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• SCO UNIX(R) is backed by a single, experienced vendor. Where "experienced" is defined as less than four years .
• SCO UNIX(R) has a Committed, Well-Defined Roadmap
• SCO UNIX(R) is Legally Unencumbered

The measure of whether there is a labor shortage or not is the unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is our profession is currently about 9%, which is well above the national average. There is no shortage of labor in our field. There is a shortage of cheap labor, which is what this is all about.

Are indentured servant immigrant programmers better off here than if they stayed home? I suppose so, or they wouldn't come. But you're the one advocating for "free markets". If an immigrant programmer sees a better opportunity than the one he's indentured to, why shouldn't he have the right to go for it, if free markets are the be-all and end-all? The fact that they are not is more proof that this is in part a wage-suppression scheme. And if you insist on putting quotes around "indentured servant", I suggest you read some recent testimony before Congress on the subject by someone who worked for one of these firms.

And I'm not in any doldrums, thanks so much for your concern. I found a gig. I'll probably find another. But damnit, I put in my time. I've earned those weeks of vacation I won't be getting.

I looked at your "personal productivity" pages. Sorry, I don't need lectures on entrepreneurialism. I don't want to spend large segments of my time selling myself or a product. That's not what I do best. I'll do it if I have to, but I consider that a separate skill from programming, and one that I find an annoying distraction.

I've long since wondered why a non-profit like the FSF or ISC didn't create an alternate CA.
I don't know if I trust Paul Vixie much more than Verisign - create *BL's have tons of people freely contribute, then turn it pay only access. You want BIND support, contract with these people who aren't us ;) ISC == Nominum What about the "pay to get security updates about BIND before the general public fiasco". one blurb hereUse our buddies/related companies for mailing list management or we mark you as a spammer.
Accussations and some evidence that they were blackholing routes from the antispammers down under. Alot of questionable stuff, but its bured because of the "good will" from BIND... He seems very dictatorial from what I have seen.
No thanks...

RMS on the other hand, would probably just want it to be called the GNU/DNS system :)

I'd ask: what are you all planning to do when your jobs go to Russia as soon as you become too expensive for the US corporations? Plan now, because it's starting to happen.

Hopefully you guys are able to weather the storm better than us.

Confirmed by Wind River as an Out-of-Memory problem. Although, in this case it seems like a lack of human garbage collection. Interestingly, Wind River had the best solution for PPPoE DSL connectivity software (WinPoET) before RASPPPoE and Windows XP came along.

Here is another good article on Wimax.

Speaking of microsoft and "own3d", there is a story running on ComputerWorld about a variant of the virus "MyDoom" that is attacking Microsoft. I guess they are getting own3d too. Kind of a strang news day.

I know of many US companies who make a living teaching companies in other countries like India about quality control and the way that US Businesses do business. If Indian companies had good quality, these companies would be out of business and not have business booming. I shall cite some examples of the quality of offshoring below.

Thing is, most IT workers, such as me, do not blame the people taking our jobs, but the companies making the move to other countries and cutting us loose. This is a global trend that is not going to stop unless there is some law passed against it, which I doubt will happen.

First it was a Labor Shortage which was a big lie by the Corporations to get rid of US workers and replace them with H1B Visa workers or outsource to India. Now that there is a surplus of IT Workers, they still claim there is an IT shortage and need to move more jobs overseas.

Where is the beef? Where is the quality that Indian companies are supposed to have? Apparently they did not have Quality at Dell when they moved a Help Desk over to India. Where is the quality in programs written? Security issues are a big risk and we are supposed to trust someone we cannot even watch from half a world away that they will not harm source code or be a risk to security?

Of course there is always hidden Malware to consider. Really nice of them to put in a back door or virus or trojan to access the corp system after the Indian programmers are let go when the project is over.

Oh yeah, the myth that it is cheaper. Consider the Hidden costs of Ofshoring nothing like a project going over budget and full of bugs and needing US developers to fit it. Once again, where is the beef? That quality is just not there once again.

It seems that India is America's silent partner. We may not even hear about it during the election year. When a government is more interested in rewriting copyright laws so that the RIAA can sue 13 year-old girls and fair use is out of the picture, I wonder who our politicians really work for? Certainly not the US Citizens, only Corporations. So of course they support the wholesale slaughter of US IT Workers and the export of IT jobs overseas.

Ah but there is a big risk involved in Offshoring. Sort of like taking all the company stock to Las Vegas and betting it all on number 35 on the Roulette Wheel. :) Just ask those who craft the contracts about the risks involved.

Nice to meet the people that are taking the jobs moved to India. Also nice to know they are not concerned that US Workers are losing their jobs to keep the Indian workers employed. I'd think if I was given a job at someone else's expense that I would quote my religious or culutral references instead as well when asked to respond to that. :)

Maybe we should personalize the US IT Workers too. Here is Bob, he worked for a Fortune 500 company for the past 15 years developing award winning programs and his work gained the company many patents. Bob holds a Masters in Information Systems. Management decided that he earns too much, so he was terminated and his job was sent with many others over to an IT sweatshop i

I know of many US companies who make a living teaching companies in other countries like India about quality control and the way that US Businesses do business. If Indian companies had good quality, these companies would be out of business and not have business booming. I shall cite some examples of the quality of offshoring below.

