Or not! Looks like it's available (Officially) in every single country that has internet (can you say Uganda?) EXCEPT for Canada. People all over the world are downloading their version of Skype for the iPhone and iPod touch, and soon to be blackberry as well (in May sometime).

So why not in Canada? Skype tells us something vague about patent problems here. They would seem to be admitting that someone here in Canada filed a Patent that Skype's mobile edition's codec's infringe upon? This seems to be pretty unlikely since we do make use of Skype for other things here. But wait...this is sounding all too familiar.

Recall how the CRTC won't let Skype or other DID / SIP providers cell Canadian phone numbers? So if you want a Skype IN number, you have to use US / UK / Europe? Gee..wonder who lobbied for THAT little restriction. Our government tells us on one hand that they are trying to encourage competition, however at every chance they get they invoke extremely anti-competitive practices and legislation. People wonder why their cell bills are so high. We are paying for the privileged of having high bills for the foreseeable future. Really, you gotta take into account that these bribes do COST money right?

And now you have to try and trick Apple's iTunes store into thinking you're an american in order to download Skype. T-Mobile better get moving on their business plan to come into Canada, I'm getting impatient - give me a Google phone and I'll stop complaining. Then again, our government will probably find a way to stop that as well.

Originally published at CiaN:MinDMaP.

"To move forward, we cannot let ourselves be prisoners of past disagreements.I am very grateful that President Ortega -- (applause) -- I'm grateful that President Ortega did not blame me for things that happened when I was three months old.(Laughter.)Too often, an opportunity to build a fresh partnership of the Americas has been undermined by stale debates.And we've heard all these arguments before, these debates that would have us make a false choice between rigid, state-run economies or unbridled and unregulated capitalism; between blame for right-wing paramilitaries or left-wing insurgents; between sticking to inflexible policies with regard to Cuba or denying the full human rights that are owed to the Cuban people."

It's funny how much sense these words make, and yet how long it's taken someone in power to vocalize them. Why do we have to choose between two, both equally insane, extremes? Balance.....

Originally published at CiaN:MinDMaP.

Yes! We are prepared.

That's what we are now able to say when people ask us. Basically we are processing DNS logs, scraping for any of the 90,000 Conficker A+B domain names. As of tomorrow that won't necessarily work, as it will be generating 50,000 new domains every day.

What we are doing is comparing all the DNS queries that come in with an in memory database of the conficker domains (very fast), then cross-indexing those IP's / timedate stamps with user records. Once done, this information is injected into our existing anti-abuse system. While I can't say what happens then, let's just say that our existing process (people, machines, etc) deal well with viruses, and worms.

My current (un-verified) estimate is that there are anywhere from 0.001 - 0.002% of our customers infected. This is lower than expected, as I think Canada makes up for about 5.8% of the entire 3 Million hosts, which would work out to a national average of 0.005 - 0.006 %. I entirely attribute this to some of the super secret "we'll take care of you" anti-abuse systems we've put in place for consumers.

I never realized how hard it is to talk about stuff like this, and remain confidential :-)

Originally published at CiaN:MinDMaP.

Yes this was my first time traveling to Toronto. It was a nice 13 degrees, while in my hometown, Winnipeg it was -13. I traveled there to take part in a conference between Canadian ISP's and banks. What I can say about it is that everyone is pretty up at arms about how bad all the banking scams are getting.

Let me explain how these work, for those of you who are not in the know.

So you are surfing around the net, perhaps you're downloading 'free' software, or pornography. Whatever it is, you're probably on a 'less-than-reputable' site. But it's ok because you have a virus scanner, right? No, not always. You're better off with one, but no protection is 100%.

However it gets on your computer, let's just assume it got on. Now this dropper, as they call them, can go out to the internet and download an updated version of itself. Something that perhaps starts up a keylogger or some such thing. The next time you browse to your bank it will be logging everything you type (because the encryption only works between the browser and the bank, not your keyboard and the bank) and will send it off to the hacker.

Once received, he will sell this information to someone who is in the business of removing funds from accounts. Often they will log into your account, and take a screenshot of the balance, uploading it to imgshack or something like that. They usually auction them off, or are already working for an organization of some sort. The guy who buys this account will commission someone who is good at removing funds from accounts. They will take a pre-paid stolen credit card (probably cloned from someone else) and add it as a new bill on your account. Once that is complete, they can 'pay' out as much as your bank will let them. Often this is at least $1500. Following that, they hire kids, or mules of some sort to take the pre-paid card to an ABM (usually in a European country) and remove the cash.

