Free your phone - OpenMoko and Iphone. SDK presentation, BA thesis etc.

We will have four days in the (short) summer term. Testing of web applications, of open source programs, test methodology, risk assessment and psychology, forensics and industrial espionage, the latest in web development frameworks and tools and last but not least the development of games and the communities supporting them. These are all topics in the upcoming Days. If you are working on something in those areas, perhaps just about ready to finish your thesis, or you are an industry-specialist in those areas. Please get in touch with me if you would like to participate..

nspired by swarm intelligence, human centric computing and the general fear of all things social a short piece on why intelligence is socially based, what kind of role the Internet plays in fostering this type of intelligence and who the enemies are. Includes a discussion of Shirky's "here comes everybody"..

An addendum to the first security book on the problem of badly configured SCIP proxies which map serveral different client IDs onto one SSL-SessionID. When client identity becomes a heuristic outcome. (Thanks to Matze Schmidt and Thomas Huber).

Some things just never cease to surprise me - especially all things business. SLAs are one of them. Does anybody REALLY believe in those instruments? Is it REALLY better to turn the relation between business and IT within a company into a legal minefield? Read about some fundamental doubts on this vision..

A short obituary on Joe Weizenbaum. I used it to paint a picture of computer science that ranges from the happy days of naive adoption to the current time of total control. Who would have thought that things could ever get this bad?See how far human reason has lost against the power of control through computers.

The fallout of an interview for the SWR. Tackles the physical structure, connectedness and bottlenecks (which could be control points as well), countries and people falling into the digital divide, the access problem and the danger of google dominating the world. And some austrian whining on plagiarism in the humanities being supported by google. The diagrams created from the netdimes project are really nice..

I read a disgusting piece of advertisement by a security company who offers a filtering appliance against the threat of anonymizers. Typical US lingo, full of rightousness, scares of legal repercussions and turning everybody into a little "sheriff". Not to forget the lack of technical information or its weaknesses. Trying to detect the use of an anonymizer through URL filtering and rules is rather hard with an SSL tunnel!.

Thanks to input from Roger Stampfli I was able to assemble a nice collection of papers and videos on the current crisis. It is actually quite frightening to realize how badly the bankers and brokers have been gambling and how badly the national banks are now reacting by printing ever more money. Being a fan of cybernetics it looks to me as if the abuse of the financial systems is now threatening the whole. This crisis could start the end of capitalism. But will it change back to a state-run bureaucracy that has already once shown that it does not work? Or will it change to something better?

A few comments on a CCCS talk on web application security and a rant against the "security is an eduction problem" for both users and developers. There are too many counter-examples. Security needs to be built in. Otherwise we should tell the car makers to finally get rid of all airbags and safety belts: its all a matter of disciplined driving..

I had lots of fun lately with an issue of cryptogramm. Schneier mentioned an article that described the patterns of explanation used by criminal profilers as cold reading patterns. In other words: language pattens destined to create vagueness and to avoid being caught with a wrong statement? Who would have thought that profilers use those?

This is a discussion of a very interesting paper by Reiner Hartenstein, TU Kaiserslautern, on the success of FPGAs and the problems of programming configurable hardware. He describes the benefits of configuration (improvement of the von Neumann Architecture) and we software people understand the problems of it by now as well (;-). At least in software there is a trend back from configuration to more flexible programming languages.

Only a short reminder that parser generation toolkits exist (like Antlr) and that they should be used for reasons of quality and maintenance. And a mentioning of the second edition of Wirths book on compiler construction which is just unbelievably well written - in case you need to stock up on compiler technology and are too shy for the 1000+ pages of the dragon book. Go get Wirths book! At 24 Euro this is a bargain!.

I have read those specs recently and I do not really understand them well. Read my objections and tell me where I am wrong. I will discuss both later in detail..

Updated framework and firewall architecture lectures, added multi-lateral security, WAFs, current threats etc.

Announcement of this very successful workshop with Bernard Clark, starting Friday 28.4.08 at HDM. Do not leave the university without a methodology workshop for large projects...

First parts of master seminar published. Contains ideas for papers and thesis work in secure software, usability and security, secure language and platfrom design etc....

Take a look at real and imaginary risks and how our brain deals with them. Understand the political danger behind this inherited behavior...

Test and Quality Day at HDM. 11.4.08, 9.00-15.00 room 56 at Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart. Model-driven testing, web-app testing tools, test-driven development and test automation of open source software.

Why API matters. Information from an excellent article on API design and why it is also user interface design. Discusses basic guidelines for API design using a striking example of a select system call..

