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Tweaking Java test?: Sun Microsystems has been accused of manipulating Java benchmark software and using the results to state that its Solaris "runs Java applications 50 percent faster than Windows NT." Pendragon Software, maker of the benchmark software CaffeineMark, has put out a press release that claims Sun found a way to cheat on the benchmark tests, and then advertised the bogus scores. Sun has since removed the Java compiler from its download page, Pendragon says, but the original press release remains on the Sun site.

Sun admits Java testing error

Sun Microsystems (SUNW) today conceded errors in the results of recent tests involving its Java programming language.

The company erred in not admitting that it matched code from a Java benchmark tool for one of its own Java compilers, Sun Software president Janpieter Scheerder said today. A benchmark is a battery of tests that measures the speed and performance of software running in various configurations.

Kicking off the "Inside Sun Software Day," Scheerder began his remarks with a mea culpa for Sun's actions, revealed last week in a report by CNET's NEWS.COM. At that time, Pendragon Software, makers of the CaffeineMark Java benchmark test, accused Sun of taking code from the CaffeineMark software and adding it to a beta version of the Solaris 2.6 Java just-in-time compiler. CaffeineMark is one of several developers that have created Java benchmarks.

Last week, Brian Croll--director of product marketing for Solaris, Sun's flavor of the Unix operating system--denied that Sun lifted the code. Today, however, Scheerder made it clear that Sun had made a big mistake.

"Nobody was trying to do anything malicious," Scheerder said. "We just optimized [the Solaris Java compiler] too much."

A Sun public relations manager called the episode a "big-time organizational breakdown" in which an engineering prototype that was never meant to go public was posted on the Web with all attendant documentation, along with a press release that touted the software's performance. Sun has also posted an explanation on its Web site.

"Sun committed an unintentional error when we published Java performance numbers for an engineering prototype that included code that specifically looked for a piece of code in the Caffeinemark 3.0 benchmark," according to a company statement.

In a release dated October 20, Sun bragged that, according to the CaffeineMark 3.0 test, Solaris 2.6 ran Java applications 50 percent faster than Windows NT. But it neglected to say that it had set the compiler to look specifically for a chunk of code from CaffeineMark. Reusing such a large chunk of specific code risks diverting too much of the compiler's resources, resulting in lower performance once the compiler is deployed in the real world, said Ivan Phillips, president of Pendragon.

After taking issue with Sun's test results, Phillips said he asked Sun to retract its claims and remove the compiler from its Web site. As of last week, Sun had not retracted its claims, so Phillips went public with his accusations.

Scheerder stressed today that the compiler, which was part of the Solaris 2.6 Java Development Kit 1.1.4 beta, was not shipping product. The company pulled it from its Web site soon after Phillips contacted them last month.

The news comes four days before the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) decides if Sun is qualified to be the official submitter of Java technology if and when Java becomes an international standard.

The official submitter has the responsibility to gather industry consensus and present it to the ISO's technical committee for consideration. There is some concern that Sun, which owns Java, might not be a neutral submitter. So far, 11 countries have voted yes on Sun's bid and one country--the United States--has voted no. A total of 27 countries are scheduled to vote by Friday.

Sun Microsystems (SUNW) shrugged off accusations today of unfairly reporting test scores for the beta version of one of its Java compilers.

Pendragon Software yesterday said that Sun, using Pendragon's CaffeineMark benchmarking tool, inaccurately inflated the test results of the Solaris 2.6 just-in-time Java compiler by optimizing the compiler specifically for that test. Solaris is Sun's version of the Unix operating system.

Sun responded by calling such optimization standard practice.

"The idea is that you want people to optimize for the benchmark," said Brian Croll, director of marketing for Sun's Solaris products. "We'll do everything in our power to do really well on all the benchmarks we get our hands on."

A benchmark is a battery of tests that gauges the speed and performance of software running in various configurations. Several developers have created Java benchmarks; CaffeineMark, which Croll called "the best benchmark we've got," is available free off the Web.

But how much optimization is fair play? Pendragon president Ivan Phillips contended Sun inflated the test results of the Solaris 2.6 just-in-time compiler by lifting code from CaffeineMark and inserting it into the compiler.

"The logic test is contained in the 'logicatom.class' file, and almost 50 percent of that file appeared in the compiler," he said. "The probability that this code made its way there accidentally is infinitesimal."

Reusing such a large chunk of specific code risks diverting too much of the compiler's resources, resulting in lower performance once the compiler is deployed in the real world, Phillips added.

Croll denied that Sun used CaffeineMark code but said the company "optimized around it." It will be difficult to determine who is correct, given that the beta compiler in question is no longer available. Croll stressed that the compiler is designed to perform well on a benchmark because that's what determines good real-world performance.

