::saad::

Bye-bye RapidWeaver, Welcome Tumblr

saad@hush.com — 2010-02-23T18:55:24+01:00

My blog adventures started in 2005 when I opened a blog at Blogger. After some time and the nice feel I got for RapidWeaver, my site publishing tool, I decided to host my blog on a dedicated server. This experience held up for more than four years. I recently realized that one of the reasons why I didn't post more often is the rather cumbersome workflow of RapidWeaver when it comes to blog publishing. Every time I had to post a new entry, I needed to launch the software if it was not already opened, create the blog entry, save my changes, publish them to my website and this will take quite some time as RapidWeaver will push the whole blog, archive & al!

So I decided to move on and stop using RapidWeaver for maintaining my blog (but I still use it to maintain this website). Besides sparing some CPU cycles in the process and saving some network bandwidth, I was looking for something to which I can post easily from my web browser, my email client and, why not, from my phone while on the road.

After testing posterous.com and tumblr.com I went for the latter as it offers more customization and flexibility, has a pretty-straightforward interface that I like and allows one to use Markdown for posting, besides the wealth of themes.

So time to update those links! Please update your bookmarks to point out to:

For English-only posts: blog.upbeat.fr (which you can access right from the toolbar) and the RSS feed is at blog.upbeat.fr/rss.
For French-only posts: journal.upbeat.fr which you can access right from the toolbar) and the RSS feed is at journal.upbeat.fr/rss.

This blog won't be removed for the time being. I also took the opportunity to update the website design to make it more straight-forward. I hope you'll like it.

Cheers!

Gil Scott-Heron Is Back With A Vengeance

saad@hush.com — 2010-02-20T16:14:25+01:00

It has been 16 years. 16 years that Gil Scott-Heron, the legend who influenced a whole generation of hip-hop artists with his rather unique voice and proto-rap style, hasn't released a new album. And then I'm New Here hits the streets. And it hits them pretty hard.

It's not only the streets that it hits this hard but my ears too. I just dig the voice, the composition and the poetry! Actually, some of the tracks such as Me And The Devil, New York Is Killing Me or I'll Take Care of You make me speechless before this 59 years old man's art.

I got my copy of the album from eMusic.com. Some people criticize the short length of this very fine album, as if it was a scale against which quality can be measured. Unless they are led to believe that more is better, something that mind-tricking marketing has been pushing us to believe in order to rip us off yet another amount of bucks.

Either way, you can't listen to Gill Scott-Heron and stay neutral. Either you'd love it or you'd hate it. But let your ears be the judges, wouldn't you?

Gil Scott-Heron - Me & the Devil by Dubmission

If you are in Paris this spring, he is going to be on concert at the New Morning on May 10!

Back In Time With Menahan Street Band

saad@hush.com — 2010-02-20T01:06:49+01:00

Hey, it's the week-end on this side of the planet. Right past midnight so it's technically Saturday and before hitting the bed, I thought I'd share with you yet another very nice band I found out about while reading the concerts section of Vibrations Magazine February issue a few days ago.

Take a collection of very good Soul/Funk bands who have the gist of a typically 70s sounding "Afro-Soul". Namely The Dap-Kings (yeah the guys who play with Sharon as in Sharon & The Dap-Kings), The Budos Band, and El Michels Affair. Get a musician from these bands here and there to make a beautiful cocktail and you get the Menahan Street Band who released an album in 2008 called Make The Road By Walking, a very fine piece of grooving soul.

When I received the CD yesterday, I carefully unwrapped it and put it in my CD player and hit the play button. Almost instantly, I was travelling back in time. And just by looking at the CD cover, you can tell to which epoch that might be. Right, to the 70s. While I was born in that decade, I have no recollection as a kid of what it means to be living in the 70s. But popular culture is plenty about that period. Make The Road By Walking sound like an OST of some awesome blacksploitation movie, one you'd want to watch over and over again. It's an amazing tour de force, hats off to Menahan Street Band for coming up with such record that can make you travel with leaving that comfy armchair of yours.

There is nothing to throw in this 10 tracks album (well there are 11 tracks but the last one doesn't appear on the official track list and it is only 9 seconds long so it can barely qualify as a track). I do have a preference though for Tired of Fighting and The Traitor.

The SoulJazz Orchestra Gets Jazzier with Rising Sun

saad@hush.com — 2010-02-16T14:24:00+01:00

During the last few years the Afrobeat musical genre, which was created back in 1960s by Fela Kuti and fellow drummer Tony Allen, has garnered quite a lot of attention and numerous bands have sprung up to take the flame of that really interesting genre that blends Jazz and Funk higher up. The SoulJazz Orchestra is certainly one of the most interesting bands out there nowadays.

In early 2008 I blogged about Insurrection, a very groovy song featured in the SoulJazz Orchestra. Back then, I dared to write:

I've never heard something as innovative in the Afrobeat landscape as Insurrection, save for Antibalas. It has a very Funky tone made of an elaborate intertwinement of African and Occidental Drums with warm Saxophones. The Musical genre created by Fela Kuti is alive and kicking!

That same year, the band released another album, Manifesto. I blogged about that one as well and my words were dithyrambic:

They have recently released a new album called Manifesto and I think it’s even better than Freedom Go No Die. This album is actually redefining Afrobeat in my humble opinion. The Afrobeat landscape has exploded in the last few years. Seun and Femi Kuti, sons of the late Fela, released amazing albums. While Seun kept the sound rather close to the original Afrobeat, Femi intertwined it with Jazz. But when it comes to innovation, musicality and an excellent sense of Funk, The SoulJazz Orchestra is the top dog.

A few days ago, I heard that they were releasing a new album, Rising Sun and I finally got it yesterday. Yesterday? Well, you may think that it isn't enough time to review an album. Mind you, I spent almost all evening and my morning commuting time listening to it. And guess what? OK, that ain't hard... I just dig it!

The SoulJazz Orchestra continues to surprise me as this album is more jazzier than the previous releases, more grounded and laid-back with the occasional explosiveness I've witnessed while listening to their previous releases sprinkled here and there.

While Agbara and Negus Negast are amazingly groovy, Lotus Flower and Serenity are very fine pieces of Jazz and dot not really sound like Afrobeat. They remind me of Build An Ark. The remaining songs are somewhere in between. This is a very welcome diversity.

All in all, Rising Sun is a very strong release, a release that has more soul in it and less just-groove-till-the-end-of-night attitude that makes you vibrate but only for a short period. Rising Sun is here to stay!

You can listen to song samples on the band's official website. You can also watch this official videoclip of Agbara:

I've also found Negus Negast on YouTube.

EDITED TO ADD: I forgot to mention that they are going to be in concert at Le Cabaret Sauvage in Paris on April 15, 2010 and I'm going to be there ;-)

Bibi Tanga & The Selenites Groove You To The Bone

saad@hush.com — 2010-02-08T21:19:39+01:00

Isn't it a wonderful joy just to sit back and listen to some good piece of grooving Music? Well, thanks to Bibi Tanga and the Selenites, I've been doing that quite a lot this week-end.

After listening to their awesomely groovy Red Wine song on Radio Nova, I decided to buy the album, Dunya. I listened to it about 6-7 times now and I like it a lot. Know what? It makes my soul and body chant!

It's funky, groovy, swinging... The kind of Music that brings in pleasure with every breath you take (to all Police fans out there, no offense meant!) and make you feel great about Life, about the present. Just visit their MySpace page and listen to the few songs there. If you are into the groove, you'd like it.

Enjoy!

Aldous Huxley vs. George Orwell

saad@hush.com — 2010-02-03T13:42:20+01:00

A decade or so ago, I had the chance to read George Orwell's 1984 for the first time in French. It made a very strong impression on me. The World that he described so well and with immense talent looked like a possibility that we "humans" are capable of "committing".

A few weeks ago, while chatting with my friend Rodolfo, he pasted a link to a cartoon by Stuart McMillen called Amusing Ourselves to Death. In this cartoon, the author "transcribes" the writings of Neil Postman's book which has the same title.

From what I understood from the cartoon and could infer from the Wikipedia entry regarding this book (I plan to read it and I didn't want to be spoiled by the contents of the Wikipedia page), Neil Postman compares George Orwell's 1984 with Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World. Guess what? While Huxley's name rings a bell or two, I didn't know he wrote such a book. My unculture will always amaze me. So I decided to commit thoughtcrime and read these three books in a row beginning with Orwell's in its original edition (I'm almost done reading it and it is making an even stronger impression than the first time I've read it about ten years ago), then Huxley's and finishing my plusculture saga with Postman's. Thanks Rodolfo, not only you are helping me feed this brain of mine but also adding to Amazon's bottom line (from which I ordered all three books) ;-)

Stuart McMillen's cartoon is featured below. I hope it will make a strong impression on you as it did on me and let you consider the path of plusculture or, may I say, doubleplusculture:

Music: Massive Attack, Hindi Zahra, Gonjasufi...

saad@hush.com — 2010-01-31T01:43:26+01:00

It's been quite some time that I haven't written anything about Music. Looking back at my blog archives, my last Music related post dates back to February 6, 2009 Wow, almost a year now... So I thought I can give you some news about what I am listening to currently or at least what I am planning to listen to (read: to be released Music).

At this exact moment, I am listening to the original soundtrack of Nanga Parbat, by Gustavo Santaolalla. I haven't seen the movie and I kind of stumbled upon this soundtrack on eMusic and after sampling it, I decided to download it and here I am listening to it and so far, I really like it.

On February 8, 2010, a few albums worth mentioning are expected to hit the shelves. Of course, there is Massive Attack's Heligoland which I sampled on iTunes and I really like what I heard. I like the atmosphere of their Music. I remember listening on and on to Protection and Mezzanine. That was years ago. Those who never heard Angel, Teardrop or Karmacoma (when Tricky was still a member of the band) have some real catchup to do ;-).

Sade is also coming back with Soldier of Love. I am totally in love with Sade's voice. It is so enthralling and soothing I just can't express how I feel when it reaches my ears. Her previous album, Lovers Rock is among my favorite ones. It was released 10 years ago. Yeah, that's quite a long time.

On the mystical side of things, I've discovered an interesting piece while reading one of the blog posts of my favorite Music magazine, Vibrations. It's about an artist called Gonjasufi. His Music is unlike anything I've heard before. At this time, I can't tell whether I like or not. His album, A Sufi and A Killer, should be released in early March 2010 by Warp Records. In the meantime, there are four songs available on the artist's page at Warp Records for free: Candylane, KowboyzandIndians, Ancestors, and Holidays.

Last but not least, I wanted to tell you about Hindi Zahra, a Moroccan artist with a marvelous voice. Her Jazzy/Folkish Music is very refreshing and pleasing to the ears. Watch her very Beautiful Tango videoclip, directed by Tony Gatlif and see her singing Imik Simik live:

Gaining Insight Through Security Visualization

saad@hush.com — 2010-01-13T10:47:55+01:00

While still immature, the Security Vizualisation field has quite the potential to change the way we analyze the mounds of (ever-growing) data that security and network devices as well as applications and operating systems produce.

Instead of sifting through text and using the usual arsenal of tools (grep, perl, sed, awk...) to parse it, filter it and normalize it into yet other text for which our visual system is not well suited, Security Vizualisation leverages our eyes and brain as powerful, parallel pattern seekers to create graph that aid us in isolating patterns, finding hidden relationships or making sense out of dull-looking, seemingly boring data. As Raffael Marty said:

A picture is worth a thousand log records

To put it simply, Security Vizualisation allows to transform data into information into insight. But remember that this is still a very young field and there are quite numerous pitfalls. Also, industrial-grade tools are very rare. I've introduced this field and presented two real world examples where I leveraged the power of Security Visualization for problem solving in a talk I gave yesterday at the January 2010 monthly meeting of OSSIR Paris. The slides are available online.

Sparks of Life

saad@hush.com — 2009-12-30T09:32:31+01:00

As metal strikes metal, sparks come to life. And they know they are not to last. They know they will be short-lived. Thus they show a fierce, indomitable spirit to enjoy every nanosecond of their very brief lifetime.

"There is no reason to mourn" they say as they know their faith is inescapable. "Let us explore every piece of the world we can make it to" is what they think. For they are rooted in the Present and take every breath they can, while they still can. So they rock and they roll in a fiery vitality.

And when they vanish out of existence, they do so with no regrets at all. They haven't lost time in sorrow. They haven't lost time in wishful thinking. They sought the Present, and they were right. They were wise.

The Present Is a Present

saad@hush.com — 2009-12-24T17:50:02+01:00

There's nothing such as a right time to enjoy life. Life is way too short and far too precious. I always strive to be rooted in the present, in the moment and appreciate every minute, every second of it whenever I can.

The clock featured in the picture belongs to my mother-in-law. She got it from her father who brought it from Germany some years after the end of WWII. It was made during a time when people had more… time. A time when you wouldn't trash something that worked for something newer, faster or for whatever other marketing pretense. A time when consumerism was a sound thing and respectful of the Earth we are living in.

It's not like nowadays clocks that rely on electricity. It is mechanical, made for people who wouldn't care spending a few seconds now and then to spring it back to life. It looks sturdy and carefully crafted, unlike the mounds of plastic horrors that take boats everyday and come all the way down from the other side of the planet.

I really like this clock. The cracks in the ceramic material are beautiful. The drawings are handmade. The frame is made of metal. It doesn't tick. It always show the same, frozen, time. A true sign of the present.

I dream of a time where we will have more time to enjoy ourselves and Mother Nature. I dream of a post-industrial era where all the horrors that we are perpetrating on a daily basis in the name of consumerism and against Mother Nature and against ourselves, as a specie, are a thing of the past. I may not live enough to see that era but I hope that one day, our specie will wake up and make my dream come true.

This text and companion picture are dedicated to Agnès and François. May your path be full of joy and happiness.

For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'
Bob Dylan.

Slides du Compte-rendu de Hack.lu 09

saad@hush.com — 2009-11-12T15:09:07+01:00

Les slides de mon compte-rendu de Hack.lu 09 présenté à l'OSSIR Paris le mardi 10 novembre 2009 sont désormais disponibles au format PDF.

Vous pouvez aussi consulter la version interactive en Flash qui contient images et animations.

Landfill, Another Great Video Found on Vimeo

saad@hush.com — 2009-11-09T23:11:38+01:00

Here is another nice video I noticed on Vimeo:

Landfill from TimmY on Vimeo.

The drawings lack some luster but they get the message(s) delivered. What I liked most about this video is that it leaves the audience with a sour taste in the mouth while giving many possible ways of interpretation.

Compte-rendu de Hack.lu 09

saad@hush.com — 2009-11-09T22:54:33+01:00

Je vais présenter un compte-rendu de la conférence sécurité hack.lu 09 à l'OSSIR Paris le mardi 10 novembre 2009. Si vous êtes à Paris, n'hésitez pas à venir. L'accès est gratuit et libre.

L'horaire, le lieu et l'ordre du jour se trouvent sur le site de l'OSSIR.

Spring In A Cup

saad@hush.com — 2009-03-22T14:42:58+01:00

It's Spring or so they said on TV.

At least, some flowers have started popping in our garden. My elder daughter has collected a few and put them in a doll's cup with a bit of water. But as you can see, the trees in the background have no leaf yet.

Animal'Z, Un Chef d'Oeuvre d'Enki Bilal

saad@hush.com — 2009-03-20T22:55:50+01:00

LE COUP DE SANG est le nom du dérèglement climatique brutal et généralisé qui s'est abattu sur la Terre. La planète est totalement désorientée, dévastée, morcelée par des catastrophes naturelles hors normes. En quelques semaines, le Monde a perdu tout semblant de cohérence. La nature a craché sa colère. Plus que jamais, la survie est une affaire individuelle. La recherche d'eau douce potable devient la préoccupation première, chacun pour soi.

Ainsi commence Animal'Z, la nouvelle bande-dessinée d'Enki Bilal. J'attendais avec une certaine impatience matinée de crainte ce nouvel album du sieur Bilal. Ce grand artiste possède une signature au dessin qui lui est unique, et quelle signature ! L'attention portée au détail, le côté buriné des personnages, comme si la vie laissait ses marques à même leur peau, la représentation d'un monde dur et sans concessions, tout cela participe à cette griffe si particulière à Bilal.

J'ai été refroidi par la "tétralogie" du Sommeil du Monstre, commencée en 1998 et terminée en 2007. Les deux premiers tomes de la série fûrent très prometteurs. Malheureusement, le potentiel et le champ des possibles ont été réduits dans le troisième et quasi-achevés dans le quatrième tome qui m'a laissé perplexe et avec un fort sentiment de travail mal lêché, bâclé.

Les qualités de grand dessinateur de Bilal sont indéniables mais le scénario n'est pas toujours au rendez-vous. Mais après avoir lu Animal'Z, je découvre non seulement un sublime dessinateur (certaines planches sont tout simplement époustouflantes, peut-on encore parler de bande-dessinée à ce niveau ?) mais un grand scénariste.

Je vous tire mon chapeau bien bas cher Enki. Votre Animal'Z est de mon point de vue d'humble lecteur un grand coup de maître !

Irregular Flow, by Ozcan Tekin

saad@hush.com — 2009-03-06T13:44:12+01:00

A few months ago, I stumbled upon the video below by Ozcan Tekin while browsing Vimeo. I really love it.

irregular flow from 4khz on Vimeo.

The dark, irregular flows produced every time the girl touches the wall are like the toxins that pollute our bodies and strain them. The girl looks like she has discovered a nice way of getting rid of these pollutants. Well, that’s my interpretation. The music is a tad tiresome though and could have been chosen with greater care. But as Douglas Adams nicely wrote:

I think fish is nice, but then I think that rain is wet, so who am I to judge?

Intelligence Is Futile

saad@hush.com — 2009-03-03T20:04:55+01:00

Hurray! I am really grateful that our life as a species is getting easier by the day. What we made thousands of years to acquire and beef up is definitely useless. I'm speaking about intelligence of course! Well, you may disagree here and tell me that I have just to look around to see the sorry state where this supposedly great feature of our species is leading us. But let's not put all the cats in the same bag for a minute here. For the sake of the Truth(tm) that I have just revealed (that intelligence is futile), put your arguments aside and bear with me for a sec.

Yesterday, I was surprised to see a new kind of paper goblet popping up from the coffee machine at my workplace when I ordered said machine to provide me with a hot beverage that looks like coffee, smells like coffee but doesn't taste at all like coffee. However, the machine's maker put a sticker near the button that I pushed telling me that if I pushed that button I will get coffee! But I'm cheerful and optimistic, remember? So whenever I face the dreaded machine, I always look for a button with a "YEAH! Real Coffee!" but until now, there is none to be seen.

Erm, sorry I am getting side-tracked. So the new paper goblet popped up. The hot beverage (the thing they call coffee) poured in. The machine produced a sound telling you that you can go away now and pretend you are drinking coffee. So far so good! But by giving a closer look at the paper goblet, I realized that it actually contained a manual! A manual in very simple English (4 verbs) telling you what you should do and how you should feel! Great! Wow! Amazing! In the era of Web 2.0, this was exactly what I was looking for: an extremely useful how-to that insults my intelligence and invades that little moment I have to trick my mind into drinking coffee-but-no-quite-the-real-thing.

So today, armed with my camera I decided to take pics of the complete manual. Make sure to read the comments, even if your brain is equipped to understand those simple verbs!

Someone really need my cluebat here.

Beauty Queen In Dowtown Angers

saad@hush.com — 2009-03-02T14:27:39+01:00

I frequently go to Angers, a nice mid-sized city to the west of Paris, France. Most of my in-laws live in its vicinity. Walking downtown is enjoyable and, if one is wise enough to avoid the shopping areas, relaxing. I met the beauty queen below during one my walks.

While I walked many times on the street where she "lives", I had never noticed her before since I don't usually look upward at the buildings and houses that surround my walking path. Which is kind of a shame. One should really take their time to look everywhere, particularly in places that are supposed to be familiar. Beauty may lie anywhere.

That day, I was waiting for my wife to get out of a small shop. On the other side of the street where I was standing, there was a very nice flower shop and my eyes were attracted by the building where it is located. Looking a bit more into details, I spotted the beauty queen and I was really delighted by her sight.

I took some other shots that you may want to see. They were taken using a Panasonic DMC-FX150 compact camera in program mode. Some pictures were "cropped". Otherwise, no software change has been made.

Four Days In Barcelona

saad@hush.com — 2009-02-28T00:20:47+01:00

In 2006, I spent a bit more than a week in Barcelona. It was my first visit to that wonderful city. I really enjoyed the atmosphere there a lot. I also loved Antoni Gaudi’s masterpieces such as Park Guell, Casa Batlló and La Pedrera. I felt instantly at home. The same thing happened to me when I went to San Francisco.

I was hoping to go back to Barcelona soon after my 2006 trip. It didn’t happen as quickly as I wished for... not until last week. And I truly loved the 4 days I spent there. Wonderful city. Very nice people. Awesome architecture. Very laid-back atmosphere.

I visited La Pedrera and got a close look at the greatness of Gaudi. Some of the chairs he designed left me totally flabbergasted. They looked so well-thought and perfect! The same thing goes for the door knobs, the heat control system and many other aspects of this gorgeous building. I also visited the Pablo Picasso museum. I don’t think I have the right mindset to appreciate his art and I was in a hurry to get done with the visit.

I also walked a lot around La Rambla and the Raval district and went to Park Guell on foot. When I needed to relax, I hanged around Plaça de Catalunya or went for some Music listening near the Barcelona Cathedral. I had great food, particularly at two organic food restaurants I highly recommended (the link behind the restaurant name launches a Google Map): Origens in Passeig Born, near the Picasso museum (http://www.lallavordelsorigens.com/) and Organic in Carrer Junta De Comerç, which is a parallel to La Rambla (http://www.antoniaorganickitchen.com/home.html).

I had only my mobile phone’s rather lame embedded camera to take pictures when every tourist and his mom had some DSLR hanging around the neck. If your are not afraid that your eyeballs pop out of their socket due to bad pictures, you may want to look at the few barely honorable shots I could beautify with iPhoto.

Viva Barcelona! (but Paris still rocks, ask betabug)

A New Digital Home...

saad@hush.com — 2009-02-27T19:19:55+01:00

Welcome to http://upbeat.fr/ my new digital home on the Web! It is as cozy as http://saad.docisland.org/, the previous one that hosted my Web self() for about 3 years.

The DocIsland community I belong to (yes, in the present tense) has decided to stop renting the dedicated servers that have been hosting our DNS, web, mail and other network services. Discussion is ongoing of what will happen to our DocIsland emails and if we are going to get some kind of redirection service or something along these lines that requires little to no maintenance.

This is why I moved my website to this new domain. Please update your bookmarks, RSS feed and Comments feed as soon as you can.

Moving one’s digital home is not an easy feat. Not because of any particular technical difficulty but because you need to think hard about a decent domain name. I seeked the help of a few close friends for some brainstorming and I decided to buy upbeat.fr since it reflects one of my main personality traits. Ask a dictionary such as the one bundled with Mac OS X Leopard:

upbeat |ˈəpˌbēt|
noun
(in music) an unaccented beat preceding an accented beat.
adjective informal
cheerful; optimistic.

Got it? ;-)

You may also note my new email address that you will find under the contact link at the bottom of this page.

Christian Scott Concert at The New Morning, Paris

saad@hush.com — 2009-02-06T11:43:25+01:00

In October 2006, I posted a blog entry about Christian Scott’s Rewind That album. Back then, I wrote:

No words come into mind to describe this masterpiece. Rewind That is the debut album from an amazing trumpeter with a great sense of Funk. Christian Scott has earned my admiration and my utter respect with this record which I keep listening to, over and over. As good as (and sometimes better than) records from Erik Truffaz, Roy Hargrove (through the RH Factor) and Christian McBride. I really would like to see more and more albums like this because it reunites three wonderful elements: Funk, Jazz and trumpet.

Then in 2007, Christian released Anthem, another masterpiece which caught me completely off guard. While Rewind That can be barely classified as Jazz since it incorporates a lot of Funk and Soul elements and, in this regard, can be compared to releases from Roy Hargrove’s The RH Factor sublime band, Anthem is more of a true Jazz. In a very laidback style, Christian expresses much anger and haunting images after his hometown has been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. All About Jazz has a nice review of the album that I recommend reading.

A few weeks ago, I was scouting around on the Internet looking for worthy concerts to attend in February/March. This is how I found out that Christian was to play at the New Morning, a mythical Jazz Music venue in Paris. So I went there on Tue Feb 24th with a couple of friends and I enjoyed my time there. I was expecting though a bit more punch from Christian Scott but he decided to leave quite a room for his acolytes. At one point, he said that he really likes playing with his band and listening to it during the sets. No doubt about that since he gave me the impression of attending the concert like I did and spending most the time listening to his buddies.

The line-up for the concert is different from the one that delivered the album. Kristopher Funn replaced Esperanza Spalding at the bass, the uncanny Jamire Williams took the drumming control tower, Milton Fletcher was at the piano. The only original band member was Matt Stevens, guitar.

While my photography skills are very average, I was able to take honorable pictures of the concert thanks to my friend betabug’s sound advice. The pictures were taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 with an ISO 400 to 800 sensitivity and no flash in program mode.

A Short Love Story In Stop Motion, by Carlos Lascano

saad@hush.com — 2008-12-27T12:06:49+01:00

Vimeo is an interesting video sharing website. The videos featured on that website are usually of excellent quality and some of them are real pieces of art such as A Short Love Story In Stop Motion by Carlos Lascano, who is also the author of other very nice videos such as The Legend Of The Scarecrow and The Can.

I profoundly respect this kind of art. For my amateur eyes, it is undistinguishable from pure magic. You can find more info about this artist on his website.

The Souljazz Orchestra Strikes Again!

saad@hush.com — 2008-12-24T18:32:04+01:00

Earlier this year, I posted a blog entry about The Souljazz Orchestra, an excellent Afrobeat band from Canada (yes, these guys are from Canada and don't go wonder how they can produce such a warm sound because it would be really so cliché), and their really cool album Freedom Go No Die which featured Insurrection, an incredible song! Quoting myself:

I've never heard something as innovative in the Afrobeat landscape as Insurrection, save for Antibalas. It has a very Funky tone made of an elaborate intertwinement of African and Occidental Drums with warm Saxophones. The Musical genre created by Fela Kuti is alive and kicking! Freedom Go No Die features other excellent songs such as Mista President and The Blind Leading The Blind [...] And if you don't like the Music, maybe you can't resist the beauty of the cover art which I just find awesome!

They have recently released a new album called Manifesto and I think it’s even better than Freedom Go No Die. This album is actually redefining Afrobeat in my humble opinion. The Afrobeat landscape has exploded in the last few years. Seun and Femi Kuti, sons of the late Fela, released amazing albums. While Seun kept the sound rather close to the original Afrobeat, Femi intertwined it with Jazz. But when it comes to innovation, musicality and an excellent sense of Funk, The SoulJazz Orchestra is the top dog.

Should I select one song from all the excellent ones that are featured in Manifesto, it would be State Terrorrism with no hesitation due to its much rapid pace and funkier tone. Next would come Parasite, Kapital and People People. You can hear the latter now and then on Radio Nova, my favorite French radio.

Oh, and the album’s artwork is still awesome ;)

Watch a video footage of The SoulJazz Orchestra playing People People:

And here is one for Kapital (the sound is crappy though):

Meta-information:

The Souljazz Orchestra official website
Music samples
The Souljazz Orchestra on MySpace (you can listen there to a full-length version of State Terrorrism)

Pouf Souche par Woodoo

saad@hush.com — 2008-12-22T16:53:38+01:00

Si vous vous intéressez au Design, je vous conseille de lire le Blog Esprit-Design (fil RSS). On y trouve régulièrement des mini-articles portant sur des objets Design tels que ces sympathiques poufs souche conçus par la société estonienne Woodoo.

Je tends à penser que, de façon générale, Beauté rime avec Simplicité et j’ai une attirance particulière pour les objets et les personnes simples. Et cette « philosophie » transparaît dans ces poufs.

If Programming Languages Were Religions ...

saad@hush.com — 2008-12-22T10:10:25+01:00

... I’d be a neo-paganist and my brother a fundamentalist christian ;-)

Légumes, Fruits et Pesticides : Pour La Roulette Russe, Suivez Le Guide !

saad@hush.com — 2008-12-23T09:48:23+01:00

La Commission Européenne a fixé -à partir du 1er septembre dernier- de nouveaux plafonds autorisés pour la présence de résidus de pesticides dans les aliments. Ce règlement a pour but d'harmoniser les seuils au niveau européen et ainsi remplacer les seuils actuellement appliqués au niveau national. Cette harmonisation est malheureusement faite au détriment de notre santé et celle de nos enfants. En effet, elle a pour effet une augmentation très importante des limites existantes sur 349 pesticides différents.
« pour chaque pesticide, la Commission a identifié le pays ayant la plus mauvaise limite de sécurité et a adopté ce niveau pour les normes européennes» explique Hans Muilerman, porte-parole de l’ONG néerlandaise Natuur en Milieu.

Selon une étude réalisée par Greenpeace et l'ONG autrichienne Global 2000, la consommation de pommes, poires, raisins, tomates et poivrons pourraient poser des risques pour la santé des enfants.

"Pour un enfant pesant 16,5 kilos, la dose de pesticide dangereuse pour la santé est dépassée après la consommation de 20 grammes de raisin (soit 5 à 7 grains), 40 grammes de pomme ou 50 grammes de prunes", affirme le biochimiste Helmut Burtscher, cité par Global 2000.

Source : AFP (28 août 2008)
- http://www.collectifdu29mai.org/Bruxelles-multiplie-les-pesticides.html
- http://www.mdrgf.org/pdf/AFP_LMR_280808.pdf

A ma connaissance, et à part une hypothétique action citoyenne, les seules solutions à long terme consistent à consommer bio ou à souscrire à une AMAP (Association pour le Maintien de l'Agriculture Paysanne) dont le cahier de charges s'inspire fortement du cahier des charges de l'Agriculture Biologique.

Les Bons Restaurants de Paris : La Carte !

saad@hush.com — 2008-12-15T14:32:56+01:00

Au vu de ma fréquentation assez régulière de certaines enseignes culinaires où on mange généralement bien et dans un cadre agréable (voir par exemple Gabriela ou Chez Denise), j’ai créé il y a quelques temps une carte Google Maps pour référencer les adresses que je recommande et celles qui m’ont été recommandées par des amis. Chaque entrée est commentée et un avis succinct est fourni lorsque je l’ai personnellement testé.

Mon but n’est pas de cataloguer tous les bons restaurants de Paris mais de disposer de quelques adresses pour varier les goûts et les plaisirs et les partager. Si vous avez des suggestions, n’hésitez pas à me les soumettre. Je les intégrerais si elles ne sont pas trop nombreuses ou éloignées des critères que je recherche dans un restaurant, à savoir : simplicité, qualité, convivialité et partage.

View Larger Map

Et si bien entendu, vous avez des remarques (constructives cela va de soit) ou des corrections à apporter, je suis tout ouïe !

Playing for Change: Peace Through Music

saad@hush.com — 2008-12-15T10:05:34+01:00

A close friend sent me a link to a YouTube video. It’s a footage taken from a documentary called Playing For Change. I’ve never heard of it before. Actually it’s more than a documentary. It’s a movement that aims to bring Peace through Music. This is indeed a laudable goal and the video illustrates it very nicely. Street Music in all its beauty.

PEACE!

Bypassing Anti-Virus Software with Metasploit 3.2

saad@hush.com — 2008-11-23T08:38:57+01:00

4 days ago, The Metasploit project finally released version 3.2 of the Metasploit exploitation framework. Besides the fact that it is the very first version to be released under a BSD license (which should make license-wary jerks rejoice), it has many interesting new features.

One of these features is the ability to create executable files for the Windows platform on the fly from payloads such as the highly efficient Meterpreter. 2 days before the official release, HD Moore wrote a wiki page explaining how to automate Meterpreter sessions for client-side exploits (post to the mailing list and thread that followed). Using the Shikata Ga Nai polymorphic encoder (for the curious, Shikata Ga Nai is japanese for it can’t be helped, there is even a Wikipedia page for it), it is possible to create a unique binary executable which anti-virus software will have a hard time spotting.

John Strand posted a video comparing how executables created by Metasploit 3.1 and 3.2 fare against AV software by uploading these executables on Virus Total. The results are quite impressive.

If you want more details about Shikata Ga Nai, please read Context-keyed Payload Encoding, an article written by l)ruid (who is a Metasploit contributor) on Uninformed.org.

The Reading Corner: The Paradox of Choice, by Barry Schwartz

saad@hush.com — 2008-11-02T21:47:59+01:00

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that we have far more choices than needed in this consumerist world. We experience it everyday when we need and/or want to buy something, be it a new pair of trousers, furnitures or cereals. And personally, I don't see what this 230+ pages book brings to the topic. The author would have been really helpful had he extracted the gist of his book and produced instead a 10 pages article. My expectations were really high for this Business Week Top Ten Book Of The Year winner. I hoped there will be at least some kind of discussion on the real reasons why we have so many choices in life. There are at least an obvious potential one and that is the way Capitalism is implemented. However, the author sticks to the idea that choice means freedom and the more choices we have, the freer we are but this comes at a cost and we should reason ourselves to stick with "good enough" and not seek "the best" to avoid insatisfaction and sadness. This is not my conception of freedom.

Le Coin Cheminée : Un Sur Deux, par Steve Mosby

saad@hush.com — 2008-11-16T19:43:29+01:00

Lorsque j'ai eu ce livre entre les mains, je l'ai posé dans un coin de ma bibliothèque horrifié que j'étais par la comparaison faite (par le département Marketing je suppose) avec un ouvrage monumental tel que Le Silence des Agneaux. J'ai craint d'être déçu et déçu je fus après m'être décidé à le lire bien des mois après l'avoir reçu en cadeau. Bien que l'idée du tueur en série diabolique cherchant à mettre à l'épreuve l'amour de deux êtres puisse paraître séduisante, elle est bien mal servie par l'auteur. La logique et l'enchaînement des "faits" laissent beaucoup à désirer. Des répétitions inutiles apparaissent ici et là, insultant presque l'intelligence du lecteur. Et la fin laisse un goût amer dans la bouche, comme si on nous avait promis monts et merveilles mais on se retrouve malheureusement avec un mauvais jeu de ni vu, ni connu je t'embrouille. Les ficelles sont grossières, le style est souvent confus et la comparaison avec Le Silence des Agneaux est tout simplement ridicule. Peut-être s'agit-il d'un problème de traduction ?

Le Coin Cheminée : Je N'ai Pas Peur, par Niccolo Ammaniti

saad@hush.com — 2008-11-21T11:48:08+01:00

L'auteur nous invite à partager quelques moments de vie d'un hameau perdu dans la campagne italienne. Cette vie aurait pu être monotone, plate et sans intérêt si nous excluons la beauté des champs de blé. C'est loin d'être le cas, tel que nous le conte Michele, un enfant de 9 ans. Des événements marquants essaieront d'ôter une partie de l'innocence de notre narrateur. Mais réussiront-ils ? Est-ce que la cruauté du monde des adultes vont venir à bout de cette tendresse, de cette vision simple que nous sentons très présentes dans les pensées de ce si jeune petit homme ? Je vous invite à lire ce livre, je ne pense pas que vous le regretterez.

La Belle et La Trompette Eclectique

saad@hush.com — 2008-10-27T21:10:39+01:00

Il est des jours où une succession d’événements vous entrouvre les portes du Paradis. Ce soir, j’y suis au Paradis. Musical le Paradis, si je dois vraiment le qualifier. Ce n’est guère la première fois que j’y séjourne, fort heureusement ! Sinon, ma vie ne serait pas aussi riche qu’elle ne l’est aujourd’hui. J’y suis entré cette fois-ci de manière assez surprenante. Ne trépignez point d’impatience, prenez votre temps. Mettez une bonne musique reposante et relaxante. Prenez place, je m’en vais vous conter une belle histoire.

Belle. Oui c’est ainsi que cela a commencé. Equipé de mon fidèle lecteur de musique portatif, les yeux plongés dans un livre assez agréable à lire, je rentrais chez moi. J’étais dans ce train au nom mystérieux mais dont le mystère disparaît dès qu’on y met les pieds. Vous savez, le RER ! Ah les acronymes. Souvent ils cachent la misère et font tout de suite sérieux, pompeux, scientifique ! Je m’égare. Donc j’étais une personne parmi tant d’autres dans ce lieu fort convivial et chaleureux. A un moment, j’ai senti une présence et j’ai levé les yeux pour voir de qui il pouvait s’agir. C’était une jeune demoiselle. Belle. Non, pas vraiment belle. Elle avait certes du charme mais elle avait ce petit quelque chose qui attire l’attention et qui vous donne envie de sourire. Rayonnante, je dirais. Voilà, c’est bien le mot que je cherchais. Elle n’arborait pas cette figure maussade, si chère à bon nombre des personnes que je croisais quotidiennement dans ce train ou un autre. La voir ainsi, rayonnante, contente d’être là, simplement, me donna envie de sourire et je ne sais pas pour quelle raison, ces trois mots me vinrent à l’esprit : Belle de nuit. Un titre de l’album de The Walk of The Giant Turtle dont l’auteur n’est autre que cet immense joueur de trompette au son si typique, j’ai nommé Monsieur Erik Truffaz. Au moment où ces mots se sont matérialisés dans mon esprit, j’étais entrain d’écouter la musique d’Erin Bode, une chanteuse dotée d’une voix fort agréable. Ayant un grand respect pour la bonne musique, j’ai laissé cette chère Erin finir son morceau avant de faire la succession d’opérations nécessaires pour lancer Belle de nuit, un titre très agréable à écouter ceci dit en passant.

