Public Service Announcements

COVID-19: My turn

So, a few weeks back, COVID-19 went through my office at Milton. I had been at work just one day a week — basically I was working in the office on a Wednesday and working from home all other days of the week unless there was a special reason for me to do otherwise.

On the 3rd of July (Sunday), one of my colleagues reported he had tested positive on a rapid antigen test (RAT) after suffering symptoms, and would begin isolation. 2 days later (on the following Tuesday), another colleague reported he too, “had a bit of a cough”. I made the decision to not come in on the Wednesday, on the advice that it was likely better I work from home.

Over the coming days, more reported symptoms, but so far I was safe. Yes, my father and I were regularly going to the local cafés for dinner Monday-Thursday nights, but I was not exposing myself to the office cluster at this point.

I figured that, with all the cases now isolating, and a few days later, it’d be safe on the 13th of this month to work in the office… and so I did so. I think that was my big mistake. Sunday afternoon (17th), a cough started, and on the following Monday, this was the result:

Yes, the “C” is a bit weak but still present, the “T” is unmistakeable!

Some might quibble and say this one is inconclusive because the “T” marker (test result) is way stronger than the “C” marker (control result), but the fact of the matter is, both lines are there, so reason enough to count this as a positive.

A later one done on Wednesday showed more even shading of the lines, so clearly I still have the blasted virus. Even today, I’m a little on the snuffly side and coughing intermittently.

Personal risk factors

It’s worth noting that I’ve had issues with Asthma since the late 80s. My body also has a nasty positive-feedback loop: if I cough, it tends to make my nose run (the vigorous coughing causes bruising of the tissues in my nose)… that has a habit of running down into my lungs, making me cough more, and possibly developing into bronchitis. On one occasion in 2005, that developed further into pneumonia.

Unvented masks for me are bad news too because they seem to trigger my lungs into a coughing fit, which then triggers the above symptoms. Yet, everyone around me insisted that I return to working in the office and generally getting out-and-about.

Vaccination status

I have had two initial shots of the AstraZenica COVID-19 vaccine as well as a shot of the Moderna as a booster. I was looking to get a second booster, but the earliest I could book was on the 27th of July: too late for that now!

So yeah, ATAGI/Australian Health Department/Queensland Health — you can end your age discrimination on COVID-19 vaccination now — #1 undocumented policy goal: “get Stuart Longland infected” can be scratched off your list, and if some of the over 50s have never gotten their first shot by now, they probably never will! Time to stop playing around and just let all the adult population make their own decisions from now on.

China Communist Party (who won’t be able to see this without a VPN but anyway): Fuck you and the horse you rode on. COVID-19 is not the first virus to have jumped from bats via some intermediate animal to humans, won’t be the last, but somehow you managed to ensure that everyone got a share of something none of us want. Donald Trump might actually have a point calling it the “China” virus, I personally would rather call it the Wuhan virus since that’s where COVID-19 was first discovered.

Anyone who’s worked with horses already knows of another member of the Orthornavirae extended family: Hendra virus. The suburb of Hendra still seems to be flourishing, so the name hasn’t been all doom-and-gloom, but we don’t try to hide it. Furthermore, we managed to contain it in the 90s when DNA testing technology wasn’t even available in this country, yet China with far more sophisticated technology in 2019 let this “horse” bolt right out the gate!

Suffice to say, I’m not doing much in the way of development work right now. Software development needs a clear head not a stuffy one, and the bed’s the best place for me to stay warm.

Contact tracing

Well, here’s where I’ve been in the time both before and after infection. This is captured via the GPS logger on my tablet, not the most accurate device for positioning… but since the Queensland Government isn’t doing contact tracing anymore, it’s the best I can offer now.

