Phone Hackers
Kevin Smith reminded me of a post that I made to the PLUG mailing list a few years ago. It was funny, I thought I'd repost it here. Some background is that we were discussing accessing a phone's calendar via Linux. The legality of it came up, and I wrote this:
Linux hacker attacks cell network
Phoenix, AZ - On Monday three SWAT teams were able to apprehend Linux hacker Kevin Smith with only minor injuries to Smith. Smith was reported to be using his Motorola v120e phone with a modified cable to allow him to break into the proprietary interface that keeps normal users from accessing the phone's internals.
"Once you have control of the phone, you can do anything." Bob Brown, self-certified expert, told News 13. "You could log into the phone network, perhaps even destabilizing it." This destabilization could cause interruptions to life saving services, like 911.
Mr. Smith claims that he was only trying to retrieve 'his data' out of the phone, but was unable to find it. "The GPL is a virus. First the users think they can look at the software, then they think they need to know hardware protocols, then they want to open your bank account!" said one Microsoft FUDmaster commenting on the case. "We've been trying to warn the public about these kinds of abuses, and the effects that they can have on perfectly good children" continued the sponsor of the ad to the right of this story.
"You never know what they are going to do" stated Sheriff Joe when commenting on why the SWAT teams entered the home shooting. "In his hands was one of the offending devices - we thought that he might have been taking down a critical network right then!" explained Joe. On further investigation it was found that Smith was talking to his Grandmother, but her phone number did include the number 9 and two 1's.
Smith also belonged to a set of elite hackers innocuously know as the Phoenix Linux User's Group (PLUG). This group, while they hide behind public service projects like instructional classes, contains the elite criminals that Linux is known for. "Many times they discuss the core of the operating system, the kernel" said one list member who wishes to remain anonymous.
The group has even gone has far to include a 'Grandmother's cheesecake' ruse into their nefarious planning. Reports say that cheesecake is brought in to make the appearance of there being just 'normal' people in the club. "Oh, they aren't normal" said another member.
Richard Stallman was brought in to the FBI for questioning along with this case, but no one has been able to crack him. With almost continuous recorder music and relentless discussion of the rights of users many agents have retired from the agency when forced to deal with him. On a related note, it is also reported that the agency will be changing it's name to GNU/FBI.
I wish I could say that it couldn't happen...
posted on Thu, 14 Dec 2006 at 01:08 | permanent link
CVT ruins childhoods
Many cars are now including CVTs. While I see this as an upgrade to the classic transmission design, I'm worried about what this is doing to our children. Seriously. Have you seen a kid play with a car? It goes something like this: "vroooom-vroooom-vroooom". Each "vrooom" goes from low to high pitch simulating the increase of RPM before the transmission shifts. What will kids in the future do? "vrooooooooooooooooooom" all in a simple monotone? How much fun is that? Think of the children.
posted on Tue, 12 Dec 2006 at 20:04 | permanent link
Humor Type
CLEAN | COMPLEX | LIGHT
Your humor has an intellectual, even conceptual slant to it. You're not pretentious, but you're not into what some would call 'low humor' either. You'll laugh at a good dirty joke, but you definitely prefer something clever to something moist.
You probably like well-thought-out pranks and/or spoofs and it's highly likely you've tried one of these things yourself. In a lot of ways, yours is the most entertaining type of humor because it's smart without being mean-spirited.
PEOPLE LIKE YOU: Conan O'Brian - Ashton Kutcher
The 3-Variable Funny Test!
posted on Tue, 05 Dec 2006 at 14:21 | permanent link
Options Kill
Configuration options creep in many different places eating budgets and destroying applications. Often times they're even embedded in the requirements of an application: "Support any number of widgets." More often than not a follow up conversation would go like this:
Dev: How many widgets do you typically use?
User: We always use 10.
Dev: Then why do you need support for any number?
User: We don't want to be restricted in the future.
Dev: What scenarios do you see using a different number than 10?
User: Do I look like I can predict the future?
While it isn't bad to design applications to have growth in them, adding configuration and variability significantly increases the complexity of the application. The need for expandability must be balanced against over design carefully. Adding complexity leads to bugs and crazy test scenarios. This in turn leads to increased cost. Not just in development time, but in the amount of overrun that the project has as these are the largest areas of misestimation. I haven't seen any data on it, but from experience I would say that the number of configuration options not only relates to the number of bugs found, but increases it exponentially.
There are some really good examples of how to handle this. One deals with the MPEG-4 specification. The MPEG-4 specification is broad, it covers such a large area of what you could do with video it is impressive in just that regard. But, this makes it impractical to make a decoder for, much less a cost effective one. So, various CE companies have gotten together and decided on a reasonable version of the MPEG-4 spec, H.264. This isn't saying anything bad about MPEG-4, more that these companies realize that limiting the number of options that the encoder has makes the decoder cheaper and easier to test.
This is something that all engineers can learn to do better. Limiting your options early and effectively will decrease your costs all the way through the process. Make the hard decisions, take some risk, and deal with the problems that come with it. Your architecture will have to survive several redesigns through it's lifetime -- even with that, it will be more solid if the options are limited.
posted on Fri, 01 Dec 2006 at 19:15 | permanent link