Data Protection in Singapore

In a reply to a question in parliament last month, Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts Lee Boon Yang said that the government was studying the introduction of data protection legislation, but this was a “complex issue” and the “review will take some time.” (Follow links for Straits Times report and extract from Hansard.)

As it turns out, the government really has been reviewing Privacy (sometimes known as Data Protection) legislation in Singapore for a v..e..r..y long time – 20 years in fact. Way back in 1989/90, the Singapore Academy of Law sub-committee on Technology and Law recommended that Singapore adopt Data Protection legislation modelled after that in Europe, Japan and other developed countries. Newspaper reports here. A summary of the sub-committee’s report is here while the full Working Paper is here (long). 

Obviously, no Privacy Laws were adopted, though the issue has bubbled back up to the surface several times. For example in 2002, then again in 2006, when Lee Boon Yang said that an inter-Ministerial committee had been formed and would make its recommendations in the middle of that year.

Humanitarian appeal for Gaza

Every time I read about the Gaza Strip, I can’t help thinking about The Pianist, Wladyslaw Szpilman’s memoir of imprisonment in the Warsaw ghetto, smuggling weapons for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and eventual survival with the aid of a regular German Army officer. The book was also made into an Oscar-winning movie. Sadly, except for the gas chambers, the parallels between the Warsaw Ghetto and the Gaza Strip today are painfully obvious. At least for citizens of a post-colonial Asian state.

Bad Adobe Photoshop Elements installation experience

Can’t believe I wasted several hours over the last few days trying to install Adobe Photoshop Elements. Despite that fact that the splash screen for the trial version has a dialog for you to enter a serial number, you cannot actually activate a trial version with a purchased serial number. You must download the non-trial version from your Adobe “account” and use that installer to install a version that can be activated with your serial number.

The trial installer was still on my Desktop (after all, I had only downloaded it < 30 days ago) and I had been using that one to go through umpteen cycles of uninstall, delete all Adobe preferences, reinstall and get my serial number rejected before I noticed that I had another installer in my download folder with a slightly different name but which had a later creation date. After I used the second installer, the serial number was finally accepted !!

So for the record, the Trial installer file name was PSE_6.0_MAC_TB_WWEFGJ.dmg while the purchased version was called PSE_6.0_MAC_WWEFGJ.DMG. You must uninstall the trial (using the installer on the TB disk image) and then download the purchased installer using the Adobe Download Manager and install this version (i.e. the disk image without “TB” in its name).

Absolutely atrocious out-of-the-box customer experience. Aggravated by the online customer support agent who simply closed the case after telling me to call the 800 number for assistance.

I can’t understand why they have to have  different installers for the trial and full versions – they’re each 1.3 GB and take a long time to download. Or if they have to be different, at least remove the serial number dialog from the trial version so that we don’t waste time trying to activate a software which can never be activated and know that we have to download a different version.

Using a Qstarz BT-Q1000P GPS travel recorder with a Mac

Thanks to the wonders of Google Earth, I managed to get a fairly good fix on most of the more interesting photos I took in North Korea and even posted them on Panoramio. There were still a few places I couldn’t locate, however, and I figured there had to be an easier way than poring over satellite images.  I settled on a Qstarz BT-Q1000 Platinum GPS travel recorder not so much because it was the best – there might be better/cheaper options if I were willing to mail order – but because I needed it the next day and I managed to buy it at retail near my office.

Overall, I’m pretty satisfied with it. The recorder itself works well – the hardware package is compact and picks up the signal easily. Comparing the tracks on Google Earth, accuracy is good enough, and in any case, I’m not sure whether the error is caused by Google Earth or by the Qstarz. Battery life is enough for at least one day’s journey, and it uses Nokia-compatible batteries so if you need to, it’s easy to buy extra batteries.

The only problem with it is that it does not come with Mac software in the box.  I used Fusion initially to run the Windows software on my Mac, but eventually managed to find some Free/Open Source software to communicate with the Qstarz, and better yet, the software allows me to download data using Bluetooth, even though the product manual and specs say this is not supported (even on a PC). There are 3 versions of the BT-Q1000/Q1000X/Q1000P and it’s possible that only later versions support Bluetooth data transfer.

Setting up the Bluetooth connection

First things first – switch the GPS recorder to NAV mode and select “Set up Bluetooth device” from the Bluetooth menu in the menu bar. The pass code is 0000. After clicking through the dialogs, the Qstarz should be set up as device iBT-GPS. The Mac will complain that there are no recognised services, but you can ignore that warning.

