September, still
Sep. 9th, 2025 04:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cellioThe other day, I saw something cute and reposted it on Mastodon:
Overheard, and for Internet old-timers: "Today is the 11,691st day of September 1993".
Someone responded to tell me that Debian has the sdate command "which keeps track for all of us".
I laughed. And then I found that there are also online calculators, for people who don't use Debian.
I am amused, even if -- or perhaps because -- those of us who remember the September that never ended are now a very small minority of the online population. Back then people were frustrated; today it's quirky history. Whatever your online community is -- Usenet, mailing lists, Twitter, Reddit, Dreamwidth, Stack Overflow, whatever -- it's going to change just from the people using it, let alone technology and companies. Don't get too comfortable.
strange credit-card pitch
Sep. 9th, 2025 04:27 pmcellioI've had my Visa card for a very long time (decades). I've been happy with the provider, and the few times I needed the weight of Visa behind a dispute, they came through. No fuss, just like I want a credit card to be.
A few months ago they started sending me email to invite me to add another authorized user to my card, suggesting it as a safety net (so if something happens to me, someone else can administer my account). Maybe that appeals to someone, but I'm not interested so I ignored it. More recently they have been offering minor inducements (a one-time small credit) to do this, and that makes me wonder what their real goal is.
If this is merely a service they offer for peace of mind, the peace of mind is the inducement and nothing else is needed. That they are trying to entice people to do it means there's some other motivation that benefits them more directly. I'm assuming this is not a way to add your minor children so they can more easily make in-app purchases or whatever the kids are doing these days -- and anyway, unless they're giving you a way to throttle spending from other users, that would be a very bad idea.
The only thing I can come up with is that this is a way for people with bad credit scores to get access to credit cards. They aren't going to issue cards to such folks directly, but if they can get you to add your deadbeat cousin with a terrible credit rating (to "help" your family member), then the credit-card company gets more transactions and thus more transaction fees at very low risk to them. They know an existing customer who'd like to keep a good credit rating is on the hook for the charges; they're going to get paid. This might be in Visa's interest, but how is it in mine? It's not, which is presumably why they're trying to buy folks off.
Have I missed some benign reason for them to push this scheme?
(Still not doing it, but curious.)
Code deploy happening shortly
Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenancePer the dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.
There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.
Mississippi site block, plus a small restriction on Tennessee new accounts
Aug. 31st, 2025 12:28 pmdenise posting in dw_newsA reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.
The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.
In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.
The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.
Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.
Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.