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Depending on your personal beliefs and where you live, how to deal with the Somali pirates may range from kill them all, to take away there tools, to give them money so they don’t need/want to be pirates.

Critical Items to any Solution

1. Deterrence. Any solution that isn’t a deterrent to other Somalis to start or continue being pirates is unacceptable.
2. The risks must outweigh the rewards. Break a leg or an arm at every encounter with every pirate. Some have suggested that cutting off fingers or tongues would be a better deterrent. That would be permanent. A broken leg would cause 6 weeks of healing.
3. Remove the tools of the trade every time there’s an encounter. They leave every encounter without communications, guns, GPS devices, with just enough food and fuel to get back to the mainland. Sadly, we can’t take their small boats, since they will need them to fish and return home. Unless we sink those boats and parachute drop them back home. Hummmm.
4. No rewards. No payments. Period. We shouldn’t pay them for not being pirates or jail them outside Somalia or pay any ransoms. Let them keep the cargo. It appears that most of the ships taken recently carried food aid. What can they do with grain when at sea? Send in the SEALS, SAS, Dutch, French, German commandos for target practice.
5. I read here that Somalia was 100% Islamic. I’d be curious to know what Islamic law says should happen to the pirates after they are inhospitable towards travelers of the sea.

Follow the pirates back home or to the mother ship and take all the guns, GPS, radios, and as many of the boats as possible away. Place all the pirates on board the smallest craft possible 20 miles from shore.

Certainly a private security firm or 10 could work out a business model to provide arms and/or soldiers for legs of the trip where pirates exist in world. These security firms would need to be registered with the countries of origin and destination. That registration would help with any laws preventing fire arms on ships in ports. Obviously, this is possible since military ships dock in ports around the world today and they include trained marines with guns AND rifles.

Combat pirates with multiple countries working together. There can’t be more than a few thousand actual pirates. After a while, most of them will have broken legs, no guns, no GPS, no radios and no boats with which they can continue. Every year, a few new, young pirates will take up the effort. After a few of them get broken legs or “don’t come back”, the risk will clearly outweigh the rewards and it will cease to be a problem like it is today.

Obviously, there are some issues to be resolved with this plan.

There’s a new competitor to Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Smartphones available, the Peek Pronto.

It looks like the RIM 957 with color. No phone or web browser, just email and texting. This is great for companies that want their people connected, but not with a cell phone ripe for abuse.

I’m concerned when an email-only device doesn’t clearly state the security features. A lack of network and data encryption and remote wiping is discouraging. At a minimum, HTTPS and IMAPS and POP3S need to be clearly supported. A device password lock with encrypted file system would be easy to add, IME. In that way, even if the device were lost, the data on it would be protected provided the password wasn’t hacked. Of course, real security goes beyond a “password” and complex passwords, autolocking, mandatory change periods, no password reuse, etc. are needed too.

But keeping it simple is a good thing. The Pronto seems to do this.

• email (5 acnts),
• texting,
• view images,
• view DOCs and PDFs.
• No web.
• No cell phone.

4/2009

• $80 for the device.
• $20/month for nationwide GSM service

There is an older device that is cheaper, has the same monthly plan costs, but doesn’t support text or anything other than email.

Blackberry Still Wins

Blackberry security still beats all the hand held devices, that hasn’t changed. Windows Mobile devices win on flexibility. Both cost significantly more than the Peek-Pronto.

Netbooks are becoming more and more viable to replace all these devices for those who need to get work done while on the road, not just check email.

Nokia Internet Tablets

Anyone who knows me, knows that I love the Nokia N800/N810 Internet Tablets. These devices should be on any list that a Peek Pronto is on and any list that an iTouch, WM6, Blackberry or Netbook is on too. Both the N800 and iTouch use WiFi and Bluetooth for connectivity – no data plan is required, therefore, no monthly data plan is required. This is a major plus.

Summary

The Peek Pronto is a low end email device that requires a monthly data plan to be useful. Security may or may not meet your requirements. We can’t tell based on the advertising.

This page was written without actually touching or seeing the device ourselves. It is based on what the getpeek website says (and doesn’t say). Without touching the device, it is impossible to determine whether the keyboard feel is good or not. That can be a critical decision factor for hand held devices.

I can’t take credit for this idea, but I read about it someplace over 5 years ago. Why is it possible to have altered photo IDs at all anymore?

