Slashdot Mirror

I posted this before somewhere but it applies more here... One way to make a nice little set up for your machines is to create your own crate like addition which could follow the typical dimensions of a desk. Now it would have to be enclosed at least the section where your pc is going to be placed which makes for cool security too if you want to add a lock to it. No one could remotely root it via booting in single modes...

Anyways what you'd do after making the enclosure is insulate is with fiberglass insulation sold at a typical hardware store (dirt cheap), drill about an 4 inch slot into the side somewhere or the back if you have enough space or the side and attach a floor standing Penguino air conditioner along with a hose used for clothes dryers. The insulation keeps both the cold air in and noise out. Not only that but when your not using your PC's you could remove the hose and cool your house.

New Blackbox Themes

Religious factions with assistance from MADD, RNC, Britains BBC, ELF, EFF, EPIC, ACLU, and 50 million other acronyms you never heard of, announced today the creation of another acronymed organization set to make its debut at Quakecon.

Dubbed HAVOC, or Homosapiens Against Violence On Computers, the group is targeting Quakecon in efforts to halt millions of geeks from "fragging" each other into oblivion.

"We shouldn't educate our children on what is and what isn't violent in society. The process is simple, attack the gaming industry, porn industry, poisonous media outlets, and rap music, in order to make the world safer. Why the hell would I want to speak to my kid?" stated an angry parent known as Hilda.
The group is hoping to pass out buttons, stickers, and T-Shirts of Barney the purple dinosaur in hopes of circumventing the angers of millions of video gamers.

stay tuned

FOOL Licensing

I just wrote a rebuttal to Kurt Seifried's humorous "Why Linux is more secure then OpenBSD" which can be found here.

So here's my two cents to it all. Having used Linux for some years then switching back to the BSD's (started with FBSD, now running Open for my server, and FBSD @ home) I'd have to say Linux is as much of a Joke as Windows is when it comes to security, and no I don't mean to be a troll.

People are forgetting some of the core basics involved with security. Auditing. If core codebase was audited prior to releasing a distribution, you wouldn't have that many security advisories coming forward. Sure the process can become tedious especially when your in a large network environment, but why should I run an insecure OS then download an add-on solution, when I could just download OpenBSD for hardcore security?

Give me a break sure lomac sounds great so does did bastille, so does SE-Linux but these to me are just patches. I'd rather take a secure by default installation any time.

And oh yea you could respond with limiting services being run, but that still doesn't account for all the patches you have to install because someone just released another advisory for Linux.

Anyways the article I wrote summarizes some good points and weak ones too. kudos

J. "sil" Oquendo
Uncommon Hax0rin6 Methids
Chief Hax0rin6 Office
AntiOffline.com
(security pimps should get a laugh off the sig ;))

Ruthless as the RIAA, mean as the MPAA, the software industry provides a near perfect model for anyone who wants to turn infinitely reproducible silver discs into endless buckets of cash.

And without all the awkwardness of actually providing a product or service, too.

If security isn't your main line of work then its sometimes better if you contacted a security company and had them speak to the other company after working out some sort of deal with the security company for the following reasons.

If you were doing some other work for the company, then was cut off they could think you were illegally looking for holes in their systems, or were pissed off at them, and helped yourself to take some form of actions by auditing them (think about what the company would see in this situation) to find ways of screwing them.

Contacting a security company could benefit you in other ways because if they know of something your company does, they'd likely turn to you for passing on business to them so you create a network for yourself. Now the security company on the other hand could present it in the following fashion to the primary place.

salesman of sec. co: "A previous vendor of yours contacted us out of concern for your company as they suspected you may have some vulnerabilities but they were unsure of this so they turned to us since we focus in security...."

As stated if security isn't your main field of work your better off (IMHO) going this route since it also saves face and doesn't seem like your fetching for bones. It may also help win back "brownie points" should the company have to reconsider vendors, and they're likely to remember your actions if they went ahead and had the security company audit them and fix their holes.

my two cents...

FreeBSD spoof

For anyone who hasn't followed this case, its all about 2600 hyperlinking to sites that post DVD cracking code when you look at things from a "whats it all about" basis.

