Computers – Page 12 – Spinor Info

Surveillance state

Computer Security, History, Politics No Responses »

Nov 152012

The sordid saga around the resignation of Gen. Petraeus continues. It became such a tangled story, Gawker.com actually published a flowchart to make it easier to decipher.

Meanwhile, however, The Guardian raises some very troubling points:

In response to Ms. Kelley’s initial complaint about a vaguely offensive e-mail, the FBI devoted substantial resources and engaged in highly invasive surveillance for no reason other than to do a personal favor for a friend of an agent;
Without any evidence of an actual crime, and without a search warrant, they gained access to Ms. Broadwell’s e-mail account;
Again, without any evidence of any actual wrongdoing, they also got their hands on e-mails exchanged not only between Ms. Broadwell and Gen. Petraeus but also between her and Gen. Allen.

The Guardian comments about the “sweet justice” aspect of all of this: namely that America’s security surveillance system that is running amok is targeting the very people in charge of that system, such as the head of the CIA. However, I do not share their implied optimism; I don’t think the growth in surveillance will stop anytime soon. We are nowhere near close to anything like the McCarthy era’s pivotal “have you no sense of decency?” moment. For that, a lot more good people will have to be harmed a lot more gravely first.

Things from the cloud

Commerce, Computer Security, Food No Responses »

Oct 222012

Think of an essential part of your life. Now imagine relinquishing control over it to others, people you don’t know, people who may in fact be in different countries, providing a service on an industrial scale. Most of the time they do an admirable job; but when they make a mistake you and many others suffer, possibly with life-altering consequences.

No, I am not describing cloud computing. I could have, but I was actually thinking about manufactured foods. When you buy a bag of snacks at a supermarket, for instance. The materials used to manufacture that food come from all four corners of the world. Some are organic in origin, often waste products from the processing of hundreds of animals or tons of vegetables. Others are manufactured at chemical plants, e.g., from petroleum. And when the controls fail; when an unscrupulous manufacturer in China, for instance, introduces an unapproved substitute to boost the measured protein content of a manufactured ingredient, people or pets suffer, even die.

But what I am really struck by are these similarities between cloud computing and “eating from the cloud”: that for the sake of convenience and easy access we willingly relinquish control over something essential, and that we generally trust society to such an extent that we are not the least bit worried when a private e-mail with an intimate personal photograph travels halfway around the world before arriving in our Inbox (which itself may be physically located in another country, perhaps on another continent); or when we put bits of food in our mouths without the slightest worry about the origin of its ingredients produced in distant lands by people we will never get a chance to know.

Grace Hopper ca. 1960… but who are the others?

Computers, History, Society No Responses »

Oct 022012

For the past several minutes, I have been staring at a Smithsonian Institution photograph, showing a younger version of Grace Hopper at a UNIVAC console, presumably working on an early version of the COBOL compiler.

No, it’s not Grace Hopper that I was staring at, nor the vintage equipment, not even the prominent ~~ashtrays~~magnetic tape protection rings. It was the three gentlemen surrounding Admiral Hopper (okay, she wasn’t an admiral yet back then): remarkably, one of them is African-American while another is apparently of Asian descent. Such a picture would not be particularly unusual today, but more than 50 years ago? It’s astonishing. Pity the photo credits do not tell us who these gentlemen were whose talent and perseverance allowed them to overcome racist prejudice. Just as Grace Hopper herself overcame sexist prejudice and went on to become the oldest commissioned officer in the US Navy at the time of her final retirement, a few months shy of her 80th birthday.

New Slackware, new Joomla

Computers No Responses »

Sep 302012

Yikes! I am still getting used to Slackware 13.37 and all of a sudden, a new version, 14.0 is available! Same for Joomla… looks like Joomla 3.0 is out.

Neither updates are trivial. For Slackware 14.0, at the very least I must be mindful of properly updating the multilib packages to ensure that all 32-bit programs on my 64-bit server continue to run. As for Joomla, the update may be straightforward but will it break my customized templates? Perhaps I’ll stick to 2.5.x versions for now; they will remain supported until sometime in 2014, so I have plenty of time to test things. This is why I have test systems I guess…

Slackware, incidentally, is not only the oldest surviving Linux distribution still in active maintenance, but the second oldest of all distributions. It was a direct replacement of its predecessor, SLS, and I have been using Slackware ever since the demise of SLS. In other words, for about 18 years. In fact, I switched to Slackware not long before I established my domain name and first permanent Internet connection in 1994. My server back then? Why, an old 386SX desktop computer with 4 megabytes (yes, mega) of RAM and two MFM hard drives: one, a 70 MB drive, the other, a 40 MB one.

Mapping, Apple style

Computers, Transportation 1 Response »

Sep 212012

It is not nice to laugh at the misfortune of others, but I found the weird maps of the new Apple mapping app in iOS6 quite hilarious. Once I was done laughing at misplaced or missing landmarks, a flattened Eiffel tower, roller-coaster freeways, flattened and extruded cityscapes, I came across two of the best images yet.

One uses the new Internet meme, the unfortunate attempt of a Spanish lady to touch up a deteriorating fresco, to illustrate the point.

The other? Why, it’s just a photograph of a sign at a British railyway (?) station somewhere, informing hapless iOS6 customers about the availability of old-fashioned paper maps at the ticket office…

Alien technology

Computers, Science, Technology 2 Responses »

Sep 182012

The other day, I purchased a 32 GB USB stick for fifteen dollars. 32 GB? That is four DVDs. Some 50 or so CD-ROMs. Almost 500 times the hard disk space that I had in my first IBM compatible PC. More than 22,000 3.5″ floppy disks. More than 200,000 single density 5.25″ floppy disks that I used to use with my Commodore 64. More than half a million times the RAM of that Commodore 64. More than 30 million times the memory of a Sinclair ZX-80 from 1980. For less than one tenth the price, I might add, even before adjusting for inflation.

Some people, when they contemplate these numbers, conclude that such leaps could not have just happened; surely, there is alien technology involved. The government knows.

Then again… if we had access to alien supertechnology, don’t you think that the capacity of electric storage batteries would have advanced more than the pitiful factor of 5 or so that distinguishes a modern Li-ion battery from its 150-year old lead-acid cousin?

Samsung security breach

Computer Security, Internet No Responses »

Sep 072012

So recently, I got a nice new phone, a Samsung Galaxy S II.

When I set it up, I realized that Samsung chose to replace the built-in Google e-mail application with their own. This was a bit of a disappointment as the Samsung version seemed a tad less flexible and less configurable than the (also pedestrian) Google program, so I opted for the open-source K-9 Mail instead, which works very well indeed.

Today, I noticed that all of a sudden, my server is showing IMAP logins using my user ID from a strange IP address, occurring like clockwork, every five minutes. The IP address belongs to Samsung in Germany, Frankfurt to be precise. This was odd because my phone was actually connected to my home Wi-Fi, so there was no reason for it to go through a distant proxy server. Suspecting that something was afoul, I turned the phone off. The IMAP logins from the German IP address continued.

At this point, I immediately changed all relevant passwords. The login attempts (no longer successful) continued for a while, then stopped.

But what was this? A bit of research showed that the IP addresses are characteristic of Samsung’s “Social Hub” program. Apparently when I entered my login credentials using the Samsung version of the basic e-mail app, it passed on that information to Samsung’s Social Hub servers. So without my knowledge and my approval, my password to my personal account on my Linux server was sent to, and stored on, a server in a foreign country. (And no, I don’t want to hear that I actually gave my approval by clicking the Accept button on a 50-paragraph unreadable user agreement when I started using my phone. This kind of potential security breach must require up-front notification of the user and explicit approval.)

I have since kind of confirmed it by noting that Social Hub indeed shows my e-mail account as being registered, even though I deleted my login credentials days ago from the Samsung e-mail app proper. Worse yet, it seems impossible to delete this account from Social Hub; when I try, I just get a “Loading…” screen that stays on forever.

