Originally addressed to Internode support with copies to Mark Newton and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the support address bounced, so I forwarded the original message to some other published Internode addresses. Two separate autoreply messages tell me I’m now in the system…

Yes, there are typos and at least a couple of sentences that went astray somewhere in the middle. And if you do read as far as the postscript, yes, I do miss my old connection, and my apartment with the view over Darling Harbour. It’s getting cold here in London.

-spxl.

To: Internode Management,

I’m hoping whoever in support receives this can direct it to the appropriate department or manager within Internode; that the other published addresses are for residential and business sales or accounts, none of which seem entirely appropriate.

As a prior Internode account holder, currently living in London and likely to be using Internode again when I return to Australia, I want to express my concern and dismay over recent news in the Australian and international media about the so-called Clean Feed that the government wishes to strangle Australia’s internet networks with.

If Australia was ever considered an internet backwater (and to be sure, it has), that was nothing compared to the ridicule and sheer disbelief that the rest of the (western, at least) world is now showing for this draconian attempt to censor the internet.

The example, I think in Finland, of a similar scheme being trialled being used to block access to an anti-censorship site is a perfect example of exactly how this system will, both unintentionally and worse yet intentionally, fail and be abused.

I have thus far read only a few articles on the subject, and a search for “clean feed” on the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy site (http://www.dbcde.gov.au) appallingly returns only a solitary relevant result – a speech by Helen Coonan in June 2006 at http://www.dbcde.gov.au/newsroom/speeches/protecting_families_online – but it seems odd that no-one mentions the obvious that this policy is almost certainly primarily about something other than “protecting the children”, which that referenced speech indicates wasn’t really possible in 2006.

I am aware that “the Mark Newton letter” of 20 October 2008 addressed to Kate Ellis is not the word of Internode, but to me it is vindication of my choice of ISP, that it is staffed by technically competent, thinking individuals who are willing to say what they believe in defence of their own rights and the rights of the community. I am horrified to hear that Stephen Conroy (or his office) made moves to have him silenced – the disturbing element of the system already rears is ugly head. Point blank: the Clean Feed is about censorship, not protecting the public. It is there to give a reason for the government (pressure groups, et al) a convenient mechanism to stifle dissent. Once the system is in place, it won’t stop the things it is “supposed to” stop, but it will stop the casual user – the greater community, if you will – from finding news and being able to have their own “democratic” voice. I am totally opposed to this and other similar criminal imbalances in the network, which in our information age is as fundamental and essential as water and electricity have been in previous times.

This does raise an interesting parallel, though, and that is of the artificial introduction of fluoride compounds into the water supply at a state or federal level: hazardous toxic waste that has never been proven safe to administer to people, which costs the community financially to implement, has no demonstrable benefits and a whole raft of negative long term consequences, all, supposedly, in the name of “saving the children” (from having bad teeth, in the fluoride case).

It is my current understanding that government is about to start (or perhaps already has started) a trial, seeking participation from ISPs. If some 80% of poll respondents are against the Clean Feed but the government blindly (or should I say determinedly, since the real agenda is to control the population’s ability to dissent, not to give the population what they want) pushes on, the “people”, including businesses, should push back – and if all it takes is _not_ investing time, money and other resources on developing a police-state-enabling technology _for_ the government, then I say do that; and make a loud public statement to say why. You don’t need to go into detailed studies and analysis of cost and effectiveness; you can simply look at the big picture and see that censorship marks the road to tyranny and object purely on ethical and moral grounds.

I may be living in London, but I will be returning home soon enough, and I want to make my voice heard.I don’t want to return to find my beloved internet, freedom of choice and freedom of publishing, chopped off at the knees.

Sincerely,
George Webeck.

London, UK.
PS: With regards to the earlier internet backwater comment, I miss the great ADSL2+ Internode connection I had in Sydney; much faster than most broadband services available here in London; certainly the one I’m using now.

I don’t know how someone managed to get hold of my details – it could have been from using my card in a shop, but I think I booked a bus ticket to Bristol using my credit card from an internet cafe in London, and maybe there was a keylogger installed or some other dodgy happening there, and that seems the most likely place (to me). My bank almost insisted that it was probably an unconnected someone out in the wild trying random credit card numbers… the fact that I was in London and the online gaming company was London based seems like too much of a coincidence to me.

