Fixing Apple Mail

Posted on October 24, 2008 by Christopher

200810241645I had a permissions error with my Apple Mail last night. Specifically, I was receiving the following below error: “Mail can’t open because you don’t have the necessary permissions to change the folder where it saves information.”

I’ll detail what I tried to do to fix this problem, and what actually worked.

Repairing Permissions, Part One

First, I opened the Disk Utility, clicked on my Macintosh HD, and Repair Disk Permissions. While this successfully fixed a previously unknown CUPS permission issue, it didn’t do anything to fix my Apple Mail woes. Continue reading →

Posted in Technology | 12 Comments

Three Strikes and Goodbye World

Posted on August 21, 2008 by Christopher

200808211516In this post I’m going to briefly note just how bad an idea it is, for citizens, that ISPs and content providers are working together to resolve ‘copyright infringement’ without having a substantial degree of government involvement.

Rules of the game

Perhaps you’re familiar with baseball (or California penal rules). In either case, you’ll have heard of the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ rule. In baseball, this would mean that a batter returns to the dugout, and another person attempts to swat a ball and race towards first base. In the penal system, it indicates that you’ve committed enough criminal offenses that you’re going to have the book thrown at you . . . the next person behind you in court can then try to argue why they’re innocent, and go free (first base?).

Viva la France! Continue reading →

Posted in Internet, ISPs, Technology, Thoughts | Leave a comment

Do RFID security worries still need a reality check?

Posted on August 17, 2008 by Christopher

200808171439A few years ago Computer World ran a particularly good piece on Radio-frequency identification )RFID entitled ‘Opinion: RFID security worries need a reality check‘. I’d highly recommend taking a look at it, for a pair of reasons:

  1. It identifies that hackers will only look at RFID tags once the data they transmit is easy to send along electronic mediums, with the data being transmitted itself valuable (i.e. not simply the location of valuable goods, but the information must be a valuable good in itself);
  2. It blindingly misses the point that RFID opens a new avenue of attack that could seriously contribute to an e-warfare application.

RFI-What?

You might have heard about RFID in the news over the past few years. In case you need a quick primer/update, here’s the basics on RFID:

  • It’s not new – RFID has been in use since WWII to organize valuable assets and more effectively track them;
  • RFID can either actively broadcast information, or have the chip activated when placed within ‘hot’ zones – an RFID device does not necessarily always broadcast information;
  • There are different ISO standards for various RFID types – some support encryption, some do not, some support active transmission of data (i.e. they are always broadcasting information), and some do not (these are termed passive RFID devices);
  • RFID Tag are often confused with Contactless SmartCars (CSCs) on the basis that they mutually use radio transceivers to broadcast information. Different ISO standards are used for these two types of devices, with CSCs having been developed with encryption and privacy issues in mind;
  • On the topic of read ranges – RFID tags can be read up to 10 meters or so away, whereas CSCs are usually read from a maximum of about 5cm away from a reader;
  • RFID Tags are to be placed in many of the Enhanced Drivers Licenses (EDLs) in Canada, whereas CSCs are being insert into the e-passports that are being deployed in Britain and the US. Continue reading →
Posted in Technology, Thoughts | Leave a comment

Privacy worry over location data – Solution is from Facebook?

Posted on August 15, 2008 by Christopher

200808151029Yahoo! has recently released a new product called Fire Eagle. Fire Eagle is an application that developers can integrate into their software suites, enabling users to identify and broadcast their geospatial location to others on the application’s network. There are many very positive features of Fire Eagle (at least relative to other applications of this nature):

* It’s opt-in
* It allows for granular, application level, sharing of information
* It keeps limited historical data – it “keeps only the most recent piece of location information it has received for each of the major levels it understands: Exact Location, Neighborhood, City, State, Country etc. If a new piece of “Exact Location” information comes in, then we throw away the old one.” (Source)
* Yahoo!’s developers anonymize user data, and assert that they will exclusively use it for system statistics as it pertains to updates and improving service (no notes on how data is anonymized, however)
* The privacy statement makes note that users need to read the privacy agreements of the applications that utilize/integrate Fire Eagle
* Yahoo! notes that their partners must consent to terms and services, and a code of conduct, and Yahoo! provides a space for users to complain if they think that a Yahoo! partner is violating their agreements with Yahoo!.

But, but, what about those third parties!?!

A BBC article that talks about this new service (Privacy worry over location data) really identifies the core privacy concern that most advocates seem to have with this service:

The problem for privacy watchers is that privacy policies across the web are all very different and using a service through a third party could raise some real issues. Continue reading →

Posted in Geolocation, Privacy, Social Networking | 3 Comments
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