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1 <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
2 <rss version='2.0' xmlns:lj='http://www.livejournal.org/rss/lj/1.0/' xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
3 <channel>
4 <title>Petter Reinholdtsen</title>
5 <description></description>
6 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/</link>
7 <atom:link href="http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/index.rss" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
8
9 <item>
10 <title>Isenkram, Appstream and udev make life as a LEGO builder easier</title>
11 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html</link>
12 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Isenkram__Appstream_and_udev_make_life_as_a_LEGO_builder_easier.html</guid>
13 <pubDate>Fri, 7 Oct 2016 09:50:00 +0200</pubDate>
14 <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://packages.qa.debian.org/isenkram&quot;&gt;The Isenkram
15 system&lt;/a&gt; provide a practical and easy way to figure out which
16 packages support the hardware in a given machine. The command line
17 tool &lt;tt&gt;isenkram-lookup&lt;/tt&gt; and the tasksel options provide a
18 convenient way to list and install packages relevant for the current
19 hardware during system installation, both user space packages and
20 firmware packages. The GUI background daemon on the other hand provide
21 a pop-up proposing to install packages when a new dongle is inserted
22 while using the computer. For example, if you plug in a smart card
23 reader, the system will ask if you want to install &lt;tt&gt;pcscd&lt;/tt&gt; if
24 that package isn&#39;t already installed, and if you plug in a USB video
25 camera the system will ask if you want to install &lt;tt&gt;cheese&lt;/tt&gt; if
26 cheese is currently missing. This already work just fine.&lt;/p&gt;
27
28 &lt;p&gt;But Isenkram depend on a database mapping from hardware IDs to
29 package names. When I started no such database existed in Debian, so
30 I made my own data set and included it with the isenkram package and
31 made isenkram fetch the latest version of this database from git using
32 http. This way the isenkram users would get updated package proposals
33 as soon as I learned more about hardware related packages.&lt;/p&gt;
34
35 &lt;p&gt;The hardware is identified using modalias strings. The modalias
36 design is from the Linux kernel where most hardware descriptors are
37 made available as a strings that can be matched using filename style
38 globbing. It handle USB, PCI, DMI and a lot of other hardware related
39 identifiers.&lt;/p&gt;
40
41 &lt;p&gt;The downside to the Isenkram specific database is that there is no
42 information about relevant distribution / Debian version, making
43 isenkram propose obsolete packages too. But along came AppStream, a
44 cross distribution mechanism to store and collect metadata about
45 software packages. When I heard about the proposal, I contacted the
46 people involved and suggested to add a hardware matching rule using
47 modalias strings in the specification, to be able to use AppStream for
48 mapping hardware to packages. This idea was accepted and AppStream is
49 now a great way for a package to announce the hardware it support in a
50 distribution neutral way. I wrote
51 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_appstream_with_isenkram_to_install_hardware_related_packages_in_Debian.html&quot;&gt;a
52 recipe on how to add such meta-information&lt;/a&gt; in a blog post last
53 December. If you have a hardware related package in Debian, please
54 announce the relevant hardware IDs using AppStream.&lt;/p&gt;
55
56 &lt;p&gt;In Debian, almost all packages that can talk to a LEGO Mindestorms
57 RCX or NXT unit, announce this support using AppStream. The effect is
58 that when you insert such LEGO robot controller into your Debian
59 machine, Isenkram will propose to install the packages needed to get
60 it working. The intention is that this should allow the local user to
61 start programming his robot controller right away without having to
62 guess what packages to use or which permissions to fix.&lt;/p&gt;
63
64 &lt;p&gt;But when I sat down with my son the other day to program our NXT
65 unit using his Debian Stretch computer, I discovered something
66 annoying. The local console user (ie my son) did not get access to
67 the USB device for programming the unit. This used to work, but no
68 longer in Jessie and Stretch. After some investigation and asking
69 around on #debian-devel, I discovered that this was because udev had
70 changed the mechanism used to grant access to local devices. The
71 ConsoleKit mechanism from &lt;tt&gt;/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules&lt;/tt&gt;
72 no longer applied, because LDAP users no longer was added to the
73 plugdev group during login. Michael Biebl told me that this method
74 was obsolete and the new method used ACLs instead. This was good
75 news, as the plugdev mechanism is a mess when using a remote user
76 directory like LDAP. Using ACLs would make sure a user lost device
77 access when she logged out, even if the user left behind a background
78 process which would retain the plugdev membership with the ConsoleKit
79 setup. Armed with this knowledge I moved on to fix the access problem
80 for the LEGO Mindstorms related packages.&lt;/p&gt;
81
82 &lt;p&gt;The new system uses a udev tag, &#39;uaccess&#39;. It can either be
83 applied directly for a device, or is applied in
84 /lib/udev/rules.d/70-uaccess.rules for classes of devices. As the
85 LEGO Mindstorms udev rules did not have a class, I decided to add the
86 tag directly in the udev rules files included in the packages. Here
87 is one example. For the nqc C compiler for the RCX, the
88 &lt;tt&gt;/lib/udev/rules.d/60-nqc.rules&lt;/tt&gt; file now look like this:
89
90 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
91 SUBSYSTEM==&quot;usb&quot;, ACTION==&quot;add&quot;, ATTR{idVendor}==&quot;0694&quot;, ATTR{idProduct}==&quot;0001&quot;, \
92 SYMLINK+=&quot;rcx-%k&quot;, TAG+=&quot;uaccess&quot;
93 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
94
95 &lt;p&gt;I suspect all packages using plugdev in their /lib/udev/rules.d/
96 files should be changed to use this tag (either directly or indirectly
97 via &lt;tt&gt;70-uaccess.rules&lt;/tt&gt;). Perhaps a lintian check should be
98 created to detect this?&lt;/p&gt;
99
100 &lt;p&gt;I&#39;ve been unable to find good documentation on the uaccess feature.