Sure the underlying motives are free speech, and the rights for techie/hackers which is good and the outcome is either going to make or break "freedom of speech" based arenas in the tech world. Think about it entirely... Why shouldn't you have the right to post a link to information others want to read for whatever purposes? Just because some corporate bigwigs get scared your going to break their technology? Give me a break tax dollars should have been wasted on more important matters than 2600 posting a hyperlink on their page.

My two cents of it all since I'm personally tired of hearing the rants and ramblings of "they should" "they shouldn't" Next time I'm voting for Elmo for president so he can place real muppets in office (not pseudo fakesters trying to hide their `muppetcy`) maybe they'll allow people to express themselves in unbiased fashions, without getting dragged into court because they hurt someone's corporate ego's.

Linux.com spoof

Customer lists the features that the software must provide. [a]
Customer chooses the most important tasks that can be completed by the next release.[b]

Even if you have a pile of diamonds equal to the weight of this earth there is no way to compare the peace it provides to the peace afforded by inner development. The owner of the jewels is still beset by mental problems like anger, attachment and so forth. If someone insults him, anger starts to rise, followed by, thoughts to give harm, to insult, to hurt. The man of inner development reacts quite differently. He thinks: "If he got angry with me, insulted me and hurt MY mind, how upset I would be, how unhappy I would become; so I shouldn't do negative things to him. If I am angry with him and insult him, he will be terribly upset and unhappy. I become unhappy when he is negative with me so of course he will be very unhappy and his peace will be disturbed if I am negative with him. How dare I do this to him?"

When you think like this, the anger disappears like a popped water bubble. At first the bubble seems to be as solid as stone but suddenly it disappears. At first it seems to us that we can't change the mind; yet when we use the correct method, when we meditate like this, the anger goes like a water bubble. You don't see the point of getting angry. You simply practice patience, try not to let anger arise, try to remember that what disturbs your mind and destroys your happiness also disturbs the other's happiness and doesn't help at all. Then how beautiful your face becomes! Anger makes us completely ugly. When anger enters a beautiful face, no amount of make-up can hide the complete ugliness and terror that manifest.

&ltsarcasm>

So its all come down to this. Lawsuit announcements just about every other day from some company, who's likely losing money in the market, going after everyone they could all because they own the patents for some product. Sooner or later we'll all be able to fabricate some form of lawsuit in fact while I type write now, I am also drawing up a patent for typing into a monitor with the lights off.

I'm an innovator, and I hope my invention of typing into a terminal with the lights off while listening to music becomes a hit. In fact I'll promote it here on Slashdot. So to all the users here, make this a daily action of yours. Let it become a standard in life.

Well I figure within a year or two after I lose money with my other inventions, I can turn around and sue each and every one of you who has used my patented method of typing into your terminals. You honestly didn't think I would patent strictly to be innovative did you?

&lt/sarcasm>

Linux.com spoof

Imagine a network solely to be used for say... College Students working on medical research who need to interact with each other but don't want to have to access the internet via the normal channels, email, forums, etc., they could have a client specifically created by Jabber to cater to their needs.

Imagine the Genome research companies all over the world sharing information via those same routes, they too could have a specially created client for them which could do things like fetch information via an XML add on for them. Example, CometSystems has a neat "smart cursor" based tool which allows any word in a page regardless if they have a hyperlink, and pull up information on whatever was selected. So imagine if Jabber did the same only it catered to no one but the Genome companies.

Thats where corporations would come in, to add revenue. There are many more instances of corporate uses I could think of for them to make money off the client. Make an SSL based secure transaction client to interact with Amazon and other vendors, so if someone sent their friend a URL for music, the user would be automatically be directed (should they clink a special link) to a vendor to purchase that record, or book, etc., there are plenty of ways to make cash with it.

All your base are belong to Dubya

steganography has a problem with being easily detected

OutGuess 0.2 can not be detected by any test available. At least not the ones available to the guys at Univ of Michigan for one. Secondly even if you detect it, you still have to go about retrieving data.

Your also wrong on the filesizes as Outguess shrinks the filesize. You can verify this by looking at the pictures in my Ghost in the Shell where filesizes sometimes are decreased from 80k to about 16k.

Advertisers use subliminal messages in commercials... ;)

Venona

And as part of the Manhattan Project, he was designing a high-speed electronic counter needed for developing the atom bomb. But all that work would be swept aside for the Navy's highest priority - breaking the Enigma Code.

