Bend in the Weather

On Tuesday, Internode announced that they are now mirroring Sourceforge.

This is fantastic news for all OSS lovers down here in Australia.

Whilst we have had the up and down again service from Optus for some time, it's great to have an alternative. (Having said that - I don't see Optus being offered on Sourceforge any more? Has Optus mirroring disappeared again?)

Even better, customers of Internode will actually get those downloads for free now. (Whilst I don't download Gb's of data each month of Sourceforge, I do grab things regularly off it! -- and every little bit helps.) More importantly, having a speedy mirror to grab code off is what counts.

It's great to see Internode -- a company that uses a lot of OSS software in their service delivery give back to the community that makes it happen.

Their range of free mirrored content is quite appealing. They run their own download mirror site and for a Linux lover there is a huge selection of distros, and updates mirrored. Even better it supports rsync so you can grab your updates quickly and easily! Add to it, now Sourceforge and MajorGeeks (for Windows software lovers). I regularly make use of their free streaming radio content. They have stuff also for gamers (who's got the time ?! ) as well as some other content. You can take a peep here.

The Sourceforge content is hosted here: http://internode.dl.sourceforge.net/ but you'll need to use the Sourceforge website to pick a download, then select Adelaide, Australia from the list of download options. (The direct link to the Internode mirror isn't browsable).


After reviewing this post, it does sound like an advert for Internode!
Having said that, I've used a bunch of ISPs over the years, and I haven't been happier than I am now with Internode.

The service is always faultless, 13-NODE (Tech support) is answered always promptly by someone who actually understands technical details (and not a messenger service for a tech team).
I've even had technical staff diagnose and fix routing issues whilst I've been on the phone with them!

So if you're in the market for a new ISP, give them a go. Sure, they aren't the cheapest ISP going around, but they are probably the best technical ISP and have some real added bonuses for OSS fans.

Tip: For those that do wish to sign up with Internode, one way to pickup an ongoing discount of 15% is to register as a SAGE-AU member. Get the benefits of being a SAGE-AU member -- and cheaper Internet access. (You will need a valid SAGE-AU membership number to be entitled to the discount).
For me, the cost of the SAGE-AU membership is less than the discount.. so I come out ahead!

High speed Internet is not a luxury in the modern life anymore. It is becoming a mandatory requirement for business, education and the delivery of entertainment/information to households.

Only this week the Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced a tender bid process to "enable world-class, high-speed broadband for all Australians". This $4.7 billion dollar deal is expected to deliver FFTN access across the country to some 98% of the population.

The week prior Conroy laid the boots into the ill-fated WiMax based OPEL deal that was setup under the Liberal regime. The dumping of the $958 million wireless deal is likely to see that money moved into the FTTN deal.

I don't disagree with the dumping of the WiMax deal, as questions about it's reported effectiveness have been raised globally.

The $4.7b National Broadband Network tender is expected to deliver minimum download speeds of 12Mbps (no talk of upstream data rates) to 98% of Australian homes and businesses and should be rolled out and made operational progressively over five years using FTTN or FTTP technology.

Is this FTTx deal going to cut it?

Australian ISPs generally set download quotas for their ISP plans. (some like BigPond also set upload quotas as well!)

The main rationale of this is mainly due to the fact most traffic is international traffic (US, Europe, Asia, etc), and as such ISPs need to purchase international bandwidth from private companies. These costs need to be limited and are therefore passed down to the consumer.

For users that go over their allocated and paid quota there normally are some really nasty side-effects:

• Rate limiting to ~64kbps. Making the connection only a slightly more bareable than dial-up.
  
• Excess charges, which can quickly add up on some plans.

As such, Aussie Internet users have trained themselves to avoid such pain; by always keeping an eye on their Internet Usage. ISPs provide a Usage Meter normally found on their website. However this can be tedious and means every time you need to check your usage you need to login to the ISP website; that's if you remember!

Unfortunately, with large speeds under xDSL available these days, it's quite easy to chew through your usage quite quickly.

An easy way to avoid such problems is to install a Firefox extension called NetUsage. As the name implies, it keeps track of your Internet Usage.

Unlike other tools that track Internet Usage, it doesn't rely on SNMP from your router or count bytes in your browser, it actually reads your ISP usage meter and parses the information into a nice graphical representation.

This is accomplished either by screen-scraping the ISP usage website or via an XML usage data feed (preferred); if provided by your ISP - many do these days).



It's quite clever too, and will cater for plans that have peak/off-peak periods. One feature I find useful is that at a glance I can tell if I'm over quota for the time period in the month.

