<atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
<item>
- <title>UsingQR - "Electronic" paper invoices using JSON and QR codes</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/UsingQR____Electronic__paper_invoices_using_JSON_and_QR_codes.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/UsingQR____Electronic__paper_invoices_using_JSON_and_QR_codes.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sat, 19 Mar 2016 09:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Back in 2013 I proposed
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/_Electronic__paper_invoices___using_vCard_in_a_QR_code.html">a
-way to make paper and PDF invoices easier to process electronically by
-adding a QR code with the key information about the invoice</a>. I
-suggested using vCard field definition, to get some standard format
-for name and address, but any format would work. I did not do
-anything about the proposal, but hoped someone one day would make
-something like it. It would make it possible to efficiently send
-machine readable invoices directly between seller and buyer.</p>
-
-<p>This was the background when I came across a proposal and
-specification from the web based accounting and invoicing supplier
-<a href="http://www.visma.com/">Visma</a> in Sweden called
-<a href="http://usingqr.com/">UsingQR</a>. Their PDF invoices contain
-a QR code with the key information of the invoice in JSON format.
-This is the typical content of a QR code following the UsingQR
-specification (based on a real world example, some numbers replaced to
-get a more bogus entry). I've reformatted the JSON to make it easier
-to read. Normally this is all on one long line:</p>
-
-<p><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-19-qr-invoice.png" align="right"><pre>
-{
- "vh":500.00,
- "vm":0,
- "vl":0,
- "uqr":1,
- "tp":1,
- "nme":"Din Leverandør",
- "cc":"NO",
- "cid":"997912345 MVA",
- "iref":"12300001",
- "idt":"20151022",
- "ddt":"20151105",
- "due":2500.0000,
- "cur":"NOK",
- "pt":"BBAN",
- "acc":"17202612345",
- "bc":"BIENNOK1",
- "adr":"0313 OSLO"
-}
-</pre></p>
+ <title>Quicker Debian installations using eatmydata</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Quicker_Debian_installations_using_eatmydata.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 25 Nov 2016 14:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Two years ago, I did some experiments with eatmydata and the Debian
+installation system, observing how using
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Speeding_up_the_Debian_installer_using_eatmydata_and_dpkg_divert.html">eatmydata
+could speed up the installation</a> quite a bit. My testing measured
+speedup around 20-40 percent for Debian Edu, where we install around
+1000 packages from within the installer. The eatmydata package
+provide a way to disable/delay file system flushing. This is a bit
+risky in the general case, as files that should be stored on disk will
+stay only in memory a bit longer than expected, causing problems if a
+machine crashes at an inconvenient time. But for an installation, if
+the machine crashes during installation the process is normally
+restarted, and avoiding disk operations as much as possible to speed
+up the process make perfect sense.
+
+<p>I added code in the Debian Edu specific installation code to enable
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/libeatmydata">eatmydata</a>,
+but did not have time to push it any further. But a few months ago I
+picked it up again and worked with the libeatmydata package maintainer
+Mattia Rizzolo to make it easier for everyone to get this installation
+speedup in Debian. Thanks to our cooperation There is now an
+eatmydata-udeb package in Debian testing and unstable, and simply
+enabling/installing it in debian-installer (d-i) is enough to get the
+quicker installations. It can be enabled using preseeding. The
+following untested kernel argument should do the trick:</p>
+
+<blockquote><pre>
+preseed/early_command="anna-install eatmydata-udeb"
+</pre></blockquote>
+
+<p>This should ask d-i to install the package inside the d-i
+environment early in the installation sequence. Having it installed
+in d-i in turn will make sure the relevant scripts are called just
+after debootstrap filled /target/ with the freshly installed Debian
+system to configure apt to run dpkg with eatmydata. This is enough to
+speed up the installation process. There is a proposal to
+<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/841153">extend the idea a bit further
+by using /etc/ld.so.preload instead of apt.conf</a>, but I have not
+tested its impact.</p>
-</p>The interpretation of the fields can be found in the
-<a href="http://usingqr.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/UsingQR_specification1.pdf">format
-specification</a> (revision 2 from june 2014). The format seem to
-have most of the information needed to handle accounting and payment
-of invoices, at least the fields I have needed so far here in
-Norway.</p>
-
-<p>Unfortunately, the site and document do not mention anything about
-the patent, trademark and copyright status of the format and the
-specification. Because of this, I asked the people behind it back in
-November to clarify. Ann-Christine Savlid (ann-christine.savlid (at)
-visma.com) replied that Visma had not applied for patent or trademark
-protection for this format, and that there were no copyright based
-usage limitations for the format. I urged her to make sure this was
-explicitly written on the web pages and in the specification, but
-unfortunately this has not happened yet. So I guess if there is
-submarine patents, hidden trademarks or a will to sue for copyright
-infringements, those starting to use the UsingQR format might be at
-risk, but if this happen there is some legal defense in the fact that
-the people behind the format claimed it was safe to do so. At least
-with patents, there is always
-<a href="http://www.paperspecs.com/paper-news/beware-the-qr-code-patent-trap/">a
-chance of getting sued...</a></p>
-
-<p>I also asked if they planned to maintain the format in an
-independent standard organization to give others more confidence that
-they would participate in the standardization process on equal terms
-with Visma, but they had no immediate plans for this. Their plan was
-to work with banks to try to get more users of the format, and
-evaluate the way forward if the format proved to be popular. I hope
-they conclude that using an open standard organisation like
-<a href="http://www.ietf.org/">IETF</a> is the correct place to
-maintain such specification.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Making battery measurements a little easier in Debian</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Making_battery_measurements_a_little_easier_in_Debian.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Tue, 15 Mar 2016 15:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Back in September, I blogged about
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_life_and_death_of_a_laptop_battery.html">the
-system I wrote to collect statistics about my laptop battery</a>, and
-how it showed the decay and death of this battery (now replaced). I
-created a simple deb package to handle the collection and graphing,
-but did not want to upload it to Debian as there were already
-<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">a battery-stats
-package in Debian</a> that should do the same thing, and I did not see
-a point of uploading a competing package when battery-stats could be
-fixed instead. I reported a few bugs about its non-function, and
-hoped someone would step in and fix it. But no-one did.</p>
-
-<p>I got tired of waiting a few days ago, and took matters in my own
-hands. The end result is that I am now the new upstream developer of
-battery stats (<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">available from github</a>) and part of the team maintaining
-battery-stats in Debian, and the package in Debian unstable is finally
-able to collect battery status using the <tt>/sys/class/power_supply/</tt>
-information provided by the Linux kernel. If you install the
-battery-stats package from unstable now, you will be able to get a
-graph of the current battery fill level, to get some idea about the
-status of the battery. The source package build and work just fine in
-Debian testing and stable (and probably oldstable too, but I have not
-tested). The default graph you get for that system look like this:</p>
-
-<p align="center"><img src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-03-15-battery-stats-graph-example.png" width="70%" align="center"></p>
-
-<p>My plans for the future is to merge my old scripts into the
-battery-stats package, as my old scripts collected a lot more details
-about the battery. The scripts are merged into the upstream
-battery-stats git repository already, but I am not convinced they work
-yet, as I changed a lot of paths along the way. Will have to test a
-bit more before I make a new release.</p>
-
-<p>I will also consider changing the file format slightly, as I
-suspect the way I combine several values into one field might make it
-impossible to know the type of the value when using it for processing
-and graphing.</p>
-
-<p>If you would like I would like to keep an close eye on your laptop
-battery, check out the battery-stats package in
-<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/battery-stats">Debian</a> and
-on
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/battery-stats">github</a>.
-I would love some help to improve the system further.</p>
+ <title>Oversette bokmål til nynorsk, enklere enn du tror takket være Apertium</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Oversette_bokm_l_til_nynorsk__enklere_enn_du_tror_takket_v_re_Apertium.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Thu, 24 Nov 2016 10:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>I Norge er det mange som trenger å skrive både bokmål og nynorsk.
+Eksamensoppgaver, offentlige brev og nyheter er eksempler på tekster
+der det er krav om skriftspråk. I tillegg til alle skoleoppgavene som
+elever over det ganske land skal levere inn hvert år. Det mange ikke
+vet er at selv om de kommersielle alternativene
+<a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google Translate</a> og
+<a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing Translator</a> ikke kan
+bidra med å oversette mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finnes det et
+utmerket fri programvarealternativ som kan. Oversetterverktøyet
+Apertium har støtte for en rekke språkkombinasjoner, og takket være
+den utrettelige innsatsen til blant annet Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
+en bruke webtjenesten til å fylle inn en tekst på bokmål eller
+nynorsk, og få den automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
+Resultatet er ikke perfekt, men et svært godt utgangspunkt. Av og til
+er resultatet så bra at det kan benyttes uten endringer. Jeg vet
+f.eks. at store deler av Joomla ble oversatt til nynorsk ved hjelp
+Apertium. Høres det ut som noe du kan ha bruk for? Besøk i så fall
+<a href="https://www.apertium.org/">Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
+teksten din i webskjemaet der.
+
+<p>Hvis du trenger maskinell tilgang til den bakenforliggende
+teknologien kan du enten installere pakken
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">apertium-nno-nob</a>
+på en Debian-maskin eller bruke web-API-et tilgjengelig fra
+api.apertium.org. Se
+<a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">API-dokumentasjonen</a>
+for detaljer om web-API-et. Her kan du se hvordan resultatet blir for
+denne teksten som ble skrevet på bokmål over maskinoversatt til
+nynorsk.</p>
+
+<hr/>
+
+<p>I Noreg er det mange som treng å skriva både bokmål og nynorsk.
