Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

"When you register, you will create a username and a password."

Via SMS? These are from something else?

"You are not allowed to use the Service if you do not agree to the Terms."

Who writes this stuff? Did I agree? Did i push something that said "I agree"? No, I was "done".

"You agree to provide truthful and complete information when registering for the Service and to keep that information updated. Providing misleading information about your identity is forbidden."

Forbidden? Who writes the stuff. Tolkien? Besides, I am Bart Simpson. I swear. Whatchagonnado? Register me anyway?

"However, by submitting Material to the Service you grant Nokia a worldwide non-exclusive, assignable, fully paid, royalty-free, perpetual and irrevocable license to use, copy, publicly perform, display, distribute and modify the Material, and to prepare derivative works thereof, or incorporate the Material into other works as well as sublicense the same."

We're boned. However, it says submitting, and I have done no suth thing.

Still, did you read that? Really read? Do you realize that by irrevocable license to modify and distribute you can have yor head pasted on a whale body and made into a commercial and you can't sue cause they own it?

That opened my eyes.

Let's comparison shop:

Microsoft: "Except for material that we license to you, we do not claim ownership of the content you post or provide on the service."

Google: "Google reserves the right (but shall have no obligation) to pre-screen, review, flag, filter, modify, refuse or remove any or all Content from any Service"

"You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Nokia from and against any and all third party claims and all liabilities, assessments, losses, costs or damages resulting from or arising out of i) your breach of the Terms, ii) your infringement or violation of any intellectual property, other rights or privacy of a third party, "

By rambling here you are not protecting Nokia. No soup for you! Er, OVI

I swear, this the best read I've had all year.

"PRIVACY POLICY

WE CARE ABOUT YOUR PRIVACY"

Aghaghaghagha! -snif- haaaaa.

Next.

"We collect your personal data typically when you make a purchase, use or register into our services, enter into a sales promotion or a campaign or otherwise interact with us."

By allowing yourself to be robbed, you have interacted with Nokia.

How is it possible to own a N900 and not interact with Nokia?

I have to stop now, my phone is giggling. Must be the Nokia Pear package. wink, wink, apple, pear, cherry?

Advertised as a Linux phone. I won't even get into that.

----
Standard "posted by N900 applies"

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Thanks for posting that. The T&Cs are available via the My Nokia icon in Settings after you've upgraded to PR1.2.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

To be fair, The Register is often tongue-in-cheek.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

"often" toung in cheek? try "always".

I laughed out loud at that byline, their pithy headlines are one of the best bits of my morning most days, even when I'm the butt of their joke!

You need to be able to laugh at yourself, even while on your high horse crusading about data protection/trust etc.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Phew, lucky me - and there I was thinking about using files@OVI. Now imagine, you upload pictures of the family's new baby in good faith, and next you know is your little darling is the star of Nokia's new advertisement series.

(Luckily, they probably won't use the nude photographs of your drunken CEO for rating reasons... ;))

Well, seems like we sold our souls here. By accepting the contract. Which we did by installing 1.2. Before we even had access to this document. Tough luck.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Talking about the My Nokia icon in Settings:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/...920852fd_b.jpg

Do I have to translate it or is it already clear that my Unsubcribe button is greyed out...? ;)

I especially like that in conjunction with this harmless little sentence:
So if Nokia decided to charge for this little "service" and I accept this change (not by pressing any button, but simply by not deleting Maemo from my device), they can charge me all they want - because I didn't unsubscribe from their "service" (since my unsubscribe button is deactivated).

If I didn't already agree (by installing 1.2) that I would defend Nokia, I would have some rather nasty things to say now...

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

I think Nokia just got owned by their own legal department in this case. Unless someone grows some balls and personally take charge there, including reigning in all the little 'unimportant stuffs' (like the small prints they subject all their customers and supporters with), I'm afraid the bucks will always get passed to the seemingly non existent 'corporate guidelines'.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Mine will now, too. I uninstalled the recording widget and the personal IP widget and, finally, it doesn't become completely unresponsive after a few days. Which just goes to support his point: it's not the open OS but the closed apps/components that are the problem. Because the telephony stuff is closed, it can't have a recording function added where it won't cause mayhem.

