Author: Dan McGarry

Inter-Islandism

Dan McGarry

Vila is quiet. The hospital gates are locked and guarded. There are about twenty officers lounging outside the police station. Most businesses are closed and the remainder are nearly deserted. Every passing group is scrutinised quietly.

Most of my family stayed with me last night, five of them in my house and about eight more in the storage shed across the yard. None of us wandered far, electing instead to fill up a plastic jug with kava and sit in my house watching movies.

To anyone not attuned to life in Vanuatu, things would appear perfectly normal, if a little cosy. Kids were being kids, the women prepared supper and chatted amongst themselves. A few of the men wandered off into the night, but most hid under the eaves, joking quietly and looking off into the rain.

The story goes like this: A Tannese woman died, apparently poisoned by her husband and his brother. The person who supplied the poison was a practitioner of nakaimas from Ambrym. Whether he was coerced or paid depends on who is telling the story.

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Gates vs Shuttleworth

Dan McGarry

Some childish name-calling recently erupted on a forum that I frequent, which resulted in a philanthropy pissing contest. Some people said Bill Gates is saving lives through his generousity; some said Mark Shuttleworth is building futures.

Some were silly enough to suggest that Ubuntu is just a bunch of geeks getting their rocks off playing with their tech toys.

I replied:

I work in development, in a country that’s internationally known as a malaria hotspot. Several people I know are employed by Gates Foundation money, and everyone here agrees that this is a Good Thing. But there’s a limit to how much good this kind of thing can do.

One friend of mine once politely mentioned to a Gates Foundation researcher that we don’t really need to know much more about malaria in this country. All we really need is trained and equipped medical staff within a day’s walk of every man, woman and child. Malaria isn’t a terribly dangerous disease if it’s treated properly. I’ve had it myself, by the way, so I know whereof I speak.

The big problem in disease prevention around the world is an almost unbelievable shortage of health workers and medicines. Very little is being done to address these fundamental issues. Here’s an interesting series of facts:

  • Number of new doctors sub-Saharan Africa would need for its per-capita number to match America’s: 3,900,000
  • Number of new doctors produced by sub-Saharan Africa’s universities each year: 4,000

(Source: Harper’s Index.)

Again, I respect the work being done by the Gates Foundation, and I’ve seen its benefits with my own eyes. But to assume that those people working to try and improve education and communications are not involved in something equally vital is a little silly. In fact, it smacks of a holier-than-thou attitude that tends to tarnish most donor-driven projects, and often results in people chasing sexy aid projects at the expense of boring things like making sure that the local nurse has enough pills for everyone, and can order more when he needs them.

Web Standards – A Rant

Dan McGarry

It’s very common on Slashdot and other, er, technical fora, to see people make assertions like the following:

“IE extensions [of existing standards] have proven to be a very good thing for the web overall. It has always been IE that has pushed the limits of dynamic web pages through the inclusion of similar extensions (primarily for the development of Outlook Web Access) which have given birth to the technologies that fuel AJAX and other modern web techniques.“

What an interesting viewpoint. I couldn’t disagree more.

The ‘Embrace and Extend’ strategy on which Microsoft has relied since about 1998 is designed to be divisive and ultimately to support Microsoft’s one interest: by hook or by crook, to land everyone on the Microsoft platform. They worked with little or no support or cooperation from any other body[*] and more often than not used their position to subvert the activities of others. They published competing specifications and duplicated functionality through their own proprietary implementations.

Now before we go any further, it’s important to remember that this strategy was dressed up nicely, spoken about politely in marketing euphemisms and was seldom openly disparaging of competing technologies. It is also important to note that very few of the people actually responsible for the creation and fostering of standards ever felt anything but frustration and animosity toward these efforts to subvert the process. I’ve seen such luminaries as Lawrence Lessig and Sir Tim Berners Lee stand up in public fora and state in absolutely unambiguous terms that ‘this MS technology is the single biggest threat faced by the web today.’ (WWW Conference, Amsterdam 2000, for those who care).

It’s true that there are some who have argued for accomodation, and while they’ve achieved short-term gains (RSS and SOAP, for example), the recent announcement of MS-only implementations and extensions of these standards offers further evidence that MS’ intentions are anything but benevolent.

Now, some may trot out the sorry old argument that a corporation’s job is to profit and damn the ethical/legal torpedoes, but the fact is that to most of the people working in standards, this is not the goal. Believe it or not, most of us actually care about the community, and feel that the way things are implemented is just as important as what gets done. So feel free to act as apologist for the soulless corporate machine if you must, but please, don’t pretend that that’s the only way things can be made to work.