+Eksamensoppgåver, offentlege brev og nyhende er døme på tekster der
+det er krav om skriftspråk. I tillegg til alle skuleoppgåvene som
+elevar over det ganske land skal levera inn kvart år. Det mange ikkje
+veit er at sjølv om dei kommersielle alternativa
+<a href="https://translate.google.com/">Google *Translate</a> og
+<a href="https://www.bing.com/translator/">Bing *Translator</a> ikkje
+kan bidra med å omsetja mellom bokmål og nynorsk, så finst det eit
+utmerka fri programvarealternativ som kan. Omsetjarverktøyet
+*Apertium har støtte for ei rekkje språkkombinasjonar, og takka vera
+den utrøyttelege innsatsen til blant anna Kevin Brubeck Unhammer, kan
+ein bruka *webtjenesten til å fylla inn ei tekst på bokmål eller
+nynorsk, og få den *automatoversatt til det andre skriftspråket.
+Resultatet er ikkje perfekt, men eit svært godt utgangspunkt. Av og
+til er resultatet så bra at det kan nyttast utan endringar. Eg veit
+t.d. at store delar av *Joomla vart omsett til nynorsk ved hjelp
+*Apertium. Høyrast det ut som noko du kan ha bruk for? Besøk i så
+fall <a href="https://www.apertium.org/">*Apertium.org</a> og fyll inn
+teksta di i *webskjemaet der.
+
+<p>Viss du treng *maskinell tilgjenge til den *bakenforliggende
+teknologien kan du anten installera pakken
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/apertium-nno-nob">*apertium-*nno-*nob</a>
+på ein *Debian-maskin eller bruka *web-*API-eit tilgjengeleg frå
+*api.*apertium.org. Sjå
+<a href="http://wiki.apertium.org/wiki/Apertium-apy">*API-dokumentasjonen</a>
+for detaljar om *web-*API-eit. Her kan du sjå korleis resultatet vert
+for denne teksta som vart skreva på bokmål over *maskinoversatt til
+nynorsk.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Creating, updating and checking debian/copyright semi-automatically</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creating__updating_and_checking_debian_copyright_semi_automatically.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Fri, 19 Feb 2016 15:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Making packages for Debian requires quite a lot of attention to
-details. And one of the details is the content of the
-debian/copyright file, which should list all relevant licenses used by
-the code in the package in question, preferably in
-<a href="https://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/copyright-format/1.0/">machine
-readable DEP5 format</a>.</p>
-
-<p>For large packages with lots of contributors it is hard to write
-and update this file manually, and if you get some detail wrong, the
-package is normally rejected by the ftpmasters. So getting it right
-the first time around get the package into Debian faster, and save
-both you and the ftpmasters some work.. Today, while trying to figure
-out what was wrong with
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=686447">the
-zfsonlinux copyright file</a>, I decided to spend some time on
-figuring out the options for doing this job automatically, or at least
-semi-automatically.</p>
-
-<p>Lucikly, there are at least two tools available for generating the
-file based on the code in the source package,
-<tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/debmake">debmake</a></tt>
-and <tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cme">cme</a></tt>. I'm
-not sure which one of them came first, but both seem to be able to
-create a sensible draft file. As far as I can tell, none of them can
-be trusted to get the result just right, so the content need to be
-polished a bit before the file is OK to upload. I found the debmake
-option in
-<a href="http://goofying-with-debian.blogspot.com/2014/07/debmake-checking-source-against-dep-5.html">a
-blog posts from 2014</a>.
-
-<p>To generate using debmake, use the -cc option:
-
-<p><pre>
-debmake -cc > debian/copyright
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>Note there are some problems with python and non-ASCII names, so
-this might not be the best option.</p>
-
-<p>The cme option is based on a config parsing library, and I found
-this approach in
-<a href="https://ddumont.wordpress.com/2015/04/05/improving-creation-of-debian-copyright-file/">a
-blog post from 2015</a>. To generate using cme, use the 'update
-dpkg-copyright' option:
-
-<p><pre>
-cme update dpkg-copyright
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>This will create or update debian/copyright. The cme tool seem to
-handle UTF-8 names better than debmake.</p>
-
-<p>When the copyright file is created, I would also like some help to
-check if the file is correct. For this I found two good options,
-<tt>debmake -k</tt> and <tt>license-reconcile</tt>. The former seem
-to focus on license types and file matching, and is able to detect
-ineffective blocks in the copyright file. The latter reports missing
-copyright holders and years, but was confused by inconsistent license
-names (like CDDL vs. CDDL-1.0). I suspect it is good to use both and
-fix all issues reported by them before uploading. But I do not know
-if the tools and the ftpmasters agree on what is important to fix in a
-copyright file, so the package might still be rejected.</p>
-
-<p>The devscripts tool <tt>licensecheck</tt> deserve mentioning. It
-will read through the source and try to find all copyright statements.
-It is not comparing the result to the content of debian/copyright, but
-can be useful when verifying the content of the copyright file.</p>
-
-<p>Are you aware of better tools in Debian to create and update
-debian/copyright file. Please let me know, or blog about it on
-planet.debian.org.</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Update 2016-02-20</strong>: I got a tip from Mike Gabriel
-on how to use licensecheck and cdbs to create a draft copyright file
-
-<p><pre>
-licensecheck --copyright -r `find * -type f` | \
- /usr/lib/cdbs/licensecheck2dep5 > debian/copyright.auto
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>He mentioned that he normally check the generated file into the
-version control system to make it easier to discover license and
-copyright changes in the upstream source. I will try to do the same
-with my packages in the future.</p>
-
-<p><strong>Update 2016-02-21</strong>: The cme author recommended
-against using -quiet for new users, so I removed it from the proposed
-command line.</p>
+ <title>Hyperions magasin Pegasus går for Creative Commons</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hyperions_magasin_Pegasus_g_r_for_Creative_Commons.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hyperions_magasin_Pegasus_g_r_for_Creative_Commons.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Tue, 22 Nov 2016 20:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>For noen dager siden ble jeg tipset av min venn Andreas
+Aanerud om at <a href="http://magasinetpegasus.no">magasinet
+Pegasus</a> skulle ta i bruk
+<a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative
+Commons</a>-lisensiering på sine artikler. Han fortalte at den
+direkte årsaken var at han hadde blitt inspirert av å lese
+<a href=" http://www.lulu.com/shop/http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">boken
+Fri kultur</a>
+(<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig">github</a>)
+og foreslått endringen. Jeg ble veldig glad for å høre
+dette, da det er det første konkrete tilfellet jeg har hørt om der den
+norske oversettelsen av <a href="http://www.free-culture.cc/">
+Lawrence Lessigs bok Free Culture</a> som jeg ga ut i fjor høst hadde
+fått noen til å ta i bruk Creative Commons.</p>
+
+<p>Andreas fikk boken av meg som takk for at han inviterte meg til
+<a href="http://www.gathering.org/">The Gathering</a>, og jeg er veldig
+glad for at den falt i smak. Jeg ble nysgjerrig på hva som var
+bakgrunnen for denne policy-endringen hos Hyperion og han sa seg
+villig til å la seg intervjue til bloggen min. </p>
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p><strong>Hvilke tanker gjorde du deg da boken lå i hånden første
+gang?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Jeg husker da jeg fikk boken, etter en omvisning på The Gathering i
+2016, der jeg var Core Organizer. The Gathering er jo et sted hvor en
+fremmer delingskultur, i alt fra kode, til løsninger og «hacks», så en
+kan vel si at boken er veldig relevant!</p>
+
+<p>Mine første tanker om boken, var at den trengte et grafisk løft.
+Selv har jeg dysleksi og er ikke verdens beste i å lese, men for meg
+så skal ikke det bety at jeg ikke klarer å lese. Jeg har jo også mine
+egne tanker om «Fri kultur», ettersom jeg har jobbet med noen norske
+filmer via NRK og TV2 og nå sitter som en teknisk leder i
+filmavdelingen til Schjærven Reklamebyrå.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Har du lest boken, og hva tenker du om den nå?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Jeg har lest boken, og for meg er det jo veldig moro å kunne si at
+Disney var en pirat og nå ha bevisene. Men det å gå fra Disney via
+RIAA, og så igjennom en jungel av teknikk og programmering og ende opp
+med spørsmålet om vi alle piratkopierer litt, er enda bedre. For ja,
+boken klarer å få frem en diskusjon om åndsverk på en god måte
+gjennom en samling historier, men den viste meg også et bilde, hvor
+teknologi blir kneblet, og ikke får lov til å utvikle seg, ettersom
+«opphavsrettsinnehaverne» bryr seg mer om sin industri enn om verden
+går fremover. Ta f.eks. internettradio! Hvorfor tuller vi med DAB+
+og alt det der, når radio kan være en app på alle telefoner i dag.
