Author Archives: Joe Wein

About Joe Wein

Software developer and anti-spam activist

Fake news / “work at home mom” job scams

Posted on by
12

During the last couple of weeks I have listed hundreds of domains that are part of an ongoing spam campaign advertising bogus “Work at home jobs”. The websites advertised by these spams were designed to look like they belong to commercial TV channels, sometimes illegally including the CNBC logo and many of the domain names contain terms like “cnbc”, “nbc”, “abc” or “news”.

Here is a sample screen shot:


One of the scam sites: cnbcwebsource20.com

The fact that these people illegally use trademarks of major corporations should already be a major red flag. This is not just some dubious get-rich-quick scheme, is is the work of a criminal operation. The sites are hosted in different countries, including the US, Russia, China and Romania. The registrant details that can be looked up via WHOIS often only list a proxy service.

Here is text from a typical site used in this scam:

news8reports.com | Work At Home Mom Makes $6,498/Month Part-Time

Can $97 Really Turn Into $6795? We Investigated…
News 8 Reports Investigates Online Work at Home Programs…

Are There Any Legit Work At Home Programs?

With unemployment numbers extremely high, everybody is looking to make a few extra bucks these days. Many people are turning to work at home programs… But, which ones are REAL and which ones are SCAMS?

We just had to find out… So we set out to do some research ourselves. We came across a blog by Jessica Holmes of Tokyo, 40.

Oh, Tokyo? By sheer coincidence that’s where I live. But looking at the source of the website, I could see that the HTML code simply looks up the IP address from which the site is accessed and outputs the city associated with it. If you were reading the same article from an IP address in Baltimore it would say that “Jessica Holmes” lived in Baltimore!

That little bit of cheating and the attempt to be mistaken for commercial TV channel websites are just the tip of the iceberg of this criminal scam. In an attempt to avoid being caught by spam filters, many of the spams abuse URL shortening services such as bit.ly or redi.ec to hide the domain names of the fake news sites that are getting blacklisted by us. Many of the spams appear to have been sent from hacked Hotmail, Gmail and AOL mail accounts. The spam appears designed to get unemployed people to pay $97 dollars upfront (“Can $97 Really Turn Into $6795?” headline on the fake site) in the hope of being able to support their families with whatever is offered, when they’re really only going to support the criminals who run this scam.

Here are the WHOIS details of the above mentioned site:

Registrant:
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States

Registered through: GoDaddy.com, Inc. (http://www.godaddy.com)
Domain Name: NEWS8REPORTS.COM
Created on: 30-Jan-10
Expires on: 30-Jan-11
Last Updated on: 28-Sep-10

Administrative Contact:
Private, Registration NEWS8REPORTS.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax — (480) 624-2598

Technical Contact:
Private, Registration NEWS8REPORTS.COM@domainsbyproxy.com
Domains by Proxy, Inc.
DomainsByProxy.com
15111 N. Hayden Rd., Ste 160, PMB 353
Scottsdale, Arizona 85260
United States
(480) 624-2599 Fax — (480) 624-2598

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.WIREDTREE.COM
NS2.WIREDTREE.COM

Be extremely skeptical of any job offers that involve any of the following:

  1. Anything sent as spam (unsolicited bulk email)
  2. Work at home jobs that supposedly pay thousands of dollars a month that anybody can do
  3. Upfront payments or purchases in order to get a job (in any real job the employer pays you, not vice versa!)
  4. Hard sales tactics, such as web sites that pop up a dialog when you’re trying to close them
  5. Signs of deception or hidden identities.

URL shortening abuse examples:

