Thomas Gericke

Hallo zusammen!

Ich halte mein Blog normalerweise weitestgehend Englisch, jedoch möchte ich heute einen rein deutschen Artikel veröffentlichen, denn er richtet sich in erster Linie an das deutsche Publikum.

Seit Wochen ist das Thema “Internetzensur gegen Kinderpornographie” in vieler Leute Munde. Das Thema geistert durch zahlreiche Blogs, hat bereits mehrfach seinen Weg in den Heise-Newsticker geschafft und wurde auch vom Chaos Computer Club aufgegriffen. Frau von der Leyen hat es sich sogar nicht nehmen lassen, zu Vorwürfen in Online-Blogs persönlich Stellung zu nehmen.

Heutiger Heise-Online-Artikel, welcher wertfrei behauptet, 92 Prozent der deutschen Bürger seien für die Internetsperren gegen Kinderpornographie, bringt mich dazu, das Thema nochmals persönlich und diesmal in Form einer Umfrage aufzugreifen.

Ich beginne mit folgender, recht einfach klingender Frage:

{democracy:31}

Das Grundgesetz der Bundesrepublik Deutschland legt fest, dass in Deutschland Presse- und Meinungsfreiheit herrscht und dass insbesondere keine Zensur stattfindet. Das ist auch gut so! In z. B. kommunistisch orientierten Staaten wie China oder auch russischen Nationen werden Informationen häufig unterdrückt, um das eigene Land besonders von westlichen Einflüssen frei zu halten. Erinnern wir uns an die Tibet-Problematik während der vergangenen Olympischen Spiele auf dem asiatischen Kontinent. Daher folgende Frage:

{democracy:41}

Ich persönlich halte eine wert- und zensurfreie Presse für ausgesprochen wichtig. Ebenso wichtig erscheint mir, unsere Gesellschaft vor Kriminalität (und insb. auch vor Kinderpornographie und damit dem Missbrauch von Kindern) zu schützen. Ich denke, in diesem Punkt sind wir uns alle einig. Aber ist die Sperrung von fragwürdigen Internetseiten der richtige Weg?

Schauen wir uns mal kurz an, was unsere Regierung (bzw. das Ministerium von Frau von der Leyen) zum Thema “wie kommt eine Internetseite auf die schwarze Liste?” hat verlauten lassen: nicht viel. Eigentlich ist so gut wie gar nichts darüber bekannt. Es wurden weder Einzelheiten bzgl. der Überprüfung von den Sperrlisten noch über deren Beurteilung bekanntgegeben. Unterliegt die Entscheidung ggf. der Willkür von Einzelpersonen ohne Rücksprache mit Webseitenbetreibern? Eine der wohl besten Kurzzusammenfassung findet sich bei Wikipedia. Darunter z. B.:

Der Gesetzentwurf beinhaltet zudem einen Eingriff in vier Grundrechte:

1. Fernmeldegeheimnis
2. Recht auf informationelle Selbstbestimmung
3. Informationsfreiheit
4. Berufsfreiheit (des Providers)

Die Internetanbieter sollen laut dem Gesetz verpflichtet werden, die vom Bundeskriminalamt erstellten Sperrlisten geheim zu halten. Entsprechend einer nachträglichen Änderung des Gesetzentwurfs unter Justizministerin Brigitte Zypries sollen Zugriffsversuche auf diese Seiten auch zeitgleich protokolliert und zu Strafverfolgungszwecken genutzt werden können.

Stellen wir uns vor, wir betreiben eine Webseite mit einem Forum, einem Blog, einem Gästebuch oder einem ähnlichen interaktiven Dienst. Trotz sorgfältiger Spam-Schutz-Massnahmen können wir nicht unterbinden, dass dort jemand (ggf. versteckte oder verschlüsselte) Informationen hinterlässt, die im schlimmsten Fall sogar einen Link zu einer Website mit kinderpornographischem Inhalt enthalten können.

