Indeed not. And they are quite deliberately absent -because I am very determined to resist the temptation to trade argument over features - because that's not the point I am making and never has been
Let me try and summarise how I see it.
1) You have made it clear what you like and find important.
2) I have said that those things simply do not matter to me, and that some of thing I actively dislike. I have read and understood the arguments in favour, and decided (as is my right) that I reject them.
Note I've NOT said "you're wrong" or "They're crap" - or anything similar. Merely that, to me, they are worthless or worse. And also that it would appear that I am far from being alone.
3) I've said there are other things which I do value which I don't find with Apple and do find elsewhere.
I have not the slightest doubt that these things will be of little or no value to you and, indeed, you will actively dislike some of them and reject all the arguments I offer in their favour. So much so that I concede the point without you even having to make it.
So let me go back to my key point: I will not buy a product where the choice of applications I can run on that product is limited to a "walled garden".
This choice is for both practical and philosophical reasons. It matters a very great deal to me on both counts.
I am fully aware of some of the implications and consequences of this choice. I believe I can cope with and handle those consequences and have been doing so successfully for some considerable time now.
During that time - I have seen, experienced and had to deal with some of those consequences. They were manageable. Those experiences have not (even remotely) caused me to question or change my views on that core underlying choice to reject "The Walled Garden".
I am also aware I am not alone in having views like this.
So, in practice, the iOS Style of App. Store is indeed a feature which attract many, and it will also repel many others - even people who have thought about it and heard all the arguments in favour. Ultimately who are you to say that they are wrong?
Put simply just one more case of "One Size does NOT fit all".
This is exactly what I meant by "controversial" and "divisive".
Fairly clearly you rate some of the things you listed as "important". Great. I'm really pleased it works for you.
And yet not only do I attach little or no value to them, I regard some of them as actively negative - the very opposite of a feature. For *ME* they are worthless and worse (a judgement reserved for me to make) - although I also know I am far from alone in this.
Meanwhile if I bothered to explain some of the features I find attractive in (for example) the Android Marketplace, I suspect you would attach little or no value to them and might also find some to be a negative feature.
We have a different outlook, we care about different things, we are probably working under different constraints, it's quite likely we are trying to achieve subtly different things, how we work is probably different too. Real differences which lead to real differences in the value judgements and conclusions we reach.
When I look at your reply I note you seem to have completely missed every single one of the top five key "features" offered by Android that I value the most. Given what I have just said above, this is not really surprising to me.
I'm not presuming to tell you what value judgements you should reach, please return that respect.
Yes. Apple has a Applications Market which is doing well. And there are others which are also doing well.
These are interesting times. Presuming to predict how things will look in even 5 years time is just indulging in glorified fortune telling and is likely to prove about as prescient as scrying would be.
Yes. There are real advantages. Which I believe to be worthless to me (and to many people).
There are also real advantages to the alternative approach. Advantages I happen to value very highly.
So to me (and at least some, probably many others), as a feature it's useless.
So, more generally, as a USP with which to take on the world it's erm... "flawed". If I were trying to sell iOS I wouldn't put it anywhere near the top of the list. I'm not sure I would even mention it.
I rather suspect that the choice of a heavy suspension for a downhill racing bike is more objective than subjective.
But the choices around App Stores are largely subjective. The choice of an App store and associated choices of business model are a complex set of trade-offs. Whichever choice you make you arguably gain in some areas and loose in others. Which of these matter the most to you depend on you: who you are, how you think, what you know, what you want to do and what other constraints you face.
In practice this means the Apple App store and how it works is a "controversial" or even "divisive" feature within the true meaning of those words.
I've now read the original article a couple of times and gone through the main comments a couple of times....and I am confused. It seems that many people commenting have not actually bothered reading the original article to see what was being discussed there - and have jumped straight in with comments about what they (mostly wrongly) think or assume the article was about instead.
Many of the skills discussed in the original articles are about avoiding and/or managing a diverse range of real-world problems of the kind still regularly seen today.
I haven't tried for a couple of years, but accessing voicemail by spoofing CLI certainly used to work on at least two UK mobile networks (N.B. I tested it using my own accounts).
Many people are not aware how easy it can be to spoof CLI in the UK.
It's a good question. There are several ways of looking at it. For example:
The "missing little Girl" is your daughter. The Police are knocking on your neighbour's doors. You now have to face the fact that some of your neighbours might be finding it hard to offer the Police complete support - at least partly because the Police have previously acted in ways which reduced the public's confidence in the Police.
How do you feel ? Who do you blame ?
I would much prefer to live in a society where "Policing by Consent" still means something. Policing by consent is in the overwhelming interest of all law abiding people.
One requirement for "Policing by Consent" is that the Police understand and support their side of the bargain. Another requirement is that the legal system and government maintains a certain level of basic confidence and support. I believe the UK currently has some serious problems with all those things and we are all worse off because of it.
My Aunt worked at Bletchley Park. She was a Bombe Operator. In her case - "Bitter" is certainly the wrong word.
At the time she knew a fair bit about what she, personally, was doing. She didn't understand all the details, but she knew she was cracking messages relating to the Battle of the Atlantic - and that it was damned important. As an intelligent woman she also knew and accepted why the secrecy was important - both at the time and afterwards. She never discussed it at the time with anyone.
My Grandfather was bright enough to work out that my Aunt had done "something a bit special" in the war - and was very frustrated that he had no idea at all what it was and that she refused to discuss it. He died in 1969. IIRC "The Ultra Secret" was published about 5 years later. That was the moment when the restrictions were relaxed - and she could tell the rest of the family where she had been during the war.
