I'm sat in the Internet cafe in Stockholm Arlanda airport burning my last few Krona coins. Fighting with a Swedish keyboard brings back fond memories of being a code monkey in a Norwegian bank a decade ago. Anyhow, in my hotel and here I've noticed that the both seem to be using some kind of transparent proxy. If a web page doesn't load right, and a duff version is cached, you need to shift-refresh to force the 'no cache' option on.
How come we managed to create a legal and social expectation for the PSTN that your personal communications wouldn't be intercepted or modified, but that on the Internet anything goes (and we certainly aren't going to declare it to you in advance).
This isn't the same as companies like Akamai doing network caching, because that was with the consent of one of the parties; in effect the IP address of Yahoo, say, is just a logical identifier and not a physical endpoint. Akamai are just an agent of Yahoo.
But I am accessing my self-hosted webmail service. I don't consent to having my HTTP traffic pried into.
It's a simple consumer protection issue.
And another thing: you put your coins into the vending machine and get your login coupon. Then you sit down, login, and have to agree to the terms of service. If you don't agree, there's no way to get your money back. Sounds like an invalid contract to me.
We get to inspect the ingredients before we buy a can of beans, but telecom gets away with outrageous anti-consumer nonsense. Time for reform.
PS - This is a great airport, though. No annoying PA system, plenty of space, short-ish walks, high ceilings with lots of light, easy public transport connections, clear info displays, short queues, comfy seating. Scandinavia at its best.
Posted by Martin Geddes at 1:57 PMTrackBack URL for this entry:
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