Sind wir davor geschützt, dass Bundesbehörden unsere eventuell gewinnbringende Webseite sperren und sogar ein Strafverfahren gegen uns einleiten? Darüber ist bislang nichts bekannt. In anderen Ländern, die auch bereits mit ähnlichen Mechanismen herumexperimentiert haben, sind bereits mehrfach “normale” Internetseiten gesperrt worden.

{democracy:61}

Wie schaut es mit uns als Internetnutzer aus? Bin ich eigentlich jederzeit und 100%ig davor sicher, auf einer Website mit “schlimmem” Inhalt zu landen? In Zeiten von URL-Verkürzungsdiensten, von versteckten Popups und von im Hintergrund geladenen Inhalten können wir oft gar nicht mehr sicherstellen, woher die Informationen kommen, die unser Browser darstellt. Gefällt uns der Inhalt nicht, so klicken wir ihn in der Regel weg. Aber was, wenn es dann bereits zu spät ist? Wenn uns jemand einen Link geschickt hat, dessen Zieladresse sich auf den berüchtigten Sperrlisten befindet?

Inzwischen ist entgegen ersten Aussagen doch bekannt geworden, dass Zugriffe auf gesperrte Webseiten zentral gespeichert, ausgewertet und strafrechtlich verfolgt werden. Heute geklickt, morgen steht die Polizei mehr oder weniger freundlich vor unserer Tür, durchsucht unsere harmlose Wohnung und beschlagnahmt kurzerhand – abgesichert durch Frau von der Leyens Gesetzentwurf – unsere Computertechnik. Wie finden wir das?

{democracy:51}

Und es gibt noch zahlreiche weitere Missverständnisse und Lücken in dem Gesetzentwurf zur Sperrung von Internetseiten gegen Kinderpornographie. Technisch funktioniert das Ganze so, dass die Aufrufe der fraglichen Webseiten auf Provider-Ebene durch die Beantwortung von DNS-Anfragen (Anm.: DNS ist quasi das “Telefonbuch” für das Internet, (fast) jeder Webseitenaufruf sucht einmal in diesem Internet-Telefonbuch) umgeleitet werden sollen.

Dies stellt eindeutig eine Zensur dar, denn ohne unser Wissen werden uns nicht die Informationen präsentiert, die wir angefordert haben. Und darüber hinaus ist diese technische Massnahme eher lachhaft denn wirkungsvoll, da die Sperren für technisch versierte Nutzer mit Leichtigkeit umgangen werden können und selbst technisch weniger erfahrene Nutzer diese Sperren dank etlicher Anleitungen ebenfalls aushebeln können.

{democracy:71}

An dieser Stelle komme ich noch einmal auf die Eingangsfrage zurück und bin gespannt, ob meine Darlegungen dem einen oder anderen Besucher die Augen geöffnet haben und er die Frage nach dem Sinn von Internetsperren bzw. nach deren Wirkung nun anders beantwortet:

{democracy:81}

Vielen Dank für die Teilnahme!

Meine abschliessende und persönliche Meinung: Kinderpornographie ist ebenso verabscheuungswürdig wie jede andere Art von Kindesmissbrauch. Die Sperrung von Webseiten nach dem Vorhaben von Frau von der Leyen löst das Problem allerdings keinesfalls. Es handelt sich lediglich um ein sehr pressetaugliches Wahlkampfthema.

Guten Abend!

Hi there!

Do you have a cat? No? Yes? Well, I do have a cat and I could tell lots of stories. But this ain’t the point of today’s posting. I just like to share some YouTube videos with you. My dear introduces me into “Simon, the cat” and I can tell, those comic style short vids are so damn realistic!

I laughed like hell, as I watched them the very first time. If  you do have a cat or if you are  experienced at least, I bet you will like them! If you neither have a cat nor are experienced, just give those vids a try and believe me: this is so damn true! 🙂

The very first one: Cat in bed. This is my daily morning. Totally true!

[youtube]w0ffwDYo00Q[/youtube]

The next one: Cat on couch while watching TV. Believe me, every cat exactly behaves like this!

[youtube]s13dLaTIHSg[/youtube]

And finally the last one: Cat wants to get inside. My cat isn’t allowed to go outside, but I bet this behavior is very authentic!

