Category: English

NPO, what do you need cookies for?

If you try to visit any of the websites of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting service you get a pop-up informing about their use of cookies on their site and asking you for your consent in storing data about you in them.

NPO cookie consent pop-up

Well … if you click on the “decline” or “more information” links you are told to reconsider, because the use of cookies is essential for the working of the site (“Functionele cookies zijn strikt noodzakelijk voor de werking van de website”)!?! As a web developer I can say this is absolute bullshit. They also tell you why: because they “need” it for “managing” “web statistics, advertising and social media.” And of course them not being able to accurately (because you can track users without cookies) track you and siphon off your private data and selling your viewing habits, makes it technically impossible for them to serve you videos … see how they are linked?

Oh of course they have the obligatory “but none of the information can be linked to individuals … we value our users’ privacy” bullshit. If they really meant it, they wouldn’t force you to disclose this sort of information for a service that absolutely does not require it.

So it boils down to them denying you to watch TV programs that already got paid for in full (by the dutch tax payers, thank you for that ;), this also means there is no “need” to exploit your users) and forcing you to give up your privacy in order “for them to protect it” again … are you confused? … I am … this makes no sense!

Now I’m short of a media source for having a peek into another language/culture. 🙁

On a side note: despite all my rage I must admit, the reconsider allowing cookies page is really well done and does tell you in a simple way how cookies work and how they put them to use … I wish other sites were as open about it. 😉

Transliteration and Translation Fails

So I was reading an article on the power of big South Korean companies and wanted to look up the native word and its connotations, as I knew the Japanese had something similar called “Zaibatsu“.

So transliterating the word from the article “Chaebol” to “채볼” failed. So I searched Wikipedia for “Chaebol” at the top it said “Jaebol”. o.O So I tried “재볼” and failed again. By that time I looked in the Languages section on the Wikipedia page and learned that it was actually written “재벌“.

Well, looking up the English translation for it turned up the Japanese word. m(

Custom CAs everywhere

I recently finished introducing custom CA infrastructure in two instances. Each having two sub CAs, two Servers and a bunch of users. The “create your own CA” part was quite easy after I found  a dated but still accurate tutorial. In hindsight it is quite silly why I didn’t do this before.

On the server side I had to make it work on:

  • Apache
  • Nginx
  • Postfix
  • Cyrus
  • Dovecot

Each expecting its own Format/Packing of certificates, keys and certificate chains. :/

On the client side I had to produce installation and configuration howtos for Windows and OS X and a bunch of popular browsers and email clients. Then there is the “user education” part … this is still in progress, but its looking good.

All in all, I’m happy with the result. 🙂