Author: Christopher Parsons

Policy wonk. Torontonian. Photographer. Not necessarily in that order.

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Links Writing

Sprint: We Don’t Throttle Postpaid Users (Though We Reserve the Right To Kick Users Off Network)

As noted by DSL Reports:

Sprint does have terms and conditions which prohibit certain types of data use that may impair other customers’ usage or harm or interfere with the network. At yesterday’s investor conference, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse was referring to Sprint’s right to terminate service of data abusers who violate Sprint’s terms and conditions. Customers who abuse our network by violating the terms and conditions will be contacted by Sprint in an effort to have the customer change their usage to comply with their subscriber agreement. Customers who do not change their usage and remain in violation of the terms and conditions may be subject to actions reserved by Sprint, including but not limited to termination. Consistent with our advertising, engaging in such uses will not result in throttling for customers on unlimited data-included plans for phones.

This was how in the late 90s, early 2000s, ISPs dealt with their ‘heavy users’ (aka ‘early adopters). You’d typically get a semi-threatening phone call, with the person on the other end refusing to actually say “we have a cap of X amount of data per month” while simultaneously suggesting that your usage was at an (unspoken) amount that “was unfair to other customers.”

Only once, in many phone calls, did the person on the other end come clean. My account had escalated to a VP of the company and, surprisingly, the VP called me rather than give the case to a flunky. I think he was just curious to talk to someone who used amongst the most bandwidth in the country (I was 9th heaviest user on a ADSL connection for two months straight). He spelled out that no, I wasn’t really being “unfair to other customers” in the sense that I was consuming all the available bandwidth – the usual trope that was trotted out – but that I was being “unfair” in the sense that my level of data usage was so high that the data transit costs associated with my account were incredibly unprofitable for the company. I think they had to line up something like 150 other accounts against mine to be revenue neutral! The call was good though: I got a one hour lesson in the costs of data transit and a request – not demand – that I either reduce my consumption below a certain aggregate amount per 3 months or else I’d have to find a new carrier. I ended up sticking with them; while I wasn’t happy with complying with the request, it was by far fairer than any agreement I’d have gotten with one of the large ISPs.

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Links

Ubuntu and TV

This is smart TV software done beautifully. It (seemingly) has more functionality than Apple TV and (looks to be) better integrated with movie purchasing services than Dlink’s Boxee Box. The problem with all smart TV devices remains their stability: I’m a geek, so I don’t mind occasionally reseting my Boxee Box or media centre and I accept that periodic crashes in the middle of a show or movie are the cost of early adoption.

Most people aren’t geeks. Most people won’t settle for sometimes crashing TVs. If Ubuntu doesn’t get that element right then everything else they do won’t matter one bit to the mainstream. Though us geeks will likely love it.

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Links

Passwords: uniqueness, not complexity

Graham argues that there are three tiers of sites and that you should apply variable password policies to each tier. The key lesson is to have unique passwords across the tiers so that a tier 3 site being hacked doesn’t endanger your tier 1 sites. You probably want unique passwords for each tier 1 site.

At the first tier is your e-mail account. Since a hack of your e-mail account means hackers can reset passwords on all your other accounts, it would be terrible if that password were lost. This should both be very complex, as well as wholly unrelated to any other accounts.

At the second tier are important e-commerce sites, like Amazon.com, NewEgg,com, Apple.com, and so on. The major sites are unlikely to be hacked. You could probably share the same password for all these accounts.

At the third tier are the unimportant accounts, like StratFor, where it wouldn’t be catastrophic if your password were lost. Again, you could choose a third, simple password, like “passwd1234” for all these accounts. It’ll probably get stolen within a year, but who really cares?

While I agree, in part, I still think that a highly complex passphrase (not password) and a strong password daemon like 1 Password is probably the best approach for most people. That way you can enjoy strong, unique, passwords and generate new ones for each account you open.

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Links Writing

Harsher data protection sanctions are coming [but will they matter?]

Fleischer:

I regularly hear people claim that there’s not enough legal enforcement of privacy. In some places, as a matter of practice, that may well be true. But there is no shortage of overlapping authorities with the power to bring or adjudicate privacy claims. Curiously, in privacy circles, most of the focus is on the enforcement actions of the DPAs. But in practice, the DPAs are just one of many different authorities who can and do bring privacy enforcement actions. And the trend is clearly going up, both in terms of the numbers of laws that can be violated, in terms of the severity of sanctions, in terms of the numbers of complaints that are brought, and in terms of the breadth of authorities who are involved in enforcing privacy.

Fleischer is Google’s chief privacy counsel, so he’s got a pretty good eye for what’s coming at Google (and other large data collectors and processors). I wonder, however, about the actual effectiveness of the legal challenges he refers to: Canada’s privacy law didn’t stop Streetview from coming into Canada but instead mediated some of its most invasive characteristics. Similar things can be said about powerful network surveillance apparatuses that are deployed by Canadian ISPs. My worry is less that large companies will be whacked with large fines, but that the regulation will serve to legitimize a lot of practices that legally are acceptable without being according with our social norms.

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Links

Punching through The Great Firewall of T-Mobile

Punching through The Great Firewall of T-Mobile:

T-Mobile UK are moving towards a mobile network which works (technically) in a very similar manner to the Great Firewall of China.

…

Most people don’t run their own server. If you don’t, then you’re pretty screwed.

On a technical level, what T-Mobile is doing is pretty cool (assuming it is, in fact, the same techniques as China is using to attack TOR of late) but is otherwise pure evil. T-Mobile’s behaviours are a clear indication of why strong network neutrality rules are absolutely necessary: without regulations and punishments carriers will happily screw their customers if it might save, or make, the carriers a buck.

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Links

ContraRISK: Bad password advice

contrarisk:

In the December issue of Computer Fraud & Security, an article by Prof Steven Furnell – ‘Assessing password guidance and enforcement on leading websites’ – presents some fascinating original research into the password practices of various leading websites – and also paints a somewhat…

Whenever I read about bad passwords, I’m reminded of XKCD’s comic on password strengths.

 

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Quotations

Surveillance is not itself sinister any more than discrimination is itself damaging … there are dangers inherent in surveillance systems whose crucial coding mechanisms involve categories derived from stereotypical or prejudicial sources.

~D. Lyon. (2003). Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Digital Discrimination. New York: Routledge. Pp. 2.

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Quotations

2012.1.9

We must go further [than simply demanding transparency] and inject public values into development cycles while also intentionally hobbling surveillance technologies to rein in their most harmful potentialities.

Transparent Practices Don’t Stop Prejudicial Surveillance
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Humour

This is possibly the most insane remote I’ve ever seen. God help the traditional television makers if Apple ever produces a real TV.

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Humour

Google “Surveillance” Monster

thimulus:

Google “Surveillance” Monster

Of course, we do need to remember that surveillance in and of itself isn’t necessarily sinister: it’s when a surveillance practice’s coding mechanisms involve categories derived from stereotypical/prejudicial sources that we most need to worry.