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First you claim that thousands of people use this system at Carnegie Mellon to somehow justify it as a well designed network.

Carnegie Mellon has been named the Most Wired University in America for the last three years in a row by Yahoo! Internet Life, due to the excellent design of both its wired and wireless networks.

First mwm is not the default window manager on linux or solaris and hasn't been for years. Maybe back in the days of blah blah blah blah Num Lock

I didn't say that it's the default window manager on all Linux and Solaris installations. It's the default window manager on the Linux and Solaris setups as configured at Carnegie Mellon.

Please link to sites that can't be drawn by mozilla

Many bank web sites will not render properly in Mozilla, due to a high reliance on JavaScript and IE-specific elements therein.

and give reasons for the problems with the Gimp,

GIMP is not Superior to Photoshop.

StarOffice,

StarOffice is incredibly slow compared to Microsoft Office on the same hardware. I could cite reams of anecdotal evidence, although you seem to equate URLs with indisputable truth. Furthermore, StarOffice is not 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. That means that everything, including complicated VBA macros, would need to work with StarOffice as it would with Microsoft Office. Many business courses use large spreadsheets with complicated macros that will not work in StarOffice.

Also, StarOffice requires roughly 3MB out of our 50MB disk quotas.

KDE and GNOME

I personally find KDE and GNOME to be fine, but most people don't like them just because they're used to the Windows look and feel. That is inescapable.

and why people, university students, would have trouble using said software.

"University students" does not necessarily imply "computer-savvy students." Only computer science and engineering students are required to use applications which favor Linux and Solaris over other operating systems; most students are happy using Microsoft Office and AIM. If the UI is suitable and the applications are capable (presently, they are not), then a changeover from Windows and Macintosh to Linux is possible.

I challenge you to find equally functional Linux equivalents for all of these Windows programs and these Macintosh programs. You're not allowed to remove programs because you don't like them; professors still want to teach web authoring using a graphical WYSIWYG editor with as much functionality as FrontPage, for example. You'll find that outside of the development area, there are very few applications on UNIX platforms which are feature-rich enough to completely and transparently replace their Windows and Macintosh equivalents.

Oh and in the example of a nightmare user experience in mwm can you tell me why netscape was never displayed?

I saw the screen after the user had already left. In most UNIX shells, when you do not type an ampersand after the command line, the program starts in the foreground. The user had opened netscape, browsed, closed netscape, opened netscape, and repeated the process a few times. Because the command line was visible, no foreground job was running at the present time.

By the way, "logout" won't work in an xterm as Carnegie Mellon's default setup works. To log out using mwm, you have to right-click on the desktop and choose "Exit/Log out."

It sounds to me like either you made all this up

I have not.

or nobody has administrated your unix network in the last 5 years.

Really? Then I guess these folks take very long vacations.

Since your post is about improving the usability of Linux do you have any suggestions?

Yes, I do. When setting up a system intended both for tech-savvy and new users, provide enough information and on-screen options to allow navigation without exclusively relying on the command line.

First you claim that thousands of people use this system at Carnegie Mellon to somehow justify it as a well designed network.

Carnegie Mellon has been named the Most Wired University in America for the last three years in a row by Yahoo! Internet Life, due to the excellent design of both its wired and wireless networks.

First mwm is not the default window manager on linux or solaris and hasn't been for years. Maybe back in the days of blah blah blah blah Num Lock

I didn't say that it's the default window manager on all Linux and Solaris installations. It's the default window manager on the Linux and Solaris setups as configured at Carnegie Mellon.

Please link to sites that can't be drawn by mozilla

Many bank web sites will not render properly in Mozilla, due to a high reliance on JavaScript and IE-specific elements therein.

and give reasons for the problems with the Gimp,

GIMP is not Superior to Photoshop.

