Author: Chris

SED #2: Birmingham City Council

I had an email correspondence with someone at BCC recently... Because of course, should I receive an email destined for someone else, I'm absolutely going to ring up some random person - the number is for the Capita-run 'Service Birmingham service desk' - and tell them about it (an almost guaranteed way to show yourself for the crazy person you are!)

Once again, corporate email policy results in signatures longer than the emails (and this time, with the mailserver tacking another copy on to each reply). (Linebreaks added for legibility)

***********************************************************************
The information contained within this e-mail (and any attachment) sent
by Birmingham City Council is confidential and may be legally privileged.
It is intended only for the named recipient or entity to whom it is
addressed. If you are not the intended recipient please accept our
apologies and notify the sender immediately, or telephone +(44)(0)121
464 4444. Unauthorised access, use, disclosure, storage or copying is
not permitted and may be unlawful. Any e-mail including its content may
be monitored and used by Birmingham City Council for reasons of security
and for monitoring internal compliance with the office policy on staff
use. E-mail blocking software may also be used. Any views or opinions
presented are solely those of the originator and do not necessarily
represent those of Birmingham City Council. We cannot guarantee that
this message or any attachment is virus free or has not been intercepted
and amended.
***********************************************************************

Stupid Email Disclaimers #1: Scottish Widows

In the spirit of Jeff Goldmark's Stupid Email Disclaimers, I thought I'd independently continue the series whenever I stumble upon a corporate email disclaimer largely composed of bullshit.

The reasons for why corporate email disclaimers are usually worth less than the electrons they're sent with is explained on Jeff's web site... To get us started, here's the email disclaimer from Scottish Widows (a part of Lloyds Banking Group, as they helpfully tell us) with linebreaks added for readability:

*******************************************************************************

As part of the Lloyds Banking Group, Scottish Widows is proud to be
an Official Provider of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
www.scottishwidows.co.uk/london2012

This E-Mail is confidential. Unauthorised recipients must notify the sender
immediately on 0131-655-6789 and must delete the original E-Mail without
taking a copy. We virus scan and monitor all e-mails but are not responsible
for any damage caused by a virus or alteration or our email by a third
party after transmission. The E-Mail is not intended nor should it be taken
to create any legal relations, contractual or otherwise.

The following companies are part of the Scottish Widows Group and,
with the exception of Scottish Widows Services Limited, are authorised
and regulated by the Financial Services Authority. They are all registered
in the United Kingdom:

Scottish Widows plc, Co No. 199549/FSA Register No. 191517;
Scottish Widows Annuities Limited, Co No.199550/FSA Register No. 191518;
Scottish Widows Services Limited, Co No.189975; Scottish Widows Unit
Funds Limited, Co No. 74809/FSA Register No. 202648; all having their
Registered Office at 69 Morrison Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8YF.

Scottish Widows Bank plc, Co No. 154554/FSA Register No. 201601.
Registered Office at 67 Morrison Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8YJ.

Scottish Widows Unit Trust Managers Limited, Co No. 1629925/FSA
Register Co No. 122129, Registered Office at Charlton Place,
Andover, Hampshire SP10 1RE.

Scottish Widows Investment Partnership Limited, Co No. 794936/FSA
Register Co No. 193707; SWIP Fund Management Limited,
Co No. 406604/FSA Register No. 122135 and SWIP Multi-Manager
Funds Limited, Co No. 5582499/FSA Register No. 455821; all having
their Registered Office at 33 Old Broad Street, London EC2N 1HZ.

Scottish Widows Fund Management Limited, Co No. 74517/FSA Register
No. 119359; Pensions Management (SWF) Limited, Co No. 45361/FSA
Register No. 110422; all having their Registered Office at
15 Dalkeith Road, Edinburgh, EH16 5BU.

Lloyds TSB Investments Limited, Co No. 106723/FSA Register No. 122130,
Registered Office at 60 Morrison Street, Edinburgh, EH3 8BE.

Scottish Widows Administration Services Limited, Co No. 1132760/FSA
Register No. 139398, Registered Office at 25 Gresham
Street, London, EC2V 7HN.

All of the above companies are part of the Lloyds Banking Group.

*******************************************************************************

In this case, the email disclaimer was over 5x longer than the content of the email - if I was feeling grumpier, I would've classified this message as spam.

More coming as/when I get them.

Photos: inside a Virgin Media cable street cabinet

Once upon a time (in 2007!), I was walking home and noticed the door on my road's Telewest distbox was hanging open (the lock had been forced). Having always wondered what was in one of those unassuming grey (or green) street cabs, I decided to have a quick look... And take some pictures. (And yes, I did let Telewest know the box had been broken into afterwards)
Continue reading "Photos: inside a Virgin Media cable street cabinet"

Tiplet: Recovering a 'ghost' domain in DirectAdmin

I added a domain name to an account on one of my DirectAdmin-managed servers yesterday, and when I came to tweak some of its settings a few hours later it had mysteriously disappeared from the domains list in the control panel! (I think this was due to a dirty restart of the core DirectAdmin program, but I'm still not 100% sure). What was strange was that all the files (private and public_html) were still there if I FTPed in, the domain still resolved and loaded if I typed in its URL into a browser - but I couldn't access the control panel settings for it (so no email, no MySQL management etc). A crippled domain.

Even more frustratingly, attempting to rename/delete the domain's folder via FTP or SSH didn't work, and I couldn't re-add the domain to the account as DirectAdmin could (bizarrely) still see that it was already hosting it! Moving/deleting the domain's DNS zone file didn't work, and neither did a DirectAdmin restart. So, Catch 22... What to do? Continue reading "Tiplet: Recovering a 'ghost' domain in DirectAdmin"

I ♥