TechFan #221 – Den of Thieves

tf221
Ashley Madison hack and the privacy and relationship repercussions are on the top of the show. Also,  
Pac-Man is back in a big, bad way with  Pac-Man 256 from developer Hipster Whale. Apple Music is once again a big topic thanks to feedback, as well as privacy.

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Pac-Man 256
Read full email from Brendan Rowland after the break!

In the year 1653, Oliver Cromwell dissolved the Rump Parliament with a
stirring denouncement of the immoral practices and ethical failings of
its members. (Alas, the speech is of dubious authenticity, which is a
great shame as it is utterly superb.)

Were he alive today, Ollie would have a few words of advice to
webertisers/webtrackers:

==========================
It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this World Wide
Web place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all web users,
and defiled by your practice of every online vice; ye are a factious
crew, and enemies to all good web government; ye are a pack of mercenary
wretches, and would – like Esau – sell your country for a mess of
bandwidth-robbing bloatware and spyware, and – like Judas – betray the
internet gods for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice
you do not possess? Ye have no more ethics than my horse; gold is your
God; which of you have not barter’d your conscience for annoying adware
and spyware? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the
good of the World Wide Web Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes, have you not defil’d this sacred web place, and
turn’d Sir Tim’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral
principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the
whole World Wide Web; you who were deputed here by companies simply to
get tolerable and interesting adverts displayed to web users, are
yourselves gone amok!

So! Take away those autoplaying videos, the junk javascript, the data
collection, user tracking, and user selling, the invasion of privacy,
the sleaziness, tackiness and abysmally low quality of your obnoxious
practices and lock up the doors to the web (so that ye may never
re-enter.)

In the name of God, go!

Oliver Cromwell – April 20, 1653
==========================

If Cromwell were alive today, we can be sure that he would have a
zero-tolerance approach to purveyors of scumware and sleazeware.

Original (dubious) speech:

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