Steve Woods

Generic carbon-based humanoid life form.

  • Happy 20th birthday, Debian

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

    Today, 16th August 2013, marks the 20th birthday of Debian GNU/Linux, one of the Linux world’s most venerable and respected distributions.

    Ian Murdock founded the Debian Project back in 1993 and since then it has turned out to be a truly free community project aiming to build a free Linux operating system – something that would have been impossible without Debian’s strong community of users and developers.

    In the intervening 20 years, Debian has grown to be one of the most influential and largest open source projects, used as a base in many popular Linux operating systems, such as Ubuntu.

    image of cake iced with Debian logo
    A cake with the Debian ‘swoosh’ logo

    Dubbed the “universal operating system” Debian is available in over 70 languages and supports an enormous range of computer types, with over 20,000 software packages for more than 10 different computer architectures.

    I use the latest version of Debian – codenamed ‘wheezy’ – on my laptop, whilst my main desktop machine runs Mepis, a Debian derivative featuring the KDE desktop. Over the years, I’ve found Debian (and derivatives) very stable, reliable and secure.

    Why not treat yourself on Debian’s birthday? Go and grab a disk image and install it! 🙂

  • Linux banking trojan spotted in the wild

    Steve WoodsLinux, Open Source, Tech

    malware symbolUntil now, Linux users could sit back and relax when the talk turned to viruses, trojans and other malware: they weren’t a problem. As a result of the small numbers of Linux desktop users and the positive flipside of the the lack of Photoshop, iTunes et al., malicious software in the Linux world has been limited to two classes: demonstrations for exploits that have never been seen “in the wild” and targeted attacks on server software vulnerabilities.

    This golden age for Linux users could now be drawing to a close. Security specialist Limor Kessem from RSA has written on her blog about the “Hand of Thief” banking trojan, which only attacks Linux machines and is currently being offered for sale in underground forums for U.S. $ 2,000 with free updates. It has been developed by a cybercrime team based in Russia.

    The trojan’s developer claims it has been tested on 15 different Linux desktop distributions, including Ubuntu, Fedora and Debian. It includes a form grabber for both HTTP and HTTPS sessions; supported browsers include Firefox, Google Chrome and several other Linux-only browsers, such as Chromium, Aurora and Iceweasel. As for desktops, the malware supports 8 different environments, including Gnome and KDE.

    The malicious code also incorporates virtual machine detection designed to make it more difficult for security researchers to unpick its secrets, as well as routines to block access to security updates or access to the websites of anti-virus vendors..

    “Hand of Thief” exploits no special Linux security holes; the user has to install him/herself it by e.g. by opening an email attachment without checking it first or installing it from sources other than the recommended repositories of his/her Linux distribution.

  • Home Office’s racist van investigated by ASA

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Oddities, Politics

    Yahoo News reports that the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is investigating the recent Home Office poster van campaign targeting immigrants and dubbed the ‘racist van’ due to the crass insensitivity that is a hallmark of the Whitehall PR machine nowadays (posts passim).

    image of billboard van showing Home Office's anti-immigration message

    The ASA has so far received 60 complaints expressing concerns that the advertisements were “reminiscent of slogans used by racist groups to attack immigrants in the past”.

    The racist van was driven around the London boroughs of Barnet, Hounslow, Barking & Dagenham, Ealing, Brent and Redbridge – all areas with a high percentage of ethnic minority residents – as part of a £10,000 Home Office pilot scheme, which ended at the end of July.

    As a counterpart to the Home Office’s mobile billboard, human rights and civil liberties organisation Liberty drove its own ‘anti-racist van’ around the streets of the metropolis.

    Liberty's anti-racist van

  • Ask Crapita awkward questions, lose work

    Steve WoodsLanguage, Politics

    Reposted from Linguist Lounge.

    On Wednesday, 7th August 2013, Hammrammr wrote:

    Some time ago Capita TI implemented the so called JSA – new contract which was rather unclear and detrimental to interpreters. After several weeks of wrangling with their completely untrained workers I managed to get hold of someone dealing with legal matters. I forwarded several emails regarding inconsistencies and unclear issues within that ‘document’. Finally I received a rather short message that their legal team acknowledges my concerns and I can basically get lost. My concerns were not only about insurance but focused on special deals granted to a small group of Polish interpreter at Westminster MC. My further enquiries resulted in a message from an individual calling himself Commercial Manager at Capita HQ, that my profile was deactivated, which means that they do need my services any longer as they have now enough docile, new breed of ‘interpreters’. They are not going to grant any special, ‘bespoke’ contracts to anyone else.

    Conclusion: As this “de facto employment” agency enjoys a monopoly in the CJS sector of interpreting they became a law unto themselves – arrogant, abusive and biased. Such action basically barred me from working in the courts. I conducted another survey focused on awareness of various court staff regarding the use of interpreters without middlemen. I called and/or visited 14 courts in Northern and SW areas of England. The same reaction: from disinterested, to onward hostile. Most of relevant court employees were not even aware that FWA is not a closed shop and they are allowed to use other methods of booking interpreters. Some of them mentioned that such a decision is outside their remit, each case to be authorised by their court manager. Several still keep their own records and book proper interpreters when and if required though.

    Let us hope that so called FWA is terminated sooner or later. I am going to seek legal advice from an employment law specialist in order to enter legal proceedings in the future.