[youtube]4rb8aOzy9t4[/youtube]

I hope you enjoyed! 🙂

Bye, T.

Hi there!

 

Do you use facebook and facebook’s chat function once in a while? Yes? And do you know Digsby? No? Not yet?! Well, you should!

I used to use Trillian as Instant Messaging client like for years, but last autumn, I switched to Digsby: http://www.digsby.org/.

It’s a high performant IM client with lots of features and (that’s what I like most about Digsby!) some great Web 2.0 implementations.

I guess, some of you might use facebook’s chat function. So did I but I did not like it that much. It totally wrecked my nerves to use my webbrowser for a chat. You may know the tiny little conversation windows as it appears on the very bottom of your browser tab. And that’s (at least for me) the first problem: conversations are bound to exactly this browser and this tab.

If I open facebook’s website at work and forget to close the browser or the tab before I leave for home, I appear as online to all my friends, they write me and wonder, why I don’t reply – even if I’m online at home, but did not check into facebook’s website.

It might be a great function – but I really don’t like it. I’m used to certain applications for instant messaging. Such as Digsby.

Digsby has even more than a full Web 2.0 integration – you may use this IM client as a fully compatible and realtime instant messanger for facebook. Simply check “Tools” in the applications menu, then “Preferences”, then hit “Add IM Account” and select “Facebook Chat”.

Once you entered your correct account data, your online facebook friends will appear in Digsby’s Buddy List – right between your Buddies from ICQ, MSN, Jabber, …

And this really is realtime. I noticed no lag so far. The sign-on and sign-off popups even show your friends most recent status, which turned out to be very usefull for me. This is how I noticed, one of my facebook friends had a BBQ yesterday, so I could join 🙂

Once you double click one of your friends in your Buddy List, a conversation window opens – just like every IM client should behave.

You may also use the shortcuts to your friend’s profile, wall, photos and so on. Check out the following screenshots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For me, this is a very useful IM integration. Check it out! 🙂

Bye, T.

Hi there!

I have to thank you! All of you, using unfake.it as URL shortening service!

It’s been 100 days, since I faked the first URL with unfake.it – my very own URL shortening service. I started this project, ’cause I always forgot the names of all the other URL shortening providers, so I very quickly wrote my own application, which now is used every day by lots of users.

What began for my personal use only, has now become a huge and important project. A few days after the initial launch – and even without heavy announcement, the first people started using unfake.it to shorten URLs. Using the bookmarklet, some friends and co-workers started using unfake.it and spreading the URL all over the world.

Then, I implemented an API and wrote a standalone WordPress plugin to shorten URLs for new blog postings before sending them to Twitter. Since March, this plugin is downloaded and installed on new WordPress blogs almost every day a couple of times, which really makes me proud. Today, several co-workers as well as absolutely unknown users all over the globe are using my plugin. And there’s an huge number of hits per day:

Then, I implemented the magic preview function with thumbnailed images of the destination websites. Then I wrote a facebook application to add faked URLs and their thumbnails to your facebook profile. Those are just toy-like features, but I relly like them – as well as lots of users.

Some facts of what has happened so far (or is happening):

• more than 3.000 URLs have been faked up to now
• there are more than 42.000 hits to those URLs up to now
• the last 3 days, more than 100 new URLs have been added per day
• URLs for more than 130 unique websites have been faked up to now
• the WordPress plugin has been downloaded and most likely installed more than 80 times
• Twitter knows more than 850 faked URLs of the last 7 days
• Google knows more than 20 pages of faked URLs
• unfake.it is growing every day

I’m really looking forward to unfake.it‘s future. Sure, there is an increasing number of shortening services, but I guess, some of ’em will disappear again.

Bye, T.

Hi there!

After years of mostly indoor activities, I’m glad to now know new peole, who prefer the opposite: outdoor activities. There’s this very special woman who reminds me of what life’s really about. And she does it very patiently. After she told me a lot about it, we planned to go geocaching today.

