Communication – Page 6

International data roaming prices

Jun 162013

Last month, I was in Europe. It was fun (apart from a stomach bug that crippled me for two days.)

While in Europe, I used my smartphone. My phone is unlocked. I originally planned to purchase SIM cards in Hungary and the UK, to minimize costs. In the meantime though, I found out that Telus had fairly decent international data roaming packages. I already have a Telus SIM card, in a data stick that I use as a backup Internet connection. So instead of wasting my time hunting for local SIM cards with the right features, I put the Telus SIM card into my phone for the duration of this trip.

I used 191 megabytes of data, 51 minutes of voice, and 1 text message during this trip. The first 100 megabytes were covered by a $65 data package, after which data was charged at $1/megabyte. Here is the breakdown of my final bill:

Package	$65.00
Data	$90.72
Voice	$76.50
Text	$0.60
TOTAL	$232.82

As it turns out, the plan I chose was not optimal: a slightly different plan that combined voice and data would have saved me an additional 17 dollars or so. But it is hard to anticipate in advance how you would use your phone (I expected to rely more on Skype, but Skype was often not working very well). On the other hand, without a plan, I would have paid through my nose:

Package	$0.00
Data	$953.60
Voice	$76.50
Text	$0.60
TOTAL	$1,030.70

Even this is nothing though compared to what Rogers would have charged me. Without a plan, the amount is almost astronomical:

Package	$0.00
Data	$1,907.20
Voice	$102.00
Text	$0.75
TOTAL	$2,009.95

Even with the best plan available at the time (purchasing three times 75 megabytes plus 40 minutes of international voice roaming) I would have paid more than three times as much as I paid Telus:

Package	$725.00
Data	$0.00
Voice	$14.85
Text	$0.00
TOTAL	$739.85

Rogers has since introduced new prices and new roaming packages, so it is only fair to check what I would have paid under the new scheme. After purchasing 100 megabytes of data and 40 minutes in advance, the total would have come to:

Package	$160.00
Data	$91.00
Voice	$14.85
Text	$0.00
TOTAL	$265.85

So the new Rogers plan is still beaten by the old plan of Telus to the tune of over 30 dollars (or more like 50 dollars, had I purchased the optimal Telus plan).

No wonder Rogers doesn’t want you to unlock your phone.

Facebook miseries

Internet, Personal No Responses »

Jun 082013

Today I realized that in the past month, my blog has once again become what blogs were meant to be originally: a write-only medium that nobody reads.

Well, almost. The few people who actually bother to look it up at spinor.info could still read it (and thank you for your interest!) The few people who follow my tweets may have seen my posts. People on Google+ may have seen them as well, but are there still people on Google+?

However, the WordPress plugin that I’ve been using for the last couple of years now to publish my posts automatically on my Facebook page has quit on me. And since I was not usually checking my own Facebook posts, I didn’t even notice that something was amiss, I merely assumed that my Facebook friends were really not that interested in what I had to say.

In reality, my posts never made it to Facebook. The culprit has been one of the stupid “migrations” of the Facebook API (Application Programming Interface), which I foolishly enabled, thus breaking the plugin.

Anyhow, thanks to a helpful hint by the plugin’s developer in a WordPress support forum, I was able to find the cause and fix the problem.

I have yet to figure out why people who develop software on which other people depend, most notably people who develop software libraries that are used by other people’s programs, are so keen on making changes that seemingly serve no useful purpose other than breaking said other people’s programs.

Grumble.

Freedom is slavery! Ignorance is strength!

Computer Security, Internet, Politics 2 Responses »

Jun 082013

Yes, it’s Orwellian, and this time around, it’s no hyperbole.

The US government apparently not only collects information (“metadata”) on all telephone calls, they also have the means collect e-mails, online chats, voice-over-IP (e.g., Skype) telephone calls, file transfers, photographs and other stored data, and who knows what else… basically, all data handled by some of the largest Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Skype and others.

Last summer, I decided to revamp my e-mail system. The main goal was to make it compatible with mobile devices; instead of using a conventional mail client that downloads and stores messages, I set up an IMAP server.

