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Google Apps for Schools – how safe are they?

So-called Group Work is probably the bane of every tutor in higher education, myself included. As to the poor students having to collaborate; it’s always the motivated one dragging the hangers-on and possibly university’s resident idiot along with them. It’s a nightmare. The most common complaint is that they never turn up to meetings to work on the project because it’s too difficult to organise. Yeah, right!

So this week, one of my colleges persuaded me to get them all working with Google Apps. The theory is that they don’t need to be co-located in time or space to work on a common document. I suspect the lack of physical presence will actually make it easier for some of the group to loaf off, but perhaps I’ve been at this too long to be optimistic.

Google Apps, on the other hand, is gaining ground in education. Cloud-based applications that allow easy sharing of documents has to be a good thing, and I have to say I’m very impressed at the ability of several people to edit the same document at once. And it comes with the ultimate feature that will guarantee sales – it’s free.

When I say “free”, that means that Google gets to harvest your personal data instead of hard cash, and feed you targeted advertising. And this is a worry. You may be okay with this, but if it’s to be adopted in colleges or schools, supposing some students aren’t as relaxed about it? Those in the know keep away from Facebook for just this reasons, but it’s optional. If you make Google Apps part of coursework you’re forcing students to accept terms they’d otherwise reject.

So, in 2006, Google announced Google Apps for Education, with the advertising stripped out. It’s actually a pretty good deal. Features may change over time, but it’s basically business version of Google Apps with one difference – it’s also free.

Unsurprisingly, Microsoft is really hacked off about this. They’ve been giving their Windows and Office software to educational establishments at a huge discount (or free) in order to get kids hooked on it, and as a result we have a generation that believes Microsoft Office is necessary to do anything. Kids come out of education knowing nothing else, which forces companies to purchase Microsoft Office at the full price in order to make them feel at home.

So, free or otherwise, Google Apps is probably more suited to college use, and Microsoft isn’t going to like it, so is fighting back with lawyers (no surprise there).

For example, last year Microsoft backed a bill in the US state of Massachusetts to block the use of Google Apps in schools.

To quote: “An Act prohibiting service providers who offer cloud computing services to K-12 educational institutions from processing student data for commercial purposes.”

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Pernicious as Microsoft’s education offering is, this bill does have a point and I find myself siding with Microsoft for once. In fact I’d go further – no one should be forced to use applications collecting personal data, even in further or higher education.

This is becoming more relevant as I understand many schools are now considering the use of Google for Education. If their students are under 18, how can they even give informed consent? And once the parents understand the issues, who would give consent on their behalf? In most Judistictions, you need to be 13 or over (or 16+ in some parts of Europe) before you are allowed by Google to have a Google account, so it’s not like Google isn’t sensitive to the issue.

My sources inside the chocolate box tell me that the new Apps for Education will be advert free. When pushed, there was no guarantee that tracking wouldn’t happen – only that no adverts would be shown in the Apps themselves. Whether they will appear, based on tracking data, on other web sites remains to be seen and when the child reaches an “appropriate” age they’ll come with years of profile data. I’m awaiting clarification from Google on this matter.

(Update: Google has now publically declared that they will not scan Apps for Education data for advertising purposes, however the devil is in the detail. They don’t say that they don’t scan it for other profiling reasons. And then I found this court document, unearthed by SafeGov, in which Google’s own lawyers admit that they do profile students email and suchlike, meaning they can target adverts in other circumstances.)

And then there’s the question of whether it’s a secure environment. Well, no, it’s not. But that applies to Office 365, most LMS (see blogs passim) and anything else that has public messaging – in this case GMail. Given the problems I’ve had with users of freemail accounts, including GMail, I can’t help but question of the wisdom of allowing children access to it. When you’re signed up for Apps for Education you are supposed to be getting 24/7 support from Google, unlike Joe Public. Whether this helps resolve the issues remains to be seen. It’s also possible to turn off features centrally, such as Chat (an obvious thing to disable). Unfortunately, if you do turn off GMail there’s no other closed
messaging system to use instead.

As with my earlier papers and articles concerning LMS systems, I’m not saying that Google Apps are inherently insecure. In fact, I’ve got a lot of confidence that Google data centres, in particular, are robust. If Google does deliver on it’s data use policy, and is providing this service free of charge and with no strings attached, that’s great news. Microsoft has had their way for far to long for it to be healthy. Google has stated that as Google was born out of a research project at Stanford, they now want to give something back to education and that’s their only motive. It’s nothing to do with scuppering Microsoft; how could you possibly think that?

Like all Internet connect IT for use in schools, it’s the social risks that worry me the most, such as abuse of Internet email. If your school plans to use Google Apps, Office 365 or any other system with open email, just ask to see the risk assessment first.

That said, I’d still prefer to see educational establishments return to the open source model; Linux if you must, and OpenOffice. Computing by and for the people. Or perhaps those days are gone. We’re already stuck with a generation that now believes computing comes from large companies like Google and Microsoft. Sadly, I feel that it’s unlikely that most will have the technical talent in-house to make it happen.

Update:

Some of the concerns expressed here about data usage have now been addressed after Google signed up to this code of conduct IN THE USA.

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Don’t write off the iPhone just yet

This may seem and odd premise, given that Apple flogged 4 million of the new iPhone 6 units as soon as it was launched. It doesn’t sound like a failure. But I’m hearing voices…

The theory is that the smartphone market is saturated. In the US, an often quoted statistic is that 75% of Americans already have one. In the UK, research from Deloitte puts the figure at 72% a year ago, rising at about 15% a year. Selling something everyone already has is not a good place to be.

Then there’s the inexorable rise of Android. Google launched the low cost, very capable and very affordable Android One phone in June. Never heard of it? Well it’s not available in the west – they’re going after the huge third world market, starting with India. There are a billion punters there, eager for the western tech. And the same with China, although they can make their own (as well as handsets for the rest of the world).

Generic Chinese Android handsets are good. I have one. It takes two SIMs at once and works under water, at a fraction of the prices of a western branded unit. Manufactures like Huawei, ZTE and Foxconn own this space and will be hard to shift. Google doesn’t make money from Android, and I doubt that the Android One will contribute much to their balance sheet. But Google is a data capture company, and have Google-controlled smartphones out there is strategically very good.

So, Apple must be doomed – a saturated market and cheaper smartphones that do it better. But that’s never been a problem Apple’s business model.

Apple’s products are aspirational – they say, “Look at me – I’m wealthy enough to spend £100s every year for the latest iPhone and therefore I’m a good prospect when it comes to making babies.” The more they cost, the more people want them. Fanbois may protest, saying that they iPhones work better (not so) and look nicer. Sony sells nice looking kit too, but is forecasting a $1.2B loss from its Android smartphones. The same with HT; it’s just breaking even on declining sales. Samsung is making a good profit ($6B), but there’s a suspicion this has been generated on a huge marketing spend.

Apple doesn’t need to spend too much on marketing. It just has to look cool and remain aspirational.

According to Juniper, shipments of smartphones will be close to 1.2B units this year (with 985M shipped in 2013). That’s a high volume, but if it’s the Android One and low cost units going to emerging markets (those not yet saturated), the bulk of that will be making meagre profit.

Apple, on the other hand, makes a very nice margin, thanks. Fanbois will happily hand over $100s simply to have one with a larger flash memory; several thousand percent more than the memory itself costs elsewhere. They’ll accept that the limited-life battery is ;sealed inside and will die, taking the iPhone with it in a couple of years. They’ll accept that there’s no memory card slot as an alternative to buying the ridiculously expensive internally upgraded models. They’ll even put up with the poor telephone performance; after all the screen looks very nice (don’t tell them that Samsung beat them too it).

I used to work with Cuppertino in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s – lots of people did because the Apple II was a major player; a de-facto standard. Then in 1981 the IBM PC was launched, became the new de-facto standard and Apple was marginalised with the Mac, losing market-share big time until it was less than 10%. 25 years ago I was discussing their demise with Guy Kewney, a good and wise pundit and friend. “You’re wrong”, he said. “The PC market is much bigger. Other PC makers would be very happy to have 9% of the current market, and they have much lower margins than Apple.”

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Google geek lives on site for year. Yawn

Matthew weaver told the BBC he lived on site on Google’s. Mountain view campus. for 54 weeks between 2005 and 2006. Are we supposed to be impressed? Well it’s a long time but the story continues to reveal he was living in a camper van. How soft modern techies have become. Back in the early 1980’s living on site while a project was on was not at all uncommon. I certainly was not the only programmer in small tech startups to spend the night under the workbench in a sleeping bag. It was an alternative soft option to simply working through the night.

These young techies simply don’t know they’re even born. Camper van indeed!

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Tesco really doesn’t like journalists

I just had a most interesting experience at Tesco in Watford. I went to take a picture with a mobile phone and was suddenly surrounded by burly security guards. Apparently it’s company policy that no one is to take pictures in Tesco, or even Tesco car parks. How odd!

Okay, it’s private property and they can make up whatever rules they like. If you need a shot of their pick and mix, you’ll need a long lens so you can stand on the road outside. But it begs the question, are they stark raving mad?

Luckily a manager turned up pronto (presumably someone pressed the panic alarm), and I persuaded her to send the security people away while she explained – in fact the outcome was very satisfactory from my perspective, and should I ever need to speak to a manager within 30 seconds again, I now have a sure-fire method.

As a long-time hack, I know what I’m about when it comes to taking pictures. Normally, when you’re taking photographs with a camera on a mobile phone, it’s pretty clear you’re not doing so for commercial reasons and it’s unusual for anyone to complain. Okay, if I had my big press camera with me, I’d certainly have asked permission to photograph/film. Or I’d have used a hidden camera. But it wasn’t like that – in fact I was shooting the contents of my shopping trolley as a record – obviously domestic use only, and I even mentioned to a member of staff nearby that I was getting a shot of that if he had no objections.

So can they do this? Well it’s not illegal. They can make up any rules they like about who can and who can’t enter their premises and if they want to ban people taking photographs, they can. They could get a court order and bar you from every Tesco store in the country. What they can’t do (if this happens to you) is make you delete any photographs you have already taken, and neither can they touch you or your camera – that’s common assault.

But why should it come to this? Surely Tesco doesn’t hate journalists? Actually, I doubt they even realised. But on asking around, they have form in this respect. Had of Patrick Collinson’s experiences I’d have been prepared, but he was writing in The Guardian when he was nabbed for noting down prices.

So is this a one store going bonkers (I’ve not had any bother at my local Tesco, although don’t often shop there these days)? I set out to find a security guard who’d talk, and it didn’t take long (but he’s not from Watford, in case anyone from Tesco is reading this!)

Apparently, the only photographs allowed are general ones of the exterior of the shop. If you’re audacious enough to snap something specific, like and advert, or one of their products, they’re instructions are to “ask you why, and ask you to stop”. Obviously the “why” is out of politeness. And if you’re inside the shop, forget it! You need special permission from the duty manager, sign-in and have to wear a visitor’s badge. Want to shoot some grocery or other and send it to your other half for approval? Not in Tesco, you don’t.

It gets worse! Should you try this and then refuse to stop, Tesco security is instructed to detain you, call the cops and try to have you charged under Blair’s masterpiece, the Prevention of Terrorism Act [2005]. [I think he may be confusing this with Regulation of Investigatory Power Act 2000]. Boggle! I asked if he thought someone was pulling his leg, but apparently Tesco reckons that people taking pictures may be doing so in order to choose locations for placing bombs. They had some bother in 2007 with bomb hoaxes, and therefore this policy is for “our” protection. Somehow, without photographs, it must be very difficult to leave a bomb behind. Doesn’t that make you feel safer?

Or perhaps they’re still smarting after that youtube video of the horseburger skit.

I’ve written to Tesco for a clarification of this, but they have so far declined to comment. I certainly can’t find anything to suggest this is a genuine policy in writing, and I don’t recall every seeing any “no photograph” signs up. But the my source was adamant. Perhaps it’s a myth. I hope so. One incident like this, or  Patrick Collinson’s won’t damage their business much in itself, but every little helps.

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Air Conditioning at PMC of Pinner

Last spring I took my car to PMC of in Pinner to have the air condition serviced. They drained and refilled it and then noticed that the compressor wasn’t going around because the clutch had worn out (believable). It didn’t really need re-gassing. They decided that they couldn’t fix it unless I paid £600 for a new compressor, but that I should pay £80 for the re-gassing anyway.

Is this what you expect from a garage that calls itself an “Air Conditioning Specialist”? Well, yes, probably. I objected and said that if I paid the bill for their incompetent part-service it would be on the the basis that I’d also tell everyone I know what I though of them. Anyone with half a brain would have checked the compressor was turning before trying to cure the lack of performance by re-gassing. PMC decided to insist on payment, giving me the green to slag them off and see who’d listen.

Rather than actually slagging them off straight away, I took the car to a couple of real specialists (including the Volvo main agent), just to check my facts first, and by the time I’d confirmed the bad service I’d got better things to do than actively moan about them. Until now.

These idiots had the brass neck to send me a text message (without my permission) with a special offer on aircon servicing. I don’t think so, somehow!

 

 

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Hotpoint FDW65A dishwasher recall

I should be happy with Hotpoint. They have identified a fault in one of the modules fitted to the FDW20 FDW60 and FDW65A dishwashers that could lead to them catching fire. They’ve also traced customers (such as myself), written to them and asked to replace the module, using a “qualified engineer”. Are they bothering to use qualified engineers rather than trained technicians for such a menial job? Well I’m for anyone employing qualified engineers (with an engineering degree; registered with the engineering council and so on). I do hope they’re not telling porky pies about their educational status. I’ll let you know when he/she turns up!

For I have been waiting at home since 8am for said engineer to arrive. Apparently, if you have a “mobile”, they’ll TXT U A MRE PRCSE TM. If you don’t, or you’re in a zero coverage area so can’t receive SMS, you’re reliant to them to call you with a time. And I’ve been waiting by the ‘phone for just such a call. Or email, as arranged last week with customer services.

You can, however, call the premium rate telephone number that is given on the on the original letter and repeated prominently on subsequent emails. I think not. Anyone pulling this stunt in complete contempt of their supposedly valued customers doesn’t deserve any. They don’t even give a “premium rate” warning when quoting it, so I’m writing to Ofcom after I’ve posted this.

If you have one of these machines, sold in the UK with a serial number greater than 60600xxxxxxx, you can email them on fdw@hotpoint.co.uk. Hotpoint is actually a “brand” owned by Indesit, and you can call them at normal rates on 01733 287691 and try to get to the right department. If and when this engineer turns up I’ll update with the actual nature of  the fault (for any other qualified engineers out there who may be curious!)

 

Update:

Well the guy turned up and he was very nice, helpful and I can’t complain at all about him – in fact I’d have him back! He discovered about the cellphone blackspot when trying to get his laptop to connect back to base though. It turns out that the “problem” is with discrete spade connectors to the control board. Apparently this has been known to cause problems, presumably when they’re strained. So, new control board with caged contacts. I pointed out that this was a tenuous design flaw at best, but it turns out that BBC Watchdog has featured it. It sounds like more shoddy journalism blowing it out of proportion again.

 

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The Kitchen Scrappage/Recycling Scheme (cold call scam)

They’re at it again – cold-calling households (or numbers they think are households) with recorded messages from abroad. If you hang up they are pretending this means you would like to hear more, and call back from the UK (judging by the accent) but withholding their CLI. They do this to avoid prosecution  under the  Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. They’re also not prepared to give any contact details when asked. They are obviously working a con.

Their choice of name suggests they’re connected with official government initiatives such as the widely publicised boiler and car scrappage schemes, but there’s no such scheme in reality.

So what’s their con? Are they trying to pressure sell dodgy kitchens? Or obtain personal details for sale for marketing purposes? This is what the Information Commissioner’s Office think. Certainly, if they were trying to sell kitchens they’d be able to at least tell you which company they were calling from. I’ve just tied the low-life calling me in knots on that one. “Contact details?”, “No, but are you interested in a new kitchen.”, “I might be, but I can’t buy one from anyone without contact details, can I?”, “Er….”

Previously I’d listened longer to the spiel, and they were asking details about your existing kitchen, and then moving on to household income and other dodgy stuff. I had to lie to keep them talking, as they were calling the office and we don’t have that kind of kitchen.

These people are not complying with the TPS block-lists, and going to some trouble to avoid prosecution for cold-calling. I doubt they’re legitimate in any way, but the foregoing is enough to demonstrate that you can’t trust them. The ICO doesn’t have a number trace to go on, but complain anyway (on this link) and leave them to do the leg-work with better resources.

 

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New way to deal with cold callers

I’ve just had another cold-call from one of those idiots from a call centre located a long way to the East. “Hello, I am from Choice UK…”

It’s insulting that they’d be so stupid as to believe anyone would be so stupid as to believe they’re in the UK, or anywhere nearby.  But I found another way to turn the tables – “Prove it.”, I said. When he’d figure out what it meant he asked “How can I do that?”

“If you’re from the UK you can tell me the first line of the National Anthem?”. As usually happens eventually, he hung up.

So what are these people up to? Well, EU Law makes it illegal for companies to cold-call people without their permission. The is implied if there’s a pre-existing business relationship, but cold-calls are out. Great! A law from Brussels that we all like. Except it’s pointless – locate your call centre in Hyderabad and no EU member state can touch you. As a bonus, you can hire a load of cheap local labour to do the calling.

Now these outfits don’t try to sell you anything. To be honest, their English isn’t good enough anyway. What they’re doing is canvassing so they can sell your details on to companies in the UK. One you’ve said “yes” to a question like “Would you like to know how to save money on electricity?”, then, according to their interpretation, you’ve given permission for a UK company to call you with their latest special offer.

Of course, these are not honest people. They’ll sell your name on whether you said “yes” or “*$^@: Off!” And companies in the UK trying to mount a telephone marketing campaign within the law will buy the data and call you anyway.

I’ve spoken to a few companies buying false data about me (apparently I’ve been seriously injured in a car crash). They trace back to a company called Communication Avenue in Newark on Trent. If you talk to the caller nicely, often they’ll tell you – because remember – they’ve paid someone good money for something they thought was a sales lead and they’re not happy either. Communication Avenue declined to comment (or more precisely, ignored my email and failed to answer the phone). I have now left the matter with the ICO.

BT is powerless to help. So it says. They claim they can’t, technically, block calls from overseas numbers for you. As a “help” they gave me “free” caller-ID, so I could simply not answer foreign numbers. BT the BT caller display telephone didn’t display anything and to add insult to injury, after a year they started charging for it.

So what can be done? The solution to this one IS technical. All it needs is an option to block all calls coming from countries that do not subscribe to, and enforce, EU-wide telecoms regulations – including VoIP gateways. One has to ask why this hasn’t been done, but I dare say the answer is commercial.

 

 

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MH370 – One week later, wreckage found. Really?

So, an Australian satellite has potted debris in the Indian Ocean at the far end of the arc MH370’s engine data fixed the aircraft on for seven hours. There’s now going to be a rush to find it, no doubt.

Fuzzy picture of what Australia hopes is wreckage of MH370
Its it a plane? Is it a wave? It is a statistical certainty

Apparently these images are four days old and have only just come back from analysis.

I think this could well be a wild goose. What we’re looking at is a cluster of white dots in a texture of black and white. Experts have declared this likely debris; to me it looks more like waves. Or perhaps it’s a container washed off a ship, or who knows what? That’s it’s part of MH370 seems very unlikely. Probability is against it.

Let’s look at that probability. Firstly, why is the aircraft presumed to be on this arc leading north and south from Malaysia? It’s actually the line of equal distance (more or less) from the Inmarsat satellite collecting the data from the engines, and this is based on a 1d fix; namely the elevation. I believe it’s known to be 40 degrees declination from the satellite. That’s sound.

The arc ends where the aircraft stopped transmitting, which is also when it is likely to have run out of fuel, and the maximum distance it could have flown along the arc.

However, to get to the far end of the arc, someone would have to have flown it there – or set the autopilot to follow THAT course. Not any of the other courses it could have taken from the point, but that precise arced course. It’s not impossible; it could have taken this course. But is it likely? Probability says “no”.

What seems more probable to me is that the aircraft hung around in a holding pattern close to where it was lost. That’s where to look. If the satellites have found it, great – and the explanation as to why it followed that precise course will be interesting, but I’m not hopeful.

If you’re working on a conspiracy theory, the data sent to Inmarsat could have come form a ground-based transmitter; it could be fake to throw investigators off the scent.