From Daily Maverick 9 Sep 2023: Vodacom recycles numbers after four months of inactivity, whereas Cell C, MTN and Telkom do so after three months. These operators argue that the practice is driven by the high demand for cellphone numbers from new customers.

The recycling process has unintended consequences for both the previous and new owners of the numbers. Unsolicited calls and messages intended for the former owner often flood the new user’s device, creating a frustrating experience.

Apart from the irritation factor of losing one's long used number, and receiving birthday wishes and calls intended for someone else, there is a way more serious legal side to this. That is, that a user had to legally RICA this phone number to themselves, and that anyone else who can now access that number, can impersonate that person. It also means that any 2FA, or banking confirmations, will go to the new owner. Many banks insist on using mobile phones for 2FA as the SIM is RICA'd to the owner.

It is yet another very good reason why we should not use cellphone numbers for 2FA (or even e-mail addresses for login IDs). Neither of these two options are secure or permanent, and re-using an e-mail address for 500+ website logins, is already doubling the risk for being hacked.

Until passkeys can be widely used, users should be able to choose their login ID and password, and secure that with a synchronised 2FA app (so that if the phone is lost, there is still access to the 2FA keys).

But apart from the legal side of this, there is also the ethics side of it. A customer has to go through some cost and effort to have their SIM RICA'd, yet the network provider can just arbitrarily reassign that same number without even informing the user. I'm imagining that the network provider does formally cancel that RICA status? In fact, it is very interesting that the RICA process allows a second user to now be associated with the same number.

Actually now I'm laughing, because a month or so back, it turned out that the whole RICA process has been a complete waste of time and money, as it is in a shambles (just search for ‘pre-Rica’d’ Sim). If a RICA process is not up-to-date and well managed, it is a complete waste of time. You either do it, or you don't do it. You can't have a 60% RICA service with any legal weight at all. Anyone know how the RICA cancellation process works in SA?

On the network operators' side, I realise they have a challenge if a SIM number is just not used at all for many months. This is obviously not a problem for contract subscribers, as they are paying. But the network providers need to come up with some way of managing that ethically and legally, and I guess that will somehow make pre-paid SIM services either more expensive or more inconvenient. But so far, just turning a blind eye and hoping for the best, is starting to now bite.

It is high time anyway that we were no longer bound to e-mail addresses or mobile phone numbers. If my phone was lost or stolen, I should be able to just log in to my WhatsApp (if I still used it) or Telegram with any ID and password.

#technology #southafrica #SIM #RICA

The successor to Web 2.0 bookmarking site del.icio.us is here, but this time, it’s built for the open web and the Fediverse — the decentralised collection of social networks that includes the Twitter/X competitor Mastodon and others. Portland-area web developer Casey Kolderup has launched Postmarks, a Fediverse-enabled social bookmarking service that offers a web interface for saving your favourite links and annotating them, similar to bookmarking sites of years past.

But this time, your links and notes can be shared with your followers both on Postmarks itself, as well as other federated social networks like Mastodon or anything else on the Fediverse.

It is interesting to see that the ActivityPub protocol is not just used for microblogging (like Mastodon and similar) but also for social link aggregation (Lemmy, etc), book reading (Bookwyrm), blog hosting (Shuttlecraft), and now also bookmarking.

This is different from social link aggregation where a link is posted and has related discussion threads as well as voting, and is intended for communal use. Postmarks is more a simple link, with description, tags, and optional association to other tags. Any other Fediverse user is then able to follow your Postmarks feed, or searches on the tags should show up as hashtag results. So, the focus here would be more your personal collection of bookmarks.

It is still early days for this service and I'd hope it gets the facility to import bookmarks from a browser (if that is not yet a feature).

