Some of you may remember the "Great STA E-mail Scandal" of late 2003, as reported by your trusty servant in this thread ... Well, they have come up with a new one, only this time they're getting nasty...

Most of you will know about the voice-chat capabilities available to some popular IM programs such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger and others ... They basically let you use your microphone to chat with people on the other end of the same technology. There are also an increasing amount of internet-to-normal-phoneline programs out there, where you pay a company to allow you to call the other side of the world, only generating a local call at destination, so that, for example a call from a PC in Paris to a normal phone in Los Angeles only costs a local LA phone charge.

Well, in my country, all phone calls are handled by one company, the STA, a gouvernment owned private business (notice any contradictions there? anyone?) who have the total monopoly on phone calls, and also internet connections. There are other ISPs here, but they also have to go through the STA to get out of the country via internet protocols ...

As we are a country of 65.000 people, 48.000 thousand of whom are foreigners, there is a large amount of international communication going on, to countries like Argentina, Portugal, Spain and many many more, for business, but also home use ... families back home, etc ...

WELL HERE IT IS:

Due to a sudden proliferation of cibercafes and the like providing very-very-cheap talk-communication to normal phones around the world, using Internet as the technology, as well as the standard advancement in the proliferation of home-use progs such as MSN and Yahoo, the STA have put a filter on all such communications, so that it is now impossible to use net-to-phone programs, but also MSN voice chat, Yahoo voice chat etc etc etc ... Believe me, I've tried'em all, and the communication is well and truly knackered.

They have done this secretly, without telling anybody. They have done it to force people to HAVE to use the phone, and pay exhorbitent international phonecall rates ...

Tangentially, the same knobbling has effected the use of E-mule and a few other similar programs, which is more annoying, but not my point.

Now then ... as much as I'm sure it is every phone companies wet dream to be able to cut off all technologies other than the blimmin' telephone, cos the profit margins are so high, and to do it at a national level would surely be a medal of honour in the Corporate C@ckmonger Hall of Fame, I find this to be somewhat restrictive ... Don't you?

Bare in mind here that these are the same people who are selling us ADSL ... So we pay the equivalent of $60 a month (plus a one-time fee of 75$ to start off with) to get broadband, and then they put filters on it so that it is not possible to use internet-based vioce communication, or download large files from file-sharing programs ...

I want opinions, and I want cookies... cos this has put me in one HELL of a bad mood ...

*chucks cookie granade at Pab and runs like hell*

*hugs and cookies*

Now here was me wondering where you'd got to as I need to ask a computer related question and low and behold your chuntering on about a computer related problem in another thread!

Sorry to hear that. Fight the system I say! Start a band with a mix of rap and metal and call yourself Rage Against The Machine....er.....yeah!

I am currently getting annoyed about the cockmongers called Royal mail. They think it's OK to deliver our work mail at 12 noon everyday. So I can't start work until 12 noon on orders and stuff like that. Stupid idiots. I phone to complain or at least lodge a complaint and they are so dismissive. I actually said to the woman that becauase they were a monopoly they thought they could do as they liked. She disputed this and I said "Look up the definition of monopoly in the dictionary and then tell me you aren't abusing that!"

/end rant

So, no antitrust laws in Andorra? And you're not in the EU? Sucks to be you, I guess. *hands out mini EU flags for children to wave*

I'm sure the Bell company of the 1970s would be the same way if it hadn't been broken up via antitrust laws. They'd probably also charge you per e-letter you sent.

Dude, that sucks, I have one (well, two) word(s) for them: SSH Tunnels

Most likely they also have something saying encryption is illegal too though, damned evil companies

Evil monopolies. I'm sorry, that's incredibly unfair... bastards...

The obligatory

HACK THE CORPORATE REALITY

has been missed by the looks of it.