The Portable Consultant

A while back, your Portable Consultant was intrigued to read a BBC story about “Websites ‘keeping deleted photos’” for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it showed a surprising degree of technical knowledge that used to be absent from Internet stories. The method that the researchers used to retrieve photos from social network sites after they had supposedly been deleted is trivial, but used to be beyond the abilities of news organizations to understand. There’s obviously a new generation of reporters and researchers who understand this beat.

Secondly, the heart of the issue as clearly stated by Joseph Bonneau “It’s imperative to view privacy as a design constraint, not a legal add-on”, should be framed and hung on the walls of web designers and managers, not only at social networking sites but also those in the public service, in the private sector, and even corporate intranets.

Cheers,
-pmh

The Portable Consultant has read at The Register that COBOL turned FIFTY (50) years old today… Welcome to the Middle Ages, COBOL! We like to say “Fifty is the new Forty”, but in your case… perhaps not so much.

This ’story’ has lived on the Internet for many long years. Apparently it first appeared in Datamation Magazine in 1968. I’ve heard that this code actually compiles, but not having a COBOL compiler I have not verified this.

(Apologies to you perfectionists for minor problems with formatting… the WordPress editor seems not to fully respect the venerable PREFORMAT tags… feel free to copy this to your punch cards.)

Cheers,
-pmh

…and, Thank you Grace. Things haven’t been the same since you found that bug.

            THE COMMON BUSINESS ORIENTED GOLDILOCKS
            --- ------ -------- -------- ----------

IDENTIFICATION DIVISON.
PROGRAM ID.           A COBOL FABLE.
SECURITY.             INSECURE.
PROGRAMMER-ID.        ARTHUR SHAPIRO.
REMARKS.              SLIGHTLY MORE MANGLED VERSION OF ONE IN JAN., 1968
               DATAMATION.
DATE WRITTEN.         ONCE UPON A TIME.

ENVIRONMENT DIVISON.
CONFIGURATION SECTION.
OBJECT COMPUTER.      ANY MUSIC BOX, MEMORY SIZE 8X64 BYTES,
                      19 TAPE DRIVES, 11 DISK DRIVES, 1 GOLDILOCKS, 3 BEARS.
INPUT-OUTPUT SECTION.
FILE-CONTROL.
    SELECT TAPE DRIVES, ASSIGN THEM TO CREDITOR.
    SELECT DISK DRIVES.
    SELECT GOLDILOCKS, SELECT BEARS, ASSIGN TO ONE COTTAGE.
I-O CONTROL.
    APPLY RED TAPE TO TAPE DRIVES, APPLY BRAHMS RECORD TO DISK DRIVE,
    APPLY GOLDI, BEARS TO COTTAGE.
    DATA DIVISON.
FD GOLDI.
    LABEL RECORDS ARE STANDARD
    VALUE OF IDENTIFACTION IS "GOLDILOCKS"
    DATA RECORD IS GOLDILOCKS.
01  GOLDILOCKS.
    02    HGT   SIZE IS 62 INS.
    02    WGT   SIZE IS 110 LBS.
    02    VITAL-STATS.
          03    B     38.
          03    W     24.
          03    H     36.
    02    RATING      100%.
FD  THREE-BEARS.
    LABEL RECORDS ARE STANDARD
    VALUE OF IDENTIFICATION IS "BEARS"
    DATA RECORDS ARE DADDY-BEAR, MUMMY-BEAR, BABY-BEAR.
01  DADDY-BEAR.
    02    HGT   70 INS.
    02    WGT   750 LBS.
    02    COLOR-OF-EYES   BLOODSHOT.
    02    DISPOSITION     UNBEARABLE.
01  MUMMY-BEAR.
    02    HGT   65 INS.
    02    WGT   700 LBS.
    02    COLOR-OF-EYES   BLUE.
    02    DISPOSITION     BEARABLE.
01  BABY-BEAR.
    02    HGT   40 INS.
    02    DISPOSITION     INFANTILE.
WORKING-STORAGE SECTION.
01 COTTAGE      PICTURE IS COZY.
    02    KITCHEN.
          03    TABLE     SIZE IS LARGE, VALUE IS 1.
          03    CHAIRS    SIZE IS MEDIUM, VALUE IS 3.
    02    PORRIDGE.
          03    KING-SIZE    OCCURS 1 TIME.
          03    QUEEN-SIZE   OCCURS 1 TIME.
          03    PRINCE-SIZE  OCCURS 1 TIME.
    02    DOOR  SIZE IS USUAL, VALUE IS OPEN.
    02    BEDROOM.
          03    BED.
                04 LARGE     OCCURS 1 TIME.
                04 MEDIUM    OCCURS 1 TIME.
                04 SMALL     OCCURS 1 TIME.
          03    WINDOW    SIZE IS SMALL, VALUE IS OPEN.
01  CORRECT-COTTAGE REDEFINES COTTAGE, VALUE IS SAME.
77 KING-SIZE-BED-SLEPT-IN    SIZE IS BIG, VALUE IS ROCK-BOTTOM.
77 QUEEN-SIZE-BED-SLEPT-IN   SIZE IS MEDIUM, VALUE IS DEPRESSED.
77 NO-PORRIDGE               SIZE IS SMALL, VALUE IS ZERO.
77 SIP                       SIZE IS LITTLE, VALUE IS "SSSLURP".
77 SLUMBERLAND               SIZE IS UNLIMITED, VALUE IS ZZZZZZZZZ.
CONSTANT SECTION.
01 COMMENT1     SIZE IS 36, VALUE IS "SOMEBODY HAS BEEN EATING MY PORRIDGE".
01 COMMENT2     SIZE IS 36, VALUE IS "SOMEBODY HAS BEEN SLEEPING IN MY BED".
PROCEDURE DIVISION.
FOREST SECTION.
START-OF-TALE.
    OPEN STORY. READ FOLLOWING.
FIRST-MOVE.
    MOVE GOLDILOCKS TO COTTAGE.
    IF DOOR IS CLOSED OR BEARS ARE GREATER THAN ZERO ALTER ENTER-GO3
          PROCEED TO HASTY-RETREAT.
ENTER-GOLDILOCKS.
    GO TO KITCHEN-SCENE.
KITCHEN-SCENE.
    IF PORRIDGE IS KING-SIZE, PERFORM TASTE-ROUTINE VARYING PORRIDGE-
          KING-SIZE BY 1 UNTIL PORRIDGE EQUALS PRINCE-SIZE
          OTHERWISE COMPUTE IF COTTAGE = CORRECT-COTTAGE GO TO BEDROOM-SCENE.
TASTE-ROUTINE.
    SUBTRACT SIP FROM PORRIDGE(KING-SIZE).
    SUBTRACT SIP FROM PORRIDGE(QUEEN-SIZE).
    SUBTRACT SIP FROM PORRIDGE(PRINCE-SIZE) GIVING NO-PORRIDGE.
BEDROOM-SCENE.
    MOVE GOLDILOCKS TO BEDROOM.
    ADD GOLDILOCKS TO BED(LARGE). DISPLAY "IT IS TOO HARD".
    SUBTRACT GOLDILOCKS FROM BED(LARGE) GIVING KING-SIZE-BED-SLEPT-IN.
    MOVE GOLDILOCKS TO BED(MEDIUM). DISPLAY "IT IS TOO SOFT".
    SUBTRACT GOLDILOCKS FROM BED(MEDIUM) GIVING OUEEN-SIZE-BED-SLEPT-IN.
    MOVE GOLDILOCKS TO BED(SMALL). DISPLAY "IT IS JUST RIGHT".
    ADD GOLDILOCKS TO SLUMBERLAND.
BEARS-RETURN.
    MOVE DADDY-BEAR, MUMMY-BEAR, BABY-BEAR TO KITCHEN.
    MOVE CORRESPONDING BEARS TO PORRIDGE.
    DISPLAY "DADDY BEAR ", COMMENT1.
    DISPLAY "MUMMY BEAR ", COMMENT1.
    DISPLAY "BABY BEAR ", COMMENT1, " AND EATEN IT ALL UP".
    MOVE BEARS TO BEDROOM.
BEARS-IN-BEDROOM.
    EXAMINE BEDS, REPLACING ALL GOLDILOCKS WITH BEARS.
    DISPLAY "DADDY BEAR ", COMMENT2.
    DISPLAY "MUMMY BEAR ", COMMENT2.
    DISPLAY "BABY BEAR ", COMMENT2, " AND HERE SHE IS".
HASTY-RETREAT.
    IF WINDOW IS OPEN EXIT GOLDILOCKS OTHERWISE MOVE GOLDILOCKS TO DOOR.
END-OF-TALE.
    CLOSE STORY, DISPLAY "WOULD YOU BELIEVE CINDERELLA IN PL/I?".
    STOP RUN.

