Geek Interests

Wed - September 20, 2006

ISP data retention laws

This would suck. The powers that be are agitating for new data retention laws that would force ISPs to keep track of just about everything you do online and hold that info for years. Imagine - every instant message or email you sent could have it's destination and source logged for use by law enforcement. Any web site you visit or file you download - logged.

This means that at any point in the future, your online activities could be dredged up examined for any purpose or any cause that may be unpopular at the moment. Not to mention that your records are kept by companies who have a less than stellar track record for keeping things like that private. Hell, with info like that being stored, you can be sure that information will leak like a sieve.

Right now these companies keep some of this info, with varying amounts of enthusiasm and effectiveness, so don't think you're immune right now. However, you're free to choose a provider who keeps nothing at all or use anonymizer services. In the future this may not be an option. Even now, having and using privacy tools is extremely important, even for everyday activities.

Check out:

Tor, (A relatively easy-to-use network anonymizer)

Privoxy (included with the complete Tor distribution, helps keep private data from being sent to every web site you visit. Also includes a nice ad-blocking setup as a bonus.)

Firefox with some nice plugins, specifically NoScript, FoxyProxy, SafeCache, and SafeHistory

Learn to use them and use them often. Little brother may be watching.

Posted at 10:35 AM Permalink

Fri - September 15, 2006

Zune won't play your purchased music

I can't even believe that this is true, but here is is, straight from the horse's mouth:

Plays for Sure: Zune isn’t “Plays for Sure” compatible and the DRM-protected music from PFS services likely won’t play without the usual burn to CD workaround. Lee’s explanation: PFS was established to make sure non-integrated players and services were compatible; because Zune is an integrated environment, it doesn’t need PFS. Lee: “We wanted an integrated experience from the beginning. … Our focus is on giving the user one great experience.”

You read that right - Microsoft is not going to allow their new Zune music player to use content purchased from stores supporting their own "Plays for Sure" technology. Again: IT WON'T PLAY CONTENT FROM STORES USING THEIR OWN FORMAT. WTF?

Apparently they're going for the ultra-niche market of those people who haven't yet bought a digital music player. Sure as hell won't be people who have any investment in music they've purchased from their own music partners...

I would be pissed if I was Napster or Rhapsody or any of those other music store also-rans. This thing has the potential to just bury them. Their own partner has basically just dumped them for a new platform and not letting anyone else play. Suckers.

They're trying to pull an Apple marketing move here and actually make a good end-to-end solution for music - but since when has Microsoft *EVER* been able to do that? They've already screwed their customers once with "Plays for Sure," are you really going to trust them with your music purchases again?

Posted at 02:58 PM Permalink

Thu - November 17, 2005

Email Priorities

OK, when did this start and how can we stop it? NEARLY EVERY FREAKING EMAIL I GET now has the little "high priority" thing set. Doesn't matter if they're asking about the weather or if it's a pardon from governor for that prisoner being executed. Almost all mail is being sent with this flag on. I've turned off the icons in my client that highlight the apparently ultra-urgent "LOL, YOULL LOVE THIS JOKE, LOL :-)" I get from "friends" or cow-orkers.

Seriously, did some new Outlook version get deployed which allows this to be defaulted to High for all mail? And who the hell are these jerks kidding that they think everything they send needs immediate attention? If you need immediate action, pick up the damn phone. Otherwise, it's probably going to sit in my inbox for a while until I get enough cycles to deal with it.

Look, emails get delayed, lost, folded, spindled, and occasionally mutilated. It's not a 100% reliable form of communication. If it really is important, email should only be a backup for a phone call. So DROP THE OVERUSE OF HIGH PRIORITY MAIL. It sucks, and if you continue to abuse it, you'll suck too. It's already been rendered useless for me, so just DROP IT.

Posted at 12:45 PM Permalink

Fri - August 5, 2005

Motorola RAZR, GPRS, and T-Mobile

I finally had to ditch my (partially) trusty Nokia 3650. It had taken to turning itself off randomly every 5-10 minutes. A battery change and some wishful cleaning didn't help, so I bit the bullet and purchased a new RAZR, which was just made available in the local T-Mobile stores. Yes, the thing doesn't have have the capability of the 3650 with the well-developed series 60 platform, but damn is this thing sexy! Lightweight, thin, and a standard keypad - all things lacking on the 3650.

However, there was one problem. I got all my contacts and calendar synced in about five minutes, thanks to OS X's iSync. But try as I might, I couldn't get the little thing to establish a working GPRS connection. It would always just fail during (or just after) the authentication phase. Sometime silently, sometimes not. There are about a million tutorials on the web for getting GPRS working with OS X, and all point to this page that contains nicely formatted GPRS and modem scripts for just about every phone in existence, but nothing I did would make it work. Until...

