Stop Bad Errors

8 May 2008 Dan McGarry

I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 8.04, which comes with the most recent beta of Firefox 3.0. The new version of Firefox has a number of interesting features, not the least of which is a set of measures to reduce drive-by infection of PCs.

If they wander from the beaten path, people now see a big red sign warning them about so-called ‘Attack Sites’ – websites that are reported to have used various means to infect visiting systems with malicious software:

The graphic is fairly well done, but interestingly, there’s no obvious way to over-ride the warning and go to the site anyway. Not that one would want to, but it does raise the bar for circumventing this anti-rube device while raising questions about who gets to decide what’s bad and what’s good.

The ‘Get Me Out Of Here!’ button smacks of Flickr-style smarminess, sending (in my humble opinion) the wrong kind of message. Either be the police constable or be my buddy, but don’t try to be both. That’s just patronising.

I followed the second button to see how the situation would be explained to the curious. I was brought to a page providing a less-than-illuminating statement that the site in question had been reported to be infected by so-called ‘badware’.

The StopBadWare.org service tracks websites whose content has been compromised, deliberately or not, and provides data about these sites to the public in order to protect Internet users from drive-by infection. With sponsorship from Google, Lenovo, Sun, PayPal, VeriSign and others, the service is obviously viewed in the corporate community as a necessary and responsible answer to the issue of malware infection.

At the time of this writing, the Stop Badware databases listed over a quarter of a million websites as infected.

The report page itself was less than a stellar example of information presentation, especially about a security-related topic. In the top left corner is a colour-coded circle with three states:

	StopBadware testing has found badware behavior on this site.
	One or more StopBadware partners are reporting badware behavior on this site.
	No StopBadware partners are reporting badware behavior on this site.

So the difference between red and yellow here is not one of degree, it’s based on who reported it. Not only is this useless as a threat measurement, it sends the wrong message to people using the service, implying that there’s a distinction to be made between what Stop Badware finds out for themselves and what their partners find. By treating the sources differently, they’re inadvertently creating a distinction between gospel and rumour, implying that some sources are less reliable than others.

The report page for the domain in question is populated using the GET method, meaning that you can plug any domain name right into the address bar (if you know the URL components) and get a report on it. Unfortunately, it never occurred to the good people at Stop Badware that some might want to use this capability to check the status of an arbitrary domain. (Amusingly, this method also circumvents the captcha on the ‘official’ report page.)

When I checked the status of my own domain, I was informed that, in effect, I’d recently stopped beating my wife:

Google has removed the warning from this site.

It’s interesting when you’re faced with a sentence in which nearly every word is wrong. Google has removed the site? Where am I? Isn’t this Stop Badware? Removed the warning for this site? There never was one. And even if there was a warning at one point in time, people don’t need to be told that. This message is a bit like saying, ‘So-and-so is a great guy! He doesn’t drink at all any more.‘

I applaud the Stop Badware service and the concept, and I look forward to the day when someone actually does a bit of usability research for them.

P.S. Could we please do something about the term ‘badware’? It’s almost sickeningly patronising. Some might argue that terms like ‘virus’, ‘trojan’ and ‘malware’ are too arcane, but I say we should just pick one and stick with it, regardless of how accurate it actually is.

People know and (ab)use the term ‘virus’, so why don’t we get the geek-stick out of our lexical butt and just use it? It’s a virus. You’ve got a virus. Who cares what it is or how you got it. You got a virus and now your computer needs to be treated before you can use it safely again. Now, how hard was that?

Cargo Culture

2 May 2008 Dan McGarry2 Comments

The phrase ‘cargo cult’ is well known here in Vanuatu, and probably better understood than anywhere else in the world. Pop anthropologists, TV crews and trivia hounds love to belittle the ‘silly’ idea that performing the proper rituals will result in good things happening. They snicker at the uniformed, marching figures in Tanna, wondering what kind of person could believe such a simple tale.

The fact is, we are all, to some degree or other, members of a cargo culture.