Erik accompagna mes pas ensuite jusqu’à mon domicile où j’ai retrouvé ma petite famille. J’ai du donc laisser Erik de côté. Peut-être pour le trajet demain matin pensais-je. Mais la vie vous réserve souvent des surprises. Le dernier numéro de Jazzman m’attendait sagement sur la table du séjour, m’invitant à l’ouvrir. Ce que je fis car en voyant une superbe photo en noir et blanc d’Art Blakey sur la couverture, la tentation fut trop grande pour y résister. C’est ainsi que je me suis retrouvé à lire la rubrique sur les disques du mois et quelle ne fut ma surprise d’apprendre que le sieur Truffaz avait non seulement sorti 3 albums en même temps mais qu’un des albums était un Choc Jazzman du mois ! Vite, de quoi s’agit-il ? Je me suis empressé de trouver la page qui décrivait ces 3 pépites et ce que j’y ai lu m’emplit d’une joie immense, dans l’expectative d’écouter l’oeuvre du plus éclectique parmi les trompettistes du Jazz. C’est ainsi que je me suis retrouvé à écrire ce billet, en écoutant le triptyque élaboré sous forme de voyage sonore où chaque album a sa propre identité, très différente des autres : Paris, Benares et Mexico.

Paris, où le groove immense d’un Sly Johnson (des Saïan Supa Crew, déjà entendu récemment dans le dernier album de Camille) côtoie cette magnifique trompette. Géniale « beatbox » humaine, Sly Johnson n’a rien à envier à un monstre du genre. Bobby Mc Ferrin bien sûr !

Benares, où l’on retrouve un son envoûtant et mystique avec des voix pénétrantes et de magnifiques tablas.

Mexico enfin où on ne croirait pas un instant que nous sommes dans l’univers d’un Truffaz si on n’avait pas vu son nom figurer sur la jaquette, tellement la signature sonore est proche de celle d’un Nils Petter Molvaer, notamment à travers son sublime album Khmer, un vrai ovni dans la constellation Jazz apparu il y a quelques années chez ECM.

S’il y a bien une chose que j’adore dans la Musique, c’est l’éclectisme et l’invitation à l’ouverture et au partage. Le triptyque d’Erik Truffaz représente tout à fait cela. Des albums avec des ambiances particulières, tellement différentes, et qui traduisent un vrai esprit d’ouverture chez cet artiste dont je suis les aventures musicales depuis le début de ce siècle et que j’ai eu la chance de voir deux fois en concert. Et c’est grâce à lui si j’éprouve un tel bonheur ce soir. La Musique a cet effet sur moi. Elle s’infiltre dans les interstices de mon âme et libère ces choses qu’on appelle émotions, vous savez bien ... je parle de ces choses qui font de nous des êtres humains. Et je dois avouer que j’ai de la chance de pouvoir écouter une telle musique. La dernière fois où j’ai mis les pieds au Paradis Musical, c’était grâce (encore une fois !) à ce cher Avishai Cohen. J’ai assisté à son concert du 16 octobre au Bataclan.

Parisiens, si vous n’avez rien programmé, venez donc voir Benares en Live le 02 avril prochain au Café de la Danse et Paris (avec Sly Johnson) le 3 avril à La Maroquinerie. J’ai déjà réservé mes billets et si nous nous y croisons, faites-moi signe, nous irons savourer une boisson ensemble !

Et pour finir, je tiens à remercier la jeune demoiselle dans le train. Rayonnante inconnue, sans toi je n’aurais peut-être pas passer une si bonne soirée.

Thievery Corporation Frappe Fort avec Radio Retaliation

saad@hush.com — 2008-10-04T22:38:26+02:00

J’ai découvert la Musique de Thievery Corporation en 2001 grâce à un collègue de travail qui est depuis devenu un de mes meilleurs amis (nobz, tu te reconnaîtras). A l’époque, si mes souvenirs sont bons, j’étais encore réticent et dubitatif face à cet engouement pour l’Electro. C’était sans compter sur l’énorme musicalité (si si) de Thievery Corporation qui a réussi (avec The Herbalizer notamment) à briser mes réticences et me permettre d’élargir mes horizons en tant que passionné de musiques.

Ce groupe (ou plutôt duo) américain a une signature sonore unique facilement reconnaissable. Il suffit de lancer un de leurs titres pour tout de suite sentir ce groove un peu chaloupé qui constitue la base de leur oeuvre. Bien qu’on case souvent leur Musique dans la catégorie « Electro », elle est avant tout éclectique. Après l’excellent The Cosmic Game, ils viennent de frapper très fort avec Radio Retaliation, certainement un des meilleurs albums que j’ai écouté cette année.

Ce n’est pas tant l’innovation ou l’originalité qui me poussent à écrire des mots aussi forts à propos de cet album mais parce qu’il traduit parfaitement ce que j’attends de la Musique en tant qu’auditeur : une ouverture et du partage.

Ouverture d’abord parce qu’on retrouve du Reggae, du Dancehall, du Hip-Hop, de l’Afrobeat de la musique latine, de la Soul, de la musique hindoue et de la musique orientale dans cet album ! Le tout constituant un ensemble très homogène grâce à la signature sonore si unique et l’habillage Electro de Thievery Corporation.

Partage car ils ont invité des artistes de haut vol sur cet album : Seu Jorge, Anoushka Shankar, Femi Kuti, ou Sleepy Wonder. On pourrait craindre légitimement une « soupe » mondialisée et mondialisante mais c’est loin d’être le cas. Radio Retaliation est aussi un album politiquement engagé. Il n’y a qu’a écouter par exemple Vampires avec Femi Kuti, Radio Retaliation (la chanson) avec Sleepy Wonder, ou Forgotten People.

Quelques liens utiles :

Away and Back

saad@hush.com — 2008-10-01T11:47:51+02:00

Almost a month since I posted something on this blog. Work went crazy with people coming back from vacation and some interesting (and time-consuming) I.T. security issues that I needed to handle very quickly. Nonetheless, I took the time to go on holidays with my little family and a couple of friends during the last week of September (well more like ten days actually). We’ve been to Corsica. This was the second time I went there (the first time was in 2004).

I enjoyed it a lot. The weather was OK (I was in short sleeve t-shirt mode almost all the time) and the sea’s water temperature was very fine. In the moutains, the water was very cold though but I managed to swim everywhere I could find a nice spot ;-). We visited Bonifacio, Bastia, Porto-Vecchio (which I don’t really recommend for sight-seeings), Bavella ... and we’ve been to some awesome beaches (Rondinara, Palombaggia).

Keziah Jones Reaches New Heights With Nigerian Wood

saad@hush.com — 2008-09-02T11:19:18+02:00

It’s only been two days that I added Nigerian Wood, Keziah Jones’ latest release, to my Music collection. And I must admit that I like it very much.

After listening to My Kinda Girl, the single that was released this summer, I was afraid that I wouldn’t enjoy the new album. My Kinda Girl is about a fine tune but not the kind of Music that I really enjoy and that I came to expect from this artist. I really dig his previous release, Black Orpheus. But I put aside my initial worries and bought a ticket for his concert in Olympia, Paris this November. This guy is a real showman as far as I can tell from a DVD of a concert he gave a few years ago in Paris.

Yesterday morning was my first exposure to Nigerian Wood. I listened to it while commuting and I really enjoyed it overall. So far, I dig the following songs: Nigerian Wood (same title as the album and also the opening song, with a wonderful mixture of Funk and Soul), Beautifulblackbutterfly (the drums are really great on this one), In Love Forever (kind of standard Pop-ish Keziah style, so enjoyable), and Long Distance Love (the drums are, again, just perfect and their Hip-hopish beats fits greatly with the otherwise Soulish tone of the song).

If you want to sample these songs, they are available on Deezer:

Un SPAM Fort Sympathique

saad@hush.com — 2008-08-19T15:35:32+02:00

Pour une fois que je reçois un SPAM fort sympathique, bien écrit (bon les accents manquents mais c’est une broutille n’est-ce pas ?), bien formaté et crédible, je me suis dit que j’allais le partager et ne pas le garder pour moi comme un vil égoïste. Même les liens pointent vers les URLs dont ils portent le “nom” !

Sébastien, qui que tu sois derrière ce prénom, je ne te connais pas mais merci quand même pour ta délicate attention. Le seul hic c’est que je ne suis pas franchement amateur de montres.

Les Bons Restos Parisiens : Gabriela

saad@hush.com — 2008-08-09T10:34:12+02:00

Jeudi dernier, j’étais de sortie avec des collègues et betabug (actuellement en visite à Paris). Nous avons bu quelques verres avant de nous diriger vers Gabriela, un restaurant brésilien suggéré par un de mes collègues.

Dès notre arrivée, j’ai été très agréablement surpris par l’ambiance très chaleureuse de l’endroit et les sourires radieux du personnel. Ca m’a rappelé par certains côtés quelques restaurants populaires du Maroc que j’avais l’habitude de fréquenter lorsque j’étais étudiant. De la bonne musique brésilienne qui sent le soleil et la fraîcheur renforçait ce sentiment de chaleur donné par la décoration. Le volume était idéal pour apprécier la musique sans empêcher la discussion entre convives.

Nous étions assis de telle façon que nous pouvions voir la cuisine, séparée par un petit comptoir du reste de la salle. Y officiaient deux “chefs”, genre force tranquille. L’un deux m’a rappelé je ne sais pour quelle raison John Bull et son excellent show culinaire John Bull’s Reggae Kitchen (à voir d’urgence !). Une petite sonnette au bruit agréable était installée sur le comptoir pour signaler aux serveurs que des plats sont prêts à être servis.

La carte est sympathique et variée : viande blanche, rouge, poissons, porc, crevettes ... Grand fan de poissons, je n’ai pas longtemps hésité pour prendre un bar grillé avec une garniture à base de riz et de manioc. Je n’ai vraiment pas regretté mon choix ! Succulent ! Mes collègues et betabug semblaient aussi très enchantés par leurs plats. En dessert, j’ai pris une préparation à base d’açaï, un petit fruit amazonien qui pousse dans un palmier du nord du Brésil, l’açayer, de bananes et de muesli. C’était très frais et très bon. Ce fruit serait riche en fer et en anti-oxydants, rien de mieux pour joindre l’utile à l’agréable !

En conclusion, j’ai passé une excellente soirée. Je vous recommande donc vivement ce restaurant. Attention, il n’ouvre que le soir en semaine et le week-end, il est ouvert samedi matin mais avec un choix de plats réduits. Si vous êtes sur Paris, vous pouvez même vous faire livrer. Et le site Web du restaurant est une vraie réussite. Inutile de vous dire qu’il est fortement recommandé de réserver.

Gabriela, 3, Rue Milton, 75009 Paris. Téléphone : 01 42 80 28 14.

Avishai's Gently Disturbed Reviewed by AAJ

saad@hush.com — 2008-08-08T21:53:58+02:00

Andrew Velez has reviewed Gently Disturbed by Avishai Cohen Trio for All About Jazz (AAJ). You should definitely read this excellent review.

Quoting him:

[...] their sophisticated ways tantalize and require attentive, open ears.

I can’t say it any better. These guys truly have some incredible alchemy going on. I’ve already written about their New Morning concert a few weeks ago. And I keep listening to their album and every time I discover something new and gain deeper understanding of their Music. Quoting Andrew again:

Gently Disturbed is a blend of melody, groove, complexity and simplicity that is beyond definition.

Beyond definition!

I.T. Security: "Big Is The New Small" Redux

saad@hush.com — 2008-08-05T16:24:53+02:00

Mike Rothman, the man behind Security Incite, has posted yet another excellent post on his blog called Revisiting Big is The New Small. It is an excellent piece loaded with sharp insight and a very good sense of humor.

Anyone interested in the security market and how people contend with nonsensical sales pitch from the security vendors while all they want is good enough security (which doesn’t mean that this is an ideal situation) from big companies should definitely read that post. Here are some chosen quotes:

[...] the original concept behind Big is the New Small is that customers were tired of dealing with crappy little vendors. They'd much rather deal with bloated, unresponsive, lumbering vendors.

BAM! Reload, shoot:

There are many that cling to the "best of breed" myth. It's even funnier when you think about folks positioning their offerings as "integrated best of breed," whether it happens on the perimeter or on the devices. Or even in security management. Integration/unification and best of breed are opposites. Oil and water. You get the picture. It just doesn't happen.

Want some more?

without anything that is truly innovative (and it's been quite a while since we've seen true innovation in the security space), customers have no choice but to go with good enough. Most of the new companies out there are focused on "better, faster, cheaper" models of improving the way things are already done.

Quartier d'Eté : Concerts d'Antibalas

saad@hush.com — 2008-08-05T11:50:15+02:00

Dans le cadre du festival parisien Quartier d’été, l’excellent groupe d’Afrobeat Antibalas effectue une série de 5 concerts dans des jardins de la capitale. Le premier a eu lieu hier au Parc de la Villette. Ce soir, ils seront au jardin Emile Gallé dans le 11ème et je compte y assister avec betabug, un bon ami swiss geek in athens tel qu’il se définit ;-) et en visite actuellement à Paris.

Antibalas est un de mes groupes Afrobeat préférés. Je les ai déjà vu se produire il y a quelques mois dans une salle à Massy (dans le 91) et j’avais passé un très bon moment. La musique est bien rythmée et votre corps peut se mettre à bouger de façon incontrôlable. Les cuivres sont bien présents et la batterie soutient joliment le tout.

Pour découvrir la Musique de cet excellent groupe, faites un tour sur leur site MySpace. Et voici quelques sympathiques titres sur Deezer :

El Machete
Musicaw Silt (Live)
Pay Back Africa
Pour terminer, vous pouvez consulter le programme complet du festival au format PDF.

Keepon, The Dancing Robot

saad@hush.com — 2008-07-26T06:28:47+02:00

Lately, I started to feel a growing interest for Design and that’s how I “discovered” Ambidextrous. I am considering getting a subscription to this magazine. So I decided to sample a few articles. This is how I came to read Keepon Dancing, a very interesting article on Keepon, a nice little robot with social interaction abilities.

Notice how simple its seems.This extremely simplistic design is engaging as shown by research conducted with children. According to the article, written by one of the two Keepon developers, Keepon is able to direct attention around a room and express simple emotions through bodily movement.

Beatbots.org, the “official” website, features a number of videos showing Keepon in action. I should admit that I have been flabbergasted by the demos. I’ve also learned from the article that Keepon starred in a Spoon Music video. See it dancing to Don’t You Evah. According to a post in BoingBoing:
the robot (...) extracts extract the pulse of rhythm from music and move its silicone body in time.

Before you reach out for your credit card, I’d like to inform you that Keepon is not commercially available. Otherwise, the compulsive buyer in me would have tried to get one and conduct some social interaction experiments in the workplace :-)

Breakin'

saad@hush.com — 2008-07-22T22:56:00+02:00

I moved recently to a new location with my little family. While preparing the boxes, I was surprised to find a dusty box full of magnetic Music tapes in my basement. I was like a little kid opening a gift holding big promises. It contained all the magnetic tapes I brought with when I left Morocco to come to study in France. At that time, my Sony Discman I used to have for a few years was completely broken so I took only my Sony Walkman, a few CDs and as much tapes as I could pack.

Many of them have special memories associated with them. The Al Corley original tape was a gift from a cousin of mine. I craved Square Rooms. You are not dreaming ;-) ... My Musical taste is eclectic, I told ya! I also found a ZZ Top Eliminator original tape. This one was a gift from my brother. It is so beaten up that I didn’t dare putting it in my Technics tape player. Dirty Dog was one of my favorite songs in the nineties. I remember very clearly that the tape broke several times and I had to ‘fix’ it using nail polish :-p

But the tape that I cherish the most is my very first one! Yes, I still have it. It’s a Sony CHF 60 minutes tape my brother bought for me in 1986, when I was a mere 12yo boy. It was recorded using Dolby (woot!) and contains the Breakin’ movie’s awesome soundtrack. At that time, Breakdancing was all hype in Morocco. I used to practice with some friends all the rather basic figures: Turtle, Back Spin, etc. And of course, the movie that was on everyone’s mouth and that every kid on the block was trying to copy moves from was Breakin’! (released as Breakdance: The Movie in Morocco). It features a very affable trio of dancers -Kelly, Ozone and Turbo-. Turbo moves was particularly spectacular to my kid’s eyes. I have extremely sharp memories of Turbo’s Broom Dance:

And here is the first battle:

Of course, things have changed over time but not necessarily for the best (heck, where are the power moves?!?):

Supertramp got it right. It was the best of all times ;-)

Sur Un Air de Funk Taylorien

saad@hush.com — 2008-07-22T16:57:26+02:00

La semaine dernière, je suis allé boire un verre avec des amis au Baroudeur, un bar bien sympathique dans le 11ème à Paris (il est situé plus exactement au 1, rue Faidherbe). L’ambiance y était chaleureuse. Les enceintes diffusaient de la bonne musique, plutôt Jazzy. A un moment, un morceau de bon Funk se lance. Ca ressemblait beaucoup à une chanson de Soulive d’il y a quelques temps mais il manquait certains ingrédients habituellement utilisés par ce groupe, un je-ne-sais-quoi de différent.

Renseignements pris auprès du serveur qui est allé voir sur l’écran de l’iPod servant ce délicieux mets auditif, le cuisinier se nommait The James Taylor Quartet. De retour au bercail, je me mets à la quête du cuisinier dans le cyberverse (ça fait tout de suite j’étale ma science non ?) et je tombe sur une page de Wikipedia qui m’apprend que c’est un groupe Anglais formé par le sieur James Taylor qui officie au Hammond. Un bon nombre de leurs disques (tous ?) sont disponibles chez eMusic. J’ai pratiquement tout pré-écouté avant de télécharger un album de 2001 intitulé Message From The Godfather dont les sonorités ressemblaient beaucoup à ce que nous avions pu écouter au Baroudeur. Mes oreilles sont en ce moment entrain de se délecter de ce Jazz Funk classieux et efficace.

Voici quelques autres liens pour explorer l’oeuvre musicale de ce groupe très sympathique :

Traces Réseau et Pseudonymat

saad@hush.com — 2008-07-21T09:32:46+02:00

Imaginons que vous deviez envoyer des dumps de trafic réseau à un partenaire/fournisseur/whatchmacallit et imaginons que vous avez besoin de nettoyer ces traces d'éléments identificateurs (oui parce que vous vous ennuyez et vous n'avez rien trouvé de mieux à faire de la journée à part faire votre paranoiaque de la sécurité). Et là, vous vous dites ... Mais comment faire ?

Il m’est arrivé plusieurs fois de me poser la question et à part prendre des traces en PCAP, les transformer en texte et utiliser ce cher sed parci-parlà, je n’avais jamais été plus loin.

Et voilà que PktAnon entre en scène. Cet outil hautement configurable (en XML, vous vous en doutiez car c’est la mode) permet de modifier un fichier de traces réseau au format PCAP afin de répondre à des exigences de pseudonymat (ou de paranoïa pour celles et ceux qui croient encore aux Bisounours).

PktAnon n’est pour l’instant toujours pas disponible en application tierce pré-packagée pour mes OS habituels (FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Mac OS X). Je vais donc attendre un peu avant de le tester. Si vous avez de votre côté réalisé des tests, n’hésitez pas à me faire part de vos impressions.

Feel The Groove In The Air

saad@hush.com — 2008-07-20T08:27:28+02:00

As a follow-up to my post on Avishai Cohen’s concert, I’d like to share with you on another awesome Jazz artist that also has this blending/generosity power in his Music. I am talking about Christophe Wallemme.

Like Avishai, he is a Jazz bassist/composer/arranger and has a very solid groove. Born in Paris in 1964, his 2006 record Namasté exemplifies the kind of Jazz that I particularly enjoy. That’s why I am planning on attending his October concert at the Sunside, another mythical Jazz venue.

The self-titled song Namasté is a groove summum. I will now step back and let your ears discover this song.

Christophe Wallemme - Namaste EPK

Useful links:

Avishai Smacked Me!

saad@hush.com — 2008-07-19T01:50:23+02:00

It's Saturday 1:26 AM on this side of the not-so-green-anymore planet. I have just came back home. I was at a Jazz concert in Paris. And it was so amazing that I wanted to share my feelings with you right away, before heading to that so-longed-for bed of mine.

Avishai Cohen is one of the most innovative and amazing Jazz bassist and composer/arranger I know of. I heard first of him about 2 years ago in one of my favorite Jazz magazines (Jazzman). They reviewed his 2006 record, Continuo, and gave it very good ratings. As soon as I ripped it on my iTunes library, it was an instant hit and I was literally hooked. Since then, an awesome live CD/DVD (As Is... Live At The Blue Note) and a 2008 record (Gently Disturbed) finished convinced me (as if it was needed) that this is the guy. This is the kind of Music that speaks to my inner self. It represented all what I liked about Music: blending and generosity. Good Music has this particular trait that makes your emotions flowing and put your brain's right hemisphere into high gear mode.

When I learned that he was coming to Paris for a concert at the New Morning, one of the mythical Jazz venues in France, I didn't think much before getting a ticket. A single one. Usually, I ask friends/relatives if they want to come along. But I felt that I needed to live that "snapshot" alone, a communion.

The big day arrived. Friday 18th of July. I had one hell of a week. Physically and emotionally straining. At the end of the day, I was very tired and I doubted that I had enough fuel to go the concert. I don't know how but my feet pushed me forward. Toward the New Morning scene, toward Avishai Cohen and his sidekicks, drummer Mark Guiliana and pianist Shai Maestro.

I arrived there around 7:45 PM. The concert was supposed to start at 9:00 PM. There was already a line. I waited. I was tired. Really tired. Two guys were in front of me in that long line. They started talking about Jazz, Music and other topics I have a sharp interest in. So I jumped in with both feet. I felt that they are made of the same fabrics I was made from. They were generous and have a keen interest in Music. It was a very enjoyable talk. I didn't feel much the long time we waited before entering inside the New Morning. They opened the doors at 9:00 PM. We got good seats and waited for another 30 minutes before the Jazz trio came on the scene.

The words end here. I was completely flabbergasted by these three guys. I took several direct "hits" in the ears, so many of them actually that I don't think I've been to a so emotionally intensive concert in my whole life. They didn't give any warning before taking me from Tired Station to Heavy Energy Street in the blink of an eye. The "hits" were so strong that tears of utter joy kept visiting my cheeks now and then. I was smiling all the time, enthralled by that jaw dropping event. All three musicians were exceptional. But If I should give a "awesome achievement" award it will be to the drummer with no hesitation at all. At three occasions during the two sets they played, he really unleashed his creativity and performed something I've never seen/heard before. He took all the audience with him in a very enjoyable trip. He kind of gave us his hand and told us "follow me in uncharted territory, you'll enjoy the ride. I guarantee it". And we did and we enjoyed behind all description.

After two hours of fantastic Music, I had troubles getting back on my feet and heading home. I kept saying "unbelievable" and I knew that many other people felt the same way. They had that telltale look on their face.

It took me about 1h30min to get back home and here I am writing you. I am still kind of knocked out emotionally speaking.

If you want to try some Music samples, please visit http://www.myspace.com/avishaicohenmusic. Select 11Wives, sit back ... have a good and pleasant trip.

Keep the Music flowing. Let the emotions out. Check for yourselves that we humans can make truly beautiful "things".

Truly yours,

GNU/Linux Is Very Secure?

saad@hush.com — 2008-05-06T15:40:29+02:00

Bana, a fellow DocIslander, told me about an IBM DeveloperWorks titled Anatomy of Security-Enhanced Linux (SELinux). Bana pointed me to the following excerpt:

GNU/Linux is very secure, but it's also very dynamic: changes can appear that open holes into the operating system that can then be exploited. Although considerable attention is paid to preventing unauthorized access, what happens after an entry has occurred?

Good! Oh, hang on a sec. Don't you smell something really fishy in the first sentence? Let me me help you out a bit:

GNU/Linux is very secure, but it's also very dynamic...

I let my mind chew on these memes and I came to the conclusion that this basically boils down to saying something similar to the following:

Have no fear chap, you can sleep assured that no burglar will enter your house. Look at the door. It's made of bulletproof metal, 6 inch thick with 17 different locks, retina scan and ADN sampler. Oh, by the way, it's a very dynamic design that's why we are destroying the surrounding walls and rebuilding them from the ground up.

... And that's why we need something as mind-bogglingly complex as SELinux to secure the very secure.

Mystery Solved! How Swiss Hackers Really Look Like

saad@hush.com — 2008-05-06T13:57:50+02:00

In the absence of some sound evidence, I always thought that Swiss hackers were a subgroup of hackers, which is a subgroup of human beings. My logical self led me then to believe that my friend Betabug and all his fellow Swiss hackers looked like your run-of-the-mill human beings! How mistaken I was!

Last week, I finally discovered some compelling evidence about how Swiss hackers really look like. I was in a supermarket when I stumbled upon a whole flock sitting silently (or so it seems). Look for yourself.

Oh and by the way, needless to say that I mean hacker as defined by the Jargon File.

Compte-rendu du FOSDEM 2008

saad@hush.com — 2008-05-05T01:06:54+02:00

J'ai effectué un compte-rendu des conférences du FOSDEM 2008 axées autour de la sécurité informatique pour la Lettre Techniques De l'Ingénieur (Sécurité des Systèmes d'Information). Il a été publié dans le numéro 14 (Avril 2008).

Contrairement à l'édition précédente, il y a eu peu de présentations autour de la sécurité. Ce ne sont pas les orateurs ou les sujets qui manquent pourtant... Seules deux présentations ont su retenir mon attention : une présentation de SELinux dans CentOS et une présentation/démonstration de WebScarab-NG du projet OWASP.

Développement Sécurisé Dans La Lettre Techniques De l'Ingénieur

saad@hush.com — 2008-05-05T00:45:44+02:00

J'ai assez récemment rédigé un article ayant pour sujet le développement sécurisé pour la Lettre Techniques De l'Ingénieur (Sécurité des Systèmes d'Information). Il a été publié dans le numéro 13 (Mars 2008). Intitulé Vers une approche pragmatique du développement sécurisé d'applications, il décrit 6 points destinés à ancrer la sécurité au sein d'un cycle de développement logiciel pour aboutir à un SDL (Secure Development Lifecycle).

Cette approche est très largement inspirée de l'approche proposée par Gary McGraw dans son excellent ouvrage Software Security dont je recommande la lecture à toute personne s'intéressant de près au développement sécurisé. Je me suis contenté de simplifier l'approche initialement proposée par ce dernier et de survoler les points d'ancrage afin de fournir une vue d'ensemble de l'approche et des étapes nécessaires pour la mettre en musique.

MISC 37 : A La Découverte de ModSecurity 2

saad@hush.com — 2008-05-05T00:23:12+02:00

Le numéro 37 (mai/juin 2008) du magazine MISC vient de paraître. Si vous y êtes abonné, vous avez du recevoir ce numéro dans votre boîte aux lettres sinon vous le trouverez très prochainement en kiosque. Vous retrouverez page 60 un article intitulé A la découverte de ModSecurity 2, que j'ai co-écrit avec mon collègue et ami de longue date Jérôme Léonard. J'ai pris beaucoup de plaisir à travailler avec quelqu'un dont je partage certaines convictions et une vision similaire de la sécurité informatique.

Comme son titre l'indique, nous vous proposons de découvrir à travers cette fiche technique le pare-feu applicatif ModSecurity 2 (que je m'étais promis d'essayer) en quelques pages. Nous y décrivons les fonctionnalités principales de la version 2 de ce produit destiné à augmenter le niveau de sécurité de vos applications Web. Et comme d'habitude, vous y retrouverez quelques petites notes d'humour destinées à rendre votre lecture plus agréable sans oublier de vous fournir les informations essentielles vous permettant de décider de l'éventuelle adéquation de ce produit par rapport à vos besoins.

Nous penchons du côté de l'approche par liste noire (interdire les URLs suspicieuses) qui nous paraît plus pragmatique et plus adaptée à la complexité des applications Web actuelles. Je n'en dirais pas plus ! Je vous invite à lire l'article et à nous soumettre vos commentaires et vos questions par email ou en utilisant le système de commentaires de ce blog. Votre retour est précieux et nous permet d'améliorer la qualité de notre travail.

NPR: Dee Dee Bridgewater's Red Earth in Concert

saad@hush.com — 2008-05-03T06:57:56+02:00

Dee Dee Bridgewater is a cheerful, affable artist with a very interesting voice. During the years, I've sampled some of her songs (mainly Jazz) but I was not really hooked... until the release of Red Earth, her latest album that she recorded in Mali, Africa. She decided to go there seeking her African ancestry and I think she found it, at least musically speaking.

Mali is a an amazing and vibrant Music haven in West Africa. That's the country where some of my favorite African artists live such as the excellent Toumani Diabaté, Ballaké Cissoko, or Salif Keita to cite just a few. Mali is also the country where Ali Farka Touré was born and died.

Featuring Kora (my favorite Music instrument), Balafon and other traditional African Music instruments as well as a masterfully played Piano (by no less than Edsel Gomez who's Cubist Music was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2007), Red Earth is a very interesting album that I particularly enjoyed listening to.

I was pleased to see it featured on NPR which streams a Dee Dee Bridgewater's concert performed in Washington D.C. Treat your ears to this excellent Music! I particularly recommend the second part (seek the Listen to Part 2 link).

Smoothie Recipe: Lava 1.0

saad@hush.com — 2008-04-27T13:36:36+02:00

One of my coworkers, a wonderful person that I really care for and consider a friend in the true sense, got me a little present for my birthday; a book on smoothies. A smoothie is a blended and sweet beverage made from fresh fruit. An urban legend pretends that there is no smoothie without milk or yogurt. Ain't true Ma'm!

I decided to give it a shot this week-end during the visit of nobz, a DocIsland fellow, and his family.

I started with a smoothie called Breakfast Bracer (mango, banana and grapefruit, two each) which was really good. I followed the recipe almost faithfully. I just added a bit of cinnamon to the mix. And then my embryonic cuisine creativity gears kicked in and I decided to experiment. After two interations, I "created" Lava 1.0. The recipe is pretty simple and you can do it even if your cuisine skills are near or below zero.

For 1 liter of Lava smoothie juice, you need the following ingredients:

500gr of strawberry
125gr of raspberry
3 bananas
7 juicy oranges (with 2 blood oranges if possible)

Wash everything (save for the bananas of course), cut the strawberries and the bananas in small pieces, cut the oranges in 8 parts. For each part, remove the pips if any and the attached skin on the inside. Take a sharp, small knife and separate the part from the external skin. Make sure there is no skin attached to the external surface of the orange part. Throw everything in a blender. You don't need to add sugar or whatever, Just make sure you select premium fruits. Put in the fridge for half an hour, or if you want to save as much vitamins as possible, add ice and you are done!

I called this smoothie Lava as a tribute to the coworker who got me the book that sparked the creativity gears. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did and if you have any suggestions for enhancements (that's why there is a version number attached to the smoothie recipe's name) please let me know.

What's The Story Behind The Bookstore?

saad@hush.com — 2008-04-24T16:21:53+02:00

One of my favorite activities consists of walking in Paris streets. I've been living in the area for almost ten years and Paris still amazes me. It's kind of a love'n'hate story between us. Far more love than hate though. And after all these years, Paris still have some Love cards up her sleeves that just make me happy.

I often wander in streets I've never been to before or just walked their pavement in a hurry, not really taking the time to see what beauty (or ugliness) they may have in store for me. Yesterday, I went to L'escale Pakito, a wonderful little pub to have a few drinks with close friends. I arrived quite early so I took the opportunity to wander around a bit. And there I found that kind of beauty I particularly enjoy. I took a picture to share it with you.

I was simply amazed by this street intersection, with that majestuous building in the background (the sunlit one) and more importantly by L'escalier (the staircase), an old looking bookstore that seems to support the whole building of which it occupies an angle; worn out by the cheer weight of the whole structure. It also made me wonder what's the story behind that shop? Who was its first owner? How did it evolve during all these years? How does it manage to survive in this time and age of cybergiants such as Amazon? What kind of books are sold there? Who chose the paint? Did a relative of mine ever visited or bought something from this shop in the seventies or eighties (one uncle, one brother-in-law, and the husband of one cousin dwelled in Paris for a few years at that time)? So many questions! All participating to the mistery of the bookstore from which sprung, I guess, the beauty I felt when looking at this scene.

I left them unanswered since all this very subjective beauty may simply evaporate with the answers. Of course, if you happen to know some of them please share them with us!

Sun Is Shining, The Weather Is (About) Sweet

saad@hush.com — 2008-04-24T13:59:16+02:00

I was longing for a sunny, sweet day in the otherwise gloomy, grey-skeyed, coldish Paris. Heck, this is Spring or so they said on TV (and of course, you do believe whatever they say right?). Nuff' talk. See for yourself if you don't believe me. Picture shot this morning when going to work. This is Boulevard Haussmann if you care. The picture was taken by a cheap camera embodied in a far-from-cheap phone.

Oh, and as any other cheap wannabe open-minded, cool Parisian, I usually take the Velib' (an almost free bike service in Paris) for 10 minutes or so to go from Chatelet to work. My path takes me through Avenue de l'Opera where I can see the beautiful Opera in all its majesty shining when Sun is not slacking.

Just a small dose of this miraculous Sun makes me wanna grow wings and fly over to it like Icarus. The only thing that is preventing me from doing so is that very small, insignificant hurdle called Evolution. Damn ! Darwin, why did you have to provide such a theory? It would have been far easier if we were ruled by Creationism (or even its reduced-price version, Intelligent Design). I'd just pray the Flying Spaghetti Monster and I'd grow some hypish Pastafarian wings in no time. Damn Damn Damn.

Jazz Song Review: Kalimba Suite by Bobby McFerrin [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2008-03-12T22:50:39+01:00

[Jazz] Kalimba Suite by Bobby McFerrin
From the album Beyond Words.

Bobby McFerrin is one of my favorite artists. I highly regard his amazing voice and incredible musicality. He is a frequent guest of my iPod playlists and I often listen to his records when I need to relax, be it for sleep, for work or just for kicks. Circlesongs, released in 1997, is so far my favorite album. But I have a feeling that Beyond Words -released in 2002 and the subject of this post- might replace it.

Two weeks ago, I had a cursory glance at some online music news (which I have a hard time recollecting what kind of site it was) when I saw Bobby's name cited. So I decided to have a look at Amazon.fr and see if I can find an El Cheapo (as in price, not as in Music of course) record of the Man that I don't own. That's how I first heard about Beyond Words and also that one of the guests invited by Bobby McFerrin was Richard Bona, an amazing African bassist with a very nice voice of his own. As for the El Cheapo condition, I ordered it through Market Place (from Import CD Specialist if you care, they have top service and I ordered quite numerous times from them with no troubles so far).

When I got back from work today, the CD was waiting for me in the mailbox. After minding the kids, getting dinner and helping my dear half with housework, I ripped the CD, put on my headphones and hit the Play button. In a instant, I was travelling to Music land. I looped through the whole record once and on the second iteration, I realized how Kalimba Suite stands out. It's like being in a wonderful garden full of amazing flowers and when you go through the whole thing your preattentive processing kicks in and you realize that one particular flower stands out.

Kalimba Suite is truly exceptional. Mind you, it's a 2-in-1 song. Around 2 minutes of playing this 3:40 song, the tone changes and a synthetizer kicks in (which somehow reminded me of Tom Grant's 1990 record Edge Of The World) with a weird reverb effect. Surprising at first, it just flows nicely afterwards without really breaking the magic initiated by the first 2 minutes. And just to add to the joy I felt, the bassist is of course Mr. Bona!

Beyond Words is a very nice record that you can get with your eyes closed (and listen to with eyes closed as well to maximize the happiness).

I truly thank you Bobby for your excellent Music. Keep up the excellent job!

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Blue Note
Release year: 2002
Related Artists: None, absolutely None!

Extra links:

Bobby McFerrin's official website
Listen to Kalimba Suite (full-length, not so bad quality) on Deezer
An awesome improvisation featuring Bobby McFerrin and Richard Bona from your friendly YouTube

Slides De La Présentation OpenSSH Disponibles

saad@hush.com — 2008-03-12T06:53:31+01:00

Tel que précisé dans un autre billet, j'ai effectué une présentation sur des nouveautés d'OpenSSH (directives Match et ChrootDirectory principalement) et un tour d'horizon de quelques principes de durcissement présents dans des documents de durcissement de ce logiciel et généralement rédigés par des maîtrises d'ouvrage ou d'oeuvre mais dont l'applicabilité est improbable.

Pour vous donner un exemple, prenons les clés d'authentification. Il est généralement de bon ton de demander l'abandon pur et simple de l'authentification par mots de passe et de passer à une authentification par clés. Mais c'est beaucoup plus simple à dire qu'à faire. Comment gérer leur génération (est-ce qu'il y a bien une passphrase, la passphrase choisie est bien conforme à la politique de sécurité en vigueur) ? Leur diffusion, leur mise à jour (notamment de la passphrase avec une modification tous les N jours pour rester conforme à la politique de sécurité), ....

Les outils et les contrôles traditionnellement utilisés pour aider à générer des mots de passe de qualité et de contrôler cette dite qualité dans le temps etc. ne sont pas utilisables tels quels pour les passphrases des clés ou pour les clés elles-même.

