Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Interview: Theo de Raadt of OpenBSD

Theo de Raadt is the project leader for OpenBSD, a Unix-like operating system. We spoke with Theo about the upcoming release of OpenBSD, 3.9, the financial state of the project, and about companies that profit from free software without contributing back.

NewsForge: Hello Theo. Could you tell us a few things about yourself and your involvement in the OpenBSD project?

Theo de Raadt: I have been the project leader for OpenBSD now for more than 10 years, and along the way I have had some good adventures with the developers in the group. We've developed some side projects as well, which are heavily used by everyone in the Unix world, such as OpenSSH.

NF: How many developers contribute to OpenBSD at the moment?

TdR: Inside the project, the count has slowly grown. It was 40 in the early years, and now it is about 80. Of course, that is just counting internal developers. There are many more people on the outside who send us bug reports, fixes, or new code contributions. We also are able to take pieces of code from other sources if they are sufficiently free. But since internal developers have more responsibility -- they have really maintained the areas they are in -- the people on the outside really have an easier job, and should not envy the people on the inside. Instead, they should find a bug, write a fix, and send it in. When someone on the outside sends us many (good) bug fixes, we invite them to become a developer.

NF: You regularly organize events called hackathons. What exactly is a hackathon?

TdR: This is something we started many years ago. A bunch of us would fly to one location (typically before or after a conference) and we would sit down and code. These events really are about getting tasks done; there is very little chatter, as we already know basically what needs to be done. They are not meetings, no one presents talks, nor are they so-called summits. They are for taking action in the source tree, knowing that the guy you need to ask a question of really quickly is sitting at a table a meter away.

NF: OpenBSD is considered one of the most secure operating systems currently available. What approaches do you take towards security?

TdR: We've had 10 years of nearly fanatical devotion to anything which can make OpenBSD more secure. A very important part of that is that we have not been afraid to completely overhaul anything even if it breaks backward compatibility. Secondly, when we have found a flaw in any part of the system we have assumed that the same mistake was made elsewhere, and gone on a hunt to fix them all. Thirdly, we have developed and incorporated a collection of methods that make software flaws very difficult to attack.

The important detail is that in all three of these areas we have not only been fanatical, but pretty much first. Other vendors are not treating their source code the way we treat ours -- with distrust, knowing that we should always actively churn it, so that it can slowly evolve into a better state.

Someone on wikipedia has gone through a lot of effort to identify some of our security efforts, and there is the Exploit Mitigation Techniques paper which I have presented at a number of conferences.

NF: Why should someone use OpenBSD instead of another operating system, besides security?

TdR: I don't really take any position of advocacy. People should use what they want to, and I am not the right person to say anyone "should" do anything. But hey, if someone is adventurous, check it out.

NF: A new stable version, 3.9, is about to be released on May 1. A complete changelog between 3.8 and 3.9 is available; would you comment on some of the new features of this release? Start with G5-based Mac support on macppc architecture. How well does it work at the moment?

TdR: It works on some of the models. For some of the machines we have a strange bug in the Serverworks SATA chipset that we have not been able to fix yet. There is no documentation for that chipset, of course.
NF:Hardware sensors support (ESM, IPMI, IIC) -- a useful feature, especially on servers.

TdR: This has been a significant effort this release. These are three major subsystems that provide temperature, voltage, and fan sensor data. We have a unified system above that, that takes all this and makes it available to a daemon that can alert you when things go wrong.

Regarding specifically the "i2c" subsystem: in the Linux world there is the lm-sensors package, which requires all sorts of hand-configuration for each specific machine. In OpenBSD, we carefully probe for the devices, and it should just work, on every single PC, without any configuration. Thus, pretty much every OpenBSD 3.9 machine will have some sort of sensor now.

We have more work to do now that 3.9 is released, since the sensor daemon is a bit weak for reporting events. We want to make it fantastic.
NF: The new ftp-proxy -- why write a new FTP proxy daemon when the previous one worked fine?

