X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/d3629bcaf36448c154f9049edfa5fda76512d11a..6621ff349d531b5887d38da305c6d1fde095b36d:/blog/index.html diff --git a/blog/index.html b/blog/index.html index 2627be05ce..de9f6e58b0 100644 --- a/blog/index.html +++ b/blog/index.html @@ -20,57 +20,33 @@
-
Add-on to control the projector from within Kodi
-
26th June 2018
-

My movie playing setup involve Kodi, -OpenELEC (probably soon to be -replaced with LibreELEC) and an -Infocus IN76 video projector. My projector can be controlled via both -a infrared remote controller, and a RS-232 serial line. The vendor of -my projector, InFocus, had been -sensible enough to document the serial protocol in its user manual, so -it is easily available, and I used it some years ago to write -a -small script to control the projector. For a while now, I longed -for a setup where the projector was controlled by Kodi, for example in -such a way that when the screen saver went on, the projector was -turned off, and when the screen saver exited, the projector was turned -on again.

- -

A few days ago, with very good help from parts of my family, I -managed to find a Kodi Add-on for controlling a Epson projector, and -got in touch with its author to see if we could join forces and make a -Add-on with support for several projectors. To my pleasure, he was -positive to the idea, and we set out to add InFocus support to his -add-on, and make the add-on suitable for the official Kodi add-on -repository.

- -

The Add-on is now working (for me, at least), with a few minor -adjustments. The most important change I do relative to the master -branch in the github repository is embedding the -pyserial module in -the add-on. The long term solution is to make a "script" type -pyserial module for Kodi, that can be pulled in as a dependency in -Kodi. But until that in place, I embed it.

- -

The add-on can be configured to turn on the projector when Kodi -starts, off when Kodi stops as well as turn the projector off when the -screensaver start and on when the screesaver stops. It can also be -told to set the projector source when turning on the projector. - -

If this sound interesting to you, check out -the -project github repository. Perhaps you can send patches to -support your projector too? As soon as we find time to wrap up the -latest changes, it should be available for easy installation using any -Kodi instance.

- -

For future improvements, I would like to add projector model -detection and the ability to adjust the brightness level of the -projector from within Kodi. We also need to figure out how to handle -the cooling period of the projector. My projector refuses to turn on -for 60 seconds after it was turned off. This is not handled well by -the add-on at the moment.

+ +
1st November 2018
+

As part of my involvement in +the Nikita +archive API project, I've been importing a fairly large lump of +emails into a test instance of the archive to see how well this would +go. I picked a subset of my +notmuch email database, all public emails sent to me via +@lists.debian.org, giving me a set of around 216 000 emails to import. +In the process, I had a look at the various attachments included in +these emails, to figure out what to do with attachments, and noticed +that one of the most common attachment formats do not have +an +official MIME type registered with IANA/IETF. The output from +diff, ie the input for patch, is on the top 10 list of formats +included in these emails. At the moment people seem to use either +text/x-patch or text/x-diff, but neither is officially registered. It +would be better if one official MIME type were registered and used +everywhere.

+ +

To try to get one official MIME type for these files, I've brought +up the topic on +the +media-types mailing list. If you are interested in discussion +which MIME type to use as the official for patch files, or involved in +making software using a MIME type for patches, perhaps you would like +to join the discussion?

As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address @@ -79,7 +55,7 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address

- Tags: english, multimedia, video. + Tags: debian, english, standard.
@@ -87,71 +63,79 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
- -
28th April 2018
-

I VHS-kassettenes -tid var det rett frem å ta vare på et TV-program en ønsket å kunne se -senere, uten å være avhengig av at programmet ble sendt på nytt. -Kanskje ønsket en å se programmet på hytten der det ikke var -TV-signal, eller av andre grunner ha det tilgjengelig for fremtidig -fornøyelse. Dette er blitt vanskeligere med introduksjon av -digital-TV og webstreaming, der opptak til harddisk er utenfor de -flestes kontroll hvis de bruker ufri programvare og bokser kontrollert -av andre. Men for NRK her i Norge, finnes det heldigvis flere fri -programvare-alternativer, som jeg har -skrevet -om -før. -Så lenge kilden for nedlastingen er lovlig lagt ut på nett (hvilket -jeg antar NRK gjør), så er slik lagring til privat bruk også lovlig i -Norge.

- -

Sist jeg så på saken, i 2016, nevnte jeg at -youtube-dl ikke kunne -bake undertekster fra NRK inn i videofilene, og at jeg derfor -foretrakk andre alternativer. Nylig oppdaget jeg at dette har endret -seg. Fordelen med youtube-dl er at den er tilgjengelig direkte fra -Linux-distribusjoner som Debian -og Ubuntu, slik at en slipper å -finne ut selv hvordan en skal få dem til å virke.

