Abandoning Twidroyd

Posted on July 11, 2010 by alex

Twidroyd/Twidroid is a Twitter application for the Android platform.  I really quite liked it, until they were bought by Tweetup.  Why?  Well, during the name change they added a huge EULA.  However, the important part is (highlighted part by me):

CONTENT You shall retain ownership rights in information or other content that you upload, post or otherwise transmit to or via your use of Twidroyd (“Submissions”); however, by making your Submissions through Twidroyd, you grant Licensor a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, reproduce, edit, translate, reformat, distribute, modify, transmit, prepare derivative works of, publicly display and produce the Submissions in connection with the enhancement of the Twidroyd service or otherwise in connection with Licensor’s business. You agree that these licenses include the right for the Company to make your Submissions available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with the Company for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such content use. Such additional uses by the Company, or other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with the Company, may be made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Submissions. We may modify or adapt your Submissions in order to transmit, display or distribute it over computer networks and in various media and/or make changes to your Submissions as are necessary to conform and adapt that content to any requirements or limitations of any networks, devices, services or media.

This is a bit like Microsoft saying, “If you use Word to write something then you grant us a license to it.”  Or Bic saying if you use their biros then they get a license.  Or perhaps your paper manufacturer.

It’s also really sneaky.  They don’t do it upfront and tell you that they want this right; they hide it in a EULA and in the Terms and Conditions.

So, this was happened when they were bought by Tweetup?  So let’s look at their Terms. Sure enough, hidden in their Terms is:

You agree that these licenses include the right for the Company to make your Submissions and, if applicable, User Content, available to other companies, organizations or individuals who partner with the Company for the syndication, broadcast, distribution or publication of such content on other media and services, subject to our terms and conditions for such content use.

Again they are hiding this.  I guess they want to use all the ‘tweets’ to try and sell them or the intelligence/analysis that they contain.  And they are a commercial company and so want to make money.  I have no problem with that.  My problem is that they aren’t being upfront about it.  And I guess they aren’t being upfront about it because they suspect that most people don’t really like the idea that their stuff (even if it has no individual value) is being sold.

Perhaps we should start paying for these services and really know what is happening to our data, rather than thinking everything is for free, and thus effectively forcing companies to do this type of thing?

Now I just need to find an alternative.  And ideas?

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Local councils having a busking policy?

Posted on June 17, 2010 by alex

Bizarrely, in the news today (17th June 2010) it turns out that Exeter has a policy for busking in the city. Stunning, isn’t it.

Apparently, said buskers have to audition for a place in the city so that they can play! This is to ensure that they are up to scratch and fit with the city.

I’m frankly astonished that councils would have a busking policy, auditioning buskers, probably having an council officer administer the policy and then having various people checking that buskers have a license. What a waste of money. Let the market decide. Bad buskers will not get any money and move on. Good ones will earn money and stay. The public can decide.

Thankfully, Newcastle upon Tyne has a sensible attitude; apparently, it doesn’t believe that busking is something that should be licensed.

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Posted in Life, Politics | 2 Comments

About Googlegate

Posted on June 17, 2010 by alex

I was reading this at El Reg. I like Privacy International. I share many of the same values but I’m not sure that Alexander Hanff has any idea of how code is written at Google. I don’t, but I’d hazard that it isn’t the waterfall model that he is talking about – it doesn’t seem very Google, does it? I’d even wager that Google has a much more XP, Scrum or Agile approach which elaborates software until it just does what it needs and no more.

Don’t get me wrong; I think Alexander Hanff does great work campaigning on privacy issues.  I just wonder if, in this case, he’s seeing stuff that simply isn’t there.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Googlegate is about Google collecting un-encrypted WiFi data whilst roaming the streets with their StreetView project. Apparently, according to Privacy International et al., they have been doing this with criminal intent to record the bits of data intentionally so that they can find out more about us.

It appears that, whilst driving along, the software listened for WiFi broadcasts, discarded ALL those that were encrypted, and stored the packets, in entirety, of those that were not encrypted. This, according to conspiracy theory, means they knew that they couldn’t use the encrypted ones, and therefore were intentionally storing the unencrypted ones, even though they could have got the SSID from the encrypted WiFi broadcasts. This is the smoking gun.

Personally, I have no idea what Google were thinking, but I’m going to hazard some guesses.