A quick hover over the widget and I can actually see a great breakdown of the usage, how much per day I'm able to download until the end of the period (and remain under quota).


The application is well supported, and support is generally offered via a Whirlpool forum thread. ^critter the author responds quickly and bugs and quirks are quickly jumped on.

If you're not in Australia, don't fret! NetUsage does support some non-Australian ISPs.
If your ISP isn't currently covered you can provide the developer details of your ISPs XML usage data feed and he'll happily add it.

Better yet, it's cross platform and will run under Mac, Windows and Linux flawlessly.
Current releases also support the latest Firefox 3 betas (as well as the current Firefox 2 of course).

Configuration couldn't be simpler! Right click on the graph, then select the preferences menu option.
As you can see there is a tonne of Australian ISPs catered for our of the box.



So if you want to keep on top of your usage, give NetUsage a go!
Those that want to get their hands dirty with the code, it's available via a SVN repository at: http://netusage.iau5.com/svn/

We all love taking the piss outta Telstra.

Though they do make the job easy on us...

These two YouTube videos sum it up well.


Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/v/Py6kF7761Eg


Video 2: http://www.youtube.com/v/Vfz7yTqF6aE

Our Billion 7300G has been on it's last legs for a while.

It slowly been dying a slow and painful death for anyone that came in contact with it. 

Slowly but surely most of it's functionality was dying.

• The wireless AP would drop a wireless client that hadn't sent any data for more than 5 minutes.  The only way to avoid that was to login a remote SSH session and use the keep-alive option.
• Transfers across Wireless that went longer than 10 minutes would hang the modem.  (Not really good when ya trying to do a dist-upgrade!)
• Any form of P2P would lock the thing up after about 20 minutes


• Whenever the unit had it's firmware upgraded (often) you would need to manually reenter all the configuration, you couldn't 'restore' anything without fear of it stuffing up!
• Over the past week it's decided that I need to be restart approximately every 7 hours as it would overheat.  You would need to leave the thing down for about 30 minutes before it became usable again!
  

The total lockup every 7 hours was the final straw...

I should have realized something was up by the comments on the Billion Support website, and the amount of firmware upgrades the thing required.  (1.35 and at RC48 and counting!)
Many people complained about the wireless issues, but they were told by support, 'do this, do that', yet nothing really resulting in fixing it.

Lock-ups were also common, and it was known to have problems with many VOIP providers as well as fail miserably at P2P.

Really, in the end there wasn't much good you could say of the modem.

---

I had a whinge to David Gillies, who mentioned he's been extremely happy with his NetGear DG834G.

We all see it...whether we like to or not.
Those silly adult related content across many sites and things we don't want our little kiddies to see.
Content classified 'R' and voilent/cruel acts could also be put into this category.

At first impressions the current 3-month trial for mandatory Internet filters being undertaken in Tasmania appears to be a good thing.  Scratch the surface though and it's as sinister as the adult content you're attempting to stop.


Why do I say that?  Isn't protecting our children something we should do?  Most certainly!  Then just what is the problem then?

Read further of what is being proposed.  Not only are they looking at filtering the web traffic you view but also intercepting each and every Email message you send/receive.

Yup -- buried deep in the trial and not something widely published is the fact that every Email you send/recieve will be intercepted, read and potentially blocked. 
I'm not sure about you...  but whilst I don't make bombs, plan terrorist take-overs or think of mass killings.... I do enjoy my privacy.  This will certainly be taken away.

I will be sending all personal Email if it becomes effective Australia-wide via PGP.  For those that want to Email me, you'll need to have appropriate PGP software.   For Windows -- you'll find some here for free.  PGP basically encrypts your Email so it can't be read by middle-men.. such as this filter.  It can only be read by the person sending and the person receiving it.

The very liberal Anti-Terrorist laws are already inplace to tap 'communications'.  And email is one other form.   It's likely to slide under the guise of Internet filtering and backed legally by these Anti-Terrorist laws.  Sly but effective.  Our government already monitors SMS messages and telephone calls and has been wanting Email tapping for years.  It appears they well may get it. 

Many groups have spoken out about the filtering and I suspect until wider attention is brought to the issue it will go largely unnoticed.  Groups such as ALIA and EFA are commencing campaigns against it.  Individuals are also taking up the challenge. (Reference 1, Reference 2)

What's worse.. the group given the task Internet Sheriff Technology.  EFA has already reviewed their performance and it's less than flattering!

