Domain: mine.nu
Stories and comments across the archive that link to mine.nu.
Stories · 12
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Google Goofs On Firefox's Anti-Phishing List
Stephen writes "While phishing is a problem, giving one company the power to block any site that it wishes at the browser level never seemed like a good idea. Today Google blocked a host of legitimate web sites by listing mine.nu. mine.nu is available as a dynamic dns domain and anybody can claim a sub domain. All sub-domains are blocked regardless of whether phishing actually occurs on the sub-domain or not. Several Linux enthusiast sites are caught up in the net including Hostfile Ad Blocking and Berry Linux Bootable CD." -
Google Goofs On Firefox's Anti-Phishing List
Stephen writes "While phishing is a problem, giving one company the power to block any site that it wishes at the browser level never seemed like a good idea. Today Google blocked a host of legitimate web sites by listing mine.nu. mine.nu is available as a dynamic dns domain and anybody can claim a sub domain. All sub-domains are blocked regardless of whether phishing actually occurs on the sub-domain or not. Several Linux enthusiast sites are caught up in the net including Hostfile Ad Blocking and Berry Linux Bootable CD." -
10 Years of OpenStep
tarzeau writes "Today, the OpenStep API celebrates its 10th anniversary. What started out as a joint adventure of NeXT and SUN to define an application development standard that would run on all machines, making 'write once, compile everywhere' a reality, is still unfolding within the vivid and active community of GNUstep, old NeXT and Apple lovers. The magic 10 appears in GNUstep's current 1.10.x release and in Apple's Mac OS X 'Cocoa' release. Programmers worldwide can develop their programs on Mac OS, Linux, the BSDs, Solaris, and with a couple of hurdles -- even on Windows. This solid and well-defined standard is reaching out to the world of software development, slowly but surely. Program your applications in days or weeks, rather than years or never. Use the advanced API of a development framework that hasn't needed significant modification for 10 years, because it rocks, is stable and just works." -
Do Companies Take Software, And Not Give?
SirDaShadow writes "The Inquirer has an excellent article that describes how companies take from the Open Source Community and how few are giving back. At the end of the article, it says it might be tax deductible. This made me think...wouldn't it be great for the OS community if we could provide a law to facilitate tax cuts to companies who give to OS, or at least make it mandatory to for-profit organizations to give a certain minimum amount and take it out of their taxes?" This piece ignores the obvious and large contributions that some companies have made in money, programmer time, code release and even just lending their name and credibility to projects like KDE and GNOME, but it does have some truth -- see for instance the Busybox Hall of Shame. -
Literacy: Natural Language vs. Code
sirReal.83. writes "The Guardian has an article by Dylan Evans, author of Introducing Evolutionary Psychology. The article discusses literacy in computer languages, and suggests that we are in the 'technological middle ages.' Cuddly UI's are the manifestation of wishful thinking; just as we try to make computers to adapt to us, we must adapt to them." Some good points are raised, with the example of the command line interface used, which is a much better choice than, say, an array of switches or a punch card. -
Half-Life 2 Delayed?
Cirrus writes "Gamers had a bit of a disappointment when they found out that Doom III would not be available this year as previously hoped. Well, now it appears that Half-Life 2 will not be shipping until December. As a Half-Life fan, I can say that I would rather have to wait a couple months than sacrifice the quality just for an earlier release date." Update: 07/30 18:17 GMT by CN : There's an update over at Shacknews that says that Valve is still on schedule, so maybe I (and several other sites) totally jumped the gun on this one. Here's hoping. -
Linux Based IP Videophone
Meltoast writes "As reported in Communications Convergence Magazine, Innomedia has launched the MTA 3368 IP Videophone. It's 4-inch TFT color LCD can deliver video up to 768 kpbs and with a Linux based OS it supports video streaming, gaming, IM, HTTP, SNMP, TFTP, FTP and Telnet." -
Slashback: Spamnation, Long-Distance, Libel
Slashback with updates and amplifications on Apple's stance on DRM, EasyInternetCafe's court battle over CD burning, a copyright law being drafted after Lessig's own heart, the lawyer vs. eBay saga, and VoIP calling with Linux. Read on below for the details.But sir, all of these songs are under the Open Content License! atta1 writes "In an article on The Register, EasyInternetcafe has lost its court battle against British Phonographic Industry (BPI) over burning downloaded music to CD."