Microsoft (and Netscape in its time) are not only guilty of skewing standards in their favour. They’re also guilty of something far more insidious: the infection of the application space with software designed to lock people into their proprietary approach to things. Often enough, the design is fatally compromised in the process. The example cited above, Outlook Web Access, is a prime example of how to break things in the name of lock-in.

Here’s a quick summary of just some of the ways in which Outlook Web Access, which encapsulates email access inside HTTP and passes it through ports 80/443 by default, is technically broken:

  • Caching proxy servers might or might not do the right thing – behaviour here is undefined
  • Traffic/network analysis is subverted
  • Security is compounded, as activity patterns have to be checked on more, not fewer ports (think about it)
  • Likewise, security audits are far more difficult, as traffic has to be disambiguated
  • Security is subverted, users can simply tunnel high volume traffic through to (at least) the DMZ with no guarantee that it’s being inspected (i.e. no one catches that the traffic is neither going to the web nor the Exchange server; each one assumes it’s going to the other and that it’s ‘okay’. Same goes with large volumes of outgoing information.)
  • Deliberate bypassing of firewall policies, promoting insecure configurations (e.g. pushing things through ports 80 and 443 as a matter of informal policy, reducing the firewall to an ornament)
  • Buggier software due to additional complexity
  • Non-standard, meaning (little or) nothing else will support it
  • Promotes software lock-in, which has cost and management implications
  • Promotes monoculture, which has cost, management and *security* implications
  • Protocols exist for this purpose already

That last point is the key. Why on earth would MS build an entirely new way to get one’s email when secure IMAP or POP3 already exist? Microsoft doesn’t particularly care about doing things better, they just want to make sure that their customers do things differently. Quality is seldom a concern, and as a result, it’s usually a casualty.

[*] It’s true that they were – and remain – members of such organisations as the World Wide Web Consortium.

NSA for Dummies

Dan McGarry

There’s been a lot of discussion recently about the NSA eavesdropping programme, which reportedly has been surveilling US citizens without first getting a warrant. In one of these discussions, someone asked:

What’s the worst case scenario? How big could it be?

That’s a really good question. It occurs to me that no one has really attempted to address this yet in layman’s terms, so here goes….

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Single Point of Failure

Dan McGarry

On January 14, 2005, the Intelsat 804 satellite suddenly lost its power source and began drifting helplessly in space. This satellite provided much, and in some cases all, of the communications lines for countries from Sri Lanka to Samoa.

The effect of this sudden loss of service was particularly severe on Pacific island nations, because in many places this satellite represented the only communication link to the outside world. As of January 21, some countries were still offline, and others were still experiencing problems.

International communications were badly disrupted. International telephone and fax traffic stopped. Internet access was gone. Banks and credit card companies could not conduct transactions, leaving tourists without cash and resort owners accepting debts on faith alone. Airlines and airports could not communicate easily. Most importantly, disaster early warning systems were severely impaired.

When reviewing the list of affected countries, one thing quickly becomes clear: the countries most affected by the satellite failure were those whose communications systems had a single point of failure.

Single Point of Failure. Every network analyst knows, and fears, this term. It’s simple enough in principle: when planning a communications system, always make sure that there’s no single part whose failure can bring the whole system down.

In practice, it’s not as easy as it sounds. The failure of the Intelsat 804 satellite continues to cause significant problems throughout the Pacific region, particularly among the small island nations. This is mostly because the cost of communications makes having back-up satellite access very difficult.

Because of the relatively small amount of traffic they buy, Pacific island nations are relatively unimportant to international satellite providers. Technicians working to fix the problem reported spending hours, even days, trying to contact Intelsat staff. They spoke of being given emergency space on an alternative satellite, only to be bumped off by other customers.

The money that a satellite provider makes from a small island country is, relatively speaking, very small. From a business perspective, we’re not very important to them. But for us, international communications are more important than just business.

What if there had been a natural disaster? At the height of the hurricane season, in a region prone to earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis, this is not merely idle speculation. In fact, shortly after the outage occurred, there was a strong earthquake in Micronesia. Had it caused even a localised tsunami, the loss of communications could have cost us many lives.

Looking at the list of affected countries, it quickly becomes clear that those who suffered most are the ones who had only one connection to the outside world. Several countries had separate contracts for data and voice communications. When voice communications disappeared, they were able to use their data lines to compensate. In one case, technicians were able to use Voice Over IP (VOIP) protocols to enable outbound telephone calls within twelve hours.