Les clés facilitent énormément la vie (pensez ssh-add/ssh-agent), on en génère seulement quelques unes au plus si on est "pragmatique" et on en change très rarement voire jamais la passphrase. Mais est-ce pour autant un problème de sécurité ? Ce n'est pas plutôt à la politique de sécurité de savoir gérer des exceptions ? J'ai pointé le problème du doigt, je vous laisse réfléchir à toutes ses facettes.

En attendant, vous pourrez télécharger les slides au format PDF à l'adresse suivante : http://saad.docisland.org/docs/files/openssh-nah-sur20080311.pdf.

Edité pour ajouter : le lien de téléchargement affichait le nom d'une autre présentation, bien qu'il pointait là où il fallait. C'est désormais corrigé. Merci à Nicolas Legrand pour avoir relevé la coquille.

Pictures From DocIsland Dinner At Chez Max

saad@hush.com — 2008-03-10T07:07:16+01:00

In February, 12th, 2008, many DocIsland members got together for a dinner at Chez Max, a correct restaurant located in Les Halles in downtown Paris. LVDTime, a founding member of DocIsland, came over from Nice where he lives to Paris and we took this opportunity to organize a dinner. The restaurant was suggested by bana who got dinner there a few times before.

LVDTime made some nice shots that I have finally cleaned up a bit and published on the DocIsland Pictures section. Better late than never or so they say!

We got a few drinks at Le Sous Bock Tavern, a traditional geek beer venue located a few meters away from the restaurant.

Blues Song Review: Hold On by Eric Bibb [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2008-03-08T07:24:30+01:00

[Blues] Hold On by Eric Bibb
From the album Spirit I Am.

The first time I heard about Eric Bibb was back in 2003. I went to a FNAC store in downtown Paris and asked the guy at the Jazz/Blues section if he can advise artists similar to Keb' Mo'. I recall very clearly how bright his face went and he answered with a smile, handing Eric Bibb's Natural Light record. I bought it without any further question or comment and when I was back home, I put it in the CD player and I enjoyed it a lot. Since then, I am keeping a close eye on that artist. He has a great sense of Blues and uses elements of Folk and Soul as well.

Spirit I Am is his latest release. Published by DixieFrog Records in France, it is a double-album. The first is the "official" album (Get On Board) and the second (Field Recordings) is a France-only release. Field Recordings is a traditional Blues record. And my favorite song is Hold On, the fifth track of this album. Featuring Eric's warm and very soothing voice with an acoustic guitar, it instantly touched my soul. This is what I call a wonderful song. The other songs of Field Recordings and Get On Board are very good.

When I buy an album, I rip it (if it's a soft/hard shell CD) or convert it (if it's an eMusic MP3 album) into AAC using iTunes. And I usually listen to it using my Sennheiser PX200 headphones. When I received Spirit I Am, I got Omar Sosa's Afreecanos as well and a CD Sampler from Vibrations. I started by ripping Afreecanos first, then Spirit I Am and I finished with the CD Sampler. When I started listening to Hold On, my eyes fell on the Cover Flow part of iTunes' display. I took the following screenshot, which speaks for itself and for my emotions:

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: DixieFrog Records
Release year: 2008
Related Artists: Keb' Mo'

Extra links:

Eric Bibb's Official Website
I Heard The Angels Singing (YouTube Video Of A Live Performance of Eric Bibb)

Nouveautés d'OpenSSH Et Quelques Principes De Durcissement Au Groupe SUR

saad@hush.com — 2008-03-08T06:27:12+01:00

La prochaine réunion du groupe SUR aura lieu le mardi 11 mars. J'y présenterais en seconde partie de réunion les nouveautés d'OpenSSH et quelques principes de durcissement à appliquer pour augmenter le niveau de sécurité de cet outil ô combien essentiel de nos jours.

En ce qui concerne les nouveautés, je parlerais principalement des nouvelles directives de chroot en natif (et par utilisateur) ainsi que des directives Match.

Les réunions du groupe SUR étant gratuites et d'entrée libre, je vous invite à y participer. Et si vous avez des idées de présentation ou des salles à nous proposer, n'hésitez pas à me contacter.

Slides De La Présentation de Jail (Solutions Linux 2008)

saad@hush.com — 2008-02-02T18:39:00+01:00

Tel que je l'avais indiqué dans le billet OpenBSD, FreeBSD et Solutions Linux 2008, j'ai effectué une présentation de la fonctionnalité jail de FreeBSD le mercredi 30 janvier matin. C'est une mise à jour de la présentation précédemment effectuée en 2006 dans le cadre du groupe SUR de l'OSSIR.

Vous pouvez consulter les slides au format PDF : http://saad.docisland.org/docs/files/sl2008-jail.pdf.

Solutions Linux 2008 Pictures Posted

saad@hush.com — 2008-02-01T23:16:06+01:00

Solutions Linux 2008 was a wonderful edition. Save for a few hours on the 2nd day (during which I gave a talk on FreeBSD's jail), I was at the OpenBSD booth with the gang. Besides the usual suspects (Wim Vandeputte, Marc Espie, and Miod Vallat), many other French OpenBSD developers showed up: Antoine Jacoutot (the so-called TagDiff'er), Gilles Chehade, Landry Breuil, and Charles Longeau. Eric Faurot, Wim's Friend, was also there. Last but not least, I had the pleasure to finally meet Wim' girlfriend (Machtelt, you rock!). Their help was very welcome since we had many visitors during those three days. Every evening, after closing the booth we went downtown to have a drink and some awesome dinners. The first night, we went to Les Galopins in Bastille. The next to Chez Denise, La Tour De Montlhéry and the last one to Hokkaido, a wonderful Japanese restaurant that I "bookmarked" (thanks Marc!).

GCU Squad made an impressive show and I had a very nice chat with the guys of RubyFrance, I also met some old acquaintances I haven't seen in eons. I am pretty tired after all this but I don't regret it at all.

If you'd like to see the OpenBSD gang soon, come to Brussels for FOSDEM! In the meantime, check out the pictures.

Ditch The Camera, Your Phone Roxx!

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-22T08:41:55+01:00

My friend betabug posted a nice review of a camera he recently bought from a department store (yes! your eyes are just fine...). He used to be a photographer and I guess he knows what he is talking about as much as a Polish plumber knows what a waterpipe is.

Before getting this camera, betabug used to take pictures with his phone. wildweasel, a fellow OpenBSD developer and a friend of both of us, used to complain about the "sucky" nature of those pictures, as betabug clearly states in his review:

but since wildweasel has burned a hole in my ears whining about my lousy phone camera pix, I had a look at the digicams.

Well, truth is ... I prefer the "sucky" phone pictures or more exactly the Photoshopped ones!

Here is a picture shot by the new camera:

Well, it's ... normal.

And here is a picture shot by the phone: (and photoshopped)

And another one:

Feel the strange, hazy, verging on the eery atmosphere of these pictures? It's like they have been shot in another space-time continuum. Give betabug a crappy phone camera, he'll produce true art (I really like those pictures a lot), give him a digicam he'll turn into your normal guy taking normal pictures in a normal World.

Phone pictures produce real emotions to their viewer. wildweasel hates them, I love them. The new camera pictures produce almost none, save for a *yawn* ;-)

Do you want betabug's phone-shot pictures back? Then sign the online petition I set up. The more signatures, the better.

You Can Rate Stories On My Blog Now...

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-22T08:28:08+01:00

I've noticed this morning that Haloscan offers the possibility of rating blog posts. I don't know if it's really useful at this time, maybe it allow me to quickly spot the kind of posts that you like more. Anyway, I activated the feature and you can now rate my blog posts, past, present or future. To do that, simply select the number of stars (on a scale of 5) and that's it.

Note that you need Javascript activated on your browser if you want to use this functionality. Moreover, if you have a FireFox filtering extension such as NoScript, you may need to temporarily or permanently allow Haloscan.

I will let this functionality activated on my blog for a few weeks/months to assess its usefulness. If proven completely useless, I will turn it off.

OpenBSD, FreeBSD Et Solutions Linux 2008

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-19T23:22:17+01:00

Je serais cette année sur le stand du projet OpenBSD à Solutions Linux 2008, salon dédié (si on peut dire) au monde du logiciel libre. J'ai prévu d'y être durant toute la durée de l'événement, soit du 29 au 31 janvier inclus. Le stand sera tenu par votre serviteur ainsi que de nombreux autres membres du projet tels que Wim et Marc Espie. Venez donc nous rendre visite et nous faire part de vos idées, questions et commentaires concernant notre projet.

En principe, je m'absenterais le mercredi 30 janvier matin car je ferais une présentation intitulée Virtualisation et sécurité avec jail dans le track Sécurité des conférences payantes. Lors de cette présentation, je couvrirais la fonctionnalité jail du système d'exploitation FreeBSD et les nouveautés introduites par la version 7.0 de cet OS (qui est en RC1 à l'heure où j'écris ces lignes).

En tant qu'intervenant, j'ai la possibilité d'inviter deux personnes à cette présentation payante. Si vous lisez ce billet et que vous souhaitez assister à ma présentation gratuitement, je vous prie de m'envoyer un courriel à mon adresse email (que vous trouverez derrière le hyperlien Contact de la présente page). Les premiers arrivés seront les premiers servis.

Power/Nordic Walking Shoes Review: New Balance 1091 [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-14T11:21:52+01:00

I had a knee surgery in March 2007 due to a damaged meniscus. Before that I used to play Basket-Ball quite extensively and when my left knee started hurting me, I converted to Running. Looking backwards, this proved a very silly move. Though I enjoyed Running a lot, it has only made the problem worse until I couldn't run without feeling a strong pain in the knee. My surgeon made me stop by the end of 2003.

By June 2007, I felt ready to go back the way of Sports and Health in general. But Running was not really an option. So I converted to Power Walking, Nordic Walking and Swimming. It proved to be an excellent combination. I will give you a more detailed account on an upcoming post to this blog.

Being an ex-runner, I knew that shoes were paramount and I didn't want to feel joint pain anymore. So I decided to put as much money as required for the sake of comfort and painless effort. I bought a pair of New Balance 1091 Nordic Walking shoes.

First, let me answer the question "Why New Balance and not an another brand?". At the time I used to practice Running, Asics was my Church. I worn off many pairs and I was satisfied overall. I looked for Walking shoes from Asics and they weren't many. But NB has a lot of models to choose from. My mom and my brother who are seasoned Walkers also told me all the good things their feet think of NB shoes. One of my coworkers, a Marathoner, who tried both brands told be that NB was excellent for his activity but less solid on the long term than Asics.

I started my "path" with a basic NB model (I can't recall the model exactly at this time and they are out of my reach in the basement). I was amazed how much comfort I got for a so low a price (I bought them for less than 30 EUR). But after a 45 mins session, my feet were sore. They were also a bit awkward to walk with at a reasonable speed. So I went to Au Vieux Campeur and bought the NB 1091.

These shoes are pretty expensive. At least when I got them (131 EUR). They now sell at half that price. But even with this hefty price tag, they proved excellent. Weighting approx. 425 g, they are heavy but you get an amazing stability and cushioning. My feet never felt sore with these shoes. And I can walk for more than 2 hours at very interesting speeds (8.7 Km/h Power Walking) with no problem. The upper fabric is made of Gore-Tex®. At first, I was afraid this might be problematic in hot/mild temperatures. But hey, it wasn't ... well almost. The fabric is breathable enough to be able to practice your favorite Sports in all weather. The only serious problem I had with it is its initial rigidity. I had problems for bending correctly my feet during the effort but after 5 sessions, the rigidity was not a problem anymore. Of course, the Gore-Tex® proved very efficient during my Power/Nordic Walking sessions under a rainy sky. This happens rather often in Paris. And I had quite a number of 1.5h+ sessions under a heavy rain during which my feet were kept perfectly dry. The Strike Path technology participates a lot in stabilizing the foot during the Walking gait cycle.

After more than 7 months of using the NB 1091 extensively two to four times a week, they started to be worn off. The Gore-Tex® fabric has broken a bit on the sides where it connect to the Toe Protect band and I decided to get two new pairs of NB shoes which I will review after a few months of usage.

If you are looking for excellent shoes for Power/Nordic Walking in all weather conditions even for extensive periods and you don't mind paying a Premium, look no further ... The NB 1091 are simply amazing!

Afrobeat Song Review: Insurrection by The Souljazz Orchestra [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-08T21:26:57+01:00

[Afrobeat] Insurrection by The Souljazz Orchestra
From the album Freedom Go No Die.

I discovered this band a few weeks earlier thanks to Radio Nova, a radio I listen to quite often. And I had quite a hard time finding the album in France. As a last resort, I got it from iTunes Store.

I've never heard something as innovative in the Afrobeat landscape as Insurrection, save for Antibalas. It has a very Funky tone made of an elaborate intertwinement of African and Occidental Drums with warm Saxophones. The Musical genre created by Fela Kuti is alive and kicking! Freedom Go No Die features other excellent songs such as Mista President and The Blind Leading The Blind. While these songs are very solid and serious Afrobeat, they didn't sound as new and challenging wrt to the Afrobeat sound I am used to hear elsewhere as Insurrection. My buying advice? get a look at the rating, you don't need me to tell you that you can get this one without further thinking. And if you don't like the Music, maybe you can't resist the beauty of the cover art which I just find awesome!

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Do Right!
Release year: 2006
Related Artists: Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, Antibalas, The Souljazz Orchestra, Nicole Willis and The Soul Investigators, Kokolo, Akoya, Fela Kuti, Tony Allen, Budos Band, Nomo

Extra links:

Slides Et Compte-Rendu Détaillé De La Conférence Hack.lu 2007

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-08T21:15:09+01:00

J'ai assisté à la conférence Hack.lu 2007 au Grand Duché du Luxembourg en décembre dernier avec mon collègue et ami Jérôme Léonard. HAPSIS, notre employeur, nous a permis d'y participer et l'OSSIR nous a sponsorisé pour une partie des frais engagés pour le déplacement. A cet effet, nous avons présenté un compte-rendu de cette sympathique conférence sécurité lors de la réunion du groupe SUR du mardi 08 janvier 2008. Les slides de la présentation sont disponibles en ligne sur le site de l'OSSIR. Vous y trouverez aussi un compte-rendu détaillé de l'événement. Je vous en recommande vivement la lecture.

Je tiens encore à remercier HAPSIS et l'OSSIR.

A Little Story Of Japan, A Moroccan And Tea

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-08T09:38:13+01:00

In 1998, I went to work in Japan for a 6 months period. It was my first real job in the computer industry. A year earlier, I was fresh out of the Engineering School (Ecole Mohammedia d'Ingénieurs, Rabat, Morocco). I sent a truckload of resumes to the local companies and landed an interview at The Casablanca Stock Exchange's IT department. I arrived there pretty early and the receptionist made me sit in a corner. I can't remember exactly how long I waited. But I am sure it was more than 45 minutes. You can imagine my frustration and it only got worse after the manager I had the interview with came down and took me to his office. He asked questions that didn't really make sense while answering many phone calls and reading the newspaper! I felt humiliated. This was more than enough for me to start looking actively for a way to escape the Moroccan "professional" World.

Was it my ka or something else when my long-time friend Fayçal came back to Morocco that summer? He has just finished his Engineering studies in Lyon, France. And he told me about his plans to study business. He happened to have a spare subscription form set for I.A.E. Poitiers, France. The interesting thing about that school was their strong relationships with Asia and Japan specifically. My father was often talking about the Japanese intelligence, the Japanese innovations, the Japanese processes... He had great respect for these people while not meeting one in his whole life. It was the challenge I needed. I wanted to check for myself. Are they more intelligent than anybody else on this Planet? If so, are there any obvious factors to learn from?

Subscribe. Go to France. Pass exam. Come back to Morocco. Gather what's needed for the travel. Go back to France. Study. Land a traineeship at Towa Elex Co. LTD, Tokyo, Japan.

In April 1998, I took the plane to Tokyo. I won't delve into how much of a shock I had, mainly due to the cultural differences. It felt like landing in an Alien planet, full of borgs (joking here to illustrate the shock's force. Nothing to do with how I really do feel about the Japanese) with different customs, different public transportation system ... and different everything! Well, I'll stop short here before starting to write uncontrollably about how much of an experience it was.

But i'd like to tell you one thing. It's about Tea. The very first cup of Tea I was offered there, as a sign of hospitality (or so I guessed), was a green sort that tasted...terrible! I made myself drink it not to offend my host. While I was used to drink Tea on a regular basis, it was the Green Powder Chinese sort that you can find everywhere in Morocco, used as a basis for the sugar-heavy Mint Tea. The Japanese Tea I was offered had no sugar, felt salty and had that my-hair-stands-straight-on-my-head taste of Algae. My goodness! What did I do to deserve this?

Adapt. I strongly wanted to adapt to this weird environment. And if it takes drinking some badly tasting fluid they called tea, so be it! More cups of it when down my throat without causing nausea or sudden death. I adapted to it but without really enjoying it. My mind simply started ignoring its taste.

A few years later, back to France, I surprised myself when ordering some at Japanese restaurants in Paris. I surprised myself even more when I started really enjoying it (and yeah, I even stopped drinking Mint Tea with sugar, it's all natural sugar-free now). I adapted to it very well, as I did for a whole range of food and drinks. The algae taste is not a problem anymore, quite the contrary.

Oh! By the way while I am writing this post I am drinking a wonderful cup of Sencha Fukuyu, the Tea I used to hate ;-). Kanpai!

Afrobeat Song Review: Musicawa Silt by The Daktaris [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-08T01:11:29+01:00

[Afrobeat] Musicawa Silt by The Daktaris
From the album Soul Explosion.

Musicawa Silt is an excellent Afrobeat/Funk piece. I stumbled upon this 1998 album by chance while browsing pretty much at random eMusic's collection. At first, I didn't believe what I heard. This is exactly the kind of Music I am currently looking for and enjoying. It sounds a lot like Fela Kuti's material with a more Funky tone to it. As always, I often listen to this kind of superb Music with closed eyes (not when I cross the streets of course) because it has that mysterious power to transport me into the comfy realms of my imagination. The Daktaris give me just the right mix of Afrobeat alchemy to lead me to believe I am back to the seventies, a time period I didn't know for real ( I was born in 1974) and the only "solid" references I have about it is from the movies I watched, mainly blaxploitation. Transcendental Music is excellent Music. And that's it. Wanna do your ears a favor? Get Musicawa Silt. Oh and you know what? Get Soul Explosion and travel back in time for about 40 mins. For a time machine, it's quite a bargain.

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Desco Records
Release year: 1998
Related Artists: Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings, Antibalas, The Souljazz Orchestra, Nicole Willis and The Soul Investigators, Kokolo, Akoya, Fela Kuti, Tony Allen, Budos Band

Extra links:

The Daktaris at Myspace
Full-length song (FREE) from tighttunes.com

Happy New Year 2008... Any Good Resolutions?

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-08T00:44:04+01:00

Well, it's this time again! I'd like to wish you an excellent year 2008 full of every good thing your heart may desire.

And it's about time I come up with new resolutions for this year. But first let us take a quick look at my last year's resolutions.

Well, if you've read my HNY entry from last year, you knew that I made three resolutions:

Give more love to the people I cherish and care for.
Practice sport seriously and lose (many) extra kilos I've been carrying for too long.
Get a driver license.

As for the first resolution, there is no "scientific" method I can measure with if it's a success or a failure. But from what I see, I consider it done. Don't get me wrong. It doesn't mean I gave a certain "quantity" of love to my loved ones and I'll just stop there. No way! I am always looking forward to give as much love and care to them as I can. And I will make sure I stick with it. Basically, this is now kind of an implicit resolution on the very very long-term until my body hits its grave.

What about the second one? Glad you asked (*cough*), this is one of the areas where I obtained awesome results. I went down from about 89 Kg to barely 74. There is almost no diet involved, besides avoiding eating between meals. The real reason is sports! I have a damaged meniscus that required surgery and this gave me enough of a kick to start on the right path. I regularly practice Power Walking, Nordic Walking and Swimming. I will give you more details about this on a later post.

As for the third one, I didn't make any progress. It's a total failure. This makes me rather sad but now ... it's my top priority for 2008!

I know you can no longer wait ;-) ... So here are Saad's Resolutions 2008:

Get a driver license. (déjà vu ?)
Re-engineer my "career". The idea behind this is very simple but requires heavy thinking to correctly implement. I need to isolate my top skill weaknesses and make them strengths. The goal here is to seek a better overall equilibrium in my skills as an infosec consultant.
Learn Spanish. I currently speak three langages.

As always, three resolutions are more than enough to keep me busy a full year, besides my other duties.

The Reading Corner: The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-11T11:24:56+01:00

The Shock Doctrine : The Rise Of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein

A few months ago, a coworker of mine highly recommended The Shock Doctrine, the new book of Naomi Klein, a famous journalist known (to me at least) for her excellent investigation of the brand (as in Nike) World that she transcribed in No Logo, a very interesting piece. So I ordered the book and I started reading it as soon as I received it. I read it from cover to cover. Slowly. Going through the shock therapy Naomi has in store for her readers. Digesting all the arguments, theories and historical facts. Does Capitalism profits from Disasters? If so, how? Are there any recipes for the successful Disaster entrepreneur? Can an organization creates havoc for the sake of shareholders' satisfaction? Though highly controversial, the book is backed with very solid arguments and the conclusions are very sound. Naomi's words went down to my bowels and made me feel sick, disoriented and shocked. Some things are stated over and over ad nauseam. But I think this is necessary to make the reader grasp all the implications of such unbelievable revelations and hypothesis.

This is one of the best books I read in 2007 and maybe in the last decade or so. The author has some cool stuff about the book on her website. Make sure to check them out before clicking on that order button.

Jazz Song Review: Dawn by Build An Ark [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2007-12-02T00:54:57+01:00

[Jazz] Dawn by Build An Ark
From the album Dawn.

What an amazing Jazz song Dawn is! A delicious recipe where Jazz is the main element, mixing it with amazing tribal sounds that take their roots in Africa thanks to a great musical sensitiveness. With about thirty musicians, Build An Ark is more of a project than your usual Jazz band. Loaded with just the right dose of spirituality and mysticism, this new album embodies peace messages all over. Almost all the songs are top-notch but Dawn really stands out with this subtle intertwinement of Jazz and African percussions. Too bad the album is so short.

Note to the eMusic subscribers out there: Peace With Every Step, Build An Ark's previous album, is available for download. I'm currently listening to it and so far I enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Dawn.

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Kindred Spirits
Release year: 2007
Related Artists: Herbie Hancock, Avishai Cohen, Bob James

Extra links:

Build An Ark at myspace
Listen to the song from the Vibrations website (requires Flash, scroll the page a bit and click on the "Play" button)

Dans La Série Livres ... Les Falsificateurs par Antoine Bello

saad@hush.com — 2007-12-01T09:00:01+01:00

Il y a quelques semaines, un très cher ami (un frère oserais-je !) m'a très fortement conseillé Les Falsificateurs par Antoine Bello. Ni une, ni deux, je me suis empressé de l'acheter et dès que je l'ai reçu je me suis mis à le dévorer avec voracité. Il faut dire que les conseils de cet ami sont très souvent judicieux. Nous avons des goûts similaires en matière de culture. Et cette fois encore, je ne fus guère déçu.

Ce livre est entraînant et très agréable à lire. L'idée de base est surprenante et fort intéressante. Une organisation secrète, le CFR (Consortium de Falsification du Réel), recrute un jeune homme intelligent. Les objectifs de cette organisation sont inconnus. Tout ce que nous savons au départ c'est qu'elle falsifie des faits (l'Histoire est écrite par les vainqueurs n'est-ce pas ?). Christophe Colomb a-t-il vraiment découvert l'Amérique ? Y avait-il vraiment une chienne en 1957 à l'intérieur de Spoutnik 2 ? Pourquoi falsifier le Réel (vous remarquerez le R majuscule au passage ...) ?

Sans tomber dans la théorie du complot et dans l'excès de paranoïa, la plausibilité de falsifications à grande échelle (je dis bien à grande échelle) est très séduisante pour un esprit critique porté un chouia vers la philosophie. Imaginez un peu ses implications sur votre quotidien et au-delà.

Je ne vous en dit pas plus pour éviter de vous gâcher tout le plaisir que j'ai eu à lire ce livre. Bonne lecture !

Les Promesses De L'Ombre, Un Film Sombre et Précieux

saad@hush.com — 2007-12-01T09:37:58+01:00

Les Promesses De L'Ombre est un de ces films rares et précieux en ces temps de productions portées sur la surenchère visuelle et les scénarios prémachés faciles à digérer pour nos cerveaux peu habitués à la réflexion.

En surface, David Cronenberg nous sert un polar du meilleur cru avec la belle sage-femme, l'ignoble parrain russe, le fils un rien détraqué et la brute de chauffeur. Mais il suffit de prêter un peu plus attention pour dépasser cette surface et plonger au coeur du film. La lentille hollywoodienne nous présente (trop) souvent la violence de cette chère humanité que nous représentons sous une forme surréaliste avec des combats agencés et habillés d'effets spéciaux à vous couper le souffle. On en perdrait le sens des réalités. C'est là où Les Promesses De L'Ombre intervient. Les combats, rares, sont crus et très brutaux. L'adversaire n'est pas prévisible et on n'anticipe pas façon kata. On ne fait pas dans le beau mais dans l'efficace. Mais la dimension psychologique du film est encore beaucoup plus importante que quelques combats filmés de la manière la plus réaliste qui soit, sans passage par le filtre polarisant des effets spéciaux. C'est la collision de plusieurs mondes qui se côtoient tous les jours; collision de plusieurs visions de la réalité, si réalité il y a.

Certains bien-pensants s'arrêteront peut-être à la violence, un des fils conducteurs de l'oeuvre, et joueront la carte de l'offuscation. "Apologie de la violence !". Vous avez raison mais est-ce qu'il faut pour autant hésiter à regarder ce monde à travers cette lentille ne serait-ce que le temps d'un film poignant, à couper le souffle, avec des acteurs magistraux, et qui invite à la réflexion sur la nature humaine et cette fameuse notion de civilisation dont nous nous targuons.

Chapeau bas sir Cronenberg!

Hack.lu 2007: How Can Defense-in-depth Unleash Hell

saad@hush.com — 2007-10-30T10:40:30+01:00

A friend sent me the following URL which illustrates an "old" trick for bypassing AV detection:
http://blog.didierstevens.com/2007/10/23/a000n0000-0000o000l00d00-0i000e000-00t0r0000i0000c000k/

This reminds me that I wanted to give you a small account of The Death Of Defense In Depth? Revisiting AV Software, an excellent presentation performed by Thierry Zoller and Sergio Alvarez during the hack.lu 2007 security conference which I attended. Note that I'll be giving a full account of the conference during the SUR group meeting next december. The account will be co-presented by my colleague and friend Jérôme Léonard a.k.a. Mitch. I'll put the slides online after the meeting.

Thierry and Sergio have demonstrated how the Defense-in-depth principle is badly implemented to/by AV software. Generally, you tend to multiply AV software between the Wild Wild Internet and your desktop. So you have one AV on the mail gateway, another one at the mailbox server and yet another one on the desktop etc. Well, you get the "depth" part of the defense. However, Thierry and Sergio argued that this significantly increases your exposure to vulnerabilities because AV software is not developed following secure development guidelines and their attack surface is huge (think of how many file formats they need to parse). They showed how, by exploiting a parsing bug, they could bypass a tremendous number of different AV.

Another simple example demonstrated how by adding a string to a PE file (Hello Luxembourg in this case) bypasses the AV. In yet another example, Thierry simply changed the contents of the version field of a ZIP archive and this confused a truckload of AV. In the meantime, Winzip could still open the archive without breaking a sweat.

According to the speakers, one of the main problems of AV software is that they tend to consider what they cannot parse as being safe. It is rather a weird implementation of the Defense-in-depth principle. To their knowledge, only Kaspersky blocks what it cannot parse successfully.

As a result, Thierry discovered more than 800 ways for bypassing AV! And Sergio discovered 80 vulnerabilities out of which only 30 have been patched. At times, Sergio saw the vulnerability patched silently without giving him due credit for reporting it first...

They have also shown some funny responses they got from the AV vendors to their vulnerability reports. In one case, Thierry sent a malicious RAR archive that bypasses Symantec AV. Symantec responded by saying that the archive is not properly constructed ... If only they have opened it with WinRAR and not with their own parsing engine they would realize the problem!

Last but not least, Sergio showed a 0-day in eTrust exploiting a heap overflow. The same exploit worked on Windows XP, 2003 and ASLR-enabled Vista (According to Wikipedia, Microsoft Windows Vista has ASLR enabled by default, although only for executables which are specifically linked to be ASLR enabled so maybe eTrust is not linked to it)!

Thierry and Sergio nicely summed up their presentation by saying that "the more you protect yourself, the more you are vulnerable". Give some alternative thinking to this.

Paris Restaurants: La Tour De Montlhéry - Chez Denise

saad@hush.com — 2007-10-29T15:45:55+01:00

La Tour de Montlhéry - Chez Denise is one of the best traditional French cuisine restaurants I know of. Located in Les Halles, they serve gorgeous and generous meals day and night, almost non-stop (they are open until 5:00 AM!). When you enter the restaurant, you feel like you are traveling back at a time when tables were big and shared among guests. The decoration dates back to some decades earlier but this only adds more charm to the place. The waiters are seasoned professionals with a good dose of humor. Founded by Denise some thirty years ago, it holds the flame of Les Halles' old spirit pretty high. The meals are pricey if you are on a budget though. Expect to pay around 24 EUR for the main course. But if you put meal quality high up, the food absolutely worths it.

I am used to go there once or twice a month. Maybe we'll meet there one day ;-)

AFAIK they are closed the week-end but don't take my word for this, better double-check:
La Tour de Montlhéry - Chez Denise
5, rue des Prouvaires 75001 Paris
+33 1 42 36 21 82

Security Trade-offs By Example: When CAPTCHAs Drive Your Users Nuts!

saad@hush.com — 2007-10-29T11:31:09+01:00

I.T. security is all about trade-offs. And sound trade-offs mean you have a good balance between your security strategy and your business posture. Making sound trade-offs mean that you have an idea of the threats and risks (at least perceived ones) you are facing. Betabug pointed me to a wonderful collection of crazy CAPTCHAs. Some of those have very questionable content but most are either unreadable even with a truckload of good will or require lots of mind wrestling to get right. What are the goals of the designers? Prevent SPAM or account abuse while completely disgusting their users? Sure! No users, no SPAM/abuse. If I was an attacker, why the hell would I want to 0wn your assets without a good motivation? If you turn off your users, there's a good chance you turn me off too! What's the trade-off? Turning something that was designed to distinguish between humans and computers into something that put everyone in the same bag: the exclusion one.

Just one more example of bad security...

Hack.lu 2007: Injecting RDS-TMC Traffic Information Signals

saad@hush.com — 2008-01-09T15:49:40+01:00

I gave an account of the hack.lu 2007 security conference during the SUR (Sécurité Unix et Réseaux) group of OSSIR in December with co-worker and fellow DocIslander Jérôme Léonard a.k.a. Mitch. There were many interesting presentations and a few boring ones. But the funniest and the weirdest was Injecting RDS-TMC Traffic Information Signals by Andrea Barisani and Daniele Bianco, two Italian hackers from Inverse Path. The hack.lu slides are not available yet. But this presentation was already given in other security conferences around the World such as CanSecWest for which the slides have been published.

This is a perfect illustration of Alternative Thinking.

If you read French, make sure to check our detailed account of this presentation and all the others we found interesting.

Reggae Song Review: Fire Go Come by Corey Harris [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2007-10-28T16:11:52+01:00

[Reggae] Fire Go Come by Corey Harris
From the album Zion Crossroads.

Fire Go Come is a wonderful Roots Reggae tune. I've known Corey Harris as a very interesting Bluesman and I was very pleased when I listened to Zion Crossroads, a pure Reggae record respecting all the "standards" of this genre. There are many very good Roots Reggae songs such as Sweatshop, Afrique (Chez Moi), Cleanliness and Plantation Town (which has a very interesting Bluesy tone). Corey Harris ventures also in the grounds of Dancehall (You Never Know, Heathen Rage) with great success. But Fire Go Come has just the right mix of politically engaged lyrics, riddim, and outstanding vocals that carry on the emotion you can feel through the lyrics. There is also a brilliant guitar riff thrown in the middle. Fire Go Come Real Soon! It sure is 'mon!

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Telarc
Release year: 2007
Related Artists: Tiken Jah Fakoly, Bob Marley, Winston McAnuff, Sylford Walker

Extra links:

Corey Harris at myspace

Hip-Hop Song Review: Say Something by Talib Kweli [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2007-10-28T12:19:18+01:00

[Hip-Hop] Say Something by Talib Kweli (Explicit Lyrics)
From the album Eardrum.

If you have been following my Music posts for sometime, you know that I have eclectic musical tastes. And I listen quite often to Hip-Hop Music. Thanks (again!) to my brother Aziz, I became a fan of this genre back in the late 80s when Aziz come home (he was already in the U.S. at that time) for a visit and brought with him a truckload of CDs (a rarity then in Morocco) and tapes. Run DMC, KRS-One, and Eazy E were among my favorite. I enjoy a handful of Gangsta style records such as 50 cent's Guess Who's Back?, Snoop Doggy Dogg's Doggystyle, and Public Enemy albums (which I don't really define as Gangsta). But there's nothing better IMHO than old-school Hip-Hop. And Say Something is one of the best old-school Hip-Hop songs I've listened to lately. Talib Kweli has a very nice voice and a awesome flow. And the rhythm is simply incredible. It pushes the adrenaline quite high and make you want to start dancing without ever feeling it. This is exactly what happened to me the first time I listened to it. It was about 6 days ago. I was getting dinner with my elder daughter and all of a sudden, I jumped out of my chair and started dancing. It brought back memories long forgotten of the time I used to practice Break-dancing with some neighbours down the street in Casablanca. Cheerful, my daughter also got out of her chair and starting mimicking my rather bad dance moves ;-)

Anyways, if you like old-school Hip-Hop and solid artistic skills, Talib Kweli iz da man!

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Blacksmith Records
Release year: 2007
Related Artists: Common, MF Doom, Hi-Tek

Extra links :

Alternative Thinking

saad@hush.com — 2007-10-28T11:04:42+01:00

Reading John And John #619 (warning, very crude/explicit content ... you've been warned) reminded me of one of the key skills that hackers have and which is very important for security practitioners to acquire or at least fully understand. It's their ability to think "out of the box". What I call "Alternative Thinking" or as the Perl motto goes: there's more than one way to do it. The John And John #619 is a perfect illustration of this skill. One of the Johns has simply found out a new -disgusting but very effective- way for checking whether a seemingly dead person is really dead or not. No "normal", "socially behaving" person would think or do something like that. But it works! And this is what counts at the end.

When you are setting up your security architecture, what are you protecting against? Perceived (as opposed to real) risk? Known (as opposed to unknown) threats? Or are you just throwing together a bunch of security products (remember that security is a process right?) according to some "best" practices and hoping for the best? I don't believe that you can defend efficiently something that you don't fully understand. Without complete understanding of the e-commerce application the developers throw in your hands for protection, you won't be able to practice "Alternative Thinking" and come up with sound attack scenarios and misuse cases. And you won't make the right trade-offs for balancing security and business objectives.

Give this some "Alternative Thinking" time.

Prochaines Réunions Du Groupe SUR De L'OSSIR

saad@hush.com — 2007-09-14T17:36:44+02:00

Si vous êtes un lecteur régulier de ce blog, vous devez savoir que je fais assez fréquemment des présentations aux réunions du groupe SUR de l'OSSIR. Je suis aussi co-animateur du groupe avec Hervé Schauer.

Comme vous pouvez le voir dans le calendrier des présentations du groupe, Nous avons défini le programme des trois prochaines réunions (octobre, novembre et décembre). Je vais en principe effectuer un compte-rendu de la conférence Hack.lu 2007 avec mon ami et collègue Jérôme Leonard lors de la réunion de décembre. Je tiens à vous rappeler que la participation aux réunions du groupe SUR est gratuite et, sauf dans de très rares cas, il n'y a pas d'inscription préalable.

Le programme des réunions ainsi que la date et le lieu sont annoncés en priorité sur la liste de diffusion du groupe (sec@ossir.org). Je vous conseille vivement de vous y abonner. Le trafic y est relativement faible et les discussions (trolls inclus) sont de qualité ;-). La liste est modérée, vous ne serez en principe pas exposé à plus de pourriel à l'exception peut-être des messages automatiques de notification d'absence que des utilisateurs d'Outlook et d'autres MUA ne manquent pas de positionner (pour des raisons justifiées ou pas). Les modérateurs, dont je fais partie, peuvent certaines fois désabonner les utilisateurs émettant de tels messages. Pour cela, Il suffit de nous en informer. Consultez la page dédiée aux Listes Electroniques de l'OSSIR si vous souhaitez vous y abonner.

[Jazz] Don't Forget Steve Coleman And His Free Collection Of Music

saad@hush.com — 2007-09-14T17:20:26+02:00

If you are a Jazz fan and you've never heard of Steve Coleman, you deserve some serious spanking. This awesome saxophonist has produced many excellent (and some very obscure and abstract) albums. And you know what? Most of his albums (even out of print and rare ones) are available for free on the artist's website in MP3 format (no DRM, no hidden trick). But maybe not for long. As you can read on the website:

However I am looking for a place to host the dowloading of these files as my server is closing down soon!! This is a small server and keeps shutting down because of the amounts of downloads.

So hurry up if you want to get some.

