Idiotic Free Bandwidth Campaign a SCAM!

LaRoosTa said:
Haha, the irony. Henk reads one article on a tiny web site which has no proof and then makes a post at yeafi stating that all people who are involved in this, are idiots.

Henk, first off a virus is usually unwanted software. In this matter, you have the choice to download it or not. Not to mention it will be open source, which mean anyone can open the code and see what it does.

2nd of all, don't believe everything you read. This is the internet.
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Actually, I posted about it after reading about it on MyADSL, not on capetownnews. Whether it is a scam or not, it's still bizarrely stupid.

The only people who will suffer are those who host websites in South Africa.

Please explain to me how this will put ANY pressure on Telkom? It will just keep them laughing... all the way to the bank.

p.s. Sometimes people deliberately catch viruses... Like my one friend who wanted to lose some weight. Her sister had measles so she went and lied next to her in order to catch it. I called this ridiculous idea a virus because A) it is harmful and B) It spreads using the internet, albeit in a social way! It convinces people download it under the pretense that they will be doing something "good", which is simple trickery.
 
Get the tools from sysinternals, run a process explorer, a file watcher and a port and perhaps registery watcher and install the program and test it yourself. This is not rocket science here people.

If you are going to make claims like, "this program has a virus/Trojan", be prepared to back it up with fact. On the same note, I cant call you a paedophile without proof. There's a reason for that.

Shouting "Trojan"without testing shows a complete lack of any type of real IT knowledge.
 
henkk... have you actually read the page? Didja happen to come across this page while looking?

I know it doesn't provide absolute definitive proof that what they're saying is true but nor do any of your sources so it should be about even.
 
I was going to download the program that people are making a fuss about, and test it. Unfortunately they haven't made it yet which would explain the lack of source code.
 
social virus

w1z4rd said:
If you are going to make claims like, "this program has a virus/Trojan", be prepared to back it up with fact. On the same note, I cant call you a paedophile without proof. There's a reason for that.

Shouting "Trojan"without testing shows a complete lack of any type of real IT knowledge.
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w1z4rd, here's an article that explains why this is a virus, in particular a social virus:

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?id=17780

Excerpt:
Don't be a zero case for a social virus!


Many of you won’t know what I am referring to when I say a social virus in relation to the Internet. Essentially a social virus is an email that by itself is totally harmless but because of its content it inspires good meaning people to send it out to a group of other good meaning people. Now maybe this doesn’t sound so bad, a nice social thing to do. But let’s do the math.Joe sends out the email to 10 folks. Three of the ten send it out to an additional 10 folks and so forth, essentially we have what is known as a power equation here, at each branch of the power equation the number of emails doubles or triples, maybe worse. This is how one little neutron turns in to an atomic blast.

Now imagine this happening thousands of times every day all over the world. While the Internet is a wonderful thing it wasn’t really designed for this type of base loading. Many times the emails that become social virus may have started out a good thing, a fund raising effort, an attempt to raise consciousness or awareness. However they soon morph into a bad thing, unfortunately they don’t come with an expiration date.
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It's pretty apparent that this is a virus in disguise. Once again, please explain to me how you see it doing any good or forcing Telkom to make bandwidth available for free?

You don't need 'IT knowledge' to see that this is a totally numbskulled idea.
 
Yes, but one of the reasons your original poster biatched was because there was no source code. There is no source code because there is no program yet. Just putting it in perspective.
 
Oh. My. God.

Did you really just compare this as-yet-unwritten, privacy respecting, open source, self-deleting, running for 5 minutes, downloading a minute amount of data program to a chain email that starts off with "FWD: Frwrd this to 10billion ppl or u'll die LOL!" ?

Let's review the facts as we know them (and as they're by the author until proven otherwise they're pretty much canon).

1) The program is small and entirely voluntary
2) It is dormant until 30 June at which point it runs for 5 minutes
3) It self deletes, leaves no footprint
4) It respects privacy and doesn't even send out your IP
5) It doesn't ask for money, help, donations or anything of the kind

Then we compare it to your "social virus".

1) You have no choice about receiving the mail.
2) It's annoying and immediate.
3) It lasts till you delete it.
4) Zero respect for privacy
5) Frequently asks for money, donations, forwarding, Lols or anything

How are these even vaguely similar? One is a (until proven otherwise) harmless little bit of software which is quite similar to a speed test if anything while the other is some idiot's misguided attempt to get laughs/donations/kidneys/children/prayers or whatever.

It's pretty apparent that you're a sensationalist rumour-monger in disguise.

You don't need IT knowledge to see the argument is flawed.
 
No Antithesis, I called it a social virus insofar as A) It is harmful and B) it spreads using social networks. (Any hacker will tell you that hacking is just as much about social engineering as technical skills)

Anyways, instead of putting more logical arguments out there and invoking endless rebuttals that are off the topic, I'm going to ask you for one:

Please explain how screwing over South Africans who host websites locally will have the desired effect of getting Telkom to make bandwidth free?

Please just give me a little bit of proof that this isn't the dumbest idea ever conceived.
 
The date that the program will run is on the 30th. Isn't that when everybody is capped? :)
 
we do not know which websites will be 'targeted in the attack', so calm down till more details are available



edit, from the link above
Isn’t it a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack?
It is not a DDoS attack. No particular service, website or web server is being targeted and the program deliberately downloads from a very broad range of local South African networks and servers and only for a short period of time. The program stops after 5 minutes of testing.
 
Ok.

Please explain how screwing over South Africans who host websites locally will have the desired effect of getting Telkom to make bandwidth free?
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First we need to agree on a few things. One is that since there is no other current information, FBC.org.za is a relevant source. Second is that there is no such thing as definitive proof both in real life and here since the damned thing doesn't even exist yet.

If you read the website, there's a table of all the line speeds and the relevant downloads. I've pasted it here for easy reference:

Line Speed 384 kbps 512 kbps 1024 kbps 4096 kbps
Max Download 14.4 MB 19.2 MB 38.4 MB 153.6 MB
% of 3GB cap 0.47% 0.63% 1.25% 5.00% source

I'm not finding the exact figures of ADSL subscribers that I'd like to but we can probably put the total amount at around 200 000 users. source.

Unfortunately, stats are scarce so it's also helluva hard to say how many south african websites there are. We can probably agree on a nice conservative figure of 300 000? Hell, I'll even make it 200 000 if it makes you feel better.

I'm not naive enough to believe that all 200 000 subscribers are likely to participate but at a really optimistic outlook of 10% (20 000) users might.

So we've got 20 000 potential users, 200 000 potential websites and a maximum download size of 153mb and a minimum of 14mb. Not exactly crippling. In addition, we don't even know if it'll be a full 14mb off one single site. Maybe it'll be 14k off a whole bunch of them. Perhaps it will even operate via p2p protocols in which case the "stress" is placed on users themselves.

Again, this is entirely voluntary.

Now, the assumption is that if the whole damned ADSL network falls over from that simple little stress test then Telkom have given us *** and should fix it. IF it doesn't then the assumption is that Telkom is vol *** and have been lying to us. This in turn can be used as a) leverage and b) information to assist ICASA and other relevant bodies in freeing up the local telecoms scene.

You'll notice that there are no hard and fast facts in here because we simply don't know enough about anything yet!

Now if you'd just nip off and provide me with complete proof that this is a virus, is going to kill locally hosted websites and is going to completely fail to do anything to the local scene that'd be swell.

My apologies to anyone who was forced to read this unnecesarily long and boring post :D

Anyways, instead of putting more logical arguments out there and invoking endless rebuttals that are off the topic, I'm going to ask you for one:
Click to expand...

@henkk: Are you implying my posts aren't logical? :D
 
I think people are missing the point.
In regards to this being a denial of service attack, this is not the intent.

The intent is to show that the network can handle unlimited local traffic.

If this test crashes any part of the network it then validates Telkom's claim that capping must be in place to prevent abuse.
 
AntiThesis said:
My apologies to anyone who was forced to read this unnecesarily long and boring post :D
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No need to apologise.

It made perfect and logical sense to me.

Looks like the name caller has jumped the gun!
 
henkk78 said:
The only people who will suffer are those who host websites in South Africa.
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What the hell are you complaining about! You are being shafted the most by Telkom. You should be leading this sort of research campaign!

The reason behind the ICASA regulation is to encourage local websites.

The regulation also means that uploading locally is not capped either.


