The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Athiesm as the best friend of religion

Very interesting op-ed in today's New York Times: Slavoj Zizek calls athiests "Defenders of the Faith":

Fundamentalists do what they perceive as good deeds in order to fulfill God's will and to earn salvation; atheists do them simply because it is the right thing to do. Is this also not our most elementary experience of morality? When I do a good deed, I do so not with an eye toward gaining God's favor; I do it because if I did not, I could not look at myself in the mirror. A moral deed is by definition its own reward. David Hume, a believer, made this point in a very poignant way, when he wrote that the only way to show true respect for God is to act morally while ignoring God's existence.

Amayn.

First flight in...gosh, more than a year

My incredibly brave wife got into a Piper Warrior with me today, and we flew from Nashua to Portsmouth, N.H. I last flew in January 2005, also with Anne, so I was excited to get back into the cockpit.

Landing in variable 8-to-12 knot winds—variable, in this context, meaning direct crosswind to tailwind—was not the most fun I've ever had flying. But it was still tons o' fun, and we still got Anne home on time.

Flying without ID

I lost my ID case last week here in New Hampshire, and had Anne overnight my passport to me so I could go home. It turns out, I needn't have been so paranoid, as reported on Bruce Schneier's security blog:

According to the TSA, in the 9th Circuit Case of John Gilmore, you are allowed to fly without showing ID -- you'll just have to submit yourself to secondary screening.

Here's a link to the 9th Circuit decision (pdf).

Warm front passes

Frontal systems can be a lot of fun. A warm front passed through Southern New Hampshire today; see if you can spot when that happened:

Time Temperature
09:51 ET (14:51 UTC) 3°C (38°F)
10:51 4°C (39°F)
11:28 6°C (43°F)
11:51 9°C (48°F)
11:58 10°C (50°F)
12:51 (18:51 UTC) 17°C (63°F)

The cold front following behind won't be quite as dramatic, but it will bring some wind. Gusts are predicted to 81 km/h (45 kts, 54 mph) this afternoon.

High-tech wine glasses for road warriors?

I'm not sure what Anne thinks, but as long as I'm commuting to New Hampshire, maybe we should get these Wi-Fi wine glasses:

Jackie Lee and Hyemin Chung, experts in human-computer interaction...have incorporated a variety of coloured LEDs, liquid sensors and wireless (GPRS or Wi-Fi) links into a pair of glass tumblers. When either person picks up a glass, red LEDs on their partner's glass glow gently. And when either puts the glass to their lips, sensors make white LEDs on the rim of the other glass glow brightly, so you can tell when your other half takes a sip. Following tests in separate labs, Lee says the wireless glasses really do "help people feel as if they are sharing a drinking experience together."

Awww...

PINs stolen from retailer; thousands of debit cards recalled

MSNBC is reporting today that thieves have stolen a batch of PINs from a retailer—PINs the retailer shouldn't have stored in the first place:

Criminals have stolen bank account data from a third-party company, several banks have said, and then used the data to steal money from related accounts using counterfeit cards at ATM machines.
The central question surrounding the new wave of crime is this: How did the thieves managed to foil the PIN code system designed to fend off such crimes? Investigators are considering the possibility that criminals have stolen PIN codes from a retailer, MSNBC has learned.
In recent weeks, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Washington Mutual and Citibank have all reissued debit cards after detecting fraudulent activity. Smaller banks, such as Ohio-based National City Bank and Pennsylvania-based PNC Bank, have taken similar steps.

Bruce Schneier reported on this Monday, but now the scope of the crime is becoming more apparent.

So how did the thieves get the customers' PINs? It appears that a retailer stored them along with other credit-card data in its database, and the thieves stole the database:

[Gartner analyst Avivah Litan] says many merchants incorrectly store PIN information they should be destroying after customers enter the secret code on PIN pads in stores around the country. While the information is often encrypted into something called a PIN block, the keys necessary to decrypt the information are often stored on the same network, she said. That makes stealing the PINs as easy as breaking into an office computer using a password a careless employee has taped to the screen.

The thing is, the retailers have no need to store the PINs:

While storing PINs is against network rules, many retailers inadvertently store the information, said Mike Urban, who runs Fair Isaac Inc.'s ATM fraud detection program called CardAlert. It ends up accidentally saved in temporary files and other software nooks and crannies.

