Hendrik Weimer's Quantenblog

Having fun with science and technology.

  • Monitoring internet censorship with Tor

    Posted: 2008-04-12 15:36

    You have probably heard already of Tor, a tool for surfing the internet anonymously. It can also be used to evade censorship, but less known is the fact that you can turn the tables and monitor internet censorship in various parts of the world. Not only that, you can use Tor to visit websites pretending you come from almost any country.

    Read more

    [ misc ]

  • MS launching a Patent Ambush on Free Software?

    Posted: 2008-03-27 08:19

    Yesterday, Microsoft and Milan-based Sourcesense announced they collaborate to contribute code to Apache POI, a Java library for manipulating Microsoft Office files. This collaboration has two possible consequences: either it will turn POI into the greatest patent laundry of all time, or it will help Microsoft to launch a patent ambush on the project. Feel free to decide which one is more likely.

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  • libquantum 0.9.1 released

    Posted: 2007-09-03 07:13

    libquantum 0.9.1 has been released. The new release adds an interface for time-evolution of arbitrary Hamiltonians using a fourth-order Runge-Kutta algorithm. The license has been changed to GPLv3 and several bugs have been fixed. Further information can be found on the libquantum website.

  • The Quantum Machine that Both Works and Doesn't

    Posted: 2007-08-22 06:32

    As some of you may know, I wrote my diploma thesis on transport in quantum thermodynamics. Related to this work, we now put up a paper on arXiv, describing how to incorporate the concepts of work and heat, which are well-known from the classical world, into the quantum realm.

    It turns out that if you do it properly, you get some remarkable consequences, like a machine that both works and does not at the same time. These strange things arise (hardly surprising) from non-commuting observables in quantum mechanics.

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    [ physics ]

  • Germany's New Computer Crime Law is Bad, but not that Bad

    Posted: 2007-08-13 20:07

    Last Friday, a new law on computer crime came into effect in Germany. The newly introduced Section 202c of the German penal code created much buzz around the net since it prohibits the distribution of certain computer programs assisting in committing data espionage.

    Although I think the law is bad and creates an uncanny area of uncertainty it is not the end of all security research done in Germany. In fact, much of the current outcry is overblown and counter-productive, as it contributes to spreading FUD about the issue.

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    [ security ]

  • Nexuiz: Best First-Person Shooter Ever

    Posted: 2007-05-29 07:13

    Okay, I promise I won't mention every article I write for OS Reviews on my blog, but here is an exception. I just put up an article about Nexuiz, which is definitely the best first-person shooter I've ever played. And of course it's free as in speech!

  • SCO About to Face Delisting Trouble, Again

    Posted: 2007-04-13 07:21

    Most of you probably remember the delisting trouble SCO got into because they failed to timely file their 10-K back in 2005. The same story will show up again soon, but this time for another reason: the stock price is too low to meet Nasdaq's requirements. Read more

    [ misc ]

  • Read Scientific Papers from Anywhere

    Posted: 2007-01-03 12:56

    Accessing scientific papers online is great because it spares you the way to the library. Unfortunately, most journals make their articles available only to paying subscribers (contrary to Open Access). So if you want to read an article at home or while on a conference you have a problem. This posting shows you how to access it anyway just by clicking on the download link in a journal. Read more

  • Bypassing Virus Scanners Using MIME Encoding Tricks

    Posted: 2006-12-06 10:32

    From time to time a vulnerability is found in a virus scanner that allows an attacker to disguise malicious content so that the scanner won't detect it but the virus is still fully functional. Much rarer are discoveries of new attack classes that are able to blindfold not one but many virus scanners. Here is one. Read more

    [ security ]

  • Welcome to the Quantenblog

    Posted: 2006-12-06 10:30

    So I finally have a blog, too. At the moment there is not much to see around here, but I'm sure that will change soon. Read more

    [ misc ]

  • Copyright 2006--2011 Hendrik Weimer. This document is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. See the licensing terms for further details.