Artikel - 29.3.2004 - 11.4.2004

Apple protects itself from 'Playfair'

Was to be expected that Apple would take action against it. Hosting the project on Sourceforge was really a bit too bold.

It could be interesting to observe how this develops further. For Apple, it could become a real problem if the music industry thinks their DRM implementation is too lax - and, for example, prefers Microsoft's model.

On the other hand, Apple now has such a large market share in music downloads that it's probably somewhat difficult for the music industry to take action against Apple without shooting themselves in the foot. Though they're dumb enough to try anyway.

At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft there's the original article.

For Radio Programmers

I wasn't familiar with him. Very practical! Especially since I finally got access to cable radio yesterday.

At Wortfeld you can find the original article.

Sun discontinues development of UltraSparc V

Ouch. Ok, it was foreseeable - the new chips were announced repeatedly, but never appeared. Still - that's quite a debacle. SUN simply doesn't have enough resources to abandon a chip line in the sand without it having an impact on the company ...

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Bush knew about 9/11 weeks in advance

It's quite remarkable how more and more keeps piling up, and this president can still manage to stay in office. He's easily surpassed Nixon and Clinton in terms of misconduct.

At Industrial Technology & Witchcraft you can find the original article.

Notebook Fuel Cell for Ten Hours of Runtime

Eventually it will get to the point where you can pour aquavit or whisky into your notebook to run it.

At heise online news there's the original article.

PLT Spy - News

With PLT Spy - the Python implementation for the PLT Scheme runtime - development continues. The current approach is to bring the CPython API to PLT Spy and integrate it into the PLT Scheme runtime, making it possible to use CPython extensions. The goal is to be able to use almost all extensions and also the original C code for standard types in PLT Spy, thereby making all CPython libraries available at once.

That sounds very good, but it raises the question of why one should still use PLT Spy - the linked article provides some answers, but concrete details will only be apparent once things have progressed further.

Here you can find the original article.

Dragnet search does not lead to success

And Schily of course still sees the dragnet investigation as successful. Top marks on the open-ended idiocy scale ...

At heise online news there's the original article.

Spyware manufacturer wants to go public

Audacious. Data protection violations without end, fraudulent software installation (because nowhere does this garbage warn that data is being spied on and forwarded), and the whole thing packaged in a form that's more reminiscent of viruses and worms than proper software (namely piggybacking on other programs). And something like this wants to go public.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Schrempp confirmed despite shareholder criticism

He's running the company into the ground economically. Makes stupid decisions and grandiose projects that fail. Approves himself a record salary despite the company declining and employees losing money and jobs. Gets criticized by shareholders. And the consequence: discharge of liability and confirmation in office, extension of the outrageous contract until 2008.

Shareholders are complete idiots.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD there's the original article.

Introduction of new identity documents as 'gigantic laboratory test'

And we are the rats in the maze.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Experiences with the Krasnogorsk FT-2 Panoramic Camera

A website about the predecessors of the Horizon Panorama cameras. Worth reading alone for the factory name - Krasnogorsky Mekhanichesky Zavod - Jaroslav Poncar has posted pictures taken with the camera online.

Here you can find the original article.

AIDS Medications Cheaper for Developing Countries

First Signs of Intelligence?

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Amadeus II - Edit Sounds

Nette Software. Load sounds, edit, look at spectra and save again in the desired target format. Makes a very good impression on me. But I'm also a layman when it comes to this sort of thing ...

Here you can find the original article.

Drop Target for my Brain

The description of Near Time Flow sounds very interesting. A free-form database where you throw text snippets, regardless of source. The software records the sources along with the snippets. You can edit and expand the snippets. You can travel through time and view older states. You can access the original sources and overlay Flow data on top of them. You can send data to other users in a peer-to-peer network fashion, with Flow automatically determining which transmission method works best. You can access your data stocks via RSS and perform full-text searches. And all of this with a nice OS X interface.

Somehow it sounds like something Tinderbox could have been if it had been conceived much more openly.

