April 2019 - wlug - list.wlug.org.nz

How the Boeing 737 Max Disaster Looks to a Software Developer
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Apr '19

27 Apr '19

The author of this article <https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/how-the-boeing-737-max-disaste…> (archive.org copy at <https://web.archive.org/web/20190418200057/https://spectrum.ieee.org/aerosp…>) is both a pilot and a software developer. He looks into the root causes of the Boeing 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia. Basic points: * The new aircraft has sufficiently different airframe handling characteristics to be classified as a new model. * Boeing didn’t want it to be treated as a new model, because of the extra regulatory costs, pilot training etc this would entail. * So they implemented software (“MCAS”) that actively managed the handling characteristics to make it behave to pilots like previous 737 models. * They neglected to tell the pilots about the software. * It also turns out that correct operation of this software depends on a hardware component that is known to be unreliable. Commentary from Bruce Schneier <https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2019/04/excellent_analy.html> and Glyn Moody <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190424/06571442075/shoddy-software-is-e…>.

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Inside the Team at Facebook That Dealt with the Christchurch Shooting
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 27 Apr '19

27 Apr '19

Interesting backgrounder <https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/inside-the-team-at-facebook-that-d…> on what went on at Facebook in the aftermath of Shooty McShootFace posting his “manifesto” rant and live-streaming his murderous rampage. Note that it took Facebook about an hour to determine that the video should be taken down. Was this too slow? Is there ever a time when leaving footage of such carnage up can serve a constructive purpose? Yes, surprisingly, there is. Further commentary: <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190425/15315242087/behind-scenes-look-h…>

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Vodafone’s “Free E-Mail Forwarding For Life” Comes To End Of Life
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 26 Apr '19

26 Apr '19

When Vodafone shut down its e-mail services in 2017, it promised to continue autoforwarding e-mail to customers’ new addresses indefinitely. Well, now that “indefinitely” is coming to a definite end. It is just becoming too hard to maintain the service, particularly when other e-mail services start treating such auto-forwarded messages as spam or blocking them altogether. <https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=122233…>

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encrypted hard drive laptop
by Ian Young 25 Apr '19

25 Apr '19

Excuse me if not on topic ... Was somewhat bemused on looking through this article about trying to purchase a laptop with encryption. Partly because it mentions hardware aspects hitherto unknown to me. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/askjack/2019/apr/25/how-do-i-buy-a-l… Is this sort of thing easier with Linux?

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When Is Hate Speech Not Hate Speech?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Apr '19

23 Apr '19

Is it “hate speech” to tell NRA supporters to “f*** off”? One high-profile user got banned (supposedly permanently) by Twitter for doing this sort of thing ... only to have the ban reversed, simply because there was so much support for his position. Seems like, when it comes to social media services clamping down on hate speech, they are simultaneously doing “not enough” and “too much”... <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190421/16313642055/twitter-permanently-…>

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Copies Of Mueller Report Taken Down Because Of ... Copyright Infringement?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 23 Apr '19

23 Apr '19

For those pushing for mandatory copyright filtering, here’s yet another cautionary tale: copies of the (redacted) Mueller Report were taken down from PDF-hosting site Scribd, even though it is in the public domain. It seems clear this was an inadvertent result of automatic filtering policies; one of the many big-name publishers who had put out for-sale copies of the report had used automated processes to pass the information to Scribd, and these processes had blocked everybody’s attempts to upload copies of the report, even though it didn’t own the copyright. <https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20190420/23233942052/scribds-takedown-pub…>

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Streaming TV Has Become An Expensive, Complicated Mess
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 22 Apr '19

22 Apr '19

<https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=122224…>: But this entertainment nirvana never actually arrived. First came pricey broadband services required to stream Internet video, often delivered by the same cable wires consumers longed to cut. Then came a proliferation of services - offered by Netflix, Amazon, Hulu plus and more - each with a bill of its own. Then came more boxes, wires and remotes. And finally came the question: How exactly do I get my Star Wars fix? Maybe a bit US-centric, but I think that also reflects the situation for streaming here as well. The article talks about “cord-cutting” -- as you may know, most people in the US have been watching conventional TV stations through cable connections, not through broadcasts. “Cord-cutting” is the increasing tendency of customers to terminate their cable TV accounts. But those same cable companies are also ISPs, and given the limitations on competition between ISPs in the US (thanks to the current regime’s allergy to enforcing meaningful net-neutrality legislation), those same companies will get the money from customers wanting to watch streaming video.

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Why are you still using Excel? Is it time to up your game and move to Python and Pandas or R?
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 19 Apr '19

19 Apr '19

A heartfelt plea to habitual spreadsheet-wielders in favour of more advanced data-analysis tools <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8wO4ppE9L8>. Also mentions some of the more notorious cases of Excel bugs/misfeatures impacting the correctness of scientific research results.

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Olive Video Editor
by Lawrence D'Oliveiro 17 Apr '19

17 Apr '19

Came across this tryout <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AvfMMjHX-M> of yet another open-source video editor, called Olive. The project is only about a year old, but it’s looking very promising. I recall Thomas wanting the ability to enable/disable clips in the timeline; I believe this one can do that. It may still be under development, but for what it’s worth, the reviewer didn’t suffer a single crash or loss of work during the video. ;)

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DARPA Wants To Make a Better, More Secure Version of WhatsApp
by Peter Reutemann 15 Apr '19

15 Apr '19

'The Defense and Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) appears to be in the process of developing its own ultra secure communication platform. The program is called "Resilient Anonymous Communication for Everyone," or RACE, and it will be similar to WhatsApp in that it will be for everyone to use. Trusted Reviews reports: The objectives of the program are to create a distributed messaging system that can do three things: Exist completely within a network; Provide confidentiality, integrity and availability of messaging; and Preserve privacy to any participant in the system. DARPA seem to be putting security front and center, and the description of the project claims that "compromised system data and associated networked communications should not be helpful for comprising any additional parts of the system," meaning that DARPA are keen that one breach shouldn't also give them a leg up on access to other parts of the system. So, will we soon be using a U.S government branded DARPA? Probably not, but the chances are that RACE will go some way to creating a messaging app that's resilient to attacks, with the protocol and security they find no doubt dripping through to consumer tech and features in the coming years. ' -- source: https://it.slashdot.org/story/19/04/15/2052250 Cheers, Peter -- Peter Reutemann Dept. of Computer Science University of Waikato, NZ +64 (7) 858-5174 http://www.cms.waikato.ac.nz/~fracpete/ http://www.data-mining.co.nz/

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