Petter Reinholdtsen

The Coz profiler, a nice profiler able to run benchmarking experiments on the instrumented multi-threaded program, finally made it into Debian unstable yesterday. Lluís Vilanova and I have spent many months since I blogged about the coz tool in August working with upstream to make it suitable for Debian. There are still issues with clang compatibility, inline assembly only working x86 and minimized JavaScript libraries.

To test it, install 'coz-profiler' using apt and run it like this:

coz run --- /path/to/binary-with-debug-info

This will produce a profile.coz file in the current working directory with the profiling information. This is then given to a JavaScript application provided in the package and available from a project web page. To start the local copy, invoke it in a browser like this:

sensible-browser /usr/share/coz-profiler/viewer/index.htm

See the project home page and the USENIX ;login: article on Coz for more information on how it is working.

A few days ago I ran a very biased and informal survey to get an idea about what options are being used to communicate with end to end encryption with friends and family. I explicitly asked people not to list options only used in a work setting. The background is the uneasy feeling I get when using Signal, a feeling shared by others as a blog post from Sander Venima about why he do not recommend Signal anymore (with feedback from the Signal author available from ycombinator). I wanted an overview of the options being used, and hope to include those options in a less biased survey later on. So far I have not taken the time to look into the individual proposed systems. They range from text sharing web pages, via file sharing and email to instant messaging, VOIP and video conferencing. For those considering which system to use, it is also useful to have a look at the EFF Secure messaging scorecard which is slightly out of date but still provide valuable information.

So, on to the list. There were some used by many, some used by a few, some rarely used ones and a few mentioned but without anyone claiming to use them. Notice the grouping is in reality quite random given the biased self selected set of participants. First the ones used by many:

• Signal
• Email w/OpenPGP (Enigmail, GPGSuite,etc)
• Whatsapp
• IRC w/OTR
• XMPP w/OTR

Then the ones used by a few.

• Mumble
• iMessage (included in iOS from Apple)
• Telegram
• Jitsi
• Keybase file

Then the ones used by even fewer people

• Ring
• Bitmessage
• Wire
• VoIP w/ZRTP or controlled SRTP (e.g using CSipSimple, Linphone)
• Matrix
• Kontalk
• 0bin (encrypted pastebin)
• Appear.in
• riot
• Wickr Me

And finally the ones mentioned by not marked as used by anyone. This might be a mistake, perhaps the person adding the entry forgot to flag it as used?

• Email w/Certificates S/MIME
• Crypho
• CryptPad
• ricochet

Given the network effect it seem obvious to me that we as a society have been divided and conquered by those interested in keeping encrypted and secure communication away from the masses. The finishing remarks from Aral Balkan in his talk "Free is a lie" about the usability of free software really come into effect when you want to communicate in private with your friends and family. We can not expect them to allow the usability of communication tool to block their ability to talk to their loved ones.

Note for example the option IRC w/OTR. Most IRC clients do not have OTR support, so in most cases OTR would not be an option, even if you wanted to. In my personal experience, about 1 in 20 I talk to have a IRC client with OTR. For private communication to really be available, most people to talk to must have the option in their currently used client. I can not simply ask my family to install an IRC client. I need to guide them through a technical multi-step process of adding extensions to the client to get them going. This is a non-starter for most.

I would like to be able to do video phone calls, audio phone calls, exchange instant messages and share files with my loved ones, without being forced to share with people I do not know. I do not want to share the content of the conversations, and I do not want to share who I communicate with or the fact that I communicate with someone. Without all these factors in place, my private life is being more or less invaded.

