The world didn’t end while I was on holiday, and neither did my columns. First, I grabbed a review unit — the sweet little Nokia Booklet 3G I had lying around — to take along. Security reasons, you understand. I had cleaned it up thoroughly in preparation for its return to Nokia, so imagine my surprise when I fired it up and it alerted me of a new email. That prompted this column on ITWeb. I always said Google could very easily be evil.

While I was away, I first wrote a column in response to the UK parliamentary whitewash of the East Anglia Climatic Research Unit email leak. However, the noise around Eugene Terre’blanche and Julius Malema prompted its delay, in favour of this: While FIFA takes over, we fight. A week later, upon my return, Anatomy of a whitewash found its way online.

I have some more very juicy bits lined up about FIFA. It doesn’t get any prettier as we count down to the World Cup. I’ll keep you posted.

I’ll be away most of this week, chairing some conference sessions. I have a few months’ worth of Brainstorm and Maverick columns stored up, though, so I’ll post a few of these for your reading pleasure when I get a chance.

• This column was first published in ITWeb Brainstorm magazine, December 2007. Brainstorm pays for these, so if you’d consider subscribing, I (and the magazine) would be in your debt.

Unfair, unreasonable and ludicrous

Those aren’t my words. Those are the words of members of the Security and Constitutional Affairs Select Committee in the National Council of Provinces.

Stupid. Imbecilic. Naïve. Batty. Those would be among the words I’d choose. Half-baked. Dim. Preposterous. Simple-minded. Goofy. Witless.

I’m talking about the recent amendment to the Regulation of Interception and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act, pushed through parliament by the Justice Department.

Let’s just call it the spy law, since that’s what it is, and many people must be familiar with the hoohah in the United States over similar “domestic wiretapping” provisions in anti-terrorism laws.

According to market researchers BMI TechKnowledge, there are somewhere north of 40 million cellular telephone users in South Africa. The majority of those are prepaid customers, who prefer, whether for creditworthiness or other reasons, to buy SIM cards and airtime as and when they need them.

This amendment requires everyone who uses a cellphone SIM card in South Africa to register their identity and residential details with their operators.

It’s loco. Pointless. Dense. Harebrained. Illogical. Bonkers.

The primary reason cited for the requirement is fighting crime. Organised crime, in particular.

Now I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to commit a crime, I’d go to some lengths not to identify myself to authorities. I’ll get an untraceable phone, or make it so. And if I can’t get a phone that’s untraceable, I’ll – I hope I’m not giving away any crime secrets here – meet my accomplices in person.

Criminals aren’t the sort of considerate people who obey the law. I’d have thought the definition of criminal would make this clear. This won’t curb any but the most petty crime, committed by the most incompetent criminals, against which I’d have thought the police don’t need all that much help.

Futile. Brainless. Ridiculous. Potty. Derisory. Lunatic.

This requirement is going to be tremendously impractical. It will create reams of data, most of it probably wrong. Many cellphone users don’t even have formal addresses, or they move regularly, or don’t have proper identity documents because Home Affairs hasn’t had its home affairs in order for years.

How are mobile operators supposed to ensure the information is accurate in the first place, and stays up to date in the second? I’ll bet that more than half of the information so gathered will be useless to law enforcement, and the other half won’t be needed.

It’s feebleminded. Doltish. Mindless. Dumb. Flaky. Absurd.

The cost of recording and maintaining all this data will be borne by whom? Mobile operators? You have to be kidding me. It will be passed on to consumers. Instead of reducing the cost of telecommunications, as the president mandated in a state of the nation speech some years ago now, this domestic spy law will significantly raise it.

Wacky. Foolish. Moronic. Dippy. Nonsensical. Dopy. Nuts.

It will undermine the spectacular success of low-cost prepaid telephony in South Africa. If cutting off half the people who’ve gained access to telephony thanks to prepaid is the government’s intention, the spy law is great.

Insane. Kooky. Irresponsible. Laughable. Half-witted. Ludicrous. (Oh, scratch that; the NCOP has that covered.) Retarded.

A government that has easy access to reams of private data is sure to abuse it. Even assuming that we trust the government in general, can we extend this trust to the bad apples within government? Can we trust private organisations that have no inherent need for the data, because they’re not, for example, providing us with credit? This extends the circle of organisations whose intent and competence we need to trust with private data even further. It’s a fundamental infringement on privacy and individual liberty. It’s how a police state operates.

