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My mistake. It's actually called unpoison and is written by Tom Vogt.

Freshmeat Application Page reads as follows:
unpoison.pl is a simple Squid redirector plugin that disables (and returns the favor of) a new customer-tracking scheme developed by 7val.com that the author has labeled "Location Poisoning". The Web page explains how Location Poisoning works and why the author considers it a Bad Thing(tm).

The App home page gives more information, including the patent request by 7val.com ... (which in all liklihood is the same deal as sevenval.de now I've woken up enough to remember how to spell my numbers)

It's Textmode Quake running on Ada Lovelace's mechanical computer! I remember reading on freshmeat last century that aalib had been ported to it!

At the risk of being marked "Offtopic," there is already a window manager that allows for such graphical configuration, WindowMaker. It takes a little getting used to, I would argue, but almost all of the configuration options can be set graphically. WindowMaker looks and behaves similarly to AfterStep, although closer in behavior to the NeXTStep interface than AfterStep (AfterStep is based upon NeXTStep's interface, but has some changes in behavior). Best of all, it uses GTK to draw its widgets, so it looks pretty, especially if you download some cool gtk-engines.

Under WindowMaker, options can be set, depending on context, by right clicking on a docked applet (like the Wharf) or by loading wmakerconf. Want a docked applet to automatically load on startup? Right click on it and check a box. Want to change your backround? Wish to use a different font in your root menu? Load up wmakerconf. With AfterStep, all these options are easy to set if you which file contains each option. On Freshmeat, there's something called AS TOOL that sounds promising (from the brief description) as a graphical configuration tool, although the linked Web site doesn't talk about it. Damn.

With the recent developments in AfterStep's theme configuration, it seems that AfterStep is moving closer to an "end-user" GUI. Once a graphical configuration utility is implemented, all that is left to do is implement some type of desktop metaphor (not necessarily whored from Mac OS, mind you). A graphical tool such as this wouldn't be too hard to design, I would think.

As for open source and the design of GUIs, it seems that we all want something different. Granted, most of us want configurability, but some want to use graphical tools, while others prefer text files. To make Linux a more viable "mom" desktop environment, designing some type of forum would be a great idea. I have a feeling, though, that it would run into many of the problems that are currently plauging Slashdot: trolls, karma whores, etc. (I don't see how the 31337 first posters would fit in, though.) Solutions to these problems would have to be worked out so that usable GUI standards would be set. And who's to say that every programmer would follow the guidlines? It doesn't happen under Mac OS, an OS that has relatively stringent (but friendly) guidelines for GUIs (see
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/mac/HIGuidel ines/HIGuidelines-2.html). And it certainly doesn't happen under Windows.

Clearly, something needs to be done. User feedback is a start. I don't think there are really any surefire solutions out there. Linux desktop environments will evolve just like the more traditional user interfaces have.

Freshmeat uses PHP, MySQL and Apache. I'm sure they get a ton of his every day and the entire website amounts to a huge indexed database.

> I'm grateful for what we've been given so far, but it's time to innovate.

Actually, I think Linux (and *BSD) have quite a number of innovative programs. Just look at Freshmeat or SourceForge; there's tons of stuff there.

I believe part of the problem is that there are so many half-finished innovations and programs. Not to say half-finished projects are bad, I'm just saying that since they are not 'complete', people may ignore them as opposed to a program advertised as 'release quality'. That, and the sheer number of projects, keeps them from being recognized anywhere else than a small circle of developers and users.

Also, many programs are developed to scratch an itch on a *nix-like system, and are not really applicable to DOS/Windows/MacOS. Case in point: this morning I got an e-mail from a guy wondering if psdoom would be ported to DOS. I told him that DOS had no concept of processes, so it couldn't be done. But this does show that (at least in this one case) there is interest in porting OSS programs and innovations to traditionally closed-source platforms.

Right on the main page of Slashdot, you will find a link to freshmeat which list hundreds of open source projects of all types in various levels of completeness (sp?). They, of course, have a nice search feature, which is admitedly is not too great, but should do the job. Your professor should be able to find some project he likes there. It is also a great source of interesting code to analyze.

Heh, why not try to use one of the HTML compression tools which have a short javascript header which unpacks html on the fly? Problem is finding a small enough bit of "header JS", but it might be a cool way to get around the 5k limit while sticking to it.

Look at this freshmeat entry for AlgART HTML Picker to see what I mean :)

Such an app would have to be enormous to handle all those distros and every package that ships with most distros.

I suppose it could start by *strictly* adhering to the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, excuse my ignorance (I've used SlackWare in the past and RedHat currently) but I haven't seen many distros that fully *comply* with FHS (even though FHS gives you a lot of leeway).

This could bring us a little closer to the the universal source package.

Also, the "Distro-O-Matic" would allow you to choose your kernel, from a predefined list (SMP, pgcc optimized, full networking, etc.).

Probably a pipe dream :)

Marcus

Eric

Plus, bugfixes come quite quickly (usually on the order of once a month or so), instead of in two service packs a year.

SRP clients are available currently on the UNIX, and WIN32 (names previouslly mentioned in other posts) platforms, among others. An SRP enabled telnet client for the MacOS, dataComet, will be released within a month from databeast.. Java, Phython, PERL and SSH modules/implementations are also available now. SRP is well on it's way to standardization, as more and more SRP aware clients/servers are being released on a constant, and consistant basis, in addition to the rapid vendor acceptance it has lately received.

am I the only one that thinks using domain names as resource locators is wrong?

Not really. I'd tend to agree that a different system would be better (so Microsoft can't just take nameofanewbutimportantopensourceproject.org) - but right now, fact is that people look for name.com first - and almost all search engines give bonus points for the keyword appearing in the domain name. Since it isn't a really bad thing, it's maybe best to play with these rules until we can change them. ;)

shouldn't we have some central place for people to register their sites?

You mean http://www.freshmeat.net/?

It's actually been at FreshMeat for a good part of the day, it's announcement is here But i just wanted to thank the Cmdr for finally posting the damn thing ( i had only submitted it three times today ) the nice spiel is too damn funny for anyone to pass on :)

( Warning, mildly offtopic thought follows)

I did have one theroy though...don't know if it was brought up before...what if someone posted a wav file ( because mp3 would be to "underground" ) of them reading the DeCSS ( as in the DVD program ) source code?


Sgt Pepper
Lame Sig Shamelessly Ripped from
Fortune:

A mind is a wonderful thing to waste.

It's actually been at FreshMeat for a good part of the day, it's announcement is here But i just wanted to thank the Cmdr for finally posting the damn thing ( i had only submitted it three times today ) the nice spiel is too damn funny for anyone to pass on :)

( Warning, mildly offtopic thought follows)

I did have one theroy though...don't know if it was brought up before...what if someone posted a wav file ( because mp3 would be to "underground" ) of them reading the DeCSS ( as in the DVD program ) source code?


Sgt Pepper
Lame Sig Shamelessly Ripped from
Fortune:

A mind is a wonderful thing to waste.

Boys are wilder and more aggressive. So when there is computer time available, they will push the girls off. If teachers and parents don't do something about that, the girls won't fight back.

okay, this sounds a little far out to me. i'd certainly agree that boys tend to be more aggressive, but i've never ever seen that translate into "boys pushing girls off computers." access to the machines has, at least in my experience, always been equal. in fact, probably more equal than in the classroom: when students are interacting as a class, its pretty clear that male aggressiveness will have some impact on the confidence/performance/etc of the supposed less aggressive female students. but when the students are in front of screens, theyre primarily interacting with the machines, not each other. girls arent (at least directly) faced will their aggressive male counterparts. that seems to me a relatively liberating situation.

..of course, if girls tend to be more socially oriented, it would make sense that few are interested in hours of lonely hacking..

this

Read it a few times. Eventually it will click for you. Then read the actual IPCHains howto. You will learn a lot about some of the things you can do to protect your system.

grip homepage

or you can just do a search on freshmeat for ripping software. Download one, install it and play around with it. It is not that hard.

I suspect that the reason you can only download mp3 files of CD's you own is not a legal one but a technological one. When you insert a CD into your drive, your PC can read the info (CCDB?) on it and use that verify that you own the CD. Can't do the same thing for tapes or LP's.

http://www.freshmeat.ne t/appindex/1999/08/23/935391329.html

It's possible with netscape: have a look at muttzilla.

If you want to encrypt files your two best bets are probably GPG (GNU Privacy Guard) or PGP (Pretty Good Privacy). If you want an encrypted filesystem, check out BestCrypt. For some references, you might go over to Freshmeat and key a few queries like 'gpg', 'pgp' and 'encryption' into the search box.

Larry mentioned in his speech that he wants to find a way to pull those two together.. hasn't that already been done with http://server51.freshmeat.net/ ??

Start your own. No one here will stop you. It's what Rob and Jeff did, it's what Scoop did, it's what Joe P. did, it's what the guys behind Themes.org did. Hey, even Bruce did it, and he had some money already.

Unless VA or Andover somehow make it so that people can't visit my site, I won't worry.

--

How will it affect Freshmeat (owned by Andover) and LinuxApps (a 'partner' of linux.com, owned by VA)?

What's going to happen with server51 of Andover and sourceforge of VA? They seem to have the same purpose and whatnot

IMHO, I think server51 is a lot cleaner and more organized .. sourceforge seems like a mess to me when I browse randomly looking for stuff. Maybe the best direction for them to take is specializing s51 to a certain type of project, while making sourceforge the catchall of project hosting services.

Regardless, we'll never know the real opinions of those being affected by this acquisition. Personally, it would be nice to know what scoop (freshmeat & s51) really thinks about this hoopla.

How does this affect the server51 (Andover) and sourceforge (VA) projects, since they both appear to have similar goals?
--

try mpg123 or xmms, both of these can stream mp3s. If these won't work for you, there's always http://freshmeat.net/.

Since this is being discussed, I'd like to mention that I've had great success using a Lucent WaveLAN silver at LISA '99, and subsequently bought a Lucent WaveLAN Gold and Apple AirPort Base Station for use with my subnotebook at home.

I wrote an Enlightenment Epplet to graphically monitor the signal strength to the card, something that comes in very handy if you're wandering from room to room or building to building.

It's called E-Wireless, and is available from FreshMeat here.

I haven't yet adapted it to WindowMaker, Afterstep, and such, but it shouldn't be difficult at all.

I'm also currently working on an app that will allow you to set up an Apple AirPort Base Station from Linux.

http://freshmeat.net/search.php3?query= mpeg

All that the Napster servers do is listing. You connect to a server, look for an MP3, and add it to your download queue. Everything else is DCC, over a random port. How do you suggest *that* is handled? You won't get far by limiting the bandwidth to the Napster servers, as not much bandwidth is used on them from the start - it's all in the DCC transfers.

The only way to prevent the transfers from happening is to block access to the Napster servers so that the transfers cannot be initiated.

Of course, with the Napster protocol being somewhat reverse-engineered now, I wonder how long it will be until a server clone is written and Napster is no longer centralized... Never mind. :)

--

WRT porting Directory Opus to *nix, Amiga environment is so different from the typical *nix environment that probably it's easier to rewrite software like this from scratch.

But then, the release of the sources of Directory Opus will surely make Amiga users (and UAE ones) really happy, anyway.

My 0.02 Euro, as usual.

> Please, can someone port it?

Before anybody starts to port it, why not have a look at Worker at freshmeat. It's described there as follows:

Worker is a file-manager exclusive for X based on the famous filemanager "DirectoryOpus" on the AmigaOS. It is configurable on the fly without restarting Worker. Any extern program can be easily integrated in the GUI, including a button and a hotkey. Worker uses real file-recognition on file-content AND/OR file-ending, where each file-type can get an own action.

--
MartinG.

There's a GPL space strategy game bein developed, here's the freshmeat link:

http://freshmeat.net/appind ex/1998/12/27/914746519.html

go to:

http://freshmeat.net

learn it; live it; love it.

and search for mpg123 while you're there.

--

Wow! That Server51 is one cool site. Personally, I think the "alien conspiracy" thing is bit overused, but they've done it well, and made excellent use of a few small graphics to create a very cool look.

I had no problems with the story's URL. In fact, both http://server51.freshmeat.net and http://server51.net work from where I am.

needed to hear this.

Veranda is a free font. All you have to do is head to MS's FTP site, or get it from another place, and unzip or untar it. Heck, I have a big bundle of true type fonts I have archived in a tarball so that I can get at them when I install Linux on a machine. Then you just install a TrueType font server for X (like xfstt in the Slackware contrib dir on ftp.cdrom.com).. Freshmeat has a bunch of them, too..

The page looks great in M13 and Netscape thanks to it..
---

I'm very pissed that JED isn't one of the editors listed. It totally rocks, and I'm very sure tons of other people think so. Why give the duopoly of vim and emacs money? ;)

Freshmeat entry
Author's homepage

ICQ#2584116

I used the whois available here: http://freshmeat.net/appind ex/1999/10/30/941297803.html plus a perl script to take care of the recent rs.internic.net changes (not necessary for this query).

