just one ISP either. We have also had problems with Apple devices (iPad and iPhones) which frequently dislike the wireless network and have to have their lease renewed or their wireless function turned off and then on again.

As my most recent contract was coming to an end in January 2021, I took the opportunity to explore other options. Fibre to the premises was my hope but not available and no prospect in sight. I had signed up to receive an indication of when it might become available but OpenReach has lived up to its reputation for impenetrability and Virgin Media have no interest in cabling up my end of Penylan.

I did remember a member of the Computer Group had mentioned non-cabled access although my faulty memory suggested the word ‘radio’ and I couldn’t track that down. But the concept stuck and I looked at whether it was feasible to implement home broadband using mobile technology. The answer is of course, yes.

I spent some time looking at the three possible providers – 3, EE and Vodafone. They all had different offerings: 3 the cheapest, EE possibly the most flexible and Vodafone another option. They all provide useful ways of determining just what service you can get at your address. 3 quickly dropped out as they did not provide 5G cover in my area. Then I investigated volume usage and checked with my existing supplier (Vodafone) as to what sort of throughput I was currently using. It turned out that EE’s highest level contract was an allowance of 300Gb per month and that if, as my wife and I do, you watch a number of subscription services over the Internet and do a lot of Zooming, you can approach that level quite easily.

So there I was, Vodafone was the remaining option: the most expensive but offering unlimited usage. I struggled with their online system for investigating any further despite being a current customer but eventually came up trumps – I wonder if that’s a phrase that will fall out of favour now?? – using their chat system. A piece of advice : use the chat system from the sales page not the general or technical support page. The financial imperative means they give better answers and don’t want to send you to any other group!

I quickly gained an assurance (in writing) that their 5G service would reach my house and provide good and consistent connections and importantly, there is a 14 day trial period to check it all out. I placed my order and on hearing of the difficulties I had had with the existing connection from Vodafone, have a £10 per month discount for 2 years. It’s still twice what I was paying, though.

The Gigacube and SIM came the next day by courier. It took me 10 minutes to install, plug in my two Ethernet cable to the sockets; then 2 or 3 hours to visit every networked device and change it over to the new wireless network. My iPad is now downloading consistently at 170Mb/s and nothing in the whole set-up is slower than 45 Mb/s. Every room in the house has a good signal including the attic room two floors up.

Issues? Yes, one. I distribute a wired Ethernet connection via powerlink devices (you connect one to the router, plug it into the mains and then get a network connection from similar devices plugged in elsewhere in the house). The main one is to my study for my PC and laptop. The new network didn’t seem to like this at first but after a few hours of head scratching and for no apparent reason, it suddenly started working. I haven’t worked out why yet.

Verdict: well, it’s early days isn’t it? But I’m certainly very pleased so far. I’ll monitor usage and maybe ‘unlimited’ was a bit of a luxury.

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The new WhatsApp Terms and Conditions of Use

Let’s start with this passage from the article in The Register referred to below where the founder of WhatsApp talks about his reasons for creating WhatsApp …

“When WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014, it promised netizens that its instant-messaging app would not collect names, addresses, internet searches, or location data. CEO Jan Koum wrote in a blog post: “Above all else, I want to make sure you understand how deeply I value the principle of private communication. For me, this is very personal. I was born in Ukraine, and grew up in the USSR during the 1980s

One of my strongest memories from that time is a phrase I’d frequently hear when my mother was talking on the phone: ‘This is not a phone conversation; I’ll tell you in person.’ The fact that we couldn’t speak freely without the fear that our communications would be monitored by KGB is in part why we moved to the United States when I was a teenager.”

Two years later, however, that vow was eroded by, well, capitalism, and WhatsApp revealed it would be “coordinating more with Facebook,” and gave people the opportunity to opt out of any data sharing. This time around, there is no opt-out for the sharing of data with Facebook and its tentacles. Koum left in 2018.”