- -

For å laste ned et NRK-innslag med undertekster, og få den norske -underteksten pakket inn i videofilen, så kan følgende kommando -brukes:

+ +
22nd October 2018
+

+ +

My current home stereo is a patchwork of various pieces I got on +flee markeds over the years. It is amazing what kind of equipment +show up there. I've been wondering for a while if it was possible to +measure how well this equipment is working together, and decided to +see how far I could get using free software. After trawling the web I +came across an article from DIY Audio and Video on +Speaker +Testing and Analysis describing how to test speakers, and it listing +several software options, among them +AUDio MEasurement +System (AUDMES). It is the only free software system I could find +focusing on measuring speakers and audio frequency response. In the +process I also found an interesting article from NOVO on +Understanding +Speaker Specifications and Frequency Response and an article from +ecoustics on +Understanding +Speaker Frequency Response, with a lot of information on what to +look for and how to interpret the graphs. Armed with this knowledge, +I set out to measure the state of my speakers.

+ +

The first hurdle was that AUDMES hadn't seen a commit for 10 years +and did not build with current compilers and libraries. I got in +touch with its author, who no longer was spending time on the program +but gave me write access to the subversion repository on Sourceforge. +The end result is that now the code build on Linux and is capable of +saving and loading the collected frequency response data in CSV +format. The application is quite nice and flexible, and I was able to +select the input and output audio interfaces independently. This made +it possible to use a USB mixer as the input source, while sending +output via my laptop headphone connection. I lacked the hardware and +cabling to figure out a different way to get independent cabling to +speakers and microphone.

+ +

Using this setup I could see how a large range of high frequencies +apparently were not making it out of my speakers. The picture show +the frequency response measurement of one of the speakers. Note the +frequency lines seem to be slightly misaligned, compared to the CSV +output from the program. I can not hear several of these are high +frequencies, according to measurement from +Free Hearing Test +Software, an freeware system to measure your hearing (still +looking for a free software alternative), so I do not know if they are +coming out out the speakers. I thus do not quite know how to figure +out if the missing frequencies is a problem with the microphone, the +amplifier or the speakers, but I managed to rule out the audio card in my +PC by measuring my Bose noise canceling headset using its own +microphone. This setup was able to see the high frequency tones, so +the problem with my stereo had to be in the amplifier or speakers.

+ +

Anyway, to try to role out one factor I ended up picking up a new +set of speakers at a flee marked, and these work a lot better than the +old speakers, so I guess the microphone and amplifier is OK. If you +need to measure your own speakers, check out AUDMES. If more people +get involved, perhaps the project could become good enough to +include in Debian? And if +you know of some other free software to measure speakers and amplifier +performance, please let me know. I am aware of the freeware option +REW, but I want something +that can be developed also when the vendor looses interest.

-

-youtube-dl --write-sub --sub-format ttml \
-  --convert-subtitles srt --embed-subs \
-  https://tv.nrk.no/serie/ramm-ferdig-gaa/MUHU11000316/27-04-2018
-

- -

URL-eksemplet er dagens toppsak på tv.nrk.no. Resultatet er en -MP4-fil med filmen og undertekster som kan spilles av med VLC. Merk -at VLC ikke viser frem undertekster før du aktiverer dem. For å gjøre -det, høyreklikk med musa i fremviservinduet, velg menyvalget for -undertekst og så norsk språk. Jeg testet også '--write-auto-sub', -men det kommandolinjeargumentet ser ikke ut til å fungere, så jeg -endte opp med settet med argumentlisten over, som jeg fant i en -feilrapport i youtube-dl-prosjektets samling over feilrapporter.

- -

Denne støtten i youtube-dl gjør det svært enkelt å lagre -NRK-innslag, det være seg nyheter, filmer, serier eller dokumentater, -for å ha dem tilgjengelig for fremtidig referanse og bruk, uavhengig -av hvor lenge innslagene ligger tilgjengelig hos NRK. Så får det ikke -hjelpe at NRKs jurister mener at det er -vesensforskjellig -å legge tilgjengelig for nedlasting og for streaming, når det rent -teknisk er samme sak.

- -

Programmet youtube-dl støtter også en rekke andre nettsteder, se -prosjektoversikten for -en -komplett liste.

+

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

@@ -159,27 +143,67 @@ komplett liste.

- -
24th April 2018
-

VG, -Dagbladet -og -NRK -melder i dag at flertallet i Familie- og kulturkomiteen på Stortinget -har bestemt seg for å introdusere en ny sensurinfrastruktur i Norge. -Fra før har Norge en «frivillig» sensurinfrastruktur basert på -DNS-navn, der de største ISP-ene basert på en liste med DNS-navn -forgifter DNS-svar og omdirigerer til et annet IP-nummer enn det som -ligger i DNS. Nå kommer altså IP-basert omdirigering i tillegg. Når -infrastrukturen er på plass, er sensur av IP-adresser redusert et -spørsmål om hvilke IP-nummer som skal blokkeres. Listen over -IP-adresser vil naturligvis endre seg etter hvert som myndighetene -endrer seg. Det er ingen betryggende tanke.

