Wi-Fi and Notes in a Hengyang Black Tide

Admittedly, it was the name of a cafe on Changsheng Road in Hengyang, Hunan, which first caught my attention.

But I have returned to Black Tide (黑潮) several times due to its decent inexpensive iced milk tea and the friendly woman who has been working there anytime I have stopped by.

When there, I have seen a mostly younger crowd. Sometimes they are using a piece of modern technology, whether a laptop ...

or, more commonly, a mobile phone, useful for taking advantage of Black Tide's free Wi-Fi.

And sometimes they are writing messages on colored paper to publicly post there.

Free Wi-Fi, mobile devices, and colored notes with customers' messages can be found in many other cafes in China. This mix reminds me of issues and questions I earlier discussed regarding the value of looking at people's offline world when conducting user research for online services.

And it shows, like a reading protest in Thailand (related AP report), how paper can still matter in a high tech world.

RoboCop in Hengyang

Unlike a similar screen at a shopping mall in Haikou, a giant outdoor screen at the Shin Pin Shopping Mall in Hengyang was not displaying a static Windows desktop when I passed by. Instead, it was displaying something else with a U.S. connection--the remake of the science fiction film RoboCop.

The audio was in English, and the subtitles were in Chinese. Based on the 暴风影音 logo, it looks like the movie was provided through the Chinese video streaming service Baofeng. And not surprisingly, the screen was receiving more attention from people than the screen I saw in Haikou.

Online Ads in China for Breaking Through the Great Firewall

In previous years, I have documented some of the impact of China's Great Firewall, which selectively blocks or interferes with websites and services on the Internet in China. When I typically connect to the Internet, though, I use a paid-for personal virtual private network (VPN). The VPN allows me to have an online experience as if I were outside of China and not directly affected by the Great Firewall. China has at times taken efforts to block personal VPNs, but the companies providing them can offer new ways to connect. It can feel somewhat like a game of Whac-A-Mole.

Recently, I stopped by a cafe in Hengyang, Hunan province, and sat at a table which had a computer with Internet access. I took advantage of the opportunity to see whether what I saw on a "local" computer presumably not using a VPN differed from what I had seen while not using a VPN on my own computer. Most seemed the same. For example, my own blog was partially blocked, likely due to it having a non-blocked domain name but being hosted on Google's Blogger, which is blocked in China. To serve as a sort of baseline, part of my quick exploration included visiting several foreign websites that I would not expect to be blocked in China. One aspect of what I saw offers an opportunity to highlight some issues regarding VPN usage in China.

I checked ESPN's sports website first. After an initial pause, it loaded and based on just looking at it nothing was obviously amiss*.

But one portion of the screen jumped out at me: an advertisement for a "VPN for China" from GoTrusted with the selling point of unblocking websites such as Facebook and YouTube.

I clicked the ad and GoTrusted's website quickly loaded.

Next, I checked two blogs offering viewpoints from different sides of the American political spectrum. One, Balloon Juice, has a more liberal perspective and was not blocked.

It had an ad for another site offering VPNs, vpngfw.com. Facebook and China were again both specifically mentioned. I clicked the ad and the site loaded without any apparent problem.

The other blog I visited, Hot Air, offers a more conservative perspective and loaded without any obvious problems as well.

Not only did Hot Air include ads for both of the previously mentioned VPNs, but it also had other ads such as "Explore Topeka" and "Immigration Attorney".

China probably isn't too concerned about ESPN, Balloon Juice, Hot Air, or information on Topeka, but what about the VPN advertisements? Regarding foreign companies offering VPNs, in 2010 CNN reported:

Steve Dickinson, a China-based lawyer with Harris & Moure, an international business law firm, said that companies supplying VPN products in China are technically breaking Chinese law.

"China has no jurisdiction over such persons. As long as they do not physically enter China, there is no risk," he said in an email to CNN.

To which Dan Harris on the China Law Blog added:

... if I were the president of one of these VPN companies, I would at least think long and hard before going to China. And if I were super paranoid, I might even want to know which countries might or might not extradite me to China.

And last year The Wall Street Journal reported:

While companies use commercial VPN services routinely for secure data, foreigners, China's elite and other tech-savvy users can use personal VPNs to leap the Great Firewall to use services like Facebook.

