Comments for ICT4D

Comment on Regulating the Internet in South Africa by strix

strix — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 10:26:01 +0000

Yes, it is very important we comply with this, and I think we largely do, although 24C(2)(d) is troubling. “any offence” covers a lot of ground, and I don’t know what ‘indicative’ might mean.

In an unrelated note, this is why my first act as a citizen will be to release the source code to the darknet that’s been on my backburner all these years. Freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of the press are all more important to a child’s future than making sure nobody calls them a gaywad or sends them a picture of boobies, IMO.

http://www.fxi.org.za/content/view/212/1/

Comment on Singularity may be prevented by humanitarian crises by ooskapenaar

ooskapenaar — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 18:18:59 +0000

Ok, I guess I have to read the book. Apparently in it, Kurzweil mentions lateral development often leads to switching of branches in order to allow fields to diversify and grow faster. Think of a technology which is growing in dimension X. Certain inherent limits are reached and growth in diemnsion X threatens to stagnate (e.g. processing power in computing, which is starting to hit quantum atomic limits because of Mega-Hyper-Integration). An invention occurs which drives development forward along a new dimension Z, but the vector has movement in the X axis too, ultimately overcoming natural limitations. This makes perfect sense. And in the same vein, I like to think of the adoption of mobile computing in Africa, which drives a whole host of potential development and market forces into the heart of the unconnected continent.

Comment on Singularity may be prevented by humanitarian crises by ooskapenaar

ooskapenaar — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:19:57 +0000

I can see another post has to happen. To liken AI to nuclear fission is a grievous error, as AI is in itself something which has the potential to hold misues in check or to innovate independently… upsetting entire complex networks of existence. This is also something that that will ultimately I think support Kurzweil’s thesis. The feedback possibilities inherent in the technology are likely to be beneficial.

Comment on Hackers, Common Software (Wordpress) and Niche Players (Kapenta) by ooskapenaar

ooskapenaar — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:38:59 +0000

Thanks for the comment Guy! Of course, I used to worry about the outdated wordpress every couple of weeks or so, but I don’t have the time to update, and I think I did almost update once and the new version was packed with unnecessary features and 4 times as fat as this lean old version.

A bit risky, but it’s working out now.

Comment on Hackers, Common Software (Wordpress) and Niche Players (Kapenta) by guy

guy — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 08:15:48 +0000

Assuming web-based niche applications aren’t going to be actively targeted by crackers is a little naïve IMHO. There are three reasons for this:

– There’s simply too much money to be made out of getting people to inadvertently host your content;

– Willing labour is relatively cheap, particularly in third world countries with good connectivity (see under the demise of the CAPTCHA); and

– It is possible to greatly automate the process of vulnerability detection and exploitation.

Personal and professional experience shows that niche web-based applications do in fact get actively targeted on a surprisingly regular basis.

A recent case in point was http://ilam.ru.ac.za/ (see http://google.com/search?q=site%3Ailam.ru.ac.za+viagra) which runs a custom-written PHP application developed by a local student. There’s only one copy of this code in existence anywhere on the Internet. The site was exploited by a combination of SQL injection and remote code upload. Someone took the time to work out how to do this on a once-off basis, I suspect largely because of the commercial benefits.

Whilst a niche application may have a longer average time to exploit than an out-of-date OSS application, OSS has the advantage of a quicker mean time to repair. The version of WordPress you’re running (2.1.2) is old, and the vulnerability in question was detected and patched in 2007.

What all of this means is that all applications, niche or otherwise, need to be secure by design. Security considerations *must* be a critical part of the software development process if an application is to survive on the modern Internet. Security-by-obscurity or unusualness simply no longer cut it.

Comment on Sorry Wayan Vota by mark oppenneer

mark oppenneer — Fri, 29 May 2009 16:13:05 +0000

If only countries could resolve disputes as civilly! Thank you both for your ideas and discourse. – Mark

Comment on Hackers, Common Software (Wordpress) and Niche Players (Kapenta) by ooskapenaar

ooskapenaar — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:37:25 +0000

strix sent me the code for an SQL injection exploit he found for this version of wordpress. I have now deleted the xmlrpc.php file (which is crucial to the exploit, and is not important if you don’t need to link your wordpress to del.icio.us etc.)… well, we’ll soon be onto kapenta blogging. That should be much more fun!

Comment on Hackers, Common Software (Wordpress) and Niche Players (Kapenta) by ooskapenaar

ooskapenaar — Fri, 29 May 2009 07:23:32 +0000

Strix, you know what they say: everything is hackable. I think Mac OS X is also secure by design, security being based on BSD Unix, but there’s a whole lot of application on top of that so there are always problems. As the complexity of Kapenta grows, you can expect to find new (or indeed not) new holes. So it’s in fact a double barrier – good design and being a niche player. But hope is always an option too!

By the way: I’d love to have the new Kapenta blog! I don’t think my ISP has PHP5 though, is it still backward compatible?

Comment on Hackers, Common Software (Wordpress) and Niche Players (Kapenta) by strix

strix — Thu, 28 May 2009 21:13:30 +0000

Spammers looooove .edu domains – considered more trustworthy by the Google than TLDs which anyone can register. Seriously though, I do hope Kapenta is secure by design and not obscurity. If you like I’ll be happy to provide the latest Kapenta blogging setup when I update my main site to the latest version.

Comment on Food Matters… by strix

strix — Fri, 22 May 2009 11:59:57 +0000

I would argue that being steeped for hundreds of years in the enlightenment, cold winters, and innovations such as banking, transportation networks and capitalism can cause a culture to be more successful in the modern world. Of course, not having your existing culture ravaged by colonialism and missionaries helps as well.

The British and their colonies (.us, .ca, .au, .nz) have mostly terrible diets and are still successful.