And above all, it sounds like it comes much closer to the idealtypical Zettelkasten. Tinderbox with its agents and links is quite nice, but Flow sounds like the Zettelkasten nirvana could be reached.

At PragDave there's the original article.

Genetically modified wheat sown in Germany for the first time

On top of it all. And the citizen is also supposed to foot the bill for police operations - even though nobody wants the genetic garbage, except for the corporations and some bribed local politicians.

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Fastpath and faster upstream for T-DSL without setup fee

The faster upstream would be nice...

At heise online news there's the original article.

ICANN Defends Ban on VeriSign's Sitefinder

ICANN does something useful.

At heise online news you'll find the original article.

Wave Power Plant Goes Online

Interesting concept. I'm curious about the results and whether this type of power plant has a future.

At NETZEITUNG.DE Wissenschaft you can find the original article.

Greenpeace protests against 'baby patent'

And the patent madness continues. Eventually even sexual intercourse will be patented and only permitted after paying a license fee...

I found the original article at NETZEITUNG.DE Science here.

My Digital SLR is Sick

My Kodak DCS 520 is sick. It keeps crashing - loses the time setting and locks up. The lockup resolves when I turn off the camera and then wait 1 minute until the camera timeout also shuts down the analog part (i.e., the part that is the EOS 1N). Then I can turn it back on, set the time, and continue shooting. Recently, though, I even had constant crashes during a walk with the camera - so far I haven't figured out exactly when it happens. The normal crashes only occur when I change the battery. If anyone else has such a camera and knows these symptoms, please let me know. PPS Hamburg has already threatened me with horrendous repair costs due to a mainboard defect, but maybe someone else knows something more about it.

Fortunately, I still have a purely mechanical Leica M, where the battery is only used for the exposure meter, so it works fine without power too. And it has no mainboard.

New utility strips DRM from iTunes Music Store tracks

Whether the tool will remain available for long? After all, it violates stricter laws in some countries regarding the protection of copy and usage restriction procedures (sorry, but none of them can really be called copy protection).

At The Macintosh News Network you can find the original article.

Audible.com - audio that speaks to you wherever you are

What should one think of an audiobook server that is almost completely based on Javascript for navigation? That violates all accessibility guidelines? That ultimately is not usable for the visually impaired - who are precisely the audience of such a service?

Here is the original article.

ICE Catastrophe Prevented at the Last Second

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

iPod too hard to use

Is the iPod too heavy to use? And the article didn't come out on April 1st? Humanity is doomed ... (ok, the British portion of humanity)

I found the original article at kasia in a nutshell.

When the Economy Takes the Lead

Funny. So far, public broadcasting has specifically highlighted its independence as its special feature. But where is that independence when ZDF makes deals with business to present products favorably in series and thus engage in disguised advertising? And now we're supposed to increase fees on top of that?

Cultural programs and interesting documentaries are banished to the margins around midnight, but silly trivial shows get prime time slots. And the whole thing nicely sponsored and corrupt. How does something like that align with the mission of public broadcasting?

At Telepolis News (04.04.2004) there's the original article.

Idiotic Mail Server Configurations Again

Found in the log file:

 554- (RTR:DU) The IP address you are using to connect to AOL is a dynamic 554- (residential) IP address. AOL will not accept future e-mail transactions 554- from this IP address until your ISP removes this IP address from its list 554- of dynamic (residential) IP addresses. For additional information, 554- please visit http://postmaster.info.aol.com. 554 Connecting IP: 62.226.72.29

No, I don't want to deliver any mail at all. I just want to check the validity of email addresses. But AOL is already preventing me from doing that in advance - instead of waiting until a DATA command comes, which would actually initiate a real mail. As a result, I can't use the callback because AOL won't let me verify and I end up rejecting all mail from AOL users. That's ridiculous.

With their very strange actions against spam, such providers only make it harder for other people to protect themselves against spam too. Because I get the rejection before the first command - so I can't even do a VRFY or anything like that. I can't even establish a connection to the AOL mail server.