When last mentioned (August of last year), EasyInternetCafe was trying to avoid fines from BPI for letting Internet cafe customers burn to CD music they'd downloaded there.
After all, somebody's got to write 'em. g_adams27 writes "Several weeks ago, Larry Lessig proposed anti-spam legislation he'd like to see Congress pass -- legislation which he was willing to bet his job on. Now it looks like Washington might be taking his bet... and they want us to help out!
A congressional aide appears to be drafting legislation based on Larry's suggestions and is asking the Politech list for suggestions. The proposed law is posted here."
IP leases are nicer than telephone leases. Lots of people were interested in the story posted the other day about VoIP support in GnomeMeeting. I mentioned there that theKompany had a VoIP application for Zaurus owners; Shawn Gordon of theKompany writes with information about a forthcoming desktop version as well.
"So we released tkcPhone a few weeks ago, we found some issues with Net2Phone that we've just finished sorting out today, and we've about wrapped up the tkPhone beta, which we expect in a day or two. Having tkPhone allows us to do some things we couldn't on the Zaurus, like make use of a Speex codec which is part of the Xiph umbrella these days, we couldn't use it on the Zaurus because it requires floating point support. We also can have a system tray notifier and a roomier user interface. Because we spent so much time optimizing everything to work on the Zaurus, it means your desktop performance is going to be very good.
We decided to use SIP as opposed to H323 for a lot of reasons: smaller, faster, lighter, newer, easier hardware requirements. So with our phone a regular sound card and a headset/mic will typically suffice for what you need or want to do. Our arrangement with Net2phone means that in addition to PC-to-PC calls, you can make PC-to-phone and PC-to-mobile calls as well. The prices range from free to as little as $0.02 per minute in the U.S. and $0.03 minute internationally. You're already paying for your internet access, might as well start to piggyback this stuff.
tkPhone is not free however, it is $9.95 for the electronic version of the application. We expect to have it up for sale about February 10, 2003."
And as several readers pointed out, if you're interested in VoIP on Linux, you should also check out the sites of both the Bayonne project (mentioned several times before)and asterisk (also discussed here).
You mean they're against my inalienable right to watch movies for free? geekee writes "An article on CNET states that the Internet Streaming Media Alliance (ISMA) will include DRM support in the MPEG-4 open standard. Without DRM, the ISMA doesn't believe MPEG-4 will be able to compete against proprietary standards such as that provided by Microsoft since content owners 'want continually improved tools, with rights management.' For instance, Movielink, an online movie rental source, has opted to support Microsoft and RealNetwork formats because of their DRM capabilities. An interesting thing to note is that Apple is a member of the ISMA, and has previously declared its opposition to DRM."
Money talks, and sometimes it says nasty things. scubacuda writes "Since eBay removed the alleged libelous statements, Roger Grace has agreed to drop his libel lawsuit for $2.5 million in punitive damages from eBay and $100,000 from Tim Neeley (who wrote that the magazines he bought from Grace had arrived late and in a worse condition than advertised). Interestingly, eBay removed the feedback not because it was 'negative,' but rather because 'the contact information for the seller was not correct.' Chris Donlay, eBay spokesman, says, '[T]hat is one of the circumstances in which we will consider removing the feedback,' EBay attorneys even went to far as to claim that Grace's original lawsuit is 'completely without merit.'"
(Here's the Slashdot post from last Saturday, 'Attorney Sues eBay over Negative Feedback'.)
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Targeted Worm Hits Kazaa's Network
sh0rtie writes: "Kaspersky Labs and the BBC are reporting that the Fasttrack network that Kazaa uses has been hit by its first targeted worm virus dubbed 'Benjamin.' Is this a clever RIAA creation or that of a mischievous virus writer? I guess we will never know, but the result is that it seems to be bringing unsuspecting users machines to a crawl with full hard drives and clogging up the Fasttrack network with massive amounts of traffic bringing more headaches for ISPs and sysadmins worldwide." -
Setting up an Internet Cafe?
ioquatix asks: "Hi there... I am planning (not 100% sure yet) on setting up an internet cafe in Christchurch, New Zealand. However, there are many interesting issues that I must resolve first, such as location, staff, security (thats one of the big ones, unfortunately), and computers. The question I want to ask is, who out there (there is bound to be a few) has set up an internet cafe, and what advice can you give?""What kind of set up did you start off with: 10 computers, 256kbit DSL, a dedicated T3 or something else? I am currently looking at 8 computers with some form of DSL (this should be the most cost effective solution). Cable might be available, but it depends on the location.