For the sake of those who I might have come into contact with, here’s where I’ve been (all times are Brisbane Local UTC+10):

Overview of all locations… widely-spaced dots indicate I was mobile (private transport)

Ashgrove Central area

2022-06-28 (20 days before positive test)

  • 18:30 ~ 18:35: Coles Ashgrove, likely a cat food run
  • 18:42 ~ 19:24: Café Tutto, Ashgrove

2022-07-04 (14 days before positive test)

  • 17:47 ~ 18:36: Taj Bengal, Ashgrove

2022-07-05 (13 days before positive test)

  • 18:00 ~ 18:03: Coles Ashgrove
  • 18:20 ~ 18:54: Café Tutto, Ashgrove

2022-07-12 (6 days before positive test)

  • 17:30 ~ 18:33: Taj Bengal, Ashgrove

Ashgrove West area

2022-06-29 (19 days before positive test)

  • 19:05 ~ 19:54: Smokin’ Joe’s, Ashgrove

2022-06-30 (18 days before positive test)

  • 17:43 ~ 18:38: Osaka, Ashgrove

2022-07-07 (11 days before positive test)

  • 17:52 ~ 18:57: Osaka, Ashgrove

2022-07-13 (5 days before positive test)

  • 19:03 ~ 20:04: Osaka, Ashgrove

Keperra area

2022-07-06 (12 days before positive test)

  • 19:27 ~ 20:03: Finnigans Chin, Keperra

Redcliffe Area

2022-07-17 (the day before positive test!)

  • 10:58 ~ 14:40: Moreton Bay Boat Club, Scarborough

Redlands Area

2022-07-17 (the day before positive test!)

  • 16:55 ~ 17:28: Ormiston Dog Park (Small dogs area), Ormiston

Milton Area

2022-06-29 (19 days before positive test)

  • 11:10 ~ 11:12: Makya, Milton

2022-07-13 (5 days before positive test)

  • 11:08 ~ 11:15: Bagel Boys, Milton

The Gap area

2022-07-08 (10 days before positive test)

  • 18:04 ~ 18:22: Siam Garden, The Gap / The Gap Friendly Grocer

2022-07-09 (9 days before positive test)

  • 12:05 ~ 12:13: The Gap Village, The Gap
  • 12:16 ~ 12:21: Brumby’s Bakery, The Gap

2022-07-15 (3 days before positive test)

  • 19:53 ~ 19:59: The Gap Canteen, The Gap

I clearly walked past The Gap Friendly Grocer, but not sure if I went in or not… timestamps suggest probably not.

2022-07-16 (2 days before positive test)

  • 16:51 ~ 16:56: The Gap Friendly Grocer, The Gap

My actions now

So… I’m considering myself in hard lock-down until at least the 26th. That is, no visitors, no deliveries (unless already pending and I’m unable to reschedule them), no leaving the property for any reason.

I’ll be staying put. My father’s left on a big trip through Central Queensland (having tested negative to COVID-19), so I’m home alone, just me and Sam. I won’t be answering the door, for the safety of anyone who knocks. I do not want to spread this to anyone. Hard lock-down for me will be retained until all symptoms have cleared up.

If my symptoms clear up by the 26th, I will remain in soft lock-down until the 1st August: still no leaving the property or any visitors, but I may have some groceries delivered — the local shopping centre delivers for a nominal fee (seriously, you’d spend more in fuel doing it yourself), and I can meet the delivery person on the drive-way (maintaining 3m distance). They can drop the groceries down near the gutter, and when they’ve gone, I’ll go pick them up. Same with dinner deliveries: deliver to the end of the driveway, I’ll pick it up from there.

I will not leave the property until after the 8th August at the very earliest (except for very special circumstances), and there will be no dine-in until at least the 15th. Maybe after the 22nd, I’ll consider whether I resume workplace visits and other activities.

Anti-vaxxers: please stop playing games

Tonight I learned something disturbing… I heard hear-say evidence that someone I know, had made the decision to obtain a fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination certificate for the purpose of bypassing the upcoming restrictions due to be applied on the 17th December, 2021.

Now, it comes as no surprise that people will want to dodge this. I won’t identify the individual who is trying to dodge the requirements in this case, nor will I reveal my source. As what I have is hear-say evidence, this is not admissible in a court of law, and it would be wrong for me to name or identify the person in any way.