By the way, I have just received his latest work, Invisible Paths: First Scattering. It's a solo sax album! I may review that one later on. Until then, you may want to grab my favorite ones for free from the website: Sine Die, Drop Kick, and Rhythm People (The Resurrection Of Creative Black Civilization).

Metasploit Dans La Lettre Techniques De l'Ingenieur

saad@hush.com — 2007-09-14T16:39:14+02:00

J'ai écrit un article intitulé Un cadriciel puissant : Metasploit pour La Lettre Techniques De L'Ingénieur (numéro d'août 2007). C'est une publication payante. Dans cet article, j'aborde (à peu de choses près) les éléments figurant dans la présentation que j'ai effectué lors de la réunion du groupe SUR en décembre 2006.

Durcissement BIND 9 dans MISC 33

saad@hush.com — 2007-09-14T16:34:44+02:00

Le numéro 33 de MISC, un magazine français dédié à la sécurité informatique, est paru il y a quelques jours de cela. Il est habituellement vendu en kiosque en France, Belgique, Maroc et certainement d'autres pays francophones. Il y a même une édition en Allemand.

Ce numéro contient une fiche pratique pour le durcissement d'un DNS primaire sous BIND 9 rédigée par votre humble bloggeur. J'ai essayé de la rendre aussi didactique (et amusante) que possible, dans un pur esprit "Edutainement".

Si vous avez l'occasion de la lire, je serais intéressé par vos commentaires.

Rock Song Review: Sharpening Bone by Piers Faccini [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2007-07-23T08:48:00+02:00

[Rock] Sharpening Bone, Piers Faccini
From the album Tearing Sky.

I have a bit weird story with this artist. In 2004, I heard a song from his then-new album Leave No Trace while on the road in Corsica. I wasn't enthralled. I thought to myself "mmmmm .... ok, it is quite nice but why the Music magazines and radios have such a high opinion of this guy?" I decided to buy the album nonetheless and add it to my collection. Truth is, I almost didn't listen to it (as it happens sometimes when I buy many CDs in one shot). Fast forward to 2006. Piers released a new album which was lauded by my favorite Music magazine, Vibrations. Their sampler even included If I, a song from Tearing Sky. I thought it was better than what I had already heard from Piers. Not that I heard that much anyways. I decided once again to get the album and I listened to it once. Fast forward to 2007 and this week-end. I picked up a CD randomly to listen to it in my car. It was Tearing Sky. It is so good that I listened to it non-stop all the week-end. Even this morning while commuting. I consider it as one of the top albums I will always keep handy. There are many excellent songs. The selection was extremely hard but I think Sharpening Bone is a bit better than the remaining songs. It has an eery feeling to it and the "Indian" (as in "redneck") chanting featured at the end is amazing. It should be noted that Ben Harper is featured in the opening song (he is doing the background vocals) and his Innocent Criminals (Juan Nelson, Leon Mobley & co.) back Piers with their very solid play. And Piers' voice is excellent. Sorry Piers for almost missing your excellent Music.

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Label Bleu
Release Year: 2006
Related Artists: Ben Harper, Jack Johnson

Extra links :

Piers' Official Website

New Resume Page

saad@hush.com — 2007-07-19T22:21:52+02:00

I have finally devoted some precious time to update my resume. If you are interested, you can look at the English and/or French version (PDF) available from the new Resume page. Other formats available on request.

Exterminez Toutes Ces Brutes !, par Sven Lindqvist

saad@hush.com — 2007-07-07T07:46:27+02:00

Exterminez Toutes Ces Brutes ! est un de ces livres poignants et rares qui vous prend au ventre et ne vous lâche plus après. Partant de (je dirais même obsédé par) la phrase figurant dans Au Coeur Des Ténèbres (de Joseph Conrad) dont il a fait son titre, Sven Lindqvist nous entraîne dans son voyage au Sahara et aux portes de l'Afrique Noire et à travers l'histoire du colonialisme européen et des immondes vagues d'extermination qui ont frappé des milliers et des milliers de personnes.

Ce livre se lit très facilement. J'ai apprécié les passages crus mais très factuels (Histoire) et la façon de les mélanger avec son récit de voyage qui pourrait être assimilé à un retour vers le passé en quelque sorte. Mais il faut vraiment le vouloir pour revenir à un passé aussi horrible (vous me direz, chers lecteurs, que ça dépend de quel point de vue on se place...). Si vous n'avez pas encore bien saisi ce que veut dire le terme génocide, vous serez servis !

Heureusement que de tels livres existent. C'est une nourriture très précieuse pour l'esprit. A consommer sans modération, mais attention aux effets secondaires qui pourraient s'installer durablement.

Meta-information :

Présentation du livre sur le site web de l'éditeur

Et Puisqu'on Parle D'Oubli ... Claire Nous A Rejoint

saad@hush.com — 2007-07-04T22:31:05+02:00

J'ai aussi complètement oublié de mentionner que DocIsland s'est encore aggrandi et avec un membre de qualité. Claire Vignot, première fille de notre groupe nous a rejoint il y a quelques semaines déjà ! DocIsland est donc constitué de 13 personnes ... Les supertitieux diront que ce chiffre porte malheur. Eh bien, il n'y a plus qu'à trouver un quatorzième.

Ceci dit en passant, l'air de rien, le site Web de DocIsland a eu son ravalement de façade tant attendu et avec le logo en plus.

SPAM Images Et FOSDEM Dans La Lettre Techniques De l'Ingenieur ... Et SPAM PDF

saad@hush.com — 2007-07-04T22:13:26+02:00

J'ai complètement oublié de mentionner que j'ai écrit un article sur les SPAM images ainsi qu'un compte-rendu des présentations sécurité effectuées lors de FOSDEM 2007. Ces articles sont parus dans La Lettre Techniques De L'Ingénieur (numéro d'avril 2007). Le lien pointe vers un fichier PDF qui présente cette publication (payante) en deuxième page.

Depuis que j'ai écrit cet article, une évolution intéressante des SPAM images est à noter : les SPAM "PDF". Ce sujet a été discuté sur la liste de diffusion du groupe SUR (OSSIR). Voici ce que j'en pense, dans les grandes lignes :

On Jun 26, 2007, at 11:09 AM, Guillaume Arcas wrote:

> En marge de la discussion initiée sur les Spam Images puis Signal-SPAM,
> une petite question : j'ai reçu ce matin mon premier Spam PDF, un mail
> avec un fichier PDF en pièce jointe, fichier contenant une pub pour les
> produits pharmaceutiques habituels.

> Je n'avais pas noté ce genre de Spam avant : je suis passé à côté ou
> bien c'est une nouvelle tendance ?

Nouvelle tendance. Une petite recherche sur Google donne pas mal de resultats sympathiques dont [1] (en Anglais). Ca ne parait pas completement deconnant par rapport aux objectifs du SPAM image classique. Le cout de generation de PDF est relativement faible. De plus, ce n'est pas un format d'image du coup pas mal d'anti-SPAMs (tous ?) ne saurent pas l'analyser. Cependant, la faiblesse actuelle de cette technique est la similitude des fichiers envoyes. Un filtrage par checksum devrait avoir de bons resultats de detection ... en attendant qu'ils se mettent a la generation a la volee.

Just my 0.02 cents.
--
[1] http://www.heise-security.co.uk/news/91523

Vous voulez un exemple ? Il n'y a qu'à demander :

Depuis, Guillaume Arcas a fait quelques expérimentations de son côté et il semblerait que les spammeurs soient déjà passés à la génération à la volée :

Bonjour.

Suite à la petite discussion entamée tantôt sur les Spams PDF, et
notamment sur le filtrage par checksum des pièces jointes, un petit
aperçu de ce que j'ai reçu ces derniers jours :

$ md5sum *.pdf
0d2383bd94dd51b7f872dd806da69c8e Article.nyavquxas.pdf
11c984b8aa663ea0d297155302643370 Journal_32e186e535d0.pdf
158f0e99ce49cd02d5a52c613ac9f62f Request.QCYBBCUPV.pdf
19625aba199381dfaf134b2d4e3c3b37 text.pdf
1c371c91a289f6a8a4c96d0ac7b0ec3b alert_d30866bc5.pdf
2fa8d2128d53c2fa9da4810dfec5bf0e bill_180c2de7.pdf
301659c7eeaf160a71529590f1c975c7 Alert-ZICXPWTJWXLL.pdf
30c1c296d27ba31cc981e094a92ccc95 Mail-1182865134682.pdf
4a30f8f4342228fdac201f7086d024f7 text_xhhfnbp.pdf
581f809315c513241eca7ced8143979b message.pdf
9bf62f3df4f912b0363faef711283138 Report.pdf
9e94383792e4d25bb0a6fdc5d2b39abf Bill.e7182ec5857e2c.pdf
b35cf39041b38c87e58d8f5896d8fb80 mail.EUAWV.pdf
c7344de1a368091ea075dd8d5f858a25 advertisement-ZTLOHSIRRSNNAC.pdf
ca3c8353a6fed30c5c934b9b36f4e852 Bulletin-8c1b0c74.pdf
e3bd639a87e4668e644bfcb78d942a51 article_cosfqqbpxtpl.pdf
ede79b2e6c261ce6121a7d7145869752 readme.pdf
fc33c0b10969957207b15819a6138e0c Message-GHAXCPUNEF.pdf
ff607fbb076e539aca5b53a6af561548 Invoice-iow.pdf

Bref, pour la checksum, c'est pas gagné...

Ces PDF ne présentent pas le même contenu mais concernent la même cible
(achat d'actions de deux sociétés). On peut noter que si le nom de la
société est bien entendu le même, le contenu diffère quant au prix de
l'action ou le taux de progression supposé. Ce qui plaiderait pour une
génération à la volée du PDF.

Je n'ai par contre pas pris le temps de regarder les en-têtes.

Cordialement,

Merci Guillaume !

Outlook 2003, HTML Rendering and Anti-Spyware Products

saad@hush.com — 2007-06-19T08:43:12+02:00

Sometimes ago, I started experiencing a crippling problem with email rendering (and particularly HTML email) in Outlook 2003. Before you cry fool, my regular MUA is Apple's Mail.app. But I do use Outlook 2003 for some customer-related mailboxes I have aside from my normal mailbox.

I have all the latest and greatest (hum...) patches installed and I really wondered what caused such a slowdown. Whenever I click on a message in the panel or start replying to an HTML mail, it takes a lot of time. Entering the right keywords in Google and "strolling" past the stupidity of some of the advices (uninstall security patch bla, modify this registry key and pray for a better world...) brought me the answer:

Sandi - Microsoft MVP
Please don't uninstall the security update. Try this instead.

This problem is often caused by a "protective" protocol that I do not
support or recommend, that is, loading down the registry by adding a slew of
sites to IE's Restricted Sites zone - sometimes tens of thousands of URLs.
Products that "protect" you by loading down the registry in such a way
include Spybot, IE-Spyad and Spyware Blaster.

IE7 has made changes to the way that the rendering engine interacts with the
Restricted Sites zone - the end result is that if you are using Outlook (not
2007), have IE7 installed and use HTML as your email format, then when you
type an email the IE rendering engine will check the registry for entries in
IE's Restricted Sites zone **every time you type a character***.

FIXES:

Remove all of those entries in the Restricted Sites Zone - a quick way to do
this is to reset Internet Explorer's settings (Tools, Internet Options,
Advanced tab)

I do use Spybot S&D and Spyware Blaster and I found many URLs in the Restricted Sites Zone. Since I rarely use IE as a browser, I removed the entries as advised. And Outlook started working normally again. Quick and clean. Thanks Sandi!

I also deactivated the Spybot BHO so that next time, it won't block URLs and cripple Outlook again.

Morocco 2007 Pictures Posted

saad@hush.com — 2007-06-17T11:49:37+02:00

We've been to Morocco from 27th May to 13th June 2007 inclusive. We spent about 15 days in Rabat with my family. We then went to Marrakesh for the last 5 days. We had a great time. The weather was awesome and I enjoyed spending two weeks with my family, which I don't see so often. Even my mother, who lives in the U.S. was there for holidays. And she has wonderful hands when it comes to cooking...Yummy. To compensate for the heavy food intake, I exercised almost daily. Either power walking, running or swimming. We stayed at one of my sisters' home which is located near a nice park (Nouzhate Ibn Sina) where I exercised, often with Gaelle my wife. In Marrakesh, we enjoyed (like always) the nice food of Chez Chegrouni, a restaurant located in Jemaa El Fna. Highly advised.

I have posted a few pictures of our trip.

Power Walk? No, Power Soak!

saad@hush.com — 2007-06-17T10:49:25+02:00

Yesterday I went for a power walk in the Angers countryside, where my wife's parents live. There is a nice circuit that I usually take. It's about 4 kms long. The road crosses a few farms with real cows(tm), and features nice, big trees on its sides. There are also very nice country houses made of stone. You can also hear birds singing (I'm not speaking about Paris-invading pigeons).

When I started, the weather was fine. Sunny, with a few clouds, and the temperature was excellent. As I strode across the road for about fifteen minutes, massive clouds arrived and it started to run very heavily. I was wearing sports shorts, a tshirt and a light sports sweatshirt. I looked for cover but only found a few trees around. There weren't efficient at protecting me from that rain because of the wind. So in about a minute or so, I was soaked to the bone. I had three options: wait under "cover" until the rain stops, run for it, walk for it. The first option was ruled out immediately by looking at the sky. There were big, grey clouds everywhere. The second option was not advised. I had walking shoes, not running ones. But more importantly, I didn't want to risk an injury in case I slipped on the wet tar. So I started walking again faster than ever. Five minutes later, I was "rescued" by Bibi, Caroline's boyfriend. She is my wife's sister. He took his car and came to pick me up.

After drying myself up, I took a book and relaxed. Five minutes later, the superb weather was here again. *sniff*. Not such a big surprise, given the 4SAD (4 Seasons A Day) we have currently in France. And they said Summer is only a week away... I just spent about eighteen days in Morocco and we had awesome weather almost all the time. I believe it's a Murphy conspiracy ;-)

Quelques Conseils Dentaires

saad@hush.com — 2007-06-16T13:02:59+02:00

J'ai effectué une visite hier chez un dentiste. Ma précédente remonte à plus de trois ans. A l'époque, le dentiste que j'avais consulté m'avait dit que mes dents étaient tellement bonnes que je pouvais me passer des visites annuelles et passer à une consultation bi-annuelle voire plus. J'aurais dû me doûter que ce n'était pas un conseil très judicieux.

Mon nouveau dentiste m'inspire beaucoup plus confiance. Il m'a passé un sacré savon pour avoir attendu aussi longtemps avant de consulter. J'avais beaucoup de tartre qui rendait mes gencives malades. Il y en avait tellement qu'elle a du faire deux séances pour en arriver à bout. Au passage, elle m'a donné des informations fort utiles et quelques conseils dont je voudrais vous faire profiter :

La visite annuelle est obligatoire, même si vous avez des dents d'acier.
Le choix du dentifrice est très important. Actuellement, il n'y a que deux dentifrices dignes de ce nom : Colgate Total (en grande surface) et Elmex (en pharmacie et para-pharmacie). Le fluor utilisé est de type aminé. Il se fixe plus rapidement que la variante minérale qu'on trouve dans tous les autres dentifrices fluorés et ne se dissout pas aussi facilement à l'eau.
Manger des chewing-gums n'est pas proscrit si on choisit une variété sans sucre. Bien sûr, il faut éviter l'excès qui peut causer des problèmes gastriques. Après un repas, il est recommandé d'en consommer si on n'a pas accès à sa brosse à dents. Ils aident à équilibrer le pH, rendu acide par la nourriture.
Les chewing-gums à action blanchissante (selon le département Marketing du moins) sont généralement inoffensifs. Tout le contraire des autres produits qui contiennent des oxydants dangeureux. Les utiliser revient à passer une pierre ponce sur les dents. Leur action blanchissante est plutôt abrasive. Bye-bye l'email.
Il est recommandé d'utiliser une brosse souple et d'employer du fil dentaire le soir pour aider au nettoyage des endroits difficiles d'accès. Il existe plusieurs types de fils. Demandez conseil à votre dentiste.

Edité le 17 juin 2007 pour ajouter : Le fil dentaire doit être ciré. Bruno Favre, a.k.a. nobz, précise que son dentiste lui a conseillé la marque Oral B. Les brosses à dents électriques sont aussi une bonne option pour peu qu'on s'attarde sur chaque dent. Merci pour ces informations nobz !

New Website Design

saad@hush.com — 2007-06-15T08:03:45+02:00

It's been a long time that I didn't post anything on this weblog. It's been a pretty hectic time for me lately. Anyways, now you can see that I am back and the website has a new design! The third in about 18 months. I hope that you'll enjoy it. As always, feedback is more than welcome.

Replacing the Koss PortaPro

saad@hush.com — 2007-03-31T08:23:22+02:00

While my first unit of the Koss PortaPro headphones, which about in 1998, lasted a few years the two replacement units I got afterwards didn't "survive" for long (I take extra care of my Music gear). Was it because of the incredible success of this model (at least in France) and the money-hungry company that understood very well the law of supply and demand and decided to raise the price quite significantly (I bought my first unit for about 45 EUR and now they are around 70...) while diminishing the costs with a negative impact on quality? This might be mere speculation but see, my last unit fell apart yesterday. One of the phones doesn't want to stick anymore to the head support. And that support's resizing plastic elements broke. So I thought it was time to look for something else for a change.

I still use my Shure E3C when commuting or before going to sleep. But I needed something similar to the Koss PortaPro when I work so that I can hear people around me. But I didn't want to spend much time comparing models so I decided to ask my friends around and Jethro, a fellow DocIslander and a Music lover to whom I am grateful for making me discover some very interesting Music, told me about the Sennheiser PX200. He bought a unit when he got his iPod Nano about 10 months ago and he was very well satisfied with them, save for feeling a discomfort after wearing them for an extended time.

Being a closed model, I feared they were heavy and won't let ambient sounds in. But I decided to follow Jethro's advice anyways and I bought a unit for 57 EUR yesterday. When I got back home, I opened the package and took the PX200 out of their quite interesting carrying case that looks like it was created for carrying glasses (the PX200 fold almost like them). It was time to test them. So I launched iTunes, plugged the unit to my laptop and created a playlist with many genres of Music. The songs I chose were some of the ones I know most and to which I listened to many times. That way, I believe I could fish any distorsion or unusual sound rendering. Well, the PX200 performed very well. They sound a lot like the PortaPro and are very light and comfortable. The noise blocking is pretty nice and if you don't listen to Music too loudly, you can hear some of the ambient sounds around. They also look pretty solid. Let's hope they don't break apart soon.

I am so far happy even if the people around me might no be that happy when they realize I've changed headphones and that they need to shout to make themselves heard. Thank you Jethro for the great advice.

World Song Review: Toumast by Tinariwen [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2007-03-31T07:17:57+02:00

[World] Toumast, Tinariwen
From the album Aman Iman (Water is Life).

WOW. WOW. WOW!!!!! I rarely felt in so great a communion with Music but Toumast touched the inner core of my being. It feels like someone gave me a strange shot with some special fluid that makes me go in a trance. I am very sensitive to that kind of Music. Maybe it is due (again) to my brother making me listen to Gnawa Music when I was a kid back in Morocco, a genre that Tinariwen's Music takes to higher grounds. The sound quality is awesome and the handclaps participate to that trance feeling. I've listened to Aman Iman almost 20 times (according to my iTunes's Play Count numbers) and I can't quit. All the songs are excellent but Toumast has something into it that makes it different from the others. If you want to travel to the Sahel without ever leaving your seat (I am totally crazy about this characteristic of great Music) and take part in a Tuareg mystical party, go get this album right away.

I think Tinariwen has reached some sort of incredible alchemy that wasn't there in their previous albums. And I really thank them for that. If it wasn't for a family event that was scheduled so ahead in time, I would have bought a ticket for their Bataclan concert on April 7th.

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Universal Music
Release year: 2007
Related Artists: Desert Rebel, Ali Farka Touré, Vieux Farka Touré, Hamid Kasri, Tartit, Toumast

Extra links :

Streaming version of Toumast
Tinariwen's Official Website
Streaming versions of four of the album's songs (require Real Player or Windows Media Player)

A Bigger DocIsland: Twelve Ducks in the Pond

saad@hush.com — 2007-03-09T01:44:51+01:00

I am very happy to welcome Siegfried Noël (a.k.a. sieg) to DocIsland as the twelveth member of our not-so-small group. We had our traditional new member "welcome" dinner last Thursday in La Robe et Le Palais, an excellent Paris restaurant where you can have a wonderful meal and amazing wine.

sieg was kind enough to send me the necessary data to create his profile on our Website. Welcome on board mate!

Slides "Bro : un NIDS pas comme les autres ?" Disponibles

saad@hush.com — 2007-01-30T06:30:53+01:00

Les slides de la présentation Bro : un NIDS pas comme les autres ? effectuée le 16 janvier 2007 dans le cadre de la réunion du groupe SUR (OSSIR), en collaboration avec Guillaume Arcas, sont disponibles au format PDF. Guillaume s'est chargé de faire la présentation, en prenant en compte les remarques très intéressantes de Franck Debieve, JP. Luiggi, et mes quelques remarques "cosmétiques". Je me suis chargé d'une démonstration de Bro 1.2.1 en me plaçant du point de vue d'un utilisateur qui connaît bien Unix (la plate-forme utilisée pour la démonstration est FreeBSD 6.2-PRERELEASE) et Snort et en essayant de clairement montrer que Bro, bien que très intéressant, reste encore incomplet du point de vue du "packaging" (configuration après installation, outils de gestion, ...) et au niveau de la documentation.

Lily-Aya: My Family Gets Bigger!

saad@hush.com — 2007-01-25T21:36:08+01:00

I am extremely proud and happy to announce that Lily-Aya, my second child/daughter, was born today at 11:40 AM CET. We didn't know her gender until the very last second! And it was a very nice and thrilling experience. We did the same thing for Noée-Neyla, her elder sister.

At 3.640Kg and 51cm, she is a nice baby. Expect some pictures to be published on this website pretty soon (read: until I get some rest and finish selecting the nicest ones). In the meantime, here is one.

Slides de Formation OpenBSD Disponibles

saad@hush.com — 2007-01-24T21:13:52+01:00

Dans le cadre de mon travail, je crée et j'assure des formations autour de la sécurité et des réseaux informatiques. J'ai développé et je maintiens une formation sur le système d'exploitation libre OpenBSD, qui est maintenu par le projet éponyme; projet dont je fais partie en tant que traducteur en langue française et coordinateur principal de l'effort de traduction principalement.

Cette formation, que j'assure sur 4~5 jours habituellement en intra/inter-site couvre les sujets suivants:

Vue d’ensemble
Utilisation basique
Aperçu des services disponibles
Gestion des utilisateurs
Gestion du réseau
Ports et packages
Système de fichiers
Cron et gestion des logs
Apache
OpenSSH
Packet Filter (PF)
IPsec
Maintenance et mise à jour

HAPSIS, mon employeur, a mis à disposition sous licence BSD les slides (PDF) d'une ancienne version de cette formation qui traite de la version 3.7 d'OpenBSD (aujourd'hui nous sommes en 4.0). Même si cette version date un peu, la plupart des informations y figurant restent pertinentes.

Je tiens à remercier Fabrice Frade d'avoir aussi rapidement accepté ma proposition de mettre à disposition ces slides.

A Method For Reading Technical Books

saad@hush.com — 2007-01-03T22:05:47+01:00

When reading technical books, I use a variation of Richard Bejtlich's reading method. Please take the time to read his post before continuing with this one.

As far as I can tell, my method takes more time but it allows me to fully understand key material and "engrave" it on memory. I use a combination of post-it flags and plain, bright yellow highlighters and three reading passes:

First pass of reading. Usually not very mentally taxing. Flag key ideas with the post-it flags. I usually do this during my daily commute (currently 1h15 * 2 approx) in the public transportation.
Second pass of reading. Give more concentration juice to the flagged items. Highlight the parts that need to be fully understood and remembered. Take notes using a pencil when applicable. I usually do this either at home/work or while commuting.
Third pass of reading. This is done sometimes later (after reading two/three other books for example). Skim over the text and reread the flagged/highlighted items. Take note using a text editor, wiki or something like that. I currently use VoodooPad. Enter important URLs in bookmarks (in a special "Analyze this" folder) and/or in del.icio.us (using a special tag). I usually do this at home/work.

Jazz Song Review: Byzance by Nguyên Lê and Dhafer Youssef [5/5] (Best Song of 2006)

saad@hush.com — 2007-01-03T21:37:40+01:00

[Jazz] Byzance, Nguyên Lê Duos (Nguyên Lê and Dhafer Youssef)
From the album Homescape.

Byzance is in my opinion the best song of 2006. Featuring two of my favorite artists, Guitar player Nguyên Lê and Oud player Dhafer Youssef, it has something very special that I can't define clearly in words, that "transcends" Music and gives me a ruch of amazing and very enjoyable emotions with its oriental, almost hypnotic, tone. The intertwinement of Oud and Guitar with oriental percussions is just perfect. The same goes for the excellent sound engineering, made in a home studio by Nguyên Lê. Dhafer Youssef's voice adds a very welcome touch to the song's core fabric. This is great Art. Thank you guys for this amazing piece of Music. I've listened to it about 30 times already and I am absolutely not tired of it.

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: ACT
Release year: 2006
Related Artists: Wolfgang Haffner, Anouar Brahem, Erik Truffaz (particularly in his latest album, Saloua, which features Soufi singer Mounir Troudi)

Extra links :

30 seconds MP3 sample from abstractlogix.com
Nguyên Lê's Official Website
Dhafer Youssef's Official Website
CD info from ACT
allaboutjazz.com CD Review

Happy New Year!

saad@hush.com — 2007-01-01T16:11:59+01:00

I'd like to wish you a happy new year 2007, full of every good thing your heart may desire. Did you make any good resolutions? I made three. Here they are in no particular order:

Give more love to the people I cherish and care for.
Practice sport seriously and lose (many) extra kilos I've been carrying for too long.
Get a driver license.

Barcelona 2006 Pictures (Finally!)

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-26T22:57:37+01:00

I've been slacking too much on this but I finally devoted some time to publish some of the pictures we took during our trip to Barcelona in May 2006.

Barcelona is a gorgeous city. I think I fell in love with it and I am looking forward to visit it again. Next year hopefully...

Merry Christmas!

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-26T20:59:34+01:00

I wish you a merry Christmas full of happiness, joy and every good thing your heart may desire! And please, remember... "He Who Relieves The Poor Makes Ahura King"

Jazz Song Review: Look The Lobis by Romano, Sclavis, Texier, Le Querrec [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-24T08:39:00+01:00

[Jazz] Look The Lobis, Romano, Sclavis, Texier, Le Querrec
From the album African Flashback.

African Flashback is one of my favorite Jazz albums. Featuring Aldo Romano on drums, Louis Sclavis on clarinet, and Henri Texier on bass, it is the third and last album of this amazing European Jazz trio. The idea behind this trio was initiated in 1990 by Guy Le Querrec, a renowned French photographer. who went touring Central Africa for three weeks. They had been so enthralled by this experience that they decided to make Carnet de Routes in 1995. Featuring original compositions from each artist and about 50 photos of the trips, this first album met incredible success. In 1998, the four friends decided to go back to Africa. This time, they visited South and East Africa. As a result, a second album, Suite Africaine, was made. It also met great success. And I really love those two albums.

Later on, Le Querrec was asked to choose from the thousands of unreleased pictures he brought back from Africa and to give his selection to the musicians who would imagine stories behind these pictures that they will tell the listeners in Music. Released in 2005, African Flashback is the result of this work and it is simply superb! There's no other word to describe this jewel. The CD comes with an impressive booklet containing Le Querrec's selected pictures. It was very had to select one of the songs as I really love all of them (except Surreal Politik that isn't to my taste at all). After listening over and over to this masterpiece, I decided to give my preference to Look The Lobis for the incredible Bass play donned by Henri Texier and the very distinct Rock tone of the song.

I am very grateful to these musicians and all the other artists that create such amazing Art. I can't imagine how we could live without Music.

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Label Bleu
Release year: 2005

Extra links :

Look The Lobis sample (30 seconds in Real Audio)

Marty Roesch on Snort 3.0

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-12T22:43:13+01:00

I've been to the groupe SUR monthly meeting in Paris (which I co-supervise with Hervé Schauer) this afternoon. As usual, there were two talks. While I gave the second talk with my friend Guillaume Arcas on Metasploit (the slides, in French, are online), the first was given by Marty Roesch, creator of Snort and founder of Sourcefire. The topic of his talk was The History and Future of Snort.

Marty started with the history of Snort. How it all started back in 1998 as an OSS pet project of his, how Snort gained momentum, how he started developing full-time and founded Sourcefire. I started playing with Snort on and off since version 1.5 and this part of the talk was quite nice. It helped understand how Snort got where it is now with version 2.6.1.2. But things started getting much interesting when Marty started speaking about the future of Snort and what features might be integrated in Snort 3.0, the next major version of this popular NIDS:

Auto-tuning
Auto anti-evasion (for layers 3 &4)
Auto-prioritization of events
No stopping to change configuration
Taking advantage of multi-core processors

The three first features (auto-tuning, auto anti-evasion, and auto-prioritization) revolve around the same concept, called target-aware processing. Basically, if the NIDS can have confidence in what the attacked endpoint is (operating system, targeted application ...), it will be able to:

Feed just the right policies (sets of detection rules) to the detection engine, thus eliminating unnecessary and often painful tuning (which is seldom done if any) and achieving the auto-tuning goal. Note that this is different from the current RNA (Real-time Network Awareness) product sold by Sourcefire. The detection engine in Snort 2.x is not aware of the RNA and all the intelligence (that is, the correlation of the NIDS and the RNA data) is done on the Defense Center, the central management software sold by Sourcefire.
Model the target in such a way that the NIDS knows how to reassemble TCP packets or defragment IP packets and mimic the target. Marty said that evasion is a big issue and a very hard problem to solve. At least with knowledge gained on the target, Snort could become harder to evade in layers 3 & 4.
Auto-prioritize events given knowledge on the target. Again, this is not RNA. The knowledge is gained somehow and fed right into the sensor so that when it sees an attack and it knows that the target might be vulnerable to it, it helps the analyst by giving that attack a higher priority that should be acted upon right away.

The fourth feature deals with the current necessity to stop Snort for changing the configuration. In Snort 3.0, you wouldn't need to stop the detection engine and lose context while doing so through the use of threads and data sources. A data source will implement data acquisition and decoding before handing the network data to the detection engine through an API which is implemented as a thread. If we need to change configuration, we would create a new thread and migrate the data source to it without context loss. As a beneficial side effect, it would be possible to have fail-over and load balancing between detection engines. A Snort daemon will be used as an interface between the administrator (who issues commands through a Cisco-like "shell" implemented in Lua) and the detection engine.

As for the fifth and last feature, Snort doesn't support currently the multi-core architecture of modern x86/x64 processors and Snort 3.0 needs to solve this.

All in all, it was a very interesting talk. Marty concluded by saying that many of these new features (such as threads and data sources) have been implemented in prototypes or are in the design phase. Since Snort 3.0 represents such a drastic change from the current Snort version, Sourcefire will be releasing subsystem alphas to the community for testing.

Edited to Add (20061213): On a side note, Guillaume Arcas and I will be giving a talk (in French) about the Bro IDS during the next groupe SUR monthly meeting (2007.01.16). Feel free to show up. Attendance is free. And we are also looking for a second talk for this meeting. If you are interested, drop me an email.

Edited to Add (20061218): According to Ureleet, IPv6 decoding will be native in Snort 3.0. Thanks for the update.

Slides "Metasploit pour tous ou presque..." Disponibles

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-12T18:36:37+01:00

Les slides de la présentation Metasploit pour tous ou presque... effectuée cet après-midi dans le cadre de la réunion du groupe SUR (OSSIR), en collaboration avec Guillaume Arcas, sont disponibles au format PDF.

Metasploit pour tous ou presque...

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-11T12:04:53+01:00

Guillaume Arcas, ami de longue date et consultant sécurité indépendant va effectuer avec moi une présentation intituée Metasploit pour tous ou presque... dans le cadre de la réunion du groupe SUR prévue demain mardi 12 décembre 2006 à partir de 14h00 à l'adresse suivante :

ENSAM (Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers)
Salle L4/L5
151 Boulevard de l'Hôpital, 75013 Paris.
Métro : Place d'Italie (lignes 6 & 7) ou Campo Fermio (ligne 5).

Notre présentation débutera après la présentation de Marty Roesch, créateur de Snort et fondateur de Sourcefire, qui aura pour sujet Snort 3.x, la prochaine version de cet IDS.

L'objectif que nous recherchons à travers notre présentation est de sensibiliser le public du groupe SUR aux frameworks d'exploit et en particulier à Metasploit, démonstration à l'appui. Le sujet est abordé sous l'angle de l'administrateur sécurité désireux de tester la sécurité du S.I. sous sa responsabilité.

Les slides de la présentation seront mis à disposition après la réunion sur http://saad.docisland.org/docs/.

Je vous rappelle que la participation aux réunions de l'OSSIR est libre et gratuite.

On Earphones And Headphones

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-08T10:32:10+01:00

Back in the nineties, I used the Koss PortaPro headphones my brother Aziz brought back with him from the U.S. when he visited the family in Morocco (that was in the summer of 1991 brother?), I started to be more stringent about the quality of headphones and earphones in general. At that time, as a student all what I was able to get was some open Sony headphones. While they didn't sound great in comparison to the Koss Porta Pro, they were better than the crap vendors keep bundling with their portable audio systems. The Sony headphones served me well during many years and I even brought them with me to France in 1997. With some of the money I earned in my student job, I got a closed Sennheiser model. While they sounded pretty good, they were pretty heavy to wear and I usually used them before going to sleep or when I was studying at the library.

Things started to get interesting when I got my first real job. I bought the Koss PortaPro and I was very satisfied with them for quite a few years. But as you nurture your mind with reading and mental exercing, you also nurture your ears with great Music. Mine became a bit discomforted with the bass-boosting Porta Pro. Moreover, since they were an open model, they weren't good at isolating external noise that prevented me from listening to Music in good conditions while commuting. The Paris metro and RER are extremely noisy. And inconsciously, I was raising the volume to compensate for the noise. I was damaging my ears. It was time to look for something else. Closed models are great but they aren't good for commuting. And I had troubles with earphones. The models I have tried wouldn't fit my ears correctly. And then Aziz told me about how nice the Sony Fontopia MDR-EX51LP earphones were. I decided to try them and indeed, they were nice. Moreover, their soft silicon earbuds fit perfectly in my ears. That was in 2001.

Last year, when I went to the U.S. visiting Aziz and Mom, I read about the Shure E3C earphones on C|Net. They are quite pricey but I decided to get them anyway. They produce an awesome and crystal-clear sound. I am totally hooked. I use them for commuting and while at home before going to sleep with the foams which isolate superbly well from the external noise. At work, I use the PortaPro to be able to hear when people call me. Since then, Laurent (a coworker and friend of mine) bought a unit too and he feels the same about their quality. Mitch and Régis, two other coworkers and friends got the Shure E2C model and they told me that the noise isolating capability of these earphones also changed their life and gave them a new perspective of their musical experience as listeners. The E2C are less expensive than the E3C but I can't tell you which one to get. You will have to let your ears decide ;-)

World Song Review: Tunga by Mamadou Diabaté [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-08T08:56:01+01:00

[World] Tunga, Mamadou Diabaté
From the album Tunga. Available from eMusic

Tunga is the reason why I decided to post something about the Kora yesterday. Mamadou Diabaté plays this complex instrument masterfully. No doubt about that. I feel like crying out of joy when hearing this heavenly piece of Music. Truth is sometimes I do cry to let lose the emotions that are created by the beauty of Music. There are bad songs, average songs, good songs and songs that are so good that sometimes I have a hard time believing that a human just like you and me is capable of creating. Mamadou is one of those. And Tunga makes my eyes full of tears. To appreciate this kind (or any other) of Music, you need to be in a quiet environment or work around the ambient noise that besieges us with a very good, sound isolating, headphones. And then you are ready for a wonderful travel into the land of pure, great emotions.

When I first began to listen to songs featuring the Kora, I believed that in many songs there were two Kora players. But it was a mistake. With its 21+ strings, the Kora is capable of creating a wide range of sounds that give you the impression that there are two instruments being played. In fact, the player uses his right hand for accompaniment. I discovered that about 10 months ago when I bought Boulevard De l'Indépendance by Toumani Diabaté which featured a video sequence in which Toumani gives some hints about how wonderful the Kora is. Then I saw the guy playing live at Cabaret Sauvage and I was taken aback by the sounds that can be produced by a single Kora.

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Alula Records
Release year: 2000
Related Artists: Ablaye Cissoko, Toumani Diabaté, Ballaké Sissoko, Kaouding Cissoko

Extra links :

Artist Information

Wonderful Kora

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-07T14:03:24+01:00

If you'd ask about my favorite musical instrument (as a listener), I will tell you with no hesitation at all: Kora. The Kora is an african instrument that can be likened to a harp and a lute combination. It produces a beautiful, heavenly sound that reaches very deep into my soul.

It is one of the most complex instruments of Africa. Played in the westernmost part of Africa in Senegal, Sierra Leone, Mali, Gambia, Guinea and Burkina Faso, it is crafted of half of a gourd calabash with the addition of a hardwood post that runs through it. 21 to 25 strings are attached to the post. A cowhide covers the open side of the half calabash and then it is left to dry in the Sun to hold the handposts in place. Crafting a Kora is very hard. It also takes a lot of practice to play right.

