Tag: internet

The Internet as a Tool for Democracy: Perhaps not

In the recent 2018 Web Summit interview has Tim Berners-Lee, father of the Internet, lamenting the sorry state of the internet. TimBL has set up the World Wide Web Foundation, which espouses openness, freedom of speech and democracy. I just do not see the web this way. The internet is a communications tool that allows access to information, very much like a library. Who gets to enter the library and what information the library houses is controllable. I do not see TimBL’s lofty internet objectives coming to fruition. In China Xi jinping XJP has asked all its people for total loyalty to the Communist Party. As a communications tool the Internet can and does serve XJP’s purpose, and more. In the view of the CCP the Internet is also a tool to benefit society.

Chinese Internet Censorship Document 2018 June 03

I found this reference in the G&M to an unpublished Chinese document about internet censorship, so I contacted the author for a reference, which he provided. As these are pictures and not text it is more difficult to translate. When I have more time I will try to translate all the pages.

I cannot have one of my Chinese friends translate this as this would get them into a lot of trouble with the Chinese government.

Unpublished Chinese censorship document reveals sweeping effort to eradicate online political content

互联网直播服务信息内容管理要求 Internet broadcast service information content management requirements
http://www.lawinfochina.com/display.aspx?id=22901&lib=law
http://www.cac.gov.cn/2016-11/04/c_1119847629.htm

Bell Canada Fibe to the Side of My House = No Service Upgrade

I have Bell Fibe 15/10 on twisted pair into my house, Toronto, Ontario, but the upload speed is .67mbps of the advertised 10mbps. This summer Bell trenched my street to install fiber optic cable. They left the fiber optic cable zip tied to the side of my house. After 2 months wait I am trying to find out when Bell will install fiber optic into my house so I can get 10mbps upload, but they cannot give me an answer. photo by Don Tai

I have Bell Fibe 15/10 on twisted pair into my house, Toronto, Ontario, but the upload speed is .67mbps of the advertised 10mbps. This summer Bell trenched my street to install fiber optic cable. They left the fiber optic cable zip tied to the side of my house. After 2 months wait I am trying to find out when Bell will install fiber optic into my house so I can get 10mbps upload, but they cannot give me an answer. photo by Don Tai

Bell Internet Bandwidth Gauge Not Accurate

Our home internet service provider here in Toronto, Canada, is Bell Canada. I received an email from Bell at 10:01 telling me we are at 90% of our limit, and have 8.2G left. This email is not uncommon and I expect it on heavy months. Usually 8.2G should last us at least 2 days. At 12:30 I receive another email stating that we are now 350M over our limit.

What the hell!?! During that time I was having lunch and not even on the computer, and there is no one else in the house. This sounds fraudulent.

Identifying Chinese Search Engines

They have not caught on yet, as many Chinese search engines offer no explanation in English of their services, yet their bots are out there crawling all sites on the internet. I am trying to kill as many bots, scrapers, spiders, crawlers, and checkers as possible, and if I don’t find an explanation of what a site does, I’ll ban the user agent from my site. This might seem a little unfair, but I don’t want bots eating my bandwidth, and to have my ISP force me to pay more for hosting, all because they wish to crawl my site.

Rethinking the Freedom of the Internet

Free, the Internet should be, freedom to express oneself, is the standard thinking of most people. No one should be able to censor content. All should be able to read whatever they wish, whatever they can find. China, with their “Great Firewall of China”, does censor content for their 1.4B citizens, and is widely condemned for their radical actions. I am rethinking censorship of the Internet. In light of the rise of ISIS and other terrorist organizations maybe we should consider censorship for certain situations.

Is Contractor Review Site Homestars.ca a Scam?

Authentic they do look, and my neighbour got suckered in. He found a roofer on their recommendation than may be less than legit. As with all things internet, it is buyer beware.

Even a cursory search for “homestars scam” on Google search shows a lot of mixed comments. it seems like contractors pay $150/month to Homestars and they get favourable reviews. When I say “favourable” I mean really stupendous reviews. This is what tweaked my curiosity. When reviews are gushing over a roofer’s services, I am a little suspicious. Site over site on Google have complaints about Homestars. If you are looking for a contractor in Canada, please use other means than Homestars. You may be scammed by their fake reviews.

Our Privacy and Its Importance

If someone was to point a camera straight into your living room, most people would be horrified, and rightly so. This is a clear breach of our personal space and privacy. Yet surprisingly this is Ok in the online world. I am unsure why we accept this double standard, other than, “This is how it is and it should be Ok”? It is not Ok. At the very least we should acknowledge the level of risk to our privacy. I will try to assess our risk, here in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Internet Trolls and Roman Catholic Pope Francis

Trolls are everywhere on the internet where there is social interaction. A troll is anyone who participates in a internet discussion solely to provoke a negative reaction from others. They are not only disruptive and anti-social but can really clamp down on the free flowing discussion. With the anonymity of the internet this seems to unlock the nasty side of human beings. Even the venerated Roman Catholic Church’s Pope Francis has had experiences with trolls.

“The speed with which information is communicated exceeds our capacity for reflection and judgment, and this does not make for more balanced and proper forms of self-expression.” Pope Francis, source

Over the Air TV Review: Toronto, Canada

I gave Rogers the heave ho, for both cable and internet, and feel better for it. Scummy, predatory, their service was. Over the air TV has replaced cable. It is not what we are used to, but saves us over $70 each month. Overall I would say that we are much better off without Rogers cable.

Over the air (OTA) TV is not all fantastic, though I did not know all the disadvantages and underestimated the advantages. I will discuss all I learned. With OTA we get 17 channels, which includes a couple of duplicate HD and SD channels, a French channel, though it comes in stunning HD, and a religious channel, also in stunning HD.