Category: technology

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technology

Tripped over down memory lane

I was in hospital this morning so I spent the period of the day, when I wasn’t sleeping, trawling some blogs and catching up on the minutae of other people’s lives. I managed to find this. A fascinating documentary on the first form of internetworked geek communion, BBS. I was a big fan of these in the day and used to connect using my gee whizz Acorn Archimedes. That singled me out as a power user by the way. At a heady 4800 baud, I really smoked the joint out. Anyway, geeks who’ve been there and done that, like me, can check out this wonderful documentary and relive BBS in all their monochrome glory. There’s even a nice little interview with Internet co-inventor and Google VP, Vinton Cerf.

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technology

It’s a conspiracy your honour

Ever been snapped by one of those pesky gatso cameras driving a little on the high side (above) of the limit. I spotted this article on the web and decided to do a little bit of research into the worldwide attitudes to speed cameras & whether such a defence would be acceptable here. The answer seems to be that in many of the countries where speed cameras are deployed to discourage speeding they are not admissible as court evidence. The reason being that the cameras are operated by semi-state or private organisations without the direct involvement of the police where private individuals and organisations are financially rewarded based on the number of infringements. In California, for example, the practice is deemed “unreliable” by the state superior court on this basis. The situation is the same in Colorado. In the US there is also the issue of correct identification of the driver. In California the cameras are required to produce a recognisable picture of the driver’s face for identification purposes. As far as I know, this is the case in Ireland where vehicle owners are asked to provide the name and address of the vehicle’s driver at the time the picture was taken.
As leading Internet security expert Bruce Schneier points out it’s true that MD5 is broken but very likely that the motorist in the australian case was guilty. However, theoretical security is important when the legal system assumes innocence before guilt and also places a burden of proof upon the prosecution.
So I guess the question you’re all wondering is whether the Irish garda use MD5 in a similiar way for non-repudiation purposes or whether the cameras are operated by a semi-state or private organisation on cash-per-infringement basis. Well AFAIK the cameras are installed and operated by Serco and Pulse uses MD5 checksums in places. I’m going to do some digging here but it does have fascinating and wide-ranging implications.
Anyone interested in reading more about the MD5 vulnerability have a look here
I’m neither advocating speeding nor castigating cameras but the following statistics are telling. In the UK cameras deployed in accident hotspots tend to reduce the number of accidents and fatalities by 30-40%. However, cameras tend to increase the ratio of fatalities to injuries wherever they’re deployed. Many of these fatalities are due to pile-ups caused by offending motorists quickly slowing down before cameras. There are a number of theories explaining these statistics.

  • Some believe that cameras are distracting causing drivers to pay more attention to the speedometer rather than the road. Many studies have backed this up.
  • Many serially irresponsible drivers slow down just before the cameras and immediately speed up again once past them, increasingly the likelihood of an accident during braking & while they try to make up lost time.
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technology

Bluetooth tools for XDA-2

I love my XDA-2. Decided not to sell it as the offers weren’t that high and I had lots of programmes for it. However, one thing that did bother me about it was the shortcomings of it’s bluetooth implementation. Well I managed to sort some of these out by installing 2 very useful pieces of software.

Pocket Bluetooth tools is an incredibly useful piece of s/w that enables XDA-II users to effectively use their PDA/phones with the many bluetooth carkits on the market. It supports the Bluetooth headset 1.1 & handsfree 1.0 profiles. It also supports static serial ports (for GPS receivers) and automatic power management which turns bluetooth on or off depending on use. Thank you Tobias.

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technology

casting a a dark adapted net

The recent launch of the latest version of the Freenet Peer-to-Peer file sharing software has attracted a great deal of media coverage. Every credible paper in Ireland and the UK covered it and most pondered the same question. Is it ethical to create software where the creator knows that it will be used in fraud and theft? OK, we’re not pulling any punches here. Ian Clarke is without doubt a brilliant software designer and is an idealist at heart but as Conor Flynn of RITS Security points out in last week’s Sunday TImes

“The Freenet system group say it’s for sharing information and they can’t help it if people abuse it. They know damn well that it will be.”

Ian’s site is endearingly lowkey but his comments about unprizer being his “first serious venture in capitalism” are a bit disingenuous. I presume he’s been living in a kibbutz all these years then :-P. Seriously though, darknets are compelling technology enabling data distribution to be effectively hidden from network users. I can see the applications in permitting freedom of information & within countries with oppressive governments but this can’t disguise the fact that most of the goals that Ian talks about for freenet involving subverting the information and copyright legislation in the country in which it’s used. It promotes anarchy in an era where many are becoming increasingly concerned about their security and ever more permissive of the measures their governments take to guard that security. The ethics of darknet technology are similiar to gun manufacture. It’s welcomed in equal measure by peacekeepers and violent terrorists. True freedom of speech exists where a country’s people and government agree that people can express their opinions regardless of it’s unpopularity, subversiveness etc. When this is practiced the source of commentary does not have to hide in a dark alley or a darknet. This is IMHO a more admirable ideal than anarchy. Darknets have a deterrent factor but they should not become an end in themselves in promoting freedom of speech.