Anti-Piracy – First Internet Cafe Arrest In Japan

This Japanese news article reports the first “internet cafe” arrest in Japan since the anti-piracy download law went into effect on Jan. 1, 2010. However, I am fairly certain that this is the first such arrest altogether – somebody please comment if I am wrong.
Toward the end of last year and the first days of the new year, many blogs and statistic sites were reporting on the number of shares on peer-to-peer software available on the internet. Remarkably, most of the numbers did not change a bit. I find this unusual since Japanese go to great lengths to stay compliant with law and keep a squeaky clean record.

A 37-year old internet cafe manager, Yasuharu Ishii, was arrested on February 9, 2010 at the Manga Land internet cafe in Ichikawa City of Chiba Prefecture. From May 2009, Ishii allegedly downloaded about 25,000 movies and songs while using peer-to-peer shares, and made those files available for customer use on personal computers available in private rooms at the internet cafe.

Most interestingly and kind of funny, the article mentions in the very last sentence that “he had all the series of Gandam and other such popular animations.” Kind of like that was the bigger news. Japanese love their manga and animations, that’s for sure.
I have mixed feelings on the subject – understanding that piracy is not fair and should be illegal, but also understanding that the sharing software and networks should not be held responsible. Holding these mediums of distribution responsible also makes it difficult or costly to distribute legitimate media such as podcasts.

Please comment…. 73s

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Suck Your Guts In – Full Body Scanner Coming To An Airport Near You!

Well, from looking at the news and some of the evaluation discussions coming through here in Japan, it appears that at least Japan and the US will be implementing body scanners for boarding processing in the next year. Bruce Schneier touches on this subject a couple times throughout his blog, but in Japan’s case, I have some very reliable insight to some of the considerations by local officials. Of course, Japanese throw the latest, greatest technical solution at something as a CYA move all the time. Nobody wants to be responsible for a bad decision, so little thought goes into the big picture if it will keep an airplane from getting blown to pieces. This article shows that US may be leaning in that direction more. Now, the only two gaping holes in airport security are DHS thugs manning the gates and cargo.
Any comments welcome!!

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Takashimaya Department Stores Going LED

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Dissecting Japanese IT Organizations

This posting is a culmination of information about IT organizations in Japanese corporations gathered over the past nine years that I have been working in IT audit, security, and consulting in Japan. Before we start a project at a Japanese company, I always remind myself of the challenges, then we engage the work and I remind myself to write such a blog posting. The details outlined here do not apply to certain globalized Japan firms, but they generally apply to most; including many that are globalized. The only exception are those globalized firms that have recruited foreign talent at the CEO or CIO levels – difficult to throw names around in my current job.
No Central IT Authority
The existence of a CIO within an IT organization in Japan is rare. If a CIO does exist, he/she is a figure-head that sits on the board, is very senior, and probably does not know the difference between Linux and Windows, has never produced a line of code, or cannot even setup his own printer. Believe me, this sounds like badgering, but is still an understatement. The outline below is a typical Japanese IT organization. Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

• IT Operations
• IT Planning and Strategy
  • IT Budgeting
• IT Risk and Security
  • IT Security Operations
• IT Development
• Various Corporate Departments
  • Department IT Operations
  • Department IT Development

In a typical western firm, within an overall IT organization there would be specific ties to the various business organizations for service level agreement maintenance, development project management, and infrastructure project management. That’s all – the top executive, CIO, would run all the budgeting, oversee development, maintain necessary security between development and production, and be the czar of the organization; inherently assuming all RESPONSIBILITY.
On the other hand, in Japan, across the IT organization are various parallel functions. When there is a security breach, or systems go down because of a release issue, or any other issue/question that may come up within an audit, there is a lot of finger-pointing and round-robin chasing of the person responsible. There is a very, very low level of definitive accountability in the typical Japan IT organization.
Excessive Bloat and Discombobble
I just had to use the word ‘discombobble’, which perfectly describes the situation on various levels. While there is an IT planning and strategy department, which is very powerful in most Japan IT organizations, because they control an overall budget for new, large projects that would affect the organization overall, other segments have budget too. Thus, defraying the very reason for having a central planning department in the first place. The IT planning directors are the people that consultants and security firms want to know, because they control the largest budget and wield the most power. However, the bloat and discombobble is exposed in the fact that all of the other IT organizations get their own budget to make independent decisions upon, and the individual business departments get their own IT budget – only sometimes dictated by a central IT planning department. We have seen bloat in IT organizations here in many ways, and one good example is a project we worked on – a 65-person crew is hired from an outsourcing company to do nothing but ID and access control management –  for a company of about 5,000 people (bloat). Other examples include all of the IT operations being outsourced to the tune of US$10 million per year, while maintaining a payroll of so-called IT ‘engineers’ in excess of US$20 million per year. In the later situation, we looked at the scenario and asked ourselves, “Who is doing what?” (discombobble)
Honor and Accountability
Here is the key to a lot of the bloat that most can appreciate – the Japanese tendency to deflect responsibility and accountability in order to protect ‘honor’. The keys to this tactic often employed at all levels of a Japan firm are:

1. Ask for more detail – detail you should already know, is common sense, or can easily be researched
2. Ask for training – training that can be obtained with a couple hours of Google, MS Support, Redhat Support, or other research methods
3. Ask for help or hire someone to do it – what that person was hired to do in the first place
4. Refer to your job description, then request all of the above – Japan labor law protects them this way
5. When the above four do not work, make the task more granular and do all of the first three
6. Outsource or hire a consultant

Number two above deserves more elaboration – there are cases in the face of a major project where formal training is required and the internet resources will in no way suffice. In Japan, however, this comes up so often for even the most simple tasks that I know a visit to my del.ici.ous page will answer.
In most western firms, when you hire an Exchange Connectivity Engineer, and you tell him he has to manage a new project for connecting a new Singapore office, you usually get a person (qualified or unqualified but willing to try) that will at least attempt to find the detail – Google or otherwise research the necessary knowledge – make a formal request for the necessary personnel requirements, and ultimately not revert to four thru six listed above. In fact, it is usually the CIO or some other manager that decides that certain projects may need outside help. If a Japanese engineer were to do all of this himself and ‘direct’ the effort, then if something went wrong, he would lose his ‘honor’ and have to assume responsibility for any minute failure….. Ridiculous! Immature! Infantile! Call it what you want. Just had to say it…. but that is the bottom line in organizational bloat within Japanese firms. It also explains why consulting companies here get away with regurgitating results from interviews without having to actually look into a system for the real problem, or to deliver the real solution that the client hired them to develop in the first place.

73s… any comments, agreeing, opposing, elaborating are very welcome!

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JG1FXZ…. Ham Fair 2009 In Tokyo

Last Friday, after exactly six weeks had past, I finally received my Japanese call sign. So now in the US I can operate as NH2GX and in Japan, can operate as JG1FXZ. So, of course, I get on the radio first thing Saturday morning and not a soul is broadcasting. Read a couple emails and find that the Japan Ham Fair. It was a great event! Here’s a picture of the Yokohama DX Club booth. A lot of new and used equipment for sale, different clubs with booths. I personally am not much of a ‘club’ kinda guy – Japanese love moving in groups, waiting in lines, and not enjoying privacy and solace. I do things like mountain climbing and experimenting with electronics/radio to break away from people; not to meet more of them. All that said however, going to the Ham Fair was very interesting since it is refreshing to see what other people are up to and exchange ideas when possible.
  
Here is a picture of yours truly. I picked a small used element holder that I turned into a 50 MHz dipole yesterday, but may find it’s way to a driven element of a bigger yagi antenna over the next couple weeks.
   

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The New Shack

This weekend has been an exercise in downsizing my home office into something more manageable in limited space that life in Japan requires. After a bunch of scratching my head and deep thought on the subject, have decided to eliminate a lot of old electronics accumulated after nine years of life here. First, get rid of the old dual 450 MHz server that I shipped from Guam when we moved in July of 2000. That particular item has been a color laser computer stand for the past year – and did not use it for five years before that. Then the numerous cellular phones that I have adopted and so coldly abandoned for the next great fad. Then the Handspring, Palms, and Sony Cleo that at one point I clinched to for information has long been laid to rest for the smart phones. The first and greatest of which I owned, the Nokia e61 that after two years of use, was replaced with an iPhone this time last year.

Then there are the little sniffer gadgets, transmitters/bugs, RFID experimental stuff, the medium collection of electronic components, and other stuff that has to be organized…. along with the camera equipment.
After all that is done, then the books. The answer to that is another shelf and not a hard one to fix. You get the picture…. I am now downsizing and growing up! You can only have so much stuff! As shown in the picture, I now have everything I need organized in my own little corner, and now have to abide by the new rule that dictates nothing gets added to the collection until something is removed.
After cleaning up over the weekend, on Sunday I managed to pickup several slow scan television (SSTV) transmissions. This is an interesting way to exchange QSO cards. Going through the DX Clusters, have found a couple niches on the spectrum to pickup some of these images – albeit, not all are received in high resolution.

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Hump Day…. Looking To Easter Sunday

