The Musings of Harry

Eighth circuit upholds bad bnetd ruling

2005-09-03T10:46:00.000+01:00

The 8th circuit court of appeals has upheld the district court's summary judgement in favour of Blizzard and Vivendi.This means that the original decision stands - and that the DMCA can be used to prevent third parties from improving software they have purchased legally. The core of the matter is that EULAs are, apparently, valid contracts - and that the appellants' acceptance of the EULAs for

BBCode vulnerability discovered

2005-08-25T13:04:00.000+01:00

An interesting vulnerability has been found in BBCode. Apparently, this problem affects most products that use BBCode - the de-facto standard for formatting posts in online forums.The problem exists with the [IMG] tag, which allows users to embed images in their posts. It generally works something like this: [IMG]http://server/folder/image.jpg[/IMG] The vulnerability works by creating a folder

More thoughts on de Menezes

2005-08-24T16:20:00.000+01:00

A couple of things happened over the weekend, which I found interesting. First, I had to travel by tube. Upon entering the tube system, my first thought was "I wonder if I'll get mistaken for a suicide bomber". It was not "I wonder if I'll get blown up by a suicide bomber". Of course, I considered the likelihood of either to be pifflingly small, but nevertheless, that was the order of my thoughts

Followup: response from Sir Ian Blair

2005-08-23T12:51:00.000+01:00

A few weeks ago, I wrote about an interview with Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, and its implications on the shoot-to-kill policy. As well as writing that post, I contacted Scotland Yard to see if they would like to comment, and - after several follow-up phone calls - they have responded. Unfortunately, but understandably, they are waiting for the IPCC report on Jean Charles

Google supports "fill in the blanks" queries

2005-08-22T15:45:00.000+01:00

This is so cool.Google blog describes the uses for wildcard searches:Sometimes one wants to use a search engine to find a very specific piece of information rather than to learn about a topic. If search engines were truly intelligent, you could just pose a question the same way you would ask a person. An alternative is to get the search engine to 'fill in the blank.' So instead of asking [who

Menezes was "not a bomb threat"

2005-08-21T14:17:00.000+01:00

The Guardian reports that senior sources in the Metropolitan Police have told the Observer that de Menezes was not considered a bomb threat by the surveillence team who followed him to Stockwell tube station. Apparently, he was only considered a threat once the armed officers arrived.These officers are trained to deal with suicide bombers, and their training tells them that a bomber will likely

Speed cameras cause more accidents?

2005-08-20T16:56:00.000+01:00

TheNewspaper.com reports that a study conducted by the Department for Transport, uncovered by a FOIA request, has shown that the presence of speed cameras increases the number of personal injury accidents - accidents in which someone is hurt.This doesn't surprise me at all. As is probably obvious to most, speed cameras do not reduce speeding overall -- they decrease speeding where the camera is.

Documents relating to de Menezes shooting leaked

2005-08-19T17:36:00.000+01:00

I don't wish to jump to conclusions before the publication of the inquiry into the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, but documents have been leaked from the IPCC which cast a grave shadow over the whole affair.It seems very likely that the following is true:De Menezes was not wearing loose clothing or a heavy jacketHe did not run from officers or vault the ticket barrierHe had been restrained

TSA finally gives way to common sense

2005-08-18T12:27:00.000+01:00

Via Schneier on Security: The US Transportation Security Agency is considering lifting its ban on small pointy objects. It's also deciding whether or not to give screeners the discretion not to conduct pat-down searches, and not to require passengers to remove their shoes.Well... it's about time. This policy was always completely stupid. I'm glad that someone in charge has finally realised that.

