Welcome to the seventh edition of Wonderful Songs, my monthly blog entry outlining ten exceptional songs I listened to during the past month.

Few people asked me how much time I devote to listening to Music on average each day. Truth is, I don't know and I've never "calculated" averages for this kind of activity. Sorry to say this but giving the question a second thought, it seems pretty stupid in my point of view. Let me explain that a bit.

In my (maybe twisted) mind, Music is a very important thing and it's high on my priority list. It helps me focus, rest, motivate, produce and feel good. It may not be vital for living (as in breathing air every day) but it is vital for living (as in enjoying every day). So whenever and wherever I can, I listen to Music : during my daily job (I am a Computer Security consultant for the record) if I have no meetings or other tasks that require strong human interaction, during my daily commute (at the moment, it's 1h10min each way), when I take a shower, before going to sleep, while reading on the sofa during the week-end, ...

Music has many dimensions: spiritual, political, sexual, social, ... and it carries a wonderful number of feelings. Except the stupid, sour, soup some TV and radio channels serve repetitively each day, Music is an art and as such, I don't think you could nor should "calculate" it in any way. It must be enjoyed for what it is: a construct that will allow each one of us to live subjective experiences.

What if we go back to our Wonderful Songs for this month and hopefully share some excellent subjective experiences together? Sit back, relax and enjoy!

[New Age] The Ballade Of Puppets: In A New World, Gods Will Descend, Kenji Kawai
From the O.S.T. of Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence.

Ghost in The Shell 2: Innocence is one of the best Japanese Animation movies I've seen last year and the O.S.T. made by Kenji Kawai is excellent. The Ballade Of Puppets: In A New World, Gods Will Descend is a travel to to some unknown, mystical, beautiful place. I love this kind of song that build up little by little to carry you to an imaginary alternate World, comfy and troubling at the same time. Grandiose! Simply a masterpiece.

[Folk] Hate, Cat Power
From the album The Greatest. Available from eMusic

Cat Power, a.k.a. Chan Marshall, treats us once more to great Music with The Greatest, her latest album to date that was released just two days ago at the time of this writing. In this short period, I enjoyed it so much that I've listened to it at least 4 times. Hate is by (not so) far my favorite song. It's a very simple song in its construction using a guitar to accompany Chan's beautiful and melancholic voice which has a spacey and distant feel to it. There's always that enjoyable frailty and sadness in Cat's voice that I liked so much in Your Are Free, one of her previous albums. My optimal setting for listening to it is in a dark or almost dark room with no surrounding noise (if there's too much of it, think noise-isolating headphones).

[World] Mini Amba, King Kora
From the album Bundung. Available from eMusic

King Kora is a Swiss/ Cuban/ African band that uses Kora (one of my favorite instruments if you didn't read previous issues of Wonderful Songs) as a backbone for its songs and blend it in a very beautiful fashion with more traditional instruments such as horns (is there Mbalax also or my ears are crippled?). They invite some very good African artists on this record. Mini Amba stands out among the other very good songs of this record for two reasons. First is the voice of the singer (sorry, I don't know his name and if you do please tell me!). Second is the hip-hopish section in the middle of the song, sung in French. That's what I call a true, beautiful fusion. Bundung largely deserves to belong to the top list of "World" albums.

[Latin] Amortiguador, Andrea Echeverri
From the album Andrea Echeverri. Available from eMusic

Amortiguador is the opening song of this pleasant and refreshing album. Amortiguador, which means shock absorber in Spanish (thanks Xavier!), absorbs the stress and weariness you may feel at the end of the day. Close your eyes, relax and let Andrea take you to her beautiful Music garden... can you feel and smell the fresh (and not-so-short) lawn underneath you?

[Hip-Hop] Sofa King, Danger Doom
From the album The Mouse And The Mask. Available from eMusic

Wow! This is an amazing piece of Hip-Hop made by DJ Danger Mouse and MF Doom which took the combined name Danger Doom to make this record. Sofa King has a great, oldish, beat that I enjoy a lot! I cannot say much about the album since I got this song with the Epitaph Hip Hop Sampler album, which contains other great gems.

[Pop] Be With You, Chumbawamba
From the album You Are Free. Available from eMusic

A pair of latinish-sounding guitars and a sweet female voice make Be With You an enjoyable song. It carries a sense of happiness and restfulness. It's like if the artists wanted us to know that they are at rest while making their music and want us to feel that way.

[Jazz] Chant, Robert Glasper
From the album Canvas.

