Category: Internet

Sometimes, timing is everything…

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:internet-category ]My last post (here) seemed likely it was timely because of recent rash of clould based announcements, however, apparently my spidey sense was tingling as we now see how who you trust your data to is REALLY important.

Dropbox recently failed big time by allowing everyone to access everything.  So if you hadn’t taken precautions to secure your data with encryption before uploading it to Dropbox you just dropped your pants in front of the entire Internet.

Another million plus user id’s and passwords were hacked this week as well from Sega, how many of these are exactly the same userid/passwords these people use on their cloud services as well?

And how many more hacks have happened that companies just aren’t reporting?

Perhaps someone will finally realize that while the industry has had it’s head in the cloud, they don’t have a good foundation to build on.

Where’s your data?

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:internet-category ]Pretty much everyone is talking about the cloud, Google, Apple, Microsoft and every other technology vendor.  But what does it really mean for the average person?  What concerns does it have for the future?

Your data is important, it’s yours and it can reveal the deepest darkest wants and desires.  Letting someone else hold on to that gives them a significant incentive to abuse you.  Even the best intentioned people will take advantage of others if they don’t feel there is going to be any consequences to their actions, or that they will never have to face the person they have harmed.

The recent rash of high profile hacks (Sony being the biggest) even takes this concern farther since even if the company you have entrusted your data to honours their commitments to not abuse your it, the hackers want it for that exact purpose.

And the larger a cloud provider is, the more hackers want to break in as it will lead to a bigger payday for them.

Cloud storage is the epitome of bad security by bad design choices.  There is in fact only a single cloud service I have so far seen that has designed its security properly and that is Mozilla’s Firefox Sync service.  Your data is encrypted on your PC before it leaves for the cloud.  This makes it impossible (well it would take an extreme amount of time at least) for anyone but you to see the data.  The service provider cannot abuse the data even if they wanted to and it makes the service a bad choice for hackers as even if they get in to the service, the data is useless to them.

There are few cloud services that I use and they do concern me to various degree’s (rated 1 low-5 high):

  • [3] Opera’s Link Service: This sync’s your bookmarks and other data across systems, the data is pretty low security as it does not include passwords (looks like the next major release will support this) but even so, much can be gleaned from the browsing history of a user and I would prefer it to act more like Firefox’s Sync and encrypt the data first.
  • [1] FireFox’s Sync: As mentioned above, the best design for this kind of service, it could still be brute forced, but I won’t be alive to see it.
  • [4] Microsoft SkyDrive: Microsoft offers 5 gig of space for free on SkyDrive, but like most of these services all you need is the users password to get in and read all of the data.  I only use this to store some OneNote files to share between my desktop and phone and to store some encrypted backups (using TrueCrypt).
  • [5] Microsoft LiveMesh: Much like SkyDrive, LiveMesh has issues, but on top of all the rest it can also share desktops.  I’m pretty much at the point where I’m going to remove it as there’s nothing it does I can’t do another way.
  • [1] Private Servers: I run server servers, including Exchange and web services, but they are secured and patches regularly, with only the minimal exposure to the net that is required. Communications are secure with encryption.

I included my private servers only because you could call them a private cloud, they offer me services no matter where I go as long as I have net access.

Other than the above, everything else I have is stored locally, synced to other devices from my own computers and does not require anyone else to know about my data.

The Internet started out as inter connected servers, sharing services between them.  As the PC industry grew and infiltrated the Internet the idea that computers need not be servers but instead be consumers grew as well.  Until today when we have devices (like tablets) that do not really add any value back to the Internet and are just used to consume services offered by servers.

This centralization is epitomized by the rise of cloud computing, with its consolidation and polarization of computer resources.  There are few idea’s left that espouses the original vision of the Internet, but they are interesting:

  • BitTorrent: The ultimate example of all computers being equal, BitTorrent makes everyone a participant in the Internet.
  • Opera Unite: Making the web browser and web server is a radical idea, but it makes sense and it gives the freedom to everyone to publish anything they want.

In the tech industry there has been a shift to and from centralized computing over the years, this time its been labeled cloud computing but it’s the same thing.  Each time the balance has swung back to more distributed models, how long will it be until this happens again?

Either way, I think it is important to remember that it’s your data and keeping it private is your right and in fact something you should always strive to achieve.  Never let someone else have access to your data or charge you for that access when you can do it yourself.

Browser wars… 2011

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:software-category ]Way back in the early days of the Internet, back before the web even existed, people used text based systems to get information from the net.  Newsgroups, e-mail, etc. all thrived in this kind of environment and the first reaction I had to Netscape 1.0 was “Why would anyone want to do that?”.

Now, clearly, everyone wants to do exactly that Smile.  So having lived through multiple rounds of the browser wars, how does the current one stack up?

There are currently five (yes, that’s a lot) major browsers for Windows:

  • Internet Explorer
  • Firefox
  • Opera
  • Chrome
  • Safari

That’s an astounding number really and it doesn’t take in to consideration the multitude of others that exist, but just don’t have the market share to be considered here (some might argue that Opera doesn’t, but it’s my blog so live with it Winking smile).

Out of these five browsers, there are actually only 4 engines in use (Chrome/Safari are both built on WebKit) and each has been trying to out perform each other over the last few years.

Over the last few months, IE, Firefox and Opera have all released new, significant, versions of their browsers, and well, Chrome releases one every couple of days don’t they?

Over the last several years, I have focused on using three browsers:

  • The Daily Driver: Opera
  • The Convertible: Firefox
  • The Classic: IE

Opera is what I use to do the vast majority of my browsing with, by default Javascript is turned off and browsing the web is fast, secure and reliable.

However, sometimes, there’s just a site that doesn’t work in Opera, I won’t say who’s fault it is, but Opera’s commitment to standards does suggest a culprit Winking smile

When this occurs, Firefox becomes the next choice and finally IE if that fails as well.

When Chrome came out I pulled down a copy to see what it was like, but I just didn’t need a fourth browser so while I do keep an eye on it’s development, it’s not used in my day to day browsing.  Safari is similar to Chrome in this regard, it’s not good enough to replace any of the others, and a fourth browser is overkill.

Opera 11

My first install of Opera was way back in version 3.1.  That was even before it was free, when I purchased a license it was so good. My how far it’s come since then.

Today’s Opera is a far cry from back then, but the core values have remained the same.  Fast, stable and standards compliant.  These core values have proved to be invaluable to Opera’s development and has created a browser unlike any other.

IE just doesn’t have the features and Firefox needs so many addon’s to get to it that it’s almost like a new browser.

Some of the features I use most in Opera include:

  • Tab groups
  • Site specific Javascript configuration
  • Search provides in the address bar
  • SpeedDial
  • Opera Link

But the list of features is truly astounding.

Onequirk I have with Opera is:

  • By default tabs do not show up in the Windows 7 taskbar.

Firefox 4

The just released Firefox 4 brings to the table a much needed visual update to the browser along with a host of under the hood improvements.

My browsing habits don’t really show off the updates they made under the hood, but boy is the interface a refreshing update.  Firefox 3 on Windows 7 looks very long in the tooth and the 4.0 update makes short work of that issue.

In general the upgrade process was without issue, however on one of my systems the upgrade failed to detect an incompatible theme I was using and let’s just say the result was… amusing Winking smile.

One of the best new features in Firefox 4 is the Sync feature.  Opera has had Link for quite a while and while using xmarks did the job, a fully integrated system in to the core software is nice.  Firefox actually goes one better than Opera in this case as the data is encrypted before it is sent to the servers so Mozilla cannot see the data that you store on their servers.

One of Firefox’s greatest strengths is its add-ons, here’s what I use with Firefox:

  • Adblock Plus
  • Add Bookmark Here 2
  • Flagfox
  • InstantFox
  • NoScript
  • SearchWith
  • Speed Dial
  • Tab Mix Plus
  • Tab Scope
  • text2link

As you can see, it takes quite a few add-ons to bring Firefox up to where Opera is by default.  This of course brings up my chief reason not to use Firefox as my default browser, the continual upgrade cycle.  It seems like every day I end up restarting Firefox to update one of the add-ons.

Two quirks I have with 4.0 are:

  • By default tabs do not show up in the Windows 7 taskbar.
  • The new “do not track” option is disabled by default.

Both of these defaults seem odd to me.

One of the big new features in 4.0 is the Tab Groups, but as I seldom have more than 3 tabs open at any given time in Firefox, I haven’t had much use for this yet.  I suspect if Firefox was my primary browser, this would be a must have feature, much like Opera’s.

Internet Explorer 9

Aaaahh, IE.  So warm and comforting to know you will never leave us! Winking smile

But IE9 is not like any other version of IE out there.  In fact its so good, its scary.

I started using the RC’s of IE9 several months ago and found it was a big improvement over IE8 and leaps and bounds of IE6 (which work still has me using).  The clean interface, reduced down to the bare minimum like Opera, Firefox and Chrome makes IE an actual contender again.

But if Firefox is burdened by too many add-ons, then IE is burdened by none at all.

IE9 seems downright spartan in comparison to Opera and with enough add-ons, Firefox.  There was noise at one point of IE being able to use Firefox add-ons but nothing seems to have come of that for the 9.0 release.

IE9 is a major step up, support for standards and a new clean interface make it good enough to complete in the new ware of 2011, but its limited options and lack of expansion do still make it feel like there’s a long way to go.

If we use the standard “3 versions to get it right” rule of thumb for Microsoft, then IE8 was version one(I don’t count IE7 here simply because it was clearly a desperate move to get ANYTHING to market after the long wait from IE6), IE9 is version two and what comes next will likely give everyone a run for their money.

Summary

In summary, the new browser wars are just getting started and this time it looks like the winners will be the users.

I am starting to think that I can finally move to just two browsers, certainly Opera is going to remain my primary browser, but perhaps IE can be sole secondary browser… Nah, I guess Firefox will have to remain for a while yet.

WordPress and Post Editing

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:wordpress-category ]Having now writing quite a few blog posts, I have found WordPress to be, shall we say, annoying to actually edit posts in.

No, that’s not quite right.  Web browsers are annoying to edit posts in.  the WordPress editor is of course limited to the platform it is written in and as such is quite good within those limits.  But lets face it, anyone who has used a desktop word processor knows that all web based editors don’t stack up very well against them.

My search for a better solution started out with WordPress itself, which has a “Paste from Word” option, however I found this to be a poor solution to the problem.

Some googling later found several options, each of which had several pros and cons, however what did surprise me was that one of the options was Microsoft’s Live Writer.

Live Writer is part of MS’s Live Essentials free add-on package for Windows and in fact was already installed on my system.  After a quick setup to connect to JumbleCat, I had access to my current posts, drafts and other items right from Live Writer.

Live Writer includes several helpful features that make writing posts more like writing on the desktop, including the ability to write posts offline (I found the extremely useful recently while I was on a flight).

The Good:

  • Offline editing
  • Native Windows application
  • Full WordPress and other blog integration
  • Both publishing and draft mode posting supported
  • Full support for categories, tags and other items.
  • Full preview and source edit modes

The not so bad/not so good:

  • Default option is to use a single window for all posts, so editing multiple posts at once is not possible, can be changed in the options menu.
  • Default option is to replace quotes with “smart” quotes, which is kind of annoying, but again can be changed in the options menu.

The Bad:

  • No ability indent text
  • To get the theme from the blog to do the full preview, Live Writer has to create and then delete a post to the blog.  It must be possible to get the theme without doing this.

OpenVPN and Failover Clustering – Part 2

Greg Leave a comment

[sc:linux-category ]My previous post on OpenVPN and Failover Clustering had a happy ending, unfortunately that’s not the end of the story.

It turns out that the cluster was randomly failing between the two nodes every few minutes and the log files on the servers were filling up with errors.

I’ve been forced to disable the clustering at this point while I investigate what’s going on.  The log files indicate that UCARP (the software that manages the virtual IP address between the two systems) is detecting a crash of the OpenVPN process and failing over to the other system, however the OpenVPN server doesn’t actually seem to be crashing.

A new release (1.7.1) of the OpenVPN Access Server did not help either.

I’ll have to spend some time on this, but there are other more important items on my agenda for the time being so this will take a back seat for a while.