But it is illegal for foreign companies to operate a VPN in China without a local partner, according to lawyers and state-run media ...

GoTrusted, the company I saw advertised on ESPN and Hot Air, lists a U.S. address in Stuart, Florida, on its "About" page and the registrant information for its domain name also has a Stuart, Florida, address. GoTrusted does not mention a Chinese partner.

Vpngfw.com, the company I saw advertised on Balloon Juice and Hot Air, is a different case. Its "About" page does not provide a location and only lists an email address. The registrant information for its domain name, though, shows an address in Shanghai, China, with a street I haven't been able to locate on an online map.

This raises a number of questions about the service. For example, is the "company" running vpngfw.com based in mainland China? If it is, has it registered its services with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as it reportedly should? If it isn't based in mainland China, where is it based and why is a Chinese address and phone number listed for the registrant of its domain name? Questions like these aren't only relevant for determining any potential legal jeopardy faced by the company. VPNs should also provide a degree of anonymity, privacy, and security through effective data encryption. I would need to know more about vpngfw.com before potentially having confidence I could trust it to meet my expectations in that regards.

Whatever the case may be with GoTrusted and vpngfw.com, one can ask whether it is technically illegal to use VPNs in China that are operated by foreign companies technically breaking Chinese law. The site VPN Instructions had this to say in commenting on the WSJ article:

It is not illegal to use a VPN in China if the Virtual Private Network’s nodes and servers are outside of mainland China. The Shanghai-based lawyer we conferred with, along with our deep understanding of China’s Internet landscape, shows us that there are no laws on the books in China that prohibit any user in China from connecting to a VPN outside of mainland China.

I don't know whether the relevant government authorities in China would agree. And I wouldn't tell someone they are 100% in the clear using a VPN from a company operating illegally in China. But I am personally not too worried unless signs appear that China believes it is illegal. I am not aware of anyone being arrested simply for using these VPNs. And China surely knows they are being used.

So some companies are technically breaking Chinese laws by offering VPN services in China, and the users of those VPNs appear to be in the clear, at least at the moment. What about sites with ads for VPNs?

If the VPN is operating legally in China, presumably there are no problems advertising it. If it isn't, I don't know, and I can think of several issues, such as the location of the servers placing the ads, which may be relevant. It would be great to hear from some lawyers and relevant authorities on this topic.

Finally, if ESPN, Balloon Juice, and Hot Air felt concerned about this issue, I suspect they would point out they are not choosing the specific ads to display. The URL for all of the VPN ads began with "www.googleadservices.com". This indicates the ads were placed through Google's advertising service AdSense. Yes, Google, a company with several services blocked in China, is placing VPN ads targeting people who want to be able to access blocked-in-China websites. In other words, it is being paid to do something that could lead to more users being able to fully access its services. There is a certain beauty in that, although I'm sure the money Google earns this way is nothing compared to the additional revenue Google could generate if the Great Firewall ceased to exist.

The above examples are from just three US-based English websites. There is much more to the story of how VPNs are promoted in China. But these ads highlight the current relative "freedom" in China to use VPNs, even if they are periodically blocked and the companies running them are afoul of Chinese law. And they are another sign of how in some ways China's censorship is not as clear cut as most walls, great or not.




*The Chinese words near the bottom of all of the screenshots are the lyrics to songs playing on the computer and not related to the displayed websites.

A Giant Desktop in Haikou

A post related to China's Great Firewall and VPNs I had hoped to finish today still needs some more work and should makes its appearance tomorrow. In the meantime, here is a photo of some other technology in China.

The Seaview International Plaza in Haikou, Hainan

I don't think the giant screen at the shopping mall was being put to use as intended, but seeing a giant Windows desktop made ponder some possible personal uses for a computer monitor of that size.

More later.

A Mother's Day Promotion in China with WeChat and QR Codes

Unlike a Mother's Day several years ago in Zigong, Sichuan province, I didn't see any fashion shows yesterday in Hengyang, Hunan province. However, I saw some signs of Mother's Day at a few shopping centers and stores. One especially caught my eye because of its use of technology and flowers.

Outside of a shopping center with small clothing stores primarily targeting younger women, there was a Mother's Day promotion. In return for a flower and other possible gifts to give one's mother, people were asked to do two things.