To explain what I do: when mail comes in, I check whether the technical sender (i.e., where bounces go) is a valid mailbox. This way I reject all mail that can't be bounced. If I can't send an error report for it, I don't want the mail. To do this, my mail server attempts mail delivery. However, only the first two commands are sent - MAIL FROM and RCPT TO. No DATA and especially no mail.

This is a common procedure to ensure that only real mail arrives at a server. But since AOL now prevents every connection to the mail server, I can't use this approach anymore - I can no longer verify AOL addresses the same way I can with other addresses. Which, given the fact that AOL addresses in particular are faked for spam, is quite audacious of AOL.

Solution for previous problem

So, I've now simply moved my email validation to an external server, which I query via XML-RPC. It then performs the email validation - and since it runs on a static IP, it's also accepted by AOL.

Anyone who wants to play around with this, the service is accessible via SOAP or XMLRPC. The address for XMLRPC: http://simon.bofh.ms:1111/RPC2 and then call the method mailcheck.validateEmail(adr) there. The address for SOAP: http://simon.bofh.ms:1111/SOAP/mailcheck and then call validateEmail(adr) there. Documentation of the method for this module can be found at http://simon.bofh.ms:1111/API/mailcheck. A WSDL for .NET people and others who need that sort of thing can be found at http://simon.bofh.ms:1111/WSDL/mailcheck. By the way, the web service was created using TooFPy. The corresponding tool is included in the source package - or can be viewed directly in CVS.

Autobahn 1 "Artificial resin-sealed"

It's just absolutely perfect timing

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Federal Council rejects TKG bill

Remember at the next elections: the Union wants to collect your data, sell it, force you to eat genetically modified food and increase your working hours, but cut all social benefits in return.

Unfortunately, we're in Germany and so such nonsense is actually likely to be a promising election platform ...

At heise online news you can find the original article.

A Little Spring

Since posting about spring seems to be all the rage at the moment, here are some pictures from my last extended lunch break ...

Overeaten Situation ...

Kabel Deutschland pays 2.6 billion for takeover of competitor

And what was the reason again for why cable networks were supposed to be privatized? Wasn't it supposed to be to lower prices through competition? Could someone please shove the entire collection of cable network operators up the ass of these market economy fetishists who are always banging on about the power of the private market?

What a mess. Now we have a genially gigantic selection of one cable network operator. And specifically a private one that's hardly controllable at all. Really great stuff.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Inflexible

Debian GNU/Linux -- apt-build

Debian's Answer to Gentoo Linux

(and if you use Xine or Ogle for example, you should definitely consider it - with those, optimized compilation makes quite a bit of difference in performance)

Here's the original article.

Debian Sarge on 12 CDs

12 CDs. Ouch.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Lego and Customer Friendliness

After weeks of waiting, I finally got an answer to a simple question. I wanted a Lego Mindstorms infrared tower for USB connection. The answer? Parts from sets are not available from Lego. So there are no replacement parts. If something gets lost or broken from a set, buy a new set. What a load of rubbish.

Oetker is allowed to brew even more beer

Beer pudding?

At tagesschau.de - Die Nachrichten der ARD you can find the original article.

Various bits of software

Those who enjoy programming with OCaml will find some very interesting and especially practical programs under the link above. I particularly like spamoracle, a very useful filter for statistical spam analysis. I'm now using it on my new server. The original article can be found here.

Since we're talking about inquiries to companies ...

Unfortunately, Apple was unable to process your order XXXXXXXXX because your file contained a transmission error. Large parts of your images were not visible, so the entire quality of your prints suffered. Therefore, we have cancelled your entire order and would like to recommend that you place a new order. Right. I'm putting together a data package for a book order with iPhoto - the foolproof software for image management. Apple makes everything idiot-proof to use, but omits a checksum during data transmission? And only realizes weeks after the order that the data is corrupted?