Robert Glasper is an impressive pianist that I've never heard of before buying Canvas, his debut album with Blue Note (yes, Blue Note!!!). It's a nice record that I bought without any prior knowledge of what kind of Jazz I might find on it. Chant is an excellent melodic piece of more than 8 minutes on which Bilal, a Soul singer, hums behind the piano with his nice voice. Bilal's voice is heavily processed at times to make sound like a guitar and the result is enjoyable.

[Soul] Distant Lover, Marvin Gaye
From the album Live At Montreux 1980. Available from eMusic

I keep listening to Marvin Gaye years after years, after years, after years. I highly regard this artist's work, which I consider as a pillar of Soul Music. His heavenly voice can't be described. It reaches my soul and heart in the most profound way. The sound of this Live record is amazing, given its age and has nothing to do with the very very bad Greatest Hits Live record. There's too much great songs to select from but since I got to select one, I chose Distant Lover which Marvin took to higher grounds during that venue. It is so beautiful that it brings tears (of joy) to my eyes every time I hear it. No word can describe this magical Music. Thank you so much Marvin!

[Funk] Addictive Love, Maceo Parker feat. Candy Dulfer
From the album Life On Planet Groove.

A very groovy song where two of my favorite saxophonists make their instruments literally speak to and influence each other. Candy Dulfer brings a very nice Smooth Jazz tone to Maceo Parker's funky sound. And the album is my favorite from Maceo.

[Metal] Denial, Sevendust
From the album Best Of (Chapter One: 1997-2004). Available from eMusic

I discovered this band (and album) by chance when browsing eMusic. They remind me a lot of Creed, which released the excellent Human Clay a few years ago. This "Best Of" is of unequal quality and the sound is bad at times. However, I love how Denial starts and gets into full gear. If you like Creed, you would definitely want to get this song.

J'ai effectué deux présentations lors de la réunion du groupe SUR du 10.01.2006 :

• Faille WMF : cette présentation a porté principalement sur la première faille WMF découverte dans le moteur GDI de Windows le 27.12.2005 dernier, avec quelques informations sur la nouvelle faille WMF découverte le 09.01.2006. Les slides de cette présentation sont disponibles au format PDF à l'adresse http://saad.docisland.org/docs/files/sur20060110-faille_wmf.pdf.
• Multiplexage sous OpenSSH : cette présentation a porté sur la fonction de multiplexage disponible dans OpenSSH depuis la version 3.9 et nettement améliorée et stabilisée par les versions récentes. Les slides de cette présentation sont disponibles au format PDF à l'adresse http://saad.docisland.org/docs/files/sur20060110-mux_openssh.pdf.

Si vous avez des questions ou des commentaires, n'hésitez pas à m'en faire part par courriel : saad at docisland dot org.

Une nouvelle vulnérabilité WMF a été découverte dans le moteur d'affichage GDI de Windows. Techniquement, ce sont en fait deux vulnérabilités dans les fonctions ExtCodeRegion et ExtEscape
de gdi32.dll.

Ces deux vulnérabilités causent une corruption de mémoire au niveau des applications utilisatrices du format d'images WMF. Un code d'exploitation de type Proof-of-Concept a été publié. Ce code exploite cette vulnérabilité pour causer un déni de service. D'après SecurityFocus et l'ISC, une exécution de code arbitraire n'est pas loin même si Microsoft ne voit que des problèmes de performances dans cette vulnérabilité.

Espérons que Microsoft ait raison.

Microsoft a finalement sorti un correctif pour la faille critique WMF 5 jours avant la date prévue. F-Secure pense que les tests du Microsoft se sont achevés plus tôt que prévu. Pour ma part, je dirais que la menace est si grande et la pression de leurs gros clients si importante qu'ils se sont décidés à réagir. Tant mieux !

Au passage, notez que Microsoft ne préconisait pas le correctif non officiel fourni par Ilfak Guilfanov et étrangement, leur correctif est fonctionnellement identique à celui d'Ilfak.

L'Internet Storm Center fournit des instructions détaillées (en Anglais) pour installer proprement ce correctif, surtout si vous avez installé le correctif non officiel d'Ilfak Guilfanov.

Vu l'importance et la criticité de la faille WMF des systèmes d'exploitation Windows, l'ISC (Internet Storm Center) a écrit une très bonne FAQ à ce sujet.

J'ai traduit cette FAQ en Français. Vous pourrez la lire à l'adresse suivante :

http://www.docisland.org/~saad/ISC_wmf_faq_fr.html


Le problème est très sérieux. N'attendez pas pour agir.