[chbot] https://www.theregister.com/2025/12/15/apple_dev_bad_gift_card_code/

[Volker Kuhlmann]

On Tue 16 Dec 2025 12:13:33 NZDT +1300, bill at galumf.com wrote:

> This is not just Apple

Nope. It's all American big tech. Non-American big tech does not seem to
be much of a problem at this point.

> The hacker has set a recovery
> email address (my son hadn’t realized to do this)

Oops. The general colloquial definition of "digital competency" seems to
amount to "knows how to push buttons on facebook to get the desired
result on screen". My definition is entirely different.

> what seems like very privacy related
> data to Microsoft.

Anyone expecting privacy from an American company hasn't done enough
thinking. The business models depend on lack of privacy, and their
government reserves right of access to any data, anywhere in the world,
even before the current government helps itself to ever more. If you
care about not being merchandise, go somewhere else.

> Set a recovery email account for all of the big 4 tech companies free
> email accounts. It’s the only way to recover the account in failure.

Ehhhhmmm...

> I, for one, just pay for email and it’s hosted in Norway with proper
> privacy laws. And real people to unlock my account if it gets locked

Exactly! You get a lot less of what you pay for otherwise, once you
think about it, and it's risky - see subject.

Some New Zealand businesses seem OK with their email, I'm unsure whether
Catalyst sells to small users bu they have quality cloud services.
Otherwise the only places with privacy worth mentioning is continental
Europe, the large islands might as well be thought of as part of the US
unfortunately.

Volker

-- 
Volker Kuhlmann
http://volker.top.geek.nz/	Please do not CC list postings to me.