tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-295725042024-03-07T09:52:50.616+02:00CyphAfricaICT, privacy, cryptography and security in Africa (well, Pretoria) and elsewherePetrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.comBlogger203125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-35211298832039434212023-02-16T13:56:00.000+02:002023-02-16T13:56:04.829+02:00The dated concept of 'network neutrality'Tim Wu is a very clever and elegant Columbia University law professor whom I had the pleasure of meeting on one or two occasions. He is perhaps best known for coining the phrase 'network neutrality', now 20 years ago. This was at a time when it was not yet quite clear that the telecommunications firms would turn into simple dumb pipes and that a handful of content providers would be the Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-76284896462814615212022-07-04T14:27:00.000+02:002022-07-04T14:27:00.529+02:00Wireless broadband will always be fixed more quicklyYou will not see it on the official OpenServe outage map, but I have been in a home office without fibre for a day now and all I have is a promise that it will be seen to in "up to 48 working hours" which I assume means 6 working days, so 8 human days. The outage affects several households in my area and all of use are on Telkom's network. All of us are now using mobile data, obviously.Why is Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-24789595967157800282022-03-30T10:53:00.002+02:002022-03-30T20:20:24.219+02:00Hard truths about softwareThe global outrage about Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has also highlighted the extent to which modern society depends on software. More specifically, on software written by other people. Much of this software comes from open source projects or makes extensive use of open source libraries. This is true also for commercial software that might do so legally or (often, I suspect) Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-34682370110299358442022-02-20T07:18:00.005+02:002022-02-20T07:18:52.041+02:00 Termination Shock – a masked adventureI have long been enjoying the novels of Neil Stephenson. This includes the sublime Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer (probably my favourite) and The Big U, his 1984 novel about academic life. This year, summer holiday featured his latest speculative fiction, Termination Shock – a delightful romp from Texas to Indonesian Papua with local colour amply provided by Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-72944645300061699492021-07-09T15:42:00.002+02:002021-07-09T15:42:55.219+02:00Of cryptocurrency and chinchillasThe US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has alleged that the operators of Ripple (a distributed ledger based payment network) has been making an illegal unregistered securities offering through its sale of XRP, a cryptocurrency which is associated with some of Ripple Labs' established payments business. As described by Roslyn Layton on Forbes, the charge poses questions regarding fair Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-36686548951293042122021-02-09T08:15:00.001+02:002021-02-09T08:15:14.304+02:00WhatsApp support lines and bots WhatsApp support lines and bots only work if your bot or mechanical Turk (human) can respond practically immediately. I have been entangled for about a week with my internet service provider who proudly announced that they no longer use e-mail (it is supposedly very 1990s) for customer support.Now, is is great that you no longer have to call a telephonic support line (especially if you are Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-34141181074208717612020-03-29T10:50:00.002+02:002020-03-29T10:50:17.842+02:00Privaatheid tydens afsondering
Dis coronavirus-afsondering en almal kan sien hoe deurmekaar jou huis is. Terwyl ons links en regs deelneem aan video-konferensies en registreer vir aanlynkursusse, hou gerus in gedagte dat iemand moet geld maak uit al dié gratis dienste. Almal se gunsteling blyk Zoom te wees en ek stem saam dat die gebruikerservaring besonder goed is. Ongelukkig, soos elders, geld die beginsel dat indien jy niePetrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-60808780729216336712020-03-17T08:44:00.001+02:002020-03-17T08:44:20.225+02:00Solus – a good-looking operating system
I recently decided to try Solus, a Linux-based operating system with a nice, clean and fast desktop environment called Budgie. It installed easily on an older Dell laptop and the WiFi worked right from the start, which is not always the case on the particular machine.
Support for the Afrikaans language is not too bad and although I have not worked out which package manager it uses, the GUI Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-14955726773336420252020-01-18T10:03:00.002+02:002020-01-18T10:07:42.690+02:00Holiday reading, book 7: Goodbye to Berlin (Christopher Isherwood)
The last of 2019/20 summer holiday reading was a wonderful little book about which I have known for a long time but was prompted to read it by a friend having recently mentioned it recently. The writing is wonderful, the stories whimsical and sad (since everyone knows what is coming in the 1930s) but also sweet and amusing.
The book consists of more-or-less separate stories with interrelated Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-71732061844175602132020-01-14T18:54:00.005+02:002020-01-14T18:54:59.106+02:00Holiday reading, book 6: HATE – Why We Should Resist it With Free Speech, Not Censorship (Nadine Strossen)
Nadine is a veteran president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and thoughtful and principled law professor whom I have had the good fortune to meet on a few occasions i.a. in New York at a reception in their beautiful apartment. Her stance on this topic is relatively well known but I am very pleased that she has written this book in which she brilliantly explains and champions the Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-86090470792552722532020-01-13T05:32:00.001+02:002020-01-13T05:32:18.468+02:00Vakansieleesstof, boek 5: Secondhand Time – The Last of the Soviets (Svetlana Alexievich)
Twyfelagtige leesstof vir 'n vakansie, het ek gevoel na 20 bladsye. Maar ek wou nie die boek in my bagasie hê nie en ek kon nie ophou lees nie. Alexievich is 'n letterkundige Nobel-pryswenner wat aan die hand van 'n hele paar dosyn vertellings (hoofsaaklike eerstehands) die geskiedenis van die Sowjetunie, sy verval, die harwarjare en die opkoms van die nuwe orde beskryf.
Daar is nie baie Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-30133999661050406832020-01-13T04:43:00.001+02:002020-01-13T04:43:11.562+02:00Holiday reading, book 4: Bank 4.0 – Banking Everywhere, Never at a Bank (Brett King)
For anyone at all interested in banking or technology, this book is compulsory reading. I am normally easily bored by discussions of technological developments with which I am familiar but King takes it all and wraps it up in a narrative which is compelling and to the point. His intimate familiarity with the traditional banking business allows him to make astute observations about how Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-49807210887315723352020-01-09T17:06:00.003+02:002020-01-09T17:06:28.226+02:00Holiday reading, book 3: Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis (Jared Diamond)
A heavy but attractively typeset and bound tome by an author that has really influence my thinking about the world and its history a fair bit. The author is now in his 80s and reflects on 7 countries which he knows well, mainly through having lived in them and learning the language. In this respect, it is very personal and touching since the wisdom and insight proceeding from affectionate Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-2218870269955699062020-01-09T17:05:00.001+02:002020-01-09T17:05:42.342+02:00Holiday reading, book 2: Talking to Strangers (Malcolm Gladwell)
This is the book by Gladwell that I enjoyed the most – by far. I read it in one day, admittedly mainly during a medium-distance trip by bus from Bangkok to Siem Reap and I would have spent New Year's Eve in the hotel room, had I not finished it in time.
It is not about how to talk to strangers but what happens when strangers communicate (badly) and how that has changed over the years. Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-56202323853061735222020-01-09T17:04:00.002+02:002020-01-09T17:04:21.947+02:00Holiday reading, book 1: The Square and the Tower (Niall Ferguson)
I really enjoyed this book. Nevertheless, compared to the author's other compelling works the pace is quite uneven. Parts of it can easily be skipped, in fact. Where it reviews the theory of networks, for example, I was quite bored and disappointed but possibly because I know the topic somewhat well. It is really very good in the main however and most of the conclusion is excellent.
Ferguson Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-43049733892396350162019-10-22T14:56:00.001+02:002019-10-22T14:56:47.385+02:00Medical information confidentiality – little of it at Bonitas
Bonitas medical fund has for years now been sending me loads of confidential medical information regarding one of their members by e-mail. Presumably, an address had either been given incorrectly by the patient or captured incorrectly by Bonitas. Despite the fact that I have written to inform them of this, the e-mails have not stopped coming.
