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        <channel>
                <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
                <description></description>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
                <atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
        
        <item>
                <title>Why isn&#39;t the value of copyright taxed?</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Why_isn_t_the_value_of_copyright_taxed_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sat, 17 Nov 2012 11:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;While working on a
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;Norwegian
translation of the Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig&lt;/a&gt; (76% done),
which cover the problems with todays copyright law and how it stifles
creativity, one idea occurred to me.  The idea is to get the tax
office to help make more works enter the public domain and also help
make it easier to clear rights for using copyrighted works.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I mentioned this idea briefly during Yesterdays
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.farmann.no/2012/11/14/john-perry-barlow-in-oslo-friday-nov-16
-15-30-19-00/&quot;&gt;presentation
from John Perry Barlow&lt;/a&gt;, and concluded that it was best to put it
in writing for a wider audience.  The idea is not really based on the
argument that copyrighted works are &quot;intellectual property&quot;, as the
core requirement is that copyrighted work have value for the copyright
holder and the tax office like to collect their share from any value
controlled by the citizens in a country.  I&#39;m sharing the idea here to
let others consider it and perhaps shoot it down with a fresh set of
arguments.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Most valuables are taxed by the government.  At least here in
Norway, the amount of money you have, the value of our land property,
the value of your house, the value of your car, the value of our
stocks and other valuables are all added together.  If the tax value
of these values exceed your debt, you have to pay the tax office some
taxes for these values.  And copyrighted work have value.  It have
value for the rights holder, who can earn money selling access to the
work.  But it is not included in the tax calculations?  Why not?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If the government want to tax copyrighted works, it would want to
maintain a database of all the copyrighted works and who are the
rights holders for a given works, to be able to associate the works
value to the right citizen or company for tax purposes.  If such
database exist, it will become a lot easier to find out who to talk to
for clearing permissions to use a copyrighted work, which is a very
hard operation with todays copyright law.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If copyright causes copyright holders to have to pay more taxes,
they will have a small incentive to &quot;disown&quot; their copyright, and let
the work enter the public domain. For works with several right holders
one of the right holders could state (and get it registered in the
database) that she do not need to be consulted when clearing rights to
use the work in question and thus will not get any income from that
work.  Stating this would have to be impossible to revert and stop the
tax office from adding the value of that work to the given citizens
tax calculation.  I assume the copyright law would stay the same,
allowing creators to pick a license of their choosing, and also
allowing them to put their work directly in the public domain.  The
existence of such database will make it even easier to clear rights,
and if the right holders listed in the database is taxed, this system
would increase the amount of works that enter the public domain.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The effect would be that the tax office help to make it easier to
get rights to use the works that have not yet entered the public
domain and help to get more work into the public domain and .&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Why have such taxing not happened yet?  I am sure the tax office
would like to tax copyrighted work values if they could.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>BankID skal ikke gi tilgang til min personsensitive informasjon</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BankID_skal_ikke_gi_tilgang_til_min_personsensitive_informasjon.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/BankID_skal_ikke_gi_tilgang_til_min_personsensitive_informasjon.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 16 Nov 2012 12:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Onsdag i denne uka annonserte
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fad.dep.no/&quot;&gt;Fornyingsdepartementet&lt;/a&gt; at de har
inngått kontrakt med BankID Norge om bruk av BankID for å la borgerne
logge inn på offentlige nettsider der en kan få tilgang til
personsensitiv informasjon.  Jeg skrev i 2009 litt om
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Jeg_vil_ikke_ha_BankID.html&quot;&gt;hvorfor
