Test for Amazon

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This is a test of iframe with Amazon.

May-June trip to Europe

Photos from the most recent trip to Ireland (Dublin) , London, Lauterbrunnen Switzerland and Paris are found at Flickr.

For narrative, please refer to the new site.

Travel On..

The log of my travels on this site have moved to WordPress. Future posts regarding travel will be on WordPress. I plan to continue to post here, but more likely only on more technology related issues, saving Wordpress (for now) for more visually related topics.

Privacy and encryption

I read with continued interest, the comments regarding Apple's stance on creating a means of accessing the encrypted contents of a iPhone.

There are the obvious points made about accessing such information to "protect us", and that we should trust the government to request such access (or otherwise gain access). We see how much trust we can have in the government thru the revelations of Edward Snowden. The precedent being requested is no less than monumental. I for one agree with Apple and the other companies supporting their position, that we cannot allow the government to be the arbitor of whose privacy is invaded or " protected", any more than Apple wants to be. The government has shown it cannot be trusted.

Any backdoor built into any encrypted system means the system is not safe for anyone, since the government's outstanding example of it's own systems' security shows it cannot keep out hackers and cannot protect the information we already entrust with them.

There are other methods of encryption already available outside the US, available to us. The US courts would have no jurisdiction in these countries in any event. Like all of the other companies who came out in support of Apple and abhor terrorism, I believe and agree that it is pure ignorance, naivete (selective or real) to believe that if Apple or others granted such access that it would help guarantee future safety. Any time there is a backdoor, someone you don't anticipate will find it ; anytime you believe you've penetrated the encryption of a system, someone will find another method around that. The government can't protect its own privacy, why should we presume it grant them the role of protecting ours?

For Donald Trump to come out in favor of requiring access is understandable. He's in favor of anything and any fear mongering he can rouse to further his candidacy. He's as likely to be ignorant (purposely or natively) of the issues of encryption as he is of any of the other matters on which he bases his candidacy. Other candidates seem to be more concerned with simply upholding what has not been established as law (since there is no law on this point, only early court rulings) so they do not have to make the appearance of taking a controversial stand by supporting the right to privacy.

Plex Hack

There's been a widely discussed hack of the servers that Plex uses to host its blog and forums, but supposedly, not the servers that provide the connectivity to the Plex services. At least so far, my external access to Plex hasn't been affected.

When I started out on the journey through Plexland, one of the concerns I had was how dependent delivery of my content would be on a 3rd party. Of course it is! I've always had that lingering question about Plex and how, and whether, my access to my content would be affected by a disruption of their service. So even while I've not looked into their architecture, I understood that should the Plex server/service be disrupted, I'd likely lose my ability to access Plex outside of my own network. It's always a question of how much time/money/work you want to put into an effort like a media center, and there are other options, like Kodi, but Plex is amazing stuff, and for the price I paid for a "lifetime" (whatever that is these days) Plex Pass, is a great bargain if you choose to go this route!

For obvious reasons, Plex doesn't disclose its server/network architecture, but I found this well done blog post on how Plex implemented https, but also discusses some of the other bits behind the workings of Plex.

With the explosion of internet connections both personally and professionally, our devices and connections can probably never be considered secure, and especially so when you understand that when even a network security firm found it had been penetrated If they cannot defend their own (hopefully) highly secured network, what hope do individuals have (this is a rhetorical question)?

Yes, I did change my password. Yes, I'm watching for any 'extra' network activity on my Plex server.

P.S. 2015-07-06 - Plex forums are still down. No impact to me aside from having to re-log into Plex and the server, with every device. I noted that one person on Reddit mentioned disabling port forwarding. Since the hacker said he obtained IP addresses, I assume this could be those of the Plex user's server. Since I've changed my password, I don't see this as necessary and would really make me the victim of the hacker too, since I wouldn't be able to access my server content outside my home network.

2nd (or 3rd) Thoughts

So now that I've accumulated a 25,000+ song music library and a large video library, built around a media center using Plex, I'm watching the Apple Keynote for WWDC where they launch the Apple streaming music service, I have to wonder, should I really be streaming my music/video through one of the services like Apple, Google, Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Spotify, Pandora, et al?

Not having used Spotify and Pandora more than superficially (free versions), I don't know to what extent I would be building custom playlists or how easily I'd find it to discover either new artists or more of the artists I already enjoy? How accessible would some of the trance/progressive music I listen to from DJ's like Armin Van Buuren, Dash Berlin, Gareth Emery, Tiesto, be as discoverable as it is for me now? Could I reach back and find (again) some of the gems I might initially overlook?

Then there's the monthly fee, but I wouldn't have to pay for hard disk space and maintain my own server....

The future is streaming, it's more a matter of whether I accumulate and roll/stream my own vs. pay for someone else's collection.

Video streaming of content has expanded beyond the traditional YouTube/Netflix/Hulu/HBO to include apps like Popcorntime which make the underlying bitorrent architecture transparent. Seems like everyone wants the same eyes and ears, whether it's Google, Apple, Amazon, cable company, Verizon/ATT/T-Mobile, Spotify/Pandora and their ilk, and they all want to bundle you to lock you in. Distributors/aggregators like these will determine what you see and what you listen to (through their deal with content creators), even though the selection may be vast.

They want to bundle your own content too, including photos Google Photos, Apple Photos and Amazon (Prime). The idea of having all your "stuff" (whether music or photos) anywhere, without having it on your local device is great, but you'll likely have to make longer term choices about your provider.

Microsoft likely gave up on Windows Media Center in Windows 10, probably recognizing their failing place in content distribution and the future of streaming rather than owned media. They won't even include software for playing a DVD (assuming you have a DVD drive in the future). So unless you roll your own through one of the solutions like Plex, Roku, etc., you probably end up being bundled. The more they bundle you, the stickier the customer you become. You are the product.

Pushing the limits or not?

On the way back to my home city on a Southwest Airlines flight, I decided to pay for Wi-Fi so I could:(no order after the first item)

• Entertain myself. I'm bored.
• See how capable their Wi-Fi is. It only cost $8 for the flight.
• See if they had restrictions on the type of protocol in use. Surprisingly, Plex wasn't restricted.
• I ran Plex and streamed a TV show fine. I stopped the play for something else, then went back and the app crashed, though I don't know if its the app or the connection.
• Started an ftp session to my Synology server to upload some podcasts I wanted to archive. They aren't very big files (mp3), being 40-45 meg apiece. Based on the transfer rate, it's indicating get about 30 minutes per file. So not great, but usable in a pinch. (~28 KBs/sec). Doing more than one at a time is an exercise in futility though, as the connection drops, so maybe I'm overloading have the connection. More an effort to see what I can and cannot do.

Obviously, if I'm posting this mid flight, blogging isn't restricted, but it's really just text and browser based.

I couldn't simultaneously ftp and run a Plex video, but steaming music over Plex at the same time did work! A little buffering once in a while, but not bad. The connection is probably fine for basic email and Web, but beyond that, don't get your hopes up. I couldn't ever get a file completely transferred without the ftp session dropping. Connection is just too slow for this.

Maybe SW didn't expect this kind of use, LOL.