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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>Stortingsflertallet går inn for ny IP-basert sensurinfrastruktur i Norge</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stortingsflertallet_g_r_inn_for_ny_IP_basert_sensurinfrastruktur_i_Norge.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Stortingsflertallet_g_r_inn_for_ny_IP_basert_sensurinfrastruktur_i_Norge.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 24 Apr 2018 15:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.vg.no/sport/i/J1g8zj/stortingsvedtak-snart-ip-blokkerer-utenlandske-spillselskaper&quot;&gt;VG&lt;/a&gt;,
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/stortinget-blokkerer-utenlandske-spillselskaper/69740219&quot;&gt;Dagbladet&lt;/a&gt;
og
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nrk.no/ostfold/tar-opp-kampen-mot-utenlandske-spillselskap-1.14021381&quot;&gt;NRK&lt;/a&gt;
melder i dag at flertallet i Familie- og kulturkomiteen på Stortinget
har bestemt seg for å introdusere en ny sensurinfrastruktur i Norge.
Fra før har Norge en «frivillig» sensurinfrastruktur basert på
DNS-navn, der de største ISP-ene basert på en liste med DNS-navn
forgifter DNS-svar og omdirigerer til et annet IP-nummer enn det som
ligger i DNS.  Nå kommer altså IP-basert omdirigering i tillegg.  Når
infrastrukturen er på plass, er sensur av IP-adresser redusert et
spørsmål om hvilke IP-nummer som skal blokkeres.  Det vil endre seg
etter hvert som myndighetene endrer seg.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>En grunn til å takke nei til usikker digital post</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/En_grunn_til___takke_nei_til_usikker_digital_post.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/En_grunn_til___takke_nei_til_usikker_digital_post.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Mon, 2 Apr 2018 13:30:00 +0200</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Brevpost er beskyttet av straffelovens bestemmelse som gjør det
kriminelt å åpne andres brev.  Dette følger av (ny) straffelovs
&lt;a href=&quot;https://lovdata.no/dokument/NL/lov/2005-05-20-28/§205&quot;&gt;§ 205
(Krenkelse av retten til privat kommunikasjon)&lt;/a&gt;, som sier at «Med
bot eller fengsel inntil 2 år straffes den som uberettiget ...  c)
åpner brev eller annen lukket skriftlig meddelelse som er adressert
til en annen, eller på annen måte skaffer seg uberettiget tilgang til
innholdet.» Dette gjelder såvel postbud som alle andre som har
befatning med brevet etter at avsender har befatning med et lukket
brev. Tilsvarende står også tidligere utgaver av den norske
straffeloven.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Når en registrerer seg på usikre digitale postkasseløsningene, som
f.eks. Digipost og e-Boks, og slik tar disse i bruk, så gir en de som
står bak løsningene tillatelse til å åpne sine brev.  Dette er
nødvendig for at innholdet i digital post skal kunne vises frem til
mottaker via tjenestens websider.  Dermed gjelder ikke straffelovens
paragraf om forbud mot å åpne brev, da tilgangen ikke lenger er
uberettiget.  En gir altså fremmede tilgang til å lese sin
korrespondanse.  I tillegg vil bruk av slike usikre digitale
postbokser føre til at det blir registrert når du leser brevene, hvor
du befinner deg (vha. tilkoblingens IP-adresse), hvilket utstyr du
bruker og en rekke annen personlig informasjon som ikke er
tilgjengelig når papirpost brukes.  Jeg foretrekker at det er
lovmessig beskyttelse av min korrespondanse, som jo inneholder privat
og personlig informasjon.  Det bidrar til litt bedre vern av personlig
integritet i dagens norske samfunn.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Self-appointed leaders of the Free World</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Self_appointed_leaders_of_the_Free_World.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Self_appointed_leaders_of_the_Free_World.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Thu, 22 Mar 2018 11:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;The leaders of the worlds have started to congratulate the
re-elected Russian head of state, and this causes some criticism.  I
am though a little fascinated by a comment from USA senator John McCain,
&lt;a href=&quot;http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/379339-mccain-rips-trumps-congratulatory-call-to-putin-as-insult-to-russian-people&quot;&gt;sited
by The Hill and others&lt;/a&gt;:

