From jarich at perltraining.com.au  Sun Jun  1 20:29:16 2014
From: jarich at perltraining.com.au (Jacinta Richardson)
Date: Mon, 02 Jun 2014 13:29:16 +1000
Subject: [Melbourne-pm] EFA's Creating the Web We Want
Message-ID: <538BEF8C.6080608@perltraining.com.au>

This might be of interest to some folk.


    Electronic Frontiers Australia, in partnership with ThoughtWorks
    Australia presents:


           Creating the Web We Want

  * Time & Date: 11:30am, 17th June 2014
  * Venue: Melbourne Convention Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place,
    Southbank (click for map)
    <https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Melbourne+Convention+%26+Exhibition+Centre/@-37.825266,144.954588,17z/data=%213m1%214b1%214m2%213m1%211s0x0:0x958eeaf04deea384>.
  * Cost: FREE
  * Registration: Not Required


           Speakers

  * Keith Dodds <https://www.linkedin.com/pub/keith-dodds/0/410/a82> -
    Director, Client Relations, ThoughtWorks Asia Pacific (Moderator)
  * Senator Scott Ludlum <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ludlam>
  * Jon Lawrence <https://www.efa.org.au/about/board/jon-lawrence/> -
    Executive Officer, Electronic Frontiers Australia
  * Tom Sulston <http://au.linkedin.com/pub/tom-sulston/0/411/178> -
    Principal Technical Consultant, ThoughtWorks

Revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden have clearly demonstrated 
that governments around the world have been engaging in dragnet-style 
mass surveillance for years. We know that intelligence agencies, 
including the US National Security Agency (NSA), the UK's GCHQ and 
Australia's Signals Directorate have been intercepting and storing the 
records of hundreds of millions of our phone calls, text messages, 
emails, web searches, website visits, instant messages, and social media 
activity. We know that these agencies have been sharing our information 
with other governments, large corporations, and non-security organisations.

Governments have justified this mass surveillance on the grounds of 
"national security" against "terrorism". Yet there is no evidence that 
this disproportionate intrusion into our private lives has stopped or 
foiled even one terrorist act, despite the vast financial and social cost.

What these government activities have done is to build an extremely 
effective surveillance infrastructure which police states of the past, 
present, and future could only envy.

It is our duty to redress this illegal and immoral societal imbalance. 
What legal, social, and regulatory policy reforms are necessary to 
safeguard our right to privacy? What can we do both now and in the 
future to protect our private communications from dragnet government 
surveillance? What level of digital spying is acceptable in an Internet 
where our privacy is valued?
This free and public forum is part of the Agile Australia conference. It 
will be a thought-provoking examination of privacy issues vital to the 
future of digital freedom. It will include a review of available 
technologies to resist dragnet surveillance, and global initiatives to 
strengthen individuals' right to privacy, as enshrined in the 1948 
Universal Declaration on Human Rights. It will be a call to join and 
shape local and worldwide activities to oppose mass government surveillance.

More information: https://www.efa.org.au/events/web-we-want-2014/
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From shlomif at shlomifish.org  Thu Jun  5 07:44:59 2014
From: shlomif at shlomifish.org (Shlomi Fish)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 17:44:59 +0300
Subject: [Melbourne-pm] EFA's Creating the Web We Want
In-Reply-To: <538BEF8C.6080608@perltraining.com.au>
References: <538BEF8C.6080608@perltraining.com.au>
Message-ID: <20140605174459.46758e5f@telaviv1.shlomifish.org>

Hi all,

On Mon, 02 Jun 2014 13:29:16 +1000
Jacinta Richardson <jarich at perltraining.com.au> wrote:

> This might be of interest to some folk.
> 
> 
>     Electronic Frontiers Australia, in partnership with ThoughtWorks
>     Australia presents:
> 
> 
>            Creating the Web We Want
> 
>   * Time & Date: 11:30am, 17th June 2014
>   * Venue: Melbourne Convention Centre, 1 Convention Centre Place,
>     Southbank (click for map)
>     <https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Melbourne+Convention+%26+Exhibition+Centre/@-37.825266,144.954588,17z/data=%213m1%214b1%214m2%213m1%211s0x0:0x958eeaf04deea384>.
>   * Cost: FREE
>   * Registration: Not Required
> 
> 
>            Speakers
> 
>   * Keith Dodds <https://www.linkedin.com/pub/keith-dodds/0/410/a82> -
>     Director, Client Relations, ThoughtWorks Asia Pacific (Moderator)
>   * Senator Scott Ludlum <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Ludlam>
>   * Jon Lawrence <https://www.efa.org.au/about/board/jon-lawrence/> -
>     Executive Officer, Electronic Frontiers Australia
>   * Tom Sulston <http://au.linkedin.com/pub/tom-sulston/0/411/178> -
>     Principal Technical Consultant, ThoughtWorks
> 
> Revelations from whistleblower Edward Snowden have clearly demonstrated 
> that governments around the world have been engaging in dragnet-style 
> mass surveillance for years. 

sorry, but to me it seems most of them are the product of maniacal,
major depressive, or schizophrenic minds inside the NSA. For more info, see:

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23SummerNSA&src=typd

I make an analogy there between the NSA and the Knights Templar whom
https://duckduckgo.com/Saladin fought using his own innovative and
benevolent approach to psychological warfare (Which we can still learn a lot
from today). So there's probably nothing to fear, and we should not get too
paranoid, because a paranoid man is miserable and ergo - insecure.