In a tersely stated letter to the National Defense Research Committee on Aug. 17, 1942, Desch wrote: "We have other work of higher priority rating on which we can usefully place our engineers, but once they are started on such other work, they cannot be withdrawn . . . for some time to come." By mid-summer, two of the Navy's bright young theoreticians were in England learning all about the British bombe and sending reports back to the States. Desch received at least some of that information, enough to persuade him that he needed to take a direction different from both the British and the U.S. Navy if he were to turn out a machine in time. After weeks of agonizing, Desch decided on a major technological leap - backwards. H proposed an electromechanical device that wouldn't be pretty, wouldn't be elegant, but would accomplish the job through sheer brute force. "We never had any doubt about it. We knew what (the machine) had to do," Mumma said. "It was just matter of time, but time was of the essence."

For those wanting more information on stego check out the following link which I found to be one of the most informative. Outguess is probably the top of the line Nix stego program I've found (FYI) and you could see its output here (Statue of Liberty pics)

Personally I think this will piss off Big Brother more than it would Corporations, since it'd be extremely hard on a system to encipher a 700mb video clip into a picture so the stego comment seems off the mark to me where Napster or SDMI is concerned Watermarking yes stego a music file... Sure and $AUTHORITY_FIGURES will believe that pr0n picture is supposed to be 500mb in file size.

As for digital watermarking... Please see this prior post on this subject.

FLUENT, enables an operator to search stored documents in a language s/he doesn't understand by using his or her own language for queries. (read on and here)

ThIs PoSt HaS bEeN oWnEd By A hAx0r tO pRoTeSt HuMaN rIgHtS oN eAsTeR iSlAnD

sLaShDoT mOdErAtOrS: wE oWn YoUr SeCuRiTy ThRoUgH 0(tHeR)-dAy SpLoItS aNd WiLL nOw CoMmEnCe ShOuTs!@$~!*^

gReEtS tO kEvIn "cOnDoR" mItNiCk, h4x0rFo0fOo, PiMpMaStErFrAgAlIcIoUs, sUpErNiNjA_X, X-HaX0R-X, uNiXcOmMaNd_X, pRiNtF, eViLpAcKeTs, pPpKiLLa_X, AnD a77 OtHeR h4x0rS wIf UnIx cOmMaNdS iN tHeIr NiCkZ

tHiS iS dEdIcAtEd To dA cAuSe

Maybe the reason for the move is, MS could be waiting for the fed (Greenspan) to announce yet another raise or cut in interest rates (which is due for for May the last was to boost the economy sort of a freebie) which could also determine whether companies would jump up and buy buy buy, or wait wait wait. Analysts predict a stronger growth in the third quarter since most people are vactioning and sell off stocks in the summer, etc, etc. (no bs I dig the stock market)

Or perhaps some security flaws (which are high in MS) prompted developers to assess those in order to make it more attractive as opposed to the launch of Windows2000 where speculation was the product had over 60k bugs. By releasing YACP (yet another crappy product) MS could lose huge revenues all over the place, which is crucial especially when alternative OS' have been making their marks. Also remember their so called "Anti Piracy" feature was cracked recently.

Which reminds me... I remember when I was working on Theories in DoS, I made this program called Bubonic which was messing up Windows2000 and NT machines. I repeatedly tried to benchmark what was going on when I made the program and submitted it to Bugtraq since it messed up Windows' rpc crap entirely. Well after the advosry MS released a patch for rpc stuff saying they discovered an undiscovered flaw that affected rpc yadda yadda.

Hardcore Crypto

Maybe the reason for the move is, MS could be waiting for the fed (Greenspan) to announce yet another raise or cut in interest rates (which is due for for May the last was to boost the economy sort of a freebie) which could also determine whether companies would jump up and buy buy buy, or wait wait wait. Analysts predict a stronger growth in the third quarter since most people are vactioning and sell off stocks in the summer, etc, etc. (no bs I dig the stock market)

Or perhaps some security flaws (which are high in MS) prompted developers to assess those in order to make it more attractive as opposed to the launch of Windows2000 where speculation was the product had over 60k bugs. By releasing YACP (yet another crappy product) MS could lose huge revenues all over the place, which is crucial especially when alternative OS' have been making their marks. Also remember their so called "Anti Piracy" feature was cracked recently.