Ill-advised. Nutty. Fruity. Fruity-and-nutty. Obtuse. Short-sighted. Barmy.

This law also requires all foreigners to register their cellphones when they’re in South Africa. Never mind the annoying impracticality of that, or that it doesn’t exactly say, “Welcome to the free South Africa”. If even one refuses, the measure is unenforceable, unless all international roaming is blocked. And if we do that, South Africans won’t be able to use their own phones internationally either. We’ll cut ourselves off from the global village. It’s that simple.

Rash. Mindless. Idiotic. Unthinking. Cockeyed. Thick. Irrational. Senseless. Ludicrous. Loony. Daft.

I’ve run out of words. Oh wait, no, I haven’t. There’s still cretinous. But I’ll save that word for a future column on the subject.

No synonyms were harmed in the production of this column.

To lighten the mood before departing to meet his destiny at the ANC conference in Polokwane, South African president Thabo Mbeki signed an absurd law you’d expect to find in a Monty Python farce.

The new Sexual Offences Act says that teenagers under the age of 16 caught kissing, petting, touching or even hugging each other can be criminally charged. It bans any sexual behaviour, from touching on down, among teenagers, even if it is consensual. The law doesn’t specify whether being in possession of teenage hormones will constitute a crime, or whether you’ll have to prove they were for personal use only. Either way, if you’re not 16 and you’re horny, be careful you don’t earn yourself a spanking.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m increasingly pleased about having left Facebook. A couple of weeks ago I posted about advertising that appears in your news stream, cannily disguised to look like a photo update from a friend. Now, things are getting even murkier.

A guy named Joe discovered that not only were his purchases on Facebook partner sites like Overstock and Yelp being tracked, but they were being posted to his news stream. He didn’t opt in, and claims (justifiably, it would seem) not to have been given a clear and unambiguous way to opt out.

An AP story shows the implicit dangers of embarrassment and worse of this feature, which Facebook dubs “Beacon”. One guy discovered what his girlfriend had bought him as a present. Another found his movie ticket purchases displayed to his friends. The article not only shows how tricksey the feature is, but also notes that users cannot withdraw completely from the programme, but merely decrease the frequency of the relevant items in their news feeds. (Just like my account at Facebook is merely inactive, and cannot be deleted.)

This feature is remarkably offensive. “Hey, everyone, Jimmy bought some lube! Do you want some?” Or more realistically, as one source in the AP story says, “What if you bought a book on Amazon called ‘Coping with AIDS’ and that got published to every single one of your friends?”

Joe asks, plaintively: “Facebook, it is not OK to collect information about me from other sites. Please stop.”

Sorry, Joe. You agreed:

Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service … in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience. … We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services, Facebook Platform developers and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile.

However, not being able to opt out of this offensive feature is contrary to Facebook’s own privacy policy, which states: “And you control the users with whom you share that information through the privacy settings on the My Privacy page.”

Turns out the privacy policy and terms of use are there to bind users, not Facebook. It also turns out, as I discovered when I wanted my account deleted, that once you agree, you can never revoke any permissions you gave Facebook. Not even when circumstances — such as Facebook’s shareholding — change. They own you and the lemons you buy. Forever.

Update: Duncan McLeod has published a Financial Times article on the subject on his website.

Since leaving Facebook (the story of which is told here, here, here and here) I’ve been waiting with some anticipation for news of Google’s plans for social networking. Paul Jacobson has found some news on the subject. Says he:

As I understand this plan, Google is releasing a bunch of APIs, probably initially focussed on Orkut, to be rolled out across most, if not all, of Google’s properties. This would result in a kind of social network/interactive layer over these sites and services. Developers would be able to develop apps based on these APIs, presumably for distribution across the Google network and use on Google’s sites.

… I think this is going to be a new beginning for a new paradigm of the social web.

Sounds promising. Very promising.

There’s an interesting battle brewing that may decide the fate of Facebook, the hugely popular social networking site. The country network of which I’m a member, South Africa, has tripled in size to 300 000 in just three months. I didn’t know there were that many internet connections over here.

However, there’s a dark cloud on the horizon. A very dark cloud. Microsoft is, according to the Wall Street Journal, in talks to buy a stake in the startup:

Microsoft in recent weeks approached Facebook with proposals to invest in the startup that could value the fast-growing site at $10 billion or higher, said people familiar with the matter. If those talks bear fruit, Microsoft could purchase a stake of up to 5% in the closely held startup, at a cost in the range of $300 million to $500 million, the people said.

