* Posts by Christian Berger

4850 publicly visible posts • joined 9 Mar 2007

Cisco promises Lync link for its UC kit and collaborationware

Christian Berger

Cisco leading in the VoIP market?

I'm sorry, but working at a company which actually does VoIP I haven't even seen VoIP equipment from them. It's not even an issue in interoperability testing. Virtually nobody seems to use them. What I do see are phones from Snom and Aastra, VoIP to ISDN gateways from AVM and Patton, as well as the odd packaged PBX which usually is an Asterisk.

In the backend there is no Cisco except for Routers.

Even in other companies I've seen the market share of Cisco seems to be even below the one of Microsoft. And I don't see it growing with all the bugdoors inside.

BTW quite a lot of companies are looking into Lync connectivity since it can be implemented with some effort and standard SIP software. The question is if it will be worth the effort. It might be a mistake, just like basing your web services on IE6.

Operators shackled to GSM, so Huawei ties GSM to LTE

Christian Berger

Yes, that can be done easily.

It's one of the basic features of LTE which allows you to shape your spectrum to a great degree. And unlike combining UMTS (WCDMA) and GSM you loose far less efficiency.

Tesla, Nissan, BMW mull all-for-plug, plug-for-all electrocar charger plan

Christian Berger

There are already decent standards

Like normal Schuko-Plugs for slow charging with up to 10 amps single phase, or IEC60309 plugs for 3 phase up to 125 amps.

Both are rather common and easy to install. There's even one network which operates via a flatrate. You pay some money and get a key. Others install little locked boxes in public places, with a socket and a power meter and get their cost paid by that money. It's extremely simple and works well.

Cisco: You think the internet is clogged with video now? Just wait until 2018

Christian Berger

Well but that's all not a problem

As it'll still be exponential and predictable growth. As long as Cisco and other equipment manufacturers do their homework, all ISPs need to do is to steadily upgrade their network... which they should to do anyhow. It's what people pay them for.

Video on the other hand is even rather undemanding. It's completely delay tolerant and for video on demand you can even download the file and play it while it's downloading. You can unplug the cable for seconds before the user will notice anything. Compare that to VoIP where every single lost or delayed packet can cause degradation.

When will Microsoft next run out of US IPv4 addresses for Azure?

Christian Berger

It's not that simple for them to switch to IPv6

After all SCADA in the Cloud is a big market for Azure, most of such installations run on Azure. And SCADA systems are mostly legacy systems which are unlikely to support IPv6. And you aren't going to replace your industrial controller just to support IPv6.

Microsoft poised to take Web server crown from Apache

Christian Berger

Re: Windows Phone 2030?

Well, but the 2002 windows phones actually had a bit of use. Compared to modern smartphones they would have been useful if Microsoft wouldn't have botched the execution. (those things crashed and often didn't have flash storage for data)

Everyone can and should learn to code? RUBBISH, says Torvalds

Christian Berger

We need to improve code literacy

More and more code governs our lives. Code is more and more getting law. Unless we want to abolish democracy we need to find ways to enable the public to be able to understand that code.

That's code literacy and it'll become more and more important as time goes on. It's not about making people able to write good software just like education is not about making people able to write good laws. However people must be able to understand the laws they (very indirectly) vote for. A democracy cannot work if the people don't understand the laws.

Of course there can always be intermediates, journalists for example, who translate the laws into a form people can understand. However if we don't teach people how to read and write code, we won't have journalists able to do so.

I can understand Torvalds from an emotional perspective. He is seeing more and more idiots trying to get their crappy code into the Linux ecosystem. However he is missing the point here.

UBER UBER ALLES: Investors value ride app at $17 BEEELLION

Christian Berger

I wonder what will be left over after this bubble

I mean the first .com bubble left us with shitloads of dark fiber and essentially ended the dominance of Windows. Now I wonder what will be left after the current Web 2.0 bubble bursts?

Freeview's rumoured '£100m YouView killer' is real – and it's yet another digital TV thing

Christian Berger

The question is...

...how open it is. The great advantage of TV has always been that it's open to everyone. You can, in principle, build your own receiver. You can buy a receiver made for one country and if you get the signal from another country, you can decode it. (with some limitations of course) And it doesn't matter if my receiver was made by company A or company B.

So essentially the questions here are:

Will it be DRM-free?

Will it work with open source software?

