Author: simonmackay

Increasingly, as the cities become more dense, most of us will be either living in an apartment or looking towards doing so. In some cases, some of you may be living in a larger house in a rural or peri-urban area but maintain an apartment as a city-based “family house” if you or your family are making frequent trips downtown.

There will be issues that will impact how you set up your personal IT and home network in these apartments in order to make sure that it can coexist with your neighbours’ networks. Let’s not forget that those of you who are active in your building’s management committee may face discussions and questions about building-wide IT including the Internet Of Things. Here, I will be regularly publishing articles that may be of relevance to you and your situation.

When you are thinking of “downsizing” towards that small apartment, you may find that your needs change as far as your home network is concerned. As well, you may have to set things up so that your network coexists properly with your neighbours’ home networks especially as far as data privacy / security and network performance is concerned.

In most cases, setting up your home network and Internet connection at your apartment may be a simple task with you just installing a wireless router to use with your portable devices and, in most cases, a HomePlug AV500 powerline network segment for desktop computers and home-entertainment equipment.

But not all apartments may come across as a simple setup. For example, you may come across places with internal walls or plenums that are constructed of dense materials like double-brick, cinderblock or reinforced concrete or use metal as part of their construction, which can impede reliable Wi-Fi wireless signal reception.

As well, you need to be sure with HomePlug powerline or Wi-Fi wireless technologies that your operation of these technologies doesn’t impede on your neighbours’ use of them. This includes being sure that your data on your network stays private while theirs also stays private.

Equipment

Wireless Router

Most recent-spec Wi-Fi routers may serve you well for apartment-based networks

You can get by with most Internet routers, whether you buy them yourself or have them supplied as part of your Internet service. This may be true for a studio, one-bedroom or small two-bedroom location but you may have to consider something with improved Wi-Fi wireless performance for larger two-bedroom or three-bedroom spaces.

It is more so if your apartment follows the typical path of having the Internet connection like the telephone socket installed at one end of the dwelling which is opposite to another end where a lot of your living takes place.

Wireless connectivity

But you need to be sure that the Wi-Fi wireless functionality is of current specification. You may not need to worry about whether the router uses external high-gain antennas because of the smaller area that it is expected to cover. But I would make sure that this functionality works across two bands simultaneously especially as the 5GHz band is still seen as “new territory” for network coverage and can facilitate high throughput. Such a router will be described as 802.11a/b/g/n simultaneous dual-band or the routers that have 802.11ac functionality will be simultaneous dual-band devices.

Internet (WAN) connectivity for next-generation services

If your building is provisioned with next-generation broadband Internet service, find out whether the equipment supplied in your apartment includes router functionality or is simply a modem or optical-network terminator. In the latter situation, you would just need to use a broadband router with an Ethernet WAN (Internet) connection. It is also worth noting that a lot of FTTB (fibre-to-the-building / fibre-to-the-basement) setups will implement VDSL2 for the copper path to your apartment so you would need to use a modem router that supports this technology on the WAN side. This is a feature that is becoming available with newer mid-range and high-end DSL modem routers and is slowly trickling to economy equipment as this technology becomes more common.

In some cases, you may be lucky enough to have an FTTB setup which implements Cat5 Ethernet wiring to all of the apartments like with Spirit Telecom in Australia. The same would hold true for an FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) setup which simply uses an optical-network terminator. Such setups would simply use a broadband router with an Ethernet WAN connection.

It is also worth noting that a lot of premium DSL modem routers including some equipment offered by carriers are offering a “dual-WAN” or “multiple-WAN” functionality where they have two different paths for connection to the Internet. This is typically an Ethernet and a DSL connection with the ability for you to select between these connection types using the configuration Web interface that they provide. Some of these modem routers have one of the Ethernet ports able to be switched between a LAN (home network) connection or a WAN (Internet) connection rather than a dedicated WAN Ethernet port and you would have to make sure you select the right type of connection for the purpose in mind.

When you move in to a new building as part of your downsizing efforts, you may need to find out from whoever is in charge of the building such as the owners corporation whether it has been provisioned for a fibre-based next-generation broadband service. Here, you would need to know what technology is being used along with whoever is providing the Internet service. This is so you can be sure you have the right equipment for the service.

That headline Wi-Fi Internet service offered by your building

Those headline Wi-Fi Internet services offered by the apartment building will work well with smartphones, tablets and computers only and are best used for casual Internet use

Avoid the temptation to use for your main Internet service that free Wi-Fi service that your building offers as a headline amenity. The kind of developments that typically offer this kind of service are “resort” apartment developments, retirement villages or so-called “residence” apartments let out on a similar business model to a hotel. It also includes hotels that have rooms and apartments available to let for long-term residence but in the same “inn-style” business context with rent; light, heat and power; telecommunications, food and similar living expenses as one payment to that hotel.

