X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/ae5db6d19f3d85fdd5e7bd4c12be28fa3f15fc43..8fb691804566ab7f685456448d17c8a6ba0c0fa4:/blog/index.html diff --git a/blog/index.html b/blog/index.html index 96c2134fd9..ce3ec49f95 100644 --- a/blog/index.html +++ b/blog/index.html @@ -20,69 +20,72 @@
-
Aktivitetsbånd som beskytter privatsfæren
-
3rd November 2016
-

Jeg ble så imponert over -dagens -gladnyhet på NRK, 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: - -

- -

Jeg ble veldig glad over å lese at Forbrukerrådet -klager -inn flere aktivitetsbånd til Datatilsynet for dårlige vilkår. 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 _ikke_ sender informasjon til -skyen, men derimot bruker -en -fritt og åpent standardisert 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.

- -

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.

- -

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?

- -
- -

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 over 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.

+
Legal to share more than 3000 movies listed on IMDB?
+
18th November 2017
+

A month ago, I blogged about my work to +automatically +check the copyright status of IMDB entries, and try to count the +number of movies listed in IMDB that is legal to distribute on the +Internet. I have continued to look for good data sources, and +identified a few more. The code used to extract information from +various data sources is available in +a +git repository, currently available from github.

+ +

So far I have identified 3186 unique IMDB title IDs. To gain +better understanding of the structure of the data set, I created a +histogram of the year associated with each movie (typically release +year). It is interesting to notice where the peaks and dips in the +graph are located. I wonder why they are placed there. I suspect +World War II caused the dip around 1940, but what caused the peak +around 2010?

+ +

+ +

I've so far identified ten sources for IMDB title IDs for movies in +the public domain or with a free license. This is the statistics +reported when running 'make stats' in the git repository:

+ +
+  249 entries (    6 unique) with and   288 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-archive-org-butter.json
+ 2301 entries (  540 unique) with and     0 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-archive-org-wikidata.json
+  830 entries (   29 unique) with and     0 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-icheckmovies-archive-mochard.json
+ 2109 entries (  377 unique) with and     0 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-imdb-pd.json
+  291 entries (  122 unique) with and     0 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-letterboxd-pd.json
+  144 entries (  135 unique) with and     0 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-manual.json
+  350 entries (    1 unique) with and   801 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-publicdomainmovies.json
+    4 entries (    0 unique) with and   124 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-publicdomainreview.json
+  698 entries (  119 unique) with and   118 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-publicdomaintorrents.json
+    8 entries (    8 unique) with and   196 without IMDB title ID in free-movies-vodo.json
+ 3186 unique IMDB title IDs in total
+
+ +

The entries without IMDB title ID are candidates to increase the +data set, but might equally well be duplicates of entries already +listed with IMDB title ID in one of the other sources, or represent +movies that lack a IMDB title ID. I've seen examples of all these +situations when peeking at the entries without IMDB title ID. Based +on these data sources, the lower bound for movies listed in IMDB that +are legal to distribute on the Internet is between 3186 and 4713. + +

It would be great for improving the accuracy of this measurement, +if the various sources added IMDB title ID to their metadata. I have +tried to reach the people behind the various sources to ask if they +are interested in doing this, without any replies so far. Perhaps you +can help me get in touch with the people behind VODO, Public Domain +Torrents, Public Domain Movies and Public Domain Review to try to +convince them to add more metadata to their movie entries?

+ +

Another way you could help is by adding pages to Wikipedia about +movies that are legal to distribute on the Internet. If such page +exist and include a link to both IMDB and The Internet Archive, the +script used to generate free-movies-archive-org-wikidata.json should +pick up the mapping as soon as wikidata is updates.

- Tags: norsk, personvern, sikkerhet, surveillance. + Tags: english, opphavsrett.
@@ -90,189 +93,83 @@ dele sine personopplysninger med leverandøren.

-
Experience and updated recipe for using the Signal app without a mobile phone
-
10th October 2016
-

In July -I -wrote how to get the Signal Chrome/Chromium app working without -the ability to receive SMS messages (aka without a cell phone). It is -time to share some experiences and provide an updated setup.

- -

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 userdata/ 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.

- -

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.

- -

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.

- -

So, the updated recipe for Debian Jessie:

- -
    - -
  1. 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. +
    Some notes on fault tolerant storage systems
    +
    1st November 2017
    +

    If you care about how fault tolerant your storage is, you might +find these articles and papers interesting. They have formed how I +think of when designing a storage system.

    -
    -apt install git tor chromium
-git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
-
    2. - -
  2. Modify the source code using command listed in the the patch -block below.
    3. - -
  3. Start Signal using the run-signal-app wrapper (for example using -`pwd`/run-signal-app). - -
  4. 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.
    5. - -
  5. 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.
    6. - -
+
    -

    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 -the -LibreSignal issue tracker 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 Ring -once it work on my -laptop? It already work on Windows and Android, and is included -in Debian and -Ubuntu, but not -working on Debian Stable.