One, people captured an image of a QR code through the mobile phone app for WeChat--called "Weixin" in China.




After the code was read, people found that they were now following the shopping center's WeChat account.




Two, people were also asked to write their name and phone number on a pad of paper.



During the time I was around, there was a constant stream of people going taking the two steps for receiving a free gift (sometimes receiving it in the middle if they signed their names first)--a possible sign of many things, including the popularity of smartphones and WeChat in China. It's definitely not the first instance of using QR codes and WeChat as part of a marketing campaign in China though. The use of a pad of paper instead something more high-tech for collecting names and numbers also raises some interesting issues.

Finally, although I didn't follow their WeChat account or provided my name and number, one of the people working for the promotion gave me a flower and a mousepad.





Since my mother is nowhere near Hengyang, I was not able to give her the gifts as intended. Instead, I passed them on to people I later met. Perhaps they made their way to other mothers.

Science Labs at Zhanjiang Normal University

Today at Zhanjiang Normal University in Zhanjiang's Chikan district I stopped by a Colloid and Surface Chemistry Lab:




a Botany Lab:




a Chemistry Measurement Lab:




a Food Nutrition Lab:




and an Environment-Friendly Polymers Lab:



The last photo includes a prominent hint of one of the reasons behind my visits to these labs. My main reason to share the photos here, though, is to simply provide yet another look at China.

This probably concludes the science lab portion of the tour, but I will later share other scenes from Zhanjiang Normal University while touching on issues such as creativity and Western brands in China.

A Longer Than Planned Note About Embedded Tweets

A timeout for blog-related technical issues:

For some readers, embedded tweets from Twitter may not appear as intended and lose some of their effect. "Selfless Selfies" is an example of a post with an embedded tweet. If you didn't see a photo in that post, then you didn't see a fully rendered embedded tweet which should look like this:

A non-functional image of a fully rendered embedded tweet

Instead, you probably saw a stripped-down tweet with links to relevant material, such as images and the original tweet on Twitter, like this:

What do you call a selfie taken by someone dedicated to overcoming selfhood? http://t.co/h039cHyZ79 pic.twitter.com/1W4WoKo92t
— Chris Buckley 储百亮 (@ChuBailiang) February 24, 2014

Seeing the stripped-down version is often due to viewing the post through an RSS reader*, viewing the post on a mobile device, having JavaScript disabled, or being blocked to Twitter's content by China's Great Firewall**.

The experience isn't entirely broken when the embedded tweets aren't fully rendered, and it's not very different from simply quoting a tweet. So I use them even though I realize many readers won't see them in their full glory. Writing this, though, makes me wonder if in the future I should "pull out" images from tweets so more people can easily see them, which I think is how I did it long ago. Embedded tweets are great when they fully render but ... reality and all that.

While I'm taking this timeout, I'll mention a somewhat related topic: I've noticed that in some RSS readers the formatting of my blog posts does not appear as intended, especially in regards to captions for images, and odd spacings appear. I'm not sure whether it's an issue with the RSS readers, Blogger, me, or something else. Like with embedded tweets, one possible "fix" is to view the posts at the blog website. If you know of a fix from my side, though, please let me know.

Anyway, if you didn't know before, hopefully now you understand a bit more. If the above has entirely confused you and you weren't aware of any problems, fear not, this post is nearly finished. But seriously, feel free to contact me if you have questions. It's possible I have answers***.

Enjoy ...



* Some RSS readers, such as NewsBlur, offer a view where embedded tweets can appear as intended.

** My blog as a whole is partially blocked in China due to being hosted on Blogger.

*** Or more questions.

Selfless Selfies

What do you call a selfie taken by someone dedicated to overcoming selfhood? http://t.co/h039cHyZ79 pic.twitter.com/1W4WoKo92t
— Chris Buckley 储百亮 (@ChuBailiang) February 24, 2014

"Is the self identical with the body?" ~ a question Buddha refused to answer

Prayer and Mobile Phone

At the Wong Tai Sin Temple in Hong Kong

Bitcoin Red Envelopes Given Away in Hong Kong

While walking through Causeway Bay in Hong Kong today, the young woman in the above photo approached me and handed me a red envelope. Giving red envelopes with money inside is one of the traditions for the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday. But in this situation it was surely for a marketing purpose, and I did not expect to receive Hong Kong dollars. This red envelope included an especially interesting twist on the money theme though. Instead of cash, it contained a code for "free Bitcoins" as part of an ANX promotion.

