Slashdot Mirror

digitalsurgeon writes "The University of Wisconsin [ed: Go Badgers] has launched a Mac OS X Security challenge, in response to a 'woefully misleading ZDnet article'. From the site: 'The challenge is as follows: simply alter the web page on this machine, test.doit.wisc.edu. The machine is a Mac mini (PowerPC) running Mac OS X 10.4.5 with Security Update 2006-001, has two local accounts, and has ssh and http open - a lot more than most Mac OS X machines will ever have open.' Are you up to the task? Can you prove ZDNet wrong, or can you show that Mac OS X can really be hacked in less then 30 minutes? More information about the challenge is at http://test.doit.wisc.edu/ The challenge ends Fri 10 March 2006 10:00 AM CST." Update: 03/07 14:32 GMT by Z : Commentary on the contest and original claim is available at VNUNet

An anonymous reader writes "New Scientist has a nice feature of a real air guitar developed by a three students at the Helsinki University of Technology. In a nutshell it is a Linux PC with a sound card and webcam."

An Anonymous Reader wrote in to mention that, according to an informational page about the venerable game Hack, today is Hack's 20th birthday. From the page: "In December 1984 I distributed Hack 1.0 in the newsgroup net.sources.... [T]here were 15 pieces, all sent out on 17-Dec-84." From the reader: "This was the first widespread distribution of the game, which was created by Jay Fenlason a couple of years previously. Nethack's history continues here. You can download this descendant of Rogue from its home page, or connect to a nethack server. Many nethack veterans try their hand at Slash'EM, a.k.a., "nethack on amphetamines". Here's to another 20 years of training your dog to rip off shopkeepers."

dbaker writes "The MPAA filed a DMCA takedown notice against Superconnect, a software company. The letter is available here that demands the removal of roughly 120K of open-source TCL code that they believe to be a 'copyrighted motion pictures.' This is definitely a surprising case of the guilty until proven innocent world that the DMCA provides." And yet another: enrico_suave writes "The Entertainment Software Association falsely accuses the Interactive Fiction archive of pirating Doom 3. doom3.zip is a 114kb freeware DOS game from 1988. Reminiscent of when the RIAA sent C & D's to a Professor Usher who had an usher.mp3 file posted on his website."

RobertDHaskins writes "A very interesting series of papers from Helsinki University of Technology on the topics of P2P and spam. Written by PhD students they are a little long, but some very good coverage of the state of the art."

RobertDHaskins writes "A very interesting series of papers from Helsinki University of Technology on the topics of P2P and spam. Written by PhD students they are a little long, but some very good coverage of the state of the art."

Thanks to Skotos.net for their article discussing randomly-generated content in videogames, in which the author discusses pioneering games with random elements, suggesting: "One of the reasons [classic RPG] Rogue was so popular (and spawned so many children) is due to its generation of random content." But he goes on to point out: "Computers don't have the imagination to make good puzzles... asking a computer to create an interesting puzzle is very similar to asking it to tell a story, make up a joke, or create a riddle." The suggested answer is game elements "placed randomly within the [linear] structure", but with recent random level-generating games such as Toe Jam & Earl III striking out, how far should randomness be taken in games?

maliabu writes "If (not when) BlueTooth becomes really popular or populated in all the personal devices, will we start experiencing another wave of frauds similar to the current credit card strip-reading, or ATM machine shoulder-spying incidents? In this article about BlueTooth Security, the author asks 'but is Bluetooth secure enough for larger ad hoc networks, money transfers and transferring other sensitive information?' Even when the security standard becomes higher in BlueTooth, will the end users become victims of themselves by neglecting simple security rules, similar to not covering the keypad when entering your pin number? Remember personal devices such as mobile phone, heartrate sensor, blood-pressure alarm, vision-correction lenses etc, are more 'forgettable' than laptops/computers on WiFi. And the chances of strangers getting close enough to it is also higher, such as in the train, bus, cinema etc."

chromatic writes "Howard Wen has written two pieces on Falcon's Eye (an alternate interface for Nethack). The first is a description of Falcon's Eye and its features. The second is an interview with Jaakko Peltonen, the project's creator."

mkoskimi writes "The fourth consecutive Alternative Party is arranged this weekend (Friday to Sunday) in Helsinki, Finland. As before, we expect up to 300 people joining this round-the-clock event, bringing along all kinds of weird machines (previous times have seen a Magnavox Odyssey, a M6800 Evaluation Kit II and the Vectrex). It's not yet another retro computer show though; there will be Competitions, artists and our guest of honour, Jeff Minter! There be llamas here..."