See https://techcrunch.com/2023/09/08/with-postmarks-social-bookmarking-is-back-but-this-time-its-built-on-the-fediverse/

#technology #Fediverse #bookmarks #Postmarks #opensource

The podcasting market is growing rapidly across Africa, especially amongst its Gen Z population. Afripods, an all-in-one podcast platform, is trying to accelerate that growth. The platform is geared toward African creators and audiences and offers editing, hosting, and monetization tools for podcasters and also serves as a player and podcast discovery tool for audiences.

Founded in 2017, Afripods currently offers Pan-African content in over 50 different languages. Last month, the platform announced it had partnered with over 110 broadcast radio stations to convert their programs to podcast form. Known as “broadcast-to-podcast” or B2P, the company says that African audiences are more familiar with the idea of on-demand radio and sees it as a promising area for growth.

This has a couple of great things going for it, that also help make it uniquely African:

1. Support, and filtering, of around 50 different languages, means users can also find podcasts in their own native tongue.
2. It is focussed on Africa, and Africa has traditionally preserved much of its history and customs through audio storytelling. This makes audio podcasting ideal for this purpose. It allows people to tell their own stories - anyone can be a storyteller.
3. Parts of Africa have no Internet access, and again podcasting is ideal for downloading where there is Internet, and being perfectly usable where there in no Internet.
4. It is easily accessible, and podcast hosting is free. Podcast editing can be done inside the app.
5. It not only helps preserve African culture, but also makes it accessible globally.
6. There’s a lot of opportunity for collaboration among the countries and the cultures.

Awareness is probably their biggest challenge (and same for podcasting and RSS in general). Once people know about it, and how they can use it, it will often be very well used. What I love best about podcasts, are you get to choose when and where you listen, and also that you can be busy with many other activities and listen to a podcast at the same time.

See https://www.theverge.com/2023/9/5/23859798/afripods-broadcast-to-podcast-kevin-brown-africa-podcast-market-hot-pod

In case one thinks this is just for three or four websites, the research measurements showed that from the top 10k websites (as per Tranco), roughly 1,100 are storing user passwords in plain text form within the HTML DOM. Another 7,300 websites from the same set were deemed vulnerable to DOM API access and direct extraction of the user's input value.

The researchers explain that the problem concerns the systemic practice of giving browser extensions unrestricted access to the DOM tree of sites they load on, which allows accessing potentially sensitive elements such as user input fields. Given the lack of any security boundary between the extension and a site's elements, the former has unrestricted access to data visible in the source code and may extract any of its contents.

It certainly needs a fix, and the vulnerability lies with a user installing an extension that deliberately exploits this weakness. So only using reputable extensions will help. But certainly, two other improvements are needed: The Manifest V3 protocol (that many Chromium-based browsers adopted, not just Chrome itself), should have some security boundary between the extensions and the web pages, and of course most importantly, websites should not be storing their passwords in the HTML DOM in plain text.

See https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/chrome-extensions-can-steal-plaintext-passwords-from-websites/

#technology #security #browsers

From Maree’s description, Saru’s technological ecosystem can be delineated into two distinct processes: data collection and data-driven decision making.

The main tool used for data collection is a GPS tracker, called a GPS pod, which each player has inserted into a sleeve in the back of their rugby jersey. The sleeve is designed so that the pod sits tightly inside it to minimise movement. “The one thing you don’t want with GPS is unwanted movement because it is going to affect the readings,” Maree said. The pod is cleverly positioned between the shoulder blades to minimise the chances of collision during rucks, mauls and scrums.

The Springboks use tracking pods made by STATSports, an Irish company that supplies analysis software along with the tracking hardware. “We developed the system a few years ago with our partner, Mobii System – a local company. Our latency, at 0.25s from live, makes us the quickest system in the world at this stage,” Maree said. The very same data is used for post-game video analysis using Hudl Sportscode. “From the GPS pod together with STATSports, there are probably over 200 or even 300 metrics that you can look at".

