First off I better explain what a WISP , it means Wireless Internet Service Provider. For this sorry tale the WISP in question is OceanTelecom who operate in West Waterford/East Cork.

I got a call the other day from my friend’s wife who was having problems receiving mail from her eircom.net account when using POP to retreive it. Sometimes she would get some mail and other times none. Using the webmail interface to her account she could see her mail there. All this started she claimed around two weeks ago.

Strange thought I, but then she mentioned that she had gotten a few spam reports in her mail.

Even stranger thought I, so I asked her to forward one of them on to me and here’s what I saw:

This mail was generated automatically from Endian Firewall, which runs on
efw1-oceantelecom.localdomain.(none) for scanning all mails for spam and viruses.

In a mail sent to you a virus has been found.

Virus name: Suspect.Bredozip-zippwd-2
Sender of the email:  “DHL Manager Felipe Dove” <shipping@dhl.com>
Subject: DHL delivery problem number 25130.
Connection date: POP3 from 149.5.34.3:11778 to 159.134.198.135:110
Message File: Per instruction, the message has been deleted.

Instead of the infected email this message has been sent to you.

Regardless of the fact that it was a virus, it was the very fact that it had been intercepted before it got to her PC was annoying her. Her POP session to eircom’s mail server was intercepted by her ISP. Her ISP acted as a POP proxy without her permisison. Therefore her ISP is effectively snooping on her mail. You can see clear as day in the report above that their firewall intercepted her connection to eircom’s POP3 server.

As you can imagine this really, really annoyed her so she rang ComReg (Ireland’s Communications Regulator) to find out if OceanTelecom were allowed to do this. ComReg said it was a grey area and advised her to contact the office of the Data Protection Commissioner which she duly did. The advice she received from the DPC was that they should not be snooping on her mail as her mail is not being hosted by her ISP.

With this information in hand, she rang OceanTelecom to compain and promptly received torrents of abuse from the owner! Ranting and raving about how he is protecting his network, etc, etc and if she didn’t like it she could cancel her account! How about that for customer service?

But when she informed him that she had already contacted ComReg and the DPC he terminated the call! He hung up a call from a loyal customer of over two years!

She rang me yesterday to tell me what had happened and that that she was naturally going to change her ISP which is only right IMHO.

So, for anyone looking to choose an ISP keep this information in mind. An ISP is an internet service provider. Their only obligation should at it’s most basic level to provide you with access to the internet and nothing else. Everything else should be optional. How you use your internet connection should be of no interest to your ISP once you keep within the terms of your contract, the laws of the land and adhere to their fair use policy. You can view eircom’s policy here.  Some choice quotes from their policy are:

eircom net will use its reasonable endeavours to prevent unauthorised access to the Service by third parties, but shall have no liability to the Customer for any unauthorised access to the Customer’s computer system. The Customer is responsible for selecting and properly using any security procedures made available by eircom net as well as other procedures and measures necessary to safeguard and back-up the Customer’s files, data and programs or any other form of information

and

You acknowledge that eircom net has no control over the information which can be accessed by using eircom net services and that we do not examine the use to which you or other users put the Services or the nature of the information you or they are sending or uploading. We therefore exclude all liability of any kind for the transmission or reception or such information of whatever nature.

Pretty much common sense. The onus is on the customer to remain secure, eircom as an ISP only provide a service which is more than can be said for OceanTelecom.

However I understand that OceanTelecom is a privately owned business and ultimately it is their network and they can pretty much do what they want but I would not have expected that to include interfering with clients  e-mail that is hosted elsewhere. I certainly wouldn’t like my ISP reading my mail before me. Some serious privacy implications there.

If you are an OceanTelecom customer or are considering becoming one, based on the above I would suggest you avoid them or terminate your subscription. If anything the shocking and abusive customer service alone should be good enough reason.

I’m an equal opportunity offender though so courtesy of blasphemy.ie here is as much blasphemy as I can copypasta.