So this all started 4 years ago, when WhatsApp announced a change to their Terms and Conditions (Ts&Cs) – the first change in many years, and the first since being taken over by Facebook. It was possible to opt out of this change which was announced as only to “improve the experience of Facebook users” (that’s kind of them – do I believe that?).

I don’t know whether I chose to opt out, I suspect I did, but I have no way of knowing!!! Whatever … I only had 30-days to opt out then, and I can’t go back and opt-out now.

I was alerted to the current impending change on February 8th, which is a take it, or leave it choice by this article in a well respected techie (UK-based) blog – The Register. It’s subsequently been updated, and may be updated again I suspect as more information is squeezed out of Facebook.

Before Christmas in a meeting of the Cardiff U3A Computer Group, I referred to the repatriation of UK-data to the US as a consequence of Brexit. So far Facebook and Google (and there could be more) have announced their attention to do just that, and others will undoubtedly follow. Free from Europe, our government has said we will follow GDPR (it had very little option), but the US tech companies see the wisdom of not having a European base for their (our) data and are hopeful of less stringent Federal privacy restrictions under a new Democratic Party controlled Senate committed to introducing legislation.

Once out of the European protection, we in Britain could in the course of time, and after the repatriation of Facebook data to California (read the article above), be deemed not to be part of the European area and so the protection offered by WhatsApp/Facebook suggested in this article in “The i“, would cease to apply. So the short-term acceptance of these Ts&Cs thinking they don’t apply to us, might be scuppered should the data-hosting move to the US.

No certainties, just doubts and that’s where mistrust comes in.

As of today, I’m at a loss to know what to advise or do. I’m hopeful of further clarification in the days to come, but I’ll leave acceptance of the new Ts&Cs to the last few days before February 8th.

Your comments and thoughts most welcome.

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Why do I dislike Facebook (Fb)?

I was challenged with this question last Thursday when I told my family about the intended changes to the WhatsApp Terms and Conditions of Use. I didn’t reply to my IT-savvy son until this morning when I was first asked to agree to these new Ts&Cs. This is what I wrote …

“It starts with trust, and then you work away from that. It’s what a company does with information and whether you can then trust them to handle it properly. Google+ was a closed system that you opened up; Fb is an open system that even though it has Privacy Controls – which you need a degree to work out how to set them – essentially allows them to do anything with what appears on their platform.

You take a photo – you don’t retain copyright, you assign that right to them when you publish to the platform  – you lose some control over what is done with the photo. You can’t opt out of adverts (understandably – that’s how they make there money) – you are conned into thinking that in allowing them, you will get a better experience.

For whom? For you – no, they’re just an annoyance to me, but for others they just drive people to buy stuff they might not want/need. For them – yes, that’s how they drive income and more.

So it’s the more that’s more interesting and insidious because what they do with that information leads to targeting people with posts, hence my reference to Brexit and Trump. [I had said in my brief first reply – Cambridge Analytica, Brext and Trump.] The algorithms behind the scenes work the data and susceptible people get targeted with posts as well, not just adverts. I could go on, but as I said – it’s all about Trust, and Fb as a company is one that I just don’t trust.

Getting data from WhatsApp was something they committed at take-over they wouldn’t do. Now they are starting to do just that. Next step targeted adverts on a platform which is advert free; then “posts from others you might be interested in” – not the encrypted ones, but ones from Public Figures. Then “oh! dear” we have to drop encryption because of new privacy laws in the US. [Aside: is it a coincidence that Google, Twitter and Fb appear to be more privacy focussed since the Republicans lost control of the Senate and they just might want to be on the right side of the argument that’s going to come in the US in the next four years ].

So I always logout of Fb to stop them tracking me; I suspect that WhatsApp will have a mechanism that prevents a user from being disconnected so Fb with these new Ts&Cs will be tracking as well as getting the other personal info from users.

Please feel free to comment either on the post.