I put the APN in the Phone Number field. Some pages want a *99# there, some want the word none (like for my 3650), some are blank. But for T-Mobile and this phone, it wanted the internet2.voicestream.net stuck in there. Worked like a champ. So, the quick settings I used are:

Phone Number: internet2.voicestream.net
Username and Password are both blank
Modem type: Motorola GPRS CID1 (retrieved from the above mentioned page, .ZIP linked here.)

Hopefully this will help someone else and save them some pain. And by the way, T-Mobile. Your help pages suck huge schlong. They are so content free as to be completely worthless.

Posted at 01:26 PM Permalink

Fri - May 13, 2005

MPAA Going After TV Downloads

You knew it was coming, didn't you. The inevitable smack down of those evil mustache-twirling THIEVES that are downloading copies of the Simpsons. Yes, the dinosaur in the tar-pit that is the MPAA has sued and effectively shutdown six major Bit-Torrent sites specializing in TV shows.

I suppose that their recent loss in the broadcast flag legislation process caused them to lash out at the ones they love - the TV and movie going public. So refrain from downloading this crap all you who yearn to see what Apprentice gets that cushy job. For it won't be long until the whole pile of crap that is the MPAA will be hopelessly sunk. If all they can come up with is more and more regulation, with less and less innovation, it's inevitable that that someone with better ideas will pass them by.

Link to ZDNet article.
Link to MPAA press release (in PDF) [ Beware gratuitous fear mongering ]

Posted at 01:40 PM Permalink

Thu - April 7, 2005

More Daylight Saving Time?

The super-geniuses in the Congress have added an amendment to an energy bill that would extend daylight saving time another two months, ending in the final week of November. They claim that doing this will save 10,00 barrels of oil a day for each of the additional days it's in effect. However, someone should let these jokers know that we'll spend all that energy reprogramming the world's computers so they know the new daylight saving time parameters. Not to mention the inevitable headaches that will result from continually updating the clocks on those machines that don't recognize the new time. It will be a disaster. If they want to change it, make it year round. That's at least easier to change existing computers to support.

Does anyone think about this crap before they go opening their mouths? Seriously, what a bunch of idiots.

Link to CNN article.

Posted at 12:34 PM Permalink

Mon - April 4, 2005

Hubble Telescope to be De-orbited

De-orbited or, more succinctly, crashed into the ocean somewhere. It's too bad - NASA has determined that the cost and complexity of doing a tele-robotic repair mission to the scope far outweigh the science that it would do in the next few years. Hubble is aging, and in need of it's 15-billion mile oil change. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that is going to happen now.

An automated liquid-fueled rocket will be flown to the telescope and fired up to plunge the thing into the sea in 2008. Until that time, scientists are working on limping the scope along with fewer gyros and other failing parts. They claim they may be able to get reasonably good observations out of it until then.

The real bummer is that it appears that there is no immediate replacement for Hubble. Nothing is scheduled for launch to take its place, and there isn't the equivalent ground equipment available.

Link to CNN article.

Posted at 10:13 AM Permalink

Fri - March 25, 2005

Sony PSP DRM

Check out the image at the bottom of this post. It's a segment of the main Comp USA website for the new Sony PSP handheld gaming machine. This is the first thing that someone sees when looking for the PSP on their site. The part not shown goes on about the screen size, colors, graphical capabilities and networking as you'd expect. But then at the bottom, there's this paragraph about how cool Sony's new UMD discs are. It then veers off into describing the "robust copyright protection system" developed for this unit. You know, the stuff that makes it harder to move content from one format to another and just generally gets in the way.

Why they thought that this was important enough to warrant a prominent place on the main PSP page, I don't know. Looks like some moron just copied an industry press release from Sony. I mean, who wants to read about how their $250 gaming machine is going to restrict what you can do with it? It like advertising a new DVD player that only works with movies from Blockbuster or something. Very very weird - and unfriendly.

Posted at 01:06 PM Permalink

Tue - March 22, 2005

Utah Can Now Censor the Web

It's happened: The Governor of Utah has signed HB 260, which creates a huge bureaucracy to keep lists of sites not appropriate for children and forces ISPs to block those sites for those who request it. Also, anyone who creates or hosts any content in Utah for profit must now rate it, or face criminal (3rd degree felony) charges.

Now come the inevitable lawsuits, and tons of state and other money wasted defending a bill that nobody really wants and that most agree won't survive a challenge in the courts. A similar law in Pennsylvania was struck down in the courts last year.

Thanks lawmakers. Now I know what you do with your time: waste money. And to Governor Huntsman: No more votes for you.