+ +
21st October 2018
+

Bittorrent is as far as I know, currently the most efficient way to +distribute content on the Internet. It is used all by all sorts of +content providers, from national TV stations like +NRK, Linux distributors like +Debian and +Ubuntu, and of course the +Internet archive. + +

Almost a month ago +a new +package adding Bittorrent support to VLC became available in +Debian testing and unstable. To test it, simply install it like +this:

+ +

+apt install vlc-plugin-bittorrent
+

+ +

Since the plugin was made available for the first time in Debian, +several improvements have been made to it. In version 2.2-4, now +available in both testing and unstable, a desktop file is provided to +teach browsers to start VLC when the user click on torrent files or +magnet links. The last part is thanks to me finally understanding +what the strange x-scheme-handler style MIME types in desktop files +are used for. By adding x-scheme-handler/magnet to the MimeType entry +in the desktop file, at least the browsers Firefox and Chromium will +suggest to start VLC when selecting a magnet URI on a web page. The +end result is that now, with the plugin installed in Buster and Sid, +one can visit any +Internet +Archive page with movies using a web browser and click on the +torrent link to start streaming the movie.

+ +

Note, there is still some misfeatures in the plugin. One is the +fact that it will hang and +block VLC +from exiting until the torrent streaming starts. Another is the +fact that it +will pick +and play a random file in a multi file torrent. This is not +always the video file you want. Combined with the first it can be a +bit hard to get the video streaming going. But when it work, it seem +to do a good job.

+ +

For the Debian packaging, I would love to find a good way to test +if the plugin work with VLC using autopkgtest. I tried, but do not +know enough of the inner workings of VLC to get it working. For now +the autopkgtest script is only checking if the .so file was +successfully loaded by VLC. If you have any suggestions, please +submit a patch to the Debian bug tracking system.

+ +

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

- Tags: norsk, sikkerhet. + Tags: english, verkidetfri, video.
@@ -187,40 +211,80 @@ endrer seg. Det er ingen betryggende tanke.

- -
2nd April 2018
-

Brevpost er beskyttet av straffelovens bestemmelse som gjør det -kriminelt å åpne andres brev. Dette følger av (ny) straffelovs -§ 205 -(Krenkelse av retten til privat kommunikasjon), som sier at «Med -bot eller fengsel inntil 2 år straffes den som uberettiget ... c) -åpner brev eller annen lukket skriftlig meddelelse som er adressert -til en annen, eller på annen måte skaffer seg uberettiget tilgang til -innholdet.» Dette gjelder såvel postbud som alle andre som har -befatning med brevet etter at avsender har befatning med et lukket -brev. Tilsvarende står også tidligere utgaver av den norske -straffeloven.

- -

Når en registrerer seg på usikre digitale postkasseløsningene, som -f.eks. Digipost og e-Boks, og slik tar disse i bruk, så gir en de som -står bak løsningene tillatelse til å åpne sine brev. Dette er -nødvendig for at innholdet i digital post skal kunne vises frem til -mottaker via tjenestens websider. Dermed gjelder ikke straffelovens -paragraf om forbud mot å åpne brev, da tilgangen ikke lenger er -uberettiget. En gir altså fremmede tilgang til å lese sin -korrespondanse. I tillegg vil bruk av slike usikre digitale -postbokser føre til at det blir registrert når du leser brevene, hvor -du befinner deg (vha. tilkoblingens IP-adresse), hvilket utstyr du -bruker og en rekke annen personlig informasjon som ikke er -tilgjengelig når papirpost brukes. Jeg foretrekker at det er -lovmessig beskyttelse av min korrespondanse, som jo inneholder privat -og personlig informasjon. Det bidrar til litt bedre vern av personlig -integritet i dagens norske samfunn.

+ +
18th October 2018
+

This morning, the new release of the +Nikita +Noark 5 core project was +announced +on the project mailing list. The free software solution is an +implementation of the Norwegian archive standard Noark 5 used by +government offices in Norway. These were the changes in version 0.2 +since version 0.1.1 (from NEWS.md): + +

    +
  • Fix typos in REL names
  • +
  • Tidy up error message reporting
  • +
  • Fix issue where we used Integer.valueOf(), not Integer.getInteger()
  • +
  • Change some String handling to StringBuffer
  • +
  • Fix error reporting
  • +
  • Code tidy-up
  • +
  • Fix issue using static non-synchronized SimpleDateFormat to avoid + race conditions
  • +
  • Fix problem where deserialisers were treating integers as strings
  • +
  • Update methods to make them null-safe
  • +
  • Fix many issues reported by coverity
  • +
  • Improve equals(), compareTo() and hash() in domain model
  • +
  • Improvements to the domain model for metadata classes
  • +
  • Fix CORS issues when downloading document
  • +
  • Implementation of case-handling with registryEntry and document upload
  • +
  • Better support in Javascript for OPTIONS
  • +
  • Adding concept description of mail integration
  • +
  • Improve setting of default values for GET on ny-journalpost
  • +
  • Better handling of required values during deserialisation
  • +
  • Changed tilknyttetDato (M620) from date to dateTime
  • +
  • Corrected some opprettetDato (M600) (de)serialisation errors.
  • +
  • Improve parse error reporting.
  • +
  • Started on OData search and filtering.
  • +
  • Added Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct to project.
  • +
  • Moved repository and project from Github to Gitlab.
  • +
  • Restructured repository, moved code into src/ and web/.
  • +
  • Updated code to use Spring Boot version 2.
  • +
  • Added support for OAuth2 authentication.
  • +
  • Fixed several bugs discovered by Coverity.
  • +
  • Corrected handling of date/datetime fields.
  • +
  • Improved error reporting when rejecting during deserializatoin.
  • +
  • Adjusted default values provided for ny-arkivdel, ny-mappe, + ny-saksmappe, ny-journalpost and ny-dokumentbeskrivelse.
  • +
  • Several fixes for korrespondansepart*.
  • +
  • Updated web GUI: +
      +
    • Now handle both file upload and download.
    • +
    • Uses new OAuth2 authentication for login.
    • +
    • Forms now fetches default values from API using GET.
    • +
    • Added RFC 822 (email), TIFF and JPEG to list of possible file formats.
    • +
  • +
+ +