My Aunt is bitter about what happened to Alan Turing. It was wrong "of itself" and it was also wrong that this country seemed to forget exactly how much was owed Dr Turing. She regards it as a tragedy and a waste. I agree.
My late Father was one of those who fought in "The Forgotten War" in Burma. One of many horrible parts to WW2. He gained "The Burma Star". Something he wore with great pride and which recorded what he had been a part of. My Aunt will be pleased to finally have something similar.
I think that it is just to recognise the achievements of those who worked at Bletchley Park in the same way - and that it probably could and should have happened sooner - perhaps during the 1970s.
Within the UK the phone system allows the caller to set the CLI arbitrarily.
Because the outgoing Telco cannot know which CLIs are valid and which are not (because it handled by someone else, and is constantly changing) they have no means of imposing any useful rules.
Yes. The Telco can tell the Police which CLIs were used for outgoing calls - but how does that help ?
Are you seriously suggesting that the Police are going to contact all of the many hundreds of Telcos in the UK and say "did any of your customers send calls using this CLI ?"
Even if they did, what happens when the CLI is something totally meaningless - and used by several different senders?
I.E. What happens when the many tens of Telcos all say "yes" to the same same CLI ?
As a Telco, we regularly get requests from the Police and other bodies regarding (incoming) numbers that we "own". (Using what is often known as the "RIP procedure). Thus far > 95% of these requests have been a dead end for the Police - because the CLI they are tracing is utterly fake.
------------------
It is actually possible to trace individual calls by means of some of the other logs in SS7 independent of CLI. It is very slow and very laborious. AFAIK This method is only used in the most extreme of circumstances. Even then, there are still various ways it can fail.
I don't know about the USA, but can say that this would be completely impractical in the UK.
For various complex reasons, major users in the UK (like call centres) frequently buy their incoming telephony and outgoing telephony from completely different companies. It's not uncommon to have several companies providing each. The incoming numbers used may not even belong to the call centre. It is increasingly common for these to be allocated and routed dynamically in real time.
(This is exactly the service my company provides - to known, legitimate customers).
There's no way that the outgoing Telco is going to be able to unscramble or keep up with this.
If you go back to WW2, the UK had a research lab which produced many curious inventions worthy of "Q". It was part of the SOE and known as "Station IX". It was based in an old Mansion just South of Welwyn in Herts.
You can now buy a catalogue of their weird and wonderful creations - which included such things as:
Explosive Rats (designed to destroy boilers)
Motor Bikes which folded into a small case and could be dropped by parachute. ("Welbike")
Silenced Single shot guns ("Welrod")
Explosive Pens.
Land Mines disguised as faeces from a wide range of Animals. These had a double effect - not only could they knock out enemy vehicles, but they slowed progress and sapped morale by forcing the occupants of enemy vehicles to get out and probe carefully every last turd they came across.
You can now get > 300 x E1 (10,000 channels of voice) in a single rack, including switching, SS7, VoIP Gateways, Transcoding, IVR, recording, CDRs, Database and control. Install it right and it will just run and run and run and run.
Spread your stuff over 3 or 4 Colos - and nothing is ever a dire emergency - but there are still a few things worth getting out of bed for.
In 2008 the total number of times we needed to send someone to one of our CoLos at short notice was 2!
The total number of times we had to go to our CoLos (including all planned stuff) was slightly more than once a month.
Like most UK Telcos, we have very limited requirement for work on hardware. So for most of the routine stuff, you hire contractors when you need them.
The urgent stuff is shared between myself and the only other hardware-aware Techie in the company who drives and has a car!
How many people do you see hanging around Telecomms CoLos ? By day ? By night ?
I'm CTO of a Telco and we buy and use a lot of HDDs - Server and Desktop.
On the Desktop, the Maxtor Story has been simply appalling. Fortunately we backup data properly and keep spares in the server room - so when a HDD dies, it's nothing more than a PITA. I don't even bother checking whether there's any kind of warranty. I don't want a replacement from Maxtor even if it is free.
On the Server - well I was persuaded to buy some Seagate/Maxtor drives specifically intended for RAID. Everything cross checked for compatibility.
Result ? Several lost night's sleep while I drove 100 miles to Data Centres to reset RAIDs where one of the HDDs has dropped out for no apparent reason. "Hot Spare" prevented serious consequences, but the situation was not sustainable. A firmware flash improved things - but not enough. We've still got those drives lying around in boxes somewhere and give them to employees who want a HDD.
So we went with WD and their (very) top end stuff. Result : Not hugely different.
Current policy here is Raptors on the Desktop. They seem to be performing well.
Top-end SAS only on the Servers and Raid. Even then only with every component fully cross-checked for specific support. If we are anything less than mega-fussy, it bites us!
The calls in question here - the ones covered by the injunction are "ordinary" or "conventional" calls from T-Mobile subscribers to the range a range of phone numbers owned by Truphone.
In the UK, when a Telco gets an allocation of certain types of number range (including Mobile) they get to set the termination rates (within limits). Termination rates are what other Telcos have to pay when they pass calls to that Telco.
T-mobile were refusing to pass calls on the basis that the amount Truphone was charging for termination rates was too high - although they look pretty standard to me.
T-Mobile is a "MNO" = Mobile Network Operator. Truphone is, like my company, a "Other Licensed Operator".
In the UK we are all governed by the terms of licences issued by OFCOM. These licences do contain terms requiring us to route calls between all of us. There are certain, very specific exceptions, none of which I can see applying here.
As I understand it Truphone have also complained through OFCOM - and they are almost certain to win there...but the wheels of OFCOM turn very, very slowly (many months, could be years) and they can't force T-Mobile to change their behaviour while they're working on it. Which is probably why Trucom went down the Legal route.