Bush administration opposes .xxx TLD

2005-08-17T15:11:00.000+01:00

Apologies for the recent lack of posts. I've been on holiday.News.com reports that the Bush administration has asked ICANN to delay the creation of a .xxx top-level domain name, so that the suffix can receive "further scrutiny".The Bush administration appears to be reacting to approximately 6000 letters and emails from concerned citizens. They don't seem to have objected to the concept on

RFID

2005-08-09T15:31:00.000+01:00

I recently wrote about a pilot scheme in the US to require visitors to carry RFID-enabled cards at border crossings, in an attempt to acheieve better border control (I assume).Well, yesterday I read at Schneier on Security that the record for reading a passive RFID device was set at 69 feet! Just goes to show. The US government has said that they won't read the cards except at borders, but who

Email header injection in PHP

2005-08-08T23:13:00.000+01:00

Be careful with your 'contact' forms in PHP.It's very easy for a cracker to hijack your contact form to send spams or anonymous emails if you don't validate your input very carefully. Consider the following example:

Sir Ian Blair

2005-08-06T16:36:00.000+01:00

Sir Ian Blair, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, has always seemed to me to be quite a reasonable man. I've seen him speak on TV several times in the aftermath of the London bombings. The first time I saw him was on Question Time, in which he defended the Police's shoot-to-kill policy for suicide bombers. Today, I watched another interview with him, in which he said the following with respect

Shoot-to-kill policies are short-sighted

2005-08-05T13:55:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking a lot about the Police's shoot-to-kill policy for suspected suicide bombers. It's been stuck in my mind mostly because it just feels wrong. Unfortunately, I couldn't quite put my finger on a good reason why.Well, Bruce Schneier - as regularly seems to be the case - has done exactly that. In fact, it's a reasonably simply critisism, and I'm a bit annoyed that it didn't occur to

Microsoft shamelessly copy Google

2005-08-03T12:57:00.000+01:00

Not that there's anything wrong with copying a good idea, but when it's Microsoft copying Google, you've got to ask: why don't Microsoft come up with their own ideas?They've already copied Google Maps in the form of Virtual Earth, and now they've ripped off Google's start page too, in the form of Start.com.I must say though: start.com is nice. Nicer than Google's original. I think Virtual Earth

No more cheeky wifi?

2005-08-02T14:32:00.000+01:00

A West London man, Gregory Straszkiewicz, has been found guilty of "dishonestly obtaining an electronic communications service" for accessing an unsecured wireless network without permission.One really has to ask if this is reasonable. Obviously if he had committed a crime on someone else's network, that would be a different matter, but that doesn't seem to be the case.I sometimes hear arguments

Looks like I'm never going back to the states...

2005-08-01T13:33:00.000+01:00

...which makes me unhappy. I have some good friends there.Boingboing reports that the US is piloting a scheme where visitors to the country will be required to carry an RFID card containing their biometrics and personal information.This, in addition to photographing and fingerprinting all visitors to the States, is a step too far. Why is it necessary to gather biometric information on all

Salami

2005-08-01T13:20:00.000+01:00

I can't remember where I heard this analogy, but it's really good.This analogy explains a big part of the problem with government or commercial initiatives that accomplish something at the cost of reducing our liberties and/or freedoms just a little bit.In isolation, these programmes seem ok: they accomplish something (perhaps), and don't cost that much in return. We are led to believe that the

Project Gotham Racing

2005-07-27T09:30:00.000+01:00

Stunning new screenshots for Project Gotham Racing have been released. They really do look photo-realistic. I wonder how good they'll look at 150Mph, but still - impressive.

Will it never end?

2005-07-26T12:12:00.000+01:00

The US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly voted -- 355 to 21 -- for a federal inestigation into GTA San Andreas's sex scenes.I've already posted about the ridiculousness of this whole 'scandal', but this takes the biscuit. One would think that the US Congress has better things to do than investigate cartoon sex. Apparently not. I'm beginning to think that everyone inolved has been

Good web advertising

2005-07-25T16:51:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd post about this -- I think it's a really good example of how to advertise on the internet.More often than I like, I go to a website to read an article, and a stupid floating

with some garish animation pops up right on top of the thing I'm trying to read. It's immeasurably irritating. The newer ones even make you wait a few seconds before presenting you with a way to close the

Real life Mr Hanky!

2005-07-24T15:47:00.000+01:00

Canada has a real-life Mr Hanky!The seven-foot turd is the mascott of the People Opposed to Outfall Pollution , or -- you guessed it -- POOP. He has a song and everything! The organisation is campaigning for proper sewage treatment for their city, which -- somewhat surprisingly -- dumps 120 million litres of raw sewage into the sea every year. Isn't sewage treatment a pretty basic need? Even in

Software patents are bad because...