I have to say i wasn't aware of the MyNokia issue. I don't think my N900 phoned home, because i've not received any unsolicited SMSes, but reading about this issue is really disappointing. Everything i would say has been said so i'll leave it at that.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Agreed...

Mine hasn't phoned home either and I do not have a "My Nokia" icon or app...

The thing is, I use it every day on T-Mobiles network with a data only SIM...

I have never made a POT call with the N900 and because I don't have a POT # assigned, no SMS. This "cherry bomb" never went off on mine. :eek:

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

I get how it is at The Register, but it wasn't funny. If he said something about who owns an n900 ("Basements across the world imploded this morning") instead of how many, it would have been funny. Instead, he was just being a dick by implying that the n900 wasn't even a good geek device. He exaggerated the wrong characteristic and thus it was just an insult rather than humor. Maybe he was just having an off day; I'm sure he'll get 'em next time.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Worse, it's not even a snarky aside like Engadget of old, the whole damn article seems intended to illustrate the writer's disdain for the subject.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Yeah, all he had to do was change Google to Nokia in this article and he would have been fine.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Is it possible to unsubscribe?

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Yes, by using the Settings applet on an N900 itself or via the web.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

What about those of us with a greyed out unsubcribe button (see above) and who never received any login data for My Nokia...?

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Not being in that situation, it's difficult for me to test. Have you tried using the two "Forgotten password?" options on the My Nokia web page? If neither of those has worked, have you tried creating a My Nokia account on the website using the phone number of your N900's SIM?

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Oh, great - just wanted to reply that I don't have a username, since I never got my login data, but then I looked at the login page. So they use my private phone number as my "username"...? What's next? Publishing my credit card details on their homepage?

Thanks for the reply, sjgadsby! But I won't try this right now - I'm not at home, and I won't risk sending another couple international messages just so I won't get notifications of new software (2 days ago - and the "new" software actually was PR 1.2).

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

I don't see the equivalence. There's no My Nokia forum, social networking area, user profile section, or other (non-cracking) means whereby other My Nokia users could search for and learn your phone number. The only people who have access to your phone number as your My Nokia username are the same ones who have access to it anyway: the Nokia employees allowed to access the My Nokia database. I agree it's unpleasant that Nokia has forced the submission of that information with PR1.2, but I don't see how being able to log in using it on the My Nokia website makes the situation worse. The My Nokia login page is SSL encrypted, so your phone number in transit to My Nokia is as safe from Malory as your credit card number on its way to Amazon.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Other than the first part (the one about me not approving of Nokia sniffing my phone number), here's the problem I have with my personal number being my username:

There's a reason credit card numbers are NEVER to be stored in plain text. No matter how secure you make your web interface, there's always a risk of someone hacking into your database (sometimes even from within).

Now imagine someone hacking the My Nokia database, where millions of phone numbers (and who knows what else - for all we know Nokia might have a database of our contacts, locations, URL history and what not by now) are stored IN PLAIN TEXT.

I'm not much of a privacy guru normally, but this is even crossing my line by now. That "contract" we "signed" by installing 1.2 would give them (and any of their "partners") the freedom to do whatever they want with any information they get by whatever means they see fit. Though I'm pretty sure this is contra bonos mores on EU territory.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Yes, but given the entire point of the My Nokia service is text messaging tips to phone numbers, you know your phone number is stored in a readable manner in their database whether they allow it as alternative login name or not. As I wrote, I understand not liking My Nokia, and I understand not liking being forced to sign up for it. I don't understand how allowing login via phone number makes the situation worse.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

There would be no need to store the phone number in plain text on the public server just to send text messages. They could at least store them on a server not connected to the net for that - but as soon as the phone number is your username, it HAS to be accessible from the net.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Well I asked Vodafone to block MyNokia and they did.
Paul

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Could you please explain to me where to find this applet in the n900? I am not able to find it, unless you mean the My Nokia icon in the settings. But if I click on it there are 2 options: subscribe and delete (I am translating from my language). No unsubscribe option is present. I am afraid that clicking on delete it would erase my nokia account, while I just want that my data could not be communicated to other companies but keeping Nokia account.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

It's the ONLY part of open-source that makes open-source, OPEN-SOURCE. You could close everything ELSE (closed philosophy, closed etc) and as long as you provide OPEN SOURCE to the code, you've actually provided the most PRESCIENT and, in fact, about the ONLY part of openness that counts.

It may not be a black and white world, but when you use terms like "open" and "closed", there's a very binary definition of how you're delivering your source code. If you take the most important little bits that talk to the device and close them, you've got CLOSED bits of code. Not "kinda open" ...they're closed. And I, again, have to argue that puffery regarding Nokia's Maemo's contributions to openness is just that, puffery. It's certainly not helping the community to fix their own problems and dismissing the problem with claims of being "open enough" is cold comfort to the community that wants to develop on the hardware that is no longer being maintained by Nokia. How long do you think the N900 will remain a current platform. Hell, is it even a current platform anymore now?

Mark my words, N900 owners. Let's see how satisfied you'll be when the next device comes out and you can't even get any more bugfixes for the OS you're stuck with, just like all the previous Nokia tablet owners. It's bad enough that the hardware support is awful--Nokia's current level of support for parts and repair should be criminal.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

I do.

In English, the buttons are "Subscribe" and "Unsubscribe". If you find one of the buttons has been translated poorly, you might open a translation bug at bugs.maemo.org.

Using the "Unsubscribe" button on my N900 results in me receiving a failure message via SMS from My Nokia, so I can't say what happens when use of that button succeeds. I can tell you that the expanded account controls on the My Nokia web site provide three options:

• [receive | don't receive] tips via e-mail
• [receive | don't receive] tips via mobile messaging
• cancel your My Nokia account

There's no "please send me stuff, but don't ever rat me out to third parties" option. You'll need to read the terms and conditions (available from that same applet in Settings) to see if the privacy policy is acceptable to you. Admittedly, the fact that Nokia blurs the line between Ovi accounts and My Nokia accounts in those terms and conditions does make the task a difficult one.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

As a follow-up to my point about the OPEN part of open-source being the VITAL part...

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010...pleletter.html

Oh, if only Apple iOS was opened years ago, this would have been long ago fixed. At least Apple has the courtesy to not only acknowledge the problem but actually FIX it. I wonder if they'll go back and fix it for all the previous handsets or if they'll pull a Nokia?

This sums it up pretty nicely for me:
http://www.computerworlduk.com/commu...3047&blogid=41

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

There is an unsubscribe button in the MyNokia applet under Settings, but it doesn't work for me. It sends yet another chargeable SMS message after which I get a reply "Attempt to unsubscribe has failed. Go to 'My Nokia' in Settings to try again. Visit www.nokia.com/mynokia for more information." Thanks Nokia!

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Ah, I see your point now. Thank you. For better or for worse though, I don't see many companies taking security to the level of disconnected systems for user data, particularly non-financial user data.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

I thought it was funny. I can't believe people are angry about The Register; IMHO they should be directing their anger at Nokia.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Here's a portion, I specifically feel, talks RIGHT to the issue with the drivers and other particularly critical portions of Maemo/MeeGo without which the OS is either crippled or written to depend on:

Granted, he's talking about stuff like MySQL in a business where people are writing their applications and environments on a dependency for the functionality that the closed portions are giving the open portions.. but that's not a far cry away from Nokia's tablets/phone with Maemo/MeeGo and closed drivers, and the inherent dependency on those closed portions being maintained or fixed.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Bad example. I wouldn't call that admitting to a problem (not the one raised anyway) nor a fix (unless it's a PR fix) but I do agree with the point you are trying to make about the advantages of open source.

That was a very good read about open core. The problem for me is that I do not see any alternatives for Nokia.

To me ( Not being a pro programmer) it appears that Nokia have actually done what is suggested in that article, closed portions of it where somebody with time can create an alternative from the core, but perhaps I have misunderstood the article?

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

I think it was meant as an example of a bug that persisted in a closed source application for years that would have been found and fixed very quickly if that same application had been open source.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

that's what I thought he was trying to say, which is why I think it's a bad example of that case. It is very likely this "bug" was intentional so that people see full bars more often and think "hey I have great reception now" but the problem with the antenna on the outside is still the flaw which persists which this "fix" is trying to cover up and shift blame to AT&T. way OT though.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

(Psst! Then instead of just deleting the body of your post when you "Edit", hit the delete radio button instead while on that edit screen, give your "double post" reason, and make the duplicate disappear.)

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

*raises hand*

The company I work for now has different PHYSICAL networks for "inside" and "outside". "Inside" network has the SMS sending daemons (we send reminders of expiry to users who want), and the interface to add, mode and delete.

There are no bridges. There are only two PCs that have access to both networks, via separate NICs, and both reside in the IT dept (one is mine), and there is no routing.

There are firewalls, no sharing (except via mounting the file server's), per-user and per-department permissions.

There is no log-in service, but if there were, I'd use a hash to logon. There's be a PC that only has a *custom* service port open through a physical firewall and I'd put the phone number server to periodically send a hash of the numbers to the login server. The login server gets the number from the user, hashes it, and compares it to the available hashes. That way, a hacked server only publishes a list of hashes that can't be unhashed. Unlikely hash matches (shouldn't happen) are distinct by passwords.

And all I'd have to do is buy a firewall and a silly daemon that hashes a list of numbers and sends it. 500-800$?

Also, communications with Nokia, which embeds support for good measure.

No and no. Those make my phone worth keeping. Also, it doesn't actually crawl to an unusable mess. It's just that memory starts to be swapped and when I unlock the phone and start apps it swaps and swaps, less responsive. If I keep using it it will eventually swap enough to return to usable, it's just that it takes less to reboot than to wait for swapping.

Also, if it's swapping, the something leaked. Sooner or later ...

Bottom line is, it's not unusable after 4 days. It's just visibly slower.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

I didn't say that was an ideal solution; i was just identifying the problem. I only have one or two widgets on my four screens of desktop real estate because of this really nasty bug. And it did become unusable for me. Incoming calls would cause all kinds of weird and highly undesirable things to happen because of the swapping, etc.

The explanation given in the bug tracker was that python widgets fragment memory too much, but there wasn't really a solution given. I can't wait until all the applets are python or wrt/javascript as is being pushed for (meego?): that should be awesome.

Anyway this is really off topic at this point. Sorry.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Well, people have had a couple of years or more to try rewriting drivers and other closed portions on the older Nokia tablets... how's that going, then? More importantly, try asking them (Mer, for example) for hardware details so that drivers CAN be written. Go ahead. Then come back here and let me know whether Nokia has done what the article is suggesting. When it comes to writing a critical portion of the operating system that deals with the hardware and there's no openness, there's not a lot of enablement for writing an open alternative. (See also nvidia proprietary accelerated drivers vs open-source unaccelerated drivers.)

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

Yeeesh... What part of the councils request for an explanation about the forced MyNokia subscription in PR1.2, and Nokia's response is about open source?

If we as seasoned members can't keep a thread focused "On Topic" it becomes hypocritically to expect new members to do the same.

***

My opinion on this matter is that the option to opt out should be presented before any information is sent. That is, an option to not send any information, anonymous or otherwise, to anybody. Period.

In the case of My Nokia, I believe that is what the councils request amounted to; the ability to opt out before information is sent.
I also believe that everyone would agree that this is the type of communication that the council should be having with Nokia on behalf of our membership.
Kudos!

From what I gather from Nokia's response that, (kudos yet again), our council posted to open this thread was:

1. The "cherry" EULA, the information gathered, and the method used to obtain it is no different with any other Nokia phone. The only information that is exchanged (for now) is SMS related and is designed to enhance the users experience.

2. A means to opt out is available.

3. This is no different than what your service provider does when your SIM first registers on its network.

***

As I see it the purpose of this thread is to gather member feedback in order to determine if a counter response is warranted by the council.

