Something interesting in the woodshed...

Right after writing the previous entry "Let the battle begin" I went to Google to search on the term "anonynet" which I had been using. I thought, perhaps, I'd managed to be original and actually coined a new term. However although this site was already the #1 listing for "anonynet", there were a few more references to the term. Most notable was by one Mitch Wagner who in December 2003, briefly mentioned in his blog the concept of an athentinet (which I called an "Identinet") and an anonynet.

Wagner is a security writer for the magazine Internet Week and cited a Newsweek article A Net of Control by Steven Levy. It turns out Levy had been talking to John Walker, founder of AutoDesk, about his prediction of doom and gloom "The Digital Imprimatur" that Walker sees as inevitable. Building on many current and soon to be implemented technologies, each independently lauded as "a good thing", "The Digital Imprimatur" describes how every aspect of Internet access, communication and basically every digital system we interact will soon become authenticated, regulated and controlled by external powers.

As such Walker and I are in quiet agreement and its not until the very end of Imprimatur (its a long read - put a hour or two aside for digesting it) that you discover he's dead against this seemingly inevitable synergy of "good things". As he describes the ever expanding tentacles of The Trusted Computing Platform you can feel it spreading its wholesome goodness everywhere, while behind your back spreading its sickly distrust based poison everywhere. Yes at each turn we are given a good consequence - no more viruses, no more spam, no more crime on the Internet, no more porn accessible to minors - but the cost is very, very high.

Imagine a world where every document you read is directly controlled by someone and can disappear without notice because someone revoked your credentials to read it, or the author's credentials to publish it. Or perhaps a world where every piece of software on your computer, car, or toaster (even) could stop working because it has been found to be flawed or in violation of some patent. And finally, imagine a giant pyramid of digital certificates that grant everyone and everything their very rights to publish, consume, communicate, and basically exist in a modern digital consumer society. At the top of this pyramid is your government that can at any time reach down and "pull the plug" at whim on any and every citizen, exercising prior restraint on all those peoples basic freedoms. Basically you have the classic sci-fi nightmare scenario of a person without identity in a society where everything is controlled by identity. The person is helpless, a zero at the mercy of those in control. Unable to do anything but submit. Dissent will be impossible, insurgence infeasible, and rage against the machine? Futile!

And yet Walker also acknowledges the slippery slope towards such a society is so compelling and such a soft sell to the average citizen. In "The Internet Slum" he exposes the realities of living on an Internet that is increasingly polluted by the lowest common denominator of Internet users. As I'm fond of asking "Did IQs just drop sharply?" (its a quote from "Aliens" by the way), "Yes" comes back the answer from Walker - he is so bold as to point out the decrease in average IQ of those connected to the Internet, from 115 in the early 1990s to 100 now and ultimately to the worldwide average 86. Of course that is not to say that only people with low IQ send spam, viruses and the like, quite the contrary - it is they who are the victims of such schemes and make them viable. If no one ever responded to spam it would become economical unviable and no one would bother sending it. Viruses are a slightly different case, being launched by social miscreants, however again it is often those with insufficient knowledge or intelligence to configure their systems correctly (where such options have been provided) that fall foul of them.

In my reading thus far Walker offers no magic bullet to solve the problem of the Internet Slum and the impending "Death Star" scenario of Digital Imprimatur. His Fourmilab site, operated from the relative safety and sanctity of Switzerland is extensive so I'm still churning through his many interesting articles. Its encouraging to discover a kindred spirit that is thinking deeply and intelligently (and writing about it much more coherently than I do) about where the Internet is going. I look forward to more input from Walker - I may even send him some feedback using his cunningly designed (he calls it "notorious") linear algebra based challenge-response feedback form, one of the many delightful discoveries that await the enlightened explorer of Fourmilab.

Let the battle begin

I was pleased to note, via an article in Issue 43 of Linux User & Developer (sorry its not online yet) that the race to create a truly anonymous network is well under way. And we're not talking about a network purely for illegal copyright infringing activities either. We're talking about the potential of a full blown communications network that would support anonymous equivalents of websites, data streaming, publishing as well as the ubiquitous P2P style "file sharing".