As Danny Lee reported today in the South China Morning Post, I was not alone in receiving such a gift:

Vouchers worth HK$500,000 [approximately US$64,400] in bitcoin are being gifted to members of the public by the city’s biggest bitcoin exchange, ANX, to mark the dawn of the Year of the Horse ...

ANX hopes the stunt will encourage Hongkongers to embrace the controversial digital currency, which has shot to prominence in recent months amid mixed messages from central banks around the world over its use.

“We are trying to help the eco-system,” said Lo Ken-bon, the company’s founder and managing director. “One of the biggest issues is the adoption of it because it’s too complicated for most mainstream users – we are trying to get them started as easily as possible.”

The promotion caught my attention since I had been following some of the recent news and commentary regarding Bitcoin in mainland China. Hong Kong is its own world in many ways, and perhaps the promotion should not be too surprising in Asia's first city to soon have a Bitcoin ATM (video report on WSJ Live here). It will be fascinating to see if and how Bitcoin use grows in Hong Kong and the rest of China.

Maybe ANX has started a slightly new Chinese New Year tradition.

Imitation, Creativity, and a Right-Hander's Dream in Chinese Mobile Phones

As I have mentioned many times before (most recently here), a broad variety of mobile phones are designed, made, and sold in China. During a recent visit to Zhuhai's Jida subdistrict, I took a closer look at a store selling phones not made by better known Chinese brands such as BBK, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Gionee. Although some of the phones imitate other brands, some include "micro-innovations" and some can be rather distinctive from phones commonly available in markets outside of China such as the U.S.

Below, I will share four examples of what I found. My intent is simply to stimulate some thought about the mobile phone domain in China.

The iPoone above on the left obviously fits into the "inspired-by-Apple" category--a category in which I regularly spot new designs. The "Think Different" phone I saw in Guangzhou and the iPncne phone I saw in Ningxia also fit in this category.

The phone above on the right has no obvious Apple influence and is just one of the many small clamshell phones available with various images.

The yellow phone on the above right offers a butterfly light show. The shopkeeper made sure I noticed the digital clock on the outside.

The "Dlor" phone on the above left is what most caught my eye that day, so I will provide a few more details about it. These words are above the image of the two hands:

I'm not left-hander
幸福在我的左边
可是........
却不是个左撇子
抓不住你

Numerous instances of the same image with almost exactly the same words can be found on a number of Chinese online sites. However, I was not able to pin down the original source.

One reasonable translation of the Chinese is "Happiness is on my left, but I can't catch you since I'm not left-handed".

If you're now puzzled by the poem or wondering why hands with an extra finger were used (did you notice?), you're not alone. Any Chinese friends I have asked expressed some confusion, and examples of confusion can be found online (in Chinese) as well.

Yes, there are many questions to ask. And all of the above phones raise more general questions such as "What motivated the design?" and "Why would somebody purchase this phone?" The answers to these questions could guide the design of new phones, whether they look like the above phones or not, for people in China and in other markets as well. As I first suggested after seeing the Think Different phone in Guangzhou, even when there are imitations, such phones can be a potential source of valuable insight or inspiration for global mobile phone brands.

Finally, there is one question I will answer now. No, despite it fascinating me, I did not buy the Dlor phone. After all, it doesn't suit me since I'm a left-hander.

External Hard Drive Woes and a Waterside Scene

Today I was not able to access one of my external hard drives.  I am not sure whether the problem was related to either a recent experience of data uploading much slower than usual or dropping the hard drive from the height of a typical desk. Since I deliberately chose a hard drive with military-grade shock resistance that "incorporates a vibration- absorbing silicone outer shell, a reinforced hard casing, and an internal hard drive suspension damper as a last line of defense" and that "is rugged enough to protect against excessive vibration or sudden jolts", I had thought the drop would not be of any consequence, especially since it seemed rather inconsequential in military terms.