Thing is, most IT workers, such as me, do not blame the people taking our jobs, but the companies making the move to other countries and cutting us loose. This is a global trend that is not going to stop unless there is some law passed against it, which I doubt will happen.

First it was a Labor Shortage which was a big lie by the Corporations to get rid of US workers and replace them with H1B Visa workers or outsource to India. Now that there is a surplus of IT Workers, they still claim there is an IT shortage and need to move more jobs overseas.

Where is the beef? Where is the quality that Indian companies are supposed to have? Apparently they did not have Quality at Dell when they moved a Help Desk over to India. Where is the quality in programs written? Security issues are a big risk and we are supposed to trust someone we cannot even watch from half a world away that they will not harm source code or be a risk to security?

Of course there is always hidden Malware to consider. Really nice of them to put in a back door or virus or trojan to access the corp system after the Indian programmers are let go when the project is over.

Oh yeah, the myth that it is cheaper. Consider the Hidden costs of Ofshoring nothing like a project going over budget and full of bugs and needing US developers to fit it. Once again, where is the beef? That quality is just not there once again.

It seems that India is America's silent partner. We may not even hear about it during the election year. When a government is more interested in rewriting copyright laws so that the RIAA can sue 13 year-old girls and fair use is out of the picture, I wonder who our politicians really work for? Certainly not the US Citizens, only Corporations. So of course they support the wholesale slaughter of US IT Workers and the export of IT jobs overseas.

Ah but there is a big risk involved in Offshoring. Sort of like taking all the company stock to Las Vegas and betting it all on number 35 on the Roulette Wheel. :) Just ask those who craft the contracts about the risks involved.

Nice to meet the people that are taking the jobs moved to India. Also nice to know they are not concerned that US Workers are losing their jobs to keep the Indian workers employed. I'd think if I was given a job at someone else's expense that I would quote my religious or culutral references instead as well when asked to respond to that. :)

Maybe we should personalize the US IT Workers too. Here is Bob, he worked for a Fortune 500 company for the past 15 years developing award winning programs and his work gained the company many patents. Bob holds a Masters in Information Systems. Management decided that he earns too much, so he was terminated and his job was sent with many others over to an IT sweatshop i

I know of many US companies who make a living teaching companies in other countries like India about quality control and the way that US Businesses do business. If Indian companies had good quality, these companies would be out of business and not have business booming. I shall cite some examples of the quality of offshoring below.

Thing is, most IT workers, such as me, do not blame the people taking our jobs, but the companies making the move to other countries and cutting us loose. This is a global trend that is not going to stop unless there is some law passed against it, which I doubt will happen.

First it was a Labor Shortage which was a big lie by the Corporations to get rid of US workers and replace them with H1B Visa workers or outsource to India. Now that there is a surplus of IT Workers, they still claim there is an IT shortage and need to move more jobs overseas.

Where is the beef? Where is the quality that Indian companies are supposed to have? Apparently they did not have Quality at Dell when they moved a Help Desk over to India. Where is the quality in programs written? Security issues are a big risk and we are supposed to trust someone we cannot even watch from half a world away that they will not harm source code or be a risk to security?

Of course there is always hidden Malware to consider. Really nice of them to put in a back door or virus or trojan to access the corp system after the Indian programmers are let go when the project is over.

Oh yeah, the myth that it is cheaper. Consider the Hidden costs of Ofshoring nothing like a project going over budget and full of bugs and needing US developers to fit it. Once again, where is the beef? That quality is just not there once again.

It seems that India is America's silent partner. We may not even hear about it during the election year. When a government is more interested in rewriting copyright laws so that the RIAA can sue 13 year-old girls and fair use is out of the picture, I wonder who our politicians really work for? Certainly not the US Citizens, only Corporations. So of course they support the wholesale slaughter of US IT Workers and the export of IT jobs overseas.

Ah but there is a big risk involved in Offshoring. Sort of like taking all the company stock to Las Vegas and betting it all on number 35 on the Roulette Wheel. :) Just ask those who craft the contracts about the risks involved.

Nice to meet the people that are taking the jobs moved to India. Also nice to know they are not concerned that US Workers are losing their jobs to keep the Indian workers employed. I'd think if I was given a job at someone else's expense that I would quote my religious or culutral references instead as well when asked to respond to that. :)

Maybe we should personalize the US IT Workers too. Here is Bob, he worked for a Fortune 500 company for the past 15 years developing award winning programs and his work gained the company many patents. Bob holds a Masters in Information Systems. Management decided that he earns too much, so he was terminated and his job was sent with many others over to an IT sweatshop i

IANAG (I am not a genealogist), but after reading the assorted quotes in the article, I think that I might have spotted Darl's long-lost brother .

See this Computerworld article or visit Matrics, the company supplying the tags.

the title of the SCO website is SCO grows your business. unless of course you rearrange the word unix, put an 'L' in front, and give it away for free.

also found this link - SCO says "Linux hurts US". is this company into sadomasochism?

I can buy a typical logic chip for 49 cents in quantities of one, and the RFID tags don't need the same elaborate packaging or physical pinouts. There's the antenna, but that's still easier than wire bonds.