TdR: FTP is a nasty protocol to begin with, and trying to proxy it perfectly is a very difficult task. The new daemon just has a better design, and IPv6 works as well.
NF: NFE, the Nvidia nForce MCP Ethernet adapter. How did you manage to write this driver? Is it reverse-engineered?

TdR: Nvidia did not give anyone documentation. Instead, they expect people to load a gigantic blob of binary code into their kernel, and just be happy with that. Some Linux people in Germany reverse-engineered the driver years ago, but the rough story I heard is that Nvidia asked them to stop, and they did. This just astounds me! In any case, Jonathan Gray (who started this effort) asked for their help with a few problematic technical details, and they refused. I could not believe that, so I asked as well -- and they refused again. These are Linux developers, basically placing the community in a situation where they have to run a binary blob of unknown code from a vendor, instead of sticking to their guns about open source? I must admit, I just don't understand some people. They must have much more flexibility to their belief systems than I have.

Damien Bergamini joined Jonathan toward the end and got all the bugs out of the driver. We are happy to say that it appears to be working better than the Nvidia binary blob. It is also significantly smaller, and it is very clean source code.

NF: In the past there was a movement in the OpenBSD community to press hardware vendors to release documentation about their products (Ethernet and wireless network adapters, RAID controllers, etc.) so that drivers could be written for OpenBSD or other open source projects. Some vendors did release documentation, but others didn't. Why do you think vendors do that? They don't want their products to be supported on OpenBSD?

TdR: There are always at least a few efforts in the project to get more documentation out of vendors. But some vendors are still incredibly resistant. We often run into vendors who have signed NDA agreements with Linux developers, who will then happily write a Linux driver filled with magic numbers, which only one developer in the world understands. Having signed the NDA ensured that Linux got a working driver, sure, but the internals are indistinguishable from magic. It cannot be fixed by anyone else, because it is full of secrets. It is a source code version of a blob.

There are many reasons why vendors will not give information out. I believe that all their reasons are a lie to the customer. I can get nearly complete data books for the parts that are in my car, and I should be able to get them for the parts in my computer.

Once in a while we hear from vendors out of the blue, and they offer us hardware and software without us having to ask. It is happening more -- mostly from Asian hardware manufacturers eager to have their hardware supported by all systems. On the other hand, American companies in particular are becoming increasingly insular, and sometimes we think twice before wasting our time trying to contact them. As a result, our support for a few high-end or very new American products is lagging, because there just isn't documentation available. That is a problem, but it should not be overstated, because 99% of the world is buying these Asian products. For instance, Asian 802.11 vendors accounted for perhaps 1% of the market five years ago, but within a year or two the market is likely to be split between Intel (because of how they tie their wireless chipset into their laptop Centrino brand) and the Asian vendors, such as RAlink and Zydas.

NF: Now that OpenBSD's user base seems to have increased a bit, do you have more success convincing vendors to release documentation for hardware?

TdR: We are having more success getting documentation, but I am not sure if it is due in any way to our user base size. Part of it might be that many more products are coming from Asia (where business sense still applies -- the customer gets the documentation he wants). I think that the Asian businesses are just being smarter about this. When it comes to documentation requests, an Asian company that says no is rare. An American company that says yes is rare.

NF: I understand that OpenBSD is financed from CD sales and donations. Does this money pay for all the projects needs?

TdR: Our income varies year to year. Donations rise and fall, and so do the sales of our products. Meanwhile, our FTP servers just keep getting busier.

We have built up some savings to deal with a rainy day, but our basic operation is perhaps falling behind slowly, or at least slowing our growth. We want to hold more hackathons, since that is where many amazing developments come from. If we had more money, we would also want to pay the travel expenses of some of the poorer developers, since we have some smart developers who are students or live in poorer countries. But with the finances we have, it is difficult to justify these things now. I want us to do much more, but we are constrained.