In any case… however it happened, it happened. What I noticed today was something different – an index.html page on my webserver had mysteriously been replaced by a .phtml page, with an identical appearance but also a chunk of PHP script that had references to some dodgy-sounding porn domain. What the bleep is that about? And how did it happen? I immediately reverted the page to a regular .html file and removed the script, and sent a support query to my web host letting them know what I had discovered. I also asked if they could audit my logins and/or suggest an exploit in some installed PHP applications that might have been used. They, of course, recommended that I change my administration and FTP passwords (good idea!), and I while looking for the page to change the password noticed that there is a section in the administration panel that displays the IP addresses of your recent logins. All the recent logins were the same (I’ve been logging in from a hotspot in my hostel) except for one: an IP address belonging to a server in America: 209.67.214.58 (mariolet.servidorlatinoamerica.com). I wrote to servidorlatinoamerica.com and they replied:

thank you for your communication.
the server with hostname mariolet.servidorlatinoamerica.com
is not active, is a hostname that is not within our network server
However, find out the reason for your report

again, thanks for communicating and thank you communicate if you have more information on this subject

Si tienes alguna duda, solo háganoslo saber y responderemos en el mas breve tiempo.

Sin otro particular, quedamos a la espera de vuestra noticias y aprovechamos la ocasión para saludarlos.

Att

Strange. Maybe there’s a hacker inside their network? Maybe someone is able to fake their IP? Maybe the information from the administration panel is wrong?… Whatever the case, it’s bad. Bad I say! Bad in a way that is making me grumpy because it looks like I’m going to have to change ALL my passwords from accounts that I have used recently, and that is more than a little inconvenient.

A note to friends and contacts: if you see some strange, unexpected email, especially with some sort of unusual attachment, bin it. I don’t generally send programs and such – it just doesn’t make sense. Practice good email hygiene!

-G.

I wanted to go to The Internet Archive, and typed the (unfortunately incorrect) address: http://archive.internet.org. internet.org is owned and controlled by one Michael Bauer, who appears to have an impressive web/internet development background. I’m not impressed by landing here by mistake, especially with no link to the site I was (and presumably most other people would be) looking for. As it happens, any old rubbish subdomain at internet.org is directed to the same page (Michael’s personal blog), not just archive.internet.org. I’m sure this must be great for directing traffic, but really… In the page header:

Hi. I’m Michael Bauer – Local 2.0 Internet guy. I work with companies like MapQuest and Skype before they become companies called MapQuest and Skype. I’ve got a new professional website at Seeing Forests. This one is just going to be all about me. :) And, as always, please don’t confuse me with Michael Bauer – San Fransico food critic (unless you own a fine dining establishment in the Bay Area). Anyway, welcome to my (purely personal) web site. (Oh, and here’s the old site Google.)

Even before I read that (with special mention of the comment directed at Google), I just felt this was taking a cheap shot at hoping to get people landing on his site without the slightest intention of wanting to go there, a scammy SEO (search engine optimisation) tactic, or, in this case, just by having a similar name to something else just for the purpose of stealing traffic by people typing the wrong thing directly.

Where’s the comment button to express my displeasure!? Hmm… a My Resume link – maybe he has an email address. Yes, he does, and perhaps better yet, a phone number. While I’m here, decide to have a look to see who this guy is. Sounds pretty impressive. In the summary:

I am a unique senior Internet executive. I have 15 years of experience developing businesses on the World Wide Web. My forte is building world-class search-centric web applications utilizing open source software and agile development methodologies. My experience spans the entire business process from defining product strategy to conducting consumer research to developing information architecture to leading application development to managing production sites. I build robust solutions to complex problems.

Two things pop into mind when I read this:

1. What consumer research has he conducted for his own site to suggest that people would be happy about landing on his page instead of The Internet Archive, without even a mention of it? Fair enough that he nabbed a great domain name at some stage; if he’d make a link to the (obvious) site that people are probably looking for, or something along those lines, I’d probably be okay about it.
2. Could this guy build a world-class, search-centric web application that filters out exactly this sort-of cyber-squatting bs that just annoys people, or does he actively encourage it as part of the corporate money-sucking advertising world (ie with no consideration for the needs and desires of genuine people – talking to Google might be a sign of this)? And if this guy can’t (or won’t) do it, when will someone else? I’d buy that for a dollar; possibly more than a dollar.

After a first failed call attempt (oops, forgot to dial the “1″ for the US country code), eventually received a ringing tone. Ringing, ringing… Answering machine? Argh! Well, it will have to do. A rhetorical question about why he thinks people would be looking for his personal blog when tying archive.internet.org (at the time not realising for other random subdomains pointed to the same page) and a statement of my opinion that it is lame. I left my name, but not a return number. Michael, if you’re reading (done any Google searches in the past five minutes for links to your site?..), this is me. Don’t worry, you’re not likely to be suddenly swamped with traffic from this blog (readership of about zero?), and most people couldn’t be arsed to actually make a phone call, so I reckon you’re pretty safe. I’m sure you can figure out how to contact me if you need to.

UPDATE: I wasn’t initially aware that pretty much any random subdomain directed itself to Michael’s blog, not just archive.internet.org, which I’d thought of as being, well, lame. Some hours later I received a return phonecall from Michael, who didn’t initially realise what I was talking about in my answering machine message, but figured it out and has since implemented a page specially to handle this complaint, with a link to archive.org (The Internet Achive). Apparently I’m not the only one to have made the same mistake, and Michael figured that since I’d bothered “to call from Australia” he’d do something about it. Good effort, Michael!

