K2yo234hkjh23r0a: Encryption, privacy, e-mail, and instant messenging

I am quite pleased to see Google's new option for Gmail to have your Gmail session in https by default. Basically, that means that the data communicated will be encrypted, rather than passed across the Internet in plaintext. Previously, and still, you could explicitly request an encrypted session by designating the protocol to be HTTPS in the URL, like https://www.gmail.com. To ensure your Gmail sessions are encrypted, go to your Settings and scroll to the bottom, and select the option "Always use https".

While there are performance penalties, I think that encryption is generally a good idea. In particular, I find it almost scandalous that Instant Messengers do not offer an option to encrypt your conversations by default. A popular IM encryption software suite, providing plugins for a number of messengers, is Off the Record. Of course, both sides need to be using it for the encryption to work (or how would the otherside decrypt your messages?), so that is a massive barrier to using it commonly.

One "feature" I dislike about OTR is deniability, which I probably don't understand very well. They do not employ digital signatures that would certify messages were from you outside of your current session. This is considered good, I think so that people cannot be held strictly responsible for forged messages purporting to be from them: hence deniability. I can see applications for it, but I think that, while I appreciate the privacy of encryption, I don't necessarily want deniability. I am generally responsible for what I do and say.

the second raid to be discussed another day (but oh, the hair!)

To-day I got to save a beetle that hissed at me, hissed at me! I saved it from the ground and saved it onto grass. It wouldn't move. It's legs would wiggle, but the only real movement was its hiss vibrating into my ears. It sounded like an empty aerosol can, trying to poison my dinner. Hiss- hiss- hiss! I wonder if it will survive the night or be silenced before the sun returns? Perhaps it was just asleep, hissing its nocturnal annoyance. Sidewalks make poor beds. Shoes make poorer blankets. Picture to follow?

To-day a ghost dryer helped me cheat the system and dried for me without charge. Just a little, here and there. Hopeful that no one would notice. I was complicit. I waited quite a while before betraying this charity to an employee, to whom, effectively neutered by the barrier between languages, couldn't seem to appreciate the consequence of the machine's crimes. 6 minutes/25¢ isn't that shabby, anyway. (Every minute after finishing, it would run for an additional 15 seconds, the door open or not (frightening, having your favourite thong flying out at you) until all your clothing had exited (what senses has it?!)).

To-day Liv and I worked on a culinary masterpiece. It's too good to describe. Photos must be supplied! To-day I got to be.

Yesterday I got wet. Thoroughly. Soaked, drenched, and then cooked alive. Boiled red? Fried dry. I attended a flashmobby romp in the park. Stanley Park, host of Vancouver's second annual waterfight. We came unprepared, but like any good team of mercenaries, improvised. Water-tight bag? Check. Discarded cup? Check. Alliances were made, and summarily betrayed. Wheee. My girlfriend was even a key figure in the background of someone's photograph!

Last week I go to work. A fair deal of overtime. I really don't mind it. I enjoy getting things done. I hope to better manage my non-work time, though. I am having sufficient levels of fun, it would seem, but I'm barely meeting schooling requirements, and Open Source contributions are, let us say, stalled?

Yay for life, and stuff. :)

Right-click on a Macbook

My girlfriend's hard drive on her Macbook recently crashed, so a new hard drive and installation of Fedora later, we were refaced with "How to right-click?" I have forgotten the name of the application we were using last time, but we had it set up to substitute the Enter key (near the space bar) with a mouse's right click. Searching around for the optimal solution revealed that the kernel by default might have facilities built in to support this redirection of input. Indeed, and this is how we do it:

# cd /proc/sys/dev/mac_hid
# echo 1 > mouse_button_emulation
# echo 96 > mouse_button3_keycode

I tried using dumpkeys to find out which keycode belonged to that Enter. It turned out to be KP_Enter for the keypad which mapped to 96 for us. Yay.

To make the change more permanent, we're setting the following in /etc/sysctl.conf:

dev.mac_hid.mouse_button_emulation = 1
dev.mac_hid.mouse_button3_keycode  = 96

Credit for this knowledge goes to Mactel-Linux.org.

Oh, and sysadminblog advised us to set

Option "MaxTapTime" "0"

in the synaptics section in /etc/X11/xorg.conf to disable the trackpad click. However, in her Fedora 9 install, there was no synaptics section. Adding a bare one with the entry stopped the trackpad from clicking, but it also made it unbearably slow. Now the entry for the input device looks like:

Section "InputDevice"
        Identifier      "Synaptics Touchpad"
        Driver          "synaptics"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents"        "true"
        Option          "Device"                "/dev/psaux"
        Option          "Protocol"              "auto-dev"
        Option          "HorizEdgeScroll"       "0"
        Option          "MaxTapTime"            "0"
        Option          "MinSpeed"              "0.4"
        Option          "MaxSpeed"              "1"
        Option          "AccelFactor"           "0.02"
EndSection