by Matt | Jul 4, 2002 | Imported Entry
Well, it turns out that the wiring in my house is to blame for my bad connection speeds and shitty cable modem service. Why am I not surprised?
Anyway, Happy Birthday to Chip, whose birthday was technically yesterday but since I didn’t have an internet connection I’m mentioning this now.
Also, it’s the 4th of July, which means hamburgers, potato salad and domestic beer. The beer I will not be participating in. My folks rented Gosford Park and The Majestic, so I’ll probably be watching those later. Of course I’m going to watch the Indiana Jones marathon on AMC first. Hehehe.
Tomorrow it’s back to work all day. I think I’ll be removing shrubbery but then again the crazy lady I’m working for always changes her mind, so who knows.
by Matt | Jul 2, 2002 | Imported Entry
It’s your typical story: man works his ass off, gets married, has a few kids, dies and eventually the kids want nothing to do with the parents or their estate. I’m not talking about me, I’m talking about this semi-crazy older lady that I worked for today. You see, my Dad is on the way to becoming a contractor, or at least a handy-man, and today he asked me if I’d help him out a little. I said sure figuring I would do some light repairs, maybe paint something, stuff like that. I was wrong. Today, I got to mow the grass. Not just someone’s back yard mind you, I cut “their property.” As in “these are the 20 acres of land I own, now please give it a trim.” Sure, 20 acres is a bit of an exageration, but I most certainly cut the equivelant of Fenway park. I kid you not. It took 5 hours and 3 tanks of gas in the mower. My hands hurt so much from the stupid lawn mower that I can’t even make a fist. I’m actually typing this very very slowly with only a few fingers. It was the second most tiring activity I’ve ever been engaged in. A very close second to moving my apartment last month. At least today it wasn’t 100 degrees. It was only a brisk 90. And the humidity wasn’t anywhere near 100%, it was much closer to 80. So, as you can see, I’m a bit on the tired side. I think I’ll go take a nap.
by Matt | Jun 30, 2002 | Imported Entry
On the flip side… this sickens me… The next step in both hardware and software is TCPA. Read this to understand how encompassing this is. Here are exsurps for those who don’t have enough time to read.
2. What does TCPA / Palladium do, in ordinary English?
Its obvious application is to embed digital rights management (DRM) technology in the PC. The less obvious implications include making it easier for application software vendors to lock in their users.
4. How does it work?
TCPA provides for a monitoring component to be mounted in future PCs. The likely implementation in the first phase of TCPA is a `Fritz’ chip – a smartcard chip or dongle soldered to the motherboard. When you boot up your PC, Fritz takes charge. He checks that the boot ROM is as expected, executes it, measures the state of the machine; then checks the first part of the operating system, loads and executes it, checks the state of the machine; and so on. The trust boundary, of hardware and software considered to be known and verified, is steadily expanded. A table is maintained of the hardware (audio card, video card etc) and the software (O/S, drivers, etc); if there are significant changes, the machine must be re-certified. The result is a PC booted into a known state with an approved combination of hardware and software. Control is then handed over to enforcement software in the operating system
11. How can TCPA be abused?
One of the worries is censorship. An application enabled for TCPA, such as a media player or word processor, will typically have its security policy administered remotely by a server. This is so that content owners can react to new piracy techniques. However, the mechanisms might also be used for censorship.
15. So can’t TCPA be broken?
The early versions will be vulnerable to anyone with the tools and patience to crack the hardware (e.g., get clear data on the bus between the CPU and the Fritz chip). However, from phase 2, the Fritz chip will disappear inside the main processor – let’s call it the `Hexium’ – and things will get a lot harder. Really serious, well funded opponents will still be able to crack it. However, it’s likely to go on getting more difficult and expensive. Also, in many countries, cracking Fritz will be illegal. In the USA the Digital Millennium Copyright Act already does this, while in the EU the situation may vary from one country to another, depending on the way national regulations implement the EU Copyright Directive. Also, in many products, compatibility control is already being mixed quite deliberately with copyright control. The Sony Playstation’s authentication chips also contain the encryption algorithm for DVD, so that reverse engineers can be accused of circumventing a copyright protection mechanism and hounded under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The situation is likely to be messy – and that will favour large firms with big legal budgets.
Won’t this be a fun ride…
by Matt | Jun 30, 2002 | Imported Entry
FANTASTIC
That was the smartest thing I’ve heard of in quite some time. Completely ingenious to use the phone companies own tones against telemarketers. I’m going to give it a try tomorrow.
by Matt | Jun 30, 2002 | Imported Entry
Oh, I almost forgot to mention… it’s new CD day 🙂
Since I was going into Nashua to pick up a keyboard, I figured I’d check and see if X-Press 2’s new CD “Musikizm” was at Newbury Comics. I know the import was released last month in England and that the US release was sometime soon. Well, I was right and so now I’m the proud owner of that little piece of musical perfection. Also, in an odd twist of luck, my parents had decided to buy some CD’s for their trip this weekend. Asking their friendly music store associate “what’s good” they were pointed in the direction of Bruce Hornsby’s “Big Swing Face” and the Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack. They of course completely hated Bruce Honsby and so now I own it. It’s actually an odd CD. Apparently he’s a jazz/piano/funk guy who’s trying something very different with the album. According to all the reviews on Amazon, this CD sounds nothing like anything he’s ever done. Very ambiant with a little trance and a smidge of eclectic dance-pop. Kind of like Dirty Vegas or Underworld. Very good though. I’ve never really heard of the artist but I’m definatly going to be giving it a listen later tonight. So, I got two CD’s for the price of one today. Huzah.
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