Now there are ways for banks to combat this. They have anti-fraud systems that looks for patterns like "I just added a new biller and am paying > $x". Similar pattern recognition to what anti-spam systems use I would imagine. The problem is, that none of these systems are perfect. I mean, well the days are gone where you get over 100 spam messages in your mailbox every day, now it's more like 1 a week. Which is tolerable, but you have to wonder if this will every stop. My guess is no.

Think about this for 1 second. Say you have a bank that has 100 Million customers world wide. If they need to spend $2 per customer to implement some new anti-fraud system, like say VASCO tokens with one time passwords, it would cost them well over $200 Million dollars. Now if they have to pay insurance premiums of only $20 Million dollars to cover all the fraudulent Internet scams, there's no WAY they will upgrade the system. And this is the general sentiment here and in the US. Insurance pays out, so why bother with crazy secure systems, when we can make do just getting rid of most of the scams.

Business is Business.

This is, however leading into another thing that I've been thinking about. Businesses that get so large, so big, and are driven entirely by increasing Shareholder value, that increasing the value for their customers is an afterthought. We are seeing this in the press, and all over the place right now. CEO's with golden parachutes whose contracts require them to drive up the stock price. They come in for 4 or 10 years and gut a company, artificially inflating the stock before the company goes bankrupt because customers realize that it's not really that great after all.

Another bad thing about businesses getting too large, is that they actually become a threat to our economy and national security. For example, look at all these bailouts that are happening. If AIG was made up of, say, 10 smaller companies (of which I'm sure it was at some point), then perhaps competition would have kept a lot of the economic problems from arising. Perhaps only 3/10 would be going bankrupt because they all had different management tactics. Perhaps we wouldn't be paying out billions of dollars to people who built something so big that it really could not be effectively managed anymore. When companies become so large that they actually out weigh any government in the world, I think we have lots to be worried about.

Yeah I know strength in numbers, but that was said long before we have a global economy.

Originally published at CiaN:MinDMaP.

So I'm sitting here in compsci and my teacher tells me that he emailed something to us in the middle of last week, to read for today. My email comes to my blackberry, and I never got it.

Right. Uwinnipeg sends email to @iam.uwinnipeg.ca email addresses, and nothing else. OK that's fine, I can still POP it into my gmail account, destined for my BB, right?

NO.

After much searching (google for site:uwinnipeg.ca "pop3" and things like that), as well as scanning all their DNS records for mail, email, pop, etc. NOTHING. They have us using this crappy novel webmail system with no way to get the email out. I liked the old unix system IO.uwinnipeg.ca better.

I DID happen to come across a neat find though. http://studentsemail.uwinnipeg.ca points you to Google's webmail service. So perhaps uwinnipeg wants to outsource their email system soon? Not soon enough if you ask me. They also seem to be testing Google Apps packages.

BUT FUCK GIVE ME POP3 ACCESS!!!! If any of you bastards are checking your blogrolls, god damn it open it up, I KNOW FOR A FACT that novel has pop3 and imap.

Here's to me missing more assignments.

Originally published at CiaN:MinDMaP.

OK So I kept voice notes again, but even these were short. All in all, there hasn't been much change since I originally started taking the supplement. Don't get me wrong, this IS a good thing. I have continued to have the higher than normal energy levels, as well as the appetite for doing things. I'm actually starting to get used to it. Seriously, I'm really not expecting much more than what I've experienced, and in fact, if the change had been more acute and increasing, I may have been likely to assume that it's doing something bad to me. I can tell when I'm taking something that's 'stimulating' and merely increasing good 'symptoms' and masking bad ones. This one definitely has the feel of working behind the scenes. I got a really good energy burst initially, and that never tapered off, though it doesn't feel as, well, odd anymore. Like I said I'm getting used to it.

There is one thing, though, which I just thought of. I had a sore toe, probably due to a high uric acid content in my blood - causing crystaline deposits to build up on it. It actually got especially sore when I drank red wine. Some people call that gout, but I don't like that name, as well, I don't think mine was nearly painful enough to call it anything. Regardless, it has seemed to subside a bit, not entirely, but it is less painful. And I did drink some red wine this past weekend. I guess I will start keeping an eye on this as wel now, if this is a side effect of the glutathion, it's a much welcome one.

Originally published at CiaN:MinDMaP.

Here's my analysis of the ingredients so far:

• N acetyl Cysteine (NAC) - This is the interesting one. Many sources claim it to be the a precursor for the manufacture of glutathione (GSH). This is what I'm most interested in, though I do know all the supporting factors will be what makes the difference in the product.


