X-Git-Url: http://pere.pagekite.me/gitweb/homepage.git/blobdiff_plain/dca10750d5a89ac858735fcd8febd00a3423e312..a02d87d8d3f93159607ed0fd5ee754fb59d739aa:/blog/index.html diff --git a/blog/index.html b/blog/index.html index c651a763bf..1f5ada54a1 100644 --- a/blog/index.html +++ b/blog/index.html @@ -19,18 +19,140 @@ +
+
Is Pentagon deciding the Norwegian negotiating position on Internet governance?
+
3rd November 2015
+

In Norway, all government offices are required by law to keep a +list of every document or letter arriving and leaving their offices. +Internal notes should also be documented. The document list (called a mail +journal - "postjournal" in Norwegian) is public information and thanks +to the Norwegian Freedom of Information Act (Offentleglova) the mail +journal is available for everyone. Most offices even publish the mail +journal on their web pages, as PDFs or tables in web pages. The state-level offices even have a shared web based search service (called +Offentlig Elektronisk Postjournal - +OEP) to make it possible to search the entries in the list. Not +all journal entries show up on OEP, and the search service is hard to +use, but OEP does make it easier to find at least some interesting +journal entries .

+ +

In 2012 I came across a document in the mail journal for the +Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications on OEP that +piqued my interest. The title of the document was +"Internet +Governance and how it affects national security" (Norwegian: +"Internet Governance og påvirkning på nasjonal sikkerhet"). The +document date was 2012-05-22, and it was said to be sent from the +"Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations". I asked for a +copy, but my request was rejected with a reference to a legal clause said to authorize them to reject it +(offentleglova § 20, +letter c) and an explanation that the document was exempt because +of foreign policy interests as it contained information related to the +Norwegian negotiating position, negotiating strategies or similar. I +was told the information in the document related to the ongoing +negotiation in the International Telecommunications Union (ITU). The +explanation made sense to me in early January 2013, as a ITU +conference in Dubay discussing Internet Governance +(World +Conference on International Telecommunications - WCIT-12) had just +ended, +reportedly +in chaos when USA walked out of the negotiations and 25 countries +including Norway refused to sign the new treaty. It seemed +reasonable to believe talks were still going on a few weeks later. +Norway was represented at the ITU meeting by two authorities, the +Norwegian Communications Authority +and the Ministry of +Transport and Communications. This might be the reason the letter +was sent to the ministry. As I was unable to find the document in the +mail journal of any Norwegian UN mission, I asked the ministry who had +sent the document to the ministry, and was told that it was the Deputy +Permanent Representative with the Permanent Mission of Norway in +Geneva.

+ +

Three years later, I was still curious about the content of that +document, and again asked for a copy, believing the negotiation was +over now. This time +I +asked both the Ministry of Transport and Communications as the +receiver and +asked +the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva as the sender for a +copy, to see if they both agreed that it should be withheld from the +public. The ministry upheld its rejection quoting the same law +reference as before, while the permanent mission rejected it quoting a +different clause +(offentleglova § 20 +letter b), claiming that they were required to keep the +content of the document from the public because it contained +information given to Norway with the expressed or implied expectation +that the information should not be made public. I asked the permanent +mission for an explanation, and was told that the document contained +an account from a meeting held in the Pentagon for a limited group of NATO +nations where the organiser of the meeting did not intend the content +of the meeting to be publicly known. They explained that giving me a +copy might cause Norway to not get access to similar information in +the future and thus hurt the future foreign interests of Norway. They +also explained that the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was not +the author of the document, they only got a copy of it, and because of +this had not listed it in their mail journal.

+ +

Armed with this +knowledge I asked the Ministry to reconsider and asked who was the +author of the document, now realising that it was not same as the +"sender" according to Ministry of Transport and Communications. The +ministry upheld its rejection but told me the name of the author of +the document. According to +a +government report the author was with the Permanent Mission of +Norway in New York a bit more than a year later (2014-09-22), so I +guessed that might be the office responsible for writing and sending +the report initially and +asked +them for a copy but I was obviously wrong as I was told that the +document was unknown to them and that the author did not work there +when the document was written. Next, I asked the Permanent Mission of +Norway in Geneva and the Foreign Ministry to reconsider and at least +tell me who sent the document to Deputy Permanent Representative with +the Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva. The Foreign Ministry also +upheld its rejection, but told me that the person sending the document +to Permanent Mission of Norway in Geneva was the defence attaché with +the Norwegian Embassy in Washington. I do not know if this is the +same person as the author of the document.

+ +

If I understand the situation correctly, someone capable of +inviting selected NATO nations to a meeting in Pentagon organised a +meeting where someone representing the Norwegian defence attaché in +Washington attended, and the account from this meeting is interpreted +by the Ministry of Transport and Communications to expose Norways +negotiating position, negotiating strategies and similar regarding the +ITU negotiations on Internet Governance. It is truly amazing what can +be derived from mere meta-data.

+ +

I wonder which NATO countries besides Norway attended this meeting? +And what exactly was said and done at the meeting? Anyone know?