My company has also got an allocation of UK Mobile numbers, and we are planning an application which, while slightly different to Truphone, will also annoy T-Mobile et al. So we're watching closely to see what precedents are set.
You can find out all about UK telecom regulation from the OFCOM website, including who "owns" which ranges of numbers.
Unfortunately it is very badly laid out and, even with the benefit of experience, it can be very hard to find what you want.
The real technical details are not publically available - they are hidden in various contracts and behind confidentiality clauses. This is partly because some of the terms are, frankly, outrageous, and partly because some of the technical details are extremely naff.
Actually - yes it can. It is technically complex and hard to impliment properly / reliably - It only seems easy because the problems have been solved.
There are some minor differences in the way that call routing works between GSM and the various USA systems. But these are generally small - they all sit on top of SS7 and getting calls through to the location is done by essentially the same Processes in the SS7 SCCP TCAP and MAP layers. If GSM can make it work then the USA will be able to too.
What is more of a problem is the lack of consistency in the way that number portability is implimented. SS7/SCCP/TCAP/MAP doesn't explicitly provide for portability - so it has to be "bolted on" and not every territory does it the same.
Sometimes you want to originate a call or send an SMS and you need to know which network hosts the handset. (Usually you want to do this because you're providing a service in a country (EG Hong Hong) where the carriers are always squabbling and won't neccesarily route your call through to the right network)
Anyway, some territories (eg HongKong) have implimented number portability by means of a centralised common database - and if you provide a service and have multiple trunks into each network (as we do) then you have to negoiate access to that Database and treat it as a whole extra layer before you even start connecting to the network proper. Even then there can be messy differences between territories in the detail of how these databases work.
Other places (EG the UK) do it completely different. Here there is an extra Database associated with every HLR ( Home Location Register - one of the key Databases involved with routing calls to mobiles). When a number is ported, the GTTS (Global Title Translation Service - converts phone numbers into the point codes which underly the SS7 network) in the originating network SCCP still returns the point code of the original operator's HLR - practically speaking it has to or the routing tables would become impossibly large. When that HLR receives a "sendRoutingInfo" message it first checks in its portability database and if the number has been ported elsewhere, then it forwards the message to the new HLR - which will query the current VLR and provide the routing info. This has the advantage that it is transparent to everyone else on the SS7 network , but has the disadvantage that if you actually want to know which network you're paying to receive the call - it's harder to find out. The other disadvantage of this system is the admin is more awkward. Potentially you could be relying on three different companies to make your network change work. All the UK phone companies are a bit of a admin. shambles even at the best of times.
We're busy designing and implimenting various SMS configured voice conferencing services - and this single issue is more complex than just about all the rest put together.
What will be interesting will be to see how the USA has decided to solve the problem. It will face essentially the same choices as countries with GSM - and the same tradeoffs.
Your description of SMS delivery is a little confused. Under GSM SMS delivery works in two stages. First stage is "MO" - Mobile Originated.
The mobile sends the SMS to the SMSC provided by telco who provides that Mobile service. This is done by means of the SS7/MAP forwardSM procedure. The destination of this is programmed into the phone as the ISDN of MSC attached to the SMSC.
The SMSC then processes the SMS and attempts to deliver it to the destination.
This is the "MT" - mobile terminated stage. A (simplified) version of the sequence is:
The SMSC sends an SS7/MAP SendRoutingInfoForSM to the HLR resgistered against the MSISDN for the destination Mobile. If the Phone is registered with the HLR. The HLR will return the ISDN number of the MSC for the network where the phone is currently connected. SS7/MAP fowardSM is then used to deliver the SMS to the MSC for the network where the mobile is currently located. the Destination IMSI and MSISDN is included in the message and the receiving MSC uses this info to interrogate its VLR to find out how to deliver the message.
I haven't covered what happens when the above process fails nor complications like number portability. Both of theses issues are fscking complicated
It's my experience that delays and lost messages occur in the SMSCs.
I've recently designed the systems for a service with a significant SMS component.
(http://www.mobix.co.uk/index.htm if you want to know more)
We needed reliable, fast, low-cost delivery, to know whether it had got there. We actively did NOT want to retry if the message didn't get through.
During our development we experimented with various SMS delivery methods in the UK. One thing which became clear is that most of "the problem" (delays, lost messages) happens inside the SMSC systems. We also looked at several SMSC systems and discovered that many are rather mediocre when it comes to system design and resilience - and also that many of the companies who supply SMSC systems are erm... dubious - both technically and ethically.
So we now have an SS7 connection into various neworks and we deliver direct to handset using the same method as the SMSC uses to deliver messages to the Handsets. We get excellent reliability within the UK - and it is pretty good internationally and when callers are roaming.
It scares me too - sometimes. But then so does the USA.
>Your government spies on your every last move,
Sometimes. Yep. However they aren't competent enough to do anything useful with what they collect and there's plenty of loopholes when you know how to work the system. We have a journalist/comedian called Mark Thomas who has exploited the system beautifully.
>it controls what you can and cannot see,
No. It tries. And it usually fails. We still have juries and magistrates who are quite capable of sticking two fingers up at the establishment. We also have a civil service who haven't forgotten what utter tits they made of themselves over "Spycatcher" and a few similar cases. When our Home Secretary's son was caught red-handed selling dope, everyone knew within days - despite a cack-handed attempt to cover it up. (The Home Secretary is in charge of Police and law enforcement). I would have no trouble getting any "banned" Movie on Video or DVD if I wanted.
> and a good percentage of you live in fear of a black van that supposedly drives around neighborhoods making sure people have paid their TV tax.