Install BT747

1. We will use the BT747 software to talk to the Qstarz. On Mac OS, we have to create a lock directory for it manually because the installer does not have administrator rights. 
2. Open a Terminal and type in the following, one line at a time:
   sudo mkdir /var/lock 
sudo chmod 777 /var/lock
   You will be prompted for your password after the first sudo command. What we are doing is creating a lock directory at /var/lock and then making it globally writeable.
3. Now install BT747 itself by clicking on “Install the Desktop version of BT747″ in this link.
4. If you get a prompt saying Mario De Weerd’s certificate has expired, accept it anyway. 
   [To suppress this prompt in future, click "Show Certificate" and then check the box that says "Always trust these certificates"]
5. Click “Yes” when Java Web Start asks if you want to create shortcuts for the application. This will create an application “BT747 Desktop.app” in your Applications folder. The installer will automatically launch BT747, which will bring us to the next step below.

Downloading data from the BT-1000P

1. After setting up the Bluetooth connection as described above, and creating the /var/lock directory, open the BT747 Desktop application. Set the GPS recorder to NAV mode.
2. Select “Bluetooth (for Mac)” (or /dev/tty.iBT-GPS-SPPSlave-1) in the pull-down dialog at the bottom of the window, and click connect. 
    
3. Download the raw data file by clicking on IBlue/Qstarz/Holux…. Theoretically, this should work with other brands/devices shown, but I’ve never tried.
    
4. Wait for the download to finish, and this should put the raw data into a .bin file at the location specified. To geotag photos using GPS Photo Linker, convert the raw data to GPX format. For a quick overview, select Google Map to generate an html file that shows your tracks overlaid on Google Maps. The files will appear in the output directory after clicking “Convert”. You can limit the data to be converted using the date filter.
   

 Geotagging your photos

GPS Photo Linker works well for me. It automatically adds the position infomation to the photo meta data and optionally adds city/state information as well. Supports a variety of photo formats including jpeg and the Olympus raw format.

All the software I mentioned above is donation-ware so while you can use them free of charge, you are encouraged to make a donation to the authors via Paypal.

Update

[[[ BT747 and GPS Photo Linker have both been updated. Both now support interactive geotagging and direct connection to the Qstarz GPS device. Photo Linker 2.0 has a far snazzier interface but it is now shareware (US$50 with 30-day trial). The main advantage of the new version is that it is integrated with GPS Babel so the application can download track files directly from a variety of GPS devices as well as tag photos from an existing track file. BT747 has added the ability to geotag photos interactively or in batches but remains free, admittedly with a clunkier interface. ]]]

USB driver for BT-Q1000

*** Due to incompatibility between the SiLabs USB driver and Windows virtualisation software (both Parallels and Fusion), I now recommend NOT installing the USB driver unless you cannot get Bluetooth to work or you are sure you will never use Windows on your Mac ***

Alternatively, if your Mac doesn’t have Bluetooth or you prefer to use USB, you can install a USB driver from Silicon Labs. This should work with any version of the BT-Q1000 including the non-Platinum versions. In this case, select “USB (for Linux,Mac)” or “/dev/tty.SLAB_USBtoUART” in step 2 of Downloading data…. BT747 only seems to load the USB driver if the GPS recorder is connected when the program starts up, so you must connect the GPS recorder to your Mac’s USB bus before starting the BT747 program. It doesn’t matter whether the switch is on NAV or LOG, both USB and Bluetooth will work regardless Occasionally, the program can’t make the connection to the Qstarz. In that case, just try switching off the GPS recorder and exiting the BT747 program, then switching on the recorder (and plugging in the USB cable) and starting BT747 again.

USB driver (addendum)

I discovered that the Silabs Mac OS USB driver for the Qstarz cannot co-exist with Fusion. If you want to run the Qstarz Windows software under Fusion and connect the device by USB, you have to remove the Mac OS driver. In the Finder, click on Go to Folder… under the Go menu and type /System/Library/Extensions,  then delete the package SiLabsUSBDriver.kext or just drag it out of the folder. You’ll have to reboot and restart Fusion then connect the data logger to the Mac’s USB port. In Fusion, connect “Cygnal integrated CP2102…..” under the Virtual Machine/USB menu to use the Windows software provided by Qstarz. Alternatively, you can download v3 of the TravelRecorder Utility from Qstarz’s website and talk to the data logger over Bluetooth under Fusion

To go back to using the data logger on the Mac over USB, reinstall the driver using the original Silabs installer. I’ve sometimes managed to just drag the SiLabsUSBDriver.kext back into the /System/Library/Extensions folder and get it to work, but it’s more reliable to just reinstall from the original disk image.