Security Day at HDM. 25.4.08, 9.00-16.30 room 011 (audimax) at Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart. The psychology and sociology of risk and risk assessment. Underground economy, abuse and new protocols, Anonymity concepts and tools and finally the rhetorics of total control.

Date: 30.5.08, 9.00 Audimax HDM Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart. On our third web day we have a focus on the latest development technologies on the web. We will show data mining technologies, usability approaches and especially various client facing technologies. Microsoft will present Silverlight and Adobe will do the same with Flex and Air. Last but not least deployement and maintenance of web apps will be discussed.

Take a look at infoq.com for excellent articles and videos for the IT-interested person.

Date: 13.06.08, 9.00 Audimax HDM Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart. With a focus on games development. Topics: building collaborative extensions for WOW, artificial intelligence, Xbox live, mobile game and game engine development, game industry and much more.

I have posted the table of contents to give you an idea what has been covered in this book. I guess it comes just at the right time: google and microsoft seem to try new browser architectures for security. And the usability problem is still unsolved.

Good papers on Vista, Chromium, Sel4, Tainting, non-determinisms by concurrency, anonymity in P2P etc. On the bad effects of backward compatibility.

Just some information on interesting workshops and the current success of mainframe technology.

Added some links to the supporting page for our upcoming second book "sichere systeme".

Topics are change management, practical web2.0 and AJAX in portals, IP V6 and the internet of things and ITIL from a practical perspective.. Date: 12.12.2008, HDM Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart. 9-15.00 in room 056.

Good but dry overview paper on security issues in virtual worlds. Good links on attacks and countermeasures. Covers social and technical issues. Compares virtual worlds. Assumes a conventional social model of "artificial scarceness" for most worlds which of course automatically creates the problem of duping and bots.

Reflections on a discussion around software architecture and design and the importance of programming languages. Will programming disappear? My point is that underestimating the danger as well as the power of programming languages makes you less productive.

A crazy talk by Richard Gabriel on ultra-large scale, self-sustaining systems and questions about computing beyond the abilities of humans and turing machines. Digital Evolution and Hypercomputation.

Yesterday I attended NETT at the University of Freiburg. A short report and comments on the tracks on communication technology and economics/technology

A short overview on Michael Zender's excellent thesis paper on the development of a framework for logging and log analysis. It has excellent usability and allows the definition of log record types and automatic report generation. Uses eclipse plug-ins for generator and wizzard development.

How come that an increased level of realism in game characters can lead to a loss in immersion? Pieces from Valentin Schwind's and Norman Pohl's thesis on the modeling and animation of Sophie Faber and some facts on how our mind works.

A nice little paper by John F. Sowa explaining the basic math needed for symbolic work (modeling knowledge e.g.). About conceptual graphs, relations, grammars, models and first order logic (predicate and propositional). Easy to read.

On the interactions between information technology, economy and society. Starting a critique of process methodology and asking questions about its effectivity.

I have integrated disqus.com and google analytics

A short intro to the thesis which showed some surprising and also devastating facts about both IE and firefox basic security. Zimmermann asks what a browser could do to protect users and their data and he finds a lot. Unfortunately the browser developers seem to be unwilling to change things. Usability is also a topic discussed in the context e.g. of noscript plug-in. I have added some ideas for projects in the area of security and usability.

I can only recommend the thesis of Bastian Zimmermann because it goes beyond browser security as it is handled in "sichere systeme". Roland Schmitz and myself have been thesis advisors.

Planung, Resultate und Feedback der Besucherinnen von 2008 als Hilfestellung für neue Days.

A Discussion of new books, strategies and some pointers where you can get help.

The motto is: "own your data" and external speakers as well as students and staff of our faculty talk on routers, collaboration software etc. Afterwards: Get Together. Watch for new start time etc.

a few notes on why requirement engineering if done in the usual style is creating a so called "inverse problem". And why those are notoriously hard to solve.

We need colleagues for our new study area "mobile media". Take a look at the ads for mobile application development, mobile medie and mobile content and gaming. A link to the linux day stream is also provided. Watch the new HTML5 features in firefox..

Karl Klink will do a talk at the BW-Test meeting 16.7.09 at HDM Stuttgart. Begin 18.00. The talk is free and open to the public but a short registration is needed. The URLs for registration are on my homepage.

MMOG infrastructures, games development and our new research project "virtual worlds for nanotechnology".

Annoying questions for Merkel and strange media laws in Britain..

Lots of interesting topics like "camps", state of blogging, social networks and identity in the web. Ample opportunity to discuss the future of the web and internet..

Learn about the security technology behind Android. Process isolation coming back and the chances for confused deputy attacks.