Ah. But there are "catches" in that too. They mainly work by fear and intimidation. Their legal rights are very limitied and they just hope people don't know that. When I didn't have a TV and they came knocking at my door the conversation went something like this:
"We want to come in"
"You got a warrant"
"No - but we're here to check for TVs"
"I don't give a stuff - just fuck off and get off my property"
"You can't tell us to fuck off"
"I can and I just did. Would you like me to start reading the relevant sections of the act which gives me the right to tell you to fuck off ? - I have them handy..."
"erm"
"Right. So just fuck off then, and kindly do it quietly"
- They fucked off and they didn't return. Some others tried again a few months later. They fucked off too.
OTOH in the UK we have quite a few good things of our own:
Unarmed Police
A system to stop junk calls and faxes which actually works.
A system of data protection and privacy which also really works.
Far less corporate influence over the political machinery than happens in the USA
A legal system where the innocent poor stand a really good chance of getting to "not guilty"
Some genuine restraints on the power of large companies to trample all over little people.
And it's still possible for me to live my life, do my stuff, drive my car without carrying ANY ID on me of any kind.
The BBFC is a bit of an anomaly. It is part-legislated and part advisory.
It was setup (in 1912 ) by the Film Industry to bring some consistency to film censorship.
In the UK Cinemas are licenced by the Local Authority (Council). Each council has the final say about who can see which films with what cuts. In practice the BBFC classifications are routinely and almost universally accepted by all local councils - but they can and do overule the BBFC on occassion. The two most famous, recent examples are "Crash" (which was banned in some areas) and Mrs Doubtfire (which was rated by the BBFC as "12" but many councils reduced this to "PG").
Any cinema breaking the rules imposed by the Council could find its cinema licence withdrawn.
The BBFC has a quite seperate role for Videos and DVDs - where it is given authority by statue to censor these for the whole country. It is quite possible (and not uncommon) for the same film to have different certificates and different cuts for Cinema and Video release.
Unfortunately that just isn't universally true. I frequently design PCBs in the UK. I'd like to refer you to this UK PCB maker. Follow the links and note the crazy mish-mash of units. E.G. Board dimensions are specified in inches in two directions - and mm in the third!
Getting back onto topic, one of the nice things I've found about Suse is that it generally does offer good, wide support for multiple currencies, units and formats for things like date, time and paper size.
If this means some people in the USA have to change from A4 defaults this might be a good thing. Certain USA based operating systems can be a real PITA for us Europeans. Certain combinations of Windows / printer drvier / application seem to require the paper size to be changed in three different places before you get sane results.
A few years ago BT (British Telecommunications) started offereing a CLI ( caller ID) service.
When making calls you could prefix the number with 141 to prevent your number being disclosed to the called party.
It was also possible to have your line changed, Free of Charge, so that the default was NOT to release the number, but if you the prefixed the number dialled with 1470 - it would release the number to the called party.
BT decided that
a) They didn't want people to select the "default withhelf" option
b) That one means they were going to use was to deny that the "1470" to release Caller ID even existed.
I have several telephone lines. Some were set to default withheld and some not. I phoned sales to change the status one of the lines. I had time on my hands so I decided to have some fun.
So sales answer and I say what I want. They immediately start down their standard script designed to talk me out of it. As each point was raised I countered with a reason why it didn't matter to me. One of my counter-arguments revolved around using 1470 to over-ride the default. The salesman denied that the code existed or that it would work. I stated that I had already used the code many times and it had worked just fine. He told me I must be mistaken. I said I had a line to hand with a Caller display box and another line to hand set to default "with-held". I then made him sit and wait there while I went through the experiment. I then asked him to explain what I observed (which was 1470 working perfectly). The situation was laughable. I knew he was lying. He knew he was lying. he knew that I knew he was lying and he knew he was defending the indefensible. However he was not allowed to deviate from the official line...
BT policy has now changed. They now admit that 1470 works and they now allow "default withheld" without reading the 101 good reasons why you shouldn't first.
--------------
I also some fun at the expense of a dodgy company in London who were running a premium rate sex-line service using some very dubious business techniques. I decided to bait them. So I made a ten second call from a number which would normally get no incoming calls. I then waited for a call from their billing department. Everytime they called they got another load of lies and rubbish from me. The game was to see how many times they would attempt to get the name and address before they finally gave up. The answer was over 30.
Amongst other gems - I played a message saying "I'm sorry, this number has changed, please call again earlier". They rang back three times to hear that one. Sometimes I just told them blatant lies - like I was a curry house and gave an (almost valid) address as an almost uninhabited Scottish Island.
When I was feeling really bored I'd set the system up to relay all calls back to one of their own chat lines.
A few years ago this "bandwidth/pin" thing would have been a killer difference. Adding pins was expensive, Pins and packaging were serious problems.
However that has changed considerably. uBGA and similar achieve huge pin densities at tiny cost per pin. It is harder to get your process right with BGA - but once you only have to do this at the design/setup stage, once it's right you get better quality, repeatability and yield with uBGA than you do with Fine Pitch packages. Multilayer PCBs are much less of an issue too - as are fine pitches in those PCBs.
>The only dual channel DDR system I know of is the upcoming Serverworks Grand Champion chipset for the P4 Xeon
Intel and others are working on several Dual DDR chipsets - "Granite Bay" is supposed to be released Q3 this year.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed not. And they are quite deliberately absent -because I am very determined to resist the temptation to trade argument over features - because that's not the point I am making and never has been
Let me try and summarise how I see it.
1) You have made it clear what you like and find important.
