The Author – Bart Busschots
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May
13
A Look at the NoScript FireFox Add-on
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security on May 13, 2007 | 2 Comments
I have been warning of the dangers of JavaScript on the web for quite some time now (see related articles at the bottom of this article). I have also always said it is unrealistic to expect people to turn JS off completely. Hence, my advice has been the same, use FireFox, and use the NoScript add-on. However, I’ve never actually done a proper review of NoScript, until now.
May
11
More DRM Insanity
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security on May 11, 2007 | 1 Comment
The company Media Rights Technology (MRT) are suing Apple, Microsoft, Real and Adobe under the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) because they won’t use their technology. The DMCA makes software designed to circumvent copy protection illegal. It all hinges around MRT’s X1 SeCure Recording Control software which, according to them at least, is effective against the ripping of streaming media. MRT’s court case is based on the fact that these companies have been “actively avoiding the use of MRT’s technologies”. MRT are now claiming that because of this refusal to use their software these companies software is designed to facilitate piracy and therefore illegal. This is obviously totally laughable and if the American courts have even an ounce of sense left it will get thrown out of court. However, it is a dangerous case because if it wins it will mean that the DMCA makes DRM compulsory. This is also an interesting attempt to build a monopoly for MRT through legal action. Their business must really be suffering if they have to resort to abusing the DMCA to force companies to use their software. One has to ask what legal standing they have to even bring this case. This has the potential to set some very dangerous precedents. Lets hope common sense wins out in the America legal system for once.
[tags]DRM[/tags]
May
10
Could I Be a Switcher?
Filed Under Computers & Tech on May 10, 2007 | Leave a Comment
There are many more operating systems than just Windows but for the vast majority of people Windows is their first and often only OS. Hence, the majority of people who use Mac OS X, Linux or Unix are people who’ve switched from Windows to those other OSes, i.e. the are ‘switchers’. Contrary to what some people may like to have you believe switching is not always straight-forward and it’s not for everyone, however, for some people it really works and the change really improves their daily lives. So, if you think you might be interested in saying goodbye to Windows this post may be of some help to you.
[tags]Windows, Linux, Unix, OS X[/tags]
May
4
A Non-Scientific Comparison of Java and Perl
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Software Development on May 4, 2007 | 3 Comments
For my post yesterday on the HD-DVD key I needed to convert the 128bit HEX key into a decimal number and then divide it by two. I figured this would be easy. I’d wander over to Google, search for “convert hex to decimal” and hey-presto, I’d get a web-based converter somewhere to bang the hex key into and get out a decimal number. This soon proved not to work in practice for large numbers. All the converters I tried gave me back floating point numbers with very large exponents. The means loads of precision was lost and hence I couldn’t get the exact number the MPAA claimed to own. So I did what I always do when I can’t find a program to do what I want, I hacked something together in Perl! Now, when I say hacked I do mean hacked. It only took me a few minutes to do and what do ya know, Perl lost precision too, giving me an answer of 1.32562788879895e+37. So, I needed to re-implement this algorithm in a language that could give me basically unlimited integer arithmetic. I chose Java because of the java.math.BigInteger class and because Java is the language I know best. I implemented the same basic algorithm in both languages. It’s interesting to see just how much bigger the Java code is!
[tags]Java, Perl[/tags]
May
4
Update On The Leaked HD-DVD Key
Filed Under Polemics & Politics, Computers & Tech on | Leave a Comment
‘An AACS Executive’ (AACS is the name of the copy protection on HD-DVD) has told the BBC that:
The key that has been leaked has now been revoked
It’s not clear when ‘now’ is. What we do learn is that the key was not one used in hardware players but rather in software. Could this be one of the revoked WinDVD keys? Who knows. It’s also not clear if this means the MPAA will stop threatening legal action over the publication of what is now definitely just a number.
However, it is clear that the MPAA have gotten away easy this time. Since the key in question is not a hardware key they were able to revoke it without breaking anyone’s hardware HD-DVD player. So, for now, they have avoided their Catch 22. However, I for one, believe it’s only a matter of time until a hardware key does get out, and they are facing the catch 22 I described yesterday for real.
