The plans of the Spanish presidency

What plans does the Spanish presidency of the EU have for Internet and the telecommunications? Christian Engström, representative of the Divided Pirate in the eurocamera, account in his blog what it could get out of a conversation with Francisco Ros, Secretary of the State of Telecommunications and for the Information society from 2004. The title of the post says everything: "The war declares the Spanish presidency of the EU to the reality».

Worrying: cheap verbiage («the tic parriba, the tic pabajo»), laws to educate the children to respect the intellectual property in the way in which the State understands it and then... not at all. Only that: then not at all. For some motive while he was reading this post I have remembered the Malaga Valley, this technological managerial revolution commanded for: enterprising young people to whom to they give facility to mount his company? Skylight that not: commanded by a politicians' heap from the past with photo desire, bottled in suits and presided by Javier Cremades.

That the secretary of the state for the telecommunications does not redden on having expressed in public his intentions for with the network (what devils is that thing about to achieve that the network learns to forget?) (nothing) of the organization makes to wait for very little for the one that it represents.

And in fact there is nothing new here, I still wonder that porqué I write this post if it is a known thing that this is what it spends when to das to someone a charge that exceeds his formation and, especially, his comprehension and his interest. In 2010, the secretary of the state for telecommunications has blog corporately, neither personal web nor nothing at all. I imagine that it does not even come his to the mind to know a little more closely how there works this network whom he wants to teach to forget and respect obsolete ideas.

The islands in the network

After reading green Days in Brunei, which I liked very much, he was already wanting to read a finished novel of Sterling.

The true thing is that in Islands in the network Sterling develops much more the universe that presented us in the green Days in Brunei, to fulfill it with details. This universe is not so a cyberpunk (in the most literal sense: it is not so ciber, so so futurist) as it it is the showed one by Gibson, but it is more in contact with the current reality and it benefits, porqué not to say it, from the Sterling's biggest ease at the time of writing a novel.

The Islands world in the network presents a few States that have seen how thanks to the network new actors were appearing in the global diplomacy. These actors are, principally, big corporations that share the power, the deliberation and the negotiations table with the States.

Nevertheless, the world as Sterling shows it turns out to be worrying. Chaotic, violent, uncontrolled, with all the hope deposited in the victory of a luck of global government (a coalicción of the States and corporations) that defines the success based on the assimilation of all the regions that have not adhered to the coalicción.

The vision, a pair of decades later, might seem hit in these days in which coarse áfrica regions prove to be unable to brake the control of a few pirates' tribes that force the shipowners to travel with their own private defense at the same time that the only family turns into «the necessary evil» and is capable of influencing enormously the life of thousands of Mexicans. Both cases demonstrate that when the State weakens new forms of organization they will arise to fulfill these lacks. A problem is that the States usually adapt themselves slowly and for when they want to realize this type of situations can have become more frequent. Other is that the logic of the State is that of reducing any dissident opinion (but this is another history).

Obviously, these new organizations, in which the economic yield is not obviated but it is not placed over the well-being of his members they can have dark backgrounds of «cártel gangster» or, as in case of rizome de Sterling, be admissible from a social point of view.

The big doubt is: if we give for fact that this type of ecosystems again stamp can arise (or they are arising) and that the dark reverse is going to develop although one does not give him legal coverage (because that's why it is dark and for that they are going to defy to the power): would not it be worth while giving major coverage and facility so that the organizations that should compensate the scales do not find hobbles for his development?

News plows bad news

«I believe that there has not been emphasized how sufficient this recession is the first on line so that the news newspapers in role have to exaggerate to keep on selling. Villain!»

- Juan Urrutia, economist and a little of everything, in his blog.

They know already, if the newspapers still read, take the news with a precaution pinch.

What is the thing, clearly, joke? True. What when the thing improves the means will news keep on exaggerating? True. The aphorism says it: "news is the bad news». Also, while they could keep on repeating that there is crisis they will be able to beg the State that limits moreover the right to appointment, or that gives them economic compensations for some motive that, good..., already will be invented. Something still will occur to them.

An opportunity

«And I was thinking that it was already not going to have time to fulfill all my labor sleep!»

- Jesus Alonso, in an ode to Salinger that was happening for the intensive labor actuality.
(I dress in that thing about Ann Pérez)

Pull, two more years to reach your targets.