101 It is unclear to me if the uaccess tag is an internal implementation
102 detail like the udev-acl tag used by
103 &lt;tt&gt;/lib/udev/rules.d/70-udev-acl.rules&lt;/tt&gt;. If it is, I guess the
104 indirect method is the preferred way. Michael
105 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/systemd/systemd/issues/4288&quot;&gt;asked for more
106 documentation from the systemd project&lt;/a&gt; and I hope it will make
107 this clearer. For now I use the generic classes when they exist and
108 is already handled by &lt;tt&gt;70-uaccess.rules&lt;/tt&gt;, and add the tag
109 directly if no such class exist.&lt;/p&gt;
110
111 &lt;p&gt;To learn more about the isenkram system, please check out
112 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/tags/isenkram/&quot;&gt;my
113 blog posts tagged isenkram&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
114
115 &lt;p&gt;To help out making life for LEGO constructors in Debian easier,
116 please join us on our IRC channel
117 &lt;a href=&quot;irc://irc.debian.org/%23debian-lego&quot;&gt;#debian-lego&lt;/a&gt; and join
118 the &lt;a href=&quot;https://alioth.debian.org/projects/debian-lego/&quot;&gt;Debian
119 LEGO team&lt;/a&gt; in the Alioth project we created yesterday. A mailing
120 list is not yet created, but we are working on it. :)&lt;/p&gt;
121
122 &lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
123 activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
124 &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&amp;label=PetterReinholdtsenBlog&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
125 </description>
126 </item>
127
128 <item>
129 <title>Aftenposten-redaktøren med lua i hånda</title>
130 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Aftenposten_redakt_ren_med_lua_i_h_nda.html</link>
131 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Aftenposten_redakt_ren_med_lua_i_h_nda.html</guid>
132 <pubDate>Fri, 9 Sep 2016 11:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
133 <description>&lt;p&gt;En av dagens nyheter er at Aftenpostens redaktør Espen Egil Hansen
134 bruker
135 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nrk.no/kultur/aftenposten-brukar-heile-forsida-pa-facebook-kritikk-1.13126918&quot;&gt;forsiden
136 av papiravisen på et åpent brev til Facebooks sjef Mark Zuckerberg om
137 Facebooks fjerning av bilder, tekster og sider de ikke liker&lt;/a&gt;. Det
138 må være uvant for redaktøren i avisen Aftenposten å stå med lua i
139 handa og håpe på å bli hørt. Spesielt siden Aftenposten har vært med
140 på å gi Facebook makten de nå demonstrerer at de har. Ved å melde seg
141 inn i Facebook-samfunnet har de sagt ja til bruksvilkårene og inngått
142 en antagelig bindende avtale. Kanskje de skulle lest og vurdert
143 vilkårene litt nærmere før de sa ja, i stedet for å klage over at
144 reglende de har valgt å akseptere blir fulgt? Personlig synes jeg
145 vilkårene er uakseptable og det ville ikke falle meg inn å gå inn på
146 en avtale med slike vilkår. I tillegg til uakseptable vilkår er det
147 mange andre grunner til å unngå Facebook. Du kan finne en solid
148 gjennomgang av flere slike argumenter hos
149 &lt;a href=&quot;https://stallman.org/facebook.html&quot;&gt;Richard Stallmans side om
150 Facebook&lt;/a&gt;.
151
152 &lt;p&gt;Jeg håper flere norske redaktører på samme vis må stå med lua i
153 hånden inntil de forstår at de selv er med på å føre samfunnet på
154 ville veier ved å omfavne Facebook slik de gjør når de omtaler og
155 løfter frem saker fra Facebook, og tar i bruk Facebook som
156 distribusjonskanal for sine nyheter. De bidrar til
157 overvåkningssamfunnet og raderer ut lesernes privatsfære når de lenker
158 til Facebook på sine sider, og låser seg selv inne i en omgivelse der
159 det er Facebook, og ikke redaktøren, som sitter med makta.&lt;/p&gt;
160
161 &lt;p&gt;Men det vil nok ta tid, i et Norge der de fleste nettredaktører
162 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Snurpenot_overv_kning_av_sensitiv_personinformasjon.html&quot;&gt;deler
163 sine leseres personopplysinger med utenlands etterretning&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
164
165 &lt;p&gt;For øvrig burde varsleren Edward Snowden få politisk asyl i
166 Norge.&lt;/p&gt;
167 </description>
168 </item>
169
170 <item>
171 <title>E-tjenesten ber om innsyn i eposten til partiene på Stortinget</title>
172 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/E_tjenesten_ber_om_innsyn_i_eposten_til_partiene_p__Stortinget.html</link>
173 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/E_tjenesten_ber_om_innsyn_i_eposten_til_partiene_p__Stortinget.html</guid>
174 <pubDate>Tue, 6 Sep 2016 23:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
175 <description>&lt;p&gt;I helga kom det et hårreisende forslag fra Lysne II-utvalget satt
176 ned av Forsvarsdepartementet. Lysne II-utvalget var bedt om å vurdere
177 ønskelista til Forsvarets etterretningstjeneste (e-tjenesten), og har
178 kommet med
179 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.aftenposten.no/norge/Utvalg-sier-ja-til-at-E-tjenesten-far-overvake-innholdet-i-all-internett--og-telefontrafikk-som-krysser-riksgrensen-603232b.html&quot;&gt;forslag
