Basically Tech - technology

London Stock Exchange abandoning Windows

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:08:27 +0100

The London Stock Exchange is abandoning it's Windows-based TradElect trading system. The system crashed in September 2008.

TradElect runs on HP ProLiant servers running, in turn, Windows Server 2003. The TradElect software itself is a custom blend of C# and .NET programs, which was created by Microsoft and Accenture, the global consulting firm. On the back-end, it relied on Microsoft SQL Server 2000. Its goal was to maintain sub-ten millisecond response times, real-time system speeds, for stock trades.

It never, ever came close to achieving these performance goals. Worse still, the LSE's competition, such as its main rival Chi-X with its MarketPrizm trading platform software, was able to deliver that level of performance and in general it was running rings about TradElect. Three guesses what MarketPrizm runs on and the first two don't count. The answer is Linux.

I'm sure someone got some nice lunches out of it while it lasted.

The Tech Lab: Bruce Schneier

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:49:42 +0000

A cautionary viewpoint concerning the unintended consequences of the current Information Age from Bruce Schneier. I think it's worth reading.

Data is the pollution of the information age. It's a natural by-product of every computer-mediated interaction. It stays around forever, unless it's disposed of. It is valuable when reused, but it must be done carefully. Otherwise, its after-effects are toxic.

Cardinal Richelieu famously said: "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." When all your words and actions can be saved for later examination, different rules have to apply.

ZFS and Linux?

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Sun, 18 May 2008 22:36:56 +0100

This is concerning a cryptic entry from the blog of Jeff Bonwick. The two guys in the photos (follow the link) are Linus Torvalds and Jeff Bonwick. Jeff Bonwick is maybe not quite as well known as Linus Torvalds. He's the CTO of Storage Technologies at Sun Microsystems, he's also the ZFS development team leader, and his blog pretty much focuses on ZFS.

So, what's this about? Aren't there supposed to be licensing issues with Linux and ZFS? All I can assume when Jeff Bonwick says:

All I can say for the moment is... stay tuned."

is that there are "talks about talks". There are certainly interesting possibilities, ZFS is impressive stuff.

Hotmail doesn't work with Firefox 2.0 and GNU/Linux

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 13:11:06 +0000

Personally, when I first saw the headline, I thought, "So what?" However on closer reading, it seems that Hotmail has been deliberately rigged not to work with Firefox 2.0 and GNU/Linux. To work around it, all you need to do is use User Agent Switcher to masquerade as Firefox running on Windows, and it works just fine. There is no technical reason why it shouldn't work, this just seems to be a deliberate attempt to block Linux users from Hotmail.

The funniest part of this whole story is when the author contacted Hotmail support with his woes, explaining that Firefox 2 wasn't fully supported under GNU/Linux, and he received a reply recommending him to use Outlook Express, as well as details of the steps required to set up Outlook Express on Windows XP and Vista.

Bruce Schneier interview at Linux.conf.au 2008

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:52:16 +0000

Bruce Schneier is a security advisor for whom I have a lot of respect. He is one of the keynote speakers at Linux.conf.au 2008, and he is being interviewed here prior to that event.

When this guy speaks, if you're interested in security, then it's well worth listening. You don't have to be technically minded. What's important is if you can be open to Bruce Schneier's mindset, it will change the way you think about security. He just comes at it from a completely different angle.

One other site of interest for the security-conscious is Bruce Schneier's blog, Schneier on Security.

Malicious commands

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 13:18:18 +0000

There's an alarming post on the Ubuntu forums warning of a recent trend whereby new Ubuntu Linux users are being tricked into running dangerous commands which will delete home directories, or overwrite the system disk, or the like.

One of the great strengths of Linux in particular and Open Source software in general has been the approachability and helpfulness of the community, and it seems some dweebs think its funny to exploit this openness and trick a new user to trash their system.

It's made me think. A significant part (**) of the security of a system lies in the users. Linux and Unix have always been professional operating systems, written by professionals, for use by professionals. When you use the command line to ask a *nix system to do something, the assumption is that you know what you're doing. That system won't ask you if you're sure you want to do what you've typed. It'll just do it. I don't think that should change. For me it's part of the attraction.

I've only used Ubuntu once. I was impressed, but not that much that I would leave the distro I currently use . It seemed to me that the Ubuntu people have made it possible to do pretty much anything you might want to do using the GUI, and this is the attraction that has brought in many (welcome!) newcomers to Linux. However the command line is far more powerful and flexible than any GUI, and as people slowly come to realise this and naturally start experimenting, I feel more issues of a similar nature may arise.

If you want your PC (running Linux or Windows) to remain safe and secure, you need to have a particular mindset. "Wary" probably describes it. "Keeping it simple" and experience definitely helps.

(** This is not to say that all systems are equal. Not by a long shot.)

Windows is free

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 19:39:49 +0000

This article, Windows Is Free, is a discussion about the impact of pirated software on free software, and is an interesting analysis of people's attitudes to using pirated software. Interesting and thought-provoking stuff.

Microsoft updates Windows without users' consent

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 16:42:31 +0100

There is a small storm in a teacup brewing over recent events in which it's been confirmed that Microsoft has updated copies of Windows XP and Windows Vista without the users' consent, even if auto-updates have been turned off. Obviously these folks don't read (or is it "understand") the Windows EULA which they clicked on and agreed to when they first started their newly-purchased PC (or when they actually paid for and installed the software.)

Most users of Microsoft Windows seem to have their collective heads buried in the sand. The thing the don't seem to get is that Windows users are just that, users. They don't own the software, they have just purchased the right to use it. Microsoft explicitly retain ownership and the right to update their system as and when they choose.

I don't understand why people are acting so shocked. Windows doesn't belong to you. If it bothers you having a third party changing files on the PC you use without your permission, you can always use an OS which you do own.

Shut Up I Hack You

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 11:22:25 +0100

This is an apparently true event which happened back in 2005. It is the (frankly hilarious) conversation which took place between an IRC user and self-proclaimed hacker named bitchchecker, who mistakenly believed that he had been kicked off an IRC channel by another user named Elch. The "hacker", childishly (ah!) refusing to believe that he had timed, threatened to hack Elch's PC, and dared Elch to give out his IP address. Elch told bitchchecker that his IP address was 127.0.0.1. It's got to be read. This has been translated from the original German.

Edited 16/05/2010: I noticed the original link to www.electric-escape.net was not working, so I replaced it with another link - this story has thankfully been preserved for posterity.

Samba beats windows

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 17:18:39 +0100

Old news, but interesting anyway. Tests by IT Week Labs had showed that Samba version was twice as fast as Windows 2000 Server when they tested it in 2002. The next year, Windows Server 2003 came out, and so did Samba 3, so they repeated the tests. This time Samba was 2.5 times faster.

In terms of scalability, the gains of upgrading to Samba 3 are even more striking. Last year we found that Samba could handle four times as many clients as Windows 2000 before performance began to drop off. This year we would need to upgrade our test network in order to identify the point where Samba performance begins to fall in earnest.

So, you can get something for free, which can handle many more clients, two and half times faster, or pay for something which can handle far fewer clients at a much slower rate. You would have thought it was a no-brainer, wouldn't you?

Analysis of a cracked Linux host

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 21:54:41 +0100

This is a fascinating analysis of a cracked Linux host. The cracker seems to have made a number of fundamental mistakes which led to the owner becoming concerned as to why some services weren't running. The owner then called in a friend (the author) who started to analyse why the server was behaving so unusually. Well worth a read.

Vista protects users from their own multimedia content

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 21:40:15 +0100

Amazingly, Windows Vista's content protection will protect it's users from seeing their own multimedia content.

"If there was any threat modeling at all, it was really badly done," Gutmann, from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, said while giving a talk on Vista content protection. "Once the enemy is the user and not the attacker, standard security thinking falls apart."

It's a strange world were people cannot play their HD-DVDs or listen to their own music:

While Microsoft's intent is to protect commercial content, home movies are increasingly being shot in high definition, Gutmann said. Many users are finding they can't play any content if it's considered "premium."

"This is not commercial HD content being blocked, this is the users' own content," Gutmann said. "The more premium content you have, the more output is disabled."

People actually pay money to be treated like this.

More vindication for Gary Kildall

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:11:22 +0100

Following on from my previous entry, Groklaw has unearthed an interesting snippet from the court notes:

Thirteen years before the Book was published, Mr. Kildall was quoted in a newspaper article as saying: "Ask Bill why function code 9 (in DOS) ends with a dollar sign . . . . No one in the world knows that but me." James Wallace & Jim Erickson, Bill Gates: Of Mind and Money, Seattle P-I, May 8, 1991... In his January 2007 deposition, Mr. Paterson conceded that function 9 was terminated with a "$" sign only "because that was what was in the manual. They published a manual; the manual said put a dollar sign at the end. So I followed the manual." Paterson Dep. at 130:11-131:9.

Was Microsoft's first OS stolen?

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:53:45 +0100

This is interesting.

In a book on American innovation, author Sir Harold Evans wrote that DOS inventor Tim Paterson relied heavily on an existing OS called CP/M (Control Program/Monitor) created by a programmer who has since died. Microsoft in 1980 struck a licensing deal with Paterson's company -- Seattle Computer Products -- to obtain access to DOS and resell it to IBM.
...
In his book "They Made America", Evans writes that Paterson, in developing DOS, took "a ride on" CP/M, which was created by the late Gary Kildall. Evans also wrote that Paterson's DOS operating system appropriated the "look and feel" of CP/M, copied its user interface, and "ripped-off" CP/M.

This is not the first time that people have claimed that Microsoft used stolen software or ideas in their products. But rotten to the root? Interesting.

Vista sends data about users to MS

nospam@example.com (Rob Newcater) — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 23:28:57 +0100

Well, no surprise. Microsoft uses Vista to gather information about you. I've made many posts about this, just type "Vista" in the Quicksearch text field and press enter. So what? What can they tell?

... in excess of 20 Windows Vista features and services are hard at work collecting and transmitting your personal data to the Redmond company.

Geez, 20? That seems rather a lot. Those twenty features and services all use CPU and RAM on your PC, to snoop on you. You'll have to read the full article to find out exactly what those 20+ data mining techniques are (plus how you can bypass some of them). But surely Microsoft are a responsible company. (Actually, I couldn't type that last sentence without grinning.) Well, the Vista license agreement clearly states:

"By using these features, you consent to the transmission of this information. Microsoft does not use the information to identify or contact you."

And they say they're not going to identify you. All they say they want is your:

"Internet protocol address, the type of operating system, browser and name and version of the software you are using, and the language code of the device where you installed the software."

Heh, if they have your IP address, they have you. But they clearly stated that they won't identify you, so, problem over? Not quite.

"Microsoft may disclose personal information about you if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to: (a) comply with the law or legal process served on Microsoft; (b) protect and defend the rights of Microsoft (including enforcement of our agreements); or (c) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety of Microsoft employees, users of Microsoft software or services, or members of the public,"

The good faith belief? Microsoft? Come on.