The reform will be necessary or not, I do not know the matter as to declare myself on the need. But certainly a topic is the sufficiently serious thing as so that the government had submitted the matter to public debate. But no, this government remains pawned in doing the most important reforms facing the future of obscurantist form and for the rapid route. It happened to them with the Law of sustainable economy and it has happened again to them with the reform of the pensions (for mentioning only the two most recent cases). Too many worry for the darkness in two very important matters and in an epoch in which more and more transpariencia demands the citizens and to be submitted to more alertness and more control.

Mozilla, the extensions, the safety and what we can learn of the false positive

Interesting debate on safety the one that has opened this week to itself with the appearance of two extensions for firefox descargables and instalables from Mozilla Add-ons and supposedly infected with a troyano. Further on it has been proved that one of them was clean.

Beyond the trivial thing, this opens the whole reflection on the processes of quality and cross-check on the part of Mozilla of all these extensions (software, in last case) descargables from his repository. In this respect I want to emphasize Sergio's post, that I believe that it has reason great when it recommends to be prudent with the use of the navigator for sensitive tasks. This is obvious for many persons (between the readership of this blog I imagine that it obviated for almost all), but for the majority to think about these terms will be something new because they have not appeared it earlier.

It would add, also, that in our role of technological prescriptores (I speak for me and my environment, without going further) it is important that apart from recommending the use of free software and surer practices we were doing a special emphasis in the prudence and the good sense. Obviously, the systems 100 % sure, trustworthy and invulnerable does not exist. (Anyone who says to us that his software or his system in general is a 100 % sure can be immediately catalogued like cretinous without fear of being wrong). but where the skill cannot come, if it can bring us over (we will never come, obv) a good set of good practices. After all, when we speak about safety we are the weakest link and he has sense to reduce the insecurity derived from the bad use itself of the hardware.

I want to comment also on a question that Oscar rises in Sergio's blog, which was the authentic shooter to write this post: a comment that I had left long and in the end I have decided to climb to post. He says Oscar: "Really I have neither the time nor the knowledge to prove the code of one or another navigator. what would be the rules to choose the best or the surest?»

Here my answer comes:

To ask for the rules to recognize and to choose the surest navigator is a question so wide that it needs an answer which extension would give to write a blog (not a post, a blog) only to be detaching these rules.

Is the free software surer than the exclusive one? Of entry it is auditable with major facility, which does not imply major safety, only that if there is malicious code it is possible that it is discovered by less delay. The use of free software has countless advantages, but this one does not have because to be always intrinsically surer. It is possible that it it is in general terms due to the facility of audit (if not proper of the user, yes of the community - so important so that a software project is truly free), but punctually it can be insecure like any software.

Probably that will make use of this incident to throw fear, suspense and doubts about Firefox. Nobody should get alarmed, nevertheless. Firefox keeps on being an option reasonably sure that, used with good skill, it bears less risks than other options.

Of course, in the time for coming and if the users' Firefox valuation keeps on growing, this users' quota will occur the biggest problem of safety for Firefox and his programmers. Let's think for a moment how a developer of malicious code would do it: it is going to cost me the same time (it does not have porqué, but let's assume that like an order approach correct zero) to develop my attack against a specific navigator. Do I invest my time to attack 1 % of users, 20 %, 40 %? If we assume also the nonexistence concrete interests that praise my target election, my attack will be directed to the navigator who opens to me the door of more potential victims: the most used navigator. Of entry, this turns to IE8 in a favorite target, followed by Firefox. We should not be surprised, therefore, that in the future the specific attacks become more and more frequent against this navigator who has the added attraction (for the attacker) of being a multiplatform.

On the other hand, different navigators do not excite truly the comparative safety studies to me between. The utility of these compared studies is put by me in quarantine because these comparative submit the navigators to already well-known attacks and the most devastating attacks are always the innovators, not acquaintances. Said about another form, it is equivalent to irritate the airport safety because once there was an offense with planes when we all know that the next massive attack will not take place likewise the previous one: it will have another unexpected form and will take us for surprise. This new unexpected form and the consistent surprise are the base of the success of the attacker. That's why I believe that the benchmarks contribute information different from the one that often hopes to be obtained of them.