StarOffice,

StarOffice is incredibly slow compared to Microsoft Office on the same hardware. I could cite reams of anecdotal evidence, although you seem to equate URLs with indisputable truth. Furthermore, StarOffice is not 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. That means that everything, including complicated VBA macros, would need to work with StarOffice as it would with Microsoft Office. Many business courses use large spreadsheets with complicated macros that will not work in StarOffice.

Also, StarOffice requires roughly 3MB out of our 50MB disk quotas.

KDE and GNOME

I personally find KDE and GNOME to be fine, but most people don't like them just because they're used to the Windows look and feel. That is inescapable.

and why people, university students, would have trouble using said software.

"University students" does not necessarily imply "computer-savvy students." Only computer science and engineering students are required to use applications which favor Linux and Solaris over other operating systems; most students are happy using Microsoft Office and AIM. If the UI is suitable and the applications are capable (presently, they are not), then a changeover from Windows and Macintosh to Linux is possible.

I challenge you to find equally functional Linux equivalents for all of these Windows programs and these Macintosh programs. You're not allowed to remove programs because you don't like them; professors still want to teach web authoring using a graphical WYSIWYG editor with as much functionality as FrontPage, for example. You'll find that outside of the development area, there are very few applications on UNIX platforms which are feature-rich enough to completely and transparently replace their Windows and Macintosh equivalents.

Oh and in the example of a nightmare user experience in mwm can you tell me why netscape was never displayed?

I saw the screen after the user had already left. In most UNIX shells, when you do not type an ampersand after the command line, the program starts in the foreground. The user had opened netscape, browsed, closed netscape, opened netscape, and repeated the process a few times. Because the command line was visible, no foreground job was running at the present time.

By the way, "logout" won't work in an xterm as Carnegie Mellon's default setup works. To log out using mwm, you have to right-click on the desktop and choose "Exit/Log out."

It sounds to me like either you made all this up

I have not.

or nobody has administrated your unix network in the last 5 years.

Really? Then I guess these folks take very long vacations.

Since your post is about improving the usability of Linux do you have any suggestions?

Yes, I do. When setting up a system intended both for tech-savvy and new users, provide enough information and on-screen options to allow navigation without exclusively relying on the command line.

First you claim that thousands of people use this system at Carnegie Mellon to somehow justify it as a well designed network.

Carnegie Mellon has been named the Most Wired University in America for the last three years in a row by Yahoo! Internet Life, due to the excellent design of both its wired and wireless networks.

First mwm is not the default window manager on linux or solaris and hasn't been for years. Maybe back in the days of blah blah blah blah Num Lock

I didn't say that it's the default window manager on all Linux and Solaris installations. It's the default window manager on the Linux and Solaris setups as configured at Carnegie Mellon.

Please link to sites that can't be drawn by mozilla

Many bank web sites will not render properly in Mozilla, due to a high reliance on JavaScript and IE-specific elements therein.

and give reasons for the problems with the Gimp,

GIMP is not Superior to Photoshop.

StarOffice,

StarOffice is incredibly slow compared to Microsoft Office on the same hardware. I could cite reams of anecdotal evidence, although you seem to equate URLs with indisputable truth. Furthermore, StarOffice is not 100% compatible with Microsoft Office. That means that everything, including complicated VBA macros, would need to work with StarOffice as it would with Microsoft Office. Many business courses use large spreadsheets with complicated macros that will not work in StarOffice.

Also, StarOffice requires roughly 3MB out of our 50MB disk quotas.

KDE and GNOME

I personally find KDE and GNOME to be fine, but most people don't like them just because they're used to the Windows look and feel. That is inescapable.

and why people, university students, would have trouble using said software.

"University students" does not necessarily imply "computer-savvy students." Only computer science and engineering students are required to use applications which favor Linux and Solaris over other operating systems; most students are happy using Microsoft Office and AIM. If the UI is suitable and the applications are capable (presently, they are not), then a changeover from Windows and Macintosh to Linux is possible.