Use PKI.

When you request an ID (Drivers License, Photo ID, Passport), the request includes a photo. That photo is converted to electronic form and used in the creation of public and private keys of 4K length. The photo and private key are placed onto a server with extremely limited access that is replicated to however many disks (SAN) and remote servers as needed. That data is also replicated to read-only media which can be located at the larger custom facilities in case there’s a communication fault, but is generally not used. A secure web service is setup to allow anyone in the world with a login/password and smartcard to perform remote queries by passing the public key and some nominal text to help speed the DB queries (Country, Name, ID#) and limit and duplicate record queries that need to be decrypted with the provided public key. Purely a web interface for tiny customs offices or DMVs everywhere.

The photo, e-photo and public key are placed onto the ID Card along with the trivial ID information listed above.

Ok, so you’re the customs guy at a terminal. The passport holder hands you his/her passport and you swipe it. That kicks off the remote query to the main server farm (with your login data and smartcard data for tracking who’s looking at what records). While that query is being processed, the electronic photo is read from the ID and displayed. The query returns and that information is displayed with another photo and more data about the person standing in front of him/her.

The person, and 3 photos aren’t identical? Arrest that person!!!

3 Photos?
1) E-photo on the ID card
2) E-photo returned from the central server
3) photo inside the ID that humans see

Any failure in any of these being images being identical? Humans have an innate ability to tell when faces don’t match?

The fail safe media would need to be replenished dependent on the rate of new/changed data. Cross overs in rural North Dakota don’t need the same level of connectivity as JFK or Atlanta Airports OR the San Diego border.

As a technical architect, I think I can design around those problems with redundant servers and networking and power feeds. Of course, all the data transferred is fully encrypted with the keys predetermined by the customs officer and central servers. It is the physical control of the read-only backup use media that concerns me most.

Of course, each country needs to provide a way for other countries to validate that an authentic passport is being presented. That’s just another 3rd party signed part to the electronic data on the passport. GPG has the idea of getting lots of people to sign your public key with their private keys, thus building a web of trust. Obviously, that signature for countries should only come from the UN or other non-corrupt international standards body.

Am I missing any thing with this solution besides the obvious communications failure or power outage risks?

US State Department guy is less than confident talking tech, but he does say PKI, unconvincingly.

How to connect a Bluetooth Keyboard and Cell phone to a Nokia 770: http://blip.tv/file/892343

This guy does a good job showing the major things that any of the Nokia Internet Tablets can do and how to tether them (connect) to Keyboards and cell phones. He mentioned that some kind of driver download was needed. I did not need to download any drivers or anything else to use either my cell phone (or those of my friends with unlimited data plans) or keyboard. It just worked.

He completely left of Maemo-Mapper – a free GPS application. Just tether a GPS Receiver ($34) and you’re good. You can have GPS, Keyboard, Cell Phone all tethered over Bluetooth at the same time. It just works.

I didn’t realize that the media player would playback almost anything, including OGG. Interesting. I only use it to play MP3 audio – which it does nicely – WHILE THE GPS APP IS WORKING. Linux is multitasking – the N800 is no different. No studdering or any other issues seen with either the GPS or Audio player application. An optimized video would probably work well too – I generally just copy the same file that my TiVo produces (after removing the DRM envelope) to the device. That’s a 480×480 video and it plays back.

For the last few years, we’ve all seen the iPhone, iTouch, WindowsMobile, and Blackberry options for portable computing. Each has there place, especially when you aren’t paying for them.

I have a few problems with them – the radio and that they aren’t general purpose computers with lots and lots of free software. Basically, I wanted a platform that could do the following things in a highly portable container, securely, with great battery life.

1. IMAPS email to my server
2. Browse the real web, not some mobile-limited sites only
3. wifi with WPA2 as the default network
4. Skype and SIP clients for voice calls (I use my cell phone tho)
5. MP3 playback (other formats supported too) OGG or other codecs you decide, not Apple
6. Occasional video playback – mp4 and many, many other formats via mplayer
7. rsync/ssh to servers
8. Mapping/GPS (with a tiny GPS Receiver added on)
9. Blogging and note taking device (with an iGo Bluetooth keyboard)
10. Nearly unlimited expansion via memory (SD cards)
11. disconnected from the cell network, so the connectivity can be upgraded outside this device. I use a cheap Motorola cell phone with a 3G data plan via Bluetooth when there’s no wifi available.
12. USB connectivity to pull photos from a camera during travels (yes, swapping memory would be better, but I sadly bought a Sony camera). External HD also support this way.
13. Youtube to kill some time. Other video formats are supported, but some are challenging for playback – it is only a 400MHz CPU after all. That doesn’t mean you can’t convert with a simple script into whatever format works best.
14. High res screen (800×480)

So there’s a bunch of bluetooth happening here. Why? Bluetooth connection mean the cell phone radio can be upgraded as desired – -fairly cheaply. It also stays in the backpack – same for the GPS receiver, and keyboard if you plan to type much.

My solution? Why, a Nokia N800. It runs Linux, so there are many, many free applications. It is backed by Nokia, so there’s a commercial GPS app. I use Maemo Mapper – completely free. Since it runs Linux, when I’m at home, I can ssh into the device and setup files, move music or other files over, and pull photos off it. The uses are nearly unlimited and completely under your control.

The best part? In Feb 2008, an N800 costs $219. That’s half the price of an iPhone – with no monthly data plan payment needed. AND I can load the apps I like, not just apps that Apple or Nokia think I should. Pick an audio file format, you can probabaly use it, provided the DRM works. If it doesn’t, convert it to any format you like – FLAC, OGG, MP3, MP4, whatever you need. Same for video.

The Nokia isn’t perfect. Typing without an external keyboard sucks. It is a read-only device then. That means replying to email isn’t something you’ll do very much. If that’s what you need – get a Blackberry. But when you are portable and on the move, read-only is generally what you need. Reading PDF docs, recording voice notes, using Skype for international calls, using the GPS to find a shortcut or simply listening to your favorite music for a few hours on an airplane. The N800 does all these things nicely, without the extra cost of the other alternatives or the weight of a full laptop. Even taking a keyboard, GPS receiver, and tiny router, we’re still way under the size and weight of most laptops.

Sometimes you just want a small cell phone and don’t want to carry more. How’s that iPhone then? Some more reasons
and a demo of an N770 you may like. That is an older model.

Comparison between the N800 and iTouch might be better? They cost about the same amount. Here’s the big differences, as I see them:

1. swap the memory or not?
2. General purpose browser (Mozilla) or specialized?
3. OSS Apps or Apple-only approved apps?
4. clunky UI or beautifully designed UI? – this could be important to some
5. Multitude of audio file formats supported like FLAC, OGG, MP3, whatever or just iTunes?
6. Multitude of video file formats supported (mp4, avi, mpg2, whatever or just iTunes?
7. IMAPS email or not?
8. GPS or not?
9. Skype or not?
10. Lots of peripherals or lots of expensive peripherals?
11. General purpose portable computer or specific Music player?

It’s your choice. How much is usability on a limited device worth?

This week, my GoPass GPT800 Bluetooth GPS Receiver SiRF Star III from Amazon arrived. The plan was to pair this with my N800 (already paired). It was charged overnight and ready for use today. I didn’t get outside much, but it was able to lock onto 8 satellites even while in my den. Impressive for $35.

In the box:

1. Bluetooth GPS Receiver (about 1″×1.5″×0.4″ in size)
2. Li-Ion Battery
3. Car cigarette power adapter
4. USB travel power adapter
5. Mini-USB to USB charging cable
6. Software CD – I didn’t need this at all;
   • it contains the installation manual for WinME, etc. with some of the most impressive Engrish that I’ve ever seen.
7. Quick start pamphlet with the bluetooth code
8. (2) lanyards for the device (light/dark)

Walking around the house, it showed altitude, direction and speed. The numbers seemed reasonable. Even when not moving, just turning it changed the direction output.

I can’t wait to go hiking and geocaching or even get lost in rural South Carolina like a few weeks ago. Even if I don’t have the correct map, at least I’ll know where I am and hopefully have a POI nearby. I’m guessing that I’ll be able to place this in a backpack and it will still receive and BT connect to the N800.

Ok, so it works with the defacto GPS software on the N800 – Maemo-Mapper.
I pulled gpsbabel-1.3.3.zip off Freshmeat.net to convert from/to whatever format is needed for POI files.
I mirrored a huge number of POI files that I found through google. No registration needed. It appears I need to convert the POIs that I want into GPX format, move those files to the N800 and run a script to load them into the poi.db that Maemo-Mapper uses. It can’t be that challenging.