This is really no surprise, as most average athletes carry smartwatches and other sports tracking devices already for measuring their own performance (and we've long seen racing cars carrying such analytical information). It is not so much the measurement device, but more the power of the available analytics that separates amateur from professional levels. AI also is said to not yet play any role, but I would imagine they are playing with that to see how it compares with human deduction and decision-making, after all AI is all about learning from data, and AI may help give an additional edge in terms of the speed of decision-making in future.

The other thing I'm really wondering about is security. The moment something starts using technology with any form of connectivity, it is potentially at risk to hacking. Whether that is just intelligence gathering by the opposition, gathering of information by the opposition, or a denial-of-service attack, all these risks can potentially be harmful, especially when you come to depend more and more on the technology. So I guess Chief Risk Officer, CIO< etc all take on new meanings for even sports teams.

With today's digital era, and streaming of entertainment media, it would be interesting to see some of the basic data being broadcast during games like max speed reached by a player, distance travelled, etc that could make it more interesting.

See https://techcentral.co.za/boks-secret-tech-weapon-rugby-world-cup/231012/

#technology #rugby #southafrica

Waze might look like "just another navigation app" at first glance, but in reality, the Google-owned software provides a more advanced feature package that you won't find elsewhere.

The first thing you must know is that Waze does not record the location of traffic lights and stop signs for a simple reason: its routing engine doesn't think this data is relevant to how routes are calculated.

Waze was designed to look for faster routes, so it doesn't care about the location of traffic lights. Instead, it's particularly interested in the impact on traffic conditions, so the application doesn't look at the location of a traffic light but how it slows down traffic. Waze always looks for the fastest route, so if a traffic light produces a significant slowdown and long waiting lines, the application eventually searches for an alternate route.

The longer the queue at a traffic light, the bigger the impact on traffic. Waze could eventually flag the road segment before the traffic light as "slow," so the application would no longer favour the main road over secondary streets.

However, no navigation app is actually perfect. Google Maps is better at starting a route without any Internet connection, whereas Waze needs an Internet connection to initiate a route. So they are different, and it is worth having more than one app available for navigation. Therefore, having more than one app for navigation is beneficial, as they are different. Moreover, some apps based on OpenStreetMap have made significant progress and can alert drivers about speed bumps and other obstacles that may slow down their journey.

Of course, Waze's crowdsourced warnings for issues along the way, and even their speed limit warnings, are "streets" ahead of Google Maps!

See https://www.autoevolution.com/news/the-secret-system-that-allows-waze-to-find-faster-routes-than-google-maps-220498.html

#technology #navigation #traffic

Waiting times have increased due to the tablets’ overwhelming popularity, prompting the library staff to devise a creative solution. Those waiting their turn must read to a staff member before being allowed to use the tablets. This approach has produced remarkable results, with many young students improving their reading skills and gaining newfound confidence.

Gaming sessions are limited to Fridays, Saturdays and school holidays. To secure a slot, children are encouraged to borrow books, read them and then provide a brief review to the librarians, either written or spoken.

Simple, but brilliant! It's a win-win as the kids get something they'll enjoy, and at the same time their literacy skills improve. These literacy skills are what will make a massive difference to their school learning, as well as their ability to get jobs one day. Gaming itself will undoubtedly also teach them skills, but literacy trumps all. As an added bonus, they also learn that effort equals reward.

The rollout of this initiative began the previous year with the distribution of 66 tablets to 13 libraries. In 2023, the endeavour has expanded further, with 99 tablets allocated to 19 libraries, and this momentum is expected to persist throughout the year. I hope that more such tablets can be rolled out to additional libraries.

Librarians are not just people who sit behind a counter and stamp books out or charge fines for overdue books. I've always found them very helpful (taking you top something instead of just pointing in the distance), and what they do, is more than just about books. Libraries often have computer and Internet facilities, meeting spaces, and more. Many communities really underestimate the importance of libraries, especially to younger children who have a thirst for knowledge. One of the most precious gifts a child can get, is good reading and literacy skills. There is so much knowledge (and entertainment) that is available free of cost at libraries. Reading can inform, relax, motivate, and entertain.

