Monthly Archive for February, 2007

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Who are the voices from The Simpsons?

Published on February 16, 2007 in movie. 4 Comments

Simpsons voices
Did you know that the voices from Homer Simpson, Grampa Abraham Simpson, Barney Gumble, Krusty the Clown, Groundskeeper Willie, Mayor Quimby, Sideshow Mel, Itchy and still half a dozen others are all done by the same man?

Check out the following interview with six of the main voice actors from The Simpsons: Dan Castellaneta (the voice behind all the characters cited above), Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson and Patty/Selma), Yeardley Smith (Lisa Simpson, but also played in As Good As It Gets), Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson – is actually a woman!!), Hank Azaria (Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum/Carl Carlson, Apu Nahasapeemapetilon …, but also known as an actor in Mad about you, Along came Polly and Quiz Show) and Harry Shearer (Mr Burns/Mr Smithers/Ned Flanders/Kent Brockman/Rev. Lovejoy/Principal Skinner … but also the bass player in Spinal Tap – cucumber … pants … remember?).
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Yahoo! Pipes: Get-Remix-Deliver model

Published on February 16, 2007 in RSS. 3 Comments

Yahoo! Pipes is an RSS mashup application from Yahoo. It allows you to merge, sort, filter and combine RSS feeds. Since it is primarily a remix/mashup application, I’ve tried to list its features in my Get-Mix-Deliver model:
Yahoo Pipes

It’s easy to get excited about Pipes. I like working with it, because the UI paradigm (flowchart-based) matches the way engineers think. I’ve been testing it out a bit and while it is a very slick version 1.0, there are a number of features missing, in my opinion, some of which are crucial:
pipes-modules2

  • RSS input only: you can only use RSS feeds as input. There is not a way to add other types of input, nor something like Feed43 to parse a webpage and convert it into RSS.
  • More RSS Sources: specifically for search results on e.g. IMDB (‘official data’), Technorati (‘aggregated user data’), …
  • No regular expressions: you can’t really manipulate the data in title or description fields. If I start from IMDB’s ‘born on this day’ feed, all titles are like “Matt Groening (53)”. What if I want to lose the age, so I can do a search on Flickr with only the name?
  • RSS output only: it would be easy to add Javascript visualisation, or widget support. Oh, wait, a link with Yahoo Maps, that would be neat!
  • Modular approach: imagine the possibility to add custom made source modules, operator modules … That would make Yahoo Pipes a versatile toolbox. But maybe the Brickhouse team under Caterina Fake might already be working on that.

You give out your passwords every day

Published on February 14, 2007 in security. 6 Comments

If you’re allergic to acronyms, don’t read on. I’ve reached an all-time TLA/FLA density high in the following article!

Lock - photo by mfshadowTHE PROBLEM
Who knows the passwords you use for your email accounts? Who knows the password you use for your FTP account? Who knows the password to your blog admin page? There might be more than you thought!

Imagine user John Doe, with username jdoe who has the ‘strong’ password “p@ssw0rd“. Let’s take a look at what conversation happens when his Outlook/Thunderbird email client connects to check for new messages, or when he uploads a new version of his website with Filezilla/Dreamweaver:

This is a typical FTP conversation:

Response:	220 (ID of the FTP server)
Command:	USER jdoe
Response:	331 Password required for jdoe.
Command:	PASS p@ssw0rd
Response:	230 User jdoe logged in.
Command:	...

This is a typical POP3 (email) scenario

Command:	USER jdoe
Response:	+OK Password required for jdoe
Command:	PASS p@ssw0rd
Response:	+OK jdoe's maildrop has 2 messages (320 octets)

(remark: POP3 does have an APOP command that does not transfer the password in clear-text. It is however typically used for 2nd and following POP3 connections, using a piece of information that was given in the first transaction)

Wordpress loginEven more scary: when you log in to your blog/CMS software (that does not use a Google, Yahoo, MSN or Passport account), how does your password reach the server, you think? Encrypted? Not!

Continue reading ‘You give out your passwords every day’

Viral in the bad sense: MessengerChecker

Published on February 4, 2007 in spam. 1 Comment

I just received an email on my Hotmail account from someone that normally never contacts me. The email itself is clearly generated by an automatic process:
msnchecker2

When I take a look at the website that was cited (I won’t link to it), it is not clear to see what the service is actually about: I’m guessing it is to see who blocked you (MSN contacts that look off-line to you, but that are actually online). To check if one of your MSN buddies has blocked you, you ‘only’ have to fill in your Hotmail username and password. This should already make you nervous: you should never give those credentials to a site that’s not Hotmail or MSN.
messengerchecker: viral in the bad sense
Take a look under the “Verder” (= “Continue”) button. In a very light gray (#dfdfdf to be exact), there is the option to email all your MSN buddies, and by default it’s ON. Since it is hardly visible, I guess most people who try out the service leave it like that and as such ‘give permission’ to send out a couple of dozen to several hundreds of emails. You only need a few gullible recipients to create a ‘viral’ effect.

In the terms and conditions on the bottom of the (very long) page, you’ll find:

6. De gebruiker die deze dienst gebruikt is zelf verantwoordelijk voor het goed bekijken van de opties alvorens hij of zij op de knop [ verder ] drukt.
7. U dient zelf de optie [ mailen naar uw MSN vrienden ] uit te vinken als u uw vrienden niet wilt mailen.
8. Er kan geen aanspraak worden gemaakt op de werking van onze diensten omdat wij het checker systeem niet zelf hosten. Wij zijn alleen een technische kant die er voor probeert tezorgen dat u contact kunt krijgen met de MSN server. De MSN server/checker kan soms offline zijn. Wij mailen absoluut zelf niet. Alle mailtjes worden door de gebruiker zelf gedaan. Hij of zij is hier dus ook zelf verantwoordelijk voor. Bij overmatig gebruik kunt u mailen naar de persoon waarvan u het mailtje heeft ontvangen. Bij gebruik van onze dienst stelt u ons vrij van enige schade aan derden.

In short:
#6: the user is responsible for verifying all options before clicking [ Continue ]
#7: you should disable the option [ send mail to all MSN friends ] if you don’t want to send those messages
#8: we don’t send the emails, the user does. If you have complaints, contact that person, not us.

I certainly don’t agree with their point #8. Technically, they send the messages. They could claim the user ‘requested it’. In any case: it’s spam!

The person responsible for the site is already known as the “Mongool van scripthosting“: ene P.J. (Peter) Bierling from Groningen.