Things without substance
February 22, 2009
The Count of Monte Cristo
A classic for a reason. As a result of a generally misspent youth, I've been trying to read some of the classic adventure novels that I should have read
long ago. The Count of Monte Cristo sat unread on my shelves for too long until my wife brought it down, worked her way through 1300 pages, and exhorted me
to follow suit.
Hot, Flat and Crowded
Interesting book... not as interesting as Cradle to Cradle
blocks
August 02, 2007
Lack of security in the browser...
Your browser is a tcp/ip relay
from Artur Bergman
"[...]using DNS rebinding he can get the browser to connect to any IP he chooses. [...]"
"The technique originates in the browser security model, based on same-origin policy. This allows a web browser, either using JavaScript or Flash, to connect back to the same host that the content came from. If the attacker changes where the hostname is pointing to, the browser can connect there. For example, the next time you connect to attacker.com, the DNS server actually serves you a 192.168.1.1 address, allowing the webapp to connect to your internal IP.
"I have had for a while a lurking feeling that the Web 2.0 world is full of surprising attack vectors that no one has come around to exploiting. Work like this doesn't exactly fill me with confidence that the environment is secure."
---
I find these sorts of things terribly disconcerting. I recall at one session during the Web 2.0 conference the one speaker kept reiterating, rather cryptically, "There is no browser security model."
August 01, 2007
Here's an idea for a cartoon... comparing on one hand, a web content management system and on the other a web discontent management system
July 29, 2007
July 20, 2007
I recently read Andrew Kean's book, "The Cult of the Amateur," and though I found it engaging and even possibly important inasmuch as it vigorously counters the notions of the digital utopians' who gush that the web "changes everything," I would say that his position is probably not all that defensible. But then, it may not need to be defended, because I would guess that if the army of amateurs, as he calls them, ever bothers to glance up from their machines to note the book, their appetite for the ever-new will soon draw them back to their online quests.
And so, as a group of school children might stop to investigate, torment and perhaps even kill an unfortunate bug, so it is with the cult as Kean describes them. They may stop, snuffle about, write a few incendiary blog posts, but soon enough... they'll move on.
... and perhaps that is as it should be.
Related : In praise of editing
July 09, 2007
