Author Archives: Squatter

Open letter to dorks at Timor Telecom

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One of my readers has brought this issue to my attention and it possibly explains why Dili-gence is invisible to Timor Telecom customers.  Apparently, this issue is not uncommon but it just requires “keeping up-to-date” with the state of play on internet IP address allocation.  Not surprisingly, this is what ISPs are meant to be good at.

In plain English, all visible computers on the internet have a unique number (ie IP address) which identifies that computer.  The hardware that shovels around messages on the internet (called routers) generally know where they need to send stuff based on these numbers.   When the numbering system was first set-up years ago, no-one could have predicted the massive growth in demand for numbers.  However, the people that defined the numbers had left a block of numbers as “reserved” for other uses.

Once the available numbers became scarce, the boys decided to release some of the reserved numbers.  Before then, the routers only needed to know about shovelling around data for the known available set of numbers.  When the “reserved” numbers were released, routers needed to be re-configured to recognise these additional numbers.  If you don’t do that, those new numbers remain unknown and internet traffic for those addresses goes nowhere.

Please refer to the following web sites :

For a general technical commentary, http://www.team-cymru.org/Services/Bogons/
For the timeline of release of new numbers, http://www.cymru.com/Documents/bogon-list.html

TT, could you please refer to the list of numbers in the “Bogon List” and re-configure your routers accordingly.  The IP address of Dili-gence was changed to an address in a range released on 27 March 2007.  I am happy to come over and do it for you.  A slab of Sagres Preta will do fine.

If you do not do so, you may be breaking a contractual obligation with your customers.

Is this OK, JH ?

Dili-gence down – Timor only

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I have had a very confusing week.  Dili-gence is not visible through any customer connected through Timor Telecom.  But for everyone else, it is fine.  A series of coincidences certainly confused me.

Firstly, my regular credit card payments to my hosting provider ceased because my credit card has expired.  So when the first problems started, I put them down to the provider shafting me.  Then I discover that coincidentally, my provider had shifted dili-gence to a new server at around the same time, so assumed that must be the problem.  Then I have an email trade with the provider and resolve the credit card issue but I am told there has been no downgrading in my service at all and as far as they are concerned, my site is running fine.

I check with people out of the country.  Yep all is well out there.  I still get people constantly telling me they can’t see dili-gence from here in Dili.  I check IP addresses in case it is an IP address issue.  No, both TT customers and others report the same IP address.  If the IP address had changed a week ago (with the server change), it should have filtered through the DNS system within 24 hours and obviously did.

What can I conclude but either TT is blocking the site,  or their web page caching server is stuffed and needs re-starting.  I can’t think of anything else.  I can’t believe the first option is the case as I doubt TT have the skills to do it.  Stuffing up a caching server configuration makes more sense to me.

So if you are wondering how some people can access it here, there are a number of organisations who are permitted to bypass TT, such as the UN, World Bank,  ADB, embassies, country-based aid organisations and the odd grey market connection is being in slipped in.  I even recall the government office that had internet supplied via an informal cable strung over a fence from a rather large organisation.

Cuban Doctors

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I’ll get to the Cuban doctors but I was visiting the National Hospital during the week and was gobsmacked to find that the huge number of IDPs (internally displaced persons) have disappeared.  I know this was causing a major problem.  Imagine running a hospital with many of the bits of green space between buildings and pathways filled in with people living in tents.  It had been like that for about 2 years.

Dili National Hospital is a sprawling campus of ground level buildings in various states of repair and renovation.  New parts have been built in the last year or so and they look quite reasonable and even more so without the mini-tent city to navigate around.

The removal of the IDPs must have happened within the last 2 weeks.  There will be fewer chickens wandering the grounds and one suspects a vast improvement in general sanitation around the place.

I understand that the hospital system relies quite heavily on the input of Cuban doctors.  There was an interesting documentary on TV a few weeks back which helped fill in a few information gaps for me on the Cuban health education system.  Cuban doctors work for very little money and a lot of them are sent around the world.

There are over 250 Cuban doctors here in TL, practicing in hospitals all over the country.  Their salaries and flights out here are paid by the Cuban government but accommodation and local transport is provided by the TL government.  Some say the whole health system depends on the Cubans to keep it running at all.

Web hosting problems

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I am not sure how long Dili-gence will be alive on the web as I have a problem with making payments to my web hosting provider.  I am a bit out of the loop with regard to just how one gets a new credit card delivered these days.

My credit card expires May 2008 and I am waiting for the new one.  About 3 weeks ago, I faxed a confirmation to OZ confirming that I do indeed live out of the country and yes, it is OK to deliver it overseas.  Since then, nothing.  I am not sure what I am meant to do next but nothing has happened and until I get my credit card with the magical numbers on the back, I can’t make my web hosting provider payment.

