y.st./source/pages/en/weblog/2015/04-April/13.xhtml

<?php
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$xhtml = array(
	'title' => 'Something needs to be done about pinentry',
	'body' => <<<END
<p>
	I&apos;m not one of those people that blasts his music all the time.
	Much of the time, my music is down so low you can&apos;t hear the words unless you already know what they are, and when it isn&apos;t that low, it&apos;s at least at a tolerable level and is easily covered up by any sort of loud noise in the vicinity.
	For that reason, I often discover new treasures in my playlist, songs that I&apos;ve heard many times before, but never really payed attention to.
	Today, <a href="http://www.joshwoodward.com/song/Chainsaw">Chainsaw</a> was such a song.
	It&apos;s got a slow, mellow melody, so if you aren&apos;t paying attention, it&apos;s easy to miss the fact that the song is about a psychopathic murderer.
	The narrator of the song killed three people with his chainsaw.
	The tune is beautiful, and if you don&apos;t take it too seriously, the lyrics are amusing.
</p>
<p>
	It appears that the Geocaching moderators finally got around to cleaning out their moderation queue, as someone responded to my now-visible post.
	They said that proxies should work with the Geocaching website as long as they are not anonymizing proxies.
	That&apos;s not particularly helpful considering that the proxy I use <strong>*is*</strong> one that anonymizes.
	I have clarified, <a href="http://forums.groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=331013&amp;st=0&amp;gopid=5493588#entry5493588">stating that I do use an anonymizing proxy</a>, and asking again if there is anything I can do about it.
	To be perfectly clear, I once again stated that taking down or bypassing the proxy is <strong>*not*</strong> an option.
</p>
<p>
	When I converted <a href="http://www.thekyotoconnection.com/">Wake Up</a> from $a[FLAC] to Vorbis, I didn&apos;t really know what the command I entered to do so meant.
	It included an unneeded sound quality flag, so when I later used the command to convert Woodward&apos;s music, I left it out.
	It kind of bothered me a little, for $a[OCD] reasons, so I erased the music on my mobile, reconverted Wake Up, <a href="http://www.joshwoodward.com/mod/song/view_album.php?album_id=13">Ashes</a>, and <a href="http://www.joshwoodward.com/mod/song/view_album.php?album_id=15">The Beautiful Machine</a> without the flag, and tried to put the music all back onto my mobile.
	All the music went back on without issue, aside from <a href="http://www.joshwoodward.com/mod/song/view_album.php?album_id=5">Sunny Side of the Street</a>.
	I jumped to the conclusion that $a[MTP] had gone back to choking on <code>Are You Having Fun?.ogg</code>&apos;s file name, as in the past, I&apos;ve had issues transferring files with questions marks and asterisks in their names.
	However, that was not the case.
	The other tracks in that album would not transfer to the mobile either.
	I rebooted the mobile, and the whole album transfered without error.
	I don&apos;t know what the issue was, but at least it seems resolved for now.
</p>
<p>
	I downloaded some of <a href="http://kelleemaize.com/">Kellee Maize</a>&apos;s work, which was sorely missing from my playlist.
	Namely, I downloaded her three free albums on Jamendo (her other three on Jamendo are proprietary) including her new remix album.
	I&apos;m not too impressed by some of the remixes of her work.
	Her original versions are much better, though a few of the remixes are good too.
	The next albums I buy will probably be her two free albums on Bandcamp (again, the other two on Bandcamp are proprietary).
	Once I buy those, I can tell her that if she fixes the licensing on the others, I&apos;d have no problems buying and recommending them.
	Her main website says all her work is under {$a['CC BY']}, so really, it&apos;s just a matter of getting her to update to show this on BandCamp and Jamendo.
</p>
<p>
	An old friend, <a href="#redaction">[REDACTED]</a>, wrote to me today.
	He found my new email address, but he used my old $a[PGP] key, probably assuming I still have it.
	Unfortunately, this key was lost when my hard drive failed on me.
	I&apos;ve written back explaining such, but [REDACTED] is a cautious individual.
	We&apos;ll have to see how he responds and if he believes that I&apos;m the same person he once knew.
</p>
<p>
	As I said, [REDACTED] uses $a[PGP] encryption.
	To write back, I attempted to retrieve his public key from the key servers using Claws Mail&apos;s $a[GnuPG] plugin&apos;s interface, but it appears such an option does not exist.
	After searching the web and scouring the interface, I ended up giving up and looking for a new option.
	I installed Seahorse, which is supposed to be a graphical key manager, but it didn&apos;t show any signs that it had actually downloaded [REDACTED]&apos;s key, and the key did not show up in the list of keys I have on my machine.
	Next, I tried $a[GNU] Privacy Assistant.
	$a[GNU] Privacy Assistant throws errors complaining about an unsupported certificate every time I open or close the application, as well as if I access certain dialog windows within the application.
	If I attempt to download a key, I&apos;m told that on key was found but that zero were downloaded.
	I decided I might be better off replacing my whole mail client.
	Back when I used IceDove with Enigmail, key retrieval was possible from within the mail client, so I know it can be done.
	Additionally, replacing the mail client may allow me to escape pinentry&apos;s idiocy.
	I decided to try Evolution.
	I installed it, but it doesn&apos;t show up in the application menu and running <code>evolution</code> on the command line doesn&apos;t work.
	I went back to the command line to recheck what keys I needed, and found that [REDACTED]&apos;s key was installed.
	What I figure most likely happened is that Seahorse successfully imported the key, but showed no success message.
	Likewise, it does not display the key, either due to a bug or due to it not displaying public keys.
	$a[GNU] Privacy Assistant found the key but would not download it because it had already been downloaded by Seahorse.
</p>
<p>
	Speaking of pinentry&apos;s idiocy, I&apos;m planning to code a way around using pinentry when compiling my site.
	Every day I have to deal with pinentry fighting me tooth and nail to make sure I don&apos;t paste my password in or autotype it.
	It is a pain in the butt, and it&apos;s all because the developers think everyone should hand type their passwords.
	I have news though: if your password is as secure as it should be, typing your password is not a real option.
	I don&apos;t know what to do on the mail front.
	I don&apos;t send mail that often though, and most of the mail I receive is automated, so I don&apos;t have to deal with pinentry in my mail client on a regular basis.
</p>
<p>
	<strong>*Last minute update*:</strong> When I was compiling my site today to upload this entry, I found that pinentry&apos;s password prompt had changed.
	Autotype is now completely broken.
	Before, pinentry would attept to detect if I had autotyped the password, and would claim that the password was incorrect if it successfully detected that I had.
	Now, autotype doesn&apos;t even allow input by autotype.
	However, it now accepts clipboard input.
	I can now paste my password! No paste blocking and no complaints about pasted passwords are present.
	I&apos;m not sure if this is actually not pinentry at all or if something I installed while as a dependency today fixed pinentry&apos;s poor behavior.
	I will have to look more into this next time I have a clean system to work with, so I can try to find exactly which installation fixed the issue.
</p>
<p>
	<a href="/a/canary.txt">No one prevents me from speaking my mind today.</a>
</p>
<p>
	<strong id="redaction">*REDACTION*:</strong> I have been asked by the entity mentioned above to remove his/her name and not link to him/heron the Web.
	This is a request on behalf of the person&apos;s privacy, and is <strong>*not*</strong> a request made by a third-party government entity.
</p>
END
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