Donations make the most difference, since our project does not get taxed on them. We have investigated becoming a non-profit organization, but the margins and savings really do not make sense for our project, especially since most of our donations do not come from the country where we operate. Also, there are numerous other constraints and rules. So for now we are sticking to clear cash donations, without tax receipts.

NF: Lots of hardware vendors use OpenSSH. Have you got anything back from them?

TdR: If I add up everything we have ever gotten in exchange for our efforts with OpenSSH, it might amount to $1,000. This all came from individuals. For our work on OpenSSH, companies using OpenSSH have never given us a cent. What about companies that incorporate OpenSSH directly into their products, saving themselves millions of dollars? Companies such as Cisco, Sun, SGI, HP, IBM, Siemens, a raft of medium-sized firewall companies -- we have not received a cent. Or from Linux vendors? Not a cent.

Of course we did not set out to create OpenSSH for the money -- we purposely made it completely free so that the "telnet infrastructure" of the 1980s would die. But it sure is sad that none of these companies return even a fraction of value in kind.

If you want to judge any entity particularly harshly, judge Sun. Yearly they hold interoperability events, for NFS and other protocols, and they include SSH implementation tests as well. Twice we asked them to cover the travel and accommodation costs for a developer to come to their event, and they refused. Considering that their SunSSH is directly based on our code, that is just flat out insulting. Shame on you Sun, shame, shame, shame.

I will say it here -- if an OpenSSH hole is found that applies to SunSSH, Sun will not be informed. Or maybe that has happened already.

Wawancara khusus dengan Bang Rhoma Irama

"Masya Allah, pornoaksi itu haram!" Winny, seorang wartawati dari Majalah GIRLS ONLY! ditugasi pemimpin redaksinya untuk mewawancarai biang dangdut Rhoma Irama yang sudah gaek. Winny yang lulusan sebuah perguruan tinggi di Kota Gudeg sendiri baru dua bulan kerja di majalah hiburan tersebut. Alhamdulillah, baru sekali nelpon asistennya, Rhoma Irama langsung kasih waktu untuk wawancara khusus. Padahal ia lagi sibuk mempersiapkan shooting sinetron dangdut buat TPI.

