Notes on PAFTECH AB

Betydelsen av cybersäkerhet

Thu, 24 Dec 2020 21:30:39 +0000

1234567890 och inne. Foto: Kacper Pempel

Ett flertal incidenter under senare år visar att cybersäkerhet är ett område där kunskaperna behöver höjas bland svenska företag och myndigheter. Kvartal bad Patrik Fältström skriva en artikel som förklarar vad cybersäkerhet är och hur man kan arbeta med det. Patrik Fältström var med och byggde internet i Sverige och är en ledande auktoritet på cybersäkerhet. Han har rådgivit flera svenska regeringar i IT-relaterade frågor.

Nationaldagen 2019

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 20:35:01 +0000

Jag bjöds in att vara huvudtalare vid nationaldagsfirandet vid Lövängen i Lövestad. Här är det som jag sa:

Kära bybor, kära långväga gäster, från Vanstad, Eggelstad och kanske till och med så långt bortifrån som Sjöbo, Malmö, Damaskus och San Diego.

Jag är så glad att vår by frodas så bra. När jag flyttade hit från Stockholm för nästan tjugo år sedan var det en by på dåligt humör. Affärer stängdes, folk flyttade härifrån. Och det slutade inte där. Banken la ner sitt kontor, bankomaten försvann och likaså läkarmottagningen och Lokalföreningen.

Torsten Lindh ord till Herman Fältströms minne

Sun, 18 Feb 2018 13:47:17 +0000

Den 16:e februari 2018 begravdes min far, Herman Fältström. På det mingel som hölls efter begravningen på Fältströmska Gården sade Torsten Lindh dessa ord.

I juni 1962 samlades de unga gossar som tre år senare skulle bli Kurs 65 på Kungliga Sjökrigsskolan i Näsbypark. Föga anade vi då vilket sammansvetsat gäng detta skulle komma att bli. Att vara en god kamrat var det adelsmärke som vi kadetter fostrades att odla och utveckla. På segelfartygen Gladan och Falken, på långresan med Älvsnabben till Afrika, Sydamerika, Västindien, Florida och Bahamas utvecklades en lika stark som naturlig känsla för värdet och betydelsen av ett gott kamratskap. Det gjordes såväl under ganska tuffa förhållanden som hårt jobb med segelbärgning i storm på Nordsjön som en sorglös nyårsnatt i blåkrage i Rio de janeiro. Inte så konstigt att det var ett väl sammansvetsat gäng som lämnade Sjökrigsskolan i september 1965.

Wine from Dry Creek and Alexander Valley

Fri, 06 Oct 2017 18:11:18 +0000

Earlier this week I spent one afternoon, and one morning, with friends in Alexander Valley and Dry Creek. It resulted in testing these wines. I hope this is helpful for you.

Who the winner was? Definitely Mekker Four Kings Alexander Valley 2008.

Mazzocco Link to heading

Chardonnay 2015 Stuhlmuller Alexander Valley Lots of oak, but not really butter

Zinfandel 2015 Seaton Dry Creek Fruity, mild. Strawberry. Jam on the nose. Acids that meet the fruit.

Digitalisation and the Internet

Sat, 20 May 2017 16:06:07 +0000

In Sweden, as well as in many other countries, digitalisation is in full swing. Since the end of the 19th century, Sweden has been working to make society more efficient with the help of technology and that friendliness to technology still exists. As a very sparsely populated country we have special needs, but also enormous opportunities. On top of this, to increase the country’s competitiveness, productivity must be increased, and the easiest way to increase productivity is to add technology. However, whether this increases productivity depends on how the technology is added. If it is only added to existing processes, the gain is marginal. As if employees are given better working environment, longer vacation, better coffee etc. All important things. But, if you want to take a leap forward, you have to work in a different way. You have to change the processes you have in the way that is possible thanks to the IT tools. It is thus process changes that increase efficiency. Not doing the same things in a different way. Addition of IT tools can even make processes more ineffective, as the processes have already been optimized during the years the processes have existed. You do not improve processes and gain effectiveness by adding IT to existing processes, you win by changing the processes. But we have made such changes for many years, so what makes digitalisation so special today? Well, there are two different technical innovations that emerge at the same time. The first is the ability to digitize things, the formal definition of digitalisation. Everything from documents, texts and images to music, moving images and three-dimensional objects. Smell and taste are still two senses that we have not seen breakthroughs with, but we will, I’m sure. We have been able to digitize information (for the end user) since the 1970’s when we got those features in typewriters. The second is the Internet, the ability to move data, and that without for example having different charges based on distance. That it is possible to move data not only between Nässjö and Jönköping, but also all the way to Melbourne is a big thing. If you combine these two, digitize data and Internet, then we get something that is at least as revolutionary as when we got railroad and dynamite at the same time. Building railways without being able to blast efficiently and in a safe way was extremely difficult, expensive and ineffective. The arrival of dynamite was great success … well, I do not need to explain that in much more detail. Internet and digitalisation, two changes, inventions one can call then, which together provides the opportunity for the change of processes. Make the changes that are particularly important to get effectiveness in the society. But once again, we gain efficiency only if we change the processes themselves. We see failures in the news almost every day. I claim that if the IT department is driving thee bus and attempts to add IT tools to processes, we can get a result that is anything between relatively ok (repetitive steps disappear) to real failures. Or in plain language, too many projects derail in a royal way. This is also what Jonas Söderström writes in his book Jävla Skitsystem, which I highly recommend. Changes should therefore be carried out by the process owner. The person who has the obligation to deliver something. Who has the task to get something done given the resources he has got. But the task should not specify how it should be done. If the how question is specified, or the resources too limited and because of that the request does not leave room for innovation, then we have another problem, but that is a completely different discussion. Anyway, therefore, people like me (that work with IT) should not lead the changes. It is the same old process owner who make the change. But it’s always hard to make big changes because it might require anything from moving to a different building to major changes in staff, i.e. lots of HR issues. Often staff cuts in one part of the organisation and addition of staff in other. Which in part due to the employment conditions we have in Sweden and elsewhere makes these process changes difficult and painful, but definitely not impossible. I have therefore waited a long time for the government to seriously talk about a digitalisation of the society . We wrote about it in the Government’s IT Policy Strategy Group in our final report 2006, Politics for the IT Society (and earlier reports), describing how the society changed from my home is my castle to the two movements Swedes in the world (ie. that those who consider themselves belonging to Sweden will request the same support wherever they are in the world) and Sweden as a meeting place (ie, Sweden as a geographical area must be attractive place to meet, establish businesses in and move to. At last the government has taken a big step forward. Not only has a Digitalisation Council been established, but the unit responsible for IT-Policy at the Ministry of Enterprise is called the Digitalisation Unit. Those steps are good, and I hope they can attack the various problems in society as a whole. I’m a bit pessimistic, however, because given these steps it is not clear to me people in the Government Offices understand changes of existing processes are needed, not the addition of IT to existing processes. NOTE: The government on the 17th of May 2017 released a report on Digitalisation Strategy. I am sorry to say it emphasises what I write in this blog post.

Digitalisering, Internet, Digitaliseringsrådet och ännu mer...

Thu, 18 May 2017 07:09:02 +0000

I Sverige liksom i många andra länder pågår digitaliseringen för fullt. Sverige har sedan industrialiseringens dagar i slutet av 1800-talet arbetat för att effektivisera samhället med hjälp av teknologi och det är ingen skillnad nu. Det glest befolkade landet som vi har ställer krav, men ger också enorma möjligheter till förändring. För att öka landets konkurrenskraft måste produktiviteten ökas, och det enklaste sättet att öka produktiviteten är att tillföra teknologi.

Trademark Clearing House and Internationalized Domain Names

Tue, 14 Mar 2017 09:01:42 +0000

The other day I discussed TMCH and IDN’s with a few people from ICANN Staff. They where very very patient and that gave me the ability to think really hard trying to understand what the issues I feel really are. At the end I think we have the embryo of a problem statement. A statement that you can see illustrated on this picture:

Registration in TMCH and DNS lookups with variant calculation

Maybe this is a bit tricky to understand, so let me explain in a different way.

SSAC releases SAC-092

Mon, 13 Mar 2017 03:26:28 +0000

This document is input to ICANN CCWG Accountability Work Stream Two, Working Group on Human Rights.

The letter is to be posted as SAC092.

Rutabaga

Tue, 07 Mar 2017 08:20:00 +0000

Igår, måndag, gick jag på Rutabaga. Mathias Dahlgrens nya restaurang på Grand Hotel i Stockholm. Detta ersätter gamla restaurangen. Matbaren finns fortfarande.

Rutabaga är en helvegetarisk restaurang men inte vegansk. Menyn består av några drycker, både med och utan alkohol, samt en lista på rätter. Personal föreslår två eller tre rätter per person och priser ligger mellan 150 och 250kr. Fick plats i det inre lilla rummet och det första som slår mig är höjden på bordet, att man satt bredvid komplett okända personer, men att också stolarna inte bara var höga utan dessutom för långa. Ni som känner mig vet jag är kort och det var helt omöjligt att inte vara tvungen att dingla med benen och sitsarna var definitivt inte gjorda för det. Vilket märktes när jag ätit klart. Aj! Tyvärr fanns inget annat bord men personalen rekommenderade mig be om lågt bord nästa gång.

Eurpaparlamentets och Rådets Direktiv (EU) 2016/2102

Sat, 14 Jan 2017 08:02:30 +0000

25 januari håller Näringsdepartementet ett informationsmöte relaterat till den Svenska implementationen av Eurpaparlamentets och Rådets Direktiv (EU) 2016/2102. Jag är besviken på det direktivet av ett par olika anledningar och hoppas den svenska implementationen kan bli tydligare än direktivet.

Först och främst är jag bekymrad över att begrepp som robust och tillgänglig tagits över av de frågor som detta direktiv behandlar, nämligen möjlighet för alla att kunna tolka den information som man hämtar. Det har att göra med speciellt möjlighet för personer med funktionshinder att ta del av information, och i många fall deras möjlighet att använda verktyg som hjälper dem.

Regeringen missar att Teracom lanserat bredbandstjänster

Sat, 14 Jan 2017 07:41:43 +0000

Det verkar som om Regeringen i sitt svar på Riksrevisionens rapport missat att Teracom inte bara kört betal-TV utan också expanderat gällande bredbandsutbyggnad. Regeringen hänvisar om och om igen till försäljningen av Boxer som argument för att Teracom numer enbart gör det “som de ska göra” och att det därmed inte finns någon fara att Teracom tex genom korsfinansiering stör marknaden, att de riskerar kapital (som utlandsexperimentet som nu är över) etc.

Nej, jag tycker inte Regeringen svarar korrekt på Riksrevisionens rapport. Teracom deltagande i bredbandsutbyggnaden, tex genom att nu vara KO, diskuteras inte. Låt oss hoppas det diskuteras när nya ägardirektiv diskuteras.

SK130

Wed, 01 Jun 2016 05:09:54 +0000

Many of you have heard me having issues with the SK130 flight MMX-ARN. SAS stopped using 737, moved flight from 0630 to 0625 and then 0620, started using CRJ-900, started wet lease from CityJet which had issues with delivery, swapped to tmp wet lease from Air Nostrum, could not serve breakfast, issues with weight and balance (resolved with bags of sand)…. The story just goes on and on.

Fiberanslutning till hemmet

Tue, 03 May 2016 13:54:26 +0000

Många får erbjudande om att bli anslutna med fiber till den fastighet där de bor. Erbjudandet innebär oftast att man genom att man betalar en avgift får fiber ansluten och att det via denna fiber levereras ett antal tjänster. De olika leverantörerna försöker bräcka varandra vad gäller olika tjänsteutbud när oavsett hur intressant och viktigt det är också är viktigt att veta hur fibern kan användas. Tex efter det att man sagt upp de tjänster man vid den tidpunkten tycker är trista eller dyra eller både och. Eller när man vill ha en Internetaccess med lite annorlunda karaktäristik som kan levereras pga att leverantören (som har monopol på att lysa i fibern) inte kan erbjuda det.

Mailman and HTTPS

Tue, 12 Apr 2016 07:25:00 +0000

So Frobbit! this last weekend started to use HTTPS “all over the place” thanks to Let’s Encrypt. The launch will be gradual because there are so many software packages that are completely broken in design, have bugs, errors, do not use proper libraries, tries to do things on their own, do not follow RFCs and what not.

One such package is Mailman (don’t even get me started on Wordpress).

The important information can be found here.

How I run email - Updated version

Wed, 10 Feb 2016 21:15:12 +0000

I have earlier described how I manage my email. That was a kind of abstract description, so let me explain again, this time with explicit examples from my use of the excellent email client MailMate on Mac.

To start with, I use IMAP and sort email in different mailboxes. The filters are updated with the help of Sieve. The implementation of a Sieve client I use is RoundCube in turn implemented as a WebMail client at my Email Hosting provider Frobbit!. As the filtering is not really interesting for this posting, I am not diving into that here.

Blocking the Internet is a dangerous path for Sweden

Sun, 07 Feb 2016 12:33:06 +0000

Today Feb 7, 2016, I am together with Anders Ahlqvist, Swedish Police, and Jon Karlung, CEO of the ISP Bahnhof, writing an article in Swedish on why blocking is the wrong path forward. You can find the article in Swedish here, and below a translation to English made by myself. The proposal on blocking IP addresses has more explosive power than the government realizes. Development in that direction could lead us in the direction of censorship of the Internet that prevails in countries like Turkey. Moreover, the tactic is counterproductive when it comes to law enforcement, writes Anders Ahlqvist, Swedish Police, Patrik Fältström, Netnod, and Jon Karlung, Bahnhof.

Felaktigt beslut om incidentrapportering?

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 07:54:18 +0000

Idag beskrivs i Svenska Dagbladet i en artikel det beslut som förväntas i Riksdagen relaterat till incidentrapportering.

Låt mig vara tydlig: Jag tycker med min nu 30-åriga erfarenhet av att driva Internet operativt att Regeringen inte tänkt riktigt rätt.

Först måste man bestämma och förklara VAD man vill ska hända, vad ska göras av “den centrala organisationen som ska hjälpa till”.

Sedan kan man förklara varför man behöver viss information för att göra det man ska göra.

Security and things...

Sat, 21 Nov 2015 17:54:33 +0000

The polarized discussions related to “bad things on the net” continues. Everyone from the Prime Minister of Sweden talking about how powerful tool viruses controlled by the police would be, to the Anonymous attacking Daesh on the net.

I have been kind of silent the last week just because I have not had any idea where to start. To explain how naive and silly I think the discussion is. Unfortunately lead by advisors to lobbyists that have once again succeeded to make ministers say stupid things. And as we are in the situation we are, whatever stupidity is proposed will probably be implemented. So silly.

Effective deployment of broadband?

Sat, 21 Nov 2015 10:36:23 +0000

I see in the Swedish Newspaper SvD an article where the minister of IT, Kaplan, states the new directive regarding access to ducts will be revolutionary for broadband deployment. Sure, it might be better than the situation today, but unfortunately not give the boost that he is talking about.

What is needed for the society is high quality Internet Access. Nothing more, nothing less. For an internet service provider to be able to provide that, it either need good radio access, or good transmission. For good radio access, good transmission is required to the base station. So regardless of whether radio or cable is used for the last few feet, good transmission over fibre is needed.

DANE and SMTP

Sun, 23 Aug 2015 08:12:47 +0000

Jan Žorž of Internet Society has written a text describing results of lab tests of DANE and SMTP at Go6Labs. The findings seems to be that if either of the MX or the TLSA records in the DNS is unsigned, then delivery of SMTP will not happen over the TLS protected connection if the cert is self-signed.

I think that is wrong.

For me SMTP delivery consists of two steps:

Resolution of the MX
Management of the SMTP connection

I think the two are separable from each other, and that seems to be where there is disagreement (and question on how it is actually implemented, for example in postfix).

Caspar Bowden

Mon, 13 Jul 2015 20:41:58 +0000

On July 9 I was reached by the message that Caspar Bowden has passed away. What a loss!

I so much remember everything we have done together during the years related to privacy and integrity. Combination of ability for LEA to do their job and maximizing ability for people to communicate. Data retention directive. CSR and Human Rights. And more!

Here is one of his presentations.

Misslyckad revision av bredbandsutbyggnad i Ystad

Mon, 15 Jun 2015 03:46:04 +0000

I Ystad har man låtit göra en revision av Ystad Energi. Revisionerna har gått igenom en hel del av Ystad Energis verksamhet på bredbandsområdet, men, de har inte tittat på de saker som är tvingande enligt EU förordning.

Jag har skrivit om vilka krav som gäller för etablering av passiv infrastruktur med hjälp av stadsstöd tidigare. Det är främst 5 kap. 9 e § fjärde punkten förordningen (2007:481) om landsbygdsutvecklingsåtgärder som styr hur stöd kan utgå, och som ni ser i det jag skrivit har PTS till och med summerat vilka regler som gäller.

Solution to old keynote files missing images

Sun, 19 Apr 2015 19:06:44 +0000

Today I had the need to look at some old presentations I have made. Or rather, not very old at all. Just a few generation Keynote back in time. I got an error message. Asked me to use an old version of Keynote.

Old Keynote

Ok, I accepted and opened the file in the old version of Keynote (that I luckily still had installed). I then got some weird error message that I did not like. Some warnings. Strange.

Images missing

Finansieringsfrågor runt DAB

Thu, 16 Apr 2015 14:37:10 +0000

Jag ser en artikel i Dagens Media där SBS Radios vd sågar Riksrevisionens rapport, bl.a. skriver han:

Det finns ett antal direkta felaktigheter som hela tiden återkommer i debatten kring digitalradion. Samma sak kommer nu från Riksrevisionen.

Han framhåller att det är radiobranschen, Sveriges Radio samt de kommersiella aktörerna, som kommer att bära hela kostnaden för att bygga ett nytt digitalt nät.

Vi på den kommersiella sidan räknar inte med något annat än att det är vi själva som ska betala. SR ska i sin tur låna pengar som sedan kan betalas tillbaka i och med att det är billigare att driva ett digitalt än ett analogt nät. Det kommer att bli dyrt under en övergångsperiod. Men när vi är igenom det kommer det att bli en avsevärt lägre kostnad per kanal jämfört med FM-bandet.

Personer betydligt mer insatta i radiofrågor än jag hör av sig och bl.a. fick jag detta som jag delar med mig av:

Remissvar SOU 2014:77

Sun, 22 Mar 2015 12:45:52 +0000

För att göra det lite enklare att följa remissvaren på SOU 2014:77, Från analog till digital marksänd radio - en plan från Digitalradiosamordningen, sammanställer jag här de remissvar som går att hitta hos Kulturdepartementet. Listan kommer jag uppdatera allt efterhand jag ser svar komma in.

IANA Stewardship Transition

Sun, 08 Feb 2015 08:30:27 +0000

In various discussions before and during the ICANN52 meeting in Singapore I have heard too many people mixing up improvement of current processes with what I think is the IANA Stewardship Transition Process.

If I exaggerate a bit (yeah, just a little bit)…I view things this way:

Regardless of whether you feel the current process is well functioning or crappy, the question on the table is what you feel must be done to not make it crappier.

Trust

Wed, 28 Jan 2015 17:08:39 +0000

At the joint JRC/Euro-CASE meeting at the European Commission on Jan 28, 2015, I expressed my number one rule for privacy and innovation discussions:

One must be able to choose who to trust!

This is important both for the one that is to trust and the one that want to be trusted. Both private and public sector. Everyone. It is a fundamental rule.

My translation of Swedish Gov support of multi stakeholder model

Mon, 10 Nov 2014 10:15:19 +0000

I have on request cleaned up the Google Translate version of the Press Release from Swedish Government related to the ITU Plenipotinary Conference that just ended in Busan, South Korea. Big thanks to the Swedish Delegation and others that worked long and hard days to reach this outcome.

Press Release November 7, 2014 Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communications

The Government welcomes the continued multi-stakeholder management of the internet Link to heading

- The Internet will continue to be developed in collaboration between civil society, business and governments, says Mehmet Kaplan, Minister for Housing and Urban Development, and responsible for IT-Policy. Link to heading

The UN organization International Telecommunications Union (ITU) today completed its Plenipotinary Conference in Busan, South Korea. Countries around the world have agreed not to extend its influence over the global Internet. Internet can therefore continue to be developed via multi-stakeholder collaboration. In a comment Mehmet Kaplan says:

Dags att utreda vad som gått fel med IT-Projekt?

Sun, 09 Nov 2014 13:34:52 +0000

Jag har genom åren kämpat för en IT-Haverikommission, och jag ger inte upp, men, då jag bor i Skåne funderar jag på om det inte är dags att puffa för något regionalt. Det diskuteras mycket IT-relaterade saker i Region Skåne, vi har en ny ledning, så varför inte.

Detta mail skickades just till Henrik Frizon:

Hej Henrik,

Jag har under många år arbetat med IT-politiska frågor i nära sammanslutning med Näringsdepartementet och Utrikesdepartementet i Stockholm. Jag har även varit yrkesverksam som nätverkstekniker, och jobbar nu på Netnod «http://netnod.se/>> som bl.a. hanterar det mesta trafikutbudet mellan operatörer – bl.a. i Malmö/Köpenhamn. Jag har även genom åren hjälpt såväl Tomelilla som Sjöbo Kommuner.

Hur Kommuner bör stimulera bredbandsutbyggnad

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 10:06:33 +0000

Det pågår en hel del diskussioner – fortfarande – om huruvida kommuners agerande stör eller hjälper bredbandsutbyggnaden. Jag har genom åren (sedan 1992) fått svara på dessa frågor om och om igen. Jag ser också en hel del förvirring, där bl.a. min syn misstolkas och förvrängs kanske på medvetet sätt till och med, så låt mig ta och summera, igen.

Först och främst är min syn glasklar: en Kommun har inte bara rätt att, utan en skyldighet att, se till att Internetaccess av god kvalitet kommer alla kommunens innevånare, företag och besökare tillgodo. En Kommun skall vara en bra plats att bo och verka i. Och att besöka naturligtvis.

Facebook down?

Wed, 29 Oct 2014 00:12:24 +0000

I was checking a post I got a link to from a friend, and did not get any content, but the browser did not say anything weird. So I checked with the trustworthy curl library…

#curl -v https://www.facebook.com/

Hostname was NOT found in DNS cache

Trying 2a03:2880:2050:1f08:face:b00c::1…

Connected to www.facebook.com (2a03:2880:2050:1f08:face:b00c::1) port 443 (#0)

TLS 1.2 connection using TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA

Server certificate: *.facebook.com

Server certificate: DigiCert High Assurance CA-3

Server certificate: DigiCert High Assurance EV Root CA

GET / HTTP/1.1 User-Agent: curl/7.37.1 Host: www.facebook.com Accept: /

How I manage my email

Sat, 11 Oct 2014 02:53:33 +0000

Lately I have not only got questions how I can handle all email I get, but also seen people more or less give up on the flow of email they get. Based on that I decided to describe how I manage my mail.

My email management consists of a few different building blocks, and each depend on the others existing. Let me take the building blocks one at a time.

Bredbandsforum i Skåne?

Sat, 13 Sep 2014 22:55:25 +0000

Jag har förstått att det skapats ett s.k. bredbandsforum i Skåne. Den 28 augusti kom det ett pressmeddelande som bl.a. skrev:

Förhoppningen är att få till fjorton stadsnät med totalt över 2.300 kilometer kabel. Tanken är att bredbandsuppkopplingarna ska baseras på en öppen prislista och att plattformen skall vara konkurrensneutral. Drivande kraft bakom Skånskt Bredbandsforum är Region Skåne.

Detta skapar för mig fler frågor än det besvarar, men för att förklara vad som förvirrar mig så vill jag ge lite bakgrund.

Regler för bredbandsstöd?

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 19:17:52 +0000

Jag har som många vet kämpat ganska mycket för att stöd ska utgå för utbyggnad av passiv infrastruktur, men samtidigt för att denna passiva infrastruktur skall vara tillgänglig på lika villkor för alla. Senaste veckorna har jag fått en del direkta frågor om vad som gäller, och det ledde till att jag grävde lite mer än vanligt för att få fram vad reglerna egentligen säger.

Den 19 mars 2014 kom PTS med en vägledning med titeln Kravet på öppenhet i stödfinansierade nät (Dnr 14-3258), och den ger en hel del indikationer, bl.a. dessa saker:

Circuits, clouds, communication on Internet

Thu, 20 Feb 2014 10:47:24 +0000

I wrote some time ago a paper together with my friend Gordon Lennox. Many people ask for it, and I have to send it over to the ones asking, one by one. For some reason I do not understand I seem to not have put the document here on the web, or at least I can not find it.

So here it is: circuits

It is payback time! - Government of Sweden on Internet Governance

Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:05:53 +0000

Today is a wonderful day for us working with Internet Governance that do believe in an Open Internet and multi stakeholder model for its governance.

FTTH Council do have its yearly meeting 2014 in Stockholm, Sweden, and there the IT Minister, Anna-Karin Hatt, made an opening speech that was among the strongest I have heard from any country. Yes, any country. And I do not even know if any organization have said such strong things.

My checklist for data collection mechanisms

Wed, 03 Jul 2013 12:22:30 +0000

The discussions about data collection and reuse is blooming after the incidents last couple of weeks. Of course, same things has happened now and then in Sweden since 2008 (I think it was) when we in Sweden started to get some discussions nationally on privacy, wiretap etc – related to Internet.

I have got asked what I think is ok and not, and here is one version of my checklist. If I write it a different day it is slightly different, but the overall architecture is the same.

Regeringen skall inte välja DAB!

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:56:00 +0000

Diskussionen om DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) har kommit igång igen. En diskussion om ett system som är ett kvartssekel gammal. Som används av en handfull länder. Som redan kastats ut ur Finland och Frankrike. Som tvingar alla i Sverige köpa nya radioapparater där bara den kostnaden är några miljarder kronor. Och vad som är allra värst är att Sveriges Radio verkar lyckas få Regeringen att välja detta urusla system, så Sveriges Radio själva ska slippa stå med mössan i hand när det visar sig att man tog fel beslut. För alternativet är att kostnaden tas från programverksamheten, och det vet Sveriges Radio att Regeringen inte kan acceptera.

Why COM(2012) 238/2 is not a good proposal

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:39:05 +0000

I and many with me have serious issues with Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market’ COM(2012) 238/2, and no, it is not only the very long name of the proposal, but that the way it tries to solve the problem with the fact Directive 1999/93/EC on a ‘Community framework for electronic signatures’ has not been implemented. In reality, I think the problem that it is not implemented is that the Directive tried to impose on entities who to trust. One can never do that. Whoever is to take and calculate a risk must both benefit from a trust service and be able to choose as many parameters as possible.

Presentations from the previous millennium

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 14:13:18 +0000

I have been asked, specifically lately(!) to re-publish presentations I have had on naming, searching, finding and such things. Yes, I was working quite a lot with those things in the 1990’s. At the KTH in Stockholm, at Bunyip in Montréal and then at Tele2 in Stockholm.

Some of the base ideas that you can find in these presentations are still very close to me:

Search, lookup and fetch are three different operations, that operate on different data
Naming is a complicated issue by itself, and should not be ignored
Stability can be both across localities and over time
A hierarchy of data is often in the eye of whoever is looking

But, I will stop there, and refer to these presentations I created between 1996 and 1999. Two of them together with Leslie Daigle that is now at Internet Society, ISOC.

Affärsmodeller för fibernät - KO eller inte KO?

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 08:59:03 +0000

Jag förstår att Jon Karlung på gårdagens Telekom hänvisade till ett mail jag skickat till honom vilket i sin tur triggades av den nyhet som Telekomnyheterna släppte igår 14:e februari “Så ska Bahnhof och Bredband2 ta död på KO-marknaden”.

Ja, jag är glad att denna fråga ställs. Men jag vill förtydliga varför jag ser denna fråga som så viktig.

Idag mer än någonsin transporteras alla tjänster över Internet. Därför är det för slutkund absolut viktigast att få en väl fungerande Internetaccess som har den karakteristik som slutkund önskar. Detta kan vara en mängd tekniska saker (som MTU, routing, adressering) men naturligtvis även pris (och hur priset beräknas) liksom möjlighet att få hjälp om saker är trasiga. Samtidigt som det är Internetaccessen som är det viktiga är det den som aktiverar nätet som påverkar och kan kontrollera ganska många av dessa parametrar.

104.5 points by spamassassin

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 03:03:56 +0000

Today I got an email that crossed the 100 point line in spamassassin. Note that I also run gray listing, which this message has already passed. These are the categories the message did hit:

Content analysis details: (104.5 points, 5.0 required)

| pts | rule name | description | | 3.5 | BAYES_99 | BODY: Bayes spam probability is 99 to 100% | | 1.6 | FSL_CTYPE_WIN1251 | Content-Type only seen in 419 spam | | 3.6 | NSL_RCVD_FROM_USER | Received from User | | 1.0 | MISSING_HEADERS | Missing To: header | | 3.2 | MILLION_USD | BODY: Talks about millions of dollars | | 3.7 | DEAR_BENEFICIARY | BODY: Dear Beneficiary: | | 1.8 | US_DOLLARS_3 | BODY: Mentions millions of $ ($NN,NNN,NNN.NN) | | 1.2 | MONEY_BACK | BODY: Money back guarantee | | 0.0 | HTML_MESSAGE | BODY: HTML included in message | | 0.0 | LOTS_OF_MONEY | Huge… sums of money | | 1.6 | REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC | REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC | | 2.6 | FROM_MISSP_MSFT | From misspaced + supposed Microsoft tool | | 1.5 | FROM_MISSP_NO_TO | From misspaced, To missing | | 0.4 | FSL_NEW_HELO_USER | FSL_NEW_HELO_USER | | 3.7 | AXB_XMAILER_MIMEOLE_OL_024C2 | AXB_XMAILER_MIMEOLE_OL_024C2 | | 0.0 | MSGID_FROM_MTA_HEADER | Message-Id was added by a relay | | 2.6 | MSOE_MID_WRONG_CASE | MSOE_MID_WRONG_CASE | | 2.0 | FSL_MISSP_REPLYTO | Mis-spaced from and Reply-to | | 1.6 | FROM_MISSP_USER | From misspaced, from “User” | | 2.0 | FBI_SPOOF | Claims to be FBI, but not from FBI domain | | 3.7 | MONEY_FROM_MISSP | Lots of money and misspaced From | | 2.1 | FREEMAIL_FORGED_REPLYTO | Freemail in Reply-To, but not From | | 0.9 | FROM_MISSP_REPLYTO | From misspaced, has Reply-To | | 1.1 | TO_NO_BRKTS_FROM_MSSP | Multiple formatting errors | | 1.3 | FROM_MISSPACED | From: missing whitespace | | 3.4 | FM_LOTTO_MONEY | Talks about lotto and large money! | | 0.0 | FBI_MONEY | The FBI wants to give you lots of money? | | 2.0 | FROM_MISSP_EH_MATCH | From misspaced, matches envelope | | 0.0 | FROM_MISSP_URI | From misspaced, has URI | | 2.2 | ADVANCE_FEE_4_NEW | Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419) | | 3.6 | MONEY_ATM_CARD | Lots of money on an ATM card | | 3.3 | ADVANCE_FEE_5_NEW | Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419) | | 1.9 | FORGED_MUA_OUTLOOK | Forged mail pretending to be from MS Outlook | | 3.5 | ADVANCE_FEE_3_NEW | Appears to be advance fee fraud (Nigerian 419) | | 0.0 | FILL_THIS_FORM | Fill in a form with personal information | | 3.4 | FILL_THIS_FORM_LONG | Fill in a form with personal information | | 3.5 | TO_NO_BRKTS_MSFT | To: misformatted and supposed Microsoft tool | | 0.0 | ADVANCE_FEE_4_NEW_FRM_MNY | Advance Fee fraud form and lots of money | | 0.0 | ADVANCE_FEE_4_NEW_MONEY | Advance Fee fraud and lots of money | | 0.0 | ADVANCE_FEE_4_NEW_FORM | Advance Fee fraud and a form | | 2.8 | ADVANCE_FEE_5_NEW_MONEY | Advance Fee fraud and lots of money | | 2.4 | ADVANCE_FEE_5_NEW_FORM | Advance Fee fraud and a form | | 3.4 | ADVANCE_FEE_5_NEW_FRM_MNY | Advance Fee fraud form and lots of money | | 2.4 | ADVANCE_FEE_3_NEW_FORM | Advance Fee fraud and a form | | 4.4 | MONEY_FRAUD_5 | Lots of money and many fraud phrases | | 4.0 | MONEY_FORM | Lots of money if you fill out a form | | 0.0 | ADVANCE_FEE_2_NEW_FRM_MNY | Advance Fee fraud form and lots of money | | 1.1 | ADVANCE_FEE_3_NEW_FRM_MNY | Advance Fee fraud form and lots of money | | 0.0 | ADVANCE_FEE_2_NEW_FORM | Advance Fee fraud and a form | | 2.5 | ADVANCE_FEE_3_NEW_MONEY | Advance Fee fraud and lots of money | | 0.0 | MONEY_FRAUD_3 | Lots of money and several fraud phrases | | 4.5 | ADVANCE_FEE_2_NEW_MONEY | Advance Fee fraud and lots of money | | 0.0 | FORM_FRAUD_5 | Fill a form and many fraud phrases | | 3.7 | FORM_FRAUD_3 | Fill a form and several fraud phrases |

Internationell diplomati

Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:57:12 +0000

Jag var del av den svenska delegationen till Internationella Teleunionens möte WCIT i Dubai december 2012. Mötet slutade utan att man var överens om den slutgiltiga texten. Många länder skrev på, men EU, USA, Australien m.fl. valde att lämna mötet utan att skriva under det föreslagna fördraget. Detta beskrivs dock mer på andra ställen, och jag kan komma att återkomma till detta.

Det intressanta är dock flera av de olika spel som syntes mellan raderna.

Archiving our history

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 09:43:32 +0000

Poster describing Projekt Runeberg

I am extremely happy we have Projekt Runeberg in Sweden and the work Lars Aronsson and others have done. Not fun that the formal, government sponsored activities have more or less ignored them. During the years I have tried to support as much as I have been able to, although not by donating anything else than pocket money.

The project just started their 21st year in existence and Lars tried crowd funding. Worked with the first book (Svenskt Nautiskt Lexikon that can be found scanned here) but not 2nd. Good and important data although sad. I so much think people really saving our modern history are heroes. Brewster Kahle with Internet Archive (and the Wayback Machine), Lars with Projekt Runeberg and Carl Malamud with Public Resource Org (and Yes We Scan!).

Non-ascii in filenames of images in MediaWiki

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 12:37:36 +0000

If one have added images to MediaWiki and used non-ascii in the filenames (for example the Swedish characters åäö) there might be problem if you move the wiki to a file system with different encoding mechanisms. Or upgrade or change something else in your environment.

This is possible to solve, but you have to rename the files and the links in the database in a coordinated way.

Here is how you do it:

Sometimes hardware is needed

Mon, 31 Dec 2012 17:20:44 +0000

Battery in raid card

So the raid card in my old trustworthy Mac Pro was dying. On top of that, one have for years been feeling that the raid card is not really helping. Instead it is probably the weakest link in the desktop system I have at home. After all, it is from 2008…

Anyway, I did look at various postings other people have made about the raid card. What surprises me is how naive some people are, and specifically how ignorant some people are that respond to questions. It seems many questions come from people that have not even been thinking about the issues with removal of a raid card, and they definitely have not tried to remove one themselves.

WCIT 2012 is over

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 17:42:55 +0000

So, at home after two weeks in Dubai. At home, 30°C colder, but with cats and my own bed. I guess I will sleep quite a lot this weekend before the normal work week start on Monday.

While contemplating what has happened, I saw that the reservations have been released. They are in document 66-E from WCIT and can be found on wcitleaks.

The reason why I reference this is that I so much like what we said from Sweden. It summarizes our view on the Internet and Internet related processes quite well.

How long is a bit?

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 15:13:38 +0000

After watching this inspiring YouTube clip where Rear Admiral Hopper explains the length of a nanosecond, and discussing the fiber under Sydney Harbour with my friend Geoff Houston, I started to think about the length of a bit.

Geoff thought the new path was 2km shorter, but the article says it is only 400 meters shorter. Anyway, lets see what that means in reality.

Arkitekturbeskrivning jag letar efter...

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 10:13:47 +0000

Jag skrev som vissa känner till en summering av de problem jag ser med tjänsten Mina Meddelanden. Det kom en del bra kommentarer, bl.a. en från Rutger Langland på Skatteverket som arbetar med tjänsten. Bl.a. detta svar från Rutger, en kort diskussion på veckans möte med Digitaliseringsrådet och diskussioner med diverse personer gör att jag tänkte jag måste förklara hur jag skulle byggt en sådan här tjänst. Att Rutger liknar det som jag nedan kallar en katalogtjänst vid IP-adresseringen på Internet, hmm…. Det de bygger är verkligen inte något som liknar IP-adresseringen, varken dess allokering eller dess användning vad gäller unik identifiering av objekt eller vägval.

Mina Meddelanden

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 05:15:36 +0000

Det är ett ökat antal system som just nu byggs som centrala monoliter, istället för att öppna standarder används. Sådana som är en nödvändighet för innovation både vad gäller tjänster och affärsmodeller. Tyvärr för att alltför många idag argumenterar för s.k. API:er vilka dock för att finnas kräver att det finns ett centralt system till att börja med. API:er kan vara en lösning till existerande centrala system, men inget annat. Och enbart som något som används pga avsaknad av standarder.

Nya villkor för public service SOU 2012:59

Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:48:52 +0000

Idag 11 september 2012 släpptes SOU 2012:59 eller i klarspråk “Nya villkor för public service”. Den beskriver alla möjliga saker och förslagen som ges är generellt moderna och bra.

Men, man pratar inte tydligt nog om digitalradio.

Det är sorgligt att en rapport som skrivs idag fortfarande verkar blanda ihop en viss teknik (T-DAB+) med digitalisering av radiosändningar. I kapitel 4 beskrivs i allmänna ordalag fördelar med digitalisering, men i kapitel 11 kommer huvudtexten i ämnet.

New version of IDNA tool, and tests with upcoming Unicode 6.2.0

Sun, 26 Aug 2012 11:50:17 +0000

Today I updated the version of the tool I use for generating tables for Unicode Characters according to the algorithm described in RFC 5892 and RFC 6452.

The only change that exists from 6.1.0 to 6.2.0 is the addition of one codepoint, U+20BA that is allocated to TURKISH LIRA SIGN. The codepoint because of this moves from being UNASSIGNED to be DISALLOWED.

A diff between the 6.1 and 6.2.0d6:

# **diff 6.1/allcodepoints.txt 6.2/allcodepoints-6.2.0d6.txt** 
8380c8380
< 20BA;UNASSIGNED;I;J;
---
> 20BA;DISALLOWED;I;;TURKISH LIRA SIGN

The full list of changes in Unicode can be found here.

Arbetsförmedlingen och IPv6

Mon, 23 Jul 2012 13:02:47 +0000

Arbetsförmedlingen har visat att i varje fall den personal som arbetar under sommaren inte förstår IPv6, en sak som ingår i den Digitala Agendan. Fick detta av en vän. Det är sorgligt att vi idag har sådana här exempel. Fortfarande. Suck.

Subject: Arbetsförmedlingens Servicedesk - Ärendenummer: Ä1371603 Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 08:27:18 +0200 (CEST) From: Support Reply-To: Support Organization: Arbetsformedlingen To: xxxx@example.se

Hej, xxxx

Tack för ditt mail! Vi är medvetna om problemet, och det kommer lösas på sikt. Här finns ytterligare information om hu du inaktiverar IPv6: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929852/sv

Flerpunktsprogram behövs i Sverige

Sat, 07 Jul 2012 21:40:28 +0000

När nu Sverige tillsammans med andra frihetskämpande stater lyckosamt baxat ett mycket gott beslut genom FN råd för mänskliga rättigheter är det hög tid att se över hur vi har det här hemma. Jag ser många saker som kan förbättras, och en del saker som jag anser måste göras. Jag försöker här sammanfatta min syn på några av saker som borde göras.

Datalagringsdirektivet Link to heading

De som samlas in information skall publicera statistik över all begäran av utlämning av information
En permanent integritetskommitté skall tillsättas som skall granska och övervaka all utlämning av information
Polisen skall förklara hur äkthet av begäran av utlämning av information kan verifieras
Post och Telestyrelsen skall se till att det utvecklas programvara som open source som kan användas på Unix-liknande datorer för att samla ihop information från loggfiler och exponera det till det protokoll som används vid överlämning till polis
Justitiedepartementet skall förklara för allmänheten hur allvarliga brott (från Artikel 1 i direktiv 2006/24/EG) fortfarande implementeras i Svensk lag när krav på fängelse försvann 1/7 2012 från 6 Kap. 22 § 2 punkten i Lag (2003:389) om elektronisk kommunikation

FRA Link to heading

FRA skall producera statistik över all begäran av utlämning av information
En permanent integritetskommitté skall tillsättas som skall granska och övervaka all utlämning av information

Blockering av barnpornografi Link to heading

Justitiedepartementet skall tillse att den blockering som sker är implementerad i lag, och inte bara genom frivilliga överenskommelser mellan Internetoperatörer och Rikspolisstyrelsen
En permanent integritetskommitté skall tillsättas som skall granska och övervaka dels vad som hamnar på spärrlistan, dels vad som spärras
Rikspolisen och Internetoperatörer skall producera statistik över hur mycket som spärras

Bredbandsaccess Link to heading

Accessleverantörer skall komma överens om vad som är Internetaccess, och enbart de bredbandsprodukter som uppfyller dessa krav får bära det namnet
Ägare av svartfiber och annan passiv infrastruktur skall hyra ut denna på lika villkor till alla som så önskar, inklusive dem själva i de fall fiberägaren även är aktive i högre lager i värdekedjan
Post och Telestyrelsen skall följa upp accessleverantörernas användning av termen Internetaccess, och fiberägares transparens vad gäller affärsmodeller, förutom den normala tillsyn enligt Lag (2003:389) om elektronisk kommunikation och annan tillämplig lagstiftning
Offentlig sektor skall som upphandlare, ägare av infrastruktur och kravställare vara kunniga och aktiva på marknaden

Öppen data Link to heading

Offentliga myndigheter skall som grundregel uppfylla PSI-direktivet och släppa rådata fritt, och om förädling skall fortsätta skall detta ske i konkurrens med andra aktörer
Sveriges Radio, Sveriges Television och Utbildningsradion skall ha ett särskilt krav att enbart använda moderna avtal vad gäller möjlighet till (åter-)spridning av programmaterial
Kungliga Biblioteket skall tillsammans med Riksantikvarieämbetet och andra organisationer intensifiera inte bara digitalisering av den kulturskatt som finns utan även tillse att den digitaliserade informationen finns åtkomlig över Internet

Summering Link to heading

För att summera är det ett par saker som återkommer om och om igen, och jag tror det är främst avsaknad av dessa fyra saker som gör att t.ex. jag känner tveksamhet om att det finns total samsyn om hur Internet, digitaliserad information och kommunikation skall hanteras. Och det inte bara inom Regeringskansliet utan även resten av offentlig sektor.

Öppna nät - myterna, möjligheterna, problemen

Thu, 05 Jul 2012 10:17:06 +0000

I tisdags den 3 juli arrangerade Netnod ihop med Rala en session under årets politikervecka i Almedalen. Diskussionen leddes av Mats Sjödin från Telekomnyheterna, medan Patrik Fältström och Karin Ahl försökte hjälpa till att hålla diskussionen igång.

De gäster som diskuterade de viktiga ämnena är dock de viktiga, och vi hade tur att få sådana personer som, för svartfiberdiskussionen:

Jörgen Svärdh, Utsikt
Mikael Ek, SSNf

…och för diskussionen om internetaccess:

Peter Nou, Vinnova
Javeria Rizvi Kabani, Svenska Institutet
Joakim Lundblad, Sydsvenska Industri- och Handelskammaren

I den första diskussionen, om svartfiber, presenterades ett Manifest för fiberägare. Detta skapade en hel del diskussion naturligtvis, men i stort verkade alla deltagare vara överens. Viss tveksamhet uppstår dock när det talas om vilken typ av öppenhet som behövs. Eller uttryckt annorlunda, vilken typ av grossistprodukt som behövs. Se själv utsändningen av den första delen av sessionen:

Framtidsdag i Almedalen 2012

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 08:00:30 +0000

På onsdag kommer Framtidskommissionen hålla en Framtidsdag. En av punkterna på programmet är Framtidens Hotbilder. På Twitter blev det lite kommunikation efter att Teo Zetterman uppmanade att man skulle twittra med tag #Framtidsdag. Bl.a. skrev jag att jag ville se svar på dessa frågor:

Varför är inte PTS och privat sektor med i panelen?
Anser panelen att de har den koll och det samarbete som kommer krävas?
Om koll och samarbete saknas, hur ska det förbättras?

Det hela är alltså en panel med dessa deltagare:

Reflexions in preparation for SIF12

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 08:44:03 +0000

In a week, Stockholm Internet Forum on Internet Freedom for Global Development starts. The name of the forum is impressive, and there has been even some confusion of what the acronym of the conference is. The correct Twitter hash tag to use is #SIF12 though, and #fxinternet is used for the actual contents discussions. At least for this years conference.

Prices Sverigetaxi in Örebro

But it is not the first conference that have #fxinternet topics to discuss. Many conferences have happened and many organizations have as its main mission to work with #fxinternet issues. I have promised to give my reflexions here in this blog to help people navigating the waters of the discussions. Because it is important one comes prepared, or else I think two things will happen. The individual not being prepared will be confused, and the conference as a whole might be too much of a restart and retake of earlier discussions.

HR activists should dance more with people in favor of NN

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 07:52:50 +0000

I originally supported Internet because of the fact its architecture gives an excellent platform for innovation, competition, consumer choice and numerous more buzzwords related to efficient market economy. Together with of course the need for regulation to be modern, technology neutral, that control these market forces so that they work in an as effective way as possible.

Then I now about ten years ago came in contact with people fighting in favor of human rights, and specifically freedom of expression. And I saw that the goal both groups had was the same. But they implemented it differently and used different arguments. What I am a bit disappointed in, and the reason why I write this, is that I start to become a bit frustrated that the two camps do not work more together.

How integrity is (no longer?) protected on the Internet

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:54:42 +0000

I am myself as my readers know not a lawyer so I write this as a way to trigger a renewed debate about integrity.

One of the key elements of Human Rights is integrity, and integrity related issues. The right to be able to not only say whatever one wants, but also to be able to do so without being monitored. Reason why monitoring is so closely related to freedom of expression issues is that just the knowledge that monitoring can take place has a negative impact on the interest of expression. It puts a wet blanket over communication. It decreases the trust in the communication mechanisms, and decreased trust in Internet based tools have negative impact on growth, evolution of society and because of this negative impact on productivity and growth of GNP of the society.

Roasting coffee with i-Roast 2

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 12:48:50 +0000

Nicaragua Pacamara RFA

So the other week on recommendation I bought an i-Roast 2. I bought it in Sweden, the 240V model, from Alnö Kaffehus. They have a package with roaster and some coffee. After some experiments, I found the following actually work pretty well. All together, smell of roasted coffee in the office(!), and the taste of coffee made out of freshly roasted beans… The improvements between each roasting is so large, and quality of the result so high, that I really look forward to where this road leads.

Portuguese wine - Douro

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 21:52:35 +0000

[gallery columns=“2”]

Friday evening I was lucky enough to participate at a tasting of four red wines from the Douro region in Portugal. The tasting was run by Fredrik Åkerman that has his web site http://www.portugisiskaviner.se/. The wines where the following.

Mogadio da Calçada Tinto 2008****Producer: NiepoortGrapes: Aragonez, Touriga Franca, Touriga NacionalPrice in Sweden: 159SEKNumber on Systembolaget: 93998I found this be very strict wine, closed, with very clear tones of the stems of cherries. Acids. Nose give clear indication of oak and smoke from the barrel. The grapes have been 100% pressed manually by feet, stored on steel containers and then 16 months on small barrique. 100% of them new french barrels.
Quinta do Vallado Tinto Reserva 2007 Producer: Quinta do ValladoGrapes: Aragonez, Trincadeira, Touriga Franca, Touriga Nacional, Sousão + others Price in Sweden: 388SEK Number on Systembolaget: 92142 Full bodies, plums, much more tannins than the first one. Grown on a southern side of a hill, with wines more than 70 years old. 50% of the grapes pressed by feet, 50% with press. 17 months on new barrels.
Quinta do Crasto Reserva Vinhas Velhas 2009 Producer: Quinta do Crasto Grapes: More than 30 varieties Price in Sweden: 225SEK Number on Systembolaget: 71734 Very old vineyard and because of that unclear what grapes are used. The grapes are mixed already in the vineyard. All grapes picked at the same time regardless of variety. A very well balanced wine. Smell of the leaves of roses. Some stem in the taste. Very nice on the nose. Also clear is the oak. 15% of the barrels used is new american oak.
Pintas Character 2007 Producer: Wine & Soul Grapes: More than 30 varieties Price in Sweden: Unknown Number on Systembolaget: was 99809, now out of stock Raspberries, blackberries. God tannins. 100% of the grapes pressed by feet. 1.5 years on new french barrels. The producer also have a higher class wine also named Pintas that is very well priced. And the vintage port they make under the same name is said to be one of the best there is, although not produced every year. The producers are very new on the market, finished their education in 2001. This, Pintas, is their hobby project as they are employed as wine makers on other houses as well.

Interesting was to hear stories about the grapes. Aragonez is in Portugal what in Spain is Tempranillo (which explained the similarities between these wines and some spanish ones. Also that Touriga Nacional is said to be one of the greatest grapes from the region. It gives a lot of everything: acidity, color, taste, roughness, alcohol etc. It also has a clear taste of violet that can bend towards licorice and even bergamot.

TextMate will not launch

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 17:16:55 +0000

I have had some problems with TextMate, but I did not know when it started. Probably since my last reboot (which would in fact be a correct guess) but since I do not reboot my mac very often I have no idea when it really started. I thought it had something to do with some zombie process, some socket that stalled, or something like that.

I was almost correct.

After looking carefully at what happens at boot, looking around on the net etc, I found that TextMate has a file where it keeps track of the process id of itself. If the mac crashes in such a way that the file with this status is not removed, TextMate will not boot if the PID in this file happens to be used, but not for TextMate. It simply believes itself is already running. Etc.

Adobe CS or something else?

Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:48:05 +0000

I was notified in Twitter that my friend Rikard Nilsson was installing Adobe CS 5.5.

Rikard tweets

My response to that was of course “Why?” and he then stated he was doing it just because he has always done it.

I have myself as well just followed the stream, because I thought I needed CS as well (or whatever it was named before it was CS). But one time I asked myself what I was doing. Is it worth the money or should one do something else?

Are we in a new bubble?

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 09:29:29 +0000

Update: Jocke just said in a tweet that I completely misunderstood the article, and he promised to clarify and educate me. No one would be happier than I if he have time to do that.

A blog post by my friend Jocke made me think, are we in a bubble? After tweeting a bit with Jocke, I find that I have to at least explain my thinking, even if I draw the wrong conclusions. Compared to some of my friends, I am not in the VC business, although I have been involved in a number of startups and do know what it implies selling, buying and investing in companies. Specifically regarding control over a company. And business models, yes, I know that.

How is it going with the Arduino?

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:10:27 +0000

The Arduino

I got that question today, and the answer is “just fine”. In fact, it is up and running, sort of doing what it is supposed to do. You see in the picture to the right what things looks like, and in this diagram, pump.pdf, what the circuit looks like.

All Arduino code is not written yet. I so far do only have one sensor and one relay managed by the code, but that works as it should.

iPhone not detectable by iTunes

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 15:18:44 +0000

I managed to solve a problem that might be something that one of you encounter as well.

I installed a new MBP fetching with migration assistant stuff from a MBAir. On the air, XCode was installed. On the MBP after migration XCode was not available (one of those things Migration Assistant do not migrate properly, as network profile settings, VPN configuration, WLAN configurations and million other non-documented things).

I did installed again using the XCode Installer that was available in /Applications, but that did not solve the problem (i.e. XCode was not installed properly). I then removed XCode Installer, and installed from App Store again. And XCode was now fine. Part from crashing in an unexpected way because “it did not find some iPhone stuff”. I did not care, as I only wanted gcc.

My first Arduino project

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:37:14 +0000

20111220-143606.jpg

20111220-145235.jpg

With the help of a ninja and lots of use of Google, my first Arduino project is up and running. Can not say I understand every detail but…

Arduino

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:14:08 +0000

Arduino Ethernet

I have a project that have been sleeping for a while. Basically it has to do with connecting a few sensors in my house to something and then keep track of what is happening. In the longer run also be able to report when something is wrong, and collect statistics.

The coolest thing (today) of doing this I think is to use an Arduino. The programming is simple, and the electronics (that I am most nervous about as my skills are about zero) is understandable. Almost. At least with help from friends.

Kent Berggren

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:12:50 +0000

Kent Berggren

One of my oldest friends on the Internet passed away quietly night between Saturday and Sunday. We have known each other since 1992 or even earlier when Swedish Radio contacted us at Royal Institute of Technology to discuss email deployment.

Kenta was one of the few persons in the world that although he was misunderstood now and then (partly due to dyslexia) was one of the most loyal persons there is. And not a single piece of him was evil or had evil thoughts.

Quality of whois data

Sun, 18 Dec 2011 08:38:29 +0000

FTC Letter

Federal Trade Commission have sent a letter to ICANN. Described at .NXT.

Whats specifically comes up, I think, is the specific issue regarding quality of data in the various whois services out there. This is not only a domain name issue, but also IP address issue of course. The problems with whois I think consists of three different categories:

People must lie to get a domain registered, because the requirements for registration of a domain is such that if the applicant was not lying, the domain would not be registered.
People must not disclose that IP addresses have changed hands because the receiving holder of the IP addresses do not fulfill whatever requirements are set on the transfer.
People do not want to be known who they are.

Of these [1] and [2] can be resolved just by recognizing the need for having an updated whois database when the policies are developed. [3] is the only tricky part, and that might be able to resolve by accepting and defining proxy registrations, but we can never get rid of this. Just like we have goal keepers for ownership of cars, houses and other things in the non-internet world. I.e. [3] is nothing new because of whois and Internet, and we sort of know how to take care of it.

Morning in Mölndal

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 07:55:52 +0000

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Today I woke up in Mölndal after visiting my friend Martin. Great time with his family, as always. Thanks.

Bye bye Vienna

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 09:37:01 +0000

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After a few days at the Diplomatic Academy where Council of Europe had a meeting on freedom on the Internet, I am now at home again. Last supper in Vienna with two friends from four different countries. One of them at the moment located in Paris, that is not as nice as Geneva according to him, while the other is so much all over the place that I felt I had to ask where her employer want her to be.

Our Internet - Our Rights, Our Freedoms

Thu, 24 Nov 2011 09:32:39 +0000

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Today Council of Europe host a conference on Internet and Human Rights. Sweden is well represented by myself, Johan Hallenborg, Olof Ehrenkrona and more.

This is an evidence Sweden take this topic very seriously, and todays discussions will make that very clear.

My panel is today in the afternoon. On connection between choice of technologies and Human Rights. Sounds fuzzy maybe but that is what I will clarify.

Dinner in Vienna

Wed, 23 Nov 2011 22:05:14 +0000

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After spending time in Stockholm at Internetdagarna I left a chilly Stockholm and landed in a freezing cold Vienna. After being a bit lost and getting help from a cab, I ended up at a hotel where I then worked for a few hours.

Stockholm was good, but different. Breakfast at the hotel cost an arm and a leg, here it is included. So is working WiFi, for a reasonable definition of working.

Internet access at Internetdagarna - broken

Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:18:04 +0000

For the 12th year Internetdagarna is arranged in Stockholm. .SE is host of this wonderful event. It is really for me the peak of core Internet discussions in Sweden. Thanks .SE for all work!

But, Internet access does not work this time either. The problem I see is that .SE unfortunately did trust Stockholm Waterfront when they claimed that they could provide Internet access to the participants. That was, of course, not true. At Stockholm Waterfront just like any other conference facility, one must bring Internet access if one want it.

Proposal on agreements in CSTD wg on IGF improvements

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:15:20 +0000

At the meeting in Geneva, Nurani just proposed the following:

A Shaping the Outcomes of the IGF meetings

Broad agreement on need to improve the outcome documentation from IGF

B Working modalities including open consultations, MAG and Secretariat

Broad agreement on need to rotate MAG members regularly, keep MAG deliberations transparent
Broad agreement to have the Secretariat remain independent and based in Geneva

C Funding of the IGF

Broad agreement that additional funding should be sought, that voluntary donations should be accepted and encouraged

D Participation - broadening

Steve Jobs 1955 – 2011

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:47:28 +0000

Google tribute to Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs is gone. Some thousands or even millions of bloggers have already written about it. I saw it this morning when waking up. Some SMS messages (including from my manager and the Swedish News Agency TT), some Tweets and tons of information in Facebook. And that was at 4AM.

A few hours later I am on a train towards Stockholm. Looking and being fascinated how different various media is describing it. I will not go into what I think of Swedish Aftonbladet writing that we lost “en färgklick” but instead mention two sites that I think did The Right Thing.

Communication with EU DG-INFSO

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 13:07:59 +0000

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Kroes-PAF-NOR-ETNS-2011-07-05

Being chair of the Cooperation Working Group in RIPE, and co-editor of the ENUM standard, I have together with one of the chair of the ENUM Working Group, Niall O’Reilly, invited the Vice-President of the European Commission and Comissioner of the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, to the upcoming RIPE Meeting in Vienna. You can see the letter that we send on 5 July 2011 here.

On the 20th of July we unfortunately got a negative response that you can find here.