A while back I received a Gyro sensor for the NXT Mindstorms controller as a birthday present. It had been on my wishlist for a while, because I wanted to build a Segway like balancing lego robot. I had already built a simple balancing robot with the kids, using the light/color sensor included in the NXT kit as the balance sensor, but it was not working very well. It could balance for a while, but was very sensitive to the light condition in the room and the reflective properties of the surface and would fall over after a short while. I wanted something more robust, and had the gyro sensor from HiTechnic I believed would solve it on my wishlist for some years before it suddenly showed up as a gift from my loved ones. :)

Unfortunately I have not had time to sit down and play with it since then. But that changed some days ago, when I was searching for lego segway information and came across a recipe from HiTechnic for building the HTWay, a segway like balancing robot. Build instructions and source code was included, so it was just a question of putting it all together. And thanks to the great work of many Debian developers, the compiler needed to build the source for the NXT is already included in Debian, so I was read to go in less than an hour. The resulting robot do not look very impressive in its simplicity:

Because I lack the infrared sensor used to control the robot in the design from HiTechnic, I had to comment out the last task (taskControl). I simply placed /* and */ around it get the program working without that sensor present. Now it balances just fine until the battery status run low:

Now we would like to teach it how to follow a line and take remote control instructions using the included Bluetooth receiver in the NXT.

If you, like me, love LEGO and want to make sure we find the tools they need to work with LEGO in Debian and all our derivative distributions like Ubuntu, check out the LEGO designers project page and join the Debian LEGO team. Personally I own a RCX and NXT controller (no EV3), and would like to make sure the Debian tools needed to program the systems I own work as they should.

Jeg ble så imponert over dagens gladnyhet på NRK, om at Forbrukerrådet klager inn vilkårene for bruk av aktivitetsbånd fra Fitbit, Garmin, Jawbone og Mio til Datatilsynet og forbrukerombudet, at jeg sendte følgende brev til forbrukerrådet for å uttrykke min støtte:

Jeg ble veldig glad over å lese at Forbrukerrådet klager inn flere aktivitetsbånd til Datatilsynet for dårlige vilkår. Jeg har ønsket meg et aktivitetsbånd som kan måle puls, bevegelse og gjerne også andre helserelaterte indikatorer en stund nå. De eneste jeg har funnet i salg gjør, som dere også har oppdaget, graverende inngrep i privatsfæren og sender informasjonen ut av huset til folk og organisasjoner jeg ikke ønsker å dele aktivitets- og helseinformasjon med. Jeg ønsker et alternativ som ikke sender informasjon til skyen, men derimot bruker en fritt og åpent standardisert protokoll (eller i det minste en dokumentert protokoll uten patent- og opphavsrettslige bruksbegrensinger) til å kommunisere med datautstyr jeg kontrollerer. Er jo ikke interessert i å betale noen for å tilrøve seg personopplysninger fra meg. Desverre har jeg ikke funnet noe alternativ så langt.

Det holder ikke å endre på bruksvilkårene for enhetene, slik Datatilsynet ofte legger opp til i sin behandling, når de gjør slik f.eks. Fitbit (den jeg har sett mest på). Fitbit krypterer informasjonen på enheten og sender den kryptert til leverandøren. Det gjør det i praksis umulig både å sjekke hva slags informasjon som sendes over, og umulig å ta imot informasjonen selv i stedet for Fitbit. Uansett hva slags historie som forteller i bruksvilkårene er en jo både prisgitt leverandørens godvilje og at de ikke tvinges av sitt lands myndigheter til å lyve til sine kunder om hvorvidt personopplysninger spres ut over det bruksvilkårene sier. Det er veldokumentert hvordan f.eks. USA tvinger selskaper vha. såkalte National security letters til å utlevere personopplysninger samtidig som de ikke får lov til å fortelle dette til kundene sine.

Stå på, jeg er veldig glade for at dere har sett på saken. Vet dere om aktivitetsbånd i salg i dag som ikke tvinger en til å utlevere aktivitets- og helseopplysninger med leverandøren?

Jeg håper en konkurrent som respekterer kundenes privatliv klarer å nå opp i markedet, slik at det finnes et reelt alternativ for oss som har full tillit til at skyleverandører vil prioritere egen inntjening og myndighetspålegg langt foran kundenes rett til privatliv. Jeg har ingen tiltro til at Datatilsynet vil kreve noe mer enn at vilkårene endres slik at de forklarer eksplisitt i hvor stor grad bruk av produktene utraderer privatsfæren til kundene. Det vil nok gjøre de innklagede armbåndene «lovlige», men fortsatt tvinge kundene til å dele sine personopplysninger med leverandøren.