"205/365" by _rockinfree on Flickr (CC-BY)

On July 30th, a rather curious posting was made on United TI, a forum devoted to discussing Texas Instruments graphing calculators. The post, made by Benjamin Moody — known as “FloppusMaximus” on the site — gave the factors of a very large number. It was quickly deduced to be the RSA modulus of a key — particularly, one needed to sign the OS on a TI calculator — which Moody confirmed:

This one is for the TI-83+.

The TI-83+, like all modern TI calculators, has its OS cryptographically signed by TI for validation purposes; if someone tries to upload an unsigned OS — like, say, an open-source OS — into the calculator, it is rejected. Thus, the discovery of the signing key is a major breakthrough, which ticalc.org, a popular TI calculator site, makes clear:

With this achievement, any operating system can be cryptographically signed in a manner identical to that of the original TI-OS. Third party operating systems can thus be loaded on any 83+ calculators without the use of any extra software…Complete programming freedom has finally been achieved on the TI-83 Plus!

A few days ago, however, the original post was removed and replaced with this:

Dear community,

I have been politely asked to remove the former contents of this post.

No further explanation was given by Moody as to who asked him to remove the key or why it had to be removed. However, Brandon Wilson, a developer who reposted the key on his website, explained:

Ben was hit by TI with a DMCA notice as was I. We of course must comply with whatever is specifically requested, but you can’t stop a group of people from factoring large integers. I will not be silenced.

Wilson has posted the DMCA notice and his reply on his website. Meanwhile, a distributed computing project has been set up to use Moody’s brute-force methods to obtain the keys for all other TI calculators.

It seems pretty clear to me that TI is abusing the DMCA to maintain a stranglehold on their hardware. The key in question does not encrypt the OS, so it’s unclear how the key counts as a device to circumvent access controls on copyrighted works. You don’t need it to obtain a copy of the OS, as copies of the latest OS are freely downloadable on TI’s website. The only thing the keys are useful for is to be able to upload another OS onto the calculator such that it can be installed. One poster on the United TI forum drew parallels between this situation and the situation with iTunesDB, and I think that’s a valid point to make.

TI is not trying to protect their copyright, but merely trying to protect their lockdown on their hardware. If TI is really interested in promoting the education of young people, they should stop trying to harrass others whose only crime was to explore what they could do with the hardware they legally purchased.

• “Fun Number Theory Facts” thread on United TI Forums
• “TI-83 Plus OS Signing Key Cracked” — ticalc.org
• Brandon Wilson’s website containing the DMCA notices

Chrome logo - Credit: http://google.com/chrome

Google has announced that they plan on releasing their own operating system, called Chrome OS.  They claim that it will be “Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.”

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Google Chrome OS will run on both x86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year. The software architecture is simple — Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform. All web-based applications will automatically work and new applications can be written using your favorite web technologies. And of course, these apps will run not only on Google Chrome OS, but on any standards-based browser on Windows, Mac and Linux thereby giving developers the largest user base of any platform.

It really doesn’t make any sense that it’s Chrome on top of Linux.  Can it really live with no GNU utilities?  Honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about this.  I suppose it’s a good thing because Google has the muscle to really compete with Apple and MS.  I’m imagining another Xandros.  Any other thoughts?

• Google Blog
• Ars Technica

Triangle - Credit: Irene2005 on Flickr (CC BY)

Linux 2.6.30, has been released.

After eight release candidates and a rather short development cycle, Linus Torvalds has released Linux version 2.6.30, dubbed “Man-Eating Seals of Antiquity”. As with its predecessors on the main development line of Linux, it introduces a host of innovations.

The majority of the code changes in this release focus on data storage. Some of the changes, for example, improve the data security of the still evolving Ext4 file system at the expense of performance – sharp-sighted critics may remark, however, that changes to the Ext3 code in 2.6.30 may produce the opposite result if users aren’t careful when configuring the kernel.

Version 2.6.30 of the Linux kernel now supports two additional file systems and offers more flexibility for reconfiguring software RAIDs. Some of the changes to the crypto code aim at increasing the data throughput in encrypted storage media. Kernel image and initramfs can now be compressed with Bzip2 or LZMA and require less storage space. After two only moderately successful attempts to increase the kernel’s start up speed, by simultaneously initialising various subsystems, this feature has finally been given the go ahead.

Sorry I haven’t posted in ages. I have a job now, so keeping up with this is going to be a little more difficult. Thanks to matt for keep up with some of the slack. If you’d like to help out, please email me!

• H Online

Fedora 11 GNOME Desktop. Source: Renegadeviking on Wikipedia. Public Domain.

The Fedora Project has released the latest version of Fedora, version 11 (Leonidas).

Fedora’s hallmarks are technical excellence and innovation. Fedora 11 is packed with tons of new features across the spectrum from casual desktop user to hardcore hacker. Additionally, Fedora 11 offers a very good technical preview of features that may appear in the upcoming version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Fedora 11 showcases a new default filesystem in ext4, a 20 second startup, and the latest GNOME, KDE and XFCE releases. Firefox 3.5 and Thunderbird 3 latest pre-releases are available as well. Fedora 11 features Presto, a yum plugin that reduces bandwidth consumption drastically by downloading only binary differences between updates. It also features Openchange for interoperability with Microsoft Exchange. There are new security enhancements, improved and upgraded development tools, and cutting edge features in areas such as virtualization.

The yum plugin (Presto) sounds like a great idea, especially for very large packages and for dial-up users. I hope this idea shows up in other package managers.

• Fedora 11 Tour
• Release Notes (US English)

Gnus in Ngorongoro - Credit: appenz on Flickr (CC BY)

According to Market Share, GNU/Linux has reached 1% usage share.