jeg ikke vil ha BankID&lt;/a&gt; &amp;mdash; jeg stoler ikke nok på en bank til
å gi dem mulighet til å inngå avtaler på mine vegne.  Jeg forlanger at
jeg skal være involvert når det skal inngås avtaler på mine vegne.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg har derfor valgt å bruke
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skandibanken.no/&quot;&gt;Skandiabanken&lt;/a&gt; (det er flere
banker som ikke krever BankID, se
&lt;a href=&quot;http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/BankID&quot;&gt;Wikipedia for en
liste&lt;/a&gt;) på grunn av at de ikke tvinger sine kunder til å bruke
BankID.  I motsetning til Postbanken, som løy til meg i 2009 da
kundestøtten der sa at det var blitt et krav fra Kreditttilsynet og
BBS om at norske banker måtte innføre BankID, har ikke Skandiabanken
forsøkt å tvinge meg til å ta i bruk BankID.  Jeg fikk nylig endelig
spurt Finanstilsynet (de har byttet navn siden 2009), og fikk beskjed
fra Frank Robert Berg hos Finanstilsynet i epost 2012-09-17 at
Finanstilsynet ikke har fremsatt slike krav.  Med andre ord snakket
ikke Postbankens kundestøtte sant i 2009.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Når en i tillegg fra
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/Tyver-kan-tappe-kontoen-din---selv-uten-passord-og-pinkode--6989793.html&quot;&gt;oppslag
i Aftenposten&lt;/a&gt; vet at de som jobber i alle bankene som bruker
BankID i dag, det være seg utro tjenere, eller de som lar seg lure av
falsk legitimasjon, kan lage og dele ut en BankID som gir tilgang til
mine kontoer og rett til å inngå avtaler på mine vegne, blir det
viktigere enn noen gang å få reservert seg mot BankID.  Det holder
ikke å la være å bruke det selv.  Jeg sendte derfor følgende
epost-brev til Fornyingsdepartementet i går:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 11:08:31 +0100
&lt;br&gt;From: Petter Reinholdtsen &amp;lt;pere (at) hungry.com&amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;To: postmottak (at) fad.dep.no
&lt;br&gt;Subject: Forespørsel om reservasjon mot bruk av BankID i ID-porten&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg viser til nyheten om at staten har tildelt kontrakt for å
levere elektronisk ID for offentlige digitale tjenester til BankID
Norge, referert til blant annet i Digi[1] og i FADs
pressemelding[2].&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;1) &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digi.no/906093/staten-gaar-for-bankid&quot;&gt;http://www.digi.no/906093/staten-gaar-for-bankid&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;
&lt;br&gt;2) &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/pressesenter/pressemeldinger/2012/staten-inngar-avtale-med-bankid.html&quot;&gt;http://www.regjeringen.no/nb/dep/fad/pressesenter/pressemeldinger/2012/staten-inngar-avtale-med-bankid.html&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Gitt BankIDs utforming, der BankID-utsteder har både privat og
offentlig del av kundens nøkkel hos seg, er jeg ikke villig til å gi
tilgang til informasjon som hører til min min privatsfære ved hjelp av
innlogging med BankID.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg ber derfor herved om at løsningen settes opp slik at ingen kan
logge inn som meg på offentlige digitale tjenester ved hjelp av
BankID, det vil si at jeg reserverer meg mot enhver bruk av BankID for
å logge meg inn på slike tjenester som kan inneholde personsensitiv
informasjon om meg.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg har ikke BankID i dag, men som en kan se i oppslag i Aftenposten
2012-09-13[3] er det ikke til hindrer for at andre kan bruke BankID på
mine vegne for å få tilgang.  Det sikkerhetsproblemet kommer i tillegg
til utformingsproblemet omtalt over, og forsterker bare mitt syn på at
BankID ikke er aktuelt for meg til noe annet enn å logge inn i en
nettbank der banken i større grad bærer risikoen ved misbruk.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;3) &amp;lt;URL: &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/Tyver-kan-tappe-kontoen-din---selv-uten-passord-og-pinkode--6989793.html&quot;&gt;http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/iriks/Tyver-kan-tappe-kontoen-din---selv-uten-passord-og-pinkode--6989793.html&lt;/a&gt; &amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Jeg ber om rask tilbakemelding med saksnummer for min henvendelse.
Jeg ber videre om bekreftelse på at BankID-innlogging er blokkert når
det gjelder tilgang til &quot;min&quot; informasjon hos det offentlige, i
forkant av BankID-integrasjon mot ID-porten som i følge
pressemeldingen skal komme på plass i løpet av et par uker.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;-- 
&lt;br&gt;Vennlig hilsen
&lt;br&gt;Petter Reinholdtsen&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;
                 
&lt;p&gt;Jeg venter spent på svaret.  Jeg mistenker jeg må sende tilsvarende
beskjed til mine bankforbindelser for å sikre mine bankkontoer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Hvis det skal brukes offentlig nøkkel-teknologi til å inngå avtaler
på mine vegne og skaffe seg personsensitiv informasjon om meg, så er
mitt krav at det kun er jeg som har tilgang på min private nøkkel.
