Slashdot Mirror

iosphere writes "Terra Lycos put out a 'new and improved' HotBot today. The interface has been redone with search results courtesy of either FAST, Google, Inktomi, or Teoma." HotBot was one of my favorite search engines, back in the day.

AntiBasic writes "This article over at InfoWorld recounts an Ex-Microsoftie's accounts of Microsoft's infrastructure usage of different Unices. Interesting insider's perspective which reinforces what we've been thinking all along. For the most part, the company's money-making Web properties are all based around Unix, with Hotmail 99 being 99% FreeBSD, MSN using some Apache on Solaris, bCentral ad servers on 100% FreeBSD, and WebTV pretty much entirely Solaris. "Internally when Windows 2000 was announced, people were told not to even think about using it for production because it was too unstable," says the ex-Microsoft employee. "

AntiBasic writes "OutRider Computing Journal has a nice, albeit short, overview of both sysctl(8) and sysctl(3) under BSD systems. It has some examples using the sysctl command as well as examples with sample code on using the sysctl subroutines."

AntiBasic writes "An absolute "must read" for FreeBSD users out there. This month's issue includes VLAN interface configuration, installing FreeBSD on a Dell Inspiron 5000 and the founding of a BUG in Yucatan, Mexico. Check out Issue #7"

Jeve Stobs writes: "It seems that nowadays, there are three ways of distributing a program. In a tarball (be it a .gz or .bz2), in a Debian package, or in a RPM. These are all fine methods of packaging a piece of software, but they each have their places, and they aren't as comprehensive as I would like. I really think that, as we move into a broader user base with the variety we have so far (not to mention the variety we are likely to have in the near future) that a new method of software distribution is needed. osOpinion has an excellent editorial piece which details some solutions to this growing problem."

AntiBasic writes "The August 2000 issue of the Daemon News ezine has been published. Content includes the last of the USENIX 2000 coverage (three articles), a Blueprints article on writing an ISA device driver, how to set up FreeBSD on a Compaq iPaq box, and more!"

Gil Bates writes: "So, it looks like old SCO is finally on sale, and that provides an interesting chance to speculate again about the future of a company that had some good technologies, but couldn't respond successfully to challenges from Linux and Windows... Whoever acquires the rights to OpenServer and UnixWare needs to appreciate this fact and admit publicly that there will be no further work, besides bug fixes and sales of the existing versions, on these platforms. Instead, the focus will have to be on an immediate migration path to the next platform, almost definitely Linux. With this admission, the new vendor will certainly cannibalize short-term licensing revenue, but the longer-term benefits of acquiring a chunk of the SCO customer/reseller base will outweigh that (pretty damn small) opportunity loss. osOpinion has an extremely thought provoking editorial piece which expands upon this issue in detail."

byronne asks: "There is a completely uncharted virus distribution exploit available on Palm platforms that I've been wondering about for several months, namely, 'beaming.' By default, a Palm device's beam receive via infrared is set to on, or always ready to receive. If one were to write a piece of replicating code that ran in the OS as a hack, constantly 'beaming' copies of itself out the infrared port, you might have a significant problem at hand, especially if that code were malicious. Has anyone heard or read about this possibility?" It's possible, but the code needs to be executed. I'm not quite familiar enough with the Palm to know if this is possible once it's been "beamed."

"Picture this scenario: You're at a Comdex or other high tech tradeshow where practically every tek-head is carrying around their palm pilot. At intervals, a palm device infected with replicating code beams itself out. Nine times out of 10, it may not find a recipient, but when it does, that recipient becomes a carrier. This has nothing to do with e-mail, trojan horses or file infections; it would be the first true 'airborn' virus - similar to a biological virus. So now there are two carriers beaming around this trade show - obviously this has geometrically exponential possibilities of spreading, in theory. I haven't seen any coverage of this in the media at all, but it's my opinion that it's only a matter of time before we will need to address this. For example, Symantec developing an antivirus palm app is a step in the right direction, but it's probably pretty important to keep all infection methods in mind - not just e-mail."

A few bits and pieces on the BSD front in the recent past. Scott Bartram announced that JDK 1.1.8 is now available for NetBSD-current/i386. Over at LinuxWorld, Jonathan Bresler sent in this e-mail about BSD related activities. Sun are releasing source code for NFS under the SISSL (and boosting funding for a Linux only effort to implement v4, sigh). Anti Basic wants you to know that you can now pre-order FreeBSD 4.0 from the FreeBSD Mall. And finally, this month's edition of DaemonNews hit the stands a few days ago, including a particularly interesting article by Greg Lehey, outlining his work on software RAID, Vinum.

RiotNrrrD writes "Electronically Configurable Molecular-Based Logic Gates with "wires" the size of molecules, much smaller than paths created by light or x-rays, have been developed by HP at the Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Palo Alto. The bottom line is that "In ten years potentially, we will have entire computers not just in your wrist watch, but woven into our clothing. Or a slurry of computers painted on your wall." "

Industrial Disease writes "ZDNN has a brief article on the Security and Freedom through Encryption Act. If passed, this bill would ease export restrictions, eliminate key escrow requirements, and make using cryptography a crime only if used to commit a secondary crime. A similar bill never reached a full House vote last year, but this one seems to have a broader base of support. " This bill was also known as SAFE - the problem it had last time was a huge arguement over encryption in e-commerce, but this time the sponsers think it has a much better chance of passing.

AT&T, telecom Godzilla, and Lycos announced that they have worked out a financial deal, much like many of the other search engines. In this, there will be shared marketing, and Lycos will serve as the point-of-access for people who use AT&T's WorldNet service.