The changes and improvements are extensive. Running diffstat on +the changes between git tab 0.1.1 and 0.2 show 1098 files changed, +108666 insertions(+), 54066 deletions(-).

+ +

If free and open standardized archiving API sound interesting to +you, please contact us on IRC +(#nikita on +irc.freenode.net) or email +(nikita-noark +mailing list).

+ +

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

@@ -228,34 +292,111 @@ integritet i dagens norske samfunn.

- -
22nd March 2018
-

The leaders of the worlds have started to congratulate the -re-elected Russian head of state, and this causes some criticism. I -am though a little fascinated by a comment from USA senator John McCain, -sited -by The Hill and others: - -

-

"An American president does not lead the Free World by -congratulating dictators on winning sham elections."

-

- -

While I totally agree with the senator here, the way the quote is -phrased make me suspect that he is unaware of the simple fact that USA -have not lead the Free World since at least before its government -kidnapped a -completely innocent Canadian citizen in transit on his way home to -Canada via John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 and -sent him to be tortured in Syria for a year.

- -

USA might be running ahead, but the path they are taking is not the -one taken by any Free World.

+ +
8th October 2018
+

I have earlier covered the basics of trusted timestamping using the +'openssl ts' client. See blog post for +2014, +2016 +and +2017 +for those stories. But some times I want to integrate the timestamping +in other code, and recently I needed to integrate it into Python. +After searching a bit, I found +the +rfc3161 library which seemed like a good fit, but I soon +discovered it only worked for python version 2, and I needed something +that work with python version 3. Luckily I next came across +the rfc3161ng library, +a fork of the original rfc3161 library. Not only is it working with +python 3, it have fixed a few of the bugs in the original library, and +it has an active maintainer. I decided to wrap it up and make it +available in +Debian, and a few days ago it entered Debian unstable and testing.

+ +

Using the library is fairly straight forward. The only slightly +problematic step is to fetch the required certificates to verify the +timestamp. For some services it is straight forward, while for others +I have not yet figured out how to do it. Here is a small standalone +code example based on of the integration tests in the library code:

+ +
+#!/usr/bin/python3
+
+"""
+
+Python 3 script demonstrating how to use the rfc3161ng module to
+get trusted timestamps.
+
+The license of this code is the same as the license of the rfc3161ng
+library, ie MIT/BSD.
+
+"""
+
+import os
+import pyasn1.codec.der
+import rfc3161ng
+import subprocess
+import tempfile
+import urllib.request
+
+def store(f, data):
+    f.write(data)
+    f.flush()
+    f.seek(0)
+
+def fetch(url, f=None):
+    response = urllib.request.urlopen(url)
+    data = response.read()
+    if f:
+        store(f, data)
+    return data
+
+def main():
+    with tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile() as cert_f,\
+    	 tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile() as ca_f,\
+    	 tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile() as msg_f,\
+    	 tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile() as tsr_f:
+
+        # First fetch certificates used by service
+        certificate_data = fetch('https://freetsa.org/files/tsa.crt', cert_f)
+        ca_data_data = fetch('https://freetsa.org/files/cacert.pem', ca_f)
+
+        # Then timestamp the message
+        timestamper = \
+            rfc3161ng.RemoteTimestamper('http://freetsa.org/tsr',
+                                        certificate=certificate_data)
+        data = b"Python forever!\n"
+        tsr = timestamper(data=data, return_tsr=True)
+
+        # Finally, convert message and response to something 'openssl ts' can verify
+        store(msg_f, data)
+        store(tsr_f, pyasn1.codec.der.encoder.encode(tsr))
+        args = ["openssl", "ts", "-verify",
+                "-data", msg_f.name,
+	        "-in", tsr_f.name,
+		"-CAfile", ca_f.name,
+                "-untrusted", cert_f.name]
+        subprocess.check_call(args)
+
+if '__main__' == __name__:
+   main()
+
+ +

The code fetches the required certificates, store them as temporary +files, timestamp a simple message, store the message and timestamp to +disk and ask 'openssl ts' to verify the timestamp. A timestamp is +around 1.5 kiB in size, and should be fairly easy to store for future +use.