But before I did so, I seriously considered off-loading all this stuff to Google’s Gmail or perhaps, Microsoft’s outlook.com. After all, why should I bother maintaining my own server, when these fine companies offer all the services I need for free (or for a nominal fee)?

After evaluating all options, I decided against “outsourcing” my mail system. The fact that I did not want to have my mail stored on servers that fall under the jurisdiction of the US government played a significant role in my decision. Not because I have anything to hide; it’s because I value my privacy.

Little did I know back then just how extensively the US government was already keeping services such as Google under surveillance:

From the leaked slides (marked top secret, sensitive information, originator controlled, no foreign nationals; just how much more secret can stuff get?) and the accompanying newspaper articles it is not clear if this is blanket surveillance (as in the case of telephone company metadata) or targeted surveillance. Even so, the very fact that the US government has set up this capability and recruited America’s leading Internet companies (apparently not concerned about their reputation; after all, a presentation, internal as it may be, looks so much nicer if you can splatter the logos of said companies all over your slides) is disconcerting, to say the least.

True, they are doing this supposedly to keep us safe. And I am willing to believe that. But if I preferred security over liberty, I’d have joined Hungary’s communist party in 1986 instead of emigrating and starting a new life in a foreign country. Communist countries were very safe, after all. (And incidentally, they were not nearly this intrusive. Though who knows how intrusive they’d have become if they had the technical means available.)

One thing I especially liked: the assurances that the NSA does not spy on US residents or citizens. Of course… they don’t have to. This will be done for them by their British (or Canadian?) counterparts. No agency is breaking any of the laws of its own country, yet everybody is kept under surveillance. And this is not even new: I remember reading an article in the Globe and Mail some 20 years ago, detailing this “mutually beneficial” practice. I may even have kept a copy, but if so, it is probably buried somewhere in my basement.

Meanwhile, I realize that the good people at the NSA or at Canada’s Communications Security Establishment must really hate folks like me, though, running our own secure mail servers. I wonder when I will get on some suspect list for simply refusing to use free services like Gmail that can be easily monitored by our masters and overlords.

Cats on Google Street View

Cats, Internet, Personal No Responses »

May 262013

I noticed that the pictures on Google Street View for our neighborhood were updated recently. Much to my delight, I noticed that two cats from the neighborhood, cats that we have known for at least seven years, were photographed by Google’s cameras:

Yes, my wife and I are both fond of cats. Not just our own four cats but also cats from the neighborhood.

Gingrich perplexed by his smartphone

Communication, Politics No Responses »

May 132013

Upon watching this video produced by Newt Gingrich, I can only wonder: What was he thinking? What was his team thinking?

Does Newt Gingrich, the technologically savvy, well-educated former House speaker and presidential wannabee really not know that the thing he is holding in his hands is called, indeed has been called for more than 15 years… wait a moment… a smartphone?

But then, a commenter on YouTube suggested that it should be called a horseless telephone. I like the idea.

Suspect in custody

Internet, Legal, Society No Responses »

Apr 192013

Minutes ago, a tweet from the Boston Police Department: “Suspect in custody. Officers sweeping the area. Stand by for further info.”

If true: if these two were indeed the clowns who committed mass murder on Monday, then congratulations are in order. They may have shut down a major metropolis for a day, but the result was worth it. This was not a shutting-the-barn-door-after-the-horses-left overreaction, but appropriate action in light of the fact that an extremely dangerous clown with explosives was on the loose. If I lived in Boston, I’d seriously consider intercepting a random off-duty police officer and inviting him for a beer.

An interesting side note, though, about how information flows (or doesn’t flow) in the 21st century: despite the massive media presence and the non-stop breathless reporting, in the end Anderson Cooper broke the news by reading the above tweet from the Boston Police Department. Not sure what it says about the freedom of the press and the authorities’ ability to control the message in this day and age.

Google Reader, RIP

Internet No Responses »

Mar 152013

Yesterday, when I logged on to Google Reader, I was presented with a notice indicating that Reader will be shut down July 1st.