    - -

    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:

    +
  • USENIX :login; Redundancy +Does Not Imply Fault Tolerance. Analysis of Distributed Storage +Reactions to Single Errors and Corruptions by Aishwarya Ganesan, +Ramnatthan Alagappan, Andrea C. Arpaci-Dusseau, and Remzi +H. Arpaci-Dusseau
    • + +
  • ZDNet +Why +RAID 5 stops working in 2009 by Robin Harris
    • + +
  • ZDNet +Why +RAID 6 stops working in 2019 by Robin Harris
    • + +
  • USENIX FAST'07 +Failure +Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population by Eduardo Pinheiro, +Wolf-Dietrich Weber and Luiz André Barroso
    • + +
  • USENIX ;login: Data +Integrity. Finding Truth in a World of Guesses and Lies by Doug +Hughes
    • + +
  • USENIX FAST'08 +An +Analysis of Data Corruption in the Storage Stack by +L. N. Bairavasundaram, G. R. Goodson, B. Schroeder, A. C. +Arpaci-Dusseau, and R. H. Arpaci-Dusseau
    • + +
  • USENIX FAST'07 Disk +failures in the real world: what does an MTTF of 1,000,000 hours mean +to you? by B. Schroeder and G. A. Gibson.
    • + +
  • USENIX ;login: Are +Disks the Dominant Contributor for Storage Failures? A Comprehensive +Study of Storage Subsystem Failure Characteristics by Weihang +Jiang, Chongfeng Hu, Yuanyuan Zhou, and Arkady Kanevsky
    • + +
  • SIGMETRICS 2007 +An +analysis of latent sector errors in disk drives by +L. N. Bairavasundaram, G. R. Goodson, S. Pasupathy, and J. Schindler
    • -
    -cd Signal-Desktop; cat <<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 @@
-         <div class='nav'>
-           <h1>{{ installWelcome }}</h1>
-           <p>{{ installTagline }}</p>
--          <div> <a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}</a> </div>
-+          <div> <a class='button step2'>{{ installGetStartedButton }}</a>
-+	    <br> <a class="button callreg">Register without mobile phone</a>
-+
-+	  </div>
-           <span class='dot step1 selected'></span>
-           <span class='dot step2'></span>
-           <span class='dot step3'></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
-
    +
-

As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my -activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address -15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

+

Several of these research papers are based on data collected from +hundred thousands or millions of disk, and their findings are eye +opening. The short story is simply do not implicitly trust RAID or +redundant storage systems. Details matter. And unfortunately there +are few options on Linux addressing all the identified issues. Both +ZFS and Btrfs are doing a fairly good job, but have legal and +practical issues on their own. I wonder how cluster file systems like +Ceph do in this regard. After all, there is an old saying, you know +you have a distributed system when the crash of a computer you have +never heard of stops you from getting any work done. The same holds +true if fault tolerance do not work.

+ +

Just remember, in the end, it do not matter how redundant, or how +fault tolerant your storage is, if you do not continuously monitor its +status to detect and replace failed disks.

- Tags: debian, english, sikkerhet, surveillance. + Tags: english, raid, sysadmin.
@@ -280,129 +177,46 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-
NRKs kildevern når NRK-epost deles med utenlands etterretning?
-
8th October 2016
-

NRK -lanserte -for noen uker siden en ny -varslerportal som bruker -SecureDrop til å ta imot tips 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.

- -

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 -traceroute, 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).

- -

Vi vet fra -introduksjonen av -FRA-loven 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 -samarbeider -med USAs etterretning på flere områder. 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.

- -

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.

- -

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).

- -

Personlig oppmøte hos en NRK-journalist er antagelig det tryggeste, -men en bør passe seg for å bruke NRK-kantina. Der bryter de nemlig -Sentralbanklovens -paragraf 14 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.

- -

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.

- -

I tillegg vet en jo at -NRK -har valgt å gi nasjonal sikkerhetsmyndighet (NSM) tilgang til å se på -intern og ekstern Internett-trafikk hos NRK ved oppsett av såkalte -VDI-noder, på tross av -protester -fra NRKs journalistlag. 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.

- -

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.

+
Web services for writing academic LaTeX papers as a team
+
31st October 2017
+

I was surprised today to learn that a friend in academia did not +know there are easily available web services available for writing +LaTeX documents as a team. I thought it was common knowledge, but to +make sure at least my readers are aware of it, I would like to mention +these useful services for writing LaTeX documents. Some of them even +provide a WYSIWYG editor to ease writing even further.

+ +

There are two commercial services available, +ShareLaTeX and +Overleaf. They are very easy to +use. Just start a new document, select which publisher to write for +(ie which LaTeX style to use), and start writing. Note, these two +have announced their intention to join forces, so soon it will only be +one joint service. I've used both for different documents, and they +work just fine. While +ShareLaTeX is free +software, while the latter is not. According to a +announcement from Overleaf, they plan to keep the ShareLaTeX code +base maintained as free software.

+ +But these two are not the only alternatives. +Fidus Writer is another free +software solution with the +source available on github. I have not used it myself. Several +others can be found on the nice +alterntiveTo +web service. + +

If you like Google Docs or Etherpad, but would like to write +documents in LaTeX, you should check out these services. You can even +host your own, if you want to. :)

+
- Tags: dld, norsk, personvern, sikkerhet, surveillance. + Tags: english.
@@ -410,125 +224,288 @@ slik flombelysning på sitt privatliv.

-
Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier
-
7th October 2016
-

The Isenkram -system provide a practical and easy way to figure out which -packages support the hardware in a given machine. The command line -tool isenkram-lookup 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 pcscd 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 cheese if -cheese is currently missing. This already work just fine.

- -

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.

- -

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.

- -

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 -recipe on how to add such meta-information in a blog post last -December. If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please -announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.

- -

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.

- -

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 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules -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.

- -

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 -/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules file now look like this: +

Locating IMDB IDs of movies in the Internet Archive using Wikidata
+
25th October 2017
+

Recently, I needed to automatically check the copyright status of a +set of The Internet Movie database +(IMDB) entries, to figure out which one of the movies they refer +to can be freely distributed on the Internet. This proved to be +harder than it sounds. IMDB for sure list movies without any +copyright protection, where the copyright protection has expired or +where the movie is lisenced using a permissive license like one from +Creative Commons. These are mixed with copyright protected movies, +and there seem to be no way to separate these classes of movies using +the information in IMDB.

+ +

First I tried to look up entries manually in IMDB, +Wikipedia and +The Internet Archive, to get a +feel how to do this. It is hard to know for sure using these sources, +but it should be possible to be reasonable confident a movie is "out +of copyright" with a few hours work per movie. As I needed to check +almost 20,000 entries, this approach was not sustainable. I simply +can not work around the clock for about 6 years to check this data +set.

+ +

I asked the people behind The Internet Archive if they could +introduce a new metadata field in their metadata XML for IMDB ID, but +was told that they leave it completely to the uploaders to update the +metadata. Some of the metadata entries had IMDB links in the +description, but I found no way to download all metadata files in bulk +to locate those ones and put that approach aside.

+ +

In the process I noticed several Wikipedia articles about movies +had links to both IMDB and The Internet Archive, and it occured to me +that I could use the Wikipedia RDF data set to locate entries with +both, to at least get a lower bound on the number of movies on The +Internet Archive with a IMDB ID. This is useful based on the +assumption that movies distributed by The Internet Archive can be +legally distributed on the Internet. With some help from the RDF +community (thank you DanC), I was able to come up with this query to +pass to the SPARQL interface on +Wikidata: + +

+SELECT ?work ?imdb ?ia ?when ?label
+WHERE
+{
+  ?work wdt:P31/wdt:P279* wd:Q11424.
+  ?work wdt:P345 ?imdb.
+  ?work wdt:P724 ?ia.
+  OPTIONAL {
+        ?work wdt:P577 ?when.
+        ?work rdfs:label ?label.
+        FILTER(LANG(?label) = "en").
+  }
+}
+

+ +

If I understand the query right, for every film entry anywhere in +Wikpedia, it will return the IMDB ID and The Internet Archive ID, and +when the movie was released and its English title, if either or both +of the latter two are available. At the moment the result set contain +2338 entries. Of course, it depend on volunteers including both +correct IMDB and The Internet Archive IDs in the wikipedia articles +for the movie. It should be noted that the result will include +duplicates if the movie have entries in several languages. There are +some bogus entries, either because The Internet Archive ID contain a +typo or because the movie is not available from The Internet Archive. +I did not verify the IMDB IDs, as I am unsure how to do that +automatically.

+ +

I wrote a small python script to extract the data set from Wikidata +and check if the XML metadata for the movie is available from The +Internet Archive, and after around 1.5 hour it produced a list of 2097 +free movies and their IMDB ID. In total, 171 entries in Wikidata lack +the refered Internet Archive entry. I assume the 70 "disappearing" +entries (ie 2338-2097-171) are duplicate entries.

+ +

This is not too bad, given that The Internet Archive report to +contain 5331 +feature films at the moment, but it also mean more than 3000 +movies are missing on Wikipedia or are missing the pair of references +on Wikipedia.

+ +

I was curious about the distribution by release year, and made a +little graph to show how the amount of free movies is spread over the +years:

+ +

+ +

I expect the relative distribution of the remaining 3000 movies to +be similar.

+ +

If you want to help, and want to ensure Wikipedia can be used to +cross reference The Internet Archive and The Internet Movie Database, +please make sure entries like this are listed under the "External +links" heading on the Wikipedia article for the movie:

-SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ACTION=="add", ATTR{idVendor}=="0694", ATTR{idProduct}=="0001", \
-    SYMLINK+="rcx-%k", TAG+="uaccess"
+* {{Internet Archive film|id=FightingLady}}
+* {{IMDb title|id=0036823|title=The Fighting Lady}}

-

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 -70-uaccess.rules). Perhaps a lintian check should be created -to detect this?

- -

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 -/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules. If it is, I guess the -indirect method is the preferred way. Michael -asked for more -documentation from the systemd project and I hope it will make -this clearer. For now I use the generic classes when they exist and -is already handled by 70-uaccess.rules, and add the tag -directly if no such class exist.

- -

To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out -my -blog posts tagged isenkram.

- -

To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier, -please join us on our IRC channel -#debian-lego and join -the Debian -LEGO team in the Alioth project we created yesterday. A mailing -list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)

- -

As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my -activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address -15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b.