This is because of the fact that most of these networks aren’t secure, typically being set up as open wireless networks with a Web-based login experience and intended for casual login. If these networks are properly set up as a public-access network, they will be set up with client isolation so that client devices cannot discover each other across the network.

Therefure, they don’t play well with anything other than a regular (desktop or laptop) or mobile (smartphone or tablet) computing device. I encountered this problem through an online conversation from someone who bought the Sony CMT-MX750Ni network-capable micro music system that I reviewed and couldn’t run its integrated Internet radio and online content functionality and further correspondence that I had with the commenter revealed that this stereo was installed in a “resort” apartment which had this kind of free Wi-Fi Internet access. They ended up having to use it with an iOS device connected to the Wi-Fi network and running a content app for online content.

There is still the security risk of having all the network traffic associated with everyone in the building using that network being “sniffed out” especially in an improperly-configured network, along with the risk of a commonly-known password that is rarely changed.

These Wi-Fi internet services are best used when you want to use Internet-based services from your laptop, tablet or smartphone while in a common space. But you won’t be able to use your home network’s resources from a device connected to one of these Wi-Fi Internet services.

Your home network

Wired-network segment

It may be worth having your apartment wired for Ethernet if you are buying “off the plan”

It is important to consider establishing a wired-network segment alongside your Wi-Fi wireless network segment. This is more important with the arrival of Smart TVs and network-connected video peripherals so you can be sure that they work properly and provide enjoyable viewing. In some cases, if you are locating a desktop computer or network-capable printer away from the router, you may find that a wired network segment may do the job.

If your apartment is being newly built such as when you buy one “off the plan”, it may be worth considering having an Ethernet connection installed if you can afford it. Here, you could have it set up to link to the main living area, the bedrooms and / or study / office space. Here, this is important for larger spaces like two-bedroom or larger apartments, dual-level maisonettes and the like. In this context, the areas you will need to cover are where the router will be and where you will be watching TV or using games consoles or similar equipment.

HomePlug networks can work well with apartment setups as a “wired no-new-wires” network

On the other hand, you can set up a HomePlug AV500 or better powerline network segment to cover your apartment. This is more important if you are on a tight budget or are dealing with a small apartment, and would earn its keep with existing developments.

Some of you may think that you could use a HomePlug powerline network segment to temporarily extend your home network from your apartment out to a common area or your neighbour’s apartment. You wouldn’t see reliable operation if you are doing this in a larger building due to the way the building is wired for many households or the fact that the building’s electrical subsystem is also serving various pieces of  “big-time” electrical equipment like lifts or building-wide heating / air-conditioning equipment which can yield electrical interference.

Wireless access point

You may find that your your home network’s Wi-Fi wireless segment can cover your apartment easily but there are some situations where these places can yield patchy coverage especially for smartphones and tablets.

For example, your apartment may have one or more interior walls made of a dense material like double-brick or concrete and these could impede the Wi-Fi coverage. This can also include where a building uses metal ducts or plenums running from floor to ceiling in the apartment for central heating and air-conditioning, garbage disposal or other purposes. It also includes where you are dealing with pre-1960s buildings where fireplaces used to exist or still exist but in a cosmetic manner. Similarly, you may be living in a “maisonette” or similar-styled apartment where your apartment is across two levels and your network’s coverage may not span both levels properly.

The compact Devolo dLAN 550 WiFi HomePlug wireless access point – fills in the Wi-Fi gaps

Here, you may have to consider implementing an extension wireless access point to improve your network’s reception in those patchy areas. Typically the HomePlug wireless access points that use your apartment’s AC wiring as the backbone can answer this need very easily, providing just the right amount of coverage to fill in that dead-spot. Similarly, some wireless range extenders that can be set up to become access points for a wired backbone can provide that same level of coverage. At the most, you will typically end up with using two wireless access points in your setup – one that is part of the router as well as one extension access point.

How do I set this up?

The Wi-Fi wireless network

Distributed Wi-Fi setups like this NETGEAR Orbi can assure coverage across that large apartment, penthouse or two-level maisonette

In this area, you may have to identify a vacant operating frequency for the network using a Wi-Fi finder app, available for most regular-computer platforms and Android mobile platforms. Here, the channel you use would be the one where there is the lowest signal strength because no nearby networks are using that channel.