+
+
+ + + Tags: english, offentlig innsyn, opphavsrett, personvern. + + +
+
+
+
New book, "Fri kultur" by @lessig, a Norwegian Bokmål translation of "Free Culture" from 2004
31st October 2015

People keep asking me where to get the various forms of the book I published last week, the Norwegian Bokmål edition of Lawrence Lessigs -book Free Culture. It was published on paper via lulu.com, and is -also available in PDF, ePub and MOBI format. I currently sell the -paper edition for self cost from lulu.com, but might extend the -distribution to book stores like Amazon and Barnes & Noble later. -This will double the price and force me to make a profit from selling -the book. Anyway, here are links to get the book in different -formats:

+book Free Culture. It was +published on paper via lulu.com, and is also available in PDF, ePub +and MOBI format. I currently sell the paper edition for self cost +from lulu.com, but might extend the distribution to book stores like +Amazon and Barnes & Noble later. This will double the price and force +me to make a profit from selling the book. Anyway, here are links to +get the book in different formats:

-
-
The life and death of a laptop battery
-
24th September 2015
-

When I get a new laptop, the battery life time at the start is OK. -But this do not last. The last few laptops gave me a feeling that -within a year, the life time is just a fraction of what it used to be, -and it slowly become painful to use the laptop without power connected -all the time. Because of this, when I got a new Thinkpad X230 laptop -about two years ago, I decided to monitor its battery state to have -more hard facts when the battery started to fail.

- - - -

First I tried to find a sensible Debian package to record the -battery status, assuming that this must be a problem already handled -by someone else. I found -battery-stats, -which collects statistics from the battery, but it was completely -broken. I sent a few suggestions to the maintainer, but decided to -write my own collector as a shell script while I waited for feedback -from him. Via -a -blog post about the battery development on a MacBook Air I also -discovered -batlog, not -available in Debian.

- -

I started my collector 2013-07-15, and it has been collecting -battery stats ever since. Now my -/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log file contain around 115,000 -measurements, from the time the battery was working great until now, -when it is unable to charge above 7% of original capacity. My -collector shell script is quite simple and look like this:

- -
-#!/bin/sh
-# Inspired by
-# http://www.ifweassume.com/2013/08/the-de-evolution-of-my-laptop-battery.html
-# See also
-# http://blog.sleeplessbeastie.eu/2013/01/02/debian-how-to-monitor-battery-capacity/
-logfile=/var/log/hjemmenett-battery-status.log
-
-files="manufacturer model_name technology serial_number \
-    energy_full energy_full_design energy_now cycle_count status"
-
-if [ ! -e "$logfile" ] ; then
-    (
-	printf "timestamp,"
-	for f in $files; do
-	    printf "%s," $f
-	done
-	echo
-    ) > "$logfile"
-fi
-
-log_battery() {
-    # Print complete message in one echo call, to avoid race condition
-    # when several log processes run in parallel.
-    msg=$(printf "%s," $(date +%s); \
-	for f in $files; do \
-	    printf "%s," $(cat $f); \
-	done)
-    echo "$msg"
-}
-
-cd /sys/class/power_supply
-
-for bat in BAT*; do
-    (cd $bat && log_battery >> "$logfile")
-done
-
- -

The script is called when the power management system detect a -change in the power status (power plug in or out), and when going into -and out of hibernation and suspend. In addition, it collect a value -every 10 minutes. This make it possible for me know when the battery -is discharging, charging and how the maximum charge change over time. -The code for the Debian package -is now -available on github.

- -

The collected log file look like this:

- -
-timestamp,manufacturer,model_name,technology,serial_number,energy_full,energy_full_design,energy_now,cycle_count,status,
-1376591133,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,62800000,62160000,39050000,0,Discharging,
-[...]
-1443090528,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
-1443090601,LGC,45N1025,Li-ion,974,4900000,62160000,4900000,0,Full,
-
- -

I wrote a small script to create a graph of the charge development -over time. This graph depicted above show the slow death of my laptop -battery.

- -

But why is this happening? Why are my laptop batteries always -dying in a year or two, while the batteries of space probes and -satellites keep working year after year. If we are to believe -Battery -University, the cause is me charging the battery whenever I have a -chance, and the fix is to not charge the Lithium-ion batteries to 100% -all the time, but to stay below 90% of full charge most of the time. -I've been told that the Tesla electric cars -limit -the charge of their batteries to 80%, with the option to charge to -100% when preparing for a longer trip (not that I would want a car -like Tesla where rights to privacy is abandoned, but that is another -story), which I guess is the option we should have for laptops on -Linux too.

- -

Is there a good and generic way with Linux to tell the battery to -stop charging at 80%, unless requested to charge to 100% once in -preparation for a longer trip? I found -one -recipe on askubuntu for Ubuntu to limit charging on Thinkpad to -80%, but could not get it to work (kernel module refused to -load).

- -

I wonder why the battery capacity was reported to be more than 100% -at the start. I also wonder why the "full capacity" increases some -times, and if it is possible to repeat the process to get the battery -back to design capacity. And I wonder if the discharge and charge -speed change over time, or if this stay the same. I did not yet try -to write a tool to calculate the derivative values of the battery -level, but suspect some interesting insights might be learned from -those.

- -

Update 2015-09-24: I got a tip to install the packages -acpi-call-dkms and tlp (unfortunately missing in Debian stable) -packages instead of the tp-smapi-dkms package I had tried to use -initially, and use 'tlp setcharge 40 80' to change when charging start -and stop. I've done so now, but expect my existing battery is toast -and need to be replaced. The proposal is unfortunately Thinkpad -specific.

-
-
- - - Tags: debian, english. - - -
-
-
-

RSS feed