I slept in a little today since I’ve had a sore throat the last few days. Up for a nice home-cooked breakfast from Lia of eggs, Indonesian noodles and an apple, before getting on the road.

A few toll bridges and paid turnpikes later ($12 total) and I was entering Philadelphia hunting for the famous Art Museum where Rocky was filmed. Close parking opened up for me on the far side entrance, not the main big entrance. Today was pay what you like day at the museum – I paid the normal price.

That price was cheap for what it included. I stayed until closing AND didn’t make it to the two other buildings included in the entry cost. Rodin, Picasso, Monet, Manet, Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh, Renoir, and others. We aren’t talking about a single painting or sculpture here, but entire rooms filled with each. There were over 20 Picasso’s – unprotected, just hanging on the wall. None of them had laser protection, but I suspect each was bolted to the wall and had a pressure sensor.

Besides the famous artists, there were galleries of middle-age art, weaponry, Chinese, Japanese and India art. Then there was the modern art collection. I snapped a photo of a picture that Mom and I discussed a few days earlier – the slightly off center blue square on a white background. Oddly, the guard said that room wasn’t to be photographed. I’d asked at the front desk if photography was ok and was told it was – without a flash.

Hunger forced me to leave – it was closing time too. I wanted to get a photo of the Rocky steps, but it was raining too hard to get to the bottom and face back. In fact the view of the skyline from this location earlier in the day was just a little hazy, but now hardly anything could be seen at all. I quickly walk to my car and get soaked.

Anyway, it was a long day and I needed to find my hotel, Conwell Inn, and get situated for the night. With google map and directions in hand, I start out. What should have been a 30 minute drive turned into an hour+ view the city tour. Google Maps provides approximate distances between turns, so you get a good idea when you’re getting close to a turn. I missed a turn fairly early near the Art Museum and ended up at the capitol. It was one-way street after one-way street. Seems 3 streets all head in the same direction, not every other one as in most cities. I ended up on Broad Street going in the right direction, and when the W Berk Street turn distance came up, there was no street to turn at. There was Berk Mall – into Temple University – a walkway. I kept going all the way out to 71st street and found a place to park and look over my maps. None are detailed enough, so I head back down Broad Street. This time, I find a few of the streets a little earlier in the directions and start following them again, correctly from that point. The mileage places me at Berk Mall again for the turn … again, no place to turn. I’m thinking this is a joke hotel setup by Temple University students to get credit card numbers. I call the reservations phone number and he talks me into the correct parking. It is in the middle of Temple University and there is no W Berk St to turn down. In my rush to book the hotel and get on the road, I didn’t bother to get the directions from the hotel web site which were fairly clear on the hidden nature.

Since it is a college area, summer, and Sunday, none of the food stands surrounding the hotel – and there are many, many of them – are open. I chose this hotel because it was not in the city center and didn’t have $26/night parking, but was on a subway line. The campus police station is in the same building as the hotel. Just one block away are some slums, so I’ll be staying on Broad Street when walking. Oh, and parking is $12/night.

Tomorrow will be a day of Independence Hall and central Philadelphia tours.

I got up early today and was on my way to Baltimore by 8:15a to see the Bodies 2 exhibit. After negotiating the ticket purchase (complicated due to the natural museum and IMAX options), I wandered into the main attraction for me – the Bodies.

In short, there’s a German-name sounding scientist who has created a way to replace different fluids in human bodies with plastic. According to the sign at the entry, each of the models in this exhibit understood their body would be plasticized. It begins with a brain, elbow, and knee joints – nothing too shocking. Then you get to a compete man doing a cross like a gymnast. The WHOLE man, just without skin. After getting past the initial shock and feeling good about my parts, I move through the rest of the exhibit with a hand-held audio guide talking about each numbered display. Our German scientist decided that showing the complete bodies just standing there was making them into dummies, so he decided to follow the great masters of painting and place the bodies into different athletic poses. Kicking a soccer ball, ice skating, ballet dancing, and others.

Then there were the individual displays for each organ. A multitude of different brain views, kidneys, stomachs, intestines, bladders, spines, heats, lungs, reproductive organs … everything except skin. Oh, since when was the kidney the largest organ of the body? I was taught that the skin was the largest.