No doubt though, the authorities have considered this possibility. They cracked down on one “doctor”, who was found to be issuing fraudulent documents a little over a month ago. She isn’t the first, won’t be the last either. It’s not entirely clear looking at the Queensland Government website what the penalties are for supplying fraudulent documentation. One thing I know for certain, I do not want to be on the receiving end. I do not want to have to justify my presence because someone I go to a restaurant with chooses to break the rules.

My biggest fear in this is two-fold:

  1. Fear of prosecution from association with the individual committing fraud
  2. Fear of knee-jerk restrictions being applied to everybody because a small number could not follow the rules

We’ve seen #2 already this pandemic. It’s why we’ve got this silly check-in program in the first place. I’ve already made my thoughts clear on that.

What worries me is it’s unknown at this stage how the certificate can be verified. There are two possible ways I can think of: the Individual Healthcare Identifier and the Document number, both of which appear on the MyGov-issued certificates. Are the staff members at venues able to validate these documents somehow? How do they know they’re looking at a genuine certificate? Is it a matter of blind-faith, or can they punch these details in and come up with something that says yay or nay?

I’m guessing the police have some way of verifying this, but, as a staff member at a venue, do you really want to be calling the police on patrons just because you have a “gut feeling” that something is fishy? How is this going to be policed really?

Surprise!

Let’s play devil’s advocate and suggest that indeed, there will be surprise inspections by the constabulary. Presumably they have a way of validating these certificates, otherwise what is the point? Now, suppose for arguments sake, one or two people are found to be holding fraudulent documents.

What then? Clearly, the guilty parties will have some explaining to do. What about the rest of us at that table, are we guilty by association? How about the business owner? The staff who were working that shift?

Cough! Sneeze! I’m not feeling well!

The other prospect is even worse, suppose that a few of us come down with an illness, get tested, and it winds up being one of the many strains floating around. Maybe it’s original-recipe COVID-19, maybe it’s Alpha, or Delta… this new Omicron variant… would you like some Pi with that? (You know, the irrational one that never ends!)

You’ve had to check-in (or maybe you don’t, but others you were with did, and they say you were there too — and CCTV backs their story up). Queensland Health looks up your details, and hang on, you’re not vaccinated. They check with venue staff, “Ohh yes, that person did show me a certificate and it looked valid”.

Hmmm, dear sir/madam, could you please show us your certificate? Ohh, you haven’t got one? The staff at the restaurant say you do. BUSTED! You’d either be charged for failing to follow a health direction, or charged with fraud, possibly both.

What’s worse with this hypothetical situation is that you and the people you’re with are then exposed to a deadly virus. At least with the surprise inspection in the previous hypothetical situation no one gets sick.

The end game

Really, I hope that we can move on from this. The worst possible situation we can wind up with is that the privilege of going out and doing things is revoked from everybody because a small minority (less than 10% of the Queensland population) refuse to do the right thing by everyone else.

I don’t want to be hassled by staff at the door everywhere I go. This will not end if people keep flouting rules! It used to be just hospitality venues where you needed to sign-in, it was done on paper, and life was simple, but then Queensland Health learned that today’s adults can’t write properly. If they mandate proprietary check-in software programs, then those of us who do not have a suitable phone are needlessly excluded from participation in society through no fault of their own.

We will eventually get to the stage where we treat COVID-19 like every other coronavirus out there. The common flu is, after all, a member of that same family, and we never needed check-in programs for that. Some aged-care centres will insist on seeing vaccination certificates, but you could get a coffee without fear of being interrogated. We are not there yet though. We’ve probably got another year of this… so we’re maybe ⅔ of the way through. Please don’t blow it for all of us!

Trolling Telephone scammers with Music On Hold

So, this is not really news… for the past 12 months or so, the scammers have been busy. They’ve been calling us long before we moved to the NBN, and of course we’ve just hung up the moment they started their spiel. The dead giveaway is the seconds of silence at the start of the call. Dead silence.

Of course, it’s not just the NBN, we’ve had “Amazon Prime”, “Visa”, “Telstra” and others call. Far and above all others has been NBN-related scams.