Alt annet blir å gi for mye tillit til andre.  Med BankID sitter andre
på både &quot;min&quot; offentlige og private nøkkel.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Debian Edu interview: Angela Fuß</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Angela_Fu_.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 14 Nov 2012 21:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Here is another interview with one of the people in the &lt;a
href=&quot;http://www.skolelinux.org/&quot;&gt;Debian Edu and Skolelinux&lt;/a&gt;
community.  I am running short on people willing to be interviewed, so
if you know about someone I should interview, Please send me an email.
After asking for many months, I finally managed to lure another one of
the people behind the German
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.it-zukunft-schule.de/&quot;&gt;IT-Zukunft Schule&lt;/a&gt;&quot;
project out from maternity leave to conduct an interview.  Give a warm
welcome to Angela Fuß. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Who are you, and how do you spend your days?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I am a 39-year-old woman living in the very north of Germany near
Denmark. I live in a patchwork family with &quot;my man&quot; Mike Gabriel, my
two daughters, Mikes daughter and Mikes and my rather newborn son.

&lt;p&gt;At the moment - because of our little baby - I am spending most of
the day by being a caring and organising mom for all the kids.
Besides that I am really involved into and occupied with several inner
growth processes: New born souls always bring the whole familiar
system into movement and that needs time and focus ;-).  We are also
in the middle of buying a house and moving to it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In 2013 I will work again in my job in a German foundation for
nature conservation. I am doing public relation work there.  Besides
that - and that is the connection to Skolelinux / Debian Edu - I am
working in our own school project &quot;IT-Zukunft Schule&quot; in North
Germany. I am responsible for the quality assurance, the customer
relationship management and the communication processes in the
project.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Since 2001 I constantly have been training myself in communication
and leadership. Besides that I am a forester, a landscaping gardener
and a yoga teacher.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;How did you get in contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu
project?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I fell in love with Mike ;-).&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Very soon after getting to know him I was completely enrolled into
Free Software.  At this time Mike did IT-services for one newly
founded school in Kiel. Other schools in Kiel needed concepts for
their IT environment.  Often when Mike came home from working at the
newly founded school I found myself listening to his complaints about
several points where the communication with the schools head or the
teachers did not work.  So we were clear that he would not work for
one more school if we did not set up a structure for communication
between him, the schools head, the teachers, the students and the
parents.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Together with our friend and hardware supplier Andreas Buchholz we
started to get an overview of free software solutions suitable for
schools. One day before Christmas 2010 Mike and I had a date with Kurt
Gramlich in Gütersloh. As Kurt and I are really interested in building
networks of people and in being in communication we dived into
Skolelinux and brought it to the first grammar schools in Northern
Germany.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For information about our school project you can read
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_Edu_interview__Mike_Gabriel.html&quot;&gt;the
interview with Mike Gabriel&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What do you see as the advantages of Skolelinux / Debian
Edu?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;First I have to say: I cannot answer this question technically. My
answer comes rather from a social point of view.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The biggest advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu I see is the large
and strong international community of Debian Developers in the
background which is very alive and connected over mailinglists, blogs
and meetings. My constant feeling for the Debian Community is: If
something does not work they will somehow fix it. All is well
;-). This is of course a user experience.  What I also get as a big
advantage of Skolelinux / Debian Edu is that everybody who uses it and
works with it can also contribute to it - that includes students,
teachers, parents...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What do you see as the disadvantages of Skolelinux / Debian
Edu?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I will answer this question relating to the internal structure of
Skolelinux / Debian Edu.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;What I see as a major disadvantage is that there is a gap between