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The new WhatsApp Terms and Conditions of Use [Clarification – Jan 21st]

Let’s start with this passage from the article in The Register referred to below where the founder of WhatsApp talks about his reasons for creating WhatsApp …

“When WhatsApp was acquired by Facebook in 2014, it promised netizens that its instant-messaging app would not collect names, addresses, internet searches, or location data. CEO Jan Koum wrote in a blog post: “Above all else, I want to make sure you understand how deeply I value the principle of private communication. For me, this is very personal. I was born in Ukraine, and grew up in the USSR during the 1980s

One of my strongest memories from that time is a phrase I’d frequently hear when my mother was talking on the phone: ‘This is not a phone conversation; I’ll tell you in person.’ The fact that we couldn’t speak freely without the fear that our communications would be monitored by KGB is in part why we moved to the United States when I was a teenager.”

Two years later, however, that vow was eroded by, well, capitalism, and WhatsApp revealed it would be “coordinating more with Facebook,” and gave people the opportunity to opt out of any data sharing. This time around, there is no opt-out for the sharing of data with Facebook and its tentacles. Koum left in 2018.”

So this all started 4 years ago, when WhatsApp announced a change to their Terms and Conditions (Ts&Cs) – the first change in many years, and the first since being taken over by Facebook. It was possible to opt out of this change which was announced as only to “improve the experience of Facebook users” (that’s kind of them – do I believe that?).

I don’t know whether I chose to opt out, I suspect I did, but I have no way of knowing!!! Whatever … I only had 30-days to opt out then, and I can’t go back and opt-out now.

I was alerted to the current impending change on February 8th, which is a take it, or leave it choice by this article in a well respected techie (UK-based) blog – The Register. It’s subsequently been updated, and may be updated again I suspect as more information is squeezed out of Facebook.

You may remember in a Group meeting before Christmas I referred to the repatriation of UK-data to the US as a consequence of Brexit. So far Facebook and Google (and there could be more) have announced their attention to do just that, and others will undoubtedly follow. Free from Europe, our government has said we will follow GDPR (it had very little option), but the US tech companies see the wisdom of not having a European base for their (our) data and are hopeful of less stringent Federal privacy restrictions under a new Democratic Party controlled Senate committed to introducing legislation.

Once out of the European protection, we in Britain could in the course of time, and after the repatriation of Facebook data to California (read the article above), be deemed not to be part of the European area and so the protection offered by WhatsApp/Facebook suggested in this article in “The i“, would cease to apply. So the short-term acceptance of these Ts&Cs thinking they don’t apply to us, might be scuppered should the data-hosting move to the US. [I think it’s clear to me that those in the EU will continue to be offered an opt-out – the market is too large for them to enforce a retrospective acceptance, but we in the UK …. !!!]

[Clarification] I should have made it clear that it is not the data that’s being repatriated as this could be held on many servers all around the world, but it is the legal ownership of our accounts that is being repatriated. The US Tech Corps have been “troubled” by the number of Anti-Trust, and Anti-Competitive legal cases that have been brought against them in the EU just recently. Being found guilty can subject those companies to very high levels of fines. In addition the tax haven which was Ireland has been challenged which provides another impetus to move their (that is Facebook and Google) offices back to the US. So far Twitter and Apple have stood alone as companies that have decided to stay in Ireland, whilst Amazon is based in Luxembourg. So it’s not just Privacy that is a driver to repatriate our accounts.]

No certainties, just doubts and that’s where mistrust comes in.

As of today, I’m at a loss to know what to advise. I’m hopeful of further clarification in the days to come, but I’ll leave acceptance of the new Ts&Cs to the last few days before February 8th.

[NB. I’m posting both these articles on the Public Thought grazing site as well.]

Please Comment below, or in the Topic on the Privacy and the Internet Forum.

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Why do I dislike Facebook (Fb)? [Addendum – Jan 21st]

I was challenged with this question last Thursday when I told my family about the intended changes to the WhatsApp Terms and Conditions of Use. I didn’t reply to my IT-savvy son until this morning when I was first asked to agree to these new Ts&Cs. This is what I wrote …

“It starts with trust, and then you work away from that. It’s what a company does with information and whether you can then trust them to handle it properly. Google+ was a closed system that you opened up; Fb is an open system that even though it has Privacy Controls – which you need a degree to work out how to set them – essentially allows them to do anything with what appears on their platform.