A presentation to media and network specialists, trying to defend computer games. And a new paper by Stefan Zülch on cloud computer offerings (in German) in the research on ultra-large-scale systems section.

18.12.2009 at HDM. Topics are cloud computing, performance, Model-driven-development and Enterprise architecture. Agenda.http://www.kriha.de/blog7.html

Critical notes on a sensor-ridden world (smart meters etc.) and how it affects price setting, competition. The control revolution now reaches the micro-level of everyday life. Besides the IT-specific problems behind an "intelligent planet" (meaning a few large corporations and states know and control everything) this whole movement is just another example how ecological topics ("saving the world") are instrumentalized for bluntly economic agendas. http://www.kriha.de/smartplanet.html

A nice paper on Android security which I used to discuss the questions whether this creates a POLA system with damage reduction. And some links to slides on empirical validation of software development by Prof. Tichy of KIT and causality models by Judea Pearl.

Join us at 22.1.2010 for an afternoon with the founder of StudiVZ, the Vice President of Operations at XING and a Manager from Gomez. We will discuss how large scale social networks are operated and tested and many other things. Master students will demonstrate tools and techniques for measuring a LAMP stack.

A short paper on the Ariane crash and what we can learn from it.

A human catastrophy as a military-industrial opportunity. And the very selective picture the media transport.

http://stream.mi.hdm-stuttgart.de/socialnets

Very interesting technology sessions, 29.1.2020, 16.00 at HdM Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart.

Friday 5.3.2010 9-17,room U32, HdM Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart. No fee, open to the public.

Friday 9.4.2010 9.45-15.00, room 056, HdM Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart. No fee, open to the public. Topics: future data rates, mobile games, development platforms, business strategies, demonstrations of project work etc.

Stefan Vogel (eXept AG) and Kai Lepler (Siemens) are giving a talk on explorative testing. Both are long-time industry experts in development and testing. Thursday 15.4.2010, Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart, Nobelstrasse 10. The talks are free of charge and open to the interested public.

Lots of interested game topics at the 7th games day: real-time graphics, game engine design, ethics and computer games, free games and finally the state of the game industry in BW. As always the event is free of charge and open to the interested public.

Streetview and Ecash, Wikileaks and Downloads, Patents and Developing Countries. Cloud Computing and user data. A neutral Internet or a playground for large corporations? Who owns the user data on facebook?

Digital media raise lots of legal and political questions and we will try to shed some light on those at our 2nd Digital Rights Day at HdM. High profile speakers from law enforcement, Piratenpartei, law offices and academia will provide the knowledge needed.

05.11.2010 13.15-18.30 at HdM Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart. Room 56. Free of charge and open to the interested public.

Lots of excellent tools and technologies for web publishing and web applications. Meet the developers and discuss the latest strategies.

10.12.2010 14.00-18.00 at HdM Nobelstrasse 10, Stuttgart. Room 56. Free of charge and open to the interested public.

Meet Peter Demharter and Guenther Triep and discuss the future of the Internet and Web in connection with enterprise architectures.

Get the latest on PHP and web evolution from Pierre A. Joye - well known core maintainer. Learn the possibilities of HTML5 from Kai Jäger. Learn how to scale social net apps with Rails and finally understand the realtime-web and its architectural challenges.

Use the chance to get an expert introduction from the well known author and HdM Prof. Simon Wiest. Thursday 19.5.2011 18.00-20.00 at HdM Nobelstrasse 10, room 56. This is a BWTest event..

Learn about game physics, community management, the quality of irtual goods and Big-Time-Monkey, a game developed at HdM. And take a shot at the latest games and consoles during the breaks. Friday May 27, Hdm Stuttgart, Nobelstrasse 10. 13.20 - 17.15, room 56 (aquarium). Free of charge and open to the interested public.

Learn about intelligent power grids, intelligent power meters, home renovation to cut costs and the possibility of a new energy paradigm based on alternative energies. And use the chance to discuss security and privacy problems behind the new technologies. Friday June 10. 13.30-17.00, HdM Stuttgart, room 56. Free of charge and open to the interested public.

Mobile application development strategy, professional software development and the changes of data center networks due to cloud computing. Friday December 9, 12.30 at HdM Nobelstrasse 9.

Testing Methodologies and Tools in Action. Thursday April 26th 16.00 at HdM Nobelstrasse 10.

Meet industry leading experts like Sebastian Schreiber of SySS and Daniel Kuhn of Quisma on those topics.

The topics: latest research on who "the" gamer in Germany really is and what he or she plays. And what it does to them (:-). Game development as a part of computer science. Content creation for games, performance design patterns for speed and the psychology and technology behind the "uncanny valley". Finally, a demonstration of a current large scale game project.