stargeek
A Rogue By Any Other Name Still StinksA Rogue By Any Other Name Still StinksA Rogue By Any Other Name Still Stinks 11/04/2003 12:52 AM A rogue access point on a company that takes its wireless LAN security seriously still painful to detect: You can see how even with a strong set of policies, it's easy for an employee to subvert them. You might understand now why some companies have strict bag searches for employees entering and leaving the building. Those of you who saw the Al Pacino movie The Recruit will remember that one of the most plausible technology plot points involved a hidden USB hard drive. (Of course, CIA computers probably have their USB drives sealed and USB drivers set to restrict access, but you never know.) One of the factors that makes rogue wireless access points difficult to cope with is that local wired networks are often security free. This is changing, of course, with the rise of VLANs and secure fileserver mounting. The Recruit 2: Revenge of the Nerds will obviously feature someone with a micro-Wi-Fi-antenna.... This is a GrokNews Entry: (what is grok?)A Rogue By Any Other Name Still StinksGrok Headline matches for A Rogue By Any Other Name Still StinksYour Credit StinksYour Credit Stinks 05/25/2004 01:23 PM Common credit conundrums that make lenders say, "No thank you." Technology That Stinks... AgainTechnology That Stinks... Again 04/18/2005 04:16 AM What is it with companies coming out with products that have been tried and failed many times before, suddenly announcing that they're doing something innovative? Do they really do no research on the history of such products? Someone anonymously submitted a Business Week story about yet another company working on a product to add smells to the internet and video games. The Business Week reporter doesn't note the history of similar products, such as DigiScent s that hit the market in the bubble years and went out of business rather quickly when it turned out people really didn't want to buy an extra device to smell things online (even if Wired Magazine did once predict it would be the next web revolution). Of course, the real innovator in this space was the early web design firm Agency.com who, in the mid-90s, created the spoof site for RealAroma, making fun of RealAudio. If they were smart, they would have patented the idea, and used it to sue all these other copycats. Of course, you could go back even further to attempts like aroma-rama and smell-o-vision to learn of other attempts/spoofs at adding smell to entertainment. What's scary, though, is just how much these "real" iSmell companies seem to just be copying the idea cooked up as a spoof. Notes and Tips: Buddylinks StinksNotes and Tips: Buddylinks Stinks 02/12/2004 11:28 AM Even though this slimeware runs on Windows, it may hit your Mac with ad garbage via instant messaging. Dead Squirrel Stinks Up Courthouse (AP)Dead Squirrel Stinks Up Courthouse (AP) 07/29/2004 04:52 PM AP - Those in charge of blind justice have been holding their noses at the Tippecanoe County Courthouse. 'Grossology' Museum Exhibit Burps,
|
 Some articles have a long shelf life. Case in point: This BusinessWeek cover story from four years ago called Why Service Stinks. Bottom line is that, like everything else in the US, and to a lesser (but growing) extent elsewhere in the West, your value as a consumer (and as a citizen) is a direct function of your wealth and your propensity to spend it. So if the computer of the person who's serving you says you're the buying rep for a ten billion dollar company, believe you're going to get great service. But it that computer says you've only bought one thing from them before, and it required service under warranty: "Sorry, we seem to have a bad connection." *click* This is part of a larger malaise that tries to make us believe, for the benefit of the corporatist aristocracy that owns and runs more of our lives every day, that we are only what we buy. If it's easier for you to buy a replacement for the shoddy item you bought, than to return it or get it fixed, then if you can afford to do so you'll replace it. The vendor will therefore make sure it's easier to buy new than repair or return it under warranty. And if you can't afford to buy a new one, the vendor doesn't want to know you. Companies know just how good a customer you are--and unless you're a high roller, they would rather lose you than take the time to fix your problem, says BusinessWeek. They explain how companies allocate service reps according to the amount of business they get from each customer group (which is why, for example, corporate Dell customers are routed to one 'help line' while 'retail and home' customers get the Indian help line). They call this practice of triaging customers by wealth and spending habits corporate apartheid and that's a perfect analogy for it. The world in which corporate aristocrats live today is increasingly separated from all contact with the masses: Private chauffeurs, private rooms in private clubs and restaurants, private schools, private jets (and Elite Class perks when they're forced to travel on the same planes as menials), private rooms in private health care facilities. The people who live in this bubble of fawning privilege have no idea what life in the real world is like: they never see it, and they never have to deal with it. This remains my #1 concern with the concept of The Support Economy (though its author, Ms. Zuboff, was gracious in trying to refute this concern in personal correspondence with me): That only the very wealthy few will be able to afford it. The BusinessWeek article shows that the customer experience is a function of wealth and spending no matter what industry is supplying the product or service: financial institutions, brokerage houses, retailers, machinery manufacturers, phone companies, airlines, insurance companies, you name it. It's no accident that the code for spending volume on many computerized customer information systems is called Status or Class or Value. A Maytag exec sees nothing wrong with this. People who buy top-of-the-line "not only want more service, they deserve it", he says. If he had been referring to a racial class rather than an economic one, such a remark would provoke outrage. BusinessWeek foresees a future in which "the service divide may become much more transparent. The trade-off between price and service could be explicit, and customers will be able to choose where they want to fall on that continuum. In essence, customer service will become just another product for sale." So the discrimination will depend not on your wealth or past spending volume, but on what you're willing to pay now for 'superior' service, or to jump the queue. Is that fairer? Do we all deserve the same level of service, or should service depend on what you can afford? Where do you draw the line? In Canada, we (most of us, anyway) consider the idea of the rich jumping the queue for critical medical services to be morally repugnant, but in the US this is accepted as natural, just 'the way things are'. So much for "give me your huddled masses". I remember a few years ago I was waiting in a long customs and immigration line-up in a sweltering third-world airport terminal at 1 a.m. chatting with the son of the British High Commissioner to that country who'd come in on the same flight. Suddenly, a boy came rushing up to me, asked my name, and then said "Give me your passport." When I looked alarmed, he pointed to a mezzanine gallery where the friend who was meeting me on my arrival was waving and nodding. The boy took my hand, walked me to the front of the long line, whispered in the ear of the customs agent, and I was whisked through, no questions asked, and into my friend's waiting car. "In this country, it's who you know, not how much money you have, that counts", she said. I was embarrassed and astonished. But is this any worse than the system that rushes first-class airplane passengers in many cities through shorter, less confrontational customs and immigration line-ups? Call me naive, and idealistic, but all kinds of apartheid offend me. The wealthy and the connected don't deserve any better service than the rest of us. To the corporations that believe that service should depend on what the customer's 'worth', and the rest should either self-serve or go away, my response is: Welcome to my Boycott List. Good-bye. |
After I first read the story, I was amused, and put it aside to blog here. In transcribing the story for this entry, though, I'm struck by the odd inconcinnity of this account with my own experience. The Deputy Chief's story sounds very little like what happened to me.Link (Thanks, AKMA)* The mysterious "tapper" was leaning against the rear of the Atheneum; I was sitting on a public benchbeside the Atheneum.
* The newspaper story says that this incident gave rise to a "rumor" that "the police considered outdoor users. . . to be engaged in a theft of services," but in fact that's exactly what the officer who rousted me told me.
* The story says that this took place "a month ago," but if the article was published last week (when the weekly paper would have had to go to press in order for it to get to my mom, who then clipped it and mailed it to me), the incident couldn't have taken place longer ago than two weeks, give or take a day.
Okay, so Nokia just dropped three phones onto us,
and they're pretty crazy, and by 'crazy' I mean 'sort of ugly.' I have
to cop to sort of liking the Tron-style and the asymetrical design -
the one round corner, one square corner 'new Nokia' look - but I have
a feeling I'll be in the minority. Would it kill them to just release
a nice, silver phone that you could take home to mom?
Anyway, here's the breakdown, and I'll probably go after this post in a couple of waves. The one pictured here is the Nokia 7280, which you might notice doesn't have a keypad. That's because Nokia designed it to be "sleek," "sexy," and "edgy." (I'm not joking.)
Read - Press Release [Nokia]
More pictures of the new phones and links after the jump.