Link to previous entry about the bill.
Link to CNet article.

Posted at 02:45 PM Permalink

Fri - March 4, 2005

Net Censorship in Utah

The nannies that make up the majority of the Utah legislature have gone off the deep end and passed House Bill 260. This requires ISPs in Utah to filter pornographic and "material harmful to minors" upon request of their customers. And just who determines what material that they are to block? Well, the attorney general's office. Yes, now we'll have a group of interns who surf the net looking for porn subsidized by the government. This piece of junk bill is one signature away from law - that of the governor Jon Huntsman. He claims he still needs his staffers to go over the wording before making a decision. He has until March 22nd.

But that's just the beginning. It also requires "Internet content providers that create or host data in Utah to properly rate the data." Does that mean that I have to rate the content of this blog because I write it in Utah? What damn rating system? Everything that's published online now has to have some sort of code appended to it to make sure it's ok for the kiddies? What a bunch of crap. This is a great way to keep tech companies out of Utah. Why the hell would they come here and have to jump through hoops (by rating their content) just to put up a damn web site?

Plus the "Service Provider" is defined pretty loosely. It would include your standard run of the mill ISP as well as the coffee shop down the street that gives away WiFi. This would probably effectively kill any small wireless operators, and may kill even the T-Mobile HotSpots that are all over the place here. They're going to implement this just for the small number of customer's in Utah? Yeah, right. They'll probably just drop service instead of comply with the ridiculous provisions of this plan.

And who is going to be blocked? Would Google be banned? They provide all sorts of cached content and whatnot that wouldn't be suitable for the kids. How about Yahoo? Hell, eBay sports auctions that aren't very kid friendly. Are all these sites going to be blocked? Amazon provides books on topics you probably don't want your kids to read. So is the local library (who *GASP* has their card catalog and excerpts posted online!)

The really, really dumb part of this bill is that there are ISPs in Utah which already censor net content for the families that want that sort of thing. They advertise these services as a feature. They don't cost any more than anything else. There is no reason to pass a LAW that creates a huge bureaucracy just to do something that private companies are already providing to those few who want it.

The real deal here is that this isn't about the kids - it's about groups with an agenda against things they find offensive, and we all end up paying for it. If you leave in Utah, send Governor Huntsman a note about this.

Link to CNET article about the bill.

Posted at 12:20 AM Permalink

Tue - March 1, 2005

T-Mobile Benefits From Getting Hacked

According to this article from TechNewsWorld, T-Mobile sales of the Sidekick II have been boosted due to the recent hacking of Paris Hilton's account. This seems perfectly strange to me - a phone that stores all it's info on a central server open to hacking - then gets hacked - and private details posted to the web (including some nude photos!) - and this makes someone want to go out and buy one?

That is so hot.

Posted at 08:37 PM Permalink

Mon - February 28, 2005

Online Music Prices Going Up?

According to this CNN article, unnamed execs at several music companies have started rumbling about moving up the prices for downloadable music. They claim that the 65 cents per song they are currently getting was set artificially low to stimulate demand. Strangely, they point to the ridiculous cost of ring-tone downloads as somehow justifying the a higher price.

What a bunch of bastards. Assuming that this is true (and the Financial Times is a pretty good source) you can see just how damn greedy these jerks are. They don't have to manufacture any physical product. They don't have to ship anything. There is no risk in merchandise being returned unsold, damaged, or stolen. They don't even have to pay bandwidth costs. It's practically pure profit, since they already made the album. For a typical album with 10 songs, this comes out to be about $6.50 the record companies are seeing. Not bad.

I know what they are realizing, though. I know why they want to raise the prices. Because they are no longer selling albums. People have finally got the choice to purchase individual songs, and they are taking advantage of it. Most albums suck - they contain one or two songs that I'd pay for and the rest is filler that I'll probably listen to once or twice and then never again. So, people just get the one or two songs, and don't even bother with the rest. So instead of their $6.50, they get get something like a $1.30.

That is the problem here - crap tunes and the record execs know it. Instead of making better music, they want to raise the price for the stuff that people will listen to. Typical response for an industry in the toilet, though. Don't make your product better, just raise it's price to keep the status quo. This rarely works for long.

Posted at 10:36 AM Permalink

Wed - February 23, 2005

T-Mobile Voice Mail Hacking

T-Mobile has had a rash of security problems over the past month or so. It started with a cracker in California who had access to over 16.3 million customer service records, including those of the Secret Service agents that were assigned to help track him down. It sounds like something from a movie, but it happened.

