That is freaking brilliant! I'm not in a related field, but am still kicking myself for not having thought of that myself.
So while I agree that everyone in the world should be wary of USA PATRIOT, it's not a given that non-US consumers have to avoid US providers across the board.
The Canary Warrant is not enough to make it safe to store data in the US, it just lets one know that they've been owned.
There have been several controversies here in Canada, specifically in the area of health and student information. One of the provincial governments wanted to outsource some of the government health plan data management to a U.S. company (the lowest bidder). It was effectively stopped because they could not guarantee that someone would not use a U.S. court to order the data management company to disclose the health information of a Canadian citizen in the US. As a result, the data had to remain in Canada, and the US company did not get the contract.
I'm curious, which province was that?
I'm pretty sure BC's MSP is managed by... EDS? Despite the very concerns you raised, they outsourced it to a US company, much to my chagrin.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think BC does outsource to US for medical records. The bastards. Thanks again, Gordon Campbell.
Canadian cable provider Shaw posted their new rate plans for internet only (were to start in November).. same thing, there was basically no difference between internet only and internet+cable in cost. I said "see ya!" and switched to a dsl provider at a substantial discount to the new internet rates.
I switched too, but chose TekSavvy for cable internet, as opposed to DSL: that cuts Bell/Telus out too.
Of course, Shaw still makes money via TekSavvy, but I pay $30 / month and am very happy with it.
(Also dropped Rogers for Wind, CIBC for Vancity, and it feels great: better service, equal or better prices (thanks Wind), and... I'm not supporting the parasites with my business!)
If you post a comment that general user base of slashdot likes, it will be modded up. If you post a comment, even a really insightful and interesting one that the general user base doesn't like, it will be modded down.
That might be true initially, but I like to wait until there are > 100 comments on a story, by which time the system seem to do a remarkable job of self-correcting.
I see similar things on CBC and Globe & Mail comment sections.
Comments praising something like Canada pulling out of Kyoto get lots of praise and opposing comments are heavily downvoted. Initially.
Come back later in the day, when a larger, more representative sampling of the population has weighed in, and it's often mostly reversed.
That's what makes/. worth coming back to. But I always like to wait until there's a significant number of comments. I don't rush in and try to comment early: I learn nothing from commenting, but much from reading most highly rated comments.
With things like that Google and the carriers just nail down Android phones as something you have to sell your soul for getting some free candy.
A couple things:
1) It's also on Blackberries, I think he said Nokia (Win phones? Symbian?), and who knows about Iphones - I suspect it is.
2) Google wasn't spying enough, so a 3rd party provided the software to the carriers, not through the app store to users.
It could be that Android's openness is what allowed this to be discovered.
How this will affect the smartphone market is hard to say, but I suspect people will want their "candy" and damn the consequences. So I kinda agree with you about peoples' candy desires, but disagree that this will significantly change the smartphone market (although I hope the carriers are sued silly over this).
doesn't mean that you're no longer under contract; you're still operating under the same terms as before except that you can cancel service at any time.
In the video, he explains he has a separate phone for development, without any mobile provider / SIM, which he also plays games on.
It was connected via Wifi. Every keystroke, HTTPS search, etc. was recorded and presumably uploaded to CarrierIQ or to ATT (or whomever).
His device is not of concern to any mobile operator.
That's a significant issue, and I doubt he'd be hard pressed to convince a lawyer to take it on.
Warning, if your browser asks confirmation for cookies, do NOT click that link!
The link is legitimate but uses a fucking ridiculous amount of cookies, throwing about 50 cookie confirmation popups on top of each other. Took a minute or two just to click through them all.
Huh? Windows 7 is more like Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (or 3).
I have Win7 in Virtual Box and occassionally boot Vista (came with both computers), and I cannot determine the difference.
Now, like I said, I don't use either much, and Vista without SP1 was a steaming pile of crap, but what huge difference(s) is/are there between Vista and 7?
Given that the carriers practically give away phones every time you sign a contract,
I think it's more a case of the carriers financing your phone with a loan, which you pay off, with interest, in exorbitant usage fees.
begin-rant
Example, approach a carrier with your own phone, see if they let you pay lower, non-subsidized plans. Very rare that they have such plans, encouraging one to get another "free" phone, or get even more exorbitant prepaid plans.
Also, once phone is paid after X year contract, usage costs do not go down for the user. And if user want network unlock code, carriers usually charge for it, even though the phone is paid for. They might claim it costs them to provide the unlock, I say, "Then don't lock it in the first place!"
Since the situation with DigiNotar and others isn't, by definition, allowed to happen in PKI, there's no way of dealing with it when it does.