+

Please verify the links on the final page, to make sure you did not +introduce a typo.

+ +

Here is the complete list, if you want to correct the 171 +identified Wikipedia entries with broken links to The Internet +Archive: Q1140317, +Q458656, +Q458656, +Q470560, +Q743340, +Q822580, +Q480696, +Q128761, +Q1307059, +Q1335091, +Q1537166, +Q1438334, +Q1479751, +Q1497200, +Q1498122, +Q865973, +Q834269, +Q841781, +Q841781, +Q1548193, +Q499031, +Q1564769, +Q1585239, +Q1585569, +Q1624236, +Q4796595, +Q4853469, +Q4873046, +Q915016, +Q4660396, +Q4677708, +Q4738449, +Q4756096, +Q4766785, +Q880357, +Q882066, +Q882066, +Q204191, +Q204191, +Q1194170, +Q940014, +Q946863, +Q172837, +Q573077, +Q1219005, +Q1219599, +Q1643798, +Q1656352, +Q1659549, +Q1660007, +Q1698154, +Q1737980, +Q1877284, +Q1199354, +Q1199354, +Q1199451, +Q1211871, +Q1212179, +Q1238382, +Q4906454, +Q320219, +Q1148649, +Q645094, +Q5050350, +Q5166548, +Q2677926, +Q2698139, +Q2707305, +Q2740725, +Q2024780, +Q2117418, +Q2138984, +Q1127992, +Q1058087, +Q1070484, +Q1080080, +Q1090813, +Q1251918, +Q1254110, +Q1257070, +Q1257079, +Q1197410, +Q1198423, +Q706951, +Q723239, +Q2079261, +Q1171364, +Q617858, +Q5166611, +Q5166611, +Q324513, +Q374172, +Q7533269, +Q970386, +Q976849, +Q7458614, +Q5347416, +Q5460005, +Q5463392, +Q3038555, +Q5288458, +Q2346516, +Q5183645, +Q5185497, +Q5216127, +Q5223127, +Q5261159, +Q1300759, +Q5521241, +Q7733434, +Q7736264, +Q7737032, +Q7882671, +Q7719427, +Q7719444, +Q7722575, +Q2629763, +Q2640346, +Q2649671, +Q7703851, +Q7747041, +Q6544949, +Q6672759, +Q2445896, +Q12124891, +Q3127044, +Q2511262, +Q2517672, +Q2543165, +Q426628, +Q426628, +Q12126890, +Q13359969, +Q13359969, +Q2294295, +Q2294295, +Q2559509, +Q2559912, +Q7760469, +Q6703974, +Q4744, +Q7766962, +Q7768516, +Q7769205, +Q7769988, +Q2946945, +Q3212086, +Q3212086, +Q18218448, +Q18218448, +Q18218448, +Q6909175, +Q7405709, +Q7416149, +Q7239952, +Q7317332, +Q7783674, +Q7783704, +Q7857590, +Q3372526, +Q3372642, +Q3372816, +Q3372909, +Q7959649, +Q7977485, +Q7992684, +Q3817966, +Q3821852, +Q3420907, +Q3429733, +Q774474

- Tags: debian, english, isenkram. + Tags: english, opphavsrett.
@@ -536,47 +513,26 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-
Aftenposten-redaktøren med lua i hånda
-
9th September 2016
-

En av dagens nyheter er at Aftenpostens redaktør Espen Egil Hansen -bruker -forsiden -av papiravisen på et åpent brev til Facebooks sjef Mark Zuckerberg om -Facebooks fjerning av bilder, tekster og sider de ikke liker. Det -må være uvant for redaktøren i avisen Aftenposten å stå med lua i -handa og håpe på å bli hørt. Spesielt siden Aftenposten har vært med -på å gi Facebook makten de nå demonstrerer at de har. Ved å melde seg -inn i Facebook-samfunnet har de sagt ja til bruksvilkårene og inngått -en antagelig bindende avtale. Kanskje de skulle lest og vurdert -vilkårene litt nærmere før de sa ja, i stedet for å klage over at -reglende de har valgt å akseptere blir fulgt? Personlig synes jeg -vilkårene er uakseptable og det ville ikke falle meg inn å gå inn på -en avtale med slike vilkår. I tillegg til uakseptable vilkår er det -mange andre grunner til å unngå Facebook. Du kan finne en solid -gjennomgang av flere slike argumenter hos -Richard Stallmans side om -Facebook. - -

Jeg håper flere norske redaktører på samme vis må stå med lua i -hånden inntil de forstår at de selv er med på å føre samfunnet på -ville veier ved å omfavne Facebook slik de gjør når de omtaler og -løfter frem saker fra Facebook, og tar i bruk Facebook som -distribusjonskanal for sine nyheter. De bidrar til -overvåkningssamfunnet og raderer ut lesernes privatsfære når de lenker -til Facebook på sine sider, og låser seg selv inne i en omgivelse der -det er Facebook, og ikke redaktøren, som sitter med makta.

- -

Men det vil nok ta tid, i et Norge der de fleste nettredaktører -deler -sine leseres personopplysinger med utenlands etterretning.

