RICA-registrasie by Vodacom bra brakkerig

Ek het vandag my eerste veldervaring gehad met RICA, die Engelse afkorting vir Suid-Afrika se Wet op die reëling van onderskepping van kommunikasies en verstrekking van kommunikasie-verwante inligting, Wet nr 70 van 2002 (in Engels: Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-Related Information Act). Volgens dié wet moet enige gebruiker van 'n SIM-kaart sigself laat registreer by die diensverskaffer, in persoon, met bewys van adres en identiteit. Dié reëling geld seder 1 Julie 2009. Laat staan nou

• die absurditeit daarvan dat kontrak-gebruikers, wie se bankbesonderhede die diensverskaffers het, en welke bankbesonderhede reeds aan 'n soortgelyk wet onderworpe is, hul bestaan weereens moet bewys;
  


• die feit dat enigeen met 'n betaaltelefoon of Skype soveel anoniem kan kommunikeer as wat hulle sou wou,
  

ek was vanoggend vasberade om myself laat RICA sodat ek vir 'n buitelandse besoeker 'n SIM-kaart vir Internet-toegang kan aanskaf. Dié besoeker is, ironies genoeg, van dieselfde universiteit wat vir die ontslape Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri haar doktorsgraad gegee het.

Dapper trek ek toe af Menlyn toe, met my inligting van Vodacom se webblad en die nodige dokumentasie in my sak. By Vodacom se kliëntedienssentrum aangekom, word ek begroet deur 'n kennisgewing dat hulle stelsel stadig is en op 'n ingewing gaan doen ek gou my RICA-papierwerk by Virgin Mobile (VM), waar my stemdiens is. VM was, soos gewoonlik, vriendelik en redelik doeltreffend maar dit het my bygeval dat die adresbewys wat ek voorgehou het, netsowel tuis met my kleurdrukker gemaak kon gewees het.

VM het my egter snuf in die neus gegee want ek moes my SIM-kaart se nommer verskaf. Terug by Vodacom, is die rekenaars steeds vertraag en ek vra die ontvangsdame of hulle my SIM-kaart nodig het vir die registrasie. Sy sê ja en toe ek uitwys dat Vodacom se webwerf (argiefkopié hier onder) slegs vermeld dat die selfoonnommer vereis word, pluk sy haar eie stuk papier uit waarop staan dat die laaste vier syfers van die SIM-kaartnommer ook nodig is. Op die vraag of ek dan maar net dié vier syfers kan saambring, sê sy nee - hulle wil tog maar die hele SIM-kaart sien. Môre probeer ek weer.

Wenk: dit is nodig om in persoon te verskyn (volgens Vodacom in Menlyn) vir elke SIM-kaart. Koop dus sommer soveel as wat jy dink jy gaan nodig hê in die afsienbare toekoms, en gaan registreer almal gelyktydig. Volgens die personeel van Vodacom, geskied registrasies tot Desember 2009 en volgens Vodacom se webwerf tot Desember 2010. Kies een.

Bronne

Vodacom se RICA-bladsye op 2009-08-31 http://www.kolmogorov.net/download/Vodacom_RICA_20090831.pdf

Expired countries populate the Internet's web forms

While making travel bookings in Australia over the past week, I have been amused yet again by the "nations" that populate assorted drop-down lists for the Country field of many web forms. The image below shows some of the jewels garnered from the websites of Jetstar, the budget airline subsidiary of Qantas, and VroomVroomVroom, a car booking site.

Have Soviet drivers ever been welcome to rent cars in Australia??! I have frequently wondered where these lists originate and still have no good answer. I am prepared to supply a standards compliant list for $500. Strewth, as one says in Australia.

Broken/Stukkend 3 : SARS eFiling's e-mail

My tax advisor just forwarded to me the reply he got when enquiring about the money that SARS (the South African tax authorities) owes me.

The following recipient(s) could not be reached:

eFilingAssist on 2009/07/23 03:16 PM
The message could not be delivered because
the recipient's mailbox is full.

That is, for a country of 50 million people, they did not think to solve this very usual problem. In fact, what they should do is not to have an e-mail address at all but only accept queries on the Web. Many organisations work like this and it is more-or-less as convenient for the sender because they could receive a copy of the sent message by e-mail, which - at the same time - confirms delivery. Is one morally obliged to even pay tax if the tax authority refuses to accept any correspondence?

New LaTeX plugin for gedit

LaTeX is used by most mathematical scientists, like myself, to typeset most of their writing. At a one-day workshop in economics yesterday for example, at the University of Sydney, most of the speakers had done their slides using LaTeX. The basis of LaTeX typesetting is a source file which consists of plain text which is run through the LaTeX engine to produce a PDF or other display file. This meands that one is usually working with at least two files at the same time - the source code and the rendered output. Now, the excellent text editor gedit has a plugin which displays the rendered PDF (or DVI) file right next to the source code, inside the editor!



This is a really nice feature and gedit's nice syntax highlighting and wealth of other plugins, makes it a pleasure to use. Gedit is, of course, the default text editor in Linux' GNOME desktop environment and will probably run in other operating systems as well. The LateX plugin can be found at live.gnome.org/Gedit/LaTeXPlugin.

SpringbokRadio.com - broadcasting daily

Because television was introduced in South Africa mercifully late (1976), many of us still grew up with an excellent selection of radio dramas and serials. The most popular station was Springbok Radio, the “commercial” bilingual broadcaster (all stations were state-owned). It had fantastic radio versions of The Avengers; Father, Dear Father as well as local classics such as Test the Team and Só maak mens. Many will remember the serials Wolwedans in die skemer or My Name's Adam Kane and the more high-brow Tuesday Theatre or Castle Playhouse. Now, many of these shows are available again on the streaming audio service of SpringbokRadio.com, courtesy of the Springbok Radio Preservation Society. Highly recommended!