Author: RagManX

Apple fixes small privacy rights issue

I didn’t write about the original problem, but apparently Apple has fixed an issue in which personal information was sent to Apple when users shopped in the iTunes store (and since I don’t shop there, I’ll admit to not carefully reading up on the problem).  The fix is a simple and obvious one.  Now, when shopping, there is a note that your system can send some information to Apple about your browsing, and Apple can send back recommendations for similar songs and videos.  You have the option of turning this feature on or off.  Which, of course, is the right way to handle the situation.

Bush’s illegal eavesdropping leads nowhere?

Current indications are that the wiretapping which should lead to the removal of the current president were of little value.  And this isn’t just the case according to the liberal media.  This conclusion comes from the people performing these illegal eavesdropping measures.  So, we as a nation have a president who is willfully, very intentionally, and arrogantly ignoring laws put in place to protect American’s rights so he can gather nearly no useful information?  Wow, he continues to show himself a bad president in my eyes.

Broadcasters want to take away your VCR

OK, that’s not quite true.  But there is an idea being pushed by broadcasters to close what is called the analog hole.  This speaks to the fact that anyone can copy regular TV and share/distribute/re-mix/mash-up what they have copied.  An example of this is the VCR, which happily records whatever analog signal comes through it if directed to.  Another example is video capture cards used in many PCs and video recorders like Tivo or ReplayTV.

Over at Freedom to Tinker, Ed Felton has written up a very good brief on the technology new bill the broadcasters are trying to get passed would use.My own sensationalist headline aside (it won’t take away your VCR, but would impact future sales of video recorders), this is another example of big business trying to restrict users’ rights because some users abuse those rights.  And to be honest, I’m not so sure why it is wrong for me to get a copy of a show from a friend when I missed the show and my friend recorded it.  But if this new bill becomes law, that could very well be impossible in the future.

Gore on Bush

I’ll be honest and say right up front that I’m just a bit tired of hearing from Al Gore.  However, in this case, I think he says the right thing.  In fact, I don’t think he goes far enough.  Not only should Bush be removed from office for his illegal wiretaps, the insider group of 8 Republicans and Democrats should also be removed from office for not bringing this abuse of executive priviledge to light years ago.

Custom Amiga FPGA build

While I’m sure this won’t be of much interest to either of my readers today, I still think it’s pretty cool.  Over on the forums at amiga.org, someone has written up a bit about his work rebuilding the Amiga custom chipset via FPGA.  I never had an Amiga, but I always appreciated the technology that made them so good for their time.  This is a pretty cool project.

Malware advisor

Interested in keeping up with the latest goings on in the world of bad software?  Make regular visits to the Malware Advisor.  You’ll probably learn more than you ever knew you could about all the bad things some bad people do to get bad software on your computer and make it do bad things.  There are lists of possible ways your machine got infected, likely hints that you are infected, fixes for various infections and links to forums where people talk how to fix the infections the advisor doesn’t yet show how to clean.  Well worth visiting.

Security company using rootkits?

Hey, it’s my hobby, although I hope to make it my vocation again.  After all the recent fuss over Sony’s use of a rootkit to protect honest consumers from doing things they have a legal right to do, I expect we’ll see more stories like the following come to light.  Apparently, Symantec (aka Norton) uses rootkit technology to “protect” users from themselves when said users run Systemworks.  Now I get the whole idea of wanting to help users avoid problems from accidentally screwing their systems up.  I know that Symantec is just trying to help.  But using technology to hide things from a user on their own system, without specifically spelling out that this will be done is just wrong.  I understand it can be turned on and off, but I get the impression that the functionality of this feature is not spelled out in advance, and it really should be.

As the author of the linked column notes, there’s no known misuse of this rootkit technology to harm systems (that is, there are no known exploits of this “feature” by malware writers).  But that doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen.  It doesn’t even mean it hasn’t happened.  As with the Sony fiasco, F-Secure appears to be the consumer protector we would like all security companies to be.  This is a company that is getting my dollars when I next shop for security software.  They just do things right.  And they have a great security blog, too.