This is the first in a series of many as to what is messed about C-61.

With most phones the price you see is a fraction of the wholesale price that the carriers get the phones for. Obviously the phone is not “free” or $50 to the carrier but it certainly isn’t the hundreds of dollars the carrier claims it’s worth retail.

The carrier makes up the money that they “lost” by subsidizing your phone over the plan of your contract hence they “lock” your phone so it can only be used on that carrier’s network.

But what if your contract is up. Surely the carrier has made up their cost to give you the phone and the phone is technically yours in the clear. Shouldn’t you be able to take that phone and take it to Europe where you can buy a SIM (Wikipedia) card and pay European rates instead of extremely expensive Canadian roaming ones?

Currently the carrier isn’t obligated to give you the code to unlock your phone to allow it to work with other carriers. Under C-61 it would be illegal to unlock your phone as that would be breaking encryption.

Two main options present themselves

1) Require the carriers to provide unlock codes for every non subsized phone with a simple phone call request.

2) Make it legal to unlock your own phone / make the tools legal to do it when you’re not under contract by adding some langage saying that all the provisions against unlocking don’t apply on unsubsized phones.

A combanation of both would be ideal as there really is no excuse for someone to have to force unlock something they own. Carriers should be required to provide the codes but if they won’t, it should be legal to unlock.

There is a major confusion in the media about C-61 and they don’t understand the core problem. The issue is not about people downloading music it’s about the anti-circumvention provisions which make it illegal to break the digital rights management (Britannica - Wikipedia) which prevents you from copying music and in some schemes requires your computer to “phone home” to an server from whoever you bought the music from before it will play.

Imagine if iTunes closed up shop suddenly. Most of the tunes you’ve paid for would suddenly become digital paperweights - with no server to verify that the content is legal it won’t play.

Providers have held consumers in the dark in the past. Google discontinued it’s video store leaving millions of videos they sold unable to be played (they did sort of offer partial refunds to people who bought their content.) Major League Baseball changed the format they sell videos in rendering all previously sold content useless. No refunds. Microsoft discontinued some of their phone home servers too so if you changed computers suddenly the music collection that you’ve paid good money for is also worthless.

C-61 would make it illegal to break the DRM on content that you’ve paid for but can no longer enjoy. Who is the real criminal here? It’s not Canadians.

The Canadian DMCA (ie C-61) also contains a provision that makes it illegal for security researchers to do their work.

The legislation would make all security tools illegal - if it’s capable of circumventing DRM it’s no longer allowed. You are only allowed to attempt to crack / find security flaws in a program or an encryption scheme with the creator’s permission.

Companies don’t like to be told that their products have issues that need to be fixed (if they don’t respond to the concerns it gives them a rather bad image) and wouldn’t likely give permission for companies to probe their software for flaws.

Are the bad guy going to respect the law and not exploit these exploits.

No.

Without people finding and getting these problems fixed we’re all less secure.

Just another reason why C-61 needs to be killed and and something that actually makes sense be written.

Today the much feared Canadian DMCA (err, “fair and balanced after consulting with Canadians” amendment to the Copyright Act) came out and it’s anything but fair and balanced.

You know when you go to buy an airline ticket and they show you a price of $199*. When you actually land at your destination the * has more than tripled your price after surcharges, surcharges and more surcharges.

This proposed legislation is more or less the same way. Yes, it does contain a provision according to Prentice’s mass email that “expressly allow you to record TV shows for later viewing; copy legally purchased music onto other devices, such as MP3 players or cell phones; make back-up copies of legally purchased books, newspapers, videocassettes and photographs onto devices you own;” but there is a huge *.

You can’t break DRM or digital locks (Britannica - Wikipedia). So, all a content provider has to do to strip you of your rights is put a digital lock on the content and you’re subject to a $20,000 fine for doing exactly what the earlier provision says you can do.

Another concept is cell phones. With GSM phones (like iPhone) my account is stored on a little removable card that goes into the phone. Rogers (my current carrier) locks the phone so it will only work with their SIM cards.

After my contract is up and I have paid for my phone I want to take it to Europe and buy a cheap SIM card there for use overseas and not pay the arm and a leg roaming charges Rogers wants. If I break the restriction on something I have paid for in full I am subject to the fine. Rogers isn’t forced to provide me with an unlock code at the end of my contract so under this proposed law I would be stuck.

I have no problem with bringing copyright law up to the digital age. I have a problem with false advertising. C-61 has been falsely advertised by Jim Prentice and it needs to stop.