Eftersnack dagen efter bredbandskonferens i Sjöbo

Mon, 19 Sep 2011 20:48:06 +0000

På lördagen den 17 september 2011, dagen efter bredbandskonferensen, stannade Socialvideo (Björn och Petter) kvar på Ledåsa för att dels äta god mat, dels diskutera vad som hände. På plats fanns även Philip Olsson från Teleservice och Petter Palander från Ambadoo. Vi hade lite nördtv…

Bredband i en mindre kommun - succé vid konferens i Sjöbo

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:54:18 +0000

Den 16 september 2011 hölls en heldagskonferens om bredband i mindre kommuner i Sjöbo. Deltagare kom från Sandviken i norr till Ystad i söder. Socialvideo filmade och sände direkt över nätet. Det var hundratals visningar och c:a 20 samtidiga tittare hela tiden, och nästan 100 personer på plats i sessionssalen i Sjöbo Kommunhus. Även Ystads Allehanda skrev om evenemanget.

Programmet såg ut så här:

08:30 – 09:30

Registrering & frukost i Konsthallen

09:45 – 10:00

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Anna Kelly

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:33:05 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Anna Kelly, PwC. Hennes presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Stefan Hedin

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:27:53 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Stefan Hedin, Svenska Stadsnätsföreningen – SSNF. Hans presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Lars Hedberg

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:24:36 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Lars Hedberg, EkoT Konsult AB. Hans presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Patrik Fältström

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:20:31 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Patrik Fältström, Cisco och Regeringens Digitaliseringsråd. Hans presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Crister Mattsson

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:17:14 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Crister Mattsson, Acreo AB. Hans presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Kjell Ljunggren

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:12:36 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Kjell Ljunggren, Eksjö Energi AB. Hans presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Alexander Jansson

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:09:42 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Alexander Jansson, Bjäre Kraft. Hans presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Claes Andersson

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:06:35 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Claes Andersson, VD Teleservice Sjöbo. Hans presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Pontus Lindberg

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 13:02:45 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Pontus Lindberg, Region Skåne.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Jörgen Sandström

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:59:19 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Jörgen Sandström, Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting. Hans presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Patrik Sandgren

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:55:02 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Patrik Sandgren från Bredbandsforum. Hans Presentation.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Lena Ytterberg

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:49:41 +0000

Arrangör för konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 var Lena Ytterberg, näringslivsutvecklare Sjöbo kommun, som här hälsade folk välkomna.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Jan Wifstrand

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:40:12 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 var Jan Wifstrand från Rapidus moderator. Han inledde med information om konferensen.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Stefan Lundgren

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:31:24 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 inledde Stefan Lundgren, kommunalråd Sjöbo kommun.

Bredband i en mindre kommun - Henrik Hansson

Sun, 18 Sep 2011 12:27:00 +0000

På konferensen i Sjöbo 16/9 2011 talade Henrik Hansson, Politisk Sakkunnig, Näringsdepartementet. Hans presentation.

Bredbandsseminarium i Sjöbo - Roger Larsson

Fri, 16 Sep 2011 23:44:07 +0000

Idag, 16 september 2011, hölls ett bredbandsseminarium i Sjöbo. Jag hade förmånen att få arbeta tillsammans med bl.a. Jan Wifstrand på Rapidus för att få ihop dagen. Extremt trevligt att så många ville komma, från Sandviken i norr, till Ystad i söder. Hela dagen direktsändes och spelades in av Björn och Petter på Socialvideo.

En hel del folk sa det som jag förväntade mig, men det som värmde mig var att denna diskussion ledde ett steg vidare. Jag har varit på jag vet inte hur många diskussioner där samma argument kommer om och om igen. Därför känner jag att att jag själv blir tvungen att bli vassare och vassare. Eller att jag blir vassare och vassare för att folk verkligen ska förstå vad de viktiga detaljerna är. Men oftast känns det som om det inte tar skruv.

Anonyma kommentarer?

Thu, 01 Sep 2011 23:20:12 +0000

Det pågår en diskussion om huruvida Expressen och andra tidningar gör rätt när de ändrar policy för kommentarer på artiklar som de publicerat. Många kommenterar hit och dit relaterat till anonymitet. Men jag anser att diskussionen fladdrar, spretar, och är inte precis nog. Det är nämligen två olika varianter av anonymitet vi pratar om och dessutom om det val en kommersiell aktör ändå måste få göra själv.

Först anonymiteten. En sak är huruvida man ska få saker publicerat av en tidning som kommentar till en artikel om man gentemot tidningen är anonym. Detta kanske inte accepteras (se nedan). Men en annan sak är huruvida tidningen skall publicera ens namn och liknande. Det finns möjlighet att få och ha skydd enligt de regler som gäller källskyddd, och därmed finns det möjlighet för en tidning (och liknande) att för att höja kvaliten på det som de publicerar kräva att veta vem de kommunicerar med, medan de fortfarande ger möjlighet till denna part att vara anonym vid publiceringen som tidningen senare gör av informationen. Denna skillnad gör att jag tycker det är lite osäkert vad personer menar när de kräver att man ska kunna kommunicera anonymt (i form av kommentarer). Menar de anonymt i ledet källa till tidning, eller tidning till läsare? Jag tycker bara det senare är det viktiga. Om tidning anser att de vill veta vilka de kommunicerar med är det upp till dem. (En annan fråga är hur tidningen vet om den som uppger sin identitet ljuger eller inte…)

Python 3.2.1 on MacOSX 10.7.1

Mon, 22 Aug 2011 13:16:03 +0000

Getting a proper version of python 3.x installed is not as easy as it has been earlier. First of all, you need the Developer package installed (again). This you do by installing XCode 4.x from the MacApp store. I thought I had done so, but could still not find gcc etc in my path. Some people on the net say one should just produce soft links here and there, but I think that would still create those with Xcode 3.x.

Description of network at #SSWC, final version

Sun, 21 Aug 2011 11:17:04 +0000

Of course my memory already after a few days had some details about the network wrong. After som detailed review by friends that helped building the network, I have corrected the documentation and also added pictures.You can find the final version here.

The network at #SSWC 2011

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:15:41 +0000

Updated: You can find the final version of this description in this post.

On request I have written a story about how the network at #SSWC 2011 was built. You can find the story with diagrams and configuration examples in this PDF. I want though to specifically thank the heroes that helped me with the network:

Organizers of SSWC, Tomas Wennström and Kristin Heinonen
The crew at Tjärö, specifically Sanny
Cisco Sweden: Håkan Palm, Peter Jerhamre, Jonas Malmgren and Annica Elgstam
Teleservice: Philip Olsson
Netnod: Kurtis Lindqvist
Socialvideo: Björn Falkevik
Netcomp: Jan Mattson, Jan Hejel and Ola Ling
TDC: Malin Carlsson and Karl-Erik Svedin
Svenska Stadsnät: Lars Tegmyr
City Networks: Magnus Bergman
Frobbit: Eva Frölich

Without the help from them, and various participants at #SSWC 2011 that helped when they happened to be close to be or Björn, the network would not have had the quality it had.

Mitt #SSWC 2011

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 08:18:40 +0000

Det är mycket som kan sägas. Mycket kan samlas i mycket få ord. Energi. Samhörighet. Kraft. Men jag tänkte gå lite djupare för det är så många som redan skrivit om hur fantastiskt SSWC är – för det är det.

Som en gammal räv (får jag väl ändå kalla mig) som hållit på med Internet i Sverige så länge det funnits, men förstagångsbesökare på SSWC var jag både upprymd men samtidigt lite besviken. Nej, pga att jag höll på att bygga nätet som jag kommer beskriva i en separat text så hann jag inte gå på så många sessioner som jag önskat. Jag hann nog bara med att gå på tre faktiskt. Men SSWC är ju så mycket mer än sessionerna, så det blev också mycket prat. I små grupper. Och efter att ha lyssnat på en del andra om vad de tyckte om SSWC så är det just det lilla som verkar vara det som kom fram bäst.

Från Cyberförsvar till stabil E-förvaltning

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:32:13 +0000

I Almedalen var jag med i en session organiserad av Myndigheten för Samhällsskydd och Beredskap. Ni kan se inspelning av sessionen jag var med i här nedan.

Viktigaste problemen jag ser är tre:

Att vi inte är överens om vad som är viktiga tjänster
Att den generella nivån på robusthet är för låg
Att ansvarsfördelning (inkl finansiering) av robusthetshöjande åtgärder är oklart mellan PTS och MSB

[bambuser id=1798345]

Sweden Social Web Camp

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 03:50:51 +0000

SSWC logo 2011

This summer I am going to participate at the Sweden Social Web Camp on Tjärö. And not only participate… After talking with the organizers and Cisco Sweden, we found it being a challenge to try to build an even better Internet Access than before.

Yesterday (~~July~~ June 29) I was at the camp together with Thomas and Björn to check how easy/hard it would be to build out Internet access on the island, and I must admit it was not as easy as I was hoping. But doable to many locations. I think the center area is relatively easy to cover, but the outskirts… Hmm…I need some creative ideas on for example how to protect temporary cabling from being run over by tractors.

The role of Intermediaries in the third phase of Internet

Thu, 09 Jun 2011 07:38:23 +0000

At the RIPE meeting in Amsterdam spring 2011 I held a presentation at the cooperation working group about intermediaries and their roles. The main thesis of the presentation is first that Internet is now needed not only for IT related processes in the society, but is an absolute necessity for the society as a whole. Given this, the role of intermediaries is of course of outmost importance, but unfortunately the discussions about their role is split in three directions:

Carl Bildt at EuroDIG 2011

Tue, 31 May 2011 14:16:48 +0000

At EuroDIG 2011 in Belgrade the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt made an intervention in the session I moderated together with Yrjö Länsipuro.

At the end of the intervention, he announced that EuroDIG 2012 will be held in Sweden, hosted by PTS, the The Swedish Post and Telecom Agency.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLLpW4s7WTo

eG8 intervention of John Perry Barlow

Thu, 26 May 2011 21:31:23 +0000

At the eG8 meeting in Paris, an “interesting” discussion was held between John Perry Barlow and a few other people. The important difference in the arguments between John and other others is that John argues that by producing better products the industry will get paid. I have heard the same arguments from the people at Spotify. They have a successful product because it is better than downloading the music. And John uses the same argument in favor of Netflix. It is easier to use Netflix that downloading the movies.

PROTECT IP

Thu, 26 May 2011 02:31:43 +0000

In the USA, there is a proposed legislation that at the moment goes under the popular name PROTECT IP that is sort of a follow-up of COICA. You can find the proposal that under the formal name of GRA11400. Among other things the proposal talks about requirement of under some circumstances blocking of resolution of certain domain names registered in registries not based in the US.

Today (May 25, 2011) Steve Crocker, David Dagon, Dan Kaminsky, Danny McPherson and Paul Vixie released a report that explain why the proposal from technical point of view does not make any sense. Or to be more precise:

Carl Bildt on aid related to Internet

Tue, 24 May 2011 06:35:05 +0000

At a meeting at the European Centre for International Political Economy (ECIPE) in Brussels 23rd of May 2011, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs Carl Bildt made a statement that include among other important things the following:

Recently there have been calls for some type of new Marshall Plan to help the Arab economies to overcome the challenges they are facing. But money alone will not help. In some cases, the lack of money is hardly the issue.

Why is IPv6 important for public sector?

Mon, 23 May 2011 20:41:46 +0000

Today I was invited to IPv6 Forum in Norway that had an excellent meeting in Oslo. Unfortunately, due to travel complications, I could only stay for half of the first day of two. Lots of speakers where on the list that I would have liked to listen to. The short time I was there I had plenty of good exchange of ideas with various people. Both from private and public sector. Both friends and people I think I have never met before.

qr-codes for my PGP keys

Mon, 02 May 2011 12:39:14 +0000

My friend Joachim hinted me that one use of qr codes is (of course) to use them as pointers to PGP Keys. Otherwise it might be problematic to find the PGP public key that is needed for secure communication. Today, the PGP Keyserver mesh seems to be fragile, and it might be hard to do searches and actually find the keys one wants.

Because of this, I generated two qr codes for the two keys I use. Lets see whether this makes other peoples life easier…

qr-code FTW!

Mon, 02 May 2011 11:17:47 +0000

https://stupid.domain.name/foot

During a session on RPKI at the RIPE62 meeting in Amsterdam, I got question number 1337 about why I am in a wheelchair. Before, or maybe while, I answered a friend suggested I should create a webpage with the explanation, and then a qr-code with the URL. Laminate the printed qr-code and put on the back of the wheelchair.

An excellent idea, if I knew for real what/how qr-codes work. Yes, I sort of do, and have been watching how things have evolved in Japan since 10 years back or so.

N4C - final conference

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 08:09:09 +0000

I have during the years been helping the N4C project, financed by the FP7 programme by the EU. Today (April 14, 2011) there is the final conference of the project, where I am speaking.

The presentation I will present you can find here.

The goal with the presentation is similar to many other of my presentations, to show that we are moving into the third phase of the Internet, where many more changes happens than ever before. The connection with N4C project is similar to the connection to Human Rights issues. Only with robust communication one will be able to communicate when some parties tries to limit communication (and because of that limit your ability to express your opinion).

Flattr, is that the new shit?

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:51:11 +0000

Yesterday I visited Flattr in Malmö, and had a long nice coffe with some really smart people. Part from exchanging ideas on human rights issues, how to build networks in general, of course they also explained to me how Flattr works. In the case other people have not understood, here is the deal:

You create a flattr account, and deposit money
You choose how much money you want to donate each month
You flattr (verb) various posts from people
Each month, Flattr (the company) divide your donation between the number of flattr’s you have done

To make money they of course keep a small transaction fee. Which is fair.

Maarjamaa Risti teenetemärk

Sat, 26 Feb 2011 11:00:00 +0000

Maarjamaa Risti V klassi teenetemärk

Yesterday (February 26, 2011) I was at the Estonian Embassy in Stockholm handed the decoration that I has been awarded earlier this year by the President of Estonia. The decoration was The Order of the Cross of Terra Mariana, 5th class. According to the excellent website where all receivers of decorations are listed, I got it because I have Promoted relations between Estonia and Sweden. The Ambassador of Estonia, Mr Alar Streimann, that handed over the decoration, in the presentation of me mentioned a number of things, including the 2007 incident where I together with a number of others outside and inside of Estonia worked together.

Unethical content?

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 11:06:59 +0000

Långholmen blocks Patrik Fältström

I got a notification from a friend that when he tried to access my text about how Internet works, the page was blocked (as you can see on the screen dump he provided).

So it is inappropriate to read explanations on how this Internet thing works?

I do not think so, but instead it is a misconfiguration…

Bredbandsdiskussioner...

Wed, 23 Feb 2011 00:01:16 +0000

Jag är inte explicit med i arbetet i Bredbandsforum hos PTS, men naturligtvis följer jag precis som många andra arbetet som pågår. Dels där, dels i de olika syskonprojekt som kommer fram här och var. Jag vet inte ens hur många som finns, men många är de. Ännu mindre vet jag exakt vad var och en handlar om.

Tyvärr har jag ännu inte stött på något som tar upp det som jag ser som de egentliga problemen med dagens utbyggnad av bredband. Problem som jag dessutom enbart ser i de kommuner där jag anser att man gjort eller gör fel. Medan det i andra fungerar hur bra som helst. Just denna skillnad i hur bra bredband det finns, och kopplingen mot vissa affärsmässiga, avtalsmässiga och teknikmässiga val som gjort, gör att jag tror jag är något på spåren. Dessutom ska jag säga att jag ignorerar diskussionen om skillnad eller inte mellan bredband och Internetaccess. Jag tycker det är skillnad, stor skillnad, men det får jag återkomma till.

A web browser access a web site, and...

Tue, 22 Feb 2011 17:38:25 +0000

I have got many questions during the years what actually happens when for example a web browser fetches a webpage from a web server. After discussing with some friends, this is created: A web browser access a web server…

Modernare utbildning i Yrkeshögskolan!

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 09:54:29 +0000

Jag och Claes Magnusson lämnade just in detta till vår IT-Minister. Finns också som PDF: Reflexioner över dagens YH-utbildning

Reflektioner - Skåne i februari 2011

Den snabba tekniska utvecklingen för med sig nya kunskapsbehov för företagen. Yrkesroller må vara samma eller liknande som förr, men verktygen och därmed kunskapen om dessa ändras.

Vi ser exempelvis klara likheter mellan våra grafiska prepressutbildningar för 25 år sedan och dagens utbildningar i Cross Mobile för effektiv och lönsam publicering på nya enheter som exempelvis iPad, PlayBook, TouchPad och olika Android tablets, men också nya och kommande möjligheter som AppleTV och GoogleTV.

People Location Protocol - PLOP

Sun, 13 Feb 2011 16:04:37 +0000

Once upon a time, I wrote this together with my friend Dirk…

Updated: I also found a presentation from 1999 about it: plop.pdf

INTERNET-DRAFT                                    Patrik Faltstrom
<draft-faltstrom-plop-01.txt>                     Dirk-Willem van Gulik
April 8, 1997
expires July 8, 1997

                   The People Location Protocol

Status of this Memo

   This document is an Internet-Draft.  Internet-Drafts are working
   documents of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), its areas,
   and its working groups.  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six
   months and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other
   documents at any time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts
   as reference material or to cite them other than as ``work in
   progress.''

   To learn the current status of any Internet-Draft, please check the
   ``1id-abstracts.txt'' listing contained in the Internet-Drafts
   Shadow Directories on ftp.is.co.za (Africa), nic.nordu.net
   (Europe), munnari.oz.au (Pacific Rim), ds.internic.net (US East
   Coast), or ftp.isi.edu (US West Coast).

Abstract

   The People Location Protocol (PLOP) gives the ability to subscribe
   to a feed of geographical locations of specific objects. The protocol
   describes both a TCP-based control channel, aswell as a lightweight
   UDP-based location stream channel between both the object announcing
   its position and the a PLOP service provider, and the PLOP service
   provider and the subscriber.

1. Introduction

   One problem today is to find the geographical location of objects, such
   as friends, sattelites and airplanes. People have the need for finding
   each other; and current methods such as the rwho, and finger protocols
   generally reveal information in a crude and privacy invasing way. Furthermore
   the introduction of nomad technology, such as DHCP, W-LANs, mobile IP and
   roaming accounts has wired people and mobile objects.

   In PLOP, three concepts are central; the Announcer, the Provider and the
   Subscriber. Announcers somehow know and are able to provide the location
   of an object. Providers can provide this information to third parties,
   such as other providers or to Subscribers. The Subscriber is the final
   client; which has a (legitimate) need to know the location of an object.

   How the announcer knows the location is outside the scope of this protocol,
   it could well have a NMEA serial interface to a GPS and be on the move; but
   it might well proxy for a whole range of objects, based on information it
   retrieves from its database. 

	Consider an email tool or personal address book; which warns
   the user that the person to be called or emailed is in a different timezone,
   or which suggest which phonenumber to use.

	A user might simply ferry between his house, his work; and does want
   to publish both places so that he can be reached easily, but at other times
   might not want to be visible to others (except perhaps his mistress, girlfriend,
   wife..) Such might be accomplished with a simple three state 'switch', home,
   at work and 'not-there'; with some fixed locations and simple access controls

 	A duty doctor might want to publish his information during on-duty
   hours; to, and insofar as needed by, the hospitals and medical-alarm centers,
   but at the same time has to consider the privacy of his patients. Even though
   a full blown GPS/GSM combination might be cool; the above can easily be accomplished
   today by using the information already avaible at the medical alarm centers
   in most countries which, during the night, links the postal-code or zip to
   a specific doctor 'state'; such as 'on-call', 'in-transit', 'confirmed',
   'signed-off' and 'off-call'.

	A container fright company might want to keep track of its containers,
   while they are at sea, on the road as well as at their customers. During some
   parts of the transit; the locations are generally linked, and a simple ship
   location announcement suffices for the container provider to publish the location
   or estimated times of arrival of all containers known to be on the ship. But
   during land transit by train or by car; other announcers might have to take
   over; and during the last leg of the journey some dedicated hardware on
   the container might be responsible of updating the information the location
   announcer has avaible. The container company might have a desire to share
   specific parts of the information with some of its customers.

        Sometimes the location of the object, as a space craft, is to be
   published and made known to a large number of users. A space organization
   could for example provide some icons and a nice backdrop or screen safer
   which displays latest mission happening live. Generally Mission Control
   will be quite able to supply the location of its spacecraft; there is
   little reason to actually add an Announcers, a GPS and an extra downlink
   to the spacescraft misson !

   The above examples illustrate several different extremes; some are essential
   one-to-one exchanges with tight access controls; the other extreme is a many
   to many exchange with little or no access and/or privacy controls. It should
   be noted that the security and privacy concerns are generally inversely related
   to the number of subscribers and the number of announcers.

2. Basic definitions

2.1 The PLOP Location Announcer (PLA)

   The PLOP location announcer (PLA) is a PLOP client that want to publish its
   geographical position. It must have a PGP key, where the public key is
   stored on a public server. It must also have the public key of the PSP
   (see 2.2) to be able to encrypt and sign the messages in PLP.

   The PLA tells via the PLOP-control protocol (PCP) the PSP
   that a certain other client can subscribe to the location, and with
   what accuracy.

   The PLA updates via the PLOP location protocol (PLP) the PSP the new
   location.

   Updates are send at the PLA's discretion for the duration of the
   subcribtion lease.

2.2 PLOP Service Provider (PSP)

   The PLOP service provider (PSP) is a server that receives the locations
   sent from the PLA, checks if the message should be forwarded to some
   other PSP (the authorative one), or takes care of registering the new
   location of the PLA after checking the integrity of the location
   announcement.

   The PSP is for each changed location checking what PLS (see 2.3 below)
   is subscribing to the location information for a given PLA, and sends
   the updated location using PLP to the PLS with the given accuracy.

   The PSP has announced its public key to the public as this key is needed
   for the PCP protocol.

2.3 PLOP Location Subscriber (PLS)

   The PLOP Location Subscriber is after subscribing for the location
   using PCP for a given object at a PLA, given a stream of locations
   from the PSP using PLP.

3 The protocols used

3.1 PLP

   The PLOP Location Protocol is a UDP based protocol where the messages
   are protected with a live key. The live key is exchanged between the
   client and the server via the PCP protocol.

   The format of the message in PLP is the following:

        PLP       = TAG CRLF LAT CRLF LONG CRLF TIME CRLF INFO CRLF
        TAG       = "Tag: " DIGIT
        LAT       = "Lat: " DEGREES
        LONG      = "Long: " DEGREES
        TIME      = "Time: " TIMESPEC
        INFO      = "Text: " TEXT
        DEGREES   = *PLUSMINUS DIGITS '.' DIGITS
        TIMESPEC  = *PLUSMINUS DIGITS '.' DIGITS
        TEXT      = *CHAR
        PLUSMINUS = + | -
        DIGITS    = DIGIT *DIGIT
        DIGIT     = 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
        CHAR      = < Any UTF-8 encoded UNICODE character except S-CHAR >
        S-CHAR    = < Any UNICODE character in the range U+0000 to U+001F >

   The PLP message is encrypted using <A REAL ZIPHER ALGORITHM> with the
   live key that is earlier exchanged between sender and receiver using
   PCP. The receiver of a message is responsible for detecting if the
   live key has changed, and 

3.1.1 Lattitude / Longitude (DEGREES)

   Values for latitude and longitude shall be expressed as decimal
   fractions of degrees.  Whole degrees of latitude shall be represented
   by a two-digit decimal number ranging from 0 through 90.  Whole degrees
   of longitude shall be represented by a decimal number ranging from
   0 through 180.  When a decimal fraction of a degree is specified,
   it shall be separated from the whole number of degrees by a
   decimal point.  Decimal fractions of a degree may be expressed to the
   precision desired.

   Latitudes north of the equator shall be specified by a plus sign (+),
   or by the absence of a minus sign (-), preceding the
   designating degrees.  Latitudes south of the Equator shall be
   designated by a minus sign (-) preceding the two digits designating
   degrees.  A point on the Equator shall be assigned to the Northern
   Hemisphere.

   Longitudes east of the prime meridian shall be specified by a plus sign
   (+), or by the Longitudes west of the meridian shall be designated by
   minus sign (-) preceding the digits designating degrees.  A point
   on the prime meridian shall be assigned to the Eastern Hemisphere.  A
   point on the 180th meridian shall be assigned to the Western
   Hemisphere.  One exception to this last convention is permitted.  For
   the special condition of describing a band of latitude around the
   earth, the East Bounding Coordinate data element shall be assigned the
   value +180 (180) degrees.

   Any spatial address with a latitude of +90 (90) or -90 degrees will
   specify the position at the North or South Pole, respectively.  The
   component for longitude may have any legal value.

   With the exception of the special condition described above, this form
   is specified in Department of Commerce, 1986, Representation of
   geographic point locations for information interchange (Federal
   Information Processing Standard 70-1):  Washington,  Department of
   Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

3.1.2 Time (TIMESPEC)

   A time is expressed as a Julian date, a Floating point number
   of arbitrary accuracy denoting the number of days before (negative),
   or after (positive) the 14th of September 1752.

3.2 PCP

   The PLOP Control Protocol is a TCP based protocol where the messages
   are transported using HTTP. Most messages are signed by the sender and
   encrypted for the receiver using PGP.

   The PCP protocol is used by either a PLS or a PLA when communicating
   with the PSP.

   The commands available are:

      PCP        = PCPCOMMAND CRLF
      PCPCOMMAND = PLACOMMAND | PLSCOMMAND
      PLACOMMAND = GETKEY | SETACL
      PLSCOMMAND = GETKEY | SUBSCRIBE
      GETKEY     = "GetKey"
      SETKEY     = "SetKey" SPACE KEY
      SETACL     = "SetACL" SPACE TOKEN SPACE TAG
      KEY        = DIGITS
      TOKEN      = DIGITS
      SPACE      = <U+0020>

   These commands are always encrypted with the public key of the PSP
   and signed by the PLS or PLA so the PSP can verify the sender. The
   resulting message, signed and encrypted, is sent via a POST command
   via HTTP.

4. Security considerations

   The PCP is encrypted with the public key of the PSP, and signed by
   PLA or PLS. This ensures that both sender and receiver of the commands
   verify each other to each other. Also, because of the encryption,
   it is not possible to steal the connection.

   PLP is secured via a symmetric encryption using a live key which is
   exchanged via PCP. The sender of locations using PLP can choose to
   change the live key whenever he wants. He is because of that also
   responsible for changing the live key.

5. References

6. Author's Addresses

An historic day!

Thu, 03 Feb 2011 19:26:41 +0000

This is indeed history!

From: Axel Pawlik Subject: IPv4 Exhaustion: RIPE NCC Update****Date: 3 februari 2011 17.42.41 CET

Dear colleagues,

The IANA IPv4 free pool was exhausted today, 3 February 2011. Each of the Regional Internet Registries (RIRs) has now received one of the final five /8s. The RIPE NCC has been allocated 185/8.

The RIPE NCC is holding reserves totaling approximately four /8s (around 75 million individual IPv4 addresses), not including 185/8.

Internet connectivity to Egypt goes away...

Sat, 29 Jan 2011 11:18:01 +0000

In this movie you can see how the connections to the AS where one of the name servers for the Government of Egypt is disappearing from the Internet. Without understanding the details, you still see that “the lines” are going away. Each line is “functioning connectivity” between ISPs, and the numbers are ISPs (or large portions of an ISP). The high number of changes you see is not normal, and what you also can see on this page at RIPE NCC that collects data live (i.e. the RIPE page is updating over time).

111 is the magic number?

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 06:18:39 +0000

I have seen a number of people twittering and talking and whatever about this for them magic:

If you take the last two digits of the year you are born and then add your age you will get the number 111.

Here is first an example:

I am born in 1965, and the last two digits is then 65. I am this year turning 46, and 65+46=111.

The reason for this is as follows:

Gratis IP-telefoni? Skulle inte tro det!

Sat, 15 Jan 2011 11:26:52 +0000

I dagens Dagens Nyheter finns det en lite förvirrande artikel. Att den kommer in i DN är för mig lite förvirrande, då DN normalt är en av de publikationer som förstår bäst hur Internet fungerar, och har på sistone bl.a. kopplat öppenhetsbegreppet till FNs Mänskliga Rättigheter.

Uppdatering: Det påpekas att detta är en omskrivning av en längre, mycket bättre, artikel hos Mobil. Även om vissa frågor saknas även i den artikeln. Dock är problematiken som artikeln beskriver naturligtvis viktig att diskutera (vidare).

Blocking access with DNS is not effective

Fri, 14 Jan 2011 14:18:38 +0000

Using DNS as a tool to prevent access to resources does not work. In reality, any blocking, at any layer in the Internet Architecture, will always be a combination of not be effective and hurt more than what is the intention. And because of that the effectiveness varies.

Two examples:

A domain name is blocked in the resolver(s)
- This will block not only the content on a specific URL, but all URLs that share the same domain name
- This will not block access if other resolver(s) are in use, for example a resolver the user run themselves
An IP address is blocked in the routing system
- This will block not only the content on a specific IP address, but everything using that IP address (including all virtual hosts)
- This will not block the same content on other IP addresses and changing IP address is easy (keep same domain name)

But blocking in the DNS is specifically bad now when DNSSEC is introduced. The signatures in DNSSEC are designed in such a way that they indicate both existence and non-existence of a domain name. Blocking is a third category, and is simply not part of the DNSSEC architecture. Unknown things will happen if the applications that use DNSSEC. I might create such problems with non-existence responses that people will not turn on DNSSEC, which imply the collateral damage by use of blocking can be considerable.

Hur kan jag hjälpa till?

Mon, 03 Jan 2011 07:05:09 +0000

Jag skrev igår en ganska lång text om hur det saknas folk som vet hur man ska göra saker (medan det finns ett överflöd av folk som vill diskutera vad man ska göra). Resultatet har blivit överväldigande, och positivt dessutom. Kanske för att de som inte håller med inte hör av sig till mig, kanske för att de inte läser bloggar, Twitter och Facebook på söndagkvällar, kanske för att…det ligger en del i det jag skriver.

Det saknas folk...

Sun, 02 Jan 2011 20:12:31 +0000

Jag startade en twitterdiskussion idag, eller snarare, jag blev triggad av en tweet av Hasse Rosén på Dagens Nyheter som refererade till en artikel av honom som handlar om ett av de släppta Wilileaks dokumenten. Artikeln säger i introduktionen:

Sverige spelar en nyckelroll i Europa när USA rustar för framtidens cyberkrig. Det visar hemligstämplade dokument från Wikileaks som DN tagit del av. Det är det svenska nätet som intresserar USA. I det tysta har amerikanerna kartlagt viktig infrastruktur världen över.

Blocking - not very effective...

Thu, 09 Dec 2010 09:31:52 +0000

We Internet people have said all of this before, that blocking access (specifically by using DNS) does not work. ISOC point that out in a statement on Wikileaks. In reality, any blocking, at any layer in the Internet Architecture, will always be a combination of not be effective and hurt more than what is the intention.

Two examples:

A domain name is blocked, for example in the resolver(s)
- This will block not only the content on a specific URL, but all URLs that share the same domain name
- This will NOT block access if other resolver(s) are in use, for example a resolver the user run themselves
An IP address is blocked, for example in the routing system
- This will block not only the content on a specific IP address, but everything using that IP address (including all virtual hosts)
- This will not block the same content on other IP addresses and changing IP address is easy (keep same domain name)

But blocking in the DNS is specifically bad now when DNSSEC is introduced. The signatures in DNSSEC is designed in such a way that they indicate both existence and non-existence of a domain name. Blocking is a third category, and is simply not part of the DNSSEC architecture. Unknown things will happen in the applications that use DNSSEC. Slow non-existence responses to the degree that people will not turn on DNSSEC, which imply the collateral damage by use of blocking can be considerable.

Mer förvirring om Wikileaks

Sun, 05 Dec 2010 09:33:58 +0000

Jag ser en artikel i Dagens Nyheter om Wikileaks där det diskuteras om de attacker och försök från diverse organisationer att stoppa Wikileaks är början på slutet för ett öppet Internet.

Men artikeln har ganska många brister, och den största bristen har att göra med att författarna verkar anse att sådant som inte är tillåtet i verkligheten ska vara tillåtet på Internet. Eller snarare, artikeln glömmer bort att diskutera hur man ska beivra brott på Internet.

Amarone

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 00:31:18 +0000

Five Amarone 20101127

Tonight I tested five different Amarone. The presentation was at Munskänkarna in Simrishamn. The tasting was lead by Mikael Lyng and Jonas Jagusch. And the wines where:

Corte Aleardi Amarone della Valpolicella 2001 259 kr Smell was medium (for an Amarone), leather, cherries, some grass that was cut some days ago. Taste classic, somewhat alcohol is coming through, not much tannins. Not very round, it bites back (which I like). Good price performance. (+)
Grotta del Ninfeo Amarone della Valpolicella 2005 329 kr Rounder smell. Not as sharp as Corte Aleardi. Some grass and well used shoes. Basil and surprisingly a bit dill (but not as a Rioja). Taste has some hay, dry, tannins. Raisins is absolutely there, with lots of alcohol. Quite a lot of the Amarone special taste. (+)
Antolini Amarone Moropiò 2006 379 kr Smell included some honey, which I did not like. That also came back in the taste. This was because of this too sugary-sweet to me. Not the raisin sweetness that one can feel otherwise. Taste still included lots of raisins, liquorice and some sweet cherries that had been put in alcohol for a while. Like the ones you can find in Netherlands sometimes. This was not really my kind of wine, specifically not that price. (-)
Brigaldara Amarone della Valpolicella (Casa Vicie) 2005 495 kr Somewhat peppery smell. Ham, smoked meat, or rather, sausage. Basil, thyme and fried yellow onion. Taste was round, nice, but not as deep as one could expect from a wine of this class. A bit short taste, but still well balanced. The pepper is also noticable in the aftertaste. Tannins and alcohol. Specifically tannins. But I think it should be emptied now. (-)
Terre di Leone Amarone della Valpolicella 2001 649 kr Very interesting smell. Dried blueberries, dill and basil. Roasted nuts. The taste is sweet, large, very fruity (like grappa-fruity), somewhat oak-vanilla but otherwise very noticable raisins towards figs. Alcohol and some tannins although this wine is to drink now. Good stuff, although a bit special and expensive. (+)

My conclusion is that specifically the Corte Aleardi is a good buy. It is a classic Amarone with stable taste and nose. Not too expensive either, although all Amarone are expensive and too many are over priced. The Terre di Leone is something to try if you have not. I would not say it is a classic Amarone, but maybe that is how such a wine should be in the future. If I understand correctly, the Terre di Leone people have restarted the winery and tries to find the perfect formula for how to make wine.

Robert Mondavi Private Selection Pinot Noir 2001

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 02:38:42 +0000

Robert Mondavi Private Selection Pinot Noir 2001

The Robert Mondavi winery has just like many others a few different categories of wines. The Private Selections being the one small step above the wine they mass produce. And just like from others I think the money is well spent. This wine is just a little bit more expensive, but magnitudes better than the table wine they make. Small difference in the label, large difference in the bottle.

Graham's Vintage Port 1970

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:41:15 +0000

Grahams Vintage Port 1970

Graham’s Vintage Port 1970 is in short, how red port should taste. Soft, smooth, while still dark, heavy. Incredibly smooth. Red taste of course, but definitely not the fresh berries that one might get from younger ports. A friend that really know port that also was at the opening of this bottle said this is one of the best ports I have ever had although I think 1963 was better. I have never tried 1963, but trust him. This is just incredibly good! Reference material. (+++)

Domaine La Barroche, Châteauneuf-du-pape, 2007

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:44:54 +0000

Domain La Barroche 2007

Now, people in Sweden, listen. This is a bargain. It is one of the absolutely best Châteauneuf-du-pape I have had. From 2007 that is I think the best year since 2000 and 1998 (and maybe better than those), and on top of that from Domaine La Barroche that is a rising star on the heaven of red wine. I claim Barroche is as good, if not better, than Beaucastel. If you look at the price, and availability, Barroche is definitely the best you can find today. If you like powerful, grenache dominated, red wine. Wine that stands on itself. That can dominate any dinner. While at the same time balances very well with most things.

Bhutan Highland Grain Whisky

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:36:05 +0000

Bhutan Highland Grain Whisky

Well, what to say. Interesting to have tried, slightly better than the €2/bottle of Rhum I found in Manila, but part from that… This is an experience. Can not be described. If I try to say something positive, I am surprised it is not as perfumed as some crap liquids I have tried that call themselves whisky. So well, I think this is really whisky, but not good. (-)

Chateau Pichon-Longueville, Pauillac, 1997

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:29:48 +0000

Chateau Pichon-Longueville, Pauillac, 1997

I am a red wine person. And there are a number of areas in the world that I like a lot. That I know the wine. Pauillac is not one of those, and because of that it is very interesting to have as the first wine I really try to remember from a region that is good. But, I like Cabernet Sauvignon. I have been on the left bank and tried quite a lot of different wines. And had various Bordeaux, and I have always been disappointed. Too thin, not enough poof. But I think that is because I personally in general think merlot is a too weak grape. I am looking for more stable cab.

Chateau Montelena, Napa Valley, Chardonnay, 1998

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 21:16:38 +0000

Chateau Montelena Chardonnay 1998

This is the first time part from tasting on site I have the famous Montelena Chardonnay. It was not a blind tasting, and we had the wine with food. As I knew about the wine and winery it is easy to say that it is very similar to a typical old world chardonnay. This is a good wine. It is as boring as some people think chardonnay is, but also as good as some people (like me) that like chardonnay think. Crisp, easy to drink. High quality, very high quality. No oak (which otherwise I think can destroy any chardonnay). Light, and not as thick as some blends can be. Once again, a great wine experience at friends places. I like having friends that have interest in drinking wine from their cellar before it is too late. (++)

La Fagotière, Châteauneuf-du-pape, 2009, white

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:46:23 +0000

La Fagotière 2009

La Fagotière is as all wineries from Châteauneuf-du-pape most well known for their reds, but they also do white. This is a very complex, thick but still crisp. Grass, pear, not any fat oils, no minerals. This white is a typical white Châteauneuf-du-pape, maybe a little bit too young still, but it should be young when you drink it. (++)

Bollinger R.D. 1988, Champagne

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 20:19:38 +0000

Bollinger R.D. 1988

I had the opportunity to not only get a taste of a Bollinger R.D. 1988, but also with an excellent goose liver. The match was absolutely perfect, but lets concentrate on the champagne. This Bollinger has aged very well. Stored in a nice way. The special taste that one normally get in very old champagne start to come, so this was an interesting balance between normal Bollinger taste (bread, some yeast etc) and the tropical fruit I feel is coming in older liquids. The bubbles where evenly distributed, and surprisingly active. I almost expected something where the carbon fizz would be hard to notice, but of course, 1988 is not that old. Just old. And good. Darn good. Drink now if you are lucky enough to have some bottles… (+++)

Hur skulle jag förändra SJ?

Sat, 09 Oct 2010 13:16:01 +0000

Jag skriver och säger mycket om hur jag tycker SJ misslyckas med sitt uppdrag. Men säger jag det får jag väl också beskriva vad jag skulle göra om jag fick fria händer. Många av dessa förslag kommer inte direkt från min erfarenhet av SJ, utan från min erfarenhet att resa med flyg eller tåg över hela världen de senaste 20 åren. Och jag har rest, och reser mycket. Det finns de som reser mer, men…inte många.

Swedish statement on IGF closing plenary

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:15:30 +0000

This afternoon Sweden, via Maria Häll from Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communication, made a statement at the IGF in Vilnius. It is not online yet, but I asked Maria for a copy of her written speech, and the ability to republish. The real spoken words might of course have been slightly different, so if you want details, have a look in the transcript when it is available.

SE Statement Stocktaking session IGF Vilnius Sept 2010, Maria Hall from Swedish Ministry of Enterprise, Energy and Communication.

Swedish statement on Human Rights and Internet

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 14:56:17 +0000

At the IGF 2010 in Vilnius, Lithuania, Johan Hallenborg from Swedish Foreign Ministry made a statement that makes me proud both living in Sweden, and have the favour of discussing these issues both with Johan personally, the Swedish Foreign Ministry and other parts of the Swedish Government.

You can find the statement here.

Carmen Reserva, Merlot, 2005

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 14:00:55 +0000

Carmen Reserva, Merlot, 2006

The Chile wines are in general too much berries, lemonade and sweetness for me. This from Carmen is one of the better such wines though, with a nice taste, with some body and the normal aftertaste given by lots of sun as traditionally from wines from Chile. (=)

Villa Antinori, 2006

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:01:54 +0000

Villa Antinori, 2006

Villa Antinori is a red wine from Tuscany, 55% Sangiovese, 25% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot and 5% Syrah. The Sangiovese is smooth and traditional, with some berries, but not only red. This is a good wine to have for dinner, and the price performance is good - to some degree because of the low price though. (=)

Château Rouselle, 2006

Thu, 16 Sep 2010 12:02:44 +0000

Château Rouselle, 2006

The Château Rouselle was yet another wine that was exactly as expected. A typical Merlot dominated Bordeaux with 75% merlot, 20% cabernet sauvignon, 3% malbec and 2% cabernet franc. The nicest part of this wine is that there is still enough cab to remove most of the berries that otherwise can, I think, be dominating. Specifically when the wine ends up being warmer in the glass.

Domaine La Barroche, Fiancée, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 2004

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 20:30:56 +0000

Domaine La Barroche, Fiancée, 2004

This is a masterpiece. 2004 was not the best year, but the wine definitely is. With 50% grenache and 50% syrah in the blend for the Fiancée. Domain La Barroche and the wine maker Julien Barrot that I had the privilege to meet when I visited Barroche last week. Walked by twice before we saw the gate being open, so the third time we entered and Julien greeted us, and asked his mother to help us with a tasting. Julien was though very nice and came back to us several times to ensure we got the information we wanted. Something we of course got from his very friendly mother.

Domaine Roger Perrin, Cuvée ?, 2006

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 17:05:17 +0000

Domaine Roger Perrin, Cuvée '?', 2008

This is an interesting wine as it is from Roger Perrin, on the border between Orange and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but is made from the classic Bordeaux mix Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Because this mix is not allowed in the apellation, it is not sold as a Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

This still has nice tannins, good smell. Long body, although not at all same wine as other from Châteauneuf-du-Pape which it should not be compared with. Rather compare with some classic Bordeaux mix wine, and you will see this is a good wine. Really good wine. Specifically given the price. (+)

Domaine Roger Perrin, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, red, 2008

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:58:55 +0000

Domaine Roger Perrin, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 2008

Good smell, but surprisingly thin body. I do not like when the smell is promising more than what the taste gives. The other way around is more fun. This just disappoints you. Not one of the good years. Drink now. (=)

Roger Perrin, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, white 2009

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:56:14 +0000

Complex, honey in smell, then spinach and banana (natural bananas, not the candy one). No picture unfortunately. If you are looking for a classic white Châteauneuf-du-Pape, get this! No picture unfortunately. 2009 might feel like a young year, but the white Châteauneuf should be had young (I do not mind being proven otherwise one day…). (++)

Chateau Colbert Cannet, Côtes de Provence

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:50:10 +0000

Chateau Colbert Cannet, Côtes De Provence, White

Light, relatively simple, cheap wine. Citrus and kiwi. Short taste. Ok as table wine, works with warm fish based food. Did not work very well with cold shellfish. (=)

Domaine La Fagotière, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 2004, red

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:45:40 +0000

La Fagotière, Châteaunef-du-Pape, Red 2006 (old label)

This wine from the not so perfect year 2004 is good. Not excellent, but good wine. Some fresh grass, but long sharp body that leaves memories. Interestingly enough it had more young tannins left than I expected. They do claim their goal is to create this older style wine that demands a lot from the drinker. (+)

Domaine La Fagotière, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 2007, red

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:41:07 +0000

La Fagotière, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 2006 (new label)

Rich of tannins, but this is a very complex Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Excellent wine, but need at least two more years for the tannins to get rounder (even for my taste) before really knowing how this will end up. Berries, heavy, long after taste, but, dominated by tannins still. It gets the judgement for how it is today. (+)

Note, the (new) label on the photo is the 2006, which is not what I tasted. The bottle I tasted did not have any label…

Domaine La Fagotière, Cote du Rhône, 2007, red

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 16:01:08 +0000

La Fagotière, Côtes-du-Rhône, 2001

This is unfortunately not very fun. Simply not much to have. Thin, with no aftertaste. Very disappointing for a 2007, as normally explosive years like 2007 is more noticable in lower quality wine than higher quality wine. Nothing bad with the wine, but pick something else. (=)

Note that bottle on the picture is not the same as the wine I tasted. The bottle I tried did not have any label, and therefore a bit boring to take a photo of. I therefore took a photo of a different bottle in the tasting room.

Domaine La Fagotière, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, 2007, white

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:56:21 +0000

Domain La Fagotiere, White, 2007

Very complex as all white Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Big body, lots of apricot and of course citrus. Drink now. (++)

A week at Les Florets

Sat, 11 Sep 2010 15:44:38 +0000

Les Florets

Once again, the yearly trip to southern Rhone valley has ended. Another 3500 or so km on the list of distances we have driven to find the best wine in the world, and the best food regarding price / performance. It was the fifth time at Les Florets, and they have become even better.

Many of my friends have now also been there, and I think even more people should investigate this place.

Domaine La Barroche, Châteauneuf-de-pape 2008, red

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:40:35 +0000

Domain La Barroche, 2008

Excellent red wine. Thanks to Winepunk Erik. I prefer the 2006 version as I think better syrah dominated wine can be found elsewhere. (++)

Domaine La Barroche, Châteauneuf-du-pape 2006, red

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:34:34 +0000

Domain La Barroche, 2006

This is a very impressive wine. Loads of typical Grenache and mourvédre based chateauneuf. Berries, lots of tannins. Long aftertaste. As it should be, although one could have asked a bit more syrah-feeling (even if I do not want too much in a grenach based wine). (++)

Domain La Garrigue, Vacquerias "La Cantarelle" 2005, red

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:17:43 +0000

A very nice vacquerias. The prestige wine from La Garrigue. Thin, strict, as all vacquerias. Body ok, but not impressive. Grenache and not syrah dominated. Still tannins, so it could sit for a while more. But, it is expensive. Still much cheaper than for example chateauneuf-du-pape, but also not comparable (as good gigondas can). (+)

Domaine Jean Deydier & Fils, Châteauneuf-du-pape 2008, red

Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:12:09 +0000

Domaine Jean Deydier & Fils, 2008

Relatively simple wine with grenache (60%), mourvédre (15%) and syrah (10%) dominating. The mourvédre is clearly noticeable. Tannins and young. Aftertaste pretty ok, but not a high class châteauneuf-du-pape. (=)

Domain La Garrigue, Gigondas 2008, red

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:20:21 +0000

A classic gigondas, but with what I think too dominating syrah. Should have been more grenache in this to match my taste. Loads of tannins, but also not so large body. Should stay in cellar for a few years, but I ask myself what is left then. If you like young syrah dominated things, this is for you. Myself, I pick something else. (=)

Domain La Garrigue, Vacqueryras 2007, red

Mon, 06 Sep 2010 19:15:10 +0000

Domain La Garrigue, Vacqueryras 2007

This is a young wine, and thinner body than for example Gigondas from the same winery. 2007 was an excellent year in southern rhone, which is specifically noticable on cheaper wines. The price is much lower, so price/performance is perfect for a daily wine. Style is classic, with dominant grenache character. (+)

Domain La Garrigue, Gigondas 2007, red

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:54:30 +0000

Domain La Garrigue, Gigondas 2007, red

Very good wine. Dark berries in the smell, with some herbs - but no grass. Taste is balanced with tannins. As it should be. Last bottle in the restaurant. In fact, did not exist on the wine menu. Sometimes it is good to know the owner of the wine cellar. (+++)

Domain La Garrigue Gigondas 2006, red

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 19:21:48 +0000

Domain La Garrigue Gigondas 2006, red

Thin with not much body. Short aftertaste but good balance and enjoyable. (+)

Domaine la Gardette, Gigondas 2007, Red

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 16:09:44 +0000

Domain De La Gardette, 2007

Powerful berries in the smell. Black current and blackberry is dominating. First taste is a bit if grass that disappears. Surprisingly few tannins which give this young wine an interesting body. Very good aftertaste. (+).

My predictions, not all correct, but not bad!

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 17:10:26 +0000

A friend of mine, Eric Huizer, sent me a mail today reminding me of some predictions I did in 2007:

Developments that have taken place by 2010, as noted by Patrik Fältström:

We have 10G network interface(s) on laptops

$5/mbps is the common/standard price of transit

Internet traffic is now heavily localized

Ad revenue will cover the cost/or subsidize significantly local loop

90% of Internet bits will be video traffic

600 Gbps at any one point in time on the backbone

VoIP traffic exceeds the PSTN traffic

Interesting to see where you were right: I’d say: Right: 2,6 and 7 Almost: 3, 5 Not yet: 1,4

Varför behövs mer styrning?

Tue, 17 Aug 2010 08:19:21 +0000

Jag uttalade mig igår (16/8) kritiskt mot en rapport (Nätneutralitet för Sverige) som PWC lämnat till Näringsdepartementet. Flera personer har hållit med mig, men samtidigt har flera personer undrat vad jag egentligen menar, och hur sjutton jag kan be om reglering.

Låt mig förklara. Först med en bakgrund till accessmarknaden i Sverige.

I Sverige är det ganska bra kvalitet på den Internetaccess som säljs. Konsumenter är vana vid att kunna komma åt de tjänster de önskar via den Internetaccess de har. Däremot är det inte Internetaccess som säljs. Istället säljs bredband, mobilt bredband, mobilt bredband fri, mobilt bredband start och en mängd andra olika produkter. Notera att ordet Internet inte finns med i de produktnamnen. Det första problemet är därför att konsumenten inte vet vad de får. I PWC-rapporten talas det om att de som tillfrågats håller med om att transparensen är det viktigaste, och det håller jag med om, men idag är inte transparensen god. Det går inte för en konsument att veta vad som skiljer mellan de olika produkter som finns.

IDNA2008 RFCs are ready

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 20:49:46 +0000

The RFCs with numbers 5890-5894 where just released. The one that I worked most with was RFC 5892, and the announcement was like this:

From: rfc-editor@rfc-editor.org
Date: Wed,  4 Aug 2010 08:37:42 -0700 (PDT)
To: ietf-announce@ietf.org, rfc-dist@rfc-editor.org
Cc: idna-update@alvestrand.no, rfc-editor@rfc-editor.org
Subject: RFC 5892 on The Unicode Code Points and Internationalized Domain Names for Applications (IDNA)

A new Request for Comments is now available in online RFC libraries.

       RFC 5892

       Title:      The Unicode Code Points and
                   Internationalized Domain Names for
                   Applications (IDNA)
       Author:     P. Faltstrom, Ed.
       Status:     Standards Track
       Stream:     IETF
       Date:       August 2010
       Mailbox:    paf@cisco.com
       Pages:      70
       Characters: 187370
       Updates/Obsoletes/SeeAlso:   None
       I-D Tag:    draft-ietf-idnabis-tables-09.txt
       URL:        http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5892.txt

This document specifies rules for deciding whether a code point,
considered in isolation or in context, is a candidate for inclusion
in an Internationalized Domain Name (IDN).  

It is part of the specification of Internationalizing Domain Names in
Applications 2008 (IDNA2008).  [STANDARDS TRACK]

This document is a product of the Internationalized Domain Names in Applications (Revised) Working Group of the IETF.

This is now a Proposed Standard Protocol.

STANDARDS TRACK: This document specifies an Internet standards track
protocol for the Internet community,and requests discussion and suggestions
for improvements.  Please refer to the current edition of the Internet
Official Protocol Standards (STD 1) for the standardization state and
status of this protocol.  Distribution of this memo is unlimited.

This announcement is sent to the IETF-Announce and rfc-dist lists.
To subscribe or unsubscribe, see
 http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce
 http://mailman.rfc-editor.org/mailman/listinfo/rfc-dist

For searching the RFC series, see http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfcsearch.html.
For downloading RFCs, see http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc.html.

Requests for special distribution should be addressed to either the
author of the RFC in question, or to rfc-editor@rfc-editor.org.  Unless
specifically noted otherwise on the RFC itself, all RFCs are for
unlimited distribution.

The RFC Editor Team
Association Management Solutions, LLC
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
IETF-Announce mailing list
IETF-Announce@ietf.org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf-announce

DNSSEC celebration

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 19:40:48 +0000

DNSSEC Sticker

At the IETF-78 meeting in Maastricht, Netherlands, there was a celebration of the signing of the root zone. Champagne was served, and at while walking out of the plenary we also got cookies and a sticker.

17 years of hard work, and all we got was a sticker ;-)

Shadow and Light in Lövestad

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 19:34:25 +0000

Sun dial

Today, my friends Lars and Anna-Maria started their four week exibition Shadow and Light in Lövestad. It is a set of installations, music, light, shadows and various other things. I took a bunch of pictures, and you can find them in my photo gallery. Today, Saturday July 10, they opened at 3PM, and the weather was fantastic. Some people might even think it was too warm, because they did not interact with the installations as much as they should.

Vi behöver en FRA-lag!

Sat, 10 Jul 2010 10:02:36 +0000

…men inte den bunt med lagar vi har idag.

Jag skrev härom dagen en längre text som beskriver lite av hur trassligt det är när man börjar prata om mänskliga rättigheter och Internet. Och om man vill klaga på det som allmänt kallas FRA-lagen genom att hänvisa till mänskliga rättigheter måste man nog gräva lite extra, för jag tror inte många kan förklara hur saker egentligen hänger ihop. Jag själv är lite osäker på argumentationen, men låt mig försöka. Och därigenom också förklara vad jag anser man borde gjort.

Mänskliga Rättigheter och Internet

Thu, 08 Jul 2010 22:21:28 +0000

De senaste åren har det nu och då diskuterats här och var vilken frihet som ska gälla på nätet. Men inte direkt, och jag anser inte diskussionen varit speciellt realistisk,utan snarare extrem i alla möjliga riktningar. Ingen nämnd och ingen glömd.

Vad menas med mänskliga rättigheter egentligen? Min syn är att det är de överenskommelser som finns, främst genom konventioner, vilka alla grundar sig i FNs allmänna förklaring om de mänskliga rättigheterna (Engelska:Universal Declaration of Human Rights). Regeringen har samlat ihop de viktigaste konventionerna på en speciell website. I Regeringen är det Utrikesdepartementet som hanterar s.k. människorättsfrågor. Dessa konventioner ligger dessutom till grund för t.ex. en del av de grundlagar vi har i Sverige.

What is a "search engine"? (Smile 29)

Sat, 03 Jul 2010 02:50:03 +0000

Many people where surprised when the European Parliament started discussing a written declaration (in Swedish here) with the intention to create an early warning system for pedophiles and sex offenders. Specifically when the explicit text in the declaration describe what the system is about (I have put text in bold):

Asks the Council and the Commission to implement Directive 2006/24/EC and extend it to search engines in order to tackle online child pornography and sex offending rapidly and effectively;

New TLDs, acceptable or not to everyone?

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:06:04 +0000

Last week was an ICANN meeting in Brussels. I did not go this time either. But people still send questions to me on various subjects. One of the more popular ones the last couple of days is whether the string that is to be allocated as a potential new TLD must be acceptable to everyone, or whether one can accept a TLD be filtered out on some parts of the Internet just because of its name?

Why do we need "open access"?

Mon, 28 Jun 2010 08:40:45 +0000

I got the question yesterday again, why we need open access, or why do we need network neutrality.

I have three reasons why that is needed:

Transparency: End users, that buy access, must know before they sign a contract what service they will get. This implies both transparency and the ability for customers to compare the products of two competing providers.
Investments: The providers of access must be able to use traffic management to ensure the user experience for the end user (their customer) stays the same over the contracted period. On the other hand, an access provider should not replace investments in more capacity with traffic management.
Innovation: Innovators, and specifically public services that provide new services need to know how to design their products so that it can be used by as many customers as possible. We can not accept a future public service that require end users to be customers of a specific access provider.

Clarification on Written declaration 29

Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:16:27 +0000

I got the following from Joe McNamee, and have been asked to make it available.

Clarification about Written Declaration 29

Presentation at local IGF event in Vilnius

Thu, 10 Jun 2010 21:31:49 +0000

At a local IGF event in Vilnius on May 19, 2010, I on behalf of Cisco and ICC held this presentation. I explains a snapshot of what the state of IGF process is. You can find the presentation here.

Diskussioner om barnpornografibrottet

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 13:43:41 +0000

Riksdag och Departement har i en artikel beskrivit beslutet baserat på Proposition 2009/10:70 gällande barnpornografibrottet. Denna artikel har liksom många händelser generat en del diskussion.

Det finns en hel del att diskutera, men vissa saker anser jag att man faktiskt har tänkt på. Eller snarare, jag satt med i utredningen som ledde till rapporten Barnet i fokus - En skärpt lagstiftning mot barnpornografi, SOU 2007:54, och jag tycker vi tänkte på ganska många saker. Denna rapport ledde sedan till Proposition 2009/10:70.

Password recovery on VMWare ESXi 4 - problems with tar

Mon, 31 May 2010 19:51:07 +0000

One of my VMWare servers had a master password (to the VMWare console) that I had forgot. I.e. I had forgot to write it down, and not had any need to access the console for a while.

Started to look for a routine for password recovery, but after quite a lot of searching, I found that for ESXi 4, there is no way to recover the password. Would that stop me from trying? Not really, as reinstall would be quite difficult for various reasons, if nothing else because I did not have any CD to burn the VMWare software on.

Sveriges Radio - hur tänkte ni nu?

Mon, 17 May 2010 08:56:31 +0000

Detta är också postat hos Mindpark.

Jag har problem med den spelare som man får i botten på den websida som visas när man går till Sveriges Radios website. Det kanske har med mig att göra, med min webbläsare, eller vad som helst. Jag behövde dock hjälp för att få reda på hur jag får bort den. Den tar upp utrymme som för mig är viktigt. Utrymme som kunde använts för redaktionellt material.