Thanks for your reply!
Can't CA's be revoked? Or only certificates? I was thinking, though could be wrong, that DigiNotar could've revoked... something... before generating a new CA (or going broke).
(See my earlier comment in the other thread about PKI being treated as something to roll your eyes at and/or joke about by security experts).
Ik hep het al geleezen. (Ouch, it's been a long time since I tried my hand at that language, which you seem quite proficient in.)
I kinda thought PKI was pretty solid, so your earlier comment kinda burst my bubble. What's the alternative?
Whoever modded this down is a pansy girlie-man with no functional testicles as evidenced by his inability to deal with a contrary opinion.... Some ball-less soul-less sack of shit will mod me down anyway because he hasn't the guts to argue against me
Shaw's trunk likes are little fiber wires,not 2 inch pipes.
That's what I expected them to use. But I've never seen cables any where in Vancouver like here in south-east Van.
Fiber runs into shaws head office (Bigpipe owns this fiber, which is shaw). Then shaw has fiber out to all the areas. In those areas are what shaw calls "Nodes" which are basically fiber to RF converters. Each node services an (ideally small) area of people.
Interesting. If it weren't barely above 0C and raining, I'd go snap a photo and post it - I'm curious what you'd have to say about them.
In fact, I will do that today or (more likely tomorrow) and reply to you again. Hopefully you get email notifications of replies and can enlighten me further.
How are you getting TekSavvy over cable in Vancouver? Their website only shows it available in Ontario. Is this new? I'd love to switch to TekSavvy...
I think it's new. Check their website again, select province of BC, and there's this: "Greater Vancouver Area Cable Internet"
You can order online, where the first step is to enter your postal code. Mine was rejected, but I called them, got mixed messages, turns out I'm eligible but their postal code DB is hard to keep up-to-date.
I'm quite happy with them once I got signed up.
Oh, another thing: if you pay via credit card, make *sure* that they take your payment upon signing up. They somehow lost my CC info, cancelled my order, and I didn't find out until connection day.
Major disappointment, but once resolved, worth it.
You get 2.5 times your advertised down speed at night or am I reading that wrong?
Correct, though possibly temporary.
It seems that my "Up to 7.5 Mbps" is more of an "at least 7.5 Mbps".
I was surprised by the numbers posted, retested and got very similar numbers.
This neighbourhood appears to be a couple blocks from Shaw Cable's trunk lines for Vancouver, where there are multiple 1-2 inch diameter "pipes" strung to the telephone poles, and 100 Mbps is available, so that might be one reason.
Just testing again, at 01h48 and... WOW, sustained over 30 Mbps download, though final score was 20.47 Mbps, nearly 3 times the advertised "up-to" rate. I'm shocked.
I wonder how SpeedTest.net calculates their speed score, as my most-recent test dipped under 20 Mbps only briefly.
Indeed TekSavvy does this. They offer two streams: Low pings capped, high ping unlimited. Basically cheap/gamer and massive downloader packages.
I'm a happy TekSavvy customer too, but their packages don't have varying ping times (http://teksavvy.com/en/res-internet.asp). Not even sure how they would implement such a thing over someone else's infrastructure.
After dealing with Rogers/Bell for years switching to smaller companies like TekSavvy and Moblicity have been an eye opener for what service should be like.
Could not agree with this more! I'm with TekSavvy & Wind and it's a treat to not begrudge service providers my business.
TSI screwed up my order and left me without internet for > 9 days, so I was using my tethered Android through Wind and it worked brilliantly, they saved my arse.
Having dumped "Humongous Bank" for a credit union ages ago, I can't think of anyone I do business with that I despise any more.
This makes sense to me, you pay for the size of the pipe you need, doesn't matter how much data you put through the pipe.
My initial reading of the decision on CBC's site made me think it would be *harder* for small ISPs to start up, as they'd under-utilise their connection until their customer base grew enough.
It is billed in 100Mbit increments.
This is good, as small, new ISPs can ramp up the size of their connection as their customer base grows.
I want to read more about TekSavvy's response to the decision, as I'm a new & satisfied customer of theirs.
Unfortunately their CRM software could not catch you on the way out with a special promotion
I don't understand.
Rogers' customer retention tried to keep my mobile business, but I just hated them far too much.
Shaw didn't try retention deal and I wanted to be rid of them anyway. Had they matched TekSavvy's deal, I'd still not have stayed since Shaw would likely have continued to up the price every few months.
Unfortunately, TekSavvy screwed up my order, which I didn't find out about until connection day.
