Reasonable Expectation of Privacy?

I've seen a lot of discussions lately about maintaining your privacy or personal identity on the Internet.

Let me tell you now - if you post something to a newsgroup, blog, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Friendster, Orkut, IRC, BBS, or send it in email to a mailing list, it's no longer private. If you have a health condition you don't want people you work with to know about, don't blog about it or put anything in your Facebook status on it. Instead, talk to your doctor, talk to groups in person, keep a journal at the side of your bed.

I learned about the permanence of such things on the Internet in 1998 when I was interviewing for a job and and the interviewer pulled up a little site called DejaNews, a great search engine for netnews that has since been subsumed by Google, and he instantly knew that at the time I had been learning to play the bass guitar, had a pet snake, and had previously worked as a SunOS/Solaris system administrator. He looked at my questions I had asked, to see if they were intelligent and well thought out. He looked at how I handled the responses I got. Was I gracious? Did I understand the information people were sharing with me?

Fortunately for me, I met his standards and the rest of the interview went well from there and I got the job. I was shocked, though, I knew of no such service! I thought that once your postings fell off the news server, they were gone forever. Boy, was I naive!

I watch younger people on Facebook and MySpace posting all sorts of crazy things. Very personal things. Sometimes it's simply venting, but other times the attacks can be targeted at a specific person or be revealing very personal information on themselves or their own lack of self control.

I think we're doing a great disservice to future generations if we aren't teaching elementary school kids about the Internet Archive and Google's massive cache. Our ability to grasp the repercussions of our online actions is not keeping up with the technology.

When I was a teenager, my worst fear was having a physical note I handed to someone end up being shared. But, that was one note. Now our equivalents in email and text messages can be digitally shared in seconds with hundreds of people, and you can't take it back.

Some people mistakenly believe that stuff on Facebook can only be seen by your friends. In general, depending on how you have security set up, that's true - unless someone uses a screen capture. Take these recent "passive aggressive notes" - one woman ("exhibit d") actually managed to lose her job through Facebook (and this is not the first instance I've heard of for that).

Yes, I realize she clearly was not thinking about who was in her friend list before posting, but it still could've been shared by someone else later. I've also seen examples of people screen capturing things that were obvious typos to use to embarrass people forever.

So, whatever you're doing, if you're doing it on the Internet in semi-public forums, don't expect it to be private.

Most of us would believe that at least we can still have privacy in our own homes...

(Oh, please don't mention wiretapping.... or message interception.....)

Firkin Friday!

We finally made it to the Tied House's First Friday Firkin last week. In case you don't know, "firkin" refers to the size of the barrel the beer is made in. These once a month pleasures are made in the style of Real Ale - all the carbonation is a natural by product of the fermentation process with no CO2 added. This month's firkin was a nice, light, brown ale. Low in alcohol (3.8% ABV) and high in flavor. It was smooth, with only a slight hint of hops and served in proper pint sized glasses to boot!

The only downsides, really, were that the pints were not always full (illegal in Britain!) and the firkin was rolled in right before tapping, so each glass ended up with yeast in the bottom. I don't like to drink the yeast, because I'll end up with a headache.

Buyer beware, as expected, the firkin pints were not subject to normal happy hour pricing. No complaints on that, though, as the beer was worth every penny!

Ordinary People

Ordinary People
by Judith Guest

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm not 100% sure how this book, a 1980s version of the paperback, ended up on my bookshelves. Best bet was that it belonged to either my brother or one of my sisters, and it somehow got moved to California with me. I've noticed it around for awhile, but hadn't been motivated to read it until recently when I was looking for other paperbacks to lend to a friend.

While the reviews on the book jacket all claimed the book was "timeless", I can say that now 30 years on, it is a bit dated. The stay at home moms, 18 year olds legally drinking beer, the descriptions of the "cool cars", and discussion of shock therapy as if it is a normal occurrence in psych wards.

The book started out annoying me by referring to one of the main characters by several different nicknames - without clarifying they were the same person. It doesn't help that his last name could also be a first name (Jarrett). His first name was Conrad, which was often Con, Connie, or Jarrett. This got worse when they referred to his deceased brother in the same way (often just by his last name, which is shared by both sons and the parents), a nickname (Buck) or his first name (which I don't remember, but was something odd like Jared... not that Jared is odd, but Jared Jarrett would be...)

The story itself is a simple tale of a family coming together and falling apart at the same time. We only see the story from the perspectives of Conrad and Cal (Calvin, Jarrett, the man, etc), but never from the mother's side. This leaves the impression that many of the problems in the family could be root caused to her coldness and refusing to communicate. If I've learned anything in this world, is that a different story can be told by all people in the same room that witnessed the same events, as the human brain will tell a "back story" to fill in the blanks which will bias your opinion, regardless of whether or not your back story was correct.

It was a short book, a decent way to pass the time, but I'm happy to move on from this tale.

View all my reviews >>

Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing just around the corner!

Wow, I can't believe we're less than two months away from hundreds (thousands?) of technical women converging in Tuscon AZ for the next Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference!

I'm excited to be moderating a panel on Women in Open Source and being an official blogger again this year. I've been looking at the schedule and it is full of interesting talks! This is one conference I really have to set my schedule up for in advance, because once I get there, it's a flurry of activity and I really don't want to miss out on anything! This will also be my first year twittering at the conference (as an aside, I can't believe it took me so long to get on Twitter - I'm learning so much, meeting interesting people, and it takes so much less time than Facebook or LinkedIn).

I'll be arriving Tuesday night to make sure I don't miss out on any of the activities on Wednesday. I wish I could take part in the resume clinic on Wednesday, but that seems to completely overlap with the Becoming a Person of Influence workshop, which I don't want to miss.

Speaking of resumes, I hear there's a "new format" for them - it's probably time I did a complete update of mine. I hear plain text versions no longer suffice.  Hrm, perhaps even if I can't attend the clinic, I should still have one ready for women to give me feedback on them.

What are you looking forward to most?

Monk's Kettle Beer Pairing Dinner

Made it up to San Francisco this week to the Monk's Kettle's once a month beer pairing dinner. This month featured the brews from the Bruery. The food was delicious, service was great and the company was fantastic, what could possibly make this a better night out? Oh, that's right, the amazing beers!

I was glad my friend Phil had warned me about the size of the meal, so we just had a very light salad for lunch, no afternoon snacks and I avoided the tempting bread basket at the table when we arrived.

The founder of the Bruery, Patrick Rue, was in attendance and introduced us to each beer as it was served. It was cool hearing about their humble roots as a home brewer and how they've developed so many new recipes as well as attempting to bring back old styles. The Bruery is just over a year old, and I haven't had much luck finding them here in the south bay (quoth the BevMo employee, "I'm sorry, *which* brewery are you looking for?").

The first course was organic bibb lettuce with fresh tarragon, chervil, parsley and fried capers, paired with Hottenroth Berliner Weisse. The salad was delicious, but a bit of work to cut into and a bit too much for the plate it was served on, as we all had trouble with flying lettuce and splashing dressing :) The beer, at a light 3.1% ABV, was super refreshing with a delightful lemon flavor. It reminded me of what I think Mike's Hard Lemonade should taste like (hint: not like syrup ...). It was delicious and I could easily see myself sipping on that on a lazy summer afternoon. (speaking of fried capers - they tasted almost like bacon! they were so good, and seemingly no semblance of vinegar on them)

For the second course, we had pan seared local halibut, crayfish risotto cake, a Sausalito Springs watercress salad and an organic pesto beurre blanc. When I looked at the menu in advance, I was not particularly excited by this course, not being a huge halibut fan, but was surprised when the fish came perfectly cooked (neither dry nor gooey) and loved the sauce! This was paired with the Trade Winds Tripel (8.1% ABV), which is apparently made with Thai Basil. You could catch the basil on the nose, but the taste was much lighter.

The third course was Blue de Sassenage, fresh slices of pear, spiced almonds, organic honey and toasted bread. I'm always a fan of a cheese course, so no complaints here! We all wished the "spices" used on the almonds were listed, as they were quite tasty. We were guessing paprika and brown sugar. This was paired with Humulus Lager (India Pale Lager, 7.2% ABV). This was much lighter than a pale ale, and apparently made with rice to make it an American style lager. Patrick assured us, though, that rice is not a cheep beer making ingredient, as it is often referred to, as it costs him more than his hops. I'm not a big fan of hoppy beers, but Mark was more than happy to finish the last half of my beer.

The fourth course was what we'd all been waiting for: 'Black Orchard' marinated short ribs, roasted garlic potato puree, haricot vert, and a 'Black Orchard' demi glace. This was all paired with the Black Orchard beer from the Bruery (5.7% ABV). These ribs had been marinated in the Black Orchard beer with bay leaves and garlic for 24 hours, before being braised for 5 hours (with a mixture made of Black Orchard beer, chicken stock and brown sugar). These spare ribs were phenomenal! The Black Orchard beer (yes, that Orchard, as in Apple Orchard, not Orchid) was my favorite one of the evening. A nice brown ale, soft and smooth, slightly sweet, and a crisp after taste.

Dessert was house made ice cream sandwiches with a 'Papier' chocolate sauce. This was served with two beers: Papier (first anniversary old style ale, 17.5% ABV) and Black Tuesday (bourbon aged imperial stout - 19.5%). Both beers were really good, though I would have to say that I loved the chocolaty flavor of the Black Tuesday the best. And who wouldn't like a beer named after the start of the Great Depression that sells for $30/bottle? ;-)

Anyone else make it up here for the event? I can't wait for the next one! This is a great way to discover how beer can make food better and to discover small craft breweries.

Enjoying revival of Floradora!

We caught a fun "staged reading" of the nearly lost light opera, Floradora, this weekend. The original book was by Owen Hall, with lyrics by E. Boyd-Jones and Paul Rubens (*not* Pee-wee Herman), and music by Leslie Stuart.

This show was originally put on at the Lyric Theatre in London on 11 November 1899.  The show is about an imaginary Philippine island, Floradora, and a very sought after perfume that carries the same name.  Like many of the light operas popular at this time, the plot revolves around hidden identities, lost loves, nearly lost loves, and the making of new love connections.

While there was no single source for a score and libretto, Neil Midkiff and Mark Kenig scoured everything they could find on the show in the British Library, the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library as well as private collections, to come up with this new version. I can imagine that this was a bit like archeology and I think they did an amazing job!

The show pokes fun at the wealthy aristocrats, Americans, Phrenology (the popular pseudoscience about discerning personality traits from the bumps on one's head)  and the Royal Aquarium (which never actually housed any living fish...).

This was a lovely show. The cast of characters all had wonderful voices that carried easily in the Mountain View Center for the Performing Art's second stage, and the orchestra was a delight to listen to.  I was happy for the supertitles all the same, as the unmiced voices were sometimes difficult to understand when the singer's back was turned to you (the theater is nearly "in the round", with three audience seating areas).

We were forewarned at the top of the show that the traditional performances of this would've included a cast of up to 90 people. As the theater was quite small, the ensemble carried many roles (including being both Philippine island natives to leftover English débutantes). This was handled in quite an entertaining way - if the women had on a flower lei, she was a native. Carrying a parasol? An English deb.

My English husband did note at one point that you would never say: "a perfume at a shilling and three halfpence a bottle", but rather: "a perfume at a shilling and thrupence ha'penny" :-)

Myself, I had to wonder if the authors may have intended the chorus to have a West Country accent, as the opening number seemed to attempt to rhyme Floradora with "...we adore her".  (this opinion comes from listening to things like bananer, instead of banana... around my house :-)

The show was a bit on the long side, though, I enjoyed every song, so I can see why it was difficult to make cuts. If this were to go on the main stage at the Lyric Theatre, they may want to consider cutting "Willie Was a Play Boy", which was the only number that I noticed did not progress the plot (though it was very cute and sung well, so I can see an argument for keeping it as well).

There were only two (sold out) performances of this, but keep your eyes peeled for this to maybe one day appear as a fully staged production. It is an outstanding light opera with classic tales that does deserve to be told again.

SSH with aes256ctr support not working on some S10 systems

I've been getting emails today about SSH aes256ctr being broken on some Solaris 10 machines.

This goes back to my work earlier to get strong crypto included by default on all Solaris 10 systems. This started in Solaris 10 Update 4, and I guess I figured everyone would read my blog, jump for joy and upgrade their systems. ;-)

It seems some of you haven't and are now seeing errors like:

sshd[8975]: [ID 800047 auth.crit] fatal: matching cipher is not supported: aes256-ctr

Which is a direct result of Sun's SSH now taking advantage of the presumed availability of strong crypto on the systems. This works fantastically well on newer Solaris 10 systems.

This issue is now covered by a bug, and you can see one workaround there.

Let's assume you *do* want strong crypto, though, and you want to stay on an older release of Solaris 10. In which case, you need to install SUNWcry and SUNWcryr onto these older Solaris 10 systems and reapply all cryptographic framework patches. The packages are available as part of the Solaris 10 Encryption Kit. You need to reapply the patches, because when you installed them before SUNWcry & SUNWcryr were not on the system, so would've missed all the patching goodness for their bits. It's important that you do this, or you will end up with mismatched bits for the cryptographic framework, which will have undefined (ie probably not good) results.