It didn't get any better for the carrier when just a few days ago someone jacked the contents of Paris Hilton's cell phone and posted her address book, notes, and pictures to the net (where they are still circulating...) A high profile case like this doesn't look very good, especially when you're using her image in your ads.

And finally, this item from Gizmodo, where some sort of phone phreak has figured out how to access anyone's voicemail. He demonstrated this by hacking the author's voicemail in 20 minutes - from a pay phone in a Mexican restaurant. He gives details on how to avoid getting hacked - basically setting a password that is asked for even when calling from your own phone:

Dial your T-Mobile voicemail from your mobile phone. If you don’t know your PIN number, you can set a new one by doing the following: Access your ‘personal options’ by pressing 4. ‘Modify your personal preferences’ by pressing 4, again. Then ‘modify your password’ by pressing 1. Set a new PIN and write it down somewhere secure, if necessary.

After you reset your pin, press the * key to go back to the ‘personal options’ menu (or press 4 from the main menu if you already knew your PIN). Once you have accessed the ‘personal options’ menu you will then press 8 which will enable password authentication when calling from your own mobile phone. Although entering your password every single time you call your voicemail can be a bit of a nuisance, a few seconds of your time is a small price to pay for the security of your voicemail system.

I've been a T-Mobile subscriber for two years now. I've generally been very happy with their service, but man - if this keeps up I'm going to need to find another provider. This stuff is beginning to look like pattern of lax security on their part. Which is kind of funny, since they actually have my name spelled wrong on my account, and getting it changed has been an exercise in futility - multiple faxes of passports, driver's licenses, social security cards - all not good enough to make a simple name change. It would probably be easier to just hack their servers. (Just kidding!)

Posted at 09:22 PM Permalink

Unsubscribe Update

It's been almost three weeks now since I went on an unsubscribe binge to clear my INBOX of "legitimate" bulk email. That is, messages that I may have signed up for in the past or got subscribed through software registration, etc. This is stuff like Microsoft's little updates on their office products, Palm's developer newsletters, etc. You can read about what a pain in the ass it was to actually unsubscribe in some of my previous rants here and here. Three weeks, and now I present the results.

Out of all of the unsubscribes I performed (13, including the ridiculous processes from Microsoft) only two have not sent me email in the past week. These two "winners" include Microsoft (despite the dumb-ass unsubscribe process) and a local business magazine (Digital IQ.)

Every single other unsubscribe has continued to send me email, with no hint that I ever unsubscribed. These aren't all little crappy companies, either. We're talking people like Palm - I'm signed up through two separate email addresses with them. Both were unsubscribed, and I just received today two identical emails from them on each of the addresses. Dell - a huge company with the resources to make this work - is still sending me advertising as of yesterday, despite my opt-out attempts.

And there are many more, and they all suck. My company spends *piles* of time making sure that people who are unsubscribed stay unsubscribed and to make sure our web forms all work. These people pay lip-service to being legitimate, but their poor efforts show otherwise.

Posted at 03:48 PM Permalink

Mon - February 21, 2005

Cool Tools PDF Released

Kevin Kelly has released a PDF version of his 2003 real-book Cool Tools. Cool Tools is the spiritual kin of The Whole Earth Catalog. They are very similar, except that Cool Tools has more or less kept up with the times. So what he's done is dumped the entire text - with color pictures - out into a nicely formatted PDF book. It's yours for $3.50.

Plastruct

This is the scale plastic stock and model parts catalog used by architects, scratchbuild modelers, railroad hobbyists and other miniature makers. They have EVERYTHING at various mini scales: I-beams, T-beams, Hbeams, tubing, tiny plumbing fittings, stone and brick-patterned sheets, plastic sheet stock in every size, color and thickness. The next time you watch a sci-fi film and see a far-away shot of, say a mining colony on a lonely asteroid, you’re probably actually looking at a big chunk of the Plastruct product line. Their website is abominable; get their paper catalog.
–Gareth Branwyn

Plastruct
Catalog, $5
626-912-7016
800-666-7015
www.plastruct.com

The cool thing is it used this new (well, at least to me) service from payloadz.com that seamlessly integrates with paypal.com. Click a link, send some money, and a unique download location is served up for you. Pretty cool stuff for small run things like this.

The whole thing is put up under a Creative Commons license, which allows you to more-or-less give it away for free, but I chipped in the tree-fitty. Well worth it.

Posted at 02:50 PM Permalink

Transformer Costumes

SHA-1 Causing Me Trouble

Carly Fiorina - You're Fired

Linux Virgin

Some New Earphones - Shure E3c

The New Napster To Go

Dark Matter Found?

Even More Unsubscribe Madness

Must-Have Alarm Clock

Put in Jail for Using Lynx... Or Not.

Wind Powered Walkers