2005-07-23T15:33:00.000+01:00

... companies like Microsoft use them to protect such 'innovations' as the smilie. Yes. The smilie. The humble emoticon.ZdNet reports that Microsoft have filed for a patent covering "selecting pixels to create an emoticon image, assigning a character sequence to these pixels and reconstructing the emoticon after transmission". If you're interested, you can read the patent yourself.The FFII has

Excellent article about profiling

2005-07-23T02:50:00.000+01:00

Not really much to say here -- Bruce Schneier has posted an excerpt from his book (Beyond Fear) about profiling, along with some extra points.This is well worth reading -- an excellent critique of the strengths and weaknesses of profiling as a security measure.

Here we go again...

2005-07-22T16:52:00.000+01:00

According to Wired, a whoooole bunch of stupid nonsense is arriving in the aftermath of the Hot Coffee 'scandal'.Take Two has announced that it is "exploring its legal options as it relates to companies that profited from creating and distributing tools for altering the content". Datel Design & Development, the company that makes the 'Action Replay' system that allows Playstation users to use

Displaying icons in a select element

2005-07-22T06:24:00.000+01:00

Firefox is so cool!I tried this as an offhand experiment, not really expecting it to work -- but it does. So, behold: the iconified select.It was originally a bit buggy, with icons not displaying properly when the page loaded, or when the selected option was changed with the cursor keys rather than the mouse - these were not hard to fix, however: a bit of javascript and some DHTML reading later,

Stopping spam-bots

2005-07-21T16:15:00.000+01:00

Freedom to Tinker reports that the US Federal Trade Commission is starting a programme that asks ISPs to monitor for 'zombie-like' traffic and disconnect users who are (intentionally or otherwise) spamming others.I think this is a great idea, for things that are readily detectable. I'm surprised that US ISPs aren't doing it already - we've been doing it in the UK for some time. As far as I know,

The idiotic priorities of idiots

2005-07-21T03:08:00.000+01:00

After a bunch of completely stupid political nonsense, the ESRB has reclassified GTA: San Andreas, giving it an "adult's only" rating.The complete, nonsensical stupidity of this just beggars belief. This is a game dedicated to violent, murderous gang crime -- the very object of the game being to steal, pillage and shoot your way through the game to become the "King of San Andreas". By the way,

Hollywood eviscerates Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

2005-07-20T17:51:00.000+01:00

Destiny Land notes that the new Tim Burton film adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate factory cuts out most of the Oompa-Loompa's lyrics, because they're too 'scary'.How silly. I was never scared by those songs as a child. I thought they were great. I remember reading Revolting Rhymes, which was brilliant - and enjoying Quentin Blake's illustrations, which were perfect. The songs in Charlie and

No2ID public meeting

2005-07-20T04:30:00.000+01:00

Yesterday evening, No2ID had a public meeting in my local area. The meeting was held as an introduction to the government's plans and their shortcomings, and as a means to gather support and volunteers for a local opposition campaign. The meeting was really good. Martin Keegan, the No2ID groups coordinator, spoke eloquently and at length about the problems associated with identity cards, and

Disney decides to abuse valued customers

2005-07-19T23:57:00.000+01:00

Disney is planning to electronically fingerprint all visitors before allowing them to enter their theme parks.Apparently, they've been doing this with their season ticket holders for quite some time -- it's nice to know that they abused their most valued customers first. Now, however, they are planning to expand the scheme to all their visitors, in order to "help keep track of who is using

More on terrorism

2005-07-18T15:04:00.000+01:00

I read this morning on the BBC's website that some senior cabinet members have rejected any link between the recent London attacks and the war in Iraq. To me, this makes no sense: we have obviously been attacked because we're in Iraq.So, I was interested to see on Bruce Schneier's blog, an excerpt from an interview with an expert on suicide terrorism. The interview is really interesting, and is

Astute observations about Hollywood

2005-07-17T14:48:00.000+01:00

It's long been my opinion that the Media cartel's jihad against internet file sharing is futile. I think that it's more likely to be a bit of misdirection than an epic struggle for the survival of the industry: Hollywood just doesn't make very many good films anymore. Even the ones I thought would be good weren't really: they weren't bad, they just weren't great. They were, for the most part,

When good photoshoppers do bad things

2005-07-15T04:20:00.000+01:00

Came across this while browsing a few days ago. Some people's idea of beauty is seriously odd. Most of those kids look genuinely creepy. Sorry, Zoe, but if I saw you in the street, looking like that... I think I'd run for my life, with visions of "Bride of Chucky" playing out in my mind's eye. Speaking of which, some of those kids' eyes seem to be on the verge of totally engulfing their heads.*

Australian judge loses link with reality

2005-07-14T17:05:00.000+01:00

Numerous sites report that an Australian judge has held that it is illegal to link to a site offering illegal MP3 downloads. Not only that, but it's illegal for an ISP to host such a site, and for anyone to link to a site that links to an illegal site.Staggeringly stupid. Freedom to Tinker recently had a post suggesting that it might be time for judges to take computer science classes -- as

Let's not lose our heads

2005-07-13T17:00:00.000+01:00

I've waited a couple of days before writing this post -- out of a sense of propriety, I suppose -- but I feel some things need to be said about the recent bombings in London, and about terrorism in general. Of course, everyone affected by the attacks has my sympathies: I'd like to preface this whole post with that sentiment.In the few days following the attacks, we have seen 'the usual' political

RIAA begins spinning Grokster

2005-07-12T12:57:00.000+01:00

Well, it seems that the RIAA is at it already. Cary Sherman, the president of the RIAA, was speaking at a panel in Washington about the implications of Grokster:"There's definitely a lot of spoofing going on on the networks, and nobody thinks that that's not fair game," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, on Friday. "Some networks actually put out some

Microsoft awarded patent for common sense

2005-07-11T15:40:00.000+01:00

Techdirt reports that Microsoft have been awarded a patent for a process used to train people to "classfy fundamental properties of media elements": this patent covers the process of teaching people to recognise whether songs are angry, fun, sad.. etc. Yes. I thought it was a joke too. Unfortunately, unless the US Patent Office has taken to parodying itself, we must assume that they're serious.

More on EU software patents

2005-07-07T14:45:00.000+01:00

Groklaw has a good follow-up on this story, and Copyfight has a good summary.It seems that all is not over. This directive is certainly dead for now, and the commission have said they will respect the will of the parliament (Yeah, right), but there are already plans for a new directive on "community patents". I have no idea what that means. The new directive is currently being discussed by the

Patents victory!

2005-07-06T14:11:00.000+01:00

By a huge majority, the EU Parliament has rejected the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive - it has been struck down completely. It's dead! For now, Europe will not have to deal with software patents. National governments, of course, can still enact laws allowing software to be patented, but hopefully the UK will not: software patents are currently excluded - explicitly - from

Maybe it's good that the constitution is dead

2005-07-05T14:21:00.000+01:00

I just read this very interesting page about the EU Constitution. I have read some of the constitution, and broadly speaking, it seemed ok to me. Some of the stuff, like the charter of fundamental rights, is undoubtedly good. The stuff about economics and law also seemed ok to me, but then again, IANAL. Having read the page linked above, I'm not so sure. It seems that the constitution lacked

Software patents alert!

2005-07-02T17:56:00.000+01:00

On Tuesday or Wednesday this week (around the 6th), we have the last opportunity to pass amendments to the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive to prevent pure software from becoming patentable.It is VITAL that you do everything you can to prevent software patents from becoming a reality in the EU. CALL YOUR MEP ON MONDAY! Here is a summary of my position on software patents, taken from a

The perils of intoxication and stupid design decisions

2005-07-01T13:46:00.000+01:00

On Thursday night, I lost my GTA San Andreas savegame.This, understandably, made me irritated. I had just spent ~3 days doing little but playing GTA! Now I must point out that ultimately, this loss of my savegame was really my fault. I'm not trying to pass the buck. Nonetheless, several totally bloody stupid things factors contributed to this loss, which I will now describe:First, I have a crappy

Richard Whiteley dies

2005-06-30T23:56:00.000+01:00

Richard Whitely died after heart surgery this week :(Richard Whitely really was a British institution. There's just nothing like Countdown when you wake up at 4.30pm on a weekday afternoon. All his jokes were terrible, of course, except this one... which is great!Guest Judge Person: When Richard was in college, he was known as Twice Nightly WhiteleyAudience: LaughsWhitely: Yes, and now it's "

The obligatory Grokster post

2005-06-29T15:48:00.000+01:00

So, Grokster lost... but not really.This whole thing seems like no big deal to me. The EFF is predicting a dire result, but most people seem to think that the ruling of the court wasn't that significant - and from reading the syllabus, I agree. In a nutshell, the court ruled that Grokster didn't infringe any copyrights, but that they may have induced infringement of copyright - a question that

Today, I thought I'd have nothing interesting to say...

2005-06-27T20:59:00.000+01:00

...because I've been playing GTA San Andreas all day. It's really good. Standard GTA, but bigger, and more interactive, and just cooler generally. Go buy it!But then, just as I was about to post, I read this on Slashdot... zombies! Real zombies! Seriously though, this really is amazing. They drained a dog's blood and replaced it with cold saline at a few degrees C. Then they waited a few hours,

BSA gets creative with software patents

2005-06-26T10:58:00.000+01:00

Hot on the heels of the MPAA inventing nonsense , the BSA has been caught doing it too!One wonders if it'll ever stop. A recent study by the Business Software Alliance indicates that 80% of European small/medium-sized enterprises use patents to protect their computer implemented inventions:... SMEs account for 20% of all CII (Computer Implemented Inventions) patents granted since 1998 (and 2/3

MPAA tries to wriggle out of stupid press release

2005-06-25T10:14:00.000+01:00

Techdirt reports that the MPAA are in fact full of shit very creative with their press releases.After their previous press release, some people bothered to actually check their math, which was off by an insy-teeny-weeny 31,000%. In response to this, the MPAA now claim that their figure of $30 million worth of goods seized was actually the value of the goods that the seized stamping machines could

Dell Smell

2005-06-24T07:28:00.000+01:00

Apparently, federal law requires that Dell ask what the servers it sells will be used for. If they ever asked me that, I'd tell them to get lost, and cancel my order. A bit like when telemarketers ask for my phone number, address, email address, previous 10 addresses, national insurance number, bank details and sleeping habits. What the hell does it matter what a server will be used for?Someone

Require or include?

2005-06-24T05:30:00.000+01:00

This will be a programmer-ish entry. May wish to skip this one if you don't care about PHP.So, recently, I read someone saying that one should always use require_once to include files in PHP, rather than include, include_once, or require.I always use include without really thinking about it, but someone claiming that require should always be used struck a wrong note with me. Upon thinking it over

Democracy can work...

2005-06-23T05:20:00.000+01:00

...if we make it work!Copyfight reported on Monday that the MPAA tried to sneak the broadcast flag through congress, by attaching it to an amendment to an appropriations bill. Thankfully, this ever-so-sneaky move did not go unnoticed, and within a few hours, the Senate Appropriations Committee had been Slashdotted, Instalanched, and BoingBoinged. By the following evening, the committee had

The MPAA are a filthy, lying bunch of liars

2005-06-23T00:59:00.000+01:00

So, just when you thought the rabid crap spewing from the mouths of the RIAA/MPAA couldn't possibly be any more nonsensical, we get this little gem:Authorities seized an estimated $30 million worth of DVDs and copying equipment from a duplicating plant, the Motion Picture Association of America announced Monday.New Century Media was shutdown by the Southern California High Tech Task Force last

For a cool $3.3 million, you too can be Batman...

2005-06-22T02:49:00.000+01:00

According to Forbes, all of Batman's gear and training would cost $3,365,449 in the real world.Cool! Speaks for itself really -- now all I need is a shedload of money and a mild psychological breakdown...Click here for the slideshow.