Too bad. I was not using Reader much, but it was the one semi-automated means with which I was reasonably comfortable that allowed me to share my blog posts on Google+. Whether or not I can be bothered to continue with Google+ afterwards remains to be seen. Maybe not… blogs are meant to be a write-only medium anyway (I yell at the world, I do not expect the world to yell back at me), a model which is kind of broken in this era of social networking.

Anyhow, it appears that a number of people are quite upset at Google’s decision, and they even started a petition that is rapidly approaching 100,000 signatures. (Yes, I signed it, too.) So who knows, maybe Google will listen and Reader will get a reprieve.

Daylight savings nonsense

Internet, Politics, Space No Responses »

Mar 102013

To the esteemed dinosaurs in charge of whatever our timekeeping bureaucracies happen to be: stop this nonsense already. We no more need daylight savings time in 2013 than we need coal rationing.

It is an outdated idea, the benefits of which may have been dubious even at the time of its inception, and are almost certainly nonexistent today. But the harm is real: you are subjecting the entire population to a completely unnecessary one-hour jetlag each spring.

Being self-employed and working mostly from my home, I am among the least affected, but I still find this clock-forwarding business just boneheadedly stupid and annoying.

Oh, and while you are at it… would you please get rid of leap seconds, too? Another harmful solution to a nonexistent problem. So what if our clocks are out of whack by a second with respect to the Earth’s rotation? Does it bother anyone?

Oh wait. The organization in charge of leap seconds is the ITU. The same ITU that is busy trying to place the Internet under international regulation, at the bidding of such champions of Internet freedom like China or Russia. No wonder they have little time left in their busy schedule to abolish leap seconds.

Yahoo! and working from home

Internet, Society No Responses »

Feb 272013

yahoo There has been a lot of discussion lately about Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to ban working from home at her company.

Many criticized her decision. Some of them raised some good points about productivity and flexibility, and the ability to accommodate workers such as expectant women.

Others supported her decision, pointing out that at Yahoo! more than at other similar high-tech companies, slackers have abused work at home privileges to such an extent that some barely did any work for Yahoo! at all.

But there is one thing conspicuously missing from this discussion: why should Ms. Mayer concern herself with this issue in the first place? Why is she micromanaging her workforce? Should it not be up to lower-level managers to decide who can work from home and why, how, and when?

Slackware surprise

Computers, Internet No Responses »

Feb 062013

I happen to be using the oldest surviving Linux distribution, Slackware, on my servers. I have been using Slackware for a very long time; in fact, the only other distribution I ever used was the first Linux distribution, SLS (Softlanding Linux System), which was ultimately succeeded by Slackware.

Now I realize that while Slackware is perfect if you actually know what you are doing, it is not the easiest distribution to use. It lacks many of the system management, package installation and dependency resolution tools that users of more recent distributions take for granted.

This is why I was very surprised when I read this morning in PCWorld that in a recent survey conducted by LinuxQuestions.org, Slackware was found to be the most popular desktop Linux distribution. I may have expected to see Slackware fare well on servers, but the desktop? Mind you, I am very pleased to see that Slackware is doing well, even though it appears to have been a somewhat informal survey.

As to servers, Slackware came in as a close second, narrowly beaten by Debian. Even a second place finish is impressive for this venerable distribution.

I just hope that Slackware is here to stay for a long time to come. I would loathe to switch distributions after all these years.

21st century

Aviation, Internet, Personal No Responses »

Jan 292013

I may be sitting on board a decidedly 20th century airplane but I suddenly feel like I arrived in the 21st at last… being able to check my email and post to my blog from 30,000 feet.

Anonymous war declaration

Internet, Politics No Responses »

Jan 262013

Anonymous attacked the Web site of the United States Sentencing Commission, an independent agency of the United States government responsible for articulating federal sentencing guidelines.

The USSC.GOV Web site is down (or rather, there is no DNS service for ussc.gov or www.ussc.gov; I guess that is one way of taking down a corrupted Web site) but I found the defaced content in Google’s cache, including the Anonymous letter in its entirety, as well as the accompanying YouTube video (with surprisingly good production values.)

