| vodafone woes |
[Apr. 20th, 2008|03:05 pm] |
Vodafone's kiddy filter broke and was stuck on 'on' yesterday evening. Like all good censorship it grows exponentially, now all of Live Journal and Wikipedia's image search (*) seems to have been added to the block. I posted to Vodafone's eforum saying I was really unhappy and they've deleted my post as "offensive". Maybe questioning filters-on-crack is offensive to Daily Mail readers, I dunno. There was certainly no swearing.
(*)Wikimedia Commons, to be exact. 'Go' finds your page, 'Search' brings up content control. |
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| Complaining to Vodafone |
[Mar. 2nd, 2008|10:00 pm] |
My usb hsdpa (mobile broadband) modem regularly loses all connectivity. I've written to Vodafone's customer services and felt like I was dealing with robots.
Last night I discovered that they have a customer forum. I joined up and posted a question/complaint/whinge and I now have a reply.
I'll obviously have to pretend I only use Windows. Any problems I give from this box will be seen as being caused by Ubuntu and wvdial. I know I have the same issues with XP as I've tested on my desktop's XP partition.
They totally dodged the question on Content Control - the issue isn't whether I have Content Control removed or not, the issue is that Content Control is on crack. They also don't understand the issue with image compression. I'm not using their extra client side image compression and even their own website looks crap! It's up to ME whether I want to have horribly dithered images or not in return for less bandwidth. I have a laptop and 3 GB to play with, this isn't a little mobile phone with a 120MB quota and the balance between quality and bandwidth is different.
As it's always worse during weekdays I guess I'll be using XP tomorrow.. |
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| vodafone uk huawei e270 wvdial.conf |
[Feb. 14th, 2008|11:14 pm] |
[Dialer Defaults]
Modem = /dev/ttyUSB0
Baud = 3600000
Init1 = ATZ
Init2 = ATQ0 V1 E1 S0=0 &C1 &D2
Init3 =
Area Code =
Phone = *99***2#
Username = ppp
Password = ppp
Ask Password = 0
Dial Command = ATDT
Stupid Mode = 1
Compuserve = 0
Force Address =
Idle Seconds = 0
DialMessage1 =
DialMessage2 =
ISDN = 0
Auto DNS = 1 |
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[Jan. 24th, 2008|10:25 am] |
Net really poor today. I feel like I've gone back to the days of leeching wifi..
The usb modem does seem to get really hot. Whether it's too hot I don't know. I'm playing with aircrack-ng which is in hardy. Only got 20 encrypted packets which isn't very good. Maybe I need to run it when people are more likely to be at home. It'd be fun if I did get someone's WEP key though - we read about how weak WEP is and yet I've never actually managed it. (*)
*No I wouldn't dare use it, this is a research exercise! |
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[Nov. 30th, 2007|08:41 pm] |
Bah wikipedia down..
Vodafone has an interesting message for this sort of thing. It feels like the default for whatever they bought:
Network Error (tcp_error)
A communication error occurred: "Connection refused"
The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time.
For assistance, contact your network support team.
----------
But *you* are my network support team (presuming vodafone has such a thing)
UPDATE: Commons and secure are up, it's just en (a european squid?) is down. |
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| Now even some wikipedia pages are blocked by vodafone! |
[Oct. 17th, 2007|05:15 am] |
Wow! Wikipedia's page on Internet censorship is censored by vodafone!
I presume it has information on bypassing it.. |
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| Vodafone are crap cont. |
[Oct. 17th, 2007|04:12 am] |
It's been suggested that this is the company who make the shitty filter.
I found a comment from vodafone on a forum about contracts and content control:
The reason we endorse it is to prevent minors accessing unsuitable content, which is why a credit card is needed to remove it (a lot of parents etc get a contract for their kids, if they choose to remove the bar for them, they we have no further responsibilty to prevent them viewing anything and banks will issue a debit card at age 14). If a customer does not have a credit card, it is possible for the bar to be removed in any Vodafone store, as long as 2 forms of ID are provided.
and
All UK networks currently run similar schemes though there are minor differences.
Do other mobile broadband providers operated an opt-out censor for adults - that blocks irc and flikr? I've never had this on domestic broadband before..
Why do they think they are responsible for content provided to children that their parents have paid for? Their parents are responsible for them - all you are achieving is upsetting loads of adults - who then tell all their friends! |
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| Vodafone update |
[Oct. 15th, 2007|12:58 am] |
I'm still having "fun" with Vodafone's content control. Vodafone's customer services has emailed me back to tell me that, despite what it says on their help site, I still need a credit card to prove I'm over 18, even though I have a contract with them. My understanding is that would be illegal for vodafone to offer me credit and a contract if I were under 18. They also credit checked me which presumably gave them by date of birth, or at least that I'm an adult.
I've emailed them back to point out the difference between their practice and their written help files. I've also told them that I am considering reporting them to the advertising standards authority and returning my usb modem under the distance selling regulations. (I have 14 days)
If content control really did just block access to gambling and porn it wouldn't be so bad. As I generally don't look at either I wouldn't be affected. It actually blocks access to loads of things you use every day, and is more like an over 12 filter than an over 18 one. In fact it is more restrictive than many places I've worked and studied.
I'm going to compile a list of things that vodafone censor so people can see quite how bad it is. I'm going to compare this to vodafone's censoring policy so people can see how they've extended and interpreted it.
Why am I doing this? Because I'm stuck behind it and it's annoying me greatly. It would be crude to comapre it to the Great Firewall of China, but I still smack up against it 20 times a day and the blocking of IRC is causing me real problems. |
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