WiFi access points. What kind are generally encrypted and what kind are generally open? Most home routers supplied by networks to consumers in the last few years are almost always encrypted now. If you buy off the shelf then you have to make a choice on whether to encrypt. Every Starbucks, hotel, cafe, airport, and other public access WiFi is unencrypted. Unencrypted WiFi seems like an invitation to join it, doesn’t it? It’s providing a service that you can connect to.

If I was writing software I’d probably make the decision that if anybody bothers to encrypt their WiFi then they probably don’t want their SSID used either. Hence I’d discard those packets. Also, for my roving software, to keep it simple, I’d probably just store the whole packet and pull out the SSID later during analysis. Storage is cheap. It’s easier to do, and you’d want your 24/7 software to be simple just so that it stands a better chance of not crashing. And, if it’s simpler, then it’s quicker and cheaper to write and test. Particularly if the brief is: “collect the SSIDs and geolocations of unencrypted WiFi stations”.

Why collect the SSIDs in the first place? Android phones and location services. It seems to me that it’s simply about better location services and getting more accuracy. Cell towers + SSIDs helps to place you on the map.

Should Google be collecting all this data in secret? No, I don’t think so. Are they an evil company? No, I doubt that too. Are they a large (huge?) organisation intent on making a profit? Damn right, and that’s something we should worry about. Have they got a good privacy record? Not really, especially after the Buzz debacle. Should we watch them like a hawk? Definitely. Was Google stupid? Without a doubt. But are they criminal?

My wife talks about ‘cock-up or conspiracy’. It’s a bit like ‘never attribute to malice what can adequately be attributed to stupidity’. I think Google cocked up, not that it was some conspiracy to collect our WiFi transmissions and analyse them. Still, paranoid people tend to see conspiracies everywhere.

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Migrating Mail – Part 1

Posted on June 13, 2010 by alex

At the time of writing, June 2010, I run my own mail server.  I started running my own mail server when commercial providers didn’t have good spam detection, didn’t store much mail and weren’t as convenient as using your own system and mail client.

But then Gmail arrived, in beta, and, for me, changed the game.  And now with spam levels rising ever higher, I’ve finally reached the point where my poor little virtual server isn’t powerful enough to deal with all the spam that comes with mail domains I have since 1999.

These posts are about a journey that I’m going to make in transitioning from my own server to a Google Apps Mail account.  On the way I have to:

  • move about 7GB+ of mail that is sorted into lots of different folders
  • back up the mail from Google every day using an IMAP sync tool
  • migrate 6 different domains so that I can receive and send on those different domains
  • move my wife’s accounts and domains as well

And all without losing any mail on the way.  Or at least finding out I’ve lost mail on the way.

Why Google Apps Mail?  I’m driven by the nice user interface, tagging, searching and the fact it will just work on my Android phone.

It’s going to be a three step process:

  1. Move spam processing off the server
  2. Forward mail to Google from the existing mail mail server
  3. Change the MX records to move them to Google.

This still means that I can change back to my own (or other server) at some time in the future.  Probably that move will happen when we can have the ability to easily run email server appliances in the cloud.  Until my decentralised dream becomes a reality I’ll go with Google.

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Opinion: To iPad or not to iPad?

Posted on May 20, 2010 by alex

This is the first of two posts on Apple.  This one deals with their consumer products, the iPad, iPhone, etc.  The second deals with how I perceive they are relating to developers.

Cory Doctorow wrote an interesting opinion piece on the iPad recently over at BoingBoing about why you shouldn’t buy and iPad.  I found it via Slashdot, where many of these articles tend to get mentioned.  Many people have already commented on his post, analysing his position, arguments and thoughts;  I’m not going to – just Google and read a selection.  But it did set me thinking about Apple and their impact on how they are guiding consumers to view technology.

Continue reading →

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More fun with BAA: T5 still hopeless

Posted on May 20, 2010 by alex

Heathrow Terminal 5 is a disaster.  It’s a year since I last travelled through and, if anything, it has got worse.  I had a return trip to Canada over the last two weeks.  Going out wasn’t too bad; coming back from Canada exposed Terminal 5′s problems.

Continue reading →

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Version Control: developing on branches rather than master/trunk

Posted on April 12, 2010 by alex

I’ve changed my mind.  It now seems that it is much more sensible to develop on branches rather than on master or trunk.  What am I on about?