What lessons can we take from this incident? It’s clear now that those carriers who relied on a single source for their data and voice communications paid most dearly. Their customers paid dearly too, in terms of lost business. It was pure luck that no lives were lost. Next time, we might not be so lucky.

But what can we do to prevent this happening again? The answer is to remove single points of failure wherever possible. Satellite communication is expensive, and underwater cable even more so. Still, it’s been demonstrated that opening national markets to multiple data carriers usually reduces prices for consumers and increases revenues for the carriers. In New Caledonia, data use has increased by one thousand percent since it opened its communications market three years ago. Importantly, they were one of the least affected nations when the Intelsat 804 failed.

Opening the communications market is not an appropriate answer for every island nation. Some are simply too small to support it. In these cases, using separate providers for voice and data service at very least ensures that if the one is lost, the other is still available.

Single Points of Failure are a liability in every system. International communications is one area where such a liability can cost lives.

Cyclone Ivy

Dan McGarry1 Comment

[Amalgamated from a series of live blogging posts as Cyclone Ivy hit the village of Saratamata on Ambae island, where I was staying at the time.]

Imagine the worst storm you’ve ever seen. Double it. Double it again. Make it last 14 hours at its highest intensity. That’s how cyclone Ivy was for us. The wind stayed consistently in excess of 50 knots from mid-afternoon of the day before yesterday (the time of my last post) until late into the night. It gusted far above that.

There were four of us staying in a very small house. We made light of things as best we could, but it was a little hard to be entirely glib when the door blew off the front of the house, taking the sheets of masonite covering the windows with it.

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The Coral Garden

Dan McGarry1 Comment

Our time down here is short. Watch carefully,
and I will show you how to dodge the light
whose lances pierce the blue below with white
hafts that wound and feed this shallow sea.
We’ll share the humour in the moray’s grin, for he
can laugh like Death. He understands this bright
pageant. Every creature within sight’s
an incandescent killer, sinning, free.

You do not break the surface; it breaks you.
And what flows down beneath these waves is more
immersed in evanescence than the shore-
bound sack of bones that thought it knew
what time was all about, and when to leave.
The coral garden wants you. Only breathe.

*****

Full fathom five? No time for that. We’re down
where pugilists in clown face guard the waving
face of each anenome. The roving
reef shark wanders amiably round,
oblivious to you and me. We’re bound
to have his kind attention, but he’s waiving
recognition. Now our shadow’s moving
a little deeper, a little further down.

We learn again what colour is, and time
is tightened, stretched until it only flows
in patient, ebbing seconds. Now our slow
ascent along the cliff face is a climb
to altitude. No sooner does your burning
chest abate than you talk of returning.

*****

Parrot fish and angels clean the reef;
iridescent wrasses, gold and blue,
clean angel fish and parrot. So what’s new?
Eating turds for breakfast is the brief
of every soul. Post-Darwinist belief
that somehow human nature could accrue
some special status simply isn’t true –
we see shit-eating grins, but not the teeth.

So don’t pretend that lobster in the pot
is sweeter when our ignorance of sources
denies excreta’s one of its main courses.
Wish truth were always beauty? Well it’s not.

I only wish that people had the grace
these fish have when they stuff shit in their face.
*****

The rumour of a passing file of silent
grenadiers, distant flashing epaulettes
of silver, guards the border of the depths.
A pageant, witnessed through the blithe lens
of fancy. You might never leave these islands.
But why depict how Life calls in its debts
as sweet Romantic rhapsody? Do let’s
admit for once its means are often violent.

And when entranced by light and silent grace,
let no impassioned thoughts inveigle you.
This cohort’s made of pretty killers who
are second-rate compared to our race.

For though Death’s means are seldom found deficient,
humanity is vastly more efficient.

*****

Five feet below the surface, everything
comes clear. Though sunlight reaches far below,
until you breach the thermocline, you’ve no
clear picture what you’re witnessing.
A hanging moment – motionless, you cling
to clarity of vision, try to slow
the heavy, even seconds. Still, you know
there is no greater joy than surfacing.

Why life should love the sun’s no mystery.
The crowded, shallow spaces that it reaches
are rife with testament, as are the beaches.
So why dive deep with such alacrity?
And when you reach the depth where colour peters
out, what have you earned but fourteen meters?

The Centipede

Dan McGarry5 Comments

by

Franz Kopra

Friday 19 September

11:42

I woke this morning to discover a centipede in the kitchen. He was leaning in a nonchalant manner against the counter, regarding me incuriously as I lay there in my bed.