Recently I was in a discussion with someone who was saying that “maps were dead.” I believe that the major problem with that argument is that it does not define maps.

Yes, I will agree that traditional paper maps and charts are not as popular as they used to be. Paper does not store in a very compact format.

A set of maps for all of Canada would be several pounds to carry around. Dozens most likely. I can carry the same set of maps on one DVD. One disc. With that I can view them on my computer or transport them to my GPS so anywhere I am I can get directions to anywhere.

With a GPS I can get a set of co-ordinates. That set of co-ordinates while not a map by itself is now part of our major need for geo-location.

If one looks at flickr, many photos are tagged with location. Some cameras even have GPS chips built into them, instant location.

Geocaching, a very high tech game of hide and seek where people hide caches for people to find, posting co-ordinates which can be viewed on an electronic map or downloaded into a GPS unit to find.

Navigation systems, satnav navigates millions of people from point A to point B. You are looking at a map in there.

With everything, we have Google Earth where you can view all sorts of information, from fast food places to maps showing global warming. It’s open so people can share pretty much anything.

In short, maps are not dead - not by a long shot. Everything has just moved to the digital domain.

A few days ago I was reading “Why the 9 to 5 Office Worker Will Become a Thing of the Past” on Pick The Brain. It’s an interesting read, I suggest you check it out.

I have come to the realization that in many cases, the traditional workplace of showing up every morning, attending scheduled meetings and going home at a fixed time does not make any sense for either the employee or the company.

The obvious solution to this problem is planning around the mental energy cycle by breaking the work day into multiple segments. The traditional office setting doesn’t accommodate this because there are few available recharge activities. People can’t do household chores, run errands, or engage in recreational activities without leaving the workplace.

So, where does that leave us work wise. Do we work from home or do we work more at a “informal office” setting like WorkSpace?

I think the solution is a mixture of both. One does need a traditional office for some things like meetings and to collect mail etc but that’s about it. In many cases, one can rent a virtual office to handle those jobs very easily. No need to spend 2000+ a month on another physical place that doesn’t get used a lot.

With modern communication tools such as

1) Phones (both landlines and mobiles)
2) IM
3) E-Mail (including e-mail everywhere on the Blackberry)
4) Virtual Meetings

We are never out of touch - it really doesn’t matter if you are at home or on a cruise ship - with connectivity you can be anywhere and still work.

For some jobs, you have a fixed schedule - you work when it’s necessary but for many information workers there is no 9-5. A 8-10 and then 6-10 workday might be more productive.

At the end of the day, it’s about results not what time people work at. Breaking up the workday inproves productivity and everyone wins.

With recent news about the “SilentBanker” trojan that basically steals your usernames and passwords for online banking sites (and making your hard earned $$$ appear in a bank account a long ways away) the need to protect ourselves is extremely high.

For the ultra-paranoid among us there is an option which will provide pretty good protection from such keyloggers. If you use a LiveCD (essentially a CD or DVD with an operating system on it) which boots your computer into a sterile environment without touching any files on your computer. So, any badware thats in your Windows install cannot run and cannot intercept your transmission.

One common LiveCD is Ubuntu Linux which can be downloaded for free at http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download - once you download it you burn it to a CD or DVD by using the “Burn from Image” option in your CD burning software. After you have the disc, stick it in your computer and reboot - it will boot into Ubuntu. Once it boots, use the Mozilla Firefox (it’s pretty easy to find) web browser to do your online banking (or buying stuff online - pretty much anything with sensitive information in it) and then remove the CD from your computer and reboot.

It’s a little slow to load the LiveCD but if you are concerned about security it’s a good step to take. Even with the most corrupted Windows install you will be safe from Silentbanker and the other badware which can steal your information.

Following a recent CBC Marketplace story “Getting Gouged by Geeks” which showed essentially a sting operation with a computer with blown RAM calling in the various computer support companies to troubleshoot and repair the issue.

Needless to say, the program was not very complementary towards the technical support industry as a whole. Some of the criticism was well warranted (the privacy / ethics), some of it was not (trained competent people don’t work for free - think of how much the mechanic on your car charges.)

The biggest concern I saw (and that is very well warranted) is the point Marketplace raised about techs copying data to a device that they would take with them and not return to the customer (ie, an external hard drive or laptop) without first asking for authorization from the customer. While it is very commonplace to copy data off of a defective machine before working on it to prevent losing data the fact remains, you could have someone’s sensitive digital data on your hard drive, financial data - pretty much everything to steal someone’s identity and ruin their life.