I still like this phone, but my opinion of Samsung just sank several notches all at once. A high technology company should be much more conscious of its users’ security needs and much more proactive in protecting them. Indeed it leaves me wondering if, perhaps, it might have been possible for a smart hacker to use social engineering and trick Samsung into revealing this information… which Samsung should never have obtained without my explicit permission in the first place.

IEEE Spectrum on the origins of DOS

Computers, History, Intellectual Property, Programming No Responses »

Aug 082012

I am reading with astonishment an article in IEEE Spectrum on the origins of DOS. The author, a self-proclaimed expert on software intellectual property analysis, describes his attempt at a forensic comparison of early versions of MS-DOS and CP/M, to prove or disprove once and for all the allegation that MS-DOS was a result of theft.

But I find the article poorly researched, and also a thinly veiled attempt to plug the author’s company and analysis tools. Childish comparisons of identifier names and code fragments… really? The issue was never verbatim copying but the extent to which QDOS (which is the operating system Microsoft purchased and renamed) was derived from CP/M. It is clear that it was heavily influenced by CP/M, just as CP/M was heavily influenced by its predecessors, including operating systems written for the PDP-11. Does this constitute infringement? I certainly do not believe so. Indeed, something very similar (albeit more formal) occurred a little later, when the first IBM-compatible “clones” hit the market, and companies like American Megatrends, Award and Phoenix created binary-compatible versions of the IBM PC BIOS using “clean room” reverse engineering.

Some online commenters went so far as to ascribe ulterior motives to the author and question his sincerity. I think that is uncalled for. However, I do believe that this article should not have been published in its present form. At the very least, the author should have been advised by competent editors to tone down the plugs; to do a little bit more research on the topic; and to shift the emphasis from meaningless code comparisons to an analysis of the functional similarities between the two operating systems, the possible origin of these similarities, and the question of whether or not they might constitute infringement (and the extent to which the law may have changed, if at all, in this regard between 1982 and 2012).

IMAP miseries

Computers, Internet, Programming 1 Response »

Aug 062012

Today, I spent an inordinate amount of time messing with IMAP.

IMAP is a protocol that allows e-mail clients to access e-mail stored on a server. Unlike the more popular POP3 (Post Office Protocol version 3), IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) allows the messages to stay on the server, and allows clients to establish a folder structure on the server.

This makes it possible, in principle, to access the same mailboxes from multiple client devices like a desktop computer, a smartphone, or a tablet.

Don’t we already have this with any Webmail provider, such as Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or the new Outlook.com? Well, yes, but… with all these services, your mail actually physically resides on computers that do not belong to you. I’d be less concerned about this were it not for a case that happened just the other day, a hacker using social engineering to gain access to a journalist’s iCloud account and through that account, everything else (including the journalist’s phone, laptop, and other accounts.)

If Apple can fall victim to social engineering, so can Google or Microsoft. So for this reason alone, I prefer to keep my e-mail on servers that I physically own. But I still like the convenience of accessing my e-mail from anywhere without having to copy bulky mail files or worry about synchronizing them.

This is where IMAP comes in. Except that it turned out to be a much more difficult task than I anticipated.

The basic setup is easy… enable IMAP and go. But then… the University of Washington IMAP server that is included with Slackware Linux has some quirky settings (such as showing all my folders on the server, not just my mail folders) that can only be corrected by recompiling. It took a while before I realized this, and therefore I wasted a lot of time with bugs in the various Android IMAP clients I tried, bugs that just went away once I recompiled the IMAP server. Outlook (which I plan on continuing to use on my main desktop computer) has its own quirks, not the least of which is the insanely difficult nature of seemingly trivial tasks, such as relocating built-in folders like the junk e-mail folder.

In the end, I won. There are still some quirks to be worked out, but I can now access my e-mail from Outlook, the Web (with Squirrelmail) and from my Android phone and tablet just fine. Still, it was a much harder battle than it should have been. I honestly expected this technology to be more mature in the year 2012.

Has Microsoft gone berserk with Windows 8?

