Domain: drexel.edu
Stories and comments across the archive that link to drexel.edu.
Comments · 265
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SMIRP
I'm one of the principal designers of a system called SMIRP.
It started out as a very simple system that didn't act as much more than a set of tables with some simple linking structures. On top of that is an alerting system, (so you can track new experiments being done) a full text index, bots for automating certain procedures, and a system for transferring data to Excel.
What's surprising is that for the most part, the underlying structure stayed exactly the same even though we've been running all the operations in an inorganic chemistry lab on for, oh, four years now. I've been chewing over ways of rewriting it because, honestly, it's still the same prototype. I'd love to go with an all Perl solution... but the damned thing just works and I have other stuff to do.
Some lessons I've learned, problems I've run into:
A general interface. You really need a flexible structure because scientists never know what parameters they're going to use until they do the experiment. Our big success has been such a simple structure that people can throw a SMIRPSpace together in minutes.
Browser based interface. It's great because it's ubiquitous, but it's painful because of the inflexibility of forms. One big win with it is that you can get a horde of workstudies to form a pipeline. For example, a grad student might put a request in the system for an article, a workstudy recieves a notification of the change and hits the web to fill in details, another then gets notified and sends a request to the library, another gets notified and scans the result and finally the grad student sees a scanned copy of the article.
Excel based interface. It's great because people can play with data, but it's Excel...
XML is garbage. There's nothing you can do in XML that you can't do better with a flat file + regexes, or a SQL DBMS. XML is utterly, completely worthless.
Proprietary products. This won't be a huge surprise to /.'ers, but we got seriously screwed when the prototype we did in Cold Fusion became production code and we realised that Allaire (and later Macromedia) would not computer redistribution for less than 10,000 units. I could try to get it running on another CF implementation (I think there's some Blue Dragon or something) but honestly, I'd rather rewrite the whole thing.
Reporting. This is *hard* to do. We still don't have any serious system for handling reports beyond "import the data to Excel and do it manually." -
Re:Here's what you can do...
Whoah, buddy - a little too gung-ho there about Freedom, for my tastes. Take note of the other replies to your post, especially by LordLucless and Joe the Lesser.
And for the love of all of us, keep your mind away from Ayn Rand! Avoid her writings at all costs! She'll lead you down into the inescapable vortex of Randian libertarian thought...
Instead, spend some time reading through the polemics at http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/polemica.ht ml, especially the bit about Cooperative Commonwealths.
(and if you want my bias, I'm sort of a libertarian Green, with admitted emphasis on the Green - although that link has nothing to do with the greens...) -
Classic Prisoners Dilema problemThis is a classic example of the prisoners dilema problem.
Basically if everyone acts unselfishly they do better. But from each individuals perspective they do better when they act selfish, so it all falls apart. Its interesting stuff and the prisoners dilema game algorithms are interesting.
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Only 0.1 percent want to discover new music?
No, I didn't say favorite genre, I said favorite ARTIST.
I expected this. You may want to refresh your memory about monopolistic competition before reading further.
It's no good telling someone to buy a CD from some other artist 'but it's ok because it's the same genre'.
"It's no good telling someone to buy an OS from some other vendor 'but it's ok because it runs the same programs'."
Most mainstream bands sound like at least two other bands on other labels. Sure, some artists such as Aphex Twin have a unique sound, but for every Backstreet Boys, there's always an *NSYNC and a 98 Degrees, and for every Britney Spears, there's a Christina Aguilera and a Jennifer Lopez. Sure, a Backstreet Boys CD and an *NSYNC CD are imperfect substitutes, but excepting the "sux/r00lz" fanboys, they're closer to perfect than some analysts would think.
Note that 99.9% of people will require the ability to buy music from their favorite MUSICIAN, not just genre, legally, if they're expected to change their vendor.
Are you claiming that substitution is so imperfect, that demand for particular artists is so inelastic, that only 0.1 percent of listeners are willing to discover new music if some bands' albums are less expensive than other bands'? Performers come and go, and listeners will follow their tastes. Look at what happened to fans of Tupac Shakur: when the posthumous flow of albums from Tupac's label slowed down, Eminem popped up, and Tupac fans had a new favorite rapper. Something analogous happened to Nirvana fans when Kurt Cobain died, and the same thing will happen when the Backstreet Boys break up.