I challenge you to find equally functional Linux equivalents for all of these Windows programs and these Macintosh programs. You're not allowed to remove programs because you don't like them; professors still want to teach web authoring using a graphical WYSIWYG editor with as much functionality as FrontPage, for example. You'll find that outside of the development area, there are very few applications on UNIX platforms which are feature-rich enough to completely and transparently replace their Windows and Macintosh equivalents.

Oh and in the example of a nightmare user experience in mwm can you tell me why netscape was never displayed?

I saw the screen after the user had already left. In most UNIX shells, when you do not type an ampersand after the command line, the program starts in the foreground. The user had opened netscape, browsed, closed netscape, opened netscape, and repeated the process a few times. Because the command line was visible, no foreground job was running at the present time.

By the way, "logout" won't work in an xterm as Carnegie Mellon's default setup works. To log out using mwm, you have to right-click on the desktop and choose "Exit/Log out."

It sounds to me like either you made all this up

I have not.

or nobody has administrated your unix network in the last 5 years.

Really? Then I guess these folks take very long vacations.

Since your post is about improving the usability of Linux do you have any suggestions?

Yes, I do. When setting up a system intended both for tech-savvy and new users, provide enough information and on-screen options to allow navigation without exclusively relying on the command line.

Carnegie Mellon also provides accounts to everyone on campus on their distributed AFS/Kerberos based system. In fact, AFS was developed as part of "Andrew", Carnegie Mellon's campus-wide computing system.

In the NFS scenario, the physical location of accounts is totally decentralized and distributed across all the machines that users actually work on.

This is not a requirement of NFS. In fact, I've never seen a setup like this anywhere. In every case where I've seen NFS used on a large scale, the NFS servers are kept in a central location, with physical access controlled.

However, AFS is harder to maintain, and you probably have to pay Transarc for a commercial version.

AFS is no harder to maintain in the long run than NFS. AFS generally has a steep learning curve, but once you have it set up, maintaining the system is no harder than on any other system. Also, you don't have to pay Transarc for anything. Check out the OpenAFS project for a free implementation (both client and server).

Carnegie Mellon University's Cluster services maintains general student body access Linux and Solaris machines as well as Windows and MacOS. Don't know of any studies, offhand, but it doesn't hurt to look.

• I thought design philosophies such as the CMM [cmu.edu] level 5 (used on the space shuttle design)

CMM does not eliminate bugs, but it does aim to improve processes such that bugs could be far lessened.

In any case, CMM (at any level) did not exist when the Space Shuttle software was implemented. As far as I can tell, the CMM first came into being around 1987. There were no CMM level 5 shops existing for years after that. Note also from this link that the study referenced on page 11 does show that defects (aka bugs) do get shipped on software system developed with CMM level 5, although they are much decreased.

I believe the basic Space Shuttle software was implemented in the late 70s, independently, by groups at IBM and Rockwell. You might be referring to new software they now field for use with the Space Shuttle. I don't know.

Except when by web browser crashes, it doesn't slam me into the ground in a firey mass of twisted, molten metal.

Seriously, I thought design philosophies such as the CMM level 5 (used on the space shuttle design), should prevent things like this from happening. I'm sure it's safe to fly, but stories like this don't inspire me to full confidence.

I never used Sun's NFS, but i was planning in the near future, so what way to share file's nice and secure in a unix network ? like if you want to mount homedirs and such.

Another post replying to yours said "samba". I'm sure Tridge will forgive me for pointing out that Samba mimics Microsoft's unbelievably kludgy implementation of IBM's NetBIOS protocol - the kludges being there to compensate for the fact that IBM designed NetBIOS for networks of 25 machines or less. Samba is a wonderful way to interconnect VMS and *nix machines with Microsoft clients, but other than that it's an abortion. Do not use it if you don't have to!

Another poster pointed out the reason for the "Usually" in my description of "usually insecure". If all your *nix boxes run the same version of the same vendor's latest implementation of NFS, it can be secured. In a true heterogenous environment, though, I have never seen anything but pain and suffering result from trying to implement secure NFS. And incidentally, NFS is inherently subject to denial of service attacks (so is NIS/YP) so you certainly can't depend on it if there are any unsecured hosts elsewhere on the network.

