Links June 2020

June 27, 2020 | etbe

Bruce Schneier wrote an informative post about Zoom security problems [1]. He recommends Jitsi which has a Debian package of their software and it’s free software.

Axel Beckert wrote an interesting post about keyboards with small numbers of keys, as few as 28 [2]. It’s not something I’d ever want to use, but interesting to read from a computer science and design perspective.

The Guardian has a disturbing article explaining why we might never get a good Covid19 vaccine [3]. If that happens it will change our society for years if not decades to come.

Matt Palmer wrote an informative blog post about private key redaction [4]. I learned a lot from that. Probably the simplest summary is that you should never publish sensitive data unless you are certain that all that you are publishing is suitable, if you don’t understand it then you don’t know if it’s suitable to be published!

This article by Umair Haque on eand.co has some interesting points about how Freedom is interpreted in the US [5].

This article by Umair Haque on eand.co has some good points about how messed up the US is economically [6]. I think that his analysis is seriously let down by omitting the savings that could be made by amending the US healthcare system without serious changes (EG by controlling drug prices) and by reducing the scale of the US military (there will never be another war like WW2 because any large scale war will be nuclear). If the US government could significantly cut spending in a couple of major areas they could then put the money towards fixing some of the structural problems and bootstrapping a first-world economic system.

The American Conservatrive has an insightful article “Seven Reasons Police Brutality is Systemic Not Anecdotal [7].

Scientific American has an informative article about how genetic engineering could be used to make a Covid-19 vaccine [8].

Rike wrote an insightful post about How Language Changes Our Concepts [9]. They cover the differences between the French, German, and English languages based on gender and on how the language limits thoughts. Then conclude with the need to remove terms like master/slave and blacklist/whitelist from our software, with a focus on Debian but it’s applicable to all software.

Gunnar Wolf also wrote an insightful post On Masters and Slaves, Whitelists and Blacklists [10], they started with why some people might not understand the importance of the issue and then explained some ways of addressing it. The list of suggested terms includes Primary-secondary, Leader-follower, and some other terms which have slightly different meanings and allow more precision in describing the computer science concepts used. We can be more precise when describing computer science while also not using terms that marginalise some groups of people, it’s a win-win!

Both Rike and Gunnar were responding to a LWN article about the plans to move away from Master/Slave and Blacklist/Whitelist in the Linux kernel [11]. One of the noteworthy points in the LWN article is that there are about 70,000 instances of words that need to be changed in the Linux kernel so this isn’t going to happen immediately. But it will happen eventually which is a good thing.

[1] http://tinyurl.com/uqm8zk2
[2] http://tinyurl.com/wrffaz9
[3] http://tinyurl.com/y7y65m7g
[4] http://tinyurl.com/y7ms56df
[5] http://tinyurl.com/yan2mxlz
[6] http://tinyurl.com/y7kvd39d
[7] http://tinyurl.com/y7pfq3vl
[8] http://tinyurl.com/y8ol5y9s
[9] https://curlybracket.net/2020/06/17/how-language-changes-our-concepts.html
[10] http://tinyurl.com/y7mgsd55
[11] https://lwn.net/Articles/823224/

Links March 2020

March 31, 2020 | etbe

Rolling Stone has an insightful article about why the Christian Right supports Trump and won’t stop supporting him no matter what he does [1].

Interesting article about Data Oriented Architecture [2].

Quarantine Will normalise WFH and Recession will Denormalise Jobs [3]. I guess we can always hope that after a disaster we can learn to do things better than before.

Tyre wear is worse than exhaust for small particulate matter [4]. We need better tyres and legal controls over such things.

Scott Santens wrote an insightful article about the need for democracy and unconditional basic income [5]. “In ancient Greece, work was regarded as a curse” is an extreme position but strongly supported by evidence. ‘In his essay “In Praise of Idleness,” Bertrand Russell wrote “Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish forever.”‘

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article for Locus titled A Lever Without a Fulcrum Is Just a Stick about expansions to copyright laws [6]. One of his analogies is that giving a bullied kid more lunch money just allows the bullies to steal more money, with artists being bullied kids and lunch money being the rights that are granted under copyright law. The proposed solution includes changes to labor and contract law, presumably Cory will write other articles in future giving the details of his ideas in this regard.