cnbcfinancenow21.tk = bit.ly/cYANOE
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/cVE04V
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/9am423
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/9yLTQz
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/ajmIpO
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/dehCDk
nbcnow28.tk = is.gd/h1cqG
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/a7azZN
nbcnow28.tk = is.gd/h1cbJ
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/a81vu0
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/9fe1sd
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/aROkLP
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/aZSKYx
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/9DCGzQ
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/9avkAn
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/dcEmpU
cnbc2.com = bit.ly/9lXpMJ
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/bjI19K
nbc39news.net = bit.ly/alVIfU
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/cTHQ2Y
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/aYrKCa
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/dieJ5R
nbc39news.net = bit.ly/dbkWxV
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/9uOD6H
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/c7gCyu
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/gqRtBZ
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/f5VsQz
cnbc14news.net = bit.ly/fot9an
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/i0jOK2
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/gFJe8e
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/fgpSVG
nbc7newsmedia.net = bit.ly/9lBObh
cnbc3news.net = bit.ly/eGEYhq
cnbc3news.net = bit.ly/g2u93V
msnbcnews4.net = bit.ly/fGupR0
msnbcnews4.net = bit.ly/hq2gX3
msnbcnews4.net = bit.ly/i8iYaK
nbcnews7.net = bit.ly/h0Kw5O
cnbc3news8.com = bit.ly/hnQyy7
cnbc3.com = bit.ly/hIxAuy
msnbcnews11.net = bit.ly/i6CZN3
msnbcnews11.net = bit.ly/fmRgsD
nbcnews12.net = bit.ly/gANdZw
msnbcnews11.net = bit.ly/gadsv7
msnbcnews11.net = bit.ly/hBXuRH
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/eUPW7N
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/edNttc
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/elDyof
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/fAe9oj
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/hg6Kvi
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/h6bTfo
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/gpuFHr
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/idIJoX
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/hOBmjw
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/gLbsrp
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/eq12aU
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/e43Iib
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/dPKBna
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/e10nTV
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/f5Z7rq
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/guMMYG
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/ez7AJF
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/grGu4j
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/gNwG4N
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/hdv9Xr
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/eMp8ce
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/hLrMSK
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/dKWCHA
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/eDe0ud
cnbc7.com = bit.ly/ft1H3q
cnbc7.org = bit.ly/fGPn0R
cnbc7.org = idek.net/3dtS
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/gmv7PJ
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/i5dFZm
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/eQLUik
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/hJnzSD
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/fpBgps
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/hYbl1G
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/f75etY
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/i0DGVt
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/h1rrCw
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/gEdAoY
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/gm3Ti8
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/ihbu2g
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/hj7GKp
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/gkbCcG
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/e8RuVs
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/hoVraB
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/hFLA4Q
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/h9lmA3
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/f082ws
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/gfhNP6
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/emkJsL
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/hoVraB
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/hFLA4Q
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/gfhNP6
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/hoVraB
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/gfhNP6
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/gysB7G
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/hoVraB
nbcbeforehotmail.info = bit.ly/gfhNP6
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/gysB7G
cnbc20medianet.com = bit.ly/gfgAUo
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/g2xI9o
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/eL2oQx
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/hTX1Tr
msn7nbc.info = bit.ly/eBVtbo
polonbcnews.info = bit.ly/fkXMia
msn7nbc.info = bit.ly/hQDC2d
polonbcnews.info = bit.ly/fC0Gvj
msn7nbc.info = bit.ly/fGAVTr
polonbcnews.info = bit.ly/fBGs29
msn7nbc.info = bit.ly/eIgvhO
msn7nbc.info = bit.ly/dFjrGX
msn7nbc.info = bit.ly/dYIcw5
msn7nbc.info = bit.ly/gn896l
msn7nbc.info = bit.ly/er1dSj
msn7nbc.info = bit.ly/g61R4u
news42local.info = is.gd/gMaJL
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraYjlSnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/Ultra0Delnews23
newsfamily7.com = a.nf/2tmNJV
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/Ultra6sPYnews23
newsfamily7.com = a.nf/2tmNJV
news42local.net = is.gd/gMtdl
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltradmSJnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraMfIanews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrameYanews23
news42local.net = bit.ly/ctBb1V
news42local.info = bit.ly/d1MSVM
news42local.co.uk = is.gd/gNatd
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltratIfOnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrabS2znews23
news42local.co.uk = is.gd/gNiZ6
news42local.co.uk = is.gd/gNrYT
news42local.co.uk = bit.ly/bw7lIF
news42local.co.uk = is.gd/gNuTt
news42local.net = bit.ly/a7lyX5
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraOqI9news23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraJ5s7news23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrameYanews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrakP48news23
news42local.biz = bit.ly/9CZnHc
news42local.net = bit.ly/9o9F07
news42local.net = bit.ly/b4VA1w
news42local.co.uk = is.gd/gNF4a
news42local.co.uk = bit.ly/aqgrW8
news42local.net = bit.ly/cvFRT2
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraMfIanews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraCWiRnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/Ultrap5RVnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltratbGGnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/Ultran79Unews23
news42local.co.uk = is.gd/gNMW5
newsfornow1.net = is.gd/gMuAg
news42local.co.uk = is.gd/gNPVV
news42local.biz = bit.ly/bfcDWc