There are some amazing Kora players out there, among which I can cite : Ablaye Cissoko, Toumani Diabaté (considered to be the King of Kora), Kaouding Cissoko (may he rest in peace), Ballake Sissoko, and Mamadou Diabaté. I invite you to listen to some of their records and hear for yourself this amazing instrument. Some suggestions:

Boulevard De L'indépendance, Toumani Diabate (you can listen to a few excerpts on World Circuit website)
In The Heart Of The Moon, Ali Farka Touré with Toumani Diabaté (you can listen to a few excerpts on World Circuit website)
Le Griot Rouge, Ablaye Cissoko (go to http://www.caplaser.fr/ma%2Dcase/fr/arti.html and click on "écouter un extrait..." under the artist's picture)
Kora Revolution, Kaouding Cissoko (available from eMusic)
Tomora, Ballaké Sissoko
Tunga, Mamadou Diabaté (available from eMusic)
New Ancient Strings, Toumani Diabaté and Ballaké Sissoko

Past Ten

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-06T14:35:14+01:00

Finally, DocIsland counts now 11 members with the addition of Gabriel Merlet (a.k.a. gab) who joined our small group about one week ago. It is always interesting to have fresh blood added to the team. Moreover, gab looks really like an interesting guy (Hey! He enjoys Jazz and Funk music among many other genres). We took some pictures (pretty bad quality though since they were taken with a phone builtin camera) during the dinner we had with gab.

If you are curious about how would one join DocIsland, the first thing you need to know about is What Is DocIsland? A new member needs necessarily to know one or more existing members, and know them pretty well. Then one of those DocIsland members will make arrangements to suggest the addition of that person to the team. Then we set up a meeting to see if we get along with that person. The meeting is informal of course. It is held around a dining table in one of the many excellent Paris restaurants we know of such as Galopins Nation. Then we vote. And that's it.

What the advantages of joining DocIsland you might ask besides sharing pretty regularly nice drinks and food and having lots of geeky fun? Well you get free access to the DocIsland infrastructure which offers mail, Web hosting, DNS hosting, shell accounts, storage space, backup and other nice services, all backed with a pretty nice bandwidth. Moreover, you can also take part in our internal discussions and idea sharing about differing miscellaneous subjects such as Music (you would expect that if you are following this blog), I.T. (with a focus on Computer Security and Open Source software).

Funk Song Review: Qu'est Ce Qu'on En Fait ? by Sinclair [4/5]

saad@hush.com — 2006-12-26T21:09:47+01:00

[Funk] Qu'est-ce Qu'on En Fait ?, Sinclair
From the album Morphologique

The French prince of Funk is back at it! Since I included one of his songs in Wonderful Songs Aug'05, he has released a new album, Morphologique (French for Morphological), a few months ago. I really like his Music and this album is on a par with his talent. Qu'est Ce Qu'on En Fait ? is the most Funky song of the lot and Sinclair is very good in this register. He has an incredible sense of Groove and rhythm. And I also enjoy his voice. The album also features nice Pop songs.

Please give it a try.

Meta information:

Rating: 4/5
Label: Editions xtrasoul (self-produced)
Release year: 2006
Related Artists: -M-, Ben Ricour

Extra links :

Artist's Website (contains sample music. Click on "L'album")

Jails et Zones dans MISC 28

saad@hush.com — 2006-11-12T19:24:00+01:00

Le numéro 28 de MISC, un magazine français dédié à la sécurité informatique, est paru il y a quelques jours de cela. Il est habituellement vendu en kiosque en France, Belgique, Maroc et certainement d'autres pays francophones. Et depuis quelques mois, il y a même une édition en Allemand.

Ce numéro contient deux fiches pratiques que j'ai écrites. La première fiche pratique traite les jails sous FreeBSD. La seconde traite des Zones de Solaris 10. Ces deux fonctionnalités sécurité sont très intéressantes pour le cloisonnement d'applications. J'avais déjà effectué une présentation des jails dans le cadre du groupe SUR de l'OSSIR.

Si vous avez l'occasion de lire ces deux articles, je serais intéressé par vos commentaires (constructifs bien entendu).

ModSecurity 2.0 Looks Very Interesting

saad@hush.com — 2006-10-19T03:16:48+02:00

Federico Biancuzzi interviewed Ivan Ristic, ModSecurity developer and author of the Apache Security book (check the review from Richard Bejtlich), a few days ago about the new 2.0 version of this interesting OSS WAF (Web Application Firewall. buzzwords keep flowing these days). It runs as an Apache module and protects your web applications according to policies that you specify.

Version 2.0 is a complete rewrite of the code base and while it is still available today only as an Apache module, it's been rewritten with portability in mind and Ivan is hoping to release a IIS compatible version in the not too distant future.

The new version also looks very interesting on the functionality side. Among the major improvements on this side, here is what took my attention (excerpt from the interview):

Transaction variables. This can be used to store pieces of data, create a transaction anomaly score, and so on.
Data persistence (can be configured any way you want although most people will want to use this feature to track IP addresses, application sessions, and application users).
Support for anomaly scoring and basic event correlation (counters can be automatically decreased over time; variables can be expired).
Support for web applications and session IDs.
Regular Expression back-references (allows one to create custom variables using transaction content).

Even better (depends on whom is using the product): a GUI is available (it doesn't look like OSS though).

Read the full transcript for more details. I plan to test it as soon as I can. If you already did, let me know what you think.

Friendly Links Page Added

saad@hush.com — 2006-10-19T03:13:06+02:00

If you haven't noticed the new Friendly Links on the right navigation bar, it's a page that points to friends' websites as well as other links that are related to this website (in a very broad sense).

Jazz Song Review: Caught Up By Christian Scott [5/5]

saad@hush.com — 2006-10-19T02:35:31+02:00

[Jazz] Caught Up, Christian Scott
From the album Rewind That. Available from eMusic

No words come into mind to describe this masterpiece. Rewind That is the debut album from an amazing trumpeter with a great sense of Funk. Christian Scott has earned my admiration and my utter respect with this record which I keep listening to, over and over. As good as (and sometimes better than) records from Erik Truffaz, Roy Hargrove (through the RH Factor) and Christian McBride. I really would like to see more and more albums like this because it reunites three wonderful elements: Funk, Jazz and trumpet.

Rewind That contains many excellent songs but Caught up deserves the top position not only because it demonstrates Christian's amazing ability for playing his instrument but also because of its musicality. Moreover, it contains a small part where the musicians make a reprise of the legendary song Don't Call Me Nigger Whitey, originally by Sly & The Family Stone (featured on the Stand! album. Gene Harris made an amazing reprise in a excellent Funk tone). I wonder why none of my favorite "dead tree" magazines (Vibrations, Jazzman, and Jazz Magazine) didn't pick this one up or talked about it.

Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Treat your ears to this amazing Music and they will be grateful to your eyes for reading this post *grin*.

Meta information:

Rating: 5/5
Label: Concord Records
Release year: 2006
Related Artists: RH Factor, Erik Truffaz, Christian McBride

Extra links :

Artist's Website (contains sample music)
allaboutjazz.com CD Review

Jazz Song Review: Blue Alert by Madeleine Peyroux

saad@hush.com — 2006-10-11T00:47:39+02:00

[Jazz] Blue Alert, Madeleine Peyroux
From the album Half The Perfect World.

After the release of Careless Love, her previous (and second) album, Madeleine Peyroux has become a World-renowned Jazz artist. While some songs of Careless Love are truly amazing, I don't consider it a top album. But Half The Perfect World definitely is! Madeleine Peyroux seems to have found some kind of amazing equilibrium between her wonderful voice and the musical arrangements, creating a rare musical alchemy that is characteristic of masterpieces. No less. This alchemy that reaches deep inside the soul of the listener using Madeleine's voice as a soothing element comes to a peak with Blue Alert. It starts simply with a guitar and that incredible voice and then other instruments enter the game and fit perfectly in.

If you haven't bought the album yet, you definitely should!

More links :

[FreeBSD] Using portsnap With Basic Proxy Authentication

saad@hush.com — 2006-10-10T23:55:17+02:00

portsnap is one of the most interesting tools of FreeBSD dealing with the ports collection. portsnap, developed by Colin Percival, the current FreeBSD Security Officer, allows you to initially fetch a ports tree for your system and keep it updated. For those who don't need CVS logs or don't want to deal with cvsup and the other ports/src tree fetching methods, portsnap is an ideal solution that connects to web servers for its operation and has an extremely simple syntax that is very clearly outlined in the manpage.

However, you may need to use portsnap through a proxy that requires basic authentication. To do this, you have to define two environment variables: HTTP_PROXY and HTTP_PROXY_AUTH.


$ echo $SHELL
/usr/local/bin/zsh
$ sudo export HTTP_PROXY=http://proxyip:proxyport/
$ sudo export HTTP_PROXY_AUTH=basic:*:username:password

Some readers might be used to the more "traditional" way of specifying authentication credentials right into HTTP_PROXY:


$ sudo export HTTP_PROXY=http://username:password@proxyip:proxyport/

Sadly, this doesn't work with portsnap even though it is valid according to fetch(3).

RH Factor Concert At La Cigale Cancelled

saad@hush.com — 2006-09-25T17:23:59+02:00

I was very sad to learn that the RH Factor concert I was supposed to go to with some close friends has been cancelled. It was supposed to take place on October 19th at La Cigale in Paris. Now it's time to go ask for a refund for the tickets I bought... *sigh*

Case Sensitiveness and Security

saad@hush.com — 2006-09-25T16:35:40+02:00

Another case of "security" that is getting us nowhere as reported by The Internet Storm Center:

Kaspersky's blog, always a great read, is reporting that there are some "epidemic level" MSN-Worms [...] that "spread using links to .PIF files.". They go on to say;

"But some of you might remember that Microsoft blocked messages containing ".pif"?

Yes they have, but... the MS block is case sensitive!

So the criminals used capital letters, ".PIF" and the network filters let the message flow right through. Other variations like .Pif, .pIf, and so on also work.".

Hopefully, that was easy to fix (taken today from Kaspersky's blog):

Microsoft has fixed the .PIF 'vulnerabilty' in their MSN network filters as described in the previous blogpost.

So that's one less thing to worry about.

One's left to wonder how did such a trivia thing slipped under the Microsoft security radar...

Updated Theme and Layout

saad@hush.com — 2006-09-25T16:26:48+02:00

As you may have noticed, I have changed the theme and layout of the website. I got tired of the previous theme that I've been using since the creation of this website.

Mitch, a close friend of mine, brought my attention to other themes from the same vendor of my original one.

After reviewing them as best as I could, I bought the Phantom theme for RapidWeaver (the web creation software I use) from Blueball Design. This new theme is a 3 column one that takes advantage of some of the new features or RapidWeaver 3.5. I've tweaked the fonts in the CSS files to have a consistent font on all pages.

I hope you will enjoy the new looks of my website. Feedback is welcome.

Stanley Jordan, a Jazz/Fusion guitarist from Outer Space

saad@hush.com — 2006-09-25T14:34:25+02:00

About one week ago, I was taking a short break from work with some colleagues of mine when one of them started watching a YouTube video of Stanley Jordan. This was my first exposure to this artist and his Music.

I liked the video so much and particularly his guitar playing technique that the next thing I did was to look up his page on Wikipedia. I soon discovered that he invented that technique which is, as Wikipedia puts it, an advanced version of tapping:

The guitarist produces a note using only one finger by quickly tapping (or "hammering") his finger down behind the appropriate fret. The force of impact causes the string to vibrate enough to immediately sound the note. The note's volume can be controlled by varying the force of impact: tapping with greater force produces a louder note.

Here is another great video where Stanley plays two guitars at the same time!

Smooth Jazz Song Review: Tell It Like It Is by Wayman Tisdale

saad@hush.com — 2006-09-25T14:02:54+02:00

[Smooth Jazz] Tell It Like It Is, Wayman Tisdale
From the album Way Up!. Available from eMusic

After Hang Time, his awesome previous album, the ex-NBA basketball player turned Jazz bass guitarist has put the bar higher with Way Up!, an excellent Smooth Jazz album. I really like his style and just by listening to his music, I can feel a great joy from his part in doing his craft, a joy that he communicates very nicely to his listeners. While Hang Time featured some excellent songs such as Ready To Hang (reviewed in Wonderful Songs Nov'05), I consider Way Up! more level in quality and musicality. Tell It Like It Is is my favorite song (with the Get Down On It awesome reprise just behind it). It features an incredibly funky and groovy bass play assisted with a synthetizer than adds a very nice 90's touch to the song. If you like Smooth Jazz with a funky style, do not hesitate and get both albums which are available from eMusic.

Edited to add (20061019): Album review from allaboutjazz.com.

Afrobeat Song Review: Roforofo Fight by Fela Kuti

saad@hush.com — 2006-09-20T20:54:08+02:00

[Afrobeat] Roforofo Fight, Fela Kuti
From the album Music Is The Weapon Of The Future. Available from eMusic

After I posted Essential Albums: Afrobeat, my friend Betabug checked the albums featured in that post and told me about Music Is The Weapon Of The Future, a 3 songs record from Fela Kuti, the emperor of Afrobeat. It's as essential an album as the other ones I wrote about. Roforofo Fight is a brilliant, 15 minutes long song where Fela Kuti and Tony Allen, the co-creator of Afrobeat and Fela's drummer are at their best. What I like most about Afrobeat is the amazing intertwinement between the drums/percussions and the saxophone.

Funk Song Review: Balek by Marc Moulin

saad@hush.com — 2006-09-19T21:44:35+02:00

[Funk] Balek, Marc Moulin
From the album Placebo Years 1971-1974.

Balek is an awesome Funk hit by Marc Moulin, a Belgian pianist. His initial Jazz training shows up through the usage of typical Jazz instruments. The beat is excellent and synthetizers are used very intelligently as a plate to serve the main meat without being overwhelming. It reminds me a lot of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters work. Save for Stomp, the other songs of the album are more Jazzish and if you are into Jazz and Funk, get this nice and well-balanced album without thought.

Jazz Song Review: Tricky Dick by Ben Allison

saad@hush.com — 2006-09-19T20:31:36+02:00

Since I've been blog-slacking for way too much time and not releasing Wonderful Songs, some die-hard fans begun to shout out loud and keep asking me for music reviews. So the slacker-genious in me decided to kill Wonderful Songs and convert it to Song Review. No, no! Hang on! Let me elaborate a bit.

Song Review is simply a way to post song reviews one by one, as time and motivation permits, instead of having to review ten of them per month and post them in one shot. Three benefits to this approach:

For the poster (that's me): Reviewing one song at a time and posting about it is far more flexible than working on a full Wonderful Songs release each month.
For the reader (that's you): The title of the post begins with the Music genre so you can skip reading right away if you don't like Jazz, World etc.
For the reader (that's you): Reading a few sentences for a song review is easier to do (at least in one shot) than reading about ten songs.

Now that you are truly convinced that there are great benefits to Song Review (dear reader, if you are not convinced please pretend that you are), let's start right away with a Jazz Song Review!

[Jazz] Tricky Dick, Ben Allison
From the album Cowboy Justice. Available from eMusic

The album's cover is not a symbol of good taste but believe me when I say that this is one of the major Jazz records of 2006. Ben Allison shows how wonderful he is as a double bassist in this typical Jazz ensemble. He is also a very good composer. Tricky Dick is considered by the artist to be the flagship song of his band. I agree from a musical standpoint. While Cowboy Justice features very nice songs, Tricky Dick is excellent (with Emergency being the second best). There is also a heavy political background to this song. Tricky Dick was the nickname of American President Nixon and it is has been reused for Dick Cheney, the current vice-president of the U.S.A.

Pictures From The Ben Harper Concert

saad@hush.com — 2006-08-17T16:14:50+02:00

Here are a few shots taken during the Ben Harper Concert I've been to in June. Enjoy.

It's All About Trust

saad@hush.com — 2006-08-17T15:15:03+02:00

Excellent video about Trusted Computing. Check it out!

We Want Roy (updated)

saad@hush.com — 2006-08-17T15:53:56+02:00

Roy Hargrove is a wonderful trumpeter who has recently released two albums (at the same time) with Verve Records: Nothing Serious with a quintet and Distractions with his excellent Funk/Jazz/Soul formation, The RH Factor.

I've started listening to Roy Hargrove when The RH Factor released their previous full-fedged record, Hard Groove. I was literally taken aback by the excellency of that record and the wonderful trumpet of Roy. Since then, I bought Strength, their EP released after Hard Groove and I was looking forward for a new album. In the meantime, I chewed on patiently on Moments To Moments, a more classical Jazz album from Roy and Habana, an album for which he won a Grammy in 1998 with his Afro-Cuban band Crisol.

When I learned that Distractions was to be released in June 2006, I quickly pre-ordered it and I was very excited when I wrapped the package because I knew deep inside that this album is going to be good. And it is. No, that's incorrect. It's excellent.

A few weeks later, while reading my Jazzman issue, I learned that The RH Factor are going to show up during The Paris Jazz Festival that takes place every year during the summer at Parc Floral, a wonderful park in the suburbs of Paris. It's an ideal place for picnicking while listening to great music. There are usually 4 concerts per week-end, 2 on each day. You only pay the entry to the park, which costs 4 EUR, and there you go for a great time.

So on July 1st, I went there to picnic with family and friends and see The RH Factor . The first concert, performed by NoJazz, started at 3:00PM and it was good. For the record, It wasn't the first time I came to Parc Floral this year. I've been there two weeks ago to see Vinicius Cantuaria, one my favorite Jazz artists and Julia Sarr with Patrice Larose, an excellent World duo. What struck me at first is that the human queue to get to the seats in front of the scene was immense. But it wasn't too much of a problem. I waited and went towards the scene almost at the end of the NoJazz concert. As expected, there was no empty seat but I could stand at the back with many other people and still have a quiet good view of the scene.

After a moment, which seemed very long because I was standing my back to the hot Sun that was burning my head and shoulders at 32c, Roy entered the scene with the other RH Factor members. And instantly, I forgot all about that heatball that was trying very hard to dehydrate me. It was one hell of a concert! Roy showed his alien skills at the trumpet and he often let room to the other band members to show their excellent abilities as well, especially the sax player who was incredible!

All in all, it was a very good afternoon. I took some pictures that you may want to check out as well as a very short QuickTime movie of the first minute or so of Kansas City Funk, the opening song played by The RH Factor.

For more information about Roy Hargrove and The RH Factor, please check out the Verve website and Wikipedia. For more information about Paris Jazz Festival, Check out this year's website (Bad design warning: They won't get an award for web design).

EDITED TO ADD (2006.08.17) : the song you hear in the QuickTime movie isn't Kansas City Funk but Rich Man's Welfare. Oops!

Like a King

saad@hush.com — 2006-06-30T15:42:54+02:00

I'm in Heaven since yesterday. I've been to the BEST concert of my whole life. After the excellent Marcus Miller concert two days ago, the extremely prolific, multi-genre "surfer" Ben Harper has made one hell of a performance I will never ever forget.

The event took place at L'Olympia, my favorite Paris scene by far. I arrived there with Mitch, a DocIsland fellow and a very close friend of mine, about half an hour before the beginning of the concert. A little bit later, wy wife and a couple of intimate friends joined us. It was very important to me to share this event with very close and special people. And believe it or not, these are the same people I've been with to Ben Harper's 2003 concert in Bercy, a huge Paris scene. That previous concert of an artist that I've learned to love and respect since 1997 and his hit song Jah Work was my best one. And now it's my second best.

A little bit after we took our seats, After a quite boring opening, we were left to wait for Ben Harper. I must admit that I was quite worried that this gig might be bad since Both Sides Of The Gun, Ben's latest album, isn't very good in comparison to his excellent previous records such as Diamonds On The Inside, Welcome To The Cruel World and Burn To Shine, my favorite Ben's studio album to date. However, given his 2003 performance in Bercy and the cheerful tone of Mitch, I let go of my worries and I was right about doing so.

40 minutes later Ben Harper and his Innocent Criminals supplemented with a very good guitar player entered the scene and started with a sublime Live version of Oppression. Instantly, they went into perfect communion with the public. And for more that 150 minutes, Ben Harper took us to Heaven playing Folk, Funk, Pop, Rock, and Reggae songs. Everything was top of the notch. Best among the best were the Live versions of Black Rain, Jah Work (with a perfectly fitting reprise of Bob Marley's Exodus right in the middle), Like a King, I'll Rise and Woman In You. These last three songs made me cry warm tears and feel gooseflesh. On a few songs Ben called in a wonderful strings section that added an appreciable touch. And the accordion used on When She Believes took this song to unknown heights. On a couple of songs (including I'll Rise), Ben sang without a microphone. I told you! It was a communion.

The "hit" song Better Way ended the concert beautifully. I hate the studio version save for a couple dozen seconds where Ben plays an incredible lap steel solo. But the Live version is completely different. I really start to think that Both Sides of The Gun has some serious production/arrangement flaws because the songs played Live during the concert has nothing to do with their flat-sounding studio counterparts.

All in all, it was a memorable gig and certainly the best concert I've been to so far. That's why I bought tickets for Ben's October 2006 concert in Bercy first thing this morning.

Thank you so much Ben Harper! You are truly one hell of an artist.

Surviving a Marcus Miller concert

saad@hush.com — 2006-06-29T01:37:08+02:00

I've been to a Marcus Miller concert tonight with Mitch and Jethro, two fellow DocIsland members. The concert took place in Le Bataclan, a pretty nice Paris scene.

Marcus Miller is one of the most amazing Bass players in the World. He has contributed to more than 500 albums while releasing about half a dozen under his own name! He is also a very capable composer/producer. Actually, I started noticing him and looking for his musical "fingerprint" after listening to Tutu, an album he composed for Miles Davis.

The concert was awesome. Marcus Miller showed up with an excellent set composed of a sax player, a drummer, a keyboardist, a trumpeter and an harmonica player. The band played 2 hours in a row Jazz and Funk songs including reprises of songs from Stevie Wonder and Miles Davis. From time to time, I looked sideways and saw my friends wearing an expression of utter pleasure or amazement. And needless to say, I am sure I had the same. I've heard the slap technique of Marcus on his studio records and it is flabbergasting, But seeing it live is just crazy. All I can say is WOW!

The only thing I feel sad for is that group of stupid people with a heavy South French accent that made every effort possible to make their presence felt. These people have no respect whatsoever for Music. They were shouting non sense and at one point they started comparing Marcus to Zinedine Zidane. Don't look for a relationship. There isn't. It was difficult to forget their existence and focus solely on the events taking place before my eyes.

Last but not least, if you want to know more about this incredible artist, check out his website. It is very well documented and easy to navigate through.

Essential Albums: Afrobeat

saad@hush.com — 2006-06-19T15:22:40+02:00

Afrobeat is a musical genre created in Lagos, Nigeria, in 1968 by the incredible multi-instrumentalist Fela Kuti and his bandmate Tony Allen, an awesome drummer.

Afrobeat is a wonderful mix of Yoruba, Funk, Jazz and African percussions. It is appealing to the fans of all four above-mentioned genres. The lyrics featured in Afrobeat songs are often political message carriers.

The story of this genre didn't stop with the death of Fela Kuti, also known as the Black President, in 1997. Tony Allen keeps producing great songs and Fela's sons, Femi and Seun are very good (though the latter still needs to produce an album).

The following are, in my humble opinion, must-have Afrobeat records:

Fela Ransome-Kuti and Africa 70 with Ginger Baker Live, Fela Kuti
Available from eMusic.

New Tones, Nomo
Available from eMusic.

Shoki Shoki, Femi Kuti

Lagos No Shaking, Tony Allen

No Accommodation For Lagos - No Discrimination, Tony Allen
Available from eMusic.

Music Is The Weapon Of The Future, Fela Kuti
Available from eMusic.

The Best Of The Black President, Fela Kuti

Jealousy - Progress, Tony Allen
Available from eMusic.

Herbie Hancock, a musical genius

saad@hush.com — 2006-06-16T16:09:43+02:00

During the eighties, I became a big fan of Break Dance and the Music associated with it. I even practiced some myself with my classmates and neighbours at that time. And you can imagine how I feel now when I see Break Dancers and the level they reached today. It's simply amazing and it you happen to be in Paris and would like to see some of it, go to UGC Ciné-Cité Les Halles around 8-9 PM.

"Great" you might think ... "but what's the relationship with Herbie Hancock?". The answer is very simple: Rockit, the song Herbie released in 1983 and its video clip. I have sharp memories of watching the video on Moroccan T.V. as a youngster with my brother Aziz. And this is how I was introduced to Break Dance. Later on, I watched movies such as Breakin'.

Herbie Hancock is one of the most important Jazz pianists of the last forty or so years who earned many awards. He was part of Miles Davis "second great quintet". Even if he is kind of "avant-garde" and a huge experimentalist, his music is accessible. What I'd like most about him is the way he uses elements of other musical genres into the very fabric of his Jazz grounds which allows him to produce incredible stuff. His sense of groove is also immense. Just check his records during the 70's era such as Sextant or Head Hunters. Be it Funk, Acid Jazz, plain Jazz, Electro or even Pop, Herbie's signature is unmistakable.

If you haven't checked his work yet, it's high time to do so and if you love many music genres as I do, you'll keep seeing Herbie's songs popping here and there.

While I consider all the albums I've listened to so far (I own around ten not counting his work with Miles Davis) to be great, I advise you to check out the following albums first:

Takin' Off
Future 2 Future
Sextant
Head Hunters
Future Shock (which contains Rockit)

For more information about Herbie Hancock, check out his Wikipedia entry and his website. And for the Rockit video clip, check this Youtube.com page.

What's happening to Wonderful Songs?

saad@hush.com — 2006-06-16T16:00:20+02:00

Some of the regular readers of this blog asked me what's happening to my monthly Wonderful Songs posts. My bad. I had a lot of work in the past weeks and I hadn't taken the time to publish the three past issues of Wonderful Songs. Hopefully, this will be fixed shortly.

Please be patient.

Noix de lavage indienne

saad@hush.com — 2006-05-16T21:19:20+02:00

Il y a quelques temps, nous (ma femme et moi) sommes tombés sur Bébé au naturel, un site vendant des produits diverses et variés, orientés plutôt soin du bébé et de ses parents. C'est là que nous avons découvert la noix de lavage indienne.

Comme son l'indique, c'est une noix qui permet de laver (en douceur s'il vous plaît) vos vêtements aussi bien blancs que couleur. Ca se présente sous forme d'un sac d'1 Kg. Vous en mettez un peu dans un petit sac en toile fourni dans la machine à laver et le tour est joué. En théorie, le sac doit faire 150 machines.

Nous l'utilisons depuis quelque mois et nous en sommes satisfaits. Le sac ne fera certainement pas les 150 machines théoriques mais je ne pense qu'il en sera très loin. Cependant, si vous avez des vêtements tâchés, il faut ajouter un détachant (décidemment, les produits chimiques ...).

Le prix, à mon humble avis, est très correct. Et pour celles et ceux qui ont un magasin Naturalia à côté, vous pourrez même économiser encore un peu par rapport au prix auquel ce produit de lavage est proposé sur Bébé au naturel.

Présentation de jail au groupe SUR

saad@hush.com — 2006-04-11T19:47:00+02:00

J'ai présenté la solution de sécurité et de virtualisation (enfin, presque) jail lors de la réunion du groupe SUR du 11.04.2006. Les slides de cette présentation sont disponibles au format PDF à l'adresse http://saad.docisland.org/docs/files/sur20060411-jail.pdf.

Si vous avez des questions ou des commentaires, n'hésitez pas à m'en faire part par courriel : saad at docisland dot org.

Recovery from malware? Don't even think about it!

saad@hush.com — 2006-04-04T20:12:45+02:00

eWeek has a very interesting article on what Microsoft thinks of malware and what shall its customers do in case of infection. Let's get down to the conclusion: once you get infected, Microsoft thinks that it becomes impossible to recover. So they are advising their customers to investigate in automated processes to wipe the hard drives of the infected machines and reinstall everything.

Sound advice but how to exclude the infection vector from the reinstallation process while keeping the operating system and the applications running smoothly? Or do we just reinstall and protect our machines with Holy Water(tm) until the Patch Day if there is a patch in the first place then wait at least 15 days to check that the patch doesn't break business before deploying it?

Oh you said user education? Good, let's see how the average user will cope with stuff such as ActiveX controls, Browser Helper Objects, DCOM and such. Don't get me wrong. User education is very important but it ain't no magic bullet, particularly if the system and applications they are using are screwed. For instance, what do we teach to users regarding the latest Internet Explorer 0day? We tell them once more to stop using Internet Explorer and use FireFox? C'mon! Think about it. Will we end up with a huge list of "applications : alternatives" couples and switch to this or that whenever a vulnerability shows up? Don't you think something smells really really bad here?

According to eWeek, Mike Danseglio, program manager in the Security Solutions group at Microsoft said:

"Detection is difficult, and remediation is often impossible," Danseglio declared. "If it doesn't crash your system or cause your system to freeze, how do you know it's there? The answer is you just don't know. Lots of times, you never see the infection occur in real time, and you don't see the malware lingering or running in the background."

100% true. So what does Microsoft do about it? Is this an externality to them? Does it impact in any way shareholder's value?

And about targeted attacks:

Danseglio said malicious hackers are conducting targeted attacks that are "stealthy and effective" and warned that the for-profit motive is much more serious than even the destructive network worms of the past.

So much for penetrate&patch.

But the software is not the only one to blame here:

"Social engineering is a very, very effective technique. We have statistics that show significant infection rates for the social engineering malware. Phishing is a major problem because there really is no patch for human stupidity," he said.

So far, so bad. Microsoft won't do anything really significant about it as long as this doesn't significantly impact shareholder's value. Every advice M. Danseglio gave incurs investments from the customers. No news, it's an externality for Microsoft.

Coming Soon: Wonderful Songs, April'06

saad@hush.com — 2006-04-04T19:58:57+02:00

I'm currently sampling albums that I expected to receive earlier. For some mysterious reasons, one of the stores I order from screwed up and delivered them to me a full week after the expected shipping date. I will be done soonish and will publish the April'06 edition of Wonderful Songs by the end of the week.

On a side note, I asked on the Feb'06 edition what's the name of the artist who sings on King Kora's Mini Amba. Roger Greipl, the saxophone player of the band, told me that the singer is Lamin Jobarteh, the Kora player. Thank you Roger for the information! King Kora will be giving a concert at the Satellit Café (link in French) in Paris on April 27th.

OpenBSD 3.9 pre-orders are open

saad@hush.com — 2006-03-08T11:28:02+01:00

Pre-orders of CD sets of the next version of OpenBSD, 3.9, are now open. OpenBSD 3.9 will be released in May 1, 2006. The CD sets will be shipped around this date.

If you want to support the OpenBSD project, please pre-order the CD sets. The money we get from the CD sales allow us to further develop the operating system and the associated projects such as OpenSSH, OpenNTPD, and OpenBGPD.

European users can order directly from Wim, a fellow OpenBSD developer located in Belgium. Other users should use the International site.

Mac OS X hacked in 30 minutes?

saad@hush.com — 2006-03-08T10:57:31+01:00

According to ZDNet, a Swedish man set up a challenge inviting people to hack a Mac Mini. The challenge was over shortly after since someone succesfully gained root access to the machine and he did so, the report said, in 30 minutes.

If I stop here without giving you real meat to chew on, you'd end up thinking that Mac OS X is not secure and you'll be ill-witted to use this operating system for hosting your valuable data. But MacWorld gave a few more, very interesting details:

Anyone that wanted to hack the machine was given access to the machine through a local account (which could be accessed via SSH), so the Mac mini wasn’t hacked from outside — root access was actually gained from a local user account.

Aha! That's interesting. Anyone working in the I.T. Security field knows that, most of the time, when someone gain local access it's game over. Local exploits are often much more powerful and deadly than remote ones. That's why we have layered network security, security by default, and such. It's like giving access to as many strangers as possible to a besieged castle without knowing if they are enemies or foes. If only one stranger heads for the king's lair (which might not be that secret) and slays the poor man, what good would do your 2-mile thick walls, 250.000 soldiers, and all the other _external_ security measures you have put in place? If I were the stranger who slew the king, first thing I'd do is behead the security officer of the castle.

Mac OS X has reasonable protections against outsiders. But when you punch holes through these protections and let outsiders become insiders, what do you expect? How many operating systems are there that will do better?

I think the challenge was a very stupid move to attract attention. But it spreads FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) as a side, maybe wanted, effect.

The Heir

saad@hush.com — 2006-03-08T22:33:31+01:00

Bob Marley is a very special artist for me. I was introduced to his music approximately two decades ago when I was still a kid by my dear brother Aziz. I still have vivid memories of how Aziz and I used to listen to Bob's tapes on the Sharp player we had in our room. I kind of enjoyed the music but I was not totally in love with it. Remember, I was a kid.

Fast-forward to 1991. Aziz who left for the U.S. in 1985 came back to Morocco during the summer and he brought with him many of his CDs and of course, he had many Marley albums. As a gift he brought me a Sony portable CD player (my first one!). I ended up listening to these albums in an almost infinite loop, broken now and then with Michael Franks's Blue Pacific and Skin Dive.

Survival, Kaya, Uprising and so many others. I was totally hooked. Addicted would be a better word since his music totally took residence in my heart and my soul. His words are so wonderful! Looking at my CD shelf I can count 17 albums of Bob Marley plus the Songs of Freedom CD set.

Last year, I was reading a Vibrations issue when I stumbled upon a review of Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley's latest album. Damian is the youngest son of Bob. I knew of course that Bob had many children. And while I heard of Ziggy and Julian, I had never heard of Damian.

The review made by Vibrations convinced me that this was an album that I should listen to as soon as possible so I ordered it a few minutes after I was done reading my magazine. I received Welcome to Jamrock two days later and indeed it is a very very good album. Damian is very good at deejaying and while his voice sounds at times a lot like Bob's, he has his own musical world even if it is heavily based on Reggae. I loved the album so much that I featured one of the songs in Wonderful Songs, Jan'06.

Yesterday, I was at Damian's concert at Paris' Elysées Montmartre. The concert was excellent and Damian was impressive. I wasn't at the Lyceum back in 1975 to see his father (hey! I was three months old) but I think Damian has nothing to be ashamed of. During more than 90 minutes, he successfully entertained the public as far as I could see. I had been so enthralled that I didn't feel the minutes fly by even if I was standing all the time (there's no chairs at Elysées Montmartre).

By the end of the concert, Damian sang some Bob songs such as Africa Unite, Zimbabwe, Could You Be Loved, War and So Much Trouble In The World. The public knew the lyrics by heart and Damian often called to us to sing along. During these magical moments, he really created the illusion that it was not him who was singing but his father. He is truly the heir of one of the most influential artists of all times.

So I would like to thank Bob and Damian Marley for making such great music that makes me feel so good. And of course I would like to thank Aziz for all the things he has done, consciously or not, for my musical education.

To finish this post, I would like you to read and think carefully about the following part of War's lyrics:

Until the philosophy which hold one race superior
And another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned -
Everywhere is war -
Me say war.

That until there no longer
First class and second class citizens of any nation
Until the colour of a man’s skin
Is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes -
Me say war.

That until the basic human rights
Are equally guaranteed to all,
Without regard to race -
Dis a war.

That until that day
The dream of lasting peace,
World citizenship
Rule of international morality
Will remain in but a fleeting illusion to be pursued,
But never attained -
Now everywhere is war - war.

Ali Farka Touré died

saad@hush.com — 2006-03-08T09:32:09+01:00

Ali Farka Touré, 67 years old, died yesterday.

I spent last evening enjoying Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley's music at a concert he gave at Elysées Montmartre (more on this later). When I came back at home, I read some news before going to sleep. That's how I learned of the death of one of Africa's best musicians.

These are very sad news. Ali Farka Touré, who was also known as "Monsieur le Maire" (Mister Mayor, since he was the Mayor of Niafunké, Mali), produced great records. The Source, Talking Timbuktu (with Ry Cooder) and In The Heart Of The Moon (with the Kora genius Toumani Diabaté) are my favorite.

Ali, you will always stay in our minds and our hearts. Thank you so much for sharing with us this great music of yours. You will be missed.

Sincerly.

Solaris Express 02/06, ahead of time?

saad@hush.com — 2006-03-06T06:52:35+01:00

I finally took the time to install the latest release of Solaris Express (02/06, build 31a) for testing purposes. My U10 not being exactly a speedrunner, I installed only Core System Support. That's about 869MB according to the Solaris installer; the Entire Distribution is 5438MB.

The installation went smoothly. And upon login, here is what I can see:


Sun Microsystems Inc.   SunOS 5.11      snv_31  October 2007

Warning Will Robinson! Danger ahead! This made me check the clock thrice using independant sources. It appears that Sun Microsystems is way ahead of the competition. Besides DTrace, containers, self-healing and other technologies, it successfully integrated Future Jump(tm) to the latest release of Solaris. What an achievement!

OK, let's see how Future Jump(tm) works by trying to read a file:


# id
uid=0(root) gid=0(root)
# cd /etc
# ls -l ftp*
total 14
-rw-r--r--   1 root     sys         1518 Jan  3 10:01 ftpaccess
-rw-r--r--   1 root     sys          946 Jan  3 10:01 ftpconversions
-rw-r--r--   1 root     sys          104 Jan  3 10:01 ftpgroups
-rw-r--r--   1 root     sys          108 Jan  3 10:01 ftphosts
-rw-r--r--   1 root     sys          114 Jan  3 10:01 ftpservers
-rw-r--r--   1 root     sys          198 Jan  3 10:01 ftpusers

Good! Let's read ftpusers:


# more ftpusers
ftpusers: No such file or directory

Future Jump(tm) prevents root (the almighty root!) from reading /etc/ftpusers which according to ls exists and contains 198 bytes of data. But Future Jump(tm) sees through the future and it knows that this file won't exist anymore starting from October 2007. So why bother reading a file that won't exist anymore in a year and a half? Maybe because the Good Guys at Sun engineering didn't bother integrating an SSH service out of the box in Core System Support so we have to stick to ol' daddy ftpd and that we would like to do so as root?

