At&T has a new “Unlimited” plan

Ok so here we go with some info about AT&T and a opinion of the big 4.

At&T released info on its new “Unlimited” plans (or not so unlimited) they are giving users the following choices for single lines

$65 for Unlimited data. What they failed to mention in the press release was that data throttling would be possible at ANY TIME down from a soft cap and throttling after 22gb. What does this mean? Well if you are in a congested area your speeds are going to suffer extensively.

They are also offering a plan for $65 that includes 15gb of hotspot usage and a 50gb soft cap (Throttled after 50gb) a long with a $85 plan that includes a 50gb of hotspot and a 100gb soft cap along with HBO Go (Does anyone really care about that?)

So they are saying its unlimited but hiding in the fine print that its not really unlimited and after you use a certain amount on some plans its throttled and on the lowest tier it’s ALWAYS possible to be throttled.

Now for the opinion portion of this…

If your going to advertise something then deliver on it. I have said for years on the web hosting forums I use to be a part of as well as well as on my own hosting website when I ran that company that “Unlimited” simply can not exist there will always be a limit. Companies bury those limits in the fine print and expect the average customer to not be smart enough or care enough to notice it. Don’t get me wrong AT&T is not the only one to do this. The provider I use (T-Mobile) has a 20gb hotspot limit and a 50gb high speed limit with the plan that I am on or lower if you have a different plan. However if you look at any of the promotional info online in big bold letters it always states “Unlimited”. Sprint and Verizon use a very similar strategy and don’t get me started on the smaller providers like simple mobile, h20, trackphone, boost…ect…ect.. as all of these guys are using tower time leased form the big 4 providers and are subject to being throttled at any time in favor of the priority customers from the provider itself.

This is not a issue centered around cell phones either. Look at any major web hosting site and they will offer unlimited storage and transfer. Cloud backup sites do the same thing. Now I have spent countless hours on different websites and have yet to see an “Unlimited” hard drive. While storage media is extremely cheap these days the simple economics of it is that no provider is going to let you store 4tb of data on their cloud for $5 a month. Again if you read in the terms of service there are limits just perhaps not clear ones.

I wish that some of these providers across all the industries would practice more fair and reasonable tactics when it comes to the services they offer as well as be more up front about what it is you are actually paying for instead of trying to hide it in the fine print where most every user wont be able to see it.

Seems I may have rambled on a bit but I feel I made my point.

Remember, Always read the fine print when you sign up for a service. You never know what little tricks are hidden in there

-Tracker

VPN Fail?

So in the news recently was a breach of a VPN server owned by Nord VPN. Media outlets keep covering it like its the biggest thing since Experian leaked the personal info of a lot of people. In reality the server that was accessed did not store any user data nor did it contain any logs. The only thing the hackers obtained was a key that would allow them to set up a spoof server.

Theoretically they could set up a server and direct Nord VPN users to it and then harvest data of the users from there. The problem here is that it would require them to send out tens of millions of spam phishing emails to people in hopes that someone uses Nord VPN and clicks it thus directing them to the spoofed server. In reality the chances of a exploit of this nature would not be as rewarding as some of the other schemes that hackers are using these days.

As to why Nord VPN took so long to release the info about the breach. From what I have seen on various news sources I have seen it claimed that they were investigating, among other things. My thought? They didn’t see it as being important. Considering that they did not leak any user data and no other servers were compromised it would seem that the best corse of action would be to audit the security of all the other servers in the network and make sure they are secure. From there its just a matter of damage control. Why would you release that you have been hacked when the hackers got essentially nothing out of it.

The reality of this just shows that anything is able to be exploited given the right set of circumstances and that you need to do what ever you can to protect your personal info and data to the best of your ability. Probably be a good idea to have a plan to mitigate the effects of a breach on your personal data should it ever happen.

You may look for other VPN providers at BrownCoupon.

This is just my opinion on the matter but hey we all have one right?

-Tracker

*Side note: Look 2 posts in 2 days! I’m on roll!*

Everex delays CloudBook until late February

Everex CloudBook

The Eee PC from Asus has been out for a little while now, and it’s a bit surprising that we really haven’t seen any competitors hit the market yet. Sure, we’ve heard some announcements from Gigabyte and Acer, but those won’t be out for a little while. The first one that we’ll likely see is the CloudBook from Everex which should have made its debut this past week. Unfortunately, it has been delayed.

If you’re not familiar with the CloudBook, it will have a 7-inch screen, 30GB hard drive and run gOS Rocket as its operating system. With the larger hard drive, it has the ability to appeal to a larger crowd, as Windows could be installed much more easily (though Everex has no plans to offer it preinstalled). It will only weigh around two pounds and should give you around five hours of battery life.

The tiny Eee PC competitor has been pushed back to late February with the blame being placed on “the OS being refined.” The new February release date should still make it one of the first Eee PC competitors to hit the market. I guess that it just gives Asus a little more time to polish their crown.

Source: ComputerWorld

Everex’s Cloudbook coming to Wal-Mart by month’s end (Dark eat your heart out)

Ok so I iv always been knocking the Eee but its only cause it dosent have enough power, Tracker really loves the thing but for me its not powerful enough. I really want a UMPC but i want a good one, and now i think iv found it.

Pic

Well folks — it’s official. The Everex / Packard Bell / FIC Nanobook / Cloudbook / CE260 (phew) that we recently got some face time with is actually coming Stateside… to Wal-Mart. That’s right, the Eee crown-threatener will be available on January 25th of this year, featuring a 1.2GHz VIA C7-M CPU, 512MB of RAM, a 30GB hard drive, and a 800 x 480 display for the extra-affordable price of $399. The system will be sporting Everex’s gOS Rocket, the Google-ified version of Ubuntu which powers the company’s cheapo desktop. Watch your back, front, and sides, ASUS.

Source: Engadget

http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/09/everexs-cloudbook-coming-to-wal-mart-by-months-end/