The latest on the NBN front is they claim your connection has been “compromised” by “other users”, in a British accent.

This is the call I received this morning. You can hear other callers in the back-ground. This is not a professional call-centre, this is a back-yard operation!

The home number recently moved from the PSTN to a VoIP service, so this actually gives me a lot of scope for dealing with this. For now, it’s a manual process: when they call, put them on hold. If I put someone on hold on this number, you better be a Deborah Harry fan!

Long term, I’ll probably look at seeing if I can sample the first 2 seconds of call audio, and if silent, direct the call to a voicemail service or IVR menu. In the meantime, it’s a manual process.

Thankfully we get caller ID now, something Telstra used to charge for.

MoH considerations

There’s three big considerations with music on hold:

  1. Licensing: You need to do the research into how music is licensed in your country. If you want to be safe, go look for something that is “public domain” or one of the “Creative Commons” family of licenses. In Australia, you probably want to have a look at this page if you want to use a piece of commercial music (like “Hangin’ On The Telephone”).
  2. Appropriateness: is the caller likely to get offended by your choice of hold music? (Then again, maybe that’s your goal?)
  3. Suitability for your chosen audio CODEC: Some audio CODECs, particularly the lower-bitrate ones, do an unsurprisingly terrible job, with music.

Regarding point (3) always test your music choice! Try different CODEC settings, and ensure it sounds “good” with ALL of them. Asterisk actually supports transcoding, but will choose the format that takes the least effort. RIFF Wave files (.wav) can be used too, but they must be mono files.

I slapped a CD-quality 44.1kHz stereo version in there, and wondered why it got ignored: that’s why — it wasn’t mono and Asterisk won’t down-mix.

Signed 16-bit linear is a pretty safe bet: effort of going to that to PCMA/PCMU (G.711a/G.711u) isn’t a big deal, but to anything else, you’re at the mercy of the CODEC implementation. Using G.722, things sounded fine, but I found even with Speex settings cranked right up (quality=10 complexity=10 enhancement=true), my selection of audio sounded terrible in Ultra-wideband Speex mode. I wound up with the following in my MoH directory:

vk4msl-gap# ls -l /usr/local/share/moh/
total 8280
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   527836 Aug 29 17:02 moh.sln
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  1055670 Aug 29 17:02 moh.sln16
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel  2111342 Aug 29 17:01 moh.sln32
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   104793 Sep  5 12:17 moh.spx
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   177879 Sep  5 12:34 moh.spx16
-rw-r--r--  1 root  wheel   184617 Sep  5 12:16 moh.spx32
  • .sln* is for 16-bit signed linear, the 16 and 32 suffixes refer to the sample rate, so 16kHz (wideband) and 32kHz (ultra-wideband). These should otherwise be “raw” files (no headers). Use sox <input> -r <rate> -b 16 -e signed-integer -c 1 <output>.sln to convert.
  • .spx* is Speex: Here again, I’ve got 8kHz, 16kHz and 32kHz versions. These were encoded using the following command: speexenc --quality 10 --comp 10 moh.wav moh.spx

There are various other CODEC selections, but right now, I’ve just focussed on signed linear and Speex since the latter is what needs careful attention paid. I tested between my laptop running Twinkle and the ATA on my network, and when I placed the call on hold from my laptop it sounded fine there, so I figure it’ll be “good enough”.


“Visa Security Department”

So, had “Visa” call me this morning… this too, is another scam. Anonymous caller. Bear in mind I do not actually have a credit card. Never have had one, never will.

“Visa security department”

They didn’t stick around, seems their system just drops the call if it hears a noise which isn’t a DTMF tone.

Interestingly, both this call, and the previous one were G.711u (µ-law PCM). Australia normally uses A-law PCM. America uses µ-law encoding. What’s the difference? Both are logarithmic encoding schemes. µ-law encoding has a wider dynamic range, however A-law has less distortion for quieter signals.


“Amazon”

“Amazon”

Almost the same structure as before. Audio CODEC was G.729 this time.

Injecting disinfectant?!

