one more monkey...: 2009/02

2009-02-27

(funny,wow) a phone that you can dump into boiling coffee and it still works?

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2009/02/26/review_mobile_phone_sonim_enduro_xp3/print.html

But the really funny part was this quote:

"However, don't expect to listen to music on the Enduro despite the
volume attainable: the MP3 player lacks any kind of recognisable
interface, even the hardware volume buttons don't work with an MP3. When
questioned about the lack of interface, the chaps from Sonim expressed
surprise that the handset had any MP3-playback capability at all. Bonus!"

2009-02-17

(funny) rouge routers

someone posted a comment where he talked about a rouge (sic) router causing connectivity problems. The predictable result:

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1130227&cid=26880003

2009-02-14

(malware) high blood pressure

http://blog.linuxtoday.com/blog/2009/02/i-give-up-peopl.html

...a tech-journo gets high blood pressure. I would be in the same situation, but I'm slowly learning to take a somewhat detached view. I'll protect my stuff, help anyone who asks, but otherwise stay out of the way. Stick to local evangelism, forget about global evangelism.

This change of heart sponsored by the enormous amount of cluelessness around me. Carla gave up today. I gave up approximately 2 weeks ago.

fz-uubss

2009-02-13

(funny,quote) what can go wrong?

The major difference between a thing that might go wrong and a thing which cannot possibly go wrong is that when a thing that cannot possibly go wrong goes wrong it usually turns out to be impossible to get at or repair

-- Douglas Adams

(malware) Microsoft announces $250,000 Conficker worm bounty

I guess it's a lot cheaper than fixing the security of your own products... :-)

- why should a desktop have RPC and other ports open by default?
- why design a system where even a 'local administrator' cannot fix something (see http://isc.sans.org/diary.html?storyid=5842 )?
- and most importantly, why oh why does autorun.inf execute even for USB sticks?

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/021209-conflickr-bounty-microsoft.html

Quote: "By combining our expertise with the broader community, we can expand the boundaries of defense to better protect people worldwide," said George Stathakopoulos, general manager of Microsoft's Trustworthy Computing Group.

Translation: we have no clue how to deal with this without admitting we screwed up bigtime, and by co-opting all of you, we can pretend it's not really our fault.

2009-02-11

(git) git grep

came up in my RSS feed earlier today... pretty powerful stuff

http://gitster.livejournal.com/27674.html

...and most of the power is nothing to do with version control per se
(except the aspect of grepping for stuff in older revisions)

2009-02-09

(MBA) a salesman speaks

I agree that socialising may lead to conceptualising. Maybe even, if you get (un)lucky -- pardon the mild salacity -- conception :-) But how do you "socialise a concept"?

It seems to me that, compared to sales guys, we lead such dull, drab, humorless lives. We write programs and think we're creating something. They change the very language in which we communicate, pulling the rugs from under our collective feet. And most of us don't even know it. Only a very few are even privileged to be in their presence, and that too by the most tenuous of connections -- a phone call.

Truly, they are masters of their destiny. And ours too...

God help us.

-------- Original Message --------

<deleted> and I will socialize this concept with these people and see when and how we can set up a possible workshop with

2009-02-07

(funny) Gates Releases more bugs into the world?

To highlight malaria awareness, Bill Gates apparently
released a bottle full of mosquitos at TED recently.

TED curator Chris Anderson joked that when the video is
posted on the TED website, it would be headlined "Gates
releases more bugs into the world."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/05/gates_mosquitoes_ted_conference/

(criminal,malware) must have been my brother in some past life...

...well except for the little bit about Church of GNU anyway

http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1117843&cid=26745339

2009-02-03

(criminals,malware) still don't feel like installing Linux?

Yes, gentle readers, we finally have a genuine swear word on this blog, not that namby-pamby "fsck" mis-spelling I trot out when I'm upset, so here goes...

The bastards at Microsoft have sunk to a new low.

If you're running Windows and have auto-update on, and you use firefox (because you know IE is full of holes), this is what you got some time ago:

- a firefox add-on you never asked for, from Microsoft, not from Mozilla
- which installs itself without asking, as part of Windows update
- and won't uninstall without forcing you to go into the registry editor

So -- if you installed firefox because it was more secure than IE -- MS has a plan to make sure FF is as fscked as IE is.

At least on Windows.

And please, for MS apologists: it doesn't matter *what* the fscking extension is actually doing. The fact that MS can

- install something onto a competing product
- without the user's permission, and
- (bonus) make it hard to uninstall without regedit

all adds up to an enormous amount of arrogance. You may have paid for your computer, but you don't actually own it -- they do.

Listen up guys, I've said this before and I'll say this again, loud and clear. AT LEAST ON YOUR HOME MACHINES, PLEASE INSTALL AND USE LINUX!! I'll help -- call me. I'll do anything to help people install and use it.

Some links:

2009-02-01

(malware) Interview with an Adware developer

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/01/interview_with_10.html

quote from linked article:

I should probably first speak about how adware works.
Most adware targets Internet Explorer (IE) users because
obviously they're the biggest share of the market. In
addition, they tend to be the less-savvy chunk of the
market. If you're using IE, then either you don't care
or you don't know about all the vulnerabilities that IE
has.