List of 25 Blasphemous Quotes Published by Atheist Ireland

1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy – he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing-absolutely nothing-in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. PZ Myers, on the Roman Catholic communion host, 2008: “You would not believe how many people are writing to me, insisting that these horrible little crackers (they look like flattened bits of styrofoam) are literally pieces of their god, and that this omnipotent being who created the universe can actually be seriously harmed by some third-rate liberal intellectual at a third-rate university… However, inspired by an old woodcut of Jews stabbing the host, I thought of a simple, quick thing to do: I pierced it with a rusty nail (I hope Jesus’s tetanus shots are up to date). And then I simply threw it in the trash, followed by the classic, decorative items of trash cans everywhere, old coffeegrounds and a banana peel.”

23. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

24. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

25. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

Finally, as a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.

Anyone with any experience in a workplace will know it as a management buzzword that smacks of horseshit. When asked to define what synergy is you would invariably get the reply “1 + 1 = 3″

Not very helpful is it?

Synergy always annoyed me probably because like most people I didn’t understand or want to know the concept but it hit me like a ton of bricks over in the pub last night. Let me explain:

As it’s near christmas time, drink flows freely and occassionally a sing song might start up. Well last night one of three brothers started a song. When he was finished the second brother sang a song. This put the third brother under a bit of pressure to sing a song so he felt he has no choice so he eventually sang a song too.

There you go, Synergy!

1 brother singing + 1 brother singing = 3 brothers singing. 1 + 1 =3!

Now how to apply that to the business world without resorting to blackmail is anyones guess.

Someone in Brazil changed their theme on blogspot and very nice it is too I have to say. His design is excellent but for one thing. He is hotlinking to an image on my server. I’m getting hundred of hits for it so I figured I might goatse him.

Here’s what his site looked like:

Before

I decided not to go for the full on goatse and instead substituted in a picture of an erect penis I got on wikipedia. I have a screenshot but obviously it is not safe for work so you need to click below to see what it looked like after I made the switch:

After

A Department of Foreign Affairs e-mail address.

Why has a Cork City councillor got a DoF e-mail address anyway?

More here in the Indo.

Of course I’m talking about tomorrow’s impending budget that is. We have been told to expect a drop in the standard of our living and that we will have to bite the bullet and lots of other cliches by the assholes who are partly responsible in the first place.

I’ve had some thoughts on this for quite a while and of course it is nigh on impossible to avoid media coverage of the doom and gloom so why wouldn’t I have plenty of thoughts? And everyone has an idea or two on what should be done as well. But I have an interesting idea myself, one that deals not with the economy but more one that is more about political reform and one that may help in the future to avoid us getting this deep in the shit again.

Are you ready? Good, here we go:

No two members of the same immediate family should be allowed to serve in high political office at the same time as another.

By high political office I mean county councillor and above. We have a situation where there are three close family members from one family sitting as TD’s, namely Mary O’Rourke and Conor and Brian Lenihan. Come June’s by election in we may have more in the form of Bertie Aherns brother Maurice who is already a county councillor for Dublin and is contesting the late Tony Gregory’s seat.

Also we have one husband and wife double act in the current Dail. Olwyn Enright is married to another TD, Joe McHugh both of whom as one would expect are representing the same party but in different constituencies.

Am I alone in thinking that there is a conflict of interest by having multiple family members sitting in the same time? I’m sure family allegience would extend beyond their allegience to those they were elected to represent?

I do believe that having familiy dynasties are certainly not in the best interests of the country. Particluarly when it comes to Ms. Enright and Mr. McHugh who take home two salaries and up until recently used to claim double overnight expenses.

While I understand that Ms O’Rourke and the Lenihan brothers come from a strong political dynasty as well as number of other members of various County Councils, the Seanad and Dail, I think the country would be much better represented if there was only one from each family allowed.

How can we all be fairly represented if they are all related to each other?

For that matter how can we be fairly represented by generations on liers, theives and scumbags who get elected by family name alone?

Entire generations of thieving fuckers who think they have done nothing wrong. Beverly Cooper Flynn being the most obvious example. Being rewarded for her, dare I say treasonous acts encouraging wealthy citizens to hide their money from the Revenue Commissioners, by being welcomed back in to the fianna fail fold.

Bertie Ahern of course is another. Oh how I wish the next time I’m stuck for cash in a pub that someone hands me a brown envelope stuffed with a few thousand. I can only dream because I have as much chance of that happening as winning the lotto.