2) I have said that those things simply do not matter to me, and that some of thing I actively dislike. I have read and understood the arguments in favour, and decided (as is my right) that I reject them.
Note I've NOT said "you're wrong" or "They're crap" - or anything similar. Merely that, to me, they are worthless or worse. And also that it would appear that I am far from being alone.
3) I've said there are other things which I do value which I don't find with Apple and do find elsewhere.
I have not the slightest doubt that these things will be of little or no value to you and, indeed, you will actively dislike some of them and reject all the arguments I offer in their favour. So much so that I concede the point without you even having to make it.
So let me go back to my key point: I will not buy a product where the choice of applications I can run on that product is limited to a "walled garden".
This choice is for both practical and philosophical reasons. It matters a very great deal to me on both counts.
I am fully aware of some of the implications and consequences of this choice. I believe I can cope with and handle those consequences and have been doing so successfully for some considerable time now.
During that time - I have seen, experienced and had to deal with some of those consequences. They were manageable. Those experiences have not (even remotely) caused me to question or change my views on that core underlying choice to reject "The Walled Garden".
I am also aware I am not alone in having views like this.
So, in practice, the iOS Style of App. Store is indeed a feature which attract many, and it will also repel many others - even people who have thought about it and heard all the arguments in favour. Ultimately who are you to say that they are wrong?
Put simply just one more case of "One Size does NOT fit all".
This is exactly what I meant by "controversial" and "divisive".
Fairly clearly you rate some of the things you listed as "important". Great. I'm really pleased it works for you.
And yet not only do I attach little or no value to them, I regard some of them as actively negative - the very opposite of a feature. For *ME* they are worthless and worse (a judgement reserved for me to make) - although I also know I am far from alone in this.
Meanwhile if I bothered to explain some of the features I find attractive in (for example) the Android Marketplace, I suspect you would attach little or no value to them and might also find some to be a negative feature.
We have a different outlook, we care about different things, we are probably working under different constraints, it's quite likely we are trying to achieve subtly different things, how we work is probably different too. Real differences which lead to real differences in the value judgements and conclusions we reach.
When I look at your reply I note you seem to have completely missed every single one of the top five key "features" offered by Android that I value the most. Given what I have just said above, this is not really surprising to me.
I'm not presuming to tell you what value judgements you should reach, please return that respect.
Yes. Apple has a Applications Market which is doing well. And there are others which are also doing well.
These are interesting times. Presuming to predict how things will look in even 5 years time is just indulging in glorified fortune telling and is likely to prove about as prescient as scrying would be.
Yes. There are real advantages. Which I believe to be worthless to me (and to many people).
There are also real advantages to the alternative approach. Advantages I happen to value very highly.
So to me (and at least some, probably many others), as a feature it's useless.
So, more generally, as a USP with which to take on the world it's erm... "flawed". If I were trying to sell iOS I wouldn't put it anywhere near the top of the list. I'm not sure I would even mention it.
I rather suspect that the choice of a heavy suspension for a downhill racing bike is more objective than subjective.
But the choices around App Stores are largely subjective. The choice of an App store and associated choices of business model are a complex set of trade-offs. Whichever choice you make you arguably gain in some areas and loose in others. Which of these matter the most to you depend on you: who you are, how you think, what you know, what you want to do and what other constraints you face.
In practice this means the Apple App store and how it works is a "controversial" or even "divisive" feature within the true meaning of those words.
I actively do not want a "regulated application marketplace".
That iOS lives in that walled Garden (and what Apple choose to do with their power) is the primary reason why I am not remotely interested in iOS.
I've now read the original article a couple of times and gone through the main comments a couple of times. ...and I am confused. It seems that many people commenting have not actually bothered reading the original article to see what was being discussed there - and have jumped straight in with comments about what they (mostly wrongly) think or assume the article was about instead.
Many of the skills discussed in the original articles are about avoiding and/or managing a diverse range of real-world problems of the kind still regularly seen today.
I haven't tried for a couple of years, but accessing voicemail by spoofing CLI certainly used to work on at least two UK mobile networks (N.B. I tested it using my own accounts).
Many people are not aware how easy it can be to spoof CLI in the UK.
It's a good question. There are several ways of looking at it. For example:
The "missing little Girl" is your daughter. The Police are knocking on your neighbour's doors. You now have to face the fact that some of your neighbours might be finding it hard to offer the Police complete support - at least partly because the Police have previously acted in ways which reduced the public's confidence in the Police.
How do you feel ? Who do you blame ?
I would much prefer to live in a society where "Policing by Consent" still means something. Policing by consent is in the overwhelming interest of all law abiding people.
One requirement for "Policing by Consent" is that the Police understand and support their side of the bargain. Another requirement is that the legal system and government maintains a certain level of basic confidence and support. I believe the UK currently has some serious problems with all those things and we are all worse off because of it.
My Aunt worked at Bletchley Park. She was a Bombe Operator. In her case - "Bitter" is certainly the wrong word.
At the time she knew a fair bit about what she, personally, was doing. She didn't understand all the details, but she knew she was cracking messages relating to the Battle of the Atlantic - and that it was damned important. As an intelligent woman she also knew and accepted why the secrecy was important - both at the time and afterwards. She never discussed it at the time with anyone.
My Grandfather was bright enough to work out that my Aunt had done "something a bit special" in the war - and was very frustrated that he had no idea at all what it was and that she refused to discuss it. He died in 1969. IIRC "The Ultra Secret" was published about 5 years later. That was the moment when the restrictions were relaxed - and she could tell the rest of the family where she had been during the war.
My Aunt is bitter about what happened to Alan Turing. It was wrong "of itself" and it was also wrong that this country seemed to forget exactly how much was owed Dr Turing. She regards it as a tragedy and a waste. I agree.