The Register has an amusing article about the trial of a former CIA employee on trial for being the alleged “vault 7 leaker” [7]. Both the prosecution and the defence are building their cases around the defendent being a jerk. The article exposes poor security and poor hiring practices in the CIA.

CNN has an informative article about Finland’s war on fake news [8]. As Finland has long standing disputes with Russia they have had more practice at dealing with fake news than most countries.

The Times of Israel has an interesting article about how the UK used German Jews to spy on German prisoners of war [9].

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article “Data is the New Toxic Waste” about how collecting personal data isn’t an asset, it’s a liability [10].

Ulrike Uhlig wrote an insightful article about “Control Freaks”, analysing the different meanings of control, both positive and negative [11].

538 has an informative article about the value of statistical life [12]. It’s about $9M per person in the US, which means a mind-boggling amount of money should be spent to save the millions of lives that will be potentially lost in a natural disaster (like Coronavirus).

NPR has an interesting interview about Crypto AG, the Swiss crypto company owned by the CIA [13]. I first learned of this years ago, it’s not new, but I still learned a lot from this interview.

Links February 2020

February 29, 2020 | etbe

Truthout has an interesting summary of the US “Wars Without Victory and Weapons Without End” [1]. The Korean war seems mostly a win for the US though.

The Golden Age of White Collar Crime is an informative article about the epidemic of rich criminals in the US that are protected at the highest levels [2]. This disproves the claims about gun ownership preventing crime. AFAIK no-one has shot a corporate criminal in spite of so many deserving it.

Law and Political Economy has an insightful article “Privatizing Sovereignty, Socializing Property: What Economics Doesnâ€™t Teach You About the Corporation” [3]. It makes sense of the corporation law system.

IDR labs has a communism test, I scored 56% [4].

Vice has an interesting article about companies providing free email programs and services and then selling private data [5]. The California Consumer Privacy Act is apparently helping as companies that do business in the US can’t be sure which customers are in CA and need to comply to it for all users. Don’t trust corporations with your private data.

The Atlantic has an interesting article about Coronavirus and the Blindness of Authoritarianism [6]. The usual problem of authoritarianism but with a specific example from China. The US is only just astarting it’s experiment with authoritarianism and they are making the same mistakes.

The Atlantic has an insightful article about Coronavirus and it’s effect on China’s leadership [7]. It won’t change things much.

On The Commons has an insightful article We Now Have a Justice System Just for Corporations [8]. In the US corporations can force people into arbitration for most legal disputes, as they pay the arbitration companies the arbitration almost always gives the company the result they pay for.

Boing Boing has an interesting article about conspiracy theories [9]. Their point is that some people have conspiracy theories (meaning belief in conspiracies that is not based in fact) due to having seen real conspiracies at close range. I think this only applies to a minority of people who believe conspiracy theories, and probably only to people who believe in a very small number of conspiracies. It seems that most people who believe in conspiracy theories believe in many of them.

Douglas Rushkoff wrote a good article about rich people who are making plans to escape after they destroy the environment [10]. Includes the idea of having shock-collars for security guards to stop them going rogue.

Boing Boing has an interesting article on the Brahmin Left and the Merchant Right [11]. It has some good points about the left side of politics representing the middle class more than the working class, especially the major left wing parties that are more centrist nowadays (like Democrats in the US and Labor in Australia).

[1] http://tinyurl.com/rpu7ol8
[2] https://www.huffpost.com/highline/article/white-collar-crime/
[3] http://tinyurl.com/tv473gk
[4] https://www.idrlabs.com/communism/test.php
[5] http://tinyurl.com/vn53f4t
[6] http://tinyurl.com/rqpn7oa
[7] http://tinyurl.com/swenoz3
[8] http://tinyurl.com/v5xtpvl
[9] http://tinyurl.com/y3m68qgk
[10] http://tinyurl.com/y395lzwd
[11] http://tinyurl.com/y4tpy7u5

Links January 2020

January 30, 2020 | etbe

C is Not a Low Level Language [1] is an insightful article about the problems with C and the overall design of most current CPUs.