Magical Thinking is the term applied to the kind of behaviour that assigns more importance to a sequence of events than to actual causation. We indulge in this kind of behaviour when we put on a ‘lucky’ shirt on important days, or avoid stepping on spiders for fear of bringing the rain. It’s in our daily horoscope and a significant number of expressions that we use everyday.

We use Magical Thinking when we touch wood, say ‘God bless’ to someone who sneezes, keep a rabbit’s foot on our key chain, or sing a certain song to ward off bad luck. We also use a certain degree of Magical Thinking when we smoke a cigarette, drink too much or practice unsafe sex. We assume that certain rituals can make good things happen or keep bad things at bay.

We also use a fair amount of magical thinking when we start our computers in the morning, when we make a phone call or send an email.

Paradise Dreams

26 April 2008 Dan McGarry

Over the last few years, investment in Vanuatu has boomed. It’s been estimated that the amount of cash in the economy is increasing by an astounding 150% per year. Compare that with the period between 1990 and 2004, when economic activity grew more slowly than the population.

But for most of the residents of this so-called paradise, little has changed.

Prices have increased somewhat, but curiously many of the more common expenses have not. Bus fares, for example, have not budged even though fuel prices have soared. Consequently, Vanuatu’s minimum wage has about the same buying power today as it had years ago.

That’s not entirely good news….

A National Plan

25 April 2008 Dan McGarry1 Comment

I have a confession to make. I’m a snob. At least, I am where technology is concerned. Okay, maybe I’m not the type to cross the street when I see someone with last year’s doohickey du jour. But I do notice when your smart phone looks (or acts) like a brick. I can tell at a glance whether your machine is a cutting edge screamer or the technological equivalent of East Germany’s Brabant automobile, legendary for its poor quality.

I like good engineering, good design and efficient performance. In short, I like things that do their job well, whatever that job may be. I like it so much that I hate to settle for less than the best. Not the biggest, necessarily, nor the most expensive. Just the best.

This focus on tools made me lose sight of a couple of important things: First, while doing things perfectly is a commendable ideal, it happens exactly 0% of the time in the real world. Second, Vanuatu is more, er, ‘real world’ than many other places on Earth.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a leftie when it comes to computing. I like to see as much power in the hands of the people as possible. While it’s nice – and often necessary – to rely on services provided by others, I’ve always believed that DIY is the most empowering way to go. So, when the news began to percolate out that Vanuatu would have truly national mobile phone services, I was interested mostly in how that might help the spread of computers into the islands.

What I didn’t consider is that the mobile might actually become the computer.
Read more “A National Plan”

The Soft Computer

17 April 2008 Dan McGarry1 Comment

Let’s forget about technology for a moment. Let’s quit thinking about contraptions that rattle more than they hum, often alarmingly. Let’s not talk about technology at all.

Let’s talk about people instead.

‘What a piece of work is a man!’ says Hamlet. ‘How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god!’

This speech has always puzzled me, because many of the human beings I know may qualify as a ‘piece of work’, but lack somewhat in the expressive, admirable, angelic and god-like categories. It only follows, therefore, that if humans are less than angelic in their actions, the things they do with technology might likewise be flawed.
Read more “The Soft Computer”

Fix This and Tell Me When You're Done

14 April 2008 Dan McGarry1 Comment

[First written in February of 2004. I’m reposting it here for posterity, and because it came up in conversation earlier today. There’ve been a few serious attacks against expats recently, including a murder and a particularly brutal rape. The perception among some is of a sudden uptick in violent crime. I recounted this story to suggest that plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.]

The attack happened last Monday in the afternoon. It didn’t last long, but it left her with a concussion and a broken collarbone.

She was in her apartment, had been for a little while. She settled herself down at her laptop to write up some workshop notes. She heard a noise from the front bedroom, empty now because her friend had left precipitately after no one listened to her fears. She stood, not sure whether to investigate or flee. A man appeared in the doorway, and knocked her down hard as she started to scream. The broken bone immobilised her, so all she could do was scream as loud as she could. Her assailant fled within seconds.

