Vista

I make a lot of purchases online and of late am having to deal with Verified by Visa (VbV) more often than I’d like.  Aside from whether or not I think such a process improves security or aids phishers, I have some serious issues with the way it’s conducted.

I have yet to complete the process, end-to-end, without having to detour through the “Forgot Password?” section, followed immediately after by a call to my bank, who then walk me through the reset and/or re-registration process.  The things that (often repeatedly) trip me up are:

1. Password restricted to no more than 10 characters I find it difficult enough to remember passwords without a false limit being imposed on their length – especially as I’ve been trying the increase the length of my passphrases because I’m under the (maybe false?) impression that the longer the passphrase the harder it’ll be to crack.
2. Name on Card I have learnt now that what this field is really after is my forename and surname.  Not my name as it’s actually written on the card.

   Also, during my most recent re-registration experience, it occurred to me to wonder if, as I was required to enter my name in lowercase during the registration process, should I be doing so during the actual verification process?  If so, there’s nothing to say I should.

3. Inconsistent date patterns For my date of birth, I am required to follow the pattern ddmmyy but for my card’s expiry date I am required to follow the pattern mmyyyy.  This is especially disconcerting because the pattern used ON my card is mmyy.
4. Obscuring non-password fields The values I enter in the “Card expiry date” and “Postcode” fields are obscured as they would be when entering a password, making it trickier for me to spot mistakes.  These are not fields that are typically obscured and it puzzles me why these are considered to be more sensitive than either my 3-digit security number or my date of birth.
5. Card expiry date This is not specific to the verification or “Forgot Password?” processes but a general database issue.  During my most recent re-registration process it was revealed to me by the person walking me through it that a mistake had been made the previous time and my card expiry date erroneously recorded as “2100″.  Given that Visa set the maximum lifetime period for their cards, it should be possible to use today’s date to calculate the upper limit for a valid expiry date and use that to identify and flag up such mistakes to prevent them getting as far as the database.

I find it difficult to believe that Visa would consider this good customer experience so and as, so far, they’ve not had to take the brunt of my annoyance each time the process has broken down (I love you First Direct, really I do) , this evening I’ve written to them so that I can be sure that they’ve at least been alerted to these issues.

Although I’m sure there are many people who remember their password each time and sail through effortlessly, my experiences have been so consistently bad that I find it hard to believe I’m alone in this.  If you’ve had the same/simliar/completely different issues with Verified by Visa, I’d love to hear about them.

Yesterday I watched Sunset Blvd. for the first time.  It was first released almost 60 years ago (1950) and so, unsurprisingly is very different to modern Hollywood fare.  Although one of the central characters is a very melodramatic former film star the pace of the film is generally pedestrian and fairly predictable; the two often jar.  Another peculiarity was the lack of protest from the male lead at having his independence stolen away from him.

All that aside, it was a pleasant Sunday afternoon film: beautifully shot, very glamourous and easy to follow.  Interestingly, the narration is so complete that it’s possible to almost entirely keep up with the plot without watching a single frame.

Recently some friends resolved to watch their way through iMDB’s Top 250 Movies over the course of this year; one film per week.   This reminded me that there are many old films that I have never seen – or have only part watched – and nudged me into finally doing something about it.

So, first things first: which films?  I had some vague ideas but no list and very vague criteria: older than me; probably black and white; not silent; “classic”.  Hmm…  Fortunately it’s possible to browse iMDB’s Best/Worst lists by decade.  Past that point, the selection process became pretty arbitrary but I do at least now have a list.  I’m not committing to watching them all, in full, but it’s a start.

This post was written on my (new) G1 using a handy app called wpToGo. Admittedly I could have written it just as easily using the laptop currently resting on, you guessed it, my lap but I wanted to test how well the app works. I’ve already tried PostBot but didn’t even manage to get it setup properly. I don’t anticipate posting from my phone very often but – you never know…

Last Thursday was not a slow news day.   Far from it, the Media were swamped with juicy stories: The War on Gaza; Heathrow’s Third Runway; whispers about Britain joining the Euro; long overdue compensation for Equitable Life pension holders; and a double BAFTA nomination for Kate Winslet only days after all those Golden Globes.

And while all this battled for the top slot, the House of Commons plodded slowly on, like the inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood, out for a pre-elevenses stroll.  At 11:35am, post-indulgence and while pondering how best to clean up, Harriet Harman announced that the Government had a plan to make it easier and that they should talk it through next week.

Given the sheer amount of news happening that day, you could (almost) forgive the Media for passing on this one – I mean, how exciting does it sound to you:

The business for next week is as follows: [yada, yada, yada] … Thursday 22 January—Proceedings on a business of the House motion, followed by a debate on motions relating to freedom of information, followed by motions relating to Members’ allowances. [1]

But some people have noticed that it’s on days like these that stories like these, the one’s that look like tiddlers but turn out to be whoppers, often get announced.  And, sure enough, it is.  This change to the law, if passed, will exempt Members of Parliament from having to answer Freedom of Information requests about their expenses.  And it’s retrospective too.  Which is very handy, as it’ll mean they’ll no longer have to comply with a High Court ruling forcing them to disclose exactly how much of taxpayer funds they’ve spent on second homes -  a move that they’ve allegedly spent a further £100,000 of public money trying to block.

Thanks to our wise owls sounding the alarm, the media are now giving the matter some attention.  But they only way we can ensure that this amendment gets properly bounced is by getting our own MPs to vote against it.  And, absurd as this may seem, it’s not safe to assume that your MP is fully aware of this issue, let alone that they’re going to vote against it so if you want to improve the odds:

1. Write to your MP and tell them that you would like them to vote against this change to the law.   If you’re not sure who your MP is, WriteToThem.com can tell you – and send your message, free of charge.
2. Join this Facebook group
3. Blog about it, call a local newspaper (find one), text, email, and instant message your friends to let them know that about this campaign.

The vote is due to take place on Thursday 22nd January 2009.  The debate and result will be published on http://www.theyworkforyou.com – a site worth watching, especially on big news days.

I’m loving the content that’s being created as a result of Lawrence Lessig’s recent interview on The Colbert Report:

During the interview, Stephen Colbert issues a challenge:

never ever take anything of mine and remix it.  For instance, I will be very angry and possibly litigious, if anyone out there takes this interview, right here, and remix it with some great dance beat and it starts showing up in clubs across America.

To which Lawrence Lessig responds:

Well, actually, we’re joint copyright owners.  I’m OK with that.  You can total remix it, I’m fine with it.

And so, naturally, we are now the blessed beneficiaries of umpteen Copyright Remixes.  My favourite so far is an MP3 by Sam King.  Many more are posted in the comments of this blog post by Lessig.

For me, one of the highlights of WordCamp San Francisco 2008 was a sneak preview of the new Admin Interface along with the rationale behind the changes. Fascinating stuff (see below).  And now, with the release of 2.7, I get to try it out for myself :)

Wow.  I finally did it.  Now, the question is, what do I write about..?  The general idea is that instead of writing a retrospective account of my fascinating and wildly exciting life, later, when I’ve forgotten all the good stuff, this blog will serve as a living record for all the family to enjoy/inflict on others.  This is wholly in keeping with the spirit in which this website was first created – as a means of passing on the family history using the power of hypertext and other modern magicks.

And, as everyone else seems to be deserting the field just now, I thought it was about time.

Ps. Merry Christmas! :)