Interesting article about how the Boeing 737Max failure started with a takeover by MBA aparatcheks [2].

Interesting article about the risk of blood clots in space [3]. Widespread human spaceflight is further away than most people expect.

Wired has an insightful article about why rich people are so mean [4]. Also some suggestions for making them less mean.

Google published interesting information about their Titan security processor [5]. It’s currently used on the motherboards of GCP servers and internal Google servers. It would be nice if Google sold motherboards with a version of this.

Interesting research on how the alleged Supermicro motherboard backdoor [6]. It shows that while we may never know if the alleged attack took place such things are proven to be possible. In security we should assume that every attack that is possible is carried out on occasion. It might not have happen when people claim it happened, but it probably happened to someone somewhere. Also we know that TAO carried out similar attacks.

Arstechnica has an interesting article about cracking old passwords used by Unix pioneers [7]. In the old days encrypted passwords weren’t treated as secrets (/etc/passwd is world readable and used to have the encrypted passwords) and some of the encrypted passwords were included in source archives and have now been cracked.

Jim Baker (former general counsel of the FBI) wrote an insightful article titled Rethinking Encryption [8]. Lots of interesting analysis of the issues related to privacy vs the ability of the government to track criminals.

The Atlantic has an interesting article The Coalition Out to Kill Tech as We Know It [9] about the attempts to crack down on the power of big tech companies. Seems like good news.

The General Counsel of the NSA wrote an article “I Work for N.S.A. We Cannot Afford to Lose the Digital Revolution” [10].

Thoughts and Prayers by Ken Liu is an insightful story about trolling and NRA types [11].

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful Locus article about the lack of anti-trust enforcement in the tech industry and it’s free speech implications titles “Inaction is a Form of Action” [12].

Links October 2014

October 31, 2014 | etbe

The Verge has an interesting article about Tim Cook (Apple CEO) coming out [1]. Tim says “if hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then itâ€™s worth the trade-off with my own privacy”.

Graydon2 wrote an insightful article about the right-wing libertarian sock-puppets of silicon valley [2].

George Monbiot wrote an insightful article for The Guardian about the way that double-speak facilitates killing people [3]. He is correct that the media should hold government accountable for such use of language instead of perpetuating it.

Anne ThÃ©riault wrote an insightful article for Vice about the presumption of innocence and sex crimes [4].

Dr Nerdlove wrote an interesting article about Gamergate as the “extinction burst” of “gamer culture” [5], we can only hope.

Shweta Narayan wrote an insightful article about Category Structure and Oppression [6]. I can’t summarise it because it’s a complex concept, read the article.

Some Debian users who don’t like Systemd have started a “Debian Fork” project [7], which so far just has a web site and nothing else. I expect that they will never write any code. But it would be good if they did, they would learn about how an OS works and maybe they wouldn’t disagree so much with the people who have experience in developing system software.

A GamerGate terrorist in Utah forces Anita Sarkeesian to cancel a lecture [8]. I expect that the reaction will be different when (not if) an Islamic group tries to get a lecture cancelled in a similar manner.

Model View Culture has an insightful article by Erika Lynn Abigail about Autistics in Silicon Valley [9].

Katie McDonough wrote an interesting article for Salon about Ed Champion and what to do about men who abuse women [10]. It’s worth reading that while thinking about the FOSS community…

Links September 2014

September 30, 2014 | etbe

Matt Palmer wrote a short but informative post about enabling DNS in a zone [1]. I really should setup DNSSEC on my own zones.

Paul Wayper has some insightful comments about the Liberal party’s nasty policies towards the unemployed [2]. We really need a Basic Income in Australia.

Joseph Heath wrote an interesting and insightful article about the decline of the democratic process [3]. While most of his points are really good I’m dubious of his claims about twitter. When used skillfully twitter can provide short insights into topics and teasers for linked articles.

Sarah O wrote an insightful article about NotAllMen/YesAllWomen [4]. I can’t summarise it well in a paragraph, I recommend reading it all.

Betsy Haibel wrote an informative article about harassment by proxy on the Internet [5]. Everyone should learn about this before getting involved in discussions about “controversial” issues.

George Monbiot wrote an insightful and interesting article about the referendum for Scottish independence and the failures of the media [6].