Whatever the case, I now get an I/O error when trying to access the disk and this: "diskarbitrationd[13]: unable to mount /dev/disk1s1 (status code 0x00000047)". None of the the simple tricks I have tried allow me to see any data. However, the computer can at least recognize the brand of the hard drive when I take a look under the "Volumes" directory using a Terminal window. If none of this makes sense to you, no worries. On that note, the reason I have shared this exciting news is I thought a reader might have some insights to offer. If anyone has grand advice for how I personally may be able to at least recover the data using a Mac, I'd certainly appreciate hearing from you.

One of the side effects of today's fun was not writing a post I had planned for today. So instead, I will share a photo I took this evening in Zhuhai while taking a waterside walk to clear my mind after a day of unexpected travail.

No travail for me here.

Still a Variety of Mobile Phones for Sale in Nanping, Zhuhai

In addition to an Android Store having changed since my visit last year, the selection of mobile phones for sale and which brands were most promoted in a shopping district in Zhuhai's Nanping Town changed as well. I will share here some of what I noticed during two recent visits. It is not intended to be an exhaustive review, and it represents only one shopping district in Zhuhai with a large number of mobile phone stores.

1. Last year many of the stores had Nokia storefront signs, even though they sold a variety of phones. Many, if not all, of those signs have been changed to something else. A few of the stores now have a China Mobile sign similar to the ex-Android Store. Some stores still have Samsung storefront signs.

2. There are several Chinese brand-specific stores for smartphones. For example...

ThL has a brand experience store:

Oppo, a brand that had a striking marketing campaign including Leonardo DiCaprio, has a store:

Zopo has a store as well.

3. Vivo, Doov, Xiaomi, and HTC are all more prominent at stores selling multiple brands.

International brands common elsewhere in the world can be found as well.

4. As before, a variety of cheaper feature phones are available, but I think the selection of Chinese brands differed. The following photo includes Kliton, Ouki, Siwer, Fmee, Youme, Telsom, and others:



For examples of other Chinese mobile phone brands (and some creative imitators) I saw a couple of years ago in southwestern China, see posts from Chengdu here, Zigong here, and Zhaotong here.

To sum it all up: Some of the brands available have changed. The "favorites" have changed. More smartphones are available. What has not changed is the great variety of brands available.

I will have more to say on these points later.

A Non-Traditional Traditional Performance of Gabrieli

In a post I wrote while guest blogging for James Fallows over 2 years ago, I shared some of what inspired this blog's name. I also shared a musical fugue and explained my choice of a specific video recording:

One, it is a fantastic example of how technology can be used to find new ways for people to express themselves - even when the subject is an old masterpiece. Another reason is it features instruments from an older period of music unfamiliar to many. Finally, and not least, the performer is a friend of mine who I first met while studying at the Peabody Conservatory of Music of Johns Hopkins about a decade and half ago.

For similar reasons, I would like to now share another recording by James Howard Young. The piece performed, Canzon Primi Toni à 8 by Giovanni Gabrieli, is not a fugue but an earlier form of contrapuntal music. I doubt Gabrieli ever imagined his music would be performed in the manner James chose. And who knows how (or if) today's music will be performed in the year 2429. So lose yourself for a few minutes in a piece from 1597 that even after hundreds of years continues to receive new interpretations.


[video also here]

Performers:

Tenor Recorder 1: James Howard Young
Bass Recorder 1: James Howard Young
Great Bass Recorder 1: James Howard Young
Subbass Recorder 1: James Howard Young
Tenor Recorder 2: James Howard Young
Bass Recorder 2: James Howard Young
Great Bass Recorder 2: James Howard Young
Subbass Recorder 2: James Howard Young

The Humanity Within a Typewriter

Composer Leroy Anderson has been described as "one of the great American masters of light orchestral music". Although I suppose I prefer "heavier" orchestral music, today I appreciated Anderson's piece "The Typewriter" as performed by Alfredo Anaya with the Voces para la Paz (Músicos Solidarios) orchestra.

In an article about Anderson on NPR, Pat Dowell wrote:

Anderson's "The Typewriter," a pops-concert staple composed in 1950, actually features a manual typewriter on the stage with the orchestra. In a 1970 interview, Anderson described how he made the typing sound a part of the music, not just an added effect.

"We have two drummers," Anderson said. "A lot of people think we use stenographers, but they can't do it because they can't make their fingers move fast enough. So we have drummers because they can get wrist action."