Cisco model 9A5

Thu, 06 May 2010 21:24:45 +0000

A friend of mine, Paul Hoffman, wrote in his blog about some early Cisco hardware. He had found some description of a Cisco model 9A5, a Cisco product I had never heard about before.[gallery link=“file” columns=“4”]

I traded the hardcopy of the description for some Swedish food (in tubes btw), and when coming home, I was thinking a bit on how to expose the descriptions in the best way possible. I gave up, went to my friend Stefan at Ramgården in Lövestad and asked what he could do about it.

Varför SAS är svårt att driva effektivt

Tue, 13 Apr 2010 06:08:16 +0000

Jag vet inte om jag börjar bli gammal, bakåtsträvare och bitter, men jag tror dessa åsikter beror på att jag rest alldeles för mycket i mitt liv. Jag började flyga utomlands på allvar 1992, och har sedan dess passerat en miljon poäng på åtminstone två flygbolag samtidigt som jag senaste två åren rest med tåg i Sverige varje vecka.

Det ger en del erfarenhet. Man lär sig hur saker fungerar, och ser detaljer i hur saker kunde förbättras. Det som förvånar mig är att de som arbetar på dessa resebolag som producerar en enda tjänst, att flytta sina kunder, uppenbarligen inte ser samma saker. Eller också missar jag kapitalt vad som är problemet. Men det tror jag inte.

Sveriges Radio, sr.se/sverigesradio.se

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:46:54 +0000

Sveriges Radio websida?

Sveriges Radio håller på att byta sin websida. Diverse URL:er flyter omkring på nätet, och jag tänkte titta på hur en av dessa sidor ser ut. Provade, och fick ett felmeddelande. Inte vilket som helst, utan ett som uppmanar mig att konfigurera om saker:


Remove the IP restrictions from the 
configuration/system.webServer/security/ipSecurity
section of the configuration file for the server, site,
application, or page.

Naturligtvis är meddelandet riktat till den administratör som hanterar servern, men nu över till det viktiga, valet av domännamn: sverigesradio.se och inte sr.se.

Context is important in Twitter

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:58:13 +0000

This morning I got the following two tweets after each other in my timeline. Both very important messages, but each one in their own context.

Tomato sauce or 4G?

I think this shows the power of Twitter and social networks. The mesh is built more or less randomly, or, is it really random?

IPv6 better than IPv4 at IETF-77

Tue, 23 Mar 2010 15:51:14 +0000

At the IETF meeting in Anaheim, USA, the internet access this morning was broken for IPv4, while IPv6 works like a charm.

I think we will see more and more of this in the future. It is interesting sitting here surfing around, making phone calls etc, and see what services work. Some do not, and that is of course because they only have IPv4 access.

paf$ **ping -c 4 stupid.domain.name**
PING stupid.domain.name (85.30.129.39): 56 data bytes
Request timeout for icmp\_seq 0
Request timeout for icmp\_seq 1
Request timeout for icmp\_seq 2
--- stupid.domain.name ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 0 packets received, 100.0% packet loss
paf$ **ping6 -c 4 stupid.domain.name**
PING6(56=40+8+8 bytes) 2001:df8::24:226:bbff:fe15:8d13 --> 2a02:80:3ffe::39
16 bytes from 2a02:80:3ffe::39, icmp\_seq=0 hlim=59 time=191.714 ms
16 bytes from 2a02:80:3ffe::39, icmp\_seq=1 hlim=59 time=190.497 ms
16 bytes from 2a02:80:3ffe::39, icmp\_seq=2 hlim=59 time=194.374 ms
16 bytes from 2a02:80:3ffe::39, icmp\_seq=3 hlim=59 time=189.594 ms
--- stupid.domain.name ping6 statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 packets received, 0.0% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/std-dev = 189.594/191.545/194.374/1.798 ms

Display of IPv6/IPv4 address on this blog

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 08:58:26 +0000

I have got some questions on how I managed to get the IP address of the client connecting to this blog in the right column. Specifically the IPv6 address.

First of all, the blog do have native IPv6 access, which of course is needed for accessing it over IPv6. Sounds like a natural thing, but sometimes not so easy to get. The number of ISPs and hosting companies that do have native IPv6 is though exploding, so if you checked a year or two ago and did not find one, check again.

Review of Unicode TR#46

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:03:09 +0000

I have reviewed Draft Unicode Technical Standard #46 - UNICODE IDNA COMPATIBILITY PROCESSING as could be found at http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr46/ on March 15, 2010 (below called TR#46).

The review is based on my personal experience from many years of activity in the IETF, and of course my work with both IDNA2003 (RFC3490 etc) and IDNA2008 (working group charter).

The document from my perspective need some major changes. The reasons are both structural, so that it end up being an addition to IDNA2008, and technical/specific so that it is more clear on what a reader is to take home as a message when reading it.

RAKEL / TETRA - en enda stor #fail

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:39:58 +0000

Rapporten Rakel, nuläge och framtid (Fö2009/1090/SSK) har just publicerats av Försvarsdepartementet.

Efter att ha läst denna måste alla inse hur snurrigt projektet RAKEL utvecklats och drivits. Jag har själv skrivit om RAKEL en hel del gånger, och det enda rätta nu är att börja om. Ta ett rejält omtag, gå igenom vilka krav som finns, och ta beslut om hur man ska lägga ner RAKEL, och bygga nytt. Ett nytt system som bygger på hyllvaror, dvs ett vidareutvecklad, speciell variant av 3G/4G så att blåljusmyndigheter kan tjuvåka på samma infrastruktur och samma teknik som alla använder i samhället. Det är extremt få krav på RAKEL som idag inte kan uppfyllas av de 3G-abonnemang som man kan köpa på hyllan, och det är min bedömning att man relativt enkelt - och betydligt billigare - kan få dessa eller liknande funktioner i de civila nät som redan finns med betydligt bättre täckning än vad RAKEL någonsin kommer få i Sverige.

RAKEL / TETRA discussed again in Sweden

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:42:10 +0000

I have for years discussed the RAKEL/TETRA deployment in Sweden. And my view have always been that although the current investment is solving some real problems, specifically for the Police, one can never say that it was worth the investment.

I have in this blog written about it a few times as you can see if you search for RAKEL.

Today, Maria Abrahamsson (m) writes an article in Dagens Nyheter that talk about exactly the same things. I hope at last people will seriously investigate what is really happening, because although we have already put too much money into this project, the earlier we stop, the better.

Internet Access at UN meeting is limited

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 16:14:12 +0000

At the Internet Governance Forum MAG meeting today, I heard people start complaining they can not access their chat service, and then email, and then VPN server at home. I did not have any problems, but that was (as I now know) because my VPN came up.

I used the brilliant software Netalyzr, and found that various ports where blocked for outgoing traffic even. Although it is explicitly requested that specifically this meeting should have all access open.

Affärsmodeller och byråkrater styr radio och TV i Sverige

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 12:11:00 +0000

Jag blir mörkrädd när jag läser det senaste från Radio- och TV-Verket, Utkast till strategi för Radio- och TV-verkets tillståndsgivning för marksänd tv 2010–2014. Det är en utredning om HD-material i det DVB-nät som vi har i Sverige, och tillsammans med detta finns en bilaga 1, vilken är en inlaga från Teracom.

Radio- och TV-Verket har frågat Teracom vad de tycker, och de skriver naturligtvis en mängd saker som passar i deras affärsmodell. En mängd tekniska argument, men absolut ingen argumentation som stärker den tes som dokumenten utgår från.

ServerAdmin and manual editing of Apache Config

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 08:27:13 +0000

I had an example of problems with ServerAdmin yesterday. I have one server (using Django) needing special settings for the Python environment. I have added that manually via two LocationMatch statements in the Apache Config for the site in question. Remember (or note) that the order of those LocationMatch statements do matter for Apache.

One of them was more specific than the other one, and the specific statement was this:


<Location "/">
   PythonHandler django.core.handlers.modpython
   SetHandler python-program
   SetEnv DJANGO\_SETTINGS\_MODULE admin.settings
   PythonPath "['/usr/local/www/example.com/django'] + sys.path"
   PythonDebug On
</Location>

The other one was:

Koa kommenterar, vad är radio?

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 13:19:40 +0000

Kjell Ove Andersson (Koa)

Jag har skrivit en hel del om bristen på moderna tankar vad gäller radio, och då speciellt Public Service och dess roll i dagens (och framtidens) mediesamhälle. Mina tankar grundar sig i de förändringar som telekommunikation generellt gått och går igenom. Tex kan ni se vad jag skrivit om den senaste texten från Regeringen (Lagrådsremiss gällande en ny Radio- och TV-lag).

Efter att ha skrivit denna senaste text fick jag en kommentar privat av Kjell Ove Andersson, även känd som Koa. Jag frågade honom om det var ok att återpublicera hans text, och det var ok, så här kommer den:

Förslag på ny Radio- och TV-lag

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 13:58:18 +0000

Suck, jag blir så ledsen. Fortfarande, 2009, förstår inte de som skriver utredningar vad som händer i världen. Men, det är uppenbarligen inget att göra något åt. Sveriges Radio är förlorare. De och även kommersiella aktörer leds in på en väg som inte är annat än en återvändsgränd. De springs om av pigga aktörer som förstår. De som inte bryr sig om utredningar. De som lyckas kringgå lagstiftning som är föråldrad redan innan den sjösätts.

Letter from EU to UN Secretary General

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 22:12:05 +0000

Today the Swedish IT Minister Åsa Torstensson together with the Commissioner Viviane Reding sent a letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. I think the letter is extremely well written, but when I twittered about it, some people contacted me and asked what was so special with it?

Let me try to explain…

In traditional processes in the world a very hierarchal system is used. This regardless of whether it is inside an organization, inside a country, or a world wide discussion. Only very few individuals are appointed being rapporteurs or representatives from each organization, and then those and only those people meet. Specifically if discussions are cross border discussions, then traditionally discussions have been only intergovernmental, i.e. between governments.

Swedish Regulator on openness - (PTS-ER-2009:32)

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:28:36 +0000

Today the Swedish Regulator PTS handed over their report on openness to the Swedish Government. The report is in Swedish but can be found here.

The report do have an abstract in English, and that summary include the major findings:

The Swedish Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) has come to the following conclusions after completing the Government commissioned assignment concerning open networks and services:

Openness creates the prerequisites for innovation and competitiveness but must be balanced against other interests worthy of protection, such as incentives to invest and network security.

Vad implicerar ett exklusivitetsavtal?

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:29:53 +0000

I veckan (19 november) beskrevs det hos Computer Sweden hur Telias förslag för exklusivitetsavtal diskuteras i Nacka. Det talas om exklusivitet under en viss tid, men vad mer exakt som föreslås av Telia är förvirrande då det står olika saker i olika texter. Jag önskar generellt att texter som skrivs, speciellt i fackpressen, är mer precisa. Ibland kan de inte vara så precisa då avtal och papper som läggs fram av de inblandade organisationerna är oprecisa, men då måste detta komma fram. Och detta är verkligen inget speciellt med/för Telia. Jag har sett liknande från många andra aktörer på marknaden. Åkersberga Fibernät tex.

Problem med nätneutralitet i Sverige?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:11:20 +0000

I dagens IDG finns jag visst med på en helsida. Jag hoppas läsarna förstår att jag känner att jag är någonstans mittemellan de som kräver absolut neutralitet, och de som tycker marknaden kan lämnas helt fri.

För att repetera så anser jag inte att vi i Sverige har problem med neutralitet. Vi har problem med öppenhet, och ofta pratas det om öppenhet när neutralitet ska diskuteras och tvärtom. Men är det någon skillnad? Jag tror inte det. Jag tror öppenhetsdiskussionerna i Sverige är vår version av nätneutralitetsdiskussionerna.

Vad är Internetaccess?

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 08:34:04 +0000

Härom dagen postade jag en längre artikel med titeln “Har vi problem med öppenhet i Sverige?”. Jag har fått många kommentarer (tack), och förtydligar nu med några kortare inlägg. Först Internetaccess.

Jag anser inte vi har problem med Internetaccess idag. Men just därför bör idag alla inblandade samlas och komma överens om vilka minimikrav som gäller för en Internetaccess. Det ska inte vara förbjudet att sälja saker som inte uppfyller dessa krav, men de får inte kallas Internetaccess.

Damn good wine!

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:15:18 +0000

Wines we tried.

So we had some friends for dinner, and when we have friends over, we try to have some good wine. This time was a bit special as specifically one of the guests is very good at wine, with Bordeaux as speciality. More about that later.

Michel Lenique, Blanc de Noirs

We started with a champagne. This wine was from the small producer Michel Lenique in Pierry. What was special about this champagne is that it is a Blanc de Noirs, and not only that. Out of the three allowed grapes in Champagne (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Petit Meunier) this champagne is made out of 100% Petit Meunier.

Har vi problem med öppenhet i Sverige?

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 22:42:37 +0000

Igår höll jag en presentation om öppenhet och nätverksneutralitet i Sverige. Det hela var en introduktion på det seminarium om öppenhet som Näringsdepartementet och Åsa Torstensson höll.

Tyvärr blev diskussionen inte så bra, då det var mest samma gamla argument som de senaste 10 åren. Efteråt har jag fått en hel del frågor om vilka problem jag tror vi har i Sverige idag. Så många att jag tänkte jag skulle summera det här.

About Gudrun, at Mindpark

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:24:02 +0000

Today I have my second text at Mindpark, and it is the 37th text in the Mindpark 100 series. The title is: När Gudrun förstörde Internet (in English “when Gudrun destroyed the Internet”). The title itself is a play with words that might only be fun if you know a bit about Swedish Politics and Gudrun Schyman.

Hur går det med PSI-direktivet?

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 10:19:46 +0000

I dagens Computer Sweden beskrivs det i en artikel hur offentlig sektor inte vill släppa ifrån sig information. Det är Peter Egardt på Stockholms Handelskammare beskriver hur illa det är med implementationen av det s.k. PSI-Direktivet. En annan artikel beskriver hur Transportstyrelsen ville ha en hel del pengar för rådata. Mer pengar än vad utvecklarna räknat med.

Redan hösten 2008 beskrevs det i Dagens Juridik hur Sverige fått bakläxa vad gäller implementation av direktivet, och dagens artiklar visar att det fortfarande inte hänt någonting alls.

About DAB, at Mindpark

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:25:43 +0000

Today I write text #26 in the #mindpark100 series of texts. This project, run by my friend Joakim Jardenberg will write one text each day of the last 100 days of 2009 about how Media has changed since year 2000 (Mindpark: 100 mediahändelser under 00-talet). Texts are in Swedish, and so is mine about DAB.

Large amount of email, or?

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:55:44 +0000

When I a few minutes ago checked mail, I watched the progress bar, and was chocked. If the number was correct, some people on a mailing list would have sent some trillions of email messages in just 30 minutes or so. Impressive. I did not know my mail server could handle that.

massivenumerofemail

Friends in Brussels

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:57:19 +0000

So I spent 24 hours in Brussels. I am up to 5 meetings by now. One was a lunch meeting where I had some good ravioli, filled with spinach and ricotta cheese. On my way to Kitty’s for the last meeting of the day (as usual, with a pint Murphy’s red today), I had my traditional Belgian waffle.

More fun was to, on my way to the subway, meet a good friend. We could share some insights on what’s up.

SAS can survive

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:51:08 +0000

I was flying SAS today, and once again I have the feeling that SAS is close, but still quite a bit from perfect.

An example, they informed clearly with signs and later with voice that the boarding was to be in sections. Fair, many if not most airlines already do this. Less queuing at the gate before boarding and faster boarding.

Not here. They initiated a rule that they first board rows 14 and higher. I sat down waiting for row 7 to be called I had a seat on.

Pea soup before peat

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:41:21 +0000

In Eggelstad, like many villages in Sweden, there is an area where peat can be excavated. Peat for heating. Before walking around and hear from the elders of the village how it worked, we had pea soup.

New URL to the RSS feed!

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 22:32:25 +0000

There are some people that read this blog via RSS feed. I read many blogs that way. One URL that I could not do anything about as the URLs for feeds are so similar in Drupal and Wordpress was the URL to the RSS feed.

So unfortunately you have to resubscribe, to this URL.

Blog moved from Drupal to Wordpress

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 21:20:33 +0000

After some detailed planning, and great help from my friend John Angelmo, the blog is moved. Database was converted. I had to edit the content as I had written my own plugin to Drupal that made the writing of links easier, and I had to turn all those shortcuts into real HTML. A perl script that edited all data in the MySQL database did the trick.

There might be a few images that where stored in Drupal that are not moved. But, those where added using a Drupal plugin that did not work. Most images etc are stored outside of Drupal, and therefore visible and accessible. If something is missing, let me know and I can try to dig it out.

Vad är viktigt för SJ?

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:51:24 +0000

Jag fick just erbjudande att svara på en enkät från SJ. Jag ställer upp på sådana enkäter generellt från företag jag använder ofta. De där jag vet att jag kan svara på frågorna ärligt. I detta fallet har dock SJ missat något.

Första frågan lyder:

Vad anser du gör ett företag ansvarsfullt? Viktigast för mig är att företaget… Rangordna från 1 till 3 där 1 är viktigast.

Alternativen är:

har och efterlever en miljöpolicy

Swedish regulator PTS take most weird decision so far

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:15:41 +0000

Swedish Regulator PTS have today notfied .SE, the Swedish (.SE) TLD registry that they have to change the rules. You can find the press release here and the actual notice to .SE here (PDF).

In short, the decision implies that any form of the sequence of the characters “b”, “a”, “n”, “k” are illegal in domain names in Sweden. Further that checks of what domain names are registered are to be checked before registration.

MacOSX 10.5 as VPN server

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 07:33:46 +0000

I am running some MacOSX Servers, and got a question from a friend whether I could terminate VPN connections that he was interested in. He runs Windows XP, and according to what one can find on the web, this should be no problems at all. Now I know that was really last famous words, but at least it works now. Let me tell you about the not so well documented issues.

Something is rotten in the state of ...

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:52:37 +0000

You see I do quote Shakespeare, but without naming the country. Because the important issue is not what country it is, but instead that the quote explicitly says in the state of as it (as is explained on enotes.com) is maybe more important to point out it is in the leadership, the state, things have to start to change.

Tons of people do a good job in various Governments and governmental organisations, but, the coordination is bad. The optimization is local, both regarding subject and in time. Coordination must be better between various interest areas. For example, as my friend Roger Wallis said in an email:

Interview (in swedish) about Mobile Broadband

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:53:45 +0000

I was June 11 at 05:40 in the morning (yeah…) interviewed by SR about mobile broadband. Partly due to an article in Ny Teknik that said the providers do not provide the bandwidth they promise.

You can listen to me here (QuickTime Movie).

The problem with that test is partly that every measurement software you use is using IP packets. Depending on what efficiency of the software you can get the full link speed or not, for example depending on whether you use TCP or UDP. If you use TCP, then the window size, back off algorithms etc ensure that you are not using the link to 100%.

Rumors that I do not like "Radio"

Thu, 04 Jun 2009 18:04:50 +0000

I hear rumors from the headquarters of SR being critical to DAB. I was also interviewed by IDG in Sweden.

Let me make this clear, I do not dislike radio. I like radio a lot. I listen to radio. Radio Kristianstad mostly, but also P1 and alice@97.3 (i San Francisco).

What I am concerned about is that we together in Sweden spend too much money and effort on what was radio in 1995, and not what is radio 2005, or 2015 (or 2025). We today have not only competition between radio stations and production companies. We also start to have global reach for radio all over the planet (with the help of distribution over the Internet). And we have non direct broadcast in the form of Podcasts.

Swedish Crisis information in Twitter

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:17:27 +0000

In Sweden since a while back, information about various stresses (crises) on the society is collected under one roof, the website http://www.krisinformation.se/. As far as I understand they got information about Twitter not much more than a week ago. Maybe they have read about it before that, but, instead of as some organisations say we are investigating and thinking about what we should do about social network (without participating), they just threw themselves into the sea of Twitter.

Swedish Presidency uses IPv6 and DNSSEC

Thu, 28 May 2009 12:01:45 +0000

On July 1 Sweden starts as the presidency of the EU. The main site for the presidency is http://www.se2009.eu/. A new site will be presented on June 1 according to information on the web site.

The Czech Republic announced they are signing the website for their presidency with DNSSEC, and of course Sweden must do something as well.

Already earlier, the domainname (regeringen.se) for the government is signed with DNSSEC, so adding DNSSEC would be no problem if the parent zone (.EU) was using DNSSEC. They do not. But, the Swedish Government has http://www.eu2009.se, and that domain name is in .SE, and can be signed, and not only that, also available over IPv6.

One transport - multiple services

Sat, 23 May 2009 08:45:11 +0000

Since we entered the new millennium (and we can discuss separately whether that happened jan 1 2000 or jan 1 2001), the history of one network per service was already history. The decision of building a separate DVB network for digital TV was already taken, for some weird reason one had already decided to build out Tetra.

I wrote yesterday about the for me strange push for a DAB network in Sweden. Because it is weird. Why would we build a special network for one service? I happened to stumble upon an article in IDG where Ingrid Nordmark at Ericsson say the same thing, but as a comment on 4G (in this case LTE):

"Digital radio" -- does it have to be DAB?

Fri, 22 May 2009 14:32:49 +0000

In Sweden there is a discussion going on since years back whether we should deploy DAB or not. It accelerated again this spring and we now see an article in SvD where among others Mats Svegfors, CEO of SR (or SverigesRadio as they want to be called now,…but that is another story) writes about the need for DAB+.

The problem with this discussion is that the only ones that discuss are the people that send radio. Not the one listening. The people sending radio very much like to have their own technology that they can use. Just like TV got a DVB-T network that they can use (which also was somewhat a failure I think).

Former Minister of Justice misses the target

Wed, 20 May 2009 22:56:27 +0000

In an article (in Swedish) in SvD the former Swedish Minister of Justice, Thomas Bodström, declare the Data Retention Directive a great success.

That is not a correct statement. It is an failure. The legislation demonstrates that:

People at Department(s) of Justice all over Europe (including Sweden) do not communicate with people actually responsible for the political areas new legislation like this hits (in this case IT)
Just because you get a directive, that is not enough to get harmonization between the legislation in the Member States

Future of radio is not linear programming

Wed, 20 May 2009 13:22:35 +0000

At a meeting called Radiopuls 2009 one of the speakers for a commercial radio station claimed one need not 6, but 20-30 radio station so that the user can get the radio they want, when they want it.

There are so many wrongs in that statement. Listeners get what they want first when they do not use linear programming anymore. Spotify, and similar services. That is where the future is, and where the listener get a choice.

IGF in Egypt fall of 2009, slightly new role for me

Mon, 18 May 2009 09:23:38 +0000

In November there is a fourth IGF meeting in Sharm El Sheikh in Egypt. Last week, we had an open consultation (full transcript and an archive of the webcast is now available).

The most interesting findings during the open meeting was not only that that China expressed their view regarding extension of the IGF:


So we repeat that the delegation of China does not agree with extending
the mission of the IGF beyond the five years.  We feel that after the
five years are up, we would need to look at the results that have been
achieved.  And we need, then, to launch into an intergovernmental
discussion.

…but also that everyone else had interest in extending the IGF another five years. For example the European Union via the presidency:

Commission hearing on Internet Governance

Mon, 18 May 2009 09:05:54 +0000

During the week of the RIPE-58 meeting (.mov). He summarizes well what we (myself, Nurani Nimpuno, Olaf Kolkman and Lynn St.Amour) synchronized before and during the meeting.

The interesting thing was not so much what was said, but that Colisanti was not only opening the meeting. He was also chairing it and very active during the day. And he sort of ignored what Reding had said about the G12 week before. I applaud his professional management of the meeting, and that of course implies also my thank to everyone that helped arranging it.

RIPE meeting -- with not many surprises

Mon, 18 May 2009 08:59:34 +0000

The 58th RIPE meeting took place in Amsterdam as usual. Or, was it usual? It was a 20th year anniversary of the RIPE meeting, and they had invited all participants at the first meeting to Amsterdam. I like that. We who has worked with Internet for a while obviously start to get old.

What else was special was the 2nd meeting of the cooperation working group. I was on stage (for some reason I do not understand) together with my friend Kurtis. Or rather, I do know why. It was because the 2nd person on stage (part from Kurtis) was not on stage, but on the phone. So I was sort of filling up some space. That said, it did give me the ability to say what I wanted about IPv6. The normal stuff, that governments via the procurement process has a tool they should use more. That is, I think, one of the more effective ways of participating in any public private partnership.

Two weeks without facebook and twitter

Sat, 16 May 2009 07:02:56 +0000

I have the last two weeks hardly kept track of what has happened in the social networks I participate in. Even though I have managed to get Facebook and Twitter to work fine together. I have sort of updated Brightkite but not much more.

Have I survived? Yes. Have I managed to know what is going on in the world? No! I have found myself skipping paper newspapers first, then TV and last the RSS feeds and social networks. I have kept up with the conferences, and what has been going on around them. Massive amount of email and chat rooms (where chat room activities in back channels have surprised some people regarding how effective they are). Simply because there is where my brain had to be.

What's up with Internationalized Domain Names?

Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:43:12 +0000

Today I held a presentation [PDF] about the current status of Internationalized Domain Names. This presentation is a complement to the documents I have in another corner of my website. For people following the discussion, this is nothing new, but for newcomers the presentation might be of some help to get up to speed.

The presentation was hosted by Acreo and I thank specifically Tove Madsen for arranging it.

IPv6 and this blog

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 17:05:40 +0000

So, people ask me what has changed, regardless of whether they have managed to access over IPv4 or IPv6. Shows people read via RSS feeds (like myself) or access in other ways that makes people unaware of changes. For a while I felt like the one designing Find 5 differences when I only show one of the pictures.

Anyway, here you first have the top left corner of this webpage when accessing using IPv4, and then when accessing using IPv6. I hope you can see the difference now?

Bacon and Zinfandel

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:43:08 +0000

I must once again recommend the blog (in Swedish) of a friend of mine, Erik Hörnfeldt. The blog (called Bacon) is absolutely excellent!

I think this quote from a recent post explain a bit of why I like the tone…


Ett tips till er som arbetar med servering av drycker: Påpeka aldrig för
ett sällskap om ett halvdussin IT-experter att “zinfandel ursprungligen är
en italiensk druva” om du inte är beredd att tillbringa resten av dagen i
en diskussion om det är så. Det är ett råd i all välmening.

RFC 5507 published

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 10:27:58 +0000

At last we are done with RFC 5507 - Design Choices When Expanding the DNS. I started working on this while being on the Internet Architecture Board in May 2004. Now almost 5 years later, it is finally released.


A new Request for Comments is now available in online RFC libraries.  

       RFC 5507  

       Title:      Design Choices When Expanding the DNS
       Author:     P. Faltstrom, Ed.,
                   R. Austein, Ed.,
                   P. Koch, Ed.
       Status:     Informational
       Date:       April 2009
       Mailbox:    iab@iab.org,
                   paf@cisco.com,
                   sra@isc.org,
                   pk@denic.de
       Pages:      18
       Characters: 44045
       Updates/Obsoletes/SeeAlso:   None  

       I-D Tag:    draft-iab-dns-choices-08.txt  

       URL:        <http://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc5507.txt>  

This note discusses how to extend the DNS with new data for a new
application.  DNS extension discussions too often focus on reuse of
the TXT Resource Record Type.  This document lists different
mechanisms to extend the DNS, and concludes that the use of a new DNS
Resource Record Type is the best solution.  This memo provides information
for the Internet community.  

This document is a product of the Internet Architecture Board.  

INFORMATIONAL: This memo provides information for the Internet community.
It does not specify an Internet standard of any kind. Distribution of
this memo is unlimited.

IPv6 for real

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:31:02 +0000

I have been waiting for some time, but enough is enough. Today I rolled up my sleeves and started really implement IPv6 on all of my servers. Now it is done. One of them is reconfigured, but I need a reboot for everything to slip into place, so I will leave that for a few days (until weekend).

This implies also this blog is reachable over IPv6. You see up to the left the IP address I think you are coming from, and if you use IPv6, well, in the old tradition of dancing turtles, and galloping letters, I have my own twist on this. No moving images (because I do not have time), but you will get a surprise.

Swedish Television mix up their news feed

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:16:34 +0000

Swedish Television have some bugs in their news feeds. They had prepared two news articles about The Pirate Bay.

They had prepared two articles, one if they where sentenced, and one if they where not. One was published, both visible in their index.

Trasig understreckare i SvD

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 18:58:16 +0000

Svenska Dagbladet har en understreckare som är synnerligen förvirrande. Den inleder med att påstå:

När internet inledde sitt segertåg över världen gjorde Sverige inte ens ett försök att rädda sina svårersättliga bokstäver å, ä och ö. Internets standardiseringsgrupp (IESG) talar engelska och ville inte gärna hantera bokstäver utanför världsspråkets räckvidd. Där förelåg naturligtvis en avsevärd prejudikatrisk: det finns tusentals aktiva språk och många av dem har konstigare bokstäver än så. Spanien förde dock en intensiv och slutligen segerrik kamp för sitt alfabets unika unika bokstav, ñ. Det fanns goda skäl för både kampen och segern.

No overall plan for IT related legislation

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 07:15:37 +0000

I have many times as an advisor to the Swedish Government in IT issues been asking for an overall plan for the new legislation related to IT and Internet. Reason for my questions the last couple of years is that the various legislations:

Is not coordinated, and in some cases conflicting
It does not solve the problems one want to solve
It has implications on how we fight crime
It has implications on production costs on networks
It is unclear who should do what

At a hearing yesterday it was clear many people where not up to date on the legislation. I hope people (specifically the persons representing copyright holders) understood I am not against their interests when I say I am against the legislation. I am pointing out the legislation does not solve the problems they want to solve. Legislation is broken.

Lunch discussion in Brussels on copyright and Internet

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:40:05 +0000

Hmm…I thought a “lunch meeting” was to be more “lunch” than “meeting”, so I accepted and walked through the streets of Brussels, loving the sun, without thinking much about it. Now I understand this might be a meeting where some preparation could have made the situation easier. At least some Googling. Just got this picture in email, and we’ll see how it goes.

I do know quite a bit on what works and not, and I trust Gunnar Hökmark, but still. This can be sort of interesting.

Hearing about IPv6 at Swedish Armed Forces

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 13:59:21 +0000

I was at the Swedish Armed Forces.

RFC 1

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:30:14 +0000

I just would like to point out that today, April 7, it is 40 years ago RFC 1 was made available. New York Times writes about it in an article. Or rather, Steve Crocker, the author of RFC 1, writes in NYT. Today, the highest numbered RFC is RFC 5519. There is probably slightly fewer RFCs published, as there are some that are in the publication queue. Such as the next RFC I have authored, an IAB document (draft-iab-dns-choices-08.txt) on how to expand the DNS, i.e. store new data in DNS.

About this blog

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 11:00:36 +0000

I am employed by Cisco and am among other things a member of ISOC Board of Trustees, Swedish Government IT Advisory Board and UN IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group. You can find CV and photos of me at this page.

As I wear so many hats, I find it being necessary to somewhere express my personal view on things. This is the location where that happens. Postings on this blog, or at Facebook, Twitter etc, falls under this policy.

Open Source and Open Standards and Open Information

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:43:15 +0000

There are many flavors of Open, but specifically in Sweden there is with the new E-Delegationen a big confusion. Again. Even people that should know better talk for example about Open Source and Open Standards not only at the same meeting, but in the same sentences.

There is a big difference! The government has an investigation explaining it, and it was released in 2007. I also wrote about that investigation here. So why are people still confused? Well, they have not read the report of course, but someone involved must know about the report, right? And they should just say stop. There must be progress, and not rehashing of the same issues over and over again.

I think python should by default support UCS-4

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:49:43 +0000

I think on the platforms that support enough bits python should be compiled with support for all Unicode codepoints. This of course waste a bit of memory, and because of that have impact on I/O etc, but the amount of impact is I think worth it.

I downloaded Python 3.0.1 and run configure with –with-wide-unicode. That did the trick (solved the problems I described here and here). More good information about how to install and have parallell versions of Python can for example be found at Farm Development.

Python and Unicode

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:15:12 +0000

As some of you saw, I did write earlier about problems I had with wide Unicode codepoints. That was because the Python I use is not compiled for support for it. Naive as I was, I thought that this was one of the things that was fixed for Python 3.x, but it was not. Because of this, codepoints with more than 16 bit values are stored as surrogate pairs, so it was possible to do a workaround. Not pretty, and possibly not the most efficient python code out there (note that it uses some data structures that I have already created elsewhere):

Python and unicode is not always fun

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:27:35 +0000

Regardless of what programming language one use, there are always small irritating things that one have to keep track of. I have most certainly misunderstood something here, but wide unicode characters are not managed properly in Python 3.0.1 I think. Let me know what I have missed please.


$ python
Python 3.0.1 (r301:69597, Feb 14 2009, 19:03:52)
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5490)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> c = chr(0x10400)
>>> c
'&#55297;&#56320;'
>>> print("%x" % ord(c))
10400
>>> for i in c:
...    print("%x" % ord(i))
...
d801
dc00
>>> type(c)
<class 'str'>

Traffic management - an undefined term

Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:44:22 +0000

In Europe yet another package is discussed, and it includes issues related with what I guess one could call Network Neutrality. And, as usual, at the end game texts are negotiated that does not have much meaning in reality. Negotiations on what words imply, while I as an engineer have absolutely no idea what either of the parties actually mean. What they want. Or rather, it is sort of possible to understand the overall goals for some of the parties, but the problem is still that the words they discuss are not really related with the goals.

IPv6 - now for real

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:43:02 +0000

I did some years ago have IPv6 access by using GRE tunnels. That sort of works, but as any tunnel mechanism it is sort of fragile. It relies on the stability of the end points of the tunnels, and of course connectivity to them. Effectiveness is not so good either, so tunnels are really not a long term solution.

So I decided to turn that project off and simply wait until I could get native IPv6 from my ISP. Something that is possible since a week back or so. Of course in the middle of the busy period so I have not had time to really set things up, but now during the IETF in San Francisco, there should be time to really do something serious with IPv6.

epp launched in Sweden

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:42:53 +0000

I want to hereby congratulate the .SE registry for a successful move to the epp protocol on March 9. Sure, I have my personal view on what could be done different, but overall, it ended up being a smooth transition.

Some thing to think about for others that make this move (some things .SE did right, some things could have been better etc, so this is not a list of complaints on .SE, just a list…):

Twit or not to twit, that is the question (really?)

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:34:24 +0000

I have the last couple of months played around with some tools. Facebook of course where you can find me here. I like Facebook, and would have liked it more if it was not for all the applications that are useless and everything from plain crap to what I dare to call really bad stuff. Of course, some software is pretty cool, like the IPv6 over social network that my friend Eric Vyncke has created.

I am back -- I hope

Sat, 21 Mar 2009 15:34:11 +0000

As you have noticed (I hope) I have not been blogging for a while. To be honest, I have not even checked my RSS feeds the last three weeks. Simply because the first two weeks where too full of work, and the last couple of days I took some time completely off. Simply to take care of myself. Be selfish. Today, Friday, I start working again, and hope that it can be “normal” again, whatever normal is.

Yes We Scan!

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:58:47 +0000

Yes We Scan! is the attribution Carl Malamud have chosen for his campaign for joining the Government Printing Office of the US Government. His motto is Open Government and I fully support him in his views.

Among the work he has done before include not only talking about the need to make information accessible for everyone, but also to actually do something. He is definitely one of the persons that I know that have done the most. And without giving up. Many things on the Internet he was first with. One of the more interesting stories include the in story Exploring the Internet describing his travel around the world in 1990 and 1991. Specifically, read about his visit to Amsterdam.

Finurlig namngivning på konferensrum

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 15:19:38 +0000

(Bl.a.) Näringsdepartementet har flyttat in i det gamla posthuset på Vasagatan i Stockholm. Där har någon tänkt efter lite innan de bestämde var konferensrummen skulle ligga. Man kan nämligen komma dit utan att gå in i den delen av huset som arbetsplatserna ligger i. De ligger i två plan direkt till vänster innanför ingången, där det nedre planet ligger en trappa ner.

Vad heter då konferensrummen? Jo, på det nedre planet ligger Piggvaren, Makrillen och Ålen (där förhandlingar mellan regeringen och oppositionen sker vad gäller energi och klimat enligt Bloggen Departementet). På planet där man kommer in heter de saker som Dyningen, Vattenspegeln och Springkällan.

Phishing in the real world

Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:17:38 +0000

You will in this article in Ny Teknik (in Swedish) see some examples of phishing in the real world. The pictures are from Egypt. Now we see some similar examples regarding domain names of course, but it also shows that phishing is nothing new just because of Internet, domain names, or more specifically, International Domain Names.

Copper network in Sweden no longer supported?

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:31:09 +0000

I am sorry every time I see I clearly can say what did I say but this is clearly one such point in time. In an article at IDG Sweden it is described that Telia have interest in stopping supporting copper wires to 200k households. This is quite a large number if one think of how few households there are in Sweden (about 4.5 million according to Statistics Sweden).

People are surprised, and now people start screaming about how problematic it would be. What a waste of government money, as a large portion of the subsidy for broadband that was given out 2001-2006 was bound to DSL solutions. Etc. People talk about the responsibility the government has and discuss who should pay for the copper in the future.

The Swedish Model

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:03:27 +0000

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt writes in his blog about the Swedish Model. He references both the discussions about what Sweden did around 1992 during the local bank crisis we had, but also the agreement that was made this week regarding (nuclear) energy.

Mr Bildt point out that we although we are a small country can still be a leader regarding policy and ideas on how to (my interpretation) reach a sustainable society by reaching agreements that reach wider than normal political agreements.

Internet of Things

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:19:05 +0000

Already in ~~November~~ October 2008 I had a presentation at the Ministerial Conference in France (during their presidency) about Internet of Things.

Specifically this presentation was asked to be without words, and only pictures, so maybe it does not make much sense to you without having me exaplain. Nice pictures though - I think myself. You can find the presentation here. But, you should know that at the conference, the slideshow computer did not work. So there where no slides, only words. So at the conference you could only hear the words (and see me), while here you can see the slides.

IPv6 and Security

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 15:05:18 +0000

As I wrote about earlier.

Way back when...

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:29:01 +0000

We all remember how it was when we where young. We all had 10 miles to school. We had to walk through the djungel, wade through water, eat only small rocks, and now and then sleep in a cave on the way home when we quit school late.

Lotten has checked how far she was walking to school, and discovered it was not at all 10 miles, but maybe a thousand meters. Hey! I thought, I had 10 miles to school! So I checked. You can see on the map below how I had to walk. On my own I must say, crossing one (or two) major roads when being 6, 7 and 8 years old (at 1, 2 and 3 on the map). I can see I did not have 10 miles either. Only maybe 500 meters, 600 meters and 2km. Disappointing… Memories are better as memories I guess, and they should stay that way. Or else I have to stop talk about me fighting with bears and tigers just because I wanted to finish my math test.

I am talking about IPv6 on Thursday (Feb 5) in Stockholm

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:52:55 +0000

On this coming Thursday I will present IPv6 from a security perspective. This is talked about in Computer Sweden. I will talk in the afternoon of Tech World IT-SecurityWorld at Kista Science Tower just north of Stockholm.

The most interesting thing at the moment, part from the fact the program looks pretty good so I am not happy I will miss most of the day because of other commitments, that the website of the event is broken. If one click on for example Program on their website, one get raw html code back…

Ingemar Johansson has passed away

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 08:20:43 +0000

The first, and so far only, world champion in heavyweight boxing from Sweden has died. He passed away on Jan 30, 2009. On 26th of juni, 1959, in front of 30 000 people on Yankee Stadium, he knocked Floyd Patterson two minutes and three seconds into the third round.

He was born 22nd of september 1932, and I will as certainly many people from Sweden remember him as a very nice, calm, friendly person from Gothenburg (with a typical dialect) that also some jokes has originated from. Like that he is claimed to turn down an offer to get 1/3 of the revenue of a gala because he wanted at least 1/4.

Presentation on bundling broadband services

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:14:46 +0000

I was supposed to have a presentation in Stockholm at a conference named Stadnät och Bredbandstjänster (City networks and broadband services). I was not able to go because of travel problems, but I managed to have another person presenting the slides, up to and including the slide named What to do next?. Not the slide Conclusions because first of all, the conclusions are very personal and mine, secondly, they are very very biased based on these theories and nothing else. In the real world, of course things are not as black and white. Specifically in short term.

Portuguese wine

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:48:30 +0000

Friday I tried some Portuguese wine. All red. I think Portugal is an interesting wine country as they are, at least to me, most well known for their port wine, but they do make excellent “normal” wine as well. Specifically reds I think. Just like Germany. Well known for their white, but their reds are not bad at all. They probably are smarter than selling their good wine abroad, and keep it for themselves.

Presentation about the IGF process at an ISOC-SE meeting

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 18:55:18 +0000

Today I had a presentation for ISOC-SE.

Horace Engdahl i Riksdagen

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 11:05:49 +0000

Jag måste gratulera Horace Engdahl till ett riktigt bra tal som han höll i Riksdagen vid invigningen av Märkesåret 1809 den 15 januari 2009. Han kallade det Det glömda året, och beskrev på ett mycket intressant tiden runt 1809.

Han inledde:


I Sverige och Finland bereder vi oss att högtidlighålla tvåhundraårsminnet
av året 1809. Jag säger inte fira: ordet tar emot, trots den glädje och
stolthet som båda nationerna kan känna över sin väg genom seklerna fram
till dagens oberoende och välstånd. För om man har gjort sig hemmastadd i
de fruktansvärda åren 1808-1809, om man har lyssnat till rösterna från dem
som då levde i vår del av världen, så att dessa människor ter sig lika
verkliga som ni och jag, då vill man inte skämta och hurra. Det var en
ödesstund för vårt land. Aldrig har Sverige varit så nära att försvinna
från kartan som den gången.

Läs i lugn och ro. Som de säger på engelska: This is good stuff!

DNSSEC moves forward in Brazil

Fri, 16 Jan 2009 09:18:34 +0000

My friend Frederico Neves of the .BR ccTLD registry just reported that they are now moving forward with NSEC3 (a DNSSEC extension) in .BR top level domain. This is excellent news, and my hat is off for all the hard work Fred and his colleagues have done the last couple of years.


Since 1200 GMT today .com.br is signed using NSEC3. This is a 1.4M
delegations zone and it's using opt-out with a 100 names gap.

As expected the zone size increase is minimal and the average response
size doubled because of the large (~60%) DO bit presence.

This ends our initial DNSSEC deployment effort. Now all .br
delegations have DNSSEC available. 61 zones using NSEC and 2 using
NSEC3.

The sec3.br testbed will be phased-out in 90 days,

Regards,
Fred

% dig @a.dns.br com.br ds +dnssec +multi +short
19740 7 1 A8BDED281324F283E9933BF048C8230A4B32B2A6
DS 5 2 86400 20090122120001 20090115120001 33498
	br. BIsqRqjTADBDI/uhpZrGvoesrHAnRbbliqqBb/BmQqk39cXfppv4xx0F
	BP3im2LjNkMgXBFlXr0ELpnG0xIJEE670BMMHG9h5Xh5rnUIBZLEV8UN
	SjvuWA/m/WIiNxTHjO5pglhZpapScCwOQCsRjTg/xN3POhl3qUAe4okg
	Jta/333mbNGv5eH95GozvCCd

% dig @a.dns.br port53.com.br ds +dnssec +multi +short
28004 5 1 0307C113CFEB7CB04C25E759C942AA4D32887AA6
DS 7 3 86400 20090122123002 20090115123002 19740
	com.br. bl8bvZW36lMm4Fp3agcO9xDpmZtTB8i0czXCTAL3B8PMYE0XzwClUZEc
	YYP972EHzp10FBFXYK5hilOJl935LZUFz8e0tceCMqIKz1J7Q2lFCq9e
	6BKTTRoxcAjtgOeZEH8td9gicPJDKHJ7AHvEcy/tto0drqd9Ue5kATsJ K00=

Subsidy for digging broadband to homes in Sweden

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:32:30 +0000

The Swedish Government in December made a decision to reintroduce the ability for tax reduction for repairs and changes to houses. Now when the details are presented, it is clear that one get such economical help if one is digging down cables for broadband or electricity. This is excellent news! This is also mentioned in Computer Sweden.


Markarbeten bör kunna ingå endast när de avser ledningar, för exempelvis
elektricitet eller elektronisk kommunikation, anläggningar för
värmeförsörjning, m.m. i direkt anslutning till byggnaden eller
komplementhuset.

Do not play games in the subway

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:33:14 +0000

As you can see on this video, playing some virtual games on your cellphone can be expensive. Original article at Youku.Com.

Reply-All discussion...

Tue, 13 Jan 2009 07:51:59 +0000

Also the blog post on reply-all was posted on Circle-ID as a blog post of mine. Only a few comments so far, but still…

Reply-All creates is a ddos attack?

Mon, 12 Jan 2009 17:24:00 +0000

One can read in an Associated Press article that the US State Department have their email system bogged down due to too many people use the Reply-All function in their email client. IT Departments have asked people to not use Reply-All and also threaten with disciplinary action. To me, that is the wrong path forward.

Sure, it is problematic to get too much email that does not concern you, but that it would be a problem to have too many people do reply-all is strange to me. Without knowing any details it seems like if the email system store each message that is delivered to more people than one as one copy per receiver. Instead as one message and then just pointers from their message to the shared data. I.e. regardless of whether a message has one or thousand recipients, it should be stored once. Of course this might not be the problem, but the problem might be just the number of messages that the system has to process. I hope we can get some more data on what really happens.

Another post on CircleID

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 21:25:19 +0000

I wrote earlier today about registry policies. It ended up being posted on CircleID. As you can see, there have been some comments, including some written by me.

What is good policy for a registry?

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:26:04 +0000

Back from the holidays I must admit I was thinking quite a bit on what is good policy for a registry? Of course I have my own personal favorites that I can not walk away from easily, but instead of thinking for too long, I decided to write down now immediately what is in my head. The main reasons for this are two: the decision by ICANN to change the rules for change in policy regarding the Add Grace Periods.

Deep Fried Ice Cream

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:45:53 +0000

So I have made one of my favorite desserts again. Deep fried ice cream. It is not as hard to make as it sounds, but it takes time. The description below is for 10 packages. Enough for 5 hungry people, or 10 not so hungry. Read the whole recipe before starting as I might describe something further down that is important… To make this, you do it in four stages with a few hours in the freezer in between. You can make everything until deep frying (and including making the sauce) the day or days before you will have this for dinner. This makes this dessert also perfect for parties, as it is so easy to make – the day of the party.

Helikoptrar - igen

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:35:24 +0000

I dagens SvD kritiseras Sjöräddningen i en artikel. Bl.a. består kritiken i att den förändring som gjorts av Sjöräddningen har brister.

Denna förändring är (liksom förändringar gällande isbrytare och sjömätare) en förändring för att tillgodose fackliga intressen. Inte för att försvaret fick mindre pengar. Detta senare blev dock ett resultatet av dessa beslut. Samtidigt så kostade det mer och effektiviteten blev mindre. Och inte utnyttjade man redan gjord statlig utbildning som flyg/hkp förare och sjömän. Försvaret fick en personell övertalighet som inte kan avvecklas pga LAS. Problemet finns på grund av att man behöver ett visst antal personal under 40 års ålder men sedan bara ca 1/3 av denna personal efter 40 års ålder. Inte undra på att försvaret blöder.

IT Minister is noted in "best of 2008"

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:01:10 +0000

In Computer Sweden it is noted that Åsa Torstensson, the IT Minister, failed getting 3 billion SEK for broadband infrastructure.

Although it might be hard for the minister to get the money, this price is based on an earlier article that point out the problems she has convincing the rest of the government the need for this investment.

This second article do though contain so many errors. People interviewed have obviously not read the report, or read it without understanding it. First of all, to get good radio acces, one need good infrastructure to the radio access points. Radio and cables (fiber) are not competing with each other, they are complementing each other. Secondly, the report very explicitly state that the hand over between broadband provider and the end user must move from the telco facilities (~3km from the end user) to a point much closer (~300 meters). This implies the money is not going to support the copper network. The contrary.

Johnny Wahlqvist is celebrated by City Council

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 08:46:26 +0000

Johnny Wahlqvist, the new world champion in power lift with 332.5kg in bench in the +125kg class, was congratulated by the city council in the city he lives, Simrishamn.

I think it is good that the city recognizes the efforts people living in the city is doing. Sport or otherwise. More of that!

And of course, my congratulations to Johnny!

Johnny himself, picture from his homepage

UPS has problems with routing?

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 16:25:23 +0000

I have ordered some christmas presents for me and my family. Sent by UPS, and there where to be delivered today. But UPS managed to reroute the package wrong in Malmö. Interesting situation. I now ask myself whether I will get the package tomorrow.

UPS routed my package wrongly

Triple play -- part three

Mon, 22 Dec 2008 08:16:38 +0000

My friend Barry Leiba to my second post about the discount the end user get if they buy the same services from the same player. And say, if I understand the comment correctly, that it is the discount that implies the churn decreases.

It is true a discount like this decrease churn. It is probably also true that churn is low just because it is convenient for the consumer to have all services delivered by the same party (one invoice, one customer service to contact etc). And I think this is ok, what parties should concentrate at.

What is wrong in triple play offerings?

Sun, 21 Dec 2008 13:15:51 +0000

People have asked me what is wrong in triple play offerings. Let me try to summarize. I will hopefully later this spring explain why also the business models are wrong, but that theory that I work on is something I am not ready with. I might even be wrong there!

The problem with triple play solutions is that the end user can choose between different packages of services. Of course, the good thing is at the same time that the user can choose between different packages of services. The problem is not the choice, but the packaging. There are three main problems with it:

Why not look at the need the consumer has?

Sat, 20 Dec 2008 08:23:16 +0000

The Swedish regulator PTS has issued a statement on requirements the incumbent Telia has regarding fiber and copper products. Specifically the statement forces Telia to sell access to their fiber, including support systems and facilities. There is an article in Computer Sweden (in Swedish) about it.

This is of course a good thing, but, this once again misses the whole point of competition on the broadband market, and misses the needs the end users has. So much effort in a statement that might destroy the broadband market more than it helps. I am once again very disappointed.

Extended time for the advisory board "IT-Rådet"

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 12:30:38 +0000

The Swedish Government today took a decision to extend the time for the advisory board IT-Rådet that I am a member of.

Now we know what The Internet is!

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 09:42:17 +0000

The Internet is a black box, and it is wireless… This is absolutely hilarious! From The IT Crowd. I must make sure I can see some episodes.

Political blog of the year?

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 18:07:37 +0000

Björn has as always started a voting on Political Blog of The Year (in Sweden). Lists are weird to start with, such as Twingly pointing out that Blondinbella (Isabella Löwengrip) is number one in Sweden (or is it Swedish?).

Anyway, I think you who read political blogs in Sweden should go there and vote.

I must say I am a bit surprised over two things:

Departementet was not on the list. Possibly because it is actually written by people in the Swedish Government. Possibly because I (and others) forgot to nominate it (Sorry Henrik!)

Swedish IT Minister Torstensson

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:23:58 +0000

Today Håkan Ogelid writes in Computer Sweden that he feel sorry for the Swedish IT Minister, and points out a number of issues. For example that she has been weak already from day one. She does not have a TV, has never really talked about IT, and got the lowest grades of all speakers from Internetdagarna fall of 2008.

He also points out she failed to argue that IT is part of the critical infrastructure in a country. She managed to get money for roads, trains etc, but not IT infrastructure. Håkan point out she argued that IT policy is the same as regional policy, and I agree with him that that is how the minister is wording things – unfortunately. Of course one can not spend the suggested 3.5 billion SEK on infrastructure for some 134k households. But it does not stop there. An insane amount of money is spent on the last 30-something households that does not have fixed telephony.

Earthquake in southern Sweden?

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 06:57:26 +0000

At around 05:19 UTC I woke up because the house was shaking. Cats where running around like crazy. It was a slow long movement, slightly slower than when a truck drives by. Very similar to what I have felt in California, so my reaction was immediately that it was an earthquake. Rest of family woke up.

On the radio, they are reporting people calling them. And people call 112 so that it is impossible to call them for real emergencies.

Data retention discussions in Sweden - Again!

Fri, 12 Dec 2008 15:12:30 +0000

The discussions about implementation of the data retention directive in Sweden have started again. Now people blame each other for what is happening, push things through without any discussion, and blame EU and the directive for what we implement in Sweden.

It shows the people discussing this (including the politicians) have missed what is really happening here, and what has happened.

Sweden was one of the countries that took the initiative for the extremely broken directive that we have to implement.
People blame the previous government when referring to the directive, when in reality the civil servants at the Swedish Government that actually wrote the broken text have not been replaced.
The directive is broken enough so that it has not lead to harmonization between the Member States. Just look at the implementation in Denmark.
The investigation in Sweden lead to very different views of what should be written. Just look at the fact that a few members of the investigation required special views of theirs to be amended to the investigation.
The open consultation process following did not lead to a unified view either, and many strong voices point at the broken process that lead to the situation we are in in Europe (which Sweden is responsible for).
European Commission has even started an informal group that is now working with the issue of non-harmonization, which by itself shows that the fact the directive should have been better is known.
Many organisations have written documents that show that the Swedish Government has lost control over the cost aspects of legislation related to data retention of various kinds. There is no single party inside the government that is responsible for coordination, harmonization and even cost aspects across the political areas that push requirements on the players in the market.

That people at this point in time is like in SvD arguing about who’s fault it is while pushing and not stopping and thinking, is embarrassing.

More money to distribution of time over Internet in Sweden

Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:45:57 +0000

Swedish Government today took a decision to use 4.2MSEK for time. Might sound a bit weird to pay for it, but in reality it cost some money to produce good time and then distribute it over the Internet using NTP.


Regeringen har idag beslutat att bevilja Post- och Telestyrelsen (PTS)
ett bidrag på 4,2 miljoner kronor för insatser inom området robust och
spårbar nationell tid. Syftet är att säkerställa en fortsatt god kvalitet
av tid över Internet. Funktionaliteter i moderna IT system är beroende av
korrekt tid. Exempel på sådana behov är banktransaktioner, elektroniska
signaturer, tidsstämpling av olika typer av information och poster i
loggdatabaser för uppföljning.

Time is in Sweden produced by SP Technical Research Institute of Sweden and STUPI, and available via NTP from time servers run by Netnod.

Jag backar inte alls

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:17:13 +0000

IDG och Göte Andersson påstår i CS att jag backar vad gäller åsikt om separata nät. Detta är helt fel, och visar tyvärr att kunskapen om hur Internet fungerar är ytterst bristfällig, journalister är ute efter stora rubriker, och de som förlorar på detta är läsarna.

Jag har spenderat timtal på telefon med Göte, men detta har uppenbarligen inte hjälpt. Rubriker, konfrontation och felaktigheter är viktigare än upplysning och korrekthet.

Suck.

Monday in Stockholm

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 08:13:03 +0000

Today I have a series of meetings that involve Swedish IT Politics. First an hour or so at the regulator PTS to present some ideas I have on Why we have the problems we have with network neutrality in Europe. I have not presented those ideas publicly yet, although you dear readers of this blog will not be surprised when you see them.

After that a full afternoon with the IT Minister and IT-Rådet. I will lift some issues at todays meeting that is the result of the last weeks discussions around IGF and World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF). The current document(s) and issues rised there should make people rise more than the eyebrows.

Why do we have IGF?

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 21:08:05 +0000

Milton Müller writes. Unfortunately Milton did misunderstand what I wrote, which probably is because I did not make myself clear.

What I wanted to point out is that the IGF will never be a place where topic specific future looking ideas will be discussed. I do not think it should. We have topic specific conferences for that.

What the IGF is for though, is cooperation, exchange of experiences, and what can help coming with ideas on how to solve the problems and issues that overlap.

Gala Dinner at the IGF

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 07:22:18 +0000

At the IGF there was a gala dinner. An open place, with entertainment in one part, and excellent food in the other.

Kurtis Lindqvist and Patrik Fältström at IGF Gala Dinner

USB and FireWire

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:05:46 +0000

So I have this external USB/FW drive that I use for TimeMachine on my mac. I have (unfortunately) some other data on that as well. Day before yesterday it just stopped working, making the Finder unresponsible. I had to leave my hotel room in Hyderabad, so I yanked the cable.

Bad thing, but what should I have done? I think the damage was done already.

End result is that the drive is not visible. I see with USB Probe (part of Developer package) something on the USB bus that is suspended. Also, the drive does not turn off and stop spinning when the computer is turned to sleep. Indication that it might hopefully be a state problem in some machinery somewhere.

"Just give me the money"

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:24:45 +0000

A blog post at The Internet Governance Project is complaining that a panel where I was a speaker had too low level of content, and no new data. The article is written in such a way that one clearly view that the author think that is a bad thing. (I am by the way the person that the article say is the representative from Cisco.)

I completely agree that the level of the content of this panel was old stuff that for people that work with security issues is nothing new. But where I definitely do not agree with is the tone of the article that is such that if that is a bad thing, or a failure, or something.

Panel on Cyber Crime and Cyber Security

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 21:09:02 +0000

I yesterday in the morning was at the IGF on a panel on Dimensions of cyber-security and cyber-crime. You can find the complete transcript from the panel here. But you can also read my initial statement below.

PATRIK FÄLTSTRÖM:

Yes, thank you very much, Bertrand.

So as you heard before in the two previous presentations there are a large number of organizations involved, and a pretty complicated network of organizations. But it’s even more complicated than that, because in the first presentation, we actually saw something that looked like a diagram. You had a national CERT and everything is fine, and if you just fill out the names of the organizations, the boxes, you just follow that scheme and you are done.

Yet another conference where wireless is not optimal

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 10:15:45 +0000

At the IGF one can see the normal problems with the network that one can call first day of the conference. In the case here, one can see that we have over 60% packet drop when trying to contact the first router. Also notice that the max time when running ping (I know…not the best measurement tool, but still) is 2834 ms.