This ridiculousness has to stop and I for one am dreading the fact that an overpaid solicitor (who’s family alone have to be clearing at least a couple of million a year of tax payers money) will be presenting his idea of economic salvation. Or at least in his very blinkered eyes what he thinks will be. He’s a solicitor! He’s trained to lie and trained to lie more so than an accountant!

The fact remains that this country has no chance whatsoever as long as political dynasties rule the roost.

And finally, and I never thought I would say this:

• Where is James Allen? Come back! All is forgiven!

Quite an example of  being between a rock and a hard place for Mr. Lenihan.

But let’s return to Mr. Boucher’s former employees; The Royal Bank of Scotland.  You may or may not know it but RBS is the United Kingdom’s equivilent of Anglo Irish Bank as it is largely owned by their government. Their annual report was announced today and while they recorded a record breaking loss, it was not as bad as was expected.

In stark comparison to Ireland, the government of the United Kingdom seem to be quite pleased at the performance of Steven Hester whom they installed after taking over the reins of RBS.

So pleased in fact that a U.K. parliament member was quoted on the radio today gushing over Mr. Hester saying words to the effect that he is so tough that “He swallows nails and spits out rust..”

Someone’s happy then!

Anyway, the United Kingdom’s leaders seem to have some confidence in Mr. Hester. I wonder how our Government feel now about Mr Boucher knowing that he ws only given the job because he was one of only two who applied? And why did only two apply? Well the job is only worth a mere €250,000 per year.

Regardless of the pay I doubt if it will go any way  to restoring shareholders confidence knowing that both of those that applied for the position were already BoI employees!

I shoved a few songs onto it when I got it first but I can’t remember the last time I fired up the iPod feature. And I have no idea what happened to the headphones that came with it.

Lucas probably hid them somewhere I suspect. Probably in the bin! Which is where I feel like flinging the phone itself sometimes. It’s very much a love/hate relationship.

Anglo Irish Bank’s annual report released today states that it loaned €451m to 10 clients that are now more commonly referred to as “The Golden 10″. As anyone can tell you, 450 million is a significantally more than the previous estimate of €300m.

And here is the kicker – €83m has been repaid and the bank are expecting to strike out the rest of the debt. 300 million gone just like that! 10 people who owe money to a bank that the people of Ireland now effectively own don’t have to pay any of it back and the Minister of Finance refuses to name them!

If one of us owed a red fucking penny to the revenue commissioners our names would be in the tax defaulters list of every national newspaper!

That stupid ignoramus from Co. Offlay claims it is in the national interests as the debtors are shareholders. Well if they are shareholders in the bank and they owe it so much money and won’t be paying it back take the fucking shares off them! And Mary Coughlan, when you said yesterday that it “would damage confidence in Irish banks” you can just fuck off back to Donegal and crawl back under the rock you crawled from. Are you actually that thick fucking stupid that you think that there already hasn’t been a serious loss of confidence in Irish banks?

That statement alone from Coughlan instantly proves you; Fianna Fail haven’t one iota of what is actually happening to the country. You seem to be so preoccupied with balance sheets and our standing in the international community that you seem to have forgotten about us. The ordinary people. The ordinary people that are losing their homes their jobs and the ordinary people who are ending up in prison because they can’t pay their television license.

Well, Brian Cowen, Mary Coughlan and the two idiotic green party lapdogs of yours. Let me give you a sound piece of advice.

Fuck the international community. At least until you get your own house in order because that is exactly what other countries are doing. They have their own problems too you know and they really couldn’t care about us at the moment. Or anyone else but themselves for that matter. And this is probably the right thing to do. We can all kiss and make up when this all blows over in a few years when we are all learning to walk again. And anyway what have you got to lose at this stage?

It’s a poisoned chalice but drink from it you fuckers. Drink long and hard and deep for the sake of those of us who have to live in the mess that you have created. Take it on the chin and get us out of it. And if that means calling a general election and losing control of government just do it anyway for all of our sakes.

We want someone to get us through this and time and time again you have proven that you are not the right people for the job.

Edit – Just to put things into perspective, €300m being written off the books is the the exact same as 1200 homeowners with a mortgage of €250,000.

So who is fooling who?