Non Forbes

Sysadmin services trading

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2007-03-12 20:08

I've ranted before about just how hard it has become to configure and administer computers. And there are services where you can hire sysadmins to help you, primarily aimed at novice users.

But we advanced users often need help today, too. Mostly when we run into problems we go to message boards, or do web searches and find advice on what to do. And once we get good on a package we can generally fix problems with it in no time.

Topic: 
Sysadmin
Tags: 
system administration

Peerflix goes to dollar prices

Submitted by brad on Thu, 2007-03-08 14:31

I have written several times before about Peerflix -- Now that I've started applying some tags as well as categories to my items you can now see all the Peerflix stories using that link -- and the issues behind doing a P2P media trading/loaning system. Unlike my own ideas in this area, Peerflix took a selling approach. You sold and bought DVDs, initially for their own internal currency. It was 3 "Peerbux" for new releases, 2 for older ones, and 1 for bargain bin disks.

That system, however, was failing. You would often be stuck for months or more with an unpopular disk. Getting box sets was difficult. So in December they moved to pricing videos in real dollars. I found that interesting because it makes them, in a way, much closer to a specialty eBay. There are still a lot of differences from eBay -- only unboxed disks are traded, they provide insurance for broken disks and most importantly, they set the price on disks.

One can trade DVDs on eBay fairy efficiently but it requires a lot of brain effort because you must put time into figuring good bid and ask prices for items of inconsequential price. Peerflix agreed that this is probably a poor idea, so they decided to set the prices. I don't know how they set their initial prices, but it may have been by looking at eBay data or similar information.

Topic: 
Media
Tags: 
peerflix

Photo editors: Embed your text in the jpegs

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2007-03-05 15:18

Hey photo editing programs -- I'm looking at you, Photoshop -- a lot of you allow people to place text into graphic images, usually as a text layer. Most graphics with text on the web are made this way. Then we export the image as a jpeg or png/gif, flatting the layers so our artful text is displayed. This is how all the buttons with words are made, as well as the title banner graphics on most web sites.

Topic: 
Photography
Tags: 
photoshop
images
spidering

We're #12. We're #12!

Submitted by brad on Mon, 2007-03-05 14:49

From the shameless narcissism department: I was surprised to see myself and the EFF picked by PC World today at #12 on their 50 most important people on the web list. I'm really there as a proxy for the EFF, I suspect, but it's great to see our work recognized. I'm pleased to say the EFF is going like gangbusters right now with so many cases under our wing, and many thousands of new members in the last year, thanks in part to the AT&T lawsuit and others.

Topic: 
Announcements

Calendar software, notice when I fly

Submitted by brad on Sun, 2007-03-04 19:50

Most of us, when we travel, put appointments we will have while on the road into our calendars. And we usually enter them in local time. ie. if I have a 1pm appointment in New York, I set it for 1pm not 10am in my Pacific home time zone. While some calendar programs let you specify the time zone for an event, most people don't, and many people also don't change the time zone when they cross a border, at least not right away.

Topic: 
Random Ideas
Technology

Without knowing it, we're all in the gene databases already

Submitted by brad on Sat, 2007-03-03 23:07

I have written before how future technology affects our privacy decisions today. DNA collection is definitely one of these areas. As you may know, law enforcement in the USA is now collecting DNA from people convicted of crimes, and even those arrested in a number of jurisdictions -- with no ability to expunge the data if not found guilty. You may feel this doesn't affect you, as you have not been arrested.

As DNA technology grows, bioinformatics software is becoming able to determine that a sample of DNA is a "near match" for somebody in a database. For example, they might determine that a person in the database is not the source of the DNA being studied, but is a relative of that person.

In a recent case, a DNA search turned up not the perpetrator, but his brother. They investigated the male relatives of the brother and found and convicted the man in question.

Topic: 
Privacy

Zphone and the "rich little attack"

Submitted by brad on Thu, 2007-03-01 23:46

I was discussing his Zphone encrypting telephone system with Phil Zimmermann today. In his system, phone calls are encrypted with opportunistic, certificateless cryptography, which I applaud because it allows zero user interface and not centralization. It is vulnerable to "man in the middle" attacks if the MITM can be present in all communications.

His defence against MITM is to allow the users of the system to do a spoken authentication protocol at any time in their series of conversations. While it's good to do it on the first call, his system works even when done later. In their conversation, they can, using spoken voice, read off a signature of the crypto secrets that are securing their conversation. The signatures must match -- if they don't, a man-in-the-middle is possibly interfering.

I brought up an attack he had thought of and called the Rich Little attack, involving impersonation with a combination of a good voice impersonation actor and hypothetical computerized speech modification that turns a good impersonator into a near perfect one. Phil believes that trying to substitute voice in a challenge that can come at any time, in any form, in any conversation is woefully impractical.

A small amount of thought made me produce this attack: Two impersonators. Early on in a series of conversations, the spy agency trying to break in brings in two impersonators who have listened to Alice and Bob respectively (we are hearing their calls) and learned their mannerisms. A digital audio processor helps convert the tones of their voice. That's even easier on an 8khz channel.

Topic: 
Privacy

Subsidize customers, not phones

Submitted by brad on Wed, 2007-02-28 01:58

As you may know, if you buy a cell phone today, you have to sign up for a 1 or 2 year contract, and you get a serious discount on the phone, often as much as $200. The stores that sell the phones get paid this subsidy when they sell to you, if you buy from a carrier you just get a discount. The subsidy phones are locked so you can't go and take them to another carrier, though typically you can get them unlocked for a modest fee either by the carrier or unlock shops.

Topic: 
Telecom

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