One week ago, the server was running FreeBSD 4.11, my site still looked terrible, and this blog didn't exist. I still had no idea how I was going to organize my site and pull my content together. Through lots of hard work and procrastination of more important things, I've fixed all those problems. Now I'm running fresh new FreeBSD 6.1 (YES!) and my site design is nearing full CSS use for layout and design.

I was getting pretty frustrated with IE's CSS incompliance and fuming on IRC when a friend referred me to Dean Edwards' IE7 JavaScript package. It does a fantastic job of fixing most of IE's annoying compatibility problems! Check it out if you get angry at Microsoft's products as easily as I do.

Edit: you might notice that the previous two posts are dated before the blog was created. I wrote them as individual pages and they are backdated to when I actually wrote them.

I've wanted to have dual monitors for a very long time. I recently bought another Dell E193FP 19" LCD to match the one I already had. Of course I wanted to be using it as soon as possible, so I went over to my brother's place and we found a card I could use:

X.org

I browsed around on the Ubuntu Wiki and found the page on setting up Xinerama with multiple monitors. After a fair bit two days of tinkering, I came up with this xorg.conf:This wasn't the first xorg.conf I worked with - I used another earlier that seemed to work until I realized I needed to set the gamma correction on each head separately. The previous one used only one device section - a problem if you want to set gamma correction independently. In my case, the second head's gamma was too high by default, resulting in a washed out look. When you have two separate screens, you can set the gamma correction like so:

GNOME

Setting up GNOME to work with my new setup didn't even require editing config files. All my old panels were on screen 0 and there were no panels on screen 1. Adding panels and dragging them around was intuitive.

Moving Between Screens

Items on panels, windows, the mouse, and items on the desktop are easily moved from one screen to the other. When you drag a maximized window from one screen to the other, it unmaximizes even if you drag it back. Applications that use fullscreen seem to use screen 0 nearly exclusively, however - even if the app was running on screen 1.

Conclusion

X.org, GNOME, and dual monitors in general are definitely my thing.

History

Ever since ancient times, people have used codes to conceal private messages. In the early days, they were mainly used my militaries and spies to prevent the interception of sensitive information in a written form. During World War II, the US and the UK broke most of the Axis codes, giving the Allies important information about enemy movements.

Today, the strongest encryption is still used by militaries. However, one important thing has changed - strong computerized encryption is now in the hands of the people.

Everyday Use

If you've ever bought something online, your financial information was probably encrypted using the RC4 (commonly called Arcfour) algorithm developed by RSA data security or the AES algorith developed by J. Daemen and V. Rijmen. Other common algortithms include DES, Blowfish, Triple-DES, Twofish, and IDEA. Whenever you see a small padlock in the statusbar of your web browser, you are using Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol, called HTTPS. These technologies are essential for eCommerce, net security, and internet privacy. Without them, the web-based economy would collapse, all secure remote administration would become impossible, and the internet as a whole would be nearly useless.

Many people who want to send private email use PGP, the leading free strong encryption program in the world today.

Legal Issues

Before 1999, it was illegal to export strong cryptographic computer programs out of the USA. Even before then, it was impossible to enforce. Seeing this, the US government repealed the rules in that year and now it is legal to distribute encryption programs relatively restriction-free.

There have been motions in the US Congress to make possessing or using strong crypto illegal in the United States. This is a very important issue akin to anti-gun legislation. Here is my position on the legality of encryption software:

Why Crypto Should Never be Illegalized

Many people have asked the question "If crypto is available, won't terrorists and purveyors of child pornography use it to conceal themselves?"

The answer is a resounding and obvious yes. There is no reason that such people would ever communicate insecurely, as it could easily result in their prosecution.

If you don't consider any other information or evidence, it would seem that crypto should be illegalized. However, you must remember that the "bad guys" (who are already up to their eyeballs in illegality) would not hesitate to use crypto even if it were illegal.

It Can't be Done Anyhow

The RC4 algorithm is extremely simple - in fact, the sourcecode of an implementation of it can be printed (in a readable font size, mind you) on a coffee mug. It is thoroughly impossible to suppress such simple technology.

Conclusion

Therefore the only real effects of illegalizing encryption technology would be to destroy eCommerce, force all corporate communications back to the stone age, and cripple the internet. And yet, there would be absolutely no progress towards apprehending criminals.

Links

• You can find my PGP key and an implemenation of CipherSaber on my downloads page
• You can download free PGP products at the PGP freeware page