Mychal Denzel Smith wrote an insightful article “How to know that you hate women” [7].

Sam Byford wrote an informative article about Google’s plans to develop and promote cheap Android phones for developing countries [8]. That’s a good investment in future market share by Google and good for the spread of knowledge among people all around the world. I hope that this research also leads to cheap and reliable Android devices for poor people in first-world countries.

Deb Chachra wrote an insightful and disturbing article about the culture of non-consent in the IT industry [9]. This is something we need to fix.

David Hill wrote an interesting and informative article about the way that computer game journalism works and how it relates to GamerGate [10].

Anita Sarkeesian shares the most radical thing that you can do to support women online [11]. Wow, the world sucks more badly than I realised.

Michael Daly wrote an article about the latest evil from the NRA [12]. The NRA continues to demonstrate that claims about “good people with guns” are lies, the NRA are evil people with guns.

Links August 2014

August 31, 2014 | etbe

Matt Palmer wrote a good overview of DNSSEC [1].

Sociological Images has an interesting article making the case for phasing out the US $0.01 coin [2]. The Australian $0.01 and $0.02 coins were worth much more when they were phased out.

Multiplicity is a board game that’s designed to address some of the failings of SimCity type games [3]. I haven’t played it yet but the page describing it is interesting.

Carlos Buento’s article about the Mirrortocracy has some interesting insights into the flawed hiring culture of Silicon Valley [4].

Adam Bryant wrote an interesting article for NY Times about Google’s experiments with big data and hiring [5]. Among other things it seems that grades and test results have no correlation with job performance.

Jennifer Chesters from the University of Canberra wrote an insightful article about the results of Australian private schools [6]. Her research indicates that kids who go to private schools are more likely to complete year 12 and university but they don’t end up earning more.

Kiwix is an offline Wikipedia reader for Android, needs 9.5G of storage space for the database [7].

Melanie Poole wrote an informative article for Mamamia about the evil World Congress of Families and their connections to the Australian government [8].

The BBC has a great interactive web site about how big space is [9].

The Raspberry Pi Spy has an interesting article about automating Minecraft with Python [10].

Wired has an interesting article about the Bittorrent Sync platform for distributing encrypted data [11]. It’s apparently like Dropbox but encrypted and decentralised. Also it supports applications on top of it which can offer social networking functions among other things.

ABC news has an interesting article about the failure to diagnose girls with Autism [12].

The AbbottsLies.com.au site catalogs the lies of Tony Abbott [13]. There’s a lot of work in keeping up with that.

Racialicious.com has an interesting article about “Moff’s Law” about discussion of media in which someone says “why do you have to analyze it” [14].

Paul Rosenberg wrote an insightful article about conservative racism in the US, it’s a must-read [15].

Salon has an interesting and amusing article about a photography project where 100 people were tased by their loved ones [16]. Watch the videos.

Links July 2014

July 31, 2014 | etbe

Dave Johnson wrote an interesting article for Salon about companies ripping off the tax system by claiming that all their income is produced in low tax countries [1].

Seb Lee-Delisle wrote an insightful article about how to ask to get paid to speak [2]. I should do that.

Daniel Pocock wrote an informative article about the reConServer simple SIP conferencing server [3]. I should try it out, currently most people I want to conference with are using Google Hangouts, but getting away from Google is a good thing.

FranÃ§ois Marier wrote an informative post about hardening ssh servers [4].

S. E. Smith wrote an interesting article “I Am Tired of Hearing Programmers Defend Gender Essentialism [5].

Bert Archer wrote an insightful article about lazy tourism [6]. His initial example of “love locks” breaking bridges was a bit silly (it’s not difficult to cut locks off a bridge) but his general point about lazy/stupid tourism is good.

Daniel Pocock wrote an insightful post about new developments in taxis, the London Taxi protest against Uber, and related changes [7]. His post convinced me that Uber is a good thing and should be supported. I checked the prices and unfortunately Uber is more expensive than normal taxis for my most common journey.

Cory Doctorow wrote an insightful article for The Guardian about the moral issues related to government spying [8].

The Verge has an interesting review of the latest Lytro Lightbox camera [9]. Not nearly ready for me to use, but interesting technology.