The letter is a long rant, but I am not altogether unsympathetic to what they have to say. The death of Aaron Swartz was an absolute disgrace. It was also a completely unnecessary demonstration of a justice system gone berserk. And the concerns expressed by Anonymous over disproportional punishments, the presumption of innocence gambled away by plea deals in the face of excessive sentences and unaffordable justice, or criminalization of violations of terms of service are all concerns I share.

What I don’t share is the belief of Anonymous that the perceived criminality of government can be repaired by criminal acts of their own. Their “solution” does not lead to a better society; it leads to anarchy. Then again, weirdly and confusingly, Anonymous appear to understand this when they write, “We understand that due to the actions we take we exclude ourselves from the system within which solutions are found. There are others who serve that purpose, people far more respectable than us, people whose voices emerge from the light, and not the shadows.”

I am more than a bit puzzled by the second half of their message. In this half, they describe a “warhead”, perhaps some cybertool that they are distributing to their followers this way. The instructions are simple: download all components, assemble them, and wait for the moment that hopefully never comes when you get a decryption key.

Ok-kay… well, the components no longer appear to be available (if they ever were) on the listed mirror sites, but that’s not the puzzling part. The puzzling bit is the command line offered that the would be Anonymous supporter presumably had to execute after downloading all the files named Scalia.Warhead1, Kennedy.Warhead1, Thomas.Warhead1, Ginsburg.Warhead1, Breyer.Warhead1, Roberts.Warhead1, Alito.Warhead1, Sotomayor.Warhead1, Kagan.Warhead1:

cat Scalia* Kennedy* Thomas* Ginsburg* Breyer* Roberts* Alito* Sotomayor* Kagan* >
    Warhead-US-DOJ-LEA-2013.aes256 && rm -rf /

In plain English: assemble all the parts into a file named Warhead-US-DOJ-LEA-2013.aes256. If successful, wipe out your entire hard drive.

Say what? Yes, wipe out your entire hard drive. That’s what rm -rf / does on a UNIX system.

That is, that’s what rm -rf / does on a UNIX system if a) you are logged in as root, and b) you are dumb enough to execute it.

So what exactly are Anonymous trying to pull here? Do they think American investigators are so dumb that they would follow these instructions without question, but their own followers are smarter? Is it a kind of an intelligence test to prevent stupid people from joining Anonymous? Or has the Anonymous letter itself been hacked?

Comprehension

Internet, MUD, Society No Responses »

Jan 172013

Many years ago, I created a form where players can sign up to play MUD2. To keep things relatively uncomplicated, I just created two fields for the player’s name: one labeled “Last Name” and the other, “First Name and Initials”. To me it was self-evident that if I encountered a form like this, I’d enter “Toth” and “Viktor T.”, respectively, into these fields.

But soon I found out that I was wrong. I got one signup after another like “Doe”, “John JD”. Or “Doe”, “John, JAD” if the delinquient’s middle name happened to start with an A.

What’s wrong with my form, I asked? Perhaps it’s my English? I quickly Googled “First name and initials” and found a great many hits. It was clear from the context that none of them asked for all your initials, only the initials of any additional given names that you might have, just like I did. Yet registrations in the form of Doe, John JD kept on coming. Do these people write “John JD” on passport and other official forms, too, when they are requested to enter their “Middle name and initials”?

Just to be absolutely clear, though, I added an asterisk to the field and a note: “*In case there’s a misunderstanding, this means any EXTRA initials you might have. If you’re called John A. Doe, put John A. in this field, not John JAD. And if you’re John Doe, well, that means that you have no initials to put here next to your first name!”

It didn’t help. To this date, I continue getting registrations in the form of Doe, John JD.

