Category: Technology

Digitizing Books for Fun and Preservation

With the introduction of e-readers such as the Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Nobel Nook e-books have finally gained a foothold. In fact it’s been almost one and a half year since Amazon announced that they sold more e-books than hardcover books. It’s easy to see why e-books have taken off, it’s far more convenient to have every book you own on a single device instead of lugging around a handful of books wherever you go. Unfortunately there are some books that still aren’t in electronic format, many of which are very rare. For example, I have a copy of The Black Flag of Anarchy Corinne Jacker. It’s a very interesting title that covers anarchism in the United States but, as far as I can see, no electronic copy exists and no electronic copy is likely to be made. That is, at least, until I follow these instructions for building a do-it-yourself book scanners:

Daniel Reetz, founder of DIYBookScanner.org, had been making kits available for those looking to build their own device. Finding a need for a scanner himself, Reetz built his first book scanner from the trash he found from dumpster diving. He created an Instructable to share his experiences and discovered a diverse group of individuals who also had the need for a book scanner. The group ranged from a man from Indonesia hoping to preserve books from flood damage to a group of engineers looking for a new and interesting project to spark their interests. The DIY Book Scanner had modest beginnings, but over a period of two years it evolved into a movement of individuals using readily available resources to create solutions.

The article primarily discusses the trials and tribulations faced by the ArsTechnica writers who built one of the do-it-yourself scanners. It’s not easy but it is possible and the technology is guarantee to improve and become more accessible. Digitizing books is the most effective way to make rare titles available for everybody’s enjoyment and is currently the most effective way of preventing such titles from disappearing entirely. It is my hope that every piece of written literature will someday be available in electronic format.

Beginning Tomorrow Unlocking Your Phone Will Again be Illegal

Here’s a question to ponder for a moment, is your cell phone yours? You paid for it, you pay for the plan that makes it useful, you have it in your possession, and you store your personal data on it so obviously it’s yours, right? Wrong. Your cell phone belongs to the state, which is why, beginning tomorrow, you could be kidnapped and locked in a cage for unlocking the phone in your pocket:

The clock to unlock a new mobile phone is running out.

In October 2012, the Librarian of Congress, who determines exemptions to a strict anti-hacking law called the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), decided that unlocking mobile phones would no longer be allowed. But the librarian provided a 90-day window during which people could still buy a phone and unlock it. That window closes on January 26.

Unlocking a phone frees it from restrictions that keep the device from working on more than one carrier’s network, allowing it run on other networks that use the same wireless standard. This can be useful to international travellers who need their phones to work on different networks. Other people just like the freedom of being able to switch carriers as they please.

How could the act of unlocking “your” cell phone be illegal? In the name of defending the legal fiction of intellectual property the state passed a law known as the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA), which made it a criminal act to circumvent Digital Rights Management (DRM). In 2009 the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) was able to get an exemption in the DMCA for unlocking cell phones but those exemptions must be renewed periodically and the state apparently has no desire to renew such an exemption. Just remember that you live in a free country where the right to property is guaranteed by the Constitution. Oh, and we’ve always been at war with Eastasia.

That’s it for Today

Instead of preparing blog posts I’ve been spending a lot of my free time learning how to setup Tor hidden services. So far I’ve managed to setup a server with functioning Secure Shell (SSH), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), and Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers. The HTTP and IRC servers have functioning Secure Socket Layer (SSL) security using self-signed certifications (since getting a certificate signed by an established authority defeats the purpose of a hidden anonymous server). So far I can’t guarantee that my server is properly hidden since I’ve focused primarily on getting services running, not security.

The more the states of the world clamp down on the Internet the more anonymity protocol such as Tor will be necessary, especailly for those advocating radial ideas such as agorism. I think it would be wise for everybody to familiarize themselves with Tor because you never know how far the state’s censorship practices will extend.

