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So I didn’t wait for next week to re-do the test of the Eightg Digit Curse. Nothing better to do in weekend right! :). The result however was contrary to last time. I called 3 consecutive times, twice at stationary (remember physics?), and then once while driving. What was different? Could it be under heavy load at night, as I usually call at night, and this time it was Saturday morning? Maybe. This will have to wait until next week :)

The one thing I’m sure of now is, I remember I frequently faced similar problem before calling Batriq from the same area and time.

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You would think after all this time the chaos of the eighth digit is gone, at least from the telecom companies side. Perhaps some people still got unchanged numbers, but that’s normal. Yesterday however while I was going to order my regular thursday night Batriq meal, I called “1888000″ Wataniya line only to get a message saying “you can’t reach this number, and you must add 2 to it”! I look at the number again and figure, they must’ve done something like this

if ( number.length() == 7 && isMocNumber(number)) {

   add2Prefix();

}

Immediately after I left the 2nd Ring Road traffic light intersection with Fahaheel road away from the city, a second call made it. Hmm… Is it just by accident, or it the specific cell I was in? Maybe I will try again next week :D

Do you get such problems up till now?

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So there I was, angry while waiting for the late company delivery when I received an Arabic SMS from sender Message. My smart phone is not smart enough to read Arabic yet (I’m too lazy to reformat it in other words), so I just saw the number in the SMS and called it from a phone line:

Me: Hello

Him: Hi

Me: Did you just send me SMS?

Him: Yes.

Me: Well! What is it? (forgot I was supposed to already know the message content, thinking this might be a friend)

Him: Yeah we do web site design if you like.

Me: (Man you so much got the wrong guy at the wrong time) 

No Thank you.

Him: OK.

Me: (Not gonna let it go easy) Where did you get my number from?

Him: Oh we just send bulk SMS to all numbers

Me: Ohh… so you just disturb everyone in case some few people are interested?

Him: Well, some people are interested.

Me: Well, there are newspaper designed for ads you know?

Him: Yes. 

Me: So you can use them.

Him: Yes, sorry for bothering.

Me: OK. 

(I Hang Up)

To his credit, he was more decent than I thought over the phone, he took my harsh message well. However those people just don’t realize bothering thousands of people to target tens is a lot of disturbance. It drives people away rather than gets them, and website design is not like something you go searching for. Such services are all over the area.

I do not blame those spammers however. And neither do I blame the telecom companies in the first place. Their job is to maximize revenue in any way possible. If you were a manager, what would you do? The only one to blame is MOC over all of this, for taking it too easy, and not criminilizing any of those SMS Spam practices, keeping completely shut about them.

On the other hand, I was looking today at an official paper that should be signed by the ministry to clear out from the customs any routers, switches, or devices that might have to do anything with VoIP technology. It should testify not to use it for any illegal (though human beneficial) way, such as making VoIP international calls (all that MOC cares about).

I think in our 21st Century, the new slogan should be “Spam Does Not Pay”. At least, it doesn’t do as good as crime does it?

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Tomorrow is the final date for migration to the eight digits numbering plan, and as per the schedule set by the Minisrty of Communications (MOC) them selves, MOC gets to do the migration at last. Nevertheless, MOC have stated several times since summer there are totally ready for this migration, and it’s just a matter of public awareness that is delaying the launch.

Now, you may call this an incident, but the details strongly suggests against it. Today, my home phone kept ringing almost every minute, when almost no one knows this number, as it’s only there for internet access to be honest. Everytime I pick the phone I get strange outcome. Once, it connected me to the Clock number 113. How come? I thought first it’s a prank. Then a second call, when I pick up, it rings as if I was calling. Third and fourth time. It kept going on. Last time there was an old lady at the other side of the phone, and clearly she didn’t know what’s going on. When she heard me on the phone, it appeared she had dialed the wrong number.

Prank? Unlikely with this variety of people I talked to. Coincidental problem? Very improbable at this rate. But at all rates, I will not just fire a conclusion.

Soon after, I get this message shouting loud and clear, 777 Emergency Hotline will not be available through MOC, and you must use your mobile operator to call them:

Now isn’t that an emergency hotline, and like the most important number of them all? Wasn’t MOC ready for this since summer as they claimed? And how could you rely on a mobile operator in case of emergencies? I know it usually does the purpose, but what if it doesn’t?

So anyways, later today I try to call from my land line my parent’s house. First I got IVR very unprofessional noisy Kuwaiti message that I think was about the move to new plan. It soon broke up. (Again, MOC was ready for this). Everytime I call I get an error, regardless if I try 7 or 8 digits.

Fare enough, I said. Being a technical I know those things happen during migration. But why didn’t they do it at late night I wonder? Those delivery restaurants must be really pissed off. So anyways, I wasn’t expecting any better. I called using my mobile phone, only to hear Arabic message saying: “Sorry, due to excess load on the network, we cannot take your call. Please try again later”

Hey… wasn’t I supposed to use my mobile phone for emergencies? I thought I am exaggerating with my example, but it didn’t last long to prove, Murphy’s law never fails you. 

Great job MOC. Well done. You had written the rules all by your self, forced mobile operators to raise the funding for this migration, and then you totally screw up.

UPDATE (6:30 AM): I still can’t call 6 digits number from land lines, and guess what. Same time NBK Online Credit Card system is not working. But that’s no coincidence, NBK has a monthly regular downtime for their credit cards :(.