Which reminds me... I remember when I was working on Theories in DoS, I made this program called Bubonic which was messing up Windows2000 and NT machines. I repeatedly tried to benchmark what was going on when I made the program and submitted it to Bugtraq since it messed up Windows' rpc crap entirely. Well after the advosry MS released a patch for rpc stuff saying they discovered an undiscovered flaw that affected rpc yadda yadda.

Hardcore Crypto

Maybe the reason for the move is, MS could be waiting for the fed (Greenspan) to announce yet another raise or cut in interest rates (which is due for for May the last was to boost the economy sort of a freebie) which could also determine whether companies would jump up and buy buy buy, or wait wait wait. Analysts predict a stronger growth in the third quarter since most people are vactioning and sell off stocks in the summer, etc, etc. (no bs I dig the stock market)

Or perhaps some security flaws (which are high in MS) prompted developers to assess those in order to make it more attractive as opposed to the launch of Windows2000 where speculation was the product had over 60k bugs. By releasing YACP (yet another crappy product) MS could lose huge revenues all over the place, which is crucial especially when alternative OS' have been making their marks. Also remember their so called "Anti Piracy" feature was cracked recently.

Which reminds me... I remember when I was working on Theories in DoS, I made this program called Bubonic which was messing up Windows2000 and NT machines. I repeatedly tried to benchmark what was going on when I made the program and submitted it to Bugtraq since it messed up Windows' rpc crap entirely. Well after the advosry MS released a patch for rpc stuff saying they discovered an undiscovered flaw that affected rpc yadda yadda.

Hardcore Crypto

Maybe the reason for the move is, MS could be waiting for the fed (Greenspan) to announce yet another raise or cut in interest rates (which is due for for May the last was to boost the economy sort of a freebie) which could also determine whether companies would jump up and buy buy buy, or wait wait wait. Analysts predict a stronger growth in the third quarter since most people are vactioning and sell off stocks in the summer, etc, etc. (no bs I dig the stock market)

Or perhaps some security flaws (which are high in MS) prompted developers to assess those in order to make it more attractive as opposed to the launch of Windows2000 where speculation was the product had over 60k bugs. By releasing YACP (yet another crappy product) MS could lose huge revenues all over the place, which is crucial especially when alternative OS' have been making their marks. Also remember their so called "Anti Piracy" feature was cracked recently.

Which reminds me... I remember when I was working on Theories in DoS, I made this program called Bubonic which was messing up Windows2000 and NT machines. I repeatedly tried to benchmark what was going on when I made the program and submitted it to Bugtraq since it messed up Windows' rpc crap entirely. Well after the advosry MS released a patch for rpc stuff saying they discovered an undiscovered flaw that affected rpc yadda yadda.

Hardcore Crypto

People at EFC have been seeking help for countries with restrictions on what they can and can't see so this would be a plus to them. (view their email on this)

What will be nice to see is how governments and corporations will respond to this, concerning piracy, patent violations, the typical bullshit we've seen for the past few weeks.

Funny I posted this on my site days ago ;P

Privacy links

People at EFC have been seeking help for countries with restrictions on what they can and can't see so this would be a plus to them. (view their email on this)

What will be nice to see is how governments and corporations will respond to this, concerning piracy, patent violations, the typical bullshit we've seen for the past few weeks.

Funny I posted this on my site days ago ;P

Privacy links

Abstract: this paper the difficulties and limitations of watermarking as a general tool for document protection. We present first the variety of objectives of users for document protection, in a second Section, we present several profiles of attackers, then we describe the most classical attacks which have been developped, and, as a
conclusion, we present the special cases of the AVOs of the MPEG-4 norm, and the DVD as specially sensitive to attacks. The different techniques for invisible watermarking of images are mostly by adding a label to the image, either in the image bit plane or in the spectrum of the image, but some other different techniques have been proposed.

Abstract: this paper the difficulties and limitations of watermarking as a general tool for document protection. We present first the variety of objectives of users for document protection, in a second Section, we present several profiles of attackers, then we describe the most classical attacks which have been developped, and, as a
conclusion, we present the special cases of the AVOs of the MPEG-4 norm, and the DVD as specially sensitive to attacks. The different techniques for invisible watermarking of images are mostly by adding a label to the image, either in the image bit plane or in the spectrum of the image, but some other different techniques have been proposed.