                                 Packets               Pings
 Host                            Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
 1. 221-134-27-1.sify.net        63.6%   240  495.4 592.7  90.3 2834. 484.5
 2. 210.214.172.82               57.3%   240  960.3 647.3  96.6 2784. 503.3
 3. 117.240.131.250              62.9%   240  224.4 561.4  82.2 2733. 461.5
 4. 218.248.250.82               89.1%   240  123.6 516.3 121.9 1578. 400.4

CircleID

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 03:18:28 +0000

CircleID is one of the blogs I read. But not only that, I write there sometimes as well. They have now selected another of my posts, about IGF in Hyderabad, as a blog post.

Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:22:55 +0000

Tomorrow IGF starts. The overall discussion topic is this year How to reach the next billion(s), and that builds on the fact that today we have around one billion Internet users. A number that will explode when all different kind of devices, from cellphones, to TV sets to toasters will be Internet connected.

Myself, I am working on coordinating the session(s) related with multilingualism. The main panel is in the morning, and actually the first session of the IGF (together with some workshops that are in parallell).

We live in a world of changes

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 03:40:27 +0000

The fifth week of conferences since October has just ended. I am sitting at O’Hare airport waiting for my flight to Copenhagen. Copenhagen in a part of the world that seems to be covered in snow. Early, far too early. And the conferences are not over for 2008 yet. One more…in India, and a few short meetings in Stockholm and New York. Then I will have a long vacation.

The conferences have been covering everything from deep technical discussions on the new protocols to high level policy and international political discussions. But the things discussed are very similar.

Not everyone is at the IETF

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 23:55:07 +0000

Some people one work with is not at the IETF, and then teleconferencing is what one have to use. Today I think I spent 3 hours on the phone.

Patrik Fältström on the phone (again)

Monty Python rules!

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:14:31 +0000

The good old people in Monty Python have their own view on how to handle the new world.

Lean back and enjoy!

Updated: The link to the Monty Python Channel of YouTube is http://www.youtube.com/MontyPython.

Monty Python view of YouTube!

IETF is an interesting SDO

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:54:06 +0000

I like IETF, when conversations like this happens:

Chair: I must cut the microphone line now Person 1: We can write a best current practice document instead of changing the standard Chair: I must cut the microphone line now Person 2: It will not be read Chair: I must cut the microphone line now Person 1: Why will this be read then? Chair: I must cut the microphone line now Person 2: It will because the implementors have to read it Chair: I must cut the microphone line now

Naming people is hard

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:21:19 +0000

My private email address is in the domain frobbit.se. So of course it might be hard to understand what my name is. Without blaming the author of this email for doing the wrong thing, I think this was really funny.

I know I have most certainly made similar mistake, and more, with many people in the world. My apologies.

Someone think my name is Frobbit

Broken email messages

Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:05:23 +0000

I thought we knew how to format email messages. But no. A friend sent me this while smiling…


Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
MIME-Version: 1.0

Automatic linking between blog and Facebook

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:18:40 +0000

I just found the application Simplaris in Facebook that claim it will pick up the blog posts I make. And, the software MarsEdit I use seems to be able to ping automatically. Well, now we’ll see whether it works as announced.

Smaklösa and Dracula at Debaser Nov 19

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 21:33:20 +0000

Mu uncle is playing instruments. Many. And he is good at it. He also has a number of friends, family members etc that also know how to play instruments.

Not me. Although I so much want to be able to.

Anyway, he called me today and talked about a gig his old band Dracula playing eastern-european music in Stockholm now on Wednesday. They are playing together with the more famous band Smaklösa (have existed for 35 years and have made 14 records). This gig is mentioned at for example Helagotland or Gotländska (both in Swedish).

IPv6 is taking off?

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:04:17 +0000

Many people have commented on both my presentation at Internetdagarna and the article in Computer Sweden that was a followup. The latter got comments for example by CS itself.

At the IETF in Minneapolis, there is a lot of talk about IPv6. All over the place. In most working groups and most meetings. In fact, I do not think I have been in a meeting so far that does not include some IPv6 discussions.

Presentation on IPv6 at Internetdagarna

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:56:34 +0000

At Internetdagarna I was one of the keynote speakers (together with Vint Cerf and IT Minister Åsa Torstensson). The slot was originally for Geoff Houston, but he was unable to come. What Geoff and I then did was to merge his presentation with some additional ideas of mine, and suggested I should be the speaker. Something the managers of Internetdagarna agreed to.

Geoff has during many years been following the change in routing and addressing (among other things) on the Internet. One of the more interesting reports that he generate automatically every day is the IPv4 report.

What about 1929 Pomerol?

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 12:41:30 +0000

I got some questions in Facebook how it came that I took a picture of a 1929 Pomerol. The story is that I am a member of the Wine Tasting Club called Munskänkarna. Each month we have some tasting of wine, almost every time together with food.

This time, it was old against young. We had three different varieties, Champagne, Chianti and Pomerol. Two of each. And then the head of the session (Mårten Söderlund, that also run Good Old Wines) had a surprise. For an extra fee that had to be paid before the bottle was opened, we could try the 1929 Pomerol. The other wines where not bad either. The old ones where (if I remember correctly) a 1955 Mumm Champagne, 1957 Pomerol and 1967 Chianti. An evening to remember. Sorry for the bad pictures, but I did not bring any camera, so I had to rely on whatever existed in my cellphone.

RCS - Not what you might think

Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:43:15 +0000

Some of us think RCS stands for Revision Control System, one of the fathers of all revision control systems that programmers use. I the other day found out from Ericsson that it also can stand for Rich Communications Suite. After reading a paper describing it, I am even more confused.

This is a quote from that very document:


The open handset platforms and the possibility for diverse set of RCS Clients follow a
similar innovation approach as is widely used on the internet today. The differentiator
is mainly that the RCS Initiative is built of standardized, interoperable components.

My first rection was, so the Internet is not based on standardized interoperable components?, but another way of interpreting is that Internet access from cellphones today is built into phones that normally are not open architectures. Although more and more of them are open. One can even claim that Apple with its Developer Package for the iPhone is an open platform. But even more open seems the Android from Google be.

Copyright infringement

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:15:27 +0000

There is a lot of discussion in Sweden as well as in other parts of the world regarding copyright infringement of various kind that happens on the Internet. Mary writes about it (in Swedish), and also Vint Cerf talked about it at Internetdagarna in Stockholm.

The fact is that things changes. A lot. It is not possible to use any good analogy at all as analogies can be used both in favor and against the interest and wishes one has. What we can see is that things changes drastically when information is digitized. For normal physical items that I might have the rights to have. If I give that item to someone else, then I do not have the right to give the same item to someone else. It is even the case that I can not give (for example the book) to someone else. When I give away that item I do not have it anymore, so I can not give it away again without getting the item back.

Lego Minifig

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:53:44 +0000

Gizmodo has once again brought up some essential knowledge. They have found someone that has looked at the Lego Minifigures in detail. Result you see below.

Updated: The work with the Minifig is Jason Freeny.

Jon Postel

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 11:42:22 +0000

Today it is 10 years since Jon Postel passed away. Far too early. I miss him. A good friend. A stable character to lean against when the wind was blowing. Someone to trust.

I remember the ceremony in Los Angeles over Jon after he passed away. Ira Magaziner explained his thoughts when inviting Jon for lunch in the White House and Old Congress Building complex. Everyone was in a dark suit, except Jon that had his normal comfortable clothes and sandals. In the future, Ira said, only one of them will be remembered, and that is the man in sandals. Not an exact quote, but, so true.

How to stop pirating of stuff?

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 08:22:55 +0000

There is only one way of stopping pirating, and that is to make it easier to do the right thing. XKCD. Of course I am a paying member!

New legislation like the one proposed in Sweden (Civilrättsliga sanktioner på immaterialrättens område - genomförande av direktiv 2004/48/EG) is just amazing. The government first of all interpret the Directive 2004/48/EG differently than other countries in Europe. Secondly, they here make an explicit decision that other agencies than the police can do investigations related to criminal activities, and get protection by the law while doing it. We have to remember that Datainspektionen (The Swedish Data Inspection Board) already have stated they do not like this, but the government just move forward. Full steam ahead.

Rich Communications Suite (RCS) - good or bad?

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:45:08 +0000

It is noticed for one of the first time in the press (Computer Sweden) that GSMA has adopted a standard called Rich Communications Suite, or RCS for short. It is, according to the press release an extension of IMS. Something that is not that optimal for Internet Access.

What surprises me (or not in fact) is how little substance there is in the press release, the news articles and the Wikipedia Article. Look in the Wikipedia under Technical Features…

A new world

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 12:37:29 +0000

The Foreign Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, writes in his blog that he has encountered A New World. One might think in these days of financial crisis and instable situations in many countries, that some new idea sprung up.

But no, he in the post say he changed from using Windows to use a Mac.


Att säga att jag inte ångrar det steget är månadens stora understatement.
Min enda kritik av mig själv är varför jag väntade så länge att ta steget.


Den nya världen är alldeles definitivt bättre än den gamla.

A new world indeed.

SOS Alarm, better and better...

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:29:25 +0000

As you can see below, the Internet services of SOS Alarm is getting better and better. I already explained some of my frustration in an earlier post.

SOS Alarm - what are they doing?

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:06:35 +0000

SOS Alarm, the Swedish organisation responsible for 112/911 calls in Sweden, has a lot of things to do regarding their relationship to Internet. They have been working for some years to be able to accept VoIP calls directly over Internet. But they have worked hard claiming IP is unreliable and insecure. Even press in Sydney have quotes from SOS Alarm stating VoIP does not work – when in reality any calls can be located wrongly when using a virtual telephony system. The problem has nothing to do with IP.

Static and dynamic URLs?

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:15:07 +0000

Google write in their blog about static and dynamic URLs. The article is interesting and give good advice on how to design URL’s.

But I do not like their choice of taxonomy. A static URL is for me one that give back the same data every time it is used. Something that can stay in a bookmark file. Be archived. Or maybe that is a stable URL?

Tim Berners Lee wrote that cool URI’s don’t change, and that bring up I think more important issues. That we should talk about URI’s and not URL’s, and that it is much more important whether URI’s change or not than what they look like.

Last update of iPhone is darn good!

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:29:58 +0000

I had no idea that the latest update of the iPhone actually fixed the problem of exif data in pictures sent via email. Earlier tests I did (as you can see on my photos) did not have for example GPS information, but after the update, they do. This imply you can now on my moblog also keep track of where I am, and not only see pictures.

I like this!

Budget for Sweden for 2009 released

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:56:52 +0000

Monday this week, the budget. Mary also writes about this in her blog Minamoderatakarameller.

I note by the way that it in the budget is written explicitly:

Utbyggnaden av Rakel är försenad till följd av tidigare problem med upphandling av systemet och att systemet inte levererats i avtalad takt. Användaranslutningen till systemet har gått långsammare än beräknat och regeringen har därför från och med 2008 förändrat finansieringsmodellen.

And finally:

Under januari 2007 drabbades samhället hårt av stormen Per och Rakelsystemet slogs till viss del ut. Med utgångspunkt i de erfarenheter som stormen gav, har åtgärdsförslag i syfte att ytterligare förstärka systemets robusthet tagits fram. Huvuddelen av förslagen innebär en förstärkning av elförsörjningen till basstationerna.

First (Swedish) governmental organisation that signs their zone

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:33:23 +0000

One can read (in Swedish) that PTS (Swedish Post and Telecom agency has signed their zone with DNSSEC. This is a good thing of course, and I hope we will see more organisations follow along the same path. Specifically public services.

0,5 billion SEK to IT in budget, but what year?

Sun, 21 Sep 2008 16:03:17 +0000

Updated: So I was completely confused by the website of the Swedish Government. And this I now understand is for the year 2008. It is correct that the budget is released Sep 22 (tomorrow) and we’ll see what it includes.

As I think what is published should stay published, I will not delete this post, although it shows I should not post before coffe, specifically not with 9 hour jetlag in my body.

Video on "the FRA law" by Wiretapping Sweden

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 11:56:36 +0000

Wiretapping Sweden has released a video that describe what happened (and happens) in Sweden, and specifically the blogosphere, in the context of this new legislation.

Result is better than I thought!

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 11:27:30 +0000

An article in CircleID reference a report [PDF] by Core Competence and Nominet that talk about support of DNSSEC in routers for residential use.

The report point out problems some of those routers have, specifically in their NAT and Firewall functionality, if the end user behind this router do issue queries that request DNSSEC signed data back.

What one have to remember is that the normal setup (as is said in some comments to the CircleID post) is that these queries are not sent in the first place. Instead queries are sent to the DNS resolver on the outside of the firewall/nat, and then that box is doing the DNSSEC verification. There is an implicit trust between the box sending the initial query and the resolver on the outside.

Internet Governance Forum

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:21:03 +0000

My friend Peter Hellmonds at Nokia Siemens Network took this picture of me. I have no idea why I am smiling, but there must be some statement by someone that I am thinking of…

Blogs are powerful!

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:41:05 +0000

An article in Göteborgsposten in Swedish, it is stated that the blogs are now more powerful than earlier. But not only more powerful, but the landscape is changing regarding how lobbying and the (political) discussion is held in Sweden.

The article specifically point at some blogs as among the most powerful ones. One of them is Minamoderatakarameller run by Mary. Well done Mary!

Geneva and Internet Governance Forum

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:37:53 +0000

After spending the weekend at home (!) and helping arrange Kulturhusens dag in Lövestad, I am now in Geneve. The Internet Governance Forum has a meeting. Yesterday (Monday) we looked at the financial situation, and as always with processes like these, it is problematic to get funding. But, funding is under control although it could be better.

Today there is an open meeting of the IGF. Specifically the agenda and logistics of the upcoming meeting in Hyderabad, India.

Brussels, Data Retention

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:26:42 +0000

The day after I was in Stockholm, I had to go to Brussels over the day for a meeting regarding implementation of the Data Retention Directive. I have already earlier earlier written about this in this blog. About the implementation in Denmark, the investigation in Sweden, my personal reaction to the Swedish proposal and finally my thoughts on what should happen now. All written some time ago.

During the summer the discussion about the FRA legislation has dominated the discussions in Sweden, but now also discussions about the Data Retention has started. We’ll see what will happen.

Discussions in Stockholm

Tue, 16 Sep 2008 15:19:37 +0000

Was in Stockholm the other day. Back and home the same day. The beginning of a fall that is extremely hectic. The interesting discussion was with an ISP on Applications and Access. Whether one can make money on both or not. My answer is that sure, one can make money on both, but not everyone. Simply because there will be so many more application providers than access providers.

Another finding at the discussion around the meeting (that surprised me) was that there ended up being an agreement that too much of discussions, technical implementations and agreements try to block end users from doing what they want. Instead, more time should be spent on adjusting products and agreements so that they match what people want to do.

Who is responsible for what?

Mon, 08 Sep 2008 14:29:29 +0000

In Sweden there is a discussion at the moment triggered by the fact pictures used as evidence in a trial can be found using the search service on The Pirate Bay. Too many discussions start with the assumption that The Pirate Bay has done the wrong thing, when in reality the pictures are available due to the rules in Sweden that make it possible for anyone to get a copy of the minutes of the trial after the trial has ended. Prices of around €15 has been mentioned (one have to pay the actual price it cost to produce the copy of the minutes).

Are you a Gentleman?

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 10:30:07 +0000

MrGreen has initiated a test at http://www.smokingflugan.com in Swedish that tell how much a Gentleman you are. I am 65% Gentleman which this proof is indicating. I ask myself whether that is good or bad…

Wrong description of security and flash drives

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 09:19:45 +0000

In an article Computer Sweden claim that flash based hard drives has less security than normal rotating hard drives. My friend Joachim Strömbergsson is interviewed and he agree it is harder to extract the information from a hard drive than a flash drive.

But, as he explain in a blog entry, he talks about how easy/hard it is to extract the information from the interior of a flash based drive compared to a rotating drive.

Patrik Fältström for president?

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 16:53:02 +0000

The people at http://www.paltalk.com/ have created a cool webpage that show how you can play with media.

Spider

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:25:05 +0000

At the back side of the ouse, there is a spider web and a interesting spider. Hard to take photos of, because the depth of focus ended up being so short when using macro. This ended up being pretty ok though.

Bird of prey

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:14:28 +0000

Another picture that ended up pretty ok is this. I stopped the car and only had my Canon SD850IS with me (the 5D was at home). Opened the window and took this picture. Yes, I have zoomed in quite a bit…

Cats find candy in the garden...

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 18:08:01 +0000

One of our cats, Spetsnos, found a bird in the garden this morning. I find it very interesting that the cats even can catch birds, but on the other hand. Cats are very specialized animals. They really know how to hunt.

What she has done is to catch a bird, but not kill it. Then she, as always, plays a bit, and that part is what you see on this movie.

Beer pictures...

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 17:05:49 +0000

I am pretty happy with the pictures I took.

For example this:

Even if one zoom in on the foam, it actually ended up being pretty ok. Low light conditions as it was.

This is also a good closeup.

The full picture is this:

Dark clouds over Rosenbad

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:36:32 +0000

When walking by Rosenbad this week, there was a dark cloud over the building…

cAmarillo beer

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:33:12 +0000

At Mac Kinnlay`s Inn in Stockholm last week, we found some excellent cAmarillo beer from Närke Kulturbryggeri.

FRA: Possible to know what is Swedish traffic?

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 14:43:52 +0000

I get the question a lot on whether it is possible to know what traffic is swedish and not. Two phone calls today… Mary wrote about it I did on the topic.

My short answer is always no.

A little bit longer answer is that the question is not correctly stated, because most of the people asking the question want to know whether one can know what Internettraffic is Swedish and what is not. But the legislation is not about Internet. It is about tapping information from wires. Where some of the traffic is IP traffic, a piece of that (but not all) is Internet traffic. But other traffic on the wires is not IP based.

IT Attack to Georgia - more good data

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:12:05 +0000

The Arbor Sert, that many things can create the problems that one can see. They write:

While some are speculating about cyber-warfare and state sponsorship, we have no data to indicate anything of the sort at this time. We are seeing some botnets, some well known and some not so well known, take aim at Georgia websites. Note that RIA Novosti, a Russian news outlet, was apparently targeted during this fighting. Georgian hackers are accused of this event.

When do we get a DNSSEC signed root zone?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:55:05 +0000

An article in Wired today interview a number of people about DNSSEC. The conclusion of the article is that they all think the root zone should be signed, and that one of the major obstacles today is the part of the US Government that overlook changes to the root zone. The one that have the contract with ICANN.

Many of my domains are in the .SE TLD, that is signed with DNSSEC. The problem is of course that not many resolvers do verify DNSSEC signed responses. Not before the root is signed. I personally definitely think it is time to sign the root zone.

IT Attacks against Georgia?

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:37:04 +0000

There are rumors floating around that a coordinated attack is ongoing against Internet sites in Georgia. One can for example read about it in Swedish IDG here and here. There are also information about attacks in English news sites like Computerworld.

If we look more carefully on what can be called denial of service attacks, they can simply be just overloaded services due to the increased popularity during some events. How many journalists in the world did the last three days go to the website of the Georgian Parliament for the first time? My guess is that the last days events in Georgia have increased the popularity of websites in Georgia by a factor thousand. Do they have enough international bandwidth for this? Maybe, maybe not. It is at least unclear to me.

Security Update to MacOSX released

Fri, 01 Aug 2008 06:55:47 +0000

A security update to MacOSX is now released. Among other things it updates the DNS software Bind according to this notice you can see below. An update that is really important to install given that we just started to see effective attacks using this attack vector:


BIND
CVE-ID:  CVE-2008-1447
Available for:  Mac OS X v10.4.11, Mac OS X Server v10.4.11,
Mac OS X v10.5.4, Mac OS X Server v10.5.4
Impact:  BIND is susceptible to DNS cache poisoning and may return
forged information
Description:  The Berkeley Internet Name Domain (BIND) server is
distributed with Mac OS X, and is not enabled by default. When
enabled, the BIND server provides translation between host names and
IP addresses. A weakness in the DNS protocol may allow remote
attackers to perform DNS cache poisoning attacks. As a result,
systems that rely on the BIND server for DNS may receive forged
information. This update addresses the issue by implementing source
port randomization to improve resilience against cache poisoning
attacks. For Mac OS X v10.4.11 systems, BIND is updated to version
9.3.5-P1. For Mac OS X v10.5.4 systems, BIND is updated to version
9.4.2-P1. Credit to Dan Kaminsky of IOActive for reporting this
issue.

Third example of Bidi issues

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 14:56:41 +0000

I have written earlier about Bidi issues here and here. I have here two more examples, and after these examples I hope people understand this is a real issue.

In the first example, you see that although the normal domain name 2est.com is a legitimate domain name that can be delegated, if one delegate from that zone a domain name that ends with a character with Left to Right directionality, it will change place with the number).

More examples of R2L and L2R characters

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 14:43:05 +0000

I showed yesterday what the implication is when one mix Right to Left and Left to Right characters in specific contexts. That was explicitly in a Left to Right context. Today I was thinking of showing the difference between different context, but the same logical order of the characters.

In the examples, I in both cases typed in the characters in this logical order (left to right). The # represents U+0628 ARABIC LETTER BEH.

Mixing different scripts is hard

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 18:39:43 +0000

This is an example of what happens when I in MacOSX create directory paths with characters of mixed right-to-left and left-to-right directionality. What create the problems are the numerals that are adjacent to the path separator. The example is of a problem that is discussed at the moment in the IDNA working group in the IETF. Documents that describe the issue can be found on the https://stupid.domain.name/idnabis/ website where documents are updated when posted.

Is this only sloppy wording by ICANN?

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:38:05 +0000

So I wrote earlier that I though it was good stuff when ICANN released a paper on DNS Security. Yes, I think it was good this paper was released, and yes it points out correctly how important DNSSEC is.

But, now when reading it in detail, I find two things that troubles me. And it has to do with management of .ARPA. A top level domain that is used for infrastructural purposes. Like IP-addresses and E.164 numbers.

ICANN releases paper on Domain Name Security

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:55:56 +0000

Today ICANN releases a paper with the title DNSSEC @ ICANN – Signing the root zone: A way forward toward operational readiness. The paper explains in more detail than earlier documents what ICANN view on signing of the root zone is. I think the key points mentioned in this paper are true, and in general, I think this document is a good read. It is not long, and summarizes what I would call the current view is.

VNC for the iPhone 2.0

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:57:07 +0000

This is way cool. Gizmodo pointed out the great VNC client for the iPhone 2.0 called Mocha. It is developed by the company MochaSoft in Denmark and is way cool. If it is working, oh yes! Where do I pay? Oh, it is free! Even better. Now I will look for the non-light version so I can pay them. This is how things should be done. Absolutely excellent.

draft-iab-dns-choices-06.txt

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:26:39 +0000

Last draft I finished today is the one I am editing on behalf of the Internet Architecture Board on how to expand the DNS to hold new kind of information. Far too many people add new data by just storing data in TXT Resource Records. That is for many reasons not an optimal solutions. In this document IAB try to list the various pros and cons with the various mechanisms. The document also try to convince the reader that adding a new resource record type is not as hard as rumors say.

Triangulation of cellphones - an integrity problem

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 17:24:37 +0000

Today it was disclosed, for example on Computer Sweden (in Swedish) that a new service provided by Eniro made it possible to see the position of any cellphone. Also SvD write about it. The idea of the service was to find services close to your own position (such as a restaurant), but bugs made it possible to see the location of any cellphone as long as you knew the number.

This kind of triangulation is not anything new. We did develop such services at Tele2 many years ago, but they relied from the beginning in special SIM features, that an SMS was sent to the phone, and that the phone responded on that request. What happened was that the phone reported the signal strength to the base stations it could see, and a geo database on the server side made it possible to use that data from the phone to calculate the approximate position.

draft-ietf-idnabis-tables-02.txt

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:46:06 +0000

I have also posted a new version of my draft on generation of a property value for Unicode Characters. The property value is to be used for decision on whether the character can be used in an internationalized domain name (it is not the only requirement).

One can find the draft here, and a diff from the -01 version here.


Filename:        draft-ietf-idnabis-tables
Revision:        02
Title:           The Unicode Codepoints and IDNA
Creation\_date:   2008-07-14
WG ID:           idnabis
Number\_of\_pages: 58

draft-faltstrom-uri-01.txt

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 07:32:55 +0000

I have just posted a new version of my proposed specification of the URI Resource Record Type. With this, one is supposed to be able to directly look up the URI of something in a domain without having to use the NAPTR Resource Record first.

An example is when one want to know the URI for the webpage of the example.com domain. Instead of “guessing” that the URI is http://www.example.com/ one is supposed to look up the URI record for the _http._web.example.com domain name and get back for example http://www.example.com, or rather, get back for example:

FRA: This overall question is not about wiretap or not wiretap

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 11:24:29 +0000

Thomas Gür writes in SvD today (in Swedish) about all the mistakes the Swedish Government is doing. How the impact of “the blog” has changed the way politicians (specifically, but I claim this is also true for anyone) have to think twice before making a statement. And think differently. What is said is immediately discussed in the “blogosphere”, and even hinting that people complaining do not understand the question and/or issues is just plain wrong. Thomas explain this so well. Sure, many people commenting use a language that is not suitable for printing or saying, and sure, some people do not understand the issues (what do I know about non-IT things?). But, to ignore the blogosphere as a collective because they have not understood is just so wrong.

iPhone 3G in Malmö

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 08:36:41 +0000

There where some people in line in Malmö waiting for the release of the 3G iPhone at 00:00:01 local time. About 220 people in line, and they where open until 03:00. IDG wrote that people that wanted a phone should show up early. They where correct, but not for the reason they thought. Phones existed, but the service was slow. Not because of the people, but the computers and the many papers that had to be filled out. Telia staff made an excellent work. On top of that free coffee, hot dogs etc. But, I was number 52 in line (waiting from 19:40), and got my phone at 01:20 (i.e. one hour and twenty minutes after opening). The store was allowed to be open until 03:00 which implies maybe 120 could get a phone. Phew, I feel sorry for the one that is the first behind the cut at 03:00. And feel sorry for the Telia staff that had such a good event, they had phones, but could not serve.

And the winner is: Oscar Swartz

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 14:09:45 +0000

Updated: I misspelled the year… Thanks John!

As you can see here, Oscar Swartz did get the price awarded by Politikerbloggen for the best citizen journalist of the year ~~20078~~ 2008. The official motivation in Swedish is as follows:


Den nya tidens journalistik har kommit för att stanna. Allt fler
utmanar nu de traditionella mediernas monopol på samhällsgranskning.
Nyhetspriset 2008, Årets medborgarjournalist, tilldelas Oscar Swartz.
I en tid där den personliga integriteten lever under ständiga hot har
Oscar Swartz gång på gång dragit ner byxorna på makten.

I am a reader of his blog, and more people should do so. Well done Oscar!

FRA: I am not against FRA listening on cables, BUT!

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 21:39:02 +0000

Carl Bildt is writing again I repeat to point out that the main problem is how the legislation was created.

Wrong assumptions by Ola Tedin

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 11:27:54 +0000

Today Ola Tedin wrote in Ystads Allehanda the following:


För att inte tala om din internetleverantör, som dels enligt lag
måste spara din surfhistoria och dina mail i åratal, men som också
kan använda dem som en handelsvara.

This is wrong. One can be against intrusions in privacy, and think that certain legislation is wrong. But the discussion does not get easier if there are wrong assumptions published that are wrong. In this case Ola is wrong.

Framtidens Radio - oklarheter i rapporten

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:32:48 +0000

Yet another blog post in Swedish. You can use Google Language tools to see this in English.

Updated: Då och då rättar jag språket i denna text. Innehållet i stort ändras dock inte. Det var för oss viktigt att denna blev postad innan Publicserviceutredningen släpps (måndagen 30 juni) så det är glasklart att dessa åsikter gäller RTVV utredningen. Dock blev språket lidande, men det kommer ordnas efter min semester. Hoppas ni står ut.

FRA: Lowest layer of communication

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:45:19 +0000

I got a comment on a post about fetching the signals that crosses the country boundary, and thought a response in a separate posting would be in order. The question was elaborate on what problems exist with giving FRA access to the lowest layer of communications.

To be able to access the lowest layers in the communication, the optical signal, one have to first of all split the optical signal so that one signal go in, and two out, of a branch. One of the output go to a closed room, and one is the normal destination. In the closed room equipment exists to take care of the signal. Many products for this exists on the market. It is often called an optical split. Only problem with those is that if the split is pure passive, then one loose effect that imply the distance from the split to the receivers must be short. But strong development happens in this market, and also active equipment (with built-in amplifiers) exists.

FRA: Same as before, but wire instead of radio?

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:36:52 +0000

Many proponents say that FRA now will have the ability to listen to the same information as earlier. That is not true. They will be able to listen to more data than before. This because there is much more data on the Internet than what was communicated before. The gossips in the staircases, the bank transactions when bills are paid, the chat, the email.

Of course FRA have to listen to wires to at least get the data that was earlier on radio, but they still get more data now. So a good legislation should be written to limit the ability to use the data accordingly. Proportionality is important!

FRA: Not listening to communication between parties in Sweden?

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:31:08 +0000

There are claims made by the proponents of this legislation that collection of data is not to happen for communication between entities in Sweden that for various reasons passes the Swedish border. When looking i the legislation though, no such requirement exists. This because limitations are in reality given in the approval of the wiretap (something given for 6 months at a time):


1 § I försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet enligt lagen (2000:130) om för-
svarsunderrättelseverksamhet får den myndighet som regeringen be-
stämmer (signalspaningsmyndigheten) inhämta signaler i elektronisk
form vid signalspaning. Signalspaning i försvarsunderrättelseverksamhet
får endast ske i de fall regeringen eller, enligt regeringens bestämmande,
en myndighet närmare bestämt inriktningen av signalspaningen.
Om det är nödvändigt för försvarsunderrättelseverksamheten får signa-
ler i elektronisk form inhämtas vid signalspaning även för att
1. följa förändringar i signalmiljön i omvärlden, den tekniska utveck-
lingen och signalskyddet, samt
2. fortlöpande utveckla den teknik och metodik som behövs för att be-
driva verksamhet enligt denna lag.


7 § Upptagning eller uppteckning av uppgifter som inhämtats enligt den-
na lag skall omgående förstöras om innehållet
1. berör en viss fysisk person och har bedömts sakna betydelse för
verksamhet som avses i 1 §,
2. avser uppgifter för vilka tystnadsplikt gäller enligt 3 kap. 3 § tryck-
frihetsförordningen eller 2 kap. 3 § yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen, eller som
omfattas av efterforskningsförbudet i 3 kap. 4 § tryckfrihetsförordningen
eller 2 kap. 4 § yttrandefrihetsgrundlagen, eller
3. omfattar uppgifter i meddelanden som avses i 27 kap. 22 § rätte-
gångsbalken.

My reading is because of this that as soon as the data collected is of value, is not covered by bullets 2-3 in 7 §, and is allowed by the license to collect data, things are fine. I.e. the legislation itself is not saying much on what data is to be collected and not. Part from some very generic paragraphs on ability to identify people.

FRA: Filtering the signals

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:08:25 +0000

Given that the signals that are collected are photons, it is interesting to see statements like filters based on search terms:


3 § Inhämtning av signaler i tråd skall ske automatiserat. Sådan inhämt-
ning får endast avse signaler som identifierats genom sökbegrepp. Även
vid annan automatiserad inhämtning skall sökbegrepp användas för iden-
tifiering av signaler.

Sökbegreppen skall utformas och användas så att de medför ett så be-
gränsat intrång som möjligt i den personliga integriteten. Sökbegreppen
får inte vara direkt hänförliga till en viss fysisk person om det inte är av
synnerlig vikt för verksamheten.

I know regular expressions, but do not know how to match on photons. Of course, data is to be given to FRA so that they can interpret the light. From the light comes transmission, and from transmission comes packets. Inside the packets are bits of data, and the bits together form messages. It is these messages, I think, that is to match the search terms. Hmmm… To me this make it really weird that light is to be collected. When finally some matches can be done based on the search terms, statistics is already collected about the light, the transmission, the packets and the content. And flows must be identified so that matches can be made across packets in the same flow.

FRA: What is to be collected?

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 16:50:51 +0000

The legislation say that signaler (signals in english) is to be collected.


2 § Inhämtning som sker i tråd får endast avse signaler som förs över
Sveriges gräns i tråd som ägs av en operatör.

Of course one want legislation to be technology neutral, but what is collected will lead to implications on who is to collect information. In some cases the owner can not hand over certain kind of signals. In an IP based network, where the fiber owner is not the one that send the light, it is questionable if that owner even can demodulate the light and find the packets?

FRA: Who is to collect information?

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 11:34:09 +0000

The proposed legislation include the following text:


2 § Inhämtning som sker i tråd får endast avse signaler som förs över
Sveriges gräns i tråd som ägs av en operatör.

The problematic word in the text is ägs. Later in the proposed legislation (12 §) there is a reference to 2003:398. If we have a look at 2003:398, then we find the following definition:


operatör: den som innehar eller på annat sätt råder över ett allmänt
kommunikationsnät eller tillhörande installation,

There is a difference between äga and råda över, and this difference can make a big difference regarding implementation of this proposed legislation.

Daniel Karrenberg is reelected as ISOC chair

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:27:23 +0000

A few seconds ago, we on ISOC Board of Trustees reelected Daniel Karrenberg as the chair.

FRA: How was the proposal created?

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:00:04 +0000

The first issue is how the proposal was created. How it was reviewed, and what consensus exists (or not exists) behind it. Aftonbladet write today (in Swedish). It explains how people early in the process where swapped between Ministry of Defence and National Defence Radio Establishment (FRA). This of course increase the ability for the agency to influence the Ministry to write proposals that are in favor of the agency. In this case we talk about a play between an investigation (chaired by Owe Wiktorin that I by the way know very well, and trust), the agency and the Ministry.

FRA: What are the issues?

Sat, 28 Jun 2008 09:17:48 +0000

I have decided that I part from the fact I have written already posts like this (in Swedish) about the legislation, I should summarize what I think the problems are. Partly because many people have asked me to, partly because members of the parliament and government have asked me, partly because Carl Bildt, Minister for Foreign Affairs, wrote in his blog some things I agree with, and some things I do not agree with. Exactly what, well, you have to wait until I have finished my writing.

Investigation on radio and tv in Sweden is ready

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 10:52:46 +0000

Radio och TV-verket has released their report on digital radio. It is not one of the best reports I have seen. In fact it is not good at all.

I also think that Swedish Radio misses the point in their comment on the investigation. They are not the ones that should choose how their listeners get the material. The listeners are the ones that already choose. Over Internet, podradio (offline often), over Internet on their computer, using FM in their car. If they want to listen over the Internet they should do that, if they want to use FM they should do that, if they want to use DAB+, they should do that. The Government or SR should NOT tell people how to listen to radio.

At the ICANN meeting in Paris

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 14:02:54 +0000

So I am after a few days off (which was needed due to the FRA issues that made my phone boil), I am now in Paris. Already when arriving I saw that this hotel is a prefect one to have an Internet conference. They already know where the Internet is, in the same direction as the toilets…

Sign at the hotel in Paris where the ICANN meeting is

Esbjörn Svensson has passed away

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:09:53 +0000

Far too young, 44 years old, he died in a diving accident in the archipelago of Stockholm. He founded Esbjörn Svenssons Trio – E.S.T. 1990, but started playing at a very young age. Dagens Nyheter explain the accident in an article (translated by Google here, and say that the band was booked until 2010.

Updated: For those that have not listened to E.S.T., check it out… If you like music like this, you can not find anything better.

Two interesting articles about wiretap today

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:57:40 +0000

In Swedish news you can find two interesting articles in the newpaper Svenska Dagbladet today. Interesting as they talk about generic integrity issues, and how it comes young parliamentarians in Sweden that was elected because they where bold today are less bold than “normal” parliamentarians.

You can find them in Swedish here (about integrity issues) and here (about parliamentarians).

Unfortunately it seems SvD have some CSS thing that make it impossible for Google Translation Tools to translate the text. So I can not help non-Swedish speaking people with direct links to Google Translation. Also, no reason you try yourself either, because it does not work…

ICANN IDN ccTLD Fast Track Mechanism report announced

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:46:57 +0000

Today ICANN announced the Draft Final Report of Recommendations for IDN ccTLD Fast Track Mechanism. I have been a member of the group that have worked on this, and my task has been to help with the technical requirements. You can see the report as PDF here. Part of the review of a request include a technical review, and the technical review is to look at the following:

The label itself is in accordance with and complies with IDNA2008 protocol
No characters other than identified in Unicode as Letters or [combining] marks are used
No characters are used that map out as compatibility equivalents and only strings that are NFC-compliant
No leading or trailing digits (in any script) are used.
No joiners or other invisible characters are used
There is no mixing of scripts
The proposed string is valid both for IDNA2003 and IDNA2008
No names that are shorter than three characters in ASCII, nor names shorter then two characters in non-ASCII are used
It is demonstrated that the language and script chosen for the Language table for an IDN-ccTLD, is an “official” language in Territory, regardless of the The TLD proposed in combination with the language table being used when operational together with the Language Table does not create rendering problems in URLs, Email addresses etc., when in use.

Addressbook Sync problems in MacOSX

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 11:37:17 +0000

I have got ghost records in my addressbook. Records that have only an email address in them. The problem is that there are now and then thousands of those records. I have also, like many others, got problems with the updated format of images in the records in MacOSX 10.5.x. Many findings on the net suggest doing complete reset of the sync database on all computers (iPhone etc), but I do not want that. Why should I? Then rumors said the sync problem would go away in 10.5.3, but it did not. Or rather, the image syncing is better (but not resolved), but I get these bogus records.

www.google.com, what is happening?

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:12:24 +0000

When looking up www.google.com in DNS, some new things happens. Have a look at this. Unfortunately I do not know what it was before this. How many people will get problems?


# dig www.google.com a
;; Truncated, retrying in TCP mode.

; <> DiG 9.4.1-P1 <> www.google.com a
;; global options:  printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 60013
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 29, AUTHORITY: 7, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:
;www.google.com.			IN	A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
www.google.com.		513241	IN	CNAME	www.l.google.com.
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	64.233.161.99
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	64.233.183.147
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	74.125.19.147
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	64.233.169.104
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.171.103
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	64.233.169.147
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.135.103
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.135.99
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	72.14.235.104
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	150.101.98.219
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.195.99
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	150.101.98.216
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	64.233.189.99
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	72.14.235.147
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.129.99
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.165.103
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	74.125.45.99
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.171.104
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	64.233.167.104
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	66.102.9.99
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	66.249.89.104
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	64.233.167.99
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	66.249.93.147
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.153.104
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.193.103
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	74.125.45.147
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	66.249.91.104
www.l.google.com.	300	IN	A	209.85.193.99

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
l.google.com.		20107	IN	NS	g.l.google.com.
l.google.com.		20107	IN	NS	d.l.google.com.
l.google.com.		20107	IN	NS	c.l.google.com.
l.google.com.		20107	IN	NS	a.l.google.com.
l.google.com.		20107	IN	NS	b.l.google.com.
l.google.com.		20107	IN	NS	e.l.google.com.
l.google.com.		20107	IN	NS	f.l.google.com.

;; Query time: 11 msec
;; SERVER: 85.30.129.39#53(85.30.129.39)
;; WHEN: Sat Jun 14 10:10:21 2008
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 612

Updated: It seems to be one of the nameservers for the l.google.com domain that is releasing what I would call too many records. Yes, I have been in contact with friends at Google. Things are under control.

Volume based debiting and the Internet, not same as NGN

Sat, 14 Jun 2008 09:01:01 +0000

Yesterday I was called by a journalist that wanted to know whether volume based debiting would be a disaster for Internet or not. My view is that it will not be a disaster, it exists for example in Australia, but many efforts to try something like it have failed simply because the cost for the billing system is too large.

This interview is now posted (in Swedish, Google translation here) on Computer Sweden.

What is good legislation?

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 17:14:09 +0000

A lot of people call me today and the last two days. Everyone want to know what happens. I want to do my job. Not talk on the phone all the time… And one question I get a lot is is it possible to know what traffic is within Sweden and not? Like I explained in Swedish, there are better ways of creating legislation like the one that is just proposed in Sweden for wiretap. Because the current proposed legislation have such unclear statements. Sure, it is good if legislation is technology neutral, but, it must still be clear what the idea is.

Brilliant YouTube about FRA

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:39:59 +0000

One of the largest newspapers in Sweden on their major blog post a YouTube video that has false subtexts. The video itself is from Dead Poets Society. About how the Prime Minister of Sweden forces the parlamentarians to vote according to what the party have said.

Brilliant subtexts about the proposed legislation

Mary writes nice words...

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 12:03:05 +0000

My friend Mary writes in her blog about the wiretap proposal. She has worked at most newspapers and IT related publication agencies during the last couple of years of the previous Millenium. Also for example at Digital and Posten.

Today she is working hard with blogs, and the new media mechanisms that arise. For example with Bloggtidningen.

Lagförslag om FRA är ett uselt lagförslag

Fri, 13 Jun 2008 08:40:01 +0000

This is my first posting in Swedish, but the reason for this is that the whole goal of this is to point out wording examples from the suggested wiretap legislation, that of course is in Swedish. People that want to know what I think in English, can use Google translation in March 2007.

Den förslagna lagen är usel som lag även om man tycker FRA ska få information. Ta tex detta i författningskommentarerna:

A building as an instrument

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:20:37 +0000

David Byrne from Talking Heads has installed a number of motors, whistles and such things in a building, and uses the whole building as an instrument. Cool stuff.

Video with David Byrne from BoingBoing TV

Weird article about broadband investigation in Sweden

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:01:31 +0000

IDG writes an article about how the minister Åsa Torstensson will have to fight to get the 3 billion SEK that is proposed in the investigation Broadband 2013. The journalist seems to have watched the video from the hearing on June 9 on the subject, a hearing also I was present at.

Some issues in the article is correct, but I must admit I did not hear the same things as the journalist from the hearing. You can check yourself as the hearing was recorded on video. Direct links to Windows Media here and here.

Optimization of web pages?

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 09:32:07 +0000

An article in Ny Teknik in Sweden discuss search engine optimization. Some good ideas, but of course the most important thing is that articles discuss the phenomena. Are the organisations that optimize the pages in combat with Google? Or are they only fighting each other?

What I also would like Ny Teknik to look more closely at are other ways of optimizing. Optimizing the pages themselves. By for example looking at their own webpage. Just look at how many different domain names and servers the content is stored on. Each lookup in DNS takes time, and each new TCP connection for HTTP takes time. And what is worse, Ny Teknik can not themselves control the experience of the end user. Specifically when external sites are in such bad shape. Have a look at the diagram below and see how slow a specific server is from which Ny Teknik incorporate content.

Scared of hights?

Fri, 06 Jun 2008 10:00:17 +0000

This is just too much…or maybe exactly what one would like to try? Phew… Just watching this walk in the mountains make me sweat.

Sweden Wiretap Bill

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 12:06:29 +0000

There is an article in The Register about the proposed wiretap legislation in Sweden. People ask me and others on whether this is really for real.

The legislation is very real. It is most certainly to pass the parliament although only 4 parlamentarians have to vote against their party to block it. It will be debated in parliament on June 17. A majority of the parlament (most political parties) are in favor and the real difference is more implementation than the underlaying ideas. The register article does not go into to much depth on how the proposed law describes “passing borders” which is somewhat more complex. But overall the article is correct.

Good weather in southern part of Sweden

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 11:39:46 +0000

This last weekend the weather in Skåne was excellent. In a neighboring village there was a tour arranged with guides, travel in wagons dragged after tractors. More than 100 guests. A success. My job was to try to document the event. My only problem is that I spent too much time in the sun, with camera and my three-wheel moped…a must have at an event like this.

Myself mirrored in the sunglasses of Marianne

IPv6 discussions continues

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 07:36:41 +0000

Of course the discussions continues, this time on CircleID about the report earlier.

A few comments on the article by fellow ISOC BoT member Patrick. First of all, the OECD Ministeral meeting in Seoul is in June. So it has not happened. yet. The IPv6 report from OECD is released though as mentioned by Patrick. Secondly, exactly because of the reasons mentioned above (ISPs need customers before they can deploy IPv6 etc), the European Comission is pushing by requesting public e-services, member states and themselves as an organisation to use IPv6. This is not pushing as in “asking other people to do something”. Just because, as mentioned in the comments, that does not work. So, the report is good, it talks about the right things, and people interested should read it. I also wrote about this report. People can also have a look at the presentation Detlef Eckert from the European Commission had at the RIPE meeting earlier in May 2008. That described the report pretty well.

Stockholm Marathon

Sat, 31 May 2008 18:48:17 +0000

Today, Stockholm Marathon took place. The most interesting thing for me and many with me, was that Kurtis managed to make it all the way. Preliminary result is 4h35m12s, place 7157.

Now we are getting somewhere; B&W Music Club

Sat, 31 May 2008 14:18:48 +0000

Bowers & Wilkins just together with Real World has launched a music club they call Society of Sound. It is a subscription service where you get one album a month. At the moment, one can get a free trail subscription for three months. That imply three free albums!

And not any normal crappy format of the audio, but perfect encoding. I just downloaded the first album. Little Axe; Brought For a Dollar, Sold For A Dime. You can find information about this interesting recording for example on the MySpace area for Adrian Maxwell Sherwood that worked with the recording:

MacOSX 10.5.3 is out

Wed, 28 May 2008 21:16:46 +0000

It is not Tuesday, but a new version of MacOSX is out. Early reports from friends say the upgrade (although 420MByte on my MacBook Air) went flawlessly, so I am upgrading now. I saw early lists of the changes as a Developer, and the list was massive. The 420MB of course show that. Hope some bugs in Mail.App parsing of local messages are fixed. I also hope Spaces is better. And I hope some irritating bugs in MacOSX Server regarding how serveradmin is editing the configuration files for bind and apache is fixed. As it is now, it is hard to edit files manually as serveradmin is messing around with the files as well – in a way that is not according to the documentation (in the config files). I also hope they have in the user interface in the iCal client the ability to change permissions in the CalDav server on the server. As it is now (as I understand it), there are manny features there that one in reality can not use… Bummer.

Those where the days...

Wed, 28 May 2008 09:52:37 +0000

I started to use mobile phones early. When I worked with books during my early years at the Uni, I had a mobile phone in my car. Here is, for people that do not remember (or maybe where not even born), a video that describe how mobile phones works. Specifically, check the music…

Communication on IPv6 by European Commission

Tue, 27 May 2008 21:08:38 +0000

The European Commission has released a Communication on IPv6. This is the foundation for the IPv6 Day in Brussels on May 30.

I think this communication is good. I have ben afraid we would see text that tell organisations to start use IPv6. That IPv6 should be used because of reasons that are just not true. As my friend Gaurab said once, “Its just 96 extra bits, no magic”. Instead this document talk about public sector doing things themselves. That they are to set measurable goals on them having their services up on IPv6. And the reasons are also not the hyped ones we have seen the last 10 years or so. Instead real arguments. Pointers to the organisations (RIRs) that deal with addressing issues on a daily basis.

High percentage of Mac

Mon, 26 May 2008 16:07:16 +0000

At a meeting in Gothenburg today, four out of five people had MacBook Air. One had a PC. The PC did though have an IETF sticker on, so he is ok. ;-)

Four out of five have MacBook Air

Chateau de Beaucastel 1998

Sat, 24 May 2008 21:17:49 +0000

Today I had a Chateau de Beaucastel 1998, red. Probably the best wine I have ever had. It was absolutely wonderful. I have some more of them, but wanted to try the first now, so that they do not die. Clearly they should be opened now. Something I will not object to. So if you have some, drink them now.

Chateau de Beaucastel 1998

Good things happened regarding flying today...

Fri, 23 May 2008 14:06:23 +0000

The first thing that happened was that SAS responded to a complaint I sent in via the web form they have on their webside. I complained about the Fast Track being closed on CPH when I travelled to Geneva last week. A nice response indeed. But too many companies to not respond at all.

The next thing that happened was that Skyways handed out vouchers for Internet Access at Arlanda Airport. Otherwise Luftfartsverket charge an arm and a leg for some IP packets. Because of this, I saw tons of people using the access.

Yeah!!!

Wed, 21 May 2008 13:34:34 +0000

I see that Pink Floyd will get the Polar Music Price this year together with Renée Fleming. You can see it officially on the website of the Music Polar Price.

What is interesting is that the text state The official announcement of the 2008 Polar Music Prize will take place in New York City on May 21st at 6 pm EST at the Residence of the Consul General of Sweden.. 6 pm est has not happened yet. Still, there is a link on that page to the announcement in Swedish.

Eye of a cat

Sun, 18 May 2008 20:44:13 +0000

Yesterday I managed to take a close up photo of an eye of Spetsnos, one of our cats. The camera is in this case about one inch from the eye, and it took almost five minutes before I managed to get the cat to look at something else than the camera. In this case a package of chocolate(!).

Eye of Spetsnos

Snow in Sweden

Sun, 18 May 2008 20:40:55 +0000

Some parts of Sweden have snow, now in May. I am happy living in southern part of Sweden…

Kullamöllan, outside Lövestad, May 17, 2008

Robert Mondavi has passed away

Sat, 17 May 2008 09:05:06 +0000

As one can read in Wine Spectator Robert Mondavi passed away on May 16 at age of 94. Being one of the most well known and influental wine makers in California, he run Mondavi winery from time of establishment in 1966 until 2004 when it was sold.

I have like many others a long relationship with Mondavi Wines. Often one of the first really typical californian cabernet one drink is a Mondavi. The first wine tour I did in Napa was at Mondavi. Of course, after that I have found other, specifically smaller, wineries. But Mondavi still has a style that people in California like, and because of that I find them interesting.

Police take computers from wrong person

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:22:25 +0000

In IDG today we can read (in Swedish, google translation to English here) that the police linked the wrong address with an IP-address when they where looking for child pornography. The police has now reported themselves to an internal investigation on what really happened, and I think it is important to really check this. Was the wrong IP address sent to the ISP (when the street address was asked for), was the time and date for the use of the IP address wrong, or did the ISP do the wrong thing?

Fastest path between GVA and CPH is not the shortest

Fri, 16 May 2008 11:11:52 +0000

Yesterday I left the IGF meeting a few minutes early to be able to pick up my bag and catch the bus to the airport. As all meetings end at the same time (18:00), I was worried the lines for bag pickup where long, so I left the meeting at 18:10 or so. Yes, the meeting run over a few minutes. There was no line, and I caught the bus to the airport. In retrospect, I could have staid a bit longer, but I could not know that. The lines when signing in Tuesday morning where so incredibly long. Took 40 minutes to get the badge.

How does IGF meetings work?

Fri, 16 May 2008 10:57:44 +0000

The closed meetings are very much like the open meetings. With the difference that the smaller UN rooms do have power outlets at every seat. This implies I only needed my 12 metre long extension cord one of the days in Geneva. That day it was pretty popular though! The meetings are actively lead by the chair, Nitin Desai, and we this time had sort of one topic per 3 hour session. UN sessions are always 10-13 and 15-18 by the way. Regardless of where the meeting is. Due to agreement with interpretors I understand. That rigid timing for meetings make it hard though to do other things, like have lunch, as all meetings have lunch break at the same time.

IGF meeting over for this time

Fri, 16 May 2008 09:57:06 +0000

After four days in Geneva, I am at home again. The discussions did heat up the last day as expected, but the outcome I think is as good as it can get. The secretariat has already circulated a draft conclusion paper, and I expect that be approved today, and posted tomorrow. I will be back with info about it when it is published. The problem with discussions like these can be, I claim, categorized in two groups. The different view different parties have on how private and public sector is to work together. And what role non-UN organisations (can) have regarding governance. Of course people wanted to discuss “the future of ICANN” while same people did not want to discuss “the future of ITU”. This if I extrapolate a bit.

IGF in Geneva, day three (and some IDN stuff)

Thu, 15 May 2008 07:18:15 +0000

Day three has ended. Some data on the IGF website has been updated. You can for example now find the transcript of the whole day of open consultations. You can also find things like video of the morning session and afternoon. Or just the audio from the morning and the afternoon.

The topics have of course been around this fall meeting in Hyderabad. Basis for the open consultation is a paper created by the Secretariat with a summary of input from the community. People made not surprising statements, and overall I think people agreed that the paper was good.

Google and IPv6

Wed, 14 May 2008 10:30:10 +0000

Google has now blogged about their introduction of IPv6 for the http://ipv6.google.com/ (you need IPv6 access to access the website). I think Erik and the others at Google has done a great job, but of course a lot of more work is needed to make the full “Google experience” over IPv6 complete.

IGF Meeting, transcript of morning session

Tue, 13 May 2008 16:07:13 +0000

The scribe here is fast. They have already published the transcript of this mornings session.

IGF meeting in Geneva

Tue, 13 May 2008 12:33:03 +0000

At the Internet Governance Forum in Geneva, we are discussing the upcoming meeting in Hyderabad, India in December 2008. A summary document of the discussions so far can be found here on the IGF website. That website could be better organized, but one can get used to the layout. It is sort of a live document. For some weird reason RSS does not work. Maybe because of the way the page is updated, who knows?

Joakim wrote about me...

Mon, 12 May 2008 06:15:04 +0000

This is a bit embarrassing. Joakim Jardenberg, that have had more excellent jobs that most of us, have written in his blog about me. This is the original text in Swedish, and thanks to Google, you can here get the text automatically translated to English. Translation is actually not that bad.

Anyway…Joakim is now CEO of Mindpark. As he writes, I met him the first time when I was at Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. He was at Aftonbladet. I left for Montréal for a few years, while Joakim run his own company Infinit. At the end of the millenium, Eva and I started to have as tradition to go down to Joakim for a very nice dinner. An excellent tradition that only lasted for a few years. Stuck in snow storms, no electricity for a weekend, food in such quantities that my stomach hurt! But the result of those dinners was that Eva and I moved south, to Skåne. Yes, I “blame” Joakim as being one of the main reasons why we moved south. And he should be proud of it, and I thank him for it.

Election to ISOC BoT has concluded

Sun, 11 May 2008 17:17:27 +0000

The election to ISOC BoT has concluded. Elected are:

Alejandro Pisanty
Daniel Karrenberg
Raul Echeberria
Bert Wijnen

Great persons all of them!

Congratulations, and welcome on board!

Spelling is hard?

Thu, 08 May 2008 07:42:43 +0000

In the small village I live in, I saw this car. I think the number plate on this BMW was absolutely excellent. Almost right!

Old artifacts from SUNET 1.0

Thu, 08 May 2008 07:41:33 +0000

When I was at Royal Institute of Technology and had a talk about my view of Neutrality issues in Europe, we had a pre-meeting in a room where the old routers from SUNET 1.0 where on display. Because of this, I have now both photos of these old things and the old layout drawings we did (I scanned the plastic foils I had saved) to use in future presentations. Great stuff!

IPv6 is deployed more and more

Tue, 06 May 2008 08:36:07 +0000

I am at the RIPE meeting in Berlin. Here as at other meetings lately, they will turn off IPv4 for an hour or so, just to see how things work. I think these kind of events are important, as it forces people to actually do something, and they can see how much IPv6 is really deployed.

When I yesterday pushed some Internet-Drafts through the IETF publication process, I had to cancel one of the submissions I tried to do (the draft in question was later published via the manual process). What was interesting was the confirmation letter I got (email addresses mangled by me here in the post):

Messiest week of the year!

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 08:07:27 +0000

Last week was extraordinary messy. Stockholm Monday for the Teldok 2.0 discussions. Good discussions, but unfortunately I could not stay all day. Then Tuesday I was at home preparing for the last part of the week. Wednesday I was in Brussels discussing RFID. At least that was what I thought until I arrived there. More discussions about IPv6 and “Network Neutrality” than I expected. And of course the two initiatives in Sweden. One by IVA on “Ambient Sweden” and one by the Government on “Access to services - from wherever and whenever”.

IT Politician of the year!

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 13:24:56 +0000

As noted in IDG, Eliza Roszkowska Öberg is byDataföreningen pointed out as the IT Politician of the year. I can only congratulate Eliza that I think is doing a good job. She also writes about this in her own blog.

Asparagus -- prices awarded to friends!

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 11:01:55 +0000

Friends at Österlen sparris today got price for their long work with making asparagus more popular in Sweden. They have absolutely succeeded during their now 10 year long hard work. New for this year is a new shop and white asparagus. Something I like better than the green. Yes, there is a big difference in taste even though it is the same vegetable. More work with the white one though.

Teldok 2.0

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 09:21:38 +0000

Yesterday, Peter and Stefan hosted an excellent hearing. The original presentation include tons of animations though that do not really work when looking at the PDF.

If you have 10 minutes, you can also watch this YouTube movie on Network Neutrality.

Broadband investigation in Sweden

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:00:54 +0000

I have now read the investigation myself, and talked with a lot of people. Mostly people have asked me what I think, but of course I have also read what other people think. Let me start with the good things.

The report say that minimum 2Mbps symmetric connection is what is to be called broadband. Much higher than the OECD specification. And that is what is to be used today. In 2013, it should be 10Mbps. Still symmetric.
The report conclude that this can only be achieved if there are neutral connection points from where the access network is to be built. A connection point that can not be as far away from households as the today default locations (telephone stations where the copper terminate). It must be within a few hundred meters of the household instead of within a few kilometers.
The report say that the access network between the household and the connection point can be any kind of mechanism. Copper, fiber, radio, whatever.
The report conclude that the network to the connection point must be fiber, but in rare cases other technologies can be used.
There is a suggestion that the federal government pay 50% of the €700M that is needed for creation of this network in Sweden, and that cities should pay 10%, and private investors the remaining 40%.
There is an acknowledgement that households, villages, and other kind of voluntary work is an important piece in the puzzle. Without local interest and local help, it will be hard to get a good network.
There is a lot of text about the need for good Internet Access for everyone.