A picture of an RFID card.

Glen Flood, a spokesman for the SERVE project, said that while the input from the four-member panel is "welcome," it represents only a minority view. Six other members of the original 10-member panel assigned to study SERVE haven't raised any security objections, he said.

"This group is really only a small faction of the peer review group," Flood said.

What a profoundly ignorant statement. It doesn't matter how many are saying something, it's what they say that is important.
What he really meant was, "we bought off the other six."

When I Was A Boy
--words and music by Frank Hayes

When I was a boy our Nintendo
Was carved from an old Apple tree
And we used garden hose to connect it
To our steam-powered color tv.

But it still beat that ancient Atari
'Cuz I almost went blind, don'tcha know,
Playing Breakout and Pong on a video game
Hooked up to the radio.

And we walked twenty miles to the schoolhouse
Barefoot, uphill both ways,
Through blizzards in summer and winter
Back in the good old days.
Back when Fortran was not even Three-tran
And the PC was only a toy
And we did our computing by gaslight
When I was a boy.

When I was a boy all our networks
Were for hauling in fish from the sea--
Our bawd rate was eight bits an hour (and she was worth it!),
And our IP address was just 3.

And you kids who complain that the World Wide Web
Is too slow oughtta cut out your bitchin',
'Cuz when I was a boy every packet
Was delivered by carrier pigeon

And we walked twenty miles to the schoolhouse
Barefoot, uphill both ways,
Through blizzards in summer and winter
Back in the good old days.
Back when Fortran was not even Two-tran
And the mainframe was only a toy
And we did our computing by torchlight
When I was a boy.

When I was a boy our IS shop
Built relational tables from wood,
And we wrappered our data in oilcloth
To preserve it the best that we could.

And we carried our bits in a bucket,
And our mainframe weighed 900 tons,
And we programmed in ones and in zeros
And sometimes we ran out of ones.

And we walked twenty miles to the schoolhouse
Barefoot, uphill both ways,
Through blizzards in summer and winter
Back in the good old days.
Back when Fortran was not even One-tran
And the abacus? Only a toy!
And we did our computing in primordial darkness
When I was a boy.

And frankly, I'm older than Frank. At least he had ones and zeros. We had to pick slivers of flesh from our arms to make ones.

Just found this: McBride was singing a slightly different tune back in October..

Cheers,
Craig

Interesting article [ Tools Coming for Digital Immunity] on a computer security researcher who is using biological metaphors in an effort to create next-generation computer-security tools. This is interesting work, but I am skeptical about a lot of it. The biological metaphor works only marginally well in the computer world. Certainly the monoculture argument makes sense in the computer world, but biological security is generally based on sacrificing individuals for the good of the species -- which doesn't really apply in the computer world.

any defendants could just lift the arguments straight out of the US case and probably win if the other country's laws were similar

SCO already lost its court cases in some countries. Way back in September last year, for example, SCO has been fined $10,800 for violating a German court order that told them to immediately stop defamation against Linux.

Rather then reporting that SCO will start treating Linux users in other countries the same as in the US, the US media should take a closer look on what's been happening in other countries to SCO.

It is also interesting to see why SCO lost in Germany: The judge told them to put up or shut up, and they went incompletely for the latter.

I believe SCO was well aware that their company was on shaky ground & that that was the #1 reason for their spurious attempt to force all Linux distributors to pay them a fee. SCO may not be good at making money selling software, but they are good at making money with litigation.

Barring a successful lawsuit (which now looks like a long shot), McDarl has already entertained the possibility of a buyout. This reinforces the contention that SCO was pretty wobbly to begin with.

There might be a reason that McDarl has a bit of a hardon for Novell: McBride bio.

- Opportunities for telecom in Iraq:
This has been news

- IBM will not buy SCO. They'd have done that long ago if they wanted to.

- It's really bold to predict that Intel will follow in AMDs footsteps and build a 64bit processor that's x86 compatible. That would mean to shred the Itanium-Business altogether. Let's all hope that the Intel can convince the world that the x86 instruction set has outlived it's usefulness.

- I don't think there can be a security-vulnerability so severe as to force MS into crisis-mode. Security-vulnerabilities in the past were already as severe as it could get (what can be worse than remote exploits that give you admin access?), if that doesn't move MS into "crisis-mode" what can? The forefront of handling Windows security problems has already been delegated to their PR-Department anyway.

- Wal-Mart will do what they like. The publicity-damage has happened and the public is losing interest already.

- Daniel Lyons heard to much MS-propaganda. He can't understand the difference between the Dot-Com-Bubble and the rise of Linux (Yeah, there is some Linux-Hype now, but Linux has built up slowly for more than ten years and has some big backers now, that's something different than a dot-com-business that consists of nothing more than a Web-site). He also can't understand that there's a difference between free-as-in-beer and free-as-in-speech and that there's no contradiction if a business wants to make a living on free software

- He is right though that IBM and SCO might settle (although SCO will be happy to come out of that settlement alive) a lot of "big" cases are settled and once the IBM-SCO-case is generating enough bad news for SCO even they'll want to end the charade. Although some of us would prefer to see SCO crushed to dust it might be better to settle and put an end to all the bad publicity for Linux.

- Security isn't overhyped, maybe Victoria Murphy doesn't want to worry any longer about all that bugs in her Windows-System but as more and more vital information is handled by of-the-shelf computer systems, security is becoming even more of a problem. Maybe she'll think different when someone starts screwing with her online bank-account.

- The (free)-software-revolution wasn't sparked by Linus but by RMS. We should really call it GNU-Linux to make the world aware of the fact that "Linux" and "free-software" isn't identical.

- Yeah, you can make a lot of money from maintainance, but that's no news. Microsoft (to name only one example) worked over the course of the last two years to move their business-model from selling their software to leasing and maintaining it and they made some allowances last year to keep their customers.

- MS already dealt in Open Source by distributing GNU-tools for NT. It isn't well known and probably shut down by now by their PR-Department. I don't think they'll warm up to OS too soon since that'd hurt them PR-wise and aparently MS is run by their PR-Department.

I agree completely! Remember the ComputerWorld article about wireless access at Panera Bread restaurants?

In fact, Shaich considers free Wi-Fi to be such an essential marketing tool that he dismisses any discussion of ROI. "What is the ROI on a bathroom?" asked Shaich, pointing out that the day of pay restrooms in restaurants has long since passed.

Perhaps just amend the note on the tip jar: "For excellent service AND wireless access!"

The G5 spanks the Opteron in many of the non-gaming tests, except for the Photoshop tests.

Isn't photoshop the reason for buying a mac?

And what about all those announcements?

Microsoft asks Mac users, "How can we get your business?'

Merrill Lynch, whose technology group recently began coverage of Red Hat, noted in a research note last week that "open source and Mac adoption is still in infancy in the enterprise market." However, "we should see explosive growth in the years to come as corporations look to achieve cost savings within their IT departments."

Using IDC's own estimate for G5/OSX server shipments through 2007, as well as its internal data on OSX operating system attach rates and server pricing, Merrill reckons that the enterprise G5 market could be worth $529 million by 2007. "This represents a [compound annual growth rate] of 61 percent over the 5-year period from 2002-2007," the note said.

Japanese telco to aid Mac phone development

Mac, G5 systems move out enterprise's mainframe

New G5 chips, but no 64-bit OS X for at least two years (too late).

"We're saying that OSX/G5s will eat Unix," Gantz said.

Is Computer Associates contemplating dumping Windows?

If you have been following Microsoft attempts to hold onto counties, cities, states, governmental bodies, governments, corporations and people, you know the headlines have gone from talk to action.

The governments that are starting to move over tend to be mostly poorer countries, or ones with large, largely computer-free populaces. Brazil and China are good examples of this trend. In those places, OSX/G5 adoption has been picking up steam to the point that if a second world country told MS to take a hike, it would hardly rate a Slashdot story on a slow day. .

THE NATIONAL HEALTH Service is considering using the OSX operating system & G5s in a 2.3 billion deal that could affect as many as 800,000 PCs if a pilot is successful.

Nine German cities poised to adopt OSX/G5

Official: China to invest in OSX/G5-based software industry

The US Army has abandoned Windows and chosen OSX for a key component of its "Land Warrior" programme, according to a report in National Defense Magazine. The move, initially covering a personal computing and communications device termed the Commander's Digital Assistant (CDA), follows the failure of the previous attempt at such a device in trials in February of this year, and is part of a move to make the device simpler and less breakable.

According to program manager Lt Col Dave Gallop this is part of a broader move towards OSX/G5 by the US Army: "Evidence shows that OSX is more stable. We are moving in general to where the Army is going, to OSX/G5-based OS."

Sun Microsystems is the odd man out. It has an impressive array of powerful enemies: IBM, Microsoft, Intel, HP, Red Hat, Apple, Novell, and more. It has only a weakened Oracle as a friend, and Oracle too has made a "bet the company" move to OSX/G5. OSX/G5 threatens many of Sun's traditional products as sharply a

Everyone in the IT community already knows what a poor reputation that company has actively worked hard to earn. Articles like the above serve only to provide free marketing and distract from active development rather than pump-n-dump.

Rather than doing free security and sysadmin work for Chairman Bill this holiday season, and rather than providing free publicity for his portfolio, could we please give it a rest and have a MS free week, weekend or at least just a MS free friday? i.e. no articles or press releases about the lastest vaporware, thneed, fud or spin, inlcuding news relays via MS-owned sources like slate, msn, msnbc, msnpr, newseek, etc. It seems every day there is a shameless, uneccesary plug or two. Now that international investors have divested and even their own emloyees have offloaded it is as irrelevant to the stock market as it is for the IT sector. The pyramid scheme has maxed out, if you weren't already bailing, then it's too late.

As far as security goes, businesses and home users alike are finding Gnome and KDE easy to use and the plaforms (Darwin, OpenBSD, Linux, QNX, etc.) more secure, more stable, and easier to maintain. So looking back at MS-Window [lack of] security in 2003, we can say good bye to the terminally insecure and hello to modern technology.

To me, I think the biggest difference is that in 1998 with the RTM Worm *NIX people started to think "hey, if this box is going to be connected a network , it needs to be secure." In other words, if it could possibly have a network stack, it needed to be secured.

