After 20+ years in IT, I can tell you that this API excuse stinks to high heaven. Like you, I've got so many whys to ask them. This wasn't sophisticated at all, but it was incompetent as shit. I'm betting anything that the engineers were warning the management about it for years, but "there was no budget". Like it always happens in IT, nothing ever changes without a disaster...
You're right. In almost every corpulent corporate company the staff who can do something about the elephant in the room, seem to have cognitive dissonance. However they are smart enough to have a defence already in place, they just need a fall guy to hang the blunder on, the lack of operational funding is probably controlled by the big kahuna, on the top floor. His problem stems from the overlords in Singapore, who only care about the share price and tacitly, their obscene boardroom bonuses.
An inquiry will, hopefully, reveal that the problem may have occurred because the system was running on the modern-day equivalent of a Commodore 64.
I was one of the 40% of Aussies pantsed by this nincompoopery. I have joined both class actions, because fuck them.
I would like to expand on Birmo's point about personal data - why aren't we all banding together and saying enough is enough as far as all this free data we give out? It is not a free public good, nor should it ever be. Every company that harvests your data PROFITS FROM IT, either through their own activities or by on-selling it to companies that take your data from multiple sources and build scarily accurate profiles of your behaviour patterns around everything from what you buy to how you vote. An Australian company called Quantium led the world in this and on-sold it all across the planet.
The data is ours, we own it, if they want it they should have to pay for it, and not through token gestures like the 0.5-1% discounts you get on most "loyalty" cards (which are just data mining schemes, btw). How much is your personal data worth? We should all ask ourselves this question and act accordingly.
How much is it worth? Buckets. Fully half of the profit made by TV manufacturers is now from "post sales monetization", which is club-speak for the shekels they receive for selling your minute-by-minute TV viewing history to the data hoarders and advertising automatons. They all do it, because (a) everyone's doing it and (b) it's illegal to deprive your shareholders of profit you could provide them.
(The argument that the data is ours is often made, but IMO not an easy argument to make. Most of the data doesn't come directly from us, it's a record of our interactions with other entities. It typically doesn't mean anything at all, or have any value, in isolation.)
I was like "bugger" because you know I'm not with Optus, but after I read this...I used to be! Now I'm using stronger words. On the Karma brightside bus, Optus must be bleeding customers like nobody's business.
Word for Word what I was thinking after getting off the phone to Optus yesterday: definitely bleeding customers. Couldn't get thru to 'retentions' to find out why my NBN wasn't cancelled on 16th September along with all my other services.
I've a sneaking suspicion the shit hit the fan before the 22nd; I was supposed to receive a call on the 19th to confirm NBN cancellation ... she still hasn't called.
Stoked to have not been with Optus since about 2004 when I quickly came to the realisation that they couldn't organise a root in a brewery re. basic customer service let alone much else. Any personal ID data (besides my name and license number) has changed about seven times since then but who the hell knows if that info still existed deep within the Floptarse data bowels.
Telstra probs couldn't get their API working as you had to find someone responsible. Vodaphone dropped out downloading everyone's data. Optus won out this time. Where do you go? Get me a some cans and very long strings, I'll be in my cave.
To use an old phrase that describes the classifieds, in that sad shell of a major masthead, that nowadays describes our details as, The Rivers of Gold.
The present-day perception of our data usage may well be superficial. A few years ago, the sudden appearance of that Orwellian ogre, Cambridge Analytica shows us, the digital chickens who lay the golden eggs, what was occurring within a company that had the power to distort democracy.
That revelation is years old, these days there may well be many more versions of software, think Moore's Law and the now outdated timeline of 18 months, that are doing things with our data, that would keep us up a night.
When I got an email from JB titled "Lazy, stupid and incompetent" I thought that was a bity personal! fortunately I read on. Amazing the previous government's all gung ho about security and saving the nation from cyber terrorists thats why we need these laws, and ALP not wanting to give any wedge, says 'these laws a pretty bad' but we will vote for them....instead of once again drafting legislation against big business doing whatever the frak it wants with our data. I hate that the two most likely choices for our government are a right wing pro-business or a centrist pro-business party.
:-) I saw the headline and wondered what the article could possibly be about. It pretty much describes every sphere of every activity in the world at the moment.
When I'm being more charitable I suspect that the individual people involved are unlikely to be any of those things, but rather we've passed some threshold of social organizational complexity that puts any effort or activity beyond the capability of mere humans.
Anything involving computers connected to the internet is part of the most complicated system ever constructed. It is too complicated to understand.
Everything involves computers connected to the internet.
After 20+ years in IT, I can tell you that this API excuse stinks to high heaven. Like you, I've got so many whys to ask them. This wasn't sophisticated at all, but it was incompetent as shit. I'm betting anything that the engineers were warning the management about it for years, but "there was no budget". Like it always happens in IT, nothing ever changes without a disaster...
I would love to find this out.