So today, the US’s head of state suggested this little gem for handling COVID-19…

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-24/trump-questions-whether-disinfectant-could-be-injected/12180630

My suggestion for Trump: you first. You try it… then report back to us!

Disinfectant might work well on hard surfaces, but injecting it into one’s bloodstream is an utterly reckless and stupid thing to do. Yes, it may kill the virus, but it’ll likely kill a lot of other things, including the patient!

Updated: I realise the comment was made “sarcastically“… however I cannot get this image out of my head now! (Update 2022-11-17: and it seems nor can the Murdoch Press)

A US COVID-19 treatment clinic? I think not!

Plugging a US-shaped hole in WHO’s funding

Recently, the US President, Donald Trump, made the decision to pull the US funding from the World Health Organisation. This of course has been widely condemned, and will likely get challenged, but in the meantime it made me wonder what the rest of us could do.

No, I’m not suggesting acts of violence at a “democratically” elected head of state, as tempting to some as that may be.

The US contributed a little under US$900M last year to the WHO. Could we crowd-fund that?

I was thinking about what platform would work best for this, turns out, I don’t need to. The WHO are taking donations directly.

If 40 million of us, world wide, each donate US$25… we will exceed the funding once provided by the U.S.A. Time one president was shown how he’s just another brick in the wall!

We don’t need the U.S.A. to fund the WHO, we just need US. I did my bit… how about you?

https://covid19responsefund.org/

Common courtesy and common sense: absent without leave.

It seems good old “common courtesy” is absent without leave, as is “common sense”. Some would say it’s been absent for most of my lifetime, but to me it seems particularly so of late.

In particular, where it comes to the safety of one’s self, and to others, people don’t seem to actually think or care about what they are doing, and how that might affect others. To say it annoys me is putting it mildly.

In February, I lost a close work colleague in a bicycle accident. I won’t mention his name, as I do not have his family’s permission to do so.

I remember arriving at my workplace early on Friday the 12th before 6AM, having my shower, and about 6:15 wandering upstairs to begin my work day. Reaching my desk, I recall looking down at an open TS-7670 industrial computer and saying out aloud, “It’s just you and me, no distractions, we’re going to get U-Boot working”, before sitting down and beginning my battle with the machine.

So much for the “no distractions” however. At 6:34AM, the office phone rings. I’m the only one there and so I answer. It was a social worker looking for “next of kin” details for a colleague of mine. Seems they found our office details via a Cab Charge card they happened to find in his wallet.

Well, first thing I do is start scrabbling for the office directory to get his home number so I can pass the bad news onto his wife only to find: he’s only listed his mobile number. Great. After getting in contact with our HR person, we later discover there isn’t any contact details in the employee records either. He was around before such paperwork existed in our company.

Common sense would have dictated that one carry an “in case of emergency” number on a card in one’s wallet! At the very least let your boss know!

We find out later that morning that the crash happened on a particularly sharp bend of the Go Between Bridge, where the offramp sweeps left to join the Bicentennial bikeway. It’s a rather sharp bend that narrows suddenly, with handlebar-height handrails running along its length and “Bicycle Only” signs clearly signposted at each end.

Common sense and common courtesy would suggest you slow down on that bridge as a cyclist. Common sense and common courtesy would suggest you use the other side as a pedestrian. Common sense would question the utility of hand rails on a cycle path.

In the meantime our colleague is still fighting for his life, and we’re all holding out hope for him as he’s one of our key members. As for me, I had a network to migrate that weekend. Two of us worked the Saturday and Sunday.

Sunday evening, emotions hit me like a freight train as I realised I was in denial, and realised the true horror of the situation.

We later find out on the Tuesday, our colleague is in a very bad way with worst-case scenario brain damage as a result of the crash. From shining light to vegetable, he’d never work for us again.

Wednesday I took a walk down to the crash site to try and understand what happened. I took a number of photographs, and managed to speak to a gentleman who saw our colleague being scraped off the pavement. Even today, some months later, the marks on the railings (possibly from handlebar grips) and a large blood smear on the path itself, can still be seen.

