X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/443630c7ccbc6537b8b74cbbec902e02fbe5c921..e81974c19f825da6624e66ef824490f8c47f0af4:/blog/index.rss diff --git a/blog/index.rss b/blog/index.rss index 88da820818..584106140e 100644 --- a/blog/index.rss +++ b/blog/index.rss @@ -6,6 +6,121 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + Jami as a Zoom client, a trick for password protected rooms... + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_as_a_Zoom_client__a_trick_for_password_protected_rooms___.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_as_a_Zoom_client__a_trick_for_password_protected_rooms___.html + Fri, 8 May 2020 13:30:00 +0200 + <p>Half a year ago, +<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jami_Ring__finally_functioning_peer_to_peer_communication_client.html">I +wrote</a> about <a href="https://jami.net/">the Jami communication +client</a>, capable of peer-to-peer encrypted communication. It +handle both messages, audio and video. It uses distributed hash +tables instead of central infrastructure to connect its users to each +other, which in my book is a plus. I mentioned briefly that it could +also work as a SIP client, which came in handy when the higher +educational sector in Norway started to promote Zoom as its video +conferencing solution. I am reluctant to use the official Zoom client +software, due to their <a href="https://zoom.us/terms">copyright +license clauses</a> prohibiting users to reverse engineer (for example +to check the security) and benchmark it, and thus prefer to connect to +Zoom meetings with free software clients.</p> + +<p>Jami worked OK as a SIP client to Zoom as long as there was no +password set on the room. The Jami daemon leak memory like crazy +(approximately 1 GiB a minute) when I am connected to the video +conference, so I had to restart the client every 7-10 minutes, which +is not a great. I tried to get other SIP Linux clients to work +without success, so I decided I would have to live with this wart +until someone managed to fix the leak in the dring code base. But +another problem showed up once the rooms were password protected. I +could not get my dial tone signaling through from Jami to Zoom, and +dial tone signaling is used to enter the password when connecting to +Zoom. I tried a lot of different permutations with my Jami and +Asterisk setup to try to figure out why the signaling did not get +through, only to finally discover that the fundamental problem seem to +be that Zoom is simply not able to receive dial tone signaling when +connecting via SIP. There seem to be nothing wrong with the Jami and +Asterisk end, it is simply broken in the Zoom end. I got help from a +very skilled VoIP engineer figuring out this last part. And being a +very skilled engineer, he was also able to locate a solution for me. +Or to be exact, a workaround that solve my initial problem of +connecting to password protected Zoom rooms using Jami.</p> + +<p>So, how do you do this, I am sure you are wondering by now. The +trick is already +<a href="https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/202405539-H-323-SIP-Room-Connector-Dial-Strings#sip">documented +from Zoom</a>, and it is to modify the SIP address to include the room +password. What is most surprising about this is that the +automatically generated email from Zoom with instructions on how to +connect via SIP do not mention this. The SIP address to use normally +consist of the room ID (a number), an @ character and the IP address +of the Zoom SIP gateway. But Zoom understand a lot more than just the +room ID in front of the at sign. The format is "<tt>[Meeting +ID].[Password].[Layout].[Host Key]</tt>", and you can hear see how you +can both enter password, control the layout (full screen, active +presence and gallery) and specify the host key to start the meeting. +The full SIP address entered into Jami to provide the password will +then look like this (all using made up numbers):</p> + +<p><blockquote> +<tt>sip:657837644.522827@192.168.169.170</tt> +</blockquote></p> + +<p>Now if only jami would reduce its memory usage, I could even +recommend this setup to others. :)</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> + + + + + GnuCOBOL, a free platform to learn and use COBOL - nice free software + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/GnuCOBOL__a_free_platform_to_learn_and_use_COBOL___nice_free_software.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/GnuCOBOL__a_free_platform_to_learn_and_use_COBOL___nice_free_software.html + Wed, 29 Apr 2020 13:10:00 +0200 + <p>The curiosity got the better of me when +<a href="https://developers.slashdot.org/story/20/04/06/1424246/new-jersey-desperately-needs-cobol-programmers">Slashdot +reported</a> that New Jersey was desperately looking for +<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL">COBOL</a> programmers, +and a few days later it was reported that +<a href="https://onezero.medium.com/ibm-rallies-cobol-engineers-to-save-overloaded-unemployment-systems-eeadf13eddce">IBM +tried to locate COBOL programmers</a>.</p> + +<p>I thus decided to have a look at free software alternatives to +learn COBOL, and had the pleasure to find +<a href="https://sourceforge.net/projects/open-cobol/">GnuCOBOL</a> was +already <a href="https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/gnucobol">in +Debian</a>. It used to be called Open Cobol, and is a "compiler" +transforming COBOL code to C or C++ before giving it to GCC or Visual +Studio to build binaries.</p> + +<p>I managed to get in touch with upstream, and was impressed with the +quick response, and also was happy to see a new Debian maintainer +taking over when the original one recently asked to be replaced. A +new Debian upload was done as recently as yesterday.</p> + +<p>Using the Debian package, I was able to follow a simple COBOL +introduction and make and run simple COBOL programs. It was fun to +learn a new programming language. If you want to test for yourself, +<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuCOBOL">the GnuCOBOL Wikipedia +page</a> have a few simple examples to get you startet.</p> + +<p>As I do not have much experience with COBOL, I do not know how +standard compliant it is, but it claim to pass most tests from COBOL +test suite, which sound good to me. It is nice to know it is possible +to learn COBOL using software without any usage restrictions, and I am +very happy such nice free software project as this is available. If +you as me is curious about COBOL, check it out.</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> + + + Totalovervåkning av innbyggernes bevegelser - nei takk! http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Totaloverv_kning_av_innbyggernes_bevegelser___nei_takk_.html @@ -18,9 +133,9 @@ regjeringen om konsekvenser hvis befolkningen ikke tar den i bruk. Rekker ikke skrive noe fyldig om temaet, men det er klart for meg at den utraderer retten til privatliv samt utgjør en personlig sikkerhetsrisiko for alle som tar den i bruk. Bare det er nok til at -det fremstår som en svert dårlig ide å bli med på denne "dugnaden". +det fremstår som en svært dårlig ide å bli med på denne "dugnaden". Det finnes andre og bedre tilnærminger enn den valgt av FHI. Har de -valgt den for å sikre seg nok et datasett i den fremtidige +valgt sin tilnærming for å sikre seg nok et datasett i den fremtidige ehelse-portalen? Potensialet for misbruk av informasjon samlet inn av appen er for stort, effekten på neste krise for klar og gevinsten for liten.</p> @@ -37,7 +152,7 @@ inn, oppbevarer og bruker personopplysninger». Der har nok statsorganene bare blitt dårligere på 13 år.</p> <p>Det er jo også verdt å merke seg at personvernrådet i EU (EDPB) -mener +mener smittestopp-appen <a href="https://nrkbeta.no/2020/04/16/personvernrad-i-eu-mener-norsk-app-bryter-med-viktig-personvernprinsipp/">opererer i strid med prinsippet om dataminimering</a>. Også de ser at det finnes mye bedre måter å gjøre dette på.</p> @@ -190,8 +305,8 @@ start working, but you can have a look at the LaTeX originals here.</p> <p>The first article is "<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2020-02-25-rmj-iot-record-keeping.pdf">A record-keeping approach to managing IoT-data for government -agencies</a>" (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-09-2019-0056">DOI -10.1108/RMJ-09-2019-0056</a>) by Thomas Sødring, Petter Reinholdtsen +agencies</a>" (<a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-09-2019-0050">DOI +10.1108/RMJ-09-2019-0050<a/>) by Thomas Sødring, Petter Reinholdtsen and David Massey, and sketches some approaches for storing measurement data (aka Internet of Things sensor data) in a archive, thus providing a well defined mechanism for screening and deletion of the information </p> @@ -199,8 +314,8 @@ a well defined mechanism for screening and deletion of the information </p> <p>The second article is "<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2020-02-25-rmj-block-chain-record-keeping.pdf">Publishing and using record-keeping structural information in a blockchain</a>" -(<a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-09-2019-0050">DOI -10.1108/RMJ-09-2019-0050<a/>) by Thomas Sødring, Petter Reinholdtsen +(<a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/RMJ-09-2019-0056">DOI +10.1108/RMJ-09-2019-0056</a>) by Thomas Sødring, Petter Reinholdtsen and Svein Ølnes, where we describe a way for third parties to validate authenticity and thus improve trust in the records kept in a archive.</p> @@ -208,6 +323,9 @@ archive.</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 2020-04-26</strong>: Initially managed to swap the +DOI numbers. Fixed it.</p> @@ -359,110 +477,5 @@ Merk, betaling med bitcoin er ikke anonymt. :)</p> - - When terms and policy turn users away - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_terms_and_policy_turn_users_away.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/When_terms_and_policy_turn_users_away.html - Sat, 7 Dec 2019 21:15:00 +0100 - <p>When asked to accept terms of use and privacy policies that state -it will to remove rights I otherwise had or accept unreasonable terms -undermining my privacy, I choose away the service. I simply do not -have the conscience to accept terms I have no indention of upholding. -But how are the system and service providers to know how many people -they scared away? Normally I just quietly walk away. But today, I -tried a new approach. I sent the following email (removing the -specifics, as I am not out to take the specific service in question) -to the service provider I decided to not use, to at least give them -one data point on how many users are unhappy with their terms:</p> - -<blockquote> -From: Petter Reinholdtsen -<br>Subject: When terms of use turn users away -<br>To: [contact@some.site] -<br>Date: Sat, 07 Dec 2019 16:30:56 +0100 - -<p>Dear [Site Owner],</p> - -<p>I was eager to test the system, as it seemed like a fun and -interesting application of [some] technology, but after reading the -terms of use and privacy policy on &lt;URL: -https://www.[some.site]/terms-of-use &gt; and &lt;URL: -https://www.[some.site]/privacy-policy &gt; I want you to know that I -decided to turn away. There were several provisions in the terms and -policy turning me off, but the final term that convinced me was being -asked to sign away my right to reverse engineer.</p> - -<p>-- -<br>Happy hacking -<br>Petter Reinholdtsen</p> -</blockquote> - -<p>I do not expect much to come out of it, but sharing it here in case -others want to give something similar a try too. If companies -discover their terms scare away enough people, perhaps they will be -improved...</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> - - - - - What would it cost to store all 2018 phone calls in Norway? - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_would_it_cost_to_store_all_2018_phone_calls_in_Norway_.html - http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_would_it_cost_to_store_all_2018_phone_calls_in_Norway_.html - Mon, 25 Nov 2019 20:15:00 +0100 - <p>Four years ago, I did a back of the envelope calculation on -<a href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/What_would_it_cost_to_store_all_phone_calls_in_Norway_.html">how -much it would cost to store audio recordings of all the phone calls in -Norway</a>, and came up with NOK 2.1 million / EUR 250 000 for the -year 2013. It is time to repeat the calculation using updated -numbers. The calculation is based on how much data storage is needed -for each minute of audio, how many minutes all the calls in Norway -sums up to, multiplied by the cost of data storage.</p> - -<p>The number of phone call minutes for 2018 was fetched from -<a href="https://ekomstatistikken.nkom.no/">the NKOM statistics -site</a>, and for 2018, land line calls are listed as 434 238 000 -minutes, while mobile phone calls are listed with 7 542 006 000 -minutes. The total number of minutes is thus 7 976 244 000. For -simplicity, I decided to ignore any advantages in audio compression the -last four years, and continue to assume 60 Kbytes/min as the last -time.</p> - -<p>Storage prices still varies a lot, but as last time, I decide to -take a reasonable big and cheap hard drive, and double its price to -include the surrounding costs into account. A 10 TB disk cost less -than 4500 NOK / 450 EUR these days, and doubling it give 9000 NOK per -10 TB.</p> - -<p>So, with the parameters in place, lets update the old table -estimating cost for calls in a given year:</p> - -<table border="1"> -<tr><th>Year</th><th>Call minutes</th><th>Size</th><th>Price in NOK / EUR</th></tr> -<tr><td>2005</td><td align="right">24 000 000 000</td><td align="right">1.3 PiB</td><td align="right">1 170 000 / 117 000</td></tr> - -<tr><td>2012</td><td align="right">18 000 000 000</td><td align="right">1.0 PiB</td><td align="right">900 000 / 90 000</td></tr> - -<tr><td>2013</td><td align="right">17 000 000 000</td><td align="right">950 TiB</td><td align="right">855 000 / 85 500</td></tr> - -<tr><td>2018</td><td align="right">7 976 244 000</td><td align="right">445 TiB</td><td align="right">401 100 / 40 110</td></tr> -</table> - -<p>Both the cost of storage and the number of phone call minutes have -dropped since the last time, bringing the cost down to a level where I -guess even small organizations can afford to store the audio recording -from every phone call taken in a year in Norway. Of course, this is -just the cost of buying the storage equipment. Maintenance, need to -be included as well, but the volume of a single year is about a single -rack of hard drives, so it is not much more than I could fit in my own -home. Wonder how much the electricity bill would raise if I had that -kind of storage? I doubt it would be more than a few tens of thousand -NOK per year.</p> - - -