Plunge it in deep water: it comes up more beautiful
Plunge it in deep water: it comes up more beautiful[1]
Keywords: Internet, Computer software, Printed circuits
You'll remember that in the last issue I commented on Mozilla Firefox, as a first class browser with many distinct advantages over Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Today, I'll chat with you about another new Mozilla product,Thunderbird. This is their latest e-mail client, which has equally distinct advantages over Outlook and Outlook Express. What is perhaps not very well known is that Microsoft has not been devoting much energy to the development of improvements to these softwares for several years, perhaps a little cosmetic touch here and there. This is probably one of the reasons why these e-mail clients are not very good in terms of internet security. Thunderbird is a horse of a different colour!
Let me be very frank from the start; Thunderbird is not perfect, but what software is? Whatever, it is a whole host better than anything else I have tried and the cost is attractive – free-of charge, because it is an open source software, costing only the time to download it. If you wish to do so, it can be found at http://www.mozilla.org (Figure 1).
Figure 1Typical Mozilla Thunderbird layout, as an e-mail client reader. To send e-mails, the left hand box displays the address book, the top-right one handles the addressing and the bottom one is the space for typing the message
If we have a look at Figure 1, we can see that the Window has three boxes, by default (other configurations are possible). The left-hand one gives a folder tree. In this case, I have mailboxes at different levels, all of which are filled automatically by my POPFile automatic classification system. In this example, I have one new message in the IPC TechNet mailbox and 26 spam messages that have gone into the Trash box (these can be viewed for checking before mass-deleting them).
The top right-hand box shows the listing of messages in the selected mailbox. This may be organised in several different ways; here I have chosen to show it by thread. Underneath this, is the box displaying a selected message. So far,there is nothing outstanding in this. The only thing that can be seen which is perhaps not visible in most other clients is the icon entitled Junk in the toolbar. Thunderbird has its own spam filter, working on the Bayesian principle. I don't use this feature, preferring POPFile to do my filtering. However, it is probably very useful for those who wish a simple Go/No Go classification of spam. If you highlight every message that is spam, and press the Junk icon, the system will learn and subsequently automatically classify the spam which you receive. This can be automatically filtered into the Trash box. If you wish an independent review of my set- up, please visit the web site http://channels.lockergnome.com/it/archives/20050315_bayesian_filtering_at_its_ best.phtml.
Where Thunderbird excels is more behind the scenes. In particular, the authors have taken extreme measures to ensure maximum security. For example, it would be very difficult for anybody to hack into the application. Above all, the Address Book is encrypted to prevent illicit use of the contents, to propagate viruses for example.
From the Options menu, there are several tens of ways you can configure Thunderbird to your liking. For example, the Message Filter system is probably the most powerful that I've come across and is even customisable so that you can filter from header lines and automatically give colour-coded priorities to e-mails from your boss or wife. You can also automatically set up filters from an incoming message. All the features are far too numerous to catalogue here, though. However, that is not all, there are script files that the knowledgeable user may modify, with hundreds of parameters, to change how Thunderbird reacts to specific situations.
One negative point I found is that, although it is blindingly fast when you start with it, if your mailbox contains many thousands of messages, it does begin to slow down. It is easy to mitigate this problem by moving the old messages to be archived to a different ad hoc mailbox. I use a different profile for this.
Now, is it easy to move to Thunderbird from other e-mail clients? The answer is yes. It can be done in two phases: moving existing messages and address lists and going along the learning curve. I have a friend who is totally computer-illiterate and she asked my advice about some e-mail security problems she was having. With some trepidation, I moved her from Outlook Express to Thunderbird (amongst some other things). I was very surprised to find that her learning curve lasted only a couple of hours, to the extent that she expressed the view that the new client was much superior and more “user- friendly”compared to her old one, just the following day. With this in mind, I recommend Mozilla Thunderbird very strongly, no matter which e-mail client you are used to.
