Back from CCS/STC 2009

I arrived back last week after attending the 16th Conference on Computer Communications and Security (CCS09) and Fourth Annual Workshop on Scalable Trusted Computing (STC09) in Chicago, USA. The conference was really good and provided an opportunity that inspired very promising ideas. Hope to get some of them prepared for the future conferences. Take a look at my publications page for details on the paper in STC. You can also take a look at the JSR321 project (the target of this paper) here.

I was also able to take my camera with me there and managed to take some shots. You can take a look at them at my flickr ‘Chicago’ set.

Kaghan Valley

I recently went to Naran in Kaghan Valley of NWFP (Pakistan). The place is amazing and I’d just bought a new SLR camera. So, my friends and I shot quite a few pictures of the place. I’ve uploaded them in many places but this being my primary blog, I’ll be putting thumbnails here along with links to the full versions. Click on the thumbnails for full versions and details.

Matlab 7 under Windows 7

I had trouble getting Matlab 7 to work with Windows 7 RC even after setting the compatibility options. So, after a bit of search, here’s the solution (copied from ELFEHRIJ on http://bit.ly/Jt7ij with some minor changes).

After installing Matlab (use Classic Windows Theme if you have problems with the installer):

1. To use Matlab with other windows 7 themes you have to change Java VM used by matlab.
2. Download latest Java version and install it.
3. Go to  <Matlab-installation-dir>\sys\java\jre\win32 you will find a file named jre1.5.0_07 (or a similar version). Rename it to Original_<whatever was originally there>
4. Go to C:\Program Files\Java you will find file named jre6. Copy it to <Matlab-installation-dir>\sys\java\jre\win32 and rename it to <original jre directory name>

This will ensure that Matlab uses the new JRE instead of the old one. Just start Matlab now!

Flashing Android Dev Phone 1

This tutorial is about flashing your Android Developer Phone 1 with your own custom build. It will provide a concise description of steps involved along with a special portion on how to port Google’s apps on your custom build. I found that particularly troublesome with little help on the Internet. So, that will be a bonus

First the disclaimer: This is for your Android Dev Phone 1 (ADP1). If you’re using T-Mobile’s SIM/firmware locked phone, stop. This tutorial is not for you. If you’re using ADP1, proceed at your own risk. You may brick your phone if you do something wrong and I shall not be held responsible for it. Finally, you might want to backup your factory-provided image. I don’t think it’s really necessary because you can just flash it again using the HTC provided images.

So, here is how it’s done:

Getting Started with Android Dev Phone 1

We received our Google Android Dev Phone 1 yesterday and immediately ran into trouble. We don’t have a supported carrier here and we couldn’t get our own carriers to work with Android because we didn’t have the APN information. Android’s distro that comes bundled into the Dev Phone won’t let you in without an APN  though. You get a “SIM not found” message and you can’t do anything other than dial an emergency number. So, after searching for a while, I found some useful tips for getting around the problem.

First, you need to plug in your phone through the provided USB. If you’re running XP, the device will probably not be recognized. (It wasn’t for me.) So, download the Android phone driver here (or here) and install it when XP asks to search for a driver. (Thanks to anddev for this information.) After that, get the Android SDK from here. Go to command prompt and navigate to the tools directory in the SDK. Then execute these commands.


adb shell
su
cd /data/data/com.android.providers.settings/databases
sqlite3 settings.db
INSERT INTO system (name, value) VALUES ('device_provisioned', 1);
.exit
reboot


Once the device finishes rebooting,


adb shell
am start -a android.intent.action.MAIN -n com.android.settings/.Settings


Many thanks to Android Tricks for writing this tip.

Update 1: Android SDK ships with the latest version of the windows Android phone driver. You can find it in $ANDROID_SDK_HOME/usb_driver. So, you don’t need to download the driver using the links provided above.

Update 2: To get the Android device to work on Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope, you need to perform the following steps:

1. sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
2. Add this line to the file: SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0bb4", MODE="0666"
   (You can get the 0bb4 value from lsusb for High Tech Corporation (i.e. HTC) if you work with a different phone)
3. sudo chmod a+rx /etc/udev/rules.d/51-android.rules
4. sudo /etc/init.d/udev restart
5. adb devices (to see the device)

Study smart with StudyBlue

StudyBlue offers a social networking approach to studying. You can create classes, add professors, join networks and share documents and class notes not only with your classmates but also with those from other colleges. Like all social networks, it requires that you bring your friends over or it wouldn’t be very helpful. However, it allows you to read the public notes of other members of the site and that might serve as a very useful feature even when you don’t have many of your friends joining the site.

Sign up for an account here: http://www.studyblue.com

Android Project Approved

Our second research and development project has been approved by the National ICTR&D Fund, Pakistan. ICTR&D is a highly reputable funding agency and funds only state-of-the-art projects in the field of information and communication technologies. We at SERG have become the first group in NWFP to have two projects approved by ICTR&D. This one brings 14.7 million to SERG. (Not that we can use it willy-nilly but still.)

This project is about Android security. We’ll be making the details of the project available soon using our group’s homepage but I can announce right now that we will be needing highly skilled, motivated and energetic individuals to work with us on this very interesting and challenging new technology. If you’ve been looking at the web, you’d know how much popularity Android is getting. I can also assure any potential candidates that the pay is very handsome.

So, keep reading this space to see when we announce the interviews, show up for the interview and join our team of dedicated, hard-working (and funny) individuals.

How’s about Corporate Microblogs?

This is a more of a brainstorm than an idea and I have no idea if this already exists. But here’s the thought anyway.

I read “Adobe Blogs” — a single interface to all the blogs contributed by the Adobe team. Is there an equivalent of that in the twitter/microblog world? To the extent that I’ve seen it, there is none. Each corporation dedicates a person to write on twitter for them. How’s about having a single aggregating microblog that provides a single interface to a corporation’s microbloggers. Right now, you have to subscribe to all the different microbloggers or have a single person write on behalf of the whole business. Can we not distribute this so that every employee can chip in?

HTC Hero

HTC (the guys who built the first Android phone for T-Mobile) have released a new Android-based smartphone called Hero. It’s an amazing piece of technology and looks really cute. We’ll be trying to get our hands on this one but only if it’s not SIM-locked. Not likely, since HTC is a manufacturer, not a carrier. It runs on a customized Android OS. Looks like HTC guys put a lot of effort into the UI of the device. Not only is it multi-touch, it also looks like the next gen of UIs for smartphones. Here are the specs:

http://www.htc.com/www/product/hero/specification.html

Here’s the phone:

Android-based Hero from HTC

Using Twitter

I’ve been an ardent fan and promoter of all social networking sites for a long time now. I’ve brought many people to twitter and I’ve even setup my own local laconi.ca server. However, in light of recent news surrounding twitter, I feel it necessary to inform the people I know about the hazards of using twitter without care. Here’s why:

Twitter is a mass communication medium. It’s falls under the same category as a television channel, a news site or even a printed newspaper. As with all mass communication devices, it can and is being misused. I’m not talking about spammers here. I’m talking about the use of the media as a (to put it mildly) opinion shifter. You keep listening to a news channel long enough, you begin to follow their line of reasoning. You keep reading a newspaper long enough, you begin to believe the perspective of the editor. Similarly, if you follow your political news on twitter, you begin to think like the 10% of the twitter “actives” before you know it. (I got that 10% from @erictpeterson’s talk at the “140 characters conference” on twitter.) Twitter is one of the most convenient brainwashing tools if you’re in that 10%.

So, when you use twitter, here are my suggestions:

1. Use twitter for your own domain only. Use it to communicate with your friends, follow the leaders in the area that you’re familiar with. Do not follow news sites! For me, I follow only computer scientists, bloggers and physics review sites.  Things I know I can trust my own logic and knowledge with.
2. Tread with care around controversial issues. See everything with skepticism.

These are the two golden rules I follow for any mass communication media. For twitter, they’re just as important.