International SMS

[altivo]

Well, there's one myth laid to rest. In spite of intarweb claims to the contrary, Virgin Mobile does deliver SMS internationally. Or at least, I was able to exchange texts with calydor in Denmark this morning. Checking the bill, I find they dinged me 20 cents for sending rather than the 5 cents I pay for the US or Canada. On the other hand, it looks like a voice call with Denmark would be 92 cents a minute, compared with 38 cents a minute to Canada or 18 cents anywhere in the US, so I guess it is somewhat proportional.

Over breakfast Gary and I were joking (somewhat at least, you have to laugh or it makes you cry) about Homeland Security trying to monitor phone calls and SMS. If they read the contents of that exchange, which was in fact RP between two equine characters, I'm sure they've already gone scrambling for their code experts to try to decrypt it. If I disappear into detention without habeas corpus at least you'll all know what happened to me.

Comments

[hrrunka]

I think international SMS costs me 17 pence, which is twice as much as national SMS. If I dare to send an SMS whilst I'm out of the country I get charged 50 pence. I could get cheaper messaging, but I'd probably end up paying more somewhere else in the bill at the end of the month...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, you just shift the costs around from one place to another. For as much as I use a phone, this isn't a bad deal. The big monthly contract deals would be way too expensive, even though they might include free SMS. I'd never use enough to make up the difference. ;p

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Yeah Virgin does a lot of fun stuff, but they do ding you for
doing it.

And...ALWAYS remember that your being monitored. Even in
the 90s with Clinton there was Echelon.

http://www.usmm.net/p/enemylisten.jpg

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I refuse to worry about being spied upon by the minions of evil (and I don't mean al Q'aeda here.) My FBI file is already so thick it doesn't matter.

[bariki.livejournal.com]

Oh please. PGP, Truecrypt and commmon sense are the paranoid's best defence. ^)^

That and not giving a damn in the first place. :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Common sense doesn't apply with HS and TSA. They are all nuttier than fruitcakes and more paranoid than a turtle out of his shell.

As for the encryption stuff, it's just too messy to bother with.

I didn't give a damn until recently when the Bush admin started taking away all the legal rights that would make it possible to reveal their absurdities in public. Now they can grab anyone and lock them away on suspicion, simply claiming that they aren't convinced the individual is a legitimate citizen of the US. No habeas corpus, no lawyer, no appeals to the courts. Done.

[bariki.livejournal.com]

God Bless America.

When you hear the downwash from the black helicopters that come to take you away, send me a txt so that I have 90 seconds to get out of my own house. ^)^

Don't worry - you're not alone in the government asshattery. President Blair.. whoops.. Prime Minister Blair admitted a few days ago that he'd like to have a national DNA database, containing samples from everyone in the country. The exact purpose of this database remains unclear, apart from some lip service to rape and murder cases (which, admittedly, seems like a good plan). Couple this with the forthcoming national identity card scheme (not compulsory, unless you want a passport :P) and new laws that make having a different opinion to someone either (a) in power or (b) from an ethnic minority, a crime, and you can see the chipping away of the individual's liberty.

My grandfather would have loved it. He got shot at by Germans so that we could all be conformist together under our own flag instead of someone else's.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Not giving a damn is your best defense.

I could get into consipacy theories about how the
NSA probably "leaked" PGP and all our current
encryption methods but then I'd sound like this
guy back in the early 90s I argued with on usenet.

"THE GOVERNMENT IS TRYING TO TAKE OVER THE
INTERNET!"

(all caps sorta guy)

I got no response when I pointed out that DARPA
(a government entity) invented the net.

*facepaws*

*goes away, not giving a damn*

^_^

[bariki.livejournal.com]

Exactly. If anything that I had to say was of interest to the government, doubtless they'd have made that obvious by now, a la black helicopters at dawn. :P

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

*looks off* Wait for it...

*Runs away like Radar with Hawkeye*

XD

Yeah, thats about it. Personally I think I don't rate the
whole UFO/Anal Probe deal either.

But lets talk about your time in Naval Intelligence, didn't
you work on that project to position subs using gravitational
anomolies?

XD

[bariki.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

It's easy to make fun of governments. Fun too.

Err, no. I don't have any NI connections, so I have no idea what you talking about. OK, I did work for the government in 2003/2004, and yes, there was that unique identification project in 2004 as well... but apart from those things, I have no idea what you're talking about.

^)^

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Don't answer the phone at 3:16 tomorrow afternoon.

Its THEM.

@.@

XD

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Well just think that you're keeping them on their toes :)
God monitoring calls and SMS would be the most boring job to do.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

That's the trouble. It's boring and so to make it more interesting they are likely to imagine things. Hallucinate even.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

The figs are eating my brain!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

To borrow some 60s slang, it's more likely that the pigs are eating your guts.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

The pigs are eating figs in my guts!! Save me!

[bariki.livejournal.com]

Some US carriers, like Tracfone, do International SMS at the same rate as domestic SMS, which is nice.

Me, I get all SMS chucked in on my contract, but that's £30 a month, so I'd expect it to be included. :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Tracfone is more expensive overall than VM, though. I'm not at all sure how useful I'll find this thing, since I'm not generally a phone user anyway except out of dire necessity. I hate the telephone and always have.

Sure, free SMS is typical for phone contracts that cost $60 a month. It ought to be. For $9.99 a month, VM will give me a thousand "free" SMSes each month. But would I ever use that many? Unlikely.

[bariki.livejournal.com]

That's a lot of free messages. I'd never use that many, for sure, but I make more voice calls that I do text messages, since we don't have 'reverse billing' (paying to receive a phone call) here in Europe.

[rhaenburger.livejournal.com]

*Cellphones:
"Horse #1 slides his turgid tubesteak deep into Stallion #2's tailhole, gently nickering."

"Horse #2 let out a deep groan as his tailhole was violated by the throbbing horseflesh."

*FBI Echelon Center:
Agent 1: "You see, sir, I believe the agents of terror are using the method of horse buttsecks to disguise their plans for nuclear domination."

Agent 2: "I can definitely see it... The first stallion's peen0r must be a metaphor for a nuclear missile, with the second stallion's arse being a metaphor for.. San Fransisco. Good God."

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You have a pretty wild imagination. It was much more innocent than that. One horse was a mare. Stallion sidles up to the mare, nuzzles her, and says "Hi, love." Mare nuzzles back and says "Yup, I'm still here."

Obviously a preliminary exchange of recognition codes to be followed by the actual dirty information. I hope they're still looking for the followup because there wasn't any.

[kyhwana.livejournal.com]

I think it's still 20c to SMS the US from here too

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Not too unreasonable when you consider the route SMS is supposed to take.

I suspect, however, that much of it gets routed via the internet instead, at a cost infinitely less than sending it over ordinary phone lines or satellite links.