+Men den største tanken som jeg satt igjen med, er at vi må få færre
+advokater og flere tenkere som kan dra oss vekk fra de feilene vi er i
+ferd med å ende opp i.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Har budskapet i boken påvirker deg og det du holder på
+med?</strong></p>
+
+<p>The Gathering sin moderforening er
+<a href="http://www.kandu.no/">KANDU</a>, som er et stolt medlem av <a
+href="http://n4f.no/">Hyperion</a>. Hyperion har et mandat igjennom
+sitt interne magasin Pegasus å fremme Hyperion sine
+medlemsarrangementer og kultur. Dette tror jeg er veldig viktig, og en
+av de viktigste virkemidlene det magasinet nå har fått, er pålegget om
+å publisere alt under de forskjellige Creative Commons
+retningslinjer. Grunnen til at Pegasus kan velge fritt blant lisensene
+til Creative Commons er deres bruk av freelancere m.m. som også må få
+sine rettigheter dekket.</p>
+
+<p>Det er et steg i riktig retning som jeg håper, vil gi lokalaviser,
+nasjonale aviser, bloggere m.m. muligheten til å referere til Pegasus
+sitt innhold uten å måtte be om tillatelse først, som i bunnen vil
+hjelpe oss å spre vår kultur i Hyperion.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Hva fikk Pegasus til å vedta retninglinjer om bruk av
+Creative Commons, og hvordan kom dere frem til en slik
+policy?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Dette skjedde på Hyperion sitt landsting, hvor jeg ønsket å fremme
+Creative Commons som en retning som flere mener magasinet burde ta,
+hvordan Pegasus tar det i bruk er mer opp til redaksjonen. Det som var
+trist er at en del har misforstått hva Creative Commons er. Vi fikk
+en veldig het «debatt» på facebook i etterkant hvor noen blant annet
+mener at dette vedtaket har drept Pegasus.</p>
+
+<p>Personlig syntes jeg disse reaksjonene er rare, ettersom Pegasus er
+et medlemsmagasin og magasinet sitt mål er å spre vår fantastiske
+kultur. Jeg mener at Ceative Commons-bruksvilkår på artikler skaper
+en veldig god mulighet til å spre denne kulturen. Det gjør at større
+og mindre aviser kan låne artikler fra medlemsmagasinet og publisere
+det hos seg, slik at effekten nettopp er fremme vår kultur.</p>
+
+<p>Jeg gleder meg til å se hvordan redaksjonen håndhever bruken av
+Creative Commons.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Hvem tror du kunne ha mest nytte av å lese Fri
+kultur?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Jeg tror at boken Fri kultur bør leses av de som ønsker en debatt
+om nye medier, samt de som jobber med medier og føler seg «truet» av
+utviklingen. Kanskje det kan være et lysglimt om at vi må heller være
+med å utvikle oss, enn å stoppe opp og «beskytte» våre eier-, penge-
+og materielle interesser.</p>
+
+<p>Spørsmålet for redaksjoner vil vel være om de «tjener» på klikk og
+sine artikler via annonser, i så fall ville jeg tenkt litt rundt
+spredningen. Nettavisen Digi.no gjorde en analyse i 2015 som var
+veldig fin. Hvor de måtte konkludere med at de fikk ut budskapet
+bedre, men de mistet inntekter på annonsevisning.</p>
+
+<p>Derfor for et magasin som skal «spre» kultur, så burde Creative
+Commons være en no-brainer, en kunne også kanskje argumentere med at
+NRK også burde gjøre dette, ettersom de ikke lever av reklame, og vi
+betaler for innholdet deres.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Kommer du til å anbefale boken til noen du
+kjenner?</strong></p>
+
+<p>Absolutt! Jeg har faktisk tenkt å gi den videre som en vandrebok,
+til redaksjonen i Pegasus slik at de kan lese den og få noen ider og
+tanker om fri kultur.</p>
+
+<p><strong>Du sier at boken klarer å få frem viktig en diskusjon om
+ vern av åndsverk. Boken er jo skrevet med bakgrunn i USAs
+ Copyright-lovgiving og ikke den norske åndsverksloven. Hva gjør at
+ du mener boken er relevant for den norske debatten?</strong></p>
+
+<p>En av tingene boken pekte på var tanken om hvor opphavsretten skal
+ligge. Skal den ligge hos den som skriver sangen, den som fremfører
+eller den som tar opp sangen. Og når spørsmålet kom tilbake i en
+software-utgave, «hvordan kan Adobe styre opphavsretten i sin eBook
+Publisher» så føler jeg at vi kommer inn på spennende tanker som jeg
+mener vi glemmer i norsk åndsverksdebatt. USA har rett å slett et
+«større bilde» som kanskje vi kan ta lærdom av.</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Jeg er veldig spent på hvordan redaksjonen i Pegasus kommer til å
+ta i bruk Creative Commons, og gleder meg til neste tegn på at
+bokutgivelsen har fått noen til å tenke mer på problemene med dagens
+åndsverksvern.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Using appstream in Debian to locate packages with firmware and mime type support</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_in_Debian_to_locate_packages_with_firmware_and_mime_type_support.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Thu, 4 Feb 2016 16:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>The <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">appstream system</a>
-is taking shape in Debian, and one provided feature is a very
-convenient way to tell you which package to install to make a given
-firmware file available when the kernel is looking for it. This can
-be done using apt-file too, but that is for someone else to blog
-about. :)</p>
-
-<p>Here is a small recipe to find the package with a given firmware
-file, in this example I am looking for ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin, randomly
-picked from the set of firmware announced using appstream in Debian
-unstable. In general you would be looking for the firmware requested
-by the kernel during kernel module loading. To find the package
-providing the example file, do like this:</p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-% apt install appstream
-[...]
-% apt update
-[...]
-% appstreamcli what-provides firmware:runtime ctfw-3.2.3.0.bin | \
- awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
-firmware-qlogic
-%
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>See <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/AppStream/Guidelines">the
-appstream wiki</a> page to learn how to embed the package metadata in
-a way appstream can use.</p>
-
-<p>This same approach can be used to find any package supporting a
-given MIME type. This is very useful when you get a file you do not
-know how to handle. First find the mime type using <tt>file
---mime-type</tt>, and next look up the package providing support for
-it. Lets say you got an SVG file. Its MIME type is image/svg+xml,
-and you can find all packages handling this type like this:</p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-% apt install appstream
-[...]
-% apt update
-[...]
-% appstreamcli what-provides mimetype image/svg+xml | \
- awk '/Package:/ {print $2}'
-bkchem
-phototonic
-inkscape
-shutter
-tetzle
-geeqie
-xia
-pinta
-gthumb
-karbon
-comix
-mirage
-viewnior
-postr
-ristretto
-kolourpaint4
-eog
-eom
-gimagereader
-midori
-%
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>I believe the MIME types are fetched from the desktop file for
-packages providing appstream metadata.</p>
+ <title>Coz profiler for multi-threaded software is now in Debian</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_profiler_for_multi_threaded_software_is_now_in_Debian.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sun, 13 Nov 2016 12:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p><a href="http://coz-profiler.org/">The Coz profiler</a>, a nice
+profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented
+multi-threaded program, finally
+<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/coz-profiler">made it into
+Debian unstable yesterday</A>. Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many
+months since
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html">I
+blogged about the coz tool</a> in August working with upstream to make
+it suitable for Debian. There are still issues with clang
+compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized
+JavaScript libraries.</p>
+
+<p>To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+<tt>coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info</tt>
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working
+directory with the profiling information. This is then given to a
+JavaScript application provided in the package and available from
+<a href="http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/">a project web page</a>.
+To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:</p>
+
+<p><blockquote>
+<tt>sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm</tt>
+</blockquote></p>
+
+<p>See the project home page and the
+<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger">USENIX
+;login: article on Coz</a> for more information on how it is
+working.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Creepy, visualise geotagged social media information - nice free software</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Creepy__visualise_geotagged_social_media_information___nice_free_software.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 24 Jan 2016 10:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Most people seem not to realise that every time they walk around
-with the computerised radio beacon known as a mobile phone their
-position is tracked by the phone company and often stored for a long
-time (like every time a SMS is received or sent). And if their
-computerised radio beacon is capable of running programs (often called
-mobile apps) downloaded from the Internet, these programs are often
-also capable of tracking their location (if the app requested access
-during installation). And when these programs send out information to
-central collection points, the location is often included, unless
-extra care is taken to not send the location. The provided
-information is used by several entities, for good and bad (what is
-good and bad, depend on your point of view). What is certain, is that
-the private sphere and the right to free movement is challenged and
-perhaps even eradicated for those announcing their location this way,
-when they share their whereabouts with private and public
-entities.</p>
-
-<p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-01-24-nice-creepy-desktop-window.png"></p>
-
-<p>The phone company logs provide a register of locations to check out
-when one want to figure out what the tracked person was doing. It is
-unavailable for most of us, but provided to selected government
-officials, company staff, those illegally buying information from
-unfaithful servants and crackers stealing the information. But the
-public information can be collected and analysed, and a free software
-tool to do so is called
-<a href="http://www.geocreepy.com/">Creepy or Cree.py</a>. I
-discovered it when I read
-<a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/kultur/Slik-kan-du-bli-overvaket-pa-Twitter-og-Instagram-uten-a-ane-det-7787884.html">an
-article about Creepy</a> in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten i
-November 2014, and decided to check if it was available in Debian.