+ +

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

- Tags: english. + Tags: english, sikkerhet.
@@ -263,63 +404,68 @@ one taken by any Free World.

- -
21st March 2018
-

So, Cambridge Analytica is getting some well deserved criticism for -(mis)using information it got from Facebook about 50 million people, -mostly in the USA. What I find a bit surprising, is how little -criticism Facebook is getting for handing the information over to -Cambridge Analytica and others in the first place. And what about the -people handing their private and personal information to Facebook? -And last, but not least, what about the government offices who are -handing information about the visitors of their web pages to Facebook? -No-one who looked at the terms of use of Facebook should be surprised -that information about peoples interests, political views, personal -lifes and whereabouts would be sold by Facebook.

- -

What I find to be the real scandal is the fact that Facebook is -selling your personal information, not that one of the buyers used it -in a way Facebook did not approve when exposed. It is well known that -Facebook is selling out their users privacy, but a scandal -nevertheless. Of course the information provided to them by Facebook -would be misused by one of the parties given access to personal -information about the millions of Facebook users. Collected -information will be misused sooner or later. The only way to avoid -such misuse, is to not collect the information in the first place. If -you do not want Facebook to hand out information about yourself for -the use and misuse of its customers, do not give Facebook the -information.

- -

Personally, I would recommend to completely remove your Facebook -account, and take back some control of your personal information. -According -to The Guardian, it is a bit hard to find out how to request -account removal (and not just 'disabling'). You need to -visit -a specific Facebook page and click on 'let us know' on that page -to get to the -real account deletion screen. Perhaps something to consider? I -would not trust the information to really be deleted (who knows, -perhaps NSA, GCHQ and FRA already got a copy), but it might reduce the -exposure a bit.

- -

If you want to learn more about the capabilities of Cambridge -Analytica, I recommend to see the video recording of the one hour talk -Paul-Olivier Dehaye gave to NUUG last april about - -Data collection, psychometric profiling and their impact on -politics.

- -

And if you want to communicate with your friends and loved ones, -use some end-to-end encrypted method like -Signal or -Ring, and stop sharing your private -messages with strangers like Facebook and Google.

+ +
4th October 2018
+

A few days, I rescued a Windows victim over to Debian. To try to +rescue the remains, I helped set up automatic sync with Google Drive. +I did not find any sensible Debian package handling this +automatically, so I rebuild the grive2 source from +the Ubuntu UPD8 PPA to do the +task and added a autostart desktop entry and a small shell script to +run in the background while the user is logged in to do the sync. +Here is a sketch of the setup for future reference.

+ +

I first created ~/googledrive, entered the directory and +ran 'grive -a' to authenticate the machine/user. Next, I +created a autostart hook in ~/.config/autostart/grive.desktop +to start the sync when the user log in:

+ +

+[Desktop Entry]
+Name=Google drive autosync
+Type=Application
+Exec=/home/user/bin/grive-sync
+

+ +

Finally, I wrote the ~/bin/grive-sync script to sync +~/googledrive/ with the files in Google Drive.

+ +

+#!/bin/sh
+set -e
+cd ~/
+cleanup() {
+    if [ "$syncpid" ] ; then
+        kill $syncpid
+    fi
+}
+trap cleanup EXIT INT QUIT
+/usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh listen googledrive 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%" &
+syncpdi=$!
+while true; do
+    if ! xhost >/dev/null 2>&1 ; then
+        echo "no DISPLAY, exiting as the user probably logged out"
+        exit 1
+    fi
+    if [ ! -e /run/user/1000/grive-sync.sh_googledrive ] ; then
+        /usr/lib/grive/grive-sync.sh sync googledrive
+    fi
+    sleep 300
+done 2>&1 | sed "s%^%$0:%"
+

+ +

Feel free to use the setup if you want. It can be assumed to be +GNU GPL v2 licensed (or any later version, at your leisure), but I +doubt this code is possible to claim copyright on.

+ +

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

- Tags: english, personvern. + Tags: debian, english.
@@ -327,67 +473,161 @@ messages with strangers like Facebook and Google.

- -
14th March 2018
-

I går kom det nok et argument for å holde seg unna det norske -helsevesenet. Da annonserte et stortingsflertall, bestående av Høyre, -Arbeiderpartiet, Fremskrittspartiet og Venstre, at de går inn for å -samle inn og lagre DNA-prøver fra hele befolkningen i Norge til evig -tid. Endringen gjelder innsamlede blodprøver fra nyfødte i Norge. -Det vil dermed ta litt tid før en har hele befolkningen, men det er -dit vi havner gitt nok tid. I dag er det nesten hundre prosent -oppslutning om undersøkelsen som gjøres like etter fødselen, på -bakgrunn av blodprøven det er snakk om å lagre, for å oppdage endel -medfødte sykdommer. Blodprøven lagres i dag i inntil seks år. -Stortingets -flertallsinnstilling er at tidsbegrensingen skal fjernes, og mener -at tidsubegrenset lagring ikke vil påvirke oppslutningen om -undersøkelsen.