- -

For øvrig burde varsleren Edward Snowden få politisk asyl i -Norge.

+
A one-way wall on the border?
+
14th October 2017
+

I find it fascinating how many of the people being locked inside +the proposed border wall between USA and Mexico support the idea. The +proposal to keep Mexicans out reminds me of +the +propaganda twist from the East Germany government calling the wall +the “Antifascist Bulwark” after erecting the Berlin Wall, claiming +that the wall was erected to keep enemies from creeping into East +Germany, while it was obvious to the people locked inside it that it +was erected to keep the people from escaping.

+ +

Do the people in USA supporting this wall really believe it is a +one way wall, only keeping people on the outside from getting in, +while not keeping people in the inside from getting out?

- Tags: norsk, surveillance. + Tags: english.
@@ -584,159 +540,48 @@ Norge.

-
E-tjenesten ber om innsyn i eposten til partiene på Stortinget
-
6th September 2016
-

I helga kom det et hårreisende forslag fra Lysne II-utvalget satt -ned av Forsvarsdepartementet. Lysne II-utvalget var bedt om å vurdere -ønskelista til Forsvarets etterretningstjeneste (e-tjenesten), og har -kommet med -forslag -om at e-tjenesten skal få lov til a avlytte all Internett-trafikk -som passerer Norges grenser. Få er klar over at dette innebærer at -e-tjenesten får tilgang til epost sendt til de fleste politiske -partiene på Stortinget. Regjeringspartiet Høyre (@hoyre.no), -støttepartiene Venstre (@venstre.no) og Kristelig Folkeparti (@krf.no) -samt Sosialistisk Ventreparti (@sv.no) og Miljøpartiet de grønne -(@mdg.no) har nemlig alle valgt å ta imot eposten sin via utenlandske -tjenester. Det betyr at hvis noen sender epost til noen med en slik -adresse vil innholdet i eposten, om dette forslaget blir vedtatt, gjøres -tilgjengelig for e-tjenesten. Venstre, Sosialistisk Ventreparti og -Miljøpartiet De Grønne har valgt å motta sin epost hos Google, -Kristelig Folkeparti har valgt å motta sin epost hos Microsoft, og -Høyre har valgt å motta sin epost hos Comendo med mottak i Danmark og -Irland. Kun Arbeiderpartiet og Fremskrittspartiet har valgt å motta -eposten sin i Norge, hos henholdsvis Intility AS og Telecomputing -AS.

- -

Konsekvensen er at epost inn og ut av de politiske organisasjonene, -til og fra partimedlemmer og partiets tillitsvalgte vil gjøres -tilgjengelig for e-tjenesten for analyse og sortering. Jeg mistenker -at kunnskapen som slik blir tilgjengelig vil være nyttig hvis en -ønsker å vite hvilke argumenter som treffer publikum når en ønsker å -påvirke Stortingets representanter.

Ved hjelp av MX-oppslag i DNS for epost-domene, tilhørende -whois-oppslag av IP-adressene og traceroute for å se hvorvidt -trafikken går via utlandet kan enhver få bekreftet at epost sendt til -de omtalte partiene vil gjøres tilgjengelig for forsvarets -etterretningstjeneste hvis forslaget blir vedtatt. En kan også bruke -den kjekke nett-tjenesten ipinfo.io -for å få en ide om hvor i verden en IP-adresse hører til.

- -

På den positive siden vil forslaget gjøre at enda flere blir -motivert til å ta grep for å bruke -Tor og krypterte -kommunikasjonsløsninger for å kommunisere med sine kjære, for å sikre -at privatsfæren vernes. Selv bruker jeg blant annet -FreedomBox og -Signal til slikt. Ingen av -dem er optimale, men de fungerer ganske bra allerede og øker kostnaden -for dem som ønsker å invadere mitt privatliv.

- -

For øvrig burde varsleren Edward Snowden få politisk asyl i -Norge.

- - +
Generating 3D prints in Debian using Cura and Slic3r(-prusa)
+
9th October 2017
+

At my nearby maker space, +Sonen, I heard the story that it +was easier to generate gcode files for theyr 3D printers (Ultimake 2+) +on Windows and MacOS X than Linux, because the software involved had +to be manually compiled and set up on Linux while premade packages +worked out of the box on Windows and MacOS X. I found this annoying, +as the software involved, +Cura, is free software +and should be trivial to get up and running on Linux if someone took +the time to package it for the relevant distributions. I even found +a request for adding into +Debian from 2013, which had seem some activity over the years but +never resulted in the software showing up in Debian. So a few days +ago I offered my help to try to improve the situation.

+ +

Now I am very happy to see that all the packages required by a +working Cura in Debian are uploaded into Debian and waiting in the NEW +queue for the ftpmasters to have a look. You can track the progress +on +the +status page for the 3D printer team.

+ +

The uploaded packages are a bit behind upstream, and was uploaded +now to get slots in the NEW +queue while we work up updating the packages to the latest +upstream version.

+ +

On a related note, two competitors for Cura, which I found harder +to use and was unable to configure correctly for Ultimaker 2+ in the +short time I spent on it, are already in Debian. If you are looking +for 3D printer "slicers" and want something already available in +Debian, check out +slic3r and +slic3r-prusa. +The latter is a fork of the former.