Nowadays, this is more amusing than annoying. I needed to know the name and country of residence of players when we charged for MUD2, for tax purposes (among other things, I was obliged to collect the Goods and Services Tax from Canadian players.) But now that the game is free, it really doesn’t matter anymore what your name is. So long as you supply a valid e-mail address, I have a means to contact you if I must (which means almost never. And no, I don’t collect and sell e-mail addresses.) But perhaps it does illustrate why I always found programming so much easier than dealing with people.

Cell phone battery weirdness

Communication, Technology No Responses »

Jan 122013

One of the reasons why I was eager to ditch my “old” (barely over two years) Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 smartphone is that its battery started to misbehave. Or at least I assumed it was the battery: under heavy load (e.g., recording video) the phone shut down prematurely. I bought an off-market replacement battery that seemed to solve the problem for a while but eventually that battery, too, started to show the same symptoms.

Now that the X10 is no longer a “mission critical” device, I feel free to experiment with it. Once I was done rooting the phone, I was able to initiate calibration of its battery (really, just deleting the battery history file). After repeatedly discharging, calibrating and recharging the battery, I tried a simple test: to see how long the battery lasts under a minimal load (valid “in service” SIM card, no real use other than occasionally getting a GPS lock and checking the battery voltage.)

What happened was astonishing. Previously, the longest time I was able to keep this phone running was a tad over two days. But now? A record FIVE days and 24 minutes. Frankly, I wouldn’t believe it if I had not seen it with my own eyes.

Now I am curious. How long will it take to recharge the phone? Will it give the battery a full charge? Will it still shut down prematurely afterwards if I start recording video?

I am also wondering… a voltage drop is not an uncommon symptom for an aging Li-polymer battery. But I should also see diminished battery capacity. A smartphone running for five days… that does not sound diminished to me! Could it be that the problem is with the phone itself, its power regulating circuitry? How can one tell without purchasing an expensive battery, preferably not from an off-market Hong Kong reseller?

Aaron Swartz, dead at 26

Computer Security, Internet, Science 1 Response »

Jan 122013

Computer pioneer Alan Turing, dead for more than half a century, is still in the news these days. The debate is over whether or not he should be posthumously pardoned for something that should never have been a crime in the first place, his homosexuality. The British government already apologized for a prosecution that drove Turing into suicide.

I was reminded of the tragic end of Turing’s life as I am reading about the death of another computer pioneer, Aaron Swartz. His name may not have been a household name, but his contributions were significant: he co-created the RSS specifications and co-founded Reddit, among other things. And, like Turing, he killed himself, possibly as a result of government prosecution. In the case of Swartz, it was not his sexual orientation but his belief that information, in particular scholarly information should be freely accessible to all that brought him into conflict with authorities; specifically, his decision to download some four million journal articles from JSTOR.

Ironically, it was only a few days ago that JSTOR opened up their archives to limited public access. And the trend in academic publishing for years has been in the direction of free and open access to all scientific information.

Perhaps one day, the United States government will also find itself in the position of having to apologize for a prosecution that, far from protecting the public’s interests, instead deprived the public of the contributions that Mr. Swartz will now never have a chance to make.

Google and privacy

Internet No Responses »

Jan 112013

Message to Google: please do NOT start uploading photos from my phone to Google+ without first asking for my bleeping permission. I don’t care if only I see the pictures. I don’t want you to upload crap from my phone without asking, is that clear?

SIM card and rooting fun

Canada, Communication 1 Response »

Jan 072013

SIM_Card I am supposed to be a geek but I guess I also have some chicken genes, since I never felt a particularly great urge to risk bricking my smartphone just for the sake of being able to run geeky apps on it that require root permission.

This all changed now that I actually have a spare smartphone, having accepted an early upgrade offer from Rogers. This spare, a SONY Xperia X10, served me faithfully for over two years. It is still a pretty decent phone, but I admit I like our new Samsung phones better.

So what does a cowardly geek do with a spare smartphone? Why, exactly what he did not dare to do while that smartphone was still in service. First, he tries to root it… which turned out to be a relatively easy process, although there were some tripping points like making sure that you enable USB debugging.