But, there are of course a few things that could be better.

Swedish e-invoice format is not at all broken

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:53:48 +0000

I wrote about an article where a Swedish solution for e-Invoices for public sector is discussed. I described that the main problem with the solution is that Verva has chosen a broker function instead of formalizing on a format for the e-Invoice. Sure, Verva is saying that the broker is only to be used by the ones that can not use the format specified, but that is not how the overall design of the solution is.

Invoice broker broken

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:08:50 +0000

Updated: A careful reader have pointed out that I have completely forgot and missed the involvement of the Swedish Financial Management Authority (ESV) in this whole process. It was the Swedish Financial Management Authority (ESV) that procured and implemented the broker. See this webpage at ESV.

In an article today the invoice broker service the Swedish Government has bought is discussed (again). This service is one of the most broken design systems ever designed, and I have personally participated in I do not know how many meetings with Swedish Administrative Development Agency (Verva) where the brokerage system has been discussed.

Investigation "Broadband 2013" in Sweden ready

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:06:58 +0000

The investigation that was launched 2007 by the IT Minister was today handed over to the minister. You can find the investigation here. There is a summary in English on pages 17 to 21. There are a few things noticeable:

Broadband should be able to maintain a minimum transmission speed of 2 Mbit/s symmetric and be upgradable to higher speeds as needs develop. I propose government funding for measures during the period 2009–2013. This funding should be used to build access points for neglected areas outside of urban areas and small towns. This in turn will allow different types of access networks and operators. An access point that is built using this funding will, in turn, make it possible to provide a majority of those living or working in the neglected area with a connection of at least 2 Mbit/s in both directions, i.e. symmetric. An expansion of this kind will cost at least SEK 7 300 million. The percentage of government funding should be limited to 50 per cent. The rest of the financing should come from operators, municipalities, EU Structural Funds and regional policy funds from expenditure area 19. I propose that municipal co-financing amount to 10 per cent. To encourage voluntary work, municipalities should be able to deduct the value from the municipal co-financing. The National Post and Telecom Agency should be instructed to make an annual survey of the conditions for broadband and to report the results of and forecasts for broadband funding. I also propose that the instructions to the National Post and Telecom Agency and county administrative boards (or equivalent body) be changed so that IT infrastructure becomes a permanent task.

Such complicated world we live in

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:26:51 +0000

Every time I explain bad technical implementations that have too much impact on innovation and competition (like in this post about IP-TV), people ask me why I am against bundling, or why I am against an ISP running services.

Let me state this once and for all (but I have nothing against repeating this): I am NOT against bundling or having an ISP running services.

In reality, the consumer want packages, one invoice, one customer service to call. And why should an ISP not run services? Many ISPs, specifically the incumbent telephony providers, will most certainly in the future be the best providers of services. They have been running services for a hundred years!

Something for Ole?

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 16:57:08 +0000

I have a friend Ole that like Organs. He is the main person behind Organdemo initiative. I today on Gizmodo found this. I think Ole likes it…

Locking out competing providers is bad

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 08:28:24 +0000

Today one of the headlines in Computer Sweden was that there is a dispute between Telia and the regulator PTS in Sweden. PTS requires Telia to stop locking out competing TV-distribution companies for IP-TV in the access network (DSL) that Telia runs. Specifically, they lean towards the fact Telia is dominant provider of the copper, and require Telia to competitors give access to the larger frequency band in the copper that they claim is needed for TV distribution.

I have not been asleep...

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 06:30:24 +0000

For those of you that have asked yourself what I have been doing lately, as I have not been blogging, be patient. I have been working a lot with things that should give result this week. Or the next. Things like Internet Security (robustness), Internationalized Domain Names, and broadband buildout (network neutrality is close to this). And, lately, I have actually not been enough as there has been so much to do.

Tip from the coach about ipfw

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:31:50 +0000

Do not load the kernel module (remotely) without also adding some rules. This because a default rule always exists which might have some impact on your remote connection…

65535 deny all from any to any

If you really have to load the module remotely, do instead

kldload ipfw && ipfw add 32000 allow all from any to any

Much better…

Stockholm Farting Organisation?

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 17:43:08 +0000

In the newspaper friday, there was this picture with an unfortunate misspelling. The text claim that Anders Jansson is secretary in the Stockholm Farting Organisation (Stockholm Fisarförbund) while I am pretty sure he is secretary in the Stockholm Fishery Organisation (Stockholms Fiskarförbund).

Mondozer does not work on all phones

Tue, 01 Apr 2008 16:05:19 +0000

So I got this idea that I should try a new service. Ads made me a bit interested. But did it work? I got interested due to information from Eniro. Information on the Mondozer site was as interesting as what I saw on my cellphone (see below, they could not even do encoding of Swedish characters correctly).

Another try to explain the future of the Internet

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 12:33:06 +0000

I have once again tried to explain my view of the future of the Internet. This time I do not say much about the future, but instead look at what has happened the last 30 years, and try to make people guess what happens the next 30 years. One of the reasons for this was because the presentation was at the 10 year anniversary of the Swedish Urban Network Association, and many people gave historical views of communication. Including a representative from Ericsson that talked in detail about what happened between 1857 and 1890… I tried to talk about 1990, not 1890, to make it easier for people to extrapolate to 2028 or 2048.

New interesting projects launched by Swedish Government

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:44:52 +0000

At the yearly meeting of the Swedish Urban Network Association Maria Häll from the Swedish Government presented one of the 8 major projects: Electronic Services - accessible from wherever and whenever. In this project there are 12 sub projects:

Accessibility
Robustness
More secure Internet in Sweden
IT-standardization
Electronic identification/authentication
Information security
Electronic communication
Evolution and innovation regarding digital services
Open networks
An information society adapted to climate changes
EU-chairmanship
New national IT agenda

HD-DVD is dying...

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 09:29:41 +0000

As previously noted, HD-DVD is going away. This was found by Gizmodo.

Swedish Regulator do not think regulation of dark fiber is needed

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 16:13:21 +0000

Updated: This is discussed further in in a new article in Computer Sweden where a provider was not allowed to buy dark fiber from Skanova Access, when the owner of Skanova Access, TeliaSonera, was able to do it.

In an article in Computer Sweden it is written for the first time that Swedish Regulator PTS has the view that the problem with dark fiber lies in Cities policies regarding deployment of dark fiber. The regulator say that the problems with access to dark fiber is resolved by more efficient competition.

Green christmas and white easter

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:59:57 +0000

This winter looked like if it would be one of the nicest since I moved south from Stockholm. Normally, last snow and winter arrives end of February, so if March starts, “one is safe”. No more cold weather. Except this year. It has been -10°C at night, snow and wind. Today I had to use the snow blower to be able to use the car. Next weekend will be warm though. But until then…not fun.

Obama or Hillary?

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:46:00 +0000

If you can not make up your mind, why not get stickers from both campaigns?

Williams Sonoma closed!

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:45:06 +0000

I wanted to buy some presents for some friends, but it did not work…

Liberty Bell

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:42:48 +0000

While being in Philadelphia I thought I had to do some historical touristing things. So I visited the Liberty Bell. Most interesting detail was this electrical installation. After talking with the security people, I found out this is not a burglar alarm or such, but instead a measurement instrument they installed when they last time moved the bell. After placing it where it is now, they decided to leave it. The idea is that the instrument is to warn if the crack widens or if something else happens with the bell that in fact is made out of pretty crappy metal.

Ristorante Panorama, Philadelphia

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:39:40 +0000

The nicest restaurant I visited in Philadelphia was Ristorante Panorama. The wine list was good. Specifically that they had a large number of “flights” one could order. That gave 5 different glasses of wine that could be used during the course. Only problem with those flights was that all wines where in all the glasses at the same time. I took a flight that included a dessert wine, and of course the smell of that wine interfered with the smell from the other glasses.

Victor Café, Philadelphia, USA

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:31:06 +0000

So I visited Victor Café in Philadelphia. The interesting part of this Italian restaurant was that the waiters now and then interrupted their normal work, and sung opera. Our waiter was one of the best. Food was not very good. Ok, but not better. Wine was good, but wine list extremely short. Good and cheap. Go there if you like a different kind of event. Downstairs (restaurant) is pretty crowded and noisy (even when the waiters are not singing) but upstairs looked cool. I wished I would have found “upstairs” earlier in the evening.

Potato chips made from real potatoes!

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:26:44 +0000

At a meeting in Philadelphia, I found this bag of potato chips. It has, as you can see, chips made from real potatoes in it.

Being a bit sceptical, I of course checked the list on the back of the package to see whether it really was real potatoes in it (and how much), and to my surprise it seems it was actually potatoes the chips where made of.

Functional Separation

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 10:59:20 +0000

Swedish Government today propose new legislation on functional separation. For example Computer Sweden and Ny Teknik writes about it.

The proposal gives ability for PTS (the regulator) to force a dominant player regarding copper access network to separate the copper access network from other services. This is a proposal that is very similar to what is already happening in the UK.

I think this proposal is good, but unfortunate it is locked to copper access. They could as well say they wanted the incumbent TeliaSonera to do the right thing and concentrate on what that implies. If the legislation was to be more effective it should have been more technology neutral and talk about dominant owners of passive infrastructure. Then they could have merged this legislation with the already quite effective requirement on share radio towers. And included ability to force owners of fiber networks to sell the product “dark fiber” on the market.

New (wrong) address

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 08:50:39 +0000

Mary writes about issues with the centralized address management we have in Sweden. If only one of the parties in some not-well-defined federation of organisations get the wrong address, and suddenly that information is the truth.

Myself, I got information from the .SE Registry that I have changed my address. I of course sent mail back saying that I have not changed my address at all. The registry of course did not believe me (surprise). After checking the source of this address change I found that was the Swedish Post that suddenly had changed the zip code of the house I live at. Believe it or not. Without any notification to us, and without any change in how the post is sorted.

Stories about the Philadelphia Experiment

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:23:02 +0000

As I wrote earlier we had an experiment in Philadelphia. Slashdot wrote The Night the IETF Shut Off IPv4 which was interpreted in a funny way. Some people actually thought the IETF did shut off IPv4, for the whole Internet, forever.

The IETF is not that influential. But what we did see due to incidents during this event is that influential individuals participate at the IETF. Many vendors, providers of services, etc did really get their act together to make things work.

No IPv4 at Philadelphia IETF

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 02:31:21 +0000

At the IETF-71 in Philadelphia it was a planned outage of IPv4. There was also some outage of electricity before the outage of IPv4. Some people might remember this as The Philadelphia Experiment.

I think these experiments are good, as one would otherwise never actually fight with IPv6 configuration on the routers, software etc. I have spent some hours on this. A good thing.

Is this a system for "experts"?

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 12:22:37 +0000

So I got yet another invitation to Bluechipexpert. This time I though I could check and see what this new social network is. So I used the link I was asked to use to join. The first thing that happens in this expert system is that I am not allowed to use the browser of my choice.

And then, I was not allowed to write my name either.

At that point I gave up…I have other things to do.

BA better than SAS?

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:50:44 +0000

Took BA from CPH to PHL via LHR. I do not fly BA or One World often, but still have my status at American Airlines due to the 1 million miles I did in until 2000. When boarding at CPH, they because of that (I guess) upgraded me to Business Class. Nice! SAS have done that maybe one time every 2nd year. SAS simply do not understand how to take care of frequent flyers. Just look at the latest proposal that frequent flyers can upgrade their tickets 24h in advance. But only if they have paid the higher fares. I.e. independent on what level of frequent flyer you are. This was something possible with AA already 1995…

Swedish Administrative Development Agency is to be closed

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:33:51 +0000

As earlier rumors said, Swedish Administrative Development Agency is suggested to be closed. This is proposed in a report to the Swedish Government. Another suggestion is to have a e-Tsar, a CIO, for Swedish Agencies.

I have in an earlier post already said I am not surprised, and because of that I support this proposal. Now it will be interesting to see what the next step(s) are.

The IETF in Philadelphia

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:02:01 +0000

This week I am at IETF 71 in Philadelphia, USA. Already today on the Sunday I have some very important things to deal with. The document draft-iab-dns-choices have to be updated (I am working with the IAB on this) and major discussions on Infrastructure ENUM.

To start with, I got a room that obviously is too close to the elevators, as one can hear them in a way similar to (but not as bad) as the scene at the home of Elwood (Blues Brothers) just by the subway.

Visit to fair "Skånsk Trädgård" at the Malmö Fair

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:20:47 +0000

Part of the Hem & Villa fair at the Fair of Malmö is the special exhibition Skånsk Trädgård. I will help Spiken i Kistan with his exhibition there. It is good they work with gardens and not Internet, as the website is not really functional…


# curl http://www.skansktradgard.se/
<head><title>Object moved</title></head>
<body><h1>Object Moved</h1>This object may be found
<a HREF="http://www.skansktradgard.se/">here</a>.
</body>

Updated: You can find find pictures from the fair here.

Lowest point in Sweden

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:59:14 +0000

Inspired by some visits to the Netherlands, I once when I drove to Kristianstad visited the lowest point in Sweden. Here I managed to (with the help of some branches of some trees) take a photo of myself standing under the “imagined” surface of water (the sheet of metal above me) which is the average “zero” height.

Access to Internet?

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:56:08 +0000

At the UN, they had an interesting name for the wireless network in the main building…

Long week with UN meetings

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 20:52:18 +0000

So the week of meetings in Geneva is over. The picture below show the main entrance. Of course one can not enter there though if one does not have a permanent entry badge. If one have a temporary badge, one have to walk around the premises and enter via the main gate. The actual process there is though smooth and simple. Not as it was before when one had to pick up a badge at a separate building, or when one have to enter an airport…

ISOC 2nd statement (on the advisory group)

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:09:27 +0000

Here is what was said later during the day.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. ISOC has a few recommendations concerning the renewal of the Internet governance Multistakeholder Advisory Group. The first of those is to stress the importance of appointing the new advisory group early so that work can begin in preparation for the next session. This has been a problem in past, and it’s something that really needs to be regularized and addressed, we believe. Related to that, we think that it’s very clear that the Advisory Group’s work must be continuous. For example, through the sessions this week and going forward until a new Advisory Group is appointed. And therefore, we would recommend that there be a recognition that the Advisory Group continues to function until a new one is in place. Secondly, we would like to stress the importance of appointing Advisory Group members as individuals rather than as representatives of any specific organization. We are recognize that in reality, the members of the group have been appointed in a way so as to ensure the voices of all relevant stakeholders are heard, and with respect to balance on a whole range of grounds that everyone here is familiar with. But we feel that the individual responsibility that has resulted from the Secretary-General’s method of appointment so far has really contributed to the caliber and amount of work that the people have put into it. Like other speakers, ISOC would support rotation of about one-third of the Advisory Group members each year, and we think that the current size of about 40 members is about right. The gradual rotation in the group should certainly be used to address the balance of stakeholders in the groups, which we believe now leans a little too heavily towards government membership. We would like to make the point that past and present Advisory Group members drawn from the technical community have made vital contributions to both the Advisory Group decisions and the overall shape of the forum itself. For that reason, we believe it’s essential that the expertise of the technical community continue to be a major component when selecting members of the Advisory Group Whether the individuals themselves come from the business community, the civil society community, academia, or government. Finally, various proposals have been put forward in writing for a nomination process. ISOC thinks that a number of groups and individuals should be able to submit nomination for Advisory Group membership, but they should not be able to restrict or in any way interfere with the choice of Advisory Group members. That choice must remain the final authority of the United Nations Secretary-General, giving the Secretary-General the ability to ensure the best possible balance among the stakeholders, regions, and so forth in the membership. Finally, I think we have made it clear that we feel that Advisory Group members should be chosen on the basis not of who they represent but of the size of community they connect to. This is a subtle but really relevant difference, and something that affects very strongly the openness and the consultative nature of the Advisory Group. We would also recommend, I guess, just to add a final point, that maintaining a consistent single chair of the Advisory Group has been very valuable and should be continued. We would recommend that in 2008, the Secretary-General appoint Chair for the remainder of the five-year mandate of the Internet Governance Forum, and we would strongly support, if possible, the appointment of the current Chair who has performed admirably in that role for the first two Advisory Group mandates and who has won the respect and loyalty of all stakeholders. Thank you.

ISOC statement at the IGF

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:06:15 +0000

Here is what Bill Graham on behalf of ISOC said during the open consultations today. Some really good stuff in there. I have put those things in bold.

ISOC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am speaking here on behalf of the Internet Society. First we would like to add our voice to those which have already congratulated Brazil for the conduct of the meeting in Rio. We feel that the Internet Governance Forum’s cross-cutting themes of capacity building and development plus the original four focus areas have continued to provide a foundation for the work that was done in Rio. The decision to build on the successful discussions of those themes and the positive interaction among stakeholders at the first IGF led to the addition of the topic of critical internet resources. That decision was clearly justified by stakeholders’ confidence in the able of the IGF to address various difficult topics. We think the success of the IGF precisely depends on the fact that the IGF remains multilateral, multistakeholder, democratic and transparent, and that it is neutral, nonduplicative and nonbinding consistent with the WSIS guidelines. ISOC believes it is essential to retain those characteristics in all future IGF meetings, but we must find ways for the IGF to become more practical and more useful to those interested in the practice of Internet governance. We believe it’s time now for the IGF to really draw out the concrete work and the concrete developments that have happened as a result of its work, and I speak here of all stakeholders’ experiences. I am not talking about concrete conclusions in typical United Nations terms, but in terms of the work that’s being done by various stakeholders and various communities. This work has not yet been adequately captured, and I think we don’t yet have a good picture of how successful the IGF has been to this point. We would also, therefore, recommend that moving forward to India, the IGF focus more on fostering contributions to Internet governance at the appropriate national, regional, and international levels. Successful multistakeholder Internet governance discussions at the local level are essential to progressing Internet governance at the global level, and this was recognized in Rio. There really is much to be done at the local level, and all stakeholders should contribute to encouraging the creation of suitable and sustainable local multistakeholder structures, including the technical and regulatory capacity building programs that are necessary here. Looking forward to the third IGF, ISOC would recommend that we really build on opportunities to expand the work by dynamic coalitions and others who are working together in formal and informal gatherings organized to progress that work. The increased interest in the workshops that we saw going into Rio, and the potential of those workshops for producing collaboration should be major goals for the third IGF. This can be facilitated by reducing the number of formal main sessions. We in ISOC believe the main sessions on the four major themes have really almost served their purpose now, and there should be fewer main sessions in Delhi. Perhaps only three, one on each day. Speakers in the opening session should be selected for their ability to focus attention on the urgent need to show real results from the meeting in terms of promoting access, security, diversity and openness. But concentrating on the needs of developing countries and capacity building. And I speak here of capacity building for Internet governance, not more generally on ICTs for development. The second main session should concentrate on a major new theme for the 2008 forum. ISOC recommends this session, and much of the work of the IGF going forward concentrate on the overarching issue of connecting the next billion and the billions after that. As we heard in Rio, getting the next billion online highlights many, many challenges for governance of the Internet itself, and not least among these are scalability and sustainability issues. Taking this very practical focus will allow us to include many facets of the themes discussed so far. It also will have direct and important linkages to development and capacity building. Focusing on the next billion gained prominence in Rio, and we believe it’s now time to better understand and to address the challenges that will face getting the next billion online. This is something the IGF is uniquely positioned to contribute to. Learning and collaboration are essential to identifying the challenges and highlighting the solutions of Internet governance. The Internet Governance Forum should serve primarily as a facilitator, providing opportunities for action oriented, formal and informal workshops and meetings. Thus in our contribution, which is on the Internet Governance Forum Web site, we outline that we believe that New Delhi should really – or, sorry, the India session should really provide a large networking and display space for all stakeholder groups to present their real-world experiences and their efforts to make Internet governance happen locally, nationally, regionally, and internationally. This space should be structured around the IGF themes. It should encourage dialogue and synergy among practitioners, and it really must include meeting areas for small and medium sized groups to get together, exchange experiences and plan future work. So in concluding, Mr. Chairman, we believe it’s time for the IGF to become a forum promoting action on the entire range of themes outlined in its mandates. Singly and in combination. The focus should be on capacity building for Internet governance. And we believe that the IGF has now established a degree of trust among its participants that should make that possible. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

YouTube and Pakistan

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:59:55 +0000

So I was interviewed in an article in Ny Teknik (in Swedish) about the incident where BGP blackhole routing was leaking to neighbor ISPs from where the blackhole was deployed. I did my best (as a non-BGP person) to explain to the paper that interviewed me over a cellphone while I was at IGF in Geneva how things really work on the Internet. Tried to explain that all ISPs, just like in the SS7 world, have to balance their interest in getting changes implemented fast (as the customers so require) with risk of getting wrong data from those friends.

Rumors say Swedish Administrative Development Agency is to be closed

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:23:24 +0000

Computer Sweden writes that Verva (Swedish Administrative Development Agency) is to be closed. I was called Friday by a journalist that asked what I think about it. My response was approximately that It was a correctly created agency, but I am not surprised this decision is taken as not much has happened.

That I have this view should not be a surprise to anyone, specifically not people at Verva (including the head of Verva, Lena Jönsson) as I during the short lifetime of Verva (since Jan 1 2006) have really supported them, while at the same time always asked for deliverables. Over and over again. But when deliverables are not delivered, well, then I think that is evidence that the construction does not work, and we (Sweden) should try something else.

Rumors say Swedish Administrative Development Agency is to be closed

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 08:23:04 +0000

Off to CPH again, this time towards Geneva

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:15:15 +0000

This week I will be in Geneva most of the time due to meetings in the Internet Governance Forum. Some meetings are open, and some are closed. Open meeting tomorrow, Tuesday. The main discussion points will of course be what summary conclusion to draw from the IGF meeting in Rio fall of 2007, and the agenda for this years meeting in India. The structure of the IGF Advisory Group will also be discussed. You can find the agenda here and summary of submissions for the meeting here.

Castro resigns

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:35:52 +0000

So, after all of these years, Castro resigns as president of Cuba. We are living in interesting times. Regardless of if one agree with the politics of his, it was pretty clear what politics he run. And that is always something that impresses me. Better than people that change opinion all the time. One should though be able to change opinion. Stubborn people are also problematic. Maybe there is a problem with all people. As Jan Kallberg says, there is a danger in being normal.

Small people have impressive memory

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 05:15:08 +0000

I have a friend that have a daughter that I have only met a few times during her so far short life. Last time we met was about 1.5 years ago. She is only 4 years old I think, and every time I talke with these impressive little people, I am – impressed. Yesterday I got this mail from her father explaining that she said this figurine was me. And she and her family where to take the train south to come and visit me. That she remembers so much!

Derailing takes six days to repair

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 07:22:44 +0000

SvD writes about a train that derailed earlier today. A train that had an heavy transformer on it. It derailed between the cities of Norrköping and Katrineholm, and it will take six days before the tracks are open again. Tracks that are used for the fast (everything is relative) trains between Stockholm and Malmö.

Banverket write about the problem, and say that it was a transformer on its way from ABB in Ludvika. The transformer weighs 182 tonnes, and the special wagon carrying the transformer weighs 260 tonnes. The whole train is 500 tonnes. They have to build a new road (for the crane that lifts the transformer) which will take two days, repair the tracks etc, so the tracks will not be open for traffic earlier than next Saturday. The transformer and train etc managed to block both tracks.

MacOSX 10.5.2 is out

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 16:00:12 +0000

At last 10.5.2 is released. It took some time, but on the other hand, it contains tons of stuff that I look forward to. Just the size of the update (approx 350 MByte) indicates large portions of the operating system has changed. The update exists both for the client and server.

Updated: Oh, I forgot the link to Apples site where they have more information about the upgrade.

Spam from way back...

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 10:58:58 +0000

My friend Kurtis just got this message:

From: uri@bunyip.com
Date: lö 19 jan 2008 03.48.35 GMT+01:00
To: xxxxxxxx@yyyyyyyy.zzzzzzzzz

Spam detection software, running on the system "yyyyyyyy.zzzzzzzzz", has
identified this incoming email as possible spam.  The original message
has been attached to this so you can view it (if it isn't spam) or label
similar future email.  If you have any questions, see
The administrator of that system for details.

Content preview:  9rDHÔÔ2]ï`YxO$’ab∏¢<∆‹c˜≥sU¡ÒÚﬁ˛Wó\
≈tNz^≠æ»hµñD”˜VL—Œ§ÑJË2H¯<væÔ≤E5Â\_ítÏ—rÊŸ÷9»w<Ë7íOÂ¤…¨[.Î
ÄøC˛¤ı¯ùˇqËÎÃŒ≠ô}O5~%rd£ÍU\Ú˙∏ŸJü3“´Óé?§€ΩpÔ®©Ì∫÷°<3¨(®4ÈQaÑó

This is interesting/fun, as the last message sent from the bunyip.com domain I saw was the following:

Is Web 2.0 stealing content?

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:53:20 +0000

I got an interesting comment on one of my posts earlier today.

Berka wrote: So when did stealing content by screen scraping become a part of web 2.0? Well, I don’t know since I am over 35! I thought instead of just responding to that comment, I should write a new post, as this is a very important thing that I have pretty strong views on.

In todays environment, information does not have to stick to something. Information is something that can move around independent on the carrier. This as a contrast to how things have worked historically. Information tied to some carrier, and when moving information, in reality the carrier is moved. Such as the plastic disc the CD is made of, or the sheet of paper a newspaper is made of. Today information can move just by itself.

Swedish largest movie company do not understand what Web 2.0 is

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:37:37 +0000

SvD writes that the larges movie company in Sweden SF (65% market share) show they do not understand what the Internet is, they have missed the ideas Web2.0 are built upon, and they fight against their friends, they block their site so movie lovers that want to increase movie visits in Sweden can not help anymore.

What has happened is that the website biotider.se for many years have collected by screen scraping collected information on what movies are running when and where. If people then where interested in a movie, they directly with a link could end up on the “book ticket here” function at the website of the movie company (in most cases SF in Sweden) via deep linking.

Denmark and Pirate Bay - Oscar writes important stuff in English

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:02:18 +0000

My friend Oscar Swartz today in english explains the issues with court ruling in Denmark related to Pirate Bay. He suggest the case must be taken to the European Court of Justice for a ruling.

Oscar writes that he, as one of the first persons in Sweden that started an ISP, with a gut reaction felt the decision in Denmark is wrong, reacted to it (in Swedish), but on the other hand, without deeper research into the legal background.

The brain of the Internet is ready for IP version 6

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:57:49 +0000

Computer Sweden writes in an article that the brain of the Internet is ready for IP version 6. I think the headline is hilarious. DNS root servers being the brain of the Internet? Well, well.

The good thing is that the article, specifically including the answers by my friend Patrik are excellent. Correct, but in Swedish. Like if it was encrypted. Sort of…

Electronic services - accessible from wherever and whenever

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 22:24:57 +0000

The Swedish Parlamentarian Eliza Roszkowska Öberg(m) in her blog post the response the IT Minister Åsa Torstensson gave to a question Eliza asked her. Interested people (that know Swedish) can find the question 2007/08:668 here and the answer here.

But the interesting piece is hidden at the end of this answer, and I guess that imply this is now public information (I hope we will get a press release about it, because this is really interesting…). The minister says:

Flying is not always fun

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 21:24:16 +0000

So, after finding I am flying too much to have a good carbon emission footprint, I now sit here at Arlanda waiting for a flight home. Unfortunately some butterfly was waving its wings some days ago or something. Of course some airplane in Gothenburg is broken, which in turn makes it impossible for the pilots for my flight to come to Stockholm (and fly me to Malmö). Now a flight from London is redirected to Gothenburg to pick up the pilots (which probably make the passengers on that flight to Stockholm really happy). When they are here in Stockholm, they will fly me to Malmö.

Carbon footprint calculator

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:28:20 +0000

Tobias added a link to a page, where one can do a calculation on the amount of greenhouse gases one emit every year. My result was 7.3 tonnes per year, which is well above the average. 5.0 of them because of my travel with car and airplane. Specifically airplane I would say. Something I am very well aware of. Let me explain why I am in Stockholm today, to demonstrate the video conferencing product Cisco Telepresence to some people, and explain how we at Cisco by using this immediately can cut our travel with 20%.

You know you are flying a lot when...

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 09:38:21 +0000

Or rather, you know you and your friends are flying a lot when the locations you meet at are airports. Last week, some people from .SE at Brussels Airport. This morning, Joakim at Arlanda.

Political decisions is needed regarding "mobile TV"

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:42:05 +0000

IDG.se write that they want the politicians to decide what standard to use for mobile TV. That was one of the most weird things I have heard in a long time. Standards live on their own on the market, and different competing standards to compete with each other. Why should politicians decide what the market can not agree on? Terracom even claim Sweden will end up being behind in the development if we do not allow TV in the cellphone. What stops it? The frequency allocation, that cellphone providers are not allowed to show moving images? I do not think so. But if that is true, then they should talk about the regulator, and not the politicians.

Danish courts order ISPs to filter content

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 09:30:43 +0000

Not only my friend Kurtis is questioning that Danish courts order ISPs to filter content. You can find one report here. This is dangerous, specifically as what is really happening is that the way crime is prohibited is moving from police and courts to private sector and civil courts. The Danish court system is not that different from the Swedish one, so I ask myself what the people responsible for this decision in Denmark has been thinking of.

IPv6 glue in the root zone

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 08:59:50 +0000

So the other day we got the AAAA entries for some root servers in the root zone. The reports so far seems to be that nothing drastically happened. Nothing more than the normal issues with delay before fallback to IPv4 transport if a host have IPv6 configured, but not global IPv6 access. This problem was much larger when some TLD servers added IPv6 glue, so I guess most people have already learned this the hard way and because of this they where not hit now.

Frobbit! respond to open consultation on new model for .SE ccTLD

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 07:55:22 +0000

The .SE Registry hav had some proposals for considerations since Dec 2007 regarding a new registry/registrar model for .SE. It is a bit hard to find the proposal in English, but you can find them here on the .SE website. They are available in Swedish as well. Note that if you respond in English you have until Feb 13 to respond, while we that respond in Swedish had yesterday (Feb 4) as the last day. On the other hand, we swedish speaking people got the documents weeks before the english versions where released.

Recommendations from someone that say the right things

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:15:19 +0000

Oscar Swartz once again writes what anti-pirates should read (again). He refer to what Niklas Lundblad has written in Svenska Dagbladet, What pirates and anti-pirates should talk about. Oscar does not agree with Niklas. Oscar think, and I agree with him, that Niklas writes a very politically correct article in the paper. An article that tries to be somewhat neutral. Try to say what this side is right on, and what the other side is right on etc.

No more Domain Tasting?

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 23:28:53 +0000

ICANN board at a board meeting last week made a decision that definitely will help stopping domain name tasting. The interesting points are 5) Proposals to Address Domain Tasting and 6) Compliance Report on Network Solutions’ Domain Reservation Activities and the decision was:

THEREFORE, the Board resolves (2008.01.04) to encourage ICANN’s budgetary process to include fees for all domains added, including domains added during the AGP, and encourages community discussion involved in developing the ICANN budget, subject to both Board approval and registrar approval of this fee. A voice vote was taken of all Board Members present and the motion was approved by a vote of 13-0. Bruce Tonkin abstained from voting on this item.

SSAC report #25 on Fast Flux

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:29:02 +0000

SSAC has released a report on Fast Flux that might be interesting to read for people that are trying to make it easier to find bad guys on the net. Fast flux implies rapid modification of IP addresses associated with a system that hosts a malicious activity, or hosts a domain name that is used for such activities. All to try to make it harder to find and close the services in question.

A change in crime fighting in Sweden? I hope not!

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 11:23:52 +0000

Oscar Swartz writes a good blog entry about what the real discussion is after the court decision related to IPRED1. He point out exactly what I have been nervous about regarding the whole filesharing discussion. That the interests from the movie and music industry is in reality not only to find who is copying the digitized information. They should also be able to sue in a civil process the suspected individual instead of waiting for the police and courts to run the normal crime fighting process.

Logo contest, same or different?

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:46:50 +0000

The other day I found a print of the logo for Corvil, which I personally think is somewhat similar to the logo for Swedish Television (SvT). I was looking around for the version of the SvT logo that was the most similar to the Corvil one, but below you see the best I could found after spending I think 45 seconds on the problem.

DNS film

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 09:20:23 +0000

My friend Desiree was responsible for some events in London yesterday where the 25th anniversary of DNS was remembered. Unfortunately I could not come to the meeting, although she invited me. I am sorry for that but I had soo much to do in Stockholm today, and travelling from London to Stockholm was problematic. She writes in her blog about a film she has made about DNS. Of course, she has put the film on YouTube. You can even see some Swedish in there!

Unicode 5.0.0 in Perl 5.8.8?

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 15:23:41 +0000

I have no idea how much that will break, but I desperately needed support for Unicode 5.0.0 (or later) in the standard perl 5.8.8 that runs on my MacOSX laptop I do the IDN development on. Reason for this is that need to test some stuff I have written that slurps the Unicode data with what the perl libraries do, and then running some 4.x version of Unicode (as 5.8.8 supports) is just not good enough.

Comment function turned off by mistake...

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:20:18 +0000

Because I had not learned the settings in the software I now use for blogging, Mars Edit, the ability to comment on my postings has been turned off by mistake. I now went back in time and turned on the ability to comment again. Sorry for this.

The unmanageable Airport

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:08:02 +0000

Paul Hoffman writes about him not being able to configure an old Apple Airport base station after upgrading to MacOSX 10.5. The same problem exists if one upgrade to MacOSX 10.5 Server and want to administrate both a MacOSX Server 10.4 and MacOSX Server 10.5 from the same client. The admin software is simply not backward compatible.

I think this is a bad thing. Really bad thing. Specifically to not have the MacOSX Server utilities backward compatible with old versions of MacOSX server. Who is upgrading all of their servers at the same time?

Networkers in Barcelona is over

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 19:48:55 +0000

So another Networkers Conference has ended. I had my last presentation Thursday. Luckily in the afternoon, and not in the morning after the party that as normal was pretty cool.

Criticism on the plan from Mats Odell

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 12:38:00 +0000

In an article in Computer Sweden and here.

Swedish IT and Telecom Industries (IT och Telekomföretagen) say the minister is still too careful, and for example have no measurable goals. A statement I agree with, but Mikael von Otter should know the Swedish Government will never issue such statements. On the other hand, I should know one should never stop asking for measurable goals :-)

Some criticism I do not agree with though comes from Dataföreningen i Sverige (no information in English) that say the government have forgot the end user, that education etc is extremely important. I think the government in the plan have concentrated on the end user, force agencies to deploy e-services end users can use. Services that work. If an end user need to upgrade their Internet connection, buy special things, or go a training course before paying bills, then the service has a fault. It is not a fault of the end user.

Meeting in Stockholm summer of 2009?

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 11:40:25 +0000

I help setting up a meeting summer of 2009 in Stockholm, and have started collecting information about hotels, restaurants etc on a Google Map. If you have any suggestions on additions, please let me know.

View Larger Map

Swedish E-Government Strategy

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 16:35:24 +0000

As I wrote some days ago the strategy was to be presented Thursday, and I was hoping it would straighten out some question marks, and shure it did!

The goal is, as simple as possible, for as many as possible!

The report include many good things, but as minister Mats Odell says in the introduction, now it is time to do something. There are four main processes:

Rules and agreements for cooperation between authorities in areas related to IT

Now or never - Swedish view on e-Government(?)

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:26:15 +0000

Computer Sweden today talks about the decision the government will take tomorrow regarding e-Government, and in what general directions the Swedish Government want things to move. This document will be (I agree here with Computer Sweden) extremely important. Not only for people outside of the Government, but even more important as a tool that can keep the departments alined, and agencies (such as Swedish Administrative Development Agency (Verva)) with the government.

Investigator ask for more power to Swedish Data Inspection Board

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 18:19:15 +0000

An article in Ny Teknik talk about the investigation just handed in to the government (SOU 2008:3) that ask for more power to the Swedish Data Inspection Board. Further, they suggest that various privacy related issues are added to the Swedish constitution.

This is the final report from the (my translation to English) Committee on protection against intrusions on personal integrity, and from my point of view it is about time the government get something written down like this that talk about the long term implications on intrusions on privacy. My hope is that now the Government will do something, and make some decisions according to this proposal, so that the current debate in Sweden regarding privacy can end, and we instead can concentrate on moving ahead. Discuss what measures (for example) can be used to find criminals without violating the rules we (then) have in Sweden.

20cm of snow in Skåne

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:24:23 +0000

I have seen this image many many times. But I have no idea who originally took it. If someone know, please let me know. Correct credit should be given to the person that have this amount of humour. For people that do not know the geography of Sweden, Skåne is the southernmost county of Sweden and because of that snow is rare. In fact, I think we as an average have snow 2 weeks a year (and then more than this). So far this year, I guess this picture show the approximate amount of snow.

Cisco Networkers in Barcelona

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:21:33 +0000

This week I am in Barcelona, at least part of it. Weather is much warmer than in Sweden (about +12 during the day), sun is shining etc etc. But of course I am, like everyone else, locked inside a conference center. So the weather could have been terrible.

Yesterday after the first day of meetings, I took this picture with my small camera. Notice the moon in the lower left corner. I wished I had had my SLR with me.

Internationalization is hard

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 12:19:13 +0000

When checking into the hotel here in Barcelona, they (as all hotels) write a nice greeting message on the TV. This time, they even tried to spell my name with the right characters. The problem seems though to be that they wrote things in UTF-8 (or maybe even I did when booking the room?), but the display is ISO-8859-1.

More file sharing of books!

Sat, 19 Jan 2008 13:36:41 +0000

Jan Kallberg has decided to release one of his latest books, Så sänkte jag Sovjetunionen, for free over the Internet. He decided to do so in reaction to the panic the minister of Justice and others have got (as we can see for example in this article in SvD). He even encourages people to share the book, send a copy to friends etc.

Who want to print 704 pages when it cost between 39 and 70 SEK to buy in the store?

Problems building things on MacOSX 10.5?

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 16:06:01 +0000

When trying to compile some library extensions to Ruby I got caught by the fact Apple today normally compile and link things for both PPC and i386 architecture. The calls to gcc normally have two -arch arguments like this:


cc -arch ppc -arch i386

This will not fly if you are later trying to link with libraries that for example is only i386 architecture. You get an error similar to this:

40 rubberbands a second!

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 20:18:21 +0000

Disintegrator is an evolution of the rubberband shooting wooden guns that exists. A friend of mine have one, and to be honest, it is pretty cool. Takes some time to load though. And this thing, with a capacity of 288 rubber bands, send those away in 7 seconds! That is pretty impressive, but it must take almost forever to load.

Broken link to Försvarsberedningen website

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 15:07:32 +0000

Sweden have an parliamentarian group called Försvarsberedningen. When searching in Google for more information, of course Wikipedia ends up being one of the top ranked links. In this Wikipedia article, a link exists for what one might think is a website where information about Försvarsberedningen should be.

http://www.forsvarsberedningen.gov.se/

What is interesting here is not that some link is outdated. It is not that Wikipedia is not updated (I added a note to the article about the broken link). It is that the domain name has data in the DNS, and there is a web server running on the site with that IP address, but without the webserver for Försvarsberedningen.

Would you use this for an economical transaction?

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:49:11 +0000

It is extremely hard for a developer to ensure a system is always up and running, but sometimes the problems make one ask how stable and secure information systems in the world are in reality.

Presentation at workshop on large scale attacks on the Internet

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:43:12 +0000

At a Workshop on learning from large scale attacks on the Internet - Policy Implications today in Brussels, I presented this presentation.

New proposed legislation on functional separation

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 12:22:46 +0000

The Swedish Government made available a proposal what I thought when the report was released.

In practice it is a change in the Swedish Implementation (Lag 2003:389) of the Electronic Communications Directive. The proposal is based on a report from PTS (PTS-ER-2007:18), and the summary of the public consultation is also available (Näringsdepartementet Ndr N2007/5721/ITP). No summary in English unfortunately.

MacBook Air

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 19:36:12 +0000

So Apple did announce MacBook Air today. Rumors have been going on for a while. .16-.76 inches thick and 3 pounds of weight. 5 hours of battery time. I am happy it has mini-DVI out (as connecting to projectors will be essential) but part from that and USB and headphones, it is wireless only. No ethernet.

A cool thing though, and about time. Previous small computer was the PowerBook 2400.

Updated: The Apple description about it is here.

The cost for Galileo is rapidly increasing

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 18:08:29 +0000

An article in NyTeknik say that the cost for the Galileo GPS like system is skyrocketing. The budget is 3.2 billion EUR, but the current estimate is towards 9.3 billion EUR. Originally the information comes from der Spiegel.

I have already here and here written that the cost where above budget, but then that estimate was the 3.2 billion EUR that now is history as well. Multiply by three, and you get the new cost.

Do we need a minister responsible for IT Security? I don't think so...

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 14:01:12 +0000

The Social Democrats today make a statement on the need for a minister responsible for IT Security in Sweden. The problem I have is that they mix operational responsibility with other things. What is the Minister for IT-Security to do when something happens?

It is also the case that many years ago, it was agreed in Sweden that in time of crisis it is extremely important each agency and department of the government have to (still) be responsible for whatever responsibilities they have. Every creation of some coordination role has failed, and this is touched upon again in the report “Försvarsberedningen” released in Dec 2007 (Säkerhet i Samverkan).

An application for Windows XP to listen to Swedish Radio over Internet

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 16:11:05 +0000

My friend Kent Berggren has written an application for Windows XP that can be used for listening to web radio from Swedish Radio over the Internet. He writes himself the following:


Hej
Jag har skrivit en liten webbradio på min fritid
som bara kan lyssna på Sveriges Radio:s webbstationer.

OBS fungerar vad jag vet bara på Microsoft XP

Den har ingen grafik och pratar inte med någon webbsida.
När du startar den så börjar den spela SR P1 webbradio i bakgrunden.

Om du höger-clickar på SR loggan längst ner till höger så kan du byta kanal.
OBS detta är ett hobby projekt!

SRadio står för Streaming Radio, inget annat.

Kommandon:
Höger clicka på SR logga nere till höger.

Win-Key + a 		= avsluta
Win-Key + s	 	= tystnad av/på
Win-Key + pil-upp	= Ljud ökar
Win-Key + pil-ner	= Ljud minskar

Win-Key + F1 	= P1
Win-Key + F2	= P2
Win-Key + F3	= P3
Win-Key + F4	= P4

Om du ställer musen ovanpå SR loggan så ser du vilken
kanal du lyssnar på.

Den är inte gjord för moden
och jag tar inte på mig något ansvar för programmet.

Om du inte får den att fungera,
kolla då att din media spelare kan lyssna på någon av SR webbkanaler.

Ha det så bra!
Kenta Berggren
SM0LRU

And, as I am not using XP, I can not even check whether the software works. If you have questions, contact Kent Berggren at kenta at abc dot se.

Most silly proposal of today: forbid flying south of Sundsvall in Sweden?

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:58:45 +0000

I have nothing against trains, I like trains, and I would like to take a train when travelling to Stockholm. But, for trains to be a choice in reality for me, a few requirements have to be fulfilled. None of them completely out of bound.

Time with train between Lund and Stockholm (about 600km) must be lowered from 4 hours to about 2. Not impossible as trains that make >300km/h exists in many places on the planet.
Train between Malmö and Simrishamn need to be built. And not delayed indefinitely like it has been today.
Time schedule for (local) public transportation in Skåne must match the timetable for the long distance trains. Not be a complete mismatch like it is today (between X2000 and Skåneexpressen busses).

When problems like those are resolved, then we can talk again. Today I have to travel by car to either bus or train (30-60 min drive) in each direction as public transportation does not match the long distance transportation, and then I have to either fly (1h) or take the train (4h) to reach Stockholm. This imply door to door take if I am lucky 5 hours with train and 3 hours with air. 5 hours is far too long if one do not want to stay over night in Stockholm.

Oscar writes (again) a very good story on copyright

Tue, 08 Jan 2008 17:14:17 +0000

Oscar Schwarz writes again a very good text about copyright, filesharing, legislation, what the government should protect etc. In Swedish unfortunately, so the rest of you have to learn Swedish I am afraid.

The reason why he bring this up again is that the secretary of the Swedish Academy (and others) in an Article in Expressen expresses himself in a way that surprises not only Oscar, but also myself and many others. The response from members of the Swedish Parliament did come quite quick.

I thought SvT was "Fri Television"

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:24:37 +0000

SvT (Swedish Television) is running a campaign stating that they are free and independent. You can see their text about the campaign on their own website. But how independent is SvT?

Vi vill visa på skillnaderna mellan public service och kommersiell tv, säger Eva Hamilton, vd för SVT. Vi gör tv för tittarna, inte för annonsörerna.

This campaign make me feel ill when they are as sponsored as other channels. Just claiming they are more independent is just so wrong. And they waste money on campaigns like this that make me irritated. So stupid.

Schloss Vollrads

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:59:55 +0000

Friends brought a bottle of Schloss Vollrads Rheingau Riesling. Served it with white fish filled with smoked salmon. The wine was excellent I must say, although I am not a riesling fan.

The interesting thing was though the kork, because it was the first time I encountered a bottle with one made out of glass.

I am not very tall...

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:56:50 +0000

When I visited Copenhagen just before christmas, I walked by Guinness World Records. Outside the museum one can measure yourself against the tallest man in the world. So I did…

Charlotte Kalla winner of Tour de Ski

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 12:49:00 +0000

I am not writing often about sport, but this end of Tour de Ski was just amazing. Charlotte Kalla not only caught up with the leader, she run(!) by her when Kalla took over the lead in the 4km long uphill end of the 9km race today. Aftonbladet, Svenska Dagbladet and others already write about it.

Congratulations Charlotte!

Picture by che, Czech Wikipedia

Blue-Ray now the winner in the format war?

Sat, 05 Jan 2008 11:21:28 +0000

It is now clear that Warner have chosen Blue-Ray to 100% and not HD-DVD. As Blue-Ray already seems to have a larger market share, the question is whether this is the nail in the coffin for HD-DVD. Or, will we all see Blue-Ray and HD-DVD forever? If players arrive that can handle both formats, will it matter for the consumer?

At least some of us remember the format discussions before VHS won over Betamax and other competing video tape formats. It was not fun, specifically for the ones that invested in the expensive players and already had recordings on the formats that went away. Dying formats are not fun at all. I look at my collection of LaserDisks, and am so afraid that the LD player I have will die one day so I will not be able to play them anymore. On the other hand, I also see myself buying the LD based films on new formats.

Global accessible services is the future

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 11:51:31 +0000

IDG writes today an article about the problem with IPTV (a name for the TV distribution service that is bundled with the Internet access). I think Ulf Borbos in his comments are completely correct. The bundling of services in packages are hard to regulate against, they are perfect for the consumer, but they are bad for the smaller players.

What is happening today on the Internet is a struggle for power, for access to the consumer that put more and more money on digitized services. Everyone try to get a fraction of the transactions in the future. And it seems what I and some others call The Perfect Storm is coming closer and closer.

Passwords...

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 09:40:49 +0000

Updated: Aftonbladet themselves now write about the hacking. Their article is in Swedish, so let me summarize here in English. They say the hackers managed to get access to the intranet (whatever that is) at Aftonbladet and decrypt passwords. The access to the email was because users had the same passwords for email as they had for the intranet and to some Facebook accounts. Access was possible for 50 minutes before the mail server was closed down. They point out there is a risk some material that is protected by law because it involves communication with a journalist might have leaked, but there is so far no sign of that. The incident is reported to the police, and the police, Aftonbladet and a security company is working on looking at the details of the incident.

AAAA glue to the root zone

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 17:58:48 +0000

The other day it was announced that AAAA glue (IPv6 addresses for the root DNS servers) will be added to the root zone. Although I was not a formal member of SSAC at the time of writing this report (I am a member now), I was involved in the discussions around the report that is quoted in the report, and I completely agree with the conclusions that include:

On the basis of the above findings, the committees conclude that changing the DNS priming response to include IPv6 address records will have minimal impact on name server implementations and intermediate systems used in production networks.

New URLs for Internet radio from Swedish Radio

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 15:00:03 +0000

Today it was not only known that Swedish Radio is changing URLs. They also did change the URL’s. No advance warning… You can find new URLs here.

The good thing is that they have an announcement that is spoken if one go to the old URLs (and that he new URLs hopefully will be more stable over time). Reconfiguring my radios will be a task for me that was not planned when I woke up this morning. And I have already too much to do.

What music do you want to buy today?

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:01:49 +0000

It is cool to see new business methods being tested. I think for example that the main problem with music- and movie distribution is that the products people want does not exist on the market.

Here is a new kind of service that the department store Åhléns have. Buying and packaging of digital information with a minimal amount of plastic and paper involved. Great stuff.

But, it would be easier to say it was a product I want if it worked…

Enigma simulator for MacOSX version 1.2.1 released

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 23:41:38 +0000

Thought I could be faster than my Joachim (with the Kryptoblog in swedish) noticing that version 1.2.1 of the Enigma emulator is released. I am very fascinated on how these machines worked, the people inventing them and (more importantly) the people that cracked the code. One day I will visit Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms in London that friends say are such good exhibitions.

ENUM, history and the future

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 15:03:20 +0000

I am now in Amsterdam at the 3rd ENUM day hosted by SIDN. My presentation will be about history of ENUM, and of course some thinking on the future of ENUM. You can find my presentation here.

What is really included?

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:57:56 +0000

An article in Computer Sweden in Sweden say that 25000 people get free broadband access in the city of Luleå. The city owned landlord see broadband as a service similar to heat, electricity and water. But, what is included, and how open is the network?

Internetaccess, e-postadresser och webbutrymme får hyresgästerna utan extra avgift och därutöver kan de teckna avtal med de tjänsteleverantörer som verkar i Luleås stadsnät.

My translation end up being something like: Internet access, e-mail addresses and web is what the tenant get without paying anything extra, and on top of that they can sign up with service providers that exists in the city network of the city of Luleå

Is this Internet access?

Tue, 18 Dec 2007 10:50:48 +0000

As part of my ongoing fight to get people to announce what they sell, I once again encountered a very bad product. This time KPN in Amsterdam, their wireless network at Amsterdam Arena.

After connecting to the wifi, and paying bucks to get access, I still do not get access. Or what do you think about the following?


# telnet mail.frobbit.se 25
Trying 85.30.129.37...
Connected to mail.frobbit.se.
Escape character is '^]'.
220 hotmail1.netcop.nl ESMTP Postfix
quit
221 Bye
Connection closed by foreign host.
#

If one have a look at the page that include information on what they sell, they claim the following:

Most interesting MacWorld ever?

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:51:38 +0000

When Apple released System 7.0, that was a pretty cool MacWorld (in San Jose btw), but this upcoming MacWorld seems to be pretty cool as well. Rumors float around about various things, all of being interesting (to me):

Sub Notebook with flash drive, touch screen etc
Info on 3G iPhone
iTunes video rentals
iPhone developer tools

On top of that we can of course think Office 2008 for mac will be released, and tons of Leopard/iPhone/iPod things. All of these available during spring 2008 and not directly in Jan 2008, but…knowing what is released is cool by itself.

3G for iPhone 'niche technology'? Not at all!

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:32:48 +0000

An article at MacNN quote some people in the US (Shaw Wu of American Technology Research) stating 3G and HSPA etc is overrated, draw too much batteries and that coverage is spotty at best.

I claim they are completely wrong. They obviously have not visited countries like Sweden where 3G coverage is good, 3G-data (broadband connections via 3G modems) is booming and WiMax coverage because of this is not increasing in the speed as one can see in for example the US. 3G broadband sold in Sweden 87490 new subscriptions the 2nd quarter of 2007, which is a growth of 317%.

Interview with Maria Häll

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:12:16 +0000

In todays Computer Sweden (at least the online version - I have not fetched todays paper yet) there is an interview with Maria Häll. She explains her background starting as the first female student at (Updated:) Scool of Computer Science at Luleå University to the current position as a non-political position at the Department of IT Policy in the Swedish Government.

She in the article strongly pushes for the ability for the end user to buy services from whatever service provider the end user choses (instead of from a provider the ISP choses), and how important it is with good Internet connectivity for the government as public e-services must be accessible for anyone in Sweden regardless of ISP.

Fiberpriset 7.0 to Maria Häll

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 12:49:32 +0000

Fiberpriset 7.0 is today handed out to Maria Häll. She has during the years been working with fiber in many different ways. Everything from digging and coordination in the cities of Gävle and Sandviken to planning at (what was then) Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting and now in a key role at the Swedish Government.

Sweden Consumer Agency take early holiday

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 05:11:44 +0000

In posting on their website one can see that they will not give any comments to the Swedish Government on the investigation related to copyrighted music (DS 2007/3299). This although the investigation both discuss and suggest changes to consumer rights.


Konsumentverket tackar för remissen men lämnar inga synpunkter.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_

Detta yttrande har beslutats av stf. generaldirektör Bertil Elenius.
I den slutliga handläggningen har också deltagit avdelningsdirektör
Helena Bergström, föredragande.

Coke Blāk

Thu, 13 Dec 2007 17:35:23 +0000

I have forgot to tell people about this new Coke version I found at the airport of Prague. It is basically Coke mixed with coffee. I liked it!

Updated: A comment asked how it is served etc. It is lightly fizzy, not at all as much as normal Coke, but not a still drink. The one I had was served chilled.

Ordering wine over the web

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:16:58 +0000

At last a very good product! I want one!

Teracom winning yet another bid

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 14:03:30 +0000

In an article in IDG it is explained how the local community outside Eskilstuna in Sweden bought a network from Teracom when they in reality already had help from the provider Zitius with the network. The story is that Zitius asked two potential fiber providers for a quote: TeliaSonera and Teracom. Only TeliaSonera responded. What seems to have happened though was that Teracom instead of responding to the RFI bypassed Zitius and offered a network to the community directly.

New York

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 11:18:00 +0000

So I was in New York again, only one night. The weather was cold, very cold, so no nice walkabouts. Instead subway all the time. Even from Times Square to Central Park.

New entries in ISO 3166-2

Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:54:32 +0000

There have been some additions to the ISO 3166-2 alpha-2 code list. Part from new subdivisions of a number of countries, two codes are added:

BL - SAINT BARTHÉLEMY / SAINT-BARTHÉLEMY
MF - SAINT MARTIN (FRENCH PART)/SAINT-MARTIN (PARTIE FRANÇAISE)

Details covered in ISO 3166-2 Newsletter I-9.

IAMCP suing Swedish branch of ISO (SIS)?

Thu, 06 Dec 2007 15:05:03 +0000

As my friend nd writes).

Do they not think SIS understand they have to review their process already? SIS has already said they are doing the review.

Updated: The chairman of IAMCP Sweden has posted a comment to this post of mine. He in this post explains his view on the situation. You should read his comments here. I will just respond to them.

Being someone that has been working with standardization in the Internet for many years now (I think I started actively 1992) I have some view myself of what is a good and a bad process, and given that I think mr Berti is wrong (he explicitly asks what I think). First of all, the central management of an SDO should not micromanage the working groups (or whatever the groups are called where the actual work is done). The central management has of course different tasks depending on the SDO, but decisions should be made locally. Among the people working with the standard. In different SDOs the rules are different for how to become such a participant and how the decisions are made. Because of that, I think SIS made the correct decision to not interfere beforehand in the meeting on August 27. The working group could among themselves decide to not use strict voting at that meeting, simply because there where so many new participants in the work. New participants in the process that had already been going on for so long time. No one was forced to vote. New members in the wg could have abstained. Or become members of the wg after the voting. That responsibility to try to resolve the issues do lie on the chair of the wg. So I disagree with mr Berti there as well. mr Berti even think this is bad management, something I strongly disagree with.

Swedish Government making too many moves that has impact on integrity?

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 13:30:18 +0000

I have in this blog several times mentioned I think proposals from the Swedish Government – specifically Department of Justice – has been in favor of law enforcement mechanisms without checking what impact the proposals has on privacy and integrity. Will the proposal actually help law enforcement agencies reach the targeted goal? What impact on privacy and integrity does it carry? Is it worth it? Is there other mechanisms that does not have as severe impact that can help as much (or even better)?

Lumière

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:56:02 +0000

Yesterday we went to Lumière in Vancouver, Canada. Had the large menue, and sure, it was good. Very good. But at the same time one can of course find things that could be better. I think for example too many of the dished has a puré between the dish and the plate. Same, or at least very similar, puré on every dish. A simple way to get the (small) dishes to stay put when carrying the plate to the table, and in some cases of course the puré added things, but, in the long run it was too much. Wine that was paired with the dishes was good. Some white surprised me (which is a positive thing) although the wine was young. Very young. Could have been older.

You know you are not in Sweden anymore...

Mon, 03 Dec 2007 23:50:12 +0000

IETF-70 has started in Vancouver, Canada. When driving up from Seattle, I stopped at a grocery store to buy some apples. At the store, one clearly (as you can see on this picture) could clearly see I am not in Sweden anymore.

Data Retention Directive in Europe, Email and Webmail

Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:12:23 +0000

I am a member of an informal working group hosted by the European Commission that talk about implementation of the Data Retention Directive. Today in Brussels I will present my paper that have been discussed in the group regarding email and webmail. You can find the paper and the presentation here. Note that these are working documents, and what they will be used for in reality is not yet clear.

What I think of the proposed implementation of the directive in Sweden is pretty clear. Not very good.

New versions of IDNA documents

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 21:52:48 +0000

Now also ICANN in a posting. Discussions about the proposed spec has been whether the normalization (conversion) that was part of the IDNA we use today should be included this time as well or not. We who work with IDNAbis have made the proposal that conversion is not part of the standard. It is explained in detail in the documents themselves, but the short story is that conversion is very often context dependent (what language do you use, what other locale mechanisms do you like etc), while DNS is context free. Conversions have to be exactly the same for everyone. On top of that, it might be that registries at the time of registration want to use different equivalence lists between codepoints for registration / protection purposes, and we did not find it being useful to enforce specific mappings for those either. Many other arguments exists as well.