Hello NSA! NSA? Hello, the world at large! I feel like
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_New_Clothes all over again.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
Beginners Site for the Vim text editor - http://vim.begin-site.org/

The American Lottery: all you need is a dollar and a dream. We will take the
dollar, but you can keep the dream.

Please reply to list if it's a mailing list post - http://shlom.in/reply .

From toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au  Mon Jun 30 18:41:37 2014
From: toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au (Toby Corkindale)
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2014 11:41:37 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Recent Perl versions and PostgreSQL's pl/perl
In-Reply-To: <2122967774.305062.1404178688150.JavaMail.zimbra@strategicdata.com.au>
Message-ID: <1024778482.305082.1404178897907.JavaMail.zimbra@strategicdata.com.au>

Hi,
Just a warning about using vaguely-recent versions of Perl with PostgreSQL.

The "plperl" language module for PostgreSQL essentially becomes useless once linked against modern Perl, because it is locked down to disable loading new modules, but modern Perl has refactored lots of core features out into modules that are auto-loaded as required.

For instance, a fairly simple regex will try to load the modules: utf8 & re
Since it is forbidden from loading anything, it will fail.

You can still use the unrestricted Perl module, plperlu, but this requires superuser permissions to use, and in the past its use has been discouraged for security.

I've experimented with trying to preload all required modules into the interpreter with the plperl.on_init configuration option in postgresql.conf, but this just changed stored procedure errors from "failed to load module" to "failed to reload module". :/

-Toby

From melbourne-pm at mjch.net  Mon Jun 30 22:48:42 2014
From: melbourne-pm at mjch.net (Malcolm Herbert)
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2014 15:48:42 +1000
Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Text::CSV null output options?
Message-ID: <20140701054841.GE2890@deimos.ergonaut.org>

Is there a way to tell Text::CSV _not_ to escape certain strings?

Alternatively, can Text::CSV be told to emit a particular string on an
undefined value? The manual page implies 'no' ...

Would some other CSV-manipulating module be better suited for this?

I'm writing some simple scripts to rip apart some Excel files I've been
given and inject these into a PostgreSQL database to do slightly more
interesting things on the data therein.

I've been using Spreadsheet::ParseExcel to read the data but felt that I
was recreating the wheel with my own code to output these records as a
TSV file

In an attempt to avoid rework I've started using use Text::CSV however
the problem I'm facing now is that there doesn't appear to be a way to
tell Text::CSV not to escape the \N strings I need to appear in the
output so that PostgreSQL interprets these fields as NULL

Has anyone else faced this issue before?

Regards,
Malcolm

-- 
Malcolm Herbert
mjch at mjch.net
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From toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au  Mon Jun 30 23:03:17 2014
From: toby.corkindale at strategicdata.com.au (Toby Corkindale)
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2014 16:03:17 +1000 (EST)
Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Text::CSV null output options?
In-Reply-To: <20140701054841.GE2890@deimos.ergonaut.org>
References: <20140701054841.GE2890@deimos.ergonaut.org>
Message-ID: <1555204926.312698.1404194597009.JavaMail.zimbra@strategicdata.com.au>

Would it be simpler to just insert the data directly into Postgres rather than using an (antiquated, limited) intermediate data format?


----- Original Message -----
> From: "Malcolm Herbert" <melbourne-pm at mjch.net>
> To: melbourne-pm at pm.org
> Sent: Tuesday, 1 July, 2014 3:48:42 PM
> Subject: [Melbourne-pm] Text::CSV null output options?
> 
> Is there a way to tell Text::CSV _not_ to escape certain strings?
> 
> Alternatively, can Text::CSV be told to emit a particular string on an
> undefined value? The manual page implies 'no' ...
> 
> Would some other CSV-manipulating module be better suited for this?
> 
> I'm writing some simple scripts to rip apart some Excel files I've been
> given and inject these into a PostgreSQL database to do slightly more
> interesting things on the data therein.
> 
> I've been using Spreadsheet::ParseExcel to read the data but felt that I
> was recreating the wheel with my own code to output these records as a
> TSV file
> 
> In an attempt to avoid rework I've started using use Text::CSV however
> the problem I'm facing now is that there doesn't appear to be a way to
> tell Text::CSV not to escape the \N strings I need to appear in the
> output so that PostgreSQL interprets these fields as NULL
> 
> Has anyone else faced this issue before?
> 
> Regards,
> Malcolm
> 
> --
> Malcolm Herbert
> mjch at mjch.net
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Melbourne-pm mailing list
> Melbourne-pm at pm.org
> http://mail.pm.org/mailman/listinfo/melbourne-pm