And nobody came.
Read more “Fix This and Tell Me When You're Done”

Au Péché Mignon

14 April 2008 Dan McGarry1 Comment

[Editor’s note: The author was afflicted at the time of writing with a pinched radial nerve, which has led to chronic pain in his right hand. As a result, he has left off his normal florid prose to write in the concise ‘telegraphic prose’ of the young Earnest Hemingway. We apologise for the inconvenience.]

[Editor’s other note: Originally posted in October, 2005. Copied to the Scriptorum because the author [sic] thinks it’s worth keeping.]

The café is a clean, well shaded place. The kind of place a man appreciates once he’s lived long enough to appreciate good, honest coffee. The kind of coffee picked by hand by the good, honest people of Tanna.

The cafe is named Au Péché Mignon. The man likes to call it the little sin. The kind of sin worth living for. The kind of sin people forget about when they are searching for something to die for. It is a good sin, the little sin. An honest sin.

The waitresses are both named Marie. They stand together at the end of their shift, waiting for the man to leave. Their dark faces take on a copper hue as the sun sets over the bay.

Marie, the younger one, says, ‘There he is. Just like yesterday.’

‘And every day,’ says Marie, the older one.

Uncommon Sense

10 April 2008 Dan McGarry1 Comment

Throughout history, the distance between technology and society has been a defining characteristic of nations, empires and peoples. While it’s tempting to say that the most technologically sophisticated societies represent the pinnacle of human achievement, that’s not necessarily true. Some would argue that keeping social values paramount and learning how to adapt technology to human needs is a more effective means to ensure the health of a society.

Unfortunately, health, happiness and social justice can’t always be judged using objective economic measures. How does one measure crimes that don’t happen, meals that don’t get missed, sick days not taken?

Economic indicators do serve a number of useful purposes, of course. The Pacific Economic Survey – I wrote about it here – includes some extremely useful and instructive data concerning the effects of market liberalisation on communications. It also pointed out some inherent weaknesses in Vanuatu and elsewhere in the region, particularly with regards to technical know-how.

People in Vanuatu could teach many an economist a thing or two about what makes for a meaningful and contented life. But isolation is part of what has made life in Vanuatu simpler and more relaxed, and as that isolation erodes, we find ourselves facing significant technical challenges, some of which have a steep learning curve.

The small group of individuals who have taken leadership in opening the telecommunications market in Vanuatu have been remarkably successful thus far. People close to the process agree that the settlement agreement and the new licenses are extremely well framed. They have learned by the example of those countries who went before, and have created a comprehensive and detailed framework with very little ambiguity. This allows Digicel, Telecom Vanuatu and future entrants to focus on doing business rather than bogging themselves down in legalese, negotiation and other distractions.

But there remains much to be decided, and much to be done:

The Pacific Economic Survey

3 April 2008 Dan McGarry1 Comment

Earlier this week, Australia unveiled the Pacific Economic Survey here in Port Vila. Present for the event was a delegation from all around the Pacific Region, including Melanesia and Polynesia as well as senior politicians from Australia. AUSAid’s chief economist was also there to present the findings.

The report is the first of a series of annual surveys that will provide an overview and update of economic developments in the Pacific island region and Timor-Leste. It collates and summarises public data on various aspects of the region’s national economies, performs some comparative and collective analysis with the results, then provides a few basic recommendations.

The theme for this year’s report was Connectivity. The survey focuses on aviation, shipping and telecommunications. It argues that liberalisation, more input from the private sector, and a cooperative regional approach to the problems inherent in improving connectivity are keys to improving Pacific economies.

The findings in the area of telecommunications do much to validate the Government of Vanuatu’s market liberalisation strategy and provide every encouragement to expand upon them. It addresses some potential pitfalls that might be encountered, primarily where access to technical expertise is concerned. And that is where it risks missing the boat.

Read more “The Pacific Economic Survey”