The piece not only shows how technology can be applied in unexpected ways, but also how it can have hidden charms. As violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov said of Anderson's music, "The craftsmanship, the humor, the humanity!"

Google Reader Once Knew Me So Well

I first became acquainted with Google Reader after starting this blog. My motivation was simple: I wanted to be able to check that my posts were properly appearing. And while I was there, I decided to give it a try for broader purposes. Gradually, I used it more and more for some of the websites I follow. Although I felt something was lost in stripping away everything but content, it offered several conveniences.

I'm not surprised by the recent news that Google Reader will soon be no more. There are plenty of people with speculation about the reasons, interviews with its creators, and reviews of possible replacements. For my part, I will share one of the most remarkable online experiences I have ever had.

A feature in Google Reader that I explored early on was "Recommended items". It allows you to scroll through individual posts or articles from a variety of sources as chosen by Google. At first it was full of what I considered "fun" stuff that would appeal to a broad audience. But for a brief period of time, the selected pieces suited a variety of my specific interests. And much of it was material that would likely only appeal to select audiences, including some pieces of humor. I was in awe. So much so that in an email I described the recommendations to a friend as "spooky". How did Google do this? It seemed impossible it could have been done solely based on what I had read in Google Reader--those items represented just a small sliver of my interests. Perhaps an extrapolation to other interests was possible, but it seemed more likely that my search history or email had been accessed to help drive the recommendations (something I was not aware would be done). Even then, I had to be impressed by the algorithm's apparent effectiveness.

Then a curious change occurred. The performance seemed to degrade over time. Never again did the recommended items list provide the almost perfectly tailored selection of material as it once had. In fact, it didn't even come close. New pieces about what most interested me rarely appeared, and soon I found the feed inundated with Lifehacker stories and food recipes. Additionally, it began regularly recommending pieces from a few sources that I already followed in Google Reader--even pieces that I had already read.

I can imagine reasons for the decline in good recommendations. For example, maybe me not indicating which pieces I liked caused the service to assume I wasn't enjoying them. Or maybe there were concerns about the information being used to drive the recommendations. Or maybe the algorithm was changed. I can't be sure. But whatever the reason, the recommended items feature became useless for me.

Now with Google Reader's planned demise, I am tempted to make an analogy about a friend who knows you well, develops dementia, and then dies. But perhaps that's too morbid, so I won't. Instead, I will begin to figure out what I will do without Google Reader around. Some other service will likely have the opportunity to learn more about me. In return, my main hope is it provides me a better opportunity to learn more about the world. And if I am amazed again, that's all the better.

Not Fighting Hacking With Hacking

It seems "hackers from China" is a common news story these days, but a fascinating article on the The New York Times added more perspective and details based on a recent study:

An unusually detailed 60-page study, to be released Tuesday by Mandiant, an American computer security firm, tracks for the first time individual members of the most sophisticated of the Chinese hacking groups — known to many of its victims in the United States as “Comment Crew” or “Shanghai Group” — to the doorstep of the military unit’s headquarters. The firm was not able to place the hackers inside the 12-story building, but makes a case there is no other plausible explanation for why so many attacks come out of one comparatively small area.

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398,” said Kevin Mandia, the founder and chief executive of Mandiant, in an interview last week, “or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”

The full article can be found in English here and in Chinese (simplified) here.

The AP reports on a possible response:

As public evidence mounts that the Chinese military is responsible for stealing massive amounts of U.S. government data and corporate trade secrets, the Obama administration is eyeing fines and other trade actions it may take against Beijing or any other country guilty of cyberespionage.

According to officials familiar with the plans, the White House will lay out a new report Wednesday that suggests initial, more-aggressive steps the U.S. would take in response to what top authorities say has been an unrelenting campaign of cyberstealing linked to the Chinese government.

The full article can be found here.

I'll refrain from commenting on the hacking incidents other than to say they don't sound good and China is not the only country connected to large scale cyberstealing. But the U.S. not "fighting fire with fire" and instead responding with other measures to deter hacking has inspired me to share a personal experience.

While living in a college dormitory many years ago, I became the owner of a new top-of-line computer. I think it had more than 100 MB of hard drive space. Many of my friends thought I would never be able to fill it up. Ah, the good old days...