Tales of the Dying UCITA Bill

Tales of the Dying Redmond Corporation

Tales of the Dying Silly Patent Lawsuits

Tales of the Dying Anti 2600 Lawsuits

This guy wasn't as innovative as you think he was.

FBI mole almost captured

I wrote a "securing bind" script once since I was too lazy to update 20+ DNS servers when that recent BIND advisory came out in late January/February for those who are as lazy as I am. Some params need to be tweaked slightly to your sys but its functional, and again when you don't want to go from machine to machine to machine you could write a quick expect script do bang it all out for you.

I like zines overall although for the most part its all been said and done elsewhere, as for the instances of showing someone how to do something, it sure comes in handy for those unfamiliar with the territory, and also keeps our minds refreshed. But in all fairness they're definitely a good thing to have for those questions always asked, "How do I $INSERT_QUESTION_HERE", and make it less threatening for newer users to become more familiar with running their OS.

venona# uname -a

FreeBSD venona 4.3-STABLE FreeBSD 4.3-STABLE #0: Tue May 1 14:23:58 EDT 2001 root@venona.antioffline.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/L ETHAL i386

it would also legalize other, more direct exchanges of copyrighted music (e.g. IRC, private FTPs, websites ..). The record industry, represented by the copyright organization Copy-Dan, is up in arms against the proposal, but the Danish minister of culture is sure that it will receive a broad majority of votes.

The consequences of this law, if it passes, will be interesting. It would mean that Denmark could become a safe haven for Napster-like services, and the infrastructure there is better than in most other nations that do not enforce copyright law (and usually comply if paid enough money by copyright holders). It will be interesting to see how the RIAA reacts, either by claiming that Denmark violates international law, or by trying to get .dk banned altogether, or both. Perhaps they will lobby to change the law in such a fashion that access to file sharing and MP3 sites / networks must be forbidden for foreigners.

I'd take that over the hemp powered car. Not only would I save money, but I could turn over any hemp to friends since I don't smoke

Is Blogger secure?

Copyright (c) 2001 The International Government of Microsoft All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in executables, without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of executables must be obtained at an outrageous price, must retain this license, and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions of executables must also be kept away from sites like 3r33t eReEt, 1337, and 31337, as they may be pirates of software which take away from our trillion dollar business.

3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgment:

This product is the best product you could ever buy. You are getting sleepy, BUY MORE MICROSOFT.

4. Neither the name of Microsoft, Bill Gates, or any other Microsoft employee may be used in the
same sentence as Open Source, Linux, BSD, or Anti Trust lawsuits, else they'll feel lethal wraith.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF MICROSOFT AND THE KINGDOM OF BILL GATES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE BUGS, SECURITY LEAKS, COSTS, SERVICE PACKS, THOSE SERVICE PACKS' SERVICE PACKS, AND THE PATCHES TO THOSE SERVICE PACKS. THE IMPLIED NOTION OF OBTAINING A STABLE PRODUCT ARE FRUITLESS AND SHOULD YOU COMPLAIN, YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE WILL RESULT IN YOU CALLING OUR TECHNICAL SUPPORT LINE AT THE RATE OF 599.99 PER MINUTE WHERE YOU WILL BE PLACED ON HOLD ONLY TO LISTEN TO YANNI, KENNY G, AND BARBARA STREISAND. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. ALL YOUR SOURCE CODE ARE BELONG TO OUR PATENTS.

Copyright (c) 2001 The International Government of Microsoft All rights reserved.

Redistribution and use in executables, without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of executables must be obtained at an outrageous price, must retain this license, and the following disclaimer.

2. Redistributions of executables must also be kept away from sites like 3r33t eReEt, 1337, and 31337, as they may be pirates of software which take away from our trillion dollar business.

3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgment:

This product is the best product you could ever buy. You are getting sleepy, BUY MORE MICROSOFT.