(Less-complimentary comments previoulsy appearing in this post removed)

-G.

This camera does not come with Canon warranty, however, we would be covering the warranty for Canon cameras that are purchased from our online store

Okay, reasonable, though not what I was looking for at the time. The sie seems to offer a never-ending supply of great deals on all manner of items, though their rate of contact is somewhat excesive – an email pretty much ever day. I’ve recently started receiving email from TopBuy as well, though, to the ShoppingSquare-registered address, which I’ve used exclusively for the ShoppingSquare account – one of the advantages of controlling your own internet domain, so wrote to ShoppingSquare:

Back off, ShoppingSquare. It’s bad enough that you seem to insist on mailing every day, but now I’m getting TopBuy emails as well – are you the same company, or have you violated my privacy by giving them the email address I gave you? Who else am I going to start receiving spam from?

I can’t find your privacy policy on your website – do you even have one? What sort of bogus operation are you running? Why should I trust you with my credit card details if you can’t even keep my email address to yourself?

[name witheld]
Sydney

While I was on the site I checked my account details, and deselected the “Yes! Send me email updates about new products and special offers” option. Interestingly, both ShopingSquare and TopBuy are businesses operating in New South Wales, unlike the vast majority of internet annoyances that are outside Australian jurisdiction, so hopefully they’ll be a little more compliant than others you might be trying to shake off. We’ll see.

Links have not been supplied to the noted sites in this post as I don’t especially want to drive traffic towards them, though I’d say purchasing from them is probably quote okay. ShoppingSquare is one of the sites included in Shopbot product searches, for example.

Do your own research. Here are some links to some Australian price comparison / search sites. Quotes are taken directly from the sites’ about pages (but are not the entirety of those pages).

Shopbot

Link: Shopbot.com.au

Shopbot is Australia’s premier price comparison site offering the best service possible for customers and merchants alike. Established in 2004, our experienced team has fine-tuned the site to make it is as efficient and easy to use as possible. Shopbot’s main function is to connect savvy customers with reliable retailers, and it is with this in mind that we will continue to improve the site in response to your feedback and inquiries.

staticICE

Link: staticICE.com.au
Also: staticICE.co.nz (New Zealand)

staticICE (ABN 95 989 670 953), based in Sydney, is Australia’s comprehensive computer hardware and gadget price comparison search engine. We simplify the price shopping experience by searching inventory from over 260 Australian retailers.

AusPrices

This site has a handy feature of allowing you to narrow your search to retailers in a certain state, eg NSW. Excellent!

Link: AusPrices.com.au

AusPrices^TM is a product comparison web site to help Australian users find the product they want, and at the cheapest price. Prices are updated at least every 24 hours (currently twice a day). Some shops may choose to update their information more often.

GetPrice

Link: GetPrice.com.au

Getprice is an Australian company that provides a free online comparison shopping resource for you, the consumer. Our aim is to help you make smart, informed purchasing decisions, by arming you with as much information as possible. Getprice aims to cover all of the key stages in the consumer buying cycle and address your questions along the way, i.e.:

• Which product meets my individual needs? E.g. Plasma vs LCD
• Read product reviews
• Compare products side-by-side
• View the price history of a product
• Read merchant reviews
• Compare prices

GetOnce

GetOnce is unique in that it allows you to (de)select which sites you want to search within a category, with the obvious side benefit that you are being shown up-front which sites it uses.

Link: GetOnce.com.au

The GetOnce website is designed to provide users with one central gateway to search a range of websites at once.

Typically when a user searches for a product or service on the Internet they are faced with the laborious task of finding relevant websites to search, learning how to navigate those websites, keeping track of what site sells which item and finally making a purchase.

GetOnce simplifies this process by providing a uniform “One Stop” search interface where users can quickly find what they’re looking for. GetOnce does not actually sell any products, it simply provides a mechanism to search leading retail websites within particular product categories.

ShopFerret Australia

Link: ShopFerret.com.au

ShopFerret is a free service connecting consumers in Australia and New Zealand with all the information they need to make a smart shopping decision. We help you buy the right product from the best merchant at the lowest price.

Yahoo!7 Shopping

Link: shopping.yahoo.com.au

Yahoo!7 Shopping is a free comparison shopping service that empowers consumers to compare millions of products from thousands of retailers. The retailers listed on Yahoo!7 Shopping pay to participate in the DoorOne Merchant Network programme. Yahoo!7 Shopping is committed to providing shoppers with the most comprehensive online shopping experience on the Web. If you think a store is mis-categorised or should be added to our listings, please let us know here. If you have a consumer query related to a specific retailer, please contact them directly.

I think that’s enough for now. I’m sure there are others around. Send me a link to any others that you know of (if you happen to know they are good!).

-G.