Microsoft didn't start thinking about that, what 13 or 14 years later, when Code Red and the lot started to hit. It wasn't rocket science, it was just a matter of time. I think it was just the beginning...

You know what scares me the most? China has access to Microsoft source code [1, 2]. What if some Chinese government insider's son decides to take the knowledge of exploits learned and release something (no different than RTM did in 1988)? What if China wanted to wage "cyberwar" on Taiwan and a worm with a multiple nasty exploits (3+) got lose to the US and abroad?

On your specific points:

• Agreed that NT has access controls on every object. However they are not visible and not used very much by end users and administrators. The UNIX ones are simple and very easy to understand. Here you have the choice between complicated (you do know the difference between discretionary and inherited rights filters?) and pervasive (every object) versus simple and pretty much only on files (which almost every OS object is anyway).

  Many (if not most) Windows programs get it wrong. Heck even Microsoft has been released games that can only be played if logged in as administrator.

  Linux does let you do delegation, but that is mostly left as a user space implementation issue. That is the purpose of setuid/setgid, group memberships, sudo etc.

• The Windows acceditation is a crock. It is in a non-networked environment with no floppy disk or CD drive. Show me anyone who deploys that way. Here are some relevant articles: Win2K evaluation IBM/Suse evaluation. I have one specific question: if the Windows architecture is so fantastic, why did the NSA choose Linux to acheive their goals? Why did Microsoft claim that fundamental design flaws in Windows were the reason they couldn't release the Windows code? (And we won't even go into the ability of any process in a desktop session being able to send messages to any other process which is probably the flaw Microsoft alludes to).
• And you deploy Microsoft patches immediately without worrying that they will break the other products you run and use? You can get Linux advisories from whatever distro you use. There are also services like CVE. At least with Linux you can choose to fix things yourself. With Microsoft, you are stuck with whatever amount of time and problem severity they determine. If they don't want to fix something for 6 months, there is nothing you can do about it.
• SCE is nice, but is only needed because the whole OS has so many places where ACLs are applied. And it doesn't do things like registry access control (you have to use regedit) or the filesystem. So you do have to use a number of tools, and understand everything. In Linux you have to understand chmod. In either case, a clueless admin will do way more harm than the OS you picked to run.

...More important, the economic payoff of off-shoring business processes and a portion of R&D can be so enormous that even reluctant corporations will have little choice but to follow suit to stay competitive. If a major info-tech, insurance, telecom, or banking company doesn't disclose any back-office center in India, Wall Street will soon start asking, "Why not?"

However, I cannot see how it will affect the average person on the street. I doubt the government will be keeping tabs on individuals. It seems as insidious as store loyalty cards.

I don't see government agents appearing on my lawn due to information gleaned from my Sainsbury's Nectar Card.

/. != Linux

The small part that it had played in technology is diminishing as even Joe Six pack is figuring that Windows isn't ready for the Internet and that pretending it is is costing businesses billions, year after year, after year. Both directly and indirectly. And now that international investors have divested and that even its own emloyees have offloaded it is as irrelevant to the stock market as it is for the IT sector.

No reason to keep plugging it, if you're not on the pay roll. Doing so is not only working for free but also causing further harm and excluding other stories and even original sources.

The federal legislation imposes criminal and civil penalties for faking the "from" line.

I run a online forum/bulletin board, and I periodically sed out informative emails to all of my members. The "from" line on those emails is typically donotreply@domainname.com. Would this make me criminally punishable under this law?

The legislation, as written now, is full of loopholes, backdoors, and is woefully indequate. I'm begining to think that Yahoo's new scheme might be a good idea.

If we could outsource at the C-level there would be significantly more money available to companies to hire IT staff and skilled workers. C-Level = CEO, CFO, CIO, CPO, and of course C3P0.

Outsourcing is an extremely short-sighted solution to increased quarterly profitability. It simply boils down to the fact that C level people and their cronies COST TOO MUCH and in order for them to keep receiving the same level of compensation (while keeping shareholders happy) they need to squeeze out every last bit of cash out of every other expense.

I plan to start a new company soon which deals with outsourcing, except you will pay large premiums for me to come in and fix the disaster created by the offshore developers. Mark may words boy, and mark them well, offshore outsourcing is going to be one of the biggest largescale disasters in the history of US business. However as I read the ever increasing reports of outsourcing disasters, I am beginning to realize that there is money to be made here! :) Also, smarter companies that want to hold or gain market share my begin to realize that not outsourcing gives them a competitive advantage and keeps customers happy.

Also, I wonder if C-Level types forget about the geopolitical instability of the world. Isn't the US at war right now? What if Pakistan decided to go cut all the fiber optic cable connecting India to the US? Oh the mess this is going to create. I laugh at the nearsighted fools!

Kevin Mack's Top 10 Linus SCO quotes (in reverse order):

[thanks to Dee-Ann LeBlanc for the link.]

10. Not About IP"None of the SCO accusations have anything to do with IP rights; they're all about contracts between IBM and SCO. All the IP rights blathering by SCO was just that -- blathering"

9. Custody Battle"SCO is claiming parenthood of that child and now wants to make money off the earnings of that child. Even though SCO has refused to undergo the technical equivalent of DNA testing, and even though my (and other people's) DNA is probably all over Linux."