Once you decide to sacrifice "nice" and go for "secure", or vice-versa, your options get broader. Look into Coda, Andrew, u9fs, or Styx, for example.

According to the Capability Maturity model the only way a company on level 1 - Initial (also called chaos) can be a success is if there are so-called super-programmers saving but most of the time.

In my experience of working on open-source most projects are governed by chaos and judging them according to the CMM there cannot be a single open source project on anything above level 1.

This leaves one to, by logical deduction, assume that open source projects can only be a success if there are a couple of super-human programmers involved.

I think most of you guys will agree that this has been proven in practice over and over again.

Unfortunately due to the eccentric nature of these extraordinary programmers it is very seldom that more than 2-3 of them can agree and co-exist without trying to prove themselves superior.

If it was possible to move a opensource project to level 3 or 4 and get a team of say 100 programmers working on it we could tackele a large project in a small timeframe and thus speed up progress by a couple of orders in magnitude.

According to F.P. Brooks in The Mythical Man Month this has been one of the major limitations in getting big projects done - they need big teams to be complete before they are obsolte - and this is the area where opensource needs some work.

According to me that is - of course

This is what Coda does. Coda supports disconnected operation, resyncronization, and distributed servers.

With coda, when you plug in your laptop (or whatever), you work in online mode, with a local cache. When you pull the (network) plug, you keep the local cache but make changes offline. When you next come online, you resync.

Now, if only it were stable enough... Coda (and all of Odyssey) could really use some nice testing and hacking. And probably porting.

Then you replicated/mirror content across all machines. With uServ you just type in the names of the other machines you want to replicate to/with (e.g. see here). With other webservers you can use other disk synchronizing systems (e.g. rsync).

I run a webserver on my laptop and keep the content replicated with an always-on server. When I go offline, the server handles any web requests, but I still have a local copy of all my files for plane trips, etc..

You might want to check out the CODA Filesystem. Its a secure network filesystem like AFS and it has transparent replication support for offline access. Also, there's AFS, but that doesn't provide offline access, but I believe it supports more operating systems than CODA is currently ported to.

I don't think that the whole email thing is a particularly good solution to the original question, but why should he pay for microsoft exchange when he could do this with any IMAP email server?

I have a cyrus imap server with webmail install that does exactly that. Also Courier MTA comes with a the pieces needed to do this btw.

Shared folders, server-side mail storage, SSL/TLS security are all part of the IMAP/IMAPS protocol that many ( most? ) free email servers support very well?

So why should he pay the $10-$40* per user license for microsoft exchange? *( lost track of the price )

First, I try to adhere loosely to the FHS for ideas on overall organization. Even though it's mostly intended for POSIX systems, following their philosophy will really help you separate your data from your platform-dependent program files and libraries.

Most of my important stuff goes on the Linux server in /home (on an IDE software RAID1). However, I try to limit files in here to stuff that's absolutely essential to keep the size down. I occasionally mirror this offsite to my friends' servers with rsync (with the private stuff pgp encrypted). I try to make browser caches, etc. symlinks to dirs in /tmp . Try to keep only the stuff you created yourself in here.

I keep media and downloads on a plain partition under /home/ftp/pub (which is also symlinked from the http document root). That way, all my computers can easily get access to music and installers and junk.

Samba helps win32 boxes access the /home and /tmp directories.

NFS exports /home to the other UNIXen, as well as /usr for the other machines with the same CPU arch. It should be acceptable to export /usr/share to other UNIXen with different architectures.