Fortunately, Wind includes unlimited internet for my $40 / month, so I tethered with them until TekSavvy waived their $50 connection fee (and, double bonus, the first month's fee too!).
All in all, I feel good about who I do business with now, and how rare is *that*?
Slashdot Mirror
That is freaking brilliant! I'm not in a related field, but am still kicking myself for not having thought of that myself.
The Canary Warrant is not enough to make it safe to store data in the US, it just lets one know that they've been owned.
I'm curious, which province was that?
I'm pretty sure BC's MSP is managed by ... EDS? Despite the very concerns you raised, they outsourced it to a US company, much to my chagrin.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think BC does outsource to US for medical records. The bastards. Thanks again, Gordon Campbell.
I don't know if it's available for Chrome, but Chromium (and, of course, Firefox) support add-on Ghostery, which blocks most tracking sites.
That's why I use Firefox (mostly) and Chromium (open-source Chrome) for secondary browser (it's fast).
Definitely worth a try.
I switched too, but chose TekSavvy for cable internet, as opposed to DSL: that cuts Bell/Telus out too.
Of course, Shaw still makes money via TekSavvy, but I pay $30 / month and am very happy with it.
(Also dropped Rogers for Wind, CIBC for Vancity, and it feels great: better service, equal or better prices (thanks Wind), and... I'm not supporting the parasites with my business!)
YMMV...
That might be true initially, but I like to wait until there are > 100 comments on a story, by which time the system seem to do a remarkable job of self-correcting.
I see similar things on CBC and Globe & Mail comment sections.
Comments praising something like Canada pulling out of Kyoto get lots of praise and opposing comments are heavily downvoted. Initially.
Come back later in the day, when a larger, more representative sampling of the population has weighed in, and it's often mostly reversed.
That's what makes /. worth coming back to. But I always like to wait until there's a significant number of comments. I don't rush in and try to comment early: I learn nothing from commenting, but much from reading most highly rated comments.
YMMV.
A couple things:
1) It's also on Blackberries, I think he said Nokia (Win phones? Symbian?), and who knows about Iphones - I suspect it is.
2) Google wasn't spying enough, so a 3rd party provided the software to the carriers, not through the app store to users.
It could be that Android's openness is what allowed this to be discovered.
How this will affect the smartphone market is hard to say, but I suspect people will want their "candy" and damn the consequences. So I kinda agree with you about peoples' candy desires, but disagree that this will significantly change the smartphone market (although I hope the carriers are sued silly over this).
In the video, he explains he has a separate phone for development, without any mobile provider / SIM, which he also plays games on.
It was connected via Wifi. Every keystroke, HTTPS search, etc. was recorded and presumably uploaded to CarrierIQ or to ATT (or whomever).
His device is not of concern to any mobile operator.
That's a significant issue, and I doubt he'd be hard pressed to convince a lawyer to take it on.
(IANAL, etc.)
Warning, if your browser asks confirmation for cookies, do NOT click that link!
The link is legitimate but uses a fucking ridiculous amount of cookies, throwing about 50 cookie confirmation popups on top of each other. Took a minute or two just to click through them all.
Huh? Windows 7 is more like Windows Vista Service Pack 2 (or 3).
I have Win7 in Virtual Box and occassionally boot Vista (came with both computers), and I cannot determine the difference.
Now, like I said, I don't use either much, and Vista without SP1 was a steaming pile of crap, but what huge difference(s) is/are there between Vista and 7?
I think it's more a case of the carriers financing your phone with a loan, which you pay off, with interest, in exorbitant usage fees.
begin-rant
Example, approach a carrier with your own phone, see if they let you pay lower, non-subsidized plans. Very rare that they have such plans, encouraging one to get another "free" phone, or get even more exorbitant prepaid plans.
Also, once phone is paid after X year contract, usage costs do not go down for the user. And if user want network unlock code, carriers usually charge for it, even though the phone is paid for. They might claim it costs them to provide the unlock, I say, "Then don't lock it in the first place!"
end-of-rant
Cheers
What part of long time don't you understand? It was mostly phonetically spelled anyway.
Biggest problem these days is not putting Cantonese words in when trying to think Dutch.
A quick search finds lots of hits for geleezen and gelezen.
-1 Not Insightful for your failure to offer the correct current spelling.
Thanks for your reply!
Can't CA's be revoked? Or only certificates? I was thinking, though could be wrong, that DigiNotar could've revoked ... something ... before generating a new CA (or going broke).
Ik hep het al geleezen. (Ouch, it's been a long time since I tried my hand at that language, which you seem quite proficient in.)
I kinda thought PKI was pretty solid, so your earlier comment kinda burst my bubble. What's the alternative?