Some examples of open source projects joining the race to create an anonynet either partially or complete are Tor, MUTE, WASTE, I2P and Freenet.

So, as I have alluded to since my original post on the anonynet, the stage is now being set for a huge showdown between "we the people" and the corporate driven "ownership society" in which every atom, every bit of information, every hertz of bandwidth, every joule of energy, and every waking moment of our lives is owned, controlled and licensed by someone with a vested interest in exploiting it for profit. It seems like someone hocus pocus nightmare but believe me, when GWB and other talk of an ownership society that is the logical endgame required to make the whole thing "work". Believe you me, the current actions of the RIAA and MPA are just the infinitesimal tip of the iceberg of change that is heading our way if we are duped into believing the "ownership society" is the only true way to run the world.

For my part, I don't believe the "ownership society" can be anything other than a gigantic mistake - a huge titanic if you will - waiting to happen. What possible iota of happiness will be left to us in such a world when our only option in life will be to own and consume? Forget any hope for freedom, joy or meaning in life, we will be as confined in our roles as the bodies locked in the cocoons of "The Matrix".

Such a destiny for society will be so repellent, so joyless that I know the battle to resist it will, indeed has, begun. Anonymity is the first step towards the seeds of a new society centered around trust and trustworthiness. Trust will be the most valued commodity, something to be earned, respected and utilized for the common good. Believe me, within a few years the technology to use the Internet as the foundation of a completely anonymous network (my anonynet) will be widely available and integrated into common and freely available (yes, I'm talking Linux). At such a point the genie will be out of the bottle and there ensue a huge battle to put him back... They will try to prevent people from using such software, they will try to outlaw Linux, they will try to sue thousands if not millions of people, they will try to prevent access to outside countries, they will try everything.

Bucking a life time of pessimism I am happy to report that I am confident that its a battle that can and will be won. Corporations and governments the world over will eventually conclude that they just have to trust us and endure the all consequences that that entails. Sure there will be some unfortunately consequences along the way - large media conglomerates who create trillions of dollars of "wealth" from owning copyrights of sounds and sights will probably collapse to a fraction of their former selves. I wont be crying. Advertising industries will be decimated as the only thing to sell things will be actually quality as opposed to manufactured virtual qualities. People will no longer get rich owning sports teams and whoring them to the media companies for advertising rights.

Or I could be wrong, it could be complete anarchy that is on its way - a wild west without any trust at all that is forever out of control, inefficient and ruthless. But like I said, I'm quietly optimistic. I see a trust (vs. distrust based) society as inherently based on positive feelings - feelings that people enjoy. Sure you can get burned when your trust is abused, but the positive experiences will outweigh the negatives. Given a choice between trusting everyone and getting burned occasionally, or trusting no one and living with the perpetual fear and insecurity that engenders, which would you choose?

Let the good times roll... eventually!

(Just trust me on this, okay?)

Windows as a file-sharing and copyright infringing technology

I have a question - if RIAA and MPAA are content to pursue not just copyright infringers, but also technologies that support copyright infringement, then why haven't they attempted to sue Microsoft and indeed any manufacturer of a general purpose computing device or software that can be attached to the Internet?

To see why think about how first Napstar and now Kazaa are being ruthlessly pursued under the claims that they actively encouraged copyright infringement. So how about this scenario. I sell a software product, we'll call it Windows XP for sake of argument, and a customer of mine installs it on their home PC and then fills their hard-drive with MP3s ripped from their CD collection. Everything is okay so far - that's still quite legal by the fair use rules.

Well then they connect that PC to the Internet and pretty soon some external entity has found its way onto their machine and is copying off all their MP3 files to a remote machine. Perhaps the external agent installed some software on the machine and has made it easy for other people to do the same, or maybe the exploit that caused the breach is well known and unfixed so its easy for other people to do it.

Now I ask you this - can the owner of that PC be sued for copyright infringement just exactly as if they had installed a file sharing program on their PC? Even if they didn't deliberately disable the Windows firewall (or not upgrade to SP2) perhaps they just installed some software that had spyware in it that did it for them. Or perhaps there was just another Windows exploit that made the whole thing possible? So if it wasn't the users deliberate action to causes the copyright infringement, then can the provider of the operating system that facilitated this be held to blame?

