By @edent · bmw GPL linux · 2 comments · 2,500 words · read ~34,761 times.
The good news follow-up rarely gets as much attention as the original bad-news story. Earlier this month I accidentally kicked off a minor kerfuffle over whether BMW was respecting the GPL. Their i3 car contains a huge amount of Open Source Software and there was some confusion as to BMW's compliance with the licence terms. […]
Continue reading →By @edent · IoT networks security · 16 comments · 700 words · read ~15,266 times.
I've written before about just how many Internet connected gadgets I have. I've also blogged about my dodgy WiFi lightswitches which send data back to China. Every IoT device you put in your home brings a certain level of risk to the other devices in your network. For example, my Smart TV and my Lifx […]
Continue reading →By @edent · future · 250 words · read ~309 times.
Imagine, just for a moment, you could tell someone's most intimate secrets just by looking at them. Many year ago, when I was very young and you were even younger, I saw an advert in the back pages of some cheap comic. The implication was clear - SEE GIRLS NAKED! The reality was somewhat more […]
Continue reading →By @edent · IoT maslow moixa Raspberry Pi ReDeCentralize solar · 15 comments · 1,200 words · read ~10,091 times.
Even in the depths of British winter my solar panels'll still happily convert what little sunlight we get into delicious, free-range, organic electrons. Nice! Most of our domestic energy use is in the evening. So, when I'm out at work I can schedule the tumble dryer, robot vacuum cleaner, and WiFi rice-cooker to consume energy […]
Continue reading →By @edent · IoT Raspberry Pi sponsored · 3 comments · 600 words · read ~2,938 times.
I've got three Raspberry Pis around my house. Well... at least... I think I do. I can certainly ping three of them. I know the physical location of two of them... It's a testament to the success of the Raspberry Pi. Anyone with £30 to spare can pick one up and start hacking. Want to […]
Continue reading →By @edent · humans · 400 words · read ~280 times.
Just because I ask a question - doesn't mean I'm asking you a question! There's a certain class of Internet user who troubles me. He - and it is usually a he - will strive to answer any technical question he sees asked, no matter his lack of expertise. Here are the symptoms: Sometimes he […]
Continue reading →By @edent · bmw car GPL i3 Open Source · 7 comments · 550 words · read ~10,706 times.
I accidentally caused a little brouhaha last week - for which I would like to apologise. In my blog post about BMW's unencrypted software updates, I said: Judging from the files, it would appear that the infotainment system is made by Magneti Marelli with components by Wind River, AutoSAR, and Nvidia Tegra. Looking at the […]
Continue reading →By @edent · HTML security xss · 400 words · read ~3,202 times.
Update! I now have an XSS which is only 18 characters! Here's a fun little game for all the family! What is the minimum number of characters required to perform a successful XSS attack? Let's take an entirely theoretical example - suppose we have a site which echos back user input without sanitising it. So […]
Continue reading →By @edent · php twitter unicode · 300 words
When is a string not a string? When it's a series of control characters! Not a particularly funny riddle, but one I've been wrestling with recently. Imagine we want to write a program which displays a Twitter user's name. Not their @ handle, but their "real" name. For example, instead of @POTUS, display "President Obama". […]
Continue reading →By @edent · censorship meta standards · 1 comment · 400 words · read ~668 times.
Friends, allow me to wallow in a little boasting! Four years ago, I made a modest proposal for a new HTTP Code to indicate censorship. A few days ago, RFC 7725: An HTTP Status Code to Report Legal Obstacles became an approved standard by the Internet Engineering Task Force. This allows a website, proxy, or […]
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