$ whois nsa.gov
National Security Agency (NSA-DOM)
9800 Savage Rd.
Ft. Meade, MD 20755-6000


Domain Name: NSA.GOV
Status: Active

Administrative Contact:
Quinn, Patricia E. (PEQ)
(301) 688-3741 (FAX)(301) 688-1280
PEQ@NCSC.MIL


Domain servers in listed order:

TOPSCALE.NSA.GOV 144.51.68.4
ROMULUS.NCSC.MIL 144.51.5.2
NS1.QWEST.NET 216.111.65.217
NS2.QWEST.NET 205.171.16.250

Record last updated on 26-Oct-99.

Please be advised that this whois server only contains information
pertaining to the .GOV domain. For information for other domains please
use the whois server at RS.INTERNIC.NET.

Well, look at the Linux/Stoag computer virus. It does exactly what we're worrying about in exploit bugs.

Linux as an operating system is, in actuality, a lot more insecure than we'd like to admit. To prove my point, look at RedHat's Linux 6.1 Security Advisories page. How many of these packages were fixed to prevent root exploits? Five of thirteen. But look at how common some of these five are!

Malicious people can use lpr of all things! Another famous example: bind. Or how about wu_ftpd? Those two, alone, are present alone on how much of the linux community?

Honestly, were it not for freshmeat.net , I probably would not have discovered the existance of the new packages. (I don't check RedHat's site often. And I don't signup for mailing lists either... So this is my fault.)

There are script kiddies out there who can manipulate the overflows in bind. (Please, for the love of God, if you haven't updated to bind 8.2.2_P3, go do so!) If a script kiddie can find a way to do that, then some coder worth his paycheck can probably figure out a way to have a program manipulate itself into root that way.

I mean, all some perverse (or highly bored) programmer has to do is write a program to manipulate those bugs to get root... And then run rm -rf / to kill your machine. (There are, of course, nastier things one could do, but the less ideas I generate for others, the better.)

By no means, are we safe. Linux virii will eventually be created and released into the wild. (There are even some that claim that MicroSoft will be the origin for the epidemic.)

The only way we can keep ourselves truly safe is to catch security holes before the other side does and update our source packages before the attacks start.

There is a saying in network security: "One loose link is all you need."

I'd like to know what steps to take to prevent a system from being bombed by the superforker exploit. Its a simple little program that forks and forks and forks while filling up your /tmp directory in seconds. It would be nice to see distributions protected against exploits like this out of the box.

There is a kernel module that replaces the exec() call (I think) and provides the exact protection you are asking about. You can tune the amount of forking by user and it also (IIRC) supports logging of "over-fork" conditions.

Where is it? Here is a link to Freshmeat.

I'd like to know what steps to take to prevent a system from being bombed by the superforker exploit. Its a simple little program that forks and forks and forks while filling up your /tmp directory in seconds. It would be nice to see distributions protected against exploits like this out of the box.

There is a kernel module that replaces the exec() call (I think) and provides the exact protection you are asking about. You can tune the amount of forking by user and it also (IIRC) supports logging of "over-fork" conditions.

Where is it? Here is a link to Freshmeat.

Making a secure multi-user Unix box is difficult with any Unix. It requires a good clean start, perferably professionally audited, with as few services running as possible, as few setuid programs as possible, and as draconian as possible restrictions on the access and activities of users as possible. Then add robust monitoring of critical system files and users activities and be constantly vigilent to spot any abnomalities and apply security patches when vulnerabilites are discovered.

This is a job for a professional, and since you are asking for help in this forum, you would be wise to pay for some professional assistance. If you do not wish to do this, at least follow these steps:

First of all read the linux security HOWTO.

Start with a minimal install of a Linux you are comfortable with. RedHat is probably ok if you use the latest version and keep up with patches. I'd consider using OpenBSD for this kind of server since it's more secure by default, but it's not better if you don't know how to administer it properly. The only visible services you should need are ftp, apache, and sshd. That means no sendmail, nfs, linuxconf, talk etc. Edit /etc/inetd.conf and comment out every line except the in.ftpd line. Edit your rc scripts and disable all nonessential services. Check yourself with nmap. Don't install X or gnome/kde since they tend to have security problems. If you must have X (or even if you don't), make sure that you don't have any setuid programs on the system. You can find them with
find . -type f -perm ++s -print

In fact, you can gain a little peace of mind by running the command
chmod -R o-rwx *
Which will remove normal user read, write, and execute permissions from every file and directory.
Then reinstall the ftp daemon because otherwise people won't be able to list their files etc. Other things may break. Add things back as needed. For instance if you allow CGI scripting, you would need to give execute permissions on /usr/bin/perl.