Right. And pigs can fly.

EU Parliament protests against flight data transfer

Bolkestein is wheeling and dealing with the US government, and then this unwashed EU Parliament comes along and complains. Of all things. Damn parliamentary democracy.

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

Garzweiler II: New Dispute over Fruit Meadow

Apfelix and BUNDelix against Garzweiler ...

At WDR.de you can find the original article.

SCO vs. Linux: IBM Sees Copyright Infringements at Work

And the IBM lawyers are having more fun: now they're turning the tables and attacking SCO.

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Teen Arrested for Sexually Abusing Herself

A 15-year-old girl took naked pictures of herself and published them. That's stupid and certainly the girl didn't understand what that really meant at the time. But the fact that this girl was now convicted of sexual abuse of a minor and possession and distribution of child pornography is really absurd.

At lies.com you can find the original article.

TP: Wind energy has a future

Almost overlooked: a response to the unspeakable Spiegel article.

Here's the original article.

Worm 'Witty': Security patch only for money

But commercial firewall solutions are so much better than open source solutions. And of course a personal firewall on a Windows machine is equivalent to a dedicated firewall host based on Linux...

At NETZEITUNG.DE Internet you can find the original article.

Bill Gates: In 10 years, many important IT problems will be solved

Because in 9 years Microsoft will close its doors, after still no alpha of Longhorn is available?

At heise online news you can find the original article.

Cycling

Münster the most bicycle-friendly city? The ADFC has lost their minds. Sorry, but anyone who's ever cycled in Münster knows how mediocre the bike paths are - with a road bike you get your rims destroyed. Sure, as a cyclist you don't have to follow any traffic rules in Münster (at least most cyclists in Münster believe that - as a pedestrian you can often only choose whether you'd rather be run over by a car or a bicycle), but the city really isn't that bicycle-friendly. The entire city center is designed with large patches of cobblestones aimed at rim destruction, proper bike racks (ones that don't bend your rims) only exist in a few places, and you rarely see usable poles to chain bikes to. And if we hadn't accidentally had a red-green council once in a while, we wouldn't even have the bicycle parking garage (and probably not the park-and-ride area with bike boxes either).

At Fundsachen there's the original article.

Music Industry Sues File-Sharing Users

The only concept in the music industry: waves of lawsuits.

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

Arbitrariness of the Justice Senator in Hamburg

How a CDU Senator shows himself unimpressed by court decisions and bends the law.

I found the original article at .::: [unsinnfälliges].

Rüttgers demands mandatory private pension for all

Let me summarize once more: the existing pension fund is designed according to the principle of cost minimization - a public administration, control apparatus and essentially legal protection (except when a chancellor dips into the pension fund for reunification, but that's a different story). The advantage of such a public institution: it is controllable (at least if politicians and federal government institutions do their job) and the government can exert direct influence (which brings us back to the chancellor with his blooming imagination, sorry, blooming landscapes).

On the other hand, we have large insurance companies whose orientation has a single goal: profit maximization. Makes the shareholders happy - customers are only of secondary interest. Besides, of course the employees of the insurance companies need to be paid. And the boss needs his million-dollar severance. And a new company car for the procurator is also due, just like the beautiful ostentatious buildings in the insurance districts of major German cities. And government influence? No influence, except through legislation. Securing pensions? No special provisions (of course, the legislator could ensure that - but that would then be an impermissible intervention in the economy, huge fuss about the business location, massive protests about competitive disadvantage...).

Rüttgers now wants to force all citizens to put money into a second pot to balance the money he wants to take from them from the first pot. Money should flow out of controllable and state-run pots into uncontrollable pots subject to economic arbitrariness. Because it's guaranteed to become cheaper for consumers when a structure oriented toward cost minimization is replaced by one oriented toward profit maximization.

In the Ruhr Valley, workers take to the streets against the state and for their business bosses - because they want to protest against emissions trading regulations. No one there seems to care about their pension...

The original article is available at tagesschau im Internet.