It was apparent that our colleague had hit this railing at some significant speed. He wasn’t obese, but he certainly wasn’t small, and a fully grown adult does not ricochet off a metal railing and slide face-first for over a metre without some serious kinetic energy involved.

Common sense seems to suggest the average cyclist goes much faster than the 20km/hr collision the typical bicycle helmet is designed for under AS/NZS 2063:2008.

I took the Thursday and Friday off as time-in-lieu for the previous weekend, as I was an emotional wreck. The following Tuesday I resumed cycling to work, and that morning I tried an experiment to reproduce the crash conditions. The bicycle I ride wasn’t that much different to his, both bikes having 29″ wheels.

From what I could gather that morning, it seemed he veered right just prior to the bend then lost control, listing to the right at what I estimated to be about a 30° angle. What caused that? We don’t know. It’s consistent with him dodging someone or something on the path — but this is pure speculation on my part.

Mechanical failure? The police apparently have ruled that out. There’s not much in the way of CCTV cameras in the area, plenty on the pedestrian side, not so much on the cycle side of the bridge.

Common sense would suggest relying on a cyclist to remember what happened to them in a crash is not a good plan.

In any case, common sense did not win out that day. Our colleague passed away from his injuries a little over a fortnight after his crash, aged 46. He is sadly missed.

I’ve since made a point of taking my breakfast down to that point where the bridge joins the cycleway. It’s the point where my colleague had his last conscious thoughts.

Over the course of the last few months, I’ve noticed a number of things.

Most cyclists sensibly slow down on that bend, but a few race past at ludicrous speed. One morning, I nearly thought they’d be an encore performance as two construction workers on City Cycle bikes, sans helmets, came careening around the corner, one almost losing it.

Then I see the pedestrians. There’s a well lit, covered walkway, on the opposite side of the bridge for pedestrian use. It has bench seats, drinking fountains, good lighting, everything you’d want as a pedestrian. Yet, some feel it is not worth the personal exertion to take the 100m extra distance to make use of it.

Instead, they show a lack of courtesy by using the bicycle path. Walking on a bicycle path isn’t just dangerous to the pedestrian like stepping out onto a road, it’s dangerous for the cyclist too!

If a car hits a pedestrian or cyclist, the damage to the occupants of the car is going to be minimal to nonexistent, compared to what happens to the cyclist or pedestrian. If a cyclist or motorcyclist hits a pedestrian however, they surround the frame, thus hit the ground first. Possibly at significant speed.

Yet, pedestrians think it is acceptable to play Russian roulette with their own lives and the lives of every cycle user by continuing to walk where it is not safe for them to go. They’d never do it on a motorway, but somehow a bicycle path is considered fair game.

Most pedestrians are understanding, I’ve politely asked a number to not walk on the bikeway, and most oblige after I point out how they get to the pedestrian walkway.

Common sense would suggest some signage on where the pedestrian can walk would be prudent.

However, I have had at least two that ignored me, one this morning telling me to “mind my own shit”. Yes mate, I am minding “my own shit” as you put it: I’m trying to stop the hypothetical me from possibly crashing into the hypothetical you!

It’s this sort of reaction that seems symbolic of the whole “lack of common courtesy” that abounds these days.

It’s the same attitude that seems to hint to people that it’s okay to park a car so that it blocks the footpath: newsflash, it’s not! I know of one friend of mine who frequently runs into this problem. He’s in a wheelchair — a vehicle not known for its off-road capabilities or ability to squeeze past the narrow gap left by a car.

It seems the drivers think it’s acceptable to force footpath users of all types, including the elderly, the young and the disabled, to “step out” onto the road to avoid the car that they so arrogantly parked there. It makes me wonder how many people subsequently become disabled as a result of a collision caused by them having to step around such obstacles. Would the owner of the parked car be liable?

I don’t know, I’m no lawyer, but I should think they should carry some responsibility!

In Queensland, pedestrians have right-of-way on the footpath. That includes cyclists: cyclists of all ages are allowed there subject to council laws and signage — but once again, they need to give way. In other words, don’t charge down the path like a lunatic, and don’t block it!