It was not long before I discovered signs someone had inappropriately accessed my computer and caused some minor mischief. I could not fully control access to my shared dorm room, so I added a layer of security to my computer. But I soon discovered that someone had found their way through it. I then had a suspect in mind since there was only one person living in my section of the dorm who had both the skills and the mindset to do it. When I saw him next, I asked him to stop. Although he did not explicitly admit to it, his response left me all the more sure he was the culprit.

Not having faith my request would have the desired effect, I added yet another layer of security to my computer. However, it was not long before I discovered it too had been "cracked". I then researched other possible security measures and came to a disturbing conclusion: even I could imagine a way through the best security I discovered. Securing my computer seemed impossible, and I had no desire to engage in a hacking battle.

Clearly, it was time to "think outside of the box".

In this case, what first came to mind as a nonconstructive immediate response provided the seed for a possible solution. I walked down the hall and into the room of the suspect. I explained to him that I was not aware of any security for my computer that could stop him from accessing it. And in a tone that left no doubt about my seriousness I added, "If you ever touch my computer again, I'm taking a hammer to yours."

He looked stunned. I walked out.

I'm not saying this provides the blueprint for the best response, or even a feasible one, in all cases. But in this case...

I had no more problems.

The Internet Versus Xiaolongbao

I'm used to hearing complaints in China, particularly by foreigners fresh off the plane, about the speed of Internet connections. But I've recently noticed a number of people in the U.S. complaining about services there as well. It is a reminder to me that not all is entirely "smooth" even back in my homeland.

It also reminds me of when I signed up for Internet service for my apartment in Shanghai a number of years ago. Some Chinese friends encouraged me to seek out cheaper "unofficial" services, but I wanted to do it by the book and went to the local China Telecom branch. A service representative there explained to me that three data speeds were offered. As I considered them, the representative added that there was no reason to chose the fastest / most expensive option. I asked why, and she quietly told me the speed would actually be the same as the middle option.

I pondered life and humanity. Quickly realizing I wasn't going to get anywhere useful with that line of thought, I then weighed the possibility that the woman was correct versus the possibility that she was mistaken--for example, maybe the service quality varied across different regions. I also considered that the difference in price between the middle and most expensive options was at the time roughly around US $1.50 per month.

I decided it was worth giving the fastest option a try. I wish I could say for sure what went through the representative's mind, but based on her facial expressions I feel safe saying it wasn't anything like "Brilliant choice, oh wise one".

When a technician later set up the service at my apartment, he had me connect to a local site which could measure the speed of the connection. It reported a speed consistent with what China Telecom (but not the service representative) had promised. Even in my optimistic state, I looked at the numbers with skepticism. Nonetheless, I heartily thanked the man who had brought me my connection to the world (well, at least with the aid of a VPN).

My later experiences dealing with an Internet connection that often crawled along at speeds much slower than a giant centipede in Hong Kong convinced me the kind service representative had been correct. However, if I had listened to her I may have always wondered if things might be a little better if I had gone with the "faster" option. So maybe it was still money well spent. But then again, you could buy a rather healthy portion of xiaolongbao for a $1.50 in those days.

Assorted Links: Tech in Southeast Asia, Car Pollution, Borders, and a Homemade Dialysis Machine

There is an ever growing list of pieces that I want to comment on here. So that they all don't get stuck in a bottomless pit due to waiting for time to write the more extensive posts they deserve, I will share a few of them together along with some brief comments.

1. As recent posts here make clear, I have spent the past several weeks in Malaysia. I won't deny that its weather, food, and scenery were a draw. But I was also curious to take a closer look at a key country in a diverse region becoming increasingly relevant for tech companies--somewhat symbolized by an airport in Thailand being the most photographed location on Instagram.

Jon Russell shared his optimism for Southeast Asia in his article "Why Southeast Asia is the world’s most exciting region for startups and tech in 2013" on The Next Web. One of the challenges he mentioned for local startups particularly caught my eye:

Society in many Southeast Asian countries values working for big companies (‘getting the lanyard’), not to mention that few startups can compete against the salary and compensation packages that multinationals and other large businesses can offer.

