This has been replaced by a later version. Check the “WPMU-LDAP” category to find the latest version.

Well, at work I’ve successfully installed and released a version of WPMU, making use of the nice WPMU LDAP plugin. A good deal of people before me have worked on this, sometimes with several instances of individual releases, and I’m quite grateful to all of them for the code. My life is significantly easier because of this. Now it’s my turn to contribute, so here it is: the WPMU LDAP Plugin, v1.1.0. Cheers!

I’ve sent my changes to Alex Barker, the maintainer of the WPMUDev.org site for the plugin, and hopefully things will get posted appropriately.

News and changes in this release from the last one published by Alex:

• Moved the options panel to be a sub-menu of Site Admin (since they’re site-wide settings)
• The CSS for the LDAP options is now properly referenced
• Added options to disable public signup, with a customizable message (kinda hack-y right now)
• Added a good deal of documentation and in-code commenting
• Heavy refactoring of the code for cleaner organization and maintenance
• Released it under the LGPL (after contacting the original developers to make sure it was okay)
• Minor changes to error messages

I have not touched ldap_core.php or ldap_ro.php… basically the only work I’ve done is with the “glue” code and documentation.

I’m in process of applying for a SourceForge project for the plugin, so that there’s a public repository for the code, project mgmt features, etc. Just a starting place, but I think it will be good.

Anyway, more news to be posted as it comes.

-sean

Update (2007-05-24::13:05 EDT): I’ve found out that this version is not immediately friendly to PHP 4. This is fixed in v1.1.1.
Update (2007-05-24::18:16 EDT): This should have been released as v1.1.0 from the start (I wasn’t thinking at the time). The updates reflect this.

Never underestimate Big Brother’s reach.

I was struck today by how difficult (but not impossible) it can be to track a blogger down for email contact. In two cases recently, I’ve tried to track down people for whom I knew the locations of their blogs, but I did not know their emails. It turned into a challenge to try and track them down, as public posting was either inappropriate or I feared it would be missed.

At first, I was a touch annoyed at not having a contact form or something with which to send them personalized messages. After I started really digging, though, I found it kinda… fun.

I found myself intrigued by the challenge of trying to search for little tidbits of information, some snippet of context on which to build more information.  I’ve searched for other blogs, for employer information, etc.  A lot can be extrapolated with in-depth reading of content.  Domain-name owner for a website, interests posted (e.g., blogging categories or links), writing style, etc.  All of these can help build a picture of who someone is, what they do, and where they live.

One’s first thought might be to try to hide everything while online, so that no one can ever track you down.  Take the paranoid approach, and try to hide.  Probably not bad, but it only makes it a bit more difficult.  What with internet search engines caching and archiving everything, if one even slips up once it’s available in a (moderately) easy-to-find method.

I tend to display most stuff online, and not hide much.  It will probably come back to bite me, but so far, it’s not been bad.  (Yeah, yeah… famous last words!)

Anyway - those two bloggers I mentioned?  I’m pretty sure I found contact emails for them.  Let’s hope I hear back soon.

-sean