I’d been told that centipedes on the island of Efate are very large, but nothing could have prepared me for this. With tremendous fangs and stinging pincers, he was a fearsome sight. Five of his legs tapped idly against the counter as he whistled a quiet tune. (Bartok? I couldn’t be sure.)

I lay frozen in my bed. Above all I did not want to antagonize him. I attempted a smile, then realized with sudden dread that some animals regard bared teeth as a challenge. Had I made a fatal mistake? I observed him carefully. His posture hadn’t changed, but he was now clearly whistling Gershwin. What to do?

Fully 30 minutes passed before I mustered the courage to sit up. I cursed myself for renting such a tiny apartment. Whatever small moneys I had saved seemed insignificant now that I had to share this cramped space with another. My first concern was that the toilet was located directly beside the counter where he stood.

Yet I did not dare approach him. I pulled on a pair of trousers I had left draped over the only chair, tucked my nightshirt into them, and stood up. Taking great care to shake out my shoes (what would he think of me if I squashed one of his brethren?), I donned them barefoot.

Thank goodness the icebox stood only feet away from the bed. I opened the door as discreetly as I could, and retrieved a jug of milk and yesterday’s bread. Clutching this modest breakfast, I backed carefully to the door, opened it quietly and slipped out.

Leaving the bread and milk on the steps, I trotted around the corner of my building, unbuttoned my fly and relieved my bursting bladder. I heard children laughing from the alley on the other side of the bushes, but I could not stop what had already begun. I finished as quickly as I could, then returned to the steps to retrieve my breakfast.

The bread was stale. I found that if I poured a small amount of milk onto the crust, it became soft enough to bite. The milk had begun to turn, but hunger made it palatable enough.

17:45

Work was a purgatory. Fraulein Schimmiefaster, holding court in the staff kitchen, exclaimed that no self-respecting young man should allow his night-time debauches to affect his day-time appearance, loudly enough that sniggers could be heard throughout the office. Herr Brupt, the office manager, gave me a pointed glare, and did not speak to me all day.

Saturday 20 September

14:20

How can I live like this? I am in constant fear. When I returned to my apartment, the Centipede was still there, and what’s more, he’d eaten the last of the eggs. He stays mostly in the cooking area, and leaves the area of the bed more or less to me.

I must remember to buy cold cuts. He seems to like them.

Sunday 21 September

18:10

I have had the worst day of my life, I am sure. I came home Saturday afternoon, laden with groceries, only to discover that he’d invited friends over. Without so much as a by-your-leave! Imagine how I felt.

I was sitting – sulking, I’ll admit it – on the bed. I’d only just lit a cigarette when the mosquito swaggered over and snatched it from my mouth, explaining, ‘These things can kill you.’ He flipped the cigarette into his own mouth, and all three of them laughed uproariously.

Of course, they ate all the Timtams.

This morning the Centipede blocked the door as I tried to leave and asked me if I intended to visit an exterminator. I pled innocence, but let it slip that they were closed on Sundays. He knows.

Now his friends are back – four of them this time. I must make canapés….

Monday 22 September

17:27

I am overcome with remorse. My mother came to visit Sunday evening. Naturally, she took the Centipede’s side in every argument. Then he stung her and put her in the ice box. I complained that she was too stringy for anything but stew, but he wouldn’t listen.

Thursday 25 September

14:10

These endless demands are ruining my life! The landlord just called to say he is doubling the rent, and warned me that he could sue me for keeping a lodger without permission. I was enraged and accused him of allowing vermin to run free in his ill-kept properties, but he threatened to tell the Centipede what I had said. In the end I had to accede to the rent increase. What choice did I have?

I don’t dare approach Herr Brupt for a pay rise. What shall I do?

23:18

Insult to injury! The Centipede said he was having guests over, and he told me to leave. I’m not invited to a party in my own home. Who prepared all the food and paid for the floral centerpiece? Answer me that!

Monday 28 September

08:10

Despair. He changed the locks last night. I overcame my fear and banged on the front door until the police came. They were responding to a complaint, they said, and would lock me up unless I left quietly. I was about to explain the situation when one of my neighbours appeared and identified me as the man who had exposed himself in the back alley. I spent the night in the lock-up. I arrived at work unkempt, smelling of that ghastly cell, and Herr Brupt sacked me on the spot. Fraulein Schimmiefaster laughed at me. At me! The trollop.

13:06

I cannot go on. He won’t even give me my clothes back. He says they fit him better anyway.

I have pawned my shoes and bought a gun.