System of info screens in Hamburg U-Bahn cracked

No wonder - such a system tempts you to hack it. And if it runs on WLAN without encryption, it practically begs for hacks.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Unheard of false assumptions

In this context, perhaps not entirely unimportant is Haim Saban's criticism of Middle East reporting by German television broadcasters. Haim Saban was, together with Rupert Murdoch (among other things owner of Fox News Network), for example each holding 49.5% of Fox Family Worldwide (meanwhile sold to Disney - the money probably went into the Kirch deal). Murdoch was also the one who bought Saban's Power Rangers import and thereby established Saban's wealth. I think given that background it's fairly clear what he meant with his criticism. That we would be informed equally fair and balanced as Americans are through Fox News. At Telepolis News there is the original article.

Why I hate Microsoft ...

Security holes in Internet Explorer are a dime a dozen - of course there are patches for them too. So just install them. That's quite simple, right? Wrong. IE 5.5 is installed - the patch is only available for IE 6. But you can just update the browser, right? Wrong. IE6 requires Service Pack 6a on NT4. But you can just install that, can't you? Wrong.

And now it got really wild: I have an NT4 with IE 5.5 on it. Installing the normal SP6a gave me a message that I was trying to install a normal encryption version over a high-encryption version and that wouldn't work. But there's no high-encryption SP6a - you literally have to patch the normal SP6a by hand! So unpack the service pack, search for update.inf, search for the checksecurity.system32.files section, throw out schannel.dll from there. Now you can finally install the service pack. And the first reboot, because I just want to patch a browser.

Ok, then finally install IE6. It churns away for an eternity and what comes next? Of course, the reboot. Because I just want to patch a browser. The fact that it keeps working after the reboot was clear. What the heck is it doing with all that? It's just a damn browser!

Then finally install the cumulative patch for IE6. Which, surprisingly, doesn't require a reboot. I thought. Until the question came up whether I wanted to restart now. It's just a browser! A damn browser! A crummy application program that needs to be patched because the manufacturer is too stupid to do it right!

That's just bullshit. (Side note: Of course this isn't a real Windows system, but a VMware - so I could work in parallel, namely under a real operating system

)

ES5 developers remove backdoor

And do we believe you? Nope. Better not to. Once a liar, always a liar. At heise online news you can find the original article.

Grafmatic Sheet Film Holder

A very interesting peripheral for large format cameras with Graflex mount: with this magazine you can expose 6 film sheets in succession without having to deal with cassette changes. In principle something like a revolver cassette that you can pre-load - has some similarity to the pack film cassettes for Polaroid, except that the films here are not bent, but rather pushed backwards inside the cassette through the click-clack process.

Particularly cool: you could adapt these parts to other cameras. I at least have the option of such an adapted cassette for my Polaroid 600 SE.

Update: I won the auction on eBay. Let's see what I get now.

Here's the original article.

Fight against windmill[...]e>Chimney sweep

If I consider that the exhaust duct of the gas burner might be clogged with a bird's nest (and I know from my own experience that this is not absurd - at our place not only was there a bird's nest in the air shaft, but an entire crow was sitting there and had to be rescued by the fire department), I'd rather let the chimney sweep earn his money. And all these smoking chimneys around here - where people have switched to wood burning - should probably also be properly maintained.

I think Mr. Theisen should rather switch to tilting at windmills.

Here you can find the original article.

Kill Bill - new Tarantino in cinemas

Time to go to the cinema again

Here's the original article.

Source code stolen

Ouch

I found the original article at Kai Surendorf's blog.

Scientologist's Treatments Lure Firefighters

So - the firefighters who worked at Ground Zero are receiving special treatment at a facility operated by the Scientology cult. Of course, according to official opinion, it has nothing to do with the cult. No, of course not. It's also purely coincidental that Tom Cruise - one of the cult's flagship figures - is paying part of the treatment costs. And surely it's also coincidental that the treatment methods (actually more like brainwashing methods) are taken from Scientology garbage. On other occasions, the cult goes massively against it every time their trash is resold under a different label without involving the cult. One can therefore assume that they have their fingers in this pie as well - because otherwise the clinic would have been sued long ago. Besides, the procedure is classic: bring in sponsors, bring in mid-level employees, and gradually the operation gets taken over more and more.

But instead of putting a stop to such a procedure, they send their firefighters there for treatment.

At New York Times: NYT HomePage you can find the original article.