"If certain things happen frequently in a benchmark, you want to make sure you handle them well," he said. "If it turns out the benchmark doesn't truly represent true application performance, you need to evolve the benchmark."

The charges come at a time when Sun and Microsoft are entangled in tit-for-tat lawsuits over Microsoft's use of Java in its Internet Explorer 4.0 browser.

In an October 20 press release, Sun bragged that Solaris had the "world's fastest Java performance" and ran Java applications 50 percent faster than rival operating system Windows NT. After taking issue with Sun's test results, Pendragon said it asked Sun to retract its claims and remove the compiler from its Web site.

Sun removed the entire JDK 1.1.4 for Solaris on October 29 because the beta evaluation period ended, according to Croll. The company didn't take down the press release or rescind its claims, however, and Phillips responded yesterday by publishing his accusations.

Pendragon doesn't usually double-check testers' CaffeineMark scores. But when it saw Sun's results--the Solaris compiler hit a score of 1.4 million on the "logic" test, while the previous high for that test was 22,000--the software firm decided to investigate, fearing that CaffeineMark contained a bug.

If Sun indeed took deliberate steps to skew its results, Phillips was surprised at the lack of subtlety.

"If a company really wanted to conceal what they were doing, they could do a better job," he said.

Actually, there are more users on MSN than AIM now. (at least one reference.) I'm sure Slashdot covered the story too.

Oh yeah, and XMPP Rocks. :-)

Because even though their boss is radical pro patents on anything, the ruling that required Sun to pay US$ 1 billion to Kodak scared the shit out of him.

"If upheld, the patent could force Microsoft and other browser makers to take out a license if they want to run, within the browser, applications like Macromedia's Flash animation software, Adobe's PDF document software, or Sun Microsystems' Java programming language. A workaround could disrupt millions of pages around the Web, industry and standards experts warn."

from this article, which is merely a conventient summary of the ramifications if the Eolas patent is upheld. You really think the W3C would get concerned about Active X?

Actually, this isn't a digital camera. I read about this on news.com.com.com.com earlier today and saw how he was taking pictures using a custom camera with parts gathered together from a camera from the ~1920's and a microscope. The article mentioned how he was producing 9inch by 18inch negatives. Then when scanning the negative into a computer, he got 100's of times more resolution than todays high end digital cameras. Here's a link to the article I read which clears up a lot (but not all) of the details.

Here
and Here
and Here

This has a nice timeline of time warner.

Still - it could have been Worse . Imagine an ISP owned by microsoft. no... wait... :D

Any respectable security researcher, or security research company normally allows plenty of time to fix the problem. Usually a minimum of 30 days, usually. Does this require a programmer staff 24/7? Probably not. I don't think the real issue is full disclosure, it's companies actually realizing the threat is getting bigger and bigger. Companies such as HP shouldn't strong arm attempts to inform them of security vulns. Software providers need to recognize the threats, fix the problems else be held accountable.

The problems with pointcast were more than just technological. Intercast was a better push technology for the pre-broadband era, and even now with HDTV and cable/satellite. It still may be a good choice.

This is nothing new. Back in '98, Microsoft was caught doing the same thing to Real Network's software. More recently, Kodak found its digital camera software pushed aside by Microsoft's offering. These adware guys learned from the master -- the name of this game is arrogance.

This is nothing new. Back in '98, Microsoft was caught doing the same thing to Real Network's software. More recently, Kodak found its digital camera software pushed aside by Microsoft's offering. These adware guys learned from the master -- the name of this game is arrogance.

You better start believing :-)

In a test conducted by CNET News.com, a DVD treated with TDK's coating survived a determined attack with a screwdriver and a Sharpie permanent marker with no effect on playability

http://news.com.com/Try+scratching+this+DVD/2100-1 041_3-5455621.html?tag=nefd.lede

A billion spams a day really trashes the "exclusive" image.

Next status symbol target: Tiffany's. The spam is out there.

The subject of the primary article is "Red Hat needs to lower prices". My reply is about a lower priced version of RHEL. That seems relevant to the original article.

The only "handicap" of Professional Workstation is that it comes with a shorter period of tech. support. It is exactly the same software as RHEL WS. It uses the exact same updates as RHEL WS. As far as software maintenance goes, it seems just as well supported as RHEL WS. And they continue to offer support renewals.

It is true that Red Hat does not promote Professional Workstation much in the U.S (although it is still promoted on their European site. Perhaps they are concerned about cannibalizaing higher priced RHEL WS support subscription sales. But the fact remains that a lower priced, supported version of RHEL is widely available.

To my understanding, he doesn't technically work for Nullsoft anymore. He's part of Aol Multimedia or something to that effect. He's working on the Ultravox Multimedia Router. I know most of the Nullsoft team, including Justin Frankel (Nullsoft founder) and Tag, and it's my understanding that Tag wasn't really that actively involved in Winamp development outside of the DSP plug-ins for shoutcast. So I can't imagine he'd be doing much code maintenance anyway.

