In matters concerning IT security, John Pescatore of Gartner is supposedly an expert. That may be so, but he evidently does not know the first thing about logistics.

According to this story, DaimlerChrysler Financial Services Canada lost a data backup tape when they sent it via UPS courier to a credit agency. Apparently, the tape was not encrypted - at least Chrysler have not confirmed so.

The story concludes with Pescatore's comments that Chrysler should have bought more insurance on the shipment, because "You can get higher levels of insurance on any items you’re sending, so if it's lost, stolen or damaged, you can get some financial payments back". More proof that these Management Consultant types don't have a clue what they're talking about: insurance does not guarantee delivery - the package would still be routed through the same hubs on its way to its destination; it does not give the package "special treatment" or "special handling instructions". Also, unlike the physical medium it travels on, the data itself cannot be insured - and even if it was, this copy has still gone astray.

This is the same guy who said that "Organisations should aim to spend less of their IT budgets on security". So, by buying more insurance for a shipment - instead of investing in encryption technology - an organisation is increasing its costs and, in the process, not decreasing the likelihood that sensitive personal data will fall into the wrong hands.

As someone once said... words to the effect of "Better to keep quiet and be thought of a fool, rather than to open your mouth and remove all doubt."

Way to go, Gartner!

First there was the campaign for .nyc - a totally pointless call for yet another TLD for the City of New York. We have enough TLD's already - we don't need to pollute the namespace any further with city TLD's. If .nyc or .berlin get their way, who has the right to claim .bristol? The original one in the UK? Or Bristol, TN? Or Bristol, NB? The arrogance of these cities to think that they have the right to pollute the DNS namespace with this nonsense is astounding.

Now there's a story that Spamazon is suing NY State because of a new tax law that allows NY State to force online retailers to collect sales tax at the point of sale for goods shipped to NY residents. Normally, I wouldn't support Amazon (they're on my boycott list, generically, for being email spamtards) but I have to admit that Amazon are in the right here. Only an arrogant State Legislature would pass a law requiring a business in another state to collect taxes on the State's behalf.

It's also disappointing to read that this legislation was originally proposed by former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer. I had a lot of respect for the man - even when he was caught with his trousers down - due to his stance on spammers and telescum like Xentel Inc.

Still, this doesn't score as high in the hubris stakes as Judge Charles Kocoras of the IL courts, who suffers from a superiority complex: he was the one who returned a default judgement against Spamhaus, who don't even have a presence in the US.

Here's a current list of who I'm boycotting. Company names will be added on a per-incident basis and once added, they're highly unlikely to be removed (yeah, sometimes it's right and proper to hold a grudge).

• Company-specific:
• Sony and all its divisions.


• Creative Labs


• Dell Computers



• Generically:
• Any company that does business with Phorm.


• Any company that solicits business (or any organisation who solicits funding) through unsolicited advertising channels (eg. email spam, telemarketing).

Last updated: 2008-05-28

Funny how certain things come around on an almost-yearly basis. Virtually a year to the day, I was trying to get Festival to work in AstLinux without luck (actually, trying to get AstLinux to recognise my SB Live sound card was the real challenge).

Having some spare time to myself, I was Googling around to see what other flavours of Linux were being used with Asterisk and chanced upon some Ubuntu pages. Since my hobby servers are quite low-spec, I installed Ubuntu 2.6.15-51-server.

Soundcard was detected - I heard it pop when the box booted up and went through device initialisation. I did an apt-get install of Asterisk (haven't re-configured it yet) and got the Festival package and it worked right out of the "box"!

Very easy to install, although this is another Linux distro that seems to mess around with weird video modes, causing the console login prompt to be hidden off the bottom of the screen.

The only real gripe I had, was that after unhooking my hobby box from my monitor and putting it back downstairs in the basement, I found that I couldn't SSH into it. Turns out that even if you install the server (not desktop) version of Ubuntu, SSHD is not installed by default. Seems a bit silly to me - how else is one meant to access the server? So I took the monitor downstairs, apt-get installed openssh-server from the CD and everything's fine now.

Talking CID is not much of a project anymore, since I bought a pair of Panasonic phones last year and they handle the talking CID themselves. However, now that Festival is working, all I have to do is get Asterisk up and running and those "torture menus" will be good to go!

Just reading an article about Nokia's plans to incorporate MicroShaft's SilverShite (my medial caps) onto their mobile platforms. Apparently, SilverShite can be used to develop RIA's, but then so can Flash. However, very little RIA's (of any use) are done in Flash - most of the time it's used to generate those annoying banner ads, like "Punch the Monkey" or some other such nonsense. Yet another reason to surf with FireFox with Adblock and NoScript installed.