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;An American president does not lead the Free World by
congratulating dictators on winning sham elections.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;While I totally agree with the senator here, the way the quote is
phrased make me suspect that he is unaware of the simple fact that USA
have not lead the Free World since at least before its government
&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar&quot;&gt;kidnapped a
completely innocent Canadian citizen in transit on his way home to
Canada via John F. Kennedy International Airport in September 2002 and
sent him to be tortured in Syria for a year&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;USA might be running ahead, but the path they are taking is not the
one taken by any Free World.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Facebooks ability to sell your personal information is the real Cambridge Analytica scandal</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Facebooks_ability_to_sell_your_personal_information_is_the_real_Cambridge_Analytica_scandal.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Facebooks_ability_to_sell_your_personal_information_is_the_real_Cambridge_Analytica_scandal.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 21 Mar 2018 16:30:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;So, Cambridge Analytica is getting some well deserved criticism for
(mis)using information it got from Facebook about 50 million people,
mostly in the USA.  What I find a bit surprising, is how little
criticism Facebook is getting for handing the information over to
Cambridge Analytica and others in the first place.  And what about the
people handing their private and personal information to Facebook?
And last, but not least, what about the government offices who are
handing information about the visitors of their web pages to Facebook?
No-one who looked at the terms of use of Facebook should be surprised
that information about peoples interests, political views, personal
lifes and whereabouts would be sold by Facebook.&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;Personally, I would recommend to completely remove your Facebook
account, and take back some control of your personal information.
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/19/how-to-protect-your-facebook-privacy-or-delete-yourself-completely&quot;&gt;According
to The Guardian&lt;/a&gt;, it is a bit hard to find out how to request
account removal (and not just &#39;disabling&#39;).  You need to
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/help/224562897555674?helpref=faq_content&quot;&gt;visit
a specific Facebook page&lt;/a&gt; and click on &#39;let us know&#39; on that page
to get to &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.facebook.com/help/delete_account&quot;&gt;the
real account deletion screen&lt;/a&gt;.  Perhaps something to consider?  I
would not trust the information to really be deleted (who knows,
perhaps NSA, GCHQ and FRA already got a copy), but it might reduce the
exposure a bit.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;If you want to learn more about the capabilities of Cambridge
Analytica, I recommend to see the video recording of the one hour talk
Paul-Olivier Dehaye gave to &lt;a href=&quot;&quot;&gt;NUUG&lt;/a&gt; last april about
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.nuug.no/aktiviteter/20170404-big-data-psychometric/&quot;&gt;
Data collection, psychometric profiling and their impact on
politics&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And if you want to communicate with your friends and loved ones,
use some end-to-end encrypted method like
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.signal.org/&quot;&gt;Signal&lt;/a&gt; or
&lt;a href=&quot;https://ring.cx/&quot;&gt;Ring&lt;/a&gt;, and stop sharing your private
messages with strangers like Facebook and Google.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>H, Ap, Frp og Venstre går for DNA-innsamling av hele befolkningen</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/H__Ap__Frp_og_Venstre_g_r_for_DNA_innsamling_av_hele_befolkningen.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/H__Ap__Frp_og_Venstre_g_r_for_DNA_innsamling_av_hele_befolkningen.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 14 Mar 2018 14:15:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I går kom det nok et argument for å holde seg unna det norske
helsevesenet.  Da annonserte et stortingsflertall, bestående av Høyre,
Arbeiderpartiet, Fremskrittspartiet og Venstre, at de går inn for å
samle inn og lagre DNA-prøver fra hele befolkningen i Norge til evig
tid.  Endringen gjelder innsamlede blodprøver fra nyfødte i Norge.
Det vil dermed ta litt tid før en har hele befolkningen, men det er
dit vi havner gitt nok tid.  I dag er det nesten hundre prosent
oppslutning om undersøkelsen som gjøres like etter fødselen, på
bakgrunn av blodprøven det er snakk om å lagre, for å oppdage endel
medfødte sykdommer.  Blodprøven lagres i dag i inntil seks år.
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.stortinget.no/no/Saker-og-publikasjoner/Publikasjoner/Innstillinger/Stortinget/2017-2018/inns-201718-182l/?all=true&quot;&gt;Stortingets
flertallsinnstilling&lt;/a&gt; er at tidsbegrensingen skal fjernes, og mener
at tidsubegrenset lagring ikke vil påvirke oppslutningen om
undersøkelsen.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Datatilsynet har ikke akkurat applaudert forslaget:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;

