barf: In the beginning was the command line..

Sound the alarm: ACTA negotiations delayed

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 06:59:00 PDT

This should not be interpreted as good news. Negotiations have been delayed but National has a policy based interest in entering "free" and other trade agreements, such as the ACTA.

Section 92a was probably one outcome of the last round of A... (more in the full post)

I'm not protesting S92a

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 06:50:00 PST

because I diddn't vote for these idiots:

and you diddn't think subservience to business interests was going to be a problem?

watch Al Jazeera on XBMC

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:59:00 PST

cooked up this small script to watch Al Jazeera satellite television in English on XBMC, only tested on Xbox but should work on all platforms. http://al-jazeera-xbmc.googlecode.com/files/aljazeera_xbmc.py... (more in the full post)

National's broadband plan

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 05:16:00 PST

If farmers, businesses, hospitals and schools couldn't connect to the net, then we would need National's plan. In reality, nothing but talk has emerged so far but, they have managed to pass laws increasing sentances and fines, endowing less responsib... (more in the full post)

All fired up, know exactly who we're voting for and why. Yeah Right.

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:44:00 PST

I am amazed at how many people have taken the Destiny Church bandwagon to gravy town. I'm talking about the 2007 Child Discipline Act.

Did you know?

You can still legally discipline your child, and even with some force, should that be r... (more in the full post)

USA193 - Spy satellite out of control

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 08:59:00 PST

LOL: Launched in December 2006, USA193 has a top secret payload and one can only assume it is operated by the NRO. Shortly after reaching orbit ground controllers lost control of the satellite and it's orbit has been decaying ever since. It is alread... (more in the full post)

AMD Opteron, Athlon Dual-Core CPU TSC problem

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 07:35:00 PST

To all system administrators: AMD Opteron and Athlon CPUs which are dual-core are prone to TSC skew. Only rarely will this cause complete system failures, symptoms are more along the lines of unexpected behaviour and intermittent faults. When you see... (more in the full post)

Hacker "Kingpin" caught. apparently.

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 05:27:00 PST

This is in regard to the stuff article http://stuff.co.nz/4298686a10.html

Why did the media announce that the FBI were in the country *BEFORE* they had arrested this person?

I'm no spook but it's quite obvious that this is not standard p... (more in the full post)

Yellow Journalism, a Culture of Fear and the Information Operations Roadmap

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 03:05:00 PDT

I'm sick of hearing it already. That is; "Terror" in the headlines, there seems to be more terror born from the media than from reality.

Our media aggregates exist to sell newspapers and thus make articles that appeal to our taste for informa... (more in the full post)

first ever Linux patent infringement claim lodged in Texas

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 06:44:00 PDT

Presumably, Microsoft is smart enough to realise there is a negative PR fallout from patent claims against OSS vendors. But, one or more Microsoft licensing executives join Acacia or one or its companies and low-and-behold, lawsuit is filed against L... (more in the full post)

Youtube and Copyright Violation?

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 05:32:00 PDT

"Dear Member:

This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by The Entertainment Software Association Members claiming that this material is infringing:"

OpenVZ 2.6.22 released: ~0% overhead Virtualisation!

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 07:15:00 PDT

The OpenVZ kernel based on 2.6.22 was released yesterday! Woohoo! Call me a geek if you have to but I'm excited. OpenVZ offers near-zero overhead OS-level virtualisation. This is a different paradigm to Xen and VMware.

Running Linux VMs... (more in the full post)

Microsoft's Open XML rejected by ISO!

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 07:44:00 PDT

Hot off the press Google, ISO has rejected Microsoft's Open XML for fast-track to standardisation. The ISO process is thankfully, too robust for commercial interests to corrupt it into adopting a flawed standard. Despite it being techni... (more in the full post)

Australian IPv6 Summit 19 - 21 November

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 10:11:00 PDT

Just in case any of our mates across the ditch havn't heard yet, the Australian IPv6 Summit is scheduled for 19 - 21 November this year (2007). It will be held in Canberra.

There will be two days of workshops and presentations covering b... (more in the full post)

Proprietary connectors suck

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 10:35:00 PDT

DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME

I've had a guts-full of proprietary standards lately, been reading too much about the Microsoft Open XML format.

Maybe that was the reason I felt the need to attack this old Compaq laptop to remove it&... (more in the full post)

Linus interviewed, with shark-mounted LASERS

Sun, 12 Aug 2007 08:13:00 PDT

"The GPLv2 in no way limits your use of the software. If you're a mad scientist, you can use GPLv2'd software for your evil plans to take over the world." - A quote from Linus, taken out of context from the interview but it makes a good blurb... (more in the full post)

HOWTO: New Zealand Daylight Savings changes for GNU/Linux

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 08:45:00 PDT

OS Distribution vendors need time to test and release packages and updates. If, come late September and your OS still doesn't have a 'tzdata' update available you may have to perform the following steps on your GNU/Linux servers to bring ... (more in the full post)

BillG & SteveJ interviewed

Thu, 31 May 2007 06:03:00 PDT

it's a link to:

http://d5.allthingsd.com/20070531/video-steve-jobs-and-bill-gates-highlight-reel/

OpenMOKO - free PDA/smart-phone OS

Mon, 14 May 2007 08:00:00 PDT

With backing from FIC (First International Computer, Taiwan) the OpenMOKO project has some serious credibility for being the first ubiquitous smart-phone/handheld computer OS. With the hardware supplied by FIC for development engineering resembling m... (more in the full post)

GSM cracking project gears up

Tue, 08 May 2007 18:14:00 PDT

The first weaknesses in the GSM A5 encryption were discovered in 1998, it was in theory broken back then. But GSM's adoption has still flourished. Stemming from a project to build a cheap GSM transceiver & basestation, hackers may soon have the t... (more in the full post)

No more MS Office for Apple/Macs at NZ Schools (for now..)

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 11:13:00 PDT

After reading an MoE memo today it would appear that I am required to remove MS Office from every Apple computer at the School where I work.

I'm not blaming Microsoft or anyone else straight away however, as I have no insight into the Mo... (more in the full post)

State-sponsored Cyber Warfare

Mon, 19 Mar 2007 11:21:00 PDT

- is a reality. I would like to direct you all to a regular security-related podcast: GRC Security Now. The juicy stuff is nearer to the end of episode #82. This subject reminds me of the BBC's interview with Gary McKinnon, which was a real jaw-d... (more in the full post)

Microsoft Virtualisation Monopoly

Sun, 04 Mar 2007 03:51:00 PST

VMware and other Virtualisation systems are being hit by changes to Microsoft's licencing on Windows operating systems. These licence changes attempt to make using a VM made for Microsof't VPC in another Virtual Machine illegal. Further than ... (more in the full post)

printer phoning home

Sun, 25 Feb 2007 08:27:00 PST

this Konica-Minolta IP-424 printer is trying to connect to 206.130.99.238 port 110/POP3 every 10 minutes.

so I sniffed the connection to see what it was up to. it sends a unique code as the username and password Konica01 then checks for new ... (more in the full post)

The IPv4 countdown

Wed, 07 Feb 2007 15:01:00 PST

The latest algorithmic predictions are showing that globally route-able IPv4 addresses will be exhausted in 5 years time! Allocation of new addresses will stop some time before that however.

YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME

<... (more in the full post)