Let do a quick comparison of web hosting
SA
- R 165 per month -- 500 Mb data hosted -- Monthly Traffic Limit 2 Gigs (and then R90/Gig)
UK package 1
- R 56 per month -- 1,5 Gig data hosted -- No Monthly Limit
Uk package 2 (40 Gig connection - as in access speed)
- R 82 per month -- 1,5 Gig data hosted -- Monthly Traffic Limit 20 Gig (and then R14/Gig)
US Package 1
- R 77 per month -- 500 Gig data hosted -- Monthly Traffic 5000 Gig (that's 5 terrabytes)
US Package 2
- R 98 per month -- 5 Gig data hosted -- Monthly Traffic Limit 200 Gig (and then you'll have to upgrade to the 500 gig at R 154/m -> which works out to 18c per extra Gig)
 
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By the way I use the term "Monthly Traffic Limit" because internationally the term "Bandwidth" refers to speed of the connection.

The sad part is that overseas the speed of their connections ARE bigger than our monthly limits !!!
 
redheadfan said:
What the hell are you complaining about! You are being shafted the most by Telkom. You should be leading this sort of research campaign!
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Good point RedHeadFan, we (meaning anyone hosting in South Africa) ARE being shafted by Telkom. We'll be even more shafted if a well-meaning community starts downloading content unnecessarily.

Once again, this is not going to achieve anything:

1. It will not harm Telkom.
2. It will not make Telkom admit that they lied about their capacity.
3. It will not force Telkom to make bandwidth free.

If succesful:
4. It WILL make Telkom richer
5. It WILL slow down the internet
6. It WILL damage people hosting in South Africa
 
I wish people would do their research before making these claims:

1. First of all it is NOT a virus which has a clear definition which you can not change for your benefit. If it is a virus then so is skype plain and simple.
2. Secondly look at when they are going to do this. It's at the end of the month when you either use your bandwidth or lose it. So unless you're on prepaid you don't pay anything extra and if Telkom is your isp they don't get anything extra. And it's not the whole world that will install the program.
3. Don't talk about the logic of using more bandwidth to lower the price of bandwidth when you don't understand the logic behind it and if you don't want your site to be one of those chosen you can just say so.
4. Anyone can look over the source to see what it does and compare it to the program that is released.

At least somebody is doing something to bring down cost instead of just talking about it so the least people could do is think before opening their mouths or typing etc.
 
henkk78,

I had a look at your blog and I really appreciate the time you have taken to think about the FBC.

I won't be able to answer everything statement you made (sorry) and a lot of it are already answered on the FBC web site. I just too busy with a real paying job. And this is just a labour of love for me.

Let me just assure you that FBC has been in the works for 2 months with the involvement of a highly respected IT lawyer who has had great success in cases against Telkom as well as a good PR person. I'm not good writer, legal person or programmer. I'm seeding the campaign and using my contacts and coordinating the effort. You probably know good legal advice cost lots of money ... and I would expect that Telkom will put its 60 or so lawyers that are on its payroll to do try and stop the campaign.

The campaign is a grass roots style effort. That is: we are target the main stream media and the moms and pops out there. Not necessary the tech savvy people that frequents MyADSL. In fact the press release was deliberately not sent to tech media companies. I’m not sure were MyADSL picked up the press release. I've been approached by a few main stream newspapers already and I would expect that you will see coverage about the campaign soon in the papers.

The goal of the FBC is simple. We want the regulation 3.4 that governs free local ADLS bandwidth to be implemented. We want to highlight that Telkom is technical possible to do so and that by you and I having to pay for local bandwidth Telkom is acting illegally. All we want is our lawful right.

We don’t want to harm Telkom and we don’t aim to be disruptive to anyone. Telkom has never made public detail information about its network capacity. We want to show it is capable of providing free local ADSL bandwidth. By highlighting this, we want the public to force Telkom to make local bandwidth free.

We don’t want care if Telkom makes more money. Telkom is a publicly trading company. Its aim is to make money for its shareholders. FBC is not a shareholder and so has no vested interest.

The test is limited to 5 minutes and will only download a small and limited maximum amount of traffic (bandwidth).

After November 2005 when local ADSL bandwidth were “hard” capped by Telkom new wholesale’s billing system, many South African ISPs have moved their web and mail servers overseas where bandwidth is up to 20 times cheaper than here. Basically disinvesting in South Africa. By having free local ADSL bandwidth we will encourage ISP to host web and mail server locally and invest into South Africa.
 
I recommend getting a universities involved. They pay a fix rate so it won't matter to them. It will however kill the network for students on that day :)
 
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