Alex Reid

Today, I was complaining to myself about Shaw Cable.

On a business relationship level, I’ve been really unpleased with their communication, and utter lack of organization. It’s just a matter of time before we cancel our agreement with them.

A Shaw Cable Internet technician called me a hour ago to tell me that my personal ISP connection’s bandwidth was rather high. He was pretty rushed to tell me that it might be P2P downloads. And while that certainly account for some of the bandwidth, it was something very specifically work-related and a little bit of excess Internet radio.

It seems that when I ordered “Xtreme speed” a few months ago, it wasn’t added at all. So, while ithe phone call reminded me how disorganized Shaw is, I was really pleased that Shaw took the time to a) investigate bandwidth concerns and b) kindly called people to give them a heads up. It wasn’t a heavy-handed phone call, just a ‘hey, thought you should know…’ phone call. I was really happy that they called me ahead of time, instead of just cutting me off or billing the hell out of me without a heads up (ala MTS).

And no doubt that it was a scripted call, to immediately suggest P2P traffic as the cause of the heavy Internet usage. I imagine alot of people probably freak out and stop using BitTorrent or similiar P2P software in fear. And I say good, if that’s what happening. If people feel guilty about P2P or file trading, they probably shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.

I’m still making mix tapes.

CIRA (the organization that rules of the registration of .ca domain names) pulled its support from ICANN last week.

Following the recent controversial decision by ICANN to give control for all .com domain names to Verisign, CIRA is citing lack of accountability and transparency for its withdrawal from the domain name body. (read CIRA’s press release here)

The deal with Verisign spells the end of cheaper .com domain names for webhosting companies and domain name registry companies:

The new settlement proposal runs for six-years and may allow for renewal in 2012 when it expires.

Revisions in the new document, according to an ICANN statement, include, “the elimination of the proposed registry-level transaction fee (which would have been passed through directly to registrars) and a direct contribution from VeriSign in the form of significantly increased fixed registry-level fees (which VeriSign will not be permitted to pass through directly to registrars).”

The new deal basically permits VeriSign to increase the price of domain name registrations by 7% in four of the next six years. In the two remaining years, VeriSign can raise prices further, if it can show the price increase is necessary for security reasons.

Reports are saying  that twenty large domain registration companies representing owners of 50% of international domain names are balking. BulkRegister says the decision will earn $3 Billion for Verisign over the next six years, and GoDaddy has begun petitioning the US Department of Commerce - which holds a de facto veto of ICANN decisions. And that’s part of the problem as CIRA sees it, ICANN is supposed to be an international body, but it isn’t. The US does not want to give up control of the Internet to the hands of the world.

Not only will this mean less profits for Verisign’s competitors, but it allow Verisign to have an upper hand with soon-to-be expired domain names since they will now control access to that list.

But bravo to CIRA for not only making a bold statement, but for also being savvy enough to publish their “open letter” just a week before ICANN’s 25th annual international meeting in New Zealand.

CIRA peeps ”have grown increasingly concerned with ICANN’s departure from a number of its core values” and wants ICANN to focus on “accountability, internal processes and transparency.” CIRA has suspended its involvement with ICANN and refuses to host or sponsor any ICANN events until ICANN “revises its policies and practices.”

In related news, ICANN will vote on the possible inclusion of the .xxx domain name this week.

Cam introduced me to Su Doku, a logic game featuring a 9×9 grid on Saturday night. You have to complete it so that every row, column and cube contains the digits 1-9.

I spent five or six hours playing it on Saturday night and another three or four hours last night. I’m so addicted to this game.

 

 

In the example above, the green box is where a 5 would go since the other fives rest on the red lines.

I only used eBay once, so I’m not too familiar with the inner workings and scams out there in eBay-land. But if you use eBay, you should be aware of this scam..

 ..and funny counter-scam done by MyNameIsJeff 

The scam starts with a buyer interested in buying an item via eBay, but suggests using an escrow service. The escrow service is fake and part of the scam. The victim will send the product to the escrow service, never to hear from the scammer or escrow service again. The website of the escrow service will typically go offline after the victim has sent their goods.

Now, this happened to MyNameIsJeff and instead of ignoring the offer, he decided to post it on an online discussion board. After some encouragement from others on the board, he decides to see how far he can take the scammer. During the dialogue, “Jeff” complains to eBay, but isn’t pleased with the response.

When the scammer tells “Jeff” :

Here the duty taxes are 27,5% from the total amount wrote on the package so please do your best and send it as a family gift and with a low value.

Again others on the discussion board suggest:

Put like $8000 on the package and make the f*cker pay $2200 for it. But “Jeff” does it smootly and posts the price a reasonably priced $2100 – which means the scammer (who believes the victim to be innocent) will have to put down a couple hundred in duty taxes to have the item released – and sends him this:   

 

A three-ring binder with glued-on keys from a PC keyboard !! (see this PDF, page 10 for complete pictures)

“Jeff” got nearly the $100 from other faithful on the discussion board needed to FedEx the “laptop” to the scammer in London.

Remember, in the end, the scammer will have to pay three times that to get a product that weighs the same as the Powerbook laptop, rightfully priced at around $2000. With some initial hesitation on the scammer’s side, he/she eventually paid the duty taxes for the “laptop” and was never heard from again.