1) Never copy data without authorization and explain how you are going to remove that data once you are done (yes, once you delete in Windows it can be recovered with some data loss but it’s harder to recover. Overwrite utilities can help there)

The second big concern was the dramatic “fear” tactics used to upsell more products / services. In some cases, replacement of a computer is cheaper than repair. Note some. Often it’s a quick and easy repair and unless the customer wants an upgrade, just fix it. As I see it, ensuring techs are primarily techs who focus on revenue from support not sales is critical to the reputation of the repair firm. Some companies get it, some do not.

2) Support is to fix, not to upsell

Many of the people who are calling these companies don’t know anything about computers and rightfully so. I have no clue how my car works and truth be told, I don’t care. The core issue is that qualified people don’t work for minimum wage or anything close to it. Half the problem is that people expect IT to be cheap “any kid can do it” and in order to meet the prices, some companies have gone for the cheap (often unqualified) person to meet that price expectation.

Maybe it is time for regulation and a code of ethics in the IT sector. Granted the fact that those in front of a computer or administering a server can access pretty much any content (including executive / confidential files) there is just too much to lose with a rogue tech. The hard part, there’s no way to determine who is competent - the certifications many techs have often involve passing a test which may test “learn and dump it on the test” knowledge, not practical skills.

So, for now, maybe a standardized code of ethics by a professional association which can publicly embarrass those who agreed to abide by it’s ethics but didn’t. It’s not perfect but it’s a start.

The latest rage on the ‘net is the Facebook application - essentially a bit of software which uses Facebook (the social networking site) as it’s sole medium. One cannot simply go to myapplicaitonname.com - no, you can only access it if and only if you have a profile on Facebook and login to the Facebook.com site.

Jason Calacanis explained Facebook’s motives for offering an platform that anyone can access

1. get free developer labor
2. generates tools for their platform and users
3. get free research into which features their users wants

(http://www.calacanis.com/2007/10/09/should-you-trust-facebook-with-your-business/)

Naturally, this has attracted hordes of developers who will generate apps because it’s relatively easy to do and it’s a way to gain “fame” among peers (”hey look, my app has 10,000 users!) Indeed, many of the apps that exist on Facebook have very limited potential for making money and exist as labours of love.

Now, a very select group of developers is basing their entire business (and financial future) off of a Facebook app. While I use Facebook regularly and use it for it’s core features (ie, social networking) it’s not the holy grail of the world. The barrier to entry and exit is pretty low, for all we know, Facebook could lose as many users a day as it is gaining right now. For a while, MySpace was the giant that couldn’t be beat, now look at where it’s standing in comparison to Facebook. Another day, another site could come along (offer an easy “import from Facebookâ€? feature) and dominate market share. Your application wouldn’t work with this new platform and bam, your revenue stream drops dead.

Not only does the “Facebook app” developer face two issues namely being having their fate determined by a third party which may or may not have any loyalty to you, the lowly app developer. One also has the issue of there being too many Facebook applications which can ruin someone’s Facebook experience.

Facebook gained a loyal following for being a lot “cleaner” and “more private” than it’s biggest competition MySpace. With too many apps, Facebook is starting to lose its edge on the “clean and simple” department. It’s not that you have apps on your profile, it’s everyone else. If I want to leave a message on someone’s wall, I really don’t want to scroll through 50 application sections to do so. Chances are I will get fed up with all the clutter and app invites and go somewhere else. Too many Facebook apps diminish the value of Facebook

Facebook should be commended for opening their platform - there are many good applications out there. On a business level however, I wouldn’t dream about basing my entire income on a third party that I don’t control. Facebook apps are great for simple “funâ€? gadgets and promotions (a great extension for a lot of web apps) but is a pretty big risk for someone’s bread and butter.

Facebook is a high risk stock. It’s fine to play around a bit with some high risk “money� – just don’t bet your entire life on it. While you’re thinking about it, stop sending me 5 million Facebook app invites. I really don’t want a cluttered up profile.

Celebration of Light - Canada (123)

Originally uploaded by andrew.wallwork

Much better wind conditions helped Canada out a lot. Compared with Spain, it was a totally different show, they used different heights a lot more and it was quite pretty.

As a side note, my apologies for the low resolution of these photos, I didn’t realize my camera was set to low resolution (I accidentally changed it in the dark)