We've gotten here by the phrase: "93% of parents back tough Net porn laws" based on a Newspoll..  Notce it refers to laws not censorship! The phrase is misleading... people aren't asking for censorship but laws to procesute those that undertake it.
Unfortunately it's this same catch phrase that Tasmanian pollies and both Federal political parties have pinned to their chest.   You can bet your bottom dollar it's the same conclusion that Internet Sheriff are pushing down the state and federal goverments throat.  Interestingly enough they have forgotten about the poll that shows 92% oppose government censorship of the Internet! 

"Fewer than 8% of Australian Internet users believe there should be government censorship of the Internet.
60% think that parents alone should take responsibility.
And 30% don't think that anyone should censor the Net."

It's becoming a political question now.. with Labour pushing their policy and it appears the Liberal party are following suit..  Read on what the EFA think of Labours policy.

Let's remind our Senator Coonan of the statement she made in Dec 2004:

"The government did consider mandatory filtering some years ago and reviewed this recently... It found, on closer examination, that mandatory filtering would be highly problematic. It would have the potential to simply choke the Internet and drive up costs unacceptably for consumers and small businesses without necessarily solving the problems of offensive content.
... simple filters are easily outsmarted by merchants of offensive content and that the kind of complex technologies needed to analyse every single item being downloaded were not considered feasible in our review. The review also estimated that the cost of this sort of filtering would be $45 million a year to begin with, falling to more than $33 million a year on an ongoing basis. The biggest issue - it is not so much the money - is that such an expensive scheme would not necessarily solve the problem and small to medium ISPs would simply be driven out of business for little or no benefit. What does work is greater information and parental supervision, and those are the kind of programs that the government is promoting with the $30 million"

And that's the point.     Parents shouldn't be dumping their children down on the PC connected to the Internet unsupervised.  You wouldn't allow your child full control of your Pay-TV and then blame the operator that your child watched the Adult channel.  Why do it with the Internet?

The policy reeks of censorship and for a nation that will freely critise China for such a policy (and they have implemented the same policy -- stating the same reasons!)  Such a proposal for Australia is not new -- take a look at the timeline of such proposals.  Even the Human Rights Watch has picked up the draconian laws our governments are wanting to pass.

Interestingly enough the problem not only occurs in Australia (the blatent porn and inappropriate material).   In the US their are dedicated Christian ISPs that offer as an option block software.  It is run on the end computer ensuring the performance of the network isn't taken down by server-side processing.
Crosswayisp is one such ISP in the US.

Read their comments on why they don't use server-side filtering:

"We are often asked: why don't you provide server side filtering, I thought that is what Christian ISP services do? The short answer is that we believe in individual responsibility. For to long parents have allowed the television to be their surrogate parent, trusting those who promised to be responsible and police themselves. We know what the result of that has been. As a result, our Christian ISP promotes individual responsibility and parental control by providing PC-side filtering. We do not believe Christians should abandon their responsibility to monitor themselves or their children when using the Internet. No filtering system, either client side or PC side, is 100 percent effective. This lures parents who depend on server side filtering into a false sense of security and endangers children as a result."

Client side filtering (running it on your own computer) is much more affective and gives control back to the parent.  If allows you to bypass it when needed.

Most of these software products use keywords to block content.  It breaks down when:

• Looking up medical phrases or medical research that refers to parts of the body.
• You need to visit Sussex Inletin in NSW, MiddleSex University, etc.
  
• Security research into terrorism, voilence  and  other 'blocked content' such as domestic voilence.
• Try to read many family and health related sites -- including government sites are often blocked.  This includes Mens and Womens Health sites.
  
• Study of items like Anthrax, Plague and other bio-hazards.
• Study of computer security research into viruses, worms and trojans.
  

Sure -- these are all potential items you don't want your children reading... but using a client side filter will allow you to control what can and can't be viewed and when.  Placing the control of these aspects into the hands of a government agency or a commercial entity serves to censor your online experience and the information available to you.

I suggest you all read up on the topic and become involved....as the loss of civil liberties may become a way of life.


For those of you looking at protecting your children... look at installing an  internet filter.  You may also purchase Internet filter software if you like.  A review of such software is here. If you wish to hear from parent using software.... take a read of product reviews here. I would recommend looking at something like NOAMI or WE-Blocker if you want a free product.  The beauty of these software products is they run at your end putting you in control.

The Australian Federal Government wants to snoop on their citizens.

According to recent reports, it appears the government wants to be able to undertake line-taps, read Email and SMS messages of innocent people.

Should you be worried?   Very much!

These laws are passing today - and are unlikely to raise a whimper.  It will be interesting to see how much mainstream coverage it will generate.

The Greens and Democrats will oppose the bill, however nothing has been heard on the Labour front.

So what exactly does the bill provide both the AFP and ASIO?