I think these are all important questions...

Now, for some mischief - what if someone developed file-sharing software that is designed to make the users machine look like a virus, worm or spyware compromised PC such that its filesystem and hence payload of copyrighted material (MP3s, movies, etc) were openly accessible to the outside world? How could the RIAA or MPAA determine if that user was deliberately running the file-sharing software or was just another pour happless PC user who has just become the latest victim of yet another Windows software exploit? Indeed, if the file-sharing were designed to be viral in the first place then anyone sued could just deny all knowledge of its deliberate installation.

Such a scenario means, I think, its only a matter of time before the RIAA and others will insist it is necesary to make attaching unprotected computing devices to the Internet a criminal offence. By all accounts, recent efforts to stengthen copyright laws like the DMCA are attempting to do just that.

Home computing terrors - who's to blame?

I have to say its over a decade since we first had to deal with viruses on Windows systems (back then they used to be floppy disk borne). In fact its so long ago now that I've quite frankly forgotten when it was, someone can surely go dig up a history of PC viruses but I really can't be bothered.

So why, after all these years are we still living with viruses as a daily threat, one that's probably ten if not a hundred times worse than it used to be. Ad to that spam and now spyware and you have a recipe for rendering a useful tool useless. Indeed in the last few months I've done some fixing of computer systems in my spare time and have attended several desperately sick PCs that the owner was ready to send back to the retailer that purchased them from. What a waste.

Yes there are many 3rd party products available that purport to protect us from such terrors but those give us a false sense of security. Spam still slips through, viruses still get a day or two head start on the anti-virus people in which time they can take down and captivate hundreds of thousands of machines, and spyware is seldom if ever caught before it installs itself and digs its claws deeply into Windows.

While I recommend several tools (such as Spyboot Search & Destroy, and Webroots Spy Sweeper) for spyware detection they all leave a lot to be desired in terms of spyware removal. Try explaining to the average consumer home PC user the mysteries of booting in "Safe" mode and then killing off the 'explorer' process and running their anti-spyware tool of choice, just see how far you get before you give up. Better yet trying explaining the mysteries of setting system restore points, registry backup and editing... then really give up.

Now I wont even begin to blame Microsoft for the spam phenomenom, but one could paint them in a bad light for their refusal to license their anti-spam SenderID technology in form acceptable to the IETF such that it could be used world-wide without fear of royalties or proprietary intervention by Microsoft. However most of the issues with our open and loosely authenticated email system date back to the liberal heyday of the Internet before it got commercialized.

However their culpability in the virus and spyware arena is much more significant. They have, time after time, branded and rebranded Windows as safe and impervious to attacks. The have added all kinds of security features the purport to give users a warm and fuzzy and yet still we have slave armies of compromized machines all over the Internet and other machines rendered useless by spyware in a huge number of homes.

I know the guys up in Redmond must surely be trying to do something about these problems - the fear of them is a definitely worry for most users, even expert ones now. Plus the additional expense and time spent battling with them also makes a computer a significantly less useful one. But they are surely dragging their feet and taking a monumentaly hands-off attitude to the problem. Lets face it, it took about ten years from wide availability of Internet access (say 1994 when web browsing came along) to the first effective and by default enabled firewall in a Windows OS for consumers (XP SP2). Arguably viruses have been a significnat threat for much longer, and yet still there is no anti-virus technology included with Windows - it should be a core and tightly integrated component and above all free and not an add-on.

Ditto for spyware, which is arguably just a virus that uses free software and the user as the vector instead of covert self propogation means (like email). While Microsoft has choosen to do nothing about spyware until very recently, it seems outrageous thaat the likes of Symantec and McAfee have not included anti-spyware technology in their anti-virus behemoths. Yes, the latest Norton AV can detect (some) spyware but low and behold can do nothing to remove it and it certainly can't prevent its installation in the first place.