I'd like to set up CODA, since it seems to support more different kinds clients than Intermezzo. These support disconnected operation and are good for laptops. For the meantime, I just use rsync to mirror home dirs onto my laptop, though (and just keep track of stuff that I change on the road manually :/ )

No thoughts on how to combine everything into a distributedFS so you could have parts of, say, a music archive living over several machines. There are several projects for Linux-only (PVFS) or Win32-only (more advanced network-neighborhoods). I'd say your best bet for convenience is just to make sure everything is visible from your one server and reexport it from there (invest in a switch so it doesn't deadlock your network). Until better DFSes exist, though, I think you'll get better performance and less confusion from running everything from one beefed-up server with a RAID (or two if you want failover).

There's this great standard for sharing files over the internet called the World Wide Web. Perhaps you've heard of it?

Seriously -- run a webserver + WebDAV on each of your machines. Then you can read/write from anywhere, and with any platform.

Systems like YouServ/uServ provide a webserver, access control, and mirroring/replication support in a single package. This way as long as only some of your machines are online, the data from every machine remains accessible. Unfortunately the system is not available for general public use, but the system may be in open source soon.

Bruce Maggs did that way back in '94 or '95.

This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would like to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.

Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in two days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tomorrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.

Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to find that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increment the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.

Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configure their systems?

Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have it, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly been developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.

Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of files titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have lives? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Windows!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each touting an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, RedHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have showered since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working so I can do my assignments.

Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling my that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered on my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I don't want to lose my uptime."

Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am not even going to ask.

Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...

Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ33R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux after discovering about 17 rootkits.

Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stress has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.

Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, someone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very suspicious of these guys.

Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reinstall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.

Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon appeared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stressed lately.

Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some other CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myself. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.

Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so depressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?

Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll be getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?

Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so bad.

This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would like to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.

Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in two days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tomorrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.

Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to find that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increment the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.

Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configure their systems?

Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have it, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly been developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.

Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of files titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have lives? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Windows!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each touting an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, RedHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have showered since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working so I can do my assignments.

Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling my that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered on my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I don't want to lose my uptime."

Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am not even going to ask.

Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...

Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ33R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux after discovering about 17 rootkits.

Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stress has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.

Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, someone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very suspicious of these guys.

Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reinstall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.

Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon appeared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stressed lately.

Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some other CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myself. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.

Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so depressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?

Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll be getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?

Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so bad.

This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would like to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.

Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in two days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tomorrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.

Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to find that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increment the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.

Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configure their systems?

Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have it, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly been developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.

Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of files titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have lives? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Windows!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each touting an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, RedHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have showered since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working so I can do my assignments.

Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling my that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered on my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I don't want to lose my uptime."

Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am not even going to ask.

Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...

Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ33R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux after discovering about 17 rootkits.

Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stress has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.

Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, someone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very suspicious of these guys.

Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reinstall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.

Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon appeared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stressed lately.

Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some other CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myself. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.

Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so depressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?

Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll be getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?

Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so bad.

This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would like to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.

Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in two days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tomorrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.

Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to find that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increment the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.

Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configure their systems?

Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have it, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly been developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.

Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of files titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have lives? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Windows!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each touting an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, RedHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have showered since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working so I can do my assignments.

Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling my that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered on my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I don't want to lose my uptime."

Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am not even going to ask.

Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...

Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ33R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux after discovering about 17 rootkits.

Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stress has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.

Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, someone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very suspicious of these guys.

Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reinstall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.

Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon appeared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stressed lately.

Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some other CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myself. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.

Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so depressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?

Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll be getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?

Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so bad.

This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would lik e to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.

Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in tw o days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tom orrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.

Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to f ind that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increm ent the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.

Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configu re their systems?

Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have i t, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly be en developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.

Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of fi les titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have liv es? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Window s!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each tout ing an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, Re dHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have shower ed since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working s o I can do my assignments.

Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling m y that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered o n my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I do n't want to lose my uptime."

Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am no t even going to ask.

Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...

Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ3 3R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux afte r discovering about 17 rootkits.

Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stres s has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.

Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, so meone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very susp icious of these guys.

Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reins tall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.

Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon ap peared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stress ed lately.

Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some oth er CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myse lf. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.

Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so de pressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?

Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll b e getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?

Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so ba d.

This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would lik e to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.

Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in tw o days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tom orrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.

Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to f ind that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increm ent the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.

Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configu re their systems?

Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have i t, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly be en developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.

Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of fi les titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have liv es? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Window s!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each tout ing an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, Re dHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have shower ed since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working s o I can do my assignments.

Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling m y that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered o n my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I do n't want to lose my uptime."

Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am no t even going to ask.

Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...

Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ3 3R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux afte r discovering about 17 rootkits.

Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stres s has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.

Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, so meone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very susp icious of these guys.

Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reins tall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.

Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon ap peared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stress ed lately.

Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some oth er CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myse lf. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.

Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so de pressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?

Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll b e getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?

Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so ba d.

This week, German protesters get headlines for demonstrating vs. US Pres. GWB's visit. GWB's response (paraphrase): "Protests are a good sign of a healthy democracy where people are free to express ideas contrary to that of the ruling class/party."

The ruling party (MPAA etc.) doesn't like what is being said and is threatening the 1st Amendment rights to speech. What it comes down to is this: I am free to reverse-engineer, but under the DMCA it seems I can't talk about it or communicate it to others in any way shape or form because the ruling party doesn't like what is being discussed . . . so will the right to speak be destroyed by the failure of "security through obscurity"?

Bad implications for freedom in the US of A.

Take a Sharpie marker pen and print one of the CSS descramblers on it. Hey, now you've got a convenient 2-in-1 DCMA infringement device. Somebody get the ThinkGeek product guys on the phone...

Better get it while you can then; you might get a shirt in the mail with a cease and desist letter printed on it. :) Look at the myriad other ways to have DeCSS. I wonder if the MPAA will send a C&D order in haiku form for some of them?

Better get it while you can then; you might get a shirt in the mail with a cease and desist letter printed on it. :) Look at the myriad other ways to have DeCSS. I wonder if the MPAA will send a C&D order in haiku form for some of them?

I get the sense that work in robotics is on the upswing, at least in academics. People like Olaf Sporns at Indiana or Dave Touretzky at CMU are doing interesting work with robots, but they aren't likely to get as much attention as laptops with wheels.

Mitre also has assisted the Software Engineering Institute in its development of the Capability Maturity Models for software and other systems.

This sets precedent for Mitre's concern about quality, so I'm not suprised if Microsoft isn't #1 on their list. I am curious if anyone at Microsoft has implemented any of the CMMs--or has even heard of them.

Ok, it hasn't been commercialized but it isn't as whimpy - check this out "Vision is hard," Gross said. "Nobody has succeeded in making it work in real time." One word: Aibo Oh, and give CMU some credit Jeff

(B) a technological measure ''effectively controls access to a work'' if the measure, in the ordinary course of its operation, requires the application of information, or a process or a treatment, with the authority of the copyright owner, to gain access to the work.

I'd agree that the CD copy protection doesn't fit this definition either (in what sense does it require application of information/process/treatment?), but it has nothing to do with "how effective" the protection is.

Sorry, just sick of hearing this particular argument (I had it suggested to me many times in my own DMCA battle ... I think that having the good guys understand the law is an important step.

Just because there's a tradeoff between ease of use and security, that doesn't mean that you can't sometimes improve both; most real-life systems are probably not optimal in either way.

To give an example of a really retarded password system that's completely nonoptimal, I teach at a school where the faculty turn in their grades on a computer. Security is obviously an issue. The password policy is that your password must consist only of digits, at least six of them. Now this certainly will stop people from choosing "password" or "rover" or "aaa" as their password, but they'll probably end up using their birthdays, or writing their passwords on a post-it, because they can't remember a string of digits. And of course the idea of restricting it to a character set of only 10 digits is pathetic -- it just reduces entropy. (The people who wrote the software are so clueless, they even set up the default configuration so that you have to type in your password twice in order to log in -- I guess that was meant to increase security! It took a few months for the school's admins to change that.)