Per the article, "Among the new functionality, RIA application developers and designers have the ability to better monetize their sites, and extend these applications to the mobile space". In other words, instead of using Flash to make ads, WebDev's can use SilverShite to push ads onto your cell phone.

It seems that everyday, some marketing droid is out to push their ads on you via cost-shifted advertising (AKA spamming). WAP surfing is expensive enough without the ads: on Primus, every 1KB of traffic costs 5¢ on pay-per-use, or the same cost per KB after you've gone over your quota if you're on a $3/month (256KB) or $7/month (1MB) data plan. It's the same rate on Rogers pay-per-use.

At $3/month (currently what I pay Primus) it won't take long to go over 256KB with sites laden with mobile ads. Perhaps they should be called "madverts".

Reading about Motorola's woes today, it comes as no surprise to see their share price drop by 23%. For the longest time, the market droids at Motorola stuck to the same old tired formulaic nomenclature. Eventually, even the fashion victims (the POSRs) grow weary of 4-letter, missing-vowel names.

LOSRs!

We've had Rogers cable for our internet connection for at least 6 years.

In the beginning, it was great. I'd tell the AOL-bies to get a proper internet connection, not a Mickey Mouse one.

Then Rogers started messing around with their network. Suddenly, DNS would stop working for hours at a time; email servers wouldn't work, or would take forever to send messages; stupid re-branding to "Rogers Yahoo!" etc. So, I installed my own SMTP and caching-DNS servers. Then Rogers started blocking port 25 outbound. So now I have to use webmail. Then Rogers starts frequently moving me around their IP space. I called them 3 years ago and they said they planned to introduce static IP's "sometime in the near future". Never happened.

"Their network, their rules", you may say. True. But when their own advertising states that their service is suitable for transferring large files, then they have no business traffic-shaping my connection to throttle BitTorrent.

This was the final straw. Aside from the fact that their internet connection prices are actually expensive, even after a bundled discount, I refuse to be screwed over any longer.

So, I am moving over to Caneris, a local DSL provider that is hobby-server and BitTorrent friendly. And, unlike Rogers, who didn't get a clue when I told them I don't like to be randomly moved around their IP space every so often, Caneris offers static IP addresses.

Another advantage to moving my internet away from Todgers (not a typo) is that I have one less reason to call them whenever my internet is down and have to speak to that god-awful voice-activated IVR system. On behalf of all the Rogers customers who have to spend ages on the phone talking to a deaf computer before even getting through to one of Rogers' inept script-monkey CSR's, thank you Ted Rogers.

It seems that there is an exodus right now too.

And it's not going to stop there: the next move away from Rogers will be to port my PAYG cell account away (probably to Primus Wireless, but not decided yet).

So, perhaps my blog title is not quite correct. It's not so much "goodbye", it's more like "good riddance".

For the Google archive, I am quoting a transcript of a telejunker's toll-free announcer:

<quote>
[1 second burst of music] You have reached our automated information system. You're probably calling one of our toll-free numbers that appeared on your display phone. Fund-raising efforts are now well under way and we will be calling you back to explain the programs we have for this year. Calling you is the most cost-effective way to reach our goal. If you prefer, contact our Customer Information Centre at [1-8xx-xxx-xxxx]. They will be glad to provide you with any further information. Those phones are staffed 9AM to 9PM Eastern Time. Goodbye for now.
</quote>

More information on this telejunker-for-hire can be found here (just follow the links, or search here or here).

If you've been contacted by a "charity" such as The Fraternal Order of Police ["FOP"] or a State Troopers' organisation, chances are you've been tele-spammed by Xentel DM, AKA Xentel Inc (in the US). Be aware that most of the organisations that Xentel calls on behalf of do not have charitable (tax deductable) status and even then, Xentel keeps ~80% or more of the donations.

Unfortunately, Xentel exploits/abuses a loophole in the law that allows non-profit organisations to harass scam call anyone, even if you have registered for the DNC list. The fact that Xentel makes millions of dollars a year in profit, doesn't seem to matter to either the FCC or the CRTC. It seems that only the state AG's do any real job of spanking these telespammers.

I love my VoIP service. In the bad old POTS days, we'd get 3, 4... 5 telejunk calls a day, 7 days a week, some days worse than others.

Now I can block the telespammers, my phone only rings for the occasional low-level telejunker: usually a local duct cleaner, or some 2-bit company trying to hawk windows and doors. All the toll-free numbers go straight to voicemail.