If you use wu-ftpd (default with RedHat) then add '/./' (that's slash dot slash) to the end of their home directory path in /etc/passwd. This will lock their ftp sessions in a chrooted jail.

Secure apache with appropriate configuration. I don't recommend allowing CGI scripts, but if you do, at least use cgiwrap

Now that you have everything setup, freeze everything except /var. This could mean, minimally, using tripwire or something of that nature to monitor file changes, but it is a very good idea to use a read only (hardware read only is the best) file system.

Log the heck out of user activity, preferably onto a box that is not connected to the internet. Read Bugtraq religiously and follow your distributions security lists.

And finally, get help, really. Paying somebody upfront, even if it is only to review your actions and policies is a very good idea.
--

I don't use WordPerfect for Linux because it wouldn't print the same characters as it displayed on the screen. I think I'll give it another try now that I have a True Type font server up and running, but I'm not too hopeful.

I don't know if a Linux-jobs-only setting is the way to go.

It would certainly give us an environment where we don't start fresh every week explaining why Linux would be a better choice for this project or that. It would also be nice to have an environment where it is possible to collaborate with people working on other systems without the threat of being assimilated. And for once it would just be nice to use the words Slashdot, User Friendly, Strenua Interia, and Freshmeat without getting blank looks. ;-)

Huh? you can get Macromedia for Linux here and Real Player for Linux here.

Visit these sites, and try those progams out (at least view some screenshots). You'll probably be surprized. These programs may not all be as complete as the windows/dos 'original', but they are all free and under development, which means: better to come soon, and all remaining free.

www.soundtracker.org SoundTracker is a music tracking tool for Unix / X11 with a design similar to the DOS program FastTracker and the Amiga legend ProTracker.

Brahms/KooBase Brahms intends to be for Linux, what CuBase is for MacOS/Windows.

WaveForge WaveForge is a free Sound Editor. It is aimed to be a free Sound Forge Clone for Linux. All the capabilitied of the Sound forge will be (hopefully) implemented in this version.

(how did I find them? Freshmeat)

What keyboard shortcuts does windows have to lower or raise a window besided the painfully slow alt-tab? Both Windowmaker and Enlightenment have Alt-arrowdown and Alt-arrowup.

What keyboard shortcuts does windows have to move around on virtual desktops? Oh wait. windows doesn't even have that most basic GUI feature

Do you really have to click on the titlebar to move a window or aim for the four-pixel wide window borders to resize? Both WindowMaker and Enlightenment have alt-mousedrag and alt-mousedrag-leftkey to do that without needing the surgeon's aim.

...

I love the Web. I hate the Web. I love information, interactivity, communication. I hate banner ads, slow loads, and animated gifs. I've conquered most of these with three tools which work under Linux/xBSD and even legacy OSs:

• Junkbuster. It kills junk -- banner ads, sites you don't want to see, cookies. Do it. It's good.
• Squid. Caching proxy server. Stuff you hit often stays cached. Really good for static graphics, not so good for CGIs. Also good. You may also want to look at wwwoffle, an offline/online caching browser.
• gat, the Gif Animation Toggle. Works for Netscape or Opera, Linux or 'Doze. Prevents animated gif looping. You see one cycle of animation, then everything freezes. Very cool.

I feel like my browser is mine again. Or, as the ads say: the Web is once again your friend.

What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?

I love the Web. I hate the Web. I love information, interactivity, communication. I hate banner ads, slow loads, and animated gifs. I've conquered most of these with three tools which work under Linux/xBSD and even legacy OSs:

• Junkbuster. It kills junk -- banner ads, sites you don't want to see, cookies. Do it. It's good.
• Squid. Caching proxy server. Stuff you hit often stays cached. Really good for static graphics, not so good for CGIs. Also good. You may also want to look at wwwoffle, an offline/online caching browser.
• gat, the Gif Animation Toggle. Works for Netscape or Opera, Linux or 'Doze. Prevents animated gif looping. You see one cycle of animation, then everything freezes. Very cool.

I feel like my browser is mine again. Or, as the ads say: the Web is once again your friend.

What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?

thanks

Kent

I used to use Lynx for text-based browsing, but now I use w3m - it renders frames in one window, which I don't think Lynx can do, and other neat stuff. Check it out!

Check out Greg's Bridge Page!