Computers, Programming No Responses »

Aug 062012

It looks like Microsoft is absolutely, positively determined to make it hard for long-time users of Windows to continue using their computers productively.

For instance, they actually went the extra mile to disable hacks that allowed Windows 8 to boot directly to the classic desktop and reinstated the Start menu.

What on Earth is going on in Redmond? What are you guys smoking?

Steve Ballmer’s lost decade

Computers, Internet, Programming No Responses »

Aug 022012

I just finished reading a very interesting Vanity Fair article about the decline of Microsoft. It paints a devastating picture leaving one to wonder why Microsoft’s shareholders continue to tolerate Ballmer’s (mis)management.

I have been wondering the same thing for many years, for pretty much the same reasons mentioned in this article: the Vista fiasco, the squandering away of the IE lead, Windows CE and Windows Phone, the Zune misstep, and last but not least, the disaster that is yet to happen, which is called Windows 8.

Think about it: how often did you type “google.com” into a browser lately? How about “facebook.com”? Or “twitter.com”? Or “amazon.com”?

And how many times did you type “microsoft.com”?

And I actually happen to like Microsoft.

The Comments section is also interesting, but mainly because of the bias and misinformation. My all time favorite: the story about how Word became the dominant office product because of “secret APIs”. Perhaps there were secret APIs, perhaps there weren’t. But none of that had anything to do with the then market leader, WordPerfect, jumping on the Windows bandwagon several years late, and with a crappy product that crashed even more often than Microsoft Word for Windows 1.0. And by that time, Microsoft was up to version 4.x and frequent crashes were no longer considered acceptable.

WordPress problem solved…

Computers, Internet No Responses »

Jul 122012

A while back, I ran into a problem with WordPress, the blogging software that I use. I was unable remove posts from categories. In particular, blog posts that were not explicitly added to any category were automatically added to the “Uncategorized” category; it was impossible to remove them afterwards even as I added categories to the post. Unchecking a category made no difference.

Now I know why. For some reason, the WordPress account on my MySQL server lost table lock and (more importantly) delete privileges.

USE mysql;
UPDATE db SET Delete_priv='Y' WHERE User='wordpress' AND Delete_priv='N';
UPDATE db SET Lock_tables_priv='Y' WHERE User='wordpress' AND Lock_tables_priv='N';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

I really like it when I am able to resolve a long-standing problem with such little hassle. I just hope that this privileges issue did not corrupt the database in other ways, causing grief later on.

Hijacking a drone

Aviation, Computer Security, Technology No Responses »

Jun 302012

Last year, many people debated whether or not the Iranians had the wherewithal to hijack that US military drone which they were so proudly displaying afterwards.

Well, wonder no more. Apparently a team from the University of Texas at Austin showed how it can be done using equipment that cost no more than a thousand bucks.

OK, you say, but this drone was using the non-encrypted civilian GPS signal. True… except that if you simply jam the encrypted signal, many military drones fall back (or at least, used to fall back) to using the civilian signal. (As designed, the encryption was primarily about preventing an adversary from using the high accuracy military GPS signal, not about preventing spoofing.)

Visionary

Computers, History 1 Response »

Jun 202012

I am reading a note written by a certain Alan C. Kay at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center.

Kay describes a “personal computer for children of all ages”. This interesting and very detailed description includes, for instance, words like: “Once one has gotten used to the idea of no moving parts, he is ready for the idea of no keyboard at all! Suppose the display panel covers the full extent of the notebook surface. Any keyboard arrangement one might wish can then be displayed anywhere on the surface. […] This arrangement allows the font in which one is typing to be shown on the keys, special characters can be windowed, and user identifiers can be selected with one touch.”

The reason why I consider these words so remarkable is the publication date. Kay’s note was published in the Proceedings of the ACM National Conference, Boston… in August 1972.

The end of DRM?

