Slashdot Mirror

I noted a far more subtle problem with SSL in Firefox about a year ago that deals with Client certificates. They allow users to use a non-repudiation certificate for authentication, which is a subtle but bad thing. It ends up giving the US DoD a free pass while messing with the security of everybody else that uses client certificates.

One good thing has come out of it: when I was interviewing for jobs, I brought this issue up with all of my potential companies. It was a great conversation-piece to hear what different companies would do in the Firefox Position: bow to the wishes of the DoD, screw the DoD in the name of the specifications, or something else entirely...

Reid

AT&T took down their ad, but it was pretty funny in a sick sort of way. If you didn't catch their new ad, it was on their bill-pay site last week. I kept a little archive of it here. Enjoy.

Reid

I did it myself a few years ago on my Subaru, and it took me maybe a half hour for both front brakes. This with only the tools that came with the car (crappy jack plus standard issue box wrench/screwdriver), no lift, no a priori knowledge of how to replace pads (Haynes manual in hand). Here's a blog entry from when I did it: link.

I found it to be incredibly easy, though perhaps Subies are easier-than-your-average-car. It took me about 25-30 minutes plus driving down the road/washing my hands with orange cleaner time. I didn't bleed the brakes at the time (I ended up doing that a few months later, more for learning than because anything was wrong). I simply unbolted one of the caliper bolts, swung the caliper up, used a c-clamp to squeeze the piston down, removed pads, replaced, swung caliper down, rebolted, and went on a test drive. It's been a few years, and the brakes are still happy. Next time it won't take me so long, as I'll remember to mark which way the shims go in :).

I blogged this a long time ago, but it still isn't acknowledged widely. Myspace filters its message boards and blogs. It is no email replacement for a lot of reasons, this certainly isn't even the biggest one.

Anyway, if you have a myspace account, try this experiment:

1) Make a new bulletin board post
2) Enter the text "Rupert Murdoch censors my posts" and submit.
3) Watch the post never show up in your bulletin board

Repeat the experiment with a control:

1) Make a new bulletin board post
2) Enter the text "Rup3r7 teh Murd0ch c3n50r5 my posts" and submit.
3) Watch this post show up in your bulletin board immediately

Yes, I know Myspace is a private website and they can filter whatever they want from their users. I won't call it outright censorship for that reason. I do feel that there is an expectation from users that Myspace can be used to discuss anything (well, anything legal) without a thought to having the conversation squashed, though. So it's kind of a grey area at best.

Slashdot does similar things in its comments. There are blacklisted words and whatnot. Slashdot is at least nice and tells you when you say something bad, so you can 'correct' it. Myspace simply says (in experiment 1) "Your message will appear on your bulletin board shortly" with no indication that the post was actually squashed. I deleted my myspace account quite some time ago in protest, whatever little good it does...

Reid

here.

Too late
Frodo has failed

I put up a mirror of the videos as well.

http://www.readingfordummies.com/Permanent/mirrors /b52/.