-The python program was in Debian, but
-<a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/creepy">the version in
-Debian</a> was completely broken and practically unmaintained. I
-uploaded a new version which did not work quite right, but did not
-have time to fix it then. This Christmas I decided to finally try to
-get Creepy operational in Debian. Now a fixed version is available in
-Debian unstable and testing, and almost all Debian specific patches
-are now included
-<a href="https://github.com/jkakavas/creepy">upstream</a>.</p>
-
-<p>The Creepy program visualises geolocation information fetched from
-Twitter, Instagram, Flickr and Google+, and allow one to get a
-complete picture of every social media message posted recently in a
-given area, or track the movement of a given individual across all
-these services. Earlier it was possible to use the search API of at
-least some of these services without identifying oneself, but these
-days it is impossible. This mean that to use Creepy, you need to
-configure it to log in as yourself on these services, and provide
-information to them about your search interests. This should be taken
-into account when using Creepy, as it will also share information
-about yourself with the services.</p>
-
-<p>The picture above show the twitter messages sent from (or at least
-geotagged with a position from) the city centre of Oslo, the capital
-of Norway. One useful way to use Creepy is to first look at
-information tagged with an area of interest, and next look at all the
-information provided by one or more individuals who was in the area.
-I tested it by checking out which celebrity provide their location in
-twitter messages by checkout out who sent twitter messages near a
-Norwegian TV station, and next could track their position over time,
-making it possible to locate their home and work place, among other
-things. A similar technique have been
-<a href="http://www.buzzfeed.com/maxseddon/does-this-soldiers-instagram-account-prove-russia-is-covertl">used
-to locate Russian soldiers in Ukraine</a>, and it is both a powerful
-tool to discover lying governments, and a useful tool to help people
-understand the value of the private information they provide to the
-public.</p>
-
-<p>The package is not trivial to backport to Debian Stable/Jessie, as
-it depend on several python modules currently missing in Jessie (at
-least python-instagram, python-flickrapi and
-python-requests-toolbelt).</p>
-
-<p>(I have uploaded
-<a href="https://screenshots.debian.net/package/creepy">the image to
-screenshots.debian.net</a> and licensed it under the same terms as the
-Creepy program in Debian.)</p>
+ <title>How to talk with your loved ones in private</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_talk_with_your_loved_ones_in_private.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_talk_with_your_loved_ones_in_private.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Mon, 7 Nov 2016 10:25:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>A few days ago I ran a very biased and informal survey to get an
+idea about what options are being used to communicate with end to end
+encryption with friends and family. I explicitly asked people not to
+list options only used in a work setting. The background is the
+uneasy feeling I get when using Signal, a feeling shared by others as
+a blog post from Sander Venima about
+<a href="https://sandervenema.ch/2016/11/why-i-wont-recommend-signal-anymore/">why
+he do not recommend Signal anymore</a> (with
+<a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12883410">feedback from
+the Signal author available from ycombinator</a>). I wanted an
+overview of the options being used, and hope to include those options
+in a less biased survey later on. So far I have not taken the time to
+look into the individual proposed systems. They range from text
+sharing web pages, via file sharing and email to instant messaging,
+VOIP and video conferencing. For those considering which system to
+use, it is also useful to have a look at
+<a href="https://www.eff.org/secure-messaging-scorecard">the EFF Secure
+messaging scorecard</a> which is slightly out of date but still
+provide valuable information.</p>
+
+<p>So, on to the list. There were some used by many, some used by a
+few, some rarely used ones and a few mentioned but without anyone
+claiming to use them. Notice the grouping is in reality quite random
+given the biased self selected set of participants. First the ones
+used by many:</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="https://whispersystems.org/">Signal</a></li>
+<li>Email w/<a href="http://openpgp.org/">OpenPGP</a> (Enigmail, GPGSuite,etc)</li>
+<li><a href="https://www.whatsapp.com/">Whatsapp</a></li>
+<li>IRC w/<a href="https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/">OTR</a></li>
+<li>XMPP w/<a href="https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/">OTR</a></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>Then the ones used by a few.</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="https://wiki.mumble.info/wiki/Main_Page">Mumble</a></li>
+<li>iMessage (included in iOS from Apple)</li>
+<li><a href="https://telegram.org/">Telegram</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://jitsi.org/">Jitsi</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://keybase.io/download">Keybase file</a></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>Then the ones used by even fewer people</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li><a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://bitmessage.org/">Bitmessage</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://wire.com/">Wire</a></li>
+<li>VoIP w/<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZRTP">ZRTP</a> or controlled <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Real-time_Transport_Protocol">SRTP</a> (e.g using <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSipSimple">CSipSimple</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linphone">Linphone</a>)</li>
+<li><a href="https://matrix.org/">Matrix</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://kontalk.org/">Kontalk</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://0bin.net/">0bin</a> (encrypted pastebin)</li>
+<li><a href="https://appear.in">Appear.in</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://riot.im/">riot</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://www.wickr.com/">Wickr Me</a></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>And finally the ones mentioned by not marked as used by
+anyone. This might be a mistake, perhaps the person adding the entry
+forgot to flag it as used?</p>
+
+<ul>
+
+<li>Email w/Certificates <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S/MIME">S/MIME</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://www.crypho.com/">Crypho</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://cryptpad.fr/">CryptPad</a></li>
+<li><a href="https://github.com/ricochet-im/ricochet">ricochet</a></li>
+
+</ul>
+
+<p>Given the network effect it seem obvious to me that we as a society
+have been divided and conquered by those interested in keeping
+encrypted and secure communication away from the masses. The
+finishing remarks <a href="https://vimeo.com/97505679">from Aral Balkan
+in his talk "Free is a lie"</a> about the usability of free software
+really come into effect when you want to communicate in private with
+your friends and family. We can not expect them to allow the
+usability of communication tool to block their ability to talk to
+their loved ones.</p>
+
+<p>Note for example the option IRC w/OTR. Most IRC clients do not
+have OTR support, so in most cases OTR would not be an option, even if
+you wanted to. In my personal experience, about 1 in 20 I talk to
+have a IRC client with OTR. For private communication to really be
+available, most people to talk to must have the option in their
+currently used client. I can not simply ask my family to install an
+IRC client. I need to guide them through a technical multi-step
+process of adding extensions to the client to get them going. This is
+a non-starter for most.</p>
+
+<p>I would like to be able to do video phone calls, audio phone calls,
+exchange instant messages and share files with my loved ones, without
+being forced to share with people I do not know. I do not want to
+share the content of the conversations, and I do not want to share who
+I communicate with or the fact that I communicate with someone.
+Without all these factors in place, my private life is being more or
+less invaded.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Always download Debian packages using Tor - the simple recipe</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Always_download_Debian_packages_using_Tor___the_simple_recipe.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Fri, 15 Jan 2016 00:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>During his DebConf15 keynote, Jacob Appelbaum
-<a href="https://summit.debconf.org/debconf15/meeting/331/what-is-to-be-done/">observed
-that those listening on the Internet lines would have good reason to
-believe a computer have a given security hole</a> if it download a
-security fix from a Debian mirror. This is a good reason to always
-use encrypted connections to the Debian mirror, to make sure those
-listening do not know which IP address to attack. In August, Richard
-Hartmann observed that encryption was not enough, when it was possible
-to interfere download size to security patches or the fact that
-download took place shortly after a security fix was released, and
-<a href="http://richardhartmann.de/blog/posts/2015/08/24-Tor-enabled_Debian_mirror/">proposed
-to always use Tor to download packages from the Debian mirror</a>. He
-was not the first to propose this, as the
-<tt><a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/apt-transport-tor">apt-transport-tor</a></tt>
-package by Tim Retout already existed to make it easy to convince apt
-to use <a href="https://www.torproject.org/">Tor</a>, but I was not
-aware of that package when I read the blog post from Richard.</p>
-
-<p>Richard discussed the idea with Peter Palfrader, one of the Debian
-sysadmins, and he set up a Tor hidden service on one of the central
-Debian mirrors using the address vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion, thus making
-it possible to download packages directly between two tor nodes,
-making sure the network traffic always were encrypted.</p>
-
-<p>Here is a short recipe for enabling this on your machine, by
-installing <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> and replacing http and https
-urls with tor+http and tor+https, and using the hidden service instead
-of the official Debian mirror site. I recommend installing
-<tt>etckeeper</tt> before you start to have a history of the changes
-done in /etc/.</p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-apt install apt-transport-tor
-sed -i 's% http://ftp.debian.org/% tor+http://vwakviie2ienjx6t.onion/%' /etc/apt/sources.list
-sed -i 's% http% tor+http%' /etc/apt/sources.list
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>If you have more sources listed in /etc/apt/sources.list.d/, run
-the sed commands for these too. The sed command is assuming your are
-using the ftp.debian.org Debian mirror. Adjust the command (or just
-edit the file manually) to match your mirror.</p>
-
-<p>This work in Debian Jessie and later. Note that tools like
-<tt>apt-file</tt> only recently started using the apt transport
-system, and do not work with these tor+http URLs. For
-<tt>apt-file</tt> you need the version currently in experimental,
-which need a recent apt version currently only in unstable. So if you