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Archimedes said he did this too!Archimedes wrote that he had done something similar to this.
After having several of his discoveries published by unscrupulous collegues as their own, he began introducing flaws and leaving out the proofs when discussing his ideas. On one occasion, he passed off something completely false for one such plagiarist to filch.
-Rick
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Re:great new product for research budgets
1 it would be impossible to get those kinds of intense magnetic fields without using superconductors. Conventional conductors would melt with the kind of electrical current you would need.
2 unfortunately buckyballs don't seem to lubricate. but see that post on FLIR made with nanotechnology for more commercial nanotech products.
3 You want great 3d uses of holograms? Try imaging This technique could generalise for anything else you want to look at under a microscope in 3D. Cells. Fuel rods in a nuke reactor. the hologram captures all that data at the quantum level.
the application is commercial because there are hologram companies that sell equipment to other companies. If you want to get into it yourself for next to nothing look at this link and search for hologram -
Re:Libertarians (off topic)
I've paid quite a bit of attention to the Libertarian Party, and I'm sorry, but I find them quite frightening. The essay I linked to earlier pretty much sums up what I feel about them. libertarianism in general isn't too bad, but the US Libertarian Party is quite questionable, and American Ayn Randian libertarianism in general has its problems.
As for comparing the Libertarian Party to the Republicans and Democrats, they're not the only three parties in the US...
Now libertarian socialism, on the other hand, there's something that's not a bad idea... http://william-king.www.drexel.edu/top/polemica.ht ml -
Re:Secure Wireless with VPN
Drexel Univ already has a fully wireless wired campus called DragonFly. The WEP keys are linked to the univ email ids and hence reasonably secure. Think its just a matter of commonsense.
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Re:Secure Wireless with VPN
Drexel Univ already has a fully wireless wired campus called DragonFly. The WEP keys are linked to the univ email ids and hence reasonably secure. Think its just a matter of commonsense.
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Re:Apollo 1 / hardware fault
I did run acroess that title, but for some reason I did not read it. It's very possible that no local libraries had a copy (in fact, a run of Penn State's library search engine yields no results, so this was almost certianly the case). As it was not a huge paper in general (just for a high school class, albeit a *major* paper for high school), I didn't feel compelled to go looking for tons of secondary sources when Penn State had the Commission's Report. As this report is the basis for most of the information out there on the Challenger, it was by far and away my biggest source.
One book that may be of particular interest to /.ers is Richard Feynman's "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" Feynman was one of the members of the commission that investigated the accident, and he gives his story in the second half of the book. Feynman is a fun guy and the book is a very good and easy read.
In general, there are certain sacrifices that you have to make in terms of safety. Having to cart a one-piece booster just wouldn't have worked, period. This is especially true at that time because NASA was running another launch pad in Califiornia at an Air Force base (I forget which, and also forget if it was ever used) in addition to the one at Cape Canaveral. I suspect a barge in that case would have necessitated a trip all the way through the Panama canal to get between the launch sites. My point is that you can't always take the safest option. However, that doesn't mean you ignore blantant safety issues. NASA was negligant in its inaction concerning a joint redesign. (And this is true legally as well as IMHO; the families of the astronauts I believe got a fairly substantial amount of money in a wrongful death suit, though I forget if it was settled out of court.) The decision to launch in cold weather was, in my mind, far secondary to the lack of any progress regarding the design of the joint.
If anyone is curious, my report is online as a PDF and HTML. The PDF version has a couple more pages that I didn't splice into the HTML file, including a VERY interesting and revealing memo starting on page 40. Try to ignore the numerous technical errors (I have a couple dozen typos and horrible tense consistancy). I wish that I had had the time to proofread it, but it was too long for the time I had avaliable. But I don't think ym teacher bothered to read it anyway, because he made no comments on it. -
Re:Apollo 1 / hardware fault
I did run acroess that title, but for some reason I did not read it. It's very possible that no local libraries had a copy (in fact, a run of Penn State's library search engine yields no results, so this was almost certianly the case). As it was not a huge paper in general (just for a high school class, albeit a *major* paper for high school), I didn't feel compelled to go looking for tons of secondary sources when Penn State had the Commission's Report. As this report is the basis for most of the information out there on the Challenger, it was by far and away my biggest source.
One book that may be of particular interest to /.ers is Richard Feynman's "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" Feynman was one of the members of the commission that investigated the accident, and he gives his story in the second half of the book. Feynman is a fun guy and the book is a very good and easy read.