Well software source control or version control systems.  I tend to use two: subversion and git.  Actually, I tend to use git whenever I can including when I have to use subversion. git svn is, in US terms, awesum.  One debate I have had on and off is whether to:

  • Do development on trunk and put releases in branches — OR
  • Do development on branches, merge to trunk, and tag releases (or put them in their own branches).

I’ve previously done the former, but I’m rapidly shifting to the latter.  My rather simple reasoning is that I want trunk/master to be, to all intents and purposes, a working copy of the latest software.  i.e. the software that is in trunk/master passes its tests, builds and basically does what it says it should on the tin.  The developing software is done on a branch and only merged back to trunk/master when it passes its tests.  Thus the process is:

  1. Branch
  2. Develop & test
  3. Merge from trunk/master to the branch (i.e. pull any updates)
  4. Test, test, test
  5. Review code with buddy, senior dev, etc. (depending on your set-up)
  6. Merge back into trunk as a finished feature.

Even better, only work on code that is actually described in a ticket, bug, or on something like pivotal.  That way you stay focussed and only spend time on developing features/fixing bugs that the ‘customer’ actually wants.

The only question then is what you do with releases?  My initial guess is to tag them as a release on trunk/master.   Then if you get a bug and have to maintain the old release then to branch at that point and maintain the release as its own ‘master’ release branch.

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Dear BBC: It’s not ‘Digital Piracy’, it’s ‘copyright infringement’

Posted on April 9, 2010 by alex

It really, really annoyed me this morning, lying in bed, listening to the radio, hearing a journalist parrot the ‘digital piracy’ line.

Piracy evokes images of beards and cutlasses on the high seas, where pirates board ships, steal galleons and generally go about their pirating business.  Updated to modern times, it involves boarding ships with guns and knives, kidnapping crews and demanding vast ransoms for the return of said crew, ship and contents.  Nowhere in these scenarios is piracy the same as copying a digital file.

Piracy != copyright infringement and sticking ‘digital’ in front of it doesn’t either.  Copyright infringement is not the same as ‘stealing’ or ‘theft’.  If I steal something from you, I deprive you of the use of whatever it is I’ve stolen.  If I copy a file, YOU still have the original, and can do everything that you could originally do with it.

So why are they using the word ‘piracy’?  Well it could be so that the media want people to think of copyright infringement as ‘theft’, want us to draw an equivalence with stealing, want us to think it is as bad as real piracy.  But what copyright infringement really is is the civil infringement of a monopoly granted by the government to groups that publish works.  I’ll say it again. It’s a government granted monopoly on creating artificial scarcity in order to extract proportionately higher ‘rents’ or profits than could otherwise be achieved.  It was given to printers in the 18th century to stop cheap knockoffs and encourage them to print books.  It’s got about as much relevance to the 21st century as the law about having a man with a red flag walk in front of a car did in the 20th centuary.

And the Digital Economy Bill?  Don’t get me started. I’ll just end with this:

“a bill proposed by the unelected, debated by the ignorant and voted on by the absent” #debill /via @Glinner & @alnya /via @davidwren

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Complex or Complicated?

Posted on November 4, 2009 by alex

The recent Think and a Drink (@TaaD) covered the wide ranging topic of Social Networking. There was much to take in and some genuinely useful tips and tricks for ‘upping’ your game with regards to social networking from an internet perspective.

However, one presentation tried to tackle the immensely challenging science of networking and attempted to explain the academic difference between complex and complicated.  Whilst the explanation of ‘complicated’ was good, ‘complex’ was almost just left as being ‘not like complicated’  – the explanation didn’t really explore the concept due, most likely, to a lack of time.  I’m going to try to touch on it here.

(Update:  This is about complexity theory, rather than the normal English use of the words.  Sorry for any confusion!)

Continue reading →

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Posted in Technology | Tagged | 2 Comments

Fun with BAA

Posted on August 2, 2009 by alex

BAA is British Airports Authority.  They ‘run’ the main airports around London which include Heathrow, Gatwick and Standsted.  Unfortunately, Heathrow T5 is the centre of operations for British Airways.  I say ‘unfortunately’ because travelling through T5 is a thoroughly unpleasant experience and blights British Airways and Britian’s supposedly premiere airport. Continue reading →

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