Pyongyang fantasy

Most people would find this video at least a little strange, but to appreciate how bizzare it is, you would really have to have visited Pyongyang before. What it also tells you is the extent to which every visitor to Pyongyang goes on the same tour itinerary.

Through the looking glass

The NKEconWatch site carries a lot of interesting reports on North Korea, including this one on conflicting reports of the food situation in North Korea. So is the DPRK going to have a bumper harvest this year or are millions facing starvation (again) ? For foreign tourists, food was plentiful and varied. Ironically, the only mediocre meals we got were at the Yanggakdo Casino Hotel in Pyongyang. Other than those, I would rate all the meals as 7-8.5 out of 10.

I must admit that very often we were served more food than we could finish, and the thought did cross my mind that this would be really sinful if reports of famine in the countryside were true. 

So, how bad are things really ? I certainly did not see any fat people in North Korea. It wasn’t obvious at that time, but looking over my photos, I realize some of the performers at the Mangyongdae School Children’s Palace were pretty skinny. Sign of poor nutrition or just to be expected given their rigorous training and the propensity of show business, even or especially in the West, towards anorexia ?

In a previous post, I highlighted the number of street stalls that we saw on our tour. In Pyongyang and Wonsan, at least, people appear to  have sufficient discretionary income to spend it on snacks, drinks and so on. According to this report,

North Korean food wholesalers have become the suppliers of rice for markets since the government ceased to ration foodstuffs. They now contract with farms, paying in advance of harvest seasons so that the farms can use the funds to purchase fuel and other supplies necessary for preparing and transporting the food.

It would seem, therefore, that they have gone the Chinese route of first freeing up the farm sector to raise production. And after reading this, I better understand why the Chonsam farm was so responsive to our demand for persimmons. They are not neophytes to capitalism. In fact, they are headed way down the slippery slope.

So what’s going on ? The UNWFP reports that areas in the Northeastern provinces and the West Coast are facing food shortages. We didn’t go to those areas and it’s not inconceivable that some parts of the country are in fact in trouble even though others are doing ok. One of the remarkable things about North Korea was the number of people we saw walking along the highway even in rural areas. With insufficient fuel/transport, I would imagine that if you’re a farmer in the hills and your crop fails, you’re pretty much on your own.

Kaesong

One place we did not see any street stalls was Kaesong. This is surprising because Kaesong is a Special Economic Zone and the site of several South Korean-owned factories. On the face of it, one would expect people there to have somewhat higher disposable incomes than people in other regions. But no street stalls. Was this because of tighter ideological control due to Kaesong’s proximity to the DMZ and the very presence of the South Korean factories, or were the stalls just deemed to be eyesores and hidden out of sight ?

Kaesong was also very curious for other reasons, too. Some other blogs by visitors to North Korea mention having to wear blue name tags and I noticed that some other Western tourists in the Yanggakdo hotel had them too, although our group didn’t. Different practices by different organizers, or are Singaporeans just deemed to be safer ?

This picture was taken outside the Thongil Restaurant in Kaesong. If you look closely at the Asian tourists in the picture, you will notice that they too have those blue name tags. The girls in orange jackets and holding walkie-talkies are not tourists. They were not there when we arrived, but when we came out after lunch, they were there and clearly tasked with ensuring that foreign visitors not stray. My guess is that this tour group is a South Korean group, which would explain the tighter security measures. Despite the cancellation of South Korean tours to Mt Kumgang after a South Korean tourist was shot and killed there in July, tours to Kaesong were allowed to continue.

Renovations were taking place in the Thongil restaurant so presumably there is sufficient business to justify the expense. Overall, in fact, the tourist business seemed to be doing well. Our tour leader commented that there were new souvenir shops where there were none previously, and I noticed renovations at the Sandowon hotel in Wonsan as well.  There was a building under construction opposite this restaurant, although I don’t know whether that is tourism-related. See this article for a DPRK-watcher’s views of the impact of S Korean tourism on the North.

New World Order ?