the group of developers for Debian Edu and the people who make the
marketing, that means the people that bring Skolelinux to the
schools. There is a lack of communication between these two groups and
I think that does not really work for Skolelinux / Debian Edu.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Further I appreciate that Skolelinux / Debian Edu is known as a
do-ocracy. Nevertheless I keep asking myself if at some points a
democracy or some kind of hierarchical project structure would be good
and helpful.  I am also missing some kind of contact between the
Skolelinux / Debian Edu communities in Europe or on an international
level. I think it would be good if there was more sharing between the
different countries using Skolelinux / Debian Edu.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Which free software do you use daily?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;On my laptop I am still using an Ubuntu 10.04 with a Gnome Desktop
on.  As applications I use Openoffice.org, Gedit, Firefox, Pidgin,
LaTeX and GnuCash. For mails I am using Horde. And I am really fond of
my N900 running with Maemo.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Which strategy do you believe is the right one to use to
get schools to use free software?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I am really convinced that in our school project &quot;IT-Zukunft
Schule&quot; we have developed (and keep developing) a great way to get
schools to use Free Software. We have written a detailed concept for
that so I cannot explain the whole thing here. But in a nutshell the
strategy has three crucial pillars:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;

&lt;li&gt;We really take time to get what sort of stories, questions and
concerns the schools head and the teachers have about using different
kinds of IT and we take time to enrol them into Free Software.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;Our solution for schools is never just technical. In the centre
are always the people who are going to use the software. From the very
beginning of the planning for a school, we tell the schools head that
they are paying us not only for a technical solution for their school,
they also pay us for leading all the communication processes
needed. If they do not want that, we are not working with them because
we cannot give a guarantee for the quality of our work then.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;li&gt;Another focus lies in the training of teachers and students in
co-administrating the IT-System at their school. They start getting in
contact with the Skolelinux / Debian Edu community and they get the
offer to become more and more independent from us.&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ul&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>RFID-pass deler bilder av fingeravtrykkene dine ved enhver grensepassering</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RFID_pass_deler_bilder_av_fingeravtrykkene_dine_ved_enhver_grensepassering.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/RFID_pass_deler_bilder_av_fingeravtrykkene_dine_ved_enhver_grensepassering.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 11 Nov 2012 23:40:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Leste nettopp
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digi.no/905822/fikk-koffert-avtale&quot;&gt;Digiartikkel om
Idex&lt;/a&gt;, som stolt fortalte at de hadde fått en stor ny kunde av
fingeravtrykksløsningen de lager:

&lt;blockquote&gt;
Kunden skal utvikle sikkerhetslåser til bruk på kofferter som skal
produseres av markedsledende produsenter. Idexs fingeravtrykksensor og
tilhørende programvare vil bli en del av den elektroniske låsen, som
erstatning for nøkkel eller kode. Brukeren «innrullerer» fingeravtrykk
direkte på låsen og mekanismen vil låses opp bare dersom brukeren
sveiper en innrullert finger over sensoren.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det fascinerer meg at noen i Norge tror fingeravtrykk kan brukes
til å sikre noe som helst, gitt at elektroniske pass har bilder av
fingeravtrykkene elektronisk lesbart via RFID, og en må anta bildene
blir lest og arkivert ved enhver grensepassering en foretar seg.  I
tillegg kan RFID-pass leses på betydelig avstand (10-20 meter sier de
som har testet, f.eks. 
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.papersplease.org/wp/2009/02/03/drive-by-reader-for-rfid-drivers-licenses-and-passport-cards/&quot;&gt;Chris
Paget&lt;/a&gt;), slik at en ikke lenger trenger å invitere noen på et glass
eller en kaffe for å kunne få tak i vedkommendes fingeravtrykk.  Det
holder å ta med seg en RFID-leser til utenfor huset til vedkommende
eller kontrollere en passkontroll.  F.eks. skryter
&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Arab_Emirates&quot;&gt;De forente
Arabiske Emirater&lt;/a&gt; av at
&lt;a href=&quot;http://yro.slashdot.org/story/12/10/15/1651216/the-uae-claims-to-hold-the-worlds-largest-biometric-database&quot;&gt;de
har verdens største biometriske database&lt;/a&gt;, der databasen inneholder
103 millioner digitale fingeravtrykk.  Med en befolkning i følge
Wikipedia estimert i 2010 til 8.3 millioner har jeg vanskelig for å
tro at det kun er landets innbyggere de har fingeravtrykkene til.
Innbyggerne har neppe mer enn 10 fingre hver...&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;RFID-pass med fingeravtrykk betyr at bilder av ens fingeravtrykk er
på vidvanke, og en kan dermed ikke i god tro anta at fingeravtrykk kun
befinner seg hos fingerens eier.  Jeg vil ikke ha et slikt pass.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>59 kommuner omfavner nå FiksGataMi</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/59_kommuner_omfavner_n__FiksGataMi.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/59_kommuner_omfavner_n__FiksGataMi.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 5 Nov 2012 23:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://maps.google.com/?q=http://www.nuug.no/prosjekt/fiksgatami/fiksgatami-municipalities-201210.kml&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2012-10-17-fiksgatami.png&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For noen dager siden omfavnet to nye kommuner NUUGs
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.fiksgatami.no/&quot;&gt;FiksGataMi&lt;/a&gt;.  Med 59 kommuner
som lenker til FiksGataMi fra sine hjemmesider er &quot;markedsandelen&quot;
13,8 % (av 429 kommuner).  Sist ut er Stange og Utsira kommune, som
slår følge med kommunene Askim, Askøy, Audnedal, Aure, Balestrand,
Bærum, Eide, Farsund, Flekkefjord, Folldal, Gran, Grue, Hadsel,
Halden, Halsa, Hamar, Hobøl, Holtålen, Hægebostad, Høyanger,
Kongsberg, Kristiansund, Kvinesdal, Kviteseid, Levanger, Lindesnes,
Luster, Lyngdal, Løten, Mandal, Marnardal, Moss, Namsos, Nissedal,
Nordreisa, Randaberg, Rindal, Sel, Sirdal, Skiptvet, Sortland,
Spydeberg, Stjørdal, Stord, Søgne, Sør-Odal, Tolga, Trysil, Tynset,
Tysvær, Ullensvang Herad, Vennesla, Verdal, Vågan, Vågå, Våler og
Åseral.  Oppdatert liste er tilgjengelig fra
&lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.nuug.no/grupper/fiksgatami/positivemottakere&quot;&gt;NUUGs
wiki&lt;/a&gt;.  Kartet er dog ikke oppdatert med de siste kommunene.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Kanskje du bør høre med din kommune om de vil bli mer aktive
brukere av FiksGataMi?  Se
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/40_kommuner_lenker_n__til_FiksGataMi_fra_sine_nettsider___gj_r_din_.html&quot;&gt;en
tidligere bloggpost&lt;/a&gt; med tips om hvordan det kan gjøres.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I snitt rapporteres det nå via FiksGataMi ca. 100 meldinger i uka fra
innbyggerne om feil på offentlig infrastruktur.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>The European Central Bank (ECB) take a look at bitcoin</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_European_Central_Bank__ECB__take_a_look_at_bitcoin.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_European_Central_Bank__ECB__take_a_look_at_bitcoin.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 4 Nov 2012 08:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Slashdot just ran a story about the European Central Bank (ECB)
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/other/virtualcurrencyschemes201210en.pdf&quot;&gt;releasing
a report (PDF)&lt;/a&gt; about virtual currencies and
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bitcoin.org/&quot;&gt;bitcoin&lt;/a&gt;.  It is interesting to
see how a member of the bitcoin community
&lt;a href=&quot;http://blog.bitinstant.com/blog/2012/10/30/the-ecb-report-on-bitcoin-and-virtual-currencies.html&quot;&gt;receive
the report&lt;/a&gt;.  As for the future, I suspect the central banks and
the governments will outlaw bitcoin if it gain any popularity, to avoid
competition.  My thoughts go to the
&lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wörgl&quot;&gt;Wörgl experiment&lt;/a&gt; with
negative inflation on cash which was such a success that it was
terminated by the Austrian National Bank in 1933.  A successful
alternative would be a threat to the current money system and gain
powerful forces to work against it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;While checking out the current status of bitcoin, I also discovered
that the community already seem to have
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/27/3271637/bitcoin-savings-trust-pyramid-scheme-shuts-down&quot;&gt;experienced
its first pyramid game / Ponzi scheme&lt;/a&gt;.  Not very surprising, given
how members of &quot;small&quot; communities tend to trust each other.  I guess
enterprising crocks will try again and again, as they do anywhere
wealth is available.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Ode til Frikanalen...</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ode_til_Frikanalen___.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Ode_til_Frikanalen___.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 2 Nov 2012 23:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I 2009 bidro vi i &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;NUUG&lt;/a&gt; til at
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt; ble
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Frikanalen_og_jul_i_studentr_det.html&quot;&gt;tilgjengelig
i et fritt og åpent standardisert videoformat&lt;/a&gt;.  Bakgrunnen var at
vi i NUUG likte tanken på «Youtube på TV», der enhver borger kunne få
mulighet til å kringkaste sin video på TV, og NUUG ble medlem i
Frikanalen for å støtte dette arbeidet.  Frikanalen er borger-TV, der
alle kan være sin egen redaktør og lage TV uten solid finansielle
muskler.  Siden den gang har vi bistått kanalen på ulikt vis, blant
annet med å hjelpe til med å utvikle en løsning basert på fri
programvare for drift av TV-kanalen.  Dette utviklingsarbeidet pågår
fortsatt, men det er god fremgang og godt håp om å få på plass en
webbasert løsning for styring av TV-kanalen basert på fri programvare.