SPD rebels threatened with recall

Funny. Article 38 of the Constitution states: They [the members of parliament] are representatives of the whole people, not bound by orders and instructions and subject only to their conscience - I can't find anything about party discipline there. Interesting too is Article 21, which states: Their [the parties'] internal order must conform to democratic principles - has the suppression of dissenting opinions recently become considered a democratic principle? It must have snuck in somehow when I wasn't looking ... At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.

System crashes due to defective capacitors

Hmm. I have two machines (or rather, I have one and Jutta has the other) with quite inexplicable crash and startup problems. Both have been having the problems since the hot summer. Could mean something perhaps.

On heise online news there's the original article.

Ullrich allegedly agreed with Telekom after all

In with the potatoes, out with the potatoes, back in again ...

At tagesschau im Internet you can find den Originalartikel.

VeriSign Takes Site Finder Offline

Only a partial success: Verisign's whining (why is it described as an ex-monopolist in the c't article anyway? As a TLD operator for .com and .net they are an absolute monopolist; no one else could have pulled off that Sitefinder stunt) suggests they want to reintroduce the mess. Hopefully ICANN will stay tough. This silly claim that 40 million users would have used the Sitefinder is also preposterous - how could anyone have prevented it? You were forced to use it. Drawing the conclusion from that, that people would prefer that part over an error message, is pretty brazen. Verisign has proven they understood nothing and are just as much of a mess as Network Solutions was before them.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Retractable 90mm Lens for Leica M

There is also a picture of the lens on the camera - very nice. I don't know if it might not be a fake (I haven't read anything about it from Leica yet), but if it comes out, it would be really interesting for me. With the glasses it achieves a usable approximate 1:3 (more details can only be given once the technical specs are released - but it's supposed to focus at 50 cm with the glasses). Without it, it's a compact 90mm. Great. So now I know exactly what I should definitely save up for - far more than for a new digital camera Here's the original article.

Maximum Meanness

On Refugees' Day, the German press and politics talk almost exclusively about German reunification. This raises a justified question from NRW state parliament representative Monika Düker:

What goes through the minds of people who have come to Germany as refugees or asylum seekers when they observe the celebrations of the "Day of German Unity" on the international Refugees' Day? The Telepolis article provides a good overview of the refugee situation in Germany and the refugee hatred that still dominates the refugee issue.

Kohl elevated incitement against refugees and asylum seekers to a political program of a people's party during his time in office. But I cannot see that the SPD has countersteered in any way since it has been in power.

It's still simply much easier to attack minorities and blame them rather than dealing with the real problems.

At Telepolis News you can find the original article.

Iwanow: Russian first strike not ruled out

Where did Putin find the Cold War warrior then?

At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.

Microsoft Holds Patent on Error Reports

Why can you get a patent on something like that? That's ridiculous

At heise online news there's the original article.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LC1 at CEATEC

Sounds quite interesting. Could the Digilux 2 be it? The features sound good anyway and I like the design. Even if it looks more like a digital Contax G2

At PhotographyBLOG there's the original article.

Signs of Intelligence: ICANN Demands Verisign Kill SiteFinder

Good! ICANN finally takes action.

At Morons Dot Org you can find the original article.

Statistics Too

Since it apparently is in fashion to publish data: this blog had 58,155 hits in September with 8,127 visitors who consumed approximately 0.5 GB of traffic. Remarkable. What do they all want here?

Investigations into chancellor's office files discontinued

And once again the big fish gets away

At RP-Online: Politik I found the original article.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ10

Hmm - another alternative to my E-100 RS. If the performance is right, this could actually be a real alternative - the zoom range is already pretty impressive (the E-100RS has 10x zoom). And with image stabilization, the camera is then really usable with that lens. And the light intensity isn't bad either. So I'll wait for the tests. Currently three alternatives for me:

• Fuji F-828 (no image stabilization, but good low-light focusing and 8 megapixels)
• Minolta Dimage A1 (image stabilization, but smaller zoom)
• Panasonic FZ10 (basic features most comparable to the E-100 RS, but only 4 megapixels)

Could I please have a Minolta camera with the focal length range of the Panasonic and the resolution of the Fuji?

At Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) there's the original article.

PyDS 0.6.0 is out

A little self-promotion: I've just put together version 0.6.0 of the Python Desktop Server. Since it has been in development for over 3 months now, there are quite a few changes. Updates are definitely worthwhile. New installations are also worth it.

Here's the original article.

Replication for PostgreSQL

I didn't even notice: the commercial replication solution eRServer has been open source since the end of August! Although it seems that only one-way replication (from master to slaves) is implemented, but in any case, something like that helps.

Here's the original article.

Security? Or Feature?