-need a working <tt>apt-file</tt>, this is not for you.</p>
-
-<p>Another advantage from this change is that your machine will start
-using Tor regularly and at fairly random intervals (every time you
-update the package lists or upgrade or install a new package), thus
-masking other Tor traffic done from the same machine. Using Tor will
-become normal for the machine in question.</p>
-
-<p>On <a href="https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox">Freedombox</a>, APT
-is set up by default to use <tt>apt-transport-tor</tt> when Tor is
-enabled. It would be great if it was the default on any Debian
-system.</p>
+ <title>My own self balancing Lego Segway</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/My_own_self_balancing_Lego_Segway.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 4 Nov 2016 10:15:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT
+<a href="mindstorms.lego.com">Mindstorms</a> controller as a birthday
+present. It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to
+build a Segway like balancing lego robot. I had already built
+<a href="http://www.nxtprograms.com/NXT2/segway/">a simple balancing
+robot</a> with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the
+NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well. It
+could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light
+condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and
+would fall over after a short while. I wanted something more robust,
+and had
+<a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=NGY1044">the
+gyro sensor from HiTechnic</a> I believed would solve it on my
+wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my
+loved ones. :)</p>
+
+<p>Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it
+since then. But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for
+lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for
+building
+<a href="http://www.hitechnic.com/blog/gyro-sensor/htway/">the
+HTWay</a>, a segway like balancing robot. Build instructions and
+<a href="https://www.hitechnic.com/upload/786-HTWayC.nxc">source
+code</a> was included, so it was just a question of putting it all
+together. And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the
+compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in
+Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour. The resulting robot
+do not look very impressive in its simplicity:</p>
+
+<p align="center"><img width="70%" src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-robot.jpeg"></p>
+
+<p>Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the
+design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task
+(taskControl). I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program
+working without that sensor present. Now it balances just fine until
+the battery status run low:</p>
+
+<p align="center"><video width="70%" controls="true">
+ <source src="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2016-11-04-lego-htway-balancing.ogv" type="video/ogg">
+</video></p>
+
+<p>Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote
+control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.</p>
+
+<p>If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools
+they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative
+distributions like Ubuntu, check out
+<a href="http://wiki.debian.org/LegoDesigners">the LEGO designers
+project page</a> and join the Debian LEGO team. Personally I own a
+RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the
+Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they
+should.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Nedlasting fra NRK, som Matroska med undertekster</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nedlasting_fra_NRK__som_Matroska_med_undertekster.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Nedlasting_fra_NRK__som_Matroska_med_undertekster.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sat, 2 Jan 2016 13:50:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Det kommer stadig nye løsninger for å ta lagre unna innslag fra NRK
-for å se på det senere. For en stund tilbake kom jeg over et script
-nrkopptak laget av Ingvar Hagelund. Han fjernet riktignok sitt script
-etter forespørsel fra Erik Bolstad i NRK, men noen tok heldigvis og
-gjorde det <a href="https://github.com/liangqi/nrkopptak">tilgjengelig
-via github</a>.</p>
-
-<p>Scriptet kan lagre som MPEG4 eller Matroska, og bake inn
-undertekster i fila på et vis som blant annet VLC forstår. For å
-bruke scriptet, kopier ned git-arkivet og kjør</p>
-
-<p><pre>
-nrkopptak/bin/nrk-opptak k <ahref="https://tv.nrk.no/serie/bmi-turne/MUHH45000115/sesong-1/episode-1">https://tv.nrk.no/serie/bmi-turne/MUHH45000115/sesong-1/episode-1</a>
-</pre></p>
-
-<p>URL-eksemplet er dagens toppsak på tv.nrk.no. Argument 'k' ber
-scriptet laste ned og lagre som Matroska. Det finnes en rekke andre
-muligheter for valg av kvalitet og format.</p>
+ <title>Aktivitetsbånd som beskytter privatsfæren</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Aktivitetsb_nd_som_beskytter_privatsf_ren.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Aktivitetsb_nd_som_beskytter_privatsf_ren.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Thu, 3 Nov 2016 09:55:00 +0100</pubDate>
+ <description><p>Jeg ble så imponert over
+<a href="https://www.nrk.no/norge/forbrukerradet-mener-aktivitetsarmband-strider-mot-norsk-lov-1.13209079">dagens
+gladnyhet på NRK</a>, om at Forbrukerrådet klager inn vilkårene for
+bruk av aktivitetsbånd fra Fitbit, Garmin, Jawbone og Mio til
+Datatilsynet og forbrukerombudet, at jeg sendte følgende brev til
+forbrukerrådet for å uttrykke min støtte:
+
+<blockquote>
+
+<p>Jeg ble veldig glad over å lese at Forbrukerrådet
+<a href="http://www.forbrukerradet.no/siste-nytt/klager-inn-aktivitetsarmband-for-brudd-pa-norsk-lov/">klager
+inn flere aktivitetsbånd til Datatilsynet for dårlige vilkår</a>. Jeg
+har ønsket meg et aktivitetsbånd som kan måle puls, bevegelse og
+gjerne også andre helserelaterte indikatorer en stund nå. De eneste
+jeg har funnet i salg gjør, som dere også har oppdaget, graverende
+inngrep i privatsfæren og sender informasjonen ut av huset til folk og
+organisasjoner jeg ikke ønsker å dele aktivitets- og helseinformasjon
+med. Jeg ønsker et alternativ som <em>ikke</em> sender informasjon til
+skyen, men derimot bruker
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fri_og__pen_standard__slik_Digistan_ser_det.html">en
+fritt og åpent standardisert</a> protokoll (eller i det minste en
+dokumentert protokoll uten patent- og opphavsrettslige
+bruksbegrensinger) til å kommunisere med datautstyr jeg kontrollerer.
+Er jo ikke interessert i å betale noen for å tilrøve seg
+personopplysninger fra meg. Desverre har jeg ikke funnet noe
+alternativ så langt.</p>
+
+<p>Det holder ikke å endre på bruksvilkårene for enhetene, slik
+Datatilsynet ofte legger opp til i sin behandling, når de gjør slik
+f.eks. Fitbit (den jeg har sett mest på). Fitbit krypterer
+informasjonen på enheten og sender den kryptert til leverandøren. Det
+gjør det i praksis umulig både å sjekke hva slags informasjon som
+sendes over, og umulig å ta imot informasjonen selv i stedet for
+Fitbit. Uansett hva slags historie som forteller i bruksvilkårene er
+en jo både prisgitt leverandørens godvilje og at de ikke tvinges av
+sitt lands myndigheter til å lyve til sine kunder om hvorvidt
+personopplysninger spres ut over det bruksvilkårene sier. Det er
+veldokumentert hvordan f.eks. USA tvinger selskaper vha. såkalte
+National security letters til å utlevere personopplysninger samtidig
+som de ikke får lov til å fortelle dette til kundene sine.</p>
+
+<p>Stå på, jeg er veldig glade for at dere har sett på saken. Vet
+dere om aktivitetsbånd i salg i dag som ikke tvinger en til å utlevere
+aktivitets- og helseopplysninger med leverandøren?</p>
+
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>Jeg håper en konkurrent som respekterer kundenes privatliv klarer å
+nå opp i markedet, slik at det finnes et reelt alternativ for oss som
+har full tillit til at skyleverandører vil prioritere egen inntjening
+og myndighetspålegg langt foran kundenes rett til privatliv. Jeg har
+ingen tiltro til at Datatilsynet vil kreve noe mer enn at vilkårene
+endres slik at de forklarer eksplisitt i hvor stor grad bruk av
+produktene utraderer privatsfæren til kundene. Det vil nok gjøre de
+innklagede armbåndene «lovlige», men fortsatt tvinge kundene til å
+dele sine personopplysninger med leverandøren.</p>
+</description>
+ </item>
+
+ <item>
+ <title>Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Experience_and_updated_recipe_for_using_the_Signal_app_without_a_mobile_phone.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Mon, 10 Oct 2016 11:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>In July
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html">I
+wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working</a> without
+the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone). It is
+time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.</p>
+
+<p>The Signal app have worked fine for several months now, and I use
+it regularly to chat with my loved ones. I had a major snag at the
+end of my summer vacation, when the the app completely forgot my
+setup, identity and keys. The reason behind this major mess was
+running out of disk space. To avoid that ever happening again I have
+started storing everything in <tt>userdata/</tt> in git, to be able to
+roll back to an earlier version if the files are wiped by mistake. I
+had to use it once after introducing the git backup. When rolling
+back to an earlier version, one need to use the 'reset session' option
+in Signal to get going, and notify the people you talk with about the
+problem. I assume there is some sequence number tracking in the
+protocol to detect rollback attacks. The git repository is rather big
+(674 MiB so far), but I have not tried to figure out if some of the
+content can be added to a .gitignore file due to lack of spare
+time.</p>
+
+<p>I've also hit the 90 days timeout blocking, and noticed that this
+make it impossible to send messages using Signal. I could still
+receive them, but had to patch the code with a new timestamp to send.
+I believe the timeout is added by the developers to force people to
+upgrade to the latest version of the app, even when there is no
+protocol changes, to reduce the version skew among the user base and
+thus try to keep the number of support requests down.</p>
+
+<p>Since my original recipe, the Signal source code changed slightly,
+making the old patch fail to apply cleanly. Below is an updated
+patch, including the shell wrapper I use to start Signal. The
+original version required a new user to locate the JavaScript console
+and call a function from there. I got help from a friend with more
+JavaScript knowledge than me to modify the code to provide a GUI
+button instead. This mean that to get started you just need to run
+the wrapper and click the 'Register without mobile phone' to get going
+now. I've also modified the timeout code to always set it to 90 days
+in the future, to avoid having to patch the code regularly.</p>
+
+<p>So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:</p>
+
+<ol>
+
+<li>First, install required packages to get the source code and the
+browser you need. Signal only work with Chrome/Chromium, as far as I
+know, so you need to install it.
+
+<pre>
+apt install git tor chromium
+git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
+</pre></li>
+
+<li>Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch
+block below.</li>
+
+<li>Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using
+<tt>`pwd`/run-signal-app</tt>).
