Got a spam in my spamtrap today with the subject:
Privet & Confidential
I bet it’s a hedge fund.. 😉
Category Archives: Writing
Abusing OpenID for Phun and Profit
My esteemed friend Dr. Rich Boakes has noticed some odd behaviour in his Apache logs that turned out to be people abusing his OpenID server to make page requests to remote sites, presumably as a way of increasing clicks. He raises an interesting point as to whether this makes OpenID servers potential DDoS amplifiers (I suspect he’s right).
i4i Says XML Patent Doesn’t Affect OpenOffice.org!
Here’s some interesting news from Government Computing (via Groklaw) on the patent that has caused all the worry about Microsoft Word and XML:
i4i said it has looked at OpenOffice and found it doesn’t infringe on its patents.
Which is good news for ODF, but still demonstrates what an utter minefield software patents are. The sooner they’re gone the better.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-16
- #lazyweb why does ^C not work if I ssh as root into a #CentOS #linux box then to another, but it works OK as a user ? #
- A big #fail to 'Life in the United Kingdom – The Official Practice Citizenship Test' – Flash only – http://bit.ly/zqGuz #
- I thought the Australian citizenship test was bad until I saw the practice UK one! Just failed it with 58%.. 🙁 #
- #Motorhead Ace of Spades as you'll wish you'd never heard it before.. 😉 http://bit.ly/W2tm6 #
- Hmm, #Android doesn't know about the AT command to turn on echo suppression on the OpenMoko FreeRunnner. 🙁 #
- Update your WordPress blogs to 2.8.4 ASAP – unauth admin password reset bug out there and being exploited.. 🙁 #
- Dear 203.166.226.41, who reset the admin password on my blog at 00:28:27 AEST, thanks for not doing anything bad with it! #
- ah – apparently it doesn't permit remote access.. http://bit.ly/5Hc5H #
- Looks like Michael Trimarchi's alternative #Android port to the #FreeRunner has echo suppression! http://bit.ly/c2K0g #
- Wow – Michael Trimarchi's #Android port seems much faster than the Koolu one! It feels responsive, not sluggish.. #
- #Microsoft Word sales+import banned in the US for infringing an XML software #patent – http://bit.ly/5ZiUt #patentfail #
- RT @RandomSpaceFact Perseid Meteor shower peaks tonight-avg. 60 meteors/hr from dark site. […] #
- US journalism #fail relayed by @alecmuffett "if Stephen Hawking were British, he would be dead." http://is.gd/2eVu6 #
- RIP Les Paul, guitar master, dead at 94 (via @BreakingNews) #
- Darwin has fallen off AARNET, oops; redundant link has failed near Coomalie Creek (west coast link down a few days ago) #
- Darwin now back on AARNET, at least via Alice Springs.. #
- Oops, I'd forgotten to use the provisioning hack after reflashing the Panicking Android image so no incoming calls! #
- Now I can confirm that Michael Trimarchi's #Android port doesn't seem to have any echo, and is miles faster than Koolu! #
- Oh foo.. "All Linux 2.4/2.6 versions since May 2001 are believed to be affected" – http://bit.ly/114whO #
- #NASA are going to launch + test an inflatable re-entry capsule on Monday http://bit.ly/5Tbpk #
- Open source GSM mobile phone network run from tent at #HAR2009 using OpenBSC – http://bit.ly/cAxm3 – links to photos too #
- Cool – @AARNet are on Twitter (and actively using it, they just followed me) – nice one folks! #aarnet #
- [caveat: for RHEL/CentOS] RT @huwlynes mitigation steps for the linux root escalation bug http://bit.ly/1nR0zX #
- RT @elakdawalla,@nivnac: Calypso pan taken while Spirit has been stuck at Troy http://tinyurl.com/kt3pca also includes QTVR by @mmbman #mars #
- Looks like there's a big dust devil on the horizon on that Mars panorama by @nivnac about 1/5th of the way from the left #
- Wet and windy up here in our part of #Melbourne, local CFA teams have had a lot of shouts overnight looking at their RSS #
- Nice article on Netbooks, Linux and Microsoft by Brendan Scott – http://bit.ly/b8ojs (via http://planet.linux.org.au/) #
- Currently have 'Ruby Soho' by Rancid going around and around my head. Guess there are worse earworms to have! 🙂 #music #
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Microsoft Word Falls Foul of XML Patent
Uh oh, this sounds really bad! LWN is reporting that:
Here is a press release from legal firm McKool Smith, which is quite proud at having gotten a US court to rule that Word violates patent #5,787,499. “Today’s permanent injunction prohibits Microsoft from selling or importing to the United States any Microsoft Word products that have the capability of opening .XML, .DOCX or DOCM files (XML files) containing custom XML.” The text of this patent is quite vague; if it stands it could almost certainly be used to make life difficult for free software as well.
