What year is it, NUUG?

The Norwegian Unix User Group is celebrating its 40th anniversary on August 10. I was invited to speak at the event and initially accepted, but after learning of the schedule for the event, which was not communicated to me at the time, I have decided to withdraw.

The Norwegian Unix User Group was founded in 1984, and is celebrating its 40th anniversary on August 10. A short while ago, I was approached by a member of the organizing team (whom I shall not name) and asked to speak at the event as a representative of the Norwegian BSD community. I was given no information about the event beyond what was expected of me (a 30-minute presentation on the topic of my choice) and the names of some of the other speakers. After some hesitation, as I was having a hard time coming up with a topic that I felt would fit the occasion, I initially accepted.

One thing I found odd was that NUUG’s own event calendar (archive) has no information about the event beyond a time and a place. I get that the list of speakers is not yet finalized, even though there’s less than a month to go, but there is literally nothing beyond “more information to come”. All the links just point back to the same page.

Screenshot of NUUG’s event calendar as of 2024-07-12

This morning, someone pointed out to me that there is a registration page (archive) for the event (which, again, NUUG’s own website does not link to or even mention!) with extensive information about the event. And that information… is not good.

Screenshot of a portion of the registration page for NUUG's 40th anniversary celebration, which includes the finale of Miss Norway 2024 and an opportunity to take photos with the contestants.
Screenshot of a portion of the registration page as of 2024-07-12

tl;dr: the event is collocated with the Miss Norway 2024 finals and attendees are promised opportunities to have their pictures taken with the winners and runners-up.

WHAT THE EVERLOVING FUCK, NUUG?

It goes without saying that I will not be speaking at this event. I will try to turn my presentation (which I’d only outlined, not written yet) into a blog post, but no promises. It would have been a reflection on what “Unix” actually means (beyond the simple fact of the trademark) and how that has changed over the years.

If you’re a member (and perhaps even if you’re not), I encourage you to contact NUUG and let them know your thoughts on this matter.

EDIT: I have written to NUUG to ask them to either change their plans for the event, in which case I will be happy to attend and speak, or cancel my membership. I will update this post again when (if) they respond.

EDIT 2024-08-07: I have yet to receive an official response from NUUG. I’ve been told out-of-band that my email has been received and my membership canceled, but I appear to still be on the mailing list. In the meantime, Norwegian magazine kode24 has written a piece on the topic, citing my tweet and this blog post, which kicked up a bit of a fuss on Twitter. Knut Yrvin chose to respond directly to my month-old tweet with a strawman and insults while Malin Bruland rode to his defense with the same strawman. I am not impressed.

wtf, zsh

wtf, zsh

wtf, zsh

% uname -sr
FreeBSD 12.1-RELEASE-p10
% for sh in sh csh bash zsh ; do printf "%-8s" $sh ; $sh -c 'echo \\x21' ; done 
sh      \x21
csh     \x21
bash    \x21
zsh     !
% cowsay wtf, zsh       
 __________ 
< wtf, zsh >
 ---------- 
        \   ^__^
         \  (oo)\_______
            (__)\       )\/\
                ||----w |
                ||     ||

I mean. Bruh. I know it’s intentional & documented & can be turned off, but every other shell defaults to POSIX semantics…

BTW:

% ln -s =zsh /tmp/sh
% /tmp/sh -c 'echo \x21'
\x21

Netlink, auditing, and counting bytes

In which we find bugs in both the kernel and userspace parts of the Linux audit subsystem.

I’ve been messing around with Linux auditing lately, because of reasons, and ended up having to replicate most of libaudit, because of other reasons, and in the process I found bugs in both the kernel and userspace parts of the Linux audit subsystem.

Continue reading “Netlink, auditing, and counting bytes”

Monkey see, monkey sue

One of the disputed images (Wikimedia Commons / PD)
In case you hadn’t heard, animal rights organisation PETA and primatologist Antje Engelhardt, Ph.D., are suing photographer David Slater and self-publishing services provider Blurb, Inc., over photos of a crested macaque which Slater published in his book Wildlife Personalities. Motherboard has a pretty good series of articles on the subject.

The core of PETA’s complaint is that the photos were not taken by Slater, but by the monkey, who inadvertently pressed the trigger while looking at her reflection in the lens of a camera which Slater had left unattended. Therefore, quoth PETA, the monkey holds the copyright to the photos, and all proceeds from the use of those photos should go to PETA, because of reasons.

If you thought this was bizarre, it gets better: PETA and Engelhardt are not the nominal plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Instead, they claim to be merely representing Naruto, a male macaque living on the same preserve as the female macaque in the photo. In court documents, they consistently maintain that Naruto is the macaque in the photo; outside of that setting, they have repeatedly acknowledged, at least indirectly, that he is not.

Having read both defendants’ motions to dismiss (the title of this post was shamelessly ripped from Slater’s motion), I am left to ponder the questions of PETA’s standing and of the monkey’s agency.

Standing

Both defendants challenge the plaintiff’s standing on various grounds, including the fact that he is a monkey, but neither of them challenge PETA’s standing, which seems to me to violate the prohibition of third-party standing, unless PETA can show that they have power of attorney for the allegedly injured party (which is, apparently, a different monkey than the one on whose behalf they claim to be acting). I find that strange, but the case is ridiculous for so many other reasons that I doubt it matters, legally speaking.

Agency

PETA claims that the pictured monkey holds the copyright to the photo because she pressed the button that caused the picture to be taken, but they do not claim that she set the camera up, pointed it, or performed any other action integral to the art of photography. Blurb address this tangentially when they quote, indirectly, 100 U.S. 82 (1879):

In this as in regard to inventions, originality is required. And while the word writings may be liberally construed, as it has been, to include original designs for engravings, prints, &c., it is only such as are original and are founded in the creative powers of the mind.

Nor do they claim that she had any idea of what she was doing except looking at a shiny piece of glass at the end of a tube sticking out of a black box.

If PETA prevails, this means that the mere act of triggering a camera set up by someone else, even without any understanding of the concept of a camera or ability to comprehend that an image was taken, grants the subject the copyright to the resulting image. How far will this principle extend? Will it extend to motion-triggered game cameras? Would PETA sue hunters on behalf of deer for the rights to the footage? Would they sue an ornithologist on behalf of crows that trigger cameras set up to study their behavior?

Ah, who am I kidding, of course they would. Because PETA.

Everybody’s a journalist

…and a legal scholar, apparently. Fallout from the Patreon hack:

From: Matthew Hopkins <matthopkins@thewitchfindergeneral.com>
Subject: URGENT Media Inquiry – Randi Harper Patreon
To: des@des.no
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 00:33:26 +0100

Dear Dag-Erling Smørgrav ,

I am the author of the major blog www.matthewhopkinsnews.com. I am sending you this email because your name appears in a list of people who donate to a Patreon operated by a person called Randi Harper. The list was confidential but has been hacked and placed online by unknown third parties. As a result of the leak you may be named, so please read this email carefully.

Ms Harper is a controversial figure due to her extreme political views, including support for Sarah Nyberg, a political activist who at one time claimed to be a paedophile and supported white supremacism, although now claims they were ‘joking’. Harper has also admitted to drug abuse, including attempting to smoke meth from a broken lightbulb. She also irresponsibly dyed her dog blue and accidentally allowed it to lick up her drugs. The following Breitbart articles may be of assistance –

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/07/21/feminist-champion-randi-harper-in-her-own-words-stop-making-everything-a-gender-issue/
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/09/12/meet-the-progressives-defending-gamergate-critic-sarah-nyberg/
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/09/11/leading-gamergate-critic-sarah-nyberg-claimed-to-be-a-pedophile-apologised-for-white-nationalism/

You are supporting a person who is associated with some of the vilest imaginable extremism. Your exposure is interesting, partly because a similar leak occurred a few years ago here in Britain, when the membership list of one of Britain’s far right parties was leaked online – http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/20/bnp-membership-list-wikileaks

As a responsible journalist, I can assure you I shall not be publishing the list. However, some of you may work in regulated roles with responsible access to information, vulnerable adults or children. There may be a lawful public interest in my contacting the relevant authorities (including an employer). In addition, the third parties who obtained the data have, as I said, released it online and I suspect it will find its way to Wikileaks, amongst other places.

I would like to invite you to answer the following questions –

  1. Did you know about Randi Harper’s history?
  2. Do you endorse her extremist views?
  3. In light of the revelations about her, and her support for Sarah Nyberg, will you continue to donate?
  4. Are you aggrieved at Ms Harper’s failure to safeguard your personal data?

Please provide comment as soon as possible.

About Me
I am the author of www.matthewhopkinsnews.com, a Conservative leaning blog that has had over 188,000 unique visits since January this year. My pen name is Matthew Hopkins and my real name is Sam Smith. My blog has sourced stories for some of Britain’s largest newspapers.

I am studying a Master’s Degree in law combined with an LPC (attorney’s certificate). In fact I was praised in the British Parliament by then Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming for my legal skills representing a vulnerable woman in the High Court, who faced being declared mentally incompetent – http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140113/petntext/140113p0001.htm.

Kind regards,
Sam Smith
writing as
Matthew Hopkins
The Witchfinder General
www.matthewhopkinsnews.com
http://www.thewitchfindergeneral.com
@MHWitchfinder

He clearly expects me to be intimidated. Should I be flattered?

Highlights:

  1. Citing Milo Yiannopoulos of Breitbart, a far-right blogger whose idea of investigative journalism includes such gems as “there is no evidence that Randi Harper is actually a crack whore” (paraphrased);
  2. “Nice job you have there, it would be a shame if my journalistic and personal ethics compelled me to tell your employer that you support paedophiles” (but don’t worry, it’s totally not blackmail);
  3. Complex question fallacy (“have you stopped beating your wife?”);
  4. Patreon was hacked, the British National Party was also hacked, therefore supporting Randi Harper on Patreon is equivalent to supporting the British National Party;
  5. Randi Harper is responsible for the security of Patreon’s network and therefore for the theft of Patreon’s user database.

His mother must be really proud.

You know what, Sam-Smith-writing-as-Matthew-Hopkins? I just doubled my pledge to Randi Harper, pledged similar amounts to Zoë Quinn and Brianna Wu, and signed up for a monthly donation to Feminist Frequency. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a way to donate to Sarah Nyberg.

How about them apples?

EDIT: various markup and spelling fixes