John Moltz

Browser blues

Like everyone else in the world, I'm digging the hell out of Firefox. With all the spam comments I've been getting on CARS, I now have over 1,000 banned IP addresses (for all the good it's doing me). Safari seems to have some memory management issues as it very slowly loads that list of addresses and after repeated loading it has trouble doing much of anything.

Firefox does not display any of these behaviors. But I've noticed the following which I know I've seen mention of somewhere before but I can't remember where.

Loading Political Animal for example, some of the text looks like it's bold, when it shouldn't:

If I resize the window even a little, it'll correct itself:

It's small potatoes compared to the fact that Safari won't allow me to do what I need to, but right now I'm using both.

It's only cool when Dave does it

David Winer is releasing Frontier as open source (link via Hack the Planet).

The same David Winer who threw a hissy fit when the Howard Dean and Wes Clark campaigns went open-source, saying, and I quote:

I find myself hoping they get their asses kicked, hard. I don't expect much of Bush, but I doubt seriously that he would undermine the mostly American software industry by competing with it with free software.

...

How sad to see two leading Democrats fall for, even feed the lie that they can create user-oriented software for free. Shame on both Dean and Clark. They went after the little guy. Who wants a president who does that. Not me. Still looking for someone worth supporting. (Emphasis mine.)

Whatever, Dave.

Blogging etiquette

Via BoingBoing, I see this story of an irate New York Times reporting hauling off on a blogger who is a fan of hers for "appropriating" the Times' material. I don't know if this is a case of the reporter simply not understanding the different standard for blogs, there appears to be an issue about copyrighted pictures as well. But it's ironic that last night I had exactly such a conversation with my reporter wife who was reading this blog for the first time in a long while.

She asked who wrote the text below on Reagan and AIDS and I said it was from an AP story. She looked shocked and said "You have to cite this!" I replied "I linked to it right there. And it's in orange to show it's a quote. All the quotes are orange."

I was surprised that what seemed so obvious to me was completely not obvious to her. Looking at it with a traditional media perspective, you can see how it seems wrong, but the citation is there, and anyone who reads blogs would know that it was a quote.

In the comments of the post above, commenter Will provides what I know as blogging etiquette:

• don't quote more than 25% of an article or another post
• always link back to where you got it from
• reference a third party if you got the link from somewhere
• never steal original pictures

Does blogging need a better standard or do reporters just need to become more familiar with the medium? I lean toward the latter.

"Other than that...

... how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"

In response to Lucien's question in comments below (now that I'm back on the blog horse), let me fill you in on the project I was working on this past week.

I've been taking a database class and the final project was to make something with MySQL and Java Server Pages. Things did not go well.

As I was wrapping it up this weekend, I was working remotely on the server at school and nothing was working. Pages just wouldn't even load. Unbeknownst to me, the Tomcat server there was out of memory because so many programmers were forgetting to close their connections. At any rate, I decided to get MySQL and Tomcat running on my PowerBook.

That chewed up a few hours, but then I was back coding. Things seemed to be working fine right before class on Monday. Then I put my PowerBook to sleep and headed off to give the final presentation.

I don't know if it was the process of putting the laptop to sleep or what, but when I got to class, nothing worked anymore. I didn't figure it out until later, but I think the user table in MySQL was corrupted. I could only log in anonymously and couldn't access anything I needed.

So, while the first groups went, I struggled to get it running again, but it was no use. I wouldn't find out until later that the only way to fix it was to reinstall MySQL. I meekly got up when my turn came, explained my project wasn't currently working, did my PowerPoint presentation and sat down in humiliation.

But, it's over. That's the best thing I can say about it.

David Winer singing the same tune

The first time I read something written by David Winer, it was years ago when Apple was first releasing AppleScript. Winer believed Apple was doing the world a disservice by creating its own scripting language rather than relying on third-party developers. He seemed to believe that Apple should stick to the operating system and hardware and leave everything else to the independent software developers.

So furious was Winer, he took his company away from the Macintosh and over to Windows.

Because... uh... Microsoft would never put something into the operating system that would drive a small developer out of business.

Cough.

Anyway, Winer is still hot on the issue, only this time he's taking his righteous anger (or just his self-promotion disguised as righteous anger) out on the Clark and Dean campaigns. Based on a Wired article about Clark's campaign going open-source, Winer says:

I find myself hoping they get their asses kicked, hard. I don't expect much of Bush, but I doubt seriously that he would undermine the mostly American software industry by competing with it with free software.

...

How sad to see two leading Democrats fall for, even feed the lie that they can create user-oriented software for free. Shame on both Dean and Clark. They went after the little guy. Who wants a president who does that. Not me. Still looking for someone worth supporting.

Winer's reaction to Apple is debatable. Personally, I believe the Macintosh operating system would be a lot less fun if Apple weren't around to make it anymore. It's applications like AppleScript, iTunes, iMovie and iPhoto that have allowed Apple to return to profitability - by making an out-of-the-box user experience that no other computer has.