In general, there are certain sacrifices that you have to make in terms of safety. Having to cart a one-piece booster just wouldn't have worked, period. This is especially true at that time because NASA was running another launch pad in Califiornia at an Air Force base (I forget which, and also forget if it was ever used) in addition to the one at Cape Canaveral. I suspect a barge in that case would have necessitated a trip all the way through the Panama canal to get between the launch sites. My point is that you can't always take the safest option. However, that doesn't mean you ignore blantant safety issues. NASA was negligant in its inaction concerning a joint redesign. (And this is true legally as well as IMHO; the families of the astronauts I believe got a fairly substantial amount of money in a wrongful death suit, though I forget if it was settled out of court.) The decision to launch in cold weather was, in my mind, far secondary to the lack of any progress regarding the design of the joint.
If anyone is curious, my report is online as a PDF and HTML. The PDF version has a couple more pages that I didn't splice into the HTML file, including a VERY interesting and revealing memo starting on page 40. Try to ignore the numerous technical errors (I have a couple dozen typos and horrible tense consistancy). I wish that I had had the time to proofread it, but it was too long for the time I had avaliable. But I don't think ym teacher bothered to read it anyway, because he made no comments on it. -
Re:highly appropriate
my school - Drexel - has a decent balance. They require undergrad students (in most diciplines, including engineering and CS) into an internship program such that you have 18 months work experience upon graduation. There's also a new undergrad Software Engineering program (it's in its first year), and they've had a graduate SE program for a few years now. The CS program has its fair share of theory (i mean, come on, what program doesnt?), but we do have to take coursework in Software Design and Engineering, including a 6-month team project as a graduation requirement.
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Re:It said "Science's 10 Most Beautiful Experiment
Oh. That explains why Archimedes' bathtub wasn't included.
(You know; Archimedes was trying to figure out how to find out if a crown was made out of gold or not; he couldn't figure it out until he saw the displacement of water when he got into the bathtub, fiddled around getting in and out, etc., and finally jumped up and ran around Syracuse naked shouting "I have found it! [Heureka!]"
This page at Drexel has the details.)
So, why am I so sure from the title I know why this wasn't included as one of Science's 10 Most Beautiful Experiments? Have you seen what Archimedes looked like?
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Drexel University in Philadelphia
I'm a student at Drexel University trying to get a Computer Science Degree. When I started in the Fall of 2000, they were praising themselves as being the first (and possibly only, at that time[?]) University in the world to have a wireless network accessible from anywhere on the campus, which spans several city blocks. This includes the educational buildings, which are mostly centralized, and the dorms, which are spread out over a few blocks.
Sadly, though, they got smart about a year ago and started registering the MAC Adresses of the wireless that are permitted to access the network. As a student, I am more than welcome to use the network, all I have to do is register with the right people. But all of the residents in the area that were popping in on it, plus any guests you might bring to campus, they're all locked out now. -
Airport under Linux
And the Airport basestation works under Linux as well. There is a configurator etc here. The only problem is that parts of it (last time i checked) were closed source. Plus there can be problems with java and swing (help offer the debian people here ).
Its cheap, easy to setup und has good security features which can be viewed here . -
Re:Thought you guys would like this
http://www.mcs.drexel.edu/~ucliscum/images/mozill
a -v-800x600.jpg
The butterflies have made a friend in the commercials, and he deserved to be eaten too. -
Re:Maths and practicallity...
Game Theory was created by a John Nash because of its maths, it then changed economics BUT that wasn't why he started thinking about it.
While I agree totally with the rest of your post, I have to point out to you that Nash certainly did not create game theory nor was he the first to apply it to economics. Game theory has roots going back thousands of years in fact. If anyone can be creditted with "creating game theory" it is John von Neumann (and his partner Oskar Morganstern) who did the most to develop the theory as a whole as well as apply it to economics in the early-mid 1900s. John Nash simply made a contribution to the theory (albeit a very important one).
There's a nice timeline of the development of game theory here if you're interested. -
Microwaves are potentially dangerous---no shit.I feel obliged to say something, before some 13 or 14 year-old kills themselves:
microwaves are high voltage, high current devices. they can kill you EVEN IF THE POWER IS OFF AND THE DEVICE IS UNPLUGGED (ex: by discharging of a large capacitor). Unless you really know what you are doing, don't open one up. i've been trained in servicing electronics, and even i wouln't go near one of these things.
see: Notes on the Troubleshooting and Repair of Microwave Ovens for more information.