Prospect has an informative article by Kathryn Joyce about the Protestant child sex abuse scandal in the US [10]. Billy Graham’s grandson is leading the work to reform churches so that they protect children instead of pedophiles. Prospect also has an article by Kathryn Joyce about Christians home-schooling kids to try and program them to be zealots and how that hurts kids [11].

The Daily Beast has an interesting article about the way that the extreme right wing in the US are trying to kill people, it’s the right wing death panel [12].

Jay Michaelson wrote an informative article for The Daily Beast about right-wing hate groups in the US who promote the extreme homophobic legislation in Russia and other countries [13]. It also connects to the Koch brothers who seem to be associated with most evil. Elias Isquith wrote an insightful article for Salon about the current right-wing obsession with making homophobic discrimination an issue of “religious liberty” will hurt religious people [14]. He also describes how stupid the right-wing extremists are in relation to other issues too.

EconomixComix.com has a really great comic explaning the economics of Social Security in the US [15]. They also have a comic explaining the TPP which is really good [16]. They sell a comic book about economics which I’m sure is worth buying. We need to have comics explaining all technical topics, it’s a good way of conveying concepts. When I was in primary school my parents gave me comic books covering nuclear physics and other science topics which were really good.

Mia McKenzie wrote an insightful article for BlackGirlDangerous.com about dealing with racist white teachers [17]. I think that it would be ideal to have a school dedicated to each minority group with teachers from that group.

Links June 2014

June 30, 2014 | etbe

Russ Albery wrote an insightful blog post about trust, computer security, and training programmers [1]. He makes a good case that social problems in our community decrease the availability of skilled people to write and audit security code.

The Lawfare blog has an insightful article by Dan Geer about “Heartbleed as a Metaphor [2]. He makes some good points about security and design, ways of potentially solving some flaws and problems with the various solutions.

Eben Moglen wrote an insightful article for The Guardian about the way that the NSA spying is a direct threat to democracy [3]

The TED blog has an interesting interview with Kitra Cahana about her work living with and photographing nomads in the US [4]. I was surprised to learn that there’s an active nomad community in the US based on the culture that started in the Great Depression. Apparently people are using Youtube to learn about nomad culture before joining.

Dave Johnson wrote an interesting Salon article about why CEOs make 300* as much money as workers [5]. Note that actually contributing to the financial success of the company is not one of the reasons.

Maia Szalavitz wrote an interesting Slate article about Autism and Anorexia [6]. Apparently some people on the Autism Spectrum are mis-diagnosed with Anorexia due to food intolerance.

Groups of four professors have applied for the job of president and vice-chancellor of the University of Alberta [7]. While it was a joke to apply in that way, 1/4 of the university president’s salary is greater than the salary of a professor and the university would get a team of 4 people to do the job – so it would really make sense to hire them. Of course the university could just pay a more reasonable salary for the president and hire an extra 3 professors. But the same argument applies for lots of highly paid jobs. Is a CEO who gets paid $10M per annim really going to do a better job than a team of 100 people who are paid $100K?

Joel on Software wrote an insightful article explaining why hiring 1/200 applicants doesn’t mean you hire the top 0.5% of workers [8]. He suggests that the best employees almost never apply through regular channels so an intern program is the only way to get a chance of hiring the best people.

Chaotic Idealism has an interesting article on some of the bogus claims about autism and violence [9].

Salon has an interesting articleby Lindsay Abrams about the way the food industry in the US lobbies for laws to prevent employees from reporting animal cruelty or contamination of the food supply and how drones will now be used for investigative journalism [10].

Jacobin Mag has an interesting article by Geoff Shullenberger about the “Voluntariat”, the people who volunteer their time to help commercial organisations [11]. I don’t object to people voluntarily helping companies, but when they are exploited or when the company also requires voluntary help from the government it becomes a problem. We need some legislation about this.

Laura Hudson wrote an insightful article about how Riot Games solved their online abuse problem [12]. There are ideas in this that can apply to all online communities.

Matt LeMay wrote an interesting article for Medium titled “What (Else) Can Men Do? Grow The Fuck Up” [13]. It’s a general commentary on the treatment of women in geek communities (and most other places).