180 om at e-tjenesten skal få lov til a avlytte all Internett-trafikk&lt;/a&gt;
181 som passerer Norges grenser. Få er klar over at dette innebærer at
182 e-tjenesten får tilgang til epost sendt til de fleste politiske
183 partiene på Stortinget. Regjeringspartiet Høyre (@hoyre.no),
184 støttepartiene Venstre (@venstre.no) og Kristelig Folkeparti (@krf.no)
185 samt Sosialistisk Ventreparti (@sv.no) og Miljøpartiet de grønne
186 (@mdg.no) har nemlig alle valgt å ta imot eposten sin via utenlandske
187 tjenester. Det betyr at hvis noen sender epost til noen med en slik
188 adresse vil innholdet i eposten, om dette forslaget blir vedtatt, gjøres
189 tilgjengelig for e-tjenesten. Venstre, Sosialistisk Ventreparti og
190 Miljøpartiet De Grønne har valgt å motta sin epost hos Google,
191 Kristelig Folkeparti har valgt å motta sin epost hos Microsoft, og
192 Høyre har valgt å motta sin epost hos Comendo med mottak i Danmark og
193 Irland. Kun Arbeiderpartiet og Fremskrittspartiet har valgt å motta
194 eposten sin i Norge, hos henholdsvis Intility AS og Telecomputing
195 AS.&lt;/p&gt;
196
197 &lt;p&gt;Konsekvensen er at epost inn og ut av de politiske organisasjonene,
198 til og fra partimedlemmer og partiets tillitsvalgte vil gjøres
199 tilgjengelig for e-tjenesten for analyse og sortering. Jeg mistenker
200 at kunnskapen som slik blir tilgjengelig vil være nyttig hvis en
201 ønsker å vite hvilke argumenter som treffer publikum når en ønsker å
202 påvirke Stortingets representanter.&lt;/p
203
204 &lt;p&gt;Ved hjelp av MX-oppslag i DNS for epost-domene, tilhørende
205 whois-oppslag av IP-adressene og traceroute for å se hvorvidt
206 trafikken går via utlandet kan enhver få bekreftet at epost sendt til
207 de omtalte partiene vil gjøres tilgjengelig for forsvarets
208 etterretningstjeneste hvis forslaget blir vedtatt. En kan også bruke
209 den kjekke nett-tjenesten &lt;a href=&quot;http://ipinfo.io/&quot;&gt;ipinfo.io&lt;/a&gt;
210 for å få en ide om hvor i verden en IP-adresse hører til.&lt;/p&gt;
211
212 &lt;p&gt;På den positive siden vil forslaget gjøre at enda flere blir
213 motivert til å ta grep for å bruke
214 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.torproject.org/&quot;&gt;Tor&lt;/a&gt; og krypterte
215 kommunikasjonsløsninger for å kommunisere med sine kjære, for å sikre
216 at privatsfæren vernes. Selv bruker jeg blant annet
217 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.freedomboxfoundation.org/&quot;&gt;FreedomBox&lt;/a&gt; og
218 &lt;a href=&quot;https://whispersystems.org/&quot;&gt;Signal&lt;/a&gt; til slikt. Ingen av
219 dem er optimale, men de fungerer ganske bra allerede og øker kostnaden
220 for dem som ønsker å invadere mitt privatliv.&lt;/p&gt;
221
222 &lt;p&gt;For øvrig burde varsleren Edward Snowden få politisk asyl i
223 Norge.&lt;/p&gt;
224
225 &lt;!--
226
227 venstre.no
228 venstre.no mail is handled by 10 aspmx.l.google.com.
229 venstre.no mail is handled by 20 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
230 venstre.no mail is handled by 20 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
231 venstre.no mail is handled by 30 aspmx2.googlemail.com.
232 venstre.no mail is handled by 30 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
233
234 traceroute to aspmx.l.google.com (173.194.222.27), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
235 1 uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.6.1) 0.411 ms 0.438 ms 0.536 ms
236 2 uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229) 0.375 ms 0.452 ms 0.548 ms
237 3 oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17) 1.940 ms 1.950 ms 1.942 ms
238 4 se-tug.nordu.net (109.105.102.108) 6.910 ms 6.949 ms 7.283 ms
239 5 google-gw.nordu.net (109.105.98.6) 6.975 ms 6.967 ms 6.958 ms
240 6 209.85.250.192 (209.85.250.192) 7.337 ms 7.286 ms 10.890 ms
241 7 209.85.254.13 (209.85.254.13) 7.394 ms 209.85.254.31 (209.85.254.31) 7.586 ms 209.85.254.33 (209.85.254.33) 7.570 ms
242 8 209.85.251.255 (209.85.251.255) 15.686 ms 209.85.249.229 (209.85.249.229) 16.118 ms 209.85.251.255 (209.85.251.255) 16.073 ms
243 9 74.125.37.255 (74.125.37.255) 16.794 ms 216.239.40.248 (216.239.40.248) 16.113 ms 74.125.37.44 (74.125.37.44) 16.764 ms
244 10 * * *
245
246 mdg.no
247 mdg.no mail is handled by 1 aspmx.l.google.com.
248 mdg.no mail is handled by 5 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
249 mdg.no mail is handled by 5 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
250 mdg.no mail is handled by 10 aspmx2.googlemail.com.
251 mdg.no mail is handled by 10 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
252 sv.no
253 sv.no mail is handled by 1 aspmx.l.google.com.
254 sv.no mail is handled by 5 alt1.aspmx.l.google.com.
255 sv.no mail is handled by 5 alt2.aspmx.l.google.com.
256 sv.no mail is handled by 10 aspmx3.googlemail.com.
257 sv.no mail is handled by 10 aspmx2.googlemail.com.
258 hoyre.no
259 hoyre.no mail is handled by 10 hoyre-no.mx1.comendosystems.com.
260 hoyre.no mail is handled by 20 hoyre-no.mx2.comendosystems.net.