Repeat offenders get auto-forwarded to an out-of-service number. But, just as the email spammers ignore 5.5.x SMTP error messages and keep trying an email address that will never deliver, it seems the tele-spammers' autodialers ignore "number out of service" messages too:

SelectiveCallFwd   112595140000002    Unavailable 2007-10-20
SelectiveCallFwd   112595140000002    Unavailable 2007-10-27

Here are a few more parallels:

Email Spammer	Tele-Spammer
Ignores 5.5.x mailer messages.	Ignores "out-of-service" messages.
Plays numbers game: harasses millions of email users with unsolicited messages for one lousy sale.	Plays numbers game: harasses millions of phone users with unsolicited calls and voicemail messages for one lousy sale.
Sells "sucker lists" of email addresses.	Sells "sucker lists" of phone numbers.
Routinely forges "from" addresses.	Routinely forges Caller ID.
Uses rogue ISP’s to host their "bulletproof" websites.	Uses rogue SIP providers to host their VoIP systems.
Obfuscates messages to bypass spam filters.	Obfuscates Caller ID to bypass Privacy Guard.
Uses cost-shifted advertising to spam your mailbox.	Uses cost-shifted advertising to spam your cell-phone.

I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, including parallels between tele-junkers and fax spammers.

My personal favourite site for reporting telejunkers: Who Called Us.

A few weeks back, I purchased a Panasonic DMR-ES16 DVD Recorder. So far, I'm really pleased with it. The functionality is great and it's very easy to use, even for a beginner.

Of course, I needed discs to record on, so I bought a stack of 50 no-name DVD-R's for movies we edited in MovieMaker from our mini-DVD camcorder. I also bought a stack of 25 4.7GB 4x DVD+RW's, manufactured by CyberHome [more CamelCase].

So far, 2 of the 25 discs have failed to format. Even if none of the other discs fail, that's a fairly bad failure rate.

Naturally, I did not have the luxury of checking out CyberHome's reputation, as I bought the discs on impulse when I got my DVD Recorder. In hindsight, had I visited their website [or in this case, webshite] I would not have bought this brand anyway. Seeing a domain-parking page with their logo would not have inspired confidence in their brand. Perhaps they can't afford to maintain their webshite, after federal agencies seized more than 20,000 CyberHome-brand DVD recorders that allegedly used Philips patents without a license last year.

Just in case anyone's interested (since Googling for "authoring engine failed" yielded only 2 search results with no clear answer) I managed to get PowerProducer to work in the end.

Since I don't have the time to test each of these 3 remedies separately, I did all of them before re-attempting the burn:

(1) Although I had over 12GB free, I deleted the source .WMV files that I had used in MovieMaker to make the final cut - this freed up ~2GB.
(2) Pulled a different DVD-R from the stack.
(3) Ran PowerProducer under an Admin account.

I really don't know which one (or more) of these remedies worked, but now PowerProducer is working again. Still, I stand by what I said originally: that hardware manufacturers test OEM software before releasing it with their products.

When I purchased an LG multi-DVD rewriter drive, I acquired a software suite with CyberLink PowerProducer [their CamelCase, not mine].

Honestly, this program is a piece of crapware. Not only does it take HOURS for it to generate the DVD top-menu, it seems to take just as long to actually finish the burn process, so I usually set it to do its work overnight.

So I set this program running last night and find a cryptic error message this morning:
"Burning Failed
PowerProducer has failed to complete the task(s) because:
(e0080007)
Possible cause(s):
Authoring engine failed."

I mean, what kind of idiotic error message is this? It doesn't tell me the cause, only that it possibly, perhaps, might be due to the "authoring engine failed" (whatever the fsck that is - Googling for "authoring engine" yields many different types of applications, from 3D RPG's to DVD's). Was the DVD-R bad? Did I run out of disk space? Not enough memory? WHAT?

Of course, it couldn't tell me this shortly after I started the burn process (I had it running for about 30 minutes or so before shutting the monitor off).

LG and all the other manufacturers who bundle OEM DVD software: you really need to test these OEM software suites before bundling them with your hardware.

Another dumb advert using more tedious R&B nonsense. Of course, Pantene is one of numerous products made by Proctor & Gamble - the same idiots who use R&B for the Tide commercials. Just another reason to boycott P&G.

Here are some more reasons to boycott P&G:
WorldNetDaily: P&G boycott builds momentum
Gillette Pulls RFID Tags In UK Amid Protests

Back on 2006-01-02, I outlined my disgust at Sony's rootkit fiasco. Today, I happened to be Googling around for the term astroturfing and chanced upon another (albeit old) story involving Sony's marketing around the PSP during Christmas 2006. Turns out that Sony hired an outfit called Zipatoni to create a fake blog (mirrored here) shilling the PSP amongst your stereotypical, leet-speaking gamers. Ironically, Zipatoni sounds like a character out of a Nintendo DS game... he could be Mario's long-lost brother!