Shoutcast was originally developed by Justin and Tom Pepper while Tag was still at Phoenix BIOS. Tag sorta acted as a offhours consultant along with several other developers and testers on #nullsoft. After the AOL merger, Nullsoft brought Tag on-board fulltime to further the shoutcast development.

But AOL pushed shoutcast to be forked away from Winamp so that they could roll shoutcast technology into an enterprise product. They soon realized that Winamp would not make them any money, but saw potential in shoutcast. So that's where Tag went.

P.S. It's probably not a good idea to go posting about how someone is looking for another job on a forum like slashdot. Especially when their wife just had a baby. Especially when (as you said) they haven't been able to find a new job yet.

Please contact R. Craig Hogan for your writing reeducation.


smeat!

Why carry two things around? It looks like 2005 will be the year cell phones get music capability. Once the size and weight gets low enough, there's no reason for a separate music box.

"Step No. 1: Make the argument that Linux equals Red Hat. Linux has become a social force, with all of the free world supposedly cooperating to create an always improving operating system that is forever cheaper and more valuable than the other versions of Unix."

"Step No. 2: belittle Red Hat. By collapsing Linux into Red Hat, sun now has a clear target. It can hammer away at a company, as opposed to waging the impossible task of fighting a social movement. And according to Sun, Red Hat is a very vulnerable target -a company with limited resources, engineering talent, world coverage and capabilities- with potentially serious intellectual-property issues."

(Yet Another Non-Authoritative Namespace Resolution Scheme?)

I tried to RTFA, but my brain blew a buzzword fuse. How does this differ from the various other non-authorative namespace resolution schemes out there selling cute "internet names" that a majority of machines can't resolve?

IBM would be competitive with Apple in the desktop PC market so they'd have to sell....WAIT A SEC....

IBM sells...

That remind me reading http://news.com.com/Microsoft+says+Firefox+not+a+t hreat+to+IE/2100-1032_3-5448719.htmlthis article where among other hilarious comments I found this one. "We take user feedback very seriously. If you have that feedback, then you should feed it back to us because we will feed it to the product team." Feed it to the product team.. right.. now I know why those people look over stuffed.

Maybe it has something to do with the Power Chip Alliance they announced the other day?

One goal of the alliance is to make Power chips used in high volumes. IBM has shipped more than 1 million PowerPC 970 chips, it said. The more widely used the Power processors are, however, the more directly they compete against the dominant x86 family such as Intel's Pentium and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron.

Letter

While Lycos was on unsteady legal footing in terms of their targets (i.e. it's often tough to connect a web site to the spam sender) the MPAA and RIAA can easily prove that a particular user or BitTorrent link site is sharing/hosting/providing copyrighted material. It may be just a matter of time before earlier efforts to legalize RIAA and MPAA DDOS attacks are resurrected.

And here is the first lawsuit filed by google against a company for committing click fraud.

http://news.com.com/Google+gets+gruff+over+click+f raud/2100-1024_3-5463243.htmlhttp://news.com.com/G oogle+gets+gruff+over+click+fraud/2100-1024_3-5463 243.html

You have a good point - when do you sue for click fraud? At 100 clicks, 1,000 or 1,000,000 clicks? Click fraud is a gray issue that I believe is impossible to prevent and it will be interesting to see how this situation unfolds.

A growing alternative employs low-cost workers who are hired in China, India and other countries to click on text links and other ads.

One goal of the alliance is to make Power chips used in high volumes. IBM has shipped more than 1 million PowerPC 970 chips, it said. The more widely used the Power processors are, however, the more directly they compete against the dominant x86 family such as Intel's Pentium and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron.

Look out Wintel! Look out Sun?

The point is, that when some asshole comes along and DDOS's the trackers (yesterday), you can still get connected and find peers to download from.

Last year, Berman tried to pass a copyright measure which would immunize a copyright holder's efforts to stop someone from violating their copyright -- hacking into their system to remove the material, take it off the network, or shut it down.

bokwhdok.com
printmediaprofits.biz

According to http://news.com.com/Antispam+screensaver+downs+two +sites+in+China/2100-7349_3-5474963.html

for bittorrent would prevent this: attack on BitTorrent servers

Hollywood isn't going to stand for this.

It's the reason why we have region-encoding on DVDs, DirecTV can only give the NYC and LA "locals" to people in the boonies, and ICraveTV didn't fly. The NFL and DirecTV make millions off of their Sunday Ticket package which is based on selling for hundreds of dollars a season the right to recieve games freely broadcasted in other parts of the USA.

Copyright owners are declaring boundries across which their content cannot move freely, and they're going to crush any technology that threatens to make it easy to break those lines.

Sorry; forgot to include a link to the CNET article where I read about this.

The link.