But you may find that some wireless routers, access points or distributed-Wi-Fi systems may offer this functionality as part of their setup procedure or may even automatically tune themselves as part of an “easy-setup” routine.

Then you determine a unique SSID (wireless network name) and passphrase for your network and configure your router and other wireless-network equipment to work to these specifications. Some of the routers, especially those offered by ISPs, may have a unique pre-defined SSID and passphrase, but it may be worth changing the SSID on these devices or. if you are comfortable with it, connecting your client devices to this new SSID configuration.

Shared-Internet-access setups

Some of you may use FON, Telstra Air or similar “shared Internet access” setups which require your home network router to be part of a wireless public-access network. Such services have it that you offer bandwidth to other users that aren’t part of your household, then are able to get bandwidth for free due to you offering that bandwidth to others.

This is achieved by it maintains the Wi-Fi access for your home network along with a separate Wi-Fi local network for this public-access network, typically by having two SSIDs on the same frequency – one for the public-access network and the other for your home network.

You may find that other people in the street can’t use the public-access network as expected because your router is located high up and away from street level. This can manifest with the remote device used by the person on the street acting as though it is in a fringe area and exhibiting patchy reception. It is something I have experienced in Docklands where it was a hit-and-miss affair to use the Telstra Air service offered by an apartment dweller living in one of the buildings that was facing a public walkway from my smartphone outside the building.

On the other hand, the only people who would benefit are others who are walking up and down the corridor outside your apartment.

The HomePlug powerline network

You may have to use the SYNC or SimpleConnect buttons on your home network devices like this WD LiveWire HomePlug AV switch to assure reliable secure connectivity in your apartment-based HomePlug setup

Here, this network may be a simpler affair where you just use the SimpleConnect buttons on the HomePlug adaptors to create a new network segment with its own encryption. This is a procedure that I bad described in this IT assistance article where I was instructing my former pastor over the phone about how to set up a HomePlug segment for his desktop computer when he moved to a new location. But it is imperative to perform this process when you are setting up a HomePlug segment for the first time so as to avoid your data “creeping on” to your neighbour’s HomePlug segment or vice versa.

If you are adding other HomePlug devices, you need to follow the routine for using SimpleConnect buttons to add these devices – press the button on the new device then on the existing device while watching for the lights to flicker in a certain way.

When it comes to connecting a cluster of co-located network-capable equipment together like a home-entertainment system, you can either purchase a HomePlug-Ethernet switch that has multiple Ethernet connections. On the other hand, you can simply get by with a desktop Ethernet switch connected to a HomePlug adaptor to bring all the equipment in that cluster online – most of these desktop Ethernet switches do cost very little to purchase for a five-port Gigabit type.

HomePlug AV2 like what is offered by this Devolo dLAN 1200+ adaptor may provide more stable operation when competing with large motors in the building (European setup)

Most apartment setups may be able to get by with the HomePlug AV500 powerline networks but you may find that HomePlug AV2 1200 MIMO-based technology may suit your needs better. This may be of relevance for those of you who may benefit from the extra bandwidth or who find that the highly-robust technology may cope with the high concentration of heavy-duty motors used in these buildings for things like air-conditioning or lifts better.

Other notes

If you are using a network-attached storage device or something similar, it may be preferable to connect it directly to the router rather than via a Wi-FI or HomePlug network because this assures a more reliable connection when it comes to making sure files arrive at the NAS complete.

Conclusion

An apartment can come across as a simple place to set up a home network within but there are some issues to work out so that you have a reliable secure home network that coexists with your neighbours’ home networks easily.

Articles

Are you sure you are casting your vote without undue influence?

Google Releases Political Ad Database and Trump Is the Big Winner | Gizmodo

From the horse’s mouth

Google

Introducing A New Transparency Report For Political Ads (Blog Post)

Transparency Report – Political Advertising On Google (Currently relevant to federal elections in the USA)

Advertising Policies Help Page – Political Advertising (Key details apply to USA Federal elections only)

My Comments

If you use YouTube as a free user or surf around the Internet to most ad-facilitated blogs and Websites like this one, you will find that the display ads hosted are provided by an ad network owned or managed by Google. Similarly, some free ad-funded mobile apps may be showing ads that are facilitated through Google’s ad networks. Similarly, some advertisers pay to have links to their online resources placed at the top of the Google search-results list.