Thanks again
I see DigiNotar and DigiCert Authorities in Firefox's Certificate Manager.
Should I be concerned about these?
Is there a revocation list I need to know about?
Using Firefox 8.0 on Ubuntu, for what it's worth...
Were you born an asshole, or just well trained?
Since you're already modded +5, let me just say, "Great post, thanks!"
Hi again,
I'm curious what you make of these cables:
http://www.maow.net/images/2011-11-16%2015.24.40.jpg
Thanks for any input...
That's what I expected them to use. But I've never seen cables any where in Vancouver like here in south-east Van.
Interesting. If it weren't barely above 0C and raining, I'd go snap a photo and post it - I'm curious what you'd have to say about them.
In fact, I will do that today or (more likely tomorrow) and reply to you again. Hopefully you get email notifications of replies and can enlighten me further.
Thanks for the info.
I think it's new. Check their website again, select province of BC, and there's this: "Greater Vancouver Area Cable Internet"
You can order online, where the first step is to enter your postal code. Mine was rejected, but I called them, got mixed messages, turns out I'm eligible but their postal code DB is hard to keep up-to-date.
I'm quite happy with them once I got signed up.
Oh, another thing: if you pay via credit card, make *sure* that they take your payment upon signing up. They somehow lost my CC info, cancelled my order, and I didn't find out until connection day.
Major disappointment, but once resolved, worth it.
Best of luck.
Correct, though possibly temporary.
It seems that my "Up to 7.5 Mbps" is more of an "at least 7.5 Mbps".
I was surprised by the numbers posted, retested and got very similar numbers.
This neighbourhood appears to be a couple blocks from Shaw Cable's trunk lines for Vancouver, where there are multiple 1-2 inch diameter "pipes" strung to the telephone poles, and 100 Mbps is available, so that might be one reason.
Just testing again, at 01h48 and... WOW, sustained over 30 Mbps download, though final score was 20.47 Mbps, nearly 3 times the advertised "up-to" rate. I'm shocked.
I wonder how SpeedTest.net calculates their speed score, as my most-recent test dipped under 20 Mbps only briefly.
http://www.speedtest.net/result/1594919457.png
Go TekSavvy(, with kudos to Shaw's infrastructure)!
I'm a happy TekSavvy customer too, but their packages don't have varying ping times (http://teksavvy.com/en/res-internet.asp). Not even sure how they would implement such a thing over someone else's infrastructure.
Could not agree with this more! I'm with TekSavvy & Wind and it's a treat to not begrudge service providers my business.
TSI screwed up my order and left me without internet for > 9 days, so I was using my tethered Android through Wind and it worked brilliantly, they saved my arse.
Having dumped "Humongous Bank" for a credit union ages ago, I can't think of anyone I do business with that I despise any more.
My initial reading of the decision on CBC's site made me think it would be *harder* for small ISPs to start up, as they'd under-utilise their connection until their customer base grew enough.
This is good, as small, new ISPs can ramp up the size of their connection as their customer base grows.
I want to read more about TekSavvy's response to the decision, as I'm a new & satisfied customer of theirs.
I don't understand.
Rogers' customer retention tried to keep my mobile business, but I just hated them far too much.
Shaw didn't try retention deal and I wanted to be rid of them anyway. Had they matched TekSavvy's deal, I'd still not have stayed since Shaw would likely have continued to up the price every few months.
Unfortunately, TekSavvy screwed up my order, which I didn't find out about until connection day.
Fortunately, Wind includes unlimited internet for my $40 / month, so I tethered with them until TekSavvy waived their $50 connection fee (and, double bonus, the first month's fee too!).
All in all, I feel good about who I do business with now, and how rare is *that*?
I'm on my first month using TekSavvy (a 3rd party reseller) here in Vancouver, over Shaw Cable's "last mile".
Can't say how happy I am to have cut Shaw, Rogers, and Telus from my life (thanks to Wind Mobile too).
Just putting this out there for anyone else who might be interested.
To top it all off, "Humongous Bank" is history too, thanks to VanCity.
I'm in Vancouver, and *enjoying* my first Shaw-free month with TekSavvy as ISP over Shaw's cable lines (I own my cable modem).
They're certainly worth checking out, if for no other reason than $30 / month is what a 7.5 Mbps connection is actually worth.
Note, at 17:25 on a tuesday afternoon I'm getting SpeedTest.net score of 30ms ping, 19.24 Mbps download, and, 0.48 Mbps upload speeds.
Shaw is, of course, still making money on the last mile, but a lot less than when I used them directly.
TL;DR: it's up to *us* to make the 3rd parties flourish: change ISPs today.