Protecting code's secrets wins ACM prize

Christian Berger

OMFG

The only way this could be used is in malware, since there you want people to not be able to reverse engineer code.

Otherwise if I'm running code I have every right to reverse engineer it. After all, at least as a German*, I have a basic right to privacy and integrity in computing. If my computer obeys commands, I need to be able to understand them as well, at least in principle.

*) In 2008 the German constitutional court ruled that such a right exists and applies to everybody. However obviously the German constitution is not necessarily applicable to other countries.

'Fan docks' are about to become a thing

Christian Berger

What Douglas didn't predict back then is that the interfaces would be more and more primitive.

Just compare what you can do on a console and on a GUI and on touch interfaces. Extrapolate this and you'll see what you'll get here.

Glassholes beware: This guy's got your number

Christian Berger

The problem aren't glassholes

The problem is Google/Facebook/etc.

I don't care if people privately photograph me without my knowledge. As long as they don't publish the pictures or hand it over to someone who can influence me in a bad way, that's perfectly al right. Should some secret service or the police get access to it it's no longer acceptable.

The problem is when they upload it to some "cloud service" where those images will be processed and made available to people I don't want them to have. Since Google is trying to get "backups" to your devices which they will have to hand over on request, this is not acceptable.

In general we really must work on more democratic computing. We must find ways to increase code and computing literacy.

Broadcom: If no one buys our modem biz, we'll DITCH IT

Christian Berger

Complicated stuff requiring good engineering

That's not sexy any more since evil Steve showed that you can do without good engineering.

OK, execs. You want Apple kit. And Windows Phone, too? Really?

Christian Berger

There seems to be a market for secure mobile terminals...

...unfortunately every vendor, including Blackberry seems to ignore that.

It would be comparatively simple. Design an open "smart terminal" protocol where the terminal takes care of the GUI stuff while a user selectable server takes care of the logic. If it has caches make them independent for every server. Authenticate servers via user/customer managed PKIs, don't rely on foreign root-CAs. And most important, allow open source implementations for the servers.

WIN your FREE Nokia Lumia 630 smartphone HERE!

Christian Berger

A friend of mine, a Windows fanboy

got one of those Windows Phones (yes he's that much of a fanboy) and even he regularly claims that it's save to leave lying around since nobody wants it.

USA! USA! ... Aw, screw it. Motorola to close Texas smartphone plant

Christian Berger

The problem is...

Smartphones have turned into a commodity. They are more or less interchangeable. There is no advantage in having a Motorola touchscreen phone over a Samsung touchscreen phone. They are, for all practical intends and purposes, identical.

Unfortunately they are still profitable enough to continue, however the entry barrier to the market is to high to allow for any new and innovative companies entering it.

TrueCrypt turmoil latest: Bruce Schneier reveals what he'll use instead

Christian Berger

Re: Whoa there

Well no average person can use Windows securely, no matter what version. One big problem is, as we see here, the software distribution method. How can an average person be sure they install the software they want and not some malware? Some people see "AppStores" as a solution, however the mechanisms can only guarantee that they get what was signed by the store owner... and in most cases it only cares about money, not security.

So that argument is rather moot. No matter if you use XP or 8.1 you have no idea if the software you're downloading is OK or malware.

TrueCrypt considered HARMFUL – downloads, website meddled to warn: 'It's not secure'

Christian Berger

Re: Am I safe?

Hmm distributed checksum verification. That's actually not a bad idea.

Christian Berger

They probably had to give out their private key

This is something that can easily be done in the US with security letters and you can combine it with a "gag order".

In that case, particularly with open source software, one sane idea is to "just give up". The project will then be forked and people in other countries, where signing keys don't have to be given out, can continue it.

If you step back a few steps you can see the 2 main problems with software distribution today.

One is that most software packages are so huge a single person cannot understand them, the other is that some platforms don't ship with compilers.

Imagine TrueCrypt would only consist of 100-1000 lines of code and everyone would just download the source code and compile it themselves. It would be a _lot_ more likely people would take a look at it. And it would be a lot more likely they'd find a back door or bug door.

Christian Berger

Re: If you were the NSA...

Yes, particularly since "they" (whoever "they" may be) recommends Bitlocker, a system which has advertised back doors which are commonly used in companies. The back doors are there to still get to the data on your disks even after forgetting your password.

Since Bitlocker is not just closed source software, but also relies on the TPM chip (which is closed source hardware) it's naive to think the NSA doesn't have an easy way to break this.