See https://www.capetownetc.com/tech/city-libraries-use-technology-to-draw-young-patrons-to-the-bookshelves/

#technology #reading #libraries #capetown

Valorant is a team-based first-person tactical hero shooter set in the near future. Players play as one of a set of Agents, characters based on several countries and cultures around the world. In the main game mode, players are assigned to either the attacking or defending team with each team having five players on it.

Valorant was developed with two main focuses: making tactical shooters and e-sports more accessible to new players, and creating a game that would attract a large competitive scene, while solving many of the points of criticism voiced by professional players from games in the genre. Games aimed at large, active communities and player bases, typically free-to-play games like Fortnite or Riot's own League of Legends, tend to put an emphasis on a wider array of system performance improvements and game stability rather than newer technologies or graphics as a way of making sure they're as accessible as possible.

Valorant has been compared to Valve's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, with both games having two teams of five attempting to plant a bomb, and Blizzard Entertainment's class-based shooter Overwatch, as both games have multiple classes and characters catering to various playstyles. Valorant was nominated for Best Esports Game, Best Multiplayer and Best Community Support at The Game Awards 2020. It won the Best Esports Game at The Game Awards 2022.

If you’re from South Africa and using automatic server select, you’ll probably land in the Cape Town server in the game. But you can also select it manually via the dropdown menu in the lobby.

Note that South Africa does not have a Premier zone for the region just yet, so if players in South Africa jump into Premier, they'd still be choosing 1 of the 4 main Premier regions in EU.

So, the good news is the game does not have any overly heavy requirements to play it, and now that it has servers live in Cape Town, it makes it playable from South Africa.

The bad news is the game seems to have some really restrictive requirements around Windows OS (including a kernel driver) and I don't even see it available on Steam Games, so I won't be trying it out on Linux.

See https://playvalorant.com/en-us/news/dev/valorant-s-cape-town-servers-are-live/

#technology #gaming #valorant #southafrica

Fairphone is not trying to compete on bleeding edge specifications. It can be more likened to a mid-range phone, with long support, ethically sourced components, and easily repairable (screwed not glued) modules. For example, you could swap out the main 50MP camera for $75.50 (if that can be upgraded say after a few years, that would be really great!).

It has all the essentials though like Wi-Fi 6E, NFC, sub-6 GHz 5G support, Bluetooth 5.2, GPS, dual 50-megapixel cameras, a 90Hz OLED display, a side fingerprint reader, and a normal-sounding modem, DSP, ISP, and AI engine.

The IP55 rating for dust and water resistance does not worry me too much, as I've never had need of more than this in over two decades of carrying mobile phones. I have, though, had major pains trying to replace the glued in battery of my Nexus 6P phone. I do anyway fully insure my phone against all-risks.

What is really interesting though, and we've heard this before from Fairphone, is that modern consumer phone OS support is often limited by Qualcomm (or other SoC vendor), as Qualcomm must continually adapt Android updates to work with their chips. Fairphone has got partly around this limitation by employing an industrial grade Qualcomm chip instead of the usual consumer version, which has shorter support by Qualcomm.

Although the camera is not going to be as good as my Galaxy S23 Ultra, I'd be quite interested to see if my banking apps would work with this phone. The reason is my banking apps (well one of them at least) has very stringent security requirements which I remember excluded the use of my rooted Pixel 2 XL phone (even the Magisk cloaking could not hide the root status from the banking app). I think the bank also mandates the use of its official app from the Google Play Store too (and this is used for photo verification as well as website 2FA logins for me). The Fairphone does come with its own Fairphone OS, but it does seem you can get that with, or without, the Google Apps. If you can get by without the Google Apps, then this won't be any problem, but if you have to have the official app from the app store then you may want to be sure this will all work fine.

See https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/fairphone-5-sets-a-new-standard-with-8-10-years-of-android-support/

#technology #Fairphone #repairability