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Re:Phreaking?
Drexel University wireless-enabled their entire campus and completely bailed on WEP, opting instead to use a Cisco 3060 VPN with individually-registered MAC addresses of wireless cards. That could easily cause problems for Linux users unless a Linux client exists, but it is possible to do easy, large scale, secure wireless. MAC spoofing is not enough to get by this.
Check it out. -
Re:Phreaking?
Drexel University wireless-enabled their entire campus and completely bailed on WEP, opting instead to use a Cisco 3060 VPN with individually-registered MAC addresses of wireless cards. That could easily cause problems for Linux users unless a Linux client exists, but it is possible to do easy, large scale, secure wireless. MAC spoofing is not enough to get by this.
Check it out. -
Re:Siemens Gigaset
Actually the "Memory effect" (Which isn't really the memory effect at all) isn't really a problem with the NiCads in the gigaset, since it has an excelent charger that was designed correctly. They are lower capacity then the NiMh batteries though.
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Re:morrowind...
BTW everquest is not a game, in a game there is a winner and a loser, the only winner in EQ is the people who get your money.
I see you read PVP, and aren't afraid to quote for your posts.
However, despite the fact that your opinion surfaced in a major web comic, the view is not at all true. Game theory defines a game as a set of rules specifying:
- Players
- Alternative choices/actions players choose from
- Order of play
- Outcomes and payoffs
Everquest, and other MMORPGs, generally cover each of these in order to work. It's an open system, meaning that players can make their own goals in addition to those imposed by the game, rather than having a closed, or finite, resolution.
You can find a lot more about Game Theory, including information various types of games from Zero Sum to Nonconstant sum games and the like here.
=Brian - Players
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Oh we are
We are happy with our ping times!
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have your school do what mine did...
... set up their own wireless network. Access requires registering your laptop's MAC address, and you can reach the network from just about every classroom and dorm on campus. They require the MAC address to block out non-Drexel folk, as the campus is in the middle of Philly.
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There are supposedly "good" schools that do this
Basically, any University that has been bitten by the "we must produce people with jobs" bug.
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Re:So...?
Well, "owned by the workers" is a slightly misleading description since it will be controlled by the state
...Only in state socialism. Other arrangements are possible.
See some of these sites for more information:
http://flag.blackened.net/liberty/libsoc.html
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Unencrypted and secure
Drexel University does a great job of securing their otherwise unencrypted wireless traffic with a VPN.
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Linux for the Airport
There is a port of linux to the Apple Airport Base Station as well. However, it requires the use of a dhcp & tftp server, as well as the Java-based Airport admin tools.
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Re:Go Dell
While DVD support is comming in 10.1, you can use the following Java thingy to configure the airport network to a degree:
http://gicl.mcs.drexel.edu/people/sevy/airport/#C
o nfigurator -
Anything can kill, given big enough dose.
As has been noted, the effective substance in Red Bull can cause death, if someone was fool enough to consume insane amounts of it. Somehow, I have the hunch that not everything has been told in this case. I wouldn't be that surprised if ecstacy was involved.
But this piece of news did remind me of a science-fiction story I read. The power of statistics should never be underestimated when doing research on reason -> result field
:) This is a story any statistician should read :) -
Re:So what do we reccomend?I use an Apple Airport on my Linux/Windows network at home. It cost about $300 direct from Apple, and I configure it with the Java-based Airport Configurator from either OS. Works great, really cheap, and has support for modem or Ethernet. I use the Ethernet at home, and it's small enough I can take it with me places and use the modem. I use it at my fiance's apartment so both of us can share the modem, and I've used it on consulting jobs before where easy mobility of my laptop is convenient.
The vast majority of the security issues (including the one in this article) are simply that the network wasn't configured securely. I haven't seen any real-world attacks against networks that run WEP; the few I have seen have been brute-force decryption of packets. I haven't seen or heard of any attacks where packets were tunneled via a VPN over the wireless network.
As long as you're willing to read up on the security issues and take the time to configure your wireless stuff securely, you should be OK.
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Mix studying with on the job experienceHere are Drexel (and I think RIT, too) we have a cooperative education program, or coop. Basically the students start out their freshman year with 3 quarters of classes (fall winter spring), take the summer off, then coming back their sophomore year they work at a real job for two quarters (six months) then go to school for two quarters for their sohphmore, pre-junior, and junior years. Then for their senior year they have three terms of classes again.
I find this is a great way to learn. There's so much more to CS than what comes from a book or a tenured academic. It also can expose you to fields you never thought about before; for example, I took a coop that wound me up writing code for the huge servers that control your cable TV.
Being at a school where everyone is supposed to be doing the coop program makes it easy because the classes are scheduled around different majors' coop cycles and you don't have to wrry about your course sequences getting messed up because you were out working when the one class you needed was being offered.
But since most universities haven't caught on to this, I would suggest going out and trying to get a summer internship.
There's simply no substitute for real life experience.Now, as for the academic side, I would give students the opportunity to wrk at their own pace whenever possible. Let them test out of classes if they're learning fine on their own. My school starts students our with a term of HTML, javascript, and "computing fundamentals", which was a complete waste of time for me. But they forced EVERYONE to take it. Luckily the next term was intro to C++ and you had the option of placing out of it and into Data Structures. Yummy stacks, tasty queues, delicious doubly-linked lists!.
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Several schools do this (summary)I wrote an article about this for our school paper one and a half years ago.
We (Waterloo) still don't have a wireless network.
Here's who does:
- Carnegie Mellon has Wireless Andrew all over campus
- Dartmouth has it
- Drexel has it (Information Resources and Technology, Library)
- Princeton (Firestone Library and Computing & Information Technology)
- Marquette
- Richard Ivey School of Business at University of Western Ontario
Grumble, grumble. So much for us being a high tech school.
Paul
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How this works at other schools
Drexel University is doing this too. They started putting up the 'hubs' about a year ago, so far the coverage is spotty. As for authentication, you have to register your card's MAC address with them. They reseve the right to intercept traffic. To make a long story short untill all the bugs are worked out(im giving it 5 to 6 years) it's gonna be more trouble than it's worth.
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Drexel University
Drexel has had this for about a year or so now. Things are just now getting to the point where most places on campus are accessible. Some of the big block buildings have some trouble with signal strength in certain places, but overall it's quite good coverage, and is improving with time. Now that I am so used to this kind of always-on 11Mbps connection, I don't know what I will do when I graduate. Riccochet just won't cut it unless they get a LOT faster
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Lots of schools have this
Drexel (Philadelphia, PA USA) has a complete map of their wireless setup. It was started back in 1998, and is still being expanded today.
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Been there, done that....
I go to Drexel University and they official implemented a wireless network in September of 2000. Go here for more info:
http://inside.drexel.edu/networking/ -
Drexel.edu had the first wireless library in '97And now the whole campus is covered.
http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/wireless/You do have to register your NIC with the IRT, presumably to keep just anyone from leaching off our fiber backbone.
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Re:Monopolies are not bad always.Here is a short set of slides explaining why natural monopolies exist in the States, and why they are not always bad..
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Employment Agreements
Unfortunately having a good co-op can be contingent on something that's required before you even set foot in your cubicle (or office, as the case may be) - an employment agreement.
One of the reasons that it's better to obtain a co-op through a school rather than individually is because the school will generally draw up an employment agreement that the company will have to sign before hiring you. At my school, for example, the hiring company is required to outline the basic work responsibilities that you will have, and if the requirements do not seem to reach the level of challenge you require, they will have to negotiate with the school before (or after, if they breach the agreement) hiring you.
I realize you are not yet in college, so you're pretty much on your own in this case. But you might consider discussing such an agreement with your next employer before you sign on as a co-op. It's not entirely unheard of in such cases. Also, some colleges have built in co-op programs (Among them Drexel University, where I study, and I believe Northeastern has a similar program). It might be worthwhile for you to consider something like that when you look at colleges
:)Best of luck to you!
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Drexel University Acceptable Use Policy questions
In the acceptable use policy http://www.drexel.edu/IRT/policies/acceptableUse.
h tml, the following are stated:
2. Accounts are assigned to individuals and are not to be shared unless specifically authorized. You, the user, are solely responsible for all functions performed from accounts assigned to you. Anything done through your account may be recorded. It is a violation of University Policy to allow others to use your account. It is a violation to use another person's account, with or without that person's permission.