No doubt, the people who I’m trying to convince are too arrogant to care about the above, and what their actions might have on others. Still, I needed to get the above off my chest!

Nothing will bring my colleague back, a fact that truly pains me, and I’ve learned some valuable lessons about the sort of encouragement I give people. I regret not telling him to slow down, 5 minutes longer wouldn’t have killed him, and I certainly did not want a race! Was he trying to race me so he could keep an eye on me? I’ll never know.

He was a bright person though, it is proof though that even the intelligent among us are prone to possibly doing stupid things. With thrills come spills, and one might question whether one’s commute to work is the appropriate venue for such thrills, or whether those can wait for another time.

I for one have learned that it does not pay to be the hare, thus I intend to just enjoy the ride for what it is. No need to rush, common sense tells me it just isn’t worth it!

It is time we stopped trusting OEM-bundled operating systems

Some time back, Lenovo made the news with the Superfish fiasco.  Superfish was a piece of software that intercepted HTTPS connections by way of a trusted root certificate installed on the machine.  When the software detected a browser attempting to make a HTTPS connection, it would intercept it and connect on that software’s behalf.

When Superfish negotiated the connection, it would then generate on-the-fly a certificate for that website which it would then present to the browser.  This allowed it to spy on the web page content for the purpose of advertising.

Now Dell have been caught shipping an eDellRoot certificate on some of its systems.  Both laptops and desktops are affected.  This morning I checked the two newest computers in our office, both Dell XPS 8700 desktops running Windows 7.  Both had been built on the 13th of October, and shipped to us.  They both arrived on the 23rd of October, and they were both taken out of their boxes, plugged in, and duly configured.

I pretty much had two monitors and two keyboards in front of me, performing the same actions on both simultaneously.

Following configuration, one was deployed to a user, the other was put back in its box as a spare.  This morning I checked both for this certificate.  The one in the box was clean, the deployed machine had the certificate present.

Dell's dodgy certificate in action

Dell’s dodgy certificate in action

How do you check on a Dell machine?

A quick way, is to hit Logo+R (Logo = “Windows Key”, “Command Key” on Mac, or whatever it is on your keyboard, some have a penguin) then type certmgr.msc and press ENTER. Under “Trusted Root Certificate Store”, look for “eDellRoot”.

Another way is, using IE or Chrome, try one of the following websites:

(Don’t use Firefox: it has its own certificate store, thus isn’t affected.)

Removal

Apparently just deleting the certificate causes it to be re-installed after reboot.  qasimchadhar posted some instructions for removal, I’ll be trying these shortly:

You get rid of the certificate by performing following actions:

  1. Stop and Disable Dell Foundations Service
  2. Delete eDellRoot CA registry key here
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SystemCertificates\ROOT\Certificates\98A04E4163357790C4A79E6D713FF0AF51FE6927
  3. Then reboot and test.

Future recommendations

It is clear that the manufacturers do not have their user’s interests at heart when they ship Windows with new computers.  Microsoft has recognised this and now promote signature edition computers, which is a move I happen to support.  HOWEVER this should be standard not an option.

There are two reasons why third-party software should not be bundled with computers:

  1. The user may not have a need or use for, the said software, either not requiring its functionality or preferring an alternative.
  2. All non-trivial software is a potential security attack vector and must be kept up to date.  The version released on the OEM image is guaranteed to be at least months old by the time your machine arrives at your door, and will almost certainly be out-of-date when you come to re-install.

So we wind up either spending hours uninstalling unwanted or out-of-date crap, or we spend hours obtaining a fresh clean non-OEM installation disc, installing the bare OS, then chasing up drivers, etc.

This assumes the OEM image is otherwise clean.  It is apparent though that more than just demo software is being loaded on these machines, malware is being shipped.

With Dell and Lenovo now both in on this act, it’s now a question of if we can trust OEM installs.  Evidence seems to suggest that no, we can no longer trust such images, and have to consider all OS installations not done by the end user as suspect.

The manufacturers have abused our trust.  As far as convenience goes, we have been had.  It is clear that an OEM-supplied operating system does not offer any greater convenience to the end user, and instead, puts them at greater risk of malware attack.  I think it is time for this practice to end.