8. Lottery

"we have to sadly decline taking business model advice from a company that seems to have squandered all its money (that it made off a Linux IPO, I might add, since there's a nice bit of irony there), and now seems to play the US legal system as a lottery."

7. Copyright Law"So . . . when he attacks the GPL as being somehow against 'financial gain', that notion that the GPL has of 'exchange of receipt of copyrighted works' is actually EXPLICITLY ENCODED in the US copyright law. It's not just a crazy idea that some lefty commie hippie dreamed up in a drug-induced stupor."

6. Raelians

"SCO is playing it like the Raelians [the organization backed by Clonaid's founder, known as Rael], saying, 'We'll show you proof in a few weeks, through an expert panel that we trust.' Let's see if there is any baby or not."

5. Jerry Springer"Quite frankly, I found it mostly interesting in a Jerry Springer kind of way. White trash battling it out in public, throwing chairs at each other. SCO crying about IBM's other women. ... Fairly entertaining"

4. Stealing Cars In Bright Daylight

"Do you steal a car in the bright daylight with a lot of people around? Or do you steal a car, go for a joyride at 4 am in the morning when there aren't a lot of people around. With open source, there is a lot of daylight. A lot of people looking at the code. You don't really go around and steal things."

3. Constitution and Marriage"If Darl McBride was in charge, he'd probably make marriage unconstitutional too, since clearly it de-emphasizes the commercial nature of normal human interaction, and probably is a major impediment to the commercial growth of prostitution"

2. Smoking"They are smoking crack."

And number one, according to Mack...

1. Please Grow Up"we find your references to a negotiating table somewhat confusing, since there doesn't seem to be anything to negotiate about. SCO has yet to show any infringing IP in the Open Source domain, but we wait with bated breath for when you will actually care to inform us about what you are blathering about."

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Yeah, on a day with 5 new IE holes (most of which are the same magnitude), I'll have to agree with you.

In mid-September, a rumor was reported that Ford was "considering" a switch for servers. Somehow that turned into a rumor of a massive desktop migration.

A few weeks later, Ford announced they were NOT going to switch desktops to linux (google cache, original article off-line now). Ford specifically mentioned just signing a 3 year contract with Microsoft. Perhaps the rumor was used as legerage to get a better deal from MS, or perhaps it was just the case of wishful thinking and sloppy reporting.

Here's slashdot's coverage with more links. Notice the update, posted several hours later (probably long after most slashdot readers had long since stopped seeing it)... with the link to a newsforge story, aptly titled Ford move to Linux not true (yet). It was all a rumor that got blown out of proportion.

It turns out that Allchin lied and yes, someone should be in jail.

Why would you have to say no all these times? It's a single registry!

If the "single registry" doesn't let the owner of a domain add *@hisdomain.net to the registry, then spammers will continue to Rumpelstiltskin the domain's mail server until they get a hit. This is especially true of vanity domains, for which *@hisdomain.net forwards to a single address.

Was "Who has the right to sue the spammers?" a question for clarification, or were you pointing out a fault with the bill?

Looks like the former to me. Will ISPs be able to bring class action on behalf of their customers?

I hate to say it, but Microsoft's haven't been compromised, and they're the bigger target.

Not true.

Everyone here knows if windowsupdate.microsoft.com had been compromised, people would be droning on about how it's some sort of illustration of Microsoft's security.

Their update server wasn't compromised, but the debian archive also wasn't compromised in this case. But, yes, we have to work harder to make our servers secure. And we will never reach the point were our systems will be unvulnerable. So what is your point? You complain that there aren't enough anti-oss-trolls here?

Spectecjr:

And the reference to this in the paper itself is... where precisely?

Your conclusion is completely unsupported by the data in the paper. The paper's only reference to the operating system used in the SCADA system at that plant is to a GE XA/21 system running... UNIX.

Answer:

We have several clues. For example, on page 94 of the DOE report it states: "Many malicious code attacks, by their very nature, are unbiased and tend to interfere with operations supported by vulnerable applications. One such incident occurred on January 2003, when the "Slammer" Internet worm took down monitoring computers at FirstEnergy Corporation's idled Davis-Besse nuclear plant. A subsequent report by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC) concluded that, although it caused no outages, the infection blocked command that operated other powerutilities."

Now why would they make reference to the "Slammer" worm if we're talking about Unix?

See this link for more clues.

Spectecjr:

Presumably you got all of his information re: the operating systems in use from the Computerworld article. Unfortunately, they make the assumption that the SCADA system is Windows based. In this case, it wasn't. It was entirely UNIX based.

Answer: How can you say that? Consider from the ComputerWeek article:

"Carol Murphy, vice president of government affairs at the New York Independent System Operator, acknowledged that Blaster affected the utility but said the problem was handled quickly, with no impact on power restoration operations. Joe Petta, a spokesman for Consolidated Edison Company of New York Inc., said there were "absolutely no computer-related problems of any sort that delayed our restoration effort."

I am sure the Slashdot community welcomes your references concerning your assersion that the SADA software running the alarm control system was Unix based.

