Most software patents suck. They are simply a high level description of something you could create “transfer information from one system to the other by electronic means”. Yeah right! The Patent and Trademark Office has argued in favor of imposing new restrictions on the scope of patentable subject matter set forth by Congress in §101 of the Patent Act. Process inventions generally are unpatentable unless they “result in a physical transformation of an article” or are “tied to a particular machine.”
I’ve posted many rants against DRM already and will continue to rant when needed. In this case Nate Anderson wrote an article which is a convincing statement against DRM. Yahoo! Music, a not very well known online music store, closes shop and will bring down the DRM keyserver as well. So all of the poor sods who bought music through Yahoo! Music will not be able to play their songs anymore. That’s DRM for you. Thanks DRM. Thanks Yahoo!
What have we learned? Don’t put your trust and money in DRM protected goods. It’s like the local car dealer goes out of business and starts taking back all delivered cars from their customers. “Sorry we’re broke. We’ll have to revoke your right to use the car that you bought. Hand over the keys. NOW!”
Today is the ninth annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. So today is an excellent day to mail your system administrator and thank him or her for the lack of storage in your mailbox. For screwing up the daily backups so only the full backup of last month could be restored losing weeks of valuable work. For blocking useful internet pages. For stripping important attachments from your incoming mail. For revoking permissions on your user account that makes work next to impossible.
This is just the point of system administrator day. In general every encounter a user has with a system administrator is typically in case of problems. The system administrator is associated with problems. So remember every day you don’t have to call on the system administrator he’s doing a good job keeping the infrastructure up and running. Appreciate that.
Worried about where MySQL is heading? Do your applications rely on a fast, easy and low-footprint database? Then maybe, just maybe, drizzle is the thing for you. Drizzle is about building a database designed for the typical Web usage patterns for a database. It is being designed for massive concurrency on modern multi-cpu/core architecture. The code is originally derived from MySQL. Checkout the WIKI. Drizzle is the shizzle, fo shizzle ma nizzle.
The yearly Pwnie Award nominees are selected. The Pwnie Award is an annual awards ceremony celebrating and making fun of the achievements and failures of security researchers and the wider security community. Many categories are there from “server-side bugs” to “Most Epic Fail” and even “Lifetime Achievement Award”. Pick your favorite now. The winners of the Pwnie Awards will be announced on August 6, 2008 at a ceremony at the BlackHat USA conference in Las Vegas.
Now here’s a nice video in which some German hackers explain how they analyzed and hacked the Mifare chip that is about to be used in the chipcard for Dutch public transportation. Although each chip has a unique ID the Germans show how they can alter the key so it card behaves as another card with another unique ID. So the ID can’t be changed but using the key a card can be cloned. They will publish full details somewhere next year. As they say it: “start migrating now”. Video is about one hour.
Here’s a nice compilation of hilarious bugs in various computer games. The trend is towards realistic physics so characters are not pre-rendered but drawn based on the physical model of the game. Not all game programmers are Einsteins.
Today I came across a small article that mentioned that the Data Loss Database is taken over and will be maintained by the Open Security Foundation. Ignorant as I am I didn’t even knew there was such a database. It holds all known cases of data loss world wide. Take a look at that and see how many cases are reported. Once again the only question that comes to mind is: when will we ever learn?
Unfortunately linux evangelist and publicist Joe Barr has passed away at the age of 63. There is an in memoriam at Linux.com. His blog is still up and cynically his last article is a goodbye to Bill Gates. Joe Barr gained momentum and fame with his magazine “The Dweebspeak Primer” available here. If I’m wrong and there is a heaven then it will run Linux pretty soon.
Most of you will know that I’m not a fan of MS Windows, well actually not a fan of MS at large. Sure you can have endless hours of joy playing solitaire or other games on you windows platform, it’s all fine with me. You can write a letter, do some accounting and stuff like that. Windows is stable enough to support you daily needs. My dislike of Windows comes from its use in server environments that are supposed to run reliable for months and months. Unfortunately Windows is being used in mission critical environments as well. Even medical equipment.
