Monthly Archive for June, 2004

Doctorow: DRM is evil

Published on June 25, 2004 in copyright. Closed

Some stuff you just know without being able to express it adequately. I hate badly designed copy-protection schemes, but I couldn’t find the right arguments to make my case without being ‘against’ artist. And then someone better informed comes along and sums it all up in a well-thought and clear presentation. That’s what happened with this speech on DRM (Digital Rights Management) by Cory Doctorow at Microsoft Research.

His five main points are:

  • DRM systems don’t work

    “all DRM systems share a common vulnerability: they provide their attackers with ciphertext, the cipher and the key.” Public Key cryptography is not entirely done justice here, but brings with it a whole other truckload of problems: revocation, trust hierarchy, …

  • DRM systems are bad for society

    Great quote: “Remember Schneier’s Law? Anyone can come up with a security system so clever that he can’t see its flaws.” and on DVD regions: “There’s no copyright here or in anywhere I know of that says that an author should be able to control where you enjoy her creative works, once you’ve paid for them. “

  • DRM systems are bad for business

    “DRM is the software equivalent of (…) closed hardware interfaces”

  • DRM systems are bad for artists

    “Tech gives us bigger pies that more artists can get a bite out of. “

  • DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT

    “Like millions of other Microsoft customers, I want a player that plays anything I throw at it, and I think that you are just the company to give it to me. “

    [Listening to: "Wiggle waggle" - Herbie Hancock - Sampled Vol 4 (CD 2/2)]

    • Oh Nokia, won’t you make me a nice mobile phone

    Published on June 23, 2004 in mobile and nokia. 2 Comments

    Nokia 5510I’ve never had a mobile phone that was not a Nokia. I started out with a 5110 back in ’98 and two 3210′s and a 6210 later, I now own a 5510, the Qwerty monster you see at the left here. Why stick with Nokia: habit (and reusing my power supplies).

    Some lessons I learned in the past: WAP at 9600 baud sucks, never buy an expensive phone (my + €400 Nokia 6210 broke down on me after 6 months) and don’t expect a phone to last more than 2 years.

    Now, my 5510 is getting rusty and I would just like the following: a nice Nokia phone between €200 and €300, polyphonic ring tones, colour screen, Bluetooth (for the handsfree set), GPRS and if possible, an MP3 player and a camera. There is a SonyEriccson T630, so it’s not impossible.

    So what can Nokia offer me:

    Nokia 3650
    3650: not really easy on the eyes
    Nokia 7650
    7650: no Bluetooth
    6600: no Bluetooth
    Nokia 6820
    6820: no GPRS, original keyboard but robust?
    Nokia N-Gage
    N-Gage: ain’t I a bit too old for that?

    And all of them, expect for the N-Gage are more like €400. You see me running around with a N-Gage? Where do I speak?

    Nokia, I represent a €3000 customer over the next 10 years, and there must be a pack of people like me. Is it that hard to make an affordable nice phone with the features above? Bluetooth is mainstream now, and GPRS is not exotic. Your competitors are doing it! Even Russell Beattie, who’s a notorious Nokia fan, is waiting for you to get your design and marketing right. I’ll give it another month and see what new stuff comes out and how your 25% price drop is doing.

    [Listening to: "Another ballad" - Sioen - HUMO's TOP 2003 (Cd 1)]

    Fix by disabling: error 1016 in event log

    Published on June 21, 2004 in windows. Closed

    Due to one of life’s mysteries, the following error shows up dozens of times per day in the event log of one of our web servers (Win2000/IIS):

    Event ID 1016: The data buffer created for the “NTFSDRV” service in the “C:\WINNT\system32\snprfdll.DLL” library is not aligned on an 8-byte boundary. This may cause problems for applications that are trying to read the performance data buffer. Contact the manufacturer of this library or service to have this problem corrected or to get a newer version of this library.

    A search on Google delivers nothing. Similar Performance Monitor problems are mentioned in

  • MSKB 267831, but for IIS related services (ASP/W3SVC/FTP/…). The remedy cited involves unlodctr/lodctr commands in a CMD box.
  • MSKB 324712 and MSKB 249138, same error 1016 for other dll and ‘fix by disabling’ solution.

    I choose for the 2nd solution: adding a value to the registry. I create a .reg file that contains

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib]
"Configuration Flags"=dword:00000001

    It works. That is, the warnings in the event log disappear. Have I just disconnected a fire alarm or was it innocent? Time will tell …

    • “Bum titty bum” – Limerick toolbox

    Published on June 18, 2004 in culture and NL. Closed

    Limericks can be great fun to read, to receive and to make. The basics are: five lines , AABBA rhyming scheme and some respect for the correct metrum. The advanced theory (“internal feet must be anapestic, while the first syllable can be iambic”) can be found on Writing Limericks (Robert Elliott). That’s also where the ‘bum titty bum’ reference comes from.

    The most cited limerick is probably:
    As you might have guessed, this is a bucket from Nantucket

    There once was a man from Nantucket,
    Who kept all of his cash in a bucket,
    But his daughter, named Nan,
    Ran away with a man,
    And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

    What should be your limerick toolbox?

    As I also write limericks in Dutch (‘Nederlands’), here are equivalent links for that language: