X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/50b608f60501e9dfbfcaaf938c7146ff6b56a513..664e29a948f20e356de06149be10c64ac3ea9b7b:/blog/archive/2012/10/10.rss?ds=sidebyside diff --git a/blog/archive/2012/10/10.rss b/blog/archive/2012/10/10.rss index 19fccf3514..d7ca3f27a5 100644 --- a/blog/archive/2012/10/10.rss +++ b/blog/archive/2012/10/10.rss @@ -6,6 +6,155 @@ http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/ + + 12 years of outages - summarised by Stuart Kendrick + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html + Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:20:00 +0200 + <p>I work at the <a href="http://www.uio.no/">University of Oslo</a> +looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general +all over the place. I am also a member (and currently leader) of +<a href="http://www.nuug.no/">the NUUG association</a>, which in turn +make me a member of <a href="http://www.usenix.org/">USENIX</a>. NUUG +is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free +software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX +is a US based member organisation with similar targets. And thanks to +these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine +<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login">;login:</a> in the +mail several times a year. The magazine is great, and I read most of +it every time.</p> + +<p>In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an +article by <a href="http://www.skendric.com/">Stuart Kendrick</a> from +Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled +"<a href="https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down">What +Takes Us Down</a>" (longer version also +<a href="http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf">available +from his own site</a>), where he report what he found when he +processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the +last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day, +etc etc. The article is a good read to get some empirical data on +what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired +me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.<p> + +<p>The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly +standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when +it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the +assumtions on scope and user impact. Here is the two example from the +article: First the unplanned outage: + +<blockquote><pre> +Subject: Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues +Severity: Critical (Unplanned) +Start: Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58 +End: Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38 +Duration: 40 minutes +Scope: Exchange 2003 +Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering + a cluster failover. + +User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to + access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected. +Technician: [xxx] +</pre></blockquote> + +Next the planned outage: + +<blockquote><pre> +Subject: H Building Switch Upgrades +Severity: Major (Planned) +Start: Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00 +End: Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00 +Duration: 10 hours +Scope: H2 Transport +Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end- + stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst + 4510s. +User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during + this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit + connectivity. +Technician: [xxx] +</pre></blockquote> + +<p>He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have +been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them +into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601 +dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask +people to write '2012-06-16 06:00 +0000' instead of the start time +format listed above). There are also other issues with the format +that could be improved, read the article for the details.</p> + +<p>I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a +good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the +university too. We do register +<a href="http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/">planned +changes and outages in a calendar</a>, and report the to a mailing +list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a +report to the same location for unplanned outages. Perhaps something +for other sites to consider too?</p> + + + + + Amazon steal books from customer and throw out her out without any explanation + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html + http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html + Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:30:00 +0200 + <p>A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of +<a href="http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/">how +Amazon erased the books from a customer's kindle, locked the account +and refuse to tell the customer why</a>. If a real book store did +this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property +and theft. The story has spread around the net today. A bit more +background information is available in Norwegian from +<a href="http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon">digi.no</a>. +It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used +this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was +introduced many years back. And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was +willing to +<a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html"> +break into customers equipment and remove the books</a> people had +bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the +customers who had bought it. From the official comments, it even +sounded like +<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html">Amazon +would never do that again</a>. And here we are, three years +later.</p> + +<p>And thought this action is +<a href="http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende">against +Norwegian regulations and law</a>, it is according to the terms of use +as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to +Norwegian laws. It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms +of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer +rights.</p> + +<p>Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without +unacceptable terms. For example +<a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/">Project Gutenberg</a> (about 40,000 +books), <a href="http://runeberg.org/">Project Runenberg</a> (1,652 +books) and <a href="http://www.archive.org/details/texts">The Internet +Archive</a> (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which +can read by anyone and shared with anyone.</p> + +<p>Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In +the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon +restored the account of the user, as reported by +<a href="http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon">digi.no</a> +and <a href="http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487">NRK</a>. +Apparently public pressure work. The story from Martin have seen +several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite +a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention. But even when the +account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist. I recommend +reading two opinions from +<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm">Simon +Phipps</a> and +<a href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm">Glen +Moody</a> if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more +details about the original story.</p> + + + The fight for freedom and privacy http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html @@ -30,8 +179,8 @@ safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin you see a surveillance camera? I do not. Do you feel safe when you leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions? I do not. I just remember <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon">the -Panopticom</a>, and can not help help to think that we are slowly -transforming our society to a huge Panopticom on our own.</p> +Panopticon</a>, and can not help to think that we are slowly +transforming our society to a huge Panopticon on our own.</p> @@ -117,12 +266,16 @@ og de får ikke meg som kunde før de har en helt annen tilnærming mot sine kunder.</p> <p>Oppdatering 2012-10-18: Både -<a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/digital/Netflix-krever-at-du-sier-fra-deg-norske-forbrukerrettigheter-7021182.html">Aftenposten</a> -og <a href="http://nrk.no/helse-forbruk-og-livsstil/1.8362951">NRK</a> +<a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/digital/Netflix-krever-at-du-sier-fra-deg-norske-forbrukerrettigheter-7021182.html">Aftenposten</a>, +<a href="http://nrk.no/helse-forbruk-og-livsstil/1.8362951">NRK</a> og +<a href="http://www.teknofil.no/artikler/forbrukerradet-slakter-netflix/113679">Teknofil</a> har snappet opp saken (dog nevner ikke NRK kilde, så de kan jo ha oppdaget det selv). Veldig bra at flere blir oppmerksom på slike ting. «- Helt hinsides, mener Forbrukerrådet om Netflix' -brukervilkår», siterer Aftenposten.</p> +brukervilkår», siterer Aftenposten. Og +<a href="http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/Forbrukerombudet-vil-granske-TV-markedet-7021465.html">Aftenposten</a> +melder videre at Forbrukerrådet vil granske TV-bransjen med bakgrunn i +dette.</p> @@ -142,9 +295,16 @@ forsøkt å samle alle debattinnleggene her.</p> <ul> +<li> +2012-10-25 +<a href="http://morgenbladet.no/debatt/2012/hvem_bor_i_tomannsboliger">Hvem bor i tomannsboliger?</a> - morgenbladet.no + +<li>2012-10-18 +<a href="http://morgenbladet.no/debatt/2012/postmodernisme">Postmodernisme?</a> - morgenbladet.no</li> + <li>2012-10-16 <a href="http://fritanke.no/index.php?page=vis_nyhet&NyhetID=8936">Sukkerpiller -og silkehansker</a> - fritanke.no.</li> +og silkehansker</a> - fritanke.no</li> <li>2012-10-15 <a href="http://www.aftenbladet.no/meninger/Vitenskapelig-mobbing-3049983.html">«Vitenskapelig» @@ -280,6 +440,9 @@ for å ha hjulpet meg å følge debatten.</p> <p>Bonuslenke til deg som lurer på om det er så farlig med alternativ behandling. Sjekk «<a href="http://whatstheharm.net/">What's the harm</a>» for informasjon om hva som kan gå galt.</a> + +<p>Oppdatering 2012-10-30: Lagt inn to nye debattinnlegg publisert +etter 2012-10-16.</p>