Dossier virus dans PC Expert

saad@hush.com — 2006-03-01T06:18:51+01:00

Le numéro de Mars 2006 de PC Expert, un magazine informatique français, contient un dossier fourni sur les virus.

Philippe Roure, co-auteur du dossier m'a consulté sur un certain nombre de sujets et notamment les IDS/IPS, les débordements de tampon et de tas, la qualité des logiciels, et la rétroconception binaire utilisée pour créer très rapidement des exploits à partir de correctifs de vulnérabilité. Je suis cité à deux reprises pages 56 et 57.

Ceci est ma deuxième contribution auprès de ce magazine.

Wonderful Songs, March'06

saad@hush.com — 2006-03-01T06:37:26+01:00

Welcome to the eighth edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

If you have read the previous editions of Wonderful Songs, you know how paramount sharing is for me. It's all about broadening one's horizons. You know also by now that I listen to different kinds of Music. If you hear someone states that she listens to Rock or Jazz only, ask her what other styles she knows about or tried. I do listen to many genres because I do care when people share with me something they consider important or enjoyable. And I don't say "No! If it's not Reggae then forget it".

I listen to what they have to say and I try. Sometimes, I don't like the songs. artists or albums they suggest. But I keep a reference to those somewhere because taste and state-of-mind are an evolving beast. So even some of the genres I suggest are not in your auditory dough, try them please.

And as always, I'd like to hear from you. If you have suggestions, comments, and such I'm all ears. You can either send me an email (saad dot docisland dot org) or use the blog commenting system.

This edition introduces a small enhancement since moving my blog to the new dedicated server. The pictures are now clickable and they will take you to a website where you can listen to music samples whenever possible. I mainly link to eMusic.com, Amazon.com or its siblings, or the artist/label's website.

Offer
For those interested in getting an eMusic subscribtion, you can try it for free for 14 days and you'll get 50 free downloads. If you allow me to invite you to eMusic and after you fully subscribe (that is after the 14 days of trial), I will get 50 free downloads myself that I will share with you: first you'll get half of the free downloads I get. I will download 25 songs of my liking and download 25 songs of yours which I will make you available for download and delete from my hard drive. Second, it will allow me to sample more music that might end up in the future editions of Wonderful Songs. Send me an email if you are interested. Remember that eMusic songs are 100% DRM free!

[Folk] Emily, Stephen Fretwell
From the album Magpie.

Stephen Fretwell has a Dylanesque style of Music. His melancholic voice is very nice and it stands out on Emily, a relaxing song where an acoustic guitar is the only instrument used. The lyrics are also quite good. As a whole, the album is well worth buying if you like relaxing, folkish music that has a slightly melancholic tone.

[Smooth Jazz] St. Lucia, Keith Robinson
From the album Peaceful Flight.

Two months ago, I was randomly searching through a stack of used CDs at Jussieu Music's Jazz shop when I fell on Peaceful Flight. I've never heard of Keith Robinson before that day and unless the search keywords I used are bad, there is very few data of interest about him and his music online. I wonder why this artist has drawn so little an attention with such a good album. While I bought the album for no particular reason besides its cover, I don't regret it a single moment. The guitar play on St. Lucia is very cool and the addition of background voices is a nice touch.

[World] Tapha Niang, Toumani Diabaté's Symmetrical Orchestra
From the album Boulevard De l'Indépendance. To be released on March 26th 2006

No picture available

Toumani Diabaté is one of the best Kora players in the World. I really love his mastership of this amazing 21-string African instrument. After Toumani's excellent partnership with Ali Farka Touré on the awesome In The Heart Of The Moon album not so long ago, he will surely treat us to excellent African Music on his soon-to-be-released album Boulevard De l'Indépendance where he invited many Western African musicians from Guinea, Senegal and Mali (his home country). To prepare us for this, he released Tapha Niang. Believe me, you will get a shock after hearing this 7 minutes song. I can't wait to get the album. eMusic subscribers might want to hear some of his previous work. Just search for "Toumani Diabate" on the website. My favorite album so far is New Ancient Strings with fellow Kora master, Ballaké Cissoko. The other albums are OK but nothing as good as Tapha Niang.

[Electronica] "Coumbite" Mesi Bon Dyé, David Walters
From the album Awa.

I've never heard something that sounds like Awa. It is a very good but strange album that can't really be classified in the Electronica genre. David Walters is a former French athlete who turned musician because of an injury. He has a nice voice and he sings in Creole and English. I don't listen much to Electronica because I often find this kind of music aggressive and unequally balanced. However, Walters distills just the right dose of computer-generated loops and mix them with great art to Folk and percussions to create enjoyable sounds. "Coumbite" Mesi Bon Dyé illustrates this process best. I listened to it a lot during the last month.

[Jazz] I Believe I'll Dust My Broom, Pyeng Threadgill
From the album Sweet Home: The Music Of Robert Johnson. Available from eMusic

Pyeng Threadgill, the daughter of the multi-talented artist Henry Threadgill, does an excellent job when revisiting Robert Johnson. The task at hand is far from being easy but Pyeng handles it quite well. I Believe I'll Dust My Broom is a well-balanced song that makes Pyeng's voice shine.

[Hip-Hop] Fly That Know (feat. MF Doom), Talib Kweli
From the album Right About Now (The Official Sucka Free Mix CD). Available from eMusic

Talib Kweli is a very good Hip-Hop artist and I like his slighty Old Schoolish style. His voice and flow are among the best in today's Hip-Hop generation. Fly That Know features MF Doom, another talented artist (featured last month on Wonderful Songs for his work with Danger Mouse). His voice balances nicely Talib's. The songs also features an excellent rhythm,

[Folk] Talk Of The Town, Jack Johnson and Friends
From the album Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies from the film Curious George.

Unless you are living in a cave, you certainly heard of Jack Johnson, one of the best living artists I know of. His sweet voice and relaxing guitar play makes his songs an excellent way to relax all-day long. I have all of his records and I consider them all excellent. Launch Talk Of The Town and close your eyes. You are instantly transported to some imaginary beach full of coconut trees. The weather is sweet and the green sea is calm. You are walking on the white sand barefooted. You feel its mild heat and it warms your heart. You go under a coconut tree and get some shading from the sun. You lay down. Sweet dreams.

[Reggae] Mama, Bantu feat. Ayuba
From the album Fuji Satisfaction. Available from eMusic

Bantu and fellow Ayuba give us here an nice Reggae variation composed of Roots, Ragga (mild), and tropical rhythms. The percussions are great. Definitely a resfreshing song.

[World] Land's End, Baka Beyond
From the album Journey Beyond. Available from eMusic

Land's End is a pleasing song that blends Celtic and African styles with a bit of New Age in a spacey setup. Baka Beyond consists of musicians from Europe and Africa.

[Electronica] Night, Midival Punditz
From the album Midival Punditz. Available from eMusic

Night has nothing to do with the ugly patchwork practiced by the London's Indian Electronica scene. It is an enjoyable and song which features a sweet female voice and good beats. Midival Punditz are a bit heavy on the synth side. But except for this minor grip, it's nice. However, some of the other songs of the album are subpar. So I don't recommend it unless you have money to spare.

FOSDEM. Day 2

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-26T17:21:09+01:00

After 6 hours of excellent sleep, I woke up to the World with the joyful and playful tone of Thierry Deval's children. These little guys are affable. Thierry's daughter reminds me a lot of my own.

After a good breakfast, we drove to ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) where the FOSDEM is held and we arrived around 12:15PM. Too late to see Xavier Santolaria who left for his hockey game 15 minutes earlier. So no shot of the pimp coder of fuxor.pl this year (no it's not in the OpenBSD tree, If it was, cvs.openbsd.org would have been subject to erratic network disruptions).

For those of you who have been to France but not to Belgium, note that pain au chocolat is called couque there. And for all the time I've been going to Belgium, couques taste slightly better. They might have either good baking schools, some unnamed chemical component added to the food or both. Whatever it is, I really like this kind of food.

Anyways, Sunday was far more productive than Saturday or so it seems. We had many visitors but we could cope with them while keeping working. Maybe it's due to the excellent stability of the Internet connection. Wim showed up some Soekris boxes as well as some prototypes that needed some hardware hacking (with a saw) to assemble correctly. And Reyk Flöter gave a talk on OpenBSD and WLANs. He mentioned the problems our FreeBSD neighbors had with their Atheros-based AP. He didn't understand why they didn't import his fixes into their tree.

Then it was about time to leave. Matthieu Herrb and Marc Balmer left earlier. Uwe Stühler, Reyk, Alexandre Anriot and me followed an hour or so later. We left the booth in the good hands of Wim and Nikolay Sturm.

I've taken close-ups of the developers and the finger^Whardware hacking skills of Wim.

Overall, it was nice to hang on with the gang and talk with the visitors, some of whom are FOSDEM regulars. Once more, I didn't have the motivation to go to the talks I hoped to see. So next year, I won't get a look at the schedule. That'll spare me some useless key pressing to fill my calendar.

Updated to add:
It seems I have a bit wrong on the couque side. According to Xavier Santolaria:

xsa: btw saad, "couques" != "pain au chocolat", "couques" is a generic meaning for such stuffs, coz you can have "couque a la creme", or "couque au raisin", etc... so it'd be "couque au chocolat" ;)

Thanks Xavier!

FOSDEM. Day 1, Part 2

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-26T03:30:25+01:00

The OpenBSD booth ran smoothly this afternoon with numerous people coming to see us and all our posters were gone.

We had less technical questions than last year. One guy was having a bad time with his PF configuration. IIRC, he told us that he needed to open a port X on the firewall to be able to forward port X to port Y of a machine behind it. Uwe and Marc helped him with his ruleset and showed him that he was wrong. From that point, they parsed the ruleset in more details and gave him some optimization and security advices.

I also had about the same questions I had every year or so:

What's the differences among Net, Free and OpenBSD?
How do I install third-party applications under OpenBSD?
Does Net, Free and OpenBSD use the same kernel?
What optimizations are used in the Linux kernel used by OpenBSD? (*new entry*)

The Internet connection, while it kept coming and going from time to time, was far better than this morning. Thanks to Reyk and a Soekris, we had a stable wireless AP unlike the (censored) one. As a result, some slackers morphed into hackers and got some work done.

My initial plan was to attend the DTrace and Xen talks but I enjoyed the company of my fellow developers and didn't attend.

Later in the afternoon, we cleaned the booth and took the cars to go take the traditional OpenBSD dinner somewhere in the outskirts of Brussels.

We had a nice time together and the meal was good. Too bad the waitress forgot some of the orders and gave Wim chicken instead of the seafood he ordered. No worries, beer helped the mood.

I've uploaded today's remaining pictures. You might find them with the other FOSDEM 2006 pictures.

FOSDEM. Day 1, Part 1

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-25T13:15:26+01:00

Everything went smoothly after our arrival to Brussels Midi. Well almost. At 12:30PM, there is still no stable Internet connection. Let's face it: the FOSDEM staff haven't learned anything from the previous years.

Every year, we hope we'll have an Internet connection upon our arrival. Every year we grow frustrated. Hell! This is an Open Source and free software meeting and all the projects here rely heavily on the Internet to get things done. And yet, it didn't sink in with the FOSDEM staff. Even after all these years. It's simply beyond my understanding.

On the OpenBSD booth front, there a few developers: Reyk Flöter, Uwe Stühler, Nikolay Sturm, Thierry Deval, Matthieu Herrb (who disappeared soon after we arrived), Marc Balmer, Alexandre Anriot, Xavier Santolaria (who went to play hockey for the afternoon), Otto Moerbeek, and -of course- Wim. Dimitar, our official beer supplier, also showed up for a few minutes.

I've taken pictures and I will upload them as soon as I get .... a stable Internet connection.

On the way to FOSDEM

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-25T08:02:47+01:00

I've been attending FOSDEM since 2001 and this year is no exception. Fellow OpenBSD developer Alexandre Anriot (who, besides nifty chop-socky porting skills, helps me a lot on the translation effort) arrived yesterday night.

We woke up early this morning to take the Thalys train to Brussels Midi railway station where Xavier Santolaria will pick us up and give us a ride along with Nikolay Sturm, Matthieu Herrb and Marc Balmer to ULB (Université Libre de Bruxelles) where FOSDEM is held. We will join the OpenBSD crowd there.

I sincerly hope hat we will have a better booth space than last year (we had two tables in front of drink machines so people were always going back and forth and it was really annoying).

Looking at the FOSDEM schedule, there a some talks that look interesting which I would like to attend. I hope I won't slack too much on the OpenBSD booth and go learn something useful thay I may share with you.

Links fixed on archived posts

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-22T22:23:21+01:00

Betabug pointed out this morning that the links on the archived posts were missing. After investigation, I found out that when I copied them from my previous blog site, the links were not correctly pasted over and it seems that my current blogging software simply removed them without a warning.

As far I can tell, all those links are live and kicking now. Don't forget to force reloading the pages or purge your cache. And if you still notice anything wrong, please let me know.

Sorry for the inconvenience. And thanks to Betabug for reporting the issue.

Cryptonomicon quoting Theo?

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-22T15:45:09+01:00

A few days ago, I picked up the copy of Cryptonomicon which I ordered on March 2001 (*cough*, blame it on my backlog). Aside from being a very interesting and funny book, I laughed my bowels out when I read the following paragraph:

Randy was forever telling people, without rancor, that they were full of shit. That was the only way to get anything done in hacking. No one took it personally.

Some may wonder what made me laugh. My fellow developers who are members of the OpenBSD project would understand that Cryptonomicon's Randy sounds a lot like our own leader, Theo de Raadt.

Did Neal Stephenson, the author of this book, interact with Theo? Maybe he was an OpenBSD developer in disguise. Or maybe the World.com(tm) is full of Theos and I'm way too blind. Or do we learn this kind of attitude in Manage Hackers 101? Either way, it's an excellent technique for getting work done.

Mr Murphy pays a visit ... twice

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-15T09:13:14+01:00

Yesterday night I was performing maintenance on wax, a multi-purpose machine I use for development, file serving, backup and routing for the rest of my home network. wax is a Dell Dimension 4550 machine that runs OpenBSD and has something like 600GB worth of disk. The maintenance consisted of upgrading the OS version and updating most of the applications I use through the OpenBSD ports collection.

The upgrade went very well and I started building the latest versions of my favorite applications from the ports collection. During the build process, I was enjoying some great music on my PowerBook and reading the latest issue of MacWorld in electronic form. You could say I was relaxed and confident that I was going to get to bed (soon) in a happy mood.

Sadly, Mr. Murphy, the most dreaded man on Earth, thought otherwise. He and his Law decided to pay me a visit.

I started to smell a nasty odor. Fried electronics! Oh, no! Using the Nose(tm), I began tracking it down. Is it coming from my PowerBook? From the cable modem? From the KVM switch? ... S***, it's wax's fan! It doesn't work anymore!!!

In a big hurry, fearing the loss of more than a fan I stopped all the builds and halted the machine. Once I untangled and yanked all the cables, I opened the box to assess the damage. I was relieved to see that there was no other problem. The trouble now consists of finding a similar fan since the Dell box's warranty has expired 3 months ago. I wrote Dell an email hoping that they sell spare parts. If you sell (or know someone who sells) a JMC Datech 92x92x32 (12V, 0.85A, 83.1 CFM) fan or a similar one, please send me an email even if it's used or refurbished.

I thought I was done with Mr. Murphy for the night. So I started cleaning up my desk and preparing my backpack for tomorrow's ride to work. But Mr. Murphy is an insidious man who enjoys hospitality. The fan of kaboo, a Dell Dimension 8400 workstation, started to make weird noises. Please Mr. Murphy, don't tell me that a second fan is going to pass away.

I repeated the previous procedure: untangle cables, yank them, shut down and open the box. Phew, the fan seems to be OK. The noise is due to two damaged rubber clips that no longer hold the fan. As a result, when the fan is rotating it hits from time to time the plastic enclosure. kaboo is still covered by warranty so no worries!

Lessons learned:

Mr. Murphy is as strong as ever (did I tell you that last week my iPod Photo ceased to work so I had to call AppleCare to the rescue?).
If you have important data, back it up now and make sure you do it regularly and you have properly documented the backup procedure. Better be safe than sorry!
The server that hosts the important data must be covered by a strong warrranty. In my 5y+ experience with Dell, their warranty and support are very good.
What do you do when your backup server dies and Mr. Murphy decides to stay, lurking inside your dear workstation or laptop that holds all your electronic life?

Who said I.T. is fun?

Corsica 2004 pictures

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-10T21:05:22+01:00

I just added another photo gallery to the website. This one is populated with shots taken during a trip we made to Corsica in 2004. I was a bit worried at first since some natives showed aggressivity towards immigrants from Maghreb and the French media made big headlines on the subject.

When our ferry arrived, the first thing I noticed was a big writing on the wall in front of the arrival zone in Ajaccio : "Arabes Dehors" which means "Arabs Out".

Save for a few other writings on postal boxes (as if La Poste could carry persons), I felt no animosity and the travel was really enjoyable. Corsica fully deserves its surname. It is really The Island of Beauty.

"Pictures" section populated

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-10T18:46:56+01:00

I have populated the Pictures section of the website. It contains 8 galleries containing shots taken between 2003 and now. Some of these shots appeared on past incarnations of my website.

I will add more as time permits.

Comments and TrackBacks enabled

saad@hush.com — 2006-02-10T00:10:01+01:00

I have ("Finally!", would say Betabug) enabled Comments and Trackbacks on my weblog. This service is offered by HaloScan.com.

You can follow the comments by clicking on the Comments feed at the bottom of the right-hand navigation bar. To avoid comment spamming and off-topic posts, the comments will be moderated.

Wonderful Songs, Feb'06

saad@hush.com — 2006-01-26T19:03:00+01:00

Welcome to the seventh edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

Few people asked me how much time I devote to listening to Music on average each day. Truth is, I don't know and I've never "calculated" averages for this kind of activity. Sorry to say this but giving the question a second thought, it seems pretty stupid in my point of view. Let me explain that a bit.

In my (maybe twisted) mind, Music is a very important thing and it's high on my priority list. It helps me focus, rest, motivate, produce and feel good. It may not be vital for living (as in breathing air every day) but it is vital for living (as in enjoying every day). So whenever and wherever I can, I listen to Music : during my daily job (I am a Computer Security consultant for the record) if I have no meetings or other tasks that require strong human interaction, during my daily commute (at the moment, it's 1h10min each way), when I take a shower, before going to sleep, while reading on the sofa during the week-end, ...

Music has many dimensions: spiritual, political, sexual, social, ... and it carries a wonderful number of feelings. Except the stupid, sour, soup some TV and radio channels serve repetitively each day, Music is an art and as such, I don't think you could nor should "calculate" it in any way. It must be enjoyed for what it is: a construct that will allow each one of us to live subjective experiences.

What if we go back to our Wonderful Songs for this month and hopefully share some excellent subjective experiences together? Sit back, relax and enjoy!

[New Age] The Ballade Of Puppets: In A New World, Gods Will Descend, Kenji Kawai
From the O.S.T. of Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence.

Ghost in The Shell 2: Innocence is one of the best Japanese Animation movies I've seen last year and the O.S.T. made by Kenji Kawai is excellent. The Ballade Of Puppets: In A New World, Gods Will Descend is a travel to to some unknown, mystical, beautiful place. I love this kind of song that build up little by little to carry you to an imaginary alternate World, comfy and troubling at the same time. Grandiose! Simply a masterpiece.

[Folk] Hate, Cat Power
From the album The Greatest. Available from eMusic

Cat Power, a.k.a. Chan Marshall, treats us once more to great Music with The Greatest, her latest album to date that was released just two days ago at the time of this writing. In this short period, I enjoyed it so much that I've listened to it at least 4 times. Hate is by (not so) far my favorite song. It's a very simple song in its construction using a guitar to accompany Chan's beautiful and melancholic voice which has a spacey and distant feel to it. There's always that enjoyable frailty and sadness in Cat's voice that I liked so much in Your Are Free, one of her previous albums. My optimal setting for listening to it is in a dark or almost dark room with no surrounding noise (if there's too much of it, think noise-isolating headphones).

[World] Mini Amba, King Kora
From the album Bundung. Available from eMusic

King Kora is a Swiss/ Cuban/ African band that uses Kora (one of my favorite instruments if you didn't read previous issues of Wonderful Songs) as a backbone for its songs and blend it in a very beautiful fashion with more traditional instruments such as horns (is there Mbalax also or my ears are crippled?). They invite some very good African artists on this record. Mini Amba stands out among the other very good songs of this record for two reasons. First is the voice of the singer (sorry, I don't know his name and if you do please tell me!). Second is the hip-hopish section in the middle of the song, sung in French. That's what I call a true, beautiful fusion. Bundung largely deserves to belong to the top list of "World" albums.

[Latin] Amortiguador, Andrea Echeverri
From the album Andrea Echeverri. Available from eMusic

Amortiguador is the opening song of this pleasant and refreshing album. Amortiguador, which means shock absorber in Spanish (thanks Xavier!), absorbs the stress and weariness you may feel at the end of the day. Close your eyes, relax and let Andrea take you to her beautiful Music garden... can you feel and smell the fresh (and not-so-short) lawn underneath you?

[Hip-Hop] Sofa King, Danger Doom
From the album The Mouse And The Mask. Available from eMusic

Wow! This is an amazing piece of Hip-Hop made by DJ Danger Mouse and MF Doom which took the combined name Danger Doom to make this record. Sofa King has a great, oldish, beat that I enjoy a lot! I cannot say much about the album since I got this song with the Epitaph Hip Hop Sampler album, which contains other great gems.

[Pop] Be With You, Chumbawamba
From the album You Are Free. Available from eMusic

A pair of latinish-sounding guitars and a sweet female voice make Be With You an enjoyable song. It carries a sense of happiness and restfulness. It's like if the artists wanted us to know that they are at rest while making their music and want us to feel that way.

[Jazz] Chant, Robert Glasper
From the album Canvas.

Robert Glasper is an impressive pianist that I've never heard of before buying Canvas, his debut album with Blue Note (yes, Blue Note!!!). It's a nice record that I bought without any prior knowledge of what kind of Jazz I might find on it. Chant is an excellent melodic piece of more than 8 minutes on which Bilal, a Soul singer, hums behind the piano with his nice voice. Bilal's voice is heavily processed at times to make sound like a guitar and the result is enjoyable.

[Soul] Distant Lover, Marvin Gaye
From the album Live At Montreux 1980. Available from eMusic

I keep listening to Marvin Gaye years after years, after years, after years. I highly regard this artist's work, which I consider as a pillar of Soul Music. His heavenly voice can't be described. It reaches my soul and heart in the most profound way. The sound of this Live record is amazing, given its age and has nothing to do with the very very bad Greatest Hits Live record. There's too much great songs to select from but since I got to select one, I chose Distant Lover which Marvin took to higher grounds during that venue. It is so beautiful that it brings tears (of joy) to my eyes every time I hear it. No word can describe this magical Music. Thank you so much Marvin!

[Funk] Addictive Love, Maceo Parker feat. Candy Dulfer
From the album Life On Planet Groove.

A very groovy song where two of my favorite saxophonists make their instruments literally speak to and influence each other. Candy Dulfer brings a very nice Smooth Jazz tone to Maceo Parker's funky sound. And the album is my favorite from Maceo.

[Metal] Denial, Sevendust
From the album Best Of (Chapter One: 1997-2004). Available from eMusic

I discovered this band (and album) by chance when browsing eMusic. They remind me a lot of Creed, which released the excellent Human Clay a few years ago. This "Best Of" is of unequal quality and the sound is bad at times. However, I love how Denial starts and gets into full gear. If you like Creed, you would definitely want to get this song.

Présentations WMF et OpenSSH au groupe SUR

saad@hush.com — 2006-01-11T10:57:00+01:00

J'ai effectué deux présentations lors de la réunion du groupe SUR du 10.01.2006 :

• Faille WMF : cette présentation a porté principalement sur la première faille WMF découverte dans le moteur GDI de Windows le 27.12.2005 dernier, avec quelques informations sur la nouvelle faille WMF découverte le 09.01.2006. Les slides de cette présentation sont disponibles au format PDF à l'adresse http://saad.docisland.org/docs/files/sur20060110-faille_wmf.pdf.
• Multiplexage sous OpenSSH : cette présentation a porté sur la fonction de multiplexage disponible dans OpenSSH depuis la version 3.9 et nettement améliorée et stabilisée par les versions récentes. Les slides de cette présentation sont disponibles au format PDF à l'adresse http://saad.docisland.org/docs/files/sur20060110-mux_openssh.pdf.

Si vous avez des questions ou des commentaires, n'hésitez pas à m'en faire part par courriel : saad at docisland dot org.

Nouvelle vulnérabilité WMF

saad@hush.com — 2006-01-11T08:52:00+01:00

Une nouvelle vulnérabilité WMF a été découverte dans le moteur d'affichage GDI de Windows. Techniquement, ce sont en fait deux vulnérabilités dans les fonctions ExtCodeRegion et ExtEscape
de gdi32.dll.

Ces deux vulnérabilités causent une corruption de mémoire au niveau des applications utilisatrices du format d'images WMF. Un code d'exploitation de type Proof-of-Concept a été publié. Ce code exploite cette vulnérabilité pour causer un déni de service. D'après SecurityFocus et l'ISC, une exécution de code arbitraire n'est pas loin même si Microsoft ne voit que des problèmes de performances dans cette vulnérabilité.

Espérons que Microsoft ait raison.

Microsoft corrige la faille WMF

saad@hush.com — 2006-01-06T07:23:00+01:00

Microsoft a finalement sorti un correctif pour la faille critique WMF 5 jours avant la date prévue. F-Secure pense que les tests du Microsoft se sont achevés plus tôt que prévu. Pour ma part, je dirais que la menace est si grande et la pression de leurs gros clients si importante qu'ils se sont décidés à réagir. Tant mieux !

Au passage, notez que Microsoft ne préconisait pas le correctif non officiel fourni par Ilfak Guilfanov et étrangement, leur correctif est fonctionnellement identique à celui d'Ilfak.

L'Internet Storm Center fournit des instructions détaillées (en Anglais) pour installer proprement ce correctif, surtout si vous avez installé le correctif non officiel d'Ilfak Guilfanov.

Traduction de la FAQ WMF de l'ISC

saad@hush.com — 2006-01-03T13:05:00+01:00

Vu l'importance et la criticité de la faille WMF des systèmes d'exploitation Windows, l'ISC (Internet Storm Center) a écrit une très bonne FAQ à ce sujet.

J'ai traduit cette FAQ en Français. Vous pourrez la lire à l'adresse suivante :

http://www.docisland.org/~saad/ISC_wmf_faq_fr.html

Le problème est très sérieux. N'attendez pas pour agir.

Wonderful Songs, Jan'06

saad@hush.com — 2005-12-31T03:16:00+01:00

Welcome to the sixth edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

During the last few years, I've became increasingly aware that people are growing fearful of their fellow humans and the World(tm) that we, humans, shaped to our liking.

We are capable of many things but currently, we seem to focus (solely?) on the bad things that others (not us) make/do to us. We've all learned -to some extent- that we should never speak to strangers. But what really defines a stranger? Someone different from oneself? How do you quantify the amount of difference above which a person fits in the stranger category? Is difference so bad a thing that we should go to great extent to avoid it, sometimes at any cost?

If we should retain a single thing from the Evolution Theory, it has to be that diversity is the key to survival (and sometimes to happiness whatever that means, but that's not in the original theory). It is time for us to stop fearing and start opening up to integrate and absorb diversity. Just look at History in every direction and you'll get the idea, whether it is History of Art, Science, or whatever. Our short-term memory is failing us pretty badly. And it makes us, with the help of some groups that pretend to help us in our quest for happiness, very bad at assessing risks and thus endlessly revolving around our own selves, fearing all externalities.

Yes, we are capable of very very bad things and that's what the media is about. Good news are not news because bad ones are much more rare. Instead of filling your heart with fear, use your mind to free it up so that you can fill it with other good feelings. Need an incentive? Nice you stopped by, because I have one for you: Music.

I've carefully selected this month's songs to make you relax while feeling the beauty that your fellow humans can create. Exceptionally, I won't comment the songs and I will let the music speaks for itself through the voice, the instruments and the lyrics when applicable. So sit back, relax, enjoy the music, dismiss your fears and Happy New Year!

[Folk] Breakdown, Jack Johnson
From the album In Between Dreams.

[World] Kanawa, Habib Koité & Bamada
From the album Baro.

[Reggae] Vampire, Sinéad O'Connor
From the album Throw Down Your Arms.

[Vocal] Fire, Lizz Wright
From the album Salt.

[Jazz] Soul Shadows, Niels Landgren & Joe Sample
From the album Creole Call.

[Reggae] Money Barrier (Skully version), Leroy Brown
From the album Color Barrier.

[Folk] It's The Nighttime, Josh Rouse
From the album Nashville. Available from eMusic

[Pop] He Lays In The Reins, Iron And Wine / Calexico
From the album In The Reins. Available from eMusic

[Jazz] Pena De Mim, Vinicius Cantuaria
From the album Silva. Available from eMusic

[Reggae] There For You, Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley
From the album Welcome To Jamrock.

A Biométrie Variable, Sécurité Variable

saad@hush.com — 2005-12-31T01:02:00+01:00

Votre entreprise a décidé de sauter le pas technologique et a cédé au FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) savamment distillé par les vendeurs de solutions biométriques sur l'insuffisance des moyens d'authentification classiques. Passons sur la différence entre authentification et identification pour rester concentrés sur les solutions biométriques à base d'empreintes digitales qui vont nous sauver des méchants pirates.

Pour s'assurer que c'est bien vous et pas Joe Hacker qui cherche à accéder au système d'information, ces solutions vous demandent de poser un de vos doigts sur un capteur qui va "traiter" votre empreinte et la comparer, directement ou indirectement, au résultat de traitement stockée dans une base.

Seulement Joe Hacker, malin comme il est, va essayer de voler ce qui est stocké dans la base et le soumettre par un biais détourné histoire de voler votre identité à l'insu de votre plein gré. Mais pas d'inquiétude ! IBM aurait pensé à vous selon Technology Review. Ils ont développé un logiciel qui applique des transformations au résultat de traitement et lorsque la base des empreintes est compromise, il suffira d'appliquer une nouvelle transformation dont Joe Hacker n'aura pas connaissance. La commercialisation n'est pas prévue pour tout de suite. Mais bon, il y a des choses qui me choquent.

Ecartons les problèmes de détection de la compromission (la fameuse piste d'audit, je me demande qui la suit). Ecartons aussi les problèmes de déploiement (j'ai 10.000 employés et 20.000 capteurs, je fais comment pour propager de manière sécurisée la nouvelle transformation et sous quel délai ?). Vous ne trouvez pas qu'IBM pense que Joe Hacker est bien bête ? Qu'est-ce qui l'empêcherait de voler votre empreinte digitale à la source en en faisant une copie : papier transparent sur le capteur que vous utilisez, spray pour "réveiller" votre empreinte laissée sur le capteur après votre passage, relevé d'empreinte sur le disque dur externe "plein de bonnes choses" qu'il vous a passé hier .... Tout ça est possible car ce n'est pas votre empreinte qui est stockée dans la base mais le résultat d'un traitement correspondant à votre empreinte. Et qui dit traitement dit perte d'informations.

Ah, attendez ... vous utilisez Microsoft Windows n'est-ce pas ? Joe Hacker n'a même pas besoin de copier votre empreinte digitale. Il vous a posé un sympathique et discret cheval de troie en utilisant des vulnérabilités facilement exploitables (telles que celle concernant l'interprétation des fichiers au format WMF) de votre système pour "entreprises" qui lui permet d'avoir accès aux informations dont il a besoin une fois que vous vous êtes identifiés. Dommage pour la solution innovante de biométrie qui a coûté bonbon. C'est pas grave, l'essentiel c'est de se croire protégé n'est-ce pas ?

Des jours, de plus en plus fréquents d'ailleurs, on se demande sincèrement où on va...

Wonderful Songs, Dec'05

saad@hush.com — 2005-11-30T16:30:00+01:00

Welcome to the fifth edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month. Well, it's nine this month. The tenth was suggested by a very good friend.

Music, and more generally any other art form, is largely a matter of taste. Given this fact, some may wonder why I bother broadcasting my tastes to other people. The answer is pretty simple, at least if my experience counts. It's about broadening horizons. As any other part of our body, our ears evolve year after year and during this process, they may accept more musical genres than what you submitted to them at first.

My love of music started pretty early when I was a young boy. And I used to enjoy listening to the tapes of my bigger brother, Aziz. Aziz shared with me his tastes and I discovered great artists such as Bob Marley, Bob Dylan, Peter Tosh and Stevie Wonder. Sadly, Aziz left home to follow his own path in life very early (from my boyish point of view) and during a few years, I had to shape up my tastes without exterior help and I discovered mainstream, commercial music. But sharing and interacting with other people broadened my musical horizons. I am for example grateful to my dear friend Jethro (his real name is Jerome Magnin if anyone cares) for enticing me into some wonderful musical fields. And more recently, Laurent Marechal, a coworker that I greatly appreciate, made me discover Rock music again.

The main reason that drives me each month into writing Wonderful Songs is about sharing. Trying to give back some of what other people gave me. Here we go then for a little sharing experience. And needless to say, if you have any great ideas about Wonderful Songs or you want to suggest an entry, just send me an email (saad _at_ docisland _dot_ org).

[Reggae] Fanga Den (featuring Tiken Jah Fakoly), Manjul
From the album Faso Kanou.

Reggae opens once more Wonderful Songs with an extremely good Dub. Manjul is a french artist who spends most of his time in Africa. Fanga Den incorporates very nice sounding african traditional instruments and it is backed by the nice voice of Tiken Jah Fakoly, a wonderful Reggae artist that I love. It is a rather untypical Dub song because of the presence of a singer. Usually, Dub contains only parts of the lyrics of an existing song. While Fanga Den is my favorite song, the album contains songs ranging from good to excellent.

[World] Silw, Thione Seck
From the album Orientissime.

After hearing Silw, the opening song of Orientissime, the only thing I could think of is: Thank you Thione Seck. One of Senegal's greatest singers, he is also an awesome composer. Orientissime is a masterpiece that bridges Western Africa and India through Egypt. Many expertly-played instruments from all these countries are used in a heavenly fashion to help Thione's voice (and his guest singers on some tracks) open some unsuspected, magical paths that will fill your heart with very positive feelings. Thione is a muslim from the Mouride brotherhood, an Islamic Sufi order and I think that his religious beliefs percolate through his music in an extremely positive way. Incredible beauty. There is no other word to describe Orientissime. It is so good that I really had a hard time selecting a single one for Wonderful Songs. So I can't really say that Silw is my favorite song. It is just one of many excellent ones.

[Folk] Emma Stanton, Tété
From the album A La Faveur De L'Automne.

Another great French artist who delivers here an excellent Folk album with good lyrics (if you happen to understand French) and a very nice voice. Tété is an excellent songwriter and gifted with a nice voice that integrates well with his guitar play.I love Emma Stanton's rather fast pace for a Folk song and its joyful rhythm.

[Smooth Jazz] Spanish Girl, The Rippingtons
From the album Wild Card. Available from eMusic

In my opinion, this is the best album of The Rippingtons, a well-known Smooth Jazz band that has helped define this genre along with other great artists such as Fourplay, Lee Ritenour, and Bob James. Spanish Girl has an excellent Latino tempo and I love how well the guitars are played on it, and also how they blend with the percussions. It'll cheer any Smooth Jazz lover in no time! The album contains other great songs such as Gypsy Eyes, Paradise, and King of Hearts. I discovered it through Smoothjazz.com, an excellent Smooth Jazz online radio.

[Rock] The Enchanter (Live version), Robert Plant And The Strange Sensation
From the album Mighty Rearranger (2 CDs version).

If you like Led Zeppelin, you must definitely hurry up and buy this awesome record. It's so good that I feel I am short on words to give you an accurate description of it. I am going to try anyway. Robert Plant is as strong as ever and his wonderful voice is just better than... ever. And he successfully created a sensational masterpiece with his great band, The Strange Sensation. The lead singer of Led Zeppelin, the greatest Rock band of the World, successfully accomplish his endeavor to fusion his excellent Rock with wonderful North-African (Moroccan and Egyptian) music. The result is a bewitching music that will take you to unsuspected lands of creation. The 2nd CD of the 2 CDs version of Mighty Rearranger (look for a dominating blue color on the cover, which distinguish it from the 1 CD version) is a Live session performed at Radio France in Paris and it contains a few Led Zeppelin reprises such as the excellent Whole Lotta Love. The Enchanter is the most bewitching song of all. During almost 8 minutes, Robert Plant And The Strange Sensation beautifully stimulate our senses . At times, you'd actually think you are in Egypt surrounded by Derbouka players. Enough talk. Go get it.