- Tags: norsk, surveillance. + Tags: 3d-printer, debian, english.
@@ -744,33 +589,30 @@ traceroute to mx03.telecomputing.no (95.128.105.102), 30 hops max, 60 byte packe
-
First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator's Handbook now public
-
30th August 2016
-

In April we -started -to work on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the "open access" book on -how to set up and administrate a Debian system. Today I am happy to -report that the first draft is now publicly available. You can find -it on get the Debian -Administrator's Handbook page (under Other languages). The first -eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on -proofreading the content. If you want to help out, please start -contributing using -the -hosted weblate project page, and get in touch using -the -translators mailing list. Please also check out -the instructions for -contributors. A good way to contribute is to proofread the text -and update weblate if you find errors.

- -

Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as -electronic form.

+
Mangler du en skrue, eller har du en skrue løs?
+
4th October 2017
+
Når jeg holder på med ulike prosjekter, så trenger jeg stadig ulike +skruer. Det siste prosjektet jeg holder på med er å lage +en boks til en +HDMI-touch-skjerm som skal brukes med Raspberry Pi. Boksen settes +sammen med skruer og bolter, og jeg har vært i tvil om hvor jeg kan +få tak i de riktige skruene. Clas Ohlson og Jernia i nærheten har +sjelden hatt det jeg trenger. Men her om dagen fikk jeg et fantastisk +tips for oss som bor i Oslo. +Zachariassen Jernvare AS i +Hegermannsgate +23A på Torshov har et fantastisk utvalg, og åpent mellom 09:00 og +17:00. De selger skruer, muttere, bolter, skiver etc i løs vekt, og +så langt har jeg fått alt jeg har lett etter. De har i tillegg det +meste av annen jernvare, som verktøy, lamper, ledninger, etc. Jeg +håper de har nok kunder til å holde det gående lenge, da dette er en +butikk jeg kommer til å besøke ofte. Butikken er et funn å ha i +nabolaget for oss som liker å bygge litt selv. :)

- Tags: debian, english. + Tags: norsk.
@@ -778,75 +620,64 @@ electronic form.

-
Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software
-
11th August 2016
-

This summer, I read a great article -"coz: -This Is the Profiler You're Looking For" in USENIX ;login: about -how to profile multi-threaded programs. It presented a system for -profiling software by running experiences in the running program, -testing how run time performance is affected by "speeding up" parts of -the code to various degrees compared to a normal run. It does this by -slowing down parallel threads while the "faster up" code is running -and measure how this affect processing time. The processing time is -measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress -counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END). It -can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program -runtime and running the program several times instead.

- -

The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to -get the system into Debian. I -created -a WNPP request for it and contacted upstream to try to make the -system ready for Debian by sending patches. The build process need to -be changed a bit to avoid running 'git clone' to get dependencies, and -to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected -profiling information included in the source package. -But I expect that should work out fairly soon.

- -

The way the system work is fairly simple. To run an coz experiment -on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this: - -

-coz run --- program-to-run
-

- -

This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation -information. To show what part of the code affect the performance -most, use a web browser and either point it to -http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/ -or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch). Check out this web -site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like. To make the -profiling more useful you include <coz.h> and insert the -COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the -code, rebuild and run the profiler. This allow coz to do more -targeted experiments.

- -

A video published by ACM -presenting the -Coz profiler is available from Youtube. There is also a paper -from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available -titled -Coz: -finding code that counts with causal profiling.

- -

The source code -for Coz is available from github. It will only build with clang -because it uses a -C++ -feature missing in GCC, but I've submitted -a patch to solve -it and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.

- -

Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece -of software in Debian. I would very much like some help with the -packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package -C++ libraries.

+
Visualizing GSM radio chatter using gr-gsm and Hopglass
+
29th September 2017
+

Every mobile phone announce its existence over radio to the nearby +mobile cell towers. And this radio chatter is available for anyone +with a radio receiver capable of receiving them. Details about the +mobile phones with very good accuracy is of course collected by the +phone companies, but this is not the topic of this blog post. The +mobile phone radio chatter make it possible to figure out when a cell +phone is nearby, as it include the SIM card ID (IMSI). By paying +attention over time, one can see when a phone arrive and when it leave +an area. I believe it would be nice to make this information more +available to the general public, to make more people aware of how +their phones are announcing their whereabouts to anyone that care to +listen.

+ +

I am very happy to report that we managed to get something +visualizing this information up and running for +Oslo Skaperfestival 2017 +(Oslo Makers Festival) taking place today and tomorrow at Deichmanske +library. The solution is based on the +simple +recipe for listening to GSM chatter I posted a few days ago, and +will show up at the stand of Åpen +Sone from the Computer Science department of the University of +Oslo. The presentation will show the nearby mobile phones (aka +IMSIs) as dots in a web browser graph, with lines to the dot +representing mobile base station it is talking to. It was working in +the lab yesterday, and was moved into place this morning.