Gambert de Loche, Hermitage 1994

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 16:07:06 +0000

One of the best wines I have had. Might have peaked a year ago. Had the wine with filet of beef, and the wine perfectly matched the meat, using garlic butter as major spice. Dark color, fabulous smell, a bit short taste.

As far south in Sweden as possible

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 15:55:20 +0000

When helping a friend moving “stuff” the other day, we decided to stop at the most southernmost point in Sweden. N55°20,5’ O13°21,3'.

View Larger Map

e164.arpa (root for ENUM) signed via DNSSEC

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 12:03:19 +0000

Ripe NCC announced they now have signed the ENUM root.

Well done!

Swedish Digital Terrestial TV already old?

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:55:27 +0000

In an article in IDG one can see some information about the terrestial TV we use in Sweden already be ready to be replaced. The article talk about 2015 as the year when all boxes (3 million of them according to SvT) have to be replaced. Several people have reacted on this stating “what is the bad thing with that, 2015 I will have replaced my box anyway”. That show that the PR/Marketing has succeeded. In reality, the problem is something completely different.

Not Google's fault...

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 09:48:24 +0000

Danny Aerts, CEO of .SE TLD in an article at IDG say that Google by their adsense product is digging its own grave. In reality this is not Googles fault. The fault is with all the TLDs that allow tasting, fast-flux and other fast changing registration mechanisms. Specifically tasting. Something I know Danny is against. Domains should be used properly, but to some degree that will always be people that want to use the fact people guess and misspell domain names. That Google then is making money on ads, well, that is not really their fault.

Secure or not secure, that is the question...

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:53:12 +0000

Apoteket (the Swedish monopoly pharmacy) has a website that can receive electronic prescriptions from the doctors that support it. Electronic prescriptions is not something new where I live, but what is new is the ability to use the web to ask the doctor for one. If you want more of the same medication you have used before that is.

That first step, to get the prescription went fine. The prescription also ended up at the Apoteket website. But now the problems started.

Read between the lines what KBM writes

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 10:26:41 +0000

If you read carefully the article where Ingvar Hellquist say it is dangerous to create one location where data is collected about IT Incidents in Sweden, you will see that it is just one more piece of the push Swedish Emergency Management Agency (KBM) do regarding extending their role. Saying what he says implies that he is against the current CERT in Sweden (SITIC) simply because it is located at the regulator (PTS) and not KBM.

Problems at Arlanda Airport

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 10:52:49 +0000

Once again there is a problem with the radar at Arlanda. What confuses me is that SvD claims there where no problems for incoming flights. I know, I was at Malmö/Sturup (MMX) and wanted to be on the 7.35 flight to ARN. At 7.28 we where told (by The Voice From Above) that 10:10 was the earliest departure. What irritates me (and irritated others) was that there was no information on the monitors, and the SMS service SAS has had not given any information either.

Auction of WiMax spectrum in Sweden final

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 09:31:36 +0000

There is a lot of talk about the auction of frequencies in the US. And also other countries, like Sweden. WiMax was auctioned out for four (4) licenses per city (290 of them). A total of 1160 licenses. You can see the result in this PDF.

Frequencies that where auctioned out where:

FDD1 3600-3620 / 3700-3720 MHz
FDD2 3620-3640 / 3720-3740 MHz
TDD1 3660-3680 / 3680-3700 MHz
TDD2 3760-3780 / 3780-3800 MHz

Where is DNSSEC deployed?

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:13:38 +0000

Paul Wouters at Xelerance has created an ultra cool map that tell the status of DNSSEC deployment in the world. The map lists production zones, testbeds and dead projects, and is automatically updated based on what is available in the DNS.

What is "Internet 2.0"?

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:21:30 +0000

I have been asked to hold a presentation on Wednesday this week about Internet 2.0. To be honest, I do not know really what that means. Googling (nice verb btw) do not give much data. Some people claim Tim O’Reilly talk about Internet 2.0 when he mentiones network of networks, but if you look at that article, you see he point out Internet is just like it has always been.

I start to ask myself if not the people that wanted me to talk in reality wanted to ask about Web 2.0. But I do not really know for sure. Today when I talked to them, they confirmed the time I was supposed to talk. 30 minutes. Then I have to leave due to other duties (my schedule is too often more crowded than a subway in Tokyo).

Visited countries

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 19:27:56 +0000

Ingeborg has created a map with countries she has visited, and she encouraged people to do the same. Here is my map. As you can see I am travelling to the same places all the time. The map is btw created with the service at http://www.world66.com/.

Updated: Also my friend Kurtis made a map.

You can also have a look at a map I try to keep updated with the paths I have flewn.

Talk until the cows come home...

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:57:23 +0000

In the fall the grass is not so fun anymore for animals that eat it. Except on our lawn that we deliberately stopped cutting a month back or so. That resulted in the cows breaking down the fence not once, but twice. So when I opened the door to get the newspaper, well, as you can see, the cows has came home (the wire you see is one I put up temporarily at 1AM in the morning to keep the cows on the lawn). I guess this might have either to do with the Internet Governance Forum. Now only hell has to freeze over, and we are done.

Long travel home...

Mon, 19 Nov 2007 00:53:39 +0000

Although I fly a lot, it is not often one can get a view like this. This is just before landing at Lisbon after flying from Rio de Janeiro.

New proposed versions of IDNA documents

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:59:47 +0000

After working for another few months, we have new versions of the IDNAbis documents ready. The series consists of four documents.

draft-klensin-idnabis-issues-05.txt- draft-klensin-idnabis-protocol-02.txt- draft-faltstrom-idnabis-tables-03.txt- draft-alvestrand-idna-bidi-01.txt

Let me go through them in order. Most of the text below is directly from the Abstract of each of the documents.

Internationalizing Domain Names for Applications (IDNA): Issues and Rationale - draft-klensin-idnabis-issues-05.txt

A recent IAB report identified issues that have been raised with Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs). Some of these issues require tuning of the existing protocols and the tables on which they depend. Based on intensive discussion by an informal design team, this document provides an overview some of the proposals that are being made, provides explanatory material for them and then further explains some of the issues that have been encountered.

So called cooperation is requested regarding digital music

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 03:10:05 +0000

So we have another article in the press (in Swedish this time) that talk about the need for creators of content and ISPs to cooperate and fight illegal distribution, replication and copying of music. Once again, I must say point out everyone is cooperating except the copyright owners.

In this article it is claimed that:

INGET TYDER på att det vänt, försäljningsminskningen fortsätter som en följd av piratkopierandet och den lagliga försäljningen över nätet, kan inte kompensera bortfallet, säger Ludvig Werner.

In short, this quote in Swedish say that decrease of sale is because of the illegal copying, and legal sale on the net is not compensating this loss. Well, if there was any ability to buy the music in the format, price, and convenience one want as a customer, we could have the discussion. But very very few such locations exist. I have until recently bought all my music on CD’s (not good for CO2 emission), but when Apple iTunes started to sell things in a format so I can copy it to any MP3 player I want, I have (finally) started buying music only online. Was this about time? Oh yes. Can I get the music I want in this format? Not at all. Is the price right? Nope. Why is music that I download (paying for the IP packets instead of buying the plastic that has been pressed, shipped and stored somewhere) is more expensive. I do not understand.

Gardena

Thu, 15 Nov 2007 02:47:48 +0000

My dear neighbor Erik Jönsson works for Gardena and from him I have got a miniature connection for hoses. This I use as a keyring for USB memory stick and key that unlocks the wire I lock my computer with.

This Gardena tool has been the most popular item on the IGF, and I have many requests for one. The only recommendation I can come up with is to get an as nice neighbor as I have.

Water that speaks?

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 19:50:27 +0000

Sorry, but this is only funny if you know Swedish…

Slides used during the IPv4 -> IPv6 panel

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:22:49 +0000

These are the slides I used at the session on IPv4 to IPv6 transition. People have asked for them, so here they are.

Statement at IGF on Diversity

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:20:21 +0000

At the IGF today, I made the following statement. This is taken from the transcript of the session.


>>PATRIK FÄLSTRÖM:   Thank you very much. So I was on this panel last year as
 well.  And last year, I talked quite a lot about Internationalized Domain
 Names.  And I will talk a little bit about Internationalized Domain Names this
 year as well. To start with, I think that we have made big progress since last
 year, because the discussions that we had last year was very much on the
 difference between the localization of the identifier, which is the
 Internationalized Domain Name, and localization of the content and creation of
 software that is translated into local languages. Today, I don't feel that we
 need that discussion. So when looking at Internationalized Domain Names,
 though, I still feel that there are a lot of people who think Internationalized
 Domain Names solve all problems in the world.  But, in reality, the technical
 solution of Internationalized Domain Names only solve very small piece of the
 puzzle.  We already heard many of the various issues already mentioned by the
 previous speakers on this panel.  So I hope that this will be a pretty short
 introduction. For example, we had requirements when coming up with the
 standards that the technical solution itself should be completely
 backward-compatible.  It must be possible for one user that has software that
 implements Internationalized Domain Names to send e-mail to a person that has
 software that does not implement the Internationalized Domain Names. It must be
 possible to do things like reply to an e-mail message that uses a domain name
 that is internationalized, even though you have software that does not support
 the standard. It must also be possible for a person that has an electronic
 address book that does not support Internationalized Domain Names to store
 those in that address book and do copy and paste. But there are also other
 issues that the standard does not have as a goal to resolve.  For example, what
 strings to allocate for the country -- the ccTLDs that we just heard about and
 that I do know that there will be a workshop about tomorrow. We also know that
 the standards do not solve what we call the "side of the bus" problem, which is
 the look alike of two different strings that might be printed on paper.  So if
 a person is reading a string, it might be very, very difficult to know what
 characters is actually representing that string. The last example I gave showed
 that comparison of characters in a context that is unknown is extremely
 difficult.  And this, in turn, might lead to various kind of comparison
 problems that in turn might lead to dispute resolution issues, specifically,
 between different scripts, different languages, and different contexts in other
 ways. So because of this, I think it's really important that all of us,
 actually, start work on Internationalized Domain Names and try to use them and
 not only talk about it. The Internet architecture board has come up with a
 document that actually lists many of these issues.  And last year I think we
 talked a little bit about the existence of the document.  But it now exists as
 an RFC.  And I encourage all of you to try and have a look at that one. We also
 in the IETF community are coming up with a new version of the Internationalized
 Domain Names.  And although that might scare many of you, the standard,
 although it's not used yet, we're already coming up with a new version, I can
 rest you assured that the new version is backwards-compatible with the new
 version, takes care of new versions of Unicode, and because of that, many, many
 more languages. So I would like to finish here by talking about what I think
 you can do, what we all can do.  Because, as I said from the beginning, I think
 all of us can start working with Internationalized Domain Names, but what can
 we do? First of all, I think it's really important that we all continue to
 develop local content, because it's the localized content which is key to all
 communication, I think. Part of that, of course, require localized software,
 because it's really difficult to actually create localized content if the
 program you're using and the manuals you have to whatever device you're using
 is in a language that you do not understand. It's also important that the local
 communities in the various countries and various language groups work together
 on developing local policies for IDN.  Because we will need specific dispute
 resolution policies.  We will need specific registration policies for domain
 names in the various scripts that is not taken into account by the technical
 standard in Internationalized Domain Names is. Other things we can do is to
 start to participate in this trial that we just heard about from our colleague
 from Russia, the ICANN test on Internationalized Domain Names.  And I urge all
 of you to go to the Web site IDN.ICANN.org.  That is a Web site in English.
 But you will find links to all the 11 scripts that the test is about.  And you
 can go to the Web site, see how your browser reacts.  You can also edit text
 and report back how your Web client is actually acting when using that script.
 Really important.  So I urge all of you to participate.  I'm really happy to
 hear that our friends from Russia are working hard on this project. The last
 thing that I think we can do much, much more regarding creation of local
 content is to help in the Wikipedia project.  And one thing that I heard from
 my mother, which is a teacher in art history, is that the school that she is
 working with had been forced to start to reject thesises from students that
 copied too much information from the Web.  My mother got a little bit
 concerned.  She doesn't know much about computers, but asked me, because she
 thinks that I know something about computers, and asked me, "Is it correct by
 us to reject thesises where information is collected from the Web and not from
 books, from paper?"  And I, of course, thought that was a pretty bad idea.  But
 on the other hand, she also understood that when you are a teacher in art
 history, one of the more important things to do is to require that a student
 write correct references, where do the information come from.  And she rejected
 a student that said that -- that claimed that the information was coming from
 Google. And yes, I like Google, sure.  But the information that you find in
 Google, the search engine, is not really written by Google.  It's written by
 someone else that wrote the article. Those kind of things are things that I
 think are important that schools educate in, and I actually came up with a
 suggestion to her that unfortunately her school did not accept, but I hope that
 one of you that are connected to the schools might take up this idea. Instead
 of rejecting articles that students write and copy from the Web, I would like
 teachers to give students, as a task, to actually update and write an article
 in the Wikipedia. So instead of copying data from the Internet, have people add
 things to the Internet. And then as everyone can edit things in Wikipedia, it's
 actually possible to grade the student depending on how many based upon how
 many people disagreed with whatever the student was writing. Wikipedia now
 exists in 253 languages.  And as we heard it's a very small number compared to
 the number of languages in the world.  But we should also remember that there
 are only 15 languages that have more than 100,000 articles. So even though
 Wikipedia is one of the more successful projects regarding localized content,
 it is not even as good as it looks. So there is a lot of things to do, and I
 urge you all to help. Thank you. [ Applause ]

Open network?

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:15:42 +0000

In an article at IDG, it is described that the IT Minister tomorrow (Wednesday) will launch a new open network in Stockholm. That is also what press release from the government say. But, is it an open network she launches?

According to the IDG article, the fiber network she is opening is actually neutral. Anyone can rent the dark fiber from the provider of the fiber. But what about Internet access, and services? The issue the article bring up is the fact the providers of services (on top of ip) that the households can choose from are selected by the owner of the buildings. Not by the people living there. And, that payments are such that the flow of money implies about 150SEK/month is moved from the household to the broadband provider. Or rather, from the owner of the building to the broadband provider. This in turn implies this is a hidden cost of 150SEK/month that of course is taken from the money the household pay in rent for the apartment.

What will happen in Sweden regarding Data Retention?

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 03:05:19 +0000

I have got the question a lot lately what I think will happen in Sweden given the proposal for legislation that was put forward the other week. I can as well write here what I think.

Sweden will do something. Exactly what, well, I do not know.

What we have to remember regarding the practical collection of data (that is the easiest part), the directive only talk about what is to be retained. And the ETSI standard people are often referring to still only talk about a protocol on how to move the data. Not what is to be retained and who is to send the data.

Another broken ATM-machine

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 09:46:03 +0000

Of course also Rio have broken ATM Machines. This time it was HSBC that had trouble. The good thing was that this machine was inside one of those small rooms with 5 different machines, and the other 4 where working.

IGF in Rio starts

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 09:44:16 +0000

The IGF starts in Rio. We had 4 hours off Saturday when we could take a local bus downtown, have lunch, walk 10 minutes on the Ipanema beach, and then head back again. Local busses are cheap, but an adventure. 2-4 real for a 45 min bus ride (about €1).

Stora IP-Priset to Lars Aronsson

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 00:19:33 +0000

Lars Aronsson was awarded Stora IP-Priset (The Large IP Price) by Swedish Network Users Society. He got the price because of the work he has done with Projekt Runeberg, Susning.nu and lately Wikimedia Sverige.

Lars has been working very very hard for more years than many of us. Project Runeberg for example was started 1992 and it scans books and publish them on the web. Some 15 years before Google start with the same thing.

Tina has a new hobby!

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 10:01:11 +0000

It seems Tina at ICANN that I work with regarding internationalized domain names has a new hobby…

More about the data retention proposal in Sweden

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 09:37:48 +0000

Oscar Schwartz in his blog on my earlier post about it.

The problem is of course not only who is retaining data or what is to be retained, but also who can change any of these parameters in the future.

As the definition of these terms is exactly what say whether the legislation in practice have too much impact on privacy or not compared to the help it gives to law enforcement agencies, it is very importan the terms are not changed in an ad-hoc way. For example just by the Swedish Government. These parameters in reality are defined by the Swedish Government, and not by the Parliament. This is something you can see Hans-Olof Lindblom explain in the report itself. Something Per Furberg say he is behind in the report, and something I said in my blog entry.

Article on IPv4 depletion

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 08:21:22 +0000

In the morning newspaper Dagens Nyheter there is an article on IPv4 depletion and IPv6 deployment. Not much news maybe, but, the trend is interesting. Just that this more serious newspaper talk about IPv6 is from my point of view good. It is not an IT related paper, and not a tabloid evening paper that “just want to sell copies based on headlines”. The article is in Swedish (and interviews me and Erik Hallberg at TeliaSonera).

New kind of spam (of course not, but...)

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 20:34:40 +0000

I get a lot of email, and a lot of that is spam of course. Several hundreds (if not thousand) spam messages a day. But today I got a new thing. A request from a registry (GoDaddy) that I should update my info with them. Of course one should never do whatever someone “just” request via email, but the bad thing is that registries normally do send out email similar to this.

Swedish proposal for data retention ready

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 11:41:08 +0000

The investigation on implementation of the Data Retention Directive has delivered its report to the minister. I was part of the investigation as an expert (together with many others) and think the result is pretty ok. Specifically given how badly written the overall directive is. The goal of a directive is to help to ensure that legislation among the EU Member States is harmonized. But if we just look at the implementation in Denmark and the proposals in UK and Sweden, we see no harmonization at all. Three countries and three proposals. I do though think important statements (Särskilt Yttrande) are made by Per Furberg and Hans-Olof Lindblom has issued (pages 313-319 in the report). Specifically the ones by Per stating that:

Guessing email addresses is not recommended

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 19:12:39 +0000

In the Swedish parlament a sender of an email guessed the email address of another person. The guess was wrong, and (as described in for example SvD) sent to the wrong person. Same name, but different political party. Now some people claim opening the email (that was addresses wrongly) might be infringement.

An email address consists of three parts:

A comment (the name of the person)
A local part (to the left of the ‘@’)
A domain name (to the right of the ‘@’)

What too many organisations try to do is to invent a mapping from the name of a person to the local part. So the local part is very similar to the name. Like firstname.lastname. This of course works, but only until two persons have the same name. Like in this case in the Swedish Parliament.

I did not dare pressing the button

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:22:04 +0000

At KID airport, I have been looking at this button every time I walk by it. The instruction say press. I have never tried…

Move to IDG?

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:58:42 +0000

Not only Kryptoblog but also I have got a question on potential move of the blog to IDG. Joachim came to the conclusion that the move is not to be done. Any suggestions on what I should do? They point at Xcap as the tool to use.

I know there are some periods when I do not write much, but, that is normally a sign I have tons of other things to do. Things that most certainly will result in a number of posts. Such as my preparation for the Internet Governance Forum.

At last: Some warnings over IT issues

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 16:31:15 +0000

Swedish Radio reports that Swedish Emergency Management Agency / KBM has released a report (pressrelease here) where they together with .SE has checked DNS, and Web security. 800 organisations where checked. They have checked things starting with the DNS, how stable the DNS hosting of the zones are, via SMTP setup (availability of STARTTLS and SPF), to web server hosting issues.

Report is in Swedish.

Fler än sex av tio samhällsviktiga myndigheter och organisationer i Sverige har stora brister i sin användning av de funktioner som gör dem åtkomliga på Internet. En fjärdedel har allvarliga fel. Det visar en genomgång från .SE (Stiftelsen för Internetinfrastruktur) och KBM.

Good article on IPv4 and IPv6

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 12:19:02 +0000

Computer Sweden today have a good article on IPv6. Amar Andersson is interviewed, but on a corner I also answer some. The article is in Swedish though… A short summary of the article is that Amar pushes the statements made at the RIPE meeting last week.

*Att Ripe gör ett utspel ska tas på största allvar.

Det är en påminnelse om att vi måste ta tag i det här problemet, säger Amar Andersson, verksamhetsutvecklare på Telia.*

Fiberpriset 6.0 is awarded during Internetdagarna

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:23:44 +0000

During Internetdagarna (which is a conference in Stockholm today and tomorrow), I will together with Anne-Marie Eklund Löwinder hand out Fiberpriset. A price we hand out in memory of the work done in IT-Kommissionen.

The price will be awarded during the dinner tonight.

Earlier price winners are:

Anders Comstedt
Lars Aronsson
Peter Löthberg
Ola Larsmo
Greg FizPatrick

SSAC - ICANN Security and Stability Advisory Committee

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:20:23 +0000

On the ICANN board meeting Nov 2, 2007, I was appointed as a member of SSAC. I have already been working with SSAC since my membership of IAB, so in reality this is not much of a change. But as always, there is a difference between being a formal member and someone “just helping as good as they can”.

Österlen Lyser

Sat, 03 Nov 2007 20:13:57 +0000

In Sweden it is dark during the winter. Also where I live, almost as far south as you can come. But, down here, there is an interesting project called Österlen Lyser. The idea is for everyone to think of each other, and light up something. Have a bonfire, light up buildings or whatever. Bring people together as the original idea of All Saints’ was (it is explicitly not a Halloween thing).

Cats do sleep a lot...

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:14:38 +0000

…but how comfortable is this?

Already in 1995...

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 22:13:26 +0000

I was at IDG in Sweden last week, and in a bookshelf I found old prints of Computer Sweden. By accident more or less, I found an article by Erik Geijer in 1995 that talk about IPv4 addresses running out, but luckily ISOC(!) has decided upon use of IPv6.

Headweb

Fri, 02 Nov 2007 00:02:06 +0000

Headweb is one of the first services I have seen that try to distribute movies according to what people wants. The movies are without any copy protection (although they have water marking, which I think is fine). After buying the movie you download it over the Internet using peer2peer technology. You can move it to any device you want, and burn to DVD. Play with whatever software you want. Basically, after buying the movie (the ones and zeroes) you can use the bits in whatever way you want. And you get a bonus if you allow peers in the p2p network.

Itojun Hagino

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 09:19:37 +0000

One of the two persons that passed away lately was my dear friend Itojun Hagino. He passed away on Oct 29, 37 years old. He has been working with specifically IPv6 implementations in various operating systems and his website is up – hopefully forever.

I had the pleasure to work together with Itojun as a member of the IAB between 2003 and 2005, and part from that at numerous occasions. We also chatted quite often, up until just recently. You can find information on the great work Itojun has done for example at IIJ.

Two persons close to me passed away...

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:52:04 +0000

Yesterday was not a fun day. I was reached by messages that two persons I know very well has passed away. When things like these happens, one still do not know what to do. Is this life that “just goes on”?

One of the two was old, so afterwards, it was not a surprise. But it is still a surprise when it happens. The other (in Japan) was young and I know he had planned some work with a shared friend next week.

IDN status report from ICANN

Sun, 28 Oct 2007 16:49:08 +0000

ICANN just released a status report on IDN. It is a list of various projects related to ICANN IDN activities and their status. A good summary for people that are interested.

.test IDN TLD Evaluations
IDN Security Study (SSAC)
IDN Guidelines
IDN Repository
IDNs from User Interface through Applications to DNS
IDN Policy
IDNA Protocol Review (IETF)
IDN Outreach, Communication and Participation
IDN TLD Implementation and Deployment

More effective IPv6 statements?

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:04:00 +0000

A more effective(?) messages on IPv6 than the formal one can be found in the report by the Secret Working group:

Version 6. Do it fast. Do it clean

You also can see the video on YouTube that was recorded. Music and text by Gary Feldman. “The Day that Routers Die

Time to start using IPv6

Sat, 27 Oct 2007 01:00:47 +0000

At this weeks RIPE-55 in Amsterdam, there was a statement issued on IPv4 and IPv6. It can be found here on the RIPE website.

Growth and innovation on the Internet depends on the continued availability of IP address space. The remaining pool of unallocated IPv4 address space is likely to be fully allocated within two to four years. IPv6 provides the necessary address space for future growth. We therefore need to facilitate the wider deployment of IPv6 addresses. While the existing IPv4 Internet will continue to function as it currently does, the deployment of IPv6 is necessary for the development of future IP networks. The RIPE community has well-established, open and widely supported mechanisms for Internet resource management. The RIPE community is confident that its Policy Development Process meets and will continue to meet the needs of all Internet stakeholders through the period of IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 deployment. We recommend that service providers make their services available over IPv6. We urge those who will need significant new address resources to deploy IPv6. We encourage governments to play their part in the deployment of IPv6 and in particular to ensure that all citizens will be able to participate in the future information society. We urge that the widespread deployment of IPv6 be made a high priority by all stakeholders.

Timberland Air

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 12:27:59 +0000

I got some problems with my left shoe…luckily, I could patch it, as stores here in Amsterdam only had size 8 and larger…

SSAC report #22 on Domain Name Front Running

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:19:30 +0000

Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SSAC) in Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has just released report number 22 on Domain Name Front Running. The report concludes that there are rumors about it, that it technically can be done, but that there are no firm data that say it really exists. SSAC ask for feedback and we’ll what information that might give.

Frobbit also wrote about the report (in Swedish) in their blog about domain names.

Report on Broadband Market by Swedish Regulator

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 17:46:15 +0000

The Swedish National Post and Telecom Agency (PTS) just released a report (in Swedish) on the Swedish Broadband market. You can find it on their website. When reading it I am confused. The report do not manage to understand the relationship(s) between deployment of NGN and Triple-Play (regardless of what the acronyms imply), it doesn’t talk about the fact regulation in fact can change the future, and ignores the current discussion in the world regarding Network Neutrality (regardless of what that implies).

Cows in Amsterdam

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 07:47:13 +0000

In Amsterdam, on Dam square, there is a newly opened shop. A tourist trap one can say. Sell things that has relations to Netherlands – such as specially designed scooters(!). And it has cows in the ceiling…

After MP3...

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 07:16:05 +0000

Now when we have so much debate about MP3 files being copied here and there, why not use some more MP52?

How to come up with strategic plans...

Thu, 18 Oct 2007 20:31:20 +0000

Many people think Internet people are joking when they say napkins and beer are used when really coming up with good great plans. This time, in Brussels (as you can see on the beer), napkins where not used for the actual writing, but close… Topics for this discussion? IPv6 deployment, NGN and what is really in the head of people that make policy. A friend of mine once said to a journalist that we designed the network in a bar, but luckily we did not implement until the next day. So true.

Do they get much spam?

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:07:48 +0000

At the Swedish Government, they still use pneumatic tube system for transporting paper and stuff. Of course, they should not use as much paper as they are using, but I guess when they do (and because they are), a pneumatic system is a good tool.

After looking in Google, I find there are many manufacturers (still). So this survived X.400. Interesting…I ask myself how much spam they get? The menue from the local lunch restaurant?

Same timezone at all locations at LHR?

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 22:01:14 +0000

When I passed LHR the other day, I saw this on a monitor. The gate opens after the flight is leaving. Not good for passengers for Delhi.

Copying DVDs

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:25:22 +0000

Yes I am copying a DVD at the moment. Or rather, I am at the moment copying the 3rd DVD in a row. A DVD that I own myself. That I have bought in a shop. Online of course, but the round pieces of plastic was shipped to me with post. The reason for copying is simple. I want to watch the movies on the device I decide. Which is the new Apple iPod Touch that I own. Only way of getting the content of the piece of plastic to the iPod is to first rip the DVD to the hard drive. Then to reformat the movie and change the codec used so it fits the phone. At the same time one can compress the movie so it does not take so much space.

Time and frequency in Sweden

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:13:46 +0000

One of the reports I have been working on lately has to do with distribution of time on the Internet, and actually a bit more than that. It also talks about the need for a good definition of time, what time it is, and how the evolution actually moves forward so fast that research and development is needed. We (in the expert group that wrote the report that is) in fact suggest an increased investment in time in Sweden.

Competition is important the IT Minister says

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:20:45 +0000

I am sort of on the same side as Lars Hedberg in the article in IDG about the need for competition in broadband networks. But I think having the government making a statement that competition regarding services in a broadband network is important is needed. I have been waiting for such statements for a very long time. And now I see it coming. Not only in Sweden.

Just like I understand what Lars is saying (and why), I do not think he has to worry. The members of his organisation (and other broadband providers) that do the right thing are ok. The parties one might have problems with is, I think, the ones that provide services in more than one layer in the value chain, and in such a way that it has impact on competition on the higher level services.

New TLDs

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:02:12 +0000

This has taken quite some time, but now we have some new TLDs as part of the tests ICANN is doing:

Updated: The ICANN announcement can be found here.

| XN–0ZWM56D | 测试 |

Attacks in Estonia and other "cyberwar" events on Swedish Radio program Konflikt

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 16:31:19 +0000

I was interviewed together with my friend Kurtis by Swedish Radio and the program Konflikt on Estonia and other things like the new Cyberspace Commando.

You can find the program (in Swedish) here.

Copying music (again)

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 18:29:14 +0000

Once again we see articles on music industry chasing people. This time for example in Svenska Dagbladet that describes the court case where Jammie Thomas got convicted in the US. Oscar Swartz is in Swedish making very good comments on in what direction we are moving.

In Sweden people do have the ability to copy music themselves, and make copies. The music industry gets compensated for that with money the government collect with a tax on empty cassette tapes, recordable CD’s and DVD’s etc. This implies the music industry to some degree get paid twice, as Oscar explains.

Mr. Geography

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 05:23:50 +0000

When taking a cab back to my friends in Toronto where I stay, I got Mr Geography as a driver. This guy starts by asking the customer a question, and if one can answer the question right, you get a free cab ride. The question I got was: What is the capital of Chad? Unfortunately I did not know the answer, so I had to pay the ride.

On the other hand, he did not know where Glenview Avenue was, so I had to read the map for him the last couple of blocks…

Problems with electricity, or diesel, or both?

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 22:41:29 +0000

When there is a power outage, and it does not happen very often, your diesel might be surprised when it suddenly actually runs with load instead of just being tested that it starts. At todays power outage one of the ISPs that also do hosting of computers had their diesel give up. What you see on the picture is part of the diesel, and the wall to the right – with diesel on it.

Nokia in ad-war against Apple?

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:41:18 +0000

I presume the campaign Nokia has launched at http://nseries.com/open tell people that their N-Series phones are not locked, while the iPhone is. Kind of interesting campaign that I think more point out the difference between how cellphones are sold in the US and in Europe. Many US sales tricks like locking a phone to a provider are more popular in Europe when tying to 3G than traditional GSM. SIM-lock exist all over the place of course, but prohibition of installing software?

Power outage in Stockholm

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 14:25:59 +0000

Updated: After 40 minutes the power came back. The company responsible say two cable problems together made a 220kVolt distribution break.

Aftonbladet writes that 65000 people are without power in Stockholm. Also Svenska Dagbladet writes about it. I got some SMS from friends some time ago talking about the power outage. Sad of course, but interesting and awakening for people in a city that they can end up being without power as well. Not only we who live on the countryside.

Spiders work hard although it gets colder

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 20:10:40 +0000

When it gets colder, dew starts getting collected all over the place. One morning, I found this outside the front door.

European Commission working on renovating a PC

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 20:08:48 +0000

I guess one day they have renovated this enough to actually use it.

Fall again, but still a few days of sun (I hope)

Sun, 30 Sep 2007 20:07:11 +0000

We start to get closer to fall, but, there are still some days with sun.

Estonia urges UN Member States to cooperate against cyber crimes

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 21:57:36 +0000

From Hillar at the Estonian CERT, I got a link to a statement by the Estonian President. I think the statement is rational and correct.

The statement refer to things that might be hard to find, The Convention on Cybercrime by Council of Europe and the ITU initiative on Cybersecurity.

For me the important discussions are not directly on cybercrime, but how to ensure harmonization of laws, regulation and law enforcement activities while at the same time ensure the sovereign status countries have. Reason for this is that much of the crime that is hard to do something about is that the criminals hide in the jurisdiction where it is the easiest to hide. And this is possible because Internet exists regardless of country boundaries.

ICANN Board members announced

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:51:19 +0000

ICANN Nominating Committee Announces New Board Members and Supporting Organisation Roles. I specifically want to congratulate my friend Harald Alvestrand for being appointed.

ICANN Board of Directors

Harald Tveit Alvestrand (Norway, Europe)
Dennis Jennings (Ireland/UK, Europe)
Jean-Jacques Subrenat (France, Europe)

Tracking people...

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:38:46 +0000

You know, it is very very important the police get expensive (new) things so they can track people. Instead of the tools they already have. Like asking for the data people already have.

I checked the referrals to the article I just wrote about data retention and found the information below. Some use of Google, whois and 1 minute later I am pretty sure I know who actually did look at my post.

Floppy?

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 22:24:52 +0000

I thought floppy was something we used while working on Web0.9, in the previous millenium? This is an error that a friend of mine got when using Word in Vista.

Data retention in Denmark

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:32:29 +0000

A friend of mine asked me to comment on what Oscar Swartz writes in his blog about the data retention legislation in Denmark. I am happy to do so.

I am a member of the investigation in Sweden looking at what a Swedish implementation could look like. I partly because of this has both met the Danish ministry that is responsible for their law, and also a group in the European Commission that is looking at creating (I hope, the goal is a bit unclear) a guide that will lead to better harmonization between the implementation in the different member states.

IAB comments on draft-weiler-dnssec-dlv-iana-00.txt

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 19:54:55 +0000

The IAB has just to the IETF sent comments during last call of the document draft-weiler-dnssec-dlv-iana-00. The conclusion at the end is as follows:

The IAB, obviously, favors expedient deployment of DNSSEC in the DNS root.

In absence of such we understand that mechanisms such as DLV or the publication of lists with TLD trust anchors could aid deployment. However, the IAB does not support the establishment of a domain under .arpa combined with a request from the IETF to IANA to establish such a service as that would implicitly be based on the MOU between RFC3172. However,

Cats like birds

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:51:20 +0000

This morning, the cats had a nice breakfast. For some reason they think birds is one of the nicest snacks they can get. Specifically fresh ones. The downside is that they eat everything but the feathers, and believe me, the only way to get rid of feathers is by vacuuming. A broom will just make things worse.

More nice Windows installations

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:16:03 +0000

This time at Kastrup (CPH). LG Electronics is making a nice ad on how good things they do! They at least use VLC, but…the installation is not so stable as it seems.

Vägverket is really making weird decisions

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 12:09:39 +0000

I have not seen this clarification from Vägverket earlier. One of the most weird statements I have seen, and a statement that I last time saw around 1997, i.e. 10 years ago. Vägverket claims in this statement (as an information to those readers that do not know Swedish) that if someone feel that the registration of a vanity plate implies infringement on a trademark, the holder of the trademark can contact Vägverket and they will of course revoke the assignment.

While pointing at work Steve has done on DNS...

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:25:07 +0000

You should also have a look at this article in Internet Protocol Journal.

Observations on Anycast Topology and Performance

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:06:09 +0000

Steve Gibbard at PCH has released the document Observations on Anycast Topology and Performance. This is a good paper that describes best current practices regarding deployment of DNS servers.

Much of the Internet’s critical DNS infrastructure – several of the root servers and many top-level domains – are being distributed with a technique called anycast. There are significant variations in network topology between different anycast systems. There have been several studies of stability and query distribution of anycast networks. Most have focused on a single anycast system and may have told us more about the specific system studied than about anycast in general. A recent study by Liu, Hufffaker, Fomenkov, Brownlee, and claffy applied a consistent methodology to three different anycast systems and found significant differences in query distribution among the three. This paper is an examination of the Liu et al. study from a network engineering perspective. It considers how network topology affects performance and why their research showed the results it did. It then looks at what we can infer from those results about the behavior of other anycast systems, and examines the query data from another anycast system to test those inferences.

Confusion about DNSSEC and signatures of the root zone

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:39:49 +0000

Milton Müller writes about DNSSEC. He refers to a post by Philip Hallam Baker on the IETF list. Milton mixes up a number of things, and do ignore completely the downside of the proposal he makes.

First of all, the trust on the DNS has nothing to do with DNSSEC. It has to do with trust of the namespace, the hierarchy of names that start with the root. The real power because of this sits within the process that define what tokens (or names) should exist directly under the root. The creation of such names (creation of TLDs) and appointment of registries for those TLDs, that is where the power is, as the DNS is a distributed database with delegated administration (and because of the delegation of power).

Root server map on CircleID

Mon, 17 Sep 2007 07:18:06 +0000

CircleID. I already got a comment on that post, and that is that for example latin america has very few servers.

If you look at the map, yes, but the real location of the servers should be noted on a map of network topology to make more sense. If you do, you will see that the server(s) in Miami are actually in a pretty good location for Latin America as most ISPs in Latin America do have links to Miami and the IX there. You will also notice that the server on Fiji is not serving all ISPs there as they are not exchanging traffic locally (but the server really really helps the ones that do peer with it).

LaserDisc

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 22:02:14 +0000

The Swedish paper M3 is listing the 100 greatest gadgets and innovations ever. On space 24 they have the LaserDisc. The article say that the discs lived for a few years after DVD was released. What do they mean by “lived”? My LaserDiscs are just great, and as they say, holding a 12" disc is something different than a DVD…

DNS root servers in the world

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 21:44:46 +0000

Updated 080908: The root server operators have a map of their own that I recommend. There is also an XML version of the data so anyone can make a map of their own.

I still meet people that think the following is true:

There are 13 root servers in the world
The A-root is the main DNS server
Almost all root servers are located in the USA

All of those statements, and similar, are just completely wrong. You can find more information about the organisations that run the root servers here, and find a map I have done at Google here. Updated: Got information about a server existing on Fiji, and found on the homepage of Autonomica [I] that servers also existed in Kathmandu and Luleå. If you know more servers missing, just let me know (for example via a comment to this blog).

Public ads for the skyddadin.se campaign

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:37:34 +0000

This is fun… You can see the texts of the signs here, and more photos here.

Most uninteresting competition so far?

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 20:29:54 +0000

At the ICA food store in Sjöbo, I found this juice that had a folder attached to it. One could when buying the juice win a trip to Österlen. For those of you that know the geography of Sweden, you will know that the winning price could have a value of about $2 for the bus ticket the 5 miles one have to go to reach Österlen. I bet they sold the same juice in Simrishamn, center of Österlen, or Kivik, where the juice is produced (note that the URL http://www.kiviksmusteri.se/ works, but http://kiviksmusteri.se/ does not)… I guess this is what happens when companies like ICA is buying millions of cans of juice, ship them to some central location in Sweden, and ship them again back to the stores. Lots of CO2. Dear ICA, you can do better than this!

www.skyddadin.se released

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 19:46:51 +0000

After a few weeks of hard work during the day with Cisco things, and work all evenings (and some nights) with Frobbit! things, we at Frobbit! could Friday release the www.skyddadin.se campaign. We hope this will increase the knowledge about how good it is to have a domain name, and tie it to both web page and email. The addresses used can then be used even if the provider of the service changes.

Lightroom 1.2 released

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 19:43:09 +0000

Maybe it was a few days ago, but when I today launched Lightroom it pointed out version 1.2 is out. You can see the changes here. When going through the list I could not really see anything major changed that impacts what I do, but who knows what small fixes are there that is not listed in the change list?

Updated: I found one change that I like; Lightroom now starts fast. Versions earlier took extremely long time. Almost worse than Microsoft Word.

"Perfekt tajmat" - an investigation on distribution of time in Sweden

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 08:02:19 +0000

I have been a member of an investigation on time. Specifically on how to distribute time, and of course a description on how important it is that people agree on what the time is. The report itself is not public yet, but part of the report will be translated to English so when it is ready, it is hopefully interesting for many people.

A lot of people say of course they think it is important they know what time it is. But do they implement that correctly in their computers, cash registers, wall clocks etc? They do not? To some degree I because of that think the problem with correct time is similar to the problem of ecological food. On news this morning I saw 75% of the people asked want to buy ecological food, but only 3% do so.

Another weird statement by the music and film industry

Mon, 10 Sep 2007 09:28:54 +0000

In an article today (that I have not found online) in Dagens Industri, Hansson, Nilson and Carlström from the film industry is complaining on what Oscar Schwartz wrote the other day. The complaints are about Oscar living in what they call a theoretical world that has nothing to do with reality. They say they of course must have the same rights to get income as carpenters creating furniture etc.

What boggles my mind is that they claim that the number of services where people can buy digital film and music has exploded the last year. I have not seen any service where I can buy music and/or film, view in on any device I want, and make the few copies I need to make so that I can listen to the music both in the kitchen and office and of course on my mp3 player.

Nice lunch...

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 10:41:13 +0000

For once there where not many clouds over the alps in Geneva. It is not often one can see Mont Blanc from the lunch area outside the UN building. Wednesday last week was one of those rare days.

Will we see 3G in iPhone in Europe?

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 09:55:22 +0000

InterDigital announced they have a deal with Apple on wireless technologies for handheld devices. I really hope that implies the iPhone will have 3G capabilities when it comes to Europe. Else the phone will be a dead fish in the water. Phones with non-3G are not as interesting in Europe as people outside might think… Only the future will tell.

New iPod touch - cool but where are the features?

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 11:12:18 +0000

The iPod touch looks pretty cool. Slim, very thin, has the gorgeous screen the iPhone has, but, it lacks more things than the phone. Although it has wireless (802.11 series WLAN), it lacks an email client. Also missing are the Address Book and Calendar application. Of course, things that can be added by “just” a software upgrade.

But as it is today, I do not think it is as interesting. And I am definitely a person that often fights with AppleStore online as soon as things are released.

Is this the future of telephony?

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:40:57 +0000

Well, at least at CPH it is. Coin phones are disappearing more and more. I saw one yesterday at MMX, which surprised me.

CPH is not SYD

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:39:11 +0000

While waiting for luggage at CPH the other day, I saw this bag passing by me on the luggage belt. Several times. Noone picked it up, which is not a surprise as I think some unhappy person on the other side of the planet was waiting at some other luggage belt for his bag. In wain.

Can we trust Kurtis or not?

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:37:02 +0000

In a blog entry FP is complaining on the fact Kurtis in his blog uses smileys, and because of that one can not trust him. Part from that blog entry being factually wrong (I am not on IAB anymore, and Bill Woodcock has never been), it is also wrong in claiming one can not trust Kurtis.

One can, believe me!

Swedish Minister of Defence resigns!

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:05:43 +0000

Wow, this was some news. Swedish Defence Minister resigns. Press conference later today.

**Updated:**The pressrelease is here (in Swedish). It says he is resigning as he can not live up to the agreement between the party leaders in the alliance.

How to save the Internet?

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 11:23:36 +0000

After reading this article I have been thinking of what we should sacrifice to fix the Internet.

Nepal Airlines has acknowledged that it sacrificed two goats to appease a Hindu god following a spate of technical problems with one of its aircraft.
The goats were slaughtered in front of the Boeing 757 at Kathmandu airport.
The persistent faults have not been specified but they had led to the postponement of a number of flights.
An airline official says after the ceremony, the plane successfully took off to Hong Kong.

A dead horse?

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 07:29:20 +0000

My friend George Sadowsky sent me this text the other way. I guess it might have to do with the discussions at the UN in Geneva we are at… I.e. the context for a text like this is perfect.

The tribal wisdom of the Dakota Native American tribe, passed on from one generation to the next, says that when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.

Investigation on copying music delivered to the Swedish Government

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 18:06:24 +0000

Already when the investigation was initiated there where complaints on the wording used. Now when the report is handed over to the government, we see complaints on it. Complaints that where already known.

What surprising though was that the report include so many things that are wrong. Just plain wrong. It shows the author do not understand how the Internet works, for example who can be responsible for what, and even less understanding on what the implications are if the responsibility is placed on the wrong party.

More restrictions on Internet Access from Swedish Government?

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 17:50:57 +0000

In an article in DN we see that the government will close the ability for employees to access the Internet even more. This surprises me as my impression is that the current non-transparent access to Internet already create problems for the people working there. I was hoping they could be more modern in the view of what access exists in the government offices (for example guest access in conference rooms), not less.

Board of SiS revoke working group decision on OOXML

Fri, 31 Aug 2007 08:02:42 +0000

In a pressrelease the board of SiS say they revoke the decision by the working group last Monday. The reason behind the decision is that in their view one member casted more than one vote.

They further say they find it in reality difficult for the working group to cast another ballot before the voting in ISO closes on Sep 3, and if no new voting can be done, Sweden will not vote.

Comments in the press about the "voting" at SiS

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 05:05:39 +0000

I was thinking of collecting links to places I find writing about this:

Computer Sweden - Riktigt, riktigt illa (Swedish)
Computer Sweden - SIS: “Inga statister på mötet” (Swedish)
Computer Sweden - Microsoftkupp mot formatomröstning (Swedish)
Dagens Nyheter - Microsofts affärspartners köpte Sveriges röst (Swedish)
Ny Teknik - Microsoft bakom kupp om Office-standard (Swedish)
Slashdot - Microsoft Bought Sweden’s ISO Vote on OOXML? (English)
OS/2 World.Com - Microsoft buys the Swedish vote on OOXML (English)

Slashdotted...

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:48:06 +0000

Ok, things are still up and running, but the number of hits on my blog as sort of increased… The blog entries on OOXML are added to both Digg and Slashdot. What is good is that the Slashdot comments do very fast zoom into this being more a problem with SiS than Microsoft. Although one can still have the opinion that Microsoft used in an unfair way a whole in the process.

Investigation on Child Pornography is ready

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:40:41 +0000

I was a member in the investigation on Child Pornography, and tomorrow (Wednesday Aug 29) the report is handed over to the government. The press conference will be sent over the Internet (in Swedish). ~~I will not be there though.~~ Updated: I will be there.

I am very happy with the result. Many good things are written in the report on how the Internet works, including modern applications. When the report is released, I will let people that read this blog know.

SIS (ISO in Sweden) has a broken process

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 10:35:43 +0000

I have earlier written about the OOXML discussions in Sweden. Now also IDG writes about what happened.

The IDG article say I am accusing Microsoft for buying the standard. And yes, I am. But, what is important to understand is that at the same time one can think Microsoft did something that is not fair, they (and their friends) still followed the rules. The people that where against OOXML also gathered some people, although not as many.

Swedish Road Authorities revoke their own decision

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 08:14:52 +0000

The Swedish Road Authorities that approved the vanity plate “GOOGLE” for my friend Joakim, has revoked their decision as described at IDG. Joakim himself explain in his blog that he is going to appeal the decision. He also has a pointer to a scanned version of the decision online (in Swedish).

The road authorities are in dangerous waters I think. I say this given my experience in designing registries and policies related to domain name registration the last 15 years.

IPv4 and IPv6 FAQ

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 15:44:13 +0000

Internet Society have just posted Frequently Asked Questions on IPv6 adoption and IPv4 exhaustion that is trying to answer some questions on IPv6 and IPv4. The page is intentionally an HTML page because we want to be able to update the page given what input we get.

So if you have other questions, or disagree with the answers, let me know.

Microsoft managed to buy the vote of Sweden in ISO?

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 13:42:29 +0000

I have written before about the situation around OOXML, and that Microsoft tries to push it through the standards organisations. Today (Monday, Aug 27) a meeting took place in WG17 of SIS/ITS that discuss the OODF question. I already heard Friday last week there where rumors that Microsoft with the help of new partners (as new members of SIS) stuffed the meeting as single majority is enough to win a vote.

Sugar, but not sugar?

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:18:42 +0000

I found this at the hotel I am staying at. Beside the coffee. I have seen sweeteners and I have seen sugar. But this was a new thing for me. Is this sugar or not? I did not dare to check. For me, real sugar, real butter and real cream are necessary ingredients in any dinner. And chocolate of course.

Il Fornaio - San José

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:16:50 +0000

The other day I had dinner at Il Fornaio in San Jose. As usual the food was good, specifically the Petaluma Duck. A favorite of mine since 1992 or so.

I do like the location in Palo Alto better than the one in San Jose, but, if one want a good italian dinner in the US, one should go to Il Fornaio. Their winelist is short but have good wines. It ended up being a San Giovese this time. Excellent that as well.

A good, but wrong statement by Monica Green

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 16:57:49 +0000

Monica Green in an article of IDG is unfortunately complaining on issues that she is partly responsible for herself. She asks why the new government is not doing more for IT (which is a valid question), but the problem is that the old government that she was part of did not do anything either. Or rather, they did two things: started a subsidarisation of broadband buildout in 1999, and they wrote an IT bill (more like what is called a white paper in other countries).

SMHI is the worst offender in Sweden regarding selling information people do not want

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:32:28 +0000

In the US (and many other places in the world) there is a discussion on whether people and organisations should be able to access more of the data for free that they already have paid for. A little bit naive statement of course, but the overall discussion is what rights a de-facto monopoly in the form of an agency can have regarding the raw data they have.

In Sweden we have a few of those. SMHI that keeps track of the weather in Sweden. Another is Lantmäteriverket that keep track of maps.

Ulrica Messing is leaving the politics

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 15:05:39 +0000

The former IT minister Ulrica Messing today announced that she is leaving the politics. It is sad for Sweden as Ulrica is one of the most ambitious politicians I have ever met. Never did a paper pass her desk without having she reading it.

I had the honor to report to her as a member of the Swedish Government IT Policy and Strategy Group 2003-2006. That work was fun, and lead to part from the IT-Bill (in Swedish but summary in English) two reports: The overall report from the strategy group and The report from the working group on broadband, a group I was chair of. Some of the work by the group of broadband is picked up by the new government lead by IT-Minister Åsa Torstensson. Also a very ambitious person by the way.

Microsoft XML format OOXML to become an ISO standard?

Fri, 24 Aug 2007 07:03:17 +0000

I have earlier in this blog stated I do not think the proposed standard Microsoft is presenting for ISO is of high enough quality to become a standard. The specification simply is not of good enough quality. Include too many degrees of freedom and I trust the ones that in detail have verified that what is in the spec is not enough to create interoperable implementations of software that implements the standard.

Attack against Estonia

Thu, 23 Aug 2007 20:12:25 +0000

Many many people have asked me about what happened in Estonia. I have all the time referred to the Estonian CERT (for those who have access to it), and to news articles that I think correctly written about it.

Here is another one, in Wired. I was interviewed and so where many other people. My visit to the Cert with my friends Kurtis and Bill on May 9 is described as well.

IGF Advisory group reappointed

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 20:58:32 +0000

According to this press release from the United Nations, the Advisory Group to the Internet Governance Forum is reappointed in preparation for the meeting in Rio de Janeiro later this fall.

A change is that Nitin Desai (the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for Internet Governance) has a co-chair in Hadil da Rocha Vianna ( Director for Scientific and Technological Affairs in Brazil’s Ministry of External Relations).

I am still on the advisory group as you can see in the press release and on the formal list of members.

Another report with errors from PTS in Sweden

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 09:29:33 +0000

PTS just released a report about use of public wireless networks. The problem with this report is, as many times before, that it is almost correct, but still not. It adds more FUD than it helps. Specifically as people that are not really into security and Internet architecture believe it is correct. Some of my friends that should know better said “but, this time they released a report that is correct”. No it is not correct, and the big problem is that people think it is.

Why is it so hard to do things together in Sweden?

Fri, 17 Aug 2007 08:30:16 +0000

In an article in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet it is described that even though a decision will be made (finally) to build a ringroad around Stockholm, it might be blocked for environmental reasons.

Let me first say I do understand all environmental issues that might arise, I do understand all other arguments that could (and should) block a construction as this.

What I do not understand is why the decision making process is so long in Sweden. We can never ever make any decisions, specifically the ones that have to do with infrastructure that make things better for the whole country in the long term. Sure, hundreds of years ago we digged a channel (Göta Kanal) through Sweden, but could we do that today? Never I claim. But not because we do not know how to do, but because we would never be able to make the decision on how to do it.

Alt Cochem, Cochem, Germany

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:53:44 +0000

I normally only write about good restaurants I go to, but this is an exception. The restaurant Alt Cochem. Yes, it was cheap, but… Even though the price was low, the food was possible to eat, I was longing to highway motels where one can stop and get any kind of schnitzel you want in any shape or form you want.

Just look at the menue entry below (that I found did exist outside the restaurant so I should have been warned before entering, but I missed that). If you know more than english you should find some interesting facts, and if you know Swedish you should find that not only the spaces between the words are wrong, the grammar is wrong, but also the translation is wrong.

Böckling?

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:41:14 +0000

When staying in Cochem in Germany briefly, I found in a store that a company named Böckling was making glasses. I found that extremely funny, as in Swedish böckling is the name of a smoked herring. Try a Google image search for Böckling and you get the point…

ODF or OOXML?

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:35:01 +0000

Some people are (surprisingly to me) even thinking of whether ODF or OOXML is the best standard to use for documents. Or rather, if the Microsoft Open XML format should pass the gates needed to pass in ISO. Or even whether Microsoft Open XML format should be recommended format for exchange of documents, for example by a Government.

As I said, I am very very very surprised some people even consider Microsoft Open XML as an open format. Sure, it might be better than Microsoft Word, but open? Well…

10 days of vacation

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 07:30:04 +0000

After 10 days of vacation, and one day of working, I am surprisingly almost back on track. The 10 days “only” created some 1200 unread email I should go through, but I found a “select all unread - mark read” works surprisingly well. Of course, some mailing lists (or many rather) I have to go through, and it will take weeks to catch up. Specifically as the vacation was so late in the summer that the people I work with already is back and up to speed. I simply had to work 100% already yesterday (the first day). In reality, I had to fly to Stockholm already this first day and talk with people about colorcoding of broadband products. A project a group I was leading on behalf of the Swedish Government was leading 2003-2006 created. More about that project later.

Some Squid problems at Aftonbladet?

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:36:32 +0000

I followed a link in the RSS feed from Aftonbladet, and got the error message below. Of course hard to say where the problem is, but it is the first time I see an error message from the Squid at Aftonbladet, and one of the very few times I see an error at all from them.

When I now try 5 minutes later, of course the link works…

Vanity plates with "Google" on them

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 14:21:02 +0000

A friend of mine Joakim Jardenberg has acquired vanity license plates on his car. The string on the plates is GOOGLE. He asked for the plates, paid, and voila, the plates are his for 10 years. One can ask oneselves what now happens. And how could this happen? Swedish road authorities have obviously no direct contact with the trademark office, and Google Sweden have obviously not had so much interest in buying the plates themselves.

Pontus Berg changes employer

Fri, 03 Aug 2007 10:02:40 +0000

So it is public now. Pontus Berg is leaving 3 and goes to Seanet. An interesting move I think, although I hope we will continue to see Pontus (the private person) in the public dialoge in Sweden. He is needed.

ARIN statement on the future of addressing policy

Thu, 02 Aug 2007 14:37:24 +0000

ARIN has just released a statement on the future of addressing policy. Specifically addressing the future of IPv4 addressing.

What ARIN does is to emphasize the current policies and say they will be enforced even stronger than today if needed. I.e. there is no announcement of a change in policy.

The resource-allocation policy under which ARIN operates has been produced through an open, transparent, and democratic process over more than a decade. ARIN is fully dedicated to preserving universal access and stable functionality of the Internet, and our policies do not encourage profit-driven speculation in the Internet addresses.

Internationalization is hard - Part II

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 16:04:11 +0000

It would be good if we all could agree on one and only one charset to use in the world. Otherwise the rendering of characters can be as interesting as you can see on this picture. No, I do not spell my name or address this way.

Spider...

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 13:03:36 +0000

Yesterday I managed to get a picture of one of the spiders that live here in south of Sweden. Of course you do not know the scale of this picture, so I can lie and say it it 2 feet across and weighs probably 2 pounds.

In reality, I think it is was about 1 inch across.

Bollinger, La Grande Année 1997

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:59:58 +0000

This champagne is not ready yet (July 2007). It must stay maybe 5 more years before being consumed. It had the Bollinger special taste and smell, but was still very sharp and young.

SSAC Response to ICANN's Proposed Next Steps for IDN Deployment in the Root Zone

Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:48:25 +0000

A response has been sent from SSAC to ICANN related to the next steps in IDN deployment in the Root Zone.

A summary is that SSAC do not think the suggested tests will create any problems for the DNS.

Favorite restaurants

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 16:37:14 +0000

I have got some questions on what are my favorite restaurants in the world. Which ones have impressed me the most.

Here is a list:

Glennfiddich Warehouse no. 68
A restaurant that should be visited for its beer. And food of course, but the beer is the main attraction. They have many whisky varieties as well.
Address: Västerlånggatan68, Stockholm, Sweden

Oliver Twist
The best beer location in Stockholm. Have food as well, including for example very good oysters (when being available).
Address: Repslagargatan 6, Stockholm, Sweden

Sushi Sam’s
The best sushi in the world? I have been going to this small place in San Mateo, CA, USA, since I think 1993, and have always been impressed by the quality of the food.
Address: 218 E 3rd Ave, San Mateo, CA, USA
Update: I found the hard way yesterday that Sushi Sam’s is closed on Sundays and Mondays

Erik’s Gondolen
A location where you can get food, lot of food, good food, traditional Swedish food. And excellent service.
Address: Stadsgården 6, Stockholm, Sweden

Brasserie Godot
Brasserie Godot is a mix between a French and Swedish kitchen. Run by people (Staffan and Mattias) I say “hi” to on the street. People that earlier had “Paus” on Rörstrandsgatan. My friend Kurtis followed them to Godot, and dragged me with him. Best dish the chocolate dessert.
Address: Grev Turegatan 36, Stockholm, Sweden

Gastro
Gastro in Helsingborg, where one also can get some training in the kitchen. For amateurs (like me), but serious real chef training. My friend Joakim pointed me at this training and the restaurant of course, and that was one of the most fun times in my life so far. Run by Per Dahlberg and Karl Bengtsson in the kitchen. Karl himeself run the training by the way. The food is modern, but not “funny” or a joke. This is serious stuff. Really serious.
Address: Södra Storgatan 11-13, Helsingborg, Sweden

More will be added to this page over time.

Investigator Åke Hedén appointed to look at broadband deployment in Sweden

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 15:54:54 +0000

Swedish Government have appointed Åke Hedén as an investigator for broadband deployment in small villages and on the countryside.