I don’t know about you but if I’m on intensive care and my life depends on some piece of equipment not doing its “blue screen of death”-routine I would get pretty worried. Now here’s a list of worst uses for MS Windows from a worried person calling professionals to think about the platform they are using…
Een tijdje geleden was in Parijs Blizzards’ World Wide Invitational. Blizzard lanceerde daar een nieuwe diablo. Ook was er voor de pers gelegenheid om een indruk te krijgen van StarCraft II. Blizzard heeft al laten weten dat we tenminste tot 2009 moeten wachten op StarCraft II. Tot die tijd: (p)review op tweakers.net
Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation (FSF), has been known for his controversial and sometimes radical statements. So in many cases I don’t (fully) agree with Richard but in this article I like the gest of his article regarding proprietary software and the stranglehold it keeps on its users.
In the article Stallman calls copying software for neighbours a neighbourly thing to do. I feel that if the software is targeted at home users (with acceptable pricing) you should not copy the software. License a copy for a few bucks. However when software is targeted for business-use I don’t think home users should have to pay up. If I were Microsoft, only business/professional use of MS Office would require a license. Home use of MS Office would be free. Does Microsoft really believe that an eight year old who writes a letter to grandma should pay hunderds of dollars for an office license? I don’t think this is very realistic. I would like to see a business plan that projects expected revenue from eight year olds writing letters to grandma. Get out of here!
Today my good buddy Emiel sent me a link to a remarkable video. You’ll see a holographic display of the Earth fed by google Earth. How cool is that? Yes, you are right: VERY COOL!! Please wait for the part where they stop rotating the Earth and start zooming in…
Dit is cool! Niet alleen vanuit technisch oogpunt zijn gedistribueerde filesystemen cool maar OFF (Owner Free Filesystem) gaat nog een stapje verder: opgeslagen data en transfers worden randomize. De data die wordt opgeslagen is dus geen kopie van het origineel. Dat betekent dus ook dat op uw “opgeslagen” mp3′tje geen copyright meer rust. Het is namelijk geen muziek meer. Het is zelfs geen MP3′tje meer. Het is totaal iets anders geworden, althans in opgeslagen vorm en tijdens transfer.
Het randomiseren werkt via algorithmen. Een simpel voorbeeld: getallen kunnen op meedere manieren samen gesteld worden. En dan hebben we het niet over de elementaire bouwstenen der getallen, de priemgetallen maar over simpele getallen. Bijvoorbeeld 12 = 2*6 maar ook 3*4 en ook 7 + 5 of 8 + 4. Je kunt “12″ dus opslaan als twee waarden 8|4 waarbij het algoritme “optellen” is. Het idee achter OFF is dat als iemand copyright heeft op de drie waarden 12,12,12 dat diegene dan niet automatisch copyright heeft op 8|4,10|2,5|7 of alle andere combinaties. Toch? Of wel? Of niet? Dat is nu de vraag. Totdat er een juridische uitspraak is kunt u gebruik maken van een groot gedistribueerd filesysteem zonder eigenaar van de data.
Some Linux kernel developers have issued a statement in which they call upon the hardware manufacturers to deliver open source linux-drivers for their equipment. Here’s the statement:
We, the undersigned Linux kernel developers, consider any closed-source Linux kernel module or driver to be harmful and undesirable. We have repeatedly found them to be detrimental to Linux users, businesses, and the greater Linux ecosystem. Such modules negate the openness, stability, flexibility, and maintainability of the Linux development model and shut their users off from the expertise of the Linux community. Vendors that provide closed-source kernel modules force their customers to give up key Linux advantages or choose new vendors. Therefore, in order to take full advantage of the cost savings and shared support benefits open source has to offer, we urge vendors to adopt a policy of supporting their customers on Linux with open-source kernel code.
Here’s the original statement including the list of developers. The Linux foundation also issued a supporting statement. This would be a great step forward. I support the statement as well. For most hardware you can select a product that has open source drivers however for graphics adapters you are stuck. There is only a small number of manufacturers of graphics adapters. Intel is offering adaptes with open source drivers but these are way below par on features and speed.
Now here’s a nice video in which some German hackers explain how they analyzed and hacked the Mifare chip that is about to be used in the chipcard for Dutch public transportation. Although each chip has a unique ID the Germans show how they can alter the key so it card behaves as another card with another unique ID. So the ID can’t be changed but using the key a card can be cloned. They will publish full details somewhere next year. As they say it: “start migrating now”. Video is about one hour.