Since a certain someone who is obsessed with drawing everything on a board, even when it isn't needed decided to erase this from my white board, I'm posting this here, because I feel like it.
The Feynman Problem Solving Algorithm:None of these steps may be skipped, especially the first one. Which, BTW, is about the most common mistake I see around here -- often perpetrated by our mysterious white-board eraser.
Per this press release:
Bruce Springsteen's album doesn't hit stores until April 25th but listeners have an exclusive opportunity to listen to the album in its entirety on-demand beginning today. Clear Channel Radio is the only place to catch a "Sneak Peek" of Bruce Springsteen's latest album, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. This online exclusive will be available on 390 Clear Channel Radio station Web sites!
Yes, you're reading that correctly. Bruce Springsteen (the blue collar hero
and the working man's friend
) has teamed up with 17 folk musicians to put out an album of Pete Seeger (counter-culture icon, blacklisted socialist, anti-war and environmental activist) songs. And it's being released (initially) only to Clear Channel Stations.
It seems clear that The Boss has lost his mind (to say nothing of his working man
roots and, perhaps, credibility). I hereby move that we start a fundraising effort to get The Boss the help he so desperately needs.
I'm sure I'll have more, I've only watched a few hours of the Olympics so far.
Technorati Tags: Outright Rant, Olympics
There was an interesting security tidbit in this article on last week's post office shooting:
The shooter's pass to access the facility had been expired, officials said, but she apparently used her knowledge of how security at the facility worked to gain entrance, following another vehicle in through the outer gate and getting other employees to open security doors.This is a failure of both technology and procedure. The gate was configured to allow multiple vehicles to enter on only one person's authorization -- that's a technology failure. And people are programmed to be polite -- to hold the door for others.
SIDE NOTE: There is a common myth that workplace homicides are prevalent in the United States Postal Service. (Note the phrase "going postal.") But not counting this event, there has been less than one shooting fatality per year at Postal Service facilities over the last 20 years. As the USPS has more than 700,000 employees, this is a lower rate than the average workplace.
(Security Problems with Controlled Access Systems via Schneier on Security.)
Last July I blogged about the risks of storing ever-larger amounts of data in ever-smaller devices.
Last week I wrote my tenth Wired.com column on the topic:
The point is that it's now amazingly easy to lose an enormous amount of information. Twenty years ago, someone could break into my office and copy every customer file, every piece of correspondence, everything about my professional life. Today, all he has to do is steal my computer. Or my portable backup drive. Or my small stack of DVD backups. Furthermore, he could sneak into my office and copy all this data, and I'd never know it.This problem isn't going away anytime soon.
There are two solutions that make sense. The first is to protect the data. Hard-disk encryption programs like PGP Disk allow you to encrypt individual files, folders or entire disk partitions. Several manufacturers market USB thumb drives with built-in encryption. Some PDA manufacturers are starting to add password protection -- not as good as encryption, but at least it's something -- to their devices, and there are some aftermarket PDA encryption programs.
The second solution is to remotely delete the data if the device is lost. This is still a new idea, but I believe it will gain traction in the corporate market. If you give an employee a BlackBerry for business use, you want to be able to wipe the device's memory if he loses it. And since the device is online all the time, it's a pretty easy feature to add.
But until these two solutions become ubiquitous, the best option is to pay attention and erase data. Delete old e-mails from your BlackBerry, SMSs from your cell phone and old data from your address books -- regularly. Find that call log and purge it once in a while. Don't store everything on your laptop, only the files you might actually need.
EDITED TO ADD (2/2): A Dutch army officer lost a memory stick with details of an Afgan mission.
(Risks of Losing Portable Devices via Schneier on Security.)
There's a good write-up from The Register.
Two points stand out. One, the RFID chip in the passport can be read from ten meters. Two, lots of predictability in the encryption key -- sloppy, sloppy -- makes the brute-force attack much easier.
But the references are from last summer. Why is this being reported now?
(Dutch Biometric Passport Cracked via Schneier on Security.)
I often hear people say I don't know.
I realize that not everybody knows everything, that's impossible. Therefore, like the proverbial stupid question,
there' no shame in admitting that you don't know.
Or is there?
My good friend Tom pointed out to me today that there are two places in a sentence where I don't know
can be placed, and it makes a big difference:
I don't knowis totally acceptable in the first half of a sentence, but never at the end Here's a classic example:
I don't know, but I'll look into itis a fine answer, as would "I don't know yet, thanks for calling it to my attention.
Implied, of course, is that I don't know
as the answer to a question, say:
Why are we getting errors?
I don't know.
As was given to me is not appropriate, at least, when the question is addressed to a person who should know the answer.