Something Old

The linked security report designates the free account creation capability on Radio Community Servers (which applies to all xmlStorageSystem based servers, for example also to Python Community Servers) as a major security hole and recommends all users to shut down their Community Servers. Reading through the whole thing, the problem is as follows: anyone can create a user account via XMLRPC (which is what clients use) through the xmlStorageSystem API on a Community Server and fill it with content. As a result, this obviously means that anyone can place arbitrary files on the Community Server. A nightmare for many system administrators. For me, this is a classic conflict between open systems (not in the technical sense, but in terms of communication) and closed systems. Proponents of closed systems will of course always point out the security problems associated with open systems. Proponents of open systems will of course always point out the communication and usability hurdles associated with closed systems. Both are right.

But what exactly happens when such an open system is abused? In principle, data gets distributed. There are no direct responsible parties, since the data can be falsified during technical registration. The administrator must react afterward - someone points out illegal content, the administrator blocks the corresponding account (and thus all files stored there). Of course, in today's paranoid times, this is not secure enough for many - but is it really as catastrophic as described in the security news?

What about wikis - anyone can write anything there. Some wikis allow file attachments - so anyone can upload files. What about forum systems like Advogato, Kuro5hin or similar - anyone can post anything there, sometimes even anonymously. All wide open barn doors? Or is it not perhaps simply the case that there are systems where openness is just a feature?

Of course, every open system will eventually be abused by clowns who think it's absolutely cool to leave virtual graffiti everywhere - nearly every larger wiki goes through this phase more than once. Then there are appropriate mechanisms to notice such activities in time and take corresponding measures - sometimes you just have to operate the system more restrictively for a while. But should we really do this in the long term only with protective walls and barbed wire?

Do we really only want to open ourselves to the world after presenting our ID cards and police clearance certificates? Somehow that's too boring for me, sorry. So I continue to maintain - contrary to the recommendation in the referenced article - an open Community Server where anyone can set up their own blog. Because that's what the Community Server is for.

Here's the original article.

TIBCO threatens developers over Rendezvous

Ridiculous trademark protection actions definitely don't exist only in Germany ...

You can find the original article at The Macintosh News Network.

Trojan redirects browser to fake sites

People, switch to a different browser. This one is really way too broken - Swiss cheese would be a massive wall compared to it!

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

VIA Boards and Chips for Small, Energy-Efficient Systems

A link for Jutta, who wants to convert her computer to something more energy-efficient. A list of VIA boards and chips with a comparison of their features.

The original article is here.

Department Strange Version Numbers

This is the first stable release. - is listed as an entry at Data Mine 0.0

Here you can find the original article.

graphical operating system with TCP/IP stack for C64

I can only quote Obelix: These Romans are crazy

And then there are also ports for Apple ][ and other strange machines in the works.

Here you can find the original article.

Want to have ...

Yes, I know, it's just a compact camera, but the design alone is absolutely fantastic. Ok, I have a weakness, but I've always had a soft spot for Leica-M anyway, and this compact camera looks like it was cut from the same cloth as the M. Stylish. If it's also smaller than the M (ok, it won't reach the size of my Contax T, but that would be asking too much), it could very well be a camera I'd want to get. Although I wonder what it's actually for. Doesn't matter. Wanting something doesn't need justification Here's the original article.

"Öko-Test": High Radiation in WLAN Networks

Already unfair. Such a WLAN connection could be so practical at home with the notebook. But then you read something like this and don't want to anymore.

I found the original article at RP-Online: Multimedia.

Ransom Love on SCO's Activities

An interesting interview with Ransom Love about the creation of Caldera, the motives behind the SCO purchase, and SCO's current activities. In addition to very diplomatic formulations, this little gem is also in the interview: I, however, no longer have any investments in SCO. When news of the IBM lawsuit broke, I sold the last of my stock. I no longer have any relationship with the company. - everyone may draw their own conclusions from this Here's the original article.

RegTP instead of DENIC? Feedback!

I received a response to my letter to Klaus Brandner. Short version: I can assure you that we have no intention of changing the existing regulations. - the long version then contains only greeting, salutation and closing ... It seems I drew a blank with my letter, Mr. Brandner doesn't seem to be really informed ...

At Wortfeld there's the original article.

ssh for Hires-Palms (Tungsten, Clie)

An SSH client for Palms with higher resolution such as the Tungstens and Clies. However, it can only support SSH protocol v1 - v2 support is still in the works. Unfortunately v1 is quite buggy, which is why they no longer want to make it publicly available. But still better than Telnet or similar. If I ever get a Tungsten T3, it might be quite interesting Here's the original article.