My late Father was one of those who fought in "The Forgotten War" in Burma. One of many horrible parts to WW2. He gained "The Burma Star". Something he wore with great pride and which recorded what he had been a part of. My Aunt will be pleased to finally have something similar.
I think that it is just to recognise the achievements of those who worked at Bletchley Park in the same way - and that it probably could and should have happened sooner - perhaps during the 1970s.
Within the UK the phone system allows the caller to set the CLI arbitrarily.
Because the outgoing Telco cannot know which CLIs are valid and which are not (because it handled by someone else, and is constantly changing) they have no means of imposing any useful rules.
Yes. The Telco can tell the Police which CLIs were used for outgoing calls - but how does that help ?
Are you seriously suggesting that the Police are going to contact all of the many hundreds of Telcos in the UK and say "did any of your customers send calls using this CLI ?"
Even if they did, what happens when the CLI is something totally meaningless - and used by several different senders?
I.E. What happens when the many tens of Telcos all say "yes" to the same same CLI ?
As a Telco, we regularly get requests from the Police and other bodies regarding (incoming) numbers that we "own". (Using what is often known as the "RIP procedure). Thus far > 95% of these requests have been a dead end for the Police - because the CLI they are tracing is utterly fake.
------------------
It is actually possible to trace individual calls by means of some of the other logs in SS7 independent of CLI. It is very slow and very laborious. AFAIK This method is only used in the most extreme of circumstances. Even then, there are still various ways it can fail.
I don't know about the USA, but can say that this would be completely impractical in the UK.
For various complex reasons, major users in the UK (like call centres) frequently buy their incoming telephony and outgoing telephony from completely different companies. It's not uncommon to have several companies providing each. The incoming numbers used may not even belong to the call centre. It is increasingly common for these to be allocated and routed dynamically in real time.
(This is exactly the service my company provides - to known, legitimate customers).
There's no way that the outgoing Telco is going to be able to unscramble or keep up with this.
If you go back to WW2, the UK had a research lab which produced many curious inventions worthy of "Q". It was part of the SOE and known as "Station IX". It was based in an old Mansion just South of Welwyn in Herts.
You can now buy a catalogue of their weird and wonderful creations - which included such things as:
Explosive Rats (designed to destroy boilers)
Motor Bikes which folded into a small case and could be dropped by parachute. ("Welbike")
Silenced Single shot guns ("Welrod")
Explosive Pens.
Land Mines disguised as faeces from a wide range of Animals. These had a double effect - not only could they knock out enemy vehicles, but they slowed progress and sapped morale by forcing the occupants of enemy vehicles to get out and probe carefully every last turd they came across.
In total, we had two out-of-hours call outs last year. In Telco land this is exactly how it is supposed to be.
We have very little hardware tech. work to be done. - even including the routine stuff. When we do, like most Telcos, we tend to use contractors.
You can now get > 300 x E1 (10,000 channels of voice) in a single rack, including switching, SS7, VoIP Gateways, Transcoding, IVR, recording, CDRs, Database and control. Install it right and it will just run and run and run and run.
Spread your stuff over 3 or 4 Colos - and nothing is ever a dire emergency - but there are still a few things worth getting out of bed for.
In 2008 the total number of times we needed to send someone to one of our CoLos at short notice was 2!
The total number of times we had to go to our CoLos (including all planned stuff) was slightly more than once a month.
Like most UK Telcos, we have very limited requirement for work on hardware. So for most of the routine stuff, you hire contractors when you need them.
The urgent stuff is shared between myself and the only other hardware-aware Techie in the company who drives and has a car!
How many people do you see hanging around Telecomms CoLos ? By day ? By night ?
Hmmmm.
I'm CTO of a Telco and we buy and use a lot of HDDs - Server and Desktop.
On the Desktop, the Maxtor Story has been simply appalling. Fortunately we backup data properly and keep spares in the server room - so when a HDD dies, it's nothing more than a PITA. I don't even bother checking whether there's any kind of warranty. I don't want a replacement from Maxtor even if it is free.
On the Server - well I was persuaded to buy some Seagate/Maxtor drives specifically intended for RAID. Everything cross checked for compatibility.
Result ? Several lost night's sleep while I drove 100 miles to Data Centres to reset RAIDs where one of the HDDs has dropped out for no apparent reason. "Hot Spare" prevented serious consequences, but the situation was not sustainable. A firmware flash improved things - but not enough. We've still got those drives lying around in boxes somewhere and give them to employees who want a HDD.
So we went with WD and their (very) top end stuff.
Result : Not hugely different.
Current policy here is Raptors on the Desktop. They seem to be performing well.
Top-end SAS only on the Servers and Raid. Even then only with every component fully cross-checked for specific support. If we are anything less than mega-fussy, it bites us!
A.
The calls in question here - the ones covered by the injunction are "ordinary" or "conventional" calls from T-Mobile subscribers to the range a range of phone numbers owned by Truphone.
In the UK, when a Telco gets an allocation of certain types of number range (including Mobile) they get to set the termination rates (within limits). Termination rates are what other Telcos have to pay when they pass calls to that Telco.
T-mobile were refusing to pass calls on the basis that the amount Truphone was charging for termination rates was too high - although they look pretty standard to me.
T-Mobile is a "MNO" = Mobile Network Operator.
...but the wheels of OFCOM turn very, very slowly (many months, could be years) and they can't force T-Mobile to change their behaviour while they're working on it. Which is probably why Trucom went down the Legal route.
Truphone is, like my company, a "Other Licensed Operator".