Computers, Intellectual Property No Responses »

Jun 162012

Just as Canada is about to enact its most Draconian copyright law yet (yes, simply watching a foreign DVD using region-free software will make you a criminal) there are signs that the software gaming industry is finally seeing the light. Reportedly Marcin Iwinski, one of the founders of CD Projekt, known for their best selling Witcher game franchise, declared that “we will never use any DRM anymore”. The reason? Witcher 2 was cracked within two hours of its release. Perhaps that in itself is not particularly surprising, but consider this: this game was simultaneously released DRM-free on GOG.COM. But it was the DRM retail version that was cracked in two hours! “What really surprised me is that the pirates didn’t use the GOG version, which was not protected. They took the SecuROM retail version, cracked it,” said Iwinski.

The reality is that DRM only inconveniences legitimate law-abiding customers. You pay for the game, you get a copy crippled with a software component that might break your computer. You download the cracked version from a “warez” site, you get a DRM-free copy. What, pray tell, is the VALUE a legitimate customer gets in exchange for paying good money?

Finally, it seems that at least some in the gaming industry began to ask this very question. Perhaps one day, we may even be able to convince dinosaur politicians…

Microsoft MBA

Commerce, Computers, Internet No Responses »

Jun 122012

This graphic was sent to me by its creator with an obvious viral marketing intent; but since it is both funny and informative, I said what the heck, why not? In any case, I just love that photograph of Ballmer on which he looks like a mad 1930s dictator from some wacky computer game (Zork Nemesis comes to mind).

Windows 8 METRO: Another Microsoft Bob?

Computers, Programming 1 Response »

May 212012

Remember Microsoft Bob? The revolutionary new interface for Windows that was supposed to make everyday computing easier for the unwashed masses?

It was one of Microsoft’s most spectacular product failures, surpassing even the dreadful Clippy (which, after all, was just an unwelcome feature in an otherwise successful product, Office 97).

But now, it seems that Microsoft is determined to do it again. At a time when the operating system is becoming increasingly less relevant to most users (who cares what operating system runs underneath your browser when you access Gmail or Office 365?) they seem to be dead set on alienating that one class of users for whom the operating system still matters: content creators, which includes artists, designers, software developers and the like.

To their credit, Microsoft is doing this in the open, documenting in a very lengthy blog post the basic ideas behind their most controversial design choices.

But the comments are revealing. Here is a random selection (certainly not unbiased) that I found that I could most closely relate to. After all, just like one of the commenters, I, too, “tried Windows 8 for 2 weeks and then uninstalled“… or rather, not so much uninstalled as never looked at the VM again in which it was installed because I just couldn’t care.

So here are those comments:

“Can someone help me out? Should I install Ubuntu, get a Mac, or keep using Windows 7?”

“Your product is named after a feature of your product. And now the new version of your product tries to abandon said feature in its newly introduced usage mode.”

“Google just added windows to Chrome OS. You are removing windows from Windows. This won’t end well.”

“Except for immersive games, I DON’T WANT to run a single full-screen app. Not ever. If I want something to fill the screen, I will maximize the windows.”

“There is a significant disjunction in the UI. when you hit the start button and are whisked into metro land just to search for something, only to come back to the desktop”

“Thank you Microsoft for this complete failure. I for one welcome our new KDE overlords!”

“None of this TABLET CRAP belongs on desktops!”

“The cold, hard truth of the matter is that Microsoft have created an operating system that I feel is OPENLY ANTAGONISTIC to power users, business users, creative professionals and anyone seeking to use their PC as a productivity tool.”

“In WW2 the English started a program to analyze aircraft to figure out where they needed to add armor. They looked at all of the planes coming back and did frequency analysis of where the bullet holes were. Some areas were so riddled that easily 60% of bullet holes hit these key areas. The first reaction is to armor these heavily hit areas of the plane. This is wrong. These planes survived. The armor should go everywhere else.”

“You are killing Aero? You have to be kidding!”

“Windows 8 prognosis for sales: not that good. That is the latest finding from research entity Gartner.”

“I have to give you credit Microsoft, you really do know how to alienate people.”

“The flat UI in no way looks premium. It is harsh, spartan, and an eyesore.”