Are we so quick to forget incidents like this one, where Microsoft started going after schools for license violations? Microsoft and the Gates Foundation may give away a lot of stuff to schools and libraries, but it's rarely enough to make a dent in the budgets of most schools (I still send a number of old computers to my mom's classroom - running linux or old versions of macos - because her school can't afford to give her the computers she needs).

Your analysis appears to be dead on. It also matches this earlier analysis:

http://www.computerworld.com/printthis/2003/0,4814 ,84510,00.html

> Blaster worm linked to severity of blackout

> The W32.Blaster worm may have contributed to the cascading effect of the Aug. 14 blackout, government and industry experts revealed this week.

> On the day of the blackout, Blaster degraded the performance of several communications lines linking key data centers used by utility companies to manage the power grid, the sources confirmed.

> "It didn't affect the [control] systems internally, but it most certainly affected the timeliness of the data they were receiving from other networks," said Gary Seifert, a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory in Idaho Falls, referring to flow-control and load-balancing data that's transmitted over public telecommunications networks. "It certainly compounded the problems" relating to the congestion of key communications links used by utilities to coordinate contingency efforts, Seifert added.

Also note, in the same article, these references to earlier cases:

> A spokesperson for the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), which is helping to spearhead a task force to study the causes of last month's blackout, declined to comment on the role the Blaster worm may have played. However, a NERC report dated June 20, 2003, shows that the Slammer worm had a significant impact on some utilities.

> In one case, a server on a control center LAN running Microsoft's SQL Server wasn't patched, according to the report. "The worm ... apparently [migrated] through the corporate networks until it finally reached the critical SCADA network via a remote computer through a VPN connection," the report states. As a result, "the worm propagated, blocking SCADA traffic."

> In a second case documented by Princeton, N.J.-based NERC, a frame-relay-based control network using Asynchronous Transfer Mode "became overwhelmed by the worm, blocking SCADA traffic."

Note the similarity of those cases (network traffic due to Windows worm blocks SCADA traffic) to the current report.

While a careful reader can pick out the information, the report seems to have gone out of its way to avoid naming names. Likewise, the posted introduction to the report seems to suggest that it was a Unix system that failed, which is false. Also note how this forum has been buried in posts that back up the false explanation. Why do I get the impression that Microsoft is spending a lot of money in order to manage this story?

Maybe someone will write an article with a clear analysis, bearing the very headline that Microsoft is working so hard to avoid:

BLACKOUT CAUSED BY WINDOWS SECURITY FAILURE

The Blue Gene Lite system by IBM is actually running even cooler (article).

The 440PPC processor being used is designed for embedded computing, so each node (2 processors and 4 FPUs) uses only 15 watts per node. That means that the 1024 processor system (512 nodes in normal configuration), now at #73 in top500, only uses about 7.7kW of power. At 240 processors or 120 nodes, power consumption would only be 1.8kW. This is far better than the Transmeta numbers.

When these boys grow up, they'll probably turn into these guys who blackmail companies into paying "protection money" to avoid getting DOSed. The advent of digital communication has made all kinds of behaviors more anonymous, including these two. Now you don't even have to confront your victim personally. If the addage that "bullies are the real cowards" is true, then they now have the opportunity to be even more cowardly still.

This is too good not to post, Enjoy!
Source: article

YOUR URGENT ASSISTANCE REQUIRED

DEAR SIR/MADAM:

I AM MR DARL MCBRIDE CURRENTLY SERVING AS THE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF THE SCO GROUP, FORMERLY KNOWN AS CALDERA SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, IN LINDON, UTAH, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I KNOW THIS LETTER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU BECAUSE WE HAVE HAD NO PREVIOUS COMMUNICATIONS OR BUSINESS DEALINGS BEFORE NOW.

MY ASSOCIATES HAVE RECENTLY MADE CLAIM TO COMPUTER SOFTWARES [sic] WORTH AN ESTIMATED $1 BILLION U.S. DOLLARS. I AM WRITING TO YOU IN CONFIDENCE BECAUSE WE URGENTLY REQUIRE YOUR ASSISTANCE TO OBTAIN THESE FUNDS. ...

MY ASSOCIATES AND I OF THE SCO GROUP ARE ... THE FULL AND RIGHTFUL OWNERS OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARES KNOWN AS UNIX. OUR ENGINEERS HAVE DISCOVERED THAT NO FEWER THAN SEVENTY (70) LINES OF OUR VALUABLE AND PROPRIETARY SOURCE CODES HAVE APPEARED IN THE UPSTART OPERATING SYSTEM LINUX. ... THIS GIVES US A CLAIM ON THE MILLIONS OF LINES OF VALUABLE SOFTWARE CODES WHICH COMPRISE THIS LINUX AND WHICH HAS BEEN SOLD AT GREAT PROFIT TO VERY MANY BUSINESS ENTERPRISES. OUR LEGAL EXPERTS HAVE ADVISED US THAT OUR CONTRIBUTION TO THESE CODES IS WORTH AN ESTIMATED ONE (1) BILLION U.S. DOLLARS. ...

