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The preliminary injunction is over spyware, and specifically states that Wallace won't exploit two vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer to install his spyware on the computers of people who visit his web sites.

Stallman's unwillingness to seek alliances seems equally perplexing when you consider his political interests outside of the free software movement. Visit Stallman's offices at MIT, and you instantly find a clearinghouse of left-leaning news articles covering civil-rights abuses around the globe. Visit his web site, and you'll find diatribes on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the War on Drugs, and the World Trade Organization.

Given his activist tendencies, I ask, why hasn't Stallman sought a larger voice? Why hasn't he used his visibility in the hacker world as a platform to boost rather than reduce his political voice.

Stallman lets his tangled hair drop and contemplates the question for a moment.

"I hesitate to exaggerate the importance of this little puddle of freedom," he says. "Because the more well-known and conventional areas of working for freedom and a better society are tremendously important. I wouldn't say that free software is as important as they are. It's the responsibility I undertook, because it dropped in my lap and I saw a way I could do something about it. But, for example, to end police brutality, to end the war on drugs, to end the kinds of racism we still have, to help everyone have a comfortable life, to protect the rights of people who do abortions, to protect us from theocracy, these are tremendously important issues, far more important than what I do. I just wish I knew how to do something about them."

However, if you're looking for something that gives you more detail on how to use Knoppix and extend it, you might want to check out the O'Reilly title Knoppix Hacks

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Blogs celebrate the New Year too :-)

PAM, pam_krb5, pam_ldap. Have Fun, I would recommend picking up Kerberos: The Definitive Guide before even considering going this route. Samba uses kerberos/OpenLDAP to talk to the Active Directory, but the details are hidden. Doing it yourself will quickly lead to the realization that Kerberos is no small subject.

I am sure it is grown up now, but those of us who were exposed to it 10 years ago are going to treat it like a city park built on top of a radioactive landfill. That one looks much friendlier, I will admit.

I prefer Safari. In fact, wikipedia is turning into a very useful resource for getting answers. In any case, now that the web has matured, obtaining answers is not all that difficult anymore.

The UNIX community does have a barrior of entry and still does to some extent bootstrapping n00bs. Someone coming into the community, and wanting to learn about it has no idea at first where the documents even are. RTFM can be countered with WTFITFM (Where The Fuck Is the Fucking Manual)?

• Four or five people who have F-keys bound to the link for the most excellent Learning Perl
• A couple of people who think a help and discussion channel is a good place to intellectually masturbate after the style of the IOCCC but who aren't skilled enough to put in an entry that goes anywhere except /dev/null

There's an OReilly book, if that helps.

First of all don't use EJB's unless you have to. If you don't need distributed transactions then stay away. You don't want heavy weight frameworks to drag you down. Read: Better, Faster, Lighter Java. http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/bfljava/ For a free introduction read: http://www.onjava.com/lpt/a/4744

My personal advice is a stack made of:

1. JSF for the webfront. Struts if you are a bit more conservative. http://struts.apache.org/
2. Spring for the business logic. http://www.springframework.org/
3. Hibernate for persistence. http://www.hibernate.org/

Don't forget to have fun.

Then, on December 2, Smathers was arraigned instead for violating 18 USC 371, Conspiracy to Defraud the US Government. Smathers pled NOT guilty at the arraignment.

Then we have today's proceedings, with Smathers trying to enter a guilty plea, apparently to violating CAN-SPAM.

An "information" documentfiled at his arraignment does suggest Smathers was involved in sending decpetive and misleading spam using the AOL customer list. So maybe there is a CAN-SPAM aspect to this case.

But it really does look like the US Attorney's office was trying too hard to get a CAN-SPAM conviction under its belt.

Then, on December 2, Smathers was