4. Neither the name of Microsoft, Bill Gates, or any other Microsoft employee may be used in the
same sentence as Open Source, Linux, BSD, or Anti Trust lawsuits, else they'll feel lethal wraith.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF MICROSOFT AND THE KINGDOM OF BILL GATES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE BUGS, SECURITY LEAKS, COSTS, SERVICE PACKS, THOSE SERVICE PACKS' SERVICE PACKS, AND THE PATCHES TO THOSE SERVICE PACKS. THE IMPLIED NOTION OF OBTAINING A STABLE PRODUCT ARE FRUITLESS AND SHOULD YOU COMPLAIN, YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE WILL RESULT IN YOU CALLING OUR TECHNICAL SUPPORT LINE AT THE RATE OF 599.99 PER MINUTE WHERE YOU WILL BE PLACED ON HOLD ONLY TO LISTEN TO YANNI, KENNY G, AND BARBARA STREISAND. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. ALL YOUR SOURCE CODE ARE BELONG TO OUR PATENTS.

He decided to let me in on the secrets of Sony using Linux full-time on their "Internet Appliance PS2" machine, called the GSQ. They have a cluster of them in their research group with 16 in series, doing *REAL TIME* "matrix-style" video editing.

All sounds good, except that they only provide a pre-compiled Windows executable of this emulator (no Unix version, no source, and a whopping 3-meg download of this standalone executable), and do not provide any sources to it at all. They also blatently say on their site that this is based fully on the POSE sources for 30a4 (which is a clearly documented GPL'd version).

Additionally, on their site, in order to download this version of the emulator, you have to sign into their developer program. Not so bad. But at the download page, you have no choice but to click on an EULA to get to the emulator download. This EULA clearly states that the emulator and all sources are 100% property of Sony Electronics, Inc. and that distribution without their consent is in direct violation of this license.

As for the EULA, I can't speak on this since it doesn't relate to anything I know or care about, again I will just point out that anything this guy has heard is strictly hearsay. At least providing a name would have added some credibility, and no I'm not calling this guy a liar, but what this all boils down to in my mind is he said she said junior high school based unsubstantiated bullshit.

laying the smack down

Creating a CD is almost 400% lower than making a cassette yet CD's are more expensive for some unknown reason.

Piracy is and will always be around, and personally I think it adds fuel to RIAA's arguments. Burning an MP3 is not similar to piracy since you obviously have to purchase the CD in the first place. Trading an MP3 is no different than recording something off a cassette and giving it to your friend, and all studies done have shown the majority of MP3 downloaders end up purchasing the music if they like it.

RIAA Sucks started to look hopeful in their presentations of how irrate RIAA really is althouh it isn't updated much. So you may want to check there.

Understandably also one should realize that the RIAA is a business as is any other, and anyone with the right frame of mind would do all they can to protect their finances. Sure they run around bullying people, but many people have become hip to their game, and its only a matter of time before many artists look at the facts behind MP3 swapping. It does not hurt their revenue, in fact it helps it. But when you have the marketing and money to stand behind, you can get away with murder. And thats what the RIAA is doing with their lawsuits.

Its a dirty game but someone always has to play it. RIAA is nothing without the artists, and its some of those same artists who set RIAA off in the first place. Until those same artists see the realities behind people swapping music, who account for a large amount of their salaries, the RIAA will always look morally right on paper to those who don't see the underlying factors.

blackbox themes

I wonder will AOL step in to mediate between the RIAA and an AIM clone. I question this for logical reasoning. With a name like AIMSter, its easy for many to associate AOL with being the owner of AIMSter (this would not apply to geeks.)

If AOL's name became dragged through the dirt on this one since their services are being used for what RIAA would call "illegal" actions, then AOL's reputation my take a slight dive.

Earthlink is also becoming a harsher critic of AOL over privacy concerns, so I also wonder if they could use AIMSter's privacy policies to boost their ratings. I highly doubt it, but would be an odd thing to see.

As for the swaping services, same standards always run through my mind. What would be the difference if someone recorded a song off of a radio station and burnt it. Then where would RIAA's argument fall? Would they attempt to sue the radio stations for allowing people to "maliciously" record music?

Its so stupid its almost comical.

George Bush... boy is he dumb

Although the movement has not yet had a significant effect on sales of Microsoft's Office and Windows products in the personal computer market, the company wants to enter the corporate
software market, where open source has gained ground.