+ +

We set up a fairly powerful desktop machine using Debian +Buster/Testing with several (five, I believe) RTL2838 DVB-T receivers +connected and visualize the visible cell phone towers using an +English version of +Hopglass. A fairly powerfull machine is needed as the +grgsm_livemon_headless processes from +gr-gsm converting +the radio signal to data packages is quite CPU intensive.

+ +

The frequencies to listen to, are identified using a slightly +patched scan-and-livemon (to set the --args values for each receiver), +and the Hopglass data is generated using the +patches +in my meshviewer-output branch. For some reason we could not get +more than four SDRs working. There is also a geographical map trying +to show the location of the base stations, but I believe their +coordinates are hardcoded to some random location in Germany, I +believe. The code should be replaced with code to look up location in +a text file, a sqlite database or one of the online databases +mentioned in +the github +issue for the topic. + +

If this sound interesting, visit the stand at the festival!

- Tags: debian, english, nice free software. + Tags: debian, english, personvern, surveillance.
@@ -854,58 +685,83 @@ C++ libraries.

-
Sales number for the Free Culture translation, first half of 2016
-
5th August 2016
-

As my regular readers probably remember, the last year I published -a French and Norwegian translation of the classic -Free Culture book by the -founder of the Creative Commons movement, Lawrence Lessig. A bit less -known is the fact that due to the way I created the translations, -using docbook and po4a, I also recreated the English original. And -because I already had created a new the PDF edition, I published it -too. The revenue from the books are sent to the Creative Commons -Corporation. In other words, I do not earn any money from this -project, I just earn the warm fuzzy feeling that the text is available -for a wider audience and more people can learn why the Creative -Commons is needed.

- -

Today, just for fun, I had a look at the sales number over at -Lulu.com, which take care of payment, printing and shipping. Much to -my surprise, the English edition is selling better than both the -French and Norwegian edition, despite the fact that it has been -available in English since it was first published. In total, 24 paper -books was sold for USD $19.99 between 2016-01-01 and 2016-07-31:

- - - - - - -
Title / languageQuantity
Culture Libre / French3
Fri kultur / Norwegian7
Free Culture / English14
- -

The books are available both from Lulu.com and from large book -stores like Amazon and Barnes&Noble. Most revenue, around $10 per -book, is sent to the Creative Commons project when the book is sold -directly by Lulu.com. The other channels give less revenue. The -summary from Lulu tell me 10 books was sold via the Amazon channel, 10 -via Ingram (what is this?) and 4 directly by Lulu. And Lulu.com tells -me that the revenue sent so far this year is USD $101.42. No idea -what kind of sales numbers to expect, so I do not know if that is a -good amount of sales for a 10 year old book or not. But it make me -happy that the buyers find the book, and I hope they enjoy reading it -as much as I did.

- -

The ebook edition is available for free from -Github.

- -

If you would like to translate and publish the book in your native -language, I would be happy to help make it happen. Please get in -touch.

+
Easier recipe to observe the cell phones around you
+
24th September 2017
+

A little more than a month ago I wrote +how +to observe the SIM card ID (aka IMSI number) of mobile phones talking +to nearby mobile phone base stations using Debian GNU/Linux and a +cheap USB software defined radio, and thus being able to pinpoint +the location of people and equipment (like cars and trains) with an +accuracy of a few kilometer. Since then we have worked to make the +procedure even simpler, and it is now possible to do this without any +manual frequency tuning and without building your own packages.

+ +

The gr-gsm +package is now included in Debian testing and unstable, and the +IMSI-catcher code no longer require root access to fetch and decode +the GSM data collected using gr-gsm.

+ +

Here is an updated recipe, using packages built by Debian and a git +clone of two python scripts:

+ +
    + +
  1. Start with a Debian machine running the Buster version (aka + testing).
    2. + +
  2. Run 'apt install gr-gsm python-numpy python-scipy + python-scapy' as root to install required packages.
    3. + +
  3. Fetch the code decoding GSM packages using 'git clone + github.com/Oros42/IMSI-catcher.git'.
    4. + +
  4. Insert USB software defined radio supported by GNU Radio.
    5. + +
  5. Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'python + scan-and-livemon' to locate the frequency of nearby base + stations and start listening for GSM packages on one of them.
    6. + +
  6. Enter the IMSI-catcher directory and run 'python + simple_IMSI-catcher.py' to display the collected information.
    7. + +
+ +

Note, due to a bug somewhere the scan-and-livemon program (actually +its underlying +program grgsm_scanner) do not work with the HackRF radio. It does +work with RTL 8232 and other similar USB radio receivers you can get +very cheaply +(for example +from ebay), so for now the solution is to scan using the RTL radio +and only use HackRF for fetching GSM data.

+ +

As far as I can tell, a cell phone only show up on one of the +frequencies at the time, so if you are going to track and count every +cell phone around you, you need to listen to all the frequencies used. +To listen to several frequencies, use the --numrecv argument to +scan-and-livemon to use several receivers. Further, I am not sure if +phones using 3G or 4G will show as talking GSM to base stations, so +this approach might not see all phones around you. I typically see +0-400 IMSI numbers an hour when looking around where I live.