I know that Microsoft sees its Longhorn release of Windows as being the ultimate solution for all these problems. Apparently the DRM/copyright protection technology built in from the hardware level will be leveraged to protect the operating system and approved applications. However a fully featured Longhorn is still a long way off - quite possibly 2006 or 2007 before we see it widely available. A less fully featured version may come along before then (formerly nicknamed "Shorthorn") but whether that includes all the features that could help keep viruses and the like of systems that's anyones guess.

Why not, I ask, set up some independent software inspection authority that can verify and digitally sign software installs just like Microsoft does for drivers? If it can be done cheaply enough this could become a very useful weapon against unauthorized software. Sure the problem of installation of unsigned software will still be there, just as it is with drivers, however Windows could then include features to deny certain rights to unsigned software. It could also segregate untrusted software so it can be controlled and managed independently of trusted software. Indeed Windows could disable all unsigned code and effects of registry changes made by them at the drop of a hat - if nothing else that would make removal of such code much much easier - without resorting to booting in safe mode. I think that by default user accounts should just run in such a environment all the time so its impossible to execute bogus code.

In my opinion it's always been a big problem that by default Windows (especially Windows Home Edition) gives the home user an administrator privilege and does not force them to think about the consequences of software installation by requiring a switch to administrator mode. With more restricted use of adminsitrator privileges and closer monitoring of software installation it should be a synch for Windows Help to guide a user through software uninstallation and system restore to recover from bloated spyware ridden computer syndrome.

So I have to say, I am frankly shocked that Microsoft could even be considering charging for anti-spyware technologies. Like the inclusion of a firewall I would say they are essential and regardless of fears of anti-trust suits from McAfee and Symantec Microsoft should go ahead and wage a war against home computing terrors on all fronts ASAP. If it doesnt it will risk every home user either ditching home computers completely and using only fixed function TiVo, gaming and multimedia machines, and switching to any alternative non-Microsoft technology that is perceived as safer and less vulnerable to such problems such as Apple, Linux, Firefox, Thunderbird, Java and OpenOffice. That this is already happening is clear, just how far it will go remains to be seen.

Stratellite

The aptly named Sanswire is about to launch its first stratellite, a giant helium filled balloon that will hover at about 65,000 ft (13 miles) and provide broadband network connectivity to a 75 mile radius area below it (that's over 17,000 square miles), and line of site cellular and other connectivity to up to 300,000 square miles (about the size of Texas). Solar powered it maintains position via GPS and electric motors for up to 18 months before returning to terra firma for servicing. Sanswire are suggesting it will provide WiFi broadband connectivity to consumers via a special (I assume parabolic) antenna aimed at the stratellite - just like with a satellite dish.

The big advantage over conventional satellites is that for network access there is no 200ms or more latency introduced by the round trip. Also it is clearly going to be much, much cheaper than a satellite to build and operate. I remain skeptical about its abilities to remain stationary in the winds of the upper atmosphere. Although they can be high Sanswire points out its above the jetstream and that at 13 miles altitude the air is so thin its effective force is 20 times weaker than at ground level.

More info is available from the recent article in The Economist.

All things wireless on planes... the ugly

In my last post to this blog I pondered some of the good and bad points of having wireless network access and cell phone use. I also hinted that once widely available cellular providers will bend over backwards to keep it available no matter how much grief it causes to passengers. Will passengers be able to figure out their own air-etiquette for cellphone use? Will love and peace conquer fear and loathing in the sky? I don't know - my bet is on an extended period of annoyance, chaos and confusion followed by regulation and some technical solutions that will possibly but not definitely make things better.

However the biggest problem with network and cellular access in the sky has yet to be explored, I call it the "ugly" side of technology. Its the one that's always there, and always resting on the good graces of human nature to not to raise its ugly head. Knowning human nature it ultimately will. What I am about to describe can be labeled as scaremongering and you could also tell me its irresponsible to talk about it. But trust me the "evildoers" who work against "us" and the "evildoers" who work with us (yes, our government has plenty of those working for them) have already thought about it, and are probably already hard at work trying to figure out ways to implement and prevent my doomsday scenario.