- -

Datatilsynet har ikke akkurat applaudert forslaget:

- -

- -

«Datatilsynet mener forslaget ikke i tilstrekkelig grad - synliggjør hvilke etiske og personvernmessige utfordringer som må - diskuteres før en etablerer en nasjonal biobank med blodprøver fra - hele befolkningen.»

- -

- -

Det er flere historier om hvordan innsamlet biologisk materiale har -blitt brukt til andre formål enn de ble innsamlet til, og historien om -folkehelseinstituttets -lagring på vegne av politiet (Kripos) av innsamlet biologisk materiale -og DNA-informasjon i strid med loven viser at en ikke kan være -trygg på at lover og intensjoner beskytter de som blir berørt mot -misbruk av slik privat og personlig informasjon.

- -

Det er verdt å merke seg at det kan forskes på de innsamlede -blodprøvene uten samtykke fra den det gjelder (eller foreldre når det -gjelder barn), etter en lovendring for en stund tilbake, med mindre -det er sendt inn skjema der en reserverer seg mot forskning uten -samtykke. Skjemaet er tilgjengelig fra -folkehelseinstituttets -websider, og jeg anbefaler, uavhengig av denne saken, varmt alle å -sende inn skjemaet for å dokumentere hvor mange som ikke synes det er -greit å fjerne krav om samtykke.

- -

I tillegg bør en kreve destruering av alt biologisk materiale som -er samlet inn om en selv, for å redusere eventuelle negative -konsekvenser i fremtiden når materialet kommer på avveie eller blir -brukt uten samtykke, men det er så vidt jeg vet ikke noe system for -dette i dag.

- -

Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til -det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner -til min adresse +

+
29th September 2018
+

It would come as no surprise to anyone that I am interested in +bitcoins and virtual currencies. I've been keeping an eye on virtual +currencies for many years, and it is part of the reason a few months +ago, I started writing a python library for collecting currency +exchange rates and trade on virtual currency exchanges. I decided to +name the end result valutakrambod, which perhaps can be translated to +small currency shop.

+ +

The library uses the tornado python library to handle HTTP and +websocket connections, and provide a asynchronous system for +connecting to and tracking several services. The code is available +from +github.

+ +

There are two example clients of the library. One is very simple and +list every updated buy/sell price received from the various services. +This code is started by running bin/btc-rates and call the client code +in valutakrambod/client.py. The simple client look like this:

+ +

+import functools
+import tornado.ioloop
+import valutakrambod
+class SimpleClient(object):
+    def __init__(self):
+        self.services = []
+        self.streams = []
+        pass
+    def newdata(self, service, pair, changed):
+        print("%-15s %s-%s: %8.3f %8.3f" % (
+            service.servicename(),
+            pair[0],
+            pair[1],
+            service.rates[pair]['ask'],
+            service.rates[pair]['bid'])
+        )
+    async def refresh(self, service):
+        await service.fetchRates(service.wantedpairs)
+    def run(self):
+        self.ioloop = tornado.ioloop.IOLoop.current()
+        self.services = valutakrambod.service.knownServices()
+        for e in self.services:
+            service = e()
+            service.subscribe(self.newdata)
+            stream = service.websocket()
+            if stream:
+                self.streams.append(stream)
+            else:
+                # Fetch information from non-streaming services immediately
+                self.ioloop.call_later(len(self.services),
+                                       functools.partial(self.refresh, service))
+                # as well as regularly
+                service.periodicUpdate(60)
+        for stream in self.streams:
+            stream.connect()
+        try:
+            self.ioloop.start()
+        except KeyboardInterrupt:
+            print("Interrupted by keyboard, closing all connections.")
+            pass
+        for stream in self.streams:
+            stream.close()
+

+ +

The library client loops over all known "public" services, +initialises it, subscribes to any updates from the service, checks and +activates websocket streaming if the service provide it, and if no +streaming is supported, fetches information from the service and sets +up a periodic update every 60 seconds. The output from this client +can look like this:

+ +

+Bl3p            BTC-EUR: 5687.110 5653.690
+Bl3p            BTC-EUR: 5687.110 5653.690
+Bl3p            BTC-EUR: 5687.110 5653.690
+Hitbtc          BTC-USD: 6594.560 6593.690
+Hitbtc          BTC-USD: 6594.560 6593.690
+Bl3p            BTC-EUR: 5687.110 5653.690
+Hitbtc          BTC-USD: 6594.570 6593.690
+Bitstamp        EUR-USD:    1.159    1.154
+Hitbtc          BTC-USD: 6594.570 6593.690
+Hitbtc          BTC-USD: 6594.580 6593.690
+Hitbtc          BTC-USD: 6594.580 6593.690
+Hitbtc          BTC-USD: 6594.580 6593.690
+Bl3p            BTC-EUR: 5687.110 5653.690
+Paymium         BTC-EUR: 5680.000 5620.240
+

+ +

The exchange order book is tracked in addition to the best buy/sell +price, for those that need to know the details.

