Error message archaelogy

I learned a funky way to dig up old kernel logs today on #linux. To find out what caused segfaults, type

sudo zcat /var/log/kern.log.*.gz | grep 'seg'

On this box that shows segfaults as far back as last May.

Of course for more recent seg faults one might just say..

dmesg | grep 'seg fault'

Nice. Thanks to Chris V.

More to come later.

Flash cookies invade your privacy

Adobe likes to ignore your interest of privacy.

Adobes Flash stores next-generation cookies that are not erased when you empty your browser cache. Flash-cookies, or Local Stored Objects, LSO's, can store any data up to 100 kb, indefinately.

While LSO's are stored on your computer, the contained information can be transmitted back to the server the flash originated from, across sessions, thus making you very easy to track.

All without your permission.

Evil.

And it looks like flash-apps can access all these LSO's. You can see a list of them here: http://www.macromedia.com/support/documentation/en/flashplayer/help/settings_manager07.html

Why cant the user delete them from the browser cache or browser settings? This is just not right.

And for all of you saying "but you agreed to this in the user terms". Nobody reads all of those terms. Its pages long! Some people already have flash on the computer they purchase and have never even agreed to the terms.

This nonsense of violating privacy "because you agreed to the Terms Of Use" must end. Would it be ok to include an EULA or Terms Of Use stating "By the way, if you use this program, your car and house belongs to us"?

Whether you would read the long terms/EULA, or whether you would agree or not - of course thats not valid. Why is Adobe allowed to propose that this kind of invasion of privacy would be legal?

What kind of legal action would it take to stop this? Are people really content with storing such extensive data on their online behaviour and sending it around the net. Ps. its not going to be sent encrypted.

Stop Enabling Invasion Of Privacy, Adobe!

According to Wired article on flash cookies, LSO's might be found in the following locations:

• Windows: user's Application Data directory, under Macromedia\FlashPlayer\#SharedObjects.
• Mac OS X: For Web sites, ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/FlashPlayer. For AIR Applications, ~/Library/Preferences/[package name (ID)of your app] and ~/Library/Preferences/Macromedia/FlashPlayer/macromedia.com/Support/flashplayer/sys
• GNU-Linux: ~/.macromedia

SVG and rotations

While building a exporting facility into bunch of geometry-generation classes, I ran into simple, yet interesting problems related to the way transforming happens in SVG.

Thus, here are some notes related to transforming SVG-elements.

Some ways to rotate SVG-elements.

Attribute transform:

<rect x="25" y="50" width="150" height="100" transform="rotate(-45 100 100)">
</rect>

Enclosing inside a group:

<g transform="rotate(45)"> <!-- graphics elements go here --> </g>


Enclosing inside a use:

<pre><defs>
<rect id="MyRect" width="60" height="10">
</rect>
</defs></pre><use x="20" y="10" href="#MyRect">
</use>

Microsoft webmail-service hacked

Thousands of passwords to Hotmail -accounts starting with letter A or B were posted to pastebin.

Neowin.com reports that the passwords were either hacked or phished, and that MS has confirmed the problem.