etc

A former colleague of mine, who was a citizen of GDR until the bitter end, once made a comment to me along the lines that "compared to the technology available now, the tools methods the Stasi had available to them were like children's toys", and every Stasi Museum is full of exhibits which might have been vaguely high-tech around 1972. Data processing revolved around index cards, and the one main-frame computer I have seen probably had about the same processing power as a modern-day digital camera.

Now, of course, we are living in the Age of Terror, and anyone is a potential terrorist (me! you! the little old lady across the landing!), and the Internet is an ideal place for sharing all those bomb-building plans and coordinating hijacking activities. So wouldn't it be a good idea if you could check up on people's computers (bona-fide suspects and anyone sharing the same surname initials only, of course) to see if they're up to no good (logging on to alqaeda.net, downloading burkha porn etc. etc.)? As you've seen from the movies, all it takes is a couple of hacker-type (good) guys to type frantically for about 2 minutes, and already they're logged on to the suspect's computer and have found the detailed 3d wire frame model of the bomb.

So, the computer boffins in the Federal Interior Ministery (proprietor: Wolfgang Schäuble) have come up with a couple of brillo wheezes. Like a law which would allow the BKA (Bundeskriminalamt, sort of like the FBI) to sneak into people's computers without having to get any of those tedious warrants etc. They've come up with a simple solution which will avoid them having to employ any hackers from Hollywood: just have the suspects download a "trojan horse" style program which will sneak itself into the inner workings of the computer and start collecting data right away. This has become jokingly known as the "Bundestrojaner" (Federal Trojan), as anyone who has any idea of computers is having a good laugh about it.

Firstly, they're going to have to find a program or variants thereof which will work on the wide range of operating systems available out there. One which will fly below the radar of all anti-virus software and the like, and which will be able to comb through the vast amount of data on modern hard drives without causing suspiscion ("what is this bkamonitor.exe process which is slowing my system down?")

Then they will have to get it to the bad guys. The current thinking is that they will send a fake official email with the program as an attachment, which the bad guy will unthinkingly click on, and already his every keypress will be winging its way to the BKA supercomputer.

Then there's the slight problem of the legal validity of any data collected by such methods, as there's no way to prove forensically that it hasn't been manipulated. And a whole load of issues such as what if the bad guys (or another nation's "good guys") work out how the software works and use it for their own nefarious purposes.

And finally there's another slight problem in that any terrorist with half-a-brain will store their bomb-making plans on a computer which isn't connected to the Internet, and excercise the same level of caution any normal person or business (not however German government departments) would use if they don't want their communications to be intercepted by the FBI or the Chinese government.

Some useful links on the general subject of data protection or the increasing lack of:
http://www.bundestrojaner.de/
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
http://www.dataloo.de/stasi-20-525.html
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/inhalt/stasi.html

So, after years of procrastinating we finally get round to buying a cordless telephone because the bleatings of the existing telephone are not always audible throughout all corners of the PenguinSphere, and cordless telephones have long since entered the realm of "pile'm high and sell'm cheap". We now have a model which claims it has an operational modus of 300 metres, which is further than the outer limits of the PenguinNet, so it must be good.

Except... nowhere to plug the damn thing in. OK, mains electricity is not the problem, another extension cord won't make any difference. No, it is the rat's nest of cabling which emanates from the telephone socket which is the problem. You see, PenguinHQ has been online since pre-DSL days, which means ISDN, which means between the actual Deutsche Telekom socket and half-way sane telecoms equipment there is an ISDN Thingy, a DSL Splitter Thingy (or possibly the other way round, I haven't dared look down there for years) and an Analogue Converter Box Thingy (because ISDN-compatible equipment never really took off). Alas, the analogue converter box thingy only has an 'a' socket and a 'b' socket, which are already occupied by the Normal Telephone and Answering Machine, and the Fax Machine respectively. A frantic search through the Big Box of Cables'n'Stuff brings to light various items of Telecoms Socketry, but none which would allow the addition of a Secondary Telephone to the Primary Telephone, unless the Secondary Telephone could be persuaded to pretend to be an Answering Machine, but won't, though it did come with an alternative socket adapter which fits into no other socket I possess.. (If however you are in urgent need of a USB -> PS/2 converter however, please let me know, I seem to have an insane number of them).

Being a Technical Person, it doesn't take me long to find out that the Fax Machine has a socket which will connect to the Cordless Phone, and actually works without further modification, animal sacrifice etc. etc.. However, being ISDN, the Fax Machine has its own number, and by extension any attached item of telecoms equipment, which is pretty pointless because anyone actually wanting to talk to an inhabitant of the PenguinSphere would call on one of the other two numbers which ISDN provides. Alas, it appears impossible to persuade the Analogue Converter Box Thingy to work together with the Fax Machine in such a way so that Real Person telephone calls get passed on to Cordless Telephone and Non-Cordless-Telephone without having the Fax Telephone ring at the same time, which would rather invalidate the point of the whole operation, and makes a Whole Lot of Bloody Noise to Boot.

Through consultation of the Interweb I have learnt that it may be possible to attach two F-Machines to the same TAE socket, which might solve the problem via a trip to a specialist equipment store. In the meantime I recommend carrier pigeons should you have anything of import that the PenguinSphere should know, because in completely unrelated news I'm about to migrate some of the Penguin Legacy Domains to a new server, and I'm thinking it might just be easier to give up on the whole darn thing and buy a sheep farm somewhere.

Update thanks to Conrad I have now acquired a TAE NFF / 1 x RJ11 ("Western") adapter plug (that's another 10 Euros I won't see again) and the whole caboodle is now working as planned (though I should probably make some sort of diagram should we ever have to move).

So, there I was wandering across the Alexanderplatz yesterday afternoon when I happened up upon a gathering of onlookers and a brass band all done up in their most Prussian finery. Experienced as I am with the ways of the Big City, I immediately deduced that some event of import was about to happen, and as a "with it" person I was unable to pass by without taking in the vibes.

Keen observation informed me that the happening-in-progress was the momentous opening of the new City Toilette - and how often do you get the chance to witness such an event? Particularly when the person cutting the ceremonial toilet paper is none other than Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit, resplendent in bright red tie and boyish grin. I stayed around long enough to enjoy a rendition of Berliner Luft, hear the praises sung of Wall AG (the company behind this and 160 other similar establishments sprinkled throughout Berlin) and to snap this exclusive photo of Mr. Wowereit descending into the bowels of the Alexanderplatz for an exclusive guided tour of the €750,000 subterranean structure.

No doubt it's a shining example of its sort, but at 50 cents a "go" (that's almost a whole D-Mark!) I'm glad of my iron bladder and extensive knowledge of more reasonable alternatives.

One for IsarSteve methinks: what looks to me like a very un-red, but distinctly London-style bus. (Or at least one from some left-hand drive country). No idea what it's doing in Berlin; possibly following the latest emigration trends. (Presumably the streets of London are now dominated by Polish buses).

In case you hadn't noticed, this weekend is Federal Government Open Day here in Berlin, i.e. a chance to go round various ministries and also Chez Merkel picking up freebies paid for by your tax Euros.

This year the Defence Ministry was at the top of the list. Now, I am a peaceable, bike-riding person with no particular interest in automobiles, but the display of heavy military equipment called out to some ingrained male gene and I was able to spend more time than Mrs. Penguin was happy about, poking around various heavy-duty toys, such as a Leopard 2 tank with a bulldozer attachment (apparently for Entirely Peaceful Purposes, according to the information panel, though I can imagine borrowing it to clear the pavement outside the Schönhauser Allee Arcaden of those "charity" stands staffed by young people who insist on appealing to my conscience via my bank account every time I go past, i.e. at least twice a day).

Anyway, once I'd got that out of my system, it was off to the Bundeswehr's language service department, where they were offering free Dari lessons, and I am not one to pass up on free language lessons, even if I've never heard of the language in question. It turned out to be one of the main languages spoken in Afghanistan (it appears there is no Afghanese language), and an enthusiastic Afghan teacher was there to give a 30 minutes introductory course with useful phrases such as "If you release me, the German Government will pay you handsomely and throw in a signed photo of Frank-Walter Steinmeier" and "please stand back while we raze this poppy field". Actually it didn't get that far, but I now know how to say "I am German" in Dari ("Man az alemani hasstam"), which could come in very useful in a hostage situation.