+ +

The other example client is focusing on providing a curses view +with updated buy/sell prices as soon as they are received from the +services. This code is located in bin/btc-rates-curses and activated +by using the '-c' argument. Without the argument the "curses" output +is printed without using curses, which is useful for debugging. The +curses view look like this:

+ +

+           Name Pair   Bid         Ask         Spr    Ftcd    Age
+ BitcoinsNorway BTCEUR   5591.8400   5711.0800   2.1%   16    nan     60
+       Bitfinex BTCEUR   5671.0000   5671.2000   0.0%   16     22     59
+        Bitmynt BTCEUR   5580.8000   5807.5200   3.9%   16     41     60
+         Bitpay BTCEUR   5663.2700         nan   nan%   15    nan     60
+       Bitstamp BTCEUR   5664.8400   5676.5300   0.2%    0      1      1
+           Bl3p BTCEUR   5653.6900   5684.9400   0.5%    0    nan     19
+       Coinbase BTCEUR   5600.8200   5714.9000   2.0%   15    nan    nan
+         Kraken BTCEUR   5670.1000   5670.2000   0.0%   14     17     60
+        Paymium BTCEUR   5620.0600   5680.0000   1.1%    1   7515    nan
+ BitcoinsNorway BTCNOK  52898.9700  54034.6100   2.1%   16    nan     60
+        Bitmynt BTCNOK  52960.3200  54031.1900   2.0%   16     41     60
+         Bitpay BTCNOK  53477.7833         nan   nan%   16    nan     60
+       Coinbase BTCNOK  52990.3500  54063.0600   2.0%   15    nan    nan
+        MiraiEx BTCNOK  52856.5300  54100.6000   2.3%   16    nan    nan
+ BitcoinsNorway BTCUSD   6495.5300   6631.5400   2.1%   16    nan     60
+       Bitfinex BTCUSD   6590.6000   6590.7000   0.0%   16     23     57
+         Bitpay BTCUSD   6564.1300         nan   nan%   15    nan     60
+       Bitstamp BTCUSD   6561.1400   6565.6200   0.1%    0      2      1
+       Coinbase BTCUSD   6504.0600   6635.9700   2.0%   14    nan    117
+         Gemini BTCUSD   6567.1300   6573.0700   0.1%   16     89    nan
+         Hitbtc+BTCUSD   6592.6200   6594.2100   0.0%    0      0      0
+         Kraken BTCUSD   6565.2000   6570.9000   0.1%   15     17     58
+  Exchangerates EURNOK      9.4665      9.4665   0.0%   16 107789    nan
+     Norgesbank EURNOK      9.4665      9.4665   0.0%   16 107789    nan
+       Bitstamp EURUSD      1.1537      1.1593   0.5%    4      5      1
+  Exchangerates EURUSD      1.1576      1.1576   0.0%   16 107789    nan
+ BitcoinsNorway LTCEUR      1.0000     49.0000  98.0%   16    nan    nan
+ BitcoinsNorway LTCNOK    492.4800    503.7500   2.2%   16    nan     60
+ BitcoinsNorway LTCUSD      1.0221     49.0000  97.9%   15    nan    nan
+     Norgesbank USDNOK      8.1777      8.1777   0.0%   16 107789    nan
+

+ +

The code for this client is too complex for a simple blog post, so +you will have to check out the git repository to figure out how it +work. What I can tell is how the three last numbers on each line +should be interpreted. The first is how many seconds ago information +was received from the service. The second is how long ago, according +to the service, the provided information was updated. The last is an +estimate on how often the buy/sell values change.

+ +

If you find this library useful, or would like to improve it, I +would love to hear from you. Note that for some of the services I've +implemented a trading API. It might be the topic of a future blog +post.

+ +

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

@@ -395,53 +635,38 @@ til min adresse
- -
13th March 2018
-

I am working on publishing yet another book related to Creative -Commons. This time it is a book filled with interviews and histories -from those around the globe making a living using Creative -Commons.

- -

Yesterday, after many months of hard work by several volunteer -translators, the first draft of a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the book -Made with Creative Commons from 2017 -was complete. The Spanish translation is also complete, while the -Dutch, Polish, German and Ukraine edition need a lot of work. Get in -touch if you want to help make those happen, or would like to -translate into your mother tongue.

- -

The whole book project started when -Gunnar Wolf announced that he -was going to make a Spanish edition of the book. I noticed, and -offered some input on how to make a book, based on my experience with -translating the -Free -Culture and -The Debian -Administrator's Handbook books to Norwegian Bokmål. To make a -long story short, we ended up working on a Bokmål edition, and now the -first rough translation is complete, thanks to the hard work of -Ole-Erik Yrvin, Ingrid Yrvin, Allan Nordhøy and myself. The first -proof reading is almost done, and only the second and third proof -reading remains. We will also need to translate the 14 figures and -create a book cover. Once it is done we will publish the book on -paper, as well as in PDF, ePub and possibly Mobi formats.

- -

The book itself originates as a manuscript on Google Docs, is -downloaded as ODT from there and converted to Markdown using pandoc. -The Markdown is modified by a script before is converted to DocBook -using pandoc. The DocBook is modified again using a script before it -is used to create a Gettext POT file for translators. The translated -PO file is then combined with the earlier mentioned DocBook file to -create a translated DocBook file, which finally is given to dblatex to -create the final PDF. The end result is a set of editions of the -manuscript, one English and one for each of the translations.