I didn’t take either of these images, but this post is called “Through The Looking Glass”, isn’t it ? Satellite TV was available in the Yonggakdo Casino Hotel, and there was definitely something surreal about watching a live broadcast of China launching a space-walk mission on CCTV and then flipping to BBC and hearing about the collapse of Washington Mutual amidst the financial crisis emanating from the US. Of course, at the same time, the melamine adulteration scandal was widening in China and the US was on the path towards electing a black president. So who knows ?  Maybe nothing is what it seems to be.

Natural Scenery

I had originally signed up for the tour just to attend the Arirang games and I must admit I didn’t think there would be anything much to see beyond that. My preconceptions of a grey, dreary place like that of many descriptions of former communist countries turned out to be completely incorrect. For better or for worse, the lack of development means that there is no pollution and a lot of beautiful unspoilt landscapes.

http://picasaweb.google.com/stngiam/MtKumgangLakeSijung

Inner Kumgang

Mount Kumgang is divided into Inner Kumgang, Outer Kumgang and Sea Kumgang. Outer Kumgang and Sea Kumgang are accessible from South Korea (or used to be, until tours were suspended following the shooting death of a South Korean tourist). The Singapore tours via Pyongyang go to the Inner Kumgang region.

Opening the economy ?

One of the many surprises of North Korea was the number of blue-and-white stalls selling drinks, snacks and other tidbits set up by the roadside. According to our Singaporean tour leader, these were new, as she had not seen them in her previous trips to North Korea including one as recently as Spring 2007. Our Korean guide told us that these were state-owned and it is true that all of them did follow the same blue-and-white colour scheme and many of the ones we saw in the towns did seem to be extensions of existing state-run stores. In the smaller villages outside Wonsan, however, several of the stalls  looked more like they were independently-run outfits.

Pyongyang

Wonsan outskirts

Drive-in beer stand !

Setting up shop seems to be a family affair

The density of stalls seemed to be higher in Wonsan than Pyongyang despite much higher population density in the latter. A sign of looser ideological control in the provinces, or just a natural consequence of Wonsan being closer to the farms ?

Cityscape Wonsan

After spending 3 nights in Pyongyang, we moved on to Wonsan for another two nights. Wonsan is a port and according to Wikipedia, has a population of 330,000 compared to Pyongyang’s 2.5 million. The interesting thing about Wonsan is that the buildings actually have lights ! The bright line running diagonally across the bottom are the headlights of a car.  They still don’t turn on their street lights, though.

More photos of Wonsan by day are at http://picasaweb.google.com/stngiam/Wonsan. Wonsan looks like it could be a very pleasant seaside town if (when) they open up to the outside world.

The beaches are gorgeous and for now, completely unspoilt.

The Hotel Songdowon is definitely not a modern hotel and has the feel of a 1960s Soviet-era Beach Resort. We were told that the hotel had just been renovated and while that wasn’t obvious from the condition of the bathrooms, some construction work was still going on (see workmen in photo below).

There is a fairly large ball-room and many other function rooms with table settings fully laid out but while we were there I didn’t see any other paying guests besides our two Universal Travel tour groups (~60 people/35-40 rooms out of “more than 100 rooms.” On the other hand, it’s pretty late in the season for a beach hotel and we foreigners are probably paying many times their normal rate too, so perhaps they are doing ok after all. [Another foreign tourist, Eckart Dege was also there, but in early September. Compare his 1988 picture of Wonsan from almost the same vantage point in Hotel Songdowon.]

Another interesting thing about this hotel is that there is a sign at the reception desk apparently offering currency exchange service. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to actually try exchanging any money. It’s still illegal to take North Korean Won out of the country but I don’t think they are as strict any more on prohibiting locals from using foreign currency.

Cityscape Pyongyang

 

 

 

The Yanggakdo Casino Hotel (left) where we stayed in Pyongyang, is located on an island in the middle of the Taedong river, together with the Pyongyang International Cinema House and the Yanggakdo football ground. Depending on how paranoid one is, I suppose one could view this as a shrewd way of keeping decadent foreigners isolated and safely away from the general population, or one could view this as picking a scenic location for a downtown hotel.

Either way, the Yangakdo Hotel’s location makes it an ideal site from which to take panoramic views of the city, such as this one, facing North, towards the May Day Stadium and Tower of Juche.

This view, facing South shows the International Cinema House and football ground.

Sunrise over Pyongyang was surreal. Admittedly, this image is what I got after clicking “Enhance” in iPhoto, but even the original was very nice, with light just breaking over a mist-shrouded city.