In the UK we are all governed by the terms of licences issued by OFCOM. These licences do contain terms requiring us to route calls between all of us. There are certain, very specific exceptions, none of which I can see applying here.
As I understand it Truphone have also complained through OFCOM - and they are almost certain to win there
My company has also got an allocation of UK Mobile numbers, and we are planning an application which, while slightly different to Truphone, will also annoy T-Mobile et al. So we're watching closely to see what precedents are set.
You can find out all about UK telecom regulation from the OFCOM website, including who "owns" which ranges of numbers.
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/telecoms/ioi/
Unfortunately it is very badly laid out and, even with the benefit of experience, it can be very hard to find what you want.
The real technical details are not publically available - they are hidden in various contracts and behind confidentiality clauses. This is partly because some of the terms are, frankly, outrageous, and partly because some of the technical details are extremely naff.
> It can't be that hard if most of Europe has it,
Actually - yes it can. It is technically complex and hard to impliment properly / reliably - It only seems easy because the problems have been solved.
There are some minor differences in the way that call routing works between GSM and the various USA systems. But these are generally small - they all sit on top of SS7 and getting calls through to the location is done by essentially the same Processes in the SS7 SCCP TCAP and MAP layers. If GSM can make it work then the USA will be able to too.
What is more of a problem is the lack of consistency in the way that number portability is implimented. SS7/SCCP/TCAP/MAP doesn't explicitly provide for portability - so it has to be "bolted on" and not every territory does it the same.
Sometimes you want to originate a call or send an SMS and you need to know which network hosts the handset. (Usually you want to do this because you're providing a service in a country (EG Hong Hong) where the carriers are always squabbling and won't neccesarily route your call through to the right network)
Anyway, some territories (eg HongKong) have implimented number portability by means of a centralised common database - and if you provide a service and have multiple trunks into each network (as we do) then you have to negoiate access to that Database and treat it as a whole extra layer before you even start connecting to the network proper. Even then there can be messy differences between territories in the detail of how these databases work.
Other places (EG the UK) do it completely different. Here there is an extra Database associated with every HLR ( Home Location Register - one of the key Databases involved with routing calls to mobiles). When a number is ported, the GTTS (Global Title Translation Service - converts phone numbers into the point codes which underly the SS7 network) in the originating network SCCP still returns the point code of the original operator's HLR - practically speaking it has to or the routing tables would become impossibly large. When that HLR receives a "sendRoutingInfo" message it first checks in its portability database and if the number has been ported elsewhere, then it forwards the message to the new HLR - which will query the current VLR and provide the routing info. This has the advantage that it is transparent to everyone else on the SS7 network , but has the disadvantage that if you actually want to know which network you're paying to receive the call - it's harder to find out. The other disadvantage of this system is the admin is more awkward. Potentially you could be relying on three different companies to make your network change work. All the UK phone companies are a bit of a admin. shambles even at the best of times.
We're busy designing and implimenting various SMS configured voice conferencing services - and this single issue is more complex than just about all the rest put together.
What will be interesting will be to see how the USA has decided to solve the problem. It will face essentially the same choices as countries with GSM - and the same tradeoffs.
Your description of SMS delivery is a little confused. Under GSM SMS delivery works in two stages. First stage is "MO" - Mobile Originated.
:
The mobile sends the SMS to the SMSC provided by telco who provides that Mobile service. This is done by means of the SS7/MAP forwardSM procedure. The destination of this is programmed into the phone as the ISDN of MSC attached to the SMSC.
The SMSC then processes the SMS and attempts to deliver it to the destination.
This is the "MT" - mobile terminated stage. A (simplified) version of the sequence is
The SMSC sends an SS7/MAP SendRoutingInfoForSM to the HLR resgistered against the MSISDN for the destination Mobile. If the Phone is registered with the HLR. The HLR will return the ISDN number of the MSC for the network where the phone is currently connected. SS7/MAP fowardSM is then used to deliver the SMS to the MSC for the network where the mobile is currently located. the Destination IMSI and MSISDN is included in the message and the receiving MSC uses this info to interrogate its VLR to find out how to deliver the message.
I haven't covered what happens when the above process fails nor complications like number portability. Both of theses issues are fscking complicated
It's my experience that delays and lost messages occur in the SMSCs.
I've recently designed the systems for a service with a significant SMS component.
(http://www.mobix.co.uk/index.htm if you want to know more)
We needed reliable, fast, low-cost delivery, to know whether it had got there. We actively did NOT want to retry if the message didn't get through.
During our development we experimented with various SMS delivery methods in the UK. One thing which became clear is that most of "the problem" (delays, lost messages) happens inside the SMSC systems. We also looked at several SMSC systems and discovered that many are rather mediocre when it comes to system design and resilience - and also that many of the companies who supply SMSC systems are erm... dubious - both technically and ethically.
So we now have an SS7 connection into various neworks and we deliver direct to handset using the same method as the SMSC uses to deliver messages to the Handsets. We get excellent reliability within the UK - and it is pretty good internationally and when callers are roaming.
>England scares me
:
It scares me too - sometimes.
But then so does the USA.
>Your government spies on your every last move,
Sometimes. Yep. However they aren't competent enough to do anything useful with what they collect and there's plenty of loopholes when you know how to work the system. We have a journalist/comedian called Mark Thomas who has exploited the system beautifully.
>it controls what you can and cannot see,
No. It tries. And it usually fails. We still have juries and magistrates who are quite capable of sticking two fingers up at the establishment. We also have a civil service who haven't forgotten what utter tits they made of themselves over "Spycatcher" and a few similar cases. When our Home Secretary's son was caught red-handed selling dope, everyone knew within days - despite a cack-handed attempt to cover it up. (The Home Secretary is in charge of Police and law enforcement). I would have no trouble getting any "banned" Movie on Video or DVD if I wanted.