Google to keep records of political ads that appear on these sites so they have the same kind of respect as traditional print ads

Over the past few years, there has been a strong conversation regarding the authenticity of political advertising on the online space thanks to the recent election-meddling and fake news scandals. This concern has been shown due to the fact that the online space easily transcends jurisdictional borders and isn’t as regulated as traditional broadcast, print and away-from-home advertising especially when it comes to political advertising.

Then there is also the fact that relatively-open publishing platforms can be used to present content of propaganda value as editorial-grade content. The discovery of this content can be facilitated through search engines and the Social Web whereupon the content can even be shared further.

Recently Facebook have taken action to require authentication of people and other entities behind ads hosted on their platforms and Pages or Public Profiles with high follower counts. This ins in conjunction to providing end-users access to archival information about ad campaigns ran on that platform. This is part of increased efforts by them and Google to gain control of political ads appearing on their platforms.

But Google have taken things further by requiring authentication and proof of legitimate residency in the USA for entities publishing political ads through Google-managed ad platforms that targeting American voters on a federal level. As well, they are keeping archival information about the political ads including the ads’ creatives, who sponsored the ad and how much is spent with Google on the campaign. They are even making available software “hooks” to this data for researchers, concerned citizens, political watchdog groups and the like to draw this data in to their IT systems for further research.

If you view a political ad in the USA on this site or other sites that use display advertising facilitated by Google, you will find out who is behind that ad if you click or tap on the blue arrow at the top right hand corner of that ad. Then you will see the disclosure details under the “Why This Ad” heading. Those of you who use YouTube can bring up this same information if you click or tap on the “i” (information) or three-dot icon while the ad is playing.

Google are intending to roll these requirements out for state-level and local-level campaigns within the USA as well as rolling out similar requirements with other countries and their sub-national jurisdictions. They also want to extend this vendor-based oversight towards issues-based political advertising which, in a lot of cases, makes up the bulk of that kind of advertising.

Personally I would also like to see Google and others who manage online ad platforms be able to “keep in the loop” with election-oversight authorities like the USA’s Federal Election Commission or the Australian Electoral Commission. Here, it can be used to identify inordinate political-donation and campaign-spending activity that political parties and others are engaging in.

Broadcast

Four Corners (ABC Australia) – Inside Facebook

iView – Click to view

Transcript

My Comments

I had just watched the Four Corners “Inside Facebook” episode on ABC TV Australia which touched on the issues and impact that Facebook was having concerning content that is made available on that platform. It was in relationship to recent questions concerning the Silicon Valley social-media and content-aggregation giants and what is their responsibility regarding content made available by their users.

I also saw the concepts that were raised in this episode coming to the fore over the past few weeks with the InfoWars conspiracy-theory site saga that was boiling over in the USA. There, concern was being raised about the vitriol that the InfoWars site was posting up especially in relationship to recent school shootings in that country. At the current time, podcast-content directories like Spotify and Apple iTunes were pulling podcasts generated by that site while

The telecast highlighted how the content moderation staff contracted by Facebook were handling questionable content like self-harm, bullying and hate speech.

For most of the time, Facebook took a content-moderation approach where the bare minimum action was required to deal with questionable content. This was because if they took a heavy-handed approach to censoring content that appeared on the platform, end-users would be drifting away from it. But recent scandals and issues like the Cambridge Analytica scandal and the allegations regarding fake news have been bringing Facebook on edge regarding this topic.

Drawing attention to and handling questionable content

At the moment, Facebook are outsourcing most of the content-moderation work to outside agencies and have been very secretive about how this is done. But the content-moderation workflow is achieved on a reactive basis in response to other Facebook users using the “report” function in the user-interface to draw their attention to questionable content.

This is very different to managing a small blog or forum which is something one person or a small number of people could do thanks to the small amount of traffic that these small Web presences could manage. Here, Facebook is having to engage these content-moderation agencies to be able to work at the large scale that they are working at.

The ability to report questionable content, especially abusive content, is compounded by a weak user-experience that is offered for reporting this kind of content. It is more so where Facebook is used on a user interface that is less than the full Web-based user experience such as some native mobile-platform apps.

This is because, in most democratic countries, social media unlike traditional broadcast media is not subject to government oversight and regulation. Nor is it subject to oversight by “press councils” like what would happen with traditional print media.

Handling content

When a moderator is faced with content that is identified as having graphic violence, they have the option to ignore the content – leave it as is on the platform, delete the content – remove it from the platform, or mark as disturbing – the content is subject to restrictions regarding who can see the content and how it is presented including a warning notice that requires the user to click on the notice before the content is shown. As well, they can notify the publisher who put up the content about the content and the action that has been done with it. In some cases, the content being “marked as disturbing” may be a method used to raise common awareness about the situation being portrayed in the content.