Not for squeamish people. I don’t think I’d take anyone under 18 into this display. The main display that caught my attention was a 72 year old man with a very fit body. They didn’t say what killed him, but his musculature was impressive in a fit way. Also, they said that only bones heal with new bone cells that are exactly the same as the original cells. All other healing is with scar tissue, so your skin, heart, any other body part that has trauma will never be as good as new.

On to the dinosaur area, then the space and astronomy stuff. I catch a Your Sun show in the planetarium. Yawn. After that, I wander the remaining display – DNA and health sciences – it is completely empty. It feels like a child friendly version of The Bodies.

It is a little after 1pm before I leave and head for home. I stop at a random exit to grab some lunch and wander into – what I thought was a Mexican restaurant based on the Spanish name. Turns out it was an Argentine Restaurant! A vey happy accident for me. I order an empanada and a steak sandwich. Both taste similar to what I recall. The empanada has just the right spices and the crust is perfect. The bread used for the steak sandwich is the same as my hamburger at the Puerto Iguazu bus terminal. I chat with the owner – he’s from outside Buenos Aires – very southern barrio to the city. On the satellite tv is the River Plate soccer team.

An half hour later and I’m back on I-95 headed towards DC.

The entire family and I visited the Dulles Air and Space Museum today. Lots of aircraft and space craft were on display. Microlites thru to the space shuttle Enterprise used for landing software validation. The exhibit spans a huge hangar with an added on hangar for the space stuff. A Redstone missiles (used by Explorer1) was on display. Anyway, lots and lots of stuff for aerospace fans.

When we were finished and headed out late in the afternoon, it started to rain. Lacking any better idea, we headed home before going to dinner at a local noodle house. After dinner, it was back into DC to watch the fireworks. We arrived at a great viewing place near the Potomac River just as the display began. I was unable to locate the simulcast FM station, so we just watched from the SUV. It was sprinkling the entire time.

After the fireworks finished, the GPS hunt for home was on.

I haven’t mentioned this, but my kitchen at home is full of very different items when compared to this Indonesian household. I have metal and plastic spatulas, they have wooden. I have non-stick pans, they have cast iron. There’s an odd (to me) spice rack and other fixin’s around. Of course, the eggs, milk, and beer looked familiar as did most of the fruit. There were odd fruits and veggies, however.

On Saturday, I’ll be getting up and going on my own in the hope if doing 2 attractions tomorrow. Somehow, I’ve only been able to do 1 per day as everything takes longer to accomplish than expected.

So I had the grand plans for today – I was going to refresh all my photos of the Washington Mall area over a 2 hour period. Then go for a hike back in Maryland Patuxent Research Refuge.

I took the Metro from Shady Grove, MD into the city. That took about an hour. Then I got in line at the National Archives – I didn’t bother with this ten years ago, but decided that seeing the Bill of Rights and Constitution was worth it. An hour later and I was entering the building. The exhibits explained the type of information the archives retained. Nothing too exciting there, except the Magna Carta, Bill of Rights, and Constitution.

So now it is 2pm already and I haven’t started the walk on the Mall.

Head towards the Capitol – lots of construction out front.

The Mall has some Cultural Festival – Indian, Buhtan, and NASA? Huh? NASA has a culture? I snap a few photos of buildings on the southern side of the mall and a few sculptures before heading into the center to the NASA exhibits. I chat with the guy that builds and places the video cameras on the shuttle and SRBs for those great photos during launch, SRB Sep and MT Sep. Next to the launch control room at KSC, but for non-shuttle launches. Then to the JSC tent and to a CalTech exhibit – how to cheaply get some soil samples out of a crater. And we are walking ….

Washington Monument, White House, WW-II Monument (nicely done), Korean War, Jefferson, Vietnam memorials and back to the White House since it is on the way to the Metro station with the RED line.

I’m obviously hot, sticky and still sweating. I’ve been careful to drink about a gallon of water to prevent heat stress. Hat to prevent sunburn – that wasn’t enough.

Almost all the signs around the town were in both English and Spanish. What really bothered me was that snow fencing was up around almost all the green spaces and that the fields were mostly covered in clover and weeds.

Dinner (leftovers from last night) and I’m out. I’d walked over 7 miles according to the pedometer – calibrated to be accurate for my gate over the months, so it should be fairly accurate. My legs haven’t ached like this in a few months.