[Folk] Werewolf, Cat Power
From the album You Are Free. Available from eMusic

The melancholic tone of Cat Power's voice is very beautiful and the use of an acoustic guitar and violins brings a nice touch to this relaxing song. By using a minimal set of instruments, Cat Power makes her voice stands out and hits us straight with much frailty and sadness. And the lyrics are really good. They should give you a fair view of the artist's songwriting skills. You are Free contains other nice gems and is a safe buy.

[Jazz] Folly, Kora Jazz Trio
From the album Part Two.

Wonderful instruments played by top West African musicians and a beautiful voice blend with each other to create this Jazz masterpiece. This is one of the most beautiful songs I've listened to during this year. It starts with awesome Calabash played by Prince, the same incredible musician from Salif Keita's band during his Massy concert (link points to blog entry in French). After a few seconds, the Kora of Djeli Moussa Diawara joins in. Kora, previously featured in the third edition of Wonderful Songs, is an incredible 21 string harp-lute that produces heavenly sounds. According to many references, it is a very difficult instrument to play. That's not a problem for mister Diawara, a highly-regarded Kora player. Soon after, Abdoulaye Diabaté joins the party with his excellent jazzy Piano. To complete the picture, Moussa Cissoko adds percussions and his beautiful voice. There is no word to describe how beautiful this music is. Folly is my favorite song of this excellent album because of how it is constructed and also of the way Kora and Piano talk to each other. And if this album is called Part Two, that's because there is a "Part One" simply called... Kora Jazz Trio. I will definitely buy this previous album as well. Who knows? Maybe these excellent musicians will appear back in Wonderful Songs.

[World] When You Come Back, Vusi Mahlasela
From the album African Troubadours: Best Of African Singer-Songwriters. Available from eMusic

When You Come Back has a very joyful tone that reminds me a lot of Johnny Cleg & Savuka. The singer has a very sweet and mild voice that makes my interior Sun shine even in the gray sky of Paris. The album is worth getting as a whole since it contains many different African styles, instruments and artists.(Warning to eMusic subscribers: there seems to be a glitch in the 4th song. Could you please send me an email to tell me if you have the same problem so we can ask eMusic to fix it?)

[Alternative] Drunk On Dark Sublime, Elysian Fields
From the album Dreams That Breathe Your Name. Available from eMusic

This is quite the contrary of the previous song. It fits perfectly the gray sky of Paris (Elysian Fields means Champs Elysees in French in case you didn't notice). I love the singer's sweet voice and its melancholic tone alongside the general gloomy, darkish tempo of the album in general and the use of Indian instruments (Sithar and Tablas). Drunk On Dark Sublime isn't a masterpiece but it is a very pleasant song. And Wonderful Songs is just about that: musical pleasure!

[Folk] Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Bob Dylan
From the album The Essential BOB DYLAN.
Entry suggested by Jerome Leonard

Here is why Jerome suggested this song:
Many artists (good ...and not so good) have performed this song. The interpretation of Gun's and Roses is really great. I discovered the original version of Bob Dylan recently. This song sounds really different from many other versions I have already heared. It highlights many emotions and feelings as others songs on this compilation. A simply great artist.

Merci Ô Grand Salif

saad@hush.com — 2005-11-24T09:59:00+01:00

Depuis mi-novembre, le temps s'est sérieusement dégradé sur Paris. Il fait actuellement un froid de canard et bien que nous soyons gratifié de temps à autre d'un magnifique soleil, le ciel reste typiquement parisien. En d'autres termes ... typiquement gris. Il fait -2°c à l'heure ou j'écris ces quelques lignes.

Mais un autre soleil a brillé de mille feux et a réchauffé mon coeur et mon âme ainsi que ceux des autres privilégiés qui ont assisté au concert de Salif Keita à l'Opéra de Massy le 22 novembre dernier. Ce soleil, c'est celui de la musique africaine ou, plus correctement, d'une de ses branches maliennes. La voix de Salif, très riche en émotions et pouvant atteindre des hauteurs dont je ne suspectais même pas l'existence, m'a fait pleurer de joie. Littéralement. Cette richesse qui nous vient d'Afrique montre à quel point ce continent est fertile en musique et en bien d'autres choses.

Appuyé par 8 excellents musiciens et 1 danseur, Salif a fait preuve d'une étonnante fraîcheur. Vu l'âge de ce vénérable artiste, on se demande s'il n'a pas été faire un tour chez les marabouts pour avoir une telle énergie dans la voix et pouvoir sauter comme un cabri sur scène.

L'Opéra de Massy est une salle moderne dont les sièges sont très confortables et on s'y laisse facilement couler voire dormir. Malheureusement, ce n'était pas dans le programme que nous a concocté Salif. A peine entré sur scène, il nous demande de nous lever car, je le cite, "la musique africaine ça se danse". Un doute me submerge. Est-ce qu'on parle bien de M'Bemba, son dernier album ? Certes, c'est une belle oeuvre mais que je ne trouve pas particulièrement dansante (voir à ce sujet mes commentaires dans Wonderful Songs, Nov'05). Je me lève quand même. Et à mon grand étonnement, Salif réussit à transformer la plupart des chansons de M'Bemba en de formidables machines à danser. Le son m'a submergé et mon corps s'est mis à bouger, des fois sans que j'en sois totalement conscient, et un bref coup d'oeil autour de moi me confirmait dans mon sentiment que j'étais normal.

La dimension Live donne une toute autre texture musicale à M'Bemba. De plus la générosité et le sens du partage dont a fait preuve Salif, en invitant par exemple des spectateurs à le rejoindre sur scène à deux reprises pour danser, se sont transmis tout naturellement au public et a permis de véhiculer d'intenses émotions. Désormais, j'écoute M'Bemba avec une autre oreille et pour vous dire la vérité, j'ai fait fausse route concernant cet album. Je l'avais d'abord écouté en pensant à Moffou, le précédent chef d'oeuvre de Salif, et je l'avais trouvé moins bon car je pensais à un Moffou bis. Et ce fût là l'erreur. M'Bemba est bel et bien un album avec sa propre signature qui nous dévoile d'autres horizons et nous invite à écouter la richesse de la musique africaine.

Les musiciens étaient très très bons voire excellents : deux choristes à la voix mélodieuse bougeant leur corps en harmonie avec la musique, deux guitaristes dont un nous a gratifié d'une excellente imitation de George Benson, un batteur, un bassiste, un joueur de simbi et deux percussionistes. Le joueur de simbi fût exceptionnel. Il nous a gratifié d'un jeu bluffant et spectaculaire. Et un des percussionistes est multi-talent : djembé, calebasse, .... et c'est lui qui a clôt cette extraordinaire fête de musique africaine en faisant danser au djembé les deux choristes et une danseuse du public qui dansait divinement bien et qui conclut par un grand écart ... tout en continuant à danser.

Nous avons aussi eu droit à un Salif seul, sans musiciens, accompagnant sa voix d'une guitare sèche. Une voix d'or débordante d'émotions et qui a un grain très particulier, rappelant l'Afrique et sa magie.

Merci, Milles Mercis Ô Grand Salif.

Edité pour ajouter :

• Le percussioniste dont je parle un peu plus haut s'appelle Mamadou Koné, dit "Prince". J'ai reconnu sa signature sur l'album Kora Jazz Trio - Part Two (à ne pas confondre avec le premier opus de 2003), un excellent album de Jazz avec des instruments africains en plus du piano. J'ai acheté cet album par pur hasard hier soir et je viens de commencer à l'écouter. Le jeu de la calebasse ouvrant la deuxième chanson, Folly, me parût familier. Comme quoi, le hasard fait bien les choses ... des fois.
• Salif passe le 15 décembre 2005 au Zénith à Paris. Pour ses autres dates de concert, veuillez consulter son site officiel.

About the Sony Rootkit

saad@hush.com — 2005-11-07T15:23:00+01:00

Sony includes malicious software in Get Right with the man, the latest Van Zant album, to prevent you from copying the CD but also cloaks itself and would crash your Windows system if you try to remove it.

After complaints, Sony released a "patch" to fix the issue. However, the patch just makes things worse. Bruce Schneier, a renowned security expert, made an entry in his blog about this subject. He has links to excellent information on the issue at hand. A recommended read.

This is sad and it erodes what little confidence I still have in companies such as Sony. It looks like they are spreading their rootkit to other records as well, such as the latest album from Chris Botti (look at the Amazon users' comments).

And that's why I keep advising getting your music from eMusic and other serious companies that have no DRM or any other stupid protection mechanism.

Using Sun Update Connection with the CLI on Solaris 10

saad@hush.com — 2005-10-30T18:54:00+01:00

Sun has made available (for free) the Sun Update Connection software to help system administrators keep their Solaris 10 systems up-to-date.

I consider Sun Update Connection from the point of view of a system administrator that needs to apply patches to a server with no graphical environment. That means I will only show how to use Sun Update Connection using the CLI (Command-Line Interface). This method makes usage of a subset of Sun Update Connection known as Sun Update Manager. This tiny guide is not intended to replace the official instructions from Sun but rather supplements them. I found them confusing at times so if you need a quick start for using Sun Update Connection, read on. You can later on read the full instructions on Sun's website.

Sun Update Connection is not integrated by default with Solaris 10 but according to C|Net News.com, this should be fixed in the next global update to Solaris 10, expected by the end of this year. You will need to download and install it separately. The installations instructions are rather clear and the installation is pretty much straightforward.

Once the installation is over, you will need to register your machine with Sun to be able to use Sun Update Connection, using your Sun Online Account (free registration). It should be noted that if you don't have a valid Sun Service Plan, you may only download security fixes and hardware drivers.

To register a system, you need to create a registration profile file. This file contains the data necessary to process your system's registration with Sun as shown by the following example:

userName=ichigo
password=shinigami
hostName=hollow
subscriptionKey=
portalEnabled=false
proxyHostName=
proxyPort=
proxyUserName=
proxyPassword=

This will register the system which hostname is hollow using the Sun Online Account ichigo which password is shinigami. This user has no Sun Service Plan so the subscriptionKey parameter is left empty. If you are going to register your system using a proxy, you will need to fill the 4 last parameters in the above example.

The registration profile must be owned by root and its permissions set to 0400 or 0600. This file must be fed to the sconadm command as shown below:

# /usr/sbin/sconadm register -a -r /tmp/registrationprofile.properties

For more details about the registration process, read the Registration Guide.

Once registered, you will be able to analyze your system, retrieve a list of updates and apply them automatically using the smpatch command:

# smpatch analyze
# smpatch update
For more information about the smpatch command, please refer to the manual page available upon Sun Update Connection installation.

Sun Update Connection 1.0.1, the latest version available as of this writing, has a few limitations/quirks:

• It is incompatible with containers, a major feature of Solaris 10. I hope this limitation will cease to exist in future versions since containers (also known as zones) are essential for system administrators who want to make good use of their hardware capabilities and optimize system usage from a performance and security standpoints.
• You can't install patches requiring interactivity.
• the analysis step performed by smpatch doesn't seem to be working correctly. It will keep displaying a list of updates even if they are not applicable to your configuration. To reproduce this issue, try to analyze, update then analyze once more using smpatch. A feature or a bug?

Pandora, excellent experience for music lovers

saad@hush.com — 2005-10-30T15:26:00+01:00

Playlistmag.com published an article about Pandora, a music service created by the Music Genome Project. It is is a personalized online radio service. It allows you to submit a song or an artist name and it creates a stream of music of other similar songs according to many musical criteria. That way, you may discover artists you've never heard of before. You can create as many streams (or personalized radio stations) as you want. To use the service, you only need a browser and a Flash player. The streams use a bitrate of 128Kbps, which is fine by me.

Pandora is subscription-based (36 USD per year) and you can try it out for free for 10 hours. And according to the online FAQ, they have 300.000 songs from 10.000 artists so far in all genres save for Classical and World (Too bad for a World music lover such as me).

After reading the article, I decided to try this service out and I was surprised of how good it is! To test it, I created two online radio stations.

For the first radio station I decided to play the "wild-guessing" card and let Pandora find similar music to Nada Surf, a Pop/Rock band I discovered lately. I barely know Nada Surf and I cannot think of similar bands on top of my head. The only thing I really know is that I love Nada Surf's latest album, the only one I have. Would Pandora find similar music and make me discover other great bands?

After listening to approx. 10 songs, I skipped only one of the tracks. Pandora offers the possibility to skip music and by clicking on the song icon, you can say that you "don't like it" and it'll skip automatically. This is excellent "accuracy" and I discovered a few bands I've never heard of in the process.

For the second radio station I chose Dave Koz, one of the best Smooth Jazz saxophonists I know. His latest album, Saxophonic, was featured in the Oct'05 edition of Wonderful Songs. I love Smooth Jazz and I know several artists in this genre. I decided again to listen to 10 songs. The first one was Honey-Dipped by Dave Koz himself, featured in Saxophonic. While listening to this song, I though of Gerald Albright, another great saxophonist and very much to my surprise, Pandora "thought" of the same thing as the second track was from this artist! And the next 8 tracks were similarly good. Again, I discovered other artists I didn't know.

During these tests, I discovered a minor quirk of the service. While you can pause the stream and listen to it later, you can't go back to where you left it if you start playing another stream in the meantime. But as I said, this is a minor issue.

When you click on the track icon a menu opens up that will let you buy the album from iTunes Music Store or Amazon. You can also create a new station from one of the tracks. And you can also email your stream to a friend so she can share the music with you.

If you are on the lookout for some great music and artists that you've never heard of, then Pandora is definitely worth the 36 USD/year. It is just too bad they don't have World Music but hopefully, they will add songs from this genre soonish.

Wonderful Songs, Nov'05

saad@hush.com — 2005-10-24T16:30:00+02:00

Welcome to the fourth edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

Folk music seems to have regained tremendous support and a whole new generation of extremely talented artists are blossoming in these areas. Cripple Crow, Devendra Banhart's latest album, is an excellent Folk record and I really had a hard time picking a single song from it for Wonderful Songs. I also included an entry from The Rolling Stones's A Bigger Bang, an extremely good Rock album. I just keep wondering what fuels these guys. I greatly respect their artistic work and achievements.

This month, we also have Electronica, World, Jazz, Soul and Reggae entries.

I made a small enhancement to improve readability for eMusic subscribers: Look for the Available from eMusic link right next to the album name. Clicking on this link will lead you to the eMusic web page of the specified album. The album images are still clickable and link to Amazon (.com or .fr in general depending on the album's availability on this or that site). And before you ask, I have no interest whatsoever in linking to Amazon save for the practical side. The blogging software I use has a special Amazon tool that allow me to retrieve the album covers in a snap.

[Reggae] Natty Supper, The Chantells
From the album Children of Jah (1977-1979). Available from eMusic

Let's start right away with a very nice Reggae song and a tragic story. The Chantells is a Jamaican Reggae Band of the second half of the '70s. Children of Jah is a collection of the major songs they made from 1977 to 1979 and Natty Supper is my favorite one. It has the typical dub of most Reggae songs of this era and the singer's voice reminds a lot of The Gladiators, a huge Reggae band that will certainly make one or several entries in upcoming editions of Wonderful Songs. So far so good, but what's so tragic? Well the band disbanded in 1979 when the members were accused of herb smuggling and some of them even went to jail. But the story doesn't end until Sam Bramwell, the lead singer who made some solo recordings afterwards was shot to death by the cops after committing armed robery. So much for Jah's message.

[World] What Silence Said, Susheela Raman
From the album Music For Crocodiles

What a voice! What an excellent blending of cultures and influences! Susheela Raman is a wonderful artist that I've been following rather closely since Salt Rain, her debut and highly regarded album. Love Trap, her second album was, sadly, not as good as the previous one. In fact, save for one or two songs, I didn't like at all and I was dubious whether to buy Music For Crocodiles, her latest album, or not. After listening to it a single time, I no longer doubted. This album is excellent. I so much like it that I went to her Paris concert at La Maroquinerie. There were very strong feelings carried by her wonderful voice. What Silence Said, the opening song, is very nice. I particularly enjoy the mixture of Susheela's voice with Tablas and Violins. Keep up the excellent Susheela, and please, no more Love Traps. And as my dear friend Mitch puts it, "we are all Crocodiles"!

[Electronica] Lilian, Depeche Mode
From the album Playing The Angel

I started listening to Depeche Mode's music 20 years ago, in 1985. Many Martin Gore's compositions, when blended with Dave Gahan's voice, reach something deep inside of me; something I cannot define even though most of their music has no warmth in it and leave a taste of steel. The 80s sound of Playing The Angel, one of their best albums so far, is extremely good. The band members are not friends anymore. According to Les Inrockuptibles, a French culture magazine, they barely speak to each other. But this bad situation doesn't seem to affect their musical skills. Just listen to Playing The Angel and its many gems to see the power of the Depeche Mode machine! Lillian is my favorite song so far. Gahan's voice seems electronically modified in a pleasant fashion and it strides accross the lyrics with a beautiful tone full of complaints.

[Soul] The High Road, Bettye Lavette
From the album I've Got My Own Hell To Raise. Available from eMusic

Bettye Lavette's career is full of missed opportunities but it stops here and now with the release of the excellent I've Got My Own Hell to Raise. Bettye's voice is awesome. Doubt not, she is a Great Singer. Want a proof? Listen to The High Road. It's a very nice Southern Soul song or, should I say, standard. Very moving.

[Smooth Jazz] Ready To Hang, Wayman Tisdale
From the album Hang Time

Wayman Tisdale is a former Basketball player turned Smooth Jazz bass musician. His previous albums are OK but Hang Time is excellent. His bass is powerful and gives a very nice funky touch to the Smooth Jazz songs. Ready To Hang is the opening song and it carries the same feeling as the album's cover: Wayman enjoys making music a lot! I had a hard time getting the album. It was not available on the major music stores in France (FNAC, Amazon.fr) and my used records favorite shop, Jussieu Music, didn't have it as well. Neither did iTunes Music Store France. So I ended up ordering it from the US and the package was lost in transit. So they sent me a second one that arrived more than one month ago after the initial order. Sometimes, even if you are ready to hang, you just can't do it ;-)

[Folk] Santa Maria Da Feira, Devendra Banhart
From the album Cripple Crow. Available from eMusic

Devendra Banhart has been gifted with an incredible voice that may stamp your ears forever. I can't define it. You gotta hear it. And either you will love it or hate it. There's no middleground. Since I listened to it barely one year ago, I've become a huge fan of Devendra's music but my wife hates it. While his previous albums are your typical Folk albums with the single guitar-voice duo, Devendra Banhart invited many more instruments (and friends) on Cripple Crow. He also sings a few songs in Spanish, one of which is Santa Maria Da Feira. This song is very smooth and relaxing and I love its "minimalistic" approach.

[Electronica] Aftermath, Tahiti 80
From the album A Piece Of Sunshine. Available from eMusic

A Piece of Sunshine is the fourth record released by the French band Tahiti 80 for Minty Fresh. If you like light and refreshing Electronica sound, consider getting the album. In my opinion, it's their best album so far. Aftermath is one of the most refreshing of the lot and Xavier Boyer's voice is relaxing and enjoyable.

[Rock] It Won't Take Long, The Rolling Stones
From the album A Bigger Bang

After eight years and the excellent Bridges to Babylon, The Rolling Stones released two months A Bigger Bang. The Rolling Stones are often dubbed the World's Greatest Rock'n'Roll band and they deserve it. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ron Wood treat us to great music. Save for Ron Wood (58), all the members are past their sixties and they have been on the scene since 1961! Yes, that's 44 years. Almost half a century and they still have what it takes to preserve their name and majesty. They have extraordinary energy. Before listening to the music, you can tell that just from the album's title. Pure Rock, Blues and Ballads... A Bigger Bang in all regards. It Won't Take Long shows how well these guys play together and how they master their art. After an awesome guitar opening from Mr. Richards, Mick Jagger enters the song scene with backing from Charlie Watts' awesome drums play and Ron Wood answering to Richards. When I listen to this masterpiece, only one word comes to mind: RESPECT.

[Fusion Jazz] Farandole (L'Arlesienne Suite No. 2), Bob James
From the album Two. Available from eMusic

I discovered Bob James, a Jazz keyboardist, through Fourplay. Fourplay is one of my favorite Smooth Jazz bands. Besides Bob James, the members are Nathan East, Harvey Mason and Larry Carlton who replaced Lee Ritenour in 1997. I saw them in live in Tokyo, Japan, back in 1998 and as far as I can tell, it was an awesome concert. But until recently, I hadn't listened to James' early records which, by the way, are very good if you happen to love Fusion Jazz with a very 70s touch. Farandole (L'Arlesienne Suite No. 2), released in 1975, is James' take on L'arlésienne from 19th century French Composer Georges Bizet (who is also behind the Carmen Opera). It has a very smooth and nice tone. It reminds of many different things ranging from Space Opera Japanese Anime Cobra to Starsky & Hutch.

[World] Dery, Salif Keita
From the album M'Bemba

Three years after the release of Moffou, one of the best Afro-pop records I've ever listened to (Yamore still gives me the chills), Salif Keita is back at it again. While not as good as Moffou in my opinion, M'Bemba is still worth buying. Dery is a very smooth song featuring very nice sounding African instruments.

Life Hackers, the art of interruption studies

saad@hush.com — 2005-10-20T16:55:00+02:00

The New York Times has published a very interesting article (- free - registration required) about people called Life Hackers studying how one can get all of the benefits from interruptions in the workplace - interruptions being often important and needed - without their downsides.

The studies have found some interesting facts. For example, once you are interrupted it takes 25 minutes to switch back to the original task at hand. The studies, which are far from complete, also shows how computer display size might play a central role in productivity increase.

The article also gives some good hints (that are surprisingly lo-tech!) about how to manage interruptions.

OpenBSD fête ses 10 ans

saad@hush.com — 2005-10-19T09:51:00+02:00

Le projet OpenBSD, auquel je participe depuis 5 ans, fêtait hier ses 10 ans. Le processus de développement adopté par le projet est plus évolutionnaire que révolutionnaire. Mais que de révolutions en sécurité informatique durant ces 10 ans d'existence !

La version 3.8, prévue le 1er Novembre prochain, continue la lignée d'évolutions/révolutions sécurité et qualité.

Bon anniversaire OpenBSD, et longue vie !

H5N1, plus fort tu meurs !

saad@hush.com — 2005-10-13T10:16:00+02:00

Les nouvelles catastrophiques, qui vous donnent mal au ventre, qui vous font maudire votre modernité ou haïr le voisin pour ce qu'il vous fait subir, continuent de pleuvoir sur le H5N1, virus version KFC, qui saute du poulet voire du canard vers nos chétifs corps humains tellement fragiles. H5N1, virus au doux nom (et je ne parle même pas des souches), qui nous fait tellement peur car il aurait tué une soixantaine de personnes en Asie et des millions de volatiles. C'est vrai, il ne sait pas encore bien sauter d'une espèce à une autre mais bon il apprend. C'est qu'il est malin l'animal. Et si jamais il y arrive, alors là il faut s'attendre au pire ! En attendant continuez à acheter le journal ou à fournir du temps disponible de votre cerveau à la télé. Comme vous l'aviez fait à l'époque du HIV ou du prion de la maladie de la vache folle. Je dis bien époque car comme on ne les voit plus dans les médias - allez, un jour par an à l'occasion de la journée mondiale du Sida ou tous les jours au supermarché dans le logo qui vous rassure quant à l'origine de votre belle pièce de viande - on peut supposer qu'ils ne font peu ou plus de victimes.

Ah vous ne savez-pas ce qu'est le H5N1 ? Vous aussi, vous vivez dans une cave et sélectionnez soigneusement vos lectures histoire de vous convaincre que le monde n'est pas si pourri que ça ? Ah mais attendez, en lecteur avisé qui n'a pas de temps disponible de cerveau à donner à qui que ce soit, vous devez certainement lire National Geographic, cette superbe revue qui vous fait découvrir des endroits merveilleux et des paysages hallucinants de beauté (oui, oui c'est sur Terre. On ne croirait pas en lisant les quotidiens). Dommage, le numéro d'octobre est plein d'espoir lui aussi : la fin du pétrole, un petit clin d'oeil aux Français avec la bataille de Trafalgar histoire d'enfoncer le clou après Paris qui perd les Jeux Olympiques (pensez temps disponible) face à Londres, les éléphants thaïlandais maltraités dont l'avenir est fort incertain, et bien sûr un superbe dossier avec de belles photos à l'appui de H5N1, Monsieur Grippe Aviaire.

Pas d'inquiétude pour les Français. L'institut Pasteur est là et le gouvernement veille au grain. Il paraît que la France a acheté des vaccins pour un quart de la population (l'Histoire nous dira peut-être pour quel quart). Sauf que le vaccin en question a donné des résultats satisfaisants (le communiquant aguerri aura compris "mouais ... ça peut aller") ... mais H5N1 change souvement de déguisement et le vaccin n'est pas capable de repérer tous les déguisements. Hahaha, je vous sentais partir d'un pas rassuré mais non mais non ! Restez encore un peu.

Vous allez voir, au bout d'un moment vous allez vous y faire. Comme pour tout d'ailleurs. Loin derrière sont vos craintes concernant le H7N7 (si si, ça existe vraiment), Ebola, le HIV (on a réussi à bien l'exporter celui-là comme nos déchets nucléaires et autres monstruosités vers la poubelle du Monde), notre prion préféré, etc. etc. etc. Mais bon, il faut pas vous sentir en sécurité et, Business is Business : il faut continuer à vendre du média et du temps disponible du cerveau.

S'il fait comme le Sida, le H5N1 fera la une un temps après avoir tué peut-être quelques millions de personnes (une broutille parmi les 5 ou 6 milliards que nous sommes) et bien plus de volailles (Si on faisait ça avec les virus informatiques ... J'ose même pas imaginer les conséquences) et pouf ! Plus de nouvelles, bonnes nouvelles comme on dit. Les végétariens vont encore crier au meutre quand ils verront toutes ces bêtes se faire massacrer. Qui prend les paris sur le super-entrepreneur qui va s'occuper de ces volailles et résoudre en même temps les problèmes de famine en Afrique (ah, vous saviez pas pour le Darfour ? C'est vrai que le Tsunami est plus touchant) quitte à refiler un petit extra à ces pauvres gens ?

En tant que virus numéro 1, il faut mériter sa place n'est-ce pas ? On ne va quand même pas laisser le H5N1 nous la prendre si facilement.

Pour finir sur une note d'espoir, il paraît que le H5N1 a pris des billets pour la Roumanie et la Turquie histoire de tâter le terrain. D'aucuns croient que c'est en fait un agent du fisc de Dame Nature. Selon les rumeurs qui courent, l'espèce humaine n'aurait pas payé ses impôts même après moultes lettres de semonce. Il faut donc faire des prélèvements à la source histoire d'équilibrer un peu la dette. Dame Nature n'est pas aussi gentille que le FMI.

je suis sorti trop longtemps de ma cave. J'y retourne de suite. Je compte sur vous pour me tenir au courant.

Did the long night with Solaris 10 pay off?

saad@hush.com — 2005-10-13T02:34:00+02:00

Sorry, the saner part of me didn't take control for long. Just after I finished brushing my teeth and preparing to go to bed, the insidious Geek Inside took over and drove me to the xterm. So did the installation finished during these few minutes?

Oct 13 02:16:46 rope reboot: rebooted by root
Oct 13 02:16:47 rope syslogd: going down on signal 15
syncing file systems... done
rebooting...
Resetting ...

Sun Ultra 5/10 UPA/PCI (UltraSPARC-IIi 440MHz), No Keyboard
OpenBoot 3.27, 512 MB (50 ns) memory installed, Serial #12935339.
Ethernet address 8:0:20:c5:60:ab, Host ID: 80c560ab.

Rebooting with command: boot
Boot device: /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/disk@0,0:a File and args:
SunOS Release 5.10 Version Generic 64-bit
Copyright 1983-2005 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
Configuring devices.
Hostname: rope
WARNING: /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/dad@2,0 (dad0):
corrupt label - wrong magic number

Loading smf(5) service descriptions: 2/2
checking ufs filesystems
/dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s5: is logging.
/dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s7: is logging.

rope console login:

Great! It works! And the corrupt label error is insignificant since I didn't format my second drive (dad@2,0).

So before R.E.A.L.L.Y. going to bed, here are the lessons I learned tonight :

1. You can use any pen to write on any book (so-called low-tech). If you can't make it by yourself, think CD-R brands, burning speeds, and CD-ROM readers (particularly LG ones).
2. Depending on your needs, some operating systems are easier to install than others. OpenBSD can be installed on sparc64 very quickly. Other sparc64 open source operating systems such as Debian can also be installed much quicker than Solaris 10 that took me more than 5 hours and 4 total attempts to install (not all due to Solaris 10 to be honest). I repeat: it depends on your needs and what you are looking for out-of-the-box.
3. Use fresh or low-level formatted disks whenever possible.
4. Check the media. Check the media. Check the media.
5. There should be a way to see what media works with which drive. Looking for ideas? See 1.
6. Staying awake at insane hours become more difficult as I'm getting older. I agree, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this one out.

Night everyone.

A Long Night With Solaris 10

saad@hush.com — 2005-10-13T02:11:00+02:00

The time has come for me to get serious about testing and getting acquainted with the new release of Sun's operating system: Solaris 10. As a security consultant who he is also fond of Unix-like and Linux systems, I need to use this operating system for two main reasons:

1. See how different it is from Solaris 8, the latest release of Solaris I've been using from both a security perspective and an administration one. I am curious to see how nice or bad the new features of Solaris 10 are (DTrace, zones, and SMF mainly).
2. Try to harden it reasonably.

To install Solaris 10, I either need a sparc64 or an amd64 supported box. Budget being what it is, I don't have the financial resources to buy a brand new machine just for the sake of playing with an operating system. I don't have any personal need to put it in production. My current FreeBSD, OpenBSD and Mac OS X systems already fit the bill very nicely. I just want to update my skill set and see how secure I can make Solaris be. Wait a minute! What's collecting dust under one of the desks? Oh! that's the venerable rope (as in "rope to hang yourself with, anytime, anywhere!").

rope is an Ultra 10 equipped with an UltraSPARC II-i 440Mhz, 512MB of RAM, 2 IDE harddrives (30Go and 80Go) and a PCI SCSI adapter. It served me well during many months as a DNS, file and backup server under OpenBSD. It was retired after I bought a Dell server with much more disk space (which is of course running OpenBSD). But can it be loaded with Solaris 10? Well, according to the documentation I read, no problem! So let's try.

After connecting a serial cable, a network cable, and the power cable, I inserted the Solaris 10 disc 1 in the CD-ROM drive and here you go: boot cdrom in the OpenBoot Prompt. Damn, it doesn't work. the cdrom alias is not mapped correctly (I installed OpenBSD on it from the network without ever using the CD-ROM drive). I summon nvalias for help and there you go! Enter Solaris 10 installation.

As you may know, Ultra 10 is far from being a work horse. Even during its time (it was released in '97 or '98 IIRC), and due to its IDE bus (among other things), it was not considered a fast machine. Time to go fetch a coffee...

When I came back I was welcomed with Solaris 10 asking me what language do I want for installation, what kind of terminal I have, what type of installation I 'd like to perform, network data etc. etc. It is pretty much the same as the Solaris 8 installer. For this first attempt, I got as far as the point where it starts loading the installation media (just before the file system layout). And it hanged there, timing out on the CD-ROM drive (which was working perfectly just a few moments ago). Did rope collect too much dust? Time for cleaning and checking everything.

Armed with my B&D electrical screwdriver, an invertible air duster and a contact cleaner and lubricant, I opened the box, cleaned it and checked every single cable I could lay my hand on, particularly the IDE and power cables. I also removed extra cards I don't need at the moment (the PCI SCSI and modem cards).

Time for a second attempt. But, for extra security, I used the probe-ide OBP command which worked just fine. Great! then let's boot cdrom. For this second attempt, it stopped exactly at the same point. Can't be the cables, so it must be either the lame LG CD-ROM drive that comes by default with Ultra 10s, the installation media I burned from the official Sun ISO or a combination of it. After much investigation (the night starts stretching a little bit beyond my initial estimates), it was clear that the LG CD-ROM doesn't play well with Verbatim CD-Rs burned at 48x speed.

So I decided to try with another media and burning at a slow speed. Third attempt. Great! the LG CD-ROM drive seems to play fine with this new media. It'd have been great to include some media checking utility like the one included with some Linux distros or am I asking too much? Right, Solaris seasoned administrators use Jumpstart. But hey, AFAIK you need another Solaris box for that. Can't avoid my LG darling. For this third attempt, I got past the "loading installation media" sequence and reached the filesystem layout part. After telling the installer that I don't want to preserve any existing data on my disks, it asked me to choose one of my two harddrives to host Solaris 10. So c0t0d0s0 or c0t2d0s0? Wait a sec, wait a sec...either my coffee was not too strong or it was way too strong. Solaris only sees 8GB of space on each! Hey, these harddrives are 30GB and 80GB. Oh no! Don't tell me that you have the stupid 8GB limitation with IDE disks. I thought this belonged to the long-forgotten Solaris 2.6 time. Time for some investigation (good night honey, can't come to bed at the moment. Gotta have a word with this Solaris guy).

Given that the disks were labeled using OpenBSD and that both operating systems use a BSD-style layout (overlap and such), I need to zero out the disk labels before going any further. Sigh. Is this a modern operating system we are talking about? Or my Ultra 10 is just too old? The best way I could do that (at least at this time of night where my brain is kind of slow after a busy working day) is to boot from an OpenBSD installation CD-ROM, escape to the shell and use dd and /dev/zero on the overlaps. As almost everything with OpenBSD, it works just fine.

Fourth attempt. Got past the layout. We are making progress here. The installer sees the real capacity of my harddrives. CD 1 finished. Asking for CD 2. Installation in progress. Hope in the horizon.... I might go to bed soonish. Oops! I should have kept my brain shut :

Oct 13 00:34:14 rope scsi: Sense Key: Media Error
Oct 13 00:34:14 rope scsi: ASC: 0x11 (L-EC uncorrectable error), ASCQ: 0x5, FRU: 0x0
Oct 13 00:34:21 rope scsi: WARNING: /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/sd@3,0 (sd1):
Oct 13 00:34:21 rope Error for Command: read(10) Error Level: Retryable
Oct 13 00:34:21 rope scsi: Requested Block: 321510 Error Block: 321510
Oct 13 00:34:21 rope scsi: Vendor: LG Serial Number:
Oct 13 00:34:21 rope scsi: Sense Key: Media Error
Oct 13 00:34:21 rope scsi: ASC: 0x11 (L-EC uncorrectable error), ASCQ: 0x5, FRU: 0x0
[....]

Are you kidding me? OK. I am fed up with this. Guess what's the first thing I will do in the next few days before my fifth attempt? Throw away that stupid LG CD-ROM drive and put a real CD-ROM drive in this box.

And if Sun people are reading this, how about a media checker or advice on what brand to use and speed for burning your ISOs to make them work with your legacy machines? Oh right, no business incentive to do that. You are not as nuts as the OpenBSD people to support old cruft.

Off to bed, hopefully not having bad dreams starring Solaris 10 and Sun hardware. Oh wait! I just got a look at my xterm to shutdown the box properly (a BREAK and a power-off are your friends) and what do I see ? Can't describe it :

Please specify the media from which you will install Solaris 10 Software 3 for
SPARC Platforms.

Did the LG drive "sensed" my anger? Good! Maybe no fifth attempt after all. Let's load CD 3. Instead of starring blankly at the progress bar showing slow progress (well you could do that if you are really bored. I'm not), I decided to update my Mac OS X with the latest updates after Apple's last announcement. iTunes 6 after releasing iTunes 5 only one month ago and important bugfixes for QuickTime. Well, where our Solaris 10 fourth attempt is heading?

Please specify the media from which you will install Solaris 10 Software 4 for
SPARC Platforms.

Yes!, that's 4. Here goes the dreaded (regress) progress bar again. Damn, my cable broadband connection just went down in the middle of the updates for my Mac OS X. My first name, Saad, means luck in Arabic. No such thing as luck tonight. Time to switch to my backup ADSL connection and restart the update process on the Mac.

Letter to my bed:

My dear bed, I hope you are not angry. I would be more than happy to come and let you show me around through the land of Morpheus but I have a small problem (nothing to worry about, really!) with this Solaris guy. I am not on some tight schedule or something like that but well. he is challenging me! And even though I know I'm gonna be really tired in a few hours (it's 1:28 AM and the progress bar for CD 4 is only at 25% percent and there is still the Companion CD to install) when I will need to go to work, I just want to get over with this.

Sincerly yours (after the Solaris guy gets done with me that is)
Saad

*yawn*. 1:53 AM. CD 4 installation finished. Companion CD installation starting. It contains many pieces of open source software that I might not need such as ProFTPD, Squid, GD, ... But as one of my goals is to test the new Solaris Software Update to keep my system up-to-date, I would also like to see if these additional software is supported as well and the kind of reactivity I can expect from Sun when it comes to plugging security holes contained in these applications.

My sane self is taking over. I am going to crash into my bed and ~~tomorrow~~ in a few hours, when I wake up before going to work I'll check to see if everything went fine.

Wonderful Songs, Oct'05

saad@hush.com — 2005-10-01T22:07:00+02:00

Welcome to the third edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

In this issue, I'd like to share with you some outstanding musical experiences. September was really an exceptional month for me on many aspects, including music. I have listened to flabbergasting Reggae, exceptional Smooth Jazz and some safe bet values. Of course, I've included entries for all these gems and more: Instrumental African music, Raï, Kirtans...

