Category Archives: Weblogs

GDPR – DSGVO

Usual content below – Weblog weiter unten

Tomorrow the General Data Protection Regulation will be implemented. I had to make some changes to this weblog because of this. You should see a notification about cookies as well as information about data storage and handling when posting comments. The old theme I’ve been using for years and years didn’t seem to be able to cope with some of the updates, so I decided to go for a whole new look. I might still tinker with it during the next few days, but then again I might not.

Please let me know if you run into any problems or see something that doesn’t work, or if you have any general comments or tips for me. Thanks!

Morgen tritt die Datenschutz-Grundverordnung in Kraft. Deshalb musste ich einige Änderungen an diesem Weblog vornehmen. Leser sollten jetzt eine Benachrichtigung über das Speichern von Cookies bekommen und außerdem beim Kommentieren über Datenspeicherung und -verarbeitung in Kenntnis gesetzt werden. Das alte Layout, das ich seit Jahren verwendet habe, kam mit einigen dieser Aktualisierungen nicht zurecht, daher habe ich kurzerhand ein ganz neues gewählt, an dem ich vielleicht in den nächsten Tagen noch ein wenig herumbasteln werde.

Über Hinweise, falls etwas nicht funktioniert oder nicht so aussieht, wie es sollte, sowie für generelle Tipps und Vorschläge zum Design oder zum Datenschutz freue ich mich. Danke!

Farewell dangerousmeta!

The Long Goodbye.. “Friday, April 13, 2018: As of today, dangerousmeta! is no longer being actively updated.”

I’ve been a reader of Garret’s blog since the beginning, back when his blog was called array.editthispage.com. In those first few years the community on EditThisPage.com felt like a neighborhood in a small town, where everyone knows everyone else. Many of those bloggers have stopped blogging years ago, but Garret’s was one of the most prolific and long-lived weblogs.

Garret organized the Behind the Curtain project in September of 2000, in which over a hundred webloggeres documented their day-to-day lives with photos during a time in which affordable digital cameras were still a novelty. I was able to help him a little, and we became friends. About two years later André and I got to meet him and his lovely wife for the first time when we got married (shout-out to all participants of the weblogger wedding!), and we’ve visited them several times since.

Garret, your voice on the web will be missed, especially during these times of political upheaval. Even though I understand your reasons, I’m sad that I won’t find daily dangerousmeta updates in my RSS reader any longer. Thank you for sharing your unique point of view for the past almost 20 years, and keep in touch!

“The legislation is four to five times more complicated than existing law”

The Economist: The joys of data hygieneEurope’s tough new data-protection law. “Complying will be hard for businesses, but it will bring benefits too.”

“The new law was mostly written by privacy-conscious Germans. Consent to collect and process personal data now has to be “unambiguous“ and for “specific“ purposes, meaning that catch-all clauses hidden in seldom-read terms and conditions, such as “your data will be used to improve our services“ , will no longer be sufficient. “Data subjects“ can demand a copy of the data held on them (“data portability“ ), ask for information to be corrected (“right to rectification“ ), and also request it to be deleted (“right to be forgotten“ ).
The GDPR is prescriptive about what organisations have to do to comply. They have to appoint a “data-protection officer“ (DPO), an ombudsman who reports directly to top management and cannot be penalised for doing his job. They also have to draw up detailed “data-protection impact assessments“ , describing how personal data are processed. And they have to put well-defined processes in place to govern the protection of personal data and to notify authorities within 72 hours if there is a breach. Companies that persistently ignore these rules face stiff fines of up to €20m ($25m) or 4% of global annual sales, whichever is greater.
As a result the GDPR ensures that all organisations which collect and keep data will take their use (and abuse) much more seriously”

The GDPR will have effects on my weblog as well. See WordPress.org:

GDPR Compliance Tools in WordPress.

“GDPR compliance is an important consideration for all WordPress websites. The GDPR Compliance team is looking for help to test the privacy tools that are currently being developed in core.
What is GDPR?
GDPR stands for General Data Protection Regulation and is intended to strengthen and unify data protection for all individuals within the European Union. Its primary aim is to give control back to the EU residents over their personal data.
Why the urgency? Although the GDPR was introduced two years ago, it becomes enforceable starting May 25, 2018.”

“Another person with a gun won’t necessarily help you.”

dangerousmeta!: “My favorite thing to do for people who believe ‘more guns’ is the answer, is to drive them to the graveyard in Cimarron, New Mexico. The original “Wild West.” Often held up as some sort of John Wayne version of perfect American society. Well, here’s that society, as reflected in the cemetery:

Everyone had guns.

And they shot everyone.

Men. Women. Children. Dear lord, they even SHOT THE TOWN PREACHER.”

18 years + 8 days

I just realized that I missed this weblog’s 18th anniversary last week on January 25th. It’s all grown up now…

To continue my tradition:

On this day in…
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005 (a day late)
2006
2007
2008 (16 days late)
2009 (six days late)
2010
2011 (three days late)
2012
2013
2014 (eleven days late, though I posted in the meantime)
2015 (forgot the anniversary entirely, closest post was three days later)
2016
2017