The big media companies and their cronies are getting more and more desperate to try save their totally outdated business model. Modern computers make it ridiculously easy and cheap to copy and distribute any media. The media companies are however trying very hard to overcharge people for what they can do very easily themselves. Most people know that it is illegal to make unauthorised copies of copyrighted materials, but if the holders of the copyright charge way too much and chances are that you will not get caught people will simply copy the material illegally.
Continue reading ‘Will they ever learn?’
Tag Archive for 'computer'
While browsing through hack a day yesterday I found this Nokia smartphone vulnerability.
If you go to the link you will notice that it was the Chaos Computer Club that published the vulnerability. I have written about them before and think they do great work to raise awareness about the risks in computers and other electronics. Some may think that they are irresponsible, but are the large companies that release equipment with these kinds of vulnerabilities not way more irresponsible?
Continue reading ‘Curse Of Silence’
About 6 years ago I started installing advertisement monitoring systems in Africa for a small media company. A media company of course has good relationships with their customers i.e. television and radio stations.
Kampala
The first installations I did was in East Africa, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi and Kampala. My first trip was kind of hectic, the logistics was screwed up totally and we had a lot to learn.
Our first mistake was thinking that renting a car and self driving is a good idea. The roads in these cities are atrocious, and the drivers worse. And the irony is that for the same money you can get a full time driver with a car of the same quality. Anyway on this first trip I was driving around in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi dodging potholes and Kamikazes in cars.
Continue reading ‘Africa from the rooftops – East Africa Trip 1′
Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day
You may ask “What is a System Administrator?”
The answers you will find at http://www.sysadminday.com/ are as good as any. Being a System Administrator is a somewhat stressful job and turns you into a cynic very quickly (see http://www.sysadminday.com/time.html ) and you start hanging out in places like the scary devil monastery. Your (l)users also stop talking to you mainly out of fear of hearing the truth because the last time they complained about not getting e-mail you answered “Well, maybe nobody likes you anymore”
Continue reading ‘If you can read this, thank your sysadmin’
While we are talking about Jacob Zuma and company down here in SA, the Germans are debating the use of biometric data for identification. One of my favourite groups the Chaos Computer Club of Berlin has pretty much proven that using biometric data like fingerprints, retina scans or facial features are not such a good idea by lifting their minister of interior Wolfgang Schäuble’s fingerprints and then showing how easy it is to fool these sytems. more....