The April data is out for the Net Applications ‘market share’ survey of operating systems (more accurately referred to as a usage share). For the first time, Linux has reached 1%. This past month the Linux share increased by 0.12% which is well above the average monthly increase of 0.02%. Historically, the Net Applications estimate of market share has been lower than that of other organizations who measure this, but the abnormally large increase reported this month brings it closer to the median estimate of 1.11%. For other operating systems, Windows XP continued its slow decline by 0.64% to 62.21%, whereas Vista use is still increasing to 23.90%, but its rate of adoption is slowing. That is, this month’s increase of 0.48% is well below the 12-month average increase of 0.78% and down from the peak rate of increase of 1.00% per month on average in January-February 2008. The total Windows share dropped to 87.90%. Mac OS use decreased slightly to 9.73% from 9.77%, but usage share of the iPhone and iPod Touch combined increased by 0.1%.

Let’s have a party.  Maybe by 2020 we’ll reach 2%.

• Slashdot
• Market Share

Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope Wallpaper - Credit: flakeparadigm on Flickr (CC BY-SA)

Ubuntu 9.04, Jaunty Jackalope, has been released.

The latest release of Ubuntu brings the best open source technologies together on one platform, with the benefit of free updates for 18 months. Constant improvements, feature additions and extended machine and network support explain why Ubuntu wins more converts with every release. This tour will help you discover, like millions of users worldwide, why Ubuntu Desktop Edition 9.04 is the desktop operating system for you.

Nothing new here.

• Ubuntu

Microsoft presentation to investors. Source: Microsoft

OSNews reports that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave a presentation in which he suggested that either he or the company considers GNU+Linux to be a bigger threat than Mac OS X.

[Microsoft] sees piracy as its biggest competitor. “Number two market share goes to Windows pirated, or unlicensed,” Balmer [sic] said, “That’s a competitor that’s tough to beat, they’ve got a good price and a heck of a product, but we’re working on it.” This isn’t exactly new information, but it’s interesting to see it spelled out so clearly.

Much more interesting is Microsoft’s idea of Linux and Apple, According to Microsoft, Linux is a bigger threat to the company than Apple, placing Linux above Apple in the marketshare figure pie chart thing. “Linux, you could see on the slide, and Apple has certainly increased its share somewhat,” Ballmer said.

I have long said that, Apple’s marketing aside, Apple no longer competes with Microsoft in Microsoft’s core markets, at least not in such a way as to endanger Microsoft. Microsoft Office is (sadly) a very popular package on the Mac, even more than Apple’s iWork. And the Intel switch means that a number of Mac users are buying copies of Windows, either for dual-booting or for virtualization. Free software has far more potential to eat into Microsoft’s market share, especially in the long run.

• OSNews
• Digg

Powered by Ubuntu. Source: ghindo on Flickr. License: CC-BY 2.0

Laptopmag.com reports that shipments of preinstalled Ubuntu systems on Dell’s Inspiron Mini netbooks account for a third of all shipments, while the return rates are similar to those systems with Windows XP.

While MSI told us a few months back that Wind netbooks running SuSE Linux saw 4x higher return rates than that of XP machines, Dell has had quite the opposite experience with its Inspiron Mini 9 offering with Ubuntu. “A third of our Mini 9 mix is Linux, which is well above the standard attach rate for other systems that offer Linux. We have done a very good job explaining to folks what Linux is,” says Dell’s Jay Pinkert.

According to Dell, the the return rate of Ubuntu running Mini 9s are comparable to the XP rate, which we are told is “very low.” “Our focus has been making sure that before the order is taken is that the customer knows what he is getting,” New added.

I’m guessing it’s the user interface. Does SuSE have a default user interface or a simplified one?

• Laptopmag.com
• Slashdot

Asus Eee PC. Source: Kamil Porembiński on Flickr. License: CC-BY-SA 2.0

Electronista reports that hardware manufacturer ASUS is developing a netbook that will run Google’s Android operating system.

ASUS on Friday said it has been developing a netbook based on Google’s Android platform. The company’s Eee PC division lead, Samson Hu, informs Bloomberg that engineers have been tasked with readying one of the mini notebooks for a tentative end-of-year release window. While specifications aren’t known, the smartphone-oriented operating system demands less resources than Windows XP and is usually optimized for ARM processors and touchscreen displays.

Hu warns that the system is still early enough in development that it may not become a final product.

I assume this means that ARM-based netbooks are on the way, seeing as I don’t know of any non-ARM variants of Android. This could really boost free software’s presence while at the same time cutting even more costs and hopefully expanding battery life. I really hope this makes it through development.

• Electronista [Print Version]
• Digg

Koala - Credit: tinyfroglet (CC BY)

Ubuntu 9.10 has been named Karmic Koala.  There are plans are to give it a new theme, and fast boot times.

First impressions count. We’re eagerly following the development of
kernel mode setting, which promises a smooth and flicker-free startup.
We’ll consider options like Red Hat’s Plymouth, for graphical boot on
all the cards that support it. We made a splash years ago with Usplash,
but it’s time to move to something newer and shinier. So the good news
is, boot will be beautiful. The bad news is, you won’t have long to
appreciate it! It only takes 35 days to make a whole Koala, so we think
it should be possible to bring up a stylish desktop much faster. The
goal for Jaunty on a netbook is 25 seconds, so let’s see how much faster
we can get you all the way to a Koala desktop. We’re also hoping to
deliver a new login experience that complements the graphical boot, and
works well for small groups as well as very large installations.

There’s nothing wrong with brown.

• Ubuntu mailing list