https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/categories/random/ Recent content in Random on Damien Dye's Blog Hugo en-GB Tue, 22 Sep 2026 22:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/the-news-site-sent-me-the-article-then-deleted-it/ Tue, 22 Sep 2026 22:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/the-news-site-sent-me-the-article-then-deleted-it/ UK news sites send the whole article, then their vendors' code deletes it if you block ads. How it works on Newsquest, National World and Reach titles, why I call it malware, the Chrome extension I built in a day to stop it, the fixes that made it worse, and how the consent-or-pay walls get refused. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/is-your-msp-lying-to-you-part1/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 18:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/is-your-msp-lying-to-you-part1/ Part 1 of 3. Some MSPs lie; most never have to, because the vendors whose products they recommend pay them and nobody must tell you. The tells that you are being sold to rather than engineered for: the free fix refused, requirements never written down, one option on the shortlist, no open source line, and the addresses you rent forever. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/is-your-msp-lying-to-you-part2/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 17:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/is-your-msp-lying-to-you-part2/ Part 2 of 3. Cloud for a business all in one building. The firewall brand with the most exploited vulnerabilities on CISA's list. Backups nobody has restored, reports that never reach you, an agent on every machine answering to a console you have never seen. What the ICO found at Advanced and Capita, and the keys that open all of it. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/is-your-msp-lying-to-you-part3/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/is-your-msp-lying-to-you-part3/ Part 3 of 3. What the SLA actually promises, what the liability cap is worth, and what the excuses sound like when it fails: the meeting about an invented crisis, the day it becomes your fault, the account that goes quiet, the advice that costs them money, what leaving really involves, and why nobody regulates the selling. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/technology-you-rent/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/technology-you-rent/ Part 1 of 8. Twenty years back you bought software and the copy was yours. Now you rent it, and the supplier sets the terms. This post walks through how that happened, one step at a time, and why every step made it harder to pack up and go elsewhere. Plain language, short lines. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/what-renting-costs/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/what-renting-costs/ Part 2 of 8. Once moving supplier is hard, the costs change shape. The price follows how hard it is to leave. Profit gets declared somewhere other than where it was earned. The law that applies follows who owns the company, not where the building stands. And a service can stop for reasons that have nowt to do with you. Plain language, with sources. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/who-pays-for-the-software/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/who-pays-for-the-software/ Part 3 of 8. The first two posts looked at what dependency costs you; this one at who else foots the bill. Open source was fought for about 15 years, then taken up, and much of it is now kept going by people paid nowt for it. And how the firms that build software get bought, borrowed against and stripped of what other folk built. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/what-the-record-shows/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 09:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/what-the-record-shows/ Part 4 of 8. Picking a supplier means guessing how they will behave later, and the fairest guess is what courts and regulators have decided. Findings against the largest tech firms, leaning on European decisions and the cases regulators lost, then the pattern: fines small next to the gain, remedies years late, harms known inside long before out. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/how-far-the-law-reaches/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/how-far-the-law-reaches/ Part 5 of 8. Part 2 covered the law that reaches your data; this one the law that reaches your company. Non-American firms paying huge penalties under US law for conduct barely connected to America, what the French National Assembly made of it as a commercial weapon, and the assumptions a product carries from its home market. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/backdoors-and-who-is-accused/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 07:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/backdoors-and-who-is-accused/ Part 6 of 8. Barring a supplier on security grounds needs a standard applied evenly. A Swiss inquiry confirmed two intelligence services owned an encryption firm and sold weakened machines to 120+ governments; a crypto standard was pulled over a suspected weakness; kit gets intercepted in transit. Then the 2024 event that settled it. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/the-same-pattern-elsewhere/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 06:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/the-same-pattern-elsewhere/ Part 7 of 8. This is not really about technology. Four firms control most of the world's seed supply and licence terms can stop a farmer replanting; ten retailers move most of Britain's food. Both got a legal answer, a Groceries Code Adjudicator here and an unfair-trading directive across the EU. Software has nowt like it, and this asks why. https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/choice-coming-back/ Tue, 25 Aug 2026 05:00:00 +0100 https://blogs.damiendye.uk/en/random/choice-coming-back/ Part 8 of 8. Since 2025 the European answer has turned from plans into things you can actually install. Office suites, payment systems and new rules are all real now. This post covers what has landed, what is honestly still years off, and 3 questions to work out where you stand. Plain language.