CMU already offers this service on its campus, and the University of Pittsburgh will be offering it soon (though CMU's network overlaps Pitt's campus already). Even if the range is not that far, these two campuses cover a lot of area in Oakland.

Well, just a quick note, Pittsburgh is very much NOT a steel city any more. Its not quite the high-tech city that somewhere like Boston is, but still is pretty high-tech. (I'm orig from Pgh, but live in Boston now).

I don't even think that there are any working steel mills within 10-15 miles of the city, maybe even further. There is, however, CMU, the supercomputing center, UPMC medical center and a whole bunch of other research facilities.

Your claims are pretty slanderous, and you don't have much to back them up.

For one, it looks like Yahoo did not even implement their own system. If you look right below the word prompt, you can see they're basically using Captcha developed at Carnegie Mellon.

Are you saying CMU stole for you as well?

Is it possible that others came up with similar, if not better, systems, and they used them instead?

Theoretically, it might allow one to distribute a modified DeCSS and say, "This is not a copyright circumvention device. It does nothing useful by itself. If it's used with an image of the United States flag, then one might use it to view DVDs on an unapproved device, but without the flag, it's harmless." Now, how would this be prosecuted in court? I imagine it would be tough for a prosecutor to stand up in court and argue against distributing the code, which does nothing useful. And no sane (or politcially ambitious) prosecutor will stand up and argue against distributing a copy of the flag. So how would the prosecutor prosecute this case?

IANAL, but I am sure that this is not an ironclad defense. I wouldn't try encrypting a detailed plan to Do Something Really Bad with an image of the flag and say, "Nothing illegal here unless you have the flag!" It's more of a political statement that says, "The DMCA is so bad that it can make an image of the flag illegal."

It wouldn't be really effective unless you could outrage a large corporation enough to arrest you ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H have you arrested, then you make a spectacle of the trial, get the media on your side, etc. I'm not Russian, though, so I probably couldn't get arrested for this. Even if I were Russian, I'm not willing to do this, and I don't know anybody else who is.

1. EfDTT, by itself, is moderately useless. It doesn't have the CSS decryption tables, so you have to figure out the title key yourself using the tables from the original DeCSS program (or, depending on the DVD, a new version that doesn't use the Xing player key). This version is (AFAIK) the shortest one that can decrypt a DVD without being provided with a title key.
2. How in the unholy flying fuck did you get that past the lameness filter?

Well, it seems to be at least somewhat related to the Software Engineering Institute / CERT, etc. which is fairly separate from the rest of CMU, and a lot more large-software-corporation oriented than many of the research groups are. Of course, one of the nice things about a university is that it can be large enough to support both open communities and proprietary ones. Instead of trying to *fix* this one however, why not just support other open security projects, such as Ballista (which incidentally is also at CMU).

Lycos...and CMU uses Google for their site search. Good to see they're avoiding NIH problems.

That is currently reviewing Carnegie Mellon's restricted research policy. I'll bring this up. Just so that you all know, this research must be with one of CMU's "semi-autonomous units," and no students are participating in the research, otherwise it could not have cleared our Provost. At any rate, this is interesting information to have.

like Lycos.com ?

I once wrote a program to hide printed text in a spectrogram. The first thing I encoded (after test messages such as Hello World) was efdtt from David Touretzky's Gallery of CSS Descramblers.

the program

efdtt on top of music from Tet*is Advance

Just for kicks, I have been experimenting with my own processor design using TkGate for the past few weeks. TkGate is a great digital circuit simulator with lots of neat features.

I built a working lcd display simulator out of the built-in LED outputs that is connected to some video memory. I also built a data bus that is partially working. I am currently playing with connecting the ALU. I even built an assembler and a cheap assembly language for it :-) Once I add block device support, I want to write a simple OS with a built-in shell for it :-)

The link works; you just have to remove the space character that slashcode throws in there. Try this:

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/afs/cs/user/chogan/Web/pol yglot

Type in 'cookies' in IE and it takes you here. If more keyword searches would take you to non-commercial sites like this one, maybe people would actually end up using them more often.