But Microsoft must first outgun Google, which has also expressed strong interest in a Facebook stake, according to people familiar with the matter.

Microsoft’s Passport signon technology (now rebranded as Live ID) has proved to be wide open to abuse, and not only by external miscreants. When Microsoft bought Hotmail almost ten years ago, the webmail pioneer turned into a sluggish performer and a hotbed of spam. As this page documents, Microsoft itself had for years been both negligent and willfully complicit in some of the abuse. On one occasion it changed, without notification, all users’ preferences to share information with third parties, for example. On another, it tried to claim copyright on everything sent via Hotmail. It certainly has not been particularly respectful of users’ privacy, and has burned its trust relationship with its more savvy customers.

I’m sure Microsoft has tightened up its privacy policies by now. It’s appointed a Chief Privacy Officer and its PR machine makes all the right defensive noises. However, a 3 500 word policy can hide many secrets. My reading of its copyright notice suggests that it still claims an exceptionally broad licence to copy, use and sublicence anything you post on any Microsoft service, even if it is intended only for a private community.

So I vowed never to use any Microsoft-owned online service — MSN Messenger, Windows Live, Hotmail — ever again. Publications that required Passport Network registration were simply dropped from my reading list.

Facebook is already over-cluttered with applications. Some are useful, some cool, some annoying, and some just downright offensive. I don’t mean in the prurient sense; I mean in the spam hotbed sense. I usually decline to install them, but I accepted a fun one involving beer just yesterday. Contrary to explicit instructions not to, it invited a random selection of friends, some of which I really didn’t want invited. This kind of spamware can kill Facebook.

But not as quickly as Microsoft can. If Google buys Facebook, I’ll live with it. The Googleplex 0wnz me already, and I’m not even a heavy user of its services. However, it has yet to show the kind of negligence or nefarious activity that will compromise my trust. For now, the convenience of its online tools outweigh the very real privacy risks. But if Microsoft buys Facebook, I’m outta there like a shot. The Hotmail fiasco alone was enough for me to never trust Microsoft with private information of any sort again. Through negligence, incompetence and deliberate action, Microsoft has abused the trust of users too often in the past. Here’s hoping Facebook doesn’t become the latest victim.

Update: In good Facebook tradition, I’ve created a group: If Facebook sells to Microsoft, we’re leaving.

Om Malik reports on a Facebook development that worries some privacy advocates.

Access to the profile information of a user of Facebook, a hyper-popular social network, has traditionally been limited to other Facebook members, and then restricted further by a fairly comprehensive set of privacy controls. Soon, however, Facebook will permit anyone to search its database and find people by name. The information provided will be limited, and users can opt out on their privacy settings page. However, once found, a searcher can send messages or “poke” someone, which, if the recipient responds, could reveal much or all of their profile.

Read the rest of this entry »

Patricia De Lille, all is forgiven. It appears the idiots that run our government aren’t any worse than the idiots that run the US Congress. Perhaps if you’re too stupid and unselfconscious for any real job, you put on a big toothy grin and get voted into a position where you can spend your days proving to the world just how Luddite and illiterate you really are. Check out this bizarro hearing of the Committee of Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.):

On Tuesday, July 24, 2007, the Committee held a hearing to examine recent developments regarding inadvertent file sharing over peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, the impact of such sharing on consumers, corporations and government entities, and whether such sharing creates privacy or security risks for users.

No, seriously. They want to pass laws to make sure that “inadvertent file-sharing does not jeopardize the public’s privacy and security”. CNET News.com reports:

Also at the hearing, Mark Gorton, the chairman of Lime Wire, which makes the peer-to-peer software LimeWire, was assailed for allegedly harming national security through offering his product.

Wait till these people hear about e-mail. They’d have to ban the internet.

Amusing spoof of Gilbert & Sullivan’s Modern Major General posted by privacy advocate, Lauren Weinstein. Among the lyrics:

I’ve never met the ruling troika here inside the Googleplex,
But even so I know their motives are as pure as healthy sex.
We work real hard, our systems spin, we’re trying to make a better Earth,
It gets annoying sometimes when outsiders seem to doubt our worth.

That public situation needs to improve before it’s too late,
Perhaps what we have here is just a failure to communicate.
But companies worth billions are between a rock and a hard place,
Try do things really right and stockholders may just spit in your face.

Download MP3 here, check out YouTube audio here, or read the lyrics here.