(For the language nerds: Dari is an Indo-European language, closely related to Farsi, and is written with one of those squiggly left-to-right systems of writing).

Well, the twice-a-week swimming plan has hit a small snag. It hasn't, like many good intentions, become a surfacing material for Hades-bound roads; but the ambitiously-named Europa Sportpark is closed during August for repairs. That means the only indoor pool which is open during the school holidays and is within reasonable commuting distance of Penguin HQ is the one in Ernst-Thälmann-Park. It's actually closer to Chez Penguin than the ESP, but memories from long long ago of it being in some way a little, hmm odd, have not hitherto encouraged me to go there. However, the penguin wings need training, so off I went.

It looks like - should I switch on my laptop, and the wireless thingy is running, picks up an open access point and connects automatically (as is its wont) - it would be grounds for the local bobby to come plodding along and arrest me for hacking.

Man arrested for stealing broadband

Good thing the bloke in the article wasn't sitting within sight of a primary school, otherwise he'd probably have got life for paedophilia or something. And if they'd found containers of liquid larger than 100ml on his person, no doubt he would have been put away somewhere very secret for a very long time.

Meanwhile, in presumably unrelated news, record numbers of people are leaving the UK.

From the Penguin Box of Random Photos: a building in Berlin. Where, or more precisely what is it?

Good news for residents of Prenzlauer Berg for whom closing times of 9 or 10pm are still too early - the Kaisers in the Schönhauser Allee near Milastraße (not the one in the Arcaden; it's about halfway between U-Bahn stations Eberswalder Straße and Schönhauser Allee) is open every day (except Sunday) from 8am until midnight.

If midnight is still too early for you, there's also a Reichelt somewhere useless like Wilmersdorf or Tempelhof which is experimenting with round-the-clock opening (I suppose you could say 24/6, due to the still-compulsory Sunday closing).

Anyone else remember the good old days when "late night shopping" meant until 8pm on Thursdays only? And on the first Saturday of the month, shops could open right through until 4pm, instead of 2pm?

If you've ever worked in IT, "never change a running system" is the number 1 mantra for saving unnecessary trouble. Unfortunately the kind of people who work in IT are the kind who like to tweak and twiddle. Such as myself. You see, recently I've been vaguely worried by a WLAN identifier in my apartment block which announces itself as "Finanzamt" (tax authority), and while I assume it's someone's idea of a joke, I thought I'd better check my own rickety setup to make sure it's not transmitting details of my many bank accounts on palm-infested islands in plain text to all and sundry, or offering free net access to drive-by pedophile surfers.

Everything seems to be AOK and hardened enough to keep Mr. Schäuble from sticking his nose where he shouldn't (note to self: must take the bomb-building instructions off the other website). While I was checking Mrs. Penguin's computer however, I noticed there was a system software update available, and being the efficient, helpful person I am, I installed it. After the compulsory reboot - tada, the wireless access failed to connect to anything. Turned out it was still working, but only after replugging the USB thingy and manually entering the connection data - after every reboot - and I had absolutely no recollection of how I'd installed the damn thing in the first place (apart from the fact that some slight trickery was needed). Grrr. Fortunately Mrs. Penguin was out, and after a while it occured to me I could try reinstalling the driver, and thank all the relevant deities, it worked again.

So, there I was with a laptop in hand and a few minutes to spare, and I thought it might be fun to see just how far the PenguinNet extends into the surrounding ether. 2.5 stories down is the answer, which is about what I expected. What did surprise me though is just how many other networks I was picking up - apart from the 'F' one, there must be two dozen available from the respective fringes of Chez Penguin, and holding the laptop out on the balcony, I was surprised to see a network (abeit quite faint) evidently belonging to the shop on the other side of the (quite wide) street, five stories down.

Anyway, no particular point to this, just a mild expression of my wonderment at about just how much stuff is floating through the airwaves.