Month: July 2003

son of napster: can this work?

I, Cringely | The Pulpit

When I mentioned in last week’s column that I would this week be writing about a legal way to do a successful music downloading business — a business that would threaten the Recording Industry Association of America and its hegemony — dozens of readers wrote to me trying to predict what I would write. Some readers came at the problem from a purely technical perspective, ignoring the fact that the real issues here aren’t technical but legal. Some readers took a legal approach, but they tended to ignore the business model. Some were looking solely for the business model. Interestingly, nobody even came close to my idea, which makes me either a total loon or a diabolical genius. Truth be told, I’m probably more of a diabolical loon.

He is all of that: I don’t think this will work as a business, though it seems towork well enough for libraries. I’m not sure enough people would understand it well enough to make the commitment. It’s essentially a private library. But read it yourself and weigh in.

oblique sysadmin strategies

Unix Sysadmin Aphorisms

Don’t rewrite cat -n

I had forgotten these aphorisms, until I saw that BBedit ships with some shell scripts, one of which is below:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
my $i = 0;
while(<>)
{
$i++;
print sprintf("%4d: ",$i), $_;
}

That’s what cat -n does.


[/home/paul]:: perl catdashn < catdashn 1: #!/usr/bin/perl -w 2: my $i = 0; 3: while(<>) 4: { 5: $i++; 6: print sprintf("%4d: ",$i), $_; 7: } (paul@green.paulbeard.org)-(09:44 PM / Thu Jul 24) [/home/paul]:: cat -n catdashn 1 #!/usr/bin/perl -w 2 my $i = 0; 3 while(<>) 4 { 5 $i++; 6 print sprintf("%4d: ",$i), $_; 7 }

Not a big deal, but surely a more meaty example could have been found, and of course, the argument that aphorism is making is not to build something for which a tool already exists.

These aphorisms should be hanging in every IT work area: we used them at my last tech job, especially "what did you do? who did you tell?" In a decentralized work environment, that's essential, and we found that it worked very well.

a grain of salt

Windows Passwords Cracked in Record Time

Exposing a weakness in Windows encryption technology, Swiss researchers have published a paper detailing how to crack Windows computers protected by alphanumeric passwords in an average of 13.6 seconds.

The paper’s lead author, Philippe Oechslin, told NewsFactor that his research is not specifically about Windows software. “I’m looking for encryption systems where there is no random information for security encryption,” he said. He explained that Unix, Linux and Mac OS X use an initialization vector, also known as “salt,” which can have 4,096 values, making cracking much more difficult.

“On Windows, unfortunately, the two versions of password hashes (encoding technology) they use don’t have salt, so we can precalculate all of them,” Oechslin said.

I have to say, this surprises me. I have to ask anyone can honestly use a system with a risky security model in any kind of secure or mission-critical environment. I’m not sure with how one would exploit this, but it stands to reason tools based on these finding will soon be available at a warez site near you.

RSS 2.0 Specification moves to Berkman

Technology at Harvard Law: RSS 2.0 Specification moves to Berkman

On July 15, 2003, UserLand Software transferred ownership of its RSS 2.0 specification to the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. UserLand is a leading developer of tools that produce and consume RSS, and originator of the RSS 2.0 specification.

Sometimes the best way to ensure an idea survives is to stop controlling it . . . . will having Dave’s involvement limited to being on the advisory board make a difference? We’ll have to wait and see.

empowerment versus control

InfoWorld: The battle for decentralization: May 02, 2003: By Chad Dickerson: Networking

The days of the paternalistic top-down IT department are nearly gone. My message to chief technologists everywhere: Your users have left the nest; the best thing you can do is hope they make the right choices and occasionally call you for advice.

This sums up the different philosophies on technology in my current workplace. I’m on the empowerment side, in case you were wondering.
Continue reading “empowerment versus control”

lo-jack for bikes

The recent loss of my bike has me thinking. What if there were a LoJack for bikes? The LoJack’s promise is that if your vehicle is stolen, a transmitter alerts police to the whereabouts of the stolen vehicle before it can be chopped up or damaged.

Given the size of electronic components today (there’s a GPS module for my cell phone, for example) here’s what I envision.

In the seat tube, a cylindrical case contains one of two options, perhaps both if they’re not too hard to do. One is a tamper or movement warning. When the bike is locked up, the owner uses a keyring transceiver to activate a motion sensor. The bike from that time cannot be moved without either sounding an alarm — useful if there are people about to deter a thief — or send an “I’ve been moved” signal to the owner.

The second option would be a LoJack-style tracking system that would send GPS coordinates to the authorities, to be monitored as soon as a bike is reported missing or stolen.

As I checked the LoJack website for a refresher on how their system works, I see they’re already working on this, but just for cars.

Introducing the LoJack Early Warning Recovery System. The auto security system that lets you know if your vehicle has been moved without your permission.

* It provides an added layer of protection on top of the LoJack Stolen Vehicle Recovery System to give you peace-of-mind.
* It enables the police to track and recover your stolen vehicle sooner.
* You carry a personal LoJack Early Warning Key Pass that sends a signal to the LoJack Early Warning Recovery System confirming that you are an authorized driver.
* It alerts you to check on your vehicle no matter where you are- at work or traveling.
* You choose how you want to be contacted – phone, e-mail or alpha pager.
* If you confirm your vehicle has been stolen, you contact the police and they will activate LoJack.

Given that the units for cars are the size of a deck of cards, it doesn’t seem impossible or unreasonable to think this would be useful for bikes, motorcycles, scooters, etc.

Update Oct 5, 2012: This is an excellent proof of concept. Interesting to see how primitive the technology was 9 years ago, to say nothing of my understanding of it. Now in the days of Raspberry Pi and BeagleBone and FitBit, I imagine a seat-tube mounted locating system would be simple. Sure, these things can be defeated but as with car prowling and pickpocketing, it’s all about getting away undetected. If that bike you just boosted lets out a howl 120 dB howl while it radios its location and course to the owner and the local PD (via Twitter, even), maybe you just drop it and exit the way you came in — on foot.

Update 2, April 8, 2013: this kickstarter project looks a lot what I wished for 10 years ago. I’m not saying they cribbed my idea, I’m more pleased that something like it is actually happening.

the fragmented heritage of Newton

MacMegasite – More new Panther features

The address book now lets you customize which fields appear on the card. You can also define relationships between contacts such as friend, assistant, manager, etc.

This was a feature in the Newton OS that I always liked.You could define a contact as an affiliate of another, similar to this feature. Much as I mourn the Newton’s demise, I’m glad to see the best of it survive.

back in the saddle

Fuji Bikes

You get a lot for a little with this bicycle, a comfy suspension seat post and saddle, wide range gearing for easy pedaling, and good looking too!

It’s a loaner, until mine comes in. Easy bike to ride, though this one is a couple of inches too big. The gearing is low, so climbs are manageable, but descents are a freewheeling experience: my legs don’t go fast enough to pedal once this thing gets upwards of 20 mph. But the brakes are excellent, so I’ll take that compromise.

At almost 30 pounds, it’s a far cry from the skeletal contraptions the world’s best athletes are riding through the Pyrenees.

<update> turns out I don’t have a loaner. The guy at the shop wants it back, and he can’t order the new one yet (he doesn’t have enough credit this cycle and I can’t pay up front for it).

<grumble>