ZDNet has this story too.

The solution to this problem, long known to concientious software developers, is never to keep secrets unless they're absolutely necessary. I tell my clients all the time that neither I nor anyone else should ever know their passwords, for for example.

It will be interesting, and important to every consumer, to see how liability for this event is apportioned. Sadly, most courts and legislators are woefully ignorant of the technology, which should lead to some fascinating legal work in coming months.

Until this issue gets resolved, which could take weeks, I urge people to be very careful using point-of-sale debit card readers. And if you suspect unauthorized activity on your bank account, call your bank immediately.

Why a mobile phone might be a huge security risk

Here's a hint: the problem is between chair and receiver.

Bruce Schneier linked today to this excellent essay on the unseen dangers of mobile phones:

About four seats away is a gentleman (on this occasion pronounced 'fool') with a BlackBerry mobile device and a very loud voice. He is obviously intent on selling a customer something and is briefing his team. It seems he is the leader as he defines the strategy and assigns each of his unseen team with specific tasks and roles.
Eventually, he starts to close down the conversation. Relief might be here at last! Oh no, he goes on to announce the conference number and the pass code - and say he will see them all on the conference call in a minute.

Programming languages compared

My colleague Cameron Beatley sent me this handy chart:

Quick Guide to Programming Languages

The proliferation of modern programming languages (all of which seem to have stolen countless features from one another) sometimes makes it difficult to remember what language you're currently using. This handy reference is offered as a public service to help programmers who find themselves in such a dilemma.

Task

Shoot yourself in the foot.

Comparison

C
You shoot yourself in the foot.
C++
You accidentally create a dozen instances of yourself and shoot them all in the foot. Providing emergency medical assistance is impossible since you can't tell which are bitwise copies and which are just pointing at others and saying, "That's me, over there."
FORTRAN
You shoot yourself in each toe, iteratively, until you run out of toes, then you read in the next foot and repeat. If you run out of bullets, you continue with the attempts to shoot yourself anyways because you have no exception-handling capability.
Pascal
The compiler won't let you shoot yourself in the foot.
Ada
After correctly packing your foot, you attempt to concurrently load the gun, pull the trigger, scream, and shoot yourself in the foot. When you try, however, you discover you can't because your foot is of the wrong type.
COBOL
Using a COLT 45 HANDGUN, AIM gun at LEG.FOOT, THEN place ARM.HAND.FINGER on HANDGUN.TRIGGER and SQUEEZE. THEN return HANDGUN to HOLSTER. CHECK whether shoelace needs to be re-tied.
LISP
You shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds the gun with which you shoot yourself in the appendage which holds...
FORTH
Foot in yourself shoot.
Prolog
You tell your program that you want to be shot in the foot. The program figures out how to do it, but the syntax doesn't permit it to explain it to you.
BASIC
Shoot yourself in the foot with a water pistol. On large systems, continue until entire lower body is waterlogged.
Visual Basic
You'll really only appear to have shot yourself in the foot, but you'll have had so much fun doing it that you won't care.
HyperTalk
Put the first bullet of gun into foot left of leg of you. Answer the result.
Motif
You spend days writing a UIL description of your foot, the bullet, its trajectory, and the intricate scrollwork on the ivory handles of the gun. When you finally get around to pulling the trigger, the gun jams.
APL
You shoot yourself in the foot, then spend all day figuring out how to do it in fewer characters.
SNOBOL
If you succeed, shoot yourself in the left foot. If you fail, shoot yourself in the right foot.
Unix
ls
foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o
% rm * .o 
rm:.o no such file or directory
% ls
%
Concurrent Euclid
You shoot yourself in somebody else's foot.
370 JCL
You send your foot down to MIS and include a 400-page document explaining exactly how you want it to be shot. Three years later, your foot comes back deep-fried.
Paradox
Not only can you shoot yourself in the foot, your users can, too.
Access
You try to point the gun at your foot, but it shoots holes in all your Borland distribution diskettes instead.
Revelation
You're sure you're going to be able to shoot yourself in the foot, just as soon as you figure out what all these nifty little bullet-thingies are for.
Assembler
You try to shoot yourself in the foot, only to discover you must first invent the gun, the bullet, the trigger, and your foot.
Modula2
After realizing that you can't actually accomplish anything in this language, you shoot yourself in the head.