Dagens produksjonsløsning er basert på Windows og proprietær
programvare, et resultat av at kulturdepartementet krevde at
Frikanalen kom på lufta veldig raskt da departementet overtalte
Frivillighet Norge til å snappe opp konseptet.  Dagens
produksjonsløsning er dyr i drift, og en fri programvareløsning bør
kutte kostnadene litt.  Men det er fortsatt dyrt å kjøpe tilgang til å
sende ut på RiksTV og andre TV-distributører, noe som spiser av
kanalens begrensede midler.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Nytt for 2013 er dessverre at kulturdepartementet kutter all støtte
til Frikanalen.  Mens det i
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.regjeringen.no/pages/35168579/PDFS/PRP201120120001KUDDDDPDFS.pdf&quot;&gt;statsbudsjettet
for 2012&lt;/a&gt; sto følgende (side 55):&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;

Det foreslås et driftstilskudd på 1 mill. kroner i 2012 til
Frikanalen. Kulturdepartementet har inngått avtale om investerings- og
driftsstøtte til Frikanalen som gir et økonomisk grunnlag for kanalen
i oppstartsårene. En forutsetning for støtten er bl.a. at Frikanalen
tilstreber å være en reell ytringskanal for samtlige partier og lister
i forbindelse med valg.

&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Så har kulturdepartementet
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.knif.no/Innkjop/Knif-Samfunn/Informasjonsbrev/Informasjonsbrev-2012/Frikanalen&quot;&gt;kuttet
all støtte for 2013&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Statsbudsjettet 2013: Frikanalen&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Det er ikke satt av penger i statsbudsjettet for 2013 til Frikanalen.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Frivillighet Norge var fødselshjelper for foreningen Frikanalen i
2007. Kanalen har fått 1 mill kr i altfor lav bevilgning hvis kanalen
skulle klare å realisere målet om å være en opplæringsarena for
frivillige organisasjoner som ville lære å bruke billedspråk.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;TV-mediets posisjon som kommunikasjonskanal har endret seg
betydelig siden Frikanalen ble etablert. Det er supplert og til dels
erstattet av andre kommunikasjonskanaler, som det også er
ressurskrevende for organisasjonene å ta i bruk.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Når en ser bort fra den merkelige begrunnelsen, da Frikanalen så
vidt jeg vet aldri har tatt mål av seg «å være en opplæringsarena for
frivillige organisasjoner som ville lære å bruke billedspråk», så er
det veldig trist at kulturdepartementet kutter støtten.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Fundamentet for Frikanalen ble lagt da Stortinget vedtok
innføringen av det digitale bakkenettet.  En oversikt over
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.openchannel.no/stortinget.html&quot;&gt;det Stortinget
skrev&lt;/a&gt; da finnes på nettsidene til åpen kanal.  Der het det blant
annet om «åpne kanaler»:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;

Et annet flertall, alle unntatt medlemmene fra Fremskrittspartiet, vil
også peke på at man ut fra ønsket om en bredt anlagt offentlig debatt,
må se på den faktiske tilgjengelighet allmennheten har til
TV-mediet. I mange land har man ønsket å sikre denne tilgangen gjennom
egen lovgivning som forplikter allmennkringkastere eller distributører
å holde av en del av sendekapasiteten til livssynskanaler, ideelle
organisasjoner og lignende. I Norden betegnes dette gjerne som åpne
kanaler. Dette flertallet mener dette er et interessant område sett i
et ytringsfrihetsperspektiv. Dette flertallet mener derfor at staten
bør legge til rette for dette når man ved innføring av nye
distribusjonskanaler skal utarbeide regelverk og gi konsesjoner.