  &lt;p&gt;«Datatilsynet mener forslaget ikke i tilstrekkelig grad
  synliggjør hvilke etiske og personvernmessige utfordringer som må
  diskuteres før en etablerer en nasjonal biobank med blodprøver fra
  hele befolkningen.»&lt;/p&gt;
  
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det er flere historier om hvordan innsamlet biologisk materiale har
blitt brukt til andre formål enn de ble innsamlet til, og historien om
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.aftenposten.no/norge/i/Ql0WR/Na-ma-Folkehelsa-slette-uskyldiges-DNA-info&quot;&gt;folkehelseinstituttets
lagring på vegne av politiet (Kripos) av innsamlet biologisk materiale
og DNA-informasjon i strid med loven&lt;/a&gt; viser at en ikke kan være
trygg på at lover og intensjoner beskytter de som blir berørt mot
misbruk av slik privat og personlig informasjon.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Det er verdt å merke seg at det kan forskes på de innsamlede
blodprøvene uten samtykke fra den det gjelder (eller foreldre når det
gjelder barn), etter en lovendring for en stund tilbake, med mindre
det er sendt inn skjema der en reserverer seg mot forskning uten
samtykke.  Skjemaet er tilgjengelig fra
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.fhi.no/arkiv/publikasjoner/for-pasienter-skjema-for-reservasjo/&quot;&gt;folkehelseinstituttets
websider&lt;/a&gt;, og jeg anbefaler, uavhengig av denne saken, varmt alle å
sende inn skjemaet for å dokumentere hvor mange som ikke synes det er
greit å fjerne krav om samtykke.&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;Som vanlig, hvis du bruker Bitcoin og ønsker å vise din støtte til
det jeg driver med, setter jeg pris på om du sender Bitcoin-donasjoner
til min adresse
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>First rough draft Norwegian and Spanish edition of the book Made with Creative Commons</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_rough_draft_Norwegian_and_Spanish_edition_of_the_book_Made_with_Creative_Commons.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/First_rough_draft_Norwegian_and_Spanish_edition_of_the_book_Made_with_Creative_Commons.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 13 Mar 2018 13:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;I am working on publishing yet another book related to Creative
Commons.  This time it is a book filled with interviews and histories
from those around the globe making a living using Creative
Commons.&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;The whole book project started when
&lt;a href=&quot;http://gwolf.org/node/4102&quot;&gt;Gunnar Wolf announced&lt;/a&gt; that he
was going to make a Spanish edition of the book.  I noticed, and
offered some input on how to make a book, based on my experience with
translating the
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.lulu.com/shop/lawrence-lessig/fri-kultur/paperback/product-22441576.html&quot;&gt;Free
Culture&lt;/a&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;https://debian-handbook.info/get/#norwegian&quot;&gt;The Debian
Administrator&#39;s Handbook&lt;/a&gt; books to Norwegian Bokmål.  To make a
long story short, we ended up working on a Bokmål edition, and now the
first rough translation is complete, thanks to the hard work of
Ole-Erik Yrvin, Ingrid Yrvin, Allan Nordhøy and myself.  The first
proof reading is almost done, and only the second and third proof
reading remains.  We will also need to translate the 14 figures and
create a book cover.  Once it is done we will publish the book on
paper, as well as in PDF, ePub and possibly Mobi formats.&lt;/p&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;The translation is conducted using
&lt;a href=&quot;https://hosted.weblate.org/projects/madewithcc/translation/&quot;&gt;the
Weblate web based translation system&lt;/a&gt;.  Please have a look there
and get in touch if you would like to help out with proof
reading. :)&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Debian used in the subway info screens in Oslo, Norway</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_used_in_the_subway_info_screens_in_Oslo__Norway.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Debian_used_in_the_subway_info_screens_in_Oslo__Norway.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Fri, 2 Mar 2018 13:10:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Today I was pleasantly surprised to discover my operating system of
choice, Debian, was used in the info screens on the subway stations.
While passing Nydalen subway station in Oslo, Norway, I discovered the
info screen booting with some text scrolling.  I was not quick enough
with my camera to be able to record a video of the scrolling boot
screen, but I did get a photo from when the boot got stuck with a
corrupt file system:

&lt;p align=&quot;center&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2018-03-02-ruter-debian-lenny.jpeg&quot;&gt;&lt;img align=&quot;center&quot; width=&quot;40%&quot; src=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/images/2018-03-02-ruter-debian-lenny.jpeg&quot; alt=&quot;[photo of subway info screen]&quot;&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;While I am happy to see Debian used more places, some details of the
content on the screen worries me.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The image show the version booting is &#39;Debian GNU/Linux lenny/sid&#39;,
indicating that this is based on code taken from Debian Unstable/Sid
after Debian Etch (version 4) was released 2007-04-08 and before
Debian Lenny (version 5) was released 2009-02-14.  Since Lenny Debian
has released version 6 (Squeeze) 2011-02-06, 7 (Wheezy) 2013-05-04, 8
(Jessie) 2015-04-25 and 9 (Stretch) 2017-06-15, according to
&lt;a href=&quot;https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian_version_history&quot;&gt;a Debian
version history on Wikpedia&lt;/a&gt;.  This mean the system is running
around 10 year old code, with no security fixes from the vendor for
many years.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This is not the first time I discover the Oslo subway company,
Ruter, running outdated software.  In 2012,
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Er_billettautomatene_til_kollektivtrafikken_i_Oslo_uten_sikkerhetsoppdateringer_.html&quot;&gt;I
discovered the ticket vending machines were running Windows 2000&lt;/a&gt;,
and this was
&lt;a href=&quot;http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Fortsatt_ingen_sikkerhetsoppdateringer_for_billettautomatene_til_kollektivtrafikken_i_Oslo_.html&quot;&gt;still
the case in 2016&lt;/a&gt;.  Given the response from the responsible people
in 2016, I would assume the machines are still running unpatched
Windows 2000.  Thus, an unpatched Debian setup come as no surprise.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The photo is made available under the license terms
&lt;a href=&quot;http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/&quot;&gt;Creative Commons
4.0 Attribution International (CC BY 4.0)&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>The SysVinit upstream project just migrated to git</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_SysVinit_upstream_project_just_migrated_to_git.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/The_SysVinit_upstream_project_just_migrated_to_git.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Sun, 18 Feb 2018 09:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;Surprising as it might sound, there are still computers using the
traditional Sys V init system, and there probably will be until
systemd start working on Hurd and FreeBSD.
&lt;a href=&quot;https://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/sysvinit&quot;&gt;The upstream
project still exist&lt;/a&gt;, though, and up until today, the upstream
source was available from Savannah via subversion.  I am happy to
report that this just changed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The upstream source is now in Git, and consist of three
repositories:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;

&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/sysvinit.git&quot;&gt;sysvinit&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/sysvinit/insserv.git&quot;&gt;insserv&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://git.savannah.nongnu.org/cgit/sysvinit/startpar.git&quot;&gt;startpar&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;

&lt;/ul&gt;