• Calcium Ascorbate - Basically Vitamin C. Enough said...I already take a lot of that. Immune system booster, helps with tissue repair. Nothing special here, though apparently it can help with NAC absorption, which is related to Glutathion (I need to read more on this though).


• N-acetyl-d-glucosamine (NAG) - Helps produce glycolproteins, which protects tissues, and helps with nutrient absorbtion. An interesting one for sure, more resarch needed.


• Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) - I've seen this in a lot of supplements, though in this case I think it's doing something else. From what I understand it is a catalyst in the production of GSH via Cysteine. I need to read more but it could definitely help increase GSH when combined with NAC. On a positive note it has been shown to help fight cancer and liver disease.


• L-Glutamine - An amino acid that helps with liver and gastrointestinal function, but can also cross the blood brain barrier. Again, good for you, but nothing special.


• Milk Thistle - Well most of us should know about this already. Helps cleanse your system, liver, kidneys, etc.


• Quercitin - Is a big anti-inflammatory agent. This could help with the claims of faster recovery, etc. However, A study in the British Journal of Cancer showed that, when treated with a combination of quercetin and ultrasound at 20 kHz for 1 minute duration, skin and prostate cancers show a 90% mortality within 48 hours with no visible mortality of normal cells.....medicinal plants owe much of their activity to their high quercetin content. (Wikipedia)


• Cordyceps - Basic anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory agent. A precious ingredient in Chinese traditional medicines.

Well that's all for now. More to come soon.

Originally published at CiaN:MinDMaP.

Day 2:

So no noticable difference from day one. Same elevated awakeness in the morning.

Day 3:

So I was a little distraught today because of some bad business dealings yesterday afternoon. I entirely forgot to take the stuff at all. I hit an energy wall mid afternoon and felt sluggish. I don't know if it's a result of just the stress or that I've already adjusted to the presence of the supplement. Perhaps after another week I will test another day off of it just to see.

Day 4:

Slept in today. Accidentally turned the alarm clock off in my attempt to wake up and overslept about an hour. Grabbed some of the supplement on the way out. 2 doses, on in the morning, and one mid afternoon. Everything seemed ok, didn't feel tired nor alert.

Day 5:

So today went well. Up with a start and hit the ground fast. Solved a number of issues at work, and juggled probably 5 different projects all demanding my attention. Again, had the energy to write this blog...I've been keeping voice notes on my phone because of lack of energy, and still left over stress from the business thing. On a positive note, had a call from someone I was talking to about that...things may be looking up. Believe it or not I actually had the energy to go for a run after work. It's been a while since I've done that. I'm pretty impressed at the difference this supplement can make so far, though nothing is conclusive yet.

Originally published at CiaN:MinDMaP.

So I'm starting a live journal of my endeavor with an Glutathione enhancing supplement. I've already been informed that I should not expect any changes or enhancements for at least 2 weeks. However, some of the things I should be looking out for are:

• Deep, uninterrupted sleep


• Alertness when first waking up


• Increased energy levels


• Less inflammation due to other factors (exercise, or disorders)

Amongst other things. It's my assumption that most people will (assuming it works) notice different things, depending on what matters to them, or what they are most aware of.

In the research that I've done on this product over the past few months, I have come to appreciate the full extent of the companies claims, through my experience in Bio/Organic Chemistry in University. There is no doubt in my mind that increased levels of Glutathione in your body will produce these and many more effects. The question in my mind is to weather or not this particular product actually does increase the levels. The company states, and refers to it's many studies that yes it in fact does. I have read these and without actually doing a full investigation, they seem sound.

The problem most people have had with increasing Glutathione in the body is that it is not readily absorbed in the GI tract, and that the stomach acid will break it down. However even Wikipedia acknowledges the fact that it can be done by the intake of some of it's precursors, such as cysteine. The real trick now is to combine cysteine with other factors that will assist in it's uptake in the body, as well as ensure that the body uses it for what you intend. Given the right formula, this could be achieved.

And that is why I've decided to conduct this study.

I started taking the supplements yesterday (2 times, 3 pills per instance).

Results: Last night I had a surprisingly deep sleep. My girlfriend opened the curtain and sun shone on my face. I woke up with a start. Instantly I got out of bed, and started doing things.

Analysis: I can't be certain weather there has been some psychological effect or not. It could merely be the excitement of trying something new, or the placebo effect. Either way, not too much should be read into such early results.

Originally published at CiaN:MinDMaP.