- Samsung shuts down ChatOn – CNet – If only there was a way for their customers to uninstall their impotent self-defence against Google.
- EU software procurement breaches rules more than ever before – OFE PDF – Because they really do prefer to feed what they perceive as corporate power brokers rather than work to create European value with European money.
- EU allocates half million euros for testing open source – FSFE – It’s a rounding error on the budget, but at least it’s something. Let’s see who gets it.
- Apache finally publishes a code of conduct – Blog, Code – Fine work, but no really defence against those gaming the system.
Author Archives: Simon Phipps
Is Microsoft To Blame For Malware?
The action law enforcement services have taken against the GameOver-Zeus malware syndicate is great news for a change. In the UK, this was communicated with typical tabloid alarmism, framed as “two weeks to save the world” instead of “unusually effective action by law enforcement”. As a result, UK publications have been posting self-preservation information for their readers.
The BBC’s instructions start with the statement “If your computer does not run Windows, stop right here.” Users of other operating systems like Linux or ChromeOS have nothing to worry about this time, even if they are increasingly likely to be targeted elsewhere. As a result, some have asked whether Microsoft is to blame for all this malware. Continue reading
Heartbleed and Lessons Learned
We’ve had some time for the shock of the Heartbleed announcement to sink in and there’s a lot to consider. While the first impressions might be about the serious, exploitable bug and the repercussions of its abuse, the incident casts light on both the value and risks of open source. Continue reading
Steering Where You Look
When I learned to drive, my instructor told me “you steer where you look” — in other words, wherever you focus your attention becomes your destination, so keep your eyes on the road ahead and don’t worry about the stores at the roadside (or even too much about the kerb and the parked vehicles).
The same principle seems applicable in other contexts. We’re moving away from a hierarchical, post-industrial society and evolving into a meshed society of peers, interacting in variable roles on their own terms. That’s challenging established institutions, but sadly they have frequently “steered where they looked” and made the wrong choices.
Continue reading“… and the filters don’t work/they just make it worse…”
The UK government has pressured ISPs to apply content filters to their customers’ connections, in the name of protecting children from unsuitable content. During 2014, ISPs will be approaching their customers and trying to persuade them to turn on filtering. But this is a mistaken approach arising from magical thinking — “this thing should exist so it must be possible”.
Content filters can’t work, for several reasons. Just a sample: Continue reading
Parody Finally Made Legal In UK
Draft regulations have been published in Britain that will finally end the anomaly where quotation, parody, caricature and pastiche are considered breaches of copyright. If approved by Parliament, they will come into force on June 1st, finally closing the loophole in copyright law that allowed copyright owners to chill criticism and stifle research in cases that are otherwise reasonable.
For more details, see our article on ComputerWorldUK.
Open Source Fonts For Interoperability
Italo Vignoli makes a great point on his blog about the use of fonts. He explains that proprietary software like MS Office uses proprietary fonts by default.
Because of the way they are licensed, they can’t be bundled by other software. That means substitute fonts with different characteristics have to be used. As a consequence, other programs trying to open documents they create — no matter how otherwise interoperable the file format handling becomes — cannot reproduce the same visual appearance or layout since they don’t have the fonts.
The solution to this is open source fonts. They can be freely bundled with software like LibreOffice and thus the documents using them are much more likely to render correctly on other systems.
Crowdsource vs Open Source
The acquisition of virtual reality company Oculus VR by Facebook was announced this week to mixed reactions. Most negative were those who had enabled the Rift VR goggles to be created in the first place — the backers on Kickstarter who provided nearly $2.5m to see the dream become reality. One prominent backer, the founder of Minecraft creators Mojang, was especially upset, deciding that Minecraft will not collaborate with Facebook. In a blog post he wrote:
I did not chip in ten grand to seed a first investment round to build value for a Facebook acquisition.
Bitcoin Donations
Observant readers will have spotted the new “Donate Bitcoins” button on the Meshed website (over there on the right). If you would like to encourage us in our activities, we would be grateful for a few satoshii thrown our way.
The donation mechanism uses Coinbase. We picked this rather than, say, Paypal because it allows anyone anywhere in the world to easily make a donation in relative anonymity. You can use bitcoin in your own Bitcoin wallet, or you can pay Coinbase in your local currency. Do give it a try so you can tell your friends you have used Bitcoin!
Surveillance Impact Not Just Personal
In her post on ComputerWorld, Alexandra makes the excellent observation that the impact of surveillance is not exclusively personal. Knowing we could be watched, as Jeremy Bentham observed, changes our behaviour; specifically, it chills our creativity. This in turn affects innovation and hence the economy. More directly, businesses (like RSA) are harmed by the disclosure of their for-profit collusion.
As a consequence, it is in our business interests to deal with excessive surveillance, not just our personal interests. The same applies to the four freedoms of open source. They are not just a matter of personal preference; they are the key to business success in a meshed society.
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