You take a photo – you don’t retain copyright, you assign that right to them when you publish to the platform. You have to struggle to find a way to opt out of adverts (understandably – that’s how they make their money) – you are conned into thinking that in allowing them, you will get a better experience.

For whom? For you – no, they’re just an annoyance to me, but for others they just drive people to buy stuff they might not want/need. For them – yes, that’s how they drive income and more.

So it’s the more that’s more interesting and insidious because what they do with that information leads to targeting people with posts, hence my reference to Brexit and Trump. [I had said in my brief first reply – Cambridge Analytica, Brext and Trump.] The algorithms behind the scenes work the data and susceptible people get targeted with posts as well, not just adverts. I could go on, but as I said – it’s all about Trust, and Fb as a company is one that I just don’t trust. [Addendum: Fb would say that it’s not them that uses the data; but we now have plentiful evidence that Fb Service Users have found ways of manipulating the data they have access to as Fb Business Users.]

Getting data from WhatsApp was something they committed at take-over they wouldn’t do. Now they are starting to do just that. Next step targeted adverts on a platform which is advert free; then “posts from others you might be interested in” – not the encrypted ones, but ones from Public Figures. Then “oh! dear” we have to drop encryption because of new privacy laws in the US. [Aside: is it a coincidence that Google, Twitter and Fb appear to be more privacy focussed since the Republicans lost control of the Senate and they just might want to be on the right side of the argument that’s going to come in the US in the next four years ].

So I always logout of Fb to stop them tracking me; I suspect that WhatsApp will have a mechanism that prevents a user from being disconnected so Fb with these new Ts&Cs will be tracking as well as getting the other personal info from users. [However, see the addendum below which has caused me to change my views on that.]

Please feel free to comment either on the post, or in the Topic I’ve created to discuss the subject in the Privacy and the Internet Forum.

Addendum: After posting this article, a former colleague provided a link to a page on Facebook’s website. That article is included in the many posts to Flipboard I’ve added in the past three weeks. However, it’s worth looking at, particularly as it affects the advice I’ve given many times to Logout of your Fb account. It would appear that Fb’s reach is wider than I thought, and so I can only now recommend that you logout. Some salient passages from the article …

When does Facebook get data about people from other websites and apps?
Many websites and apps use Facebook services to make their content and ads more engaging and relevant. These services include:

Social plugins, such as our Like and Share buttons, which make other sites more social and help you share content on Facebook;

Facebook Login, which lets you use your Facebook account to log into another website or app;

Facebook Analytics, which helps websites and apps better understand how people use their services; and

Facebook ads and measurement tools, which enable websites and apps to show ads from Facebook advertisers, to run their own ads on Facebook or elsewhere, and to understand the effectiveness of their ads.

When you visit a site or app that uses our services, we receive information even if you’re logged out or don’t have a Facebook account. This is because other apps and sites don’t know who is using Facebook.

I’ve added the emboldening to the last paragraph. So it means that if you do any of the above things on a site that uses Fb Services (ie pays to advertise on the Fb platform) personal information will be transferred to Fb.

Finally, if you’re just a bit more curious about Facebook’s Data Policy, take a read of this and be just a little gobsmacked at what’s going on behind the scenes and just consider it might be worthwhile reviewing your security settings. In particular look at the last section which explains how your information will be shared and especially look at the last part where they describe what they do with third-party partners (eg Cambridge Analytica ???).

Facebook have attempted to respond to the uproar about privacy with the announcement, and release of a Clear History Tool – and you should take a look at this page which explains What off-Facebook Activity means and describes how Fb’s third-party partners and business service providers may be interacting with Fb, and you.

Now you might realise why I dislike Facebook – they’ve lost my trust, and it’s just too much effort to make sure I’ve closed all the doors to protecting the personal information they hold on me.