I have now received an email saying my web hosting subscription is cancelled but Dili-gence is still there/here.  I have emailed a grovelling reply but am stuck until Monday when I guess I will have to call OZ to work it all out.

These are just some of the things that can make life quite frustrating living here.  Boy, am I looking forward to the $50 worth of phone calls to sort it out.

On top of all that, I have been having trouble posting most of this week and my theory is that the release of Windows XP Service Pack 3 via Windows Update on Tuesday has meant any PCs connected to the internet with Automatic Updates set to on, will be downloading furiously.  Thus grinding some parts of the internet to a halt.  Well, its my theory.

Bar/restaurant closures

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Apparently, Fat Boys Bar opened for the last time last night.  Cheap beers were had and lots of snack foods.

About a week ago, the Thai Jasmine restaurant closed and the sign on the gate says something like : “Closed.  Re-opening at the end of May as Tuk Tuk down on the beach”.  I believe this is somewhere down near Hotel California.

Tea and biscuits concluded

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You could hardly have missed the commotion today as Gastao Salsinha and 11 of his “rebel” mates were escorted into the “Palacio do Governo” (Parliament House and associated Ministries). It was not the time to be out on the road around midday when the howling vehicles streamed in, the sirens blew and the chopper escort flapped in.

An hour or so later, it appeared to be repeated as the “rebels” were escorted to the Memorial Hall for a de-briefing by the “Joint Command” – the name for the combined F-FDTL (Timorese military) and PNTL (Timorese police).

Hopefully, all states of emergency and curfews can now be lifted and the coffee season can get underway, particularly in the Gleno/Ermera area.

Hopefully, some of the roadblocks (ie near the President’s home and around the Memorial Hall area) will be lifted. While the road out to the Christ Rei statue to the east is in absolutely marvelous condition after its recent re-surfacing, some of the normally quiet roads around the Memorial Hall traffic deviations have copped a pounding.

The road upgrade from Pig Bridge to the Hera turn-off is magnificent compared to what it was 2 months ago. What was becoming a torture track for the cyclist is now a smooth bitumen race-track all the way. Now if the President could just acquire a few more residences around town and share out his occupancy between them, then maybe we can have a few more road improvements.

On another note, I made the mistake (again) of declaring wet season over, only to be savaged again last evening by a proverbial bucketing *. Back to the knitting.

* Bucketing – a quaint term for acquiring extreme wetness in a similar manner to having a bucket of water poured over one’s head. Also used to describe being the victim of a verbal assault as if a full bucket of insults were poured on one’s head. Take your pick.

Salsinha almost in custody

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Reports suggest Gastao Salsinha is sort-of, almost in custody.  Given he has promised to hand himself in about 57 times, I am not giving this “just about, almost, anytime soon” stuff much credence until he is seen in Dili having tea and biscuits with the PM.

Ermera is still in a curfew condition and I guess that will not be lifted until Senor Salsinha is back here in Dili – plus a few of his mates.  Ermera is one of the main centres of the coffee industry and the harvest is due to start in a matter of weeks.  It will be a good thing to get all of this curfew stuff out of the way before then or people will get mighty cheesed off.  I understand that once coffee processing gets underway, its a 24 hour operation – hard to do with a curfew in place.

It has now not rained in Dili for a week and the weather pattern is pretty much dry season stuff now.  The air is not so humid and the dust levels are starting to get noticeable again.  Take a good long look at the lush green vegetation right now before it slowly slips away for 6 months.

State of emergency lifted, replaced by state of bamboozlement

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Unless I am sadly mistaken, the state of emergency and associated curfew has been lifted thus enabling one to officially gather in large groups and stay out late. Around Ermera, the state of emergency remains.

I hope this means the Timorese military cool it a bit and stop this confounded racing at high speed around town with lights flashing just to get back for lunch. I hope it means one sees less of these guys with loaded (and safety off) rifles swaggering around the place.

President Horta gave a speech today in Parliament and I have only got snippets courtesy of a Portuguese to English machine translation. Lots of religious talk and lots of amnesties being tossed around like confetti. The follow-up to all this will be interesting.

I don’t know about anyone else out there, but I am completely bamboozled by the President’s statements of late. I just can’t follow the flow at all.

The quake

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The media is swamped with articles about the big shake here in Dili.  In January 2006, I commented on a big shake at that time.  But I have a less inspiring story this time.

I was mooching around the house this morning doing stuff and left my morning shower until I had done a bit of sweating first.  There I was showering away, head in a lather doing the shampoo job when the more attractive half of the house rushed in to share earthquake experiences.  Apparently the place swayed and shook and all loose items had a bit of a sway/shake/rattle.

Being in the middle of a good shampoo job on my head, I knew nothing about it at all.   Nothing broke, no tsunami, I must have been on the Planet Zog.  That’s some good shampoo !!