Archive for October, 2008
A couple of hours ago, the Google Security Team posted an article claiming that Google’s made the switch to OpenID, joining Yahoo! and Microsoft in the ranks OpenID providers.
But it looks like someone may have been a bit to hasty to pull that switch (perhaps itching to get some of the limelight Microsoft has been receiving for adding OpenID to all Live ID accounts just the day before yesterday)… because whatever it is that Google has released support for, it sure as hell isn’t OpenID (…) It’s not just a “departure” from OpenID, it’s a whole new standard.
Debunking Google’s security vulnerability disclosure propaganda
Question: You’re a multibillion dollar tech giant, and you’ve launched a new phone platform after much media fanfare. Then a security researcher finds a flaw in your product within days of its release. Worse, the vulnerability is due to the fact that you shipped old (and known to be flawed) software on the phones. What should you do? Issue an emergency update, warn users, or perhaps even issue a recall? If you’re Google, the answer is simple. Attack the researcher.
(…)
If Google can criticize Miller at all, it cannot be for not warning the company, but perhaps for not providing them with enough warning. However, given that Google shipped known-vulnerable software to hundreds of thousands of users, and that fixed versions of the vulnerable software packages have been available for some time, it is difficult for this blogger to sympathize with the folks in Mountain View.
Furthermore, given Mr. Miller’s previous mercenaryish history of selling software vulnerabilities to the National Security Agency (which presumably used the flaws to break into foreign government computers, and not in order to fix the vulnerable software), we should be happy that he is at least now sharing the existence of this flaw with the public. At least this way, developers have a good chance of finding and fixing it.
Eight-year-old picks Linux XO laptop over Windows
The eight-year-old, representative of the target audience for the educational notebook, spent an afternoon exploring each notebook, finally picking the Linux version mostly because it had more software that was not yet explored. Each iteration had its pros and cons, however, including the Linux version’s slower web browsing and more complicated user interface, at least to those used a Windows interface.
NewsChallenge $USD 5m for Free Software news/info solutions
The Knight Foundation deadline for preliminary applications for $USD 5m grants ends Midnight, PST, 1st Nov 2008. Applications must include an actual real-world geographical location where the free-software-based hardware and/or software solution is deployed. I have an urgent request to make: FIND SOMEWHERE. FAST.
This is a golden opportunity to do a One Laptop Per Person project. not just an OLPC. $USD 5m is enough to get a smartphone / pda / netbook / laptop designed, along with wireless mesh networking hardware, and the software done.
If nothing else, it is enough to get a Software-Defined-Radio custom ASIC designed and built (see Gnu-Radio and Wireless 3G 4 Free), on top of which Babel Routing Software can be deployed to give you wide-area (1-3 miles) metropolitan mesh networking.
This is a golden opportunity to deal with the centralised profit-led systems that have sprung up to “serve us”, and set up decent decentralised robust infrastructure that can store and spread news, information and knowledge no matter whether there is one participant or one million.
THE FULL APPLICATION DOES NOT HAVE TO BE DONE RIGHT NOW.
all that is needed is a quick 25-minute frenzied rush to the keyboard.
but part of that application MUST include a village, town, community, region, eco-homes centre, university – SOMEWHERE there have to be REAL people who will have actual REAL hardware put into their hands.
find.
someone.
fast.
um pouco da história do github:
sobre o git curto este artigo, que já passei e repassei pra n amigos nerds, mas vai de novo aqui:
When I first heard about git, I was suspicious that there could be anything special about it, but after watching Linus’ talk about it, I was… even more suspicious. I tried it anyway.
When I tried it, I realized something right away: what made git awesome was actually none of the things Linus had talked about, not really. Those things were more like… symptoms of the underlying awesomeness. Yes, git is fast. Yes, it is distributed. Yes, it is definitely not CVS. Those things are all great, but they miss the point.
What actually matters is that git is a totally new way to operate on data. It changes the game. git has been described as “concept-heavy”, because it does so many things so differently from everything else. After some reflection, I realized that this is far truer than I could see at first. git’s concepts are not only unusual, they’re revolutionary.
James Grimmelmann – New York Law School
Abstract: Web search is critical to our ability to use the Internet. Whoever controls search engines has enormous influence on all of us; whoever controls the search engines, perhaps, controls the Internet itself. This short essay (based on talks given in January and April 2008) uses the stories of five famous search queries to illustrate the conflicts over search and the enormous power Google wields in choosing whose voices are heard on the Internet.
Keywords: search, search engine, Google, Internet
via http://search.wikia.com/blog/2008/08/12/with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility/
Google Repeats Itself: Give Us Your Data, But We Won’t Tell You How Google Works or Give You Control
Ben Gomes, a Google engineer, blogged lightly about the “experiment” on Tuesday.
(…)In an 850-plus word post, it’s good to know that Google will spend 22 to tell us that (a) they’re collecting data and (b) they aren’t going to share it with us. That is, they don’t value your privacy — everything you do, they’re watching; and they don’t value transparency — they’re going to keep all that information, all their code, and all their algorithms under lock and key.
Um Sistema Brasileiro para Computação em Grades
Uma união entre o Instituto de Matemática e Estatística (IME) da USP, a PUC do Rio de Janeiro e a Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul (UFMS) trabalha há quatro anos no desenvolvimento de uma grade computacional open-source para aproveitar os recursos ociosos de máquinas domésticas. Batizado de Integrade, o middleware brasileiro é uma grade de processamento genérico, com suporte a uma variada gama de aplicações, e que tem como objetivo principal garantir que o usuário que ofereça seus recursos para a grade não sinta, sob hipótese nenhuma, perda de desempenho em sua máquina.