So what is it then?

Okay, so think of a notebook computer. Now think about its battery - sealed, full of metal plates and pretty heavy. Now imagine notebook computers that have two battery compartments (many do) and think about one of them having a dummy battery in with metal plates surrounding a half pound of semtex and sealed up nicely except for the battery connectors. Indistinguisable from the real thing and prepared properly probably wouldn't even set off a bomb detector if there was one in use (most times there isn't).

Okay, bombs in laptops - nothing new there, bombs have been smuggled onto planes lots of times before. The problem is unless the person planting it is willing to take it on themselves and detonate it (them along with it) then the chances of it actually making it on board and going off successfully are slim. Plus as the 9/11 hijackers discovered, its much more effective to fly the entire plane into something as a missile than just blow up a few planes. The occasional Lokerbie has never really served to deter people from flying. A single 9/11 type event was devastating to peoples confidence and to the airline industry.

What is new and dangerous about reliable network communications in air is what happens if you get an explosive device on a plane, hook it up to a cellular phone or internet enabled device and then trigger it remotely. Yes you could do this with a radio transmission, you could even (perhaps) do it illegally using a cellphone now. But with reliable Internet and cellular network access in a plane it becomes trivial to do using low power everyday devices like cellphones, PDAs and laptops. Even worse is if you can even use a cellphone or device with GPS in it and have the flying device talk to the ground giving its precise location, velocity and altitude. Believe me its easy to do - companies are already providing such tracking software that works with standard run of the mill Nextel phones. New Sprint phones are also GPS enabled and GPS enabled PDAs and computer cards are easily obtainable as is the software to broadcast this information.

Once you know where your device is you can calculate quite accuratly where its going to land if you can put it into freefall - such as blowing up a plane by explosive device. No it wouldn't be a precision targeting, but you could certainly ensure it lands to within a square mile or so - enough to target a populous area of a major city like Manhattan say. Just look at what a single plane landing in Lockerbie did.



When you can bring down a plane in a city you no longer have to think about specifically which building it going to hit. Bring down enough planes in cities within a certain period of time and you rapidly have a nightmare scenario.

So imagine one day your shadowy worldwide consoritum of evildoers of choice (the government would have us believe there are many) puts a thousand people in airports and they quietly slip explosive network enabled phones, PDAs and laptops into baggage. Such devices could be small enough that they could be placed in handbaggage that is unattended for a second or left with a friendly stranger during a trip to the bathroom. Not everone is really that attentive. Or perhaps stealth agents find jobs with airlines or screening companies and get stuff planted on plane bound bags that way. Or maybe even rogue flight crew, who knows.

Sure, some devices will end up in bags not going airborne or will get detected, but in the time it takes for someone to figure out there is something going on you can almost guarantee a large number do make it onto flights either in the cabin or in the hold. Lets be generous and say 90% of them don't make it into the air, that's still 100 that do. Within a short time they are miles up in the air and travelling at several hundred miles an hour. Evildoers can pick and choose when and where to bring them down from the comfort and safety of the ground. Again, maybe 90% fail to off - perhaps some bright spark realized they should tell all the planes to switch off their on-flight cellular and network access and gets the message out to most planes. But even so, if only 10% are still able to detonate and bring the plane down then we're still talking 10 planes landing on major populated cities in one day.

Can you imagine what chaos would ensue?

Even with one device being planted at a time, can you imagine if no one figured it out and this happened time after time over a period of days, weeks, months or years.

Yes its unpleasent to think about but can you imagine the effect? Once discovered can you imagine how quickly all cellphones, PDAs, laptops and indeed any electronic device would completely banned from airplanes?

As far as I'm concerned while the threat of nightmares still rule our lives and control the actions of a governments then this is something that has to be contemplated. It would be irresponsible not to. Sure its futile to try and figure out everyway the "evildoers" will deliver terror to us, but that's the whole point of the fallacy of the "war on terrorism". Its not a war, its a way of life and if that is the way our government is going to choose to conduct itself then that is what they have to expect and have to prepare for. Where there's a will to perpetuate such terror then a way to do it will be found. When a way to do it is created someone with enough will to exploit it is going to. For that reason, and that reason alone I believe that putting external network access on planes should be avoided at all costs.

All things wireless on planes, the good and the bad...

So this Wednesday the FCC voted to allow airlines to provide wireless internet access on planes, by all accounts it should be widely available by 2006. Lufthansa's FlyNet service is all ready to roll - check out the technical requirements: 802.11a/b/g are all supported. I think the big story about this that no one is talking about is the consequences of in flight use of WiFi.

Sky-hi wi-fi
Yes, surfing the net and doing email and stuff while in the air is cool, and will probably help pass the time on a flight. But when I'm getting charged the $30 or more that they intend to charge for the thin pipe to the ground I may well just forgo that treat unless someone else is paying. However if I can use my WiFi in the plane then what I'll really want to do is fire up Unreal Tournament, Americas Army or any number of other multiplayer games and literally kill a few hours killing my skyborne network neighbours. Someone just starts up a LAN server, puts their WiFi card into ad-hoc mode and bobs yer uncle instant airborne networked gaming - let the chaos ensue! I think there will even be gaming clubs that meet for such sessions in air on their regular weekly east-west commutes.

The question is, will airlines find or seek a way to stop such activities? When WiFi is unleashed for their revenue producing Internet access will they be able to stop it? I think it will be hard - remember that even a bluetooth network could be used to do such things so once they have admitted that turning on your wireless technology of choice isn't going to cause the plan to promptly nosedive into the ground, them it will be hard for them to stop people doing whatever the hell they want up in the sky. Even without wireless you could still get a few people together and hard-wire up their computers with a battery powered network hub and do some gaming without wires today. But WiFi will make this so much easier and on a flight with a few hundred people you're almost bound to find a handful of people ready for some airborne fun and games instead of work, work, work.

Air rage take two
Meanwhile the FCC is still soliciting public comment on cellphone use on planes but clearly its been listening to a whole raft of cellular providers who want a piece of that pie in the sky.

No matter what happens with revenues from cellphones in the air I can assure you that they will shortly cause chaos in the skies. As seat neighbours across the friendly skies will soon discover, sitting next to someone who is content to yell into their mobile for the entire flight. Cell yell is bad enough in public, but when the noise of an aircraft has to be overcome people will literally be yelling. The effect will be like sitting next to a crying baby and as everyone knows crying babies and extended flights in cramped airplanes don't mix.

For some reason when the noise is coming from a kid we usually imagine that the parent is feeling more pain than we are and in sympathy just put up with it. However when the source of the noise is a garrulous adult with nothing better to do than yak on the phone for hours on end I am sure that tempers will quickly fray. Trust me on this: cell phones will be grabbed and thrown as will punches. Seats will be kicked, and flight crew will quickly tire of resolving arguments started by cellular phone use. Pretty soon airlines will contemplate phone free areas in planes, or even small booths reserved for cellular addicts.

Will there be any going back to the innocent carefree days of cellphone free flights? Trust me, once phones are on planes there is no way that cellular phone corporations will let them be removed (well maybe one way - see the next blog entry). They'll cite free speech laws and all kinds of stuff to keep them up there. For me, I think that cellphone companies will make so much from this service (think thousands of dollars per long haul flight) that they should be forced to pay for a soundproof cellphone use booth on planes reserved for phone use. Noisy phone users can then be banished to them - we already have a few on each flight - they are called toilets but I don't want people hogging those for their verbal diarrhea!

Since I'm sure airlines are also going to be creaming off some profits from the cellular companies they should be chipping in for it too, but the last person to pay for it is the flying public at large. Just those people that actually use their cellphone in flight. Make it a $1 per call "air peace tax" and I'm sure between the cellular companies, airlines and chatty customers our air travel can once more be made relatively quite again.

Twas the Gadget Binge before Christmas - Part 1

I've been on a bit of a gadget binge of late and it all started with a $750 off special at Dell a month ago. However before I get into that there's another story to be told about reviving and old laptop.

