Yesterday's keynote at the 28th Chaos Computer Congress (28C3) by Meredith Patterson on "The Science of Insecurity" was a tour-de-force explanation of the formal linguistics and computer science that explain why software becomes insecure, and an explanation of how security can be dramatically increased. What's more, Patterson's slides were outstanding Rageface-meets-Occupy memeshopping. Both the video and the slides are online already.
Hard-to-parse protocols require complex parsers. Complex, buggy parsers become weird machines for exploits to run on. Help stop weird machines today: Make your protocol context-free or regular!
Protocols and file formats that are Turing-complete input languages are the worst offenders, because for them, recognizing valid or expected inputs is UNDECIDABLE: no amount of programming or testing will get it right.
A Turing-complete input language destroys security for generations of users. Avoid Turing-complete input languages!
Patterson's co-authors on the paper were her late husband, Len Sassaman (eulogized here) and Sergey Bratus.
The reasons, in brief: many top blogs have sold out; staff turnover saw "star" voices slip off the radar; younger audiences like social networking more; and advertising revenue is increasingly hard to get at.
All the reasons given are true, but they're not reasons to believe that a golden age has passed. They're phenomena in their own right, each with its own story, and only the last presenting a barrier to entry for newcomers. Epochal change makes for an epic narrative, but all this adds up to a simpler truth: media is a tough game and you won't get far by copying what other people did years ago.
Dan Kimball is one of my oldest friends. We went to college together, moved to London, and played in a band in the 1980s. He's an excellent cartoonist, an amazing drummer, and one of the funniest people I've ever met. He runs the Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz and has written a number of books on Christianity.
Last week, Dan launched Wednesday-Weird-Bible-Verse on his blog, in which he discusses one of the "hundreds of very strange sounding, weird, sex descriptive, bizarre and even violent verses in the Bible."
The first weird Bible verse he tackles is 1 Samuel 18:27: "David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage."
In reading this story straight from the Bible, it even states how after David brought the forsekins back to Saul that they counted them to show how many there were. What an incredibly weird image of David standing there counting out 200 foreskins. I have beeen fascinated with the life of David lately having studied through the his story in the Hebrew Bible/First Testament (I try not to say "Old Testament" as that can subtly indicate it isn't valid or important. So I use the term "First Testament" or "Hebrew Bible" instead).
Flexing, or bone breaking, is a mix of street dancing and contortionist movements mostly specific to Brooklyn. This video in particular is mesmerizing, almost ritualistic with this group of shirtless guys in gas masks all dancing together in the subway. Other riders seem to either not notice them or look on in a trance.
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Over at Domus, my dear pal John Alderman reports on "Less and More: the Design Ethos of Dieter Rams," a retrospective exhibition about the German designer that's currently at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Rams is best known for the gorgeous electronic products he designed for Braun from 1961 to 1995. He defined his approach as "Weniger, aber besser," roughly "Less, but better." From Domus:
Considering Rams' innovative use of systems does something to resolve a point of criticism about the way his work is championed by designers in high tech fields that seem unable to build products to last. Opposite of the notion of buying furniture for a lifetime, investing in pricy materials for objects that Moore's law will render obsolete in a few years seems wasteful. In this environment, what can be designed to last are interfaces themselves, or more importantly the general interface vocabulary, so that the mental investment in how a system works is not in vain, even if its physical pieces are discarded regularly. Mental effort here is the better investment. The familiarity stays, and so little thought is required to jump in and work, play, or communicate that we experience that system as simply how the world works: "Don't Make Me Think," as the title of a popular book on Web design puts it. Across his body of work, Rams paid attention to developing interfaces that would instantly feel comfortable, using color sparingly, but always in the same way from piece to piece.
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
A priestly brawl broke out this morning at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. They did battle with broomsticks. Unfortunately, no video. (Video!) From CNN:
Several dozen Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests were cleaning the interior of the church Wednesday morning when, according to witnesses, two of them began fighting.
The fight quickly escalated, and soon, 50 to 60 priests were exchanging blows with broomsticks.
Bethlehem police were sent in to quell the fighting, Palestinian police Maj. Ahed Hasayen said.
Police stand guard inside the Church of the Nativity after a fight broke out between priests.
"This is an internal problem related to the Nativity church only. The Palestinian police had to interfere to stop the clashes as soon as possible to avoid devastating consequences," he said.
"I am available for a poetry reading but don't know if you have the stakes. It would take round-trip air (which, I imagine would be a great deal from L.A. to Florida), plus $200." (Via This isn't Happiness)
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Joe Bussard, 75, has perhaps the world's greatest collectors of 78 RPM records. Back in 2004, I posted about Bussard and his remarkable collection of blues, folk, gospel, and Americana shellac records. But Joe wasn't just a collector. From 1957 to 1970, he ran Fonotone Records, the last 78 RPM record label, from his basement in Frederick, Maryland. Indeed, Brussard and Fonotone are best known for making the first recordings of fingerpicking guitarist extraordinaire John Fahey. This year, Dust To Digital released John Fahey: Your Past Comes Back To Haunt You: The Fonotone Years (1958–1965), a critically-acclaimed five-CD/book set of Fahey's earliest recordings. (I don't have it yet but it's on my wish list… along with everything else from Dust To Digital!) In an audio special at The Wire, Bussard tells the story of Fonotone while playing some amazing cuts throughout.
Why do cows and horses like standing on railroad tracks? Here are three inventions to encourage them to loiter elsewhere. One involves a jet of hot water, another adds a whistle to the water jet, and a third involves a humanoid automaton that waves its hands and strikes a gong. I agree with Greg of Futility Closet when he says, "I desperately wish this had caught on."
"Hundreds of people have been wrongly imprisoned inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department jails in recent years, with some spending weeks behind bars before authorities realized those arrested were mistaken for wanted criminals, a [Los Angeles] Times investigation has found." More recent misdeeds from the ongoing Baca debacle. — Mark
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Mostafa Kamel Hendi, armed with what was later identified as a pellet gun, attempted to rob the We Buy Gold shop in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The store clerk, Derek Mothershead, punched him in the nose and knocked him out. While waiting for police to arrive, Mothershead handed Hendi a roll of paper towels and made him clean the floor of his own blood. "Caught On Tape: Clerk Punches, Knocks Out Armed Robber" (WYFF)
[Video Link] Avi Solomon says: "Quest is a short film made in 1983 by Elaine and Saul Bass (the iconic designer) based on Ray Bradbury’s 1946 story 'Frost and Fire.'"
"Frost and Fire" was a memorable Bradbury story for me. I first read it in a 1966 paperback edition of R is for Rocket that was on the shelves at Nevin Platt Junior High School in Boulder, CO, where I also discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs (and John Norman's Gor titles, which were very popular while they lasted).
[Video Link] This post offered another opportunity for auto spellcheck to point out my unwillingness to learn that it's not spelled "grafitti." The good stuff starts about 50 seconds in. (Thanks, onym!)
Yesterday's keynote at the 28th Chaos Computer Congress (28C3) by Meredith Patterson on "The Science of Insecurity" was a tour-de-force explanation of the formal linguistics and computer science that explain why software becomes insecure, and an explanation of how security can be dramatically increased. What's more, Patterson's slides were outstanding Rageface-meets-Occupy memeshopping. Both the video and the slides are online already.
Hard-to-parse protocols require complex parsers. Complex, buggy parsers become weird machines for exploits to run on. Help stop weird machines today: Make your protocol context-free or regular!
Jeremiah Owyang writes that 
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Joe Bussard, 75, has perhaps the world's greatest collectors of 78 RPM records. Back in 2004, I 