But while rooting the phone did let me do some fun things with it, the phone was still locked to the Rogers network. So I decided to take the plunge and purchase an unlock code for the grand total of about eight bucks from cellunlocker.net. (I picked this unlock provider after doing a bit of research; they seemed cheap yet reliable.) It took a bit longer than promised to get the unlock code (almost a full day instead of a few hours) but it worked as advertised.

So how do you test if the phone is unlocked? Well, it says that it is unlocked, but is it? My wife’s Samsung phone says it’s unlocked, too, but it rejects non-Rogers SIM cards. How do I know? I actually have two non-Rogers SIM cards, a non-registered one from a data stick I used to use in Hungary, and a registered and valid SIM card from my TELUS data stick. I shoved this one into the X10 and presto… it works! In fact, much to my surprise, it seems to work as a phone, too, although I am loathe to try to make calls with it, as I have no idea how much TELUS would charge for a voice call on what is supposedly a data only plan.

So what will I do the next time I travel overseas? Take this X10 with me to use with a local provider’s SIM? Or perhaps unlock my new Samsung phone? Sounds like a plan… maybe I’ll have the courage to do so this time. For what it’s worth, I did order a cheap micro-SIM cutter and a set of adapters that will help me cut down a regular SIM card to the size the Samsung phone accepts, yet still use that SIM card in other phones.

It will be fun.

Facebook likes

Internet, Personal No Responses »

Dec 202012

facebook_like_button_big I use a simple WordPress plugin, called “Simple Facebook Connect”, to automatically post my blog posts to Facebook. The plugin also provides a Like button for my posts. Recently, I noticed that a number of my posts acquired a fair number of Likes from apparent strangers.

Today, it became clear to me that the plugin is cheating. After exchanging a series of comments on Facebook in response to one of my blog posts, I noticed that every time a comment was added, the number of Likes went up by one. So no, I am not nearly as popular as I previously thought.

Oh well. Blogs are meant to be written, not read.

Spam from Facebook friends

Computer Security, Internet No Responses »

Dec 112012

Thank you, Facebook. Now I am getting garbage that is apparently coming from some of my Facebook friends, all because (no doubt in your eagerness to please your corporate sponsors and push your sinking share price up a little) you happened to leave open a gaping security hole allowing spammers to “scrape” friend lists and e-mail addresses.

Worse yet, it is possible that the same spammers are sending garbage to others in my name. And while I may know not to click on an unsolicited link even if it appears to come from a good friend, colleague, or close relative, others may not be so cautious.

One of these days, I’ll find myself a spammer and slowly strangle him.

PayPal is now evil

Commerce, Internet, Legal 2 Responses »

Oct 292012

I use PayPal a lot. I initially started using the service for eBay purchases, but since, I’ve used it to sell calculators, to receive payments from advertisers, even to send money to family. I generally like PayPal. Indeed, I always considered them one of the “good guys”. After all, isn’t it PayPal’s very founder, Elon Musk, who seems to have single-handedly established the era of commercial spaceflight with his SpaceX venture?

But now PayPal is notifying me of a policy update. A policy update that is specifically designed to prevent users from using the court system. Yes, you can opt out, but you can only do so in a manner that is made intentionally difficult:

“You can choose to reject this Agreement to Arbitrate (“opt out”) by mailing us a written opt-out notice (“Opt-Out Notice”). For new PayPal users, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than 30 Days after the date you accept the User Agreement for the first time. If you are already a current PayPal user and previously accepted the User Agreement prior to the introduction of this Agreement to Arbitrate, the Opt-Out Notice must be postmarked no later than December 1, 2012. You must mail the Opt-Out Notice to PayPal, Inc., Attn: Litigation Department, 2211 North First Street, San Jose, CA 95131. “

Yes, you need to use snail mail. Yes, the world’s leading digital payments company apparently lacks the ability to process an opt-out request electronically.

Of course what it really is about is that they are counting on you and me not making the effort to put a stamp on an envelope.

Which indeed I won’t. I never tried to sue PayPal in the past, nor do I have plans to do so in the future. And I will still use their services.

But, I no longer consider them one of the “good guys”.

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