Most computer users who've used the 'net for a certain amount of time are hip to what is, and what isn't spam. however keep in mind that thousands of users log on to the internet for the first time on a daily basis.

With so many people turning in, all a spammer needs to do is capture a fragment of that amount, and coerce them into spending, assisting them, etc., with their "Great Ideas" and they could have a nice sizeable chunk of money. So this is my thoughts on spam on why its still persistent.

Many people on the internet turn to it for an escape of reality, maybe life it to tough, maybe to depressing, etc., and many of them fall into these scams, because many are vulnerable. Many are also good hearted people who don't give things a second thought, and dish out thinking they can help the world. Some spammers know how to capitalize on this, and those people can make them a fortune.

Its no big deal sending erratic information hoping someone will fall for it, there are plenty of stupid people in this world, however answering spam is even stupider than sending it. What did the person expect by replying to a spammer? An insightful look into why they sent it? A possible product? Get real common sense should've told him/her they'd only get back more spam.

So who's the fool?

Hardcore crypto

Ryan Permeh, resident shellcode ninja of eEye Digital Security, has created an example exploit to be used as a "proof-of-concept".

I just wonder how Warner Brother fit in through this whole ordeal. Did MS also have to dish out money to them for some licensing stuff as well?

As for the move, personally I think its a good move, since MS has a hell of a lot more money to work with. Hopefully they'll provide a kick ass gaming environment, and hopefully Bill Gates and co., won't try to reach the geek masses my marketing MS crapware along with the games.

Forget neo make minesLara

Now all we have to do is pray the good old chaps at MI5 and MI6 agencies create a self destructing Palm, to give their agents.

word

Most of the users on the net become addicted especially in the younger age brackets. Its fun, informative, and a place to intermingle when you normally wouldn't on a social level for whatever reasons, shyness, no time, etc.

Working in an Internet related company however takes a higher toll for those who are online most of the time as we'd normally be exposed to more than we'd like to be sometimes. Generally though I feel people learn more online than they do in schools at times.

Where else could you get such a broad look at the cultures from abroad, the struggles others go through, whereas you would normally never hear about them through local media.

Recently however I was joking around with some friends who attent law school, and I stated jokingly about pleading out in a case by reason of 'e-sanity` which makes some sense if you think about it. Out here in New York City, I'm not exposed to hardcore racism which I find on my travails throughout the net. So its extremely easy for someone of low intellect (anything lower than me is fine) to misconstrue something and go bonkers in society.

Personally I'd rather stay addicted to technology that be hooked on drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.

blackbox themes

Lets be realistic about whats free on the Internet. Everything has a price as we all know, so why are many things harder to find then they normally were? The answers are simple.

Before the tech sector stocks took major dives, we had drones of companies offering everything short of their mothers for free. An influx of companies who never had a definitive game plan for their businesses who thought that by offering X service for free, they'd be the ones and only to capture that segment of the market.

Venture Capital firms went bonkers thinking that by these companies getting users they'd eventually end up having that company convert revenue by turning around, after a set quota of users were met, and offering something for pay.

Well people didn't want to pay and the companies should have clearly seen that from the beginning. If someone is signing up for a free service, what makes you think they'd want to pay for something they can move to the next competitor and get for free?

Aside from that, many people bitch about the freebie services they already have and turn around and abuse it entirely. eg. All those spammers who open up a new Hotmail account daily. So its no surprise the number of companies have declined. How do you expect them to pay bandwidth, colo, equipment fees, with .03 cent click throughs? its unfeasible. For those who have done IT budgets here we all know how much a mid sized cage can cost in a colo. Its a miracle many survived as long as they did.

Hardcore crypto

A data format, which formats information shared between two programs, may be reverse engineered as well. The restriction here is that this is allowed only if it "does not constitute infringement". A purchased DVD is a mixture of programs and encrypted data formats. The formats have been reverse engineered to enable the licensed data contained therein to be passed between programs, allowing a purchaser to play the program he licensed by his purchase on the operating system of his choice. The distribution of DeCSS fits well under the law, when the legislative history is taken into account.

DVDs are published media to which fair use rights apply. Creation of technological circumvention measures which are useable only on purchased media are not in themselves infringing, due to fair use rights of the public. Reverse engineering of such media is fair use, and distribution of the tools used in such fair use is sanctioned under 1201(f)(3).