OS X Security Tip: Destroy FileVault Key on Standby

I haven’t talked much about technology as of late. With so much other news, especially on the gun rights front, I haven’t had much time nor reason to writeup any technology tips. With that said I have a security tip that OS X users who use FileVault on their main drive may find useful. While investigating another power management issue I found a pmset (an OS X command line application for adjusting power management settings) value mentioned in the command’s man page:

destroyfvkeyonstandby – Destroy File Vault Key when going to standby mode. By default File vault keys are retained even when system goes to standby. If the keys are destroyed, user will be prompted to enter the password while coming out of standby mode.(value: 1 – Destroy, 0 – Retain)

As a user of FileValut and my laptop’s standby mode I found this value interesting. As far as I knew the FileVault key was destroyed when my computer entered standby. Apparently that’s not the default behavior. Looking further into this command I found a FileVault 2 training document [PDF] put out by Apple that had more to say about the destroyfvkeyonstandby value:

All computers have firmware of some type—EFI, BIOS—to help in the discovery of hardware components and ultimately to properly bootstrap the computer using the desired OS instance. In the case of Apple hardware and the use of EFI, Apple stores relevant information within EFI to aid in the functionality of OS X. For example, the FileVault key is stored in EFI to transparently come out of standby mode.

Organizations especially sensitive to a high-attack environment, or potentially exposed to full device access when the device is in standby mode, should mitigate this risk by destroying the FileVault key in firmware. Doing so doesn’t destroy the use of FileVault, but simply requires the user to enter the password in order for the system to come out of standby mode.

The destruction of the FileVault key when going to standby mode can be accomplished by setting a specific power management environment variable using the pmset command. Performing the following command on the targeted system interactively, or during the execution of a script for automation or deployments, sets the key for destruction:

# pmset destroyfvkeyonstandby 1

I used the command “pmset -a destroyfvkeyonstandby 1” (the same as the command mentioned in the manual with the addition of the -a flag, which applies the value to all power profiles) but I don’t believe the -a flag is actually necessary. Now, hopefully, my FileVault key is actually destroyed when the computer enters standby mode.

My Initiation iPhone 5 Impressions

On Black Friday I was made aware of the fact that AT&T had refurbished iPhone 5s for sale. This caught my eye because the cost of refurbished iPhone 5s was $100.00 less than brand new ones and still came with the same warranty. On top of that my contract was up so I was eligible for one of those steeply subsidized discounts that are all the rage with cellular phone users. I upgraded my old iPhone 4 for a new black iPhone 5 with 64GB of storage.

Although I’ve only had the phone for a few hours I feel safe giving my initial impressions. Overall I like the new iPhone. Apple installed a taller screen that, thankfully, is the same width at the iPhone 4 screen (I can still operate the phone with one hand, something that becomes more difficult as phone width increases) and Long Term Evolution (LTE) radios. Another positive change is a mostly aluminum back plate, which I hope it more sturdy than the iPhone 4’s glass back plate (I never broke mine but I know many who did).

Beyond those changes, some notable hardware improvements, and a new connector (which I’ll rant about in a bit) the iPhone 5 is a standard iPhone. If you like the previous iPhones you’ll probably like the iPhone 5 and if you disliked the previous iPhones you’ll probably dislike the iPhone 5.

Compared to the iPhone 4 the iPhone 5 feels like a toy. That’s not to say it doesn’t feel sturdy, the phone doesn’t creak or make any other odd sounds when you press on it, it’s just light. In fact it’s so light that it feels like an empty casing in your hand when compared to the iPhone 4. I doubt the weight difference is going to be appreciated by anybody as it is a very minor thing but it’s still something to note.

Since I upgrade from an iPhone 4 I never had much hands on experience with Siri. Siri is a pretty nice feature and has worked reasonably well for the minor testing I’ve performed so far. I should note that I’ve had great success with voice recognition software on Android so my expectations were high from the beginning. My testing consisted of performing searches, sending text messages, opening applications, and telling Siri to go fuck herself. Overall I was impressed although I must note that many foreign works are not transcribed properly by Siri (try doing a search for Odin, Thor, or any other Norse god and you’ll be amused with the results you get). Siri also has a decent sense of humor. When I asked “Do you know HAL-9000?” the response was “Everybody knows what happened to HAL, I’d rather not talk about it. But if you insist:” and the option to search the web for HAL is available. Little touches like that amuse me greatly and I do appreciate the attention to detail in that regard.

I was surprised to find an LTE signal in my dwelling. As far as I knew AT&T had not rolled out LTE in the Twin Cities yet. Even though LTE comes with the promise of blazing speed I ran a speed test on my LTE connection and was left wanting. The average download speed was a pathetic 4.63Mbps and the average upload speed was an even more pathetic 2.56Mbps. Perhaps the slow speeds are due to the fact that LTE is technically rolled out in the Twin Cities yet or it could be due to a ton of iPhone 5 users connecting to the LTE tower and soaking up all the glorious bandwidth. Either way I plan to do more speed tests in the future to see if things improve.