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrajUqYnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrahiT7news23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraJFv2news23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrafG3rnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/Ultra0TQWnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraaRW8news23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/Ultra5xnEnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraXt90news23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrafKw7news23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrabJQbnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraSsFOnews23
news88local.com = is.gd/gPDsy
news88local.biz = is.gd/gOPq1
news88local.org = is.gd/gOPUX
news88local.com = is.gd/gOQI1
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraffIjnews23
news88local.com = is.gd/gOXqs
news88local.com = is.gd/gOXXx
news88local.org = is.gd/gP4Aj
news88local.org = is.gd/gP6yN
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltraGUWenews23
news88local.net = is.gd/gPQ1S
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/Ultrabjwynews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/Ultragxl9news23
news88local.net = is.gd/gPftN
news88local.org = is.gd/gPgb1
news88local.org = is.gd/gPlkm
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltragLHCnews23
news88local.biz = is.gd/gPoBK
news88local.com = is.gd/gPqMb
news88local.biz = is.gd/gPwP4
news88local.org = bit.ly/bttwD6
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/UltrazuZWnews23
ultranews23.com = tiny.cc/Ultrax70Dnews23
news88local.biz = bit.ly/dCR623
news88local.biz = bit.ly/ajGmui
newsfamily7.com = a.nf/2tmNJV
news88local.com = bit.ly/aOBoYO
newsfamily7.com = a.nf/2tmNJV
news88local.net = bit.ly/9C49kE
news88local.biz = bit.ly/cJqASy
news88local.biz = bit.ly/9EXjGv
news88local.net = bit.ly/9AbRRU
news88local.com = bit.ly/bMxJFA
news88local.biz = bit.ly/9TPphi
news88local.com = bit.ly/c2aoIR
news88local.com = bit.ly/cwUiTp
news88local.org = bit.ly/ceXIWe
news88local.org = bit.ly/ayN7mB
news88local.org = bit.ly/dwGy6e
news88local.net = bit.ly/blEQQW
newsfamily7.com = a.nf/2tmNJV
newschan42.com = a.nf/kBJUtc
newsfamily7.com = a.nf/2tmNJV
newsfornow1.net = bit.ly/9r6UkK
thenews4later.net = bit.ly/9C9ZPP
local50news.com = bit.ly/aH9MEQ
local50news.com = bit.ly/czTx2t
thenews4later.net = bit.ly/9C9ZPP
local50news.com = bit.ly/cWQ62S
local50news.com = bit.ly/9mUM9t
local50news.com = bit.ly/dwFAzE
ultranews23.com = a.nf/kV7WWd
thenews4later.net = bit.ly/bOdJk8
businessnews10.tk = is.gd/hleaz
ultranews23.com = korta.nu/f84ji
newscenter10.co.cc = is.gd/hmLhQ
businessnews21.tk = bit.ly/9o2AvQ
cnn65news.com = bit.ly/ciDaWR
cnn65news.com = bit.ly/9ieRys
ultranews23.com = retwt.me/1PKxk
local87news.com = bit.ly/cdyzi5
local87news.com = bit.ly/9Y5OEA
local87news.com = bit.ly/cdyzi5
local87news.com = bit.ly/9Y5OEA
local87news.com = bit.ly/cdyzi5
local87news.com = bit.ly/9WlaQT
local87news.com = bit.ly/cdyzi5
ultranews23.com = retwt.me/1PKxk
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/bjI19K
nbc39news.net = bit.ly/alVIfU
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/cTHQ2Y
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/aYrKCa
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/dieJ5R
nbc39news.net = bit.ly/dbkWxV
local99news.net = bit.ly/ac1Nt7
ultranews23.com = retwt.me/1PKxk
nbc40news.net = bit.ly/9uOD6H
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbj
local99news.org = bit.ly/bm8NPu
local99news.org = bit.ly/bFi8J6
local99news.com = bit.ly/bCzIrN
local99news.com = bit.ly/ae3EY2
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/c7gCyu
local99news.net = bit.ly/9PCUP4
local99news.com = bit.ly/dgeAan
local99news.org = bit.ly/9wqppM
local99news.net = bit.ly/aTLwlD
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbl
local99news.com = bit.ly/dBacHx
local99news.org = bit.ly/chHCja
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/c7gCyu
local99news.org = bit.ly/bCB5uB
local99news.com = bit.ly/9IBs4W
local99news.org = bit.ly/dsl0Om
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbj
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/gqRtBZ
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/f5VsQz
local90news.net = bit.ly/gKy1NM
cnbc14news.net = bit.ly/fot9an
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/i0jOK2
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbp
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/gFJe8e
nbc41news.net = bit.ly/fgpSVG
nbc7newsmedia.net = bit.ly/9lBObh
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbn
local46news.org = bit.ly/fcPLLc
local46news.org = bit.ly/hGN6E0
cnbc3news.net = bit.ly/eGEYhq
cnbc3news.net = bit.ly/g2u93V
ultranews23.com = retwt.me/1PKxk
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbk
ultranews23.com = retwt.me/1PKxk
msnbcnews4.net = bit.ly/fGupR0
msnbcnews4.net = bit.ly/hq2gX3
ultranews23.com = retwt.me/1PKxk
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbj
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbp
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbk
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbl
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbm
msnbcnews4.net = bit.ly/i8iYaK
ultranews23.com = bacn.me/jrbl
nbcnews7.net = bit.ly/h0Kw5O
cnbc3news8.com = bit.ly/hnQyy7
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/gnP0r0
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/fr2era
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/eLpV1n
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/gT7zEx
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/evDdv9
abcnews11.net = bit.ly/i0AdRc
abcnews11.net = bit.ly/hB00NV
abcnews11.net = bit.ly/haD230
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/eC6Nib
abcnews11.net = bit.ly/eH1AEF
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/gdA3tj
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/hTHdgL
abcnews11.net = bit.ly/ggMB1g
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/dVHHsG
abcnews11.net = bit.ly/f34jVH
abcnews12.net = bit.ly/hMf52P
abcnews11.net = bit.ly/fycYPy
msnbcnews11.net = bit.ly/i6CZN3
msnbcnews11.net = bit.ly/fmRgsD
nbcnews12.net = bit.ly/gANdZw
msnbcnews11.net = bit.ly/gadsv7
cbsnews12.net = bit.ly/hurzVY
msnbcnews11.net = bit.ly/hBXuRH
cbsnews12.net = bit.ly/hjGq7d
cbsnews12.net = bit.ly/gWwBD8
cbsnews12.net = bit.ly/fj1m2B
here4newslocal.net = bit.ly/hQ68Yq
nb18newstoday.info = i5.be/SY6
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
newswebguide.com = tinyurl.com/6x2b4qf
cnn65news.net = bacn.me/k55j
cnn65news.net = bacn.me/k59p
global81news.net = bacn.me/k6mp
newschan42.com = a.nf/lrW38G
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
newschan42.com = a.nf/lrW38G
walletnews1.info = bit.ly/eRuN9c
newschan42.com = a.nf/lrW38G
local22news.biz = bacn.me/kbzd
newschan42.com = a.nf/lrW38G
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
newschan42.com = a.nf/lrW38G
local22news.biz = bit.ly/dGHb1x
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
ultranews23.com = a.nf/GleoGo
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
ultranews23.com = a.nf/GleoGo
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
ultranews23.com = a.nf/GleoGo
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
ultranews23.com = a.nf/GleoGo
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
ultranews23.com = a.nf/GleoGo
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
ultranews23.com = a.nf/GleoGo
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1
ultranews23.com = a.nf/GleoGo
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/gysB7G
ultranews23.com = a.nf/GleoGo
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/gysB7G
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/g2xI9o
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/eL2oQx
bannewsnbc.info = bit.ly/hTX1Tr
polonbcnews.info = bit.ly/fkXMia
polonbcnews.info = bit.ly/fC0Gvj
polonbcnews.info = bit.ly/fBGs29
usnews3.com = a.nf/K3gdA1