+
+<li>Click on the 'Register without mobile phone', will in a phone
+number you can receive calls to the next minute, receive the
+verification code and enter it into the form field and press
+'Register'. Note, the phone number you use will be user Signal
+username, ie the way others can find you on Signal.</li>
+
+<li>You can now use Signal to contact others. Note, new contacts do
+not show up in the contact list until you restart Signal, and there is
+no way to assign names to Contacts. There is also no way to create or
+update chat groups. I suspect this is because the web app do not have
+a associated contact database.</li>
+
+</ol>
+
+<p>I am still a bit uneasy about using Signal, because of the way its
+main author moxie0 reject federation and accept dependencies to major
+corporations like Google (part of the code is fetched from Google) and
+Amazon (the central coordination point is owned by Amazon). See for
+example
+<a href="https://github.com/LibreSignal/LibreSignal/issues/37">the
+LibreSignal issue tracker</a> for a thread documenting the authors
+view on these issues. But the network effect is strong in this case,
+and several of the people I want to communicate with already use
+Signal. Perhaps we can all move to <a href="https://ring.cx/">Ring</a>
+once it <a href="https://bugs.debian.org/830265">work on my
+laptop</a>? It already work on Windows and Android, and is included
+in <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/ring">Debian</a> and
+<a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ring">Ubuntu</a>, but not
+working on Debian Stable.</p>
+
+<p>Anyway, this is the patch I apply to the Signal code to get it
+working. It switch to the production servers, disable to timeout,
+make registration easier and add the shell wrapper:</p>
+
+<pre>
+cd Signal-Desktop; cat &lt;&lt;EOF | patch -p1
+diff --git a/js/background.js b/js/background.js
+index 24b4c1d..579345f 100644
+--- a/js/background.js
++++ b/js/background.js
+@@ -33,9 +33,9 @@
+ });
+ });
+
+- var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org';
++ var SERVER_URL = 'https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org';
+ var SERVER_PORTS = [80, 4433, 8443];
+- var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com';
++ var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = 'https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com';
+ var messageReceiver;
+ window.getSocketStatus = function() {
+ if (messageReceiver) {
+diff --git a/js/expire.js b/js/expire.js
+index 639aeae..beb91c3 100644
+--- a/js/expire.js
++++ b/js/expire.js
+@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
+ ;(function() {
+ 'use strict';
+- var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
++ var BUILD_EXPIRATION = Date.now() + (90 * 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000);
+
+ window.extension = window.extension || {};
+
+diff --git a/js/views/install_view.js b/js/views/install_view.js
+index 7816f4f..1d6233b 100644
+--- a/js/views/install_view.js
++++ b/js/views/install_view.js
+@@ -38,7 +38,8 @@
+ return {
+ 'click .step1': this.selectStep.bind(this, 1),
+ 'click .step2': this.selectStep.bind(this, 2),
+- 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3)
++ 'click .step3': this.selectStep.bind(this, 3),
++ 'click .callreg': function() { extension.install('standalone') },
+ };
+ },
+ clearQR: function() {
+diff --git a/options.html b/options.html
+index dc0f28e..8d709f6 100644
+--- a/options.html
++++ b/options.html
+@@ -14,7 +14,10 @@
+ &lt;div class='nav'>
+ &lt;h1>{{ installWelcome }}&lt;/h1>
+ &lt;p>{{ installTagline }}&lt;/p>
+- &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a> &lt;/div>
++ &lt;div> &lt;a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}&lt;/a>
++ &lt;br> &lt;a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone&lt;/a>
++
++ &lt;/div>
+ &lt;span class='dot step1 selected'>&lt;/span>
+ &lt;span class='dot step2'>&lt;/span>
+ &lt;span class='dot step3'>&lt;/span>
+--- /dev/null 2016-10-07 09:55:13.730181472 +0200
++++ b/run-signal-app 2016-10-10 08:54:09.434172391 +0200
+@@ -0,0 +1,12 @@
++#!/bin/sh
++set -e
++cd $(dirname $0)
++mkdir -p userdata
++userdata="`pwd`/userdata"
++if [ -d "$userdata" ] && [ ! -d "$userdata/.git" ] ; then
++ (cd $userdata && git init)
++fi
++(cd $userdata && git add . && git commit -m "Current status." || true)
++exec chromium \
++ --proxy-server="socks://localhost:9050" \
++ --user-data-dir=$userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
+EOF
+chmod a+rx run-signal-app
+</pre>
-<p>Jeg foretrekker dette scriptet fremfor youtube-dl, som
-<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Hvordan_enkelt_laste_ned_filmer_fra_NRK_med_den__nye__l_sningen.html">
-nevnt i 2014 støtter NRK</a> og en rekke andre videokilder, på grunn
-av at nrkopptak samler undertekster og video i en enkelt fil, hvilket
-gjør håndtering enklere på disk.</p>
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>OpenALPR, find car license plates in video streams - nice free software</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/OpenALPR__find_car_license_plates_in_video_streams___nice_free_software.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Wed, 23 Dec 2015 01:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>When I was a kid, we used to collect "car numbers", as we used to
-call the car license plate numbers in those days. I would write the
-numbers down in my little book and compare notes with the other kids
-to see how many region codes we had seen and if we had seen some
-exotic or special region codes and numbers. It was a fun game to pass
-time, as we kids have plenty of it.</p>
-
-<p>A few days I came across
-<a href="https://github.com/openalpr/openalpr">the OpenALPR
-project</a>, a free software project to automatically discover and
-report license plates in images and video streams, and provide the
-"car numbers" in a machine readable format. I've been looking for
-such system for a while now, because I believe it is a bad idea that the
-<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_number_plate_recognition">automatic
-number plate recognition</a> tool only is available in the hands of
-the powerful, and want it to be available also for the powerless to
-even the score when it comes to surveillance and sousveillance. I
-discovered the developer
-<a href="https://bugs.debian.org/747509">wanted to get the tool into
-Debian</a>, and as I too wanted it to be in Debian, I volunteered to
-help him get it into shape to get the package uploaded into the Debian
-archive.</p>
-
-<p>Today we finally managed to get the package into shape and uploaded
-it into Debian, where it currently
-<a href="https://ftp-master.debian.org//new/openalpr_2.2.1-1.html">waits
-in the NEW queue</a> for review by the Debian ftpmasters.</p>
-
-<p>I guess you are wondering why on earth such tool would be useful
-for the common folks, ie those not running a large government
-surveillance system? Well, I plan to put it in a computer on my bike
-and in my car, tracking the cars nearby and allowing me to be notified
-when number plates on my watch list are discovered. Another use case
-was suggested by a friend of mine, who wanted to set it up at his home
-to open the car port automatically when it discovered the plate on his
-car. When I mentioned it perhaps was a bit foolhardy to allow anyone
-capable of placing his license plate number of a piece of cardboard to
-open his car port, men replied that it was always unlocked anyway. I
-guess for such use case it make sense. I am sure there are other use
-cases too, for those with imagination and a vision.</p>
-
-<p>If you want to build your own version of the Debian package, check
-out the upstream git source and symlink ./distros/debian to ./debian/
-before running "debuild" to build the source. Or wait a bit until the
-package show up in unstable.</p>
+ <title>NRKs kildevern når NRK-epost deles med utenlands etterretning?</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NRKs_kildevern_n_r_NRK_epost_deles_med_utenlands_etterretning_.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/NRKs_kildevern_n_r_NRK_epost_deles_med_utenlands_etterretning_.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Sat, 8 Oct 2016 08:15:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p>NRK
+<a href="https://nrkbeta.no/2016/09/02/securing-whistleblowers/">lanserte
+for noen uker siden</a> en ny
+<a href="https://www.nrk.no/varsle/">varslerportal som bruker
+SecureDrop til å ta imot tips</a> der det er vesentlig at ingen
+utenforstående får vite at NRK er tipset. Det er et langt steg
+fremover for NRK, og når en leser bloggposten om hva de har tenkt på
+og hvordan løsningen er satt opp virker det som om de har gjort en
+grundig jobb der. Men det er ganske mye ekstra jobb å motta tips via
+SecureDrop, så varslersiden skriver "Nyhetstips som ikke krever denne
+typen ekstra vern vil vi gjerne ha på nrk.no/03030", og 03030-siden
+foreslår i tillegg til et webskjema å bruke epost, SMS, telefon,
+personlig oppmøte og brevpost. Denne artikkelen handler disse andre
+metodene.</p>
+
+<p>Når en sender epost til en @nrk.no-adresse så vil eposten sendes ut
+av landet til datamaskiner kontrollert av Microsoft. En kan sjekke
+dette selv ved å slå opp epostleveringsadresse (MX) i DNS. For NRK er
+dette i dag "nrk-no.mail.protection.outlook.com". NRK har som en ser
+valgt å sette bort epostmottaket sitt til de som står bak outlook.com,
+dvs. Microsoft. En kan sjekke hvor nettverkstrafikken tar veien
+gjennom Internett til epostmottaket vha. programmet
+<tt>traceroute</tt>, og finne ut hvem som eier en Internett-adresse
+vha. whois-systemet. Når en gjør dette for epost-trafikk til @nrk.no
+ser en at trafikken fra Norge mot nrk-no.mail.protection.outlook.com
+går via Sverige mot enten Irland eller Tyskland (det varierer fra gang
+til gang og kan endre seg over tid).</p>
+
+<p>Vi vet fra
+<a href="https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/FRA-loven">introduksjonen av
+FRA-loven</a> at IP-trafikk som passerer grensen til Sverige avlyttes
+av Försvarets radioanstalt (FRA). Vi vet videre takket være
+Snowden-bekreftelsene at trafikk som passerer grensen til
+Storbritannia avlyttes av Government Communications Headquarters
+(GCHQ). I tillegg er er det nettopp lansert et forslag i Norge om at
+forsvarets E-tjeneste skal få avlytte trafikk som krysser grensen til
+Norge. Jeg er ikke kjent med dokumentasjon på at Irland og Tyskland
+gjør det samme. Poenget er uansett at utenlandsk etterretning har
+mulighet til å snappe opp trafikken når en sender epost til @nrk.no.
