About Me

PBX I'm Paul Bissex, and e-scribe.com is my consulting business. I build web applications using open source software, especially Django. In the '90s I did graphic design for newspapers and magazines. Then I wrote technology commentary and reviews for Wired, Salon.com, Chicago Tribune, and lots of little places you've never heard of. Feel free to email me.

Book

I'm co-author of "Python Web Development with Django", an excellent guide to my favorite web framework. Published by Addison-Wesley, it is available from Amazon and your favorite technical bookstore as well.

Colophon

Built using Django, served by Apache and mod_wsgi. The database is SQLite. The operating system is FreeBSD, on a VPS hosted at Johncompanies.com. Comment-spam protection by Akismet. Vintage topo imagery from the Maptech archive. The markup engine is Markdown.

Pile o'Tags

Stuff I Use

Akismet, bitbucket, del.icio.us, Django, Emacs, FreeBSD, Git, jQuery, LaunchBar, Markdown, Mercurial, OS X, Postfix, Python, Review Board, S3, SQLite, TextMate, Ubuntu Linux

Spam Report

At least 95846 pieces of comment spam killed since January 2008, mostly via Akismet.

Sony DRM news roundup

BoingBoing.net has an excellent Sony rootkit roundup, part II that is really worth reviewing if you're interested in this case. Here are the opening lines:

Cory Doctorow: It's been three days since the first roundup post on Sony's rootkit DRM and lots of new stuff has come to light since. Below is a timeline of posts since then, but first, here's the Sony debacle news that came in while I slept:

Immunize Yourself Against Sony's Dangerous Uninstaller: Princeton DRM researchers Ed Felten and Alex Halderman explain how to miitgate the security vulnerabilities left behind by Sony's incompetent "uninstaller" program.

List of infected CDs: Sony finally lists the 52 titles infected with the XCP rootkit. Note that Sony initially claimed that fewer than half that number were infected. (_Thanks, Kurt!_)

US-CERT: Never Install Audio-CD DRM Software. The Department of Homeland Security's Computer Emergency Readiness Team advises that you never install CD DRM: "Do not install software from sources that you do not expect to contain software, such as an audio CD." (_Thanks, Kurt!_)

Now, all the news that's come in since the initial roundup post on Nov 14: Nov 14: Sony anti-customer technology roundup and time-line Roundup of Sony's misdeeds to Nov 14.