261
262 traceroute to hoyre-no.mx1.comendosystems.com (89.104.206.4), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
263 1 uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.6.1) 0.450 ms 0.510 ms 0.591 ms
264 2 uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229) 0.383 ms 0.508 ms 0.596 ms
265 3 oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17) 0.311 ms 0.315 ms 0.300 ms
266 4 se-tug.nordu.net (109.105.102.108) 6.837 ms 6.842 ms 6.834 ms
267 5 dk-uni.nordu.net (109.105.97.10) 26.073 ms 26.085 ms 26.076 ms
268 6 dix.1000m.soeborg.ip.comendo.dk (192.38.7.22) 15.372 ms 15.046 ms 15.123 ms
269 7 89.104.192.65 (89.104.192.65) 15.875 ms 15.990 ms 16.239 ms
270 8 89.104.192.179 (89.104.192.179) 15.676 ms 15.674 ms 15.664 ms
271 9 03dm-com.mx1.staysecuregroup.com (89.104.206.4) 15.637 ms * *
272
273 krf.no
274 krf.no mail is handled by 10 krf-no.mail.protection.outlook.com.
275
276 traceroute to krf-no.mail.protection.outlook.com (213.199.154.42), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
277 1 uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.6.1) 0.401 ms 0.438 ms 0.536 ms
278 2 uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229) 11.076 ms 11.120 ms 11.204 ms
279 3 oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17) 0.232 ms 0.234 ms 0.271 ms
280 4 se-tug.nordu.net (109.105.102.108) 6.811 ms 6.820 ms 6.815 ms
281 5 netnod-ix-ge-a-sth-4470.microsoft.com (195.245.240.181) 7.074 ms 7.013 ms 7.061 ms
282 6 ae1-0.sto-96cbe-1b.ntwk.msn.net (104.44.225.161) 7.227 ms 7.362 ms 7.293 ms
283 7 be-8-0.ibr01.ams.ntwk.msn.net (104.44.5.7) 41.993 ms 43.334 ms 41.939 ms
284 8 be-1-0.ibr02.ams.ntwk.msn.net (104.44.4.214) 43.153 ms 43.507 ms 43.404 ms
285 9 ae3-0.fra-96cbe-1b.ntwk.msn.net (104.44.5.17) 29.897 ms 29.831 ms 29.794 ms
286 10 ae10-0.vie-96cbe-1a.ntwk.msn.net (198.206.164.1) 42.309 ms 42.130 ms 41.808 ms
287 11 * ae8-0.vie-96cbe-1b.ntwk.msn.net (104.44.227.29) 41.425 ms *
288 12 * * *
289
290 arbeiderpartiet.no
291 arbeiderpartiet.no mail is handled by 10 mail.intility.com.
292 arbeiderpartiet.no mail is handled by 20 mail2.intility.com.
293
294 traceroute to mail.intility.com (188.95.245.87), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
295 1 uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.6.1) 0.486 ms 0.508 ms 0.649 ms
296 2 uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229) 0.416 ms 0.508 ms 0.620 ms
297 3 oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17) 0.276 ms 0.278 ms 0.275 ms
298 4 te3-1-2.br1.fn3.as2116.net (193.156.90.3) 0.374 ms 0.371 ms 0.416 ms
299 5 he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234) 3.132 ms he16-1-1.cr2.oslosda310.as2116.net (195.0.244.48) 10.079 ms he16-1-1.cr1.san110.as2116.net (195.0.244.234) 3.353 ms
300 6 te1-2-0.ar2.ulv89.as2116.net (195.0.243.194) 0.569 ms te5-0-0.ar2.ulv89.as2116.net (195.0.243.192) 0.661 ms 0.653 ms
301 7 cD2EC45C1.static.as2116.net (193.69.236.210) 0.654 ms 0.615 ms 0.590 ms
302 8 185.7.132.38 (185.7.132.38) 1.661 ms 1.808 ms 1.695 ms
303 9 185.7.132.100 (185.7.132.100) 1.793 ms 1.943 ms 1.546 ms
304 10 * * *
305
306 frp.no
307 frp.no mail is handled by 10 mx03.telecomputing.no.
308 frp.no mail is handled by 20 mx01.telecomputing.no.
309
310 traceroute to mx03.telecomputing.no (95.128.105.102), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
311 1 uio-gw10.uio.no (129.240.6.1) 0.378 ms 0.402 ms 0.479 ms
312 2 uio-gw8.uio.no (129.240.24.229) 0.361 ms 0.458 ms 0.548 ms
313 3 oslo-gw1.uninett.no (128.39.65.17) 0.361 ms 0.352 ms 0.336 ms
314 4 xe-2-2-0-0.san-peer2.osl.no.ip.tdc.net (193.156.90.16) 0.375 ms 0.366 ms 0.346 ms
315 5 xe-2-0-2-0.ost-pe1.osl.no.ip.tdc.net (85.19.121.97) 0.780 ms xe-2-0-0-0.ost-pe1.osl.no.ip.tdc.net (85.19.121.101) 0.713 ms xe-2-0-2-0.ost-pe1.osl.no.ip.tdc.net (85.19.121.97) 0.759 ms
316 6 cpe.xe-0-2-0-100.ost-pe1.osl.no.customer.tdc.net (85.19.26.46) 0.837 ms 0.755 ms 0.759 ms
317 7 95.128.105.3 (95.128.105.3) 1.050 ms 1.288 ms 1.182 ms
318 8 mx03.telecomputing.no (95.128.105.102) 0.717 ms 0.703 ms 0.692 ms
319
320 --&gt;
321 </description>
322 </item>
323
324 <item>
325 <title>First draft Norwegian Bokmål edition of The Debian Administrator&#39;s Handbook now public</title>
326 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html</link>
327 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_draft_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook_now_public.html</guid>
328 <pubDate>Tue, 30 Aug 2016 10:10:00 +0200</pubDate>
329 <description>&lt;p&gt;In April we
330 &lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Lets_make_a_Norwegian_Bokm_l_edition_of_The_Debian_Administrator_s_Handbook.html&quot;&gt;started
331 to work&lt;/a&gt; on a Norwegian Bokmål edition of the &quot;open access&quot; book on
332 how to set up and administrate a Debian system. Today I am happy to
333 report that the first draft is now publicly available. You can find
334 it on &lt;a href=&quot;https://debian-handbook.info/get/&quot;&gt;get the Debian
335 Administrator&#39;s Handbook page&lt;/a&gt; (under Other languages). The first
336 eight chapters have a first draft translation, and we are working on
337 proofreading the content. If you want to help out, please start
338 contributing using
339 &lt;a href=&quot;https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/debian-handbook/&quot;&gt;the
340 hosted weblate project page&lt;/a&gt;, and get in touch using
341 &lt;a href=&quot;http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debian-handbook-translators&quot;&gt;the
342 translators mailing list&lt;/a&gt;. Please also check out
343 &lt;a href=&quot;https://debian-handbook.info/contribute/&quot;&gt;the instructions for
344 contributors&lt;/a&gt;. A good way to contribute is to proofread the text
345 and update weblate if you find errors.&lt;/p&gt;
346
347 &lt;p&gt;Our goal is still to make the Norwegian book available on paper as well as
348 electronic form.&lt;/p&gt;
349 </description>
350 </item>
351
352 <item>
353 <title>Coz can help you find bottlenecks in multi-threaded software - nice free software</title>
354 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html</link>