This internet cafe is primarily aimed at gamers, and I am interested to know how much success small internet cafes have had with bulk software purchases (say X = number of computers (8 to 10), X licenses for Half-Life and X licenses for Starcraft etc). I think I can get into contact with suppliers in Australia, but X licenses may still not be enough to be bulk. What suppliers (in the Australia/Pacific region) have other internet cafes delt with and bought software from? Please pass along any lessons learned if so.
What kind of times are the most popular? Being open all day costs a lot, so I was thinking of being open 5~6pm to about 11pm, seven days a week, and also having an 'all night special' on friday nights. What times do you run your internet cafe? What kind of special all night things do you have? For the readers out there, what times would be optimal for you and what kind of 'specials' would you want?
I am also interested how you deal with security. I have been thinking of basically hiring a bouncer to deal with gatecrashers and such (but this is rather expensive). Is security this much of a problem? I mean, how do you deal with a car of five drugged and drunken idiots intent on (as in smashing window/door down intent) getting some counterstrike goodness (or just seeing what happens when you stick someones head inside a broken monitor)? Do internet cafes attract this kind of person? I was talking to my parents, and they were saying that drunken people just drive around looking for a joint to gatecrash, and being open at 11pm just sounds like trouble to me. So does your internet cafe hire bouncers or some other form of security?
I had thought I would get people to 'register' first, and then book appointments beforehand - perhaps even some sort of video security system on the front door (or maybe even fingerprint ID/keycards). Has anyone tried anything like this and has it been successful? Can you recommend any such systems in existence? Any kind of 'register' before use system will always cause hassles for new users, and put off the casual gamer, which is also a problem...
The security situation also has a lot to do with location. I am currently looking at an area close to the local university, and also a location within the university. Getting a site within university would solve a lot of the security problems (university has its own security staff) so this would help, but I am not sure if there is a space currently for rent.
What kind of system should I run? Obviously most games are only going to run on windows, (and wine is a bitch, and imagine the bitchiness multiplied out against X machines), but I don't want to buy windows licenses (and I also don't want to pirate software) so where can I pick up some second hand windows 98SE licenses for a small cost? Would it be legal, if I was to advertise I will pay $20 for your win98SE license? Or would I be better off buying X licenses for Micro$oft Super Advanced Multigaming iExecution eServer Special Edition?
Anyway, I am not sure I have even thought through all the issues yet, and I am sure there may be something I have forgotten something, but this is just an idea I had, and the figures work out pretty nicely on paper, for a student income ^_^.
If you have any suggestions, please write me! I will be very interested to hear what you think.
Samuel Williams
coolfr3ak@gmx.net
http://utopia5.mine.nu/" -
Code Reviews- Do They Really Exist, In Practice?
dante101vr2 asks: "While working in the programming field I have heard a lot of mention to doing code reviews, however I have yet to see one occur. Along with my job, I have also talked to a number of others throughout the IT community who laugh when they hear mention of a code review, claiming that there is not enough time in the day. My question to you is, do code reviews exist, and are they a good tool or are they just time consuming?" For those of you who do have normal code reviews, what small things do you do to make the whole process go along as painlessly as possible? -
The Silent Kernel Platform War?
iJosh asks: "Recently I decided to be hip and cool and update to the latest Linux Kernel (v2.4.1). Since this decision I've downloaded and tried to compile the offical source from Linus and crew on my PowerMac 7300 only to run into errors for the PowerMac PCI controller. I took this up with Paul Mackerras maintainer of the PPC kernel and his response was quite interesting to say the least and it got me thinking. He basically says that Linus is ignoring the patches from the people working on the PPC side of the kernel, and that they are keeping their own tree so people are not stranded out in the dust with kernels that will not work. My question really comes down to this: Is the linux kernel forking away from PowerPPC? Is this happening because of issues regarding OS X and the possibility of many users jumping ship, away from LinuxPPC upon release? Or is this some kind of quiet platform war from the major kernel developers?"