You're right. In almost every corpulent corporate company the staff who can do something about the elephant in the room, seem to have cognitive dissonance. However they are smart enough to have a defence already in place, they just need a fall guy to hang the blunder on, the lack of operational funding is probably controlled by the big kahuna, on the top floor. His problem stems from the overlords in Singapore, who only care about the share price and tacitly, their obscene boardroom bonuses.
An inquiry will, hopefully, reveal that the problem may have occurred because the system was running on the modern-day equivalent of a Commodore 64.
I was one of the 40% of Aussies pantsed by this nincompoopery. I have joined both class actions, because fuck them.
I would like to expand on Birmo's point about personal data - why aren't we all banding together and saying enough is enough as far as all this free data we give out? It is not a free public good, nor should it ever be. Every company that harvests your data PROFITS FROM IT, either through their own activities or by on-selling it to companies that take your data from multiple sources and build scarily accurate profiles of your behaviour patterns around everything from what you buy to how you vote. An Australian company called Quantium led the world in this and on-sold it all across the planet.
The data is ours, we own it, if they want it they should have to pay for it, and not through token gestures like the 0.5-1% discounts you get on most "loyalty" cards (which are just data mining schemes, btw). How much is your personal data worth? We should all ask ourselves this question and act accordingly.
I suspect this will be a huge social movement in the near future.
How much is it worth? Buckets. Fully half of the profit made by TV manufacturers is now from "post sales monetization", which is club-speak for the shekels they receive for selling your minute-by-minute TV viewing history to the data hoarders and advertising automatons. They all do it, because (a) everyone's doing it and (b) it's illegal to deprive your shareholders of profit you could provide them.
(The argument that the data is ours is often made, but IMO not an easy argument to make. Most of the data doesn't come directly from us, it's a record of our interactions with other entities. It typically doesn't mean anything at all, or have any value, in isolation.)
"Well, when two computer programs love each other very much…"
Just beautiful, JB!
But do the two computers have the same socket set...just asking for an ex-Essendon CEO
I was like "bugger" because you know I'm not with Optus, but after I read this...I used to be! Now I'm using stronger words. On the Karma brightside bus, Optus must be bleeding customers like nobody's business.
Word for Word what I was thinking after getting off the phone to Optus yesterday: definitely bleeding customers. Couldn't get thru to 'retentions' to find out why my NBN wasn't cancelled on 16th September along with all my other services.
I've a sneaking suspicion the shit hit the fan before the 22nd; I was supposed to receive a call on the 19th to confirm NBN cancellation ... she still hasn't called.
Stoked to have not been with Optus since about 2004 when I quickly came to the realisation that they couldn't organise a root in a brewery re. basic customer service let alone much else. Any personal ID data (besides my name and license number) has changed about seven times since then but who the hell knows if that info still existed deep within the Floptarse data bowels.
Telstra probs couldn't get their API working as you had to find someone responsible. Vodaphone dropped out downloading everyone's data. Optus won out this time. Where do you go? Get me a some cans and very long strings, I'll be in my cave.
To use an old phrase that describes the classifieds, in that sad shell of a major masthead, that nowadays describes our details as, The Rivers of Gold.
The present-day perception of our data usage may well be superficial. A few years ago, the sudden appearance of that Orwellian ogre, Cambridge Analytica shows us, the digital chickens who lay the golden eggs, what was occurring within a company that had the power to distort democracy.
That revelation is years old, these days there may well be many more versions of software, think Moore's Law and the now outdated timeline of 18 months, that are doing things with our data, that would keep us up a night.
When I got an email from JB titled "Lazy, stupid and incompetent" I thought that was a bity personal! fortunately I read on. Amazing the previous government's all gung ho about security and saving the nation from cyber terrorists thats why we need these laws, and ALP not wanting to give any wedge, says 'these laws a pretty bad' but we will vote for them....instead of once again drafting legislation against big business doing whatever the frak it wants with our data. I hate that the two most likely choices for our government are a right wing pro-business or a centrist pro-business party.
:-) I saw the headline and wondered what the article could possibly be about. It pretty much describes every sphere of every activity in the world at the moment.
When I'm being more charitable I suspect that the individual people involved are unlikely to be any of those things, but rather we've passed some threshold of social organizational complexity that puts any effort or activity beyond the capability of mere humans.
Anything involving computers connected to the internet is part of the most complicated system ever constructed. It is too complicated to understand.
Everything involves computers connected to the internet.
To just tickle an API and have it spray all over your face… You’ve changed the way I write code forever.
They fucking did fucking what?
As well as encryption, who did their (don't giggle) penetration testing? A five year-old with a paddle-pop stick?
No, a 90 year old with a paddle-pop stick and some gaffa tape.
I can't understand how Optus could get anything wrong, ever. After all, Gladys, the 'Woman who Saved Australia' works there.
Please. C64 was one of the most secure computers ever. 😉
Nailed it again, thanks for brightening my day once more! 😂
Is it another DAS auto moment.
Serious for the rest of the world, yet in oz nothing to see no rule broken move on.
C'mon noone ever that has the technical skills gets the gig. Go & look at linked in jobs for friends or church members.
Maybe they can blame Glady!
Yes!