GIMP, Data Transfer, SNDS, KRACK, BSS, Internet

• Can't stop loving extremely bad code. GIMP Cage Transform hangs every-time when it's being used. And no, it's not about RAM or CPU, it's just bad code which hangs.
• Kerckhoffs's principle - Nothing new, but I think I haven't posted this link earlier.
• Created a Microsoft Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) account - https://postmaster.live.com/snds/FAQ.aspx -. For receiving information about email abuse. Anyway, Outlook is beginning to be a real problem in email deliverability terms. Ref: Smart Network Data Services (SNDS) and the Junk Mail Reporting Program (JMRP).
• Microsoft Skype for Business bugs. It seems that the Window title is incorrect at times. Even if I'm chatting with person X the title shows that I would be chatting with person Y. Classic state fail, crappy code. Hail Microsoft.
• KRACK Attacks - This is exactly the reason, why on my networks, the WLAN / WiFi is always totally separated guest network. If you want to get access to something on local network, then you'll use wires. It's simple as that. This is also the reason why many organizations use WiFi only as access network and then you have to login over VPN to access any other company resources, and of course you can do that from the guest WiFi. Anyway the post didn't contain anything new, all of these attack methods have been used in a form or another earlier. It's interesting to see, how the very similar kind of attacks, work over and over again. GCMP (Galois Counter Mode Protocol / WiGig) should be even more advanced than CCMP encryption, but in this case, it makes situation just worse. Anyway, nonce / key material reuse is hardly a new problem. It's very classic and old problem. Falling through the KRACKs - Great summary post. Who said costs? Did you mean extra sales, udpates won't get delivered, if you want secure device(s) you'll need to buy new ones. As well as the true classic fact: Cryptography is super easy to fail and every detail matters. Also: Integration tests and edge cases. So normal that things fail even if there's nothing wrong.
• Reminded my self about: IEEE 802.11r aka fast BSS transition (FT). Is something which is pretty much useless with most of networks. Which work just fine when not usting do not use WMM at all. About CCM mode of operation for cryptographic block ciper which transforms block cipher into stream cipher.
• It's funny how delusional people can be about their Internet. One friend got solid 350 MBit/s connection. Yes tested over and over, it works at that speed, no issues, also 5 GHz wifi works amazingly well, especially on laptop with dual antennas and 40 MHz bandwidth, delivering full speed through. And she things it's slow and she should do something about it. She doesn't even understand a lot about Internet. When the actual problem is her old laptop which simply can't process the data like web pages nearly fast enough. But the Internet company has been just offering her faster and faster network connections. I guess she'll order 1 Gigabit FTTH connection just to use randomly Gmail, Facebook and Banking. Still whining that the Internet is slow. Omg, lulz. But hey, this is what Telcos do best. - Uh, even this is same topic over and over again.

Data Tranfer & Processing

It feels like every project would include these annoying data transformation steps.

1) Get data from source (file, stream, database, Native IPC, RPC, API, HTTPS, RESTful, whatever)

2) Map data to internal format

3) Process, filter, transform, map, accumulate whatever steps needed for the actual business logic

4) Map data to output format

5) Write it to output (file, stream, database, Native IPC, RPC, API, HTTPS, RESTful, whatever)

I've been several times kind of annoyed about the amount of work all this requires. Especially the steps 2 and 4, which should be possible to eliminate. But often it's not easy or efficient to skip the steps. In some of the projects I've been able to skip 2 or 4, by combining those to single step, and doing step 3 using either of the source or end formats / structures. And I'm very gladly doing it if possible. In some cases there are multiple repetions of 1, 2 and or 4, 5. If there are multiple source / output sources and or formats. Like human readable + machine readable, etc.

2019-02-17