Happy 2011 and thanks a lot, Android

Hello 2011, and a big thank you to Android for getting me home three hours later and a few hundred dollars lighter than planned.

Be informed that the Google calendar on Android phones changes all times when the timezone changes. Which is handy if you holiday in the Maldives and want to know when your appointment in Lima next week is going to be in Maldives time, but not helpful if you foolishly entered your flight time before you left.

It goes without saying that this essential feature can't be turned off.

I'm not the only one complaining, as you can see here and here and especially here.

Google's suggested solution in October was to add an extra calendar. As the guy said, "HOW IS THIS A FEATURE ANYONE NEEDS????".

According to a post yesterday on this forum, it is now possible to set a preferred timezone for each calendar item. But hey Google, how about a "no freaking timezone at all" option? Wouldn't that save us a lot of ... time?

Anyway, happy New Year.

Demise of irony, surely

Hard to beat this. State Department hails "World Press Freedom Day."

New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information.

Where Party Central meets Wall St

The juxtaposition of raw capitalism and Chinese communist orthodoxy usually passes without comment these days. But some events still give pause.

Like the elevation of Wang Jianzhou to chairman of China Mobile Communications Corp., the parent of the listed company which he has chaired for the five years.

The appointment, like all senior SOE posts, was decided by the all-powerful Communist Party organisation department. But more importantly for Wang, he is now China Mobile party secretary. Finally he's boss.

China Mobile's party secretary is the disgraced Zhang Chunjiang, now awaiting trial.

The fury and hypocrisy of Stephen Conroy

Privacy-invading minister rails against Google, Facebook.

Google doesn't trust China - should Mozilla?

Should Mozilla accept a CA (certification authority) from China's Network Information Centre (CNNIC)?

As Ed Felten on the Freedom to Tinker blog explains, the trusted CA authenticates the identity of the server the browser is going to.

But what if you don't trust the CA itself?

As Ed delicately puts it:

"[L]et's suppose, just for the sake of argument, [his italics] that CNNIC were a puppet of the Chinese government. Then CNNIC's status as a trusted CA would give it the technical power to let the Chinese government spy on its citizens' 'secure' web connections."

It is technically true: CNNIC is an NGO. But in China all NGOs belong to a government agency (so they are all in fact GONGOs). To put the matter beyond doubt, CNNIC even announces on its home page that it "takes orders from the Ministry of Information Industry (MII) [sic] to conduct daily business."

So it is much more than an academic debate. Felten points out that it highlights the fragility of the technical design of the net. He might have added that it also requires trust - yet there is no trust in Communist Party's relationship with Chinese people and the rest of the world.