But his argument that tools that drive democracy should not be open sourced comes from the narrow view of someone concerned more about enlarging his own pocketbook than about providing a level playing field for candidates. In this instance, he is flat-out wrong. As Jerome Armstrong notes on Daily Kos

This is bigger than making a buck.

If Clark and Dean can make free tools that can be used by candidates in the future to lower the costs of entry, organization and getting their message out, that benefits everyone.

But Winer is not interested in everyone. Winer is interested in Winer.

Microsoft...

Wanted by Microsoft: Virus writers

Stepping up its battle against computer viruses and worms, Microsoft Corp. has established a $5 million fund to pay rewards for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for releasing malicious code, the company said.

Now, it's fine that they're doing this. It's probably good. But isn't the real solution making Windows more secure?

Kind of reminds me of the RIAA and the administration. "The problem isn't the crappy thing we're doing, it's the people who are taking advantage of it!"

The problem's not geurilla attacks in Iraq, it's that the media keeps reporting on them!

The problem's not the fact that we want to tell you how to enjoy your music, it's those damn file traders!

The problem's not that we write software with big, gaping holes, it's those people who take advantage of them!

There's a word for people like this, and that word is lazy.

Or stupid. I would also have accepted stupid.

Wee bit touchy, are we?

From Eat Your Vegetables, a new add to the list on the left, I see this tale of a Microsoft contractor who posted a picture of some Macs headed to the Microsoft campus and then heard those magic words: you're fired!

"..you have the right to say anything you want. Unfortunately, Microsoft has the right to decide that because of what you said, you're no longer welcome on the Microsoft campus."

Now, Microsoft is certainly within their rights to fire a contractor if they feel they're not "Microsoft material" ([cough] mindless corporate drones [cough]), but c'mon. Bit of an over-reaction. Someone's a little cranky. Someone needs a nap.

Wonder if the reaction would have been the same if he had taken a picture of a bunch of Dells.

Disturbing.

Time To Recall E-Vote Machines?

So, this is the company responsible for making machines that are supposed to ensure our right to vote and they left their source code, which they claim is a trade secret, where?

The version of the software seen by Johns Hopkins/Rice researchers has been a point of contention with Diebold since researchers first obtained source code from an unprotected FTP server belonging to the company.

Now, remember, leaving your source code on an unprotected server is not what we in the industry refer to as "open source."

Then the intruder can intercept votes en route to the courthouse, change them with a prewritten program, and send them on their way. All the information needed to do this, Stubblefield says, is in the source code that was exposed on Diebold's FTP site.

"This is all the more embarrassing because modern cryptography technology completely eliminates the need to worry about this threat," Wallach said. "Yet Diebold is not using it at all."

Yep. Diebold doesn't encrypt votes that it transmits.

So long, democracy! It was nice knowin' ya! Hello, fearsome rule of gigantic corporate interests!

Although, I'm not completely sure how that would be that much different from what we have now. They'd just be cutting out the middle man.

More scary electronic voting news

Via Mr. Barrett via Boing Boing I see the most recent attack on verifiable electronic voting has come in the form of VeriSign being tapped to provide online absentee voting for those overseas. Damien says it best:

Mark my words, if Verisign goes ahead with this contract and is able to supply their "expertise" in building the first important online voting system, hanky-panky will ensue. What is there to make me think Verisign won't sell my online vote to the highest bidder? Their word? Ha!

He also calls them shitweasels. I'm not sure what, exactly, a shitweasel is but it sounds about right.

"The solution we are building will enable absentee voters to exercise their right to vote," said George Schu, a vice president at VeriSign. "The sanctity of the vote can't be compromised nor can the integrity of the system be compromised--it's security at all levels."

Ooh, yeah! Spin it, baby! Shake that money-maker!

Wonder if they use Access as the underlying database, too?!

I won't be happy with this shit until someone fucking shows me that it is secure and verifiable. The truly frightening thing about this is that 90% or more of the country, including the politicians who are purchasing these systems, don't have a clue about the issues involved and why this is a big fucking deal.

"Computers is great! Me like to surf net!"

State the obvious, lose your job.

Microsoft Critic Forced Out. (Link via Dan Gillmor.)

A technology executive whose company does business with Microsoft Corp. has been forced out of his job after he helped write a cybersecurity report critical of the software giant, according to sources with knowledge of the situation...

Geer was one of several corporate and academic security experts who wrote the report, which argues that Microsoft's dominance over personal-computer operating systems and other software programs makes it easier for malicious hackers to attack millions of machines and networks at once.

At Gillmor's suggestion I'm linking to a PDF of the report here: CyberInSecurity: The Cost of Monopoly - How the Dominance of Microsoft's Products Poses a Risk to Security.