355 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Coz_can_help_you_find_bottlenecks_in_multi_threaded_software___nice_free_software.html</guid>
356 <pubDate>Thu, 11 Aug 2016 12:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
357 <description>&lt;p&gt;This summer, I read a great article
358 &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usenix.org/publications/login/summer2016/curtsinger&quot;&gt;coz:
359 This Is the Profiler You&#39;re Looking For&lt;/a&gt;&quot; in USENIX ;login: about
360 how to profile multi-threaded programs. It presented a system for
361 profiling software by running experiences in the running program,
362 testing how run time performance is affected by &quot;speeding up&quot; parts of
363 the code to various degrees compared to a normal run. It does this by
364 slowing down parallel threads while the &quot;faster up&quot; code is running
365 and measure how this affect processing time. The processing time is
366 measured using probes inserted into the code, either using progress
367 counters (COZ_PROGRESS) or as latency meters (COZ_BEGIN/COZ_END). It
368 can also measure unmodified code by measuring complete the program
369 runtime and running the program several times instead.&lt;/p&gt;
370
371 &lt;p&gt;The project and presentation was so inspiring that I would like to
372 get the system into Debian. I
373 &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=830708&quot;&gt;created
374 a WNPP request for it&lt;/a&gt; and contacted upstream to try to make the
375 system ready for Debian by sending patches. The build process need to
376 be changed a bit to avoid running &#39;git clone&#39; to get dependencies, and
377 to include the JavaScript web page used to visualize the collected
378 profiling information included in the source package.
379 But I expect that should work out fairly soon.&lt;/p&gt;
380
381 &lt;p&gt;The way the system work is fairly simple. To run an coz experiment
382 on a binary with debug symbols available, start the program like this:
383
384 &lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
385 coz run --- program-to-run
386 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
387
388 &lt;p&gt;This will create a text file profile.coz with the instrumentation
389 information. To show what part of the code affect the performance
390 most, use a web browser and either point it to
391 &lt;a href=&quot;http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/&quot;&gt;http://plasma-umass.github.io/coz/&lt;/a&gt;
392 or use the copy from git (in the gh-pages branch). Check out this web
393 site to have a look at several example profiling runs and get an idea what the end result from the profile runs look like. To make the
394 profiling more useful you include &amp;lt;coz.h&amp;gt; and insert the
395 COZ_PROGRESS or COZ_BEGIN and COZ_END at appropriate places in the
396 code, rebuild and run the profiler. This allow coz to do more
397 targeted experiments.&lt;/p&gt;
398
399 &lt;p&gt;A video published by ACM
400 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE0V-p1odPg&quot;&gt;presenting the
401 Coz profiler&lt;/a&gt; is available from Youtube. There is also a paper
402 from the 25th Symposium on Operating Systems Principles available
403 titled
404 &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc16/technical-sessions/presentation/curtsinger&quot;&gt;Coz:
405 finding code that counts with causal profiling&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
406
407 &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz&quot;&gt;The source code&lt;/a&gt;
408 for Coz is available from github. It will only build with clang
409 because it uses a
410 &lt;a href=&quot;https://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=55606&quot;&gt;C++
411 feature missing in GCC&lt;/a&gt;, but I&#39;ve submitted
412 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/plasma-umass/coz/pull/67&quot;&gt;a patch to solve
413 it&lt;/a&gt; and hope it will be included in the upstream source soon.&lt;/p&gt;
414
415 &lt;p&gt;Please get in touch if you, like me, would like to see this piece
416 of software in Debian. I would very much like some help with the
417 packaging effort, as I lack the in depth knowledge on how to package
418 C++ libraries.&lt;/p&gt;
419 </description>
420 </item>
421
422 <item>
423 <title>Sales number for the Free Culture translation, first half of 2016</title>
424 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sales_number_for_the_Free_Culture_translation__first_half_of_2016.html</link>
425 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Sales_number_for_the_Free_Culture_translation__first_half_of_2016.html</guid>
426 <pubDate>Fri, 5 Aug 2016 22:45:00 +0200</pubDate>
427 <description>&lt;p&gt;As my regular readers probably remember, the last year I published
428 a French and Norwegian translation of the classic
429 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.free-culture.cc/&quot;&gt;Free Culture book&lt;/a&gt; by the
430 founder of the Creative Commons movement, Lawrence Lessig. A bit less
431 known is the fact that due to the way I created the translations,
432 using docbook and po4a, I also recreated the English original. And
433 because I already had created a new the PDF edition, I published it
434 too. The revenue from the books are sent to the Creative Commons
435 Corporation. In other words, I do not earn any money from this
436 project, I just earn the warm fuzzy feeling that the text is available
437 for a wider audience and more people can learn why the Creative
438 Commons is needed.&lt;/p&gt;
439
440 &lt;p&gt;Today, just for fun, I had a look at the sales number over at
441 Lulu.com, which take care of payment, printing and shipping. Much to
442 my surprise, the English edition is selling better than both the
443 French and Norwegian edition, despite the fact that it has been
444 available in English since it was first published. In total, 24 paper
445 books was sold for USD $19.99 between 2016-01-01 and 2016-07-31:&lt;/p&gt;
446
447 &lt;table border=&quot;0&quot;&gt;