Alan

Here is more about XORP (the Extensible Open Router Platform), for those that don't know.

Hit 'em with the Morpheus Defense, Lazlo!

Google TV is more like a rehash of what FASTV tried doing 5 years ago ... before it dot bombed.

That's a moot point anyhow- if their security is anything like most governments'\schools', all you need is half an hour online and you'll know everything you want to know for free.

See any one of these

(Especially poignant given parent's choice of links.)

it's a troll because that's exactly what it is . it's written by someone who knows damn well what the GPL is and is not, and wrote it explicitly and purposefully to get a rise out of feebleminded readers.

not only that, it's a positively ancient troll from usenet, which morons repost repeatedly all over the net:
the original post from 2002
slashdot repost
news.com repost

the author of the original article in 2002 has quite a history of trolling:
troll history

My guess is he now works for SCO.

CNET has this story - no DNA sample required

http://news.com.com/The+disco+ball+of+Intels+faile d+hopes/2100-1006_3-5468842.html

What's with the /. addiction to NYT?

Here's a blast from the past for you then.

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-279561.htm

IIRC, soon after all their programmers left for MS, Borland announced a "realignment," developing for AS/400's instead.

Some of you are trying to make Delphi's fate out to be due to some lack of quality, or perhaps due to a better product on MS's part. Sorry, but no. It was just foul play as usual.

CNET News.com and ZDNet.

"The Air Force is consolidating its 38 software contracts and nine support contracts with Microsoft into two all-encompassing, agencywide agreements, according to a statement seen by CNET News.com.

The contract, done in conjunction with Dell, will call for the installation and configuration of software as well as ongoing maintenance and upgrades. The deal, which includes 525,000 licenses of Microsoft's Windows and Office, is valued at $500 million over six years, according to Microsoft."

Posted this on my AQFL Web site and even submitted to /. (rejected) on 11/19/2004.

MS may, and I stress may, make a profit from their Xbox division this financial quarter due to the Halo 2 release. This would be the first profitable quarter for the Xbox EVER. This includes software licensing and game sales.

Microsoft is dumping money they recieve from their Windows and Office monopolies. It was previously reported that 86% of the price you pay for Windows and 79% of the price you pay for Office is profit for MS. This is how they can keep the Xbox afloat. This is a business practice only a monopoly can pull off.

didja get rid of spyware trojans and viruses first? or bother to read the readme? No, you were too busy recompiling the kernel and whining about Microsoft to RTFM.

Wow, you really don't have a clue, do you?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=263 44

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+lists+SP2+conflicts/ 2100-1016_3-5311280.html?tag=nl

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+tackles+AMD+conflict +in+SP2/2100-1016_3-5326707.html
From this article: Microsoft had advised AMD users to remove SP2 altogether.

There are pleanty of others.
And lets not forget problems with legacy applications. (Which many people need.)

didja get rid of spyware trojans and viruses first? or bother to read the readme? No, you were too busy recompiling the kernel and whining about Microsoft to RTFM.

Wow, you really don't have a clue, do you?
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=263 44

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+lists+SP2+conflicts/ 2100-1016_3-5311280.html?tag=nl

http://news.com.com/Microsoft+tackles+AMD+conflict +in+SP2/2100-1016_3-5326707.html
From this article: Microsoft had advised AMD users to remove SP2 altogether.

There are pleanty of others.
And lets not forget problems with legacy applications. (Which many people need.)

They are using the Windows Media Rights Manager to encrypt their content. This has not been cracked yet.

(1) Yes it has. It has been broken in the past and WILL be broken in the future. Without Paladium-like hardware support to physically keep the private key away from the user, DRM is simply an impossible promise . It amazes me that otherwise intelligent people can take it seriously when looking at how it works. Even with hardware support it is sketchy, it is almost a given that the hardware scheme will be broken as well over time. There is no DRM scheme on earth that has not been broken yet. The entire concept is flawed.
And regardless of all of that, the analog hole makes it all pointless anyway.

(2) Then it is not p2p in any form. Windows Media Rights Manager works quite simply as I have described in my previous post. How do you release something on a p2p network and control it after n+1 steps? Setting up a system that distributes DRMed content from A to B is easy (see itms, napster2, etc). I have yet to see anyone solve the problem of passing DRM content from A to B to C unless you are using a single key to encrypt everything, in which case you lose individual control anyway.

Finkployd

"We provide access to search services from a range of sources including Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and others," Mozilla Foundation President Mitchell Baker wrote in a Nov. 8 blog posting. "We expect to see some funds come to the foundation as a result of our integrated search...

Oh, the terror of the free-market! It will ruin us all! It will eat our children, destroy our homes, and convert our wives to to satanic beastiality! Oh my gawd!!

Yeah, because the FCC has done such a superb job (of spectrum-allocation, among other things). Riiiight...