Technorati Tags: Outright Rant
It's Friday, so why not somthing a little silly?
This is a good start:
i'm reading about how to survive a robot uprising. i'm not gonna give away all the secrets, but i'll share a few...
- choose a complex environment. waterfalls, street traffic, and places with lots of ambient noise confuse the robots.
- lose your heat signature. smear yourself with mud and leaves and sit real still.
- use uncommon words to suss out robots on the phone. robots do not know how pronounce supercalifragilisticexpealidocious.
- find a blunt weapon. serrated edges won't work on robo exo-skeletons. nope.
- alter your stride. robots can judge gait and injury, even height and intention, by stride, so put some rocks in your shoes and mix things up a bit. doing some ministry of silly walks stuff goes even further towards confusing them.
- pretend that everything is normal. to forstall a mechanized killing spree, you must pretend that nothing is amiss.
Surely we can do better. Any other suggestions?
Super Cipher P2P Messenger uses "unbreakable Infinity bit Triple Layer Socket Encryption for completely secure communication."
Wow. That sure sounds secure.
(The Doghouse: Super Cipher P2P Messenger via Schneier on Security.)
A week ago, I started hearing complaints that people with Thunderbird 1.5 were having problems searching our LDAP directory. I ignored it at first, as I was busy, and figured it was a configuration problem, and I'm not responsible for mail client configurations.
In the last few days, it's turned in to a torrent of complaints, and it definitely isn't a configuration problem. So, what could it be?
It seems that the Thunderbird folks decided that the perfectly legitimate search filter
(|(cn=first*last*)(mail=first*last*)(sn=first*last*))used by previous version was far too, uhm, correct. They changed it to:
(|(mail=*first last*)(displayname=*first last*)(givenname=*first last*)(sn=*first last*))because searching on DisplayName seems like a good use of an attribute meant for the display version of a name.
This may seem innocuous enough, but it isn't. CN is Common Name
, which we (and other people, I'm sure) specially handle to provide nickname
searching. So, searching for cn=john miner
will find me, whereas displayname=john miner
doesn't (even though my first name is misspeeled..
In this case, I was able to fix it using the same custom plugin I wrote to do the nickname lookups to translate searches on displayname
in to searches on cn
. If not for this, it would be up to us to change user.js on every Thunderbird client, because Michael Layde found that
user_pref("ldap_2.servers.default.attrmap.DisplayName", "cn,commonname"); changes what Thunderbird uses for DisplayName. Boy, that would be fun.
Please, people, use attributes the way they are intended!
Technorati Tags: Outright Rant, Dear Vendor
Great story illustrating how criminals adapt to security measures.
The notes were all $5 bills that had been bleached and altered to look like $100 bills, sheriff's investigators said. They passed muster with the pen because it determines only whether the paper used to manufacture the currency is legitimate, Bandy said.As a security measure, the merchants use a chemical pen that determines if the bills are counterfeit. But that's not exactly what the pen does. The pen only verifies that the paper is legitimate. The criminals successfully exploited this security hole.
| Winery | Barefoot Cellars |
|---|---|
| Type | Cabernet Sauvignon |
| Year | Unknown. No date on label. |
| Location | Modesto, California |
Overall: A bit fruity for me. Not a strong Cabernet Sauvignon, seems almost a bit watery. I'm a fan of an ass-kicking Cab, which this isn't.
This wine was actually recommended to me by a friend, and came highly rated. Unfortunately, it falls way short of expectations. The lack of a vintage date on the label should have been a clue, perhaps. The label itself is ©2003, so maybe it's a recent vintage. (Then again, it isn't too recent, is it? 2003 is now three years ago.)
If you like a fruity, less dry Cab, this is for you. It's a cheap buy, and definitely beats many others in it's price-class.
Technorati Tags: Wine
I'm all for diversity. I'm all for different voices
reading the news. But, if you're reading the news in english, please be able to understandably speak english.
It's one thing if the person is a source, or the only person available, but just because you're looking for diversity
, don't put unqualified people on the air. Adding a disabled person or a speaker who is not understandable* simply makes the news less accessible, especially to non-native english speakers who may have problems understanding other thick accents and/or difficult speech patterns.
All this does is make me change the channel. Even when it's my favorite station, one I happen to volunteer my time to.
So, how do we help people get better at speaking? Good question, and I don't have an answer. Hopefully there are smarter people out there who do.
*OK, well, what standard do we use? That's a good question that I don't know the answer to. I use the standard of what I can understand while not paying complete attention (driving, working, writing this blog entry).
Technorati Tags: Outright Rant
I used to be incensed over the fact that celebrities could literally kill people, then go to court and get away with murder. Then I became a minor celebrity and my opinion started to change.
