David L. Farquhar on technology old and new, computer security, and more
Calibre, the free e-book management software, hit the magic version 1.0 this past week. That’s not to say the previous versions were unstable, because they weren’t. In the world of open-source software, frequently software doesn’t hit version 1.o until the authors decide that it’s reached a certain level of feature completeness.
In that sense, Calibre’s time has come.
Mark Stephens, a.k.a. Robert X. Cringely, wrote last week about his disappointment in Ashton Kutcher’s movie Jobs, about the late Apple co-founder and CEO.
Here’s the most important part of his quasi-review:
[S]omething happened during Steve’s NeXT years (which occupy less than a 60 seconds of this 122 minute film) that turned Jobs from a brat into a leader, but they don’t bother to cover that. In his later years Steve still wasn’t an easy guy to know but he was an easier guy to know. His gut for product was still good but his positions were more considered and thought out. He inspired workers without trying so much to dominate or hypnotize them.
Indeed. Read more
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Steve Ballmer is retiring. It’s time. If anything, I agree with the people who say he would have been better off retiring years ago. But I really didn’t expect it. In spite of the immense pressure to step aside, at least in public he never gave any indication of having any intention of doing so. Read more
My baby at work is a centralized logging tool. That means my system has to touch every other system in this large company’s large network, which is kind of cool. Not many projects deal with that many different things, and I’m seeing some things I haven’t seen since college–and never expected to see in the real world, actually.
A week or two ago, we had some trouble pulling the logs in from a highly specialized system. That happens. Unix is easy, Windows is almost as easy–yes, the world of logging is a little bit upside down–but the one-off systems that don’t fit into neat categories take a lot longer to bring into the fold.
The problem was that the user account my tool uses kept getting locked out. Read more
As I was getting a property ready for inspection, I had to take care of some electrical issues. All of them were trivial, except one. In the end, I had one last dead electrical outlet to figure out.
All of the advice I found online said to call a professional. All of it. Here’s the exception, and here’s how I found it.
This past weekend, Lifehacker posted instructions for building a makeshift drill press out of PVC pipe. Although the finished contraption looks kind of cool, it’s not something you want to build yourself.
My drill press cost me $40. It’s far better and far safer, even though it’s still possible to injure yourself with it. But structurally it’s as sound as it gets, and acquiring it didn’t take me all weekend, either. Read more
So, apparently Miss Teen USA’s computer got infected with a webcam-spying remote access trojan. So someone got some sneaky pictures of her, and tried to blackmail her. Fortunately, instead, she decided to talk about it.
This is good. The majority of people don’t take computer security seriously enough. This could get some people talking, finally.
Unfortunately, the one effective technique against something like this–application whitelisting–isn’t available for the home versions of Windows. Most people think of application whitelisting is a corporate thing, but a signature-based whitelist would keep this kind of software from running on a home PC, which is the target for webcam snooping. Home users need it too. And unfortunately, it’s the people who are most likely to buy the cheaper home version who need it the most. Are you listening, Microsoft?
In the meantime, keep a piece of tape on your webcams, I guess.
But maybe now that Miss Teen USA is running around the talk show circuit talking about this stuff, people will start thinking that maybe, just maybe, bad stuff doesn’t always just happen to other people’s computers. Because it doesn’t.
As a security professional, I’m glad for anything that raises awareness. Because security awareness is one of the DSD Top 35 migitations–it’s #20. And of the 35, it’s the hardest to buy.
And if you’re not scared enough yet, it’s possible to do webcam spying not only with a laptop, but also with a smart TV. It’s a little harder with smart TVs because they’re all a little different, but nobody thinks about their smart TV, and the manufacturers rarely, if ever update them to fix security bugs. Fortunately, TV hacking is, as far as we know, more in the realm of theory right now than active exploitation, but it’s only a matter of time before that changes. The time to pressure manufacturers–or just stop buying smart TVs–is now.
Thanks to Dan Bowman for reminding me of this: Due to a bug in the compression engine in some Xerox photocopiers, copies aren’t necessarily identical from generation to generation. For example, it’s very easy for a “6” to become an “8.” Not good.
There was a Dilbert cartoon where the pointy-haired boss, to Wally’s chagrin, proofread photocopies. Suddenly that joke doesn’t seem quite so funny.
As cheap as storage is, I have a hard time understanding why copiers use lossy compression. There are good lossless compression algorithms out there that ensure each copy will be as close to identical as the scanning hardware permits. And I understand the desirability of image enhancement technology–it would make fuzzy documents easier to read–but such a feature should be optional, so as to avoid situations like this.
If you use Xerox equipment, be sure to bug your rep for a fix. Early and often.
I grew up admiring Ryne Sandberg. He was a hard-hitting, smooth-fielding second baseman, and while his hitting statistics look a little wimpy compared to the steroids era, in the 1980s the sight of him in the on-deck circle struck fear in the hearts of opposing pitchers. He went on to be inducted into the Hall of Fame, and I’m glad to have had the chance to watch him play. I watched him a lot, because all the Cubs games were on WGN, which was available nationally.
Now Sandberg is the new manager of the Phillies. As a Kansas City Royals fan–bear with me–I have a special perspective on this.
I’ve been an Amazon affiliate for more than a decade, which meant that if I mentioned a product, posted a link to Amazon and someone clicked the link and bought it, I got a little bit of money. It didn’t make me rich, but in a good year, I made a couple hundred dollars, which paid for the upkeep of the site.
Well, Amazon and the state of Missouri are fighting, so Amazon is discontinuing the affiliate program for Missouri residents. The loss won’t break me, but by the same token, it’s nice to have that money coming in to pay for things like equipment upgrades. I found Viglink, and I’m going to give that a try.