Foz Meadows wrote an insightful analysis of the attempts of bigots to influence science-fiction [14]. If I had more spare time I’d read some of the books by bigoted authors on the “Sad Puppy Slate” (from a library of course) and see if they lack talent in the same way that Orson Scott Card does.

Racialicious has an interesting article by Phenderson Djeli Clark about the horrible racism and bigotry of H.P. Lovecraft [15]. I have only read two HP Lovecraft stories, one was mediocre and the other (The Horroe at Red Hook) was quite poor – largely due to his inability to write about non-white people.

Grace Wyler wrote an insightful article for Vice magazine about the right-wing terrorists in the US killing cops [16].

Paul Rosenberg wrote an interesting and amusing (for people outside the US) article about the gun crazies in the US [17]. Maybe the gun crazies should have a “loaded assault rifles and tequila” party to follow up on their “gun appreciation day”.

A US TV show made a 4 minute clip of some of the stupid things that Tony Abbott has done [18]. Tony is almost as stupid as Dubya.

Links May 2014

May 29, 2014 | etbe

Charmian Gooch gave an interesting TED talk about her efforts to fight organised crime and corruption by prohibiting anonymous companies [1]. The idea of a company is to protect the owner from unlimited liability not to protect them from law enforcement.

Dr Nerdlove has an insightful article about sexual harassment in geek culture [2].

Rebecca Rose wrote an insightful article for Jezebel about the worse bullying advice ever, her summary is that it should be called “Ways We Can Get You Goddamn Kids to Act So We Never Have to Deal With Your Problems Ever” [3].

In the wake of the Heardbleed bug Imperial Violet wrote an informative article explaining why revocation checks isn’t the solution [4].

Martin Lukacs and Shiri Pasternak wrote an insightful article about the Canadian government’s attempts to stop Canadian aboriginies from exercising their legal rights [5]. I bet that the Australian government is doing the same things.

Nelson Groom wrote an interesting interview with Norrie May Welby, the first recognised agender person in Australia [6]. Marriage equality is bound to happen soon in Australia, now that the government officially recognises non-binary gender people it can’t refuse them the right to get married and therefore the straight/gay marriage distinction isn’t relevant.

BDA Technology has an interesting article on choosing fonts to make text more readable for dyslexic people [7].

Eamon Waterford wrote an informative article for the ABC about how early-intervention social policies save significant amounts of tax money [8]. Conservatives claim to want to save money and try to cut such programs which costs everyone in the long term.

Greta Christina wrote an insightful article for Salon about why religious people want atheists to lie and pretend to believe [9].

Chris Mooney wrote an informative URL about a machine to test whether someone is liberal or conservative [10]. Paul Rosenberg wrote an informative article on the link between conservatism, evil, and psychopathy [11]. The next logical step is to treat conservatism as a mental health problem.

Sociological Images has an interesting article by Jay Livingston about the hypocrisy of “conservative” tax policies [12].

Scientific American reprinted an article from The Conversation by Elaine McKewon about the climate deniers who intimidated a journal into retracting an article about their belief in conspiracy theories [13]. It seems obvious that the climate deniers are the ones who conspire.

Ben Caldecott wrote an interesting article for the ABC about the fossil fuel divestment campaign [14]. It seems that this is getting some success already, as renewable energy will soon be cheaper than coal power this could kill off coal.

Mark Taylor wrote an interesting blog post titled “Observations of an Internet Middleman” about the operations of Level3 and Internet peering [15]. He explains how monopoly Telcos throttle their customers’ Internet access.

Matt Savoy wrote an informative and disturbing article about the fact that US cops are twice as likely to beat their wives as the general population [16]. Apparently the police hierarchy aren’t interested in prosecuting such crimes.

Paul Rosenberg wrote an insightful article about mythos vs logos and the conservative approach to relity [17]. One interesting point he makes is that white men (and members of privileged groups generally) fear a loss of status more than more realistic concerns (such as global warming).

Nick wrote an interesting blog post about using GPG encrypted email on an Android phone [18]. I should get this going on my phone.

etbe – Russell Coker

Linux, politics, and other interesting things

Category Archives: Links