A recent one deals with a claim for OTHER Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-42554077830853635102019-07-16T07:35:00.001+02:002019-07-16T07:35:43.233+02:00Banks should let customers input amounts as displayed
An older lady of my acquaintance recently had to drive 20km to visit the branch of a well-known South African bank in order to make a transfer to another account at the same bank even though she uses Internet banking. It was a somewhat larger amount than usual and her mistake was using the comma as thousands' separator. Why? Since that was how the bank also displayed numbers on the same page. Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-14493081444722669912019-06-21T17:02:00.001+02:002019-06-21T17:02:09.737+02:00Skype for Business is nie Skype nie
Mense wonder soms waarom gewone Skype en Skype for Business nie met mekaar praat nie. Die rede is dat die twee eintlik min met mekaar te doen het – buiten dat beide tans deur Microsoft besit word. Skype is 15 jaar gelede begin in Estland en eers heelwat later deur Microsoft gekoop.
Gewone Skype het baie mense verlos van duur internasionale oproepe en vriende en familie nader aan mekaar Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-40288825957270252782019-06-03T16:10:00.000+02:002019-06-03T16:10:37.021+02:00Bibliography tools for easy referencing of an academic paper
Nowadays, when I quickly need to write a report or paper with academic references, my methodology is to first complete a list of references and try to download all the papers and other sources that I think I might use. Since it is very convenient to write using the Markdown language and use BibTeX source files for citations (since this allows for later easy formatting and reformatting) it Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-5536087155589465322019-05-07T17:08:00.000+02:002019-05-10T10:40:23.705+02:00The new Opera browser incorporates a crypto wallet that works
More precisely, an Ethereum wallet is included with the latest versions of the quite good Opera browser. Incidentally, the main thing not to like about this sturdy Scandinavian software is that the Android version on a default installation does keep throwing a lot of notifications which has to be they way they pay their way.
It was very easy to send ETH Ethereum coins from another wallet, Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-84932084672488806182019-03-17T14:14:00.000+02:002019-03-17T14:14:51.450+02:00One reason why apps work – the user is in control
With Johannesburg and Pretoria currently suffering from power cuts 1/3 of the day on many days, a lot of people can be seen checking various apps (especially one called Eskom se Push) for the latest information about their suburb. The service frequently falls over, in fact. One of its features is information for suburbs that you add to your watchlist.
The point is that the user is in complete Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-89081188158293029002019-02-05T06:29:00.002+02:002019-02-05T06:29:50.970+02:00Never choose to pay in 'your' currency
Why do we get asked whether we want to be charged in dollar/dirham/euro or our own currency so often? Well, it is not really a convenience – it is basically a way to charge a hefty fee in exchange for giving a price total that is in your currency but might not be what you actually pay! Why not? Well, the ZAR amount (for example) might anyway be converted into dollars and back to rand again Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-57444719510933017572019-02-03T19:37:00.000+02:002019-02-03T19:37:04.334+02:00UX confusion at Emirates
User interface confusion remains a feature of everyday IT usage... and so does the perennial problem of the escaped character (\'). This time on the Emirates website, I think. When the computers start learning how to fix this kind of problem themselves, I shall start getting worried. ;-) :-)
Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-6729637225817463962018-09-26T07:43:00.002+02:002018-09-26T07:43:20.715+02:00The fourth industrial revolution (4IR) – sailing the doldrums
On the weekend, I drove into a shopping centre parking garage early on morning and observed a blue-collar worker going around and fiddling with all the card readers at the exists. I asked what he was doing and he explained that he goes around and (hard) reboots all the machine every morning, "then they work better". So much for robotisation...
The Seven Deadly Sins of AI Predictions by Rodney Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29572504.post-54163688473926081282018-07-16T20:09:00.001+02:002018-07-16T20:09:10.339+02:00Werk Google Translate regtig deur Engels?
Ek verstaan dat Google Translate van 'n taal A na taal B vertaal deur
eers van A na Engels te vertaal en dan
van Engels na taal B.
Derhalwe, deels, die dikwels vreemde uitkomste.
Verlede week het ek egter gekyk na die relatief soortgelyke woorde vir vuurhoutjie in Afrikaans, in Duits (Streichholz) en in Hongaars (gyufa). Laasgenoemde is amper 'n direkte vertaling van die Petrushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15865825153406975684noreply@blogger.com1