Geocaching is some kind of modern paper chase. On http://www.geocaching.com/, you will find tons of caches (so-called for treasure) in your area. In every case, you’ll get GPS coordinates which will lead you to the cache or (in case of multi-caches or puzzles) to the starting point. Normally, you need to have an appropriate GPS device to get to those coordinates, but you may also enter latitude and longitude into some map-service and simply get a map of the destination.

Now, you have to go to this certain destination and search for the cache. It may be a small capsule, a tiny box or a larger container – depends on the type of cache. Usually, the cache is hidden, so you’ll have to look carefully. It may be in a tree, under a bridge, behind a fence, and so on. If you don’t find it, there’re hints for every cache on the website.

There always is a logbook in the box and sometimes a “treasure”. You may log into the logbook to verify, you’ve really been there – so take a pen with you. But please, but the cache back to exactly the place where you found it.

Since I have an iPhone 3G (with GPS), I downloaded the Groundspeak’s Geocaching iPhons Application for 7.99 € – totally great stuff and worth the money! See some screenshots below:

#gallery-1 { margin: auto; } #gallery-1 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } #gallery-1 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-1 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

You may search for caches near you or at a certain place. The map or a compass will guide you to the designated coordinates. And it’s absolutely accurate! This is how we hunted and found 2 caches today.

Geocaching totally is fun and I can truely recommend it! 🙂

I will totally do it again.

T.

• Hi there!

For several weeks now, there’s an incredible story going all over German web pages and blogs. I’ve read a lot about this and I gotta state my 2 cent today.

In Germany, we have the “Basic Constitutional Law” (“Grundgesetz”) which says (translated on my own): “Everyone has the right to express and publish his opinion in the word of mouth, in writing and in any illustrating way and to teach himself in an unresisted way from every generally accessible source. The freedom of press and the freedom of reporting by radio and television are guaranteed. A censorship does not take place.“

(Original, German text goes like this: “Jeder hat das Recht, seine Meinung in Wort, Schrift und Bild frei zu äußern und zu verbreiten und sich aus allgemein zugänglichen Quellen ungehindert zu unterrichten. Die Pressefreiheit und die Freiheit der Berichterstattung durch Rundfunk und Film werden gewährleistet. Eine Zensur findet nicht statt.“)

The most important part is: A censorship does not take place!

Most recently, this is a lie! Why?

Mrs. Ursula von der Leyen (Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth) fought a long and (in my opinion) unrespectful fight to fulfill someones dream: control and censor internet usage in Germany. The main reason was and is to prevent child pornography, which is a great and heroic goal. But the technical ways, this is supposed to be done, it quite ridiculous.

• A list of website, which are likely to host child pornography, is provided by German authorities.
• German internet providers must filter internet traffic (most likely: DNS requests)
• Requests for an address on the list will be redirected to a “stop page”
• German authorities will be informed about this request (including client IP address) automatically
• Things may happen

You may now think: “okay, no more child pronography – what’s the problem?”.

The main problems (in my opinion) are:

1. Since the list does contain confidential information, it cannot be published and so cannot be controlled
2. There surely will be ways to avoid the usage of filtering DNS server
3. If you tried to display a web page, whichs address is on the list, German authorities will be informed and it’s not unlikely, they will knock at your door hours later

Imagine you click a link like http://sho.rt/URL which takes you to an address being on the list. Well, there might be a knock at your door the next morning – good luck!

Interesting links concerning this topic:

• Heise.de article (German)
• Stopp-Page (German)
• zensursula.net (German)

Since Germany states in its constitution that there won’t be a censorship in any way, this development is totally shocking. Mrs. von der Leyen, if you wanna stop child pornography, this is totally okay. But you doing it the wrong way.

At least (open question): are you sure, there is a way?

T.

Hi there!

This totally makes me sick. About a week ago, I renewed my contract with t-mobile and got an upgrade from my old iPhone to a new 3G iPhone with 16GB memory. Well, nice, nice.

I was told, the “old” contract would be cancelled within the next few days and the new contract would begin right after the other one stopped. But the new phone would work instantly with the old card. Well, and it did. Everything worked quite fine.

Just until last Sunday, 2009-04-12. On Sunday, my iPhone told me for the very first time: “Could not active cellular data network“. Well, at first I thought there might be just a coverage problem. Then I remembered, the contract needed to be switched and maybe there would be a short service outage.