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

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Using VLC to stream bittorrent sources</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_VLC_to_stream_bittorrent_sources.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Using_VLC_to_stream_bittorrent_sources.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Wed, 14 Feb 2018 08:00:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;A few days ago, a new major version of
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.videolan.org/&quot;&gt;VLC&lt;/a&gt; was announced, and I
decided to check out if it now supported streaming over
&lt;a href=&quot;http://bittorrent.org/&quot;&gt;bittorrent&lt;/a&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;https://webtorrent.io&quot;&gt;webtorrent&lt;/a&gt;.  Bittorrent is one of
the most efficient ways to distribute large files on the Internet, and
Webtorrent is a variant of Bittorrent using
&lt;a href=&quot;https://webrtc.org&quot;&gt;WebRTC&lt;/a&gt; as its transport channel,
allowing web pages to stream and share files using the same technique.
The network protocols are similar but not identical, so a client
supporting one of them can not talk to a client supporting the other.
I was a bit surprised with what I discovered when I started to look.
Looking at
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.videolan.org/vlc/releases/3.0.0.html&quot;&gt;the release
notes&lt;/a&gt; did not help answering this question, so I started searching
the web.  I found several news articles from 2013, most of them
tracing the news from Torrentfreak
(&quot;&lt;a href=https://torrentfreak.com/open-source-giant-vlc-mulls-bittorrent-support-130211/&quot;&gt;Open
Source Giant VLC Mulls BitTorrent Streaming Support&lt;/a&gt;&quot;), about a
initiative to pay someone to create a VLC patch for bittorrent
support.  To figure out what happend with this initiative, I headed
over to the #videolan IRC channel and asked if there were some bug or
feature request tickets tracking such feature.  I got an answer from
lead developer Jean-Babtiste Kempf, telling me that there was a patch
but neither he nor anyone else knew where it was.  So I searched a bit
more, and came across an independent
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/johang/vlc-bittorrent&quot;&gt;VLC plugin to add
bittorrent support&lt;/a&gt;, created by Johan Gunnarsson in 2016/2017.
Again according to Jean-Babtiste, this is not the patch he was talking
about.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Anyway, to test the plugin, I made a working Debian package from
the git repository, with some modifications.  After installing this
package, I could stream videos from
&lt;a href=&quot;https://www.archive.org/&quot;&gt;The Internet Archive&lt;/a&gt; using VLC
commands like this:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;blockquote&gt;&lt;pre&gt;
vlc https://archive.org/download/LoveNest/LoveNest_archive.torrent
&lt;/pre&gt;&lt;/blockquote&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The plugin is supposed to handle magnet links too, but since The
Internet Archive do not have magnet links and I did not want to spend
time tracking down another source, I have not tested it.  It can take
quite a while before the video start playing without any indication of
what is going on from VLC.  It took 10-20 seconds when I measured it.
Some times the plugin seem unable to find the correct video file to
play, and show the metadata XML file name in the VLC status line.  I
have no idea why.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I have created a &lt;a href=&quot;https://bugs.debian.org/890360&quot;&gt;request for
a new package in Debian (RFP)&lt;/a&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;https://github.com/johang/vlc-bittorrent/issues/1&quot;&gt;asked if
the upstream author is willing to help make this happen&lt;/a&gt;.  Now we
wait to see what come out of this.  I do not want to maintain a
package that is not maintained upstream, nor do I really have time to
maintain more packages myself, so I might leave it at this.  But I
really hope someone step up to do the packaging, and hope upstream is
still maintaining the source.  If you want to help, please update the
RFP request or the upstream issue.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I have not found any traces of webtorrent support for VLC.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        <item>
                <title>Version 3.1 of Cura, the 3D print slicer, is now in Debian</title>
                <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Version_3_1_of_Cura__the_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian.html</link>
                <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/Version_3_1_of_Cura__the_3D_print_slicer__is_now_in_Debian.html</guid>
                <pubDate>Tue, 13 Feb 2018 06:20:00 +0100</pubDate>
                <description>&lt;p&gt;A new version of the
&lt;a href=&quot;https://tracker.debian.org/pkg/cura&quot;&gt;3D printer slicer
software Cura&lt;/a&gt;, version 3.1.0, is now available in Debian Testing
(aka Buster) and Debian Unstable (aka Sid).  I hope you find it
useful.  It was uploaded the last few days, and the last update will
enter testing tomorrow.  See the
&lt;a href=&quot;https://ultimaker.com/en/products/cura-software/release-notes&quot;&gt;release
notes&lt;/a&gt; for the list of bug fixes and new features.  Version 3.2
was announced 6 days ago.  We will try to get it into Debian as
well.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;More information related to 3D printing is available on the
&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/3DPrinting&quot;&gt;3D printing&lt;/a&gt; and
&lt;a href=&quot;https://wiki.debian.org/3D-printer&quot;&gt;3D printer&lt;/a&gt; wiki pages
in Debian.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&quot;&gt;15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/b&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
</description>
        </item>
        
        </channel>
</rss>