It’s been a few weeks since the last blog entry, so I thought now would be just as good a time as any to put a few thoughts into prose. Yesterday I was at the Yodobashi Camera in Yokohama and saw that they had 128GB solid state 2.5″ hard disks on sale for 25,000 yen! Sounds like a good deal to me, so will probably pick one up tomorrow and try to put it into the Sony Vaio P series. I have already Googled to see if anybody has plucked the hard disk (land lived to tell about it) out of these little machines. I thought the machine that I owned had a solid state drive, but it turns out to be a regular hard disk… better read the fine print better next time! Those drives that are on sale at Yodobashi are 170 mb/sec read, which is slower than the faster 250 mb/sec drives on display for much more, but at that rate, it is still a much quicker read than a conventional hard disk. The writes, however, are much slower in any case. I did pick up the LAN and video adapter for the Sony P and hooked it into a bigger monitor yesterday. I must say that with that adapter for desk work and the small size for putting things down and checking emails while on the go, this machine can become the main system fairly easily. Next week will start looking for a nice 21″ or 19″ monitor to put in the home office for this machine.
Vacation on Guam a couple of weeks ago was a bag of fun, and also an eye-opener to the fact that some things never change in a wannabe banana republic. The roads still have pot holes from where repair had taken place, the power still goes out (but not as regularly), the access to technology is still so limited and probably always will be. After living in Japan this long, I don’t think I can go back to living somewhere that I cannot have immediate access to the latest and greatest gadgets, parts, and general technology.
Well, that’s all for right now. Will keep you updated on the hard disk exchange on the Sony P series.
2009/4/13 Update – Turns out that the hard disk in the Sony P Series is 1.8″ instead of 2.5″ as described here. Forgot the exact part number to lookup the data sheet, but have already seen it. Have to wait another 6 months to a year until Yodo and Bic start selling a Ziff connection 1.8″ drive.

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Japanese (Lack Of) Manners – And Defenses

I must predicate this blog posting with the usual disclaimer: the opinions expressed here are not those of current or previous employers, or any entity that has hired me for formal or freelance employment in the past. Any opinions expressed within this blog, and especially, this posting are my personal opinion.
Now, onto the good stuff…. Westerners who have only visited Japan or interfaced with Japanese people overseas have an impression of the society that is very out-dated – hard working, polite, conformist, subservient and the list goes on. I must say that after living in Japan over 15 years, when I hear the untrained or inexperienced go on about life in Japan, that it sends a cold chill up my back. Over the past 20 years, and particularly the past 10 years, any inkling of Buddhist and Shinto moral values have completely vanished in the metropolitan centers of Tokyo, Osaka, and other areas. The only place even a hint of these values is still visible are in deep country villages.
It’s not uncommon to have somebody attempt a hard shoulder check as you are trying to get off a train, or attempt a complete body block by trying to board the train before you get off. Or, while walking to have somebody, who you know that clearly sees you, step right in front of you. This even happens while waiting in lines at restaurants or while waiting in line to get on the train (this just happened to my eight year old daughter this morning in front of my very eyes). With all of this, I have learned a few defensive tactics that keep me within the fringes of the law while letting the other guy/girl know that I don’t approve. First and foremost, you cannot reach out and push the other person out of your way. Your hand must not leave your side, so it pays to do some mountain climbing or bench presses to build up your shoulders – I do both so can manage. When somebody steps in front of you, either step directly in front of them when they attempt forward motion, or as they step passed you, bounce your left or right shoulder into their puny skeletal structure so that they fly into somebody else; thereby, becoming a nuisance to somebody other than yourself. The next tactic for people who cut you off while walking is just an extension of the next step in a slight of foot to abruptly trip them – I’ve gotten really good at this and unless you hurt them bad, totally legal. Anything they cannot outright prove that you did on purpose is basically legal.

The next issue is that of sanitation in this age of virus and sickness. Most Japanese men and a lot of women do not cover their mouths when they caugh, unless they are in a formal situation. I still have not found a tactic here, but if there are any ideas, please comment. I just appreciate that during this time of year over half the population suffers from hay fever, so everybody wears a surgical mask.
Now the juicy stuff…
Nose-picking in the train like this and this is so common that if you ride the train daily (like I do) you will almost certainly see it in milder forms daily. Almost sickening. Even Japanese do not put up with this as much any more. My remedy for the nose-pickers is the mobile phone camera. I pull out the iPhone and start snapping pictures, which brings them back to consciousness so they realize what they are doing. The grossest part are the picker-lickers-eaters…. Uggggh!

But I think what all this comes down to is lack of discipline. The discipline applied while raising a child in old Japan is not applied these days, combined with a passive society that does not take matters into their own hands. Somebody picking and flipping mucus on a New York subway would be beaten to a pulp within just a couple stops. At least somebody would raise their voice and call attention to the situation.
An increasing lack of discipline is seen in the work ethic as well. The Japanese worker that would do anything for his company to make it succeed now prefers to work by a strict job description and do nothing out of those bounds. That same worker will work long hours and bill a lot of overtime, but the deliverables from the work hours as sparse at best, while constantly ranting about how tired he is from working long hours. If you are a manager with Japanese subordinates, the best defense here is to know the Japanese labor law, interview thoroughly, and ask for previous work references, then check those references. Also, don’t hire smokers if you can help it. Japanese smokers tend to operate in clicks and make decisions or develop a group consensus outside of the office. This can be dangerous. Yes, I know all of my smoker friends are offended by this, but the truth hurts – smokers are generally less productive and call in sick more often.

While this posting offers many generalizations, there are many exceptions to the rule. I do have a few Japanese friends that do not do any of the above. However, sadly enough, those same co-workers and friends would shake their head in agreement while reading this.

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