Month: March 2003

Acrobat PGP Plug-in Progress

Acrobat PGP Plug-in is coming along nicely.  Basic functionalities are working.  UI is still mostly just PGP's boring built-in stuff.  I want to put up a custom UI so I can handle other signing methods as well as different versions and variations of PGP like GnuPG.  Currently, only PGP 8 is supported.  I am not planning to do an OS X version until later.  If you have any requests, this is the time to do it.  Detached signature and XML-DSIG features will not be there until after the first version is released.  I love fun little projects like this.  Designing large systems is fun too, but there is nothing like designing personal products that people will use everyday.

Blog Newbie: Joel Hockey

Since I talked Joel Hockey into blogging, allow me to introduce his blog: Joel – Ramblings from an urban cowboy.  His RSS feed is here.  Most readers of my blog seems to be using my RSS feed so its good that he has a RSS feed.  I have met Joel through my 3D-Secure mailing list which has little traffic but lots of cool yet quiet (heh) engineers and bankers behind Visa's Verified-by-Visa and MasterCard's SecureCode programs.  I think he lives in Australia and works for the QSI Payments, a 3D-Secure vendor, which recently (?) merged with Dialect Solutions.  Welcome, Joel.

Corruption across DMZ

Korean chaebol Hyundai secretly wired $500 million to Macao just before Kim Dae-joong, former Korean President, met Kim Jong-Il, North Korean dictator.  While Hyundai claims the money was for ensuring Hyundai business in North Korea for the next 30 years, evidences seem to show that it was a payoff for the meeting.

Funny thing is that Kim Jong Il received only $300 million.  $200 disappeared in route.  This is not surprising because, when you bribe someone in Korea, people in between each take a cut.  40% seems rather steep though.

Opposition party in Korea currently has the majority, so it voted to have a Special Prosecutor investigate.  Roh Moo-hyun, newly elected President, let the veto deadline pass today which means there will be a Special Prosecutor investigating the former President as well as the North Korean diplomatic channels.

While all this was going on, President Roh and his cabinet were trying to protect the North Koreans who too part in the payoff so they won't get embarassed.  Missing $200 million probably went to those folks.  As to why Kim Jong-Il is letting them live, I have no idea.  It is interesting that not even DMZ can stop corruption.

Young Prosecutors vs. President Roh

Moving on to more hopeful news, mid-level Korean prosecutors rebelled when the Minister of Legal Matters announced her plan to reorganize the Justice Department.  Both sides wanted to cleanup the Department, but the prosecutors wanted to do it themselves.  The rebellion itself was amazing, but President Roh's decision to debate the rebelling prosecutors on TV was shocking.  So people watched young prosecutors insult President Roh live on TV.

Nobody really won, but the debate changed Korean politic.  Also, everyone saw open display of distrust against senior prosecutors by both the President and the young prosecutors.  After the debate, most of senior prosecutors either resigned or were exiled to positions that encouraged them to resign.  I am hoping that replacement of the whole top tier of Justice Department will open a new war against corruption in Korea.  Keep on trucking, Roh!  Roll right over those corrupt bastards.

Advertising 404

I just realized that one obvious place for full page advertisement is the 404 page.  All of us runs into them and when we do, we pause for a second or two at least to stare at the 404 page mindlessly.  Whole damn page is there and waiting to be stared at and puzzled over.  Why not tell the folks that Miller Light tastes great as well as less filling?  It shouldn't be too hard to hook up web servers in the world to redirect on 404.  Surely, this is more respectable than tatooing Apple logo on your forehead!

Haystack: an MIT Information Client project

Haystack looks interesting initially, particularly its use of RDF, but its UI simply tries too hard.  What is trying to hard?  Imagine what a Boeing 707 cockpit used to looks like before modernization.  That is trying too hard.  Not everyone is a control-freak with a need to see everything together.  Human mind is not capable of focusing on more than one thing effectively.  People don't need to see the contents of Inbox and News at the same time.  UI is not just about how one shows information, but also about when and how to hide information.  Haystack has a long way to go.

Digital Signature with Acrobat Reader

One project I have been meaning to do is digital signature with Acrobat Reader.  Acrobat Reader currently can't sign (breaks its read-only restriction) and verification requires a 'Reader-enabled' digital signature plugins.

While this restriction might make sense for Adobe's bottomline, it doesn't for many web applications.  One could assist/coerce Acrobat Reader to sign and verify, but that requires too mucking arounding with innards of Acrobat Reader as well as PDF.

It would be cleaner and more intuitive to sign the whole PDF using XML-Signature format and route it somehow.  I'll have to find out how companies processing Acrobat forms and figure out a way to integrate.  Adding signature receipt and management feature would be cool too.

Mozilla 1.3 released quietly

Just another release of Mozilla.  I haven't bothered to see what new features are in 1.3.  I just upgraded from 1.2.1 to 1.3.  No big deal, no excitement, nothing.  No one was waiting for Mozilla 1.3.  Safari seemed to have sucked all the air out of Mozilla, more so than any release of IE.  Speaking of IE, its getting old too.  Whole web and software world seems to be sinking slowly with only two bright spots: OS X and Wi-Fi.  Anything else?

Why buy when you can kill monsters for things?

Thesa Online is a new Korean online game that looks like Diablo 2.  It differs from Diablo 2 in that treasures you find are meatspace goods like MP3 players, bicycles, and computers.  There are also cash prizes ranging from $200 to $5000.  According to Lee Gi-chang, President of Thesa Online, they plan to return 20% of profit back to the users as prizes.  Will this work?  Yes in Korea.  Maybe in US.  Hacking and slashing is definitely an interesting way to shop.  "Honey, can you lend me your Avenger?  Macy's is having a Hack'n Slash Sale."

Rant Echo

My XML-DEV rant echoing back to me as Quote of the Day in Elliotte Rusty Harold's Cafe con Leche XML News and Resources.

"While some folks will deny it, so called XML industry evolved from and still revolves around XML-DEV. Yes, it’s full of whiners and arcane discussions sometimes, but that is just part of XML-DEV. OASIS is guilty of taking advantage of notoriety around XML-DEV to boost its own reputation and then let it rot like a ghetto."

"XML-DEV is not a mailing list. XML-DEV is a group of people who, over many years, have formed bonds, mutual respects, and learned to depend on each other. XML-DEV defines part of what each of us are for XML is and has been an important part of our professional lives.  And what has OASIS have done for XML-DEV? Yahoo Porn groups get better service than XML-DEV."
[Don Park on the xml-dev mailing list, Wed, 12 Mar 2003]

A tad too strong, no?  Len Bullard's replied with *group-hug*.  Funny.  I like Len, but I think he is in a bear hug with OASIS activities.

Signing PDF with PGP

This is what I am working on at the moment.  PGP 8 is a bitch to work with because there is no SDK yet and no documentation to help me bridge all the changes that occurred in the API.  Being lost inside Acrobat and PGP is not a lot of fun, but I think there is a small market for this.  Coming Soon to a Store Near You!