Microsoft taking a beating for this is not something to celebrate, this is yet another example of how software patents are really bad for all the players in computing.
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-09
- Thanks @chacon for the #git reply to my lazyweb, just what I was after! RT @chris_bloke – google "git pickaxe" #
- wow – awesome sand art live – http://ping.fm/hZKOL (via @stewartsmith) #
- I'm off to the Classic Curry Company for a pre-meeting curry if anyone wants to meet (5:52pm) – then to LUV.asn.au! #luv #
- #KDE 4.3.0 is announced – http://bit.ly/fGviL – downloading 500+ MB of Kubuntu packages now… 😉 #
- The "Geek My Ride" slides from the #LUV talk by @jonoxer are up on his website http://bit.ly/4tBHP6 #linux #arduino #
- RT @garystiehr: Do you have a 1000+ FC/SAS/SATA disks in RAID arrays? What disk failure rate do you see (e.g., 0.1% per week)? #
- [gibber] RT @insideHPC Khronos Group Details WebGL for Hardware Accelerated 3D Internet http://bit.ly/v4Nx6 #
- Hmm, I seem to have a working #Android on my #OpenMOKO Freerunner Neo! #
- [oh dear!] RT @insideHPC Intel stops shipping SSDs following discovery of data loss http://bit.ly/cwEHF #
- Can't access the #Android market from Cupcake on the Neo Freerunner – apparently "Market" applet isn't open source 🙁 #
- RT @donna_williams Peter Gzowski & Donna Williams interview 1992, http://bit.ly/30rxh , #autism #aspergers #CBS #Gzowski #
- "Geek My Ride" talk by @jonoxer video now up on blip.tv – http://blip.tv/file/2444703 #luv #linux #cars #241kmhwebserver #
- [some people get all the luck ;-)] RT @sabman Back on land after 2 weeks of mapping coral reefs http://yfrog.com/0u5ifj #
- Obscure kernel bugs in filesystems are really annoying.. 🙁 #
- #Apple censor an English dictionary for the #iPhone, and rate it 17+ http://bit.ly/3qauuv (via @alecmuffett) #
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Intel Stop Shipping X25-M and X18-M SSD’s – Data Loss Problem
Found via InsideHPC (quoting EnterpriseStorageForum.com):
Intel found that if a user sets up a BIOS password on the SSD, then disables or changes the password, the contents of the drive become corrupted and irretrievably lost.
Probably not an issue for HPC storage systems, more an issue for desktop ones I guess.
A New TTY Maintainer for Linux
After the recent orphaning of the Linux TTY code there was speculation about who, if anyone, would be mad enough to take it up next. Well just merged in Linus’s git repository is the answer:
commit 57d7f282271a83fe4ca4bd15eee79be577210210 Author: Greg Kroah-HartmanDate: Fri Jul 31 21:28:16 2009 -0700 TTY: Maintainer change Clearly, I am a glutton for punishment. I'll see if I can see Alan's changes through to the end, otherwise I'll be fending off a lot of bug reports for usb-serial devices. Cc: Alan Cox Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman Signed-off-by: Linus Torvalds
So the self-described “Maintainer of Crap” has added some more dodgy code to his collection.. 😉
So a big round of applause to Alan Cox for starting this dirty nasty work off and another big vote of thanks to Greg for picking it up. A raspberry to Linus for annoying Alan enough to make him give up on a really really tough job. 🙁
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-02
- RT @stokely I am looking for a venue for an @openaustralia hackfest in Melbourne. Anyone want to volunteer a weekend venue with robust wifi? #
- Nice find Stewart! 🙂 RT @stewartsmith Homeopathic Emergency ward: http://ping.fm/lvr1h #
- ipv6 for teh win! 😉 #
- dear #lazyweb – is it possible to tell Postfix to receive via IPv6 and v4 but only send via IPv4 ? #
- #ubuntu 2.6.31 rc3 & rc4 mainline kernels seem to be built without any DVB support.. 🙁 #
- RT @elakdawalla: Congratulations to @NewHorizons2015 passing the 14-astronomical-unit mark yesterday! Still nearly 18 AU from Pluto tho… #
- RT @spam: If you gave your login and password info to TwitViewer, we strongly suggest you change your password now. Thanks! #
- qpdf's "qdf" mode is a most excellent tool for making a #PDF suitable for a text editor – think indent for PDF #
- Hmm, I'm being followed by #Microsoft (@Live_at_edu), if you never hear from me again you'll know why.. 😉 #