I'd sort of been looking for a laptop, my old 1999 vintage Toshiba having pretty much bitten the dust. It wasn't a bad machine and five years ago it was hot stuff. 466Mhz Celeron, 128Mb of RAM, a DVD drive, and a single USB 1.0 port - woo-hoo I thought and plonked down $2000 or so my dot.com had told me I could spend on a new machine. I even tried to watch DVDs on it for a bit - but without a hardware decoder the CPU was barely able to keep up, and the 16 bit graphics and TFT LCD were hard pushed to display movies with much chromatic fidelity.

Having remained pretty much unused for about two years I eventually decided I would take it for a spin on a month long trip to Europe. Being so old I figured it wouldn't matter too much if it died or got stolen along the way. The only problem was its battery was long since incapable of holding a charge which would make getting through airport security in the USA a problem if they wanted to see it flashing lights and doing stuff... So I'd been going to shell out $60 or so to get it a new Lion battery and upgrade it to Windows XP. That, I thought should make it usable again. However it turned out that the DVD-ROM drive had died at some point, and even after opening up the case, taking it out, poking at it and all the connectors I could still not get it to work.

The result was I dug out a mechanically broken but still remarkable functional Psion 3a, a marvel of a machine in a great little package and now over ten years old. More to the point its still supported by software for Windows that syncs with all my Windows address books and calendars, plus imports and exports files better than any Palm or PocketPC device I've ever used. I can even mount its drives on my PC and my PC drives on it for plain old file copies. The only limiting factor was its 19200 baud serial port! Plus it had a decent keyboard I could type on and ran on ubiquitous AA batteries. What, I asked myself, had I been thinking when I stopped using it? Probably that I was for the most part too lazy to organize myself consistently, and also that I eventually went in search of something with email and network connectivity. The ancestors of the Psion devices are embodied in Symbian OS based devices, but sadly Symbian is mostly only found in Nokia hardware which I loath with a passion. There have been rumours that Psion will return to making PDAs and I sincerely hope they do, functionaly I think they were the closest thing to the perfect PDA I've yet to encounter. With a contemporary screen, CPU, memory and connectivity I'd been reaching for my credit card before you could say "loads-a-money"!

Anyway, on my return from Europe and in a fit of boredom I eventually decided to do some more extensive open case surgery on the aforementioned Toshiba. Our local used computer recycling guy dug up a drive from an IBM laptop for $10 which I hacked up (literally) and managed to get working. Unfortunately the Tosh would not recognize it as a device to boot from so I had to remove its hard drive, install it in 2.5" USB drive enclosure, format it, put DOS on it, put it back in the laptop, copy Windows XP install files from the CD drive and then, finally, boot into DOS and run the Windows XP setup program. The hardest part was actually finding and installing a working DOS onto the drive. Nearly all sites assume you'll be doing that on a floppy and I don't have a floppy drive on the Tosh, nor on any other machine to even write.

But after I managed to get its OS upgraded the Tosh was quite usable so long as you don't run more than one application at a time. I may even get it a new battery one day, and perhaps a bigger hard drive - I've given serious thought to putting Linux on it and using it as my server since as a laptop it is very quite and small. All I need to do is get it a network adapter PCMCIA (this machine is so old it only had a modem). The fact that it wont boot from the CD-ROM still bothers me. For crash recovery that wont be very convenient, and the slowness of the USB 1.x port will hamper doing backups - I'd probably have to use the other PCMCIA card slot to provide a USB 2.0 port.

So eventually all this laptop surgery got me to thinking I should bite the bullet and get a brand spanking new laptop that was smaller, lighter and faster. The fact that I'd recently identified a lovely petite machine by Fujitsu that fit the bill wasn't helping. Fortunately I'm unemployed and my old friend and tech lemming went out and bought one the day after I mentioned it to him. Buy the time he'd finished maxing out its memory at 2Gb, and amping up its hard-drive to a custom 60Gb 7200rpm he'd parted with about 3 grand, way over my budget. So I went back to the drawing board and started contemplating the bottom end of laptops and wondering what compromises I'd make.

Which is about when Dell came along with their $750-off special offer and is about when I break for Episode 2, the gadget lust continues.