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Veien frem har gått over svært ulendt terreng, noe en kan se litt
av konturene av i en artikkel hos Vox Publica med tittel
«&lt;a href=&quot;http://voxpublica.no/2007/03/hvor-apen-blir-frikanalen/&quot;&gt;Hvor
åpen blir “Frikanalen”?&lt;/a&gt;».  Begge tekstene er nyttig lesning for å
forstå mer om hva Frikanalen er. Jeg anbefaler alle å støtte opp om
Frikanalen, bli medlem, lage og sende programmer der.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>12 years of outages - summarised by Stuart Kendrick</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/12_years_of_outages___summarised_by_Stuart_Kendrick.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I work at the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uio.no/&quot;&gt;University of Oslo&lt;/a&gt;
looking after the computers, mostly on the unix side, but in general
all over the place.  I am also a member (and currently leader) of
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;the NUUG association&lt;/a&gt;, which in turn
make me a member of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.usenix.org/&quot;&gt;USENIX&lt;/a&gt;.  NUUG
is an member organisation for us in Norway interested in free
software, open standards and unix like operating systems, and USENIX
is a US based member organisation with similar targets.  And thanks to
these memberships, I get all issues of the great USENIX magazine
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usenix.org/publications/login&quot;&gt;;login:&lt;/a&gt; in the
mail several times a year.  The magazine is great, and I read most of
it every time.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the last issue of the USENIX magazine ;login:, there is an
article by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skendric.com/&quot;&gt;Stuart Kendrick&lt;/a&gt; from
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center titled
&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/october-2012-volume-37-number-5/what-takes-us-down&quot;&gt;What
Takes Us Down&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (longer version also
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skendric.com/problem/incident-analysis/2012-06-30/What-Takes-Us-Down.pdf&quot;&gt;available
from his own site&lt;/a&gt;), where he report what he found when he
processed the outage reports (both planned and unplanned) from the
last twelve years and classified them according to cause, time of day,
etc etc.  The article is a good read to get some empirical data on
what kind of problems affect a data centre, but what really inspired
me was the kind of reporting they had put in place since 2000.&lt;p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The centre set up a mailing list, and started to send fairly
standardised messages to this list when a outage was planned or when
it already occurred, to announce the plan and get feedback on the
assumtions on scope and user impact.  Here is the two example from the
article: First the unplanned outage:

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
Subject:     Exchange 2003 Cluster Issues
Severity:    Critical (Unplanned)
Start:       Monday, May 7, 2012, 11:58
End:         Monday, May 7, 2012, 12:38
Duration:    40 minutes
Scope:       Exchange 2003
Description: The HTTPS service on the Exchange cluster crashed, triggering
             a cluster failover.

User Impact: During this period, all Exchange users were unable to
             access e-mail. Zimbra users were unaffected.
Technician:  [xxx]
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

Next the planned outage:

&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
Subject:     H Building Switch Upgrades
Severity:    Major (Planned)
Start:       Saturday, June 16, 2012, 06:00
End:         Saturday, June 16, 2012, 16:00
Duration:    10 hours
Scope:       H2 Transport
Description: Currently, Catalyst 4006s provide 10/100 Ethernet to end-
             stations. We will replace these with newer Catalyst
             4510s.
User Impact: All users on H2 will be isolated from the network during
             this work. Afterward, they will have gigabit
             connectivity.