- Sandia doing #Botnet research with one million #Linux kernels on its cluster – http://bit.ly/eCUhG #hpc #security #
- #Yahoo! goes #Bing – Yahoo and #Microsoft have done a search & web advertising deal – http://news.bnonews.com/ivcg #
- VPAC is looking for an Operations Manager for our HPC group – must be Australian PR, understand research, etc – vpac.org #
- and the prize for the first (and only so far) emailed delivered by #IPv6 goes to #KDE – not even vger.kernel.org has v6 #
- [well spotted Alec!] RT @alecmuffett some geek at google has a sense of humour: http://bit.ly/weRLE #
- A big thank you to all the sysadmins out there (yes, including the VPAC ones, @andybotting) 🙂 #
- Dear #Google Alerts – please don't tell me when I link to my own site, kthxbai #
- Nice West African/Northern Nigerian recipe posted by @alecmuffett, must try a smaller version 🙂 http://bit.ly/xHFwi #
- Creationist vandalism at the Australian National Botanic Gardens 🙁 http://bit.ly/hGwjm #
- Nice to see #Linux Weekly News (LWN, aka @lwnnet) on Twitter #
- Some Squirrelmail plugins compromised (via @lwnnet) – http://bit.ly/ZujGv #
- This weeks good deed – catching a typo in the Library of Congress catalogue via Flickr – http://bit.ly/crDq0 #
- [well done!] RT @donna_williams 6 of my paintings will fly off to new homes this week. I love when they adventure out into the world #art #
- Busy day lopping branches from fallen wood in the garden, methinks I need to jump in the massage chair for a bit.. #
- Dear #lazyweb – how do I find the last version of a file that contains a specific word in a #git repository ? #
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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-02
- RT @stokely I am looking for a venue for an @openaustralia hackfest in Melbourne. Anyone want to volunteer a weekend venue with robust wifi? #
- Nice find Stewart! 🙂 RT @stewartsmith Homeopathic Emergency ward: http://ping.fm/lvr1h #
- ipv6 for teh win! 😉 #
- dear #lazyweb – is it possible to tell Postfix to receive via IPv6 and v4 but only send via IPv4 ? #
- #ubuntu 2.6.31 rc3 & rc4 mainline kernels seem to be built without any DVB support.. 🙁 #
- RT @elakdawalla: Congratulations to @NewHorizons2015 passing the 14-astronomical-unit mark yesterday! Still nearly 18 AU from Pluto tho… #
- RT @spam: If you gave your login and password info to TwitViewer, we strongly suggest you change your password now. Thanks! #
- qpdf's "qdf" mode is a most excellent tool for making a #PDF suitable for a text editor – think indent for PDF #
- Hmm, I'm being followed by #Microsoft (@Live_at_edu), if you never hear from me again you'll know why.. 😉 #
- Sandia doing #Botnet research with one million #Linux kernels on its cluster – http://bit.ly/eCUhG #hpc #security #
- #Yahoo! goes #Bing – Yahoo and #Microsoft have done a search & web advertising deal – http://news.bnonews.com/ivcg #
- VPAC is looking for an Operations Manager for our HPC group – must be Australian PR, understand research, etc – vpac.org #
- and the prize for the first (and only so far) emailed delivered by #IPv6 goes to #KDE – not even vger.kernel.org has v6 #
- [well spotted Alec!] RT @alecmuffett some geek at google has a sense of humour: http://bit.ly/weRLE #
- A big thank you to all the sysadmins out there (yes, including the VPAC ones, @andybotting) 🙂 #
- Dear #Google Alerts – please don't tell me when I link to my own site, kthxbai #
- Nice West African/Northern Nigerian recipe posted by @alecmuffett, must try a smaller version 🙂 http://bit.ly/xHFwi #
- Creationist vandalism at the Australian National Botanic Gardens 🙁 http://bit.ly/hGwjm #
- Nice to see #Linux Weekly News (LWN, aka @lwnnet) on Twitter #
- Some Squirrelmail plugins compromised (via @lwnnet) – http://bit.ly/ZujGv #
- This weeks good deed – catching a typo in the Library of Congress catalogue via Flickr – http://bit.ly/crDq0 #
- [well done!] RT @donna_williams 6 of my paintings will fly off to new homes this week. I love when they adventure out into the world #art #
- Busy day lopping branches from fallen wood in the garden, methinks I need to jump in the massage chair for a bit.. #
- Dear #lazyweb – how do I find the last version of a file that contains a specific word in a #git repository ? #
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