According to Drexel, this also not allowing other people to even SIT at your computer and USE it. It also, according to them, means you CAN NOT run LINUX and give an account to a friend. The way I read this rule is that you can not give away your username and password to the DREXEL accounts! I would need to give out my username and password to the email server, or to one of the UNIX systems to be in violation of the rule, which I believe is absolutely fine. But they are trying to twist it so that if your computer is connected into the network, all access to that system is restricted to you and you alone, and I feel that this is absolutly unacceptable. Especially when I do in fact pay for this service with the room and board.
And they are in fact enforcing this on Linux systems. 2 of my friends have been sanctioned for running Linux (one of them had given an account to his younger brother, the other was just running Linux and his system was hacked, so they SANCTIONED HIM for GETTING HACKED!!!).
The other part that I have a question on is this:
8. You may not attempt to bypass computer or network security mechanisms without the prior express permission of the owner of that computer or network system. Possession of tools that bypass security or probe security, or of files that may be used as input or output for such tools, shall be considered as the equivalent to such an attempt.
Now in this rule, they first state that you MAY attempt to probe security if you have the express permission of the person's computer or network that you are probing. This seems perfectly reasonable. But, in the very next sentence they then state that having and software of devices that are used to probe systems will be considered a violation of the acceptable use policy. Now, I am a UNIX network administrator. I have EVERY RIGHT to own devices and software that will probe systems for I regularly check both my own systems, and those at my work from my home computer. I also from time to time will probe some of my friends systems when they as me to (the case of my friend who was hacked I did indeed probe his system). I have never probed any system other then ones I have been authorized to do so, but according to the policy, even though I have authorization, I can't own any software or devices that do the probing!!!
If I had the choice, I would NEVER AGREE to this policy. But I do NOT have a choice. If I was able to get xDSL, or cable modem service, or a T1 (hell even a modem), I WOULD DO SO. But we as students are not allowed to get any of these in the dorms. The phone system we use does not allow modems. We can not get xDSL because we can not choice our phone service. And we can not get cable modems because do not get cable (have very poor satellite service with Direct TV, in which we get ~30 channels).
What options do we have other then to take whatever crap they feel like dishing out? I never even realized how bad the policy was until my friend was hacked several months ago.
His system was completely compromised (they had root access). They then used his system to hack other systems. The IT center at Drexel cut his connection (I agree with them doing this), but then without even doing ANY investigation, they brought him up on charges of mis-use of a computing device, and attempted hacking. This would have DEVISTATED ANY chances of him getting a job in the future (Computer Science major). He came to me right away looking for any help. His logs were wiped, but we had a seperate log that we setup that periodically captured all processes running. In that log I found an in.telnet process that someone was logging in as root from an IP outside IP address. Using this, I then traced the connection back to an address owned and run by Shaw Cable Modem services, out of Maryland, USA. Even with this information the IT department would not believe that he was hacked, and they were going through with the charges. The worst part of it was that the IT department was SURE to have logs of the access to the machine, but they REFUSED to even look at them for us, for this would PROVE that he had been hacked. Not until I got help from my computer ethic's professor were we able to work out the situation.
He was still sanctioned for running LINUX, and getting hacked! He had to do 20 hours of work for the University, just for running Linux. Now this is an OUTRAGE!
P.S. for those that want to know, his system was compromised with the buffer-overflow security hole in wu-ftpd-2.6.0. I am 99% positive that this is how they gained access. -
Re:Wireless Lans come of age
Apple has the Airport which can purchased for $299 at CompUsa, Circuit City and their own web site. I also think that DLink might have an accesspoint for $299 (I might of seen this at circuit city also). Even though the Airport is an Apple product, it is configured through snmp. You can get a java application to configure it. I use the Airport at my house as a transparent bridge which allows me to use my laptop anywhere in my house.
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Best Physics Professor
Professor Venkataraman at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA is one of the most dedicated teachers I have ever known. He teaches all three classes of the freshman engineering physics series (Physical Foundations of Engineering) and he knew his students well enough to recognize a visitor to the class in a lecture of 200 people. He was about five minutes into class last year when he looked up, saw a girl he didn't recognize, and said "We have a visitor today!" He still knows me by name a year down the road. He is an excellent teacher and a wonderful individual.