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Ministry of Communications representative in Kuwait have made an official weird announcement following several hacks on Kuwaiti websites, stating that the ministry and it’s governmental sites are not ready against hackers attacks (invitation for hackers), and then went on to explain why they are not ready, and why they can’t protect the banks and other corporation sites in Kuwait. He concluded finally by diagnosing the problem somehow as the fault of the ISPs! Saying they should work harder, and invest in providing security mechanisms for those sites!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but what does an ISP have to do with securing someone else’s website? If my site is vulnerable for SQL Injection, how is that the fault of the ISP. If my site has weak or blank passwords, if I am not patching my server with latest updates, or if my server has so many open ports inviting hackers to come in. What part of this actually relates to the ISPs?

It seems MOC was too scared of being hacked and blamed, having no clue about website security, and the actual role of the ISPs, they go on and point fingers to their “Usual Suspect”. The ISPs.

Well then, since it’s a matter of banks security, I guess that makes YouTube second priority to ISPs and MOC. Go figure protecting our sites :).  Meanwhile, we will set our passwords to blank, since it’s your responsibility.

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Kuwait is an oil filthy rich country, and that’s pretty much all about it. Every week I read about a 5 year plan to change the face of the country, and make Kuwait a worldwide business centre. We read about big millions and billions being assigned for such projects, those projects we never hear or see later.  I tend to avoid getting into those things, as they ruin my mood, and raise my blood pressure. The problem comes when these silly thigs I try to avoid come in my way. Or our way should I say. Our way of life.

Every day, we use YouTube to watch the news, soccer goals, Islamic lectures, technical presentations, visual tutorials for How To stuff that otherwise are difficult to explain with words, my kid loves it for watching cartoons and I use it to encourage him with educational kids shows. All of that and more. Such a service has made YouTube part of our lives, and a life changer as well.

And then, one day a guy got an email with links to some videos he didn’t like. That man happens to be in a vital position for deciding what’s right and what’s wrong. Driven wih Islamic motives, and taking the prides of a nation on his shoulders, that guy fires up a direct letter to all ISPs to block this whole service, the good and bad of it. We suddenly read about it in the newspapers, YouTube is being blocked. The order gets canceled by the minister, as it was not signed from him, and the individual effort bypassing all authorities goes unpunished. Not only that, but perliment members have adapted the story, backing this individual, and are demanding from the ministry of communications to devote time, effort, and money to fight those videos. When people are celebrating the Ramadan Eid, the perliment members have made it their top priority on the schedules after Eid already to demand an act on those videos, and have expanded their demands to reach other sites as well, or else, they will put the minister for interrogations. 

The next day we hear, the ISPs are receiving letters from the ministry of communcations, which are really nothing more than individual efforts by normal people surfing the net, sending partial links to YouTube, and other offensive partial site links, such as Flickr and others, and the ministry does nothing more than stamping and forwarding them to all ISPs for implementation! To make the matter worse, the minister of communications makes an official statement that they are forming an official committe to unite their vision and statement, then start arranging with Gulf countries, then reach out for the whole Arabic and Islamic world for one big united move against the offensive bunch of videos.

Wooho… We have never seen or heard of such Islamic real uniting, and when was the last time we saw the minister really active and caring? Only when it comes to ministry money, or his chair. I wonder how dare we speak of country opening up for western world, and becoming a worldwide business centre, when few bunch of people on the other side of the world are able to manipulate our priorities, and shake our stabilities and focus, by simply uploading few silly videos.

What message are we really giving back to them? That we are weak and easily shaken country, or as a matter of fact, whole region. And what will happen if we block YouTube and other sites? Guess what, those offensive content will keep coming, and will increase as a matter of fact. People who want to use YouTube and the like will find ways around it, and those who don’t will not know about it, just as if they are looking the other way, and they will not be able to request for those videos to be removed from YouTube anymore. since they don’t know it exists. So blocking is just a fake pretending this problem doesn’t exist, and trying to disbelief the problem will always be there, you cannot stop it.

Did anyone of those demanding fight for offensive videos try to report the video as offensive to the concerned people, YouTube them selves? I have. And so have many others who are as caring and offended by the video, as those people trying to show off. They have a bit more sense of logic though. They try to address the problem, not panic and shout out loud. And guess what, the link I reported got deleted. I even tried to proxy to make sure it’s not only removed from Kuwait, it’s still deleted.

One might think this country is not moving forward, or at least not fast enough. But I believe they’re wrong. We are moving backward full speed and there is no stopping us.

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Following up on the massive protest yesterday against what seems to be an individual irrational decision, coming from an immature person at the Ministry of Communications, Al-Jarida is providing us more details on the story. My doubts about the letter yesterday turned out to be true. The letter, which seemed very unprofessional sent by a single person, was sent by the head of control department directly to all ISPs for immediate execution, by passing the minister for approval.

The blocking was freezed yesterday for further discussions, which while good, pretty much surprises me even more. First of all, you don’t fire up an official letter to the ISPs and then reconsider. Secondly, if the letter was not signed by the minister, this letter has zero legal value, and belongs to the trash. The person who is on purpose, and still defending his ground, by passing all legal procedures, to block the third largest popular site in Kuwait, from an individual thinking (if that’s what you wanna call it), considering him self probably so smart with this crap, should be punished and blocked from his position, stripped out of all responsibilities, after showing such immature level in his management.

Kuwait is a multi-million nation, and if one small individual unkown person thinks he can run the country as he likes, think again! If you don’t like YouTube, don’t use it. However I am hundred percent positive, when this chaos is over, you could see this very same person using YouTube for his own interest.

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