Very low grade audio cryptography...

... aka how to say your credit card number over skype in a crowded internet cafe.

Say a few digits of the real number, then hit the mute button, say a few fake digits, un-mute, then continue.

Eg if your number is 4096 8192 1024 2048, you can say "4096 [mute] 5899 [unmute] 8192 1024 2048", and the person at the other end of the line hears "4096 8192 1024 2048".

This of course also works on cellphones and landlines... any time you can't trust the security of messages sent over the air molecules around you.

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On another topic, I dont know how keyloggers work, but on occasion I have had to use a public terminal to book something requiring a credit card number or access something requiring a password.  It occurred to me that I could do a similar trick by typing some extra digits, then using the mouse to move the mouse pointer over the extra digits and delete them.  Would that actually work?  Are keyloggers so primitive that they just record the sequence of keys struck?  I'm sure that it would be fairly easy to design a browser add-on that would snoop entered data in a way that would defeat this technique.

[travel] Action movie cliches IRL.

Women traveling alone in certain countries often have to deal with unwanted sexual advances, groping on crowded buses, and other issues from local men.   A woman I met found an innovative solution that seemed straight out of an action movie.  She bought a pretty hairpin, and spent some time sharpening the tip.  Normally the tip was hidden inside her hair.  However, whenever anyone groped her, she stabbed the offender's hand with it.  Note I said "whenever" and not "if".  It happened twice.

 

[travel] Dubai realities: the good side

I have long been fascinated with Dubai from an engineering and cultural perspective. Dubai is a small city-state (technically, an emirate) awash in oil money but running out of oil reserves. Instead of spiraling down, they decided to become the Hong Kong of the middle east, a freewheeling center of trade, finance, and tourism. I thought of them as a shining example of a traditional Islamic middle eastern country opening up its culture and diversifying its economy. It has sort of managed the second part, but the first part hasn't gone so well.

As I got closer to Dubai I kept meeting people who lived there, and most of them didn't have very good things to say.  More on that later.

I only had slightly more than a day to explore. I organized a big architectural tour for myself, taking nine cab rides totaling around $70. The cab drivers provided a lot more perspective for me on the inner workings of Dubai.

Dubai is financing some of the largest engineering and architectural experiments in history. Leading firms can try daring things here that they can't try anywhere else. Much of it is extremely kitschy, but I find the kitschiness fun. Some of it is horrendously ugly, some of it is beautiful.
( Dubai marvels )

[travel] Things not to like about Dubai:

- Many of the engineering marvels I mentioned in the last post are being built with the modern equivalent of slave labor. Construction workers are often kept sequestered in camps, with limited mobility. Their passports are often confiscated, and it's a frequent practice to only pay them once every 3-6 months.

- Carpooling is illegal, and carries substantial fines. Carpooling is considered competition for the taxi system, which is run by the government. Thus, you can't pick up a coworker on the way to work, even if you do so for free. I should point out that there's horrible traffic there... like worse than LA. There are also limited piblic transit options. A subway system is being built, but apparently the fares will be jacked up high so as to (you guessed it) not compete with the government-run taxi system. Read more here: http://www.arabnews.com/?article=100707

- Singapore and Dubai make for an interesting contrast. They are both small, rich, highly developed one-party city states with strict laws and low crime. However, Singapore spends a lot of money investing in education and public infrastructure and encourages expatriates to become citizens. In contrast, Dubai seems to treat its noncitizens, which make up 90% of the population, as disposable employees. It's only possible to become a citizen of Dubai if your father is a citizen. There are almost no social services... there are a small number of expensive private schools of mediocre quality, so foreigners are often reluctant to move their families here. Most of the expatriates are thus men who are either single or separated from their families. There are sections of the city that feel like a giant sausage fest. Ethnically, 10% of the population is Emirati citizens, 40% is Indian, and the remainder are mostly a mix of Arab, European, and American expatriates. Many of the expatriate residents I met are depressed... due to the government's social policies, they can never feel like Dubai is their home. Many of them rarely get to see their families.

- Government-legislated supply of women: Because of how Dubai marriage laws work, Emirati men can marry foreign women, but it's almost impossible for foreign men (even Muslims from other gulf states) to marry Emirati women. Women who do manage to marry foreign men lose their citizenship, along with all its benefits. This has the effect of creating a large pool of women with very limited marriage options. I initially though that this would mean that Emirati women would often haave to accept marriage proposals from undesirable Emirati men since their options are so limited. Good for the men, bad for the women. However, I learned that marriages almost always require the bride's parents' approval, and it's customary for the husband to pay the bride's family a very large dowry (think of it as bail). Since the bride's parents don't want the bride to marry “down”, the dowry is often such that most young men can't really afford to pay it. Dating in the western sense is frowned upon. Thus, the net result is a large number of local women who end up unmarried, and huge amount of prostitution.

- THEY BLOCK FLICKR!   So I really should be more upset by their treatment of women and migrant workers, but blocking entire sections of the internet gets me really riled up. I had the amusing experience of having a 50-year-old Muslim woman in a nontechnical position tell me “just use a proxy server”.

- As the recession hits them hard, Dubai is starting to swing back more in the traditional direction. Some new proposed laws prohibit kissing, holding hands, and even hugging between couples in public. Amusingly, men will often hold hands and hug... it's part of traditional Arab culture. I had the amusing thought that gay men probably get a kick out of being able to engage in PDAs while everyone else thinks it's just manly hand-holding, but I'm guessing that the gays there keep it very underground. Read more here: http://www.thetimes.co.za/News/Article.aspx?id=960921

[travel] I love the government of Turkey!

Turkey's illustrious government always has my best interests at heart. They even keep up to date with the latest technologies, ensuring I'm always getting an optimal experience on the internet. For example, some awful, awful people posted a video critical of Turkey's government to YouTube a couple of years back. (You may or may not know that criticism of Turkey or its government is illegal in Turkey... a clearly enlightened law that helps its citizens maintain a positive attitude.) Instead of pleading with Google to take down that one video, the government responded with swift efficiency by blocking all YouTube videos in case anyone else puts up other offending videos. They have kept it this way for the last two years, helping us maintain a positive attitude that surely enhances our happiness and productivity. Plus, it ensures that I don't waste time showing people videos of kittens climbing my body, people talking in a giant helium-filled bag, fractals generated using only a camera and projectors, or infrared footage of people showering. What a great place to live!