It will be extremely interesting to see the actual task he gets, as I have no idea what so ever why the government will ask someone to look at just “small villages” (whatever that is).

This is close to be one of the more confusing statements made by the Swedish Government lately (at least since Beatrice Ask was interviewed, but I wait with my comments until I see what the task really is.

CERT announcement on an issue with Bind

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 05:32:02 +0000

The default access control lists are not set correctly, and this imply anyone can send recursive queries and/or query for the cache contents.

More information on ISC webpage for Bind issues.

Open invitation to Internet Governance Forum

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 05:06:00 +0000

The UN Secretary General has sent an open letter in which he invites to the IGF in Rio de Janeiro.

The inaugural Internet Governance Forum meeting in Athens, Greece, proved a great success. This year, the Government of Brazil has generously offered to host the second IGF meeting in Rio de Janeiro from 12 to 15 November 2007. I take this opportunity to accept the Government’s offer, and to invite all stakeholders to attend this important gathering. The meeting will be open to all World Summit on the Information Society accredited entities. Other institutions and persons with proven expertise and experience in matters related to Internet governance may also apply to attend.

The Swedish Competition Agency about patents

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 03:17:18 +0000

The Swedish Competition Agency has written their view on the investigation Patent och innovationer för tillväxt och välfärd (SOU 2006:80) N2007/3671/MK (Patent and innovations for growth and welfare - a summary in English exists in the beginning of the report).

What the Agency states is that the connection between the number of patents registered and growth is not as clear as is stated in the report. The report is focusing too much on patents as an enabler for growth.

Sushi Sam's - Best Sushi in the world?

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:54:17 +0000

After landing at SFO after a very long morning at LAX (you can read about it in this post) I decided it was time to have sushi - at 3PM…

Why not. I left 101 and drove up in San Mateo to go to what has been my favorite sushi place since I think 1993, Sushi Sam’s.

Sam himself was of course behind the counter and after having my normal sushi (ikura with quail eggs, toro, hamachi, sam special hand roll and bonito) I asked Sam for something that he chose. You can see it below. Salmon and butterfish.

IHOP - International House of Pancakes

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:49:06 +0000

When being in Rome, act as the Romans…or whatever the say is.

I arrived to LAX very early in the morning, because I had expected a lot of traffic. A had planned to have a quick breakfast at the airport, but changed my mind and instead decided to drive by IHOP before returning the rental car.

IHOP is of course open 24 hours a day, and serve all different kinds of american breakfast. You can find better breakfasts at other places, but also much worse. It is like McDonalds. You know what you get. Fast, efficient.

Carolinas

Thu, 26 Jul 2007 02:43:02 +0000

The restaurant Carolinas in Anaheim, CA, is a nice cosy italian restaurant. You should not go there if you are not very hungry. Had a veal in thin slices in a lemon butter sauce served on pasta and expected to get something similar to the courses one get in Italy.

The taste was correct, but the size of the portion was gigantic!!

Had some Chianti on the glass, and that was very good.

Beatrice Ask is in trouble again

Tue, 24 Jul 2007 17:14:07 +0000

The Minister of Justice is once again talking about issues she obviously do not know much about. In this article she discusses the proposed legislation in Sweden according to which private entities that want to know the name etc of people that copy copyrighted material should get that from ISPs directly after a decision in court.

The article describes the contrary view that many lawyers have, which is that the crime does not have high enough penalty to be able to make such an intrusion on the privacy of the individual.

Bacaro, Champaign

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:26:27 +0000

The Bacaro. And whisky, they had five different versions of Bruichladdich whisky, including the WMDII - Yellow Submarine that I have not seen often outside of Islay.

On the menu they had rabbit. Something I really like and when I see it on the menu I have trouble selecting something else. The rabbit legs (2 of them) where very tender. Just the way rabbit should be.

The coffee was 100% american version though…order espresso…

Moto Restaurant, Chicago

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:15:55 +0000

What can I say? It was an experience…

The Moto Restaurant in Chicago presented something really different. But, the food was not only different (carbonated water melon anyone?), but also very very tasty. We had the 10 course tasting menu with the wines suggested with it. The wine list was not as impressive, but they had found wine that where the correct ones. One step higher in quality in the wines would make this really good. As it was now, many of the wines where for example very very young.

Barbera d'Alba Vigna Dei Dardi 2000

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:06:01 +0000

This wine was absolutely excellent. At the peak. A month later and it would have been dead. Almost no tannins, and taste was typical for the Barbera d’Alba. If you have some 2000, drink them now!

Break problems?

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:03:39 +0000

At Copenhagen airport, the technical staff replaced / repaired the breaks on an Airbus and still only added 45 minute delay. A delay they managed to catch up during the flight over the Atlantic.

Well done Bertil and others at STS!

IP is ok, but do we talk about IPv4 or IPv6?

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 23:00:52 +0000

In Urbana-Champaign, one can clearly see that IP is ok. At least to the left. To the right there might be something else…

iPhone

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:58:40 +0000

At last even I have tried an iPhone. What surprised me was (a) how nice the scrolling feature was and (b) how small the phone was.

In this picture you see the iPhone beside a Sony-Ericsson W880i. A phone that is one of the smallest that exists.

Bus timetable using Windows?

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:56:21 +0000

A timetable in Champaign had some memory problems. I hope the busses did not use Windows.

Computers in public places...

Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:55:13 +0000

This instruction I found in the library of University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. It reminds me of around 1984 when a student at KTH explicitly wanted the same terminal (TTY with serial cable in those days) when working as the students files where saved there.

Another blog entry on CircleID

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 22:26:16 +0000

So, I got another blog entry copied to CircleID. You can find the post here. This time about IPv4 addresses and migration to IPv6.

Can the new advisory group get anything done?

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:53:02 +0000

The editorial of Swedish IT paper Computer Sweden ask what the new advisory group to the minister Åsa Torstensson can do. Specifically as there is now 18 people in the group, and not 18 people with the same view. To be honest I ask myself the same thing. A good thing to have all of us in the same room to discuss things, but we need much more time than what is allocated (4 days a year). I am a bit nervous the minister will not be helped but instead more confused over our discussions because regardless of how good a minister is, a minister can not have the same background in the topic areas as the specialists.

Scarcity of IPv4 addresses

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 13:38:37 +0000

My friend Kurtis writes in his blog some points he has been thinking of while discussing “when we run out of IPv4 addresses”. In reality, as he points out so well, we will not run out. It will be harder to get addresses.

It is also the case that unfortunately people that push for IPv6 claim IPv6 will solve all different kinds of problem. Possibly also the starvation problems in the world, and the CO2 emission issues. But, in reality IPv6 is just like IPv4. It works like IPv4, it quacks like IPv4 etc. We will have the same problems with IPv6 as we have with IPv4. Except we will not have any addressing problems because of scarcity of addresses. The largest problems we have with IPv4 has to do with the fact that the overall topology of the Internet is changing. From a strict hierarchy to a mesh, and now to a hypercube. Everyone is connected to everyone else, and our routing protocols can not handle that. We need something new.

Prince is (again) doing interesting things

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:02:27 +0000

In this article in SvD it is explained how Prince has chosen to give away his new CD for free for all buyers of Mail on Sunday. The article in Mail on Sunday about it is is here. He will also give a free CD to the people that go to his concerts.

The record industry of course is irritated and claim “the artist formerly known as Prince” will be “the artist formerly sold in record stores”. Prince himself say this is a good PR campaign.

Ignore :update in for example submit_to_remote!

Sun, 15 Jul 2007 20:49:58 +0000

I am now extremely tired on bad documentation. And documentation and hints that just reprint what was in the first documentation. It seems some code has not been used by anyone. Or, everyone write exactly the same code!

In my case I had problems with form_remote_to and later submit_to_remote. If there was a :update argument to the submit_to_remote, the javascript code was inserted in the DOM object the :update referred to.

A very weird idea from Mats Johansson (m)

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 19:48:20 +0000

I just have to mention I support for example Mary Jensen when she writes that the ideas from Mats Johansson (m) are among the most weird ones she has heard. This person, mr Johansson, has for the second time in two weeks made weird statements on how policing of the Internet should work. You can see (in Swedish) here in the blog opassande what he said. Also look at the comments to this blog post.

Prototype's EventObserver only fire off once when observing Radio Buttons

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 14:56:50 +0000

I have been fighting with some code for 2 hours now, out of which 1 hour is programming, and the other hour split between reading books and using Google.

Finally I found Ticket #7895 that have pointers to descriptions here and here about the problem.

In my case, I had the following code, that did not work:

<%= radio_button_tag :adminc_handle, :yes, checked = true %> Have Adminc <%= radio_button_tag :adminc_handle, :no %> Do not have Adminc <%= observe_field('adminc_handle_yes', :url => { :action =>:toggleadminc }) %> <%= observe_field('adminc_handle_no', :url => { :action =>:toggleadminc }) %>

Irish sea? I thought it was in Canada?

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 12:46:32 +0000

I heard this story when I moved to Montréal 1995, but then it was a Canadian unit the USS Montana had an argument with. I then laughed for hours, and I still smile a lot when I hear this.

This time it is Silva, a Swedish Company making compasses, GPS and other navigation equipment, that use the story in an ad.

(Yeah, I promise, I think, last video for today…)

SMS and morse code...

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 12:42:38 +0000

Peter Löthberg) first showed me this video some time ago. It is from the Jay Leno show where the fastest text messaging guy is competing against some morse code / ham radio people in speed.

Who do you think was the fastest?

Shift happens...

Sat, 14 Jul 2007 12:21:49 +0000

There are many things on YouTube… This is I think one of the best. A presentation (not a video) that explain size of numbers, and that we live in an exponential time. Everyone should see this, and then maybe people will (at last) stop doing planning according to what was modern in the previous millenium.

Does an iPhone blend?

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 16:37:17 +0000

The people at http://www.willitblend.com/ have some fun time. As you can see on their website they have one “do not try this at home” and one “try this at home” button. One of the “Don’t try this at home” videos you can see below, how well an iPhone blends.

// Version check based upon the values entered above in “Globals” var hasReqestedVersion = DetectFlashVer(requiredMajorVersion, requiredMinorVersion, requiredRevision);

// Check to see if the version meets the requirements for playback if (hasReqestedVersion) { // if we’ve detected an acceptable version // embed the Flash Content SWF when all tests are passed document.getElementById(‘flashContent’).style.display = “”; } else { // flash is too old or we can’t detect the plugin var alternateContent = '

Peter has the worlds fastest mother...

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 07:31:25 +0000

My friend Peter Löthberg called me yesterday. He was happy because he said he had the worlds fastest mother. What had happened in reality is that he had managed to get the 40G connection up and running from Karlstad to Stockholm.

Later the same day (July 10) he was on the news in Sweden.

**Updated:**This news is going around the world. It was just posted in New York Times.

TECHNOLOGY | July 19, 2007
Swedish Woman Gets Superfast Internet
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) – She is a latecomer to the information superhighway, but 75-year-old Sigbritt Lothberg is now cruising the Internet with a dizzying speed. Lothberg’s 40 gigabits-per-second fiber-optic connection in Karlstad is believed to be the fastest residential uplink in the world, Karlstad city officials said.

Once again a site is down due to "normal use"

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 16:20:43 +0000

In an article in Swedish paper SvD it is described how the site where students can get the result of their request for studying at the University went down. The person responsible say simply “it is costly to have a site up and running when it is a one time thing” as an answer to the question why the site was down.

The worst response of all. It shows the person does not know what the goal of the service is. The goal is to give back results when people access his site, especially at the date when the result is released. Is he surprised over the load? If not, why was the site down? If he was surprised, would he be happier if noone used his service?

ccNSO-GAC Issues Report on IDN Policy Issues

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:30:04 +0000

ccNSO and GAC (part of ICANN) has released ccNSO-GAC Issues Report on IDN Policy Issues.

When looking through the document, I see that (at last) many of the difficult issues around selection of strings for internationalized ccTLDs are rised. Some of the questions are though not that coordinated. For example they ask about how many strings can be attached to a script and how many scripts can be attached to a ccTLD that imply a ccTLD could in some cases have more than one string attached to it. In a later question they ask whether an entry in ISO 3166-1 should be connected with the string selected for the ccTLD. Something that is not possible of course if the answer of any of the questions above is yes (which I definitely say). They also talk about language communities without mentioning that one script can be used by more than one language, and because of that potentially more than one country. Like what is the fact for the Arabic script, Hebrew and many others. This implies we talk about a script community more than a language community.

What have I been doing?

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:12:42 +0000

You have not seen many posts by me lately. I have been working extremely hard with a few different things. One of them definitely worth blogging about, but others have been blogging so much you already know everything…

In the meantime, have a look at this clip with Jay Leno when he is doing physics experiments.

Buying an iPhone -- or not?

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 14:37:50 +0000

This is one of the more fun videos I have seen about iPhone release. Or, it is actually the only video I have seen as I have been working like mad the last two weeks.

In short, a guy has been lining up for a day or so to be first in line in the Apple Store to buy an iPhone. A lady with “money talks” on her lips buy his place in the queue for $800 to be first in the store to buy phones and sell them on eBay. Well, the rest is now history… ROTFL!

Don David Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve 2004

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 10:57:57 +0000

After an excellent Saint-Emilion we brought out this Cabernet from Argentina. A typical new world Cab, lots of black currant. Nothing for people liking the more harsh french reds (like myself). But it was a good wine. Do not misunderstand me. Just not my kind of wine.

Chateau Fonroque Saint-Emilion Grand Cru 2001

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 10:54:32 +0000

Before having this wine, I tried to find information on when to drink it. Some guessing on Saint-Emilion 2001 together with some more data found on the net here and there I made the decision to have the wine and not store it any longer. That was a correct decision. What a wine. Absolutely excellent, and it was really on its peak now (2007). One more year would not have worked. Tannins gone, while some acids where still there. Maybe best wine this year so far.

Delirio, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 10:44:36 +0000

Delirio (if anyone find the homepage for this place, let me know) is a very nice restaurant in the old town. Good service, good price/performance. Good service. Had a rabbit curry for main course that could have been better. Rest of the food was excellent. The only weird thing was that they did not have the classic San Juan rom drinks, like daiquiri. They suggested some other drinks, (I got something that looked like a strawberry martini – and that was very good) and all guests where happy.

Seghesio Barolo La Villa 2003

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 10:35:09 +0000

A nice typical Italian wine. Not the best Barolo I have had though, so I would look for other bottles.

Not only luggage...

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 10:28:59 +0000

Also the elevators where closed at CPH… This in the parking garage. People carried their bags in the stairs, while some where smart enough to drive the car to the luggage instead.

Luggage management at Kastrup (CPH) is broken...

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 10:27:26 +0000

They are replacing the luggage system at CPH, and of course that create problems. But both having the luggage being lost and SAS EuroBonus Gold service being terminated was not fun.

Unicode in URLs

Wed, 04 Jul 2007 10:24:18 +0000

This has nothing to do with Internationalized Domain Names, but more about unicode codepoints in a URL. I have made some tests, and as far as I can see, the ones that have implemented this URL have done “the right thing”.

Well done American Airlines / http://aa.com/español!

Internationalized Domain Names in the root?

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 08:48:10 +0000

In an article in Swedish at the IDG website they write about internationalized top level domains, and they have interviewed me. The only thing I say is that of course people for example in china want a version of the .CN top level domain in chinese.

My more interesting views on IDN can be found in a previous blog post. The actual resolutions by ICANN that have to do with IDN I have summarized here.

draft-zhao-sipping-mip-00.txt

Tue, 03 Jul 2007 07:28:39 +0000

An interesting draft was released in the IETF the other day. It does not contain much. It is I think even funny. Have a look yourself at draft-zhao-sipping-mip-00.txt.

The problem this draft try to solve is probably similar (or exactly the same) as is discussed in draft-tschofenig-mip6-ice-00.txt.

There are many reasons why a draft like this is posted. First of all people might think a draft must be approved before it is released. That is only the case if the draft is a work item of a working group. One see whether it is on the name of the draft. If the draft start with draft-ietf-, then the next word is the name of the working group. If the second word is not ietf (as in the case of draft-zhao-sipping-mip-00.txt), then it is an individual submission and there is no requirements on the content at all.

Unfortunate placement of an ad on a webpage

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 16:11:58 +0000

In this article IDG have some samples of old advertisements for IT related products. They are funny and worth a look. But funnier I think it is that between the text and the first example of an old ad is a “proper” ad that people pay to have there. When I did the screen dump, the ad was for FS-Data as you can see below.

Resolutions on IDN at ICANN meeting in San Juan

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 15:08:29 +0000

The resolutions can be found here. The ones related to IDN are:

IDG describe the different advisory groups to Swedish Government

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 14:07:40 +0000

In this article IDG is in Swedish mentioning some of the advisory groups that has existed since Carl Bildt started the first group in 1992. It points out I am now a member of the second group in a row. The article does not draw any conclusions though… And does not extrapolate the history into the current advisory group (IT-Rådet).

La Bernadine Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2003

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:19:03 +0000

La Bernadine Châteauneuf-du-Pape 2003 was the 2nd bottle the evening that started with a Stags Leap Merlot 2003. I picked the wines, and suggested to have them in this order. People around the table agreed it just worked. I got my favorite wines, and they where just perfect.

Updated: I got a question where I got the wine. Well, I do not remember. I can not say I got it in Sweden. So looking at Systembolaget today might not help. I often buy the wine on site from the winery or at least from a vendor as local as possible. Some wine that is released at Systembolaget I buy of course. That is pretty convenient, and the prices are not bad either. But this bottle, I do not remember. Sorry.

Stags Leap Merlot 2003

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:16:08 +0000

Had a Stags Leap Merlot 2003. Perfect temperature, together with perfect food. This is one of my favorites, and simply a very good wine.

New Board of ISOC appointed

Sun, 01 Jul 2007 00:08:55 +0000

Today in San Juan a new board of the Internet Society was appointed.

Top row from the left: Hiroshi Isaki (new), Lynn St.Damour (CEO), Daniel Karrenberg (Chair), Fred Baker, Franck Martin, Ted Hardie (new)

Bottom from the left: Glenn Ricart (Treasurer), Patrick Vande Walle, Patrik Fältström, Desirée Miloshevic

Missing: Baoping Yan, Alejandro Pisanty

Milton playing in the GAC wolleyball team?

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 23:36:07 +0000

At the local beach volleyball tournament at the ICANN meeting in San Juan, Milton Müller from Syracuse University was playing in the GAC team. Something some of us thought was fun.

Bacardi from Puerto Rico, their glasses from Italy

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 23:32:01 +0000

The local store at the Bacardi factory in San Juan, Puerto Rico, of course sold glasses with their trademark. The bat. The glasses where made in Italy.

Making money with domain names

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 23:28:07 +0000

The story continues…domain name management is a money revenue stream. I am not specifically ironic on .MOBI, but just want to point out that these kind of sessions and flyers existed all over the place at the ICANN meeting in San Juan. This from my point of view make it sometimes a bit unclear whether interests in changes in policies is purely from a business perspective, or whether they are based on end user (registrants) interests.

Jeep driving into terminal in Glasgow

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 19:39:15 +0000

As you can see in this article in Swedish a Jeep has driven into a terminal at Glasgow Airport. The airport website say the airport is closed. This will most certainly create problems for my friend Jim Reid that is on his way home from the ICANN meeting.

Unsafe Java things from Aftonbladet...

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 16:24:48 +0000

I had a look in the Java Console of my browser, and interestingly enough I found the following message: Unsafe JavaScript attempt to access frame with URL <http://www.aftonbladet.se/vss/rss/story/0,2789,1107802,00.html> from frame with URL <http://view.atdmt.com/MON/iview/dvrttmse0010000071mon/direct/01?click=http://servedby.advertising.com/click/site=0000080584/mnum=0000425871/optn=64?trg=.> Domains must match.

How to add internationalized ccTLDs to the root zone?

Sat, 30 Jun 2007 15:16:36 +0000

The APTLD (Asia Pacific Top Level Domain Association) this week released a statement on how introduction of internationalized top level domain could be initiated. You can find the paper here.

This document got a lot of traction at the ICANN meeting, but it has a few flaws that are very unfortunate. For example, if one look at the first bullet: Allow each existing ccTLD to manage one additional country or territory specific ccTLD in a recognised non-ASCII script of their country or territory.

Los Cardos Chardonnay, Argentina

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 17:11:40 +0000

Had the wine Los Cardos Chardonnay from Argentina. I was hoping the wine would be a typical crisp dry chardonnay, was afraid it would be a chipped thick butter like thing. It was neither. It was pretty thick, not much oak, but very tasty wine with a lot of fruit. I am not a white wine expert, but I think I knew chardonnay. So, conclusion is that I think I liked this wine somewhat which surprises me a bit. On the other hand, if I wanted a wine that is more heavy and not crisp, I would go for something else than chardonnay.

The Parrot Club, San Juan, Puerto Rico

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 17:02:36 +0000

Wednesday June 26, 2007 I visited The Parrot Club, San Juan, Puerto Rico, for dinner. Dinner was nice, we where seated outdoors, and where greeted by a nice waiter. Food was good. Martini Mojito that they had as one speciality dring was excellent. Starters not as high quality as the people on the table next to us thought. Baby ribs was the best starter. As main course I had blackened tune, rare, and that was really of the best quality. After speaking with the waiter we understand most food was brought to San Juan from the US, except shrimps and some other seafood. Tuna was also brought from the US. Main course was between $20 and $30.

ICANN in San Juan

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 08:40:51 +0000

Today the ICANN meeting in San Juan opens officially. Tons of meetings, but also as usual many conversations offline that are so important. Issues I will cover include IDN version of ccTLDs and DNSSEC deployment. Part from the ISOC Board Meeting that we have coming weekend.

If nothing else, ICANN has an IPv6 enabled website for this meeting.

# dig sanjuan2007.icann.org AAAA +short ganges.lax.icann.org. 2620::2d0:5:218:8bff:fef8:78e0

stupid.domain.name rated G

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:20:27 +0000

A site that works with online dating http://mingle2.com/, have a service where a blog can be rated by submitting the URL of the blog first page. This blog is rated "G", although the word "tit" exists twice on the page. That was the blog entry about birds and cats….

Château de Beaucastel

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 09:42:56 +0000

I must start the writing about wine by bringing up my favorite wine Château de Beaucastel from the area Châteauneuf-du-Pape in France. The red is excellent, and the white is not bad either (an understatement of course).

This has been one of my favorites long before I understood it is a very pricy wine, and a wine that can last very long in your celler. I think I finished a case of 1998 some years ago…a case I really would have liked to have now.

Google Analytics, restaurant reviews and other changes to this site

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 09:35:44 +0000

I have made some changes to the https://stupid.domain.name/ website.

I added support for Google Analytics via the Google Analytics Drupal module instead of adding the code directly to the template I am using.

I also added keywords for Restaurants and Wine as I here will enter notes that I always make when I have some wine and visit a restaurant. Things that happen quite often…(and it could happen even more often). You can see the links directly in the menu in the top right corner.

A browser that works in my cellphone

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 17:04:12 +0000

I must say that although I really like my SonyEricsson W880i, there are a few things that could have been much better; buttons, web browser and IMAP client.

I have now found a web browser that works, the Opera Mini. It renders the page correctly, and then show the page on the phone like if one peek through a small window. Moving back and forth in a quick way is possible via the numeric keypad (keys 2, 4, 6 and 8).

Cat like birds

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:25:59 +0000

It is raining today. Midsummer and rain. Not really what people want to combine. Except maybe the police. Of course there are fewer people on the streets if it is raining. In the middle of this rain, Mamma Katt (Mother cat – that is her name), came in with a bird. Not to keep as a pet. More a nice afternoon snack.

Given the yellow color (and the fact I know the birds that normally stay outside the window) it might have been a Great Tit or a Blue Tit.

Self portrait

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 14:19:47 +0000

When visiting Ramlösa Brunn for their 300 year anniversary, I of course also visited my friend Joakim Jardenberg. Close to his veranda (it was raining, but the coffee was good) I found this shiny ball that I used for a self portrait.

IT Standards Inquiry report to the Government

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:58:15 +0000

The IT Standards Inquiry delivered their final report to the Swedish Government. The title of the report is The Invisible Infrastructure. It is 520 pages long, in Swedish, but have on pages 29-46 a summary in English.

Proposals:

That the use of formal standards for electronic information management be promoted in the case of authorities accountable to the Government.
That the Government also instruct the Administrative Development Agency to attach particular importance to the longterm implications of using standards with a high degree of openness when drafting tender model specifications for framework contracts. If this proposal is adopted, the agency should be required to report annually on progress in this area.

My sessions for Networkers in Anaheim are ready for print

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 13:39:50 +0000

Cisco Networkers in the US will this year be in Anaheim, California, between July 22 and 26. After working for a few months now and then on the presentations, and last two weeks most of my time, the presentations are now ready for print. Next time I see them will be in the room in Anaheim.

As normal, about 75% of the time is fighting with Powerpoint. Animations that do not work the way you want. Animations on groupings that have to be redone if the grouping is ungrouped and then grouped again. Alignment between text and images that does not work because the fonts have different width in different operating systems and computers etc.

An IT advisory board created by the IT minister of Sweden, Åsa Torstensson

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 12:19:52 +0000

Pressmeddelande 20 juni 2007 Näringsdepartementet

Regeringen har tillsatt ett IT-råd

Regeringen har i dag beslutat att tillsätta en arbetsgrupp med uppgift att tillhandahålla råd i IT-politiska frågor. IT-rådet består av 18 ledamöter och leds av statsrådet Åsa Torstensson.

Rådet skall vara ett forum för strategisk diskussion mellan regeringen och företrädare för olika samhällsområden och ge perspektiv på lokal, regional och nationell nivå, utifrån ett näringspolitiskt angreppssätt. Syftet med rådets arbete är bland annat att utbyta åsikter och dela erfarenheter, och att uppmärksamma och diskutera framtida utmaningar. Eftersom IT i stor utsträckning påverkas av den internationella utvecklingen ska detta perspektiv också uppmärksammas.

More weird broadband quotes

Fri, 15 Jun 2007 11:13:06 +0000

In an article today some broadband networks that collaborate say that one of the good things by interconnecting them is that the application providers that are present in one of them will be present in all of them. They claim in the article that the application providers because of this can reach 104 000 potential customers. If the application is available on the Internet, like any website, or any provider like Google and Skype, they have more than a billion potential customers.

Herding Cats

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 23:29:50 +0000

At the fantastic party Jeff Pulver set up at the Spring VON in Stockholm, his favorite band ~~Hurding~~Herding Cats played…

Updated: This was embarrassing. I misspelled their name…

| |

What are people thinking?

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:27:06 +0000

In yesterdays Computer Sweden related to broadband issues.

First of all, the report from the regulator PTS about separation of Telia in multiple parts (like the separation of BT in the UK):

PTS press release: Telia Sonera ska kunna bli skyldigt att lägga det fasta accessnätet i en separat enhet inom bolaget. Det är innebörden i det förslag till lagändring som PTS tagit fram på regeringens uppdrag och idag lämnar till regeringen. PTS report: Bättre bredbandskonkurrens genom funktionell separation - Lagförslag för icke-diskriminering och insyn i accessnätet

Separation of Application from Access -- a policy decision

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:27:41 +0000

During the last couple of years, I have been working with how much control an access provider can have on what services are possible to use for their customer. How much is “good for the consumer”. How much before it has impact on competition and innovation.

I have made numerous presentations and public statements on this, backed up by the work I made as a member of the Swedish Government IT Policy and Strategy Group, part from the work I do in the IETF and ISOC.

Labeling broadband products

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 20:27:01 +0000

I work with some ideas on how to label broadband products. This presentation is a live document, and can because of that not be cited by any means. But, I am happy to receive comments on it. And not a secret…

You can also read what I wrote earlier in this blog about labeling broadband products.

MrFung as "Sommarpratare"

Wed, 13 Jun 2007 14:07:18 +0000

On August 6, my old friend Lars Fredriksson, also called mrfung, will be on Swedish Radio as a sommarpratare. He is having more and diverse hobbies than I know of. Just have a look at his website.

Updated: The link to the Swedish Radio (SR) was broken, now fixed

– Jag kommer orda om hur man kan känna sig hemma långt borta och spela musik som helar själen, både från gamla kulturers hov och folkliga traditioner, blandat med naturens egna rogivande musikanter.

Sweden and North Carolina?

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:47:28 +0000

On this page one can see a comparison between the states in the United States and Countries in the world. My friend Paul Hoffman pointed me at it.

Sweden would be on 10th place compared with North Carolina and a GDP of $371 billion, after Georgia (Switzerland), Pennsylvania (Netherlands), New York (Brazil), Ohio (Australia), New Jersey (Russia), Illinois (Mexico), Florida (South Korea), Texas (Canada) and California (France).

Keynote at VON Europe Spring 2007

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:24:54 +0000

This morning I was having a keynote at VON Europe Spring 2007. You can find the presentation here.

**Updated:**My friend Anders pointed out the year I presented was not 20007, but 2007 (title of this post). It is now corrected.

Apple Mail.App is behaving weird again

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:13:28 +0000

I have no idea how many messages I am supposed to fetch (again).

Building destroyed in fire rebuilt again

Sun, 10 Jun 2007 12:21:13 +0000

I wrote earlier (and took some photos) on the fire in April outside Lövestad. In todays newspaper one can see a story about the fire including an interview (in Swedish) with the people owning the house.

Character set management is hard

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 09:06:40 +0000

I know some people that claim the problems are over regarding character representation on computers. The view is that everything handle The Unicode Character Set correctly. Yes, many things do, but still one find interesting situations like this. This is a photo of my TV, what it displayed when watching the TV channel connected to Aftonbladet.

Lobkowicz?

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 09:03:49 +0000

One of the persons I am proud of knowing is Henrik Levkowetz. Part from being the master of IETF Tools Website, he also knows a lot about beer. Maybe he knows more about this beer that almost has the same name as him. At least for a person like me that do not know much about eastern european languages.

Grönköpings veckoblad quotes HD

Sat, 09 Jun 2007 08:59:46 +0000

As a reader of Grönköpings Veckoblad I find it being somewhat an honor to succeed to write something that is quoted in it. In the latest edition (May), I found this quote from Helsingsborgs Dagblad. Congratulations Joakim.

Construction of new building at Fridhemsplan

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 16:17:47 +0000

There is progress… Previous progress report can be found here. The concrete foundation was for a crane.

CA Certificate management is hard

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 15:54:55 +0000

Sidewalk Cafe in Stockholm have Internet access to a very good price. For example at the Central Station and 7Eleven. The problem is that they do not have any root cert installed for CACert. This in turn lead to the message you can see on the picture below.

Of course you can say “please continue anyway”, but if the URL people type in is a HTTP URI, and that give a redirect to the HTTPS one (a quite normal setup) the redirect does not work with an untrusted cert, even though the user say “please continue”.

Apple Store website is closed...

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:15:57 +0000

Rumors say that new a MacBook is coming with a new chip.

Updated: Yes, new MacBook Pro released with LED-Backlit display.

Translations are fun!

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:06:31 +0000

This message was displayed when turning off a beamer…

EU say Swedish ban on private import of alcohol is wrong

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 11:01:32 +0000

The Court of Justice of the European Union today released their decision that Sweden can not ban private import of alcohol (article in SvD in Swedish).

Updated: I have got a comment that not only corrects my text, but also clarifies what really has happened. I thank for the comment, and urge people to read the comment.

Judgment of the Court of Justice in Case C-170/04 Klas Rosengren and Others v. Riksåklagaren THE PROHIBITION OF THE IMPORTATION INTO SWEDEN OF ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES BY PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS AMOUNTS TO AN UNJUSTIFIED QUANTITATIVE RESTRICTION ON THE FREE MOVEMENT OF GOODS That measure is inappropriate for attaining the objective of limiting alcohol consumption generally and is not proportionate for attaining the objective of protecting young persons from the harmful effects of alcohol

New version of the IDNA bis tables document

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 07:13:45 +0000

Last week I posted a new version of draft-faltstrom-idnabis-tables document. You can find the new version here.

`Abstract

This document specifies rules for deciding whether a codepoint, considered in isolation, is a candidate for inclusion in an Internationalized Domain Name.

It is part of the specification of IDNA200X.`

Do the government understand they have to pay more?

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 18:06:23 +0000

Minister Mats Odell, Minister for Local Government and Financial Markets, say in an article that it is not good that some services delivered by ISPs died when being attacked. Mr Odell say that higher requirements have to be set on they who deliver services to the Government. That is fine, and what I have advocated for many years. What I hope he understand though is that they as a result of asking for better toys also have to pay more. I do not want to be negative, so lets say they do!

Yearly flea market in Lövestad 2007

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 16:00:34 +0000

This year flea market at Lövestad was this last Saturday. Afterwards, tons of things where not sold, and had to be cleaned up.

AS 33980 is reachable again

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 15:03:52 +0000

After the military exercise is over, and the radio link was rebooted (it had given up due to “radar detected”), I have an IP address again. Phew…

Not many IP packets

Sun, 03 Jun 2007 10:52:09 +0000

The radio link home is dead since a while back. The ISP I use say it is because of the military exercise down here in Skåne. Today (June 3) is the last day, so we can hope that the military people stop playing with their radio equipment today. Maybe it is time to install more redundant connections? Yes, the link is 802.11a, in the frequency band 5.47-5.725 GHz. In this band, the effect is not allowed to be more than 1W according to 5 § 18 in PTSFS 2005:8 (Föreskrifter om ändring i Post- och telestyrelsens föreskrifter (2004:8) om undantag från tillståndsplikten för vissa radiosändare), updated via PTSFS 2006:5 (Post- och telestyrelsens föreskrifter om ändring i föreskrifter (2004:8) om undantag från tillståndsplikten för vissa radiosändare).

Proposed new legislation related to electronic communication in Sweden

Sat, 02 Jun 2007 09:55:21 +0000

There is a suggestion for changes in the legislation around electronic communication in Sweden. The goal is to make the work of the regulator more effective.

Propositionens innehåll:

Överklagandeinstanserna ska minska, kammarrätten ska vara sista instans för prövning av mål enligt LEK.
Kompetensen hos de allmänna förvaltningsdomstolarna ska öka. Särskilda ledamöter, ekonomiska experter, ska delta när länsrätten och kammarrätten avgör mål enligt LEK som avser konkurrensfrämjande åtgärder enligt lagen.
Handläggningen ska skyndas på. För att möjliggöra det och för att skapa ordning i processen begränsas möjligheterna att efter en viss tid åberopa nya omständigheter och bevis i länsrätten. I kammarrätten ska nya omständigheter eller bevis endast få åberopas om det finns synnerliga skäl.

Sad, but it happens now and then...

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:17:51 +0000

While driving south from Kristianstad Airport home, I collided with a roe deer. I am fine. The car has some damages that have to be fixed. I lost quite some rubber on the tires, and the roe deer died immediately at the impact. I called the police, cleaned the street (removed parts of the car that was scattered), and marked the location.

Second House in Second Life

Fri, 01 Jun 2007 00:15:05 +0000

Many moons ago I wrote that Sweden would open an embassy in second life. They call it Second House and is a model of the Sweden House in Washington D.C.

I have now tried Second Life, and here I am flying outside the embassy. For some reason the screen grab software I used did not get all details, but I claim that is a rendering problem.

CircleID has picked up my post

Thu, 31 May 2007 23:31:21 +0000

CircleID. They reposted the blog on their site.

longboard.se

Thu, 31 May 2007 23:21:24 +0000

My friend Morre runs longboard.se. He is working as a photographer and many many other things. He just release a cool video from when they have fun.

A good .SIG

Thu, 31 May 2007 18:43:18 +0000

A friend of mine, Henrik Brameus, has one of the best .sig files I have seen for a while:

**If you're right 98% of the time, why quibble about the remaining 3%?**

Legislation on Electronic Communication updated

Thu, 31 May 2007 16:56:12 +0000

The IT Minister of Sweden sent out the following press release today. It indicates a press conference on June 1 when proposed changes in the legislation are to be presented.

`Nyheter från www.regeringen.se. Link to heading

Pressmeddelande 31 maj 2007 Näringsdepartementet

Torstensson presenterar förslag på förändringar i lagen om elektronisk kommunikation

Imorgon, fredagen den 1 juni, presenterar infrastrukturminister Åsa Torstensson regeringens förslag på förändringar i lagen om elektronisk kommunikation.

We all know speling is hard

Thu, 31 May 2007 15:47:53 +0000

When having morning coffee at the conference center I spent the last two days at, I saw that speling is hard also in Saltsjöbaden.

Updated: Answer to a comment…yes, the two misspellings of “speling” are intentional.

Better luggage management at CPH?

Thu, 31 May 2007 11:57:16 +0000

This article explain that the luggage management at CPH will be replaced. Some automatic loading systems are to be installed, so it is known where each bag is. In the case a bag has to be removed for example I guess.

My problem at CPH and luggage has nothing to do with loading of the plane, but unloading.

Updated webpage describing what I do

Thu, 31 May 2007 07:54:17 +0000

I have updated the webpage that describe what I have done, what I do etc. Sort of the page where I keep my short bio. Reason for the update is as usual that friends find errors on it. If you find more errors, please let me know.

The main course was good today!

Wed, 30 May 2007 23:50:00 +0000

I am at Vår Gård in Saltsjöbaden outside Stockholm. For main course at dinner, we got cod with shrimps, melted butter and horse radish together with this years fresh potatoes as main course.

It seems I liked it…

What are they building at Fridhemsplan in Stockholm?

Wed, 30 May 2007 23:47:27 +0000

They have been working for a while now, and one might be able to understand the foundation for something, but what is it?

Updated: I have in a comment got a link to the webpage that describe the project. Thanks!

www.xn--visitland-92a.ax anyone?

Wed, 30 May 2007 00:46:18 +0000

GURU, 2001

Wed, 30 May 2007 00:39:16 +0000

Swedens best magazin, GURU, only lived for a few issues in the years 2000 and 2001. Joakim writes about one week in 2001 where things where, hrm, not optimal for the IT industry.

But, as he writes in his blog, when we looked at the complete set of issues, we concluded many of the acrticles could be reprinted today, and people would say “this is good stuff”.

Bonnier, how could you?

Article on the ddos in Estonia

Tue, 29 May 2007 16:12:37 +0000

John Markoff has written an article about the ddos attacks against targets in Estonia. In the article, Hillar Aarelaid, the director of Estonia’s Computer Emergency Response Team that I had the pleasure of meeting in Estonia the other week, is interviewed.

Discussion at the Internet Governance Forum in Geneva

Tue, 29 May 2007 14:13:11 +0000

While travelling home from Geneva, I was thinking quite a lot on the relationship between a ccTLD (registry) and a Country. This because many countries start to talk louder and louder about the responsibilities Countries has on critical infrastructure, or (possibly more important) the management of the critical infrastructure.

Will for example any (none?) of ccTLD operators (servers) sustain a denial of service attack of a scale similar to the attack on the root servers? What can ccTLD operators do to resist the malicious attacks? Should this be discussed?

Sign in Brussels, fun if you know Swedish...

Tue, 29 May 2007 14:00:35 +0000

I do not think I have to explain this. Either you think this is fun, or you do not.

Traces of FRA

Tue, 29 May 2007 13:58:57 +0000

As you know from before I sort of keep my eyes on the legislation on wiretap and FRA. One can now both in Creeper Toplist and as you can see below, here and there in real life, see traces of FRA.

Promoted to front page...

Mon, 28 May 2007 16:50:37 +0000

From now on I will have blog entries on the front page of my home page. It is too hard otherwise to tell people what the URL to the blog is. It is also the case I have not updated the front page for a while.

Labeling of broadband products

Mon, 28 May 2007 16:46:40 +0000

In todays number of Computer Sweden there was an article on a project on labeling of broadband products. The project started as a discussion item within the working group on IT Infrastructure and Broadband, initiated by the Swedish Government IT Policy Advisory Group. The report that is the basis for the recommendation can be found here.

Of course similar work is done for example in ITU-T in the form of Y.1541, but I do not think they measure things that matters for consumers (or for services for that matter).

At last some movement!

Thu, 24 May 2007 17:23:58 +0000

In some places I think the correct organisation take care of the Internet Access. That way one see how important it is to have an IP address.

Legislation on wiretap on wires across country borders stopped

Thu, 24 May 2007 16:34:07 +0000

IDG today write that the negotiations between the Social Democrats and the government has derailed. This implies the new legislation that would make FRA able to wiretap wires that crosses the country boundary at least until 2009.

As I have written before here (March 12, 2007), I think the work that lead to the proposal is weak, and that by itself make many people question that law – without being against the ability to chase criminals.

Problems with SAS in Denmark again?

Thu, 24 May 2007 16:18:10 +0000

There was some strike in SAS Denmark just a few weeks ago. Now in an article I read that the labor organisation in Denmark once again started with a campaign in the press that might lead to a new conflict.

Is it time to stop using SAS, like Electrolux is thinking of?

UN reports on first day of IGF

Thu, 24 May 2007 15:41:53 +0000

The United Nations today released an interview with Markus Kummer, a member of the Secretariat for the IGF.

Internet Governance Forum in November to address access, security issues, UN official says 23 May 2007 – The next meeting of the Internet Governance Forum in November will focus on access, openness, security and diversity, a top United Nations official said today at a press conference in Geneva. Speaking after today’s preparatory consultations for the Forum’s second meeting, which will take place in Rio de Janeiro from 12 to 15 November, Markus Kummer, Executive Coordinator of the Forum’s secretariat, told reporters that the Rio meeting would advance the discussion that had taken place at the first Forum meeting in Athens last November.

Oh, no...no SAS flights!

Thu, 24 May 2007 12:26:14 +0000

I did not even have time to press the submit button for a posting where I was hoping we will not see a strike, the news that there will be no SAS flights tomorrow hit the shelves.

I am lucky I am flying Lufthansa home from Geneva tomorrow.

Updated: Information from SAS on what flights are cancelled can be found here in English and here in Swedish.

Just rumor about strike might be enough

Thu, 24 May 2007 12:00:32 +0000

Just the rumor about the strike make people move from SAS to train and alternative airline companies for travel during the weekend.

Now lets hope there will be no strike.

But, this shows how easy customers of companies move, and change behavior. It is time everyone in a company work together on solving the problems that might arise. Internal disputes should be resolved internally. The most important goal must always be to make the customer happy. If not, customers leave the company, and noone wins. Neither the employer, nor the employee.

Will there be a strike or not?

Thu, 24 May 2007 11:51:36 +0000

Latest news and Kurtis are not related to things SAS do (or not) but Luftfartsverket and air traffic control issues. Ultimately though, it is SAS that is to deliver a product to a customer in a way so that the customer does not end up being disapointed.

Hugh Laurie get The Order of the Brittish Empire

Thu, 24 May 2007 11:40:24 +0000

One of my favorite actors, [get The Order of the Brittish Empire](Hugh Laurie, [[http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/noje/did_15532156.asp).

I first laughed at his work together with Rowan Atkinson. The best one I think is Private Plane, in Blackadder Goes Forth. An episode that also Rik Mayall and Gabrielle Glaister (both of those best in Bells - episode in Blackadder II though) participate in.

Pictures from IGF meeting in Geneva

Thu, 24 May 2007 07:47:51 +0000

You can find pictures from the IGF meeting in Geneva here including pictures from the hotel room I was upgraded to after some issues with the hotel booking. Unfortunately I did not use flash. I hoped the pictures because of that would turn out better, but they did not.

On the picture below you see my friend Ken Lohento, and a friend of his.

Are we having fun yet?

Thu, 24 May 2007 07:29:05 +0000

At the IGF meeting, one can get some interesting exchanges of words now and then. In the transcript of the meeting of May 23 meeting, you can find the following:

`»CHAIRMAN DESAI: The next person I have is Riaz Tayob. Riaz.

RIAZ TAYOB: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am from the Third World Network which enjoys representation in Asia, Latin America and Africa and deals with issues of concern to developing countries. Chairman Desai, congratulations on your reappointment as special advisor to the secretary-general. The points I wish to raise should not detract from the excellent work and commitment shown by the Secretariat. We would prefer that they be taken in the spirit of safeguarding the Internet Governance Forum as one of the legitimate fora that is able to discuss internet related issues.*Some text removed*We therefore wish to emphasize, given the serious concerns raised by the civil society, Internet Governance Caucus on the composition of the advisory group that the Secretariat in all its operations and executions of functions must not only be neutral and transparent but must be seen to be so. Let me explain. We support the proposals for critical Internet resources to be included on the Rio agenda explicitly. We therefore believe it is inappropriate for people or institutions with vested interests or otherwise to play a critical role in the Secretariat’s operations given the sensitivity and importance of this issue to developing countries and civil society organizations. Even at this meeting there are critical roles assigned to people with strong links to the institutions currently in charge of critical Internet resources. This is inappropriate and we believe that the Secretariat should protect itself from any perceptions of a lack of neutrality.*Some text removed*»CHAIRMAN DESAI: Thank you very much for your comments, but I would say that I find your comments about Secretariat depending on people who have connections et cetera, et cetera, quite unacceptable. There are two of us. I don’t think any of us have any such connection. This process has been run openly, transparently and squarely. And I think this type of language which alleges gerrymandering and so on is completely uncalled for, at least as it app place to the processes that we have been following for Athens or for the process here. And I can assure you that the Secretariat consists of just Markus Kummer and one other person, and that’s me, and none of us have any connection with any such process. We are here simply to facilitate this whole exercise. Can I call on the gentleman from Fujitsu. Would you like to –

IGF in Geneva

Wed, 23 May 2007 17:04:50 +0000

The transcripts from the morning sessions are now available.

Afternoon session was more fun, so I will not point at specific incidents in the morning session.

Updated:The link now refers to the full transcript and not only the morning session.

Electrolux threaten to leave SAS

Wed, 23 May 2007 16:51:09 +0000

In an article in SvD one can read that Electrolux CEO send a letter to the CEO of SAS saying they want to continue to fly with SAS, but given the number of strikes and delayed flights, they see no other solution than to boycott SAS. Specifically if the now announced strike starts on Friday.

Brevet, som är undertecknat av Hans Stråberg och inleds med “Broder”, är riktat till Anders Ehrling, vd för SAS Sverige. I brevet uttrycker Stråberg sin oro inför strejken på fredag och skriver att det i längden är en situation som inte är acceptabel. Update: Kurtis also writes about this is his blog:

IPv6 - Its a floorvax AND dessert topping

Wed, 23 May 2007 15:18:59 +0000

Sitting in Geneva at an Internet Governance Forum meeting and try to explain to people how the Internet works. In parallell I have discussions with people that think IPv4 addresses allocated today will stop working the day IANA hand out the last IPv4 address block to the Regional Registries. In the middle of this discussion, I am pointed at a blog entry by Kurtis Lindqvist that really say the truth. Read it!

Interview with me regarding the attack on the Swedish Government Website

Tue, 22 May 2007 16:03:48 +0000

So, after I wrote about the issue here I was interviewed by IDG. I simply said I did not trust the person that was the spokesperson from the Swedish Government.

Swedish Government Web down due to looping web browser?

Mon, 21 May 2007 14:28:47 +0000

In an article today Aftonbladet explain that the Swedish Government Website died due to high load. The load was created by a client in Skövde that was requesting an image, and because of that overloaded the server according to Karin Hedman that is webmaster at Information Rosenbad. Skövde is by the way just outside of Grönköping.

"Well done" Adobe -- forgot to turn on firewall

Sun, 20 May 2007 16:17:13 +0000

In this security notice Adobe explain they forget to turn back firewall on, if they had to turn it off during installation of the CS3 package.

On Mac OS X, customers can turn on a personal firewall to control how Internet services communicate with their systems. During the installation of Adobe Creative Suite 3, the installer sets TCP ports 3703, 3704, 50900, and 50901, in accordance with Apple’s specification, to allow controlled access to Adobe Version Cue CS3 Server through the Mac OS X firewall service. To be granted access to these ports, the installer must first turn off the personal firewall. Currently, it is not automatically re-activating the firewall once it sets up Version Cue CS3 Server, creating a potential security vulnerability.

Square dance in Sjöbo

Sun, 20 May 2007 14:26:34 +0000

This years convention of Square Dance in Sweden took place in Sjöbo. We had some friends staying with us, so I went over to take some pictures. Ystads Allehanda wrote an article about it.

Hard question in Expressen quiz

Sat, 19 May 2007 10:45:40 +0000

Expressen today have a quiz where one should guess a country given the contour of the map. Some questions where much harder than others.

What do you say about question 20:

Or number 21:

I had 11 correct out of 22, and given what I think I know about Geography, I think there are some more errors on this application than those two questions.

The tax payers have to pay 33 billion SEK for Gallileo

Thu, 17 May 2007 18:32:51 +0000

I wrote earlier that the Galileo system is in economical crisis. In an article today, Christer Berner say that the tax payers will pay, and that the EC will find the money. This is going from bad (at the start of the project) via worse to really really bad.

Peter Örn leaving post as CEO of Swedish Radio (SR)

Wed, 16 May 2007 09:50:31 +0000

Many people are asking me for a comment on Peter Örn leaving the position as head of Sveriges Radio. I think first of all it is always sad when someone is leaving because of disputes. I have spent quite some time with Peter, talking about various things (distribution of radio most of all of course) and to some degree understand why his view has been as it has.

His advisors, many of them long time SR staff, had started varuous projects like DAB many years before Peter came on board. Rumors say SR is even stuck in long term contracts. Contracts that of course are not really what you want when the economy is already under pressure. How much a board that for too long did hold on to the traditional way of distributing radio influenced Peter is of course impossible to know. A good CEO do whatever they can to fuilfil whatever the board decides, but a CEO of course at the same time have to advice the board on what the organisation is capable of doing.

Morning in Skåne

Wed, 16 May 2007 06:15:40 +0000

When driving to CPH this morning (on my way to Brussels) the sun just came over the horizon. +5C only, so fog was still rolling over the hills.

Twins?

Tue, 15 May 2007 23:02:46 +0000

The picture did not turn out as good as I was hoping, but when I picked up my car at the airport, an exactly the same car was standing beside it. Well, I lie. The engine in the cars where different, but year, color, windows etc where exactly the same.

SAS has more problems, but not their fault!

Tue, 15 May 2007 23:00:21 +0000

When flying south today from Stockholm, the flight was delayed (again). One could think SAS was to blame, and sure many people said I will take the train next time (as if SJ was better), but I think Luftfartsverket and the lack of ATC people was creating the delay. On top of the lack of personel, rumors say the ATC people want more than 22% rise, or else they will go on strike.

Internet for everyone?

Tue, 15 May 2007 13:15:50 +0000

Amar Andersson sent the following note to me. I think this might be a general notice to be posted at more occations than one might think…


ACHTUNG - ALLES LOOKENPEEPERS

Das Internet is nicht fuer gefingerclickend und
giffengrabben. Ist easy droppenpacket der Routers
und overloaden der Backbone mit der spammen und der
me-tooen. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei die Dummkopfen.
Die mausklicken Sichtseeren keepen das Bandwidth-spewen
Hands in die Pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das
cursorblinken.

Large hotel in Gothenburg

Mon, 14 May 2007 23:19:40 +0000

It is good we get a hotel/conference center of medium size in Sweden as described in an article in SvD. The unfortunate thing is that travel is so difficult to Gothenburg. Not many direct international flights.

FRA and the "IB-affären" - Oscar Swartz writes good words!

Mon, 14 May 2007 07:48:33 +0000

On last page of Computer Sweden today, Oscar Swartz compare the discussion about IB from 1970’s with todays discussion about FRA and their request for extended ability to wiretap. For people that do not remember, Jan Guillou and some others wrote in FIB/Kulturfront about how FRA did register people that for example where members in communist organisations in Sweden. The journalists ended up in jail.

Unfortunately I can not find the article online - yet. So buy some dead trees.

ISPs only carry the traffic

Mon, 14 May 2007 07:37:38 +0000

In an article in Computer Sweden do not completely agree with (or do not understand, or both).

SAS Website broken again

Sun, 13 May 2007 12:04:53 +0000

This time I did even buy a ticket via the SAS website, and not using a travel agency. I also got an SMS telling me I can check in via the web, SMS or by calling. Still it doesn’t work. This is amazing, just amazing.

Selling TeliaSonera too fast?

Fri, 11 May 2007 09:33:58 +0000

Anne-Marie Pålsson (m), Sven Bergström (c) och Annelie Enochsson (kd) in an article in DN say that they can not understand the government policy on selling Telia. I sort of understand their worries, BUT they miss some important issues.

For example, they write the following:

En annan komplikation står att finna hos Försvarsmakten. Också den använder accessnätet för sin kommunikation, varför varje dominerande ägare av nätet måste sekretessprövas. Denna uppgift är lösbar så länge som den svenska staten har kontroll över bolaget. Men vad händer när staten sålt sin andel i bolaget? Vem kommer att äga bolaget och nätet i andra, tredje och fjärde hand?

Birthday!

Thu, 10 May 2007 09:10:49 +0000

At the RIPE Meeting people did remember my birthday!

RIPE in Tallinn

Wed, 09 May 2007 16:48:09 +0000

As I have said before here, RIPE has its 54th meeting in Tallinn, Estonia.

Memories from KTH...

Wed, 09 May 2007 11:27:54 +0000

Merike Kaeo had some old drawings of network connectivity in Estonia on paper, and on one of them I found the connection to KTH…

No problems in Tallinn!

Wed, 09 May 2007 11:26:01 +0000

Although the press in Sweden report they expect trouble in Tallinn today, I do not see anything special when looking out the hotel window. Last night I was at the Estonian Cert to wait for May 9 to start (although of course it was unclear what timezone one should be afraid of). Yes, an attack started, but the Cert was prepared, and the size of the attack was not larger than what one could take care of.

When will we see the first phishing from SEB?

Wed, 09 May 2007 11:18:23 +0000

A list of credit card numbers managed to get loose from a bank in Sweden. The bank now explain they will contact all the holders of these cards and ask them to go to the bank to get a new card.

I ask myself how long time it will take before we see email scams that ask people to please send your credit card details to some interesting email address.

Swedish Minister pushing same broken politics as previous government

Wed, 09 May 2007 10:31:31 +0000

The Swedish Minister of Justice Beatrice Ask is in an interview in Computer Sweden (Swedish only) saying ISPs are to be responsible for content on the Internet. This is exactly the same (bad) ideas as the minister of Justice of the previous government had. We have had an election, people voted on a different government, but we have the same broken ideas. Is this because the idea is cemented into the walls of the Ministry of Justice?

RIPE-54

Tue, 08 May 2007 15:36:50 +0000

At RIPE 54 in Tallinn, Estonia, Double Shot Security sponsor some gifts…

Galileo grounded?

Tue, 08 May 2007 15:28:42 +0000

As you can see in this article by BBC, the Galileo system is in a deep crisis. Galileo is supposed to be in service around 2011-2012, but now it seems there are problems already when the 2nd satellite is to be launched.

Hope is receding that a private consortium asked to run the system can end its infighting and meet a 10 May deadline to move the project forward.
This is likely to mean European taxpayers stepping in to cover costs.

ISP TeliaSonera move their email servers to Finland

Tue, 08 May 2007 14:24:38 +0000

According to an article in Ny Teknik, TeliaSonera is moving their email servers from Sweden to Finland This because there is a proposal in Sweden that let the agency FRA wiretap wired connections crossing the country boundary of Sweden, TeliaSonera move their email servers to Finland. This because customers in Finland (including public sector) is threatening moving from TeliaSonera.

Of course we need to be able to fight criminals in Sweden, but as I have written before, this whole case have been managed extremely poorly by the Swedish Government. Coordination could have been better between the various proposals that touch wiretap and data retention. As it is now, this whole question is for the press like offering candy to kids, and at the end of the day companies like TeliaSonera is forced to make decisions just because they risk loosing customers due to the work journalists and the press produce.

Creeper

Tue, 08 May 2007 10:27:39 +0000

Creeper is an online service that keep track of access to webpages from certain IP address blocks. The idea is that people by placing the icon on a webpage get access to that page logged, and categorized according to what IP address blocks are accessing the image.

The idea is to collect some data on access to webpages from the police etc in Sweden, as part of the integrity debate.

IT based attack on a country

Mon, 07 May 2007 14:58:23 +0000

Kurtis has written a post in his blog about the current situation in Estonia, and link that with a presentation we had at Internetdagarna fall of 2006. It is scary to see that what now is happening in Estonia is so similar to the scenario we described (that no one believed could happen).

Presentation on status of IT Policy in the Swedish Government

Mon, 07 May 2007 14:47:06 +0000

In about half an hour (after the coffee break) I will together with Maria Häll present the current status of IT Policy and the Swedish Government. You can find the presentation here. My part of the presentation has to do with marking of broadband products, and implementation of the data retention directive in Sweden.

RIPE Meeting number 54

Mon, 07 May 2007 14:44:21 +0000

After having a delayed flight from Stockholm to Tallinn, because of late incoming aircraft (probably due to lack of staff at Arlanda Airport), I safely arrived to the hotel where the 54th RIPE Meeting is held.

Issues with SAS - Again

Mon, 07 May 2007 05:44:03 +0000

The stories around SAS just continue and continue. Today I arrived early at CPH to catch a flight at 06.20. First problem was that I got yesterday the normal sms message that tell me I can check in over the Internet (or via SMS etc). I struggled with browsers because of the broken website of SAS, and when finally entering the correct data I get the message that Checking in over the Internet is not possible, But, I just got a message telling me I should check in!

Battery problems in MacBook Pro 15"

Sun, 06 May 2007 21:03:36 +0000

I bought one of the first Intel based MacBook Pro that came out. This implied I got one of the batteries Apple have recalled. I found out some weird problems with the battery, and walked into the AppleStore in Palo Alto. After talking with support people there, they did some lookups and without asking any questions replaced the battery for me. About a week later, Apple officially started the recall program.

About two weeks ago, the (new) battery started to act weird again. After running on battery for about 5 minutes the computer shuts off. And I mean really shuts off. Not into suspend mode. I do have the Battery Update 1.2 installed.