SSH2 Implementation in Python

A complete SSH2 client implementation written entirely in Python. Interesting for understanding the internal structures of the protocol, but also useful for practical purposes (for example, administration scripts that need to access multiple machines). However, Python 2.3 is the minimum requirement, and pycrypto is also needed (so the encryption algorithms are not written in pure Python, only the SSH2 protocol itself).

Here you can find the original article.

Using the Patriot Act to Get Reporters' Records

Does this finally suffice to break Ashcroft and his silly laws? After all, this is actually a clear constitutional violation - and Americans normally take freedom of the press and the ability to keep sources confidential quite seriously.

I found the original article at Warblogs:CC.

How to make money with software bugs ...

... shows BrowserCam. A service that sends a URL to a diverse range of browsers and returns screenshots, so you can test against a whole set of Mac and Windows browsers in one go. Certainly an interesting service, but really it would be unnecessary if all browsers simply implemented HTML and CSS correctly ...

Since the situation is the way it is, you can consider whether the price is worth it for you. I find the price somewhat high, on the other hand I also don't want to be the administrator for the system - the browsers and systems would probably crash more often when people feed them wild URLs

And of course such a service can only test public addresses without context (so for example without the need for cookies), and JavaScript is only statically testable - the dynamic features are obviously not reachable with something like this. The idea is still amusing.

Here's the original article.

Wiki for the Book 'Quicksilver' by Neal Stephenson

Neal Stephenson operates a wiki for explanations related to his new book. In terms of its goal, it's something like a lexicon guided by and oriented toward his book, which takes up connections and questions from the book and elaborates on them further, but can certainly also go beyond that to link in additional content. Actually quite an interesting idea, even though it partially duplicates information from Wikipedia - the approach is simply a different one. Inter-wiki links would probably be appropriate in the long run anyway, unless all content from Wikipedia is supposed to be replicated there permanently. Here's the original article.

The Dumbing Down Continues

Maybe we should have the neurotoxic exposure of the German Federal Council and Parliament tested?

At Telepolis News you can find the original article.

DrawBot: Python, PyObjC, and Cocoa based 2D drawing environment

A complete 2D graphics application IDE in Python for OS X (requires PyObjC). And the whole thing without Project Builder, but everything in Python - even the application creation is done via Python script.

At bbum's rants, code & references you can find the original article.

Promote self-responsibility ...

... will the Herzog Commission. That's why the employee should pay the full cost of dental treatment. Of course, this greatly promotes personal responsibility when people below an income threshold can be recognized by the fact that they only order soup in restaurants ...

File Extension Details Database

I just came across it again while looking up what .cdb means. Very handy, a directory of file extensions - good as a first starting point when dealing with unknown file formats.

Here's the original article.

Linux on the iPod

For the truly hardcore among us

Here you can find the original article.

SCO vs. Linux: Protection Under the Canopy

Pretty cool: grow up with the help of Linux, but then want to rip people off. Great attitude.

At heise online news there's the original article.

Japanese Mass Orgy Angers China

Somehow this incident is a little bit on the absurd side

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

Besier and Scientology - sueddeutsche.de - Feuilleton

Great. Calling a fascist organization with a totalitarian vision a pioneer of religious pluralism - the director of the Dresden Hannah Arendt Institute for Totalitarianism Research certainly seems to be brimming with expertise.

Here is the original article.

DAX companies hire fewer apprentices

And at the next opportunity, the same companies whine about there being no qualified employees ...

At tagesschau im Internet you can find the original article.

Is there a threat of feminization of school operations?

Oh come on, of course, too many women in vocational training, that's absolutely terrible. Those poor boys, being taught by women. That's certainly a serious blow to their masculinity.

I'm wondering though what kind of role models the boys are actually missing. Probably it's the student-hating person with a doctorate. Or the drunk biology teacher. Or the entertainer without real pedagogical qualifications. All variants I've encountered. All very valuable from a pedagogical standpoint.

Maybe also the type who thought girls couldn't think logically and therefore gave all girls worse grades, which Jutta told me about. That would really put the boys' worldview back in order.

But probably it's just about Busemann and the other Union clowns who spoke up about this wanting boys to keep standing while they pee?

I found the original article at RP-Online: Science.

Number 1 Formula for Men!

These fascinating spam messages are also coming my way lately. Actually quite a witty attempt to bypass spam filters. PopFile was not fooled by it and threw them out anyway ... You can find the original article at INSTANT NIRVANA.