Berikut wawancara Winny (W), perempuan muda berpenampilan atraktif yang belum menginjak usia 25 dengan Bang Haji Rhoma Irama (R) di kantornya, kawasan Pejaten, Jaksel:
W: "Assalamu'alaikum Pak Rhoma..."
R: "Waalaikum salaaaaaaam. Antum yang bernama Winny?"
W: "Betul Pak.....saya Winny dari majalah GIRLS ONLY. Maaf Bang, antum itu apa ya artinya?"
R: "Wah, Winny bukan muslimah ya, kok kagak tahu antum. Antum itu artinya kamu."
W: "Oh gitu ya Pak. Maaf saya baru dengar istilah itu..."
R: "Antum muslimah bukan?"
W: "Iya pak....."
R: "Husss, jangan panggil pak ke ana. Panggil saja Bang, kalau antum dipanggil Pak nanti antum cepet tua.."
("Emang udah tua sihhhhhhh", batin Winny)
W: "Ana itu apa artinya bang?"
R: "Ana itu artinya saya..."
W: "Oh gitu.."
R: "Kalau antum muslimah, kok nggak pakai jilbab?"
W: "Belum pengen eh belum siap pak, eh bang..."
R: "Ingat ya, antum harus segera pakai jilbab. Itu kewajiban sebagai muslimah. Pokoknya kudu! Perempuan yang pakai kaos ketat atau you-can-see itu temannya setan. Tidak pantas dilihat dan terlihat seperti perempuan murahan. Kalau antum ke Tangerang pakai pakaian seperti itu bisa ditangkap! Ada itu Perda-nya! Antum ingat-ingat ya
pesan ana."
W: "Iya bang, nanti kalau Winny udah siap lahir batin. Tapi ngomong-ngomong, kok abang naksir sama Angel Lelga yang nggak pakai jilbab?"
R: Masya Allah, itu kecelakaan. Waktu itu ana pas tergoda setan. Sudah, sudah. Jangan ungkit masa lalu, itu tidak baik."
W: "Oh begitu.."
R: "Ada pertanyaan lain? Ana lagi banyak tamu niih.."
W: "Menurut bang Rhoma, apa sih definisi pornoaksi itu?"
R: "Masya Allah, pornoaksi itu haram hukumnya. Pornoaksi adalah suatu tindakan atau perilaku porno yang membuat kita jadi berpikiran kotor. Yang berbuat pornoaksi jelas masuk neraka jahanam!"
W: "Apa konkretnya pikiran kotor itu, Bang?"
R: "Ya..itu pikiran yang ngeres karena pengaruh setan jahanam, yang membuat kita jadi 'terangsang' karena melihat hal-hal seperti itu.."
W: "Maksudnya, apanya yang terangsang, Bang..?"
R: (sambil mesam-mesem) "Ya..itulah...ana jadi malu nih ngomongnya. Antum tahulah itu......."
W: "Ooh...I see. Bisa kasih komentar kenapa Bang Rhoma mengatakan kalau gaya panggung dangdut Inul itu juga pornoaksi?"
R: "Ya..karena Inul itu gerakan 'bokong-nya' memang membuat ana dan akhwan-akhwan semua yang lihat jadi berpikir porno.."
W: "Lho, masak sih Bang?"
R: "Ya..dong..coba antum tanya semua penonton terutama yang cowok-cowok deh.."
W: "Bang, mengapa kalau Bang Rhoma beraksi selalu dengan kemeja bagian atas terbuka..dan keliatan bulu dada Bang Rhoma? Menurut Bang Rhoma, apa itu juga pornoaksi?"
R: "Hmm..ya jelas bukan dong! Itu bukan pornoaksi. Itu sekadar buat gaya saja."
W: "Bagaimana kalau saya bilang sama Bang Rhoma karena liat bulu-bulu dada Bang Rhoma...saya jadi merinding? Maksud saya...lalu saya jadi berpikiran..hmmm..yang gimana gitu sama abang?"
R: (muka merah menahan marah) "Ya kalo gitu..antum gak usah liatbulu dada ana dong!"
W: "Ya kalo gitu..Bang Rhoma juga NGGAK USAH LIAT BOKONG INUL!"
R: @#%&^$8@!&$##******

Rhoma pun mengusir Wina....
he...he...namanya aja wawancara Imajiner!
PeAcE Bro...........

Friday, March 17, 2006

Dahsyatnya sujud bikin otak cerdas!

Sujud Bikin Cerdas
Salat adalah amalan ibadah yang paling proporsional bagi anatomi tubuh manusia. Gerakan-gerakannya sudah sangat melekat dengan gestur (gerakan khas tubuh) seorang muslim. Namun, perna! hkah terpikirkan manfaat masing-masing gerakan? Sudut pandang ilmiah menjadikan salat gudang obat bagi berbagai jenis penyakit!

Saat seorang hamba telah cukup syarat untuk mendirikan salat, sejak itulah ia mulai menelisik makna dan manfaatnya. Sebab salat diturunkan untuk menyempurnakan fasilitasNya bagi kehidupan manusia. Setelah sekian tahun menjalankan salat, sampai di mana pemahaman kita mengenainya?

TAKBIRATUL IHRAM
Postur: berdiri tegak, mengangkat kedua tangan sejajar telinga, lalu melipatnya di depan perut atau dada bagian bawah.
Manfaat: Gerakan ini melancarkan aliran darah, getah bening (limfe) dan kekuatan otot lengan. Posisi jantung di bawah otak memungkinkan darah mengalir lancar ke s! eluruh tubuh. Saat mengangkat kedua tangan, otot bahu meregang sehingga aliran darah kaya oksigen menjadi lancar. Kemudian kedua
tangan didekapkan di depan perut atau dada bagian bawah. Sikap ini menghindarkan dari berbagai gangguan persendian, khususnya pada tubuh bagian atas.

RUKUK
Postur: Rukuk yang sempurna ditandai tulang belakang yang lurus sehingga bila diletakkan segelas air di atas punggung tersebut tak akan tumpah.
Posisi kepala lurus dengan tulang belakang.

Manfaat: Postur ini menjaga kesempurnaan posisi dan fungsi tulang belakang (corpus vertebrae) sebagai penyangga tubuh dan pusat syaraf. Posisi jantung sejajar dengan otak, maka aliran darah maksimal pada tubuh bagian tengah.
Tangan yang bertumpu di lutut berfungsi relaksasi bagi otot-otot bahu hingga ke bawah. Selain itu, rukuk adalah latihan kemih untuk mencegah gangguan prostat.

I'TIDAL
Postur: Bangun dari rukuk, tubuh kembali tegak setelah, mengangkat kedua tangan setinggi telinga.
Manfaat: Ftidal adalah variasi postur setelah rukuk dan sebelum sujud.
Gerak berdiri bungkuk berdiri sujud merupakan latihan pencernaan yang baik.
Organ organ pencernaan di dalam perut mengalami ! pemijatan dan pelonggaran secara bergantian. Efeknya, pencernaan menjadi lebih lancar.


SUJUD
Postur: Menungging dengan meletakkan kedua tangan, lutut, ujung kaki, dan dahi pada lantai.
Manfaat: Aliran getah bening dipompa ke bagian leher dan ketiak. Posisi jantung di atas otak menyebabkan darah kaya oksigen bisa mengalir maksimal ke otak. Aliran ini berpengaruh pada daya pikir seseorang. Karena itu, lakukan sujud dengan tuma'ninah, jangan tergesa gesa agar darah mencukupi
kapasitasnya di otak. Postur ini juga menghindarkan gangguan wasir.
Khusus
bagi wanita, baik rukuk maupun sujud memiliki manfaat luar biasa bagi kesuburan dan kesehatan organ kewanitaan.

DUDUK
Postur: Duduk ada dua macam! , yaitu iftirosy (tahiyyat awal) dan tawarruk (tahiyyat akhir). Perbedaan terletak pada posisi telapak kaki.
Manfaat: Saat iftirosy, kita bertumpu pada pangkal paha yang terhubung dengan syaraf nervus Ischiadius. Posisi ini menghindarkan nyeri pada pangkal paha yang sering menyebabkan penderitanya tak mampu berjalan.
Duduk tawarruk sangat baik bagi pria sebab tumit menekan aliran kandung kemih (urethra), kelenjar kelamin pria (prostata) dan saluran vas deferens.
Jika dilakukan. dengan benar, postur irfi mencegah impotensi. Variasi posisi telapak kaki pada iftirosy dan tawarruk menyebabkan seluruh otot tungkai turut meregang dan kemudian relaks kembali. Gerak dan tekanan harmonis inilah yang menjaga. kelenturan dan kekuatan organ-organ gerak kita.

SALAM
Gerakan: Memutar kepala ke kanan dan ke kiri secara maksimal.
Manfaat: Relaksasi otot sekitar leher dan kepala menyempurnakan aliran darah di kepala. Gerakan ini mencegah sakit kepala dan menjaga kekencangan kulit wajah.


BERIBADAH secara, kontinyu bukan saja menyuburkan iman, tetapi
mempercantik diri wanita luar dalam.


PACU KECERDASAN
Gerakan sujud dalam salat tergolong unik. Falsafahnya adalah manusia menundukkan diri serendah?rendahnya, bahkan lebih rendah dari pantatnya sendiri. Dari sudut pandang ilmu psikoneuroimunologi (ilmu mengenai kekebalan tubuh dari sudut pandang psikologis) yang didalami Prof Sholeh,
gerakan ini mengantar manusia pada derajat setinggi?tingginya. Mengapa?
Dengan melakukan gerakan sujud secara rutin, pembuluh darah di otak terlatih untuk menerima banyak pasokan darah. Pada saat sujud, posisi jantung berada di atas kepala yang memungkinkan darah mengalir maksimal ke otak. Itu artinya, otak mendapatkan pasokan darah kaya oksigen yang memacu kerja sel-selnya. Dengan kata lain, sujud yang tumakninah dan kontinyu
dapat memacu kecerdasan.

Risetnya telah mendapat pengakua! n dari Harvard Universitry, AS. Bahkan seorang dokter berkebangsaan Amerika yang tak dikenalnya menyatakan masuk Islam setelah diam?diam melakukan riset pengembangan khusus mengenai gerakan sujud.


PERINDAH POSTUR
Gerakan?gerakan dalam salat mirip yoga atau peregangan (stretching).
Intinya untuk melenturkan tubuh dan melancarkan peredaran darah.
Keunggulan salat dibandingkan gerakan lainnya adalah salat menggerakan anggota tubuh lebih banyak, termasuk jari kaki dan tangan.
Sujud adalah latihan kekuatan untuk otot tertentu, termasuk otot dada.
Saat sujud, beban tubuh bagian atas ditumpukan pada lengan hingga telapak tangan. Saat inilah kontraksi terjadi pada otot dada, bagian tubuh yang menjadi kebanggaan wanita. Payudara tak hanya menjadi lebih indah bentuknya tetapi juga memperbaiki fungsi kelenjar air susu di dalamnya.


MUDAHKAN PERSALINAN
Masih dalam pose sujud, manfaat lain bisa dinikmati kaum hawa. Saat pinggul dan pinggang terangkat melampaui kepala dan dada, otot?otot perut (rectus abdominis dan obliquus abdominis externuus) berkontraksi penuh. Kondisi ini melatih organ di sekitar perut untuk mengejan lebih dalam dan lama.
Ini menguntungkan wanita karena dalam persalinan dibutuhkan pernapasan yang baik dan kemampuan mengejan yang mencukupi. Bila, otot perut telah berkembang menjadi lebih besar dan kuat, maka secara alami ia justru lebih elastis. Kebiasaan sujud menyebabkan tubuh dapat mengembalikan serta , mempertahankan organ?organ perut pada tempatnya kembali (fiksasi).


PERBAIKI KESUBURAN
Setelah sujud adalah gerakan duduk. Dalam salat ada dua macam sikap duduk, yaitu duduk iftirosy (tahiyyat awal) dan duduk tawarruk (tahiyyat akhir).
Yang terpenting adalah turut berkontraksinya otot?otot daerah perineum.
Bagi wanita, inilah daerah paling terlindung karena terdapat tiga lubang, yaitu liang persenggamaan, dubur untuk melepas kotoran, dan saluran kemih.

Saat duduk tawarruk, tumit kaki kiri harus menekan daerah perineum.
Punggung kaki harus diletakkan di atas telapak kaki kiri dan tumit kaki kanan harus menekan pangkal paha kanan. Pada posisi! ini tumit kaki kiri akan memijit dan menekan daerah perineum. Tekanan lembut inilah yang memperbaiki organ reproduksi di daerah perineum.


AWET MUDA
Pada dasarnya, seluruh gerakan salat bertujuan meremajakan tubuh. Jika tubuh lentur, kerusakan sel dan kulit sedikit terjadi. Apalagi jika dilakukan secara rutin, maka sel?sel yang rusak dapat segera tergantikan.
Regenerasi pun berlangsung lancar. Alhasil, tubuh senantiasa bugar.

Gerakan terakhir, yaitu salam dan menengok ke kiri dan kanan punya pengaruh besar pada ke­kencangan. kulit wajah. Gerakan ini tak ubahnya relaksasi wajah dan leher. Yang tak kalah pentingnya, gerakan ini menghindarkan wanita dari serangan migrain dan sakit kepala lainnya.

hidup ini hanya sekali, maka janganlah disia-siakan.
Mari kita kembali kepada niat yang baik.
Insya Alloh akan mendapatkan yang baik pula.....Amien