“The Metro environment severely compromises functionality by:

not allowing real multitasking (only applications in the foreground are allowed to use CPU);
not allowing more than two applications to run in the foreground (all other applications are suspended).
not allowing the two apps in foreground to use half the screen each (most of the time one of the two apps will be unusable because it has too little space to display information).
not allowing the use of more than one display for Metro apps.
not allowing more than one running instance for an Metro app.“

“And the most scary thing is that we already have an example of crippling the Desktop: Windows on ARM/Windows RT. By not allowing third party Desktop applications, the Desktop is only there to allow you to use MS Office.”

“Do you have a logical explanation why you are screaming permanently that these 9.1 percent iPad/iPhone/Android users are more important than 90% desktop users?”

“Pls provide a METRO ON/OFF option in Windows 8 (only desktop). With Mouse&Keyboard, METRO is bizarre to use.”

“How does Windows 8 “metro” and other this teletubby nonsense work on multimonitor setup?”

“It’s a degradation of Windows. New UI is terrible”

“The metro interface is horrible and whoever designed it should go back to work for whatever cell phone company they crawled out of. Lets stop dumbing down the computer for the appliance user.”

“From my perspective, Aero glass is still fresh and new. The loss is ultimately cosmetic and therefore minor, but it adds to one of the bigger issues with Windows 8’s UI”

“Using Windows 8 with a mouse is about as much fun as running Windows Phone 7 in an emulator all day.”

And finally, the last comment that sums up my own feelings neatly:

“If W8 really works on a desktop used by adults I’ll consider it”

But not until then.

Tax time in Gormenghast

Books, Computers, Intellectual Property, Personal No Responses »

Feb 202012

I just finished doing our taxes. It’s not very complicated (I keep good books) but it still took a few hours. I feel drained… and not just in the wallet. Groan.

Speaking of Groans, I am re-reading the story about the 77th Earl of Groan, Mervyn Peake’s incredible trilogy about the mysterious castle of Gormenghast and its inhabitants. I became aware of this book some 10-odd years ago when the Canadian cable network Space showed the eponymous BBC miniseries; I had no idea what I was watching, but I got hooked by its atmosphere. Later, I bought the book and read it, and what a read it is! Now I decided to read it again, taking my time this time, enjoying every sentence, every turn of phrase. After spending hours with tax software, retiring to my bed with Gormenghast will be quite the relief.

The tax software I use is GenuTax. It is decent, perhaps not the best, but it has an advantage other tax packages lack: it does not require Activation nor does it incorporate other Draconian DRM technology. This is why I switched to this software many years ago. I am disgusted by software companies that treat us all like would-be criminals. Unfortunately, GenuTax is not doing well; their business model is a losing one (lifetime free upgrades) and I worry that they won’t be around much longer, which will be a pity.

Testing (and complaining), please ignore

Computers No Responses »

Feb 192012

Software updates are driving me nuts. One of these days, I’ll try to keep a log of just how much time I spend doing Windows updates, Linux updates, Flash updates, Acrobat updates, Java updates, other software updates… or in this case, updating the Facebook plugin of the blogging software I use, WordPress. The purpose of this post, then, is not just to complain but also verify that the updated plugin still works as advertised. Crossing fingers…

Sunday 1AM

Computers No Responses »

Feb 052012

I am not usually up this late, but I’ve been working a lot tonight. So it’s 1AM and I am still sitting in front of my computer. That’s when it happened… an occurrence that looked eerily like something I’ve seen recently, when my expensive video card died. The system became excessively busy, the mouse pointer froze, and eventually, the Aero glass interface was shut down, for no apparent reason. Oh no… was my computer about to kill another pricey graphics card? But then, in a few minutes, everything was back to normal, with no sign of trouble in the Event Viewer. The only relevant entry was one indicating that the Aero user interface was shut down by a request from the Windows System Assessment Tool. But why? Then, this sentence on Wikipedia caught my eye: “In addition to tests requested by the user, WinSAT is scheduled to automatically run every week. The default schedule is 1am on Sundays”.

Live and learn.

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