+ +

I've tried to run the scanner on a +Raspberry Pi 2 and 3 +running Debian Buster, but the grgsm_livemon_headless process seem +to be too CPU intensive to keep up. When GNU Radio print 'O' to +stdout, I am told there it is caused by a buffer overflow between the +radio and GNU Radio, caused by the program being unable to read the +GSM data fast enough. If you see a stream of 'O's from the terminal +where you started scan-and-livemon, you need a give the process more +CPU power. Perhaps someone are able to optimize the code to a point +where it become possible to set up RPi3 based GSM sniffers? I tried +using Raspbian instead of Debian, but there seem to be something wrong +with GNU Radio on raspbian, causing glibc to abort().

- Tags: docbook, english, freeculture. + Tags: debian, english, personvern, surveillance.
@@ -913,40 +769,54 @@ touch.

-
Vitenskapen tar som vanlig feil igjen - relativt feil
-
1st August 2016
-

For mange år siden leste jeg en klassisk tekst som gjorde såpass -inntrykk på meg at jeg husker den fortsatt, flere år senere, og bruker -argumentene fra den stadig vekk. Teksten var «The Relativity of -Wrong» som Isaac Asimov publiserte i Skeptical Inquirer i 1989. Den -gir litt perspektiv rundt formidlingen av vitenskapelige resultater. -Jeg har hatt lyst til å kunne dele den også med folk som ikke -behersker engelsk så godt, som barn og noen av mine eldre slektninger, -og har savnet å ha den tilgjengelig på norsk. For to uker siden tok -jeg meg sammen og kontaktet Asbjørn Dyrendal i foreningen Skepsis om -de var interessert i å publisere en norsk utgave på bloggen sin, og da -han var positiv tok jeg kontakt med Skeptical Inquirer og spurte om -det var greit for dem. I løpet av noen dager fikk vi tilbakemelding -fra Barry Karr hos The Skeptical Inquirer som hadde sjekket og fått OK -fra Robyn Asimov som representerte arvingene i Asmiov-familien og gikk -igang med oversettingen.

- -

Resultatet, «Relativt -feil», ble publisert på skepsis-bloggen for noen minutter siden. -Jeg anbefaler deg på det varmeste å lese denne teksten og dele den med -dine venner.

- -

For å håndtere oversettelsen og sikre at original og oversettelse -var i sync brukte vi git, po4a, GNU make og Transifex. Det hele -fungerte utmerket og gjorde det enkelt å dele tekstene og jobbe sammen -om finpuss på formuleringene. Hadde hosted.weblate.org latt meg -opprette nye prosjekter selv i stedet for å måtte kontakte -administratoren der, så hadde jeg brukt weblate i stedet.

+
Datalagringsdirektivet kaster skygger over Høyre og Arbeiderpartiet
+
7th September 2017
+

For noen dager siden publiserte Jon Wessel-Aas en bloggpost om +«Konklusjonen om datalagring som +EU-kommisjonen ikke ville at vi skulle få se». Det er en +interessant gjennomgang av EU-domstolens syn på snurpenotovervåkning +av befolkningen, som er klar på at det er i strid med +EU-lovgivingen.

+ +

Valgkampen går for fullt i Norge, og om noen få dager er siste +frist for å avgi stemme. En ting er sikkert, Høyre og Arbeiderpartiet +får ikke min stemme +denne +gangen heller. Jeg har ikke glemt at de tvang igjennom loven som +skulle pålegge alle data- og teletjenesteleverandører å overvåke alle +sine kunder. En lov som er vedtatt, og aldri opphevet igjen.

+ +

Det er tydelig fra diskusjonen rundt grenseløs digital overvåkning +(eller "Digital Grenseforsvar" som det kalles i Orvellisk nytale) at +hverken Høyre og Arbeiderpartiet har noen prinsipielle sperrer mot å +overvåke hele befolkningen, og diskusjonen så langt tyder på at flere +av de andre partiene heller ikke har det. Mange av +de som stemte +for Datalagringsdirektivet i Stortinget (64 fra Arbeiderpartiet, +25 fra Høyre) er fortsatt aktive og argumenterer fortsatt for å radere +vekk mer av innbyggernes privatsfære.

+ +

Når myndighetene demonstrerer sin mistillit til folket, tror jeg +folket selv bør legge litt innsats i å verne sitt privatliv, ved å ta +i bruk ende-til-ende-kryptert kommunikasjon med sine kjente og kjære, +og begrense hvor mye privat informasjon som deles med uvedkommende. +Det er jo ingenting som tyder på at myndighetene kommer til å være vår +privatsfære. +Det +er mange muligheter. Selv har jeg litt sans for +Ring, som er basert på p2p-teknologi +uten sentral kontroll, er fri programvare, og støtter meldinger, tale +og video. Systemet er tilgjengelig ut av boksen fra +Debian og +Ubuntu, og det +finnes pakker for Android, MacOSX og Windows. Foreløpig er det få +brukere med Ring, slik at jeg også bruker +Signal som nettleserutvidelse.

- Tags: norsk, skepsis. + Tags: dld, norsk, personvern, stortinget, surveillance, valg.
@@ -961,6 +831,31 @@ administratoren der, så hadde jeg brukt weblate i stedet.

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