Part of the addictiveness of the game stems from the fact that it is easy to learn; yet it takes a while to become proficient it it. The second really cool feature was that it allowed you to play against other humans (or robots) in real time. These days that's nothing special, but back then most multi-player games were turn based (one other notable exception to this (from memory) is/was xtank).

A few years later, when Linux showed up, I was delighted to find that Nettrek compiled out the box (actually, some minor Makefile changes were needed, if I remember correctly) and worked very well on my then brand-new 486-33. Unfortunately I wasn't connected to a university network (or any other network for that fact), so the human competition/element was missing for me.

While looking very dated (no 3D graphics, no colors, simple graphics), I think nettrek underscores the point that if your gameplay is good, the graphics are secondary. If you've never tried nettrek, check it out sometime; it's quite cool, especially when seen in historic context.

Microkernels like Mach, L4, Spin, and QNX run as much of the operating system as possible in user space (the processors unprivildged execution mode). Device drivers, virtual memory managers (pagers), all run in user space, as normal applications. Alternate resource allocation policies (processor scheduling) can often be implemented on top of the microkernel. This allows a lot of flexibility, as parts of the os can be stopped, started, replaced, and debugged just like any other user applications.

You can even run entrie alternate operating systems on top of a microkernel. MkLinux (Linux on Mach) and L4Linux (Linux on L4) are examples of this. Traditionally microkernels have been slower than conventional kernels, but that's chaning. Linux in user space on top of L4 (L4Linux) runs only 5% to 10% slower than native linux.

Linux does have loadable modules, which can be loaded and unloaded at run time. However, the the loaded code run as part of the kernel, in the prividged execution mode.

Nathan Wiebe

I highly recommend the Personal Software Process from the Software Engineering Institute at CMU. PSP focuses on how you can improve your own process, which is fundamental no matter how many people you work with. I've been reading the two PSP intro books (one aimed at introductory programming students, one aimed at professionals) this year and have gotten a lot out of it. I'm looking forward to getting a lot of this implemented a little later this year. I don't work alone, but it's very close as we have very few people and projects rarely require more than one person.

Don't confuse PSP with the TSP also described on the site. TSP is aimed at teams. (And in some people's minds, PSP appears to exist only to support TSP.)

Questions:

1. What is the relation between "free speech" and "copyright"? If a game is not free speech, can it still be copyrighted? According to this, "any original expression that is fixed in a tangible form" can be copyrighted.

2. Could a saved game-- which maybe would be considered a "performance" -- be considered free speech? I mean, if I play some 3d shooting game and kill only the politicians, isn't the saved game a kind of performance art?

3. What about hacked ROM games? Some of these must fall under "parody", no?

4. Surely games written by recognized literary greats, such as Douglas Adam's "Beaurocracy" is not only legitimate expression but social satire?

5. How do you draw the line between straight fiction, a choose-your-own-adventure book, and an Infocom interactive adventure?

6. If you printed out an Infocom game's text replacing the user's typed instructions with "Turn to page 7 to do xxxx" and published it as a book, would the video game suddenly become speech?

Maybe Dave Touretsky needs to set up another gallery.

W

So you're fine for DeCSS, since you managed to get a copy before the final set of rules kicked in.

It's not illegal to download (unless you're downloading from outside the country), only to distribute.

Anyone who doesn't have a copy now is out of luck, and you're out of luck when the next protection scheme is released.

http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/DeCSS/Gallery/

Unlike standard file sharing networks, your identity (by way of your university e-mail address) is clearly tied with your content, so the theory :-) is that should discourage blatant piracy and encourage sharing of "commnity oriented" content. Unfortunately we launched it right before summer break so users are slow in coming, but we hope interesting things (other than rampant piracy :) will happen...

IMO this is a much better example of "community web" since each user has as much control as any other member of the community as to what content is published. Of course this is also rather anarchistic, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.