One of the most notable changes on the iPhone 5 is the connector. Gone are the days of the 30-pin iPod connector that has served use so well. In its place we now have Apple’s new connector which they dub Lightening. What does this mean for you? It means all of those 30-pin connectors you’ve been collecting over the years are worthless. Considering the number of Apple devices I’ve purchased over the years this is a big headache for me. Of course Apple sells a 30-pin to Lightening adaptor but at $29.00 you’re better off buying new cables, which Apple only wants $19.00 for. I understand why Apple is moving away from the 30-pin connector as it takes up a notable amount of room but it’s still annoying.

Speaking of annoying Apple has included one of my biggest phone pet peeves on their newest phone; the headphone jack is on the bottom instead of the top. Granted moving the headphone connector is a minor inconvenience but it still pisses me off. Why should my phone be upside down just to have headphones plugged into it? Unless you’re going to say “It shouldn’t,” don’t bother answering that question because you’re wrong.

Overall I like the new iPhone although I will admit it’s not that much of an upgrade over the iPhone 4. If I had to summarize the difference between the iPhone 4 and iPhone 5 I would say the latter is merely a collection of nice, albeit minor, improvements that have become available over the last two years. Nothing about it is Earth shattering but I felt it was worth the upgrade cost. My feelings are obviously subject to change based on future experience but so far I’m impressed.

My Assessment of OpenNIC

A few months ago I posted about OpeNIC. For those who didn’t read that post OpenNIC is a decentralized Domain Name System (DNS). Most Internet users setup their computers to use DNS provided by their Internet Service Provider (ISP). There are several weaknesses to using an ISP provided DNS including possible reliability issues (the ISP’s DNS servers go down), potential censorship (the United States government has used its power over DNS providers to enforce nonexistent censorship laws), and stored log files of sites you’ve visited that are easily accessible by law enforcement officers.

OpenNIC, being a decentralized system, avoids many of these weaknesses. Since there are so many OpenNIC servers available to use the chances of a complete DNS outage is reduced. Government enforced censorship is more difficult because the OpenNIC has several exclusive Top Level Domains (TLD) that cannot be controlled (i.e. shutdown) easily. Logs are also harder for government officials to obtain since most OpenNIC servers either keep no logs or purge logs within 24 hours (a server’s policy is generally be found here).

I’ve been using OpenNIC for all my DNS needs since September and so far have had a favorable experience. Well known TLDs (.com, .net, .org, etc.) are properly forwarded to their respective servers so I’m able to access any domain name without issue. DNS lookups aren’t noticeably slower using OpenNIC when compared to using DNSs provided by Google, OpenDNS, or Comcast. I also haven’t experienced any downtime. Overall I like OpenNIC and will continue using it and will recommend it. I think the system is able to address some shortcomings of centralized DNSs while being reliable enough for day-to-day use.

OpenNIC

The Internet remains one of the few communication tools that has avoided falling entirely under the state’s control. This is likely due to its decentralized nature. Unlike communication systems of yore that relied on centrally managed systems the Internet was designed to avoid centralization. Anybody can setup and run a web server, e-mail server, instant messenger server, etc. As it currently stands one of the central points of failure that still remain is the Domain Name System (DNS). DNS is the system that translates human readable uniform resource locators (URL), such as christopherburg.com, to addresses understood by computers.

Most people rely on the DNS servers provided by centrally managed authorities such as their Internet service provider (ISP) or other companies such as Google or OpenDNS. Unfortunately these centralized agencies are central points the state can use to censor or otherwise control the Internet. The United States government has exploited this vulnerability in order to enforce copyright laws and it is likely they will exploit this vulnerability to censor other content they deem undesirable. Thankfully there is no reason we have to rely on centralized DNS servers. DNS, like every other protocol that makes up the Internet as we know it, was designed in a way that doesn’t require central authorities. Enter OpenNIC, a decentralized DNS.

I haven’t had much time to experiment with OpenNIC so it may not even be a viable solution to the centralized nature of DNS but it looks promising. OpenNIC is a network of DNS servers that not only resolve well-known top level domains (TLD) but also resolves OpenNIC specific TLDs such as .pirate. Since the system is decentralized there are no single points of failure that can be easily exploited by the state. I plan on experimenting with OpenNIC to see how well it works and, if it works for my needs, switching over to it for my domain name needs. I’ll also write a followup post overviewing my experience with the system and whether or not I can recommend it for general usage. It is my hope that OpenNIC will serve the purpose of avoiding the state’s influence over DNS and thus assist those of us who are actively fighting against the state.

The Proper Method of Producing Renewable Energy

There are numerous heated debates regarding which method of energy production from renewable sources is the best one. The debate usually involved hydroelectric dams, wind turbines, and solar panels. What many people in this debate don’t see is that none of them are the best solution, the best solution is not to rely on any single source of energy. While people debate over the best method of renewable energy production some smart individuals at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) actually thought about the problem correctly:

Researchers at MIT have taken a significant step toward battery-free monitoring systems — which could ultimately be used in biomedical devices, environmental sensors in remote locations and gauges in hard-to-reach spots, among other applications.

Previous work from the lab of MIT professor Anantha Chandrakasan has focused on the development of computer and wireless-communication chips that can operate at extremely low power levels, and on a variety of devices that can harness power from natural light, heat and vibrations in the environment. The latest development, carried out with doctoral student Saurav Bandyopadhyay, is a chip that could harness all three of these ambient power sources at once, optimizing power delivery.

Relying on any single source is tempting fate by creating a single point of failure whereas using multiple sources grants a great deal of redundancy. Why rely on just solar panels or just wind turbines when you can use both? After all, solar panels only work when there’s enough sunlight while wind turbines only work when there’s enough wind. Hydroelectric dams work continuously (unless there is a major drought) but the locations where they can be built are very limited.

Let’s learn a lesson from the guys at MIT and stop thinking about a single best solution (this goes for things besides renewable energy production by the way).

The FCC Just Became Obsolete

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates the use of electromagnetic spectrum in the United States. One of the reasons there are so few cell phone service providers in this country is because one must first get a license for spectrum use from the FCC who sell off blocks in auctions, auctions that now end up in the billions of dollars. With spectrum costs so high it’s not surprising that new players don’t enter the market. The FCC claims this regulation is necessary because the alternative would be constant interference as wireless providers used spectrum that another company was using. While this argument isn’t true for various reasons it’s also now technologically irrelevant:

American and Israeli researchers have used twisted, vortex beams to transmit data at 2.5 terabits per second. As far as we can discern, this is the fastest wireless network ever created — by some margin. This technique is likely to be used in the next few years to vastly increase the throughput of both wireless and fiber-optic networks.

These twisted signals use orbital angular momentum (OAM) to cram much more data into a single stream. In current state-of-the-art transmission protocols (WiFi, LTE, COFDM), we only modulate the spin angular momentum (SAM) of radio waves, not the OAM. If you picture the Earth, SAM is our planet spinning on its axis, while OAM is our movement around the Sun. Basically, the breakthrough here is that researchers have created a wireless network protocol that uses both OAM and SAM.

[…]

According to Thide, OAM should allow us to twist together an “infinite number” of conventional transmission protocols without using any more spectrum. In theory, we should be able to take 10 (or 100 or 1000 or…) WiFi or LTE signals and twist them into a single beam, increasing throughput by 10 (or 100 or 1000 or…) times.

Humans have a propensity to find more efficient methods of utilizing scarce resources. That is why regulations that attempt to ration scarce resources are entirely unnecessary and even, in the case of subsidized resources, encourage consumption as current rates using current technology. This story is another demonstration of humans overcoming a limitation without needing to resort to legislative control.

Human ingenuity: 1, government control: 0.

I Love the Free Market

The free market works on competition. Established producers must continue to innovate in some way to keep themselves relevant while new producers must innovate in order to convince consumers to buy their products instead of the products being produced by the established producers. Personal electronics are one of the freer markets in the world, which is why we enjoy every improving cheaper products:

Just look at all those drives under a dollar per gig. The higher-capacity models offer the best value in virtually every family. Although the 40-64GB variants don’t look quite so good on this scale, they have asking prices under 100 bucks.

Solid State Drives (SSD) are becoming cheaper while their capacities are increasing. We can now get more for less than what we had to pay a few short years ago and the trend will continue. This news pleases me because the only reason I haven’t gone to SSDs is the price to capacity ration, I want more capacity and it’s simply too expensive for me to get what I want with an SSD. A year or two from now SSDs will likely have the capacity I’m looking for at a price I’m willing to pay and then I will jump on board.

I just wish all markets were as free as personal electronics.