Yes We Scan - Carl Malamud

The other day The Portable Consultant caught this interview with Carl Malamud on an IT Conversations podcast. Having enjoyed his 1992 book Exploring the Internet: A Technical Travelogue, I was interested to hear that he is still pursuing his attempts to free public information from the reluctant hands of bureaucrats. In Exploring the Internet, he discussed his attempts to get the International Standards Organization to distribute international standards over the nascent Internet. Now he’s running for the position of Public Printer of the United States, a public office for which only one other person has bothered to run since it’s inception under President Lincoln.

Yesterday I attempted to print some Canadian tax changes, from a recent budget, that might affect my taxes next year. They are found on an ordinary web page almost entirely made up of text.

Adobe’s Acrobat 9 Pro Extended failed to print the page in my Firefox browser and issued the following error:

%%[Page: 14]%%%%[ Error: LucidaSans,Bold cannot be embedded because of licensing restrictions. ]%%
%%[ Font vendor (B&H) does not permit this font to be embedded in PDF. ]%%
...
[Warning] The font LucidaSans-Demi could not be embedded because of licensing restrictions.
Text may display incorrectly on platforms that do not have this font installed.
...
%%[ Flushing: rest of job (to end-of-file) will be ignored ]%%
%%[ Warning: PostScript error. No PDF file produced. ] %%

Now, I like to keep such documents in PDF rather than cutting and pasting into text files so I turned next to the freeware printing utility CutePDF and found it had no problem. It printed the web page as a PDF file just as I had asked Adobe to do… only CutePDF had no compunctions about embedded fonts being licensed to my machine. CutePDF uses the open source Ghostscript PostScript to PDF converter.

This is why open systems will win out every time against the forces of DRM. When DRM tries to stop us from legally accessing and ‘owing’ a copy of public documents it fails to meet the criteria of a reasonable and fair constraint on the use of intellectual property, in this case a font.

Carl Malamud understands the necessity for free and unrestricted access to public information - documents and databases. He understands the underlying technologies. This is why Cory Doctorow, Lawrence Lessig, Tim Bray and others who share these views are supporting his candidacy for the position of Public Printer of the United States via the Yes We Scan campaign.

For what its worth, I do too.

In fact, there are some governments on this side of the border who should also be paying attention to his candidacy and his platform for the fair dissemination of public documents and data.

Adobe… shame on you!

Cheers,
-pmh