I say that I put in quarantine the utility of these comparative like safety meters, but not the subtlest information that is deduced of them: it is inadmissible that a navigator is vulnerable to well-known attacks, they demonstrate that the team responsible for this software has not done his work as it had to. And, sadly (because it puts in danger multitude of persons), it is not infrequent that are discovered bugs and vulnerabilities in IE (it is not a fixation, it is that we like or not, IE keeps on being the navigator most used in absolute terms in February, 2010) that already existed in arcane versions of this navigator or that the same one has bugs without parchear for months. (At the time of this post writes, IE8 a bug takes 8 days without parchear moderately critically that allows the exhibition of information sensitive to a remote attacker; almost ná. For 2 years with other vulnerabilities without parchear).

Since a new vulnerability promises to be until parchea, the appearance of xploits that should abuse this mistake is exponential. He was saying before the innovative attacks that they are more dangerous because one is assumed the already well-known attacks to do that the software is modified in question to improve his defense. If this patch does not come, the attacker has all the advantages: a well-known attack (something that facilitates the abuse of the vulnerability) for that the defender has not prepared himself. Without affirming anything about the safety of a concrete software, this type of laxness with the temporary remedies they suppose the whole argument to stop using a certain software.

And I say all this peacefully, without forgetting that any software is capable of having errors (of course, also our dear Firefox) that should make it capable to attacks. But: what are we going to do with that? It is not possible to avoid, the only thing that can be done is parchear as soon as possible. In that Mozilla has given that of lime and that of sand in only a few days: a system of cross-check of the software of his repository that has demonstrated imperfect (perhaps for confidence) that will be late in recovering the confidence that it was possessing between the public allowed to slip in malware, nevertheless they have been very rapid in the cleanliness of the extensions and the suppression of this concrete threat, which also demonstrated to be a minor of what seemed at first.

[And yes, it is not free of mistakes it it will never be, but in these moments I am not going to surprise anybody if I say that I recommend to use Firefox. Perhaps you were waiting for another thing? The last compilation of safety extensions that I saw the Security by default boys did.]

The control society in 2009, and an extra ball

Another day be published That the numbers of discharges during 2009 of the books of the collection It Plants 29, in which The control society is included.

In particular, the free and free digital version of The society of control had 13597 discharges. Small smash hit! In June the discharges were 7500, so the discharges rhythm, far from drooping with the step of the innovation, has been supported across the months up to rounding a number that I would not have imagined in advance. Agreeable surprise, undoubtedly, that fills me with happiness.

Now the extra ball.

Stung already in the statistical curiosity, I felt like verifying the visits got for the blog in the same period (the year 2009). During this year 456.701 only absolute visitors went to stop to these pages, happening from 33.692 only visitors in January, 2009 to 49.177 in January, 2010 (for comparing the same month, instead of comparing January against December).

And: all this what? Since the truth: not at all. I do not know how many readership it has this web route RSS because I stopped using services as Feedburner before the bad design of the hardware of Google, but I know that the majority of those who come to the web is only parachutists who come from the searchers the searcher and leave (believe) almost as soon as they come. It does not worry me by no means: I believe that here there keeps on being the same limited group of everlasting persons and that - with more or less frequency - they appear in the comments, but I love that: it is to chat with this few ones - and to see if something good was sticking me - that this blog always wrote himself.

And of way I throw the umpteenth warning: soon, perhaps very quickly, I will have more time again for the blog. Till then, posts occasional on this page and more readings recommended in my Feevy and in my blogroll [any visible good in the side bar, here to the right]. Make web tourism, which is not so expensive, to fuck :)

[Ah, and I was useful a little bit free a few days ago to remove the AdSense publi, a small step for Google, a big step for me.]

Google Opt-out Village

Do you feel that your privacy staggers whenever you use Google? Since the company of Mountain View has thought about it and now it offers you to preserve your privacy. For it and only if you choose the option to preserve your privacy (skylight, it is optional...) Google he offers to you to send to you a child poblao in the mountains where nobody comes ná not, so that you do not have to worry.

They explain it in The Onion. (It is a video and I recommend to see it).

And I am still laughing. Of course, since the retirement is as in the images, almost I prefer to keep on using the searcher as I did it till now ;)