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Re:My Research So Far (Includes Access Points)
here is a java configuration utility for the Apple Airport so that you can use any system running java 1.2 to configure the access point. this should also work with the RG1000.
the Apple Airport runs slightly less than $300 while the RG1000 runs a bit more than that.
both of these have Lucent silver cards inside them so they support antennas and what not. they can also be upgraded to Lucent gold cards rather trivialy.
I like the lucent cards as they are support on Mac, FreeBSD, Linux, Windows 95/98, Windows NT, and Windows CE.
what I have found to be the main difference between cheap 802.11b cards and their expensive brethren is antenna sensitivity. the more you pay, the better the built in antenna is.
here is a decent article comparing 802.11b solutions.
Grimlaf -
embedded vehicle diagnosticsI've seen what the military is doing in this field, and it ain't pretty from an open-source point of view...
I interview with the Navy a few months back as a coop for their Naval Sea Systems Command.
The job was developing applications for Windows CE-based PDAs which the maintance crews would take onboard ships to log data on the ship's functions. The data is then entered into an Oracle database and served up using ColdFusion extensions on IIS.
In short, it was a lot of extremely (notoriously?) non-free (neither speech nor beer) software. (And the pay was shitty.)
Needless to say, it would be really cool if other branches of the armed forces followed the Army's lead here. If the above scenario was linux running on the handhelds, and linux, apache, perl, mysql running on the servers, the job would have been much more attractive. And plus, everyone would think the Navy was cool
;-)Question:
There was a /. story awhile back about how the US Armed Forces were having trouble getting new IT workers. Would *you* work for the Army if you knew you could get your hands on these embedded linux devices, and promote OSS at the same time?I think I would. For one thing, the job security would sure beat working for a dotcom...
-the wunderhorn -
I've been offered jobs with the Navy...
As a computer science cooperative education student at Drexel University currently on fall/winter coop, I just went through the process of hunting for jobs (and getting a LOT of rejections, this is only my second year in school and my first "real" job) and had a very relevant experience.
I received a job offer from the Navy that was awfully tempting: a chance to learn and practice CGI programming, Java/JScript, IIS, Cold Fusion, and program handheld devices. The salary? $300/week.
I also received an offer from a private-sector company that would basically be IT gruntwork, and maybe a chance to do some C programming for the set-top boxes the company is designing. Not as attractive as the Navy, which would have put me on track to be a successful web developer. But the salary was exactly double what the Navy was paying. Needless to say, I took the private-sector job.
A higher salary would definately help gov't jobs seem more attractive to people like me who have trouble seeing past the $17k tuition due in a few months. Unfortunately it appears that these raises in salary are not across the board, which is what the government needs to do to keep attractive the best workers.
-the wunderhorn
-the wunderhorn
#define OH_YES_INDEED 1 -
Re:Minority Religions - Translated AnswerI hope you are not referring to wiccans when you say "witchcraft", because your opinion would be contrary to the Supreme Court, the Army, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and several US District Courts. References
As to the source of Wicca, it is derived from the tribal Earth religions of pre-christian Europe, well before Crowley's time.
For a better understanding of what wicca is really about, read a list of faq's
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Re: extra info (FreeBSD)There is also support in FreeBSD; it has been there for some time, and 4.1.1-RELEASE (most recent) supports it well. I just bought some Orinico cards and an Apple Airport, and they work just fine with the aid of the Java-based Airport configurator available at:
http://edge.mcs.drexel.edu/GICL/people/sevy/airpo
r t/index.htmlNicolai
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Java Airport Configurator
Here's a link to the Java Airport Configurator for fully configuring and controlling an apple airport from any OS.
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Airport Base StationI'm a big fan of the Apple Airport Base Station.
Sure, it looks like an iMac turd, but it's a slick little device that not only provides wireless bridging to the wired network, but also automatically does network address translation for the wireless devices. It will even offer DHCP / NAT for the wired machines, and manage your dialup for you (it has an integrated 56k modem).
So, on DSL/Cable setups that share a single IP, it frees up whatver machine was forced to do IPmasq. And over a shared dialup, you no longer have to have anybody running diald.
It only costs $300, which isn't that much more than what you'd pay for a small home router anyway, and of course it also gives you wireless access (compatible with 802.11b products). I get excellent reception throughout my entire 3-story house, including the basement.
Best of all, you don't have to have a Mac (or Windows) to use it... there's a java-based configurator.