The Author – Bart Busschots
Creative Commons
Unless otherwise stated, the content on this site is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Noncommercial, No Derivative Works 3.0 License
Jan
16
UPnP Router Attacks Happening for Real
Filed Under Security, Computers & Tech | 3 Comments
Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) has been contentious for a long time. On the one hand it makes it easier to run badly written on-line programs that insist on making connections to you rather than on your making connections to them. If all networked software was written intelligently we’d never need UPnP. But of course that’s not the case. So, people have a choice, manually map the ports they need which takes time and effort, or just enable UPnP and let it take care of it for you. Obviously it’s easier to just enable UPnP but there is a massive flaw in that. UPnP allows routers to be re-programmed without ANY user interaction, without ANY authentication, and in many cases in such a way that it’s not possible to see what changes have been made even from within the router’s web interface. From a security point of view this is nothing short of retarded. It’s because of this that security experts like Steve Gibbson have been advising people to turn off UPnP for years, and why I suggested people turn it off in my recent article on securing your home internet connection.
[tags]UPnP, Security, Routers[/tags]
Jan
16
Well, another Macworld has been and gone, we have a new stock of Apple goodies to slurp up our disposable cash, and we get to tally our score and see how well we did with our predictions. In some ways this keynote was rather disappointing, so many of the rumours were true! That’s the second year in a row that we’ve had the big news leak before the show. Then you have the fact that there was no ‘and one more thing’ announcement. On the other hand though, if you just look at what was actually announced it was a very impressive Macworld. There were also some wonderful surprises in the details. Sure, we knew we were getting movie rentals, but with so many studios? Sure, we knew we were getting the 1.1.3 mobile OS X (as I call it) firmware, but we had no idea we’d be getting mail and Google Maps on the iPod Touch! Then we come to the ultra-portable, sure, we were expecting it, but really, I wasn’t expecting something quite so thin yet big. So, although there were no surprises in the over-all structure of the keynote, there were some wonderful surprises in the details. Oh, and I did well with my predictions 🙂
[tags]Macworld, Steve Jobs, Apple, Keynote[/tags]
Jan
12
Next Tuesday Santa finally comes for the Mac faithful when Steve Jobs takes the stage for his Mac World 2008 keynote. Each year I like to make an idiot of myself by trying to predict what santa Steve will deliver for us, so, here I go again! I’m gonna start by putting my neck on the line straight away. I think the focus for this keynote will be home entertainment. I think the reports about video rentals will turn out to be correct and I think there’ll be more to it than what has been reported this week. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the Apple TV got a make-over and a new lease of life. Some are even predicting that Apple will sell TVs with Apple TV built in. I’m not convinced, but it’s possible I guess.
Jan
8
Teaching Programming – Why the Choice of First Language is Irrelevant
Filed Under Software Development, Computers & Tech | 11 Comments
Something I’ve spent quote a bit of time thinking about during my years as a student, then lab assistant (AKA demonstrator), and finally occasional lecturer with the computer science department in NUI Maynooth, is how students should be introduced to computer science and programming. I’ve seen all sorts of tactics tried over the past 14 years. The absolute worst tactic I’ve seen is the abandonment programming from first year computer science program altogether. Another disaster in my opinion was the introduction objects before the introduction of basic constructs like conditional statements and loops, the confusion that cased was monumental. I have been involved with final year undergraduate projects for much of my time with the department and have seen first-hand the effects of some of the different approaches. No one seems to be able to agree on how best to start computer science students programming, but something no one can argue with is that any system that results in final year honours students being unable to program is fundamentally flawed.
[tags]computer programming, education[/tags]
Jan
2
What is it with the RIAA that they believe that the way to get more customer loyalty is to sue their customers? Do they think people LIKE being sued? How exactly does criminalising, alienating, and literally prosecuting your customers possibly help business? I know record chiefs are out of touch with reality some what but the RIAA seem to be from an entirely different planet. They just don’t get it. I thought I’d seen it all, but I was wrong. Now the RIAA are litigating against people who rip CDs they bought legally for purely personal use. That, apparently is now also illegal and worthy of the RIAA’s wrath. Yup, us nice people who pay for our music and want to put it on our MP3 players are now targets for litigation too. Man, I can really feel my love for the music industry growing. For more check out this article from the Washington Post.
[tags]RIAA, ass-hats[/tags]
Dec
31
Laptops on Planes – A Cautionary Tale
Filed Under Computers & Tech | 4 Comments
I just spent the last 10 minutes picking someone’s used chewing gum out of the power connector on my MBP with a small key. I can only imagine it picked up its sticky and rather unpleasant cargo when I slid it into the seat pocket on the plane for landing. There really are some very disgusting and inconsiderate prats on this planet.
Dec
31
As I write this I’m on holidays in Belgium with my family and I’ve made it my business to find out as much as I can about both the current political crisis in Belgium and the long history behind this crisis reaching right back to the formation of Belgium in 1830. Ultimately the big question has to be whether or not we are seeing the beginning of the end of Belgium, at least as we know it. Although I did most of my growing up in Ireland and consider myself to be Irish in many ways, I was not born either in Ireland of from even one Irish parent. Instead I was born in Belgium from two Belgian parents, or, to be more precise, in Flanders from two Flemish parents. It’s important that you know this because despite my best efforts some Flemish bias will probably creep into this article.
Dec
19
Beating PostgerSQL 8 Into Submission on OS X 10.5 Leopard
Filed Under Computers & Tech | Leave a Comment
In general the move to Leopard has been very smooth for me but there was one notable exception, getting a working PostgreSQL 8 sever up and running on my MacBookPro. A few weeks ago I’d expended a lot of time and effort on this and gotten nowhere so at that stage I’d decided to work around the problem by using a remote PostgreSQL server rather than running one locally. This works fine as long as you have broadband internet access. However, I’m off to Belgium for a week on Saturday where I’ll have no broadband but where I will need to get some development work done that requires access to a PostgerSQL server.
With the end of the week getting closer I had another go at getting PosgreSQL to behave on OS X and I did eventually succeed. I got 90% of the way there by following these instructions but then I ran into a few strange problem that took a little more time and effort to work around. However, the good news is that I got it all figured out in the end!
[tags]PostgreSQL, OS X, OS X 10.5 Leopard[/tags]
Dec
19
Fantastic JKR Interview on Potter Cast
Filed Under 42 (Life the Universe & Everything) | Leave a Comment
I’ve commented before about how much I like the new more open JKR we’ve gotten to see since the release of the last Harry Potter book last summer. Today I got my best taste yet of this liberated Joe on a special surprise episode of Potter Cast. Talk about a fantastic Christmas treat, without any advanced warning the entirety of episode 130 was given over to a long discussion about the books with JKR her self. What’s even better is that there’s a second part to come next week!
I’ve just finished listening now and it was fantastic. Very natural, very informative and very entertaining. It’s not your typical interview fodder, it sounds like a group of friends having a chat about Harry Potter only one of the friends happens to be the author herself!
If you’re a fan of the Potter books you really should have a listen to this episode, even if you wouldn’t usually listen to Harry Potter podcasts.
[tags]Potter Cast, JK Rowling[/tags]
Dec
19
This Blog is Now Pimped for iPhone Users
Filed Under Computers & Tech, My Projects | Leave a Comment
Thanks to this nice wordpress plugin/theme from the guys at content robot this blog now displays even better on an iPhone or iPod Touch. It works by first providing a theme that is optimised for use on Mobile Safari and then adding a plugin that uses that theme automatically for just Mobile Safari. It’s a nice idea well implemented. (Thanks to Alison for the tip)