Along with their patronising behaviour towards gamers, it seems that Sony's greed makes them believe that they are above the law when it comes to graffitti. This is the same sort of stupid viral marketing that big corporations with no scruples indulge in these days. This is why I tell everyone I know that I boycott Sony and now I have 2 more reasons to add to that list.

Hope the PSP and PS3 sales sink without a trace.

Disclaimer: I have Chinese acquaintances - this is not aimed at Chinese people per se, only the incompetent, dictatorship Chinese Government.

In these dangerous and difficult times with rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea testing nuclear weapons, it's easy to lose focus on other threats.

In the space of just over one month, I have heard and read about at least 3 stories involving tainted products from China... pet food protein tainted with melamine, fake blood protein and fake Colgate toothpaste contaminated with diethylene glycol (a toxic chemical used in engine coolants).

One has to wonder if this truly is the result of an incompetent, rogue nation dictatorship with no controls over its industries, or if the Mandarins are deliberately using this as a weapon to poison the West. In any case, one has to wonder why it isn't already time to stop doing business with these types of Governments. How Beijing managed to win the hosting bid for the 2008 Olympic Games, given their history on human rights violations, still amazes me.

Boycotting does work. When complaints about massive amounts of spam went ignored by the Chinese Internet Administrators (appointed by the incompetent, nepotistic, retrograde Chinese Government) half of the world decided enough was enough and started blocking emails originating from their IP net-space. When the Mandarins found out about this, they suddenly became very co-operative with Spamhaus.

Not sure what kind of demographic Tide is trying to reach in its latest TV ads for Simple Pleasures, but the R&B $hit they use is loud and annoying. Seriously, I have to reach for the remote control every time it comes on... usually when I'm watching Discovery.

Time to change my brand of laundry detergent, methinks.

An annoying trend emerging in advertising is the abuse of full stops ("period" if you're a 'Merkin). Recent examples of this silliness include, "Doing it right. Before your eyes." and "The Sportscast. Redefined."

Pedantic grammarians will state that it's grammatically incorrect to start a sentence with a conjunction. Whilst true, this structure is often used informally to give the air of an afterthought. This is fine if the following sentence is complete and not just a fragment.

Oftentimes, poster adverts are composed by semi-literate buffoons. An example of this was the local bus transit company's poster that stated, "Your home free New Year's Eve" - doesn't anyone proofread these days?

Season 2 of Canada's Worst Handyman started on Discovery last night. Brought to you by the same folks and hosted by the same smart-ass twerp who presents Canada's Worst Driver.

This time, the contestants are set to build an eco-shed, while Younghusband provides his sniping voice-overs and critique in front of the camera. True, these clueless DIY'ers should probably not be allowed within 50 meters of a power-tool, but let's see how Younghusband would fare in his handyman skills against the others. I'm willing to bet that he would not do much better.

A month on from last month's post, it appears that the Roll Up The Rim To Win "contest" is wrapping up: no more winning losing cups are being dispensed by the franchises I frequent, although you still have until May 27th to redeem your prizes, if any.

So, here's the over-all results:

Number of days worked from February 26th to April 14th: 30 (took a week off of work)
Approximate (conservative estimate) number of coffees: 68 (avg 2.25 coffees)
Number of coffees won: 3
Number of doughnuts/muffins won: 0
Number of iPods, plasma TV's, cars, cash won: 0

Not exactly a 1-in-9 win. Of course, YMMV and it appears people have had better luck. Seems to me that Tim Hortons needs to work on a better way of distributing the cups.

I bus it to work - 3 buses at ~1½ hours each way, five days a week - all for nearly the past 4 years now.

I want to do the right thing: save the environment, stop global warming, make the air more breathable for the next generation. All this without the influence of annoying media-whore enviro-kooks like Dr David Suzuki.

But it's becoming more difficult to do the right thing. So many things piss me off with the bus these days:

• waiting around for 30 mins in -20°C weather;


• iTards playing their "music" at the volume of a jack-hammer so that I can hear it all the way from the other end of a 40ft bus - some don't even bother using earphones at all;


• smokers who just have to take one last big drag and board the bus before emptying their deceased lungs;


• jobs-worth bus drivers who will drop me off right at the stop, where all the mud is, even though there is a patch of concrete just 2 meters ahead.

On their own, these are all things I could put up with periodically, even a few months of winter weather, but what actually bugs me the most are the inconsiderate iPod tuckfards playing their tinny $hit, usually R&B or cRap, every fricking day.

So, starting this Spring, I am going for my G1 license. Our little-used second car will help.