B&B in Skåne, Sweden

Sun, 06 May 2007 10:21:53 +0000

I think SvD in an article has forgot a few really good places for B&B.

Åsargården - Bäretofta Gård

09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0

Sun, 06 May 2007 09:52:39 +0000

Most of the readers of this blog has already seen the discussion about the code needed to break the encryption on HD-DVD records. See for example this article in The New York Times or this story in Wired for the story. What is interesting is that Digg, where the whole story started, has changed their mind.

**UPDATE:**Wired have a new article that explain the current status. An article that also contain the code itself.

Snooker World Championship

Sat, 05 May 2007 18:59:44 +0000

Ok, I am giving up. The third person I thought would win lost. This time Stephen Macguire that lost against John Higgins.

The people still in the tournament are Shaun Murphy and Mark Selby in the 2nd semi final, and then of course John Higgings that already is in the final.

I do not dare to say who I think will win…

Regulation without teeth?

Sat, 05 May 2007 08:19:52 +0000

Not only Sweden have problems with regulative decisions that does not have any impact on the market. Also the EU seems to have problems. In a Reuters article one can read that EU to send final broadband warning to Germany. The issue is that the EU (and noone else I have talked with) like the decision made by the German Regulator to give Deutche Telekom “Regulative Holiday” regarding new DSL services. Deutche Telekom asked the regulator to not be forced to sell bitstream access for a while after new faster DSL services was introduced. And thre regulator said that was ok.

Snooker World Championship

Sat, 05 May 2007 08:09:54 +0000

Friday, in the 20th frame of the semi final, Maguire made 11-9 over Higgins after an almost 1 hour long demonstration of defensive play that most certainly will go to history. Only in the middle of the frame, Higgins had some chance of winning, but switching from defensive to offensive play was too hard for him. Maguire in reality, I claim, had things under control all along. Most impressive was the last but one shot in the frame. He pot blue, had white do 2 walls, go over the table, passing black with less than 1/2 of an inch, and stopped perfectly for a safe shot on pink.

Yes, an MD-80

Sat, 05 May 2007 08:03:07 +0000

When flying from Malmö (MMX) to Stockholm (ARN) we where flying an MD-80 family type of plane. The one SAS, Alaska Airlines and American have so many of.

Cisco office in Stockholm

Sat, 05 May 2007 07:58:08 +0000

When flying in over Stockholm Thursday morning, I got a picture over the area where the Cisco office in Stockholm is (just south of Liljeholmsbron). Cisco office is in the red:ish rightmost building.

Still cold in the mornings

Sat, 05 May 2007 07:56:42 +0000

It is warm during the days (high around 20C/70F) but it is cold in the mornings (0C/32F).

Snooker World Championship

Wed, 02 May 2007 22:14:00 +0000

In the World Championship of Snooker both of my favorites lost. Ronnie O’Sullivan and Stephen Hendry. My guess is, given the excellent play tonight, that Stephen Maguire will win.

This Twingly is kind of cool...

Wed, 02 May 2007 17:48:12 +0000

The service Twingly is kind of cool. If I for example comment on an article in a newspaper that uses Twingly, the website of the newspaper will automagically get a link to my blog as you can see on the image below. This implies the newspaper automatically get back tracks to all blogs that comment on the article. Only time will tell exactly how good this service will be.

A new character in Unicode?

Wed, 02 May 2007 17:39:43 +0000

My friend Lars-Johan Liman at Cafax took this picture and sent it to me. He carefully points out he does not recognize the character that probably would be a COMMERCIAL AT WITH RING ABOVE. A suggestion for Unicode version 19?

UPDATE: Lars-Johan Liman has found the website for this company. They use this character on their site, which I think is kind of cool.

About time Luftfartsverket is looking for more staff

Wed, 02 May 2007 11:55:32 +0000

An article in Svenska Dagbladet after one of the more delayed flights this spring.

I fly to ARN from MMX or KID almost every week, and this winter has been a complete disaster.

Maybe this is one more reason to deregulate the air traffic control in Europe, so that the same organisation for example could manage more than one airport although they are in different countries (MMX, KID and CPH for example) and then move staff if needed at time of sickness.

Data over 3G really works...

Wed, 02 May 2007 08:40:11 +0000

I have earlier explained the size of the small USB modem I use for 3G access. One day I used 3G in Stockholm, and forgot to turn it off during the night. Very convinient when I woke up, as I immediately could check my email. So, maybe this is the time when one can be connected 24 hours a day?

Apple Security Update - WPA support, at last

Wed, 02 May 2007 08:35:49 +0000

Now Apple as well as many others have support for WPA and WPA2. That was good, as some hardware vendors have support already, which imply policy on some enterprise networks is that WPA and WPA2 must be used. This update make it possible for people that use MacOSX can use the wireless network.

Website responsible for crisis exercise crashed

Wed, 02 May 2007 08:32:08 +0000

Some days ago KBM in Sweden hosted a crisis exercise that involved among others the Government itself. They had problems though, the website they used for the exercise crashed.

Maybe next time KBM should have an exercise by themselves first…

Separation of the layers in the Internet Architecture

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 13:05:19 +0000

I have not talked much on this blog about the two very important decisions made by the Swedish Government lately. The first decision was on April 19 regarding separation of the access network from the services. The regulator PTS is to report back no later than June 15. The second decision was on April 26 regarding a more effective process related to regulatiive decisions.

Both of these decisions by the government show to me something is happening in Sweden.

Clogs are more and more popular (again)

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:59:26 +0000

Yesterday, I saw this ad in a newspaper.

Swedish embassy in Tokyo and Wikipedia

Mon, 30 Apr 2007 09:57:53 +0000

An article in Svenska Dagbladet say the Swedish Embassy in Tokyo in a PM about Manga copied text from Wikipedia without indicating the source. It is of course hard to know exactly where the data in many articles in Wikipedia is coming from as references sometimes is missing there. On the other hand, “just” saying it was from Wikipedia should be enough. If people do not agree with the information, one can change it.

Snooker World Championship

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 18:50:26 +0000

If you like I want to follow the results of the world championship in Snooker, you might also be irritated that the official site requires registration before interesting content is available.

Instead, you can have a look at the excellent site of Eurosport.

BTW, I think O’Sullivan will win, although I hope Hendry will make it far in the tournament.

Interesting new URL format

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 17:08:40 +0000

I guess some editing software has automatically added www and com to whatever it thought was a URL. Later this text has passed all proof reading stages, and finally ended up on the back of a bottle of ketchup. May I say I do not like software that “try to help” the user? Indicating what might be a misspelling is one thing, “correcting” is another.

What is the speed of light?

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:47:08 +0000

In an ad one can see From Riksgränsen to Stockholm in 2 milliseconds. Most fiber in Sweden is laid along the railroad tracks. According to this map the distance is 1418km.

To know what time it would take for light to travel to Stockholm, we have to first of all look at the speed of light in a fiber. We say it is 2.14*108m/s. The time it would take is for the light to travel along this fiber would be 6.6ms.

To post or not to post, that is the question

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:23:12 +0000

In Stockholm I fould this mailbox. Question is whether mail should be dropped there or not? I presume the hand written note (Do not use this mailbox) override the information about the mailbox.

Interesting new records are released, every day...

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:08:52 +0000

At Lövestad Marknad, I found a new CD that I do not want.

Tired of spam?

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:04:11 +0000

I am so tired of spam. Not only the electronic one that comes in email, but also the real one. A mailbox with the note Ingen reklam (no ads please) still get spam.

Bug in Drupal...no blogs...

Sun, 29 Apr 2007 16:01:23 +0000

After upgrading PHP, Perl, Apache etc, I found out I could no longer blog with Drupal. After a lot of fighting, use of Google etc, I fould out it was not only me having problems.

After a while, I found a patch someone had applied, and I took the chance of applying it. Note that patch did not like the format of the patch itself, so emacs had to do the job.

Counting is hard, nine or ten?

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 09:25:08 +0000

One of the funniest countings that exists is of course when the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioc is to be used in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.

Updated version of my view of the future of the Internet

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 08:50:00 +0000

This version was presented at the yearly meeting of the Swedish Municipal Networks Association (Stadsnätsföreningen).

My finger hurts...

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 09:35:36 +0000

Last Saturday we got some 18kg of cod from a friends friend. On Sunday I cut the fish, but of course cut myself as well… I taped the finger, but this morning it started to hurt (again). When removing the tape, the cut opened, and that actually made things feel better again. I guess I had got some infection. Now I will try to keep the finger without any tape, although it will be hard to not open the cut again, and again and…

Cold, but nice, when fetching morning newspaper

Thu, 12 Apr 2007 08:01:03 +0000

I have about 250 meters to walk to reach the postbox where the morning newspaper arrives. Not so nice when it is windy and cold. Today it was “only” cold.

Where in the world is ATT?

Tue, 10 Apr 2007 12:57:29 +0000

This small village is in Skåne, Sweden, and clearly it tells where ATT is, in the USA.

Swedish MacWorld claim shell commands are easter eggs

Mon, 09 Apr 2007 11:23:28 +0000

In this article in Swedish MacWorld, the journalist claim one can find “secret easter eggs” in the Terminal program. You find them by “copy and paste” special code into the window, and voila, you can get tetris (in emacs), and calendar events. Wow! Visste du att det finns närmare trettio spel gömda i Terminalen? Eller att det finns en dold kalender med viktiga händelser i historien? Det är bara två exempel på så kallade påskägg som uttråkade programmerare lagt in i Mac OS X.

Once again journalists are mixing up layers in the protocol stack

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 12:41:16 +0000

In an article in Aftonbladet it is described that the email service of the Incumbent Telia has crashed. This of course happens anyone that provide email services.

The trouble I have is that the article then goes on and ask what people think about their Internet Service Provider, and ask whether people think their Internet Access works well.

Yes, many people do buy email from the same provider that provides the Internet Access, but it is about time journalists do understand the difference, and stop mixing up things like this. How do they think normal people will be able to buy the best services from the best provider otherwise? One large difference from the “default” bundled email one can get from the Internet Service Provider is normally that one get a domain name that belongs to the ISP. This implies one have to change email address when/if one move email from for example Telia.

After the fire

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:13:58 +0000

After the fire, there was not much left of the building that had a roof made out of grass. I also found out Ystads Allehanda, the local newspaper, wrote about the fire.

Large fire just south of Lövestad

Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:21:22 +0000

When driving home after visiting some art people, we saw a farm being on fire. Pretty close to where we live. Click on the image below to see more pictures.

Is Tetra/Rakel good enough?

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 17:16:18 +0000

In an article in Ny Teknik (Swedish) it is noticed that the police in Sweden will start testing Rakel again. This after some software changes has increased the quality of the sound when using the system.

I do understand (sort of) that one did choose a separate system (and neither 3G, nor GSM) for what Rakel is to be used for when one made the initial investigation, but the question is whether today, 10 years later, the same decision would have been made?

Lack of personnel delays flights in Sweden

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 09:21:21 +0000

As described in many articles, for example this one in Svenska Dagbladet, Luftfartsverket have problems finding staff for the air traffic control at Arlanda Airport. This morning, my flight ended up being about 30 minutes late from Malmö due to such problems. The pilot was not happy, and blamed LFV over and over again, pointing out that SAS looses about 2000SEK per minute just because LFV is saving money.

I heard similar complaints from Skyways on the radio last week.

Is PTS violating the law in Sweden?

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 08:35:09 +0000

PTS, the Swedish National Post and Telecom Agency has given the right to Teracom AB to send radio according to the (old) DAB standard in Stockholm. As you can see on this page, Teracom AB has requested at PTS to send radio (Ansökan om korttidstillstånd för digital ljudrundradio, 2007-03-29). Yesterday (April 1) it was found out that Teracom is sending Radio100FM, a Danish radio station on channel 12C.

This is according to what I understand weird, as approval of sending radio is a decision that according to information from Radio och TV-Verket (Swedish Radio and TV Authority) only the Government can make.

Very specific constraints - is this not so much 20th century?

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 14:31:19 +0000

Of course any website have to make decisions on what browsers to support etc. But I thought all such calculations today (2007, not 1997) lead to better list of supported software than this.

Broken Mail.App

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 10:56:16 +0000

Mail.App is really broken when it breaks. The unfortunate thing is that the application itself does not notice when an index is broken. Two examples on what happens when things break:

The information in the index of sender, date etc is not correct. If one look in the list of email, and compare with information in the mail, you will see they differ.
See the picture, I think that should be enough…

Delete Duplicates from MacOSX Calendar

Sun, 01 Apr 2007 10:27:38 +0000

Some people on a mailinglist for MacOSX asked about mechanisms for removing duplicates from the Calendar application in MacOSX. I have been using this AppleScript for a while, and it works for me. I have not written it from scratch myself, and unfortunately I do not remember where I found it the first time. My apologies for not referencing the original creator.

I sent this script to the mailing list, but some people say they where not able to receive it correctly. Because of this, here is a zipped version.

A musical that is dubbed?

Fri, 30 Mar 2007 09:45:40 +0000

In Sweden we have very few dubbed movies. We normally have subtexts instead. For children most movies are dubbed though, and there is on those (few) movies normally a tag line stating “Everyone speak Swedish”. In Malmö (or Malme), at Slagthuset, I saw this advert that say “Everyone speak Skånska”, where Skånska is the dialect spoken in Scania (Skåne in Swedish).

Where in the world am I?

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 11:03:30 +0000

In Malmö or Malme? Of course both, as my friend Joakim Jardenberg.

Yet another Internet Conference without free Internet access

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 10:20:04 +0000

I just arrived at the conference in Sweden for The Swedish Urban Network Association yearly conference in Malmö, Sweden. When checking what wireless networks where available, I found TheCloud. That made sense as they when checking in handed out vouches for “15 minutes free Internet Access”. 15 minutes, that is not really enough for me during a day. I could take more than one, but still?

Solution of course ended up being that I dial up using 3G, and open an access point using Internet Sharing in MacOSX. People around me are happy. In the intermission we must talk with the organizer, because I must have misunderstood something. Until then, I use my own Internet access.

Bush comedy: "Who is the new leader in China?"

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 07:31:25 +0000

This classic was something I found on my laptop when “cleaning up”.

Two geeks that like Bruichladdich

Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:57:00 +0000

One day at the IETF, without synchronization, both Jim Reid and I had the T-shirt we got at The Bruichladdich Academy that we visited together fall of 2006.

Our friend Gordon Lennox took this picture.

No jacket needed at Arlanda Airport!

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 16:40:44 +0000

The site http://www.doineedajacket.com/ is a really cool site, if it did the correct calculations…or rather, if it is 5119 degrees celsius, I probably need a jacket – of asbestos.

What can a regulator do regarding Network Neutrality?

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 14:20:29 +0000

The short summary of my view is as follows. For consumers it is important to be able to access the services they wish to access. And of course themseleves provide the services they choose to provide.

These two things are enough (I think/claim):

Ensure the consumer knows the quality of the Internet access she get, and not only the access to the access providers network.
Ensure the competition is efficient regarding services, so that services that are bundled with the access do compete in a fair manner with services that are accessed via “the Internet access”.

Network Neutrality: Avoiding a Net Loss

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 11:28:58 +0000

Robert Pepper, former at FCC in the USA and now with Cisco, writes in this article about enpowering the user, and arguments behind Cisco view on Network Neutrality.

Network Neutrality: Avoiding a Net Loss By Robert Pepper
TechNewsWorld
03/14/07 4:00 AM PT To average Internet users, the battle over network neutrality must seem quite confusing, if not downright opaque. They must wonder: What’s all the fuss about? After all, to this point, the Internet has been an unqualified success, adopted faster and used more creatively than almost any other technology in human history. For more than a year, the issue of network neutrality has taken up a tremendous amount of time and attention in both Washington, D.C., and Silicon Valley. In fact, it may be the single most engrossing subject currently tying together policy interests in these two distinct parts of the country. Unfortunately, one key constituency often seems left out of this heated debate: the Internet consumer. This oversight is striking since it is end users who, each day, rely on the Internet to conduct their work and personal lives. What policies should be enacted to ensure their maximum choice and flexibility? Consumer empowerment is where the debate should begin – and end.

ISOC Chair protected by a pig!

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 11:03:43 +0000

ISOC Board got a present from our friends in China, that also said that the Academy of Sciences in China expressed their interest in becoming a member of ISOC. The present was of course a pig, as we are in the year of the pig.

Naturally, our Chair made sure the meeting get good protection and luck from the pig.

ISOC on User Centric Internet

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 10:28:54 +0000

The Internet Society (ISOC) released a document on User Centric Internet.

The Internet today faces a range of challenges that could impact the distributed, end-to-end and open nature that users have come to take for granted. Some of these challenges are service and architecture related, including but not limited to the Network Neutrality debate in the United States, initiatives on Next Generation Networks, and the discussion in Europe and elsewhere over the future of access regulation (unbundling) and competition. Other challenges relate to the impact changes in Internet usage patterns and the explosion of content consumption and creation are having on Internet architecture and business models.

Injunction against VoIP, i.e. Verizon is happy

Sat, 24 Mar 2007 07:09:50 +0000

This is an interesting case. Verizon claiming to have many patents around VoIP, and claim Vonage was violating them. A court earlier this year said they did violate some patents (and I think that is weird). This might have great impact not only on Vonage, but on deployment on VoIP as a whole.

Budweiser

Fri, 23 Mar 2007 09:41:12 +0000

In Prague, they have Budweiser. The Czech version of it. The story behind the trademark Budweiser is kind of interesting, and a discussion that have been going on for many years.

Anheuser-Busch started using the Budweiser brand in 1876 and registered it two years later – more than 19 years before Budejovicky Budvar (brewer of Budvar) was established in 1895. It was not until the 1960s that Budvar started using “Budweiser” prominently on its label – long after A-B built Budweiser into an internationally recognized name for beer.

New chair of IAOC

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 18:27:56 +0000

More people are changing hats. My friend Kurt-Erik Lindqvist, also known as Kurtis, is the new chair of IAOC (IETF Administrative Oversight Committee).

No nuts -- at the excellent Hilton in Prague

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:43:02 +0000

On the mailing list for the IETF-68 attendees, I thanked for the fruit, but asked for cookies without nuts, and that they where labeled. Today, a few hours after I asked for it, this excellent hotel had solved the problem.

This IETF is one of the best so far.

Sign in Prague

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:40:02 +0000

On some doors, there are more strange signs than on other doors.

IETF-68 in Prague

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:38:28 +0000

The 68th IETF has started in Prague. You can find my pictures from the trip here.

New IAB Chair: Olaf Kolkman

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 16:24:37 +0000

My friend Olaf Kolkman just replaced my friend Leslie Daigle as chair for the Internet Architecture Board. An article describing the event can be found here. Leslie has been the chair since 2002 (during all of my time on IAB for example).

OECD meeting in The Hague

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 09:40:25 +0000

Here is the room where the OECD meeting is held in The Hague, Netherlands. In a few minutes, I will present the report from the working group of IT Infrastructure and Broadband.

Report from working group IT Infrastructure and Broadband at OECD meeting

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 21:26:02 +0000

On March 16, I at an OECD meeting in The Hague presented the result from the working group of IT Infrasctructure and Broadband that I was chair of 2004-2006.

The actual report can be found here.

In April 2004 the Government´s IT Policy Strategy Group set up a working group on IT infrastructure and broadband. The primary task of the working group has been to support the Strategy Group by working, within the framework of a free market, for futureproof, accessible, competitionneutral, technologyneutral and coherent electronic communications networks, which are capable of meeting the challenges of the future. This report summarises the discussions and proposals.

Presentation at a hearing in Brussels

Thu, 15 Mar 2007 07:37:13 +0000

On Mar 14, I was talking at a hearing in Brussels regarding implementation of the Data Retention Directive. Here are the words I wrote before I walked up and actually said some words. This implies what I said was not exactly what I wrote here, although there are some similiarities.

Implementation of Data Retention in Brussels

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 12:27:44 +0000

Today I am at a meeting with the European Comission related to implementation of the Data Retention directive.

MacOSX 10.4.9 released

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 11:30:59 +0000

Apple at last released version 10.4.9. Release notes can be found here.

Interesting things for me include:

Event notes are now synced between iCal and Nokia N70 phones.
Adds iSync support for more devices.

Otherwise, not much exciting no explicit mentioning of fixes of Mail.App. Is it time to change email client? I guess we all are waiting for Leopard.

.AX

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 15:39:31 +0000

This is the first public use of the .AX TLD I have seen. On the other hand, I have not been on Åland for a while…

Has FBI misused their rights after 9/11 regarding wiretap?

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 11:44:09 +0000

My friend Thomas Gilså has written an interesting article on how FBI has acted after 9/11.

USA:s federala polis, FBI, misstänks ha missbrukat de utökade rättigheter de fick till övervakning efter attackerna 11 september 2001. FBI-chefen argumenterar inte emot rapporten utan lovar snabba utredningar och förändringar.

Web people like blogs better than paper people

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 11:27:16 +0000

In this article, Expressen has critisized the fact the Foreign Minister of Sweden, Carl Bildt, have a blog.

What we now see is that the web part of Expressen like this, but the paper does not…

SAS Website is broken -- again

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:52:52 +0000

The SAS Website is better today than 2-3 years ago, but is still now and then broken.

What is that task of FRA, and what should the police do?

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 09:09:15 +0000

This article in Sydsvenskan (in Swedish) ask the correct question: What is the task of FRA and what is the task of the police? In Sweden today, FRA is the organisation that have the ability to “wiretap” communication that crosses the boundary of Sweden. The police on the other hand is the one that wiretap communication internal in Sweden, between for example two parties in Sweden. The police can not wiretap without a court order though. This because we think it is important for integrity and privacy reasons.

Making wiretap visible

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 08:56:36 +0000

Gizmodo today found that Louisa Bufardeci have among all her installations stitched wiretaps of 1 minute each from actual phone conversations.

Warrantless, wireless, telephone tapping – how does it affect the home-sweet-homeliness of the domestic space? 13 captured telephone conversations - all one minute long captures the sense of paranoia generated by the idea that anyone could be listening in, anytime. These particular thirteen conversations are sourced from a mixture of conversations history known to have been tapped, conversations from my private home, and conversations between abstract people.

Input filter -- Wiki style links in Drupal

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 07:32:31 +0000

I have written an input filter for Drupal that make it possible to have links specified in Wiki-style. This implies [[URI][Text]] is changed to Text.

If you are interested in getting the module, you can find it attached to this blog entry.

Test new kind of filter in drupal...

Sun, 11 Mar 2007 17:30:37 +0000

I ask myself whether Frobbit link will work if not. preg_replace is not easy to understand, and neither is caching in Drupal.\r\n\r\nIt seems to work. Lets try with one more link.

What is dangerous with a blog?

Fri, 09 Mar 2007 10:10:31 +0000

In an article in Svenska Dagbladet it is pointed out that now two ministers in Sweden, Carl Bildt and Maud Olofsson are blogging.

The interesting thing in the article in SvD is that it points out that another newspaper, Expressen, in an interview say the blog is dangerous.

Is that because the journalists can no longer filter and quote “out of context”? A blog is nothing more, nothing less, than having the minister talking at a normal open meeting.

Also on TV news yesterday...

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 07:04:37 +0000

I also ended up on Swedish Television yesterday, where I explained (in Swedish) that one is naive if one believe one can know what data is actually between parties in Sweden and not when communicating. It was Rapport that interviewed me.

ICANN Successfully Conducts Laboratory Tests of Internationalised Domain Names

Thu, 08 Mar 2007 06:47:06 +0000

The laboratory tests that ICANN have asked Autonomica is done. The report state there are no problems at all, which was for me not a surprise.

Autonomica AB has, under a contract with ICANN, investigated whether the addition of top level domains containing encoded internationalized characters (so called IDNs) would have any impact on the operations of the root name servers providing delegations, or the iterative mode resolvers used to look up the information. No impact at all could be detected. All involved systems behaved exactly as expected.

Much better quote...

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 12:24:44 +0000

This article in IDG (in Swedish) much better point out what issues I see with the proposal regarding FRA ability to wiretap.

Let me explain in Swedish (quote from a private mail I sent):

*IDG har citerat mig “på ett mer korrekt sätt” anser jag. Den artikeln är bra. Speciellt i och med att de även citerar det som FRA tidigare sagt.

NU påstår FRA och Ministern som ni ser att de aldrig sagt att de har 100%-igt skydd, och att det därför är viktigt att FRA har rutiner att kasta bort information som de hittar av misstag.

Critique of the proposal to extend FRA mission

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 07:46:45 +0000

I was interviewed yesterday by the Swedosh Radio (Ekot) about the proposal to extend the mandate for FRA to listen not only on radio that cross the boundary of Sweden, but also wires.

My critique is based on the fact communication between parties in Sweden sometimes passes the boundary.

Article and radio in Swedish can be found here.

Sir Timothy Berners-Lee on how Internet works

Tue, 06 Mar 2007 13:21:18 +0000

At a hearing before the United States House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, Sir Tim Berners-Lee said some good words on for example Separation of Layers.

C. Separation of Layers When, seventeen years ago, I designed the Web, I did not have to ask anyone’s permission. The Web, as a new application, rolled out over the existing Internet without any changes to the Internet itself. This is the genius of the design of the Internet, for which I take no credit. Applying the age old wisdom of design with interchangeable parts and separation of concerns, each component of the Internet and the applications that run on top of it are able develop and improve independently. This separation of layers allows simultaneous but autonomous innovation to occur at many levels all at once. One team of engineers can concentrate on developing the best possible wireless data service, while another can learn how to squeeze more and more bits through fiber optic cable. At the same time, application developers such as myself can develop new protocols and services such as voice over IP, instant messaging, and peer-to-peer networks. Because of the open nature of the Internet’s design, all of these continue to work well together even as each one is improving itself.

The future of the Internet

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 23:58:13 +0000

Had a presentation about what I think the future of the Internet will look like. I collected some slides I have been passing around for some time.

People at Stacken asked for the slides, so here is a PDF.

Presentation on investigations at Hasselbacken, Stockholm, Jan 2007

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:22:59 +0000

At a meeting for Broadband players in Sweden I presented the three investigations I am a member of. The presentation is in Swedish.

Blog with Performancing

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 12:11:39 +0000

Now I am testing to blog with Performancing, an add on to Firefox.

Low quality of a Website lead to a hearing

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:34:08 +0000

This is in the USA, and not Sweden, but it is for me a positive thing. This article in The Wired talks about a website that is refered to from the TSA main page. The page in question is now removed.

A powerful congressional committee is investigating a Transportation Security Administration website that promised to help air travelers caught up in terrorist watch lists, after a Wired News blog revealed that the site was potentially exposing user’s personal information to eavesdroppers.

The Departed

Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:20:47 +0000

So my favourite film 2006, The Departed, won a number of Oscars: Best motion picture of the year, Achievement in directing (Martin Scorsese), Adapted screenplay and Achievement in film editing. For a full list of the winners, see for example this listing at CNN.

Size comparison of 3G communication devices

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 17:46:04 +0000

On this picture you can see the sizes of an Expresscard 34 and USB modem for 3G HSDPA. As you can see, the Expresscard 34 is larger. So I think I stick with my USB modem.

At last, support for 3G express cards in MacOSX

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:58:57 +0000

Last update of MacOSX have support for 3G express cards.

New kind of IPR statement...

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:57:24 +0000

I have never seen an IPR / Licensing statement like this before. This was found on a CD (the Keller & the Keels Grass CD) belonging to my friend Paul Hoffman.

Parking in Santa Cruz

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:53:44 +0000

Someone have made a slight mistake when calculating how wide his car was…

Problems with Windows?

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:52:11 +0000

In Berkeley there seems to be some people that have problems with Windows. Not even reading a book helped…

Redirect...

Thu, 22 Feb 2007 00:50:27 +0000

At Gazos Grill along highway one between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, the mens toilet was broken, and one got this redirect to the womens…

Their hamburgers where just great!!!

Size of a Huawei USB modem for 3G

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 20:08:42 +0000

People ask what the size of the USB modem is from Huawie that I just wrote about. You can see it compared with the 85W power adapter for the 15" MacBookPro.

We are all different! - Except me...

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 19:06:17 +0000

Here is a clip from Life of Brian. One of my favorites:

Brian: “You are all unique.” Crowd: “We are all unique.” One guy: “I’m not.”

Touch the screen?

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:53:41 +0000

Will touching the screen help?

Chien Bizarre

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:51:41 +0000

I guess one should be careful before entering this house in Berkeley.

Quiet Zone

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 18:50:21 +0000

Crowne Plaza Hotels now promises “…no circus animals…” in your corridor if you get a room in the Quiet Zone.

After Pirate Bay - Pirate Toaster

Sun, 18 Feb 2007 17:44:50 +0000

This is kind of weird, or fun, or both. I will not buy before it has ethernet jack and can handle postscript.

Internet Governance Forum in Geneva

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:31:29 +0000

So we had a meeting with the Internet Governance Forum in Geneva. Both the Advisory Group, some Dynamic Coalitions and an open Stock taking session summarizing what happened in Athens.

I was interviewed regarding questions about root servers by Intellectual Property Watch:

Patrik Faltstrom, former member of the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), said he personally would reject discussion on issues like root servers at the IGF as long as the questions to be answered were not more specified. While there might be aspects of the technical system that could be discussed at the IGF, so far questions had been very vague.

Random Numbers

Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:41:03 +0000

It is interesting to discuss what a random number is…

Found on the xkcd site.

Sweden opens Embassy in Second Life

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 17:09:26 +0000

I know this is late, but I hope noone have missed that Sweden will open an Embassy in the virtual world of Second Life.

Where to run...

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:22:58 +0000

It is good that there are signs at the UN in Geneva so one know in what direction to run if you are on fire. After a few hours of meetings, I sure feel like if I am on fire. But it could have been worse…

Bad advertisment...

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:21:22 +0000

At Copenhagen Airport on Sunday morning, what you see on the picture was an ad for what I think is a bank. It was hard to know as their TV monitors where dead.

Getting of an airplane

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:20:09 +0000

Sometimes getting all hardware to work at an airport is hard. This picture is from Heathrow, where we had to wait for 5 minutes (and two what looked like CTRL-ALT-DELETE on the bridge) before leaving the plane. Same thing happened on the flight after, in Copenhagen and (believe it or not) yesterday in Geneva.

A mouse that is not broken - yet

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:17:27 +0000

The cat named Grålle, found a mouse the other day. The mouse was smart and hide behind a water pipe. FYI: The cat waited long enough though, so the mouse ended up being supper.

Quotes related to the attack against DNS

Fri, 09 Feb 2007 00:42:14 +0000

Yesterday and today many newspapers called me to get to know what actually happened during the attack. My view was similar to the ones of Peter Löthberg: “I got as many spam as normal on a tuesday”.

You can see online articles (in Swedish) for example here:

Computer Sweden Computer Sweden SäkerhetsCentret.Se Svenska Dagbladet

3G USB modem with MacOSX

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:51:04 +0000

Yesterday I bought a USB modem for 3G access. I hopefully will get easier access to Internet when I need it than when using a USB cable to an LG phone. Fewer things, no need to make sure “the phone” is charged all the time, and more stable drivers.

Hi3G in Sweden (that I have a subscription with for 3G data access) have the Huawei E220 3G USB modem for sale, and drivers for MacOSX exists. It is though important you really read the details in the instructions, including that you run the two install packages in the correct order. They are named with prefixes “1” and “2” on the file names, so it is not so hard.

Englang?

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:42:01 +0000

Sometimes it is hard to spell the name of your country correctly.

Crickets and beer

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:39:44 +0000

My dear friend Lasse Fredriksson (also known as mrFung) that runs the Bolingo site brought some crickets when some friends gathered for beer in Stockholm at Glenfiddich Warehouse No.68 the other day.

Some of the crickets like beer…

The crickets have by the way just released their 2nd CD.

Arlanda Express

Sun, 04 Feb 2007 08:00:10 +0000

On Jan 25, 2007, one of the Arlanda Express monitors at Stockholm Central shows what can happen when the operating system has crashed. Unfortunately the picture did not end up being focused. I have to blame that I just had to catch the train leaving in 3 minutes.

failover.regeringen.se

Thu, 25 Jan 2007 10:23:55 +0000

When I today tried to fetch a report from the Swedish Government website, I instead ended up at the site http://failover.regeringen.se/. It is for me a good thing to get to a failover instead of a dead link/site, but one still ask what the problem was? 5 minutes later, the correct site is up and running again.

RubyOnRails 1.2 released, with good Unicode support

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 17:06:43 +0000

Yes, I like Ruby as a language, and I like the Rails library. Yesterday Rails 1.2 was released and it have excellent support for Unicode in the UTF-8 encoding.

This imply things like this works:


# cat a.rb
s = "åäö"
print s.first + "\n"
# ./script/runner a.rb
å
#

Räksmörgås

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 16:37:16 +0000

People have asked me what “räksmörgås” has to do with the MacJournal product.

The Swedish alphabet has 29 characters since spring of 2006:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, Å, Ä, Ö

Before that, ‘W’ was viewed as a variant of ‘V’.

We also have some variants:

À : A
É : E
Ü : Y
Ø : Ö
Æ : Ä or the digraph AE

When testing whether software can handle Swedish characters it is common to use the word “Räksmörgås” that in English means “an open sandwich with shrimps”, but the word should not be interpreted litteraly. The good thing with “räksmörgås” is that it include all three Swedish characters, Å, Ä and Ö, that is not in ASCII.

What about MacJournal

Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:45:17 +0000

Now I am checking yet another software, MacJournal. I have tons of things to remember, some of them to be blogged. Maybe this tool can help me?

This is a new line, with Swedish räksmörgås in it.

Blogging with Performancing Firefox to Drupal

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 20:22:06 +0000

I am here testing how it is to issue a blog publication from Performancing Firefox. The instructions on this page does not really help all the way. One have to first choose Custom Blog, and then Movable Type. Further, one have to know that in Drupal, the xmlrpc.php file is at the root of the website, and not in the subdirectory /blog where the blog(s) are. Once one know that, it sort of works, if this entry is blogged.

Greg FitzPatrick

Thu, 04 Jan 2007 13:45:20 +0000

My friend Greg has just opened a space at MySpace. Have a look.

Tower of Babel

Fri, 01 Dec 2006 11:03:50 +0000

The Guardian interviewed me, and wrote a very good article on Inernational Domain Names.

You can find the article here.

The Departed

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 17:14:43 +0000

Yesterday, together with friends, I saw The Departed in San Diego. The latest movie by Martin Scorsese with Leonardo di Caprio and Jack Nicholsson among others. Jack Nicholsson is absolutely excellent in this movie.

Not suprisingly, the movie is extremely good, clearly in the category of “best movies I have seen”, and the ending is “interesting”. It took me about 15 minutes after leaving the cinema I really understood the last 5 minutes of the movie. Extremely well done.

IETF in San Diego

Sat, 11 Nov 2006 00:21:30 +0000

Breakfast area

Last day of the IETF was nice just by the marina and the hotel “just works”. Not all IETF meeting locations have been good, even though the majority have been perfect. What is a perfect location? Nice weather? Sure, but more imortant there must be enough food, beer, and minimal distance between meeting rooms and hotel rooms.

Really good web hack...

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 04:49:21 +0000

Have a look at this movie…

Landing at SAN

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 04:03:31 +0000

When driving out for lunch in San Diego, we found a spot just below the landing path to SAN.

RSTEP report on Traillance Proposal released

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 03:37:21 +0000

ICANN has released the RSTEP report on Traillance Proposal for addition of a wildcard to the .TRAVEL TLD. I was a member of the RSTEP panel (a piece of the RSEP process)that wrote the report, and I am happy with the result. Now the public comment period starts, and we’ll see what people say.

NAT-box

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 03:11:15 +0000

On the museum of the Aircraft Carrier Midway, I found this NAT-Box. The first real NAT-box I have seen I think…

ICANN statement on IDN

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 09:03:32 +0000

ICANN just announced their view on IDN. You can find the announcement here.

Transcript from the Diversity session at the IGF

Thu, 02 Nov 2006 07:20:55 +0000

If you are interested in reading what I and the other panelists said during the diversity session at the IGF, please see this page.

Internet access at the IGF

Tue, 31 Oct 2006 10:17:45 +0000

The internet access is getting better. Or at least it is supposed to become better. We talk about traditional problems (that I talked about in a previous post) like too small dhcp pool, too short dhcp lease time, and wireless access points that only handle a fixed number of clients. All of these are to be resolved before lunch today, so the Greek organizer I work with say.

Internet access is really really bad...

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:37:07 +0000

Now when we have got some ethernet outlets on the floor, more people tries to be online during the session. This doesn’t work as rumors say that the greek organizer has a wireless system that has a maximum number of users simultanously. Now there are several SSIDs in the hotel, and one that seems to work is in the bar. Or at least some connectivity in the bar. There are a few outlets there as well – and beer. So at the moment I am sittin in the bar trying to sync my mail. The bad thing is that the wireless is so bad (DHCP seems to timeout because of extremely short lease time) that syncing does not work. I can not watch the sessions either. Notices on what happens I actually at the moment get from people in Sweden watching the webcast…

First session passed at IGF

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 14:34:11 +0000

Good things: People said “what was expected” and also better things that I expected. Vint Cerf talked a lot about internationalized domain names, and how a bad solution might break the Internet.

The surprising statement was from Director General of ITU that put a stake in the ground saying Internet needs to be controlled, and not at all in the way it is controlled now. Implicitly of course that “ITU is here to help”. The reaction in the corridor is though “surprise” together with “scary”.

IGF in Athens start

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 09:43:30 +0000

The first day of IGF in Athens. Of course there are 1400 delegates registered, that is many more than what fit in the main room (about 800). Further, the wireless works “almost”, and there are no power outlets. We where supposed to start at 10AM with a talk by the prime minister of greece, but now it is 10.43, and still people are walking around as if this was a cocktail party…

Final report of the working group for IT Infrastructure and Broadband

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 18:12:18 +0000

You can find the final report of the working group for IT Infrastructure and Broadband of the Swedish Government IT Policy and Strategy Group in Swedish at the government website here or below.

Final report from Swedish Government IT Policy and Strategy Group

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 18:08:50 +0000

The final report of the Swedish Government IT Policy and Strategy Group is released. It can be found in Swedish at the government website here, or at the link below.

The group end its work on October 31 2006.

The Future of the Internet

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:32:03 +0000

At Internetdagarna I had a presentation on the future of the internet

Internationalized domain names

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:30:00 +0000

At Internetdagarna I had a presentation on Internationalized domain names.

Windy

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 17:27:24 +0000

It is windy in Sweden today. Here a tree has fallen over the street and a car has driven into it. The street is cleared so it was possible to pass.

Weird(?) instructions...

Sat, 21 Oct 2006 22:11:16 +0000

When buying an extension cord in the USA in March 2005, the cable had this note on it. I can not understand why it is so important to not remove the note, and further, if the cord is only 6 inches, can one not see that? I.e. if it was 12 feet, it could be interesting to know whether it was 12 or 13 feet.

Speed cameras are added all over the place

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 21:24:21 +0000

This picture is taken about 3km west of Sjöbo on road 11 in Sweden. The person is placing poles on which there are signs for “speed camera ahead”. Yes, they place speed cameras on the road, and then some 300 meter before the camera they place a warning sign.

Broken Windows again...at Copenhagen Airport

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 21:08:26 +0000

As you can see on this picture, we have one more example where a Windows installation fails. It is in the bookstore close to B-gates at Copenhagen Airport.

The role of an IX in tomorrows Internet Environment

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 09:21:09 +0000

At the NAMEX meeting in Rome Oct 19 I had this presentation on the role of an IX when the Internet discussions in the world turns out being more about services than IP packets.

Berglin in hits the head of the nail

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 11:19:13 +0000

Berglin in Svenska Dagbladet had yesterday (Oct 17) two cartoons that comments the issues we have in Sweden where media chases the ministers until the stories end up being completely absurd. I am surprised the Social Democratic party via Göran Persson and Per Nuder is supporting the newspapers when they have had their own problems when they where governing Sweden.

http://www.svd.se/images/ettan2006/061017/Berglin_2.jpg http://www.svd.se/images/ettan2006/061017/Berglin_1.jpg

You can find the normal weekly Berglin strips at this URL.

Technical convergence and regulation

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 10:42:51 +0000

On Oct 10, I was invited to speak at the European Parliament. It was ITRE that had a meeting with the title “Internet Governance and the role of the civil society”. This was my presentation, with the title “Technical convergence and regulation”.

European Comission brings Sweden to court due to Boxer

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 10:11:53 +0000

The European Comission takes Sweden to court because of the Boxer product. As you might know, when the DVB-T standard was deployed in Sweden, instead of letting the existing market players that sells crypto cards for TV, Terracom that runs the DVB-T network created the Boxer service as a new player. Boxer is the only organization one can buy a crypto card from if you want to view pay-tv.

However, Swedish broadcasters using digital terrestrial broadcasting and transmission technology remain obliged to acquire access control services exclusively from Boxer, giving this company a monopoly for these services. This is in direct contravention of the Directive.

Open wireless at the European Parliament

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 14:23:30 +0000

Yes, there is an open 802.11 network in the main entrance of the European Parliament. I am waiting here to present to the parliament “convergence”. Kind of interesting that the easiest way of asking them to pick me up was to use this open wireless (ssid is “linksys” by the way), and send an email. They of course responded promptly and are on their way down to pick me up.

Blogging from TextMate

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 04:58:14 +0000

This time I am trying to blog directly from TextMate that is a nice text editor for MacOSX. It seems to work.

Found new software: MarsEdit

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 04:51:47 +0000

I have found MarsEdit that is a software for MacOSX that can help create blogs using the MovableType API.

We’ll see if this software works better that Ecto that I have had some problems with.

Unclear where IT issues end up

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 04:13:16 +0000

We got a new government Friday last week (Oct 6). A set of new ministers where appointed by the prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. What is still unclear is where IT issues will end up. The website of the government just say it is part of the Ministry of Industry, Employment and Communications. One can though by looking at the pages in English understand the update of the web pages is not ready yet, as Ulrica Messing (former minister for IT) is still the appointed minister.

spamhaus.org attacked in court (again)

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 02:07:37 +0000

The spammer David Linhardt returned to court for the third time trying to get himself removed from the spamhaus.org listings. That has not been successful as spamhaus is a service run in the U.K. He is on the spamhaus service listed as one of the largest spammers with a very long history.

Lindhardt has now gone to court again, and you can find the Spamhaus description of the situation here.

One could think the same decision will be made by the court again, but, it seems that is not the case. Spamhaus wrote the other day the following: *Well, our U.S. lawyers said it wasn’t possible, could never happen, never happened before in history… but here it is; Illinois judge Charles Kocoras orders ICANN to suspend spamhaus.org with immediate effect:

ecto

Sun, 08 Oct 2006 07:44:13 +0000

So, I am going to try to use this ecto software again for the blogging. If I don#039t have to use a web browser all the time for adding data to this blog, I might do it more often. The overall question is of course how to add images…

I have had problems with ecto earlier. See this post from me earlier, and this post about what might trigger bugs.

Guldmusen 2006

Thu, 21 Sep 2006 10:08:48 +0000

[img_assist|fid=37|thumb=1|alt=guldmusen 2006] I was awarded the “Guldmusen” award as the IT Person of the year in Sweden 2005-2006.

Fiberpriset 5.0 till Greg FitzPatrick

Sat, 01 Jul 2006 19:56:56 +0000

Fiberpriset 5.0 ges till Greg FitzPatrick.

Han kom till sverige som elektronmusiker och var bl.a. en av de som var bakom Adolphson & Falk’s ljud. Sedan mer informationsteknik, startade även Shortlist mitt i allt detta. Höll tidigt på med Gopher, sedan WWW, sökmotorer, byggde WWWW (ja, 4 W), SkiCal för kalenderinformation, IT-Kommissionen etc etc etc.

Millioner med saker, tusan så mycket energi!

Presentation for ISOC-SE from IETF-65 in Dallas

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 10:47:47 +0000

This presentation about applications area, enum and speermint was held in Stockholm april 2006 for ISOC-SE. About 20 people participated.

Old ad for DIGITAL and implicitly ARPA-net

Wed, 17 May 2006 11:36:43 +0000

[img_assist|fid=33|thumb=1|alt=DIGITAL and Arpanet] Here is an ad for DIGITAL and implicitly ARPA-net that I copied many years ago, and later scanned.

Remissvar IIS 2006-R1, Nytt Produktionssystem

Sun, 14 May 2006 08:32:32 +0000

The II-Foundation that is responsible for the .SE domain has requested input on some questions. Unfortunately the questions and therefore my response are in Swedish. Interested people can though find the questions here and my response below.

Härmed svaras på remiss 2006-R1, Nytt Produktionssystem

Först vill jag tacka IIS för den nya öppna remissprocessen vilken jag är säker till kommer leda till dels en för domännamnsinnehavarna ökad tillit till .SE, dels möjlighet för IIS att få in synpunkter från de för IIS okända kunniga som finns i Sverige.

Whatever

Sat, 13 May 2006 21:55:40 +0000

I asked tonight how many times I have seen graphs like these, where the only difference is what is measured on the Y-axis. Have a look, and think about the implications….

Convergence (and TV)

Sat, 06 May 2006 08:30:08 +0000

I have in December 2005 presented my view on convergence and Television. In April 2006 I refined my thoughts (but also shortened the presentation) for a hearing regarding convergence the Swedish Government IT Policy and Strategy Group hosted. You can here see both presentations.

Public Policy and the RIPE Community

Tue, 02 May 2006 08:55:37 +0000

At the RIPE-52 meeting in Istanbul, Maria Häll and myself presented what we think Public Policy is and why governments should participate more in the RIPE Process. We also gave a Swedish perspective by listing some issues currently discussed in Sweden, and some statements made by the State Secretary last week of April. The statements included the following:

This vision of the user’s ubiquitous access requires convergence when looking at services, equipment and networks. The impression, though, is that this convergence process is slow, and is hindered by traditional business models.

ChatStatus 0.02

Sun, 19 Mar 2006 20:15:32 +0000

Version 0.02 of ChatStatus do now exist. Changes from version 0.01 include the following:

Fetches the default status message from iChat, so default is no longer “Home”
Handle better the case when iChat is offline due to lost network connectivity

It still doesn’t have a nice icon…

Archive of historical (all) Internet-Drafts

Wed, 15 Mar 2006 22:21:36 +0000

I have moved my archive of all internet drafts I have found to a publicly available web server. It is possible to find a draft using a partial match in the name of the draft. No search ability on the content. For example, go to https://stupid.domain.name/ietf/whois to find all drafts with the word “whois” in the name. Replace “whois” with some other term, and see what happens. Please report problems to me.

Presentation about IAB, IESG and IETF at IPIA/ISOC-AU meeting in Perth

Tue, 28 Feb 2006 05:54:43 +0000

This presentation was held at the APIA/ISOC-AU meeting in Perth, Australia, the week of the APRICOT meeting.

Listen to Swedish Radio with Slimdevices player

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 07:59:19 +0000

People have asked me how I managed to get Swedish Radio stations running in my Slimdevices player. Well, it was not that hard, even though many pieces in the puzzle have to be placed in the correct location. You should also have a look at this earlier blog by me about the fdescfs device in FreeBSD 5.3.

Start with making sure mplayer works for you. Try for example to run mplayer on one of the streams from Swedish Radio. The following should work: `charles> mplayer mms://sr-wm.qbrick.com/02038_p1-wm-high : Connected to server: sr-wm.qbrick.com Cache fill: 12.50% (8192 bytes) ASF file format detected. Clip info: name: SR P1 author: Sveriges Radio copyright: SR P1 - Sveriges Radio AB Link to heading

Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders AUDIO: 44100 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 64.0 kbit/4.54% (ratio: 8003->176400) Selected audio codec: [ffwmav2] afm:ffmpeg (DivX audio v2 (FFmpeg)) Link to heading

Checking audio filter chain for 44100Hz/2ch/s16le -> 44100Hz/2ch/s16le… AF_pre: 44100Hz/2ch/s16le [AO OSS] audio_setup: Can’t open audio device /dev/dsp: No such file or directory AO: [null] 44100Hz 2ch s16le (2 bps) Building audio filter chain for 44100Hz/2ch/s16le -> 44100Hz/2ch/s16le… Video: no video Starting playback… A: 2.2 (02.2) 26.3% 15%`

Crontab on MacOSX

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 13:04:52 +0000

People ask me “what about this crontab -e command”. And of course not everyone feel comfortable with the terminal window to edit system files. You can for editing the crontab file use the program cronnix instead of the terminal window.

AppleScript to set status in iChat

Sun, 05 Feb 2006 12:48:48 +0000

This AppleScript set the status and status message in iChat depending on what argument is passed and whether the screen saver is running. It is run by cron (for example), take the argument and current time (in local tiemzone) and set the status message. The status is set to away if the screensaver is running, and available if it is not.

The cron settings is for example preferrable the following: * * * * * osascript /Users/paf/ichatstatus.scpt "Home"

What is a match?

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 16:10:34 +0000

Google image search for

If one do searches for tiananmen in Google images, it is interesting that one get so different responses when one searches for “tiananmen” or “Tiananmen”. Notice that the only difference is lower and upper case in the initial ’t’. I guess the second version will not exist for so long time.

Updated: As of Nov 26 2009, there is no difference in the search results anymore.

Mounting fdescfs on /dev/fd in FreeBSD 5.3 fails

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 14:20:41 +0000

So I decided to include some entries for Swedish Radio in my Slimserver. The problem is that I use FreeBSD as the operating system for my slimserver and the Swedish Radio only send out radio with Windows Media or Real Audio codecs.

A solution was found called AlienBBC. It enables use of mplayer as a converter for media streams for BBC radio stations. But, there are some special tricks in FreeBSD to think of that is not mentioned on the webpages.

The Christmas Goat in Gävle was burnt down this year as well

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 21:31:01 +0000

[img_assist|fid=10|thumb=1|alt=Skeleton of goat in Gävle 2005]So the goat was burnt down this year again. The interesting thing is that no newspaper have published anything yet. The local newspaper Gävle Dagblad still have a voting running where one could say whether one thought the goat would survive the christmas or not.

Review and Recommendations for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN)

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 10:24:24 +0000

Finally the first cut of the IAB document on Internationalized domain names is ready. It ended up being a 1402 lines (25 pages) document on the problems IAB know about IDN, and what IAB recommend IETF and ICANN to do. Abstract is as follows:

This note describe issues raised by the deployment and use of Internationalized Domain Names. It describes problems both at the time of registration and those for use of those names for use in the DNS. It recommends that IETF should update the IDN related RFCs and a framework to be followed in doing so, as well as summarizing and identifying some work that is required outside the IETF. In particular, it proposes that some changes be investigated for the IDNA standard and its supporting tables, based on experience gained since those standards were completed.

Nokia 9500 out of memory

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 08:36:58 +0000

My Nokia 9500 yesterday suddenly started complaining about being out of memory. I could not do anything. Even deleting things was impossible “as there was not enough memory”. After rebooting numerous times, and deleting some few things here and there, I could at least run the software for “Memory”. It said 78MByte “Other”. So, there must be some memory leak or something. I have no idea.

Factory reset was the only thing to do. Remove the battery, have the phone open, and insert it again. When you see the Nokia logo, press Ctr-Shift-F, and say “Yes” to reformatting the device. I was happy I managed to hack MacOSX some months ago so sync with iSync works.

Telephones....today and tomorrow...

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 17:08:58 +0000

Just ended a teleconference between myself, people scattered all over the world and people in a conference room in Vancouver. They first tried to use a standard speaker phone in Vancouver, but that didn’t work. After they switched to use Skype on a Mac, it worked much better.

Maybe we should have used Skype Conferencing all of us?

A new AS and IP address prefix is visible on the Internet

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 08:59:58 +0000

From this morning (Monday Nov 28, 2005) the address block 192.165.72/24 is visible from the AS 33980. It took some time to get myself on the net (about 20 years) with my own AS, but here I am.

Waste of my time and resources...

Wed, 23 Nov 2005 11:18:09 +0000

A person on a mailing list just wrote the following. I have no idea why it was so important to tell everyone. It shure took up some valuable seconds for me to find the delete button and hit it.

The suffixes are just strange - 1005 - it took me a while to figure out it is not a typo in the year number 1005, but probably an ugly US-writing of date, 10 for october, 05 for a year.

Apache nightmare...

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 14:28:41 +0000

One of my apache servers completely gave up today. The interesting thing is that it worked for about 2 days after a reinstall.

After some good help from my friends Dirk, Google and gdb, we found out that the combination of Apache 1.3, PHP, Perl, DBI libraries, MySQL and (believe it or not) the multibyte support in PHP didn’t play well together.

By turning off multibyte support in PHP (by removing mbstring.func_overload setting in httpd.conf and php.ini) everything works again. With the mbstring support turned on, perl crashed when trying to load the DBI library.

Dependencies between IT and Energy systems

Wed, 16 Nov 2005 09:17:20 +0000

I yesterday (November 16) held a presentation in Brussels regarding Security, IT and Energy Distribution. It was an interesting conference where European organisations under the umbrella of the Energy branch of JRC discussed various issues. Everything from energy dependencies to gas from Russia in the Baltic states to my talk about IT and Energy Distribution.

Några ord i denna tunga tid...

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 23:44:35 +0000

Tack för allt Björn

ok.

Björn Eriksen borta

Mon, 07 Nov 2005 20:54:59 +0000

Såg i morse att Björn Eriksen gick bort i lördags. Det var extremt jobbigt att höra. Vi har jobbat och kämpat så mycket ihop genom åren. På KTH, med införandet av DNS i Sverige, senare med tvistlösning vad gäller .SE-domänen och AG12 och överenskommelsen mellan Björn och IIS.

Nu är Björn borta, och han gick bort alltför tidigt. Precis som Jon Postel. Det är oerhört bra att inspelningen av filmen om honom uppenbarligen gick bra, och jag hoppas vi har tillräckligt med material för att få en bra bild över allt som Björn gjort för Internet i Sverige.

Drupal and ecto

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 22:59:40 +0000

I downloaded the client ecto (for MacOSX) so it would be easier to add entries to this Blog. Unfortunately nothing really said how to configure the Drupal site and ecto.

After some testing/trying, I found it working if the blogapi module in Drupal was set to Movabletype and ecto to have the URL to be https://stupid.domain.name/xmlrpc.php. The URL I figured out by reading the code in modules/blogapi.module code and looking in the log for Drupal for my site.

IETF in Vancouver

Sun, 06 Nov 2005 18:58:07 +0000

The 64th IETF meeting starts today. A long trip, from Copenhagen via Frankfurt to Vancouver. Yes, Lufthansa had Internet access on the flight (thanks to ConnexionByBoeing), but no power outlet on row 15, so I skipped access. During the 3.5 hour stay in Frankfurt I did though buy Internet access from Vodaphone. Expensive, but I just needed email access.

Why do we not see more roaming between 802.11 providers? I would be extremely interested in paying for 802.11 access from home to destination, including airport lounges and airplane?

Data Retention and Filtering Internet traffic

Thu, 03 Nov 2005 09:36:55 +0000

Today in Dagens Industri the minister of justice write a column where he asks why people that object (like myself) object to the ability for the police to trace calls and catch criminals. I start to get tired on the department of justice not listening. They have got a massive amount of documentation pointing out people like myself is not arguing against the ability for the police to do chase criminals. We object the proposal that is on the table as it hinders evolution, and will lead to an Internet that we do not want. And by the way, only the nice criminals will be caught in the solutions the minister of justice want to deploy. The real criminals will be able to bypass the mechanisms proposed.

Demonstration madness...

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 16:54:16 +0000

During the presentation of ENUM at Forskningsnettet meeting in Denmark, my extremely stable Powerbook 12" just stopped moving. I was running a presentation in Keynote, and it just refused to do anything. Reboot was the solution, and this while answering questions from the audience. This was the second time this happened since I upgraded to MacOSX 10.4.3. Really weird.

.mobi

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 12:38:48 +0000

As you might have discovered, the .MOBI TLD is now in the root zone.

mobi. 2D IN NS TLD4.ULTRADNS.ORG.
mobi. 2D IN NS TLD5.ULTRADNS.INFO.
mobi. 2D IN NS TLD6.ULTRADNS.CO.UK.
mobi. 2D IN NS TLD1.ULTRADNS.NET.
mobi. 2D IN NS TLD2.ULTRADNS.NET.
mobi. 2D IN NS TLD3.ULTRADNS.ORG.

;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
TLD1.ULTRADNS.NET.   2D IN A 204.74.112.1
TLD2.ULTRADNS.NET.   2D IN A 204.74.113.1
TLD3.ULTRADNS.ORG.   2D IN A 199.7.66.1
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Presentation about ENUM

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 10:10:24 +0000

Here is the presentation about ENUM (and somewhat about convergence) that I am presenting today in Denmark. One of the reasons I was invited was because Denmark has not initiated any ENUM trial yet. Because of this, the content of the slides try to explain why ENUM is needed.

Forskningsnettet Conference in Denmark

Wed, 02 Nov 2005 10:07:08 +0000

Arrived yesterday to Forskningsnettet yearly conference in Denmark. Funny enough, the wireless network and IP connectivity worked. Unfortunately, that is not always true at Internet conferences. There could be more power outlets though. I have so far found two (out of which I use one)…

My comments on the EU(UK) proposal after prepcom 3

Fri, 14 Oct 2005 11:39:29 +0000

After prepcom 3 EU(UK) published a paper WSIS-II/PC-3/DT/21-E paper. Here are my comments:

EU/UK PROPOSAL

Proposal for addition to Chair’s paper Sub-Com A internet Governance on Paragraph 5 “Follow-up and Possible Arrangements”

In reviewing the adequacy of existing institutional arrangements for Internet Governance and policy debate we agree that adjustments need to be made and we propose accordingly:
Principles The new model for international cooperation stated in paragraph [49] should adhere, besides the Geneva principles, to the following guiding principles: