In the morning, folks! When we last left Bad Uncle Leo, that being ME, I was befuddled by ‘phantom data’ appearing on my iPhone. Being a geek I approached the problem from the geek end of things. It’s not a geek issue: 

 So @ATTTeamTrevor’s rep called me back, after I posted this pic to Twitter of my current billing cycle for March, which begins on the 13th:

Well it loooks like I found out where that 651 MB of ‘phantom data’ came from.

As you can see from the screenshot above, if my billing cycle begins on 3/13, the only valid data use is 68kb on that date. Anything from 3/12 & previous should be ‘in the last billing cycle.’ You would think so, right?

What @ATTTeamTrevor’s rep told me is that it is AT&T policy that ‘it can take 2 days for data to post to your account’… and other canard arguments about ‘pending charges’ like on a credit card that can be ‘moved forward.’ But, as you can see, there were no ‘delays’ & it’s timestamped.

And, do I have to repeat myself? It’s timestamped as such on your website, AT&T, and, in the previous billing cycle.

Another question to ask is, if 48 hours is the ‘window’ by which they get to ‘charge’ for 3G data in the next billing period, did my “Unlimited Data Quota of 3GB” actually ‘reset’ on the night of March 11?

The answer is no. I was still ‘throttled’ to between 15-30k/s that night. So in effect AT&T ‘stole’ two days of ‘normal’ data service from me. I’m also not the only person to notice this.

I guess it’s time to file a complaint with both the FCC and the FTC — I don’t know what it looks like to AT&T, but to me, this looks like fraud.

Update2: Tweaked screenshot, also added the commenter from DSLReports who also noticed this billing chicanery.

Update: I’ve ‘posted’ my complaint letters to Dropbox. Here they are: FTC and FCC. You can expect me to file variants of these every month that AT&T continues their “policy” unless I leave them. You get what you pay for.. unless you’re in contract with AT&T.

In the morning everyone, time to take a break from the ORA reviews to document my own little ‘issues’ with AT&T and what they define as ‘unlimited data’.

Here’s a little riddle:

If you ‘turn off’ all 3G and cellular data the night before your data ‘turns over’ or resets like this, say around 7pm PST the night your billing cycle ‘ends’….

What would you expect your data to be at the start of the next day? Maybe, uh…. zero? 

No. If you’re on AT&T, you can expect something like this:

And yes, I’ve been home, on my WiFi with all cell data off for the whole time. Pity me.

This is NOT the first time this has happened. But it is the first time I feel the need to document it, seeing as this is 21.7% of the way before AT&T will unilaterally ‘throttle’ my so-called ‘unlimited’ data plan.

Ergo, I’ve been ‘saving’ my data for when I need it, that is, when I’m out in the countryside with no AT&T WiFi APs to be found. I expect to be able to have that data available for my use. Not to be miscounted. If the count is wrong then why ‘save’ it?

This is not the first time I’ve noticed this issue, and is one of the reasons I will never move to a ‘metered plan’ with AT&T. This is also not the first time the issue has been raised. Even by folks other than me. Twice. And even in AT&T’s own forums.

Update to the Update: What AT&T told me requires it’s own blog entry. I’m… stunned.

Warning: Rant (on)

Made you look, didn’t I? There’s a reason. As some of you know, there’s a bug in Lion about a tool that most Mac users wouldn’t care about let alone use- in the dscl tool.

I have no doubt whatsover that Apple will fix this bug. That’s not what’s bugging me.. it’s this attitude by a number of users and worse, system administrators that come off with this attitude:

“If a pest already has physical access to a machine there are so many ways around passwords that it doesn’t matter if you change permissions or not.”

or

If you’re a local non-root user you already have physical access to the machine. It’s already game over so who gives a shit?

…or some variation of ‘if they have local access then why bother?’

Some things never change. I’m sure in the past when there were castles to defend, there’d be some MCSE^H^H^H captain of the guard, of some walled garden keep who would spout-

”..and I say to you, once the Mongols are in your fiefdom, the battle is lost.” (1)

Because, there is no point in having fencing, moat, outer gate, inner gate, or portcullis, courtyard defense, or locks on the doors..” (2)

This ‘why bother’ attitude seems to come from the Windows world, where everything is predictable, convenient & abysmally inevitable. And once you’re breached, “that’s it.” Or that your defenses are “enough.”

In the Unix world, where there’s the concept of ‘hardening’, there are locks large & small; where every deep(er) action has safeguards, and the default answer is NO.

As in, if you’re not on the sudoers’ list, NO.

As in, the battle is not (yet) lost just because the varlots breached one lock. And if you don’t know the old password “you shall not pass.”

It is certainly NOT ‘why bother’.. or in medieval terms: ‘The battle is lost.’

Time spent rattling on locks is time where the owner could find his laptop via geolocation and/or remotely wipe sensitive data— time spent delaying or frustrating the enemy, who does not have perfect information either.

Apple’s greatest enemy now that Steve is gone is complacency, predictability, and removing locks for the sake of “convenience.” The same problems that Microsoft has contended with —for years —with a copycat operating system.

In short, Apple’s security credibility is theirs alone to lose as they have assumed the mantle of a Unix-based system.

UNIX IS NOT CONVENIENT.

BY DESIGN.

IF YOU ARE A SYSADM YOU WILL EARN YOUR KEEP.

Disclaimer: I have Apple friends, who no doubt are rolling their eyes at this. If I’m blogging about it nobody told me, and I don’t know anything about it. Therefore, when I ‘aim to misbehave’ I can. And to my Apple friends: If you haven’t already, consider hiring some Blackhat-minded or ex-military folks. And if it ain’t broke in 30 years, DON’T FIX IT.

Rant (off)

Now returning you to rant-free ORA reviews or whatever tickles my fancy.