- -

The translation is conducted using -the -Weblate web based translation system. Please have a look there -and get in touch if you would like to help out with proof -reading. :)

+ +
24th September 2018
+

Back in February, I got curious to see +if +VLC now supported Bittorrent streaming. It did not, despite the +fact that the idea and code to handle such streaming had been floating +around for years. I did however find +a standalone plugin +for VLC to do it, and half a year later I decided to wrap up the +plugin and get it into Debian. I uploaded it to NEW a few days ago, +and am very happy to report that it +entered +Debian a few hours ago, and should be available in Debian/Unstable +tomorrow, and Debian/Testing in a few days.

+ +

With the vlc-plugin-bittorrent package installed you should be able +to stream videos using a simple call to

+ +

+vlc https://archive.org/download/TheGoat/TheGoat_archive.torrent
+

+ +

It can handle magnet links too. Now if only native vlc had +bittorrent support. Then a lot more would be helping each other to +share public domain and creative commons movies. The plugin need some +stability work with seeking and picking the right file in a torrent +with many files, but is already usable. Please note that the plugin +is not removing downloaded files when vlc is stopped, so it can fill +up your disk if you are not careful. Have fun. :)

+ +

I would love to get help maintaining this package. Get in touch if +you are interested.

As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address @@ -450,7 +675,7 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address

- Tags: docbook, english. + Tags: english, verkidetfri, video.
@@ -458,45 +683,26 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
- -
2nd March 2018
-

Today I was pleasantly surprised to discover my operating system of -choice, Debian, was used in the info screens on the subway stations. -While passing Nydalen subway station in Oslo, Norway, I discovered the -info screen booting with some text scrolling. I was not quick enough -with my camera to be able to record a video of the scrolling boot -screen, but I did get a photo from when the boot got stuck with a -corrupt file system: - -

[photo of subway info screen]

- -

While I am happy to see Debian used more places, some details of the -content on the screen worries me.

- -

The image show the version booting is 'Debian GNU/Linux lenny/sid', -indicating that this is based on code taken from Debian Unstable/Sid -after Debian Etch (version 4) was released 2007-04-08 and before -Debian Lenny (version 5) was released 2009-02-14. Since Lenny Debian -has released version 6 (Squeeze) 2011-02-06, 7 (Wheezy) 2013-05-04, 8 -(Jessie) 2015-04-25 and 9 (Stretch) 2017-06-15, according to -a Debian -version history on Wikpedia. This mean the system is running -around 10 year old code, with no security fixes from the vendor for -many years.

- -

This is not the first time I discover the Oslo subway company, -Ruter, running outdated software. In 2012, -I -discovered the ticket vending machines were running Windows 2000, -and this was -still -the case in 2016. Given the response from the responsible people -in 2016, I would assume the machines are still running unpatched -Windows 2000. Thus, an unpatched Debian setup come as no surprise.

- -

The photo is made available under the license terms -Creative Commons -4.0 Attribution International (CC BY 4.0).

+ +
2nd September 2018
+

I continue to explore my Kodi installation, and today I wanted to +tell it to play a youtube URL I received in a chat, without having to +insert search terms using the on-screen keyboard. After searching the +web for API access to the Youtube plugin and testing a bit, I managed +to find a recipe that worked. If you got a kodi instance with its API +available from http://kodihost/jsonrpc, you can try the following to +have check out a nice cover band.

+ +

curl --silent --header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
+  --data-binary '{ "id": 1, "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "Player.Open",
+  "params": {"item": { "file":
+  "plugin://plugin.video.youtube/play/?video_id=LuRGVM9O0qg" } } }' \
+  http://projector.local/jsonrpc

+ +

I've extended kodi-stream program to take a video source as its +first argument. It can now handle direct video links, youtube links +and 'desktop' to stream my desktop to Kodi. It is almost like a +Chromecast. :)

As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address @@ -505,7 +711,7 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address

- Tags: english, ruter. + Tags: debian, english, kodi, video.
@@ -513,39 +719,19 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
- -
18th February 2018
-

Surprising as it might sound, there are still computers using the -traditional Sys V init system, and there probably will be until -systemd start working on Hurd and FreeBSD. -The upstream -project still exist, though, and up until today, the upstream -source was available from Savannah via subversion. I am happy to -report that this just changed.

- -

The upstream source is now in Git, and consist of three -repositories:

- - - -

I do not really spend much time on the project these days, and I -has mostly retired, but found it best to migrate the source to a good -version control system to help those willing to move it forward.

- -

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

+ +
30th August 2018
+

It might seem obvious that software created using tax money should +be available for everyone to use and improve. Free Software +Foundation Europe recentlystarted a campaign to help get more people +to understand this, and I just signed the petition on +Public Money, Public Code to help +them. I hope you too will do the same.

- Tags: bootsystem, english. + Tags: english, opphavsrett.
@@ -571,7 +757,17 @@ activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
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