Hosted in Russia:

news7bfge.com
news7ffvg.com
news7ghuf.com
news7hdtr.com
news7hhgs.com
news7hjkl.com
news7kjih.com
news7mnvb.com
news7oksi.com
news7oplk.com
news7riue.com
news7ttdd.com
news7tuij.com
news7uuij.com
news7vfys.com
news7connect.com
news7link.com
news7sync.com
news7technology.com
news7udomain.com
news7uinternet.com
news7usource.com
news7utechnology.com
accessnews11.com
b2news11.com
buynews11.com
bytenews11.com
compunews11.com
connectnews11.com
cybernews11.com
directnews11.com
domainnews11.com
e-news11.com
enews11.com
eznews11.com
i-news11.com
inews11oi.com
infounews11a.com
internetnews11.com
internews11.com
news11asuy.com
news11hjgf.com
news11iuyr.com
news11kdjc.com
news11qoiu.com
news11quyw.com
news11qwuo.com
news11vyru.com

Hosted in Hong Kong:

buycnbc1aok.com
internetcnbc1wo.com
procnbc1wo.com
sellcnbc1wo.com

Hosted in the USA:

cnbc20market.com
cnbcjobs20.com
cnbc20early.com

Fake diploma spam (1-954-537-3038, 1-801-461-5023)

Posted on by
13

Here are some examples of diploma spam that we are seeing in our spam traps recently. I wrote about this type of spam four years ago.

Get a Degree in 4 to 6 Weeks with our program!

~We offer a program that will help ANYoNE with professional experience
get a 100% verified Degree:
Doctorate (PHD), Bachelors, Masters
– Think about it…
Within a few weeks, you can become a college graduate!- Follow YoUR Dreams- Live a better life by earning or upgrading your degree

This is a rare chance to make a right move and receive your due
benefits… if you are qualified but are lacking that piece of paper,
Get one from us in a fraction of the time.

~CALL FoR A FREE CoNSULTATIoN~

1-801-461-5023

It is your move…
Make the right decision.

Due to time zone variations across the country, a representative may not be in the office at the time of your call.
If that is the case please leave us a message with your name and phone number and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Do Not Reply to this Email.
We do not reply to text inquiries, and our server will reject all response traffic.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

and

Get a Degree in 4 to 6 Weeks with our program!

~We offer a program that will help ANYoNE with professional experience
get a 100% verified Degree:
Doctorate (PHD), Bachelors, Masters
– Think about it…
Within a few weeks, you can become a college graduate!- Follow YoUR Dreams- Live a better life by earning or upgrading your degree

This is a rare chance to make a right move and receive your due
benefits… if you are qualified but are lacking that piece of paper,
Get one from us in a fraction of the time.

~CALL FoR A FREE CoNSULTATIoN~

1-801-461-5023

It is your move…
Make the right decision.

Due to time zone variations across the country, a representative may not be in the office at the time of your call.
If that is the case please leave us a message with your name and phone number and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Do Not Reply to this Email.
We do not reply to text inquiries, and our server will reject all response traffic.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.

University diplomas advertised in spam, usually only mentioning a contact phone number which takes a voice mail, are not worth the paper they are printed on. People get such diplomas from unaccredited “universities” by paying thousands of dollars, regardless of their academic record. If an employer you’re trying to impress this way is not familiar with the institution and bothers to do a little bit of research they will consider you a highly unethical person they would never want to do business with.

Don’t pay for a fake diploma. You’d get better value for money buying toilet paper (cheaper, softer, does not damage your career).

FTTH (FLET’S HIKARI) with DD-WRT and OpenWRT

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I recently changed from cable internet to fiber-to-the home (FTTH). The results are positive, even though the switch-over was not smooth. FLET’S HIKARI NEXT is a service operated by NTT East, Japan that provides speeds up to 200 Mbps for downloads and up to 100 Mbps for uploads over a fiber optics cable. The service also supports telephones and TV.

The idiosyncratic name of the service with the apostrophe is probably supposed to mean “Let’s go Fiber optics” and is typically Japanese (you’ll find many “Let’s …” slogans in not always grammatically correct English here). “Hikari” is Japanese for “light”.

For the 10 years that I lived in Yokohama I was a happy customer of itscom, a cable TV company and broadband internet service provider. Access was fast and reliable. What’s more, the IP address assigned to my router by the cable modem did not change for years, unless I explicitly forced a change by resetting the cable modem or I changed to a different router without cloning the MAC address of the previous router. That makes it easy to point a domain at the router, for example for hosting a website with virtually unlimited disk space on a PC on the LAN. IP address assignment happened via DHCP which is the default for most routers and PCs and basically involves no setup.

When I moved to Tokyo, I couldn’t stay with itscom because it didn’t cover our area. My son urged me to switch to FLET’S because it was faster. Also many electronic retailers offered discounts of about 30,000 yen (about US$360 right now) for FLET’S sign-ups when purchasing computers, TVs and other items. Nevertheless, I decided to avoid the potential pitfalls of switching technology and went for J:COM, a provider using similar technology to itscom. It was installed and worked OK.

Then we discovered that we had virtually no mobile phone reception in our new house. We have several iPhones, which in Japan are available exclusively through Softbank Mobile. Like ATT in the US, Softbank’s phone network does not have the best reputation for signal coverage. I guess that’s why both companies were keen to secure a deal with Apple for the iPhone.

For customers with reception problems Softbank Mobile offers a device called Home Antenna FT, which is like a small version of the base stations used outdoors, but covering only one home and hooked up via broadband. The catch was that they had only been installing these units for customers that used Yahoo BB ADSL or FLET’S HIKARI. They had no existing agreement with J:COM and no Home Antenna FT’s had been installed at J:COM cable customers before. So I finally decided I would make the switch and signed up for FLET’S HIKARI NEXT, even though I’d have to pay a fee for premature cancellation of the J:COM contract (J:COM did make an agreement with Softbank Mobile, but it was announced only after I had already signed the new contracts). While NTT East provides the fiber optics line and adapter, a separate company provides the Internet service and there are about 10 of them to chose from. Right now BB Excite is the cheapest (525 yen per month). OCN is a provider owned by NTT. We signed up for @T-COM for one year (1050 yen per month).