In the U.S. lawsuits - one from the Motion Picture Association of America on behalf of 10 movie studios and three broadcast networks, and one from the National Football League and the National Basketball Association - a settlement was reached after a federal court judge in Pittsburgh, Penn., issued a preliminary injunction forbidding iCraveTV from leaking into the U.S. content belonging to the American plaintiffs.

ICraveTV did what JumpTV plans to do - capture television signals available off the air and pipe them across the Internet as live streaming video.

"We're all ecstatic over here. To think that five years ago there were about four or five window managers such as FVWM, TWM, and others, we now have a variety." stated a developer at RedHat.

RedHat is planning on releasing its first RHWM or RedHat Windows Manager complete with 100 megabytes of animated gif images for buttons. Third quarter they expect to release WM3M or Window Manager 3 Million which is built with both QT, and GTK libraries for interoperability.

No longer will you have 2,069,722 options, but you will now have complete access to 8 cd's worth of window managers including WM's built on XML, JAVA, PERL, Python, REBOL, and an attempt to intermix Wine by releasing an entire WM built with Visual Basic.

RedHat's stock price is going through the roof at this announcement as venture capitalists without a clue as to what they're purchasing are jumping on the bandwagon.

keeping blackbox dapper

Is VoIP secure?

Measuring VoIP for Jitter and Loss

VoIP Invasion Are You Ready For It? (long!!!)

As for thinking your gonna reach around the globe, sure you can in theory, provided all PBX's and routers are configured properly, there aren't any bottlenecks along the route, etc. Pretty hard thing to do for under 175 US dollars when Fortune 500's spend tens of thousands on PBX equipment and can't get it right ;\

hellraiser&iexcl

Recently I was on IRC when this guy was beefing about paying for the CD of OpenBSD when he could just download it instead of having the ISO, not neccessarily related but hear me out. I argued with this guy for a few minutes pointing out the fact that developers often create these OS' on their own spare time, and $30.00 is relatively cheap considering most Open Sourced operating systems are heaven compared with others.

I often wonder how people manage to continously create some of the most useful open sourced products when they are not getting paid for it. Don't get me wrong I understand life isn't all about money, but you have to sometimes look at the realities of life, and you do need money to pay your bills.

To all the open source developers most of us appreciate your works extremely much, and for the majority of us who do understand life as it is, I know speaking for myself I would rather purchase a CD every here and there to support you as much as I can. Maybe its time many start looking into ways of recognizing the developers of the products they're using, and assist them with anything they can, even a dollar helps.

It keeps developers who are under tough times semi compensated when times can go rough for them, as well as provides incentive to create better work. Think about that for a quick second. If you were in the opposite person's shoes you would hope someone would do the same for you.

Sadly I hope these layoffs/out of business/quittings/etc don't affect the overall Open Source segment in the long run. Maybe its time most Open Source developers start using Pay Pal for tips on their sites. I know I would kick in between 5-10$ for products I use. Multiply that by about 2000 others and you have a nice little salary for a side job.

hellraiser

we need your help in assuring that each and every PC has a licensed and legal operating system.

we need your help in assuring that each and every PC has a licensed and legal operating system.

The German U-791's used Hydrogen Peroxide for fuel, and I wonder if NASA altogether dropped this idea. Would be interesting to see someone power a car on peroxide and test the environmental hazards involved.

Well hopefully Carmack can get it up and going soon, maybe he can get people like Tito to give him 20 million to send them to space.

countdown continues

2 years ago as a joke I wrote a vulnerability mock up on Packet Pigeons had I known the RFC existed I would've tried to make it funnier.

I wonder how this will affect Qwest overall. For those that don't know the story about Qwest, if I'm not mistaken, the company was working with a railraod company, and laying fiber alongside the tracks of the railroad, when the internet was in its infancy stage.

Anyways one thing I know is Qwest owns a hell of a lot of dark fiber, and I know MS would love to get their hands on some of it for their MS.NET world. I wonder if Qwest unloaded because they were losing money, or could this be the staging for a future rival to AOL-TW. Qwest is pumping out about 15+ billion $ so I can't see them needing money that bad now. ;\

3 days till launch