> and a good percentage of you live in fear of a black van that supposedly drives around neighborhoods making sure people have paid their TV tax.
Ah. But there are "catches" in that too. They mainly work by fear and intimidation. Their legal rights are very limitied and they just hope people don't know that. When I didn't have a TV and they came knocking at my door the conversation went something like this
"We want to come in"
"You got a warrant"
"No - but we're here to check for TVs"
"I don't give a stuff - just fuck off and get off my property"
"You can't tell us to fuck off"
"I can and I just did. Would you like me to start reading the relevant sections of the act which gives me the right to tell you to fuck off ? - I have them handy..."
"erm"
"Right. So just fuck off then, and kindly do it quietly"
- They fucked off and they didn't return. Some others tried again a few months later. They fucked off too.
OTOH in the UK we have quite a few good things of our own:
Unarmed Police
A system to stop junk calls and faxes which actually works.
A system of data protection and privacy which also really works.
Far less corporate influence over the political machinery than happens in the USA
A legal system where the innocent poor stand a really good chance of getting to "not guilty"
Some genuine restraints on the power of large companies to trample all over little people.
And it's still possible for me to live my life, do my stuff, drive my car without carrying ANY ID on me of any kind.
The BBFC is a bit of an anomaly. It is part-legislated and part advisory.
It was setup (in 1912 ) by the Film Industry to bring some consistency to film censorship.
In the UK Cinemas are licenced by the Local Authority (Council). Each council has the final say about who can see which films with what cuts. In practice the BBFC classifications are routinely and almost universally accepted by all local councils - but they can and do overule the BBFC on occassion. The two most famous, recent examples are "Crash" (which was banned in some areas) and Mrs Doubtfire (which was rated by the BBFC as "12" but many councils reduced this to "PG").
Any cinema breaking the rules imposed by the Council could find its cinema licence withdrawn.
The BBFC has a quite seperate role for Videos and DVDs - where it is given authority by statue to censor these for the whole country. It is quite possible (and not uncommon) for the same film to have different certificates and different cuts for Cinema and Video release.
>Everything else is primarily metric now.
Unfortunately that just isn't universally true. I frequently design PCBs in the UK. I'd like to refer you to this UK PCB maker. Follow the links and note the crazy mish-mash of units. E.G. Board dimensions are specified in inches in two directions - and mm in the third!
Getting back onto topic, one of the nice things I've found about Suse is that it generally does offer good, wide support for multiple currencies, units and formats for things like date, time and paper size.
If this means some people in the USA have to change from A4 defaults this might be a good thing. Certain USA based operating systems can be a real PITA for us Europeans. Certain combinations of Windows / printer drvier / application seem to require the paper size to be changed in three different places before you get sane results.
A few years ago BT (British Telecommunications) started offereing a CLI ( caller ID) service.
When making calls you could prefix the number with 141 to prevent your number being disclosed to the called party.
It was also possible to have your line changed, Free of Charge, so that the default was NOT to release the number, but if you the prefixed the number dialled with 1470 - it would release the number to the called party.
BT decided that
a) They didn't want people to select the "default withhelf" option
b) That one means they were going to use was to deny that the "1470" to release Caller ID even existed.
I have several telephone lines. Some were set to default withheld and some not. I phoned sales to change the status one of the lines. I had time on my hands so I decided to have some fun.
So sales answer and I say what I want. They immediately start down their standard script designed to talk me out of it. As each point was raised I countered with a reason why it didn't matter to me. One of my counter-arguments revolved around using 1470 to over-ride the default. The salesman denied that the code existed or that it would work. I stated that I had already used the code many times and it had worked just fine. He told me I must be mistaken. I said I had a line to hand with a Caller display box and another line to hand set to default "with-held". I then made him sit and wait there while I went through the experiment. I then asked him to explain what I observed (which was 1470 working perfectly). The situation was laughable. I knew he was lying. He knew he was lying. he knew that I knew he was lying and he knew he was defending the indefensible. However he was not allowed to deviate from the official line...
BT policy has now changed. They now admit that 1470 works and they now allow "default withheld" without reading the 101 good reasons why you shouldn't first.
--------------
I also some fun at the expense of a dodgy company in London who were running a premium rate sex-line service using some very dubious business techniques. I decided to bait them. So I made a ten second call from a number which would normally get no incoming calls. I then waited for a call from their billing department. Everytime they called they got another load of lies and rubbish from me. The game was to see how many times they would attempt to get the name and address before they finally gave up. The answer was over 30.
Amongst other gems - I played a message saying "I'm sorry, this number has changed, please call again earlier". They rang back three times to hear that one. Sometimes I just told them blatant lies - like I was a curry house and gave an (almost valid) address as an almost uninhabited Scottish Island.
When I was feeling really bored I'd set the system up to relay all calls back to one of their own chat lines.
A few years ago this "bandwidth/pin" thing would have been a killer difference. Adding pins was expensive, Pins and packaging were serious problems.
However that has changed considerably. uBGA and similar achieve huge pin densities at tiny cost per pin. It is harder to get your process right with BGA - but once you only have to do this at the design/setup stage, once it's right you get better quality, repeatability and yield with uBGA than you do with Fine Pitch packages. Multilayer PCBs are much less of an issue too - as are fine pitches in those PCBs.
>The only dual channel DDR system I know of is the upcoming Serverworks Grand Champion chipset for the P4 Xeon
Intel and others are working on several Dual DDR chipsets - "Granite Bay" is supposed to be released Q3 this year.