Germany says 'nein' to NSA hacking prosecution

Christian Berger

Well according to some experts this now means...

...that we can now use force to shut down the NSA. It apparently may now be legal to sabotage their equipment.

http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2014-01/notwehr-nsa-spionage-us-botschaft

Still watching DVDs? You're a planet-killing carbon hog!

Christian Berger

Re: So, how do I stream when

Well actually there is a streaming service over satellite. It's called "television" and it works really well in the UK. All you need is a video disk recorder and you can just fill up your harddisks with DRM-free content.

Christian Berger

If there wasn't DRM...

We'd all be using pay-download services which would be _way_ more energy efficient than current streaming offers and wouldn't have the disadvantages. So far buying DVDs and Blurays is the only feasible way to get a DRM-free copy of a movie for your own personal use.

GSMA: There are more mobile connections than people... but who's hogging them all?

Christian Berger

Well how do you deactivate a SIM?

I mean seriously, particularly with Pay as you go plans there is little reason to actually "deactivate" your SIM.

You've got Mail! But someone else is reading it in Outlook for Android

Christian Berger

Re: forgot to encrypt messages stored on Android SD cards

I don't think the NSA would need such a 'feature'... considering it goes with Exchange and all.

Windows XP fixes flaws for free if you turn PCs into CASH REGISTERS

Christian Berger

Re: Is it not ethically and maybe legally questionable to provide this reg hack?

Well games are one thing, but business software is another. The company making the software you use is likely to have bankrupt years ago. Since people "buy" software without sourcecode, there's nobody to fix it.

Now imagine as a business you'd have demanded the source code. Switching to whatever OS is comparatively simple, you hire a programmer who will modify that software till it runs on whatever the current Version of Windows is.

Google's SPDY blamed for slowing HTTP 2.0 development

Christian Berger

I stopped seeing SPDY as an alternative...

...when they openly admitted it performed worse than HTTP on high latency and lossy connections... considering more and more people are using wireless connections which are lossy and high latency, I wonder what's the true motivation behind it.

Tech that we want (but they never seem to give us)

Christian Berger

Re: Psion 5

Of course a new "Psion" would need to be POSIX compatible so you can run your normal software on it. For example it could be running something close to Debian optimized so it'll "suspend to RAM" whenever you close it. That should certainly doable. Nokia has shown it to be possible with their Nokia N770

Chuh. Heavy, dude: HP ZBook 17 mobile workstation

Christian Berger

Uhm seriously?

It's a laptop with just a full-HD display, but stretched to 17 inch! There are 15 inch laptops with higher resolutions. Granted there are uses for that, for example people with bad eyesight, but are they really going to spend ten times the normal amount of money on such a device?

Today specs like the CPU are largely irrelevant for desktop machines. Few people do massive number crunching on the go, and even playing videos or editing videos for that matter is no longer a particularly demanding application.

CERN: Build terabit networks or the Higgs gets it!

Christian Berger

Re: Just come out and say it.

Well it's around 3 years of information at the rate you can put it in. The rate you have there is difficult to estimate. Such long lines without any resistance actually might have very nasty properties. For example if it has a resonant frequency, it'll be undamped making it very narrow band as the only dampening happens at the receiver. That's why loudspeakers are made deliberately dampened.

Of course any realistic chance would be to use fibre and amplify the signal every 100 kilometres or so. However since you insist on going analogue, amplification will always introduce noise. So after perhaps 10 or so amplifications your signal will have disappeared below the noise floor. Analogue fibre systems exist, they are the backbone of cable companies. Even when they claim they are digital, they actually transmit the analogue signal containing their DVB-C muxes over fibres. That's way cheaper than placing DVB-C modulators everywhere.

The most realistic chance you've got are satellites. Those are, and probably will be for the foreseeable future, be analogue devices. Plus geostationary satellites give you a round trip time of a quarter of a second.

Still if you don't insist in using a delay line as storage, you can use analogue hard disks. Those were used in early non-linear video editors as a preview storage:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npExd1D6mtI

BTW here's the largest device I've seen using delay line storage. It's an electronic standards converter made by the BBC. It can store a whole field of video!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/publications/rdreport_1970_37

Help. Mailing blacklists...

Christian Berger

Re: Don't

"Were you even trying to be helpful or did you just reply to spout your bizzarre personal view of the future?"