448 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;th&gt;Title / language&lt;/th&gt;&lt;th&gt;Quantity&lt;/th&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
449 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/culture-libre/paperback/product-22645082.html&quot;&gt;Culture Libre / French&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;3&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
450 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html&quot;&gt;Fri kultur / Norwegian&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;7&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
451 &lt;tr&gt;&lt;td&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/free-culture/paperback/product-22440520.html&quot;&gt;Free Culture / English&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/td&gt;&lt;td align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;14&lt;/td&gt;&lt;/tr&gt;
452 &lt;/table&gt;
453
454 &lt;p&gt;The books are available both from Lulu.com and from large book
455 stores like Amazon and Barnes&amp;Noble. Most revenue, around $10 per
456 book, is sent to the Creative Commons project when the book is sold
457 directly by Lulu.com. The other channels give less revenue. The
458 summary from Lulu tell me 10 books was sold via the Amazon channel, 10
459 via Ingram (what is this?) and 4 directly by Lulu. And Lulu.com tells
460 me that the revenue sent so far this year is USD $101.42. No idea
461 what kind of sales numbers to expect, so I do not know if that is a
462 good amount of sales for a 10 year old book or not. But it make me
463 happy that the buyers find the book, and I hope they enjoy reading it
464 as much as I did.&lt;/p&gt;
465
466 &lt;p&gt;The ebook edition is available for free from
467 &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/petterreinholdtsen/free-culture-lessig&quot;&gt;Github&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
468
469 &lt;p&gt;If you would like to translate and publish the book in your native
470 language, I would be happy to help make it happen. Please get in
471 touch.&lt;/p&gt;
472 </description>
473 </item>
474
475 <item>
476 <title>Vitenskapen tar som vanlig feil igjen - relativt feil</title>
477 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Vitenskapen_tar_som_vanlig_feil_igjen___relativt_feil.html</link>
478 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Vitenskapen_tar_som_vanlig_feil_igjen___relativt_feil.html</guid>
479 <pubDate>Mon, 1 Aug 2016 16:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
480 <description>&lt;p&gt;For mange år siden leste jeg en klassisk tekst som gjorde såpass
481 inntrykk på meg at jeg husker den fortsatt, flere år senere, og bruker
482 argumentene fra den stadig vekk. Teksten var «The Relativity of
483 Wrong» som Isaac Asimov publiserte i Skeptical Inquirer i 1989. Den
484 gir litt perspektiv rundt formidlingen av vitenskapelige resultater.
485 Jeg har hatt lyst til å kunne dele den også med folk som ikke
486 behersker engelsk så godt, som barn og noen av mine eldre slektninger,
487 og har savnet å ha den tilgjengelig på norsk. For to uker siden tok
488 jeg meg sammen og kontaktet Asbjørn Dyrendal i foreningen Skepsis om
489 de var interessert i å publisere en norsk utgave på bloggen sin, og da
490 han var positiv tok jeg kontakt med Skeptical Inquirer og spurte om
491 det var greit for dem. I løpet av noen dager fikk vi tilbakemelding
492 fra Barry Karr hos The Skeptical Inquirer som hadde sjekket og fått OK
493 fra Robyn Asimov som representerte arvingene i Asmiov-familien og gikk
494 igang med oversettingen.&lt;/p&gt;
495
496 &lt;p&gt;Resultatet, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.skepsis.no/?p=1617&quot;&gt;«Relativt
497 feil»&lt;/a&gt;, ble publisert på skepsis-bloggen for noen minutter siden.
498 Jeg anbefaler deg på det varmeste å lese denne teksten og dele den med
499 dine venner.&lt;/p&gt;
500
501 &lt;p&gt;For å håndtere oversettelsen og sikre at original og oversettelse
502 var i sync brukte vi git, po4a, GNU make og Transifex. Det hele
503 fungerte utmerket og gjorde det enkelt å dele tekstene og jobbe sammen
504 om finpuss på formuleringene. Hadde hosted.weblate.org latt meg
505 opprette nye prosjekter selv i stedet for å måtte kontakte
506 administratoren der, så hadde jeg brukt weblate i stedet.&lt;/p&gt;
507 </description>
508 </item>
509
510 <item>
511 <title>Techno TV broadcasting live across Norway and the Internet (#debconf16, #nuug) on @frikanalen</title>
512 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Techno_TV_broadcasting_live_across_Norway_and_the_Internet___debconf16___nuug__on__frikanalen.html</link>
513 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Techno_TV_broadcasting_live_across_Norway_and_the_Internet___debconf16___nuug__on__frikanalen.html</guid>
514 <pubDate>Mon, 1 Aug 2016 10:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
515 <description>&lt;p&gt;Did you know there is a TV channel broadcasting talks from DebConf
516 16 across an entire country? Or that there is a TV channel
517 broadcasting talks by or about
518 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625529/&quot;&gt;Linus Torvalds&lt;/a&gt;,
519 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625599/&quot;&gt;Tor&lt;/a&gt;,
520 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/624019/&quot;&gt;OpenID&lt;/A&gt;,
521 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625624/&quot;&gt;Common Lisp&lt;/a&gt;,
522 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625446/&quot;&gt;Civic Tech&lt;/a&gt;,
523 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625090/&quot;&gt;EFF founder John Barlow&lt;/a&gt;,
524 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/video/625432/&quot;&gt;how to make 3D
525 printer electronics&lt;/a&gt; and many more fascinating topics? It works
526 using only free software (all of it
527 &lt;a href=&quot;http://github.com/Frikanalen&quot;&gt;available from Github&lt;/a&gt;), and
528 is administrated using a web browser and a web API.&lt;/p&gt;
529
530 &lt;p&gt;The TV channel is the Norwegian open channel