I believe a counter response is warranted and it should be specific and along the lines of:

1. Legacy Maemo device users who may have used Nokia devices for years may never have owned a Nokia "phone" before and as a result this is the fist time that they experienced this behavior from a Nokia device.

We would have appreciated a better explanation or at least a little more effort extended toward the NiT users whose only interest in the phone part of the N900 may be as a means in having a persistent packet data connection.

2. Although one can "opt" out through various means, this can only be done after the fact. The council request I believe is for a means to do so before any information is passed.

***

If we wanted to be witty we could also add that you can't have your cake and eat it to. If they justify the reasoning for this "let them eat cake" response because this is no difference from what they do with any other Nokia phone then we would have appreciated if Nokia had also provided the N900 with all the phone features any other Nokia phone customer would expect. :cool:

That^ would have saved this organization from much of the tumult that we recently experienced from new members expecting a dang Nokia phone. :eek:

It would also explain why some of our membership after having handled that tumult for Nokia, expected a better response from them... or at the very least a little more effort.

As far as attaching anything else to a counter response from the council relating to any other past Maemo specific expectations goes... I'm thinkin' it would only confuse the issue at hand and perhaps cloud any counter/counter response we receive from Nokia should the council choose to persue this further.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

As for the on-topic discussion: I registered for OVI/MyNokia long before PR 1.2 came out, so "MyNokia" was already setup/on when the "bomb" went off. It just pulled the settings and now I have an extra icon in my settings for something that use to be somewhere else. :p

I do get why people are upset about it, and agree we should try to make it clear to Nokia that it was a poor choice, and should not be repeated. But griping on a forum they don't monitor won't change their behavior. If you want to make a point, organize a letter writing campaign or setup a date/time for everyone to call their support like to complain about it en-mass. They need something big and explosive to see how big of an issue this is, not bits on a drive on a server they don't even remember they own.

Linux doesn't mean it's 100% open, never has, never will. Lots of things use Linux as their base OS, many of which you don't even consider as having an OS (like your home/office security system). It by no means means are you free to browse their code.

All this fuss over a number. You do realize that every time your phone gets/makes a call, or an sms, or even an alert back that it's on, the phone and/or the tower you're talking to transmits that number in the clear, yes? All one needs is a radio packet sniffer and about 10 minutes to collect all this information from every phone that's on and within transmission distance. Your number is transmitted and stored all over the place in the clear, it's not a national security secret.

This whole uproar reminds me of how people were upset when they discovered some web sites would "store" passwords in clear text files. At one point I saw someone say they wouldn't use the web server side of a file share, and would only use the ftp site until the "bug" was fixed. Completely not realizing that FTP transmits their username and password in clear text to the server (always has, still does)...

So if I run my code through an obfuscator a few times, remove all the comments (or put in misleading ones) and then publish the resulting "code" as opensource, since I published it, it's "open"? Code isn't the only piece in play here. You can say it is all you want, but there's more to it than just publishing code.

I'll be quite happy with it, since it does everything I really need it to do now. Most of the closed bits have a very nice API, and it's millions of times better than any other working phone on the market. Every device has closed bits (even Android), and most of them don't publish any code for their devices. This device comes with a good chunk of the base code, tons of documented API calls for the closed parts, and a fully operational development system. Show me one other device out there that does that at a higher lever than the N900 that's stable enough to use as a daily phone as well. You'll be hard pressed to do so...

Yes, I'd love complete open source. I'd also like a pony and a 20 acre ranch on which to raise it, oh, and a couple million dollars too... But given the existing options, this is as close as one can currently get and still have a working device. That's why a bought it, to encourage the trend toward opening, and to use it as best I can with the few limits placed on it.

Re: [Council] Nokia response to MyNokia subscription in PR1.2
 

I'm not sure if you guys are talking about what I'm thinking about, but I've seen apps that I didn't want or request to be installed on numerous occasions, so much so that I routinely roam my installed programs to toss interlopers. One example: the AP News Installer. I've been assuming that these are programs Nokia favors for commercial reasons, or that they get in for some other reason I don't understand. It happens often. though.