+I tillegg er det selvsagt tilgjengelig for Microsoft som er underlagt USAs
+jurisdiksjon og
+<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data">samarbeider
+med USAs etterretning på flere områder</a>. De som tipser NRK om
+nyheter via epost kan dermed gå ut fra at det blir kjent for mange
+andre enn NRK at det er gjort.</p>
+
+<p>Bruk av SMS og telefon registreres av blant annet telefonselskapene
+og er tilgjengelig i følge lov og forskrift for blant annet Politi,
+NAV og Finanstilsynet, i tillegg til IT-folkene hos telefonselskapene
+og deres overordnede. Hvis innringer eller mottaker bruker
+smarttelefon vil slik kontakt også gjøres tilgjengelig for ulike
+app-leverandører og de som lytter på trafikken mellom telefon og
+app-leverandør, alt etter hva som er installert på telefonene som
+brukes.</p>
+
+<p>Brevpost kan virke trygt, og jeg vet ikke hvor mye som registreres
+og lagres av postens datastyrte postsorteringssentraler. Det vil ikke
+overraske meg om det lagres hvor i landet hver konvolutt kommer fra og
+hvor den er adressert, i hvert fall for en kortere periode. Jeg vet
+heller ikke hvem slik informasjon gjøres tilgjengelig for. Det kan
+være nok til å ringe inn potensielle kilder når det krysses med hvem
+som kjente til aktuell informasjon og hvor de befant seg (tilgjengelig
+f.eks. hvis de bærer mobiltelefon eller bor i nærheten).</p>
+
+<p>Personlig oppmøte hos en NRK-journalist er antagelig det tryggeste,
+men en bør passe seg for å bruke NRK-kantina. Der bryter de nemlig
+<a href="http://www.lovdata.no/all/hl-19850524-028.html#14">Sentralbanklovens
+paragraf 14</a> og nekter folk å betale med kontanter. I stedet
+krever de at en varsle sin bankkortutsteder om hvor en befinner seg
+ved å bruke bankkort. Banktransaksjoner er tilgjengelig for
+bankkortutsteder (det være seg VISA, Mastercard, Nets og/eller en
+bank) i tillegg til politiet og i hvert fall tidligere med Se & Hør
+(via utro tjenere, slik det ble avslørt etter utgivelsen av boken
+«Livet, det forbannede» av Ken B. Rasmussen). Men hvor mange kjenner
+en NRK-journalist personlig? Besøk på NRK på Marienlyst krever at en
+registrerer sin ankost elektronisk i besøkssystemet. Jeg vet ikke hva
+som skjer med det datasettet, men har grunn til å tro at det sendes ut
+SMS til den en skal besøke med navnet som er oppgitt. Kanskje greit å
+oppgi falskt navn.</p>
+
+<p>Når så tipset er kommet frem til NRK skal det behandles
+redaksjonelt i NRK. Der vet jeg via ulike kilder at de fleste
+journalistene bruker lokalt installert programvare, men noen bruker
+Google Docs og andre skytjenester i strid med interne retningslinjer
+når de skriver. Hvordan vet en hvem det gjelder? Ikke vet jeg, men
+det kan være greit å spørre for å sjekke at journalisten har tenkt på
+problemstillingen, før en gir et tips. Og hvis tipset omtales internt
+på epost, er det jo grunn til å tro at også intern eposten vil deles
+med Microsoft og utenlands etterretning, slik tidligere nevnt, men det
+kan hende at det holdes internt i NRKs interne MS Exchange-løsning.
+Men Microsoft ønsker å få alle Exchange-kunder over "i skyen" (eller
+andre folks datamaskiner, som det jo innebærer), så jeg vet ikke hvor
+lenge det i så fall vil vare.</p>
+
+<p>I tillegg vet en jo at
+<a href="https://www.nrk.no/ytring/elektronisk-kildevern-i-nrk-1.11941196">NRK
+har valgt å gi nasjonal sikkerhetsmyndighet (NSM) tilgang til å se på
+intern og ekstern Internett-trafikk</a> hos NRK ved oppsett av såkalte
+VDI-noder, på tross av
+<a href="https://www.nrk.no/ytring/bekymring-for-nrks-kildevern-1.11941584">protester
+fra NRKs journalistlag</a>. Jeg vet ikke om den vil kunne snappe opp
+dokumenter som lagres på interne filtjenere eller dokumenter som lages
+i de interne webbaserte publiseringssystemene, men vet at hva noden
+ser etter på nettet kontrolleres av NSM og oppdateres automatisk, slik
+at det ikke gir så mye mening å sjekke hva noden ser etter i dag når
+det kan endres automatisk i morgen.</p>
+
+<p>Personlig vet jeg ikke om jeg hadde turt tipse NRK hvis jeg satt på
+noe som kunne være en trussel mot den bestående makten i Norge eller
+verden. Til det virker det å være for mange åpninger for
+utenforstående med andre prioriteter enn NRKs journalistiske fokus.
+Og den største truslen for en varsler er jo om metainformasjon kommer
+på avveie, dvs. informasjon om at en har vært i kontakt med en
+journalist. Det kan være nok til at en kommer i myndighetenes
+søkelys, og de færreste har nok operasjonell sikkerhet til at vil tåle
+slik flombelysning på sitt privatliv.</p>
</description>
</item>
<item>
- <title>Using appstream with isenkram to install hardware related packages in Debian</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Sun, 20 Dec 2015 12:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p>Around three years ago, I created
-<a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">the isenkram
-system</a> to get a more practical solution in Debian for handing
-hardware related packages. A GUI system in the isenkram package will
-present a pop-up dialog when some hardware dongle supported by
-relevant packages in Debian is inserted into the machine. The same
-lookup mechanism to detect packages is available as command line
-tools in the isenkram-cli package. In addition to mapping hardware,
-it will also map kernel firmware files to packages and make it easy to
-install needed firmware packages automatically. The key for this
-system to work is a good way to map hardware to packages, in other
-words, allow packages to announce what hardware they will work
-with.</p>
-
-<p>I started by providing data files in the isenkram source, and
-adding code to download the latest version of these data files at run
-time, to ensure every user had the most up to date mapping available.
-I also added support for storing the mapping in the Packages file in
-the apt repositories, but did not push this approach because while I
-was trying to figure out how to best store hardware/package mappings,
-<a href="http://www.freedesktop.org/software/appstream/docs/">the
-appstream system</a> was announced. I got in touch and suggested to
-add the hardware mapping into that data set to be able to use
-appstream as a data source, and this was accepted at least for the
-Debian version of appstream.</p>
-
-<p>A few days ago using appstream in Debian for this became possible,
-and today I uploaded a new version 0.20 of isenkram adding support for
-appstream as a data source for mapping hardware to packages. The only
-package so far using appstream to announce its hardware support is my
-pymissile package. I got help from Matthias Klumpp with figuring out
-how do add the required
-<a href="https://appstream.debian.org/html/sid/main/metainfo/pymissile.html">metadata
-in pymissile</a>. I added a file debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml with
-this content:</p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
-&lt;component&gt;
- &lt;id&gt;pymissile&lt;/id&gt;
- &lt;metadata_license&gt;MIT&lt;/metadata_license&gt;
- &lt;name&gt;pymissile&lt;/name&gt;
- &lt;summary&gt;Control original Striker USB Missile Launcher&lt;/summary&gt;
- &lt;description&gt;
- &lt;p&gt;
- Pymissile provides a curses interface to control an original
- Marks and Spencer / Striker USB Missile Launcher, as well as a
- motion control script to allow a webcamera to control the
- launcher.