Oral arguments heard in Blizzard vs BnetD

2005-06-21T07:03:00.000+01:00

Several news sources report that the appeal filed by BnetD in BnetD vs Blizzard was heard yesterday by the 8th circuit court of appeals. This case has special significance to me, because I maintain a Battle.net emulator too. TestBNCS is a project I started a few years ago, and still work on when I have the time. Entirely aside from the merits of this particular case, it is very important that the

The FAA is stupid

2005-06-20T22:16:00.000+01:00

Bruce Schneier reports that the FAA's regulations require soldiers to surrender pocket knives, scissors and cigarette lighters -- but not their shotguns, assualt rifles and sidearms.The absurdities mount! Honestly -- what can one even say? When it comes to airplane security, the US has clearly gone crazy. Really, really, really crazy...

Politicians don't understand patents

2005-06-20T18:35:00.000+01:00

Techdirt reports that a French politician, Patrick Devedjian, doesn't know what a patent is. When asked to defend his support of software patents, he proceeded to explain how important copyright is - and clearly didn't understand what a patent is at all.Like national ID cards, this strikes me as a situation where politicians are being asked to make decisions involving highly technical topics that

The Klingon Bible

2005-06-17T03:11:00.000+01:00

Now this is splendid news! Someone has created a Klingon translation of the Bible (sort of). The only verse I can ever name from the Bible is John 3:16, which was quoted at me ad nauseum while I was travelling a few years back. It is... *drumroll*...For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.Ok. Standard

Re: Our Changing Climate

2005-06-16T21:38:00.000+01:00

I just read this stunning gem. As well as being hilarious, it's totally on the button, such that I have nothing meaningful to add - just read it!Teaser:The fact allegation is that industrial and automotive emissions are putting our planet in peril, and the entire world recognizes the need to reduce idle speculation about so-called greenhouse gases. Not only is the US the biggest culprit guardian

osCommerce HTTP Splitting Vulnerability Solution

2005-06-16T15:58:00.000+01:00

A bug in the open source osCommerce shopping cart was found last week:osCommerce is a very popular eCommerce application that allows for individuals to host their own online shop. All current versions of osCommerce are vulnerable to HTTP Response Splitting. These HTTP Response Splitting vulnerabilities may allow for an attacker to steal sensitive user information, or cause temporary web site

The BSA responds!

2005-06-15T23:39:00.000+01:00

Ars Technica reports that the BSA has responded to The Economist's (subscription needed) assertion that their report is 'BS' with the following letter:SIR Your article on software piracy was extreme, misleading and irresponsible ("BSA or just BS?", May 21st). The headline was particularly offensive. The implication that an industry would purposely inflate the rate of piracy and its impact to

A Google Browser?

2005-06-15T14:16:00.000+01:00

It's old news, but I just read an interesting entry about a google browser. Like I said, old news, but it still sounds interesting. Assuming it's close enough to (or a big enough improvement over) Firefox to be a worthy alternative, one wonders what sort of cool services they could incorporate into a browser. Some things come to mind: a 'pages like this' list for the current page could be very

Nonsensical piracy reports

2005-06-15T00:02:00.000+01:00

The Economist has written a critique that accuses the Business Software Alliance of bad techniques when putting together their study claiming that the software industry looses $33bn a year due to piracy. I read this report by the BSA as part of my dissertation research, and mentioned in my dissertation that the figure is highly questionable:Ultimately, one is given to wonder if piracy even

National ID Cards

2005-06-14T15:29:00.000+01:00

So, the first post...I've always been concerned about national ID cards (because they're stupid and bad), and I recently found this fine website: No2ID.net. They seem to be going along the right lines: I really hope they get somewhere. I'll volunteer some time to them when I can. They have a pledge going:"I will refuse to register for an ID card and will donate £10 to a legal defence fund but

I have a blog...

2005-06-14T15:17:00.000+01:00

But not really. That is to say, I don't think I'll get round to posting in it enough to make it in any way interesting or useful... you never know though. Recently there have been things about which I've thought "that would be interesting to blog about...", so I'll give it a go!I like various things: computers, jazz, cooking, politics, interesting conversations... so I suppose that's what to