Author: adamo

I am a Greek DevOps Engineer ranting about everything, from email to sports; to living in Athens, Greece.

Security Engineering – The Book

Security Engineering (A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems) by Ross Anderson. Available for download:

“[…] This book grew out of the security engineering courses I teach at Cambridge University, but I have rewritten my notes to make them self-contained and added at least as much material again. It should be useful to the established professional security manager or consultant as a first-line reference; to the computer science professor doing research in cryptology; to the working police detective trying to figure out the latest computer scam; and to policy wonks struggling with the conflicts involved in regulating cryptography and anonymity. Above all, it is aimed at Dilbert. My main audience is the working programmer or engineer who is trying to design real systems that will keep on working despite the best efforts of customers, managers, and everybody else. […]”

Το παιχνίδι της σιωπής

Χτες επισκεφτήκαμε το βαφτιστήρι μας. Πολλή φασαρία! Θυμήθηκα λοιπόν το trick που μου έχει πει μια φίλη νηπιαγωγός:

Γ: Κ. Θα παίξουμε το παιχνίδι της σιωπής. Χάνει όποιος μιλήσει πρώτος. Ναι;

Κ: Ναι

Γ: Ξεκινάμε

(1 sec … 2 sec … 3sec)

Κ: Έχασα!

re: Ηλίθιες προβλέψεις

Διαβάζοντας τις “Ηλίθιες Προβλέψεις” (1 και 2) του panicroom, θυμήθηκα το τεύχος Δεκεμβρίου του 2005 του IEEE/Computer. Στην τελευταία σελίδα λοιπόν έχει το άρθρο με τίτλο “We are sorry to inform you…”1 το οποίο έχει τις αρνητικές κριτικές που έλαβαν θα μπορούσαν να λάβουν θεμελιώδη papers στην Επιστήμη των Υπολογιστών (και των Τηλεπικοινωνιών):

Είναι κρίμα που το περιεχόμενο το Computer3 δεν είναι διαθέσιμο online με τον ίδιο τρόπο που είναι του Spectrum. Μερικά ενδιαφέροντα σχόλια από τις κριτικές:

“The author mentions computing machines, such as the recent ENIAC. Well, I guess one could connect such machines, but a recent IBM memo stated that a dozen or so machines will be sufficient for all the computing that we’ll ever need in the foreseeable future, so there won’t be a whole lot of connecting going on with only a dozen of ENIACs” (για το paper του Shannon).

“Finally there is the question of the application. Electronic mail on the Arpanet is indeed a nice gizmo, but it is unlikely it will ever be diffused outside academic circles and public laboratories – environments in which the need to maintain confidentiality is scarcely pressing. Laboratories with military contracts will never communicate through the Arpanet! Either normal people or small companies will be able to afford a VAX each, or the market for electronic mail will remain tiny. […] Reject.” (για το paper των RSA).

…and the rest is history.

Update: Το blog του Bertrand Meyer για το ίδιο άρθρο. Έπειτα διαβάστε για το Rejecta Mathematica.

[1] Simone Santini, University of California, San Diego: “We are sorry to inform you…”
[2] PDF document
[3] Μετά από παρατήρηση του Don, το άρθρο μπορεί να το βρει κανείς εδώ.

Ban him from playing basketball ever again

Ban him from playing basketball ever again. It is not the fact that he deliberately hit Nikos Zisis. It is the fact that he is refusing to publicly apologise for his act.

Even Zidane apologized for headbutting Materazzi1. And in his defence he was provoked by the Italian. You can read more about “the way of the thug” by the guys at Mundobasket2006

[1] Zidane apologized to the World, not to Materazzi

Κόλαση

Δυο Θεσσαλονικείς έχουν πάει στη Κόλαση και λέει ο ένας στον άλλο:

– Φιλαράκι, καλή η Κόλαση δε λέω, αλλά Χαλκιδική δεν είναι

(Προσαρμοσμένο από ανέκδοτο που είχε πει ο Σταρόβας πριν ένα μήνα στην ΕΡΑ ΣΠΟΡ: “Φιλαράκι, καλός ο Παράδεισος δε λέω, αλλά Χαλκιδική δεν είναι”)

Mulberry is back!

Κάποτε ήταν ο μόνος λόγος για να χρησιμοποιώ Windows:

Hi folks,
Finally, after much effort, I have regained the rights to Mulberry and am making it available for free as of today. See:

<http://www.mulberrymail.com>

Some things to note:

1) It is free to anyone – no registration codes needed.

2) A new v4.0.5 version is available on the website. This simply removes the registration requirement and updates copyright notices etc.

3) There is no formal support for the product as there was before. Instead ‘community’ support via mailing lists and other resources will be used. I will make a best effort to respond in a timely fashion to issues, but see note (4) below.

4) This effort is purely a personal one on my part – all the work I do on this is being done in my (limited) spare time.

5) It is free but not open source. That’s an issue that we can discuss moving forward…

6) Also, major new features/revisions etc are out of the question right now (though I have a few pet projects that were being worked on before and which I will likely continue). Fixes to existing problems will be done as time allows. Hopefully if we find a way of dealing with issue (5) that may change – but that’s really going to depend on the level of interest from people willing to commit their own time to this as opposed to one of the other open source equivalents.

Hopefully those of you still using Mulberry and hoping to continue to do so for a while at least will find this good news.

—
Cyrus Daboo

Ίσως ο καλύτερος IMAP client που υπάρχει.-

Zone Soccer: A Game of Time and Space (part 1)

Φίλε Herman οι παίκτες της ομάδας που προπονεί ο προϊστάμενός σου χτες ήταν lost in time και lost in space.

On related news:

Είμαστε οπαδοί και όχι εγκληματίες
άνθρωποι κι εμείς με ελευθερίες. Ultras 7

Πανό που σηκώθηκε με την είσοδο των ομάδων στον αγωνιστικό χώρο. Ελπίζω κάποιος από τους Ultras να το μεταφράσει…

Το χτεσινό ματς πάντως ήταν Rivaldo+10:

-A casa!

(part 2)