- &lt;/p&gt;
- &lt;/description&gt;
- &lt;provides&gt;
- &lt;modalias&gt;usb:v1130p0202d*&lt;/modalias&gt;
- &lt;/provides&gt;
-&lt;/component&gt;
-</pre></blockquote>
+ <title>Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier</title>
+ <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html</link>
+ <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html</guid>
+ <pubDate>Fri, 7 Oct 2016 09:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
+ <description><p><a href="http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram">The Isenkram
+system</a> provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
+packages support the hardware in a given machine. The command line
+tool <tt>isenkram-lookup</tt> and the tasksel options provide a
+convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
+hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
+firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
+a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
+while using the computer. For example, if you plug in a smart card
+reader, the system will ask if you want to install <tt>pcscd</tt> if
+that package isn't already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
+camera the system will ask if you want to install <tt>cheese</tt> if
+cheese is currently missing. This already work just fine.</p>
+
+<p>But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
+package names. When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
+I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
+made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
+http. This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
+as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.</p>
+
+<p>The hardware is identified using modalias strings. The modalias
+design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
+made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
+globbing. It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
+identifiers.</p>
+
+<p>The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
+information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
+isenkram propose obsolete packages too. But along came AppStream, a
+cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
+software packages. When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
+people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
+modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
+mapping hardware to packages. This idea was accepted and AppStream is
+now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
+distribution neutral way. I wrote
+<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html">a
+recipe on how to add such meta-information</a> in a blog post last
+December. If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
+announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.</p>
+
+<p>In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
+RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream. The effect is
+that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
+machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
+it working. The intention is that this should allow the local user to
+start programming his robot controller right away without having to
+guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.</p>
+
+<p>But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
+unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
+annoying. The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
+the USB device for programming the unit. This used to work, but no
+longer in Jessie and Stretch. After some investigation and asking
+around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
+changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices. The
+ConsoleKit mechanism from <tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>
+no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
+plugdev group during login. Michael Biebl told me that this method
+was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead. This was good
+news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
+directory like LDAP. Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
+access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
+process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
+setup. Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
+for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.</p>
+
+<p>The new system uses a udev tag, 'uaccess'. It can either be
+applied directly for a device, or is applied in
+/lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices. As the
+LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
+tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages. Here
+is one example. For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
+<tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules</tt> file now look like this:
-<p>The key for isenkram is the component/provides/modalias value,
-which is a glob style match rule for hardware specific strings
-(modalias strings) provided by the Linux kernel. In this case, it
-will map to all USB devices with vendor code 1130 and product code
-0202.</p>
-
-<p>Note, it is important that the license of all the metadata files
-are compatible to have permissions to aggregate them into archive wide
-appstream files. Matthias suggested to use MIT or BSD licenses for
-these files. A challenge is figuring out a good id for the data, as
-it is supposed to be globally unique and shared across distributions
-(in other words, best to coordinate with upstream what to use). But
-it can be changed later or, so we went with the package name as
-upstream for this project is dormant.</p>
-
-<p>To get the metadata file installed in the correct location for the
-mirror update scripts to pick it up and include its content the
-appstream data source, the file must be installed in the binary
-package under /usr/share/appdata/. I did this by adding the following
-line to debian/pymissile.install:</p>
-
-<blockquote><pre>
-debian/pymissile.metainfo.xml usr/share/appdata
-</pre></blockquote>
-
-<p>With that in place, the command line tool isenkram-lookup will list
-all packages useful on the current computer automatically, and the GUI
-pop-up handler will propose to install the package not already
-installed if a hardware dongle is inserted into the machine in
-question.</p>
-
-<p>Details of the modalias field in appstream is available from the
-<a href="https://wiki.debian.org/DEP-11">DEP-11</a> proposal.</p>
-
-<p>To locate the modalias values of all hardware present in a machine,
-try running this command on the command line:</p>
+<p><pre>
+SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
+ SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
+</pre></p>
-<blockquote><pre>
-cat $(find /sys/devices/|grep modalias)
-</pre></blockquote>
+<p>The key part is the 'TAG+="uaccess"' at the end. I suspect all
+packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/ files should be
+changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly via
+<tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>). Perhaps a lintian check should be created
+to detect this?</p>
+
+<p>I've been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
+It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
+detail like the udev-acl tag used by
+<tt>/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules</tt>. If it is, I guess the
+indirect method is the preferred way. Michael
+<a href="https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288">asked for more
+documentation from the systemd project</a> and I hope it will make
+this clearer. For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
+is already handled by <tt>70-uaccess.rules</tt>, and add the tag
+directly if no such class exist.</p>
<p>To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/">my
blog posts tagged isenkram</a>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-
- <item>
- <title>Bokhandeldistribusjon av boken Fri kultur av Lawrence Lessig</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bokhandeldistribusjon_av_boken_Fri_kultur_av_Lawrence_Lessig.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Bokhandeldistribusjon_av_boken_Fri_kultur_av_Lawrence_Lessig.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Mon, 14 Dec 2015 12:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
- <description><p><strong>Besøk
-<a href="https://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">lulu.com</a>
-eller
-<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fri-kultur-Norwegian-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/8269018236/">Amazon</a>
-for å kjøpe boken på papir, eller last ned ebook som
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.pdf">PDF</a>,
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.epub">ePub</a>
-eller
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/raw/master/archive/freeculture.nb.mobi">MOBI</a>
-fra
-<a href="https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig/">github</a>.</strong></p>
-
-<p>Jeg ble gledelig overrasket i dag da jeg oppdaget at boken jeg har
-gitt ut
-<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Fri-kultur-Norwegian-Lawrence-Lessig/dp/8269018236/">hadde
-dukket opp i Amazon</a>. Jeg hadde trodd det skulle ta lenger tid, da
-jeg fikk beskjed om at det skulle ta seks til åtte uker.
-Amazonoppføringen er et resultat av at jeg for noen uker siden
-diskuterte prissetting og håndtering av profitt med forfatteren. Det
-måtte avklares da bruksvilkårene til boken har krav om
-ikke-kommersiell bruk. Vi ble enige om at overskuddet fra salg av
-boken skal sendes til
-<a href="https://creativecommons.org/">Creative Commons-stiftelsen</a>.
-Med det på plass kunne jeg be
-<a href="https://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html">lulu.com</a>
-om å gi boken «utvidet» distribusjon. Årsaken til at
-bokhandeldistribusjon var litt utfordrende er at bokhandlere krever
-mulighet for profitt på bøkene de selger (selvfølgelig), og dermed
-måtte de få lov til å selge til høyere pris enn lulu.com. I tillegg
-er det krav om samme pris på lulu.com og i bokhandlene, dermed blir
-prisen økt også hos lulu.com. Hva skulle jeg gjøre med den profitten
-uten å bryte med klausulen om ikkekommersiell? Løsningen var å gi
-bort profitten til CC-stiftelsen. Prisen på boken ble nesten
-tredoblet, til $19.99 (ca. 160,-) pluss frakt, men synligheten øker
-betraktelig når den kan finnes i katalogene til store nettbokhandlere.
-Det betyr at hvis du allerede har kjøpt boken har du fått den veldig
-billig, og kjøper du den nå, får du den fortsatt billig samt donerer i
-tillegg noen tiere til fremme av Creative Commons.</p>
-
-<p>Mens jeg var i gang med å titte etter informasjon om boken
-oppdaget jeg at den også var dukket opp på
-<a href="https://books.google.no/books?id=uKUGCwAAQBAJ">Google
-Books</a>, der en kan lese den på web. PDF-utgaven har ennå ikke
-dukket opp hos <a href="https://www.nb.no/">Nasjonalbiblioteket</a>,
-men det regner jeg med kommer på plass i løpet av noen uker. Boken er
-heller ikke dukket opp hos
-<a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/">Barnes & Noble</a> ennå, men
-jeg antar det bare er et tidsspørsmål før dette er på plass.</p>
-
-<p>Boken er dessverre ikke tilgjengelig fra norske bokhandlere, og
-kommer neppe til å bli det med det første. Årsaken er at for å få det
-til måtte jeg personlig håndtere bestilling av bøker, hvilket jeg ikke
-er interessert i å bruke tid på. Jeg kunne betalt ca 2000,- til
-<a href="http://www.bokbasen.no/">den norske bokbasen</a>, en felles
-database over bøker tilgjengelig for norske bokhandlere, for å få en
-oppføring der, men da måtte jeg tatt imot bestillinger på epost og
-sendt ut bøker selv. Det ville krevd at jeg var klar til å
-sende ut bøker på kort varsel, dvs. holdt meg med ekstra bøker,
-konvolutter og frimerker. Bokbasen har visst ikke opplegg for å be
-bokhandlene bestille direkte via web, så jeg droppet oppføring der.
-Jeg har spurt Haugen bok og Tronsmo direkte på epost om de er
-interessert i å ta inn boken i sin bestillingskatalog, men ikke fått
-svar, så jeg antar de ikke er interessert. Derimot har jeg fått en
-hyggelig henvendelse fra Biblioteksentralen som fortalte at de har
-lagt den inn i sin database slik at deres bibliotekskunder enkelt kan
-bestille den via dem.</p>
-
-<p>Boken er i følge
-<a href="http://bibsys-almaprimo.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=detailsTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=BIBSYS_ILS71518423420002201&indx=1&recIds=BIBSYS_ILS71518423420002201&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&dscnt=0&tab=library_catalogue&dstmp=1448543801124&vl(freeText0)=fri%20kultur&vid=UBO&mode=Basic">Bibsys/Oria</a>
-og bokdatabasen til
-<a href="https://www.deich.folkebibl.no/cgi-bin/websok?tnr=1819617">Deichmanske</a>
-tilgjengelig fra flere biblioteker allerede, og alle eksemplarer er
-visst allerede utlånt med ventetid. Det synes jeg er veldig gledelig
-å se. Jeg håper mange kommer til å lese boken. Jeg tror den er
-spesielt egnet for foreldre og bekjente av oss nerder for å forklare
-hva slags problemer vi ser med dagens opphavsrettsregime.</p>
+
+<p>To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
+please join us on our IRC channel
+<a href="irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego">#debian-lego</a> and join
+the <a href="https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/">Debian
+LEGO team</a> in the Alioth project we created yesterday. A mailing
+list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)</p>
+
+<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
+activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
+<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
</description>
</item>
projects / homepage.git / blobdiff