531 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;Frikanalen&lt;/a&gt;, and I am involved
532 via &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nuug.no/&quot;&gt;the NUUG member association&lt;/a&gt; in
533 running and developing the software for the channel. The channel is
534 organised as a member organisation where its members can upload and
535 broadcast what they want (think of it as Youtube for national
536 broadcasting television). Individuals can broadcast too. The time
537 slots are handled on a first come, first serve basis. Because the
538 channel have almost no viewers and very few active members, we can
539 experiment with TV technology without too much flack when we make
540 mistakes. And thanks to the few active members, most of the slots on
541 the schedule are free. I see this as an opportunity to spread
542 knowledge about technology and free software, and have a script I run
543 regularly to fill up all the open slots the next few days with
544 technology related video. The end result is a channel I like to
545 describe as Techno TV - filled with interesting talks and
546 presentations.&lt;/p&gt;
547
548 &lt;p&gt;It is available on channel 50 on the Norwegian national digital TV
549 network (RiksTV). It is also available as a multicast stream on
550 Uninett. And finally, it is available as
551 &lt;a href=&quot;http://beta.frikanalen.no/&quot;&gt;a WebM unicast stream&lt;/a&gt; from
552 Frikanalen and NUUG. Check it out. :)&lt;/p&gt;
553 </description>
554 </item>
555
556 <item>
557 <title>Unlocking HTC Desire HD on Linux using unruu and fastboot</title>
558 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html</link>
559 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Unlocking_HTC_Desire_HD_on_Linux_using_unruu_and_fastboot.html</guid>
560 <pubDate>Thu, 7 Jul 2016 11:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
561 <description>&lt;p&gt;Yesterday, I tried to unlock a HTC Desire HD phone, and it proved
562 to be a slight challenge. Here is the recipe if I ever need to do it
563 again. It all started by me wanting to try the recipe to set up
564 &lt;a href=&quot;https://blog.torproject.org/blog/mission-impossible-hardening-android-security-and-privacy&quot;&gt;an
565 hardened Android installation&lt;/a&gt; from the Tor project blog on a
566 device I had access to. It is a old mobile phone with a broken
567 microphone The initial idea had been to just
568 &lt;a href=&quot;http://wiki.cyanogenmod.org/w/Install_CM_for_ace&quot;&gt;install
569 CyanogenMod on it&lt;/a&gt;, but did not quite find time to start on it
570 until a few days ago.&lt;/p&gt;
571
572 &lt;p&gt;The unlock process is supposed to be simple: (1) Boot into the boot
573 loader (press volume down and power at the same time), (2) select
574 &#39;fastboot&#39; before (3) connecting the device via USB to a Linux
575 machine, (4) request the device identifier token by running &#39;fastboot
576 oem get_identifier_token&#39;, (5) request the device unlocking key using
577 the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader/&quot;&gt;HTC developer web
578 site&lt;/a&gt; and unlock the phone using the key file emailed to you.&lt;/p&gt;
579
580 &lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this only work fi you have hboot version 2.00.0029
581 or newer, and the device I was working on had 2.00.0027. This
582 apparently can be easily fixed by downloading a Windows program and
583 running it on your Windows machine, if you accept the terms Microsoft
584 require you to accept to use Windows - which I do not. So I had to
585 come up with a different approach. I got a lot of help from AndyCap
586 on #nuug, and would not have been able to get this working without
587 him.&lt;/p&gt;
588
589 &lt;p&gt;First I needed to extract the hboot firmware from
590 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.htcdev.com/ruu/PD9810000_Ace_Sense30_S_hboot_2.00.0029.exe&quot;&gt;the
591 windows binary for HTC Desire HD&lt;/a&gt; downloaded as &#39;the RUU&#39; from HTC.
592 For this there is is &lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/kmdm/unruu/&quot;&gt;a github
593 project named unruu&lt;/a&gt; using libunshield. The unshield tool did not
594 recognise the file format, but unruu worked and extracted rom.zip,
595 containing the new hboot firmware and a text file describing which
596 devices it would work for.&lt;/p&gt;
597
598 &lt;p&gt;Next, I needed to get the new firmware into the device. For this I
599 followed some instructions
600 &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.htc1guru.com/2013/09/new-ruu-zips-posted/&quot;&gt;available
601 from HTC1Guru.com&lt;/a&gt;, and ran these commands as root on a Linux
602 machine with Debian testing:&lt;/p&gt;
603
604 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
605 adb reboot-bootloader
606 fastboot oem rebootRUU
607 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
608 fastboot flash zip rom.zip
609 fastboot reboot
610 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
611
612 &lt;p&gt;The flash command apparently need to be done twice to take effect,
613 as the first is just preparations and the second one do the flashing.
614 The adb command is just to get to the boot loader menu, so turning the
615 device on while holding volume down and the power button should work
616 too.&lt;/p&gt;
617
618 &lt;p&gt;With the new hboot version in place I could start following the
619 instructions on the HTC developer web site. I got the device token
620 like this:&lt;/p&gt;
621
622 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
623 fastboot oem get_identifier_token 2&gt;&amp;1 | sed &#39;s/(bootloader) //&#39;
624 &lt;/pre&gt;
625
626 &lt;p&gt;And once I got the unlock code via email, I could use it like
627 this:&lt;/p&gt;
628
629 &lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
630 fastboot flash unlocktoken Unlock_code.bin
631 &lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
632
633 &lt;p&gt;And with that final step in place, the phone was unlocked and I
634 could start stuffing the software of my own choosing into the device.
635 So far I only inserted a replacement recovery image to wipe the phone
636 before I start. We will see what happen next. Perhaps I should
637 install &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.debian.org/&quot;&gt;Debian&lt;/a&gt; on it. :)&lt;/p&gt;
638 </description>
639 </item>
640
641 <item>
642 <title>How to use the Signal app if you only have a land line (ie no mobile phone)</title>
643 <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html</link>
644 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/How_to_use_the_Signal_app_if_you_only_have_a_land_line__ie_no_mobile_phone_.html</guid>
645 <pubDate>Sun, 3 Jul 2016 14:20:00 +0200</pubDate>
646 <description>&lt;p&gt;For a while now, I have wanted to test
647 &lt;a href=&quot;https://whispersystems.org/&quot;&gt;the Signal app&lt;/a&gt;, as it is
648 said to provide end to end encrypted communication and several of my
649 friends and family are already using it. As I by choice do not own a
650 mobile phone, this proved to be harder than expected. And I wanted to
651 have the source of the client and know that it was the code used on my
652 machine. But yesterday I managed to get it working. I used the
653 Github source, compared it to the source in
654 &lt;a href=&quot;https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/signal-private-messenger/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk?hl=en-US&quot;&gt;the
655 Signal Chrome app&lt;/a&gt; available from the Chrome web store, applied
656 patches to use the production Signal servers, started the app and
657 asked for the hidden &quot;register without a smart phone&quot; form. Here is
658 the recipe how I did it.&lt;/p&gt;
659
660 &lt;p&gt;First, I fetched the Signal desktop source from Github, using
661
662 &lt;pre&gt;
663 git clone https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-Desktop.git
664 &lt;/pre&gt;
665
666 &lt;p&gt;Next, I patched the source to use the production servers, to be
667 able to talk to other Signal users:&lt;/p&gt;
668
669 &lt;pre&gt;
670 cat &amp;lt;&amp;lt;EOF | patch -p0
671 diff -ur ./js/background.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js
672 --- ./js/background.js 2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
673 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/background.js 2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
674 @@ -47,8 +47,8 @@
675 });
676 });
677
678 - var SERVER_URL = &#39;https://textsecure-service-staging.whispersystems.org&#39;;
679 - var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = &#39;https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments-staging.s3.amazonaws.com&#39;;
680 + var SERVER_URL = &#39;https://textsecure-service-ca.whispersystems.org:4433&#39;;
681 + var ATTACHMENT_SERVER_URL = &#39;https://whispersystems-textsecure-attachments.s3.amazonaws.com&#39;;
682 var messageReceiver;
683 window.getSocketStatus = function() {
684 if (messageReceiver) {
685 diff -ur ./js/expire.js userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js
686 --- ./js/expire.js 2016-06-29 13:43:15.630344628 +0200
687 +++ userdata/Default/Extensions/bikioccmkafdpakkkcpdbppfkghcmihk/0.15.0_0/js/expire.js2016-06-29 14:06:29.530300934 +0200
688 @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
689 ;(function() {
690 &#39;use strict&#39;;
691 - var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 0;
692 + var BUILD_EXPIRATION = 1474492690000;
693
694 window.extension = window.extension || {};
695
696 EOF
697 &lt;/pre&gt;
698
699 &lt;p&gt;The first part is changing the servers, and the second is updating
700 an expiration timestamp. This timestamp need to be updated regularly.
701 It is set 90 days in the future by the build process (Gruntfile.js).
702 The value is seconds since 1970 times 1000, as far as I can tell.&lt;/p&gt;
703
704 &lt;p&gt;Based on a tip and good help from the #nuug IRC channel, I wrote a
705 script to launch Signal in Chromium.&lt;/p&gt;
706
707 &lt;pre&gt;
708 #!/bin/sh
709 cd $(dirname $0)
710 mkdir -p userdata
711 exec chromium \
712 --proxy-server=&quot;socks://localhost:9050&quot; \
713 --user-data-dir=`pwd`/userdata --load-and-launch-app=`pwd`
714 &lt;/pre&gt;
715
716 &lt;p&gt; The script start the app and configure Chromium to use the Tor
717 SOCKS5 proxy to make sure those controlling the Signal servers (today
718 Amazon and Whisper Systems) as well as those listening on the lines
719 will have a harder time location my laptop based on the Signal
720 connections if they use source IP address.&lt;/p&gt;
721
722 &lt;p&gt;When the script starts, one need to follow the instructions under
723 &quot;Standalone Registration&quot; in the CONTRIBUTING.md file in the git
724 repository. I right clicked on the Signal window to get up the
725 Chromium debugging tool, visited the &#39;Console&#39; tab and wrote
726 &#39;extension.install(&quot;standalone&quot;)&#39; on the console prompt to get the
727 registration form. Then I entered by land line phone number and
728 pressed &#39;Call&#39;. 5 seconds later the phone rang and a robot voice
729 repeated the verification code three times. After entering the number
730 into the verification code field in the form, I could start using
731 Signal from my laptop.
732
733 &lt;p&gt;As far as I can tell, The Signal app will leak who is talking to
734 whom and thus who know who to those controlling the central server,
735 but such leakage is hard to avoid with a centrally controlled server
736 setup. It is something to keep in mind when using Signal - the
737 content of your chats are harder to intercept, but the meta data
738 exposing your contact network is available to people you do not know.
739 So better than many options, but not great. And sadly the usage is
740 connected to my land line, thus allowing those controlling the server
741 to associate it to my home and person. I would prefer it if only
742 those I knew could tell who I was on Signal. There are options
743 avoiding such information leakage, but most of my friends are not
744 using them, so I am stuck with Signal for now.&lt;/p&gt;
745 </description>
746 </item>
747
748 </channel>
749 </rss>