I’m not famous enough to get away with premeditated murder, but it’s my ultimate goal. At my current level of fame I figure the most I could get away with is maybe a vigorous bludgeoning, or perhaps some high spirited groping. Those free passes could come in handy someday, but it’s not the same as knowing you can whack someone if you feel like it.
I once considered getting a teardrop tattoo so I’d look like an ex con and people would fear me. But with the Three Strikes law, being an ex con isn’t the panacea it used to be. Celebrities are the new bullies. That’s why I carry around my magazine covers just in case I get in a “situation.” When the shoving starts, I just whip out the January issue of Fortune magazine – the one with Dilbert on the cover – and say something like, “Do you know who drew that? Well DO you, punk?”
Then I go into my cage fighting stance and hope no one notices that my entire body is made of peanut brittle.
The media giants have been very clear in their position. You don't own your content, you have a license to view/use it from them. In their eyes, you're not allowed to make a backup copy, install it on your iPod, watch it on a device built for a foreign region, etc., because the license they set all the terms for doesn't cover that.
This isn't fair in any eyes but theirs, of course, but let's say, for the purposes of argument, that it's all true.
Now, take one of those shiny discs, with the content you've licensed. Gaze at it warmly. Fondle its smooth digital surface. Hold it up to the light and marvel at the way the light refracts. Take out a key, and put a big scratch across it. Try to play it in your device. Go ahead, I'll wait.
Doesn't work anymore, right? But you paid good money for the license to view that content. Call the content owner up, and ask for a replacement. Patiently explain that since you already paid your $25 for a license to use the content, and they said you couldn't back it up, that you should be entitled to a new copy for the $1 or $2 cost of the media alone.
Did they say no? Fancy that. Where is all the convoluted language about licensing and right-to-view now? Is it possible that when the media is intact, you license the content, but as soon as it's scratched, you own it? Looks like it to me.
Could it be, in the end, that the huge quest to control your ability to copy content you buy, all in the name of preventing piracy, is really all about selling you the same thing over and over again?
It doesn't matter if it's via email or a voice mail, when you ask me a long, detailed question, include an example.
I don't want to reply to your long email with "can you give me an example?" Even more so, if you insist that I call, I don't want to call you up and say "can you give me an example?" and then spend the next few minutes figuring out what is happened, while you are on the line. I can do it more efficiently when I'm not cradling the phone, and you're not breathing in my ear.
That is all.
Technorati Tags: Outright Rant
Be careful what you write in your journal:
An airline passenger with the words "suicide bomber" written in his journal was arrested when his plane arrived in San Jose, California, on Wednesday, but the words appeared to refer to music and he was later released, officials said...."Preliminary, what we believe is that that was the name of either a band or a song," Quy said.
I'm not sure I want "Suicide Bombers" displayed on my iPod. I certainly wouldn't want to be in a band with that name, flying around the country with crates of gear marked "Suicide Bombers." That would be asking for trouble.
On the other hand, it's pretty sad what is enough to get you arrested these days:
"A male was observed by his fellow passengers as having a journal and handwritten on the journal were the words 'suicide bomber,'" FBI spokeswoman LaRae Quy said."That, combined with the fact that he was clutching a backpack, and then finally he was acting a little suspiciously" prompted law enforcement to act.
My guess is that it wouldn't matter how he held his backpack; once the jittery passenger saw the words everything else was interpreted suspiciously.
Unforeseen security effects of weak ID cards:
It can even be argued that the introduction of the photocard licence has encouraged ID fraud. It has been relatively easy for fraudsters to obtain a licence, but because it looks and feels like 'photo ID', it is far more readily accepted as proof of identity than the paper licence is, and can therefore be used directly as an ID document or to support the establishment of stronger fraudulent ID, particularly in countries familiar with ID cards in this format, but perhaps unfamiliar with the relative strengths of British ID documents.During the Commons ID card debates this kind of process was described by Tory MP Patrick Mercer, drawing on his experience as a soldier in Northern Ireland, where photo driving licences were first introduced as an anti-terror measure. This "quasi-identity card... I think—had a converse effect to that which the Government sought... anybody who had such a card or driving licence on their person had a pass, which, if shown to police or soldiers, gave them free passage. So, it had precisely the opposite effect to that which was intended."
Effectively - as security experts frequently point out - apparently stronger ID can have a negative effect in that it means that the people responsible for checking it become more likely to accept it as conclusive, and less likely to consider the individual bearing it in any detail. A similar effect has been observed following the introduction of chip and PIN credit cards, where ownership of the card and knowledge of the PIN is now almost always viewed as conclusive.