All the hardware was installed and tested, leaving the existing J:COM hookup largely undisturbed and available as a fallback position if I had trouble with FTTH setup. I was glad I did that. I reconfigured and connected my existing router, a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 running open source DD-WRT firmware, from DHCP to PPPoE and entered the login user name and password sent by @T-COM. Then I released and renewed IP addresses from my PCs, but it wasn’t working.

Every time I made even minor changes to the router settings and applied them, the IP address on the WAN changed as PPPoE was renegotiated on initialization. This had a knock-on effect. I was using an ipv6 tunnel through Hurricane Electric, which lets me test out ipv6 specific software, but their tunnel can not route ipv6 traffic to me without knowing my ipv4 address. Every time my IP address changes I have to send an HTTP GET request to their server using a special URL that identifies my ipv6 tunnel. I had ipv6 set up in the router and it looked like every time the tunnel broke, DHCP stopped working in the router, which means the whole LAN fell apart. This had even happened to me itscom once, but there it was a rare problem as the IP address usually was very long lived.

So I tried my other router, a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH running open source OpenWRT. After setting it up for PPPoE and connecting it, the PC ended up with a 192.168.1.5 address, in a different subnet from the router and looking at 192.168.1.1 I got the ONU, not the router, just as if the router was not providing DHCP and NAT but letting the ONU provide DHCP. I checked all the settings and tried many permutations, but no luck. At some point I could no longer see the SSID of the WHR-HP-G54 when scanning from my Vista laptop, only the WZR-HP-G300NH so I thought I had to get that one working.

At midnight I reconnected the WHR-HP-G54 to the J:COM cable modem, restarted the router and the PCs and had a working system again, but no joy with FLET’S yet.

The next day I tried more things with the OpenWRT router before finally going back to the WHR-HP-G54 (DD-WRT). I gave up on ipv6 and disabled it. I managed to resolve the DNS problem by rebooting. For the occasional IP address changes I set up a batch job on a PC that monitors for external IP changes and runs a script at my registrar (regfish.com) to update the addresses for various dynamic domains so they would always become accessible again within minutes of any change.

Results

OpenWRT did not play well with PPPoE on FLET’S. I got much better results using DD-WRT, at least after disabling the Hurricane Electric ipv6 tunnel support (the 6to4 tunnel broken by the endpoint IP address change affected radvd, which was needed for DHCP, so the clients had problems with IP addresses or DNS servers that weren’t assigned).

Without ipv6, occasional IP address changes were inconvenient but solvable using dynamic DNS support at my DNS provider / registrar.

Both download and upload speed was significanty improved:

  • Speed using J:COM, using PowerLAN between the PC and the router:
    6.49 Mbps download, 6.24 Mbps upload, 12 ms ping time
  • Speed using FLET’S, using PowerLAN between the PC and the router:
    13.47 Mbps download, 11.39 Mbps upload, 11 ms ping time
  • Speed using FLET’S, using Ethernet cable between the PC and the router:
    24.47 Mbps download, 18.67 upload, 9 ms ping time

While I’m using PowerLAN, download and upload speed has approximately doubled while ping times have not changed much. The changing IP address has been inconvenient, but I could solved that using dynamic IP support at my registrar, who prevides the DNS service for the domain.

Duplicate networks with same connection / SSID in Vista

While trying to configure the routers for the new internet connection, I ended up with multiple instances of the same Wireless Network Connection showing (identified by one SSID, “DD-WRT-G54” in this example). See the screen shot below from a notebook running Windows Vista.

duplicate network connections

When I tried to remove either of them, both disappeared. When I then scanned for networks and it found it again, two copies would pop up again. Basically it activates and deactivates by whether or not the connection with the matching SSID has been added or not. If you have multiple networks that reference the same connection, adding or removing will always add or remove them together, it won’t get rid of just the unnecessary duplicates.

I never could figure out what caused it, but I found how to fix it:

To get down to a single network per connection again, click the Configure link in the screen. It will then give you an option to either merge multiple networks into one or to delete specific networks. Either will serve the purpose!

Photographs

A new fiber optical cable was installed from a junction box three houses away and hung along the phone lines on the power poles outside. The cable is thinner than an Ethernet or antenna cable, only about as thick as a USB cable.

installing the cable on the electricity pole

The cable entered the house through a cable duct meant for the telephone. The duct was still empty because the existing landline was through the CATV cable.

cable ducts: fiber and phone on the right

Here is the boxed Optical Network Unit (ONU) that converts the optical signals to Ethernet, analog phone and TV signals (and vice versa).

PR-S300SE - Optical Network Unit (ONU)

Here is the small cabinet off our entrance with the ONU, the broadband router and a cable modem and cable phone adapter from the previous provider.

ONU, router and cable equipment

The return of the most robust router (WHR-HP-G54 / DD-WRT)

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There, I’ve done it: I replaced my fancy new broadband router, a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH that supports 802.11n (up to 300 Mbps) with an older model that I had first purchased two years ago, the WHR-HP-G54 (802.11b/g, up to 54 Mbps). Besides supporting the newer, faster, better wireless standard, the newer router had a faster CPU, a USB port and much more RAM and ROM that should make it much more expandable. The trouble was, it was not as robust as the The most robust router I ever used, the WHR-HP-G54. Both routers support DD-WRT and OpenWRT, GNU/Linux-based open source router firmware.

First I had lots of problems with the WZR-HP-G300NH under DD-WRT, which apparently wasn’t ready for prime time on this router yet. The signal was too weak, I couldn’t connect from some parts of the building. Then I switched to OpenWRT and things looked better, but then I kept losing wireless connectivity on all mobile computers and smartphones in the building at random intervals. Only a router reset would allow them to reconnect, there was no other cure. Perhaps that would have been tolerable when it happened once a week, but it seemed to get worse. Finally, after having to reboot the router three times in one day I had enough. I found one supplier that still had stocks of the old WHR-HP-G54 and promptly ordered one.

The new old router arrived two days later. I only briefly accessed it from a PC without a WAN connection as a sanity check, before flashing it with dd-wrt.v24_mini_generic.bin using TFTP and then dd-wrt.v24-10070_crushedhat_4MB.bin using the DD-WRT web interface. I did perform a 30-30-30 reset after the mini flash. After the second flash I restored an NVRAM backup from the previous router of the same type saved back in June from the same firmware. Then I cloned the MAC address of the WAN port of my WZR-HP-G300NH so the latest router could keep on using the same broadband IP acquired via DHCP by its predecessor. After moving the WAN and LAN cables from the old router to the new one, everything just worked, including my ipv6 setup via Hurricane Electric. I just had to connect the wireless clients to the new SSID. Since then I have not reset the router once.

When new versions of DD-WRT and/or OpenWRT come out for the WZR-HP-G300NH I may give it a try again, but more likely I’ll just keep it as spare. I expect my second WHR-HP-G54 to work every bit as well as my first one. I don’t know how much the software was to blame and how much the hardware for the disappointing results with the newer design, but suspect that 802.11n may be too complex for its own good. There has to be a reason why it remained stuck in “Draft N” stage for so long…

I will pick a reliable router like the WHR-HP-G54 running DD-WRT over one that has a more fancy specification any day because reliability is what it takes to get the job done. If you can’t find the WHR-HP-G54, another good basic choice is the WRT54GL that also supports DD-WRT, but unfortunately it is not sold here in Japan and Amazon.com won’t ship it here from the U.S.

See also:

Canon PowerShot S95 vs DSLR

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Three months ago one of my brothers visited me from Germany and we had a great time together, but somehow in between taking him to Meiji Shrine, Harajuku, Asakusa, Kamakura and Mt Fuji, my old Sony DSC-W80 digital camera went absent without leave: It was there one day and I couldn’t find it the next day. It never showed up again and I’m not sure exactly where or how I lost it.

To be perfectly honest, the Sony DSC-W80 had been actually my least favourite camera so far, mostly because of its poor indoor / low-light performance. I was almost glad to have been presented with an excuse to start looking for a better replacement, even if it would cost me some money. Many point and shoot cameras attract buyers with ever increasing megapixel numbers, but draw them from a tiny image sensor that captures nowhere near enough light for all those pixels, so you end up with more noise and distortion.

Last Christmas I visited my sister in law’s brother in law, who is a photography enthusiast and owns a Nikon D90 with a 16-85 VR DX lens. He took some shots of us sitting around the kitchen table at what I would consider pretty minimal light (we’re talking Germany in late December after all!) without using a flash. The sharpness, the colours and the detail in the pictures were just amazing. I started reading up about the Nikon D90 and was very impressed. I later found the camera with a good quality kit lens, the 18-55 VR DX for about JPY 75,000 at Amazon Japan, but also looked at its lesser sibling, the D5000, which uses the same high quality image sensor as the D90 and D300, but a lower resolution LCD and is a bit cheaper than the D90 (just under JPY 60,000 with the same lens).

Back in the late 1990s I had a Canon EOS SLR (analog), but it developed a problem with its lens and I never bothered to get it fixed, switching back to compacts instead. What I found then was that actually having a camera on you usually is more important than owning a better camera. The best SLR or DSLR is of no use if you don’t have it within reach when an opportunity for a great picture arises. Cameras that fit into a jacket pocket ended up getting more use, since I was always reluctant to bring along the bulky camera bag needed to protect the SLR.

This is the reason why I have abandoned the idea of a DSLR for now (i.e. until I get rich and can afford a good DSLR like the Nikon D90 as a *second* camera for special occasions). Today I ordered the Canon PowerShot S95, which Ken Rockwell calls the “world’s best pocket camera”. It combines a large image sensor with a compact body. Its main difference to its predecessor, the Canon PowerShot S90 is added support for 1280x720p video at 24 fps. In a few days I should know how it actually performs, as I’m planning to hike in the mountains west of Tokyo for autumn leaves viewing with friends. Then I’ll just need to make sure the Canon S95 won’t disappear like my Sony 😉

UPDATE (2010-11-16):

I ordered the camera at Camera Kaikan (camera-k.net) on Sunday morning and it was delivered on Monday morning, little more than 24 hours later. I bought a no-name 8 GB class 4 SD card for it. The class (i.e. minimum writing speed in MB per second) of the card matters only for video, where data streams to the card continuously.

You can get really cheap class 2 SD cards, but that’s not fast enough to keep up with the 720p24 HD recording mode supported by the S95. Various people in online forums were saying class 10 was an unnecessary expense while recommending class 6 as the base line. However, looking at the file size of a one minute clip I took, 720p24 HD seems to result in a data rate of 2.5 MB per second, or 37% below the 4 MB/s minimum required for class 4. So theoretically class 4 should work as well as class 6 for HD recording on the S95.

I am very pleased with the picture quality so far, but I’ve only started experimenting with the various modes and menus for manual control to explore its full potential.

My public Picasaweb gallery

USDomainlicensing.com spam

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When I received the following email, I was scared for a moment that I might not have taken care of renewing one of my domains, but I think panic is exactly what the senders had intended to provoke:

US Domain Licensing
130 Church St Suite 280 New York, NY 10007
Web: www.USDomainlicensing.com
Email: support@usdomainlicensing.com
Phone: 1 800 690 1269

————————————————————–
Final Notice Of Domain Extension
————————————————————–

ATT:

ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACT
joewein
jwspamspy@pobox.com
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
www.jwspamspy.us Notice Tracking Number: EXE2799704

Please be advised that the above noted domain name has now become available for registration. Consequently the possibility of a conflicting domain registration may occur. As the registrant of the commerce extension, you have been granted the first right to use preference in securing the intellectual property for the United States country code. If you choose to waive this right, the name will be available for public registration.

————————————————————–

Please note that businesses and consumers are increasingly losing the rights to their domain names caused by Domain Hijacking, Registrant/Registrar mistake, inadvertence, or Blocked Emails.
————————————————————–

This is an urgent domain notice to verify the rights to your name to prevent 3rd party infringement and unintentional name loss. Our organization is responsible for verifying the public and private Intellectual Property rights of domain holders, and to carry out UDRP Disputes according to the guidelines:

Protecting a domain name registrant or trademark owner from confusing and/or conflicting domain name registrations is not the responsibility of the domain and trademark registration processes. In the event of a registration of the above noted domain by a third party, the UDRP may be applied under the following conditions.

You may loose your domain if a complainant/competitor proves that each of these three elements are present with your domain registration. – For the purposes of Paragraph 4(a)(iii), the following circumstances, in particular but without limitation, if found by the Panel to be present, shall be evidence of the registration and use of a domain name in bad faith:

(i) your domain name is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which the complainant has rights; and
(ii) you have no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
(iii) your domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.

b. Evidence of Registration and Use in Bad Faith.

.(i) You acquired the domain primarily for the purpose of selling, renting, or otherwise transferring the domain name registration to the complainant/ trademark or service mark owner, or to their competitor, or (ii) you have registered the domain name in order to prevent the owner of the trademark or service mark from reflecting the mark in a corresponding domain name, therefore revealing a pattern of such conduct, or (iii) you have registered the domain name primarily for the purpose of disrupting the business of a competitor, or (iv) by using the domain name, to create confusion with the complainant’s mark.

Note: You may disregard this notice. If you disregard this notice or fail to reply:
(a) The licensing rights of this domain name may be assigned to any other applicant, (b) UDL and or any ICANN accredited registrar will not be liable for loss of domain name license, identical or confusingly similar use of your company’s domain name; or interruption of business activity or business losses.

————————————————————–

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:
If you fail to reply to UDL this domain may be registered by any third party without further notice. To protect the intellectual property rights to this name, you are required to advise us of your intent to (a) secure this domain name or (b) to leave this domain name for Public Registration.

————————————————————–
Call 1 800 690 1269
Notice Tracking Number: EXE2799704

Sounds terribly official and scary, but I’ve never owned any “.us” domains, so there is no domain registration to extend. Not being based in the United States, I have no plans to register any .us domains. I do own the .com and .net variants of the domain in question though and they are far more useful for commercial purposes.

These people seem to try to frighten recipients of their spam into signing up for a .us domain. They are not cheap: From the FAQ on their website it looks like they charge US$70 for two years.

Reputable registrars offer .us domains for around $20 for 2 years, so it’s unlikely anyone would pay $70 to register one through these people unless prompted to do so by deceptive advertising, even if they had a need for a .us domain in the first place.

By the way, domains USDomainlicensing.us and USDomainlicensing.net were still available when I checked, so they themselves don’t practice what they preach. The same people own domainregistryrights.com, which was registered about two years earlier (May 2008) than usdomainlicensing.com (February 2010).

See also:

Chilean mine workers rescued

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Ever since 33 mine workers were found to be still alive at the San José gold and copper mine near Copiapó, Chile 17 days after its collapse, I have been following reports about efforts to rescue them. It reminded me of Apollo 13, when professionalism and ingenuity of both the ground crews and the astronauts enabled their survival and safe return.

I can’t even begin to image what the first 17 days must have felt like for the miners, before there was any contact with rescuers. They had almost no food, surviving essentially on kilos of lost body fat. Millions of people around the world finally breathed a collective sigh of relief when the last man had returned to the surface safely and all were reunited with their loved ones. Such happy endings are rare in large mining accidents.

Fenix 2, the rescue capsule used to return the 33 mine workers and 6 rescuers back to the surface was built by Asmar (Astilleros y Maestranzas de la Armada chilena), a shipbuilding company of the Chilean navy. Its design is derived from the “Dahlbusch bomb“, a rescue vehicle designed by German engineer Eberhard Au in 1955 to rescue miners after a disaster at the Dahlbusch coal mine in Gelsenkirchen/West Germany. Similar designs are in used in many countries now. The Chilean version was designed with the help of NASA engineers. Eberhard Au never took out a patent for his invention: “The main thing is that the guys get out.”

Unlike the original (which is on display at the Deutsches Museum in Munich), Fenix 2 has 8 wheels, 4 at the top and 4 at the bottom, spaced 90 degrees apart so that it could run down the rescue shaft (which is not quite vertical) with minimal friction and wear.

The Chilean government has not revealed exactly how much it spent on saving the lives of the 33, but the Chilean national copper company that was put in charge is reported to have budgeted 15 million dollars for it. After the mine collapse on Aug 5, 2010 the miners first tried to escape on their own using ventilation shafts that connect all levels of the mine, but they found that metal ladders were missing. The mining company was supposed to have installed the ladders after being closed down for a previous accident. The company may have saved a little bit of money by not installing safety equipment, but at what cost to the nation and risk to the miners?

The wide publicity achieved by the successful rescue efforts has put a spotlight on mine safety not just in Chile, but worldwide. For instance, the safety record of Chinese coal mines is still terrible. Better safety regulations and stricter enforcement of existing regulations could save not only countless lives, but also money.

Skype on Android 2.1 but not in the US

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A year and a half after Skype launched a version for the iPhone (March 2009) it finally released Skype for Android for customers outside the US. In the US Skype has already been available for Verizon customers for a couple of months, but if you’re with a different US network you’ll still be out of luck.

Even outside the US, Android versions before 2.1 are not supported. My Google Ion which comes with Android 1.6 got this message:

Sorry, Skype is unavailable for your mobile. We add new handsets all the time so check back soon.

Last month, about 30% of Android users were still using 1.5 or 1.6.

This makes me even keener to find out when an Android 2.2 upgrade will become available for the Google Ion, as announced in May 2010.

Epson PM-A950 under Windows 7 64bit

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Earlier this month, an old eMachines T6212 bought in April 2005, a humble single core 1.6 GHz Athlon64 that had served me faithfully for more than 5 years, finally died. So two weeks ago I bought an Acer Aspire ASM3910-N54E, a Core i5-650 machine with 4 GB of RAM (max. 8 GB) and a 640 GB hard disk. It came with Windows 7 Home 64bit.

I replaced the C: drive with a 1 TB drive and added another 1.5 TB drive that I previously used in a USB-enclosure. I am using the on-board video with dual 1280×1024 monitors (Dell 1905FP), hooked up via an analog VGA cable and a digital HDMI-to-DVI cable.

The best thing I can say about Windows 7 is that it’s not as bad as Vista. I wish I could have stuck with Windows XP, but at least Windows 7 doesn’t get in the way as much as Vista did. It feels a bit more like Mac OS X, if that is what you like. It’s going to get more and more difficult to get drivers for new hardware that still support XP, but on the other hand older hardware may have problems working with Windows 7, for example my old Logitech QuickCam Zoom is not supported by Windows 7.

Epson PM-A950 printer driver

Today I tried to print from the new machine for the first time and found I needed a new printer driver for my almost 4 year old Epson PM-A950 USB printer/scanner. Though Microsoft’s documentation states that the printer is supported by Windows 7 out of the box, it will do so only using a generic Epson printer definition which probably will not support all the functionality. So I searched the Epson Japan website and found these two drivers (the 64bit version worked fine for my version of Windows 7):

  • Windows 7 32bit / Windows Vista 32bit / Windows XP / Windows 2000:
    http://www.epson.jp/dl_soft/file/7461/a950f652.EXE
  • Windows 7 64bit / Windows Vista 64bit / Windows XP x64 Edition:
    http://www.epson.jp/dl_soft/file/7462/a950h652.EXE

Energy efficiency

So far I’m very happy with the new machine. The machine draws about 40W when idle, considerably less than its less powerful predecessor (69W). The lastest Core i3 and Core i5 machines are very energy efficient. My i5 actually did better than a VIA MM3500 (1.5 GHz single core VIA C7). The only x86-compatible machines I have that beat the i5 on power usage at idle are either notebooks or are desktops built using notebook chipsets (i.e. the Mac Mini).

Excessive JPEG compression on Android phones

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A few weeks ago I got my first smart-phone, an HTC Magic (aka Google Ion or myTouch 3G) which uses Android 1.6.

Originally I had wanted to get the HTC Desire with Android 2.1 from Softbank, but they had no more stocks of the old model and weren’t going to start shipping the new model until October. I couldn’t wait that long. That’s how I ended up getting an Android phone from the US.

I first transplanted the USIM from my almost three year old Softbank Samsung 707SCII into the Android phone, which wasn’t locked to any provider. I could then make calls here in Japan.

Next I added Softbank’s “smart phone pakehodai” (smart phone unlimited data) plan to my existing contract, after telling the company that I was going to use my existing USIM in an imported Android phone. They didn’t raise any objections to that. The plan is about 5700 yen per month (about US$67), plus 315 yen to enable web access and mail (US$3.60), which I had previously disabled as I was only using SMS besides voice calls. I configured APNs for accessing the Softbank network using this link, which then gave me full web access from my new phone even when not on my wireless LAN at home.

So far it has been a fun experience and I’m still exploring new features and applications.

The application I enjoy most so far is Google Maps. Having moved from the semirural suburbs of Yokohama to a densely populated part of Tokyo recently, I’m now exploring local back streets on foot or on the bicycle as well as riding trains, of which there are plenty. Google Maps will easily find me a train connection to anywhere in this city of 13 million people, including directions for walking to and from stations and down to the minute connection schedules (Japanese trains are famously punctual).

I was disappointed however by the picture quality of the 3 MP camera (1536 by 2048 pixels) on the phone, not that my expectations were too high to start with. But I was shocked to see that when I copied these 3 MP image files off the phone using a USB cable, they were only 330 to 700 MB (500 MB on average) in size even when taking pictures at the highest quality settings. This is 2 to 3 times smaller than typical 3 MP cameras.

My old Sony P8 (also a 3 MP camera) averaged around 1.3 MB per image. One Megabyte or more per image is fairly typical for high quality settings at 3 MP. That means the Android camera must be using very aggressive JPEG compression settings, which reduce detail and produce artifacts, to squeeze pictures into 40% of the space used on other cameras. And you can really tell from just looking at the pictures: They look somewhat blurred and fuzzy, not as sharp and crisp as you’d expect even from a modest 3 MP camera.

What’s worse, I could not find any setting that would let me change this. A search on Google confirmed that others using different Android phones have the same problem, but currently no solution.

I hope Google will address this problem on the Android 2.2 upgrade, because with these software settings the capabilities of the hardware are wasted, even more so on 5 MP or 8 MP camera models. It makes no sense to aggressively compress pictures when the user has selected optimum quality, especially on a camera that can be expanded with up to 16 GB per microSD memory card.