The Sublime Frustration of Convergence

I occasionally get cranky about converged communications channels - thing like merging Email and SMS or merging SMS and IM. For starters, I don't like how it tends to blur the "appropriate forms of address" lines for a given communications medium. While "RU ther" is almost OK in an SMS, it's less so in an IM and pretty much not tolerable in an Email. The other thing is, convergence means too many things jangling and, when there's errors, it's even worse.

Three times, today, I had convergence-related issues:

• Buddy calls me to thank me for his Christmas present. I, first, get an inbound call-notification on my laptop's GV/Hangouts browser-plugin. I answer on my cellphone as soon as it rings (hate trying to voice-chat via my laptop - also, see not about "too many things jangling") Just as I'm picking up the call on my cell, the VOIP line starts ringing ...and then continues to ring and ring while I'm starting my conversation on the cell. Wife comes up to find out why the hell the landline's ringing off the hook. I tell her "GV's being a butt". I'd yet to try to deal with the VOIP line as I'd noticed my cell's battery was down (apparently, I'd not snugly seated the charging plug, previously) and was tied to the wall by the (now seated) charging-cable. So she does us both a solid by tracking down a VOIP handset and terminating the errant ring-through.
• Boss tries to arrange an after-hours video call. "After hours" is about the only time everyone on my scattered team is available to talk since our "scattered" is across time-zones and, even those of us in the same time-zone are frequently working places where we can't do phone-calls (let alone video chats). His initial invitation to everyone had apparently gone awry, so he SMS'es me to ask if I'm available. I SMS back to affirm that I am. He states that he'll send out an invite to the video chat. The scheduled time for the call to start passes and still no email-invite. I assume it's gone into the Ether, so I SMS him again to ask what's up. He "dials" me into the video conference. This time, my cell rings before my browser starts jangling. I pick up on the cell and I'm in the video call. The cell isn't really stable for being on camera, so I'm a touch put out that what I'd *thought* was my cell ringing for a call was actually ringing for a video chat. My annoyance is subsequently eased when the invitation email finally arrives and I'm able to switch over to my laptop for the video-conference.
• While the video-call is going on, my messaging widget pops up a long-assed text message. It was from the customer-lead for one of the projects I work on. I reply with an SMS - failing to notice that the text message was actually a transcription delivered via the text messaging component of the messaging widget. Worse, he'd called from a land-line rather than his cell, so my SMS gets delivered to the Ether.

Actually, three and a half times...

While working on one of my projects, I encounter a mis-documented security-fix. I go to call one of my co-workers about it. Both he and I have ZRTP widgets on our cellphones and our phones each "know" that the other's phone is ZRTP-capable. When I got to hit the call button, my phone helpfully asks, "do you want this to be an encrypted call". I think, "sure - it's about a security-related documentation-bug, so why not do the call encrypted". His phone rings and rings with no answer. It occurs to me that the ZRTP widget actually doesn't dial to his VMail-enabled "number". So, I hang up, re-start the call and select "no" when asked if I want to encrypt the call. Eventually, the call rings through to his voicemail (DAMMIT). I leave a message for him to call me back.

An hour or so later, he IMs me to tell me that he got the call but the voicemail was garbled. Irony: the encrypted VOIP calls frequently have better sound-quality than the PSTN calls do.

Just convergence-annoyance all over the damned place, today.

What I Want in My Next Cell Phone

Ok, I'm not quite a conspiracy nut, but, I do like my privacy. I want to know that, if I choose to store sensitive things on my cell phone - either in its memory or on an inserted memory card - I can know that the data is safe. I want it safe from pranksters. I want it safe from device thieves. I want it safe from curious law enforcement types that don't have a properly executed warrant. Given the litany of headlines, I think that I'm probably in greatest danger from "legal" abuse of my privacy than I am from people that don't have a badge.

A number of phones have the ability to remote-wipe data. Some phones also have the ability to set it up such that, if someone fails to guess the password some configurable number of times, the phone will auto-nuke. However, I haven't really seen any phone makers addressing the issue of someone simply ganking the memory card from your phone and reading it in another device. For that, you need to protect the data on the memory card, itself. Two possible options for that seem workable: encryption of the entire SD card (or a "partition" on it) using a cross-platform filesystem (e.g., ECryptFS); individual encryption of each file stored on the card (preferably including the ability to set this as the default storage option).

I'd also like to see a phone that I can use as a pure data device. At this stage of the game, it seems kind of pointless for smart phones to require a voice plan. Given a sufficiently sized data plan, a cell device with a good, native SIP application would obviate the need for a voice plan. It's all just data, any way. Why not go the next logical step. Hell, some carriers already give you the ability to use Skype, but it's typically crippled to prevent its use for "local calls". Other than to protect the voice-plan model, what the fuck is the point of that?

As a bonus of going "data-only", if the person I'm talking to and I are both using SIP devices, we can encrypt the channel if we want to. I'm sure there's plenty of businesses out there that would appreciate the corporate espionage deterrent such a capability would offer. Would also be nice to know that some info-thief out there can't just crack the local cell tower and sniff "interesting conversations." In the end, it's not that I have anything to hide, but it is the principle of things. It was always my understanding that privacy - the right to be secure in ones own possessions, property and communications - was one of the founding principals of my country. Reading headlines, lately, seems to indicate that, unless one goes to extra lengths to assert a desire for privacy, we no longer have "a reasonable expectation of privacy" when we participate in technology.

There's also some things that I don't really want in my next phone. When people know you have certain capabilities - whether you want to use them or not - there easily becomes the expectation that you'll use them. My phone is for my benefit. If it benefits others, that's nice, but it ain't why I'm buying myself a piece of technology.

For starters, I don't need to have two cameras or a video-phone application on my phone. The idea - and even the ability - to have video phones has been around for a long time. It's never taken off. I'd wager that a significant reason for this not happening, previously, is, in large part, due to the fact that, often times, it's nice to NOT have to worry what you look like when you're taking a phone call. You can be damned sure that if you wake my happy ass up at oh-dark-thirty, I ain't going to want to have a video chat. Fuck that. If I really want to face-time with you, I'll go to my computer and fire up Skype (or similar). Even better, I'll figure out where we can meet and talk face-to-face. Just assume that if I ain't standing in front of you, it's because I don't want a face-to-face (I'm not really a fan of the formal video teleconferencing stuff at work, either, so...). And, if I do, but geography's the issue, figure that I'll find some way that doesn't involve my handset. Besides, given the screen size on a practical handset, it's not like I'm going to be doing presentations. So, why have it and the expectation of its use?

I also don't really need the ability to stream or watch video. I have a widescreen HD TV in my living room for a reason: I like to actually be able to see things. Watching movies on a screen smaller than the display on my car's GPS just seems stupid.

Streaming music is one of those "iffy" things. As a stand-alone device, cell phones eat batteries quickly enough. Add in trying to treat it as a music outlet, and that battery's gonna die quick. I don't particularly want to not have my phone usable because I killed the batteries on music. It's part of why, when I was traveling and wanted music, I carried a cellphone and a music device, even though my phone had room for several GB of music. That said, it could be useful in my car: I could have the phone in a charger-dock, obviating the need for things like Sirius/XM and I wouldn't have to subject myself to the audio-crime that is broadcast radio.

Meh... In some ways, it seems like cell phones are becoming like office productivity software. There's really only so much useful stuff you can add to something before it becomes pointless featurism (this was always why I was a vi guy and not an EMACS guy). I can see the value of a lot of the convergence stuff, but I just don't get the utter lack of the personal security/privacy components.