Then I forgot about the problem for a while. Until today. I tried data networking and it didn’t work. So I called the service this evening.

There’s one number burned in the very back of my brain. It’s the T-Com service hotline:

+49 800 33 0 1000

I called this number and all the fun began. This hotline is voice-guided, which always makes me very, very happy. You can shout from the deepest point of your lungs to this conversation partner and she will never ever be mad about it.

She asked me, what my call was about. I said: “INCIDENT!”

She did not understand.

I shouted: “OPERATOR!”.

Well, she agreed to connect me with an operator but she first needed my phone number. After I told her my number, she said: “This is a cell phone number. I need a land line number.”

Just as I was about to destroy everything I could reach with my free arm, she said: “If you don’t have any number, just say ‘next’.”

“Hell, next. Neeeext! N – E – X – T !!!”

“Please be patient, the next operator is reserved for you”, she said and I smiled. Nice, nice. BUT: after 16 (sixteen!) minutes, a male voice said: “All operators are busy. Please call again later.” *Click*

What the hell?! Okay, okay. I remained totally calm (will clean up the broken dishes later… [just kiddin’]) and called the same number again. “Incident. *ARGH* OPERATOR! NEXT!” And I got connected to a women within less than one minute.

I told her about my problem and after she listened about 2 minutes to my hole story, she said: “You have to call T-Mobile, there’s the number 01805 …”

“Stop!” I said. “I definitely WILL NOT call a service number which is NOT toll-free.”

I could see her shocking face on my iPhone as she searched on her computer and finally found another number, which I immediately called:

+49 800 88 55 400

Funny thing: the man who answered was responsible for DSL and leased lines and had absolutely no idea about cellular networking. But he agreed to pass me on… to his manager or whatever. And this funny person told me to call the toll-free cell phone service number:

2202

Well, I called this number. Three times in 5 minutes!

The first guy told me to active the Airplane Mode. As I told him “but this will interrupt our call”, he said: “no, no, we will stay connected, I know this for sure!” Oh my God, what a freak. As I tapped the “Airplane Mode” button, my iPhone said — guess what — “this will interrupt your current call”. Well, ehm… eh?

He then told me to quit the call and to this Airplane-Mode thing. Cellular data networking should work after that. I tried and — surprise! — it dit NOT work!

I called the same number again, told the hole story to another guy and just as I was about to ask what to do now, the connection was terminated. What the hell?!

So, I called the same number again a third time and told the story again. It was someone with a foreign accent, but he was totally okay. He asked me to stay connected, he would talk to an iPhone expert. After about 5 minutes, he came back and asked if I ever tried to turn the device off and on again. OMG! Sure I tried it several times. He again talked to the iPhone expert. As he came back to me, he had no further idea.

His suggestion was to call back tomorrow at 8am to get directly connected to an iPhone technician. I agreed to that.

But I could not believe, this problem to be that unique. So, I googled for “could not activate cellular data network” and the very first link was. http://unfake.it/c4l

One guy posted, he simply reset his networking settings (Settings -> General -> Reset -> Reset Network Settings). So, I tried this. And — TADA! — it works perfectly again.

My conclusion: T-Mobile should use Google as knowledge-base.

Hi there!

Yesterday, I posted on my Twitter account:

“Have you ever won the jackpot without even playing the lottery?“

Some of you asked me, what this posting was about or what I wanted to tell you. Well, let me try to explain it. But be careful, this is some kind of metaphor!

For years and years, I used to play the lottery. Regularly, I invested and assumed to receive my return of invest very soon. I paid (let’s say…) X and once in a while, I received X-1 (minus one) in return. But, well, if you get at least something (even less than you invested) back, you usually keep on playing. You keep on playing and investing and assuming and somehow hoping. You swear (to yourself): “the pay-off-moment will come”. But it does not!

Over the years, playing the lottery becomes some kind of habit. You just do it, even though you don’t know anymore, what exactly you are doing. And especially you don’t know the reason anymore. You try to quit playing but you start over again, because over the time, you invested that much and it shouldn’t be worthless. You promise to yourself: “one more time, only one more time”.