Nokia rarely announces just one product at a time,
and today was no exception. In addition to that Remote Camera, they
also have revealed the Nokia 6670, a tri-band phone (in both US and
Everybody Else tunings), that looks a lot like a 7610 without the
strange keypad and the gussied up case. Instead the 6670 is a fairly
plain looking model - although appealing, in its way, as long as you
don't mind the New Era Nokia asymmetric styling - that runs Series 60
and has a one-megapixel camera.
Nokia's plan is all starting to make a lot more sense to me now. Release the eye-catching, weirdo phones first, then release a follow up model that people with actually buy. I don't understand why that's their plan, but that seems to be it.
Read - Press Package Page [Nokia]
Related
Nokia Archives
[Gizmodo]
And last but not least (if you're reading from the
bottom up; otherwise, welcome to the Nokia posts!) are these two new
peripherals from Nokia, a new Nokia Wireless Headset HS-11W headset
with a 6 hour talk time, and this Nokia Wireless GPS Module LD-1W that
also connects to your phone or PDA via Bluetooth (the GPS may not
actually be new - it seems sort of familiar - but I don't exactly
recall hearing about it before). The GPS unit uses the same battery
and charge plug as most Nokia phones, so you can use your existing
charge to go along with it.
The headset should be out later this year, while the GPS unit isn't scheduled until Q1 2005.
Read -
Headset Product Page [Nokia]
Read -
GPS Product Page [Nokia]
Related
Nokia Archives
[Gizmodo]
Nokia is now shipping their
6680 "3G Imaging Smartphone" which they introduced last month. The 6680 has two integrated 1.3 MP
cameras which will allow for easy two-way video calls and a flash.
PictBridge allows you to send your pictures directly to your printer
via Bluetooth, a USB cable or the included memory card. It's a 3G/EDGE
GSM phone and will cost around €500 without a contract. It's also only
available in Europe for now.
Product Page [Nokia via MobileBurn]
Nokia has updated their blogging software for
Series 60 phones, "Lifeblog," to version 1.5. Improvements include the
ability to back up you data to a CD or DVD (using your PC, of course,
not your phone) and an improved interface for looking through your
content and making edits.
Technically Lifeblog is a Euro-only application, although there's likely nothing stopping you from using the software, if you can find a way to purchase it. The upgrade is free for existing users.
Lifeblog Extras [Nokia]
From Christian Lindholm who is in charge of Lifeb log at Nokia:
Yay! Comment - TrackBackChristianLindholm.comLifeblog will blog to TypePad - some reflectionsOur team today announced that we are partnering with Six Apart to make TypePad the preferred destination when you blog from Lifeblog.
Nokia has released a free
beta version of its LifeBlog software for download, new software
designed for quickly adding pictures, text, and movies to your own
personal blog. While they say it "works best with the Nokia 7610
phone" (sadly, not yet available in the US), there is an outside
change it might work with another phone -- they list the Nokia 6630,
specifically. If any of our European readers have already gotten a
hold of a 7610 or 6630 and want to write up their a quick
review/preview of the LifeBlog software, we certainly would be happy
to read it.
Read -
Product Page [Nokia via GadgetMadness]
Related
Nokia's 1 Megapixel 7610 Shipping
(Everywhere But Here) [Gizmodo]
Nokia announced their 1600 and 1110
models, meant to be affordable, easy-to-use and light on frills. Nokia
is targeting developing nations with these models and they look well
enough to suit their purpose as part of a plan to eventually offer
mobile service for just $5 a month. They both feature talk times of
over 5 hours and the Nokia 1600 has a 65k color screen while the Nokia
1110 uses a sunlight-friendly inverted black and white display.
They're expected to retail for $105 and $85, respectively, and will be
available later this year.
Press Release [Nokia via I4U]
Christian Lindholm of Nokia shares some great shortcuts for the Nokia series 60.
nokia.com/nokia/0,8764,58565,00.html
track this
site | 4 links
The following phrases have been identified by the grok system as matching this entry: phonedirector coupon entourage 2004 detect "domain controller" lifeblog nokia 6670 ical "programming nokia 6010" eap peap breakdown chart phonedirector coupon nokia microsoft ias captive portal sync entourage nokia 6680 rogue squadron iii shortcuts phonedirector disappointed