Month: March 2008

Comic Value

I recently thought that I might dabble in a little bit of comics. That’s when I found out that it isn’t easy at all. This little comic that I did, took me a few hours to do. I had a simulation running at the time. So, I was technically “working” on my research project. Anyway, I think that I will try to make a little comic to supplement my entries. I hope to get better at it as I go along.

I was never very good at drawing on a computer. So, most of the graphics used are public domain clip-art that I got from Open Clip Art. I used the free (as in speech) software, InkScape, to create the illustrations. I then exported the illustrations into a PNG format, which is an open graphics format. See a pattern developing here? Lots of freedom and openness involved.

As a result, I am also releasing the comics using a free (as in speech) license. I have decided to release them under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license. I hope that you’ll all enjoy the comics!

PWN2OWN

As reported here and here, it is kind of good to see that Linux was the only operating system left standing in the end. If we read into how the hacking competition was conducted, it becomes quite clear that the Open Source way of doing things is probably the best way to do things.

For many years, the main selling point for the Open Source way was the fact that anyone could look and modify the source code of computer programmes, freely. The logic behind this is that with many eyeballs looking at the code, the chances of spotting errors is higher. This is also the logic behind peer-review in science.

In this particular competition, three different laptops were configured and the hackers were challenged to break into the system “as-is” and if they succeeded, they would walk home with some cash and the laptop that they broke into. Surprisingly, the first one to fall was the AirBook. You could possibly consider that the AirBook, being such a beautiful machine, would have attracted the most attempts. But that still doesn’t change the fact that it fell so quickly.

Some slightly more technical people will, at this point, quote that OSX is based on an Open Source operating system, Darwin, which is itself a descendent of FreeBSD. But then, there are many parts of OSX that is proprietary, like the graphical user interface running on top of Darwin. Also, it is reported that the culprit that caused the downfall of the AirBook, was actually a piece of software by Adobe.

Then the rules were relaxed further to allow the machines to be compromised using any pre-installed software on the system. This caused the Windows machine to be breached, again due to a problem with a piece of software from Adobe. On the last day, the rules were relaxed further, to allow the machines to be compromised using any commonly installed 3rd party software. And surprisingly, the Linux machine held on without being compromised.

Instead of gloating on the strengths of Linux, I would just like to point out that there is a correlation between openness and security. When I was a boy, I was once told by a Debian developer that, security by obscurity is not security at all. That totally confounded me at the time but I have since learned the wisdom of such words.

A truly secure system is one that is thoroughly open, that you could fiddle with as much as you’d like, and still remain secure. The Linux operating system is developed on an open platform. All the various bits running on top of it are also bound by the same rules. Even random 3rd party software are often developed along the same lines. So, openness breeds security.

Clicking the Ads

If you happen across any interesting advert on this blog, please do not hesitate to click on it. I hope to make just enough money to help pay for the maintenance of this website. Thanks!

Gender Miscommunication

There is an article about a recent study on how men were found commonly to perceive more sexual intent in women’s behaviour than women are intending to convey. This study is from Indiana University’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. However, the study also shows that men were quite likely to misperceive sexual interest as friendliness. After reading it, all I can say that it is a sexist piece of crap.

Aside from the many flaws in the research methodology, it is patently clear that the conclusions drawn are one sided and designed to provoke discourse. As any student of real communication knows, communication is a two way process based on an agreed protocol. If either party does not communicate correctly, or if they were using different protocols, error free communications is impossible. Even when both parties communicate correctly with the same protocol, there is still a finite probability of error and therefore, error correction mechanisms need to be built into the communication system.

In a typical communications system, a message is first encapsulated with some extra information in order to identify the target of the message and also some error checking information. Then, the message is transformed into a signal for transmission, which is transmitted through a suitable medium, either wired or wireless. The signal may even be routed through several intermediate devices before reaching the intended target. When the receiver receives the signal, it will convert it from the transmission form into a readable form and extract the message. Afterwards, it will check this message against the extra information to see if it was the intended target and if the message was error free. Finally, the receiver would send another message back in the opposite direction, in order to acknowledge receipt of the message. That’s how all communication systems work in this world.

There are so many potential places for errors to happen between the transmission and reception of the message. The transmitter may foul things up when converting the intended message into a transmissible form. The medium of transmission can introduce noise and cross-talk into the system, which may garble up the message. The receiver may also foul things up when converting between the received signal and the intended message. Whether or not the intended message was correct, in the first place, is also questionable.

When a garbled message is received, there are error correction mechanisms to handle the problem. But in order for the mechanisms to work, both transmitter and receiver would have to agree on the same algorithm to use. Otherwise, even this correction would fail thoroughly and garble up the message even further. And the trouble with human communication is that, both genders use very different error handling mechanisms. Males tend to be encouraged by ambiguous intentions while females tend to err on the side of caution.

In the event of a communication breakdown, the first thing that an engineer will need to do is to ensure that both transmitter and receiver are using the same communication protocol. Then, the engineer would have to check to ensure that the transmitter is working and sending the intended message correctly. Finally, the receiver would need to be checked to ensure that it is still receiving the same message transmitted and is extracting the intended message from the transmitter. The path of the message has to be traced from the source to the destination.

The trouble with human communication is that the protocol is highly flawed. Human languages have too many nuances and meanings associated with each word and phrase that it is never entirely possible to understand the exact meaning of a statement. Non-verbal communications are even worse. Nobody really knows when a smile is more than a smile or otherwise. When such a problem happens in a communication system, both transmitter and receiver will need to fall back onto the lowest common denominator, a simple protocol that both sides can understand clearly.

Therefore, it is rather unfair to place judgement that the receivers are clueless. It is just as likely that the transmitters are clueless too. But the best thing to do in such cases, is just to fall back to the lowest common denominator, to clear the air, so to speak. However, I’m very sure that many other people will disagree with me on this. Some people insist on doing all the dancing around. Well, I’m sure that none of these people are communication engineers. d:

Software Upgrade

This latest version of WordPress has just been released and this blog has been upgraded to the latest version. You won’t see much of a different in the front because most of the changes made have been to the behind-the-scenes stuff.

Malaysian Dreamgirl

Several friends have been asking me if I’ve seen the new online reality show, Malaysian Dreamgirl, which aims to find the next top fashion model or host in Malaysia. It piqued my interest at first because I am a heterosexual male but when I found out that Kenny Sia was going to be one of the judges, I got the sinking feeling that it would not be worth watching.

The show is a purely online reality show that airs every Thursday and Saturday. There are 12 contestants and 3 of them are eliminated every 5 episodes. This show reminds me of the Next Top Model series except for the judges. I just cannot take any show that features Kenny, in the role of a judge, as a serious show. Granted, his blog is extremely popular, but it is also extremely brainless. So, my personal opinion is that he is sitting on the panel for the out-of-the-box element.

Moreover, there isn’t any real reason to watch these kind of ‘reality’ shows unless the contestants are worth looking at. Call me shallow but that’s the main marketing point for such a show. So, whenever a friend asked me to watch the series, I’d just ask them if the girls were good looking. None of my friends have told me that any of the girls were, which was fairly surprising. Nonetheless, since they have asked me about it, I thought that I’d give the website a visit. I went to the website and looked through the profile of all the 12 finalists. That’s when I got a few surprises.

Firstly, some of them were openly exposing their ‘aurat’ as part of the competition. This was fairly surprising because the last time that we had a muslim girl in our Miss Malaysia competitions was more than a decade ago. There is an unspoken rule that this was a problem because of the swimsuit category in the competitions. So, to me, this was a fairly surprising development. I just hope that the religious authorities to not get wind of this show and the girls involved do not get into any trouble.

Secondly, some of them could not even speak properly in their introductory videos. But when I looked at their porfolio photographs, the photographs do look good but I attribute this to the skills of the photographer. I guess that the producers of the show did manage to assemble a good team of make over artists and photographers. Thankfully, this competition isn’t about their oratory skills. So, that should not be too much of a problem.

Thirdly, I found it surprising that voting was still being done by SMS even when every other aspect of the show was being delivered online. There is no technical reason why this had to be the case, except for the fact that it allows the show to make money. Since the show is being given away freely online, I would think that their business model would be based on income from the SMS profits.

However, from my initial impression of the competition, I would think that it will succeed in Malaysia. It appeals directly to our ‘kaypoh’-ness. The show will also earn a decent amount of money because we’d happily vote with our money. The girl who wins would also get an opportunity to change her career. So, it’s a win-win-win situation for everyone involved.

Server Tweaks

I have been making some tweaks to the server hosting this blog and other things. This is in response to some outages over the last week or so. I hope that everyone can be patient and give me some time to iron out the kinks. Let me know if you experience any problems.