  • Bristol Post Balls – let it rain

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Media

    Certain parts of the country suffered from very heavy rain earlier this week. Where I was camping in the Black Mountains for the past week, we had some 3 inches of rain over the weekend.

    image of a row of umbrellas
    Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

    The Bristol area was also affected by the torrential downpour. Sit back and marvel at the mathematical genius of an anonymous Bristol Post reporter in this report posted in the online version on Sunday and bearing the headline “Met Office issues severe weather warning as Bristol poised for 12 hours of heavy rain“.

    The forecast is for heavy rain from 10pm tonight, stretching through until 10pm on Monday, before heavy rain showers persist until 7pm.

    Excluding the heavy showers, I make that at least 24 hours. How about you? 🙂

  • Tell Dave to keep his hands off the internet

    Steve WoodsPolitics, Tech

    porn ban symbolUK Prime Minister David Cameron doesn’t have a clue about how the internet works, but that isn’t stopping his politician’s control freak nature from wanting to regulate it by his proposals to switch on adult content filtering by default.

    Fortunately, the Open Rights Group and has posted a petition on its website to campaign against the PM’s dangerous idea. The text of the petition is as follows:

    Dear David Cameron,

    Everyone agrees that we should try to protect children from harmful content. But asking everyone to sleepwalk into censorship does more harm than good.

    Filters won’t stop children seeing adult content and risks giving parents a false sense of security. It will stop people finding advice on sexual health, sexuality and relationships. This isn’t just about pornography. Filters will block any site deemed unsuitable for under 18s.

    Please drop these plans immediately.

    There are a number of problems with Cameron’s proposals as they stand. These include:

    • “Set it and forget it” is the wrong message to send to parents. Filters will not stop children seeing adult content.
    • Adult filters will not just block pornography. They also restrict access to sites deemed unsuitable for under 18s including information on alcohol and other drugs, forums, YouTube and controversial political views.
    • When adults filters are in place, mistakes are made. Adult filtering can stop people accessing crucial advice on sexual health, sexuality and relationships.
    • Adult filtering amounts to censoring legal content. The UK would be the only modern democratic society to do this (does the UK really want to emulate China, North Korea and Iran? Ed.). This sets a terrible example to other countries with interests in suppressing information.

    Sign the ORG petition against Cameron’s proposals.

    .

  • FSFE objects to claims of free software’s ‘predatory pricing’

    Steve WoodsOpen Source, Politics, Tech

    FSFE logoIn a recent anti-trust submission to the European Commission, a coalition led by Microsoft falsely claimed that the distribution of free software free of charge hurts competition. FSFE has written a letter to the European Commission’s competition authorities to refute this claim and point out that free software is critical for an open, competitive IT market.

    In its letter, FSFE urges the Commission to consider the facts properly before accepting these allegations at face value. “Free software is a boon for humankind. The only thing that it is dangerous to is Microsoft’s hopelessly outdated, restrictive business model,” says FSFE president Karsten Gerloff.

    In essence,the so-called “FairSearch” coalition is asking the European Commission to favour a restrictive business model over a liberal one – exactly the opposite of what competition regulators should do to achieve a fair and open market.

    “Free software is not about price, it’s about liberty, a guarantee of competition and vendor independence. Asking to cripple free software in order to allow proprietary vendors to sell their locked-down systems is just absurd” says Carlo Piana, FSFE’s General Counsel. “The most substantial threat to competition in the mobile space today are software patents, and we have repeatedly urged anti-trust authorities to address this problem,” he adds.

    FSFE is asking the European Commission to dismiss the “FairSearch” coalition’s unfounded claims on predatory pricing and not make them part of whatever steps it decides to take in response to the group’s filing.

  • Sea greens

    Steve WoodsBristol, Language, Oddities

    Yesterday I left the confines of Bristol and travelled down to the Bristol Channel coast.

    While there I was there I made time to visit an area of salt marsh to forage for marsh samphire (also known as glasswort), which is currently in the midst of its short season, which consists of the months of July and August only.

    image of marsh samphire
    Marsh samphire (Salicornia europaea)

    Samphire can be eaten raw or cooked. In the latter instance, no salt needs to be added to the cooking water as the plant has an inherent high salt content. It has a fresh, salty taste, crisp texture and makes a great accompaniment to fish and shellfish dishes, eggs or such specialities as salt marsh lamb. As samphire gets older and larger, the core of the plant becomes more stringy and the succulent flesh has to be stripped off the stringy core.

    Until the start of the 19th century, marsh samphire also had industrial uses: before the introduction of the LeBlanc process for the industrial production of soda ash, marsh samphire ashes were long used as a source of soda ash (mainly sodium carbonate) for making glass and soap.

    As regards the origin of the noun samphire, it is believed to be a corruption of the French name herbe de Saint-Pierre, i.e. “St Peter’s herb”.

  • North Somerset libraries to offer free wifi

    Steve WoodsBristol, Politics, Tech

    glassy wifi symbolNorth Somerset Council – Bristol’s immediate neighbour to the south – has announced that free wi-fi will be available in almost every library across North Somerset from 1st August.

    This will allow library users (not ‘customers’, as stated in your press release, North Somerset! Ed.) to bring their own laptops and other devices into their local library to use the internet.

    Wi-fi will be available to everyone by simply visiting any library during opening hours. There will be no need to book and visitors will not need to be a library member to set up an account, although first time users will need to approach a member of the library staff to set up an account.

    However, there’s library where this facility won’t be available – the mobile library.

    Potential users can find out more details of the scheme and opening times at http://www.n-somerset.gov.uk/mylocallibrary.

    First posted on Bristol Wireless.

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