If manufacturers are unwilling to provide machines with images that would comply with Microsoft’s signature edition requirements, then they should ship the computer with a completely blank hard drive (or SSD) and unmodified installation media for a technically competent person (of the user’s choosing) to install.

TC Nathan, the cyclone that just won’t die!

Tropical Cyclone Nathan, Forecast map as of 2:50PM

Tropical Cyclone Nathan, Forecast map as of 2:50PM

This cyclone has harassed the far north once already, wobbled out in the Pacific like a drunken cyclist as a tropical low, has gained strength again and is now making a bee-line for Cape Flattery.

As seen, it also looks like doing the same stunt headed for Gove once it’s finished touching up far north Queensland.  Whoever up there is doing this rain dancing, you can stop now, it’s seriously pissing off the weather gods.

National and IARU REGION III Emergency Frequencies (Please keep clear and listen for emergency traffic)

  • 80m
    • 3.600MHz LSB (IARU III+WICEN)
  • 40m
    • 7.075MHz LSB (WICEN)
    • 7.110MHz LSB (IARU III)
  • 20m
    • 14.125MHz USB (WICEN)
    • 14.300MHz USB (IARU III)
    • 14.183MHz USB: NOT an emergency frequency, but Queensland State WICEN hold a net on this frequency every Sunday morning at around 08:00+10:00 (22:00Z Saturday).
  • 15m
    • 21.190MHz USB (WICEN)
    • 21.360MHz USB (IARU III)
  • 10m
    • 28.450MHz USB (WICEN)

I’ll be keeping an ear out on 14.125MHz in the mornings.

Update 20 March 4:31am: It has made landfall between Cape Melville and Cape Flattery as a category 4 cyclone.

Ending the Age of Entitlement

This was sent to me by email.  While I don’t normally air political issues here, I think the original author of this, whoever that was, makes some very valid points.


The politicians themselves, in Canberra, brought it up, that the Age of Entitlements is over:

The author is asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise. At least 20 if you can. In three days, most people in Australia will have this message.

This is one idea that really should be passed around because the rot has to stop somewhere.

Proposals to make politicians shoulder their share of the weight now that the Age of Entitlement is over

1. Scrap political pensions.

Politicians can purchase their own retirement plan, just as most other working Australians are expected to do.

2. Retired politicians (past, present & future) participate in Centrelink.

A Politician collects a substantial salary while in office but should receive no salary when they’re out of office.

Terminated politicians under 70 can go get a job or apply for Centrelink unemployment benefits like ordinary Australians.

Terminated politicians under 70 can negotiate with Centrelink like the rest of the Australian people.

3. Funds already allocated to the Politicians’ retirement fund be returned immediately to Consolidated Revenue.

This money is to be used to pay down debt they created which they expect us and our grandchildren to repay for them.

4. Politicians will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Politicians pay will rise by the lower of, either the CPI or 3%.

5. Politicians lose their privileged health care system and participate in the same health care system as ordinary Australian people.

i.e. Politicians either pay for private cover from their own funds or accept ordinary Medicare.

6. Politicians must equally abide by all laws they impose on the Australian people.

7. All contracts with past and present Politicians men/women are void effective 31/12/14.

The Australian people did not agree to provide perks to Politicians, that burden was thrust upon them.

Politicians devised all these contracts to benefit themselves.

Serving in Parliament is an honour not a career.

The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so our politicians should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people, then it will only take three or so days for most Australians to receive the message. Don’t you think it’s time?

THIS IS HOW YOU FIX Parliament and help bring fairness back into this country!

If you agree with the above, pass it on.

soundmodem mirrored

I noticed when I went looking for soundmodem that its homepage had disappeared off the face of the ‘net, and with it, its source code.

Thankfully, there were some traces of it still around. The Wayback Machine had all bar the source code, and Debian had the rest of what I was looking for.

So you can find a mirror of the old soundmodem site, along with the software at the following address.

http://soundmodem.vk4msl.yi.org/