SpanningTheGap writes "According to the BBC, Italy plans on building a suspension bridge connecting the Italian mainland with the island of Sicily. The bridge will be five kilometers long and its central span will be over three kilometers long, easily breaking the old record length for a suspension bridge. The artist's conception image of the monster is a sight to see. Another article with more info can be found here." There's a website with assorted technical info about the design.

Slashback slung at you tonight from 36 deg 02.412N 083 deg 24.61W with Debian pictures, the word on KIllustrator (which is not "KIlladobe"), a vague promise from Psion that they will return with consumer devices eventually, and an interesting exchange regarding the proper choice of tracking database for your local nuclear materials facility.

Lots of pretty pictures. An unnamed reader wrote to say "that notes and pictures from the Debian Conference are now available." There are lots of cool (somewhat KDE-centric, go figure) shots from the recent LinuxTag in an article at dot.kde.org, too ;)

Adobe: an especially thick, recalcitrant material. aicra writes: "according to an email sent to the list:

KIllustrator is now known as 'Kontour' (after Adobe claimed that KIllustrator was too close to Adobe Illustrator, in case you haven't followed the news).

This obviously breaks translations... I have kept the name killustrator.po[t] for the message files, so this remains. But the appearances of the word KIllustrator have been replaced.

This delays the release by about 2 days -- so that there is time to get the new messages translated for rc1 if you're fast (and for the final release otherwise)."

Cute nuclear material shipment, has all shots, answers to "Lucky." We miss it very much. Please call. Random Walk writes: "The Russian memo, and the email exchange between Russian and U.S. principals involved in the problem of nuclear material lost in a MS database, is available online from the CDI. I found the following sentence particularly funny: 'Relatively poor quality of Microsoft SQL Server has created very serious problems in development and implementation of CMAS.' There is a very detailed discussion of the problem(s) with MS SQL Servers 6.5 and 7.0. The Russian report also has interesting words about the 'common fault failure' problem and the need to be more careful when selecting software for critical systems."

Take this exchange for what you will. As michael posted the other day though, the issue isn't necessarily all (or even primarily) Microsoft. The importance of robust software doing the dirty work doesn't get much clearer though.

Absolutely, positively, undeniably, unmitigatedly maybe. Later. Last week, we relayed a report that Psion was getting out of the consumer products market. An Anonymous Coward writes now, however, that "according to this article at Psion Place: Peter Bancroft, a senior spokesman for Psion, released a follow-up statement saying that 'There will be more Psion consumer products in the future.' According to Bancroft Psion is merely 'suspending' their plans to develop a consumer Bluetooth device."

The same statment, though, indicates that if Psion does eventually develop consumer products again (with hints about Bluetooth), it may make them in combination with a partner, or sell off the rights entirely.

cr0sh asks: "I am seeking help obtaining TV output under Linux. I am currently running SuSE 6.2 and XFree86 3.3.2, using a Hecules Stingray 128/3D with TV out. I have tried numerous different modelines under X to try and activate the TV output, with no luck. A look at the chipset revealed that the card uses a Chrontel CH7002D-V to provide the TV output. Studying the specifications revealed that in order to activate it, an I2C bus or direct pin programming may be used. I searched the internet using Google to see what I could find out regarding this chip and Linux, but the best I turned up was an I2C bus driver for a Riva TNT/BTV chipset. Seeing that this may have been a blind alley, I tried setting up my Genius HiEncoder VGA-to-TV converter to display the output from the card, with help from Tomi Engdahl and his site. I eventually found a solid modeline to use, however, all I get is a black and white display. No matter what changes to the modeline I try, I cannot obtain color. I really need a color TV output (it is to drive an HMD I own). Can anyone give me suggestions as to how I may get proper TV output, either via my current card (anyone know how to enable the Chrontel?), gaining color via my converter (has anyone used the HiEncoder with Linux?), or using an entirely different video card (with TV output supported under Linux)? Any help would be appreciated."

Since the NDA was lifted early this morning, several sites have released reviews of AMD's new Athlon chip (coming in 500, 550, 600, and 650MHz versions). The first was Bill Henning's CPUReview site. He reviewed the Athlon 600 and has several nice things to say about it. Next up is The Upgrade Center's review, and two more submitted by kimmo, the first at Ace's Hardware, and the second at AGN Hardware. Next, Magnetism submitted a link to Tom's review. Finally, as submitted by pmmay, the ZDNet review. To finish, an article at the SJ Mercury that discusses AMD's strategy for the chip market (thanks to Greg Miller for that one). Update: 08/09 12:31 by J : Thanks to The Evil Dwarf from Hell for links to the AMD Benchmark Page, which even has SPECint and SPECfp scores, and to an anonymous reader for the Ars Technica review.