I HAVE BEEN GIVEN THE MANDATE BY MY COLLEAGUES TO CONTACT YOU AND ASK FOR YOUR ASSISTANCE. WE ARE PREPARED TO SELL YOU A SHARE IN THIS ENTERPRISE, WHICH WILL SOON BE VERY PROFITABLE, THAT WILL GRANT YOU THE RIGHTS TO USE THESE VALUABLE SOFTWARES. ... IT IS OUR RESPECTFUL SUGGESTION, THAT YOU MAY BE IMMEDIATELY A PARTY TO THIS ENTERPRISE, BEFORE OTHERS ACCEPT THESE LUCRATIVE TERMS, THAT YOU SEND US THE NUMBER OF A BANKING ACCOUNT WHERE WE CAN WITHDRAW FUNDS OF A SUITABLE AMOUNT TO GUARANTEE YOUR PARTICIPATION IN THIS ENTERPRISE. AS AN ALTERNATIVE YOU MAY SEND US THE NUMBER AND EXPIRATION DATE OF YOUR MAJOR CREDIT CARD, OR YOU MAY SEND TO US A SIGNED CHECK FROM YOUR BANKING ACCOUNT PAYABLE TO "SCO GROUP" AND WITH THE AMOUNT LEFT BLANK FOR US TO CONVENIENTLY SUPPLY.

KINDLY TREAT THIS REQUEST AS VERY IMPORTANT AND STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. I HONESTLY ASSURE YOU THAT THIS TRANSACTION IS 100% LEGAL AND RISK-FREE.

In a sense, the results of the project do seem to match earlier research on the topology of the web; at a glance, the graph arrived at, does seem to be scale-free in nature.

Which, actually raises an interesting question. Scale free networks, by their nature, are supposed to have certain highly connected nodes, the connectivity of which, is extremely critical to the network as a whole.

In particular, look at the resultant graph for one-third of the net. Note the single link in the middle between two nodes that seems to connect all four sub-trees together. Now imagine that link being, say, DDoS'ed. (You can see it in the one-fifth-of-the-net graph as well; only, it's more clear here)

(Additional points for all you neurologists out there:- we've been comparing the structure of the human brain with that of the Internet, do you know of any such neurons?)

[Even more points:- Will you tell the world if you've found one? :-) ]

In a sense, the results of the project do seem to match earlier research on the topology of the web; at a glance, the graph arrived at, does seem to be scale-free in nature.

Which, actually raises an interesting question. Scale free networks, by their nature, are supposed to have certain highly connected nodes, the connectivity of which, is extremely critical to the network as a whole.

In particular, look at the resultant graph for one-third of the net. Note the single link in the middle between two nodes that seems to connect all four sub-trees together. Now imagine that link being, say, DDoS'ed. (You can see it in the one-fifth-of-the-net graph as well; only, it's more clear here)

(Additional points for all you neurologists out there:- we've been comparing the structure of the human brain with that of the Internet, do you know of any such neurons?)

[Even more points:- Will you tell the world if you've found one? :-) ]

Or it could just be jealousy. Microsoft's claim of increased security were unfounded in south africa. This is not the first time it has been busted for false advertising, it seems to be a habit.

<disclaimer>I'm not a lawyer.</disclaimer>

This same topic was part of SANS NewsBites

I wrote to them:

Re: SANS NewsBites Vol. 5 Num. 44

> --Trojan Defense Successful Three Times in UK Courts
> (28 October 2003)
> Three cases in UK courts have set a significant precedent for
> prosecuting those accused of cyber crimes. In all three cases,
> defendants' attorneys successfully argued that their clients' computers
> had been hijacked by Trojan horse programs and therefore the defendants
> were not responsible for the alleged crimes. While some view the
> precedent as a safeguard against convicting innocent people, others are
> concerned that it gives cyber criminals a blanket defense. The Trojan
> defense has not yet been used in the US court system.
> computerworld
The Register (UK)
> [Editor's Note (Schultz): I fear that this will become the
> universally-used defense in cybercrime cases. Juries are not likely to
> know enough to see past this type of alibi.]

Actually the problem will be if _prosecutors_ can't get past the Trojan defense. Juries are routinely forced to learn the technical details of a criminal situation, whether it's a pyramid scheme or a poisoning. A prosecutor has to educate the jury and then convince the jury that the defendant is guilty of cognizant action (or inaction). It's the cognizant inaction part that will most likely break through the Trojan defense.

An analogy is as old as law itself: if I have a dog known to get out of its pen and bite the neighbors, then unless I try to do something about it I'm liable for the damages the dog does.

Another analogy: if I ask you to carry an envelope over to the mailbox, and don't tell you it contains anthrax, then you act legally by placing the envelope in the mailbox. I commit the crime, even if I don't specifically ask you to carry anything but just arrange for it to happen. Knowledge is the key, coupled with the choice to act or not to act.

If the prosecutor can't show that the defendent knew his computer was doing illegal things, then the jury should acquit. If he did know about the illegal activity, the prosecutor still has to show intentional action or inaction. That's how it works for dogs and owners, for letters and mailboxes, and that's how it's supposed to work for computer networks, too.

2: do as IBM has done and try to get the facts out. And since we know SCO won't give up the goods, get it from anyone else with their hand in the SCO piggy bank. "It is time for SCO to produce something meaningful. They have been dragging their feet and it is not clear there is any incentive for SCO to try this in court"