You can find out more on this BBC article (link courtesy of Dave C in the comments on my original post on the HD-DVD key).
May
3
HD-DVD – The MPAA in a Catch 22
Filed Under Polemics & Politics, Computers & Tech on May 3, 2007 | 3 Comments
Anyone who reads this blog will know that I am no fan of DRM technology. I think it’s a stupid idea that is fundamentally flawed. Security by obscurity is always a bad idea. Every device that can play a HD-DVD has a secret key inside it, including all computers that can play HD-DVD. If one person finds one of these keys then they can remove the DRM from HD-DVD. Basically, the whole system is dependent on these keys remaining secret. This of course won’t happen. So, the MPAA’s system provides a mechanism for disabling all devices that use a compromised key. The idea being, if a key gets out it is not the end of their DRM, they just revoke the key. Slight problem, when a key is revoked all devices that use the key will stop working leaving thousands of very miffed consumers out for the MPAA’s blood!
The cat is out of the bag, a key has gotten out. I have a copy of the key. I’m just an ordinary pleb, if I can get it trivially, so can the bad guys! So, what will the MPAA do? If they revoke the key they will break loads of people’s players and make them very grumpy. If they don’t revoke the key they will be making all their DRM efforts totally null-and-void. The MPAA think they’ve found a third alternative, they are attempting to use their lawyers to magically make the key a secret again and in the process declaring ownership of a number.
[tags]MPAA, DRM, HD-DVD[/tags]
May
2
Three 2.0s of Note
Filed Under Computers & Tech on May 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment
This seems to be the time of year for 2.0 releases. Three pieces of software I use on a daily basis have gotten their big 2.0 update recently. Mozilla Thunderbird, the dashboard widget Pakze, and the iStat family of tools from iSlayer. (I discussed both Pakze and iStat in my post on Dashboard widgets for Techies.) In all three cases the most obvious change is a new coat of proverbial paint. Thunderbird and iStat in particular have really benefited from the addition of a little more polish to their interfaces. However, there is more to these upgrades than just looks.
[tags]Mozilla, Thunderbird, iStat, Pakze, Dashboard, Widget[/tags]
Apr
24
Time to Secure Your Browser
Filed Under Computers & Tech, Security on April 24, 2007 | 1 Comment
What started off as a hack of a MacBook Pro at a security conferences has now been revealed to be a hack exploiting a vulnerability in the way Quicktime talks to Java. What does this mean? It means that this is not just an issue for Mac users, Windows users are vulnerable too! Thankfully the solution is simple, turn off Java (not JavaScript) in your web browser.
Apr
20
Caffeine – Stop Your Mac From Sleeping
Filed Under Computers & Tech on April 20, 2007 | 3 Comments
Apple laptops have very impressive battery lives. My MBP can run for almost 4 hours if I’m not doing anything too intensive on it (e.g. playing Solitaire on a plane). A big contributing factor to this great battery performance is very aggressive power management. If you have the back-lit keyboard turned on it turns off after a minute of inactivity, after only a few minutes of inactivity the screen dims to about half it’s regular brightness and so on. This is all good and well until you start doing something on your Mac that involves no user interaction but that goes on for a long time. The best example of this would be watching a video. You have to keep jiggling the mouse or the screen will dim. Good media players like VLC automatically stop this happening but many players, including Apple’s QuickTime, don’t. Also, with the popularity of sites like YouTube you often don’t use any media player to watch videos, just your browser. So, what you need is a simple piece of software that will prevent the power saving features kicking in while you’re watching videos. The answer – give you Mac Caffeine!
[tags]Caffeine, MacBook, MacBookPro[/tags]
Apr
20
Create PDFs for Free on Windows
Filed Under Computers & Tech on | 1 Comment
On the Mac you can turn anything you can print into a PDF for free right out of the box because the standard OS X Print Dialog has a button for making your print job into a PDF. Now you can get the same level of functionality for Windows for free with no strings attached (released under GPL) with PDF Creator. This works by providing a special printer driver that saves your print jobs as PDFs.
[tags]PDF[/tags]