Regular readers are used to my security rants. Please allow me to revisit the problem of “phishing”. The last time I wrote about this, it was still called “fishing” and was in its infancy. Let me remind you what it is. You receive an e-mail purporting to come from your bank or another trusted person, asking for a confirmation of some details through an https page on their web site, with a link to it. This may be relatively banal, such as to obtain details for targeted advertising but, more often than not, it seeks bank account numbers, user IDs, passwords, credit card details and so on. “Phishers”have become very astute at their métier and it may be almost excusable to be tempted to fall into the trap set by these criminals, under some circumstances. They make the “Nigerian scammers” look primitive in comparison, and we all know that even they are sometimes successful in extorting money from the gullible. For example, the “phishers” clearly show in their message that the hyperlink to their web site is that of the URL you are familiar with but if you look at the Hyperlink Properties (how many people would?), you will probably see that it goes to an IP number. If you click on this, it is a pixel-by-pixel reproduction of the page you would normally see. However, there is worse to come. The original e-mail message asking you to co-operate will contain a tiny HTML sequence that will contain the QHosts Trojan. If you then type the real URL of, say, your bank, the internal DNS Hosts file in your PC will cause it to be shunted to the “phisher's” site. This is a terrible security flaw in Windows that has not been widely publicised and is certainly valid for all versions of Windows up to XP SP1. I do not know whether it is the case for the relatively recent SP2. To mitigate the danger,many firewalls and anti- malware utilities lock the Hosts file against unauthorised changes so, if you have taken my past advice and installed these,the risk is minimised.
Finally, before we get down to business and look at some web sites, let me mention that the new (ish) SP2 for Windows XP has a “Security Center”that can lull you into a false sense of security. (By the way, in the last issue, I mentioned that Microsoft withdrew their offer of a free CD for SP2; and downloading was the only way to upgrade. No doubt under pressure, it is now possible to order a free CD- ROM again. My apologies if I misled anyone.) Well,this “Security Center” will not show whether some third-party firewalls or anti-virus utilities are up to date and working. Worse, this is because the authors of these utilities have disabled the feature inasmuch as it is claimed that it may interfere with how they work. This is not a Microsoft error. Nevertheless, if it is so easy for the utility authors to disable a feature designed to show whether you are at risk or not, how easy would it be for a malware author to design a Trojan Horse to do the same thing – and do something worse to your machine while you believe that you are safe?
Having seen Martin Goosey's paper on water use in PCB fabrication in CWVolume 31, Number 2, which came out earlier this year, I thought that a look at what the internet had to offer on this important subject would not be out-of-place. Google tells me that there are about 132,000 pages on this subject. Let's have a look at a few of the more serious ones.
This page is appetite-whetting, but offers little to fill the stomach. Entitled Water Quality in PWB Fabrication, it mentions the wet processing steps in photographic processing, prelamination, surface pre- paration, wet lamination, development, plating, stripping, etching, oxide bonder formation,and a variety of pre-cleaning and rinsing steps. Unfortunately, there is nothing visible that actually talks about water quality. Instead, there is an invitation to obtain three out of a whole host of technical papers about these processes,but precious few of them have titles relating directly to water quality. Notwithstanding, copies of the lot (nearly 70) may be obtained on a CD- ROM against payment of a nominal $40, all bar one cent. I guess this would be an excellent value for PCB fabricators, irrespective of the fact that the papers are not all water-related.
Sorry, this one is totally irrelevant, but I could not resist mentioning it,because it is hilariously computer-translated from Greek and tells you how amateur PCBs can be made.
This is an article from the pen of the US EPA, suggesting that plasma desmearing pays for itself by virtue of not having water treatment problems. The same applies to using a formaldehyde-free metallisation process. Whereas reducing the cost and volume of waste water treatment is an excellent aim, I'm afraid that the EPA can, at times, be stubbornly single minded. This is illustrated by their lack of a holistic pollution-prevention approach. In this case, there is no mention of the problems engendered by using tetrafluoromethane in the plasma process. This compound is one of the worst greenhouse gases, with a Global Warming Potential of over 10,000 (index of carbon dioxide = 1) and is a controlled substance within the Kyoto Protocol. Not only that, one of the decomposition products from the process is hydrogen fluoride, which is quite nasty for the environment, human health and equipment life. One presumes that there is a reasonable capture of these substances, but this is not specified in the article and one is always afraid that swapping one pollution source for another is not always the wisest course, without a profound study involving all the factors.
