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| Monday, 29 April 2024 | Dereel | Images for 29 April 2024 |
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Extracting photos from Android MMS
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Topic: technology, photography, animals, opinion | Link here |
I've been searching for a method to extract photos from MMS messages on Android for at least 10 days, when Helen Weir sent us some photos of Pixie (now Mona). All seemed to be non-starters: the instructions didn't match reality, or they just didn't work. Or they required installation of apps that were incomprehensible in their use, or required infrastructure that I didn't want (why do you need Google Drive to copy a file?).
Clearly the files must be on the device somewhere, and though text appears to be stored in a database, I can't imagine that to be the case for images. But all my searching suggests that it's hidden from me, probably in the /Android hierarchy.
What about the file manager? No, it doesn't believe in images in MMS messages, just lots of advertising. A complete loss.
But then I found this page, which is really trying to sell an app, but contains the information:
OK, this looks like:
After long pressing on an image, a “down the drain” and a slingshot image appear. Pressing on the “down the drain” image produces:
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I've saved it! But where? What are “Messages stored media”? The “file manager” still can't find it. Looking through the visible parts of the hierarchy shows that they were in /Pictures/Images, and I was able to retrieve them with normal FTP (with an add-on app, of course).
So, in summary:
Isn't modern technology wonderful? In the bad old days we had to use cp.
There's also another page which may contain useful information.
In passing, it's amazing how much these images appear to have been modified. They're only 1080×1440. Is that the original? My guess is that Android politely reduced the image size, in the process stripping most metadata. All that's left are the (correct) GPS coordinates.
Why that? Yes, in these uncertain times privacy is a concern for many people. But the date and time don't really fall into this category. But arguably GPS metadata do. And all metadata is stripped with the exception of the GPS coordinates! What kind of sense does that make? Of course, this could be an accident: when I tried almost exactly this last month, it stripped all metadata.
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Security, 2024 style
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Topic: technology, general, opinion | Link here |
Message purporting to be from Linkt today, exhorting me to beware of scams, and offering good advice:
Online safety tips for your account:Don’t click on links in an SMS.Replace your password with a passphrase. A passphrase is made up of four or more random words with special characters making them harder to guess.
Ah, and that's not a password? Many of my passwords are multiple words, and many systems refuse them because they contain blanks. And make sure to include special characters! “Braindead security recommendations” is clearly easy to crack. Still, the thought is there.
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AAMI again!
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Topic: general, opinion | Link here |
Somehow AAMI don't give up. Another mail message today:
In your email, we noted that you are disputing damages to our insured vehicle.
Please provide a qualified assessor report supporting your dispute, confirming damages are inconsistent with the impact.
Well, the good news is that after less than 1½ years they have finally understood that I dispute the claim. But what's this nonsense about me having to provide an assessor report? How could I even do so at this stage? I should have asked him to send me the old, now replaced bumper, but it didn't occur to me at the time.
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Latest Academia mail
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Topic: technology, language, opinion | Link here |
Seen in my inbox today:
47 ND 28-04-2024 To grudgled@gma ( 940) Academia.edu ND Have you coauthored a paper with Po Box?
Somehow that's related to a request to Claim “Treasurer” for your profile. There, too, Po Box appears. I'm sure that they've sucked “PO Box” out of the document and interpreted it as a name. And of course, „Po“ is a polite word for “arse” in German.
| Tuesday, 30 April 2024 | Dereel | |
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Mona progress
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Topic: animals | Link here |
Mona continues to settle in, but not the way we expected. She's coming closer and closer to Bruno, but they're not friends yet. And she's still terrified of the dogs; that will take much longer than I expected. Kittens have always taken to them very quickly.
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Security, 2024 style
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
Mail from eBay today. I have a second account that I set up for some purpose, and they've noticed that I don't use it. Can they shut it down?
No, I think not. I don't know what I might need it for, but it's convenient. All I need to do is log in.
I failed. Password wrong. No worries: they'll send me a reset link. Got that, went to the login page. Enter user ID. OK. Enter new password. It's not strong enough! Must contain at least one digit and one special character to make it easier to crack. I tried, in sequence,
No security!
Stup1d concept of security!
Stup1d c0ncept of s3curity!
Stup1d c0ncept of s3cur1ty! 1d10t5!
And it kept producing the same message. After a while I realized: Ha, ha, only joking. Just couldn't be bothered to clear the message.
OK, continue. With Google? No, of course not. That's putting all your eggs in one basket. But there was no other way! Maybe that was because the email address was with Gmail, but that's no excuse. A good thing that the account doesn't have access to any of my financial details.
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NetBSD again
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Topic: technology | Link here |
I have a bug report on makefs, a program ported to FreeBSD from NetBSD. It works under NetBSD, but the FreeBSD version creates invalid file systems under some circumstances.
OK, let's compare what FreeBSD and NetBSD do. For that I need a NetBSD system, and the last one I had (a virtual machine) is ancient. OK, install a new virtual machine. How hard can it be?
The biggest problem was getting installation media. For some reason, both firefox and fetch failed early in the download. In the end I downloaded it to my external server and then copied it from there. But why did a direct download fail?
After that, setting up a VM and installing was a piece of cake. Of course, I still have a basic machine, but it was refreshing how easy it all was. Somehow that happens too infrequently nowadays.
| This page contains (roughly) yesterday's and today's entries. I have a horror of reverse chronological documents, so all my diary entries are chronological. This page normally contains the last two days, but if I fall behind it may contain more. You can find older entries in the archive. Note that I often update a diary entry a day or two after I write it. | Do you have a comment about something I have written? This is a diary, not a “blog”, and there is deliberately no provision for directly adding comments. It's also not a vehicle for third-party content. But I welcome feedback and try to reply to all messages I receive. See the diary overview for more details. If you do send me a message relating to something I have written, please indicate whether you'd prefer me not to mention your name. Otherwise I'll assume that it's OK to do so. |
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