This reminded me of some of the advantages multinational tech companies with foreign headquarters once enjoyed over local companies in China. It is remarkable how much the landscape has changed in recent years. To keep things brief, for now I will just say that what companies offer and what people seek will continue to evolve. In both respects, a growing variety can be found in China.

2. Michael Dunne, president of Dunne & Company, a Hong Kong-based consultancy specializing in Asian car markets, wrote a post for the China Real Time Report about the growing contribution of cars to China's pollution and the challenges faced in reducing their impact. It raises several key issues, such as why electrical vehicles in China may be best considered as "coal-burning cars". He also addresses why a seemingly simple tactic--reducing pollution by improving the quality of fuel used by vehicles--is not so simple:

Fuel prices are set by the state ostensibly to protect the economy – and especially the rural areas – from affordability shocks.

State-owned oil companies China National Petroleum Corp and Sinopec have been reluctant to invest in world-class refineries that produce high quality fuel because doing so would increase costs that they cannot pass on to the consumer

As I've written before, although the pollution related to China's rapid growth is shared by many, the growth of wealth it represents has not been as equally distributed. "The wealthy" subsidizing (in one way or another) the costs of producing high quality fuel could be one way to acknowledge and partially address this problem. Not only would it help people who truly could not afford an increase in fuel prices, but it would help everyone breathe a little bit better. But like other potential solutions, despite some outside impressions of how China operates it is not a change that could be made with the flip of a switch.

3. In FT Magazine Simon Kuper shares and comments on Valerio Vincenzo's photo essays about borders. Much of the article is about the lack of barriers today at the borders between many European countries. Kuper contrasts these open borders with the past and with today's more restrictive borders elsewhere in the world.

As I read Kuper's article and paged through Vincenzo's thought-provoking photos, I considered some borders not mentioned in the article that I have mentioned before: the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen and the border between Macau and Zhuhai. Both of these borders are remarkable because they restrict the travel of mainland Chinese within their own country. Anyone in Switzerland or Germany can dine at a table straddling the countries' border without needing to show a passport, but mainland Chinese cannot even enter Hong Kong or Macau with only their passport and typically need a special permit (or proof of an onward flight and entry visa to another country). And I can only wish you good luck if you wish to try having a meal which spreads across the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen.

4. In the category of "Chinese resourcefulness" is a story first reported by Chai Huiqun in China's newspaper Southern Weekly. You can read it in Chinese here. Or you can read Xinhua's English article by Hou Qiang "Homemade dialysis machine sustains uremia sufferer for 13 years":

A sufferer of uremia for 20 years, Hu [Songwen] built his own hemodialysis machine with medical equipment, such as a blood pump and plastic tubing, that he purchased from a local market. The crude device has sustained his life since he stopped going to the hospital 13 years ago. Hu was a junior in college when he was diagnosed with uremia in 1993. After six years of medical treatment, hefty hospital bills completely depleted his family's savings.

See Caixing Online here (H/T Malcolm Moore) for photos of Hu and his machine.

The story reminds me of research conducted by former colleagues. I'll just say designers of medical technology can learn much from cases such as Hu, both in terms of the challenges some people face in China and how people sometimes overcome those challenges.

And that's all for this edition of assorted links.

Tech Shirts For Sale at the Kek Lok Temple in Malaysia

One can't-miss feature of the Kek Lok Temple in Penang, Malaysia, is the new numerous shops, whether those enclosing the steps to the temple's entrance...

... or those inside the temple complex.

Temple-related items were sold, but a variety of other goods could be found as well.

T-shirts appeared to be one of the more popular items to sell. Some included messages that left me curious about the design process used to create them.

In that respect, they were similar to many I have seen in China, although they had a different flavor. However, a specific set of shirts stood out to me.

I saw shirts with the Apple, Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Yahoo brands. Penang is an area with a great deal of Chinese influence, both historically and in its current culture. But in and around its most famous temple I didn't see a single shirt for a China-based technology brand such as Baidu, Sina Weibo, WeChat (Weixin), Xiaomi, Youku, or QQ. Especially since these shirts were sold in markets that target tourists, before commenting on what this might mean I would want to take a closer look at who purchases such shirts and whether these and similar shirts are sold elsewhere in Penang.

But at the very least these shirts are symbolic of the relative influence of American and Chinese technology brands in many regions outside of China--even where there are many Chinese people.

More on this topic later.