Who can tell what has changed in the last 11 months, but officially (see this article), the British government has the means to carry out cyber-attacks, but does not use them for industrial espionage. Whilst giving this explanation, it was made pretty clear that the UK believes China and Russia (amongst many others, I’m sure) do illicitly obtain information to assist national or major companies in their respective territories. Whether government employees or private contractors do this in Britain is not really a argument for most I think, but it would be interesting to hear the excuses given if Lord West was caught out and somehow such commercial spying was ever traced back to officially sanctioned groups or individuals.
Oct 06 2008
Skyping To Any Old Tom, Dick Or Harry?
Over in China, the officially allowed Voice and Video over IP application that closely resembles Skype is… Tom-Skype. Although the fact that conversations are monitored (and in some cases actually blocked) was already well publicised, details have emerged regarding the storing of data related to the banned conversations.
OK, I realise that the image was created for a different sort of Skype issue, but it made me laugh when I was searching around for something suitable. Anyway, in much the same way that Yahoo has had to tow the line when it comes to operating in China, Skype have stated that for their services to be available, they have to assist the authorities to a far greater extent than they necessarily would in the ‘free’ world. Before you get too smug, head on over to this article for details on the German Police’s efforts to intercept in real time citizen’s text and voice Skype messages.
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Mar 21 2008
Squat Thrusts Less Obligatory?
OK, not the prettiest picture to ever adorn this blog’s front page, but that is the sort of toilet Westerners have been complaining about over in China. Having used them a few times myself, I can’t say I blame them. The French athletes should be well used to this mode of disposal, but most of the rest of Western Europe moved beyond the wooden outhouses (even then they usually had crude bench seats) quite a long time ago.
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Sep 13 2007
No Sleep – Average Faces And Gigantic Firewalls
OK it is 6.55am over here, and I am still up, hoping to catch another WorldWide Wednesday opportunity over at PayPerPost, as I managed to last week (see the Argus post). If it does not appear soon, I shall give up and grab some sleep. The official release time for these opps is Wednesday midday until Thursday midday, EST. Here in Astana, Kazakhstan, we are 10 hours ahead of that time (no daylight saving time adjustments over here), so if I’m lucky, I may not miss the releases whilst asleep.
In the mean time, here are a couple of articles I found interesting…
Although I will not need to get a new passport for another 6 years (and therefore, unless a new law is passed, not have to have biometric information added to it with a RID chip (thats a whole other ‘Aware Or Conspiracy Nut‘ post for another day…) facial recognition is already in use at the passport control areas I usually use when flying home. Because of this, I need to remove my glasses (and also not smile, I recently discovered) to ensure that the cameras in the official’s booths can easily measure the distance between my eyes, nose, mouth size etc. and compare it to the passport photo. Although this software aids the fight against the use of false ID, it is not perfect. This BBC article explains how a researcher has discovered that by averaging different photos of a human face into one composite, both computers and humans make less mistakes comparing real life faces to the photo. This should eventually lead to a higher accuracy rate…
Lastly, we have another article, this time on how the Chinese Great Firewall is not so great when under strain. The article goes into some detail about how the Chinese authorities actually manage the flow of information on subjects they would rather their citizens did not have unfettered access to. However, I would really like to hear from anyone who has some first hand knowledge in this area (are you reading this Gavin?), as I was previously under the impression that the so called Great Firewall of China was infact NOT centrally administered or even based, and that the blocking of sites and information was the responsibility of the different ISPs that serve different areas of China. From previous blog posts I have read elsewhere, a resident of one area in China may find they are able to access sites that someone thousands of kilometres away can not. Anyone able to enlighten me?
[sidenote]
I have just noticed this blog is #1 on Google for the term Aware Conspiracy Nut 🙂
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Aug 28 2007
Beijing Promises To Crack Down On Hackers
Reading between the lines of an article, it would appear that there have been rumours of government involvement in China, with hackers’ attempts to infiltrate German Government computer networks, in a similar way to how Russia was accused over Estonian security breaches (see my post from a while back – Moscow Get Techy). Given that the article is on a Chinese web site, it would be very unlikely that any such accusation would be repeated, though I’d be interested to hear from anyone who knows a little more about the background to this story.
I can’t help feeling that this public display of reassurance may be used as a cover to further restrict the abilities of normal Chinese citizens to both obtain, and further disseminate information that is not in the “country’s interests”.
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Aug 10 2007
BG Charity Event – Part #4
Right, I think I now have all the text deciphered 🙂 This is the last of the posts on the charity event organized by BG (British Gas) Kazakhstan to raise funds for the Kazakh Paralympic team and their trip to the Paralympics next year at Beijing, China.