• Ability to read SMS messages
• Ability to place a tap on a telephone line
• Ability to read Email messages
• AFP can 'monitor' for up to 45 days.
• ASIO can 'monitor' for up to 3 months
  

So this you would imagine would be for organised crime or hardened criminals under a close watch?     Not at all....  basically any innocent person who might lead them to a suspect.

Notice the word 'might'?   I might win the lottery, I might be the next prime minister.  
All AFP and ASIO officers need to do is 'judge shop' until they get one judge that is soft on ordering such warrents and they are home.

Australia already has the highest rate of line-taps in the world.  We even spy on our citizens much more than the US (who are always under constant attack for such breach of civil liberties).  The figure is staggering....  as we spy on our citizens upto 26 times more than the US!

I'm sick of everything falling under the 'terrorist' label to allow such agencies the free reign the so greedily want.   What's worse is our pollies fall for it hook, line and sinker.

I don't like the idea of terrorists any more than the next bloke, though I do believe that a person is innocent until proven guilty.    The threat from terrorists has always been here -- it's no less or greater since 9/11 -- no matter what the US and Australian governments beat their chest about.

These groups also work in code and hidden messages...   so such laws don't provide any asistance anyway.
Whilst you can do little about line taps, and SMS reading (unless you use take on your own coded message format! )  you can actually do something about your Email being read.

PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encrypts Email you send, allowing it only to be read by the intended person.  You can download free PGP programs that automate the process and can encrypt your Email from within Outlook at other similar Email clients.

I recommend you all look seriously at using such tools.

Some things in life are free! My ISP (Westnet) often has giveaways... the month of October was an iPod Nano, whilst November saw a bunch of giveaways. Seems I was one of the lucky November winners! We picked up a free copy of Anastacia's latest album - Pieces of a Dream. I was already very happy with my ISP, and this just tops it off!

If you've ever needed to give a reasonably large file to someone (say greater than 20MB) it's likely you've run into problems if you attempt to transfer it via Email.
Part of the reason is the majority if not all ISPs limit the size of Email attachments to around either 10-20MB. This avoids abuse and spammers sending large files and grinding the Email system to a halt. However... for legitimate transfers it's a real pain.


You could use a P2P program to transfer the file however it requires interaction from both parties and normally means both parties need to be there at the same time... it can also be quite complex and confusing for new users to get going, particularly as often these applications need firewall modifications... and worse if attempted in a business that are unlikely to allow such changes.

So what's the answer?
Why not use something every modern computer at home and in the office has. Something we all use almost daily and the basis for most people's activities on a computer.

That's right... a browser!

The wonderful people at YouSendIt have created a free service where you can upload a large file (all the way upto 1GB in size if needed!), and then Email the person you wish to pick it up.

The recipient will get an Email with a link to your file... it couldn't be simplier.

They will even scan the file for viruses. (How's that for nice guys!)

So next time you're needing to send that whopping big attachment consider using it.
Your friends still on dial-up with thankyou! (There's nothing worse that having one Email clog your machine for an hour as it downloads an Email that was non-urgent!).

Have fun and enjoy 'YouSendingIt!'

It's going to be a rough few months ahead of us all with ADSL. Many will find that they will have disconnections for a period of time over the next few months.

The reason is Telstra is upgrading all their current ADSL1 hardware (DSLAMs) up to ADSL2+.

This is actually a GoodThing^(tm). ADSL1 is capable of speeds of up to 8Mbit down and 1Mbit upload (though Telstra restricted it to 1.5Mbit down and 256Mbit upload). ADSL2+ provides speeds up to 24Mbit down and 1Mbit upload; resulting in faster speeds for us all.

In order to do these upgrades Telstra has to go to every exchange and physically upgrade the software and sometimes the hardware on the DSLAM. This means a disconnection from the network. You can check if you have an upcoming (or current) outage by visiting this web page.

Normally, your ADSL connection will bounce back after the upgrade. However some ports (where you physically connect to the exchange) may not come back cleanly. If this is the case your ADSL connection won't be established and is in a state of 'limbo'. You may even find that whilst your ADSL and PPP lights on your ADSL router are solid, that you cannot get any connectivity to the Internet.

You can do two things:

1. Ring your ISP and request a 'line reset' be undertaken by Telstra... this can take some time to be actioned.
   
2. You can manually reset the line yourself.

How do you reset your line yourself?

It's quite easy. The ADSL exchanges run an automated robot that will check every line each hour. If there is no connection on the line the port is reset. You can force the robot to detect you have a problem and it will do the line reset for you.

To do this... it's quite simple.

1. Turn off your ADSL router.
2. Unplug the modem physically from the phone line. (Take the plug out).
3. Leave it di