Technician:  [xxx]
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;He notes in his article that the date formats and other fields have
been a bit too free form to make it easy to automatically process them
into a database for further analysis, and I would have used ISO 8601
dates myself to make it easier to process (in other words I would ask
people to write &#39;2012-06-16 06:00 +0000&#39; instead of the start time
format listed above).  There are also other issues with the format
that could be improved, read the article for the details.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I find the idea of standardising outage messages seem to be such a
good idea that I would like to get it implemented here at the
university too.  We do register
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.uio.no/tjenester/it/aktuelt/planlagte-tjenesteavbrudd/&quot;&gt;planned
changes and outages in a calendar&lt;/a&gt;, and report the to a mailing
list, but we do not do so in a structured format and there is not a
report to the same location for unplanned outages.  Perhaps something
for other sites to consider too?&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Amazon steal books from customer and throw out her out without any explanation</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Amazon_steal_books_from_customer_and_throw_out_her_out_without_any_explanation.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 20:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;A blog post from Martin Bekkelund today tell the story of
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.bekkelund.net/2012/10/22/outlawed-by-amazon-drm/&quot;&gt;how
Amazon erased the books from a customer&#39;s kindle, locked the account
and refuse to tell the customer why&lt;/a&gt;.  If a real book store did
this to a customer, it would be called breaking into private property
and theft.  The story has spread around the net today.  A bit more
background information is available in Norwegian from
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digi.no/904658/hun-ble-kastet-ut-av-amazon&quot;&gt;digi.no&lt;/a&gt;.
It is no surprise that digital restriction mechanisms (DRM) are used
this way, as it has been warned about such abuse since DRM was
introduced many years back.  And Amazon proved in 2009 that it was
willing to
&lt;a href=&quot;http://boingboing.net/2009/07/20/amazons-orwellian-de.html&quot;&gt;
break into customers equipment and remove the books&lt;/a&gt; people had
bought, when it removed the book 1984 by George Orwell from all the
customers who had bought it.  From the official comments, it even
sounded like
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/technology/companies/18amazon.html&quot;&gt;Amazon
would never do that again&lt;/a&gt;.  And here we are, three years
later.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And thought this action is
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.itavisen.no/904648/forbrukerraadet-helt-haarreisende&quot;&gt;against
Norwegian regulations and law&lt;/a&gt;, it is according to the terms of use
as written by Amazon, and it is hard to hold Amazon accountable to
Norwegian laws.  It is just yet another example of unacceptable terms
of use on the web, and how they are used to remove customer
rights.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Luckily for electronic books, there are alternatives without
unacceptable terms.  For example
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gutenberg.org/&quot;&gt;Project Gutenberg&lt;/a&gt; (about 40,000
books), &lt;a href=&quot;http://runeberg.org/&quot;&gt;Project Runenberg&lt;/a&gt; (1,652
books) and &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.archive.org/details/texts&quot;&gt;The Internet
Archive&lt;/a&gt; (3,641,797 books) have heaps of books without DRM, which
can read by anyone and shared with anyone.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Update 2012-10-23: This story broke in the morning on Monday. In
the evening after the story had spread all across the Internet, Amazon
restored the account of the user, as reported by
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.digi.no/904675/helomvending-fra-amazon&quot;&gt;digi.no&lt;/a&gt;
and &lt;a href=&quot;http://nrk.no/kultur-og-underholdning/1.8368487&quot;&gt;NRK&lt;/a&gt;.
Apparently public pressure work.  The story from Martin have seen
several twitter messages per minute the last 24 hours, which is quite
a lot, and is still drawing a lot of attention.  But even when the
account is restored, the fundamental problem still exist.  I recommend
reading two opinions from
&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/simon-says/2012/10/rights-you-have-no-right-to-your-ebooks/index.htm&quot;&gt;Simon
Phipps&lt;/a&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/10/is-amazon-playing-fair/index.htm&quot;&gt;Glen
Moody&lt;/a&gt; if you want to learn more about the fundamentals and more
details about the original story.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>The fight for freedom and privacy</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_fight_for_freedom_and_privacy.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 18 Oct 2012 10:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Civil liberties and privacy in the western world are going down the
drain, and it is hard to fight against it.  I try to do my best, but
time is limited.  I hope you do your best too.  A few years ago I came
across a marvellous drawing by
&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.claybennett.com/about.html&quot;&gt;Clay Bennett&lt;/a&gt;
visualising some of what is going on.

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.claybennett.com/pages/security_fence.html&quot;&gt;
&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/security_fence.jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;blockquote&gt;
«They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.» - Benjamin Franklin
&lt;/blockquote&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Do you feel safe at the airport?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when
you see a surveillance camera?  I do not.  Do you feel safe when you
leave electronic traces of your behaviour and opinions?  I do not.  I
just remember &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon&quot;&gt;the
Panopticom&lt;/a&gt;, and can not help help to think that we are slowly
transforming our society to a huge Panopticom on our own.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        </channel>
</rss>