Throughout the evening, there were draws for the raffle, with prizes donated by local businesses. The worst was a 20% discount card from a jeweller. If I ever discover the name of the company that ‘donated’ some guaranteed business for themselves, I will gladly post it here, possibly with the anchor text ‘Tight Fisted Profit Obsessed Dratsab’ 🙁 Any way, the rest of the prizes were very good, and from the ones I remembered to tap into my phone as we went along, we have a couple of mobile phones, quite a few massages (I am assuming they were of the reputable variety 😉 ), dance lessons, a couple of weekends at a hotel, a few restaurant cards (pre-paid with about $150 on them I think), body spa vouchers, quite a few pre-paid SIM cards with credit pre-applied to them, some month passes for a local gym, a return ticket to Almaty (for one person). In between the raffle sessions, we had a belly dancer. We did not win anything, but unlike the lottery or fruit machines, it was good to know our cash was going to a very worth cause.
Then came the main event (in terms of fund raising) – the auction. This was basically the realm of either foreigners on foreign wages, or Kazakhs who were lucky enough to have a job that paid Western wages. The bidders were very generous, paying more than the item was worth in each case. There was another weekend stay in a luxury hotel here in Astana, and also another return flight to Almaty. The hotel stay was won for 75,000 Tenge (around $575), and then immediately returned to be bid on again (basically a large charitable donation from the first winner), where it then raised a further 55,000 Tenge (around $420). We then had the deputy chairman of the Kazakh Paralympic Committee give a small speech, during which an outrageously rude American group at a table behind us talked loudly all through. If it hadn’t been a corporate event that involved people Irina knew from work, I’d have gladly quietly told the ignorant rude idiots to shut the hell up or take their inconsequential conversation outside. Anyway, the return flight to Almaty sold for 100,500 Tenge (around $775), I think this was also put back in the pot to be re-sold and raise more money for the charity, though I appear to have forgotten to record the second amount. Apologies. Nope, scratch that, I entered the details at the end of my notes. The second time round the ticket sold for 60,000 Tenge (~$460). The ticket was then put back into the auction AGAIN, and resold for a 3rd time, for 51,000 Tenge ($390). So the two auctions items managed to raise around $2600 just by themselves! Altogether, with entrance tickets, donations & raffle tickets also included, the evening raised around 800,000 Tenge ($6200). I will certainly be keeping an eye out on TV for any coverage the Kazakh Paralympic team get next year in Shanghai 🙂
Oh, and just for any hard core cynics out there, this is not a sponsored post, I just see this as being a worthy cause to promote.
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Jun 19 2007
Is It A Bird? Is It Superman? Nope – Its A Helicopter
Weekend just gone, when we had Lorsha, Walton et al over, they bought a new toy they picked up in China – a remote control helicopter!
I was completely unable to control it, other than flying up and down, whenever I tried to make it go in any other direction, it just seemed to spin round and around. Anyway, it was fun to have a go, and quite impressive just to watch it in the hands of more experienced pilots.
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May 14 2007
Chinese English Russian Translator
Ira’s Dad has returned from China, and we went to see him and mum-in-law this evening. As well a nice silk duvet, Igor (Lorsha’s Dad) bought me a little electronic translator.
The model is REC-3510V. Just as soon as I figure out how to change the MENU language from Chinese to English, it will be even easier to use 🙂 It has pretty large vocab, and reads out the words if you tell it to. I’ve played around with it a little, but until I know what I’m actually clicking on, it is a bit hit and miss.
If anyone out there has one of these, and can tell me how to change the interface language, I’d be really grateful. There is a manual for it, but the English section is a little shorter than the rest, and the instructions tell you to click a button to use English instead. However, you need to already be in a certain sub-menu for this to work…
By the way, no this isn’t a really convoluted sponsored post, I really would like some help 🙂
[edit]
OK, update on the situation, I’ve now figured out how to do it. For the purposes of any search engines ever finding this, and therefore hopefully helping other owners out, this is
How to change the language on a REC-3510V from Chinese to English or Russian
(without having to be able to read Chinese 😉 )
Turn Power on, if not at the root menu, click the ‘Return’ key (bottom left on keyboard) until you are.
Select the bottom right icon with the cursors, and press Enter
Press Enter again, to select the 1st item
Scroll down to item 5 (bottom of this particular screen) and press Enter
Select the 3rd option and Enter for English menus, or the 2nd option and Enter for Russian menus.
Thats it all done 🙂
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May 14 2007
Ira’s Dad Is Back From China :)
He was away in China on another business trip, but we’ve just heard he has returned safe and sound. We’ll be meeting up with him tomorrow evening to say a quick ‘hi’, and so he can say good bye before Irina leaves for Moscow (see two below this post).
Hopefully, he will have grabbed us a silk duvet over in China, as such items have had glowing reports from him and Ira’s mum. They have the same issues we have, except the genders are reversed… He gets cold without a lot of layers, she doesn’t like being over heated. According to them, the silk duvet seems like a good compromise – everyone ends up the right temperature!
(btw, no this isn’t a bizarre sponsored post to further the global sales of Chinese silk duvets 🙂 )
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