And this is the point: you expect the unexpected (e. g. winning the jackpot). If you act like this, maybe some little nice things may occur, but usually, the unexpected won’t happen (at least not to you). After I quit playing the lottery, I still expected to get my return of invest, because I somehow deserved it. The point (and problem) was: I still expected! This is a no-go!

And quite immediately after I stopped expecting anything, I won the jackpot without even playing the lottery.

Of course, there’s no guarantee to win without playing, but it’s more likely. And so, this is my conclusion:

• You play – you lose
• You expect the unexpected – you lose
• You don’t play and don’t expect – you might win

And for those of you, who still believe, this is about money and gambling: it is not!

T.

Hi there!

English // German

I have the very first iPhone, bought on 2007-11-09 in an T-Com store. Now, the display ain’t working correctly anymore. // Ich habe das allererste iPhone, gekauft am 2007-11-09 in einem T-Com Laden. Jetzt funktioniert das Display nicht mehr korrekt.

The device did not fell down, I did not hit it anywhere. I just put it in my pocket at work and as I got home, the lower centimeter of the display ain’t working anymore. // Das Gerät ist nicht herunter gefallen, ich habe es auch nirgendwo angehauen. Ich habe es auf der Arbeit in meine Tasche gesteckt und als ich heim kam, funktionierte der untere Zentimeter des Display nicht mehr richtig.

This unfortunately includes the buttons “Phone”, “Mail”, “Safari”, “iPod” and – of course – the lower buttons in each application. The 90% of the display do work absolutely correct. // Dazu gehören leider auch die Buttons “Phone”, “Mail”, “Safari”, “iPod” und – natürlich – auch die unteren Buttons aller Anwendungen. Die oberen 90% des Display funktionieren einwandfrei.

I know, my iPhone ran out of warranty, but it’s very obviously a well known hardware failure, which occurs quite often. // Ich weiss, dass mein iPhone bereits aus der Garantie gelaufen ist, allerdings ist das sehr offensichtlich ein Hardware-Fehler, welcher durchaus recht oft auftritt.

I found several websites and forums about that: // Ich habe darüber einige Webseiten und Foren gefunden:

• http://unfake.it/GzR (german forum // deutsches Forum)
• http://unfake.it/VVL (german forum // deutsches Forum)
• http://unfake.it/Q4E (english website // englische Webseite)
• http://unfake.it/0S3 (english website // englische Webseite)

The last one is probably the most important and interesting one. Quotation: // Der letzte Link ist wahrscheinlich der wichtigsten und interessanteste Link. Zitat:

“First the very bottom of the screen went out so I could not hit the space-bar on the keyboard, or change to the number/character screen. Then it got worse a few days later, now I cannot hit any of the main function buttons.”

This is proof enough for me. It must be a hardware failure and must have its origin in the fabrication. // Das ist Beweis genug für mich. Es muss sich um einen Hardware-Fehler handeln und dieser muss seinen Ursprung bereits in der Herstellung haben.

Now, I will print out those websites and I will confront T-Com in a store with those fact the next few days. I simply don’t want to pay for a new display, ’cause it’s really expensive. // Nun werde ich diese Webseiten ausdrucken und die Telekom in einem Laden mit den Fakten konfrontieren. Ich möchte einfach nicht für ein neues Display bezahlen, da das wirklich ziemlich teuer ist.

Does anyone have some more tips? // Hat noch jemand gute Tipps?

T.

Hi there!

Yesterday, I was invited to a laymen theatre play in Nuremberg, which was completely written and performed by some good friend of mine. Yet unknown artists, a story never seen before, but definitely worth viewing:

Eine(r) stirbt immer http://www.ensemble2.de/

The story goes as easy like this:

Three chapters, three women, three men, three couples, three relationships, three stories, each resulting in one death. It is about cliche between men and women, about prejudices, sex and misunderstandings.

If you dunno what to do on a Saturday evening the next few weeks, I can only recommend, giving this a try.

Bye, T.