As a side note, whenever a song is available to download from eMusic, an online music service (subscription based, 50 free MP3s trial), I say so. eMusic is one of the cheapest (if not the cheapest) online music services. And their songs are DRM free! No wonder they have no Major in their catalogue but they have many many independent labels and many many excellent songs. I have a subscription at eMusic. But besides this, I have no relationship with them, commercial or otherwise. My only interest is in their DRM free stance, If you want to know more about DRM, see Electronic Frontier Foundation's A User's Guide to DRM in Online Music and Cory Doctorow's Digital Rights Management.

[World] Senegal-Mauritanie, Kaouding Cissoko
From the album Kora Revolution

Kaouding Cissoko was one of the greatest Kora players in the World (Kora is a harp-lute like instrument used extensively in Western Africa. Follow the link to Wikipedia for more information). While he contributed to numerous albums, Kora Revolution is his unique "solo" album. Overall, this album is very good for instrumental African music lovers. Senegal-Mauritanie is my favorite song on this album as it makes Kora stands out among the other instruments like no other song I've ever heard. It also carries a somehow melancholic note that I love.

[World] Radhe Shyam, Krishna Das
From the album Live On Earth

Krishna Das is an American singer performing kirtans which are Hindu devotional songs. Kirtans often consist of a few sentences repeated over and over. It might seem boring but it is far from that. Krishna Das has a very nice voice and the instruments used in Radhe Shyam are excellent. It brings a sense of internal harmony and I enjoy listening to it to relax. Live On Earth is, as you might have infered from the title, a live recording (2 CDs). The album is good but the songs are uneven in quality (CD 1 is better than CD 2 in my opinion). It is available to download from eMusic.

[Smooth Jazz] All I See Is You, Dave Koz
From the album Saxophonic

This is one of the best Smooth Jazz albums I've listened to over the last decade. Dave Koz is a great saxophonist and he shows it through the different kinds of songs included in Saxophonic. All I See Is You is my favorite because of its excellent, energy-filled, and very funky rhythm. Thank you Dave for this wonderful album. Believe it or not, it's soooo good that I listened almost exclusively to it in an infinite loop fashion during the last week.

[Smooth Jazz] Anytime, Anywhere, Chuck Loeb
From the album When I'm with you

This is another excellent Smooth Jazz album. Chuck Loeb is a multifaceted man: Guitarist, Composer, Arranger, Producer, Recording Artist... And if you need a proof for that, just listen to When I'm With You, a self-produced album published by Shanachie. It contains many hits such as Tropical, the second song of the album and Anytime, Anywhere, which has a super spacey feel to it.

[Hip-Hop] Be A Gentleman, 50 Cent
From the album Guess Who's Back

If you like Hip-Hop music, I'm sure you'll enjoy 50's Guess Who's Back. IMHO, this is his best album, even better than Get Rich Or Die Tryin. Simply because it's rougher on the edges (read: true to the Hip-Hop spirit) and less full of stunts-for-the-mainstream. Be A Gentleman is just one of the many very good songs that this album contains. Should have called this monthly entry Wonderful Albums heh. Be warned though, explicit lyrics are all over the album. It is available to download from eMusic.

[Reggae] King Without a Crown, Matisyahu
From the album Live at Stubb's

When I first listened to this song, I never imagined the man behind it. Though I got hints through the lyrics that the guy was more on the Bible side than on the Jah/Rastafarai one, I never thought he was a ... Hasidic Jew. And you have probably never heard about Hasidic Reggae. As astounding or crazy as it may sound, well ... it's true. Moreover, this is one of the best Reggae songs I've ever heard in my whole life (for the record, I am a huge Reggae fan). Here is a link to a video of the live performance (requires Flash MX, alternate formats here). If you are a serious Reggae fan, you want to get this album as soon as possible. It is A.W.E.S.O.M.E. It is available on eMusic.

[World] Simplicity, Karma Sutra
From the album Prana

Karma Sutra is the name of a musical project undertaken by Preston Kilk with East Indian vocalist Mona Jethmalani. Prana
is an excellent mixture of two worlds: traditional Indian vocals and occidental song structures. While the album encompasses many styles and genres, Simplicity is where Mona's voice stands out and blends perfectly with the "electro" body of the song. The other songs are very cool too. Consider getting the album from eMusic.

[World] Ana Mazel, Cheb Mami
From the album Prince of Rai

Cheb Mami is one of the best Raï singers in the World. His voice is wonderful. As I pointed out on a previous blog entry, Prince of Rai is one of his early recordings. It's not that I dislike his recent work but it sounds kind of too Westernish to my ears. Ana Mazel is a very famous song that most people from Maghreb of my generation know. When I was in Morocco, it used to be played during weddings and parties. I rediscovered it last month (I left Morocco in '97) so that's why I'm including it. The album is available on eMusic.

[Folk] America, Tracy Chapman
From the album Where you live

This is my favorite song in Tracy Chapman's latest album. It has a very nice folk beat and Tracy's voice is always as great as it was on her widely acclaimed self-titled album with unforgettable songs such as Talking About Revolution and Fast Car. This song carries strong feelings with it and you can feel it in the integration of Tracy's voice with the instruments.

[Rock] Kashmir, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant
From the album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded

After listening to the symphonic version of Kashmir performed by the London Symphonic Orchestra, which I included in Wonderful Songs Sept'05, I decided to relisten to my albums of Led Zep'. As surprisingly as it may sound, I realized I didn't own No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded. I recall listening to it back in '94-'95. At this time I was still living in Morocco and the Moroccan TV had a special feature with Page and Plant since they invited musicians from Marrakesh for this live performance. And what performance it was! On this version of Kashmir, they don't only have a symphonic orchestra playing but also an egyptian one. In a bit more than 12 minutes, Page and Plant treat us to very good Rock music full of oriental instruments.

Les Chantiers OpenBSD

saad@hush.com — 2005-09-20T10:17:00+02:00

Le numéro 21 de MISC, un magazine français dédié à la sécurité informatique, vient de paraître. Il est habituellement vendu en kiosque en France, Belgique, Maroc et certainement d'autres pays francophones.

Ce numéro contient un article sur les chantiers d'OpenBSD que j'ai co-écrit avec Guillaume Arcas, consultant indépendant et ami de longue date.

Dans cet article, nous couvrons 4 chantiers du projet OpenBSD : OpenSSH, OpenCVS, OpenNTPD, et PF. Par manque de place et, dans une moindre mesure, de connaissances nous n'avons pas pu couvrir OpenBGPD/OpenOSPFD.

Si vous avez l'occasion de lire cet article, je serais intéressé par vos commentaires (constructifs bien entendu) car c'est ma première tentative dans un magazine à large diffusion comme MISC.

So you want to start listening to Raï music?

saad@hush.com — 2005-09-09T16:07:00+02:00

Raï is a very popular kind of folk music from Algeria and nearby countries (Morocco and Tunisia). In case you didn't know or didn't think about clicking on the link at the beginning of this entry, Raï means opinion in Arabic.

Raï has the right mix of eastern and western instruments to please westerners. While singing is mainly performed in Maghribi Arabic, there is also some songs that contain more or less French.

To get you started with Raï music or if you are already listening to it and want to listen to some fine records, I highly recommend the following albums:

Prince of Rai, Cheb Mami

Cheb Mami is an excellent singer. He has a very beautiful voice. But that's not all. He has also a very capable band that backs him very nicely. Prince of Rai is one of his early recordings. This is a 6 songs album (about 32 minutes total play time). Some of these songs are very rich in oriental instruments and used to be played during weddings (at least in Morocco which I originate from). If you are an eMusic member, you can get this album from there. The sound is not of high quality (my guess is that it was recorded on tape first then converted to a CD later on but what do I know about music recording?).

Rai Love, Cheb Hasni

Cheb Hasni, who was shot to death in 1994, was a very popular Raï singer and his recordings are still big sellers. His voice was not as great as Mami's but for those who understand Maghribi Arabic, his lyrics are outstanding. He used to sing about women, alcohol and divorce and some said that he was killed because of that (do I really need to tell you what happened in Algeria during the 90's?). Rai Love, one of his masterpieces is available from eMusic too. Note that electronic keyboards are heavily used.

Khaled, Khaled

Khaled's Khaled (ugh) was met with big success in Europe when it was released. It was innovative in its use of western rhythms. I think this is the album that allowed Khaled to make the crossover and start being a hot seller in France and other European countries. I don't like his recent albums because of their too westernish sounds (it hasn't the right mix of east vs. west) and Khaled's voice is not as great as it was.

1, 2, 3 Soleils, Taha, Khaled & Faudel

This a live album (double CD) containing lots of Raï gems. At first, I didn't understand why Rachid Taha took part in this trio with Khaled and Faudel. While Khaled and Faudel have (or used to have) a great voice, Rachid Taha is more of a true rocker to me (did you know that he is apparently the only Arabic singing rocker in the World?). His raucous voice doesn't marry well with the other two voices and Cheb Mami would have been a better choice. Only after listening to this record a few times that I understand that Taha brings just the right dose of Rock to this Live, though he is somewhat out of note in a few songs such as the legendary Abdel Kader (the opening song on the second CD). Otherwise, the album contains lots of classic and very good Raï songs.

I'd like to thank Sascha Welter who gave me the idea of this blog post, in an attempt to make me unslack. That was a good unslacking idea Sascha ;-)... Or was it more slacking?

Evaluation de 11 distributions Linux et BSD par PC Expert

saad@hush.com — 2005-09-01T18:05:00+02:00

PC Expert, un magazine informatique français, vient de sortir son numéro de septembre dans lequel Philippe Roure évalue 11 distributions Linux et *BSD. Pour élaborer son dossier, il m'a interviewé cet été pour mieux appréhender OpenBSD et savoir à quels besoins il répond le mieux. Et il y a même une petite interview de votre humble serviteur (shameless plug comme ils disent outre-atlantique).

Je viens de lire le dossier et je le trouve très bien réalisé. OpenBSD a eu une note de 5/5. Il en est de même pour NetBSD et Debian. Fedora Core et Red Hat Linux Enterprise ont eu respectivement 2/5 et 3/5 !!! Une note ne veut pas forcément dire grand-chose mais j'apprécie le fait qu'un magazine grand public français s'intéresse finalement à ce système d'exploitation.

Je n'ai pas vu l'article en ligne. Il faut peut-être attendre le mois prochain pour espérer le voir sinon il faut passer chez votre marchand de journaux préféré.

Wonderful Songs, Sept'05

saad@hush.com — 2005-08-31T02:38:00+02:00

Welcome to the second edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

This month I would like to stress how both the human voice _and_ the instrument are essential for making wonderful music. For the human voice part, we have entries from two of my favorite scat singers: Al Jarreau and Bobby Mcferrin and also from a trio of very good african singers. For the instrument part, we have guitar, piano, trumpet and saxophone. Wait no longer to treat your ears to some great music.

[Vocal] Circlesong 5, Bobby Mcferrin
From the album Circlesongs

You surely remember "Don't worry, be happy!" from Bobby Mcferrin. Circlesong 5 is very different. It doesn't contain a single music instrument save for the human voice. It's an amazing work. The entire album is amazing if you happen to like scat singing. The music is smooth and relaxing.

[Jazz] Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive, Al Jarreau
From the album Accentuate The Positive

Accentuate The Positive is the latest album of Al Jarreau, a wonderful Jazz singer who masters the art of scat singing. Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive shows just how he is good at his craft. His voice gets along perfectly with the other instruments in use and it brings a rare sense of harmony.

[Reggae] Turning World, Eric Bibb
From the album A Ship Called Love

Eric Bibb is a Bluesman and A Ship Called Love is his latest work. This contains many gems but what makes Turning World stand out of the lot is its unmistakable Reggae rhythm and sweet lyrics. I was very well surprised when I heard it. I was used to the Blues from that guy, and I just though to myself "Hey! This ain't Blues, this is Reggae and a very good one".

[Jazz] Romeo And Juliet, Stefano di Battista
From the album 'Round about Roma

A masterpiece that tries, and succeed, in capturing the romance of the capital of Italy, Roma, where the artist was born. This alto and soprano sax player is backed by the Symphonic Orchestra of Radio France. Very elegant music that avoids nicely the trap of being too much sentimental.

[Pop] Tapis Volant 1, -M-
From the album Labo M

-M- shows up for the second time in Wonderful Songs. Tapis Volant 1 is an instrumental song like the other songs on the album and it shows -M-'s proficiency in the guitar. Very nice piece.

[Rock] Planet of Women, ZZ Top
From the album Afterburner

I first discovered ZZ Top when I was 15 years old through my brother Aziz and their Eliminator album. I still enjoy listening to them quite a lot. While I consider Eliminator to be their best album ever, Afterburner is made in the same kitchen. Planet of women has a very nice rhythm if you happen to like these bearded Rock lords: nice guitars, drums and everything to make your car trip on Route 66 a pleasant ride.

[World] Where I Came From, Gerald Toto, Lokua Kanza & Richard Bona
From the album Toto Bona Lokua

Dim light. Smells and noises of the African Savanna. Joy and happiness around the village. Relaxing moment. These are some of the few thoughts that come to my mind when I listen to this song. The human voice plays here, again, a central role with these three exceptional singers who make the experience transcendental.

[Smooth Jazz] Indian Summer, Chris Botti
From the album A Thousand Kisses Deep

Chris Botti is a stylist trumpeter who has a very warm and smooth tone. Indian Summer, the first song on album, has a pleasant spacey/dance sound. Moreover, due to Chris Botti's roots in Jazz (as opposed to Smooth or Soft Jazz), it is not too much on the soft side. The trumpet shows that the Jazz part is still present and strong.

[Smooth Jazz] September Second, Michel Petrucciani
From the album Les années Blue Note 1986-1994

Michel Petrucciani, a french artist who died in 1999, fought Osteogenesis Imperfecta by becoming a powerful Jazz pianist. September Second shows how good he was at playing this instrument, from a Smooth Jazz perspective. Of special notice are the drums who back the piano very nicely.

[Classical] Kashmir, London Philharmonic Orchestra & Scholes
From the album Kashmir: The Symphonic Led Zeppelin

Two weeks ago, one of my coworkers who has a huge music collection, brought this CD with him at the office. As a fan of Led Zeppelin, I was wondering how such a weird wedding would play out. I was stunned by this music. While preserving the original spirit of Led Zep' (OK, Robert Plant not singing so it's not as original as you can think of), they bring a nice classical touch to it. Kashmir is one my favorite Led Zep' songs. And I think that this reprise is almost as good as the original one (yes, yes, Robert Plant not singing but if you put aside this fact...).

Mediating Poverty, Nick Holland's comments

saad@hush.com — 2005-08-19T15:54:00+02:00

As a follow-up to my Mediating Poverty, How So? post, Nick Holland, a very good friend whom I met through our common work on the OpenBSD Project, tells us this:

I wasn't sure if I should hit "reply" or "reply all" on this one. I am
rather proud of this one, so I hit "reply all", maybe someone else can
make something useful of my comments.

I did what Saad is suggesting...

Before I shut down my consulting business, I worked with a small charter
school, about 200 students in the 9th through 12th grades. Charter
schools are an experiment in the US in areas with failing public schools
-- they are publicly funded, but operate very differently from a public
school, typically managed by a for-profit company, typically non-union.
To say they are controversial is a horrible understatement. They have
been a mixed success -- some fail miserably, some succeed brilliantly.
However, they give alternatives to some of our students who would
otherwise have to go to hell-holes we sometimes call schools.

I build them a lab...

* Netware server, pulled out of my basement.
* Netware license, donated by a client of mine who was upgrading in such
a way that the old licenses were "available" (this was verifed with
Novell at the time). Netware 3.2, btw, runs great on 486 and low-end
Pentium systems.
* Tape drive: pulled out of my basement.
* 30 desktop computers, $40 each for PII-333MHz, 128M RAM, 6G HD.
* We got new keyboards and mice because the kids seemed to go nuts over
the idea that they were getting SOMETHING "new" -- even if it was a six
dollar mouse and a four dollar keyboard...which was vastly inferior to
the old IBM keyboards they already had, but we had some money left over,
we went for the grins.
* Windows 98 licenses are available without charge for donated computers
for schools. We may have played a little fast and lose here, as it
wasn't exactly "donated", but close...goodness knows I donated a lot of
time to make it all work.
* OpenOffice
* OpenBSD firewall (used one of their old computers for the FW, misc.
upgrades from my basement).
* Old 10/100 hubs donated by a client
* HP LaserJet 4si saved from dumpster from a client
* donated labor on the part of me, my dad, and a couple teachers

The result was a system which was incredibly cheap to install, very easy
to maintain, very stable, enough spare computers on the shelf to replace
ones in the lab that broke. The teacher I built this with had formerly
worked at a very afluent district in the area, she told me "her" lab was
vastly superior to the labs at her former employer, which were just put
in a year or two earlier with all brand new, very expensive HW and
software, in terms of ease of use, uptime, managability, recoverability
when something broke, and overall satisfaction.

This works. It works really well. I can't tell you how proud I was of
that system. It was the achieving of some goals I've had for over 25
years, and it worked very much as I expected.

There are problems, however.
A number of the students were upset over the fact that their "new"
computers weren't brand new. They wanted new, and didn't care about the
rest. They didn't care about the fact that none of them could type well
or write well, and few of them were even proficient readers.

A shocking number of the students couldn't care less about the age of
the machines, as long as they were Dells. Apparently, Dell has a very
effective marketing campaign, these high-grade IBM machines didn't do it
for them because they were not Dells.

In the US, this "experiment" would never happen at any normal public
school. I've watched the process in my local district, the purpose
there was to spend money and to have pictures of kids in front of Brand
New Computers, not actually getting anything done with them. It takes a
special teacher (which we had), it takes a special school management
(which we had), and it takes parents willing to look for results, not
name tags. That's all stuff that is harder to come by than money here.

All that being said...
At least in the US, computers in classrooms are so poorly used normally,
I have no particular desire to see more of them. The students aren't
learning Internet safety. They aren't learning how to do proper
research. They don't understand what is happening when they punch
something into google and it comes up with "the answer". At "My"
school, we took a stab at a lot of that...but no one else even tries.

Computers or teacher's saleries? I'd rather pay the teachers.
Computers or food for hungry school kids? I'd rather feed them.
Computers or books? I'd rather they learn the idea of good research in
books over typing stuff into google and seeing what comes out.

When I was in school, we were prevented from using encyclopedias,
because of the lack of diversity. Now, we let kids do all their
research "on line", and they have no tools to understand the stuff they
come across..what is good research? What is an authoritative source?
What is an expert opinion? What is a non-expert opinion? What is
someone just bad-mouthing or building up a product/person/idea? These
kids have no clue on this stuff. We did something to help a little by
teaching them web page creation (using Notepad, btw, not an HTML layout
program!), then published it, so they had some idea how little effort
was required, and how anyone could say ANYTHING on the 'net, but I'm not
sure how much of that sunk in. I had suggested that they do a
"wrong-research" project -- "prove" the holocaust didn't happen, "prove"
we didn't go to the moon, "prove" there was no slavery in the US, etc.,
not sure that ever happened, however.

Oddly, for a skeptic of computers in the classroom, I owe my later
schooling to a computer. I'm dyslexic and ADD, without a computer, I'm
functionally illiterate, I can not write by hand. The first time I
turned a paper in I wrote on a computer word processor (in 1983), I was
the first student to do so in my class -- and I nearly got expelled from
school for it, as it was so much better than anything I had ever written
before, it couldn't have been mine. Fortunately, my teacher had enough
faith in my intelegence that she didn't believe I'd ever cheat in a way
that she would catch, and believed me when I told her it was all my
work. However, I look at things now, over 20 years later...and I'd
still probably have the exact same problems in school I had then...the
answer would be sitting all around me, but it wouldn't be available to
help me in the ways I needed help. Twenty and twenty-five years ago,
everyone "knew" computers belonged in a classroom, but no one knew what
to do with them. Today...people still don't know what to do with
them...and they are sucking up huge amounts of education funding.

Anyway..much more I could write on this topic...it is very dear to me,
but I'm way overdue for bed. |-)

oh, btw: well written article, Saad. :)

Nick.

Mediating Poverty, How So?

saad@hush.com — 2005-08-15T09:40:00+02:00

In his From the Editor's column in the August 2005 issue of MIT's Technology Review, Jason Pontin covers Mr. Negroponte's Hundred-Dollar Laptop or HDL. Nicholas Negroponte, founder and chairman of MIT's Media Lab, told U.S. IT industry leaders his hope to build many HDLs starting from 2006 in order to get an HDL in every child's hand since he believes that education is paramount to solve many problems.

Jason Pontin tells us this:

The HDL has a number of other, intriguing features. Since many villages in the poor world do not have electricity, the machines may be powered by either a crank or "parasitic power"--that is, typing. Once turned on, HDLs will automatically connect to one another using a "mesh network" initially developed at MIT and the Media Lab. In the mesh network each laptop serves as an information-relaying node. Households that have HDLs will be able to communicate with each other by e-mail or voice calls [...]

Jason Pontin ends up his column by asking if the readers think the HDL (which has its own website now) could be built. I answered him by stating the obvious: the HDL has already been built. Here is my answer:

Hi there Jason,

I've read with great interest your "From the editor" column on the Aug. 05 issue of Technology Review. As such, I would like to answer your question about whether the HDL could be built or not. The answer is pretty obvious: The HDL has already been built and for much less than a hundred dollars. I'd rather call it the LTHDM (Less-Than-Hundred-Dollar-Machine).

There are millions of LTHDM units waiting for people to use them but very few actually think of doing so. Instead they are sent to China and other countries to be dismantled and to contribute to more pollution of the environment. Yes, I'm speaking about your 3/4 years old desktop machine. And the machines of your coworkers, neighbours, friends, family etc etc etc. Just get a look at eBay. There are thousands if not millions of PCs that cannot satisfy the dominant desktop operating system and some of its bloated applications due to lack of RAM, hard drive, processor speed or some other hardware feature. And given the proper structure (local associations, negotating shipment contracts, volunteers to set up the machines and so on), we can really get LTHDM units for a very interesting price.

So instead of offering poor children machines that have not been field-tested, let's ship them our old machines loaded with a *BSD or GNU/Linux free operating system that will run like a charm on them. Instead of concentrating on new technology, let's focus on the real needs of those peoples and in the process, we may spare the environment some troubles.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, Mr. Negroponte should start thinking about how to get the proper infrastructure to buy LTHDM units, test and prepare them (by stripping too-demanding components for his "parasitic power" technology for example) then ship them to the peoples in need. I just don't get it why we have to built new machines while we already have millions of them that will handle the task at hand very well. We can also mesh them in a way that will allow us to have one or two "big iron" LTHDM units in a meshed network while the other are pretty much "dumb" terminals. And we have almost (all?) the technology today to do so and more.

As a final note, we should drop once and for all this "western" view of the World and go ask these peoples whether should we spend a hundred dollars in a computer
and Internet access or in healthcare and nutrition.

What do you think? Let me know at saad@docisland.org.

Managing daemons on Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger) with rc.local

saad@hush.com — 2005-08-14T22:49:00+02:00

Introduction
With the release of Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger), Apple introduced a new way of controlling startup daemons using launchd.

Launchd is a daemon/agent manager. To do this, it reads property lists located on system-wide and per-user directories. The property lists are XML files. Too bad for me, I'm quite an old school Unix lover that likes rc.local style plain text files; files that you can find or cook for yourself on every Unix-like operating system whether it's a *BSD or SysV style one. I think XML is an overkill for handling a task as simple as starting/stopping daemons. And don't get me started about a change in the DTD.

What's the solution then to revert to ol' style rc.local? It's simple as creating a property list for launchd to launch an rc.local style script. This rc.local style script will then startup the other daemons such as postfix, dovecot etc.

Speaking about postfix and dovecot, let's use them for our examples below.

Step 1: Create per-daemon scripts
First we start by creating a shell script for each daemon we want to control. For postfix, a script like the following one will do the trick:
$ cat /Data/local/etc/rc.d/postfix
#!/bin/ksh
# $DocIsland: postfix,v 1.1 2005/06/02 20:30:12 saad Exp $
# postfix -- Control Postfix
postfix_cmd="/usr/sbin/postfix"
case $1 in
start)
echo -n "starting postfix ..."
$postfix_cmd start >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo done
;;
stop)
echo -n "stopping postfix ..."
$postfix_cmd stop >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo done
;;
restart)
$0 stop;
$0 start;
;;
*)
echo "usage: $0 (start|stop|restart)"
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0

For dovecot, we use something like:

$ cat /Data/local/etc/rc.d/dovecot
#!/bin/ksh
# $DocIsland: dovecot,v 1.1 2005/06/02 20:30:12 saad Exp $
# dovecot -- Control Dovecot
dovecot_cmd="/Data/local/sbin/dovecot"
killall_cmd="/usr/bin/killall"
case $1 in
start)
echo -n "starting dovecot ..."
$dovecot_cmd >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo done
;;
stop)
echo -n "stopping dovecot ..."
$killall_cmd dovecot >/dev/null 2>&1 && echo done
;;
restart)
$0 stop;
$0 start;
;;
*)
echo "usage: $0 (start|stop|restart)"
exit 1
;;
esac
exit 0

At this point we have our two scripts in /Data/local/etc/rc.d. Make sure they are executables and that they work by running them before carrying on.

Step 2: Create rc.local
Next we create an rc.local file. Here is an example:

$ cat /Data/local/etc/rc.local
#!/bin/ksh
# $DocIsland: rc.local,v 1.2 2005/06/02 19:36:39 saad Exp $
# rc.local -- Emulate rc.local behavior as found in OpenBSD or other
# BSD systems. This file is called a boot time by Mac OS X's launchd via
# an XML property list located in /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/local.rc.plist
locald="/Data/local/etc/rc.d"
# Start Postfix
if [ -x $locald/postfix ]; then
$locald/postfix start
fi
# Start Dovecot
if [ -x $locald/dovecot ]; then
$locald/dovecot start
fi

Before continuing, verify that you can start postfix and dovecot by running this script.

Step 3: Create the XML property list
Now we want to tell launchd to call the rc.local script we just created at boot time. To do this, we need to create an XML property list. This list, which is in fact a file, is /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/local.rc.plist. /System/Library/LaunchDaemons is a system-wide directory.

The XML property list looks like this:

$ cat /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/local.rc.plist

Label
local.rc
ProgramArguments

/Data/local/etc/rc.local

RunAtLoad

Conclusion
As you can see, we used three simple steps to "revert" back to our old school, nonetheless reliable, way of managing daemons. Besides its reliability, it has the advantage of portability to other systems as well.

For more information about launchd, see the manual pages for launchd(8), launchctl(1), and launchd.plist(5).

Should you have any question/comment about this hack, please send them to saad@docisland.org.

Wonderful Songs, Aug'05

saad@hush.com — 2005-08-14T21:39:00+02:00

Welcome to the first edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

This month we have two entries from Daby Toure, a new fabulous World Music artist and one of these songs is free for you to download from the artist's page! There are also two French music entries in the Pop/Rock and category.

[Smooth Jazz] People Make the World Go Round, Richard Elliot
From the album Metro Blue

This is one really nice piece of Smooth Jazz...If you happen to like saxophone. This is far from being the first album from Richard Elliot. It is currently on the top charts of U.S. Smooth Jazz radios, among which http://www.smoothjazz.com/, an excellent streaming online radio. While I do prefer Richard's Ricochet over Metro Blue, it is still a nice buy with such a good song opening it.

[Reggae] The World, Sizzla
From the album Bobo Ashanti

Released a few years ago, Bobo Ashanti is a really nice album if you like reggae and ragga. Some of the songs have harsh words, well at least if you understand Jammies, the english slang of Jamaica. The World stands out in that it has a rootish feeling to it and the lyrics are not too bad. I was disappointed by other albums from this dreadlock Rasta fighting for the roots and culture legacy of Jamaica but Bobo Ashanti has nice gems.

[French] Si C'est Bon Comme Ca 98, Sinclair
From the album Comme Je Suis 1992-2004

Sinclair is truly the prince of french Funk. AFAIK, he has a faithful, but small-sized fan base. And I really wonder why since he has every ingredient necessary to be as popular as -M- (see below). I've been to one of his concert 2 or 3 years ago and I really enjoyed it much. While many of his songs could make it into Wonderful Songs, I chose this one because it has, in my opinion, everything that you need to hear from Sinclair: very nice voice, very good rhythm, and funk à la James Brown.

[French] Mon ego, -M-
From the album Live au Spectrum

According to all accounts, -M- is one of the best French musicians of his time. With a weird but nice, monstruous guitar playing and very good lyrics, he is a huge scene monster. While his studio albums range from good to very good, his Live performances are nothing short of flabbergasting ! I was lucky enough to go to his Paris-Bercy concert this year and it's my second best after Ben Harper's. If you love rock music and amazing guitar stunts along with some very curious and enjoyable sounding instruments, get his live albums and if you can affford it, go to the concert. Mon ego will give you a pretty good idea of what I am talking about.

[World] Iris, Daby Toure
From the album Diam

This album is a gem of World Music. Daby Toure, a Mauritanian artist, gives us here his first solo album after he quit touring with the Toure Toure band. While all the songs are very very good, some of them really just stand out...like Iris, a song which lyrics are written in a completely imaginary language. Go out, get this album and put your best headphones to listen to it while relaxing in your bed. Let Daby take you on a wonderful musical trip.

[World] Kia a So, Daby Toure
Free Song
http://realworldrecords.com/dabytoure/

Second entry from Daby Toure in this edition of Wonderful Songs, Kia a So is on par with the songs on the album save for the fact that it is a free download from Daby Toure's official website (see link above). Upon registration you can download it from the Audio/Video link on the navbar. And guess what? There are more free songs and videos on the website! Thanks, Daby!

[Smooth Jazz] Ooh la La, Jeff Lorber
From the album Flipside

This is one of this year's smash hits in the Smooth Jazz category. Jeff Lorber, a keyboard player that mixes R&B with Jazz improvisations along with bebop is a master in his craft. I own a few of his records and I enjoy them a lot. Ooh la La surprised me. I didn't expect something so good.

[New Age] Beams, Agatsuma
From the album Beams

Take a very old Japanese instrument, called Shamisen. Put it in the hands of a prodigy, a true genious who masters it. Add to this electro and you have Beams, the song. The album is very good in that it has it for all tastes: those who like electro, traditional Japanese music, groove ...etc. And the Shamisen as played by Agatsuma produces an extremely interesting sound. Here again, you better have some nice music gear to hear all the subtleties of this instrument.

[Spiritual] Diaphanes, Dhafer Youssef
From the album Digital Prophecy

Dhafer Youssef, a Tunisian Oud artist living in Europe, has created a mystical masterpiece. If you are into so-called "Zen" relaxing music, Diaphanes is definitely for you. It is instrumental only with electro sounds backing Oud but no overwhelming it.

[World] Adarghal (The Blind in Spirit), Abdelli
From the album New Moon

Last but not least, let me introduce you to Abdelli, an Algerian artist from the Kabylie region. He has released two albums of which New Moon is the first. Abdelli sings exclusively in his region's dialect. While I don't understand it, this song moves something deep into me. Maybe because he is using Arabic music instruments such as Derbouka? Anyways, he has a nice voice and the multiplicity of instruments goes nicely with it.

Announcing "Wonderful Songs"

saad@hush.com — 2005-08-09T17:11:00+02:00

This month, I am inaugurating a new kind of regular entry to my blog called Wonderful Songs.

I love music and I listen to different kinds of it as much as I can afford each day. For a lot of people, my guess is that is difficult to find good music among all that c*** forced into our ears by the mainstream media. I am amazed at how many "trashable" songs are marketed and broadcasted every day as opposed to quality-made ones.

The basic idea behind Wonderful Songs is to share with you some of the best music I came across lately on a monthly basis. As a monthly publication, I will write about ten of the best songs I listened to during the previous month and the artists behind them.

Most if not all of these songs are available on major online Music Stores such as iTunes Music Store. If you are running Windows or Mac OS X, I'd advise installing iTunes so you can listen to 30 seconds of each song before buying it from your favorite online Music Store or the CD from Amazon and the likes.

Of course, music is a matter of taste. So I will try to choose songs from as many different kinds as possible. This way, I stand a good chance at having you listen to at least one of them.

While I listen to many kinds of music, expect to see mainly the following in Wonderful Songs :

• World Music (African, Asian, French mainly)
• Smooth Jazz
• Soul, R'N'B
• Rock
• Vocal
• Reggae
• Folk

Stay tuned! Wonderful Songs, Aug'05, the very first edition is just about to be published.

First Aid ToolBox for Mac OS X Road Warriors

saad@hush.com — 2005-08-09T09:12:34+02:00

Panic!
Approximately two weeks ago, I had a very difficult time with my PowerBook powered by Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). Without getting into specifics that might annoy you at best, the OS crashed and as a result, I was not able to access some files and directories after rebooting. Everytime I tried to do operations on them, I was welcomed with errors such as BAD FILE DESCRIPTOR.

Restore that backup!
Hopefully, I am a rather savvy user who values his data. When I see fit, I back it up using Rsync to a remote Internet server. So all I had to do was to restore the last backup I did as soon as I have an Internet connection. Not so simple, Rsync failed miserably. It was welcomed by the same error messages.

Disk (In)Utility
I was on the road, my home directory which contained the problematic files and directories was protected by FileVault and the only thing I had besides my remote backups was Disk Utility. While the application detected many errors but was not able to repair them. Oh! Didn't I tell you that it takes some wristling to check a Filevault-protected home directory with Disk Utility?

Apple(No)Care That Much
OK, let's not worry much. I have an AppleCare Protection Plan and they gave me a CD with TechTool Deluxe from Micromat. The feature list of this software is impressive. It will sure help me out of this situation and restore my data.

I booted off the CD and it starts munching something for a looooong time. And then the TechTool control GUI finally appeared on the screen and to continue I had to click on a button. But the mouse cursor won't move. I retried not once but thrice to no avail!?!

Any Other Kid In Town?
After much searching, I found Alsoft's DiskWarrior. It was recommended by MacWorld and many users praized this software. At a 70+ USD price tag, it has to be. Anyways, it was midnight and I needed back those "lost" files badly.

I was very nicely surprised by the ease of use and efficiency of DiskWarrior. Not only, it fixed all the errors on my home directory (which is a sparse disk image encrypted in AES since it is FileVault-protected) but it restored all the missing and not accessible files and directories. It runs fast given that my home directory is approx 40 GB.

Lessons Learned: First Aid ToolBox
After reading lots of documentation about the subject, here is a list of essential items you need to have while on the road to recover from data loss.

Mac OS X Install DVD
This will allow you to run Disk Utility on your current disk and repair it. You can always use Disk Utility while your OS is booted (if you can do that) but you won't be able to use it to repair your running, locked, disk.

Alsoft's DiskWarrior CD
The software version I used won't be of much use to run on your current disk drive if this one is locked by the OS. The CD version is bootable.

A pocket-sized external USB2/FireWire hard drive
You can use it as backup for your important data or as a way to offload your disk before fixing it. If you are an AppleCare Protection Plan customer, you need to have your registration number and their phone number.

CD-R(W)s, DVD-/+R(W)s
and such for backup purposes.

The Spanish trio

saad@hush.com — 2005-02-07T09:03:44+01:00

A normal day
During summer '04, I was going back home as on any normal day after work. I live in Fresnes, in the southern suburbs of Paris and I work at Val De Fontenay, southeast of Paris. For commuting back and forth, I take public transportation (see below). It's an average 1h10min oneway ride taking the bus and two RERs.

Paris Paris
If you already visited Paris and took public transportation (the legendary Metro for example), you have certainly been surprised at the closed, smileless, gloomy faces of Paris inhabitants. People do not talk that much to each other (I call that the Big City Syndrom, but I haven't patented that word yet). And when they talk each other, they don't speak loud and keep their voice volume set to low.

A Spanish Attack, French hide!
Enter our Spanish trio. two women and a little girl. I'd say one of the women is the mother and the other one is the grandmother of the little girl. But since I only understand very few Spanish words, I can't say for sure. They took the bus shortly after I took it myself. Before they got in, it was your usual bus ride in Paris and suburbs. Almost complete silence of the humans. Closed, smileless faces. I was lost in some random thoughts about work and family feeling tired and thinking about how good the shower will be.

The Spanish Strategy
At the moment they entered the bus, even though I didn't see them immediately, I felt something is different. Someone was talking and talking loud! At first I thought they were arguing about something but looking at them, they seemed to have a normal chat about some normal situation. Oh my! I felt different. Like if they brought in some good energy with them. They were acting like they were in their house. I felt excited and joyful. Now that I think about it, it's like they took me with them back to my roots. Morrocco. Where strangers talk to each other (well at least 8 years ago) naturally and the voice volume is set to medium to high (ever heard a Morroccan speaking on the phone? They actually yell at the phone!).

Disruption
The Spanish trio changed the normal flow of life for a few minutes and you could sense it. Some people looked angry at those people speaking loud. They might be thinking something like :

Who are they? Who do they believe themselves are? Why they don't follow the local conventions? Please , why they don't stop that?

Personally, I found this experience enlightening. Imagine Paris without the Big City Syndrom (BCS) or full of Spanish (by the way, is Madrid victim to BCS?). It could make our days better. It could help us encounter amazing people, share ideas and so on. We won't need stupid stuff like Orkut and the likes of so-called online social networks.

Just three of these disruptive agents made me laugh and cheerful.

A note or two about public transportation

I take public transportation for two reasons. First, I don't have a driver license. I'm 30 years old and I feel uncomfortable driving cars. Second, it's better for the environment. Imagine how Paris will look without all those traffic jams? yes, better landscape, better air quality, less pollution related illnesses.