There was always a strong opposition against the Internet. Previously those were the people using AOL, now it's the Facebook and mobile App crowd. There are people happily using their walled gardens, and that's fine as long as they don't expect you to move in there as well.

As for actual advise on the issue, you probably cannot do much more than getting a different IP. Alternatively get an upstream outgoing e-mail provider. Depending on your hosting company, a different IP would be simplest.

Then as a preventive step, try to implement some throttling. Few people are able to write more than one e-mail per minute.

Launching a hardware startup? The stars are aligned in your favor

Christian Berger

I'm not sure

Back until the 1990s you could still actually make state of the art hardware at home. Soldering TTH or SMD technology is feasible in even a simple home laboratory. However today you need more and more high pincount devices like BGAs which need special techniques and expensive tools.

So this means that every production run, even for prototypes, is fairly expensive since you cannot make an individual device, but have to make at least a dozen or so.

Privacy International probes GCHQ's mouse fetish

Christian Berger

As with the rest of the performance, it's meant to spread FUD

The goal of this operation is to show people that you're going to have to deal with them when you want to exercise your democratic rights.

The GCHQ wants to be feared by democrats. So it makes sense for them to make you believe they compromised your computer. One way of doing that would be to modify the firmware or the hardware.

Obviously people are now thinking why they destroyed (for example) a keyboard controller. One plausible answer is to prevent people from analysing it and finding out that it is bugged. (Such things have been demonstrated)

If they want to keep up the story that they bug such things it only makes sense to go with it. Destroying parts which seemingly cannot be exploited only enforces this. After all you could use the inverter IC as a transmitter telling you the location of your victim. If you also control the service processor you can even send it data from the rest of your computer via the brightness/PWM signals.

Shockwave shocker: Plugin includes un-patched version of Flash

Christian Berger

Computing is full of legacy stuff, and with the web it actually shows. Just like there are still many companies still running on VMS, Windows or BS2000, there are many websites in the 'dark edges' of the WWW still using Shockwave, Flash or Silverlight.

Redmond slow to fix IE 8 zero day, says 'harden up' while U wait

Christian Berger

Is ActiveX fixed yet?

That remote code execution feature was still there last time I checked.

Job for IT generalist ...

Christian Berger

So what _can_ you do?

I'm sorry, but you are really not selling yourself well here. From what it reads like, you can barely program.

If you want a high paying technical job, you need to be able to quickly learn about new things. To be able to do that you need to already have some knowledge about the world outside. There's plenty of people able to install Exchange, but those will likely be outsourced as running Exchange yourself provides little advantage over some cloud service.

Internet rejoices over Star Wars, um, clapboard pic

Christian Berger

Re: Does anyone else invent their own words for t'theme?

Obviously the real lyrics go like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRrm59Z_0w4

Get cracking on STARTTLS says Facebook

Christian Berger

Re: And…?

"Encryption without authentication doesn't protect your content."

If you follow that route you could just as well say that SSL authentication isn't worth anything as it relies on central trust-centres operated by rather shady organisations. SSL authentication is broken, period.

However SSL is still useful for encryption. It raises the bar from a passive attacker to an active one. That's a lot more effort and makes it a lot more likely to be detected.

As with browsers, I wish they would display a graphical version of the fingerprint of the key. That way a user could easily check it by taking a glance at it.

Mozilla agrees to add DRM support to Firefox – under protest

Christian Berger

Easy

If the EME module is not installed by default, or no supported at all, website operators using it will get a lot of complaints or loose a lot of users.

Mozilla supporting DRM will actually spread DRM. Sites that previously didn't use DRM will consider using DRM since it's so easy to do.

Christian Berger

The underlying problem is...

...that browsers are already so complex you cannot just write one in a week. That's why only big organisations like Mozilla can write competitive browsers. That's also why there are now power games. Mozilla can now make decisions we don't want since they nearly have a monopoly.

However I think it's wrong to support DRM in any way. Markets without DRM don't work worse then the ones that do have it. CDs never had DRM, and they accounted for a large part of the sales. Downloads only spread once they removed the DRM. DVDs and BluRays became popular the moment their DRM was broken.

Putting DRM into the browser makes executives believe that DRM is acceptable. Therefore they will want to use it. If there is no DRM or if DRM rarely works, they will eventually realize that it's not worth the effort.

Being able to circumvent it is of course of little actual use since that is illegal because of brain dead laws.

LG teases 'G Watch' wristable, releases new tablet trio

Christian Berger

We haven't solved the basic problems of mobile computing yet

and that is how to make complex input on a small device efficiently. That's why smart watches don't seem to have any real purpose. So far the closest to usable smart watch there has been probably was the HP-01. It was hard to use, but offered actual use to it's wearer.

Oracle vs Google redux: Appeals court says APIs CAN TOO be copyrighted

Christian Berger

Re: What is depressing again...

Well yes, but you cannot just run your J2ME, or whatever the version of Java on mobile phone was called, on Android. Even back then Java was more like a group of islands than a platform.

I guess the idea was to be CPU independent. In theory this would be a noble goal, however in practice we now have a huge chunk of software which consists of a small Java wrapper loading the actual binary program.

The even worse problem is that Android apparently was designed by people who follow the OOP school of software design. This is why you have designs like this here on page 4

https://thenewcircle.com/s/post/1057/MarakanaAndroidServicesBlackMagic.pdf

Christian Berger

What is depressing again...

it seems like as with most of the patent cases, the product would be _way_ better without that feature. Seriously an Android without Java would be awesome, it would be considerably faster and take far less RAM. Just think about the typical hardware in a smartphone. 256 Megabytes is considered "to small to be useful"... while on a desktop computer that's still perfectly usable.

So in a nutshell we now have a mess threatening the whole world, just because Google made the idiotic decision of buying a company making a Java-based mobile operating system. If Google would have just extended Debian, we would not be in that mess.

Christian Berger

Re: admin@razorfishsolutions.com.hk

If it was just the _American_ software _industry_, most people would be fine with it. However unlike patents which expire and often are unenforcable, copyrights are easy to enforce and last near infinitely. This means that it'll not just stagnate the industry in the US, but everyone wanting to write something that uses an API.

This decision will definitely be used by Microsoft once wine is better than their win32 implementation, or to stop any .net re-implementations. Even AT&T could sue for the use of the UNIX API. It's scary and it only got unleashed because Google thought it would be a great idea to write an operating system in some not quite compatible Java.

Hey, does your Smart TV have a mic? Enjoy your surveillance, bro

Christian Berger

That's a no brainer...

...considering a long history of consumer electronics actually shipping with malware. For example some TV-sets encrypt all of their recordings taking them hostage.

Then there's HBB aka Red Button which essentially runs a browser directed to an URL provided by the channel.

There's lots of malware intentionally installed by the manufacturers or network operators, that's why you shouldn't give your TV-set Internet access.

Vinyl-fetish hipsters might just have a point

Christian Berger

You can do lots of nice hacks with vinyl

I mean the simpler the medium is the more weird tricks you can do with it.

Also vinyl has the great advantage that on flea-markets you can get it for next to nothing. So you can just buy records there randomly and you might find something you like.

Windows XP market share decline stalls, Mac OS X surges

Christian Berger

"What methodology is used to calculate StatCounter Global Stats?"

From their FAQ:

"StatCounter is a web analytics service. Our tracking code is installed on more than 3 million sites globally."

So essentially those statistics are heavily skewed towards people not using noscript or ad-blockers, or people using websites not using the services of StatCounter...

That explains why even strong pro-Windows websites like TheRegister or heise.de have a lower Windows market share than StatCounter.

Amazon granted patent for taking photos against a white background – seriously

Christian Berger

The problem are patent lawyers

Typically the patent clerk checks for such things. However since lawyers are very unpleasant to deal with, they will probably try their best to get them away more quickly. This is the main task of a patent lawyer, you don't need it otherwise. (My patent, and all the patents at the company I worked for previously, didn't need a patent lawyer.)

Want a twenty-buck smartphone? Go to China, says ARM exec

Christian Berger

I'd be perfectly happy...

...with a palmtop like device with 512 Mb of RAM. Just so I can have a tiny laptop I can carry around with me in my pocket.

Trans Pacific Partnership still stalled

Christian Berger

Those treaties typically don't benefit democracies

They enable foreign companies to sue against laws on courts not following the laws of the affected country.

Imagine a country deciding to ban Internet censorship and deep packet inspection. A maker of equipment used for that purpose, who invested some money into selling such equipment in that country can then sue that country. After all their investment is in danger.

Same goes for DRM. If a country would outlaw DRM companies like Macrovision could sue that country.

Since the interests of large companies able to sue typically don't align with the interests of normal people, this is very anti democratic.