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'Sorry we outed your affair ... this sort of thing happens every day'
Plus: NetApp 'operationalises' 500 staffers right out of a job
QuoTW This week brought with it cruddy security, an expensive business opportunity and a free lunch.
Here are some of our favourite quotes from along the way:
Looking for a bit of *nudge, nudge, wink, wink* "adult" companionship? Here's hoping you didn't go to AdultFriendFinder.
The hookup-as-a-service site had a rather embarrassing malfunction that resulted in millions of, er, members left flapping out in the open for all to see. But don't worry, because the site wants you to know it has everything under control:
Although this hack is looking to be resolved quickly, it once again highlights that it is no longer about prevention, but instead about accepting a data breach will occur and moving to a proactive approach which allows better preparation for dealing with today’s threats.
That's definitely the sort of policy you want to trust your sexual perversions with – yup.
Think your phone might provide a bit more security? Think again, chump.
University of Cambridge boffins Laurent Simon and Ross Anderson said this week that they had cracked security controls that could lead to more than a half-billion Android devices being left vulnerable to data harvesting even after incurring a wipe. The duo explained:
We found we could recover Google credentials on all devices presenting a flawed factory reset. Full-disk encryption has the potential to mitigate the problem, but we found that a flawed factory reset leaves behind enough data for the encryption key to be recovered.
You know it's going to be a good QuoTW whenever Marc Benioff makes an appearance. The Salesforce chief offered some delightfully catty comments about rival enterprise vendor SAP. The SaaS daddy said:
We are really targeting one company to surpass – SAP. Fortunately for us, its kind of lackluster growth, execution and lack of innovation [makes it] an easy target, and that's our next goal.
Oooooooooooh.
In London, researchers found that your crazy uncle was right all along: kids these days are getting dumber. What's to blame? Those darned mobile phones, of course.
A study from the London School of Economics' centre for economic performance found that distractions from mobes are indeed hampering student performance, and the only way to reverse the trend would be by banning phones outright. According to the researchers:
Our results indicate that there are no significant gains in student performance if a ban is not widely complied with. Furthermore, this effect is driven by the most disadvantaged and underachieving pupils.Students in the lowest quartile of prior achievement gain 14.23 per cent of a standard deviation, while students in the top quartile are neither positively nor negatively affected by a phone ban.
On to the Chocolate Factory, where Googlers have developed a method for transmitting data acoustically.
Sure, modems have been around for decades, but now Google wants to send data across the room using speakers and a microphone. There's just one small problem; it doesn't really work as well as one might hope:
Google Tone only broadcasts URLs, so recipients do not automatically gain access to a page to which they wouldn't ordinarily have access. If you broadcast your Gmail inbox URL, for example, recipients who click on the Google Tone notification will be prompted to log in to their Gmail.However, Google Tone broadcasts are public by design, so it's best not to use them to exchange confidential information.
In case you were debating whether to call up an Uber car this weekend, it's worth keeping in mind that the drivers only get to keep around a fifth of the actual fee.
According to Mike Novogratz of Fortress Investments, it would be even less if Uber execs had their way. He painted a rather unflattering portrait of the rent-a-car service's management:
So he took me through their business model, and roughly, employees – drivers – get between twenty and twenty five per cent of the fare. And the thought was if we could raise that to twenty five to thirty per cent ... our margins would go up, and if you look at the growth and you add that extra, pure margin, we make a lot more money and we justify this forty billion dollar valuation.
Nice little operation, that one.
Still, at least Uber drivers have jobs, which is more than can be said for 500 NetApp employees who were served pink slips this week. The company could be trying to deflect criticism with distraction tactics, which may explain the following batch of word salad:
Our focus is on operationalising our strategy to take full advantage of the opportunity in front of us.
So, next time you decide to cut something out of your life for good, perhaps you should adopt NetApp's approach and operationalise it straight out the door. Lovely. ®