They also touched on dealing with visual content depicting child abuse. One of the factors raised is that the the more views that content depicting abuse multiplies the abuse factor against the victim of that incident.

As well, child-abuse content isn’t readily reported to law-enforcement authorities unless it is streamed live using Facebook’s live-video streaming function. This is because the video clip could be put up by someone at a prior time and on-shared by someone else or it could be a link to content already hosted somewhere else online. But Facebook and their content-moderating agencies engages child-safety experts as part of their moderating team to determine whether it should be reported to law enforcement (and which jurisdiction should handle it).

When facing content that depicts suicide, self-harm or similar situations, the moderating agencies treat these as high-priority situations. Here, if the content promotes this kind of self-destructive behaviour, it is deleted. On the other hand, other material is flagged as to show a “checkpoint” on the publisher’s Facebook user interface. This is where the user is invited to take advantage of mental-health resources local to them and are particular to their situation.

But it is a situation where the desperate Facebook user is posting this kind of content as a personal “cry for help” which isn’t healthy. Typically it is a way to let their social circle i.e. their family and friends know of their personal distress.

Another issue that has also been raised is the existence of underage accounts where children under 13 are operating a Facebook presence by lying about their age, But these accounts are only dealt with if a Facebook user draws attention to the existence of that account.

An advertising–driven platform

What was highlighted in the Four Corners telecast was that Facebook, like the other Silicon Valley social-media giants make most of their money out of on-site advertising. Here, the more engagement that end-users have with these social-media platforms, the more the advertising appears on the pages including the appearance of new ads which leads to more money made by the social media giant.

This is why some of the questionable content still exists on Facebook and similar platforms so as to increase engagement with these platforms. It is although most of us who use these platforms aren’t likely to actively seek this kind of content.

But this show hadn’t even touched on the concept of “brand safety” which is being raised in the advertising industry. This is the issue of where a brand’s image is likely to appear next to controversial content which could be seen as damaging to the brand’s reputation, and is a concept highly treasured by most consumer-facing brands maintaining the “friendly to family and business” image.

A very challenging task

Moderating staff will also find themselves in very mentally-challenging situations while they do this job because in a lot of cases, this kind of disturbing content can effectively play itself over and over again in their minds.

The hate speech quandary

The most contentious issue that Facebook, like the rest of the Social Web, is facing is hate speech. But what qualifies as hate speech and how obvious does it have to be before it has to be acted on? This broadcast drew attention initially to an Internet meme questioning “one’s (white) daughter falling in love with a black person” but doesn’t underscore an act of hatred. The factors that may be used as qualifiers may be the minority group, the role they are having in the accusation, the context of the message, along with the kind of pejorative terms used.

They are also underscoring the provision of a platform to host legitimate political debate. But Facebook can delete resources if a successful criminal action was taken against the publisher.

Facebook has a “shielded” content policy for highly-popular political pages, which is something similarly afforded to respected newspapers and government organisations; and such pages could be treated as if they are a “sacred cow”. Here, if there is an issue raised about the content, the complaint is taken to certain full-time content moderators employed directly by Facebook to determine what action should be taken.

A question that was raised in the context of hate speech was the successful criminal prosecution of alt-right activist Tommy Robinson for sub judice contempt of court in Leeds, UK. Here, he had used Facebook to make a live broadcast about a criminal trial in progress as part of his far-right agenda. But Twitter had taken down the offending content while Facebook didn’t act on the material. From further personal research on extant media coverage, he had committed a similar contempt-of-court offence in Canterbury, UK, thus underscoring a similar modus operandi.

A core comment that was raised about Facebook and the Social Web is that the more open the platform, the more likely one is to see inappropriate unpleasant socially-undesirable content on that platform.

But Facebook have been running a public-relations campaign regarding cleaning up its act in relation to the quality of content that exists on the platform. This is in response to the many inquiries it has been facing from governments regarding fake news, political interference, hate speech and other questionable content and practices.

Although Facebook is the common social-media platform in use, the issues draw out regarding the posting of inappropriate content also affect other social-media platforms and, to some extent, other open freely-accessible publishing platforms like YouTube. There is also the fact that these platforms can be used to link to content already hosted on other Websites like those facilitated by cheap or free Web-hosting services.

There may be some depression, suicide and related issues that I have covered in this article that may concern you or someone else using Facebook. Here are some numbers for relevant organisations in your area who may help you or the other person with these issues.