This appears to be an 86-page dissertation for a Master of Public Health degree, entitled Wastewater Treatment in the Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing Industry. It is a very interesting read, although it obviously suffers from a lack of knowledge of the finer points of the industry. The author has evaluated 65 S. Californian fabricators and, from his observations, has issued recommendations for large, medium and small plants as to how best to treat waste water, recycle it, meet discharge limits and minimise incoming water consumption. Although it is, on the whole, well researched, I do feel that the author may have been influenced by factors that are not necessarily based on sound science. His biggest concern, in terms of waste, appears to be the elimination of precipitation sludge on purely economic grounds. However, it does not seem to have occurred to him, judging from a quick perusal, that the metals in the waste stream from a reverse osmosis unit or held in ion exchange columns(or released in the regeneration liquors) are just about the same in quality and quantity as would be precipitated out. Whereas transportation and disposal costs are factored in the sludge, these are not reflected in the other methods;perhaps he thinks the metals magically disappear? Despite these weaknesses, the paper is very interesting.
This site is run by the Californian government and the page bears the titlePollution Prevention (P2) for Printed Circuit Board Manufacturing. There are seven links to industry-specific pages, while this one mentions the reduction of drag-out, extending the life of wet chemistry baths and to limit the use of chelates. This may be a good starting point for those wishing to broach the subject.
I hate activist NGOs and this is an example of the worst type, the teeth-gnashing type. Here, they bash The Environmental Cost of Printed Circuit Boards, citing as “Air Pollutants: particulates, acid fumes,ammonia fumes, organic vapors, CFCs, or chlorofloro carbons; Waste Stream Pollutants: acid and alkaline solutions, electroless copper baths, catalyst solutions, developing solutions, resist material, etchants, aqueous metals,plating baths, metals, including nickel, silver, copper, lead, flux residue,deionised water; Other Wastes: sludge, scrap board metal, waste rinse water, solder, filters, gloves.” This list has been copied verbatim from the page, with only a change in punctuation, so that their cause is lost in the stupidity (DI water: a pollutant? Waste rinse water: not a waste stream pollutant? Chlorofloro carbon: what's that?). No one denies that our industry can cause pollution but to have ignoramuses publish half-truths that can mislead the public into thinking it is inevitable is totally irresponsible. They imply that we must do so by categorically emphasising that we produce all the cited pollutants, and that we take no measures to stop releasing them. To add insult to injury, they offer no concrete suggestions how we can improve our environmental health record, so they wallow in negativism.
I've singled out a page from this site describing equipment for recycling water within our industry. However, this is just one page out of many from this Canadian equipment manufacturer, offering a comprehensive range of precipitators, filters, RO, ion exchange, evaporators and so on. Be warned,though, that some of the PDF downloads are big!
This is the reproduction of a magazine article, Waste Water Treatment for Printed Circuit Manufacturers. The writing style may not be to everyone's taste but, hidden behind the informality, there is some useful information and a comparison between different systems, although not all options are presented.
This is a very interesting paper describing how an in-house PCB fabrication plant implemented several pollution prevention programmes. Although water conservation was not a primary objective, some minor changes to processes did produce considerable reductions in water use. Although 9 years old, there are lessons to be learnt by all from this well-referenced 34-page document. I strongly recommend that everyone take the opportunity to peruse this work.
This is a set of guidelines issued by the UK Environment Agency to help small PCB fabrication enterprises understand the regulations. It is all sound commonsense and well worth reading, no matter where you are situated. Most of the document concerns water protection. Some of the clauses are even slightly astonishing that they have to be put in writing!
This is a page devoted to an aqueous batch defluxing machine. I will refrain from commenting on it, lest I be accused of bias.
This page describes a HASL flux whose use is laconically described as “Cover panels completely with HAL Flux, then hot air level and rinse with cool water”. This kind of chemical is potentially dangerous if not used correctly and I reproach the manufacturer for not publishing the MSDS on the web or even telling you how to obtain one. Equally, there are no indications of subsequent water treatment after rinsing the boards “with cool water”.
This is another water-soluble flux, this time for soldering. However, the different available documents, including a MSDS, indicate the methods of use,the hazards involved and so on. This is in complete contrast to the last one and is as it should be for all chemicals that we use, no matter what the environmental or health and safety hazards.
So, there is much information about many facets of water in our industry on the Net, but I have found it is not always easy to find valid information on a specific aspect of the subject. My search over the last few hours has taken me to many pages which may be irrelevant to the subject or which describe amateur techniques for hobbyists (mostly very dangerous, by the way). What is very clear is that there are four aspects that are of prime importance: quality, minimising consumption, conforming to waste water regulations and protecting the environment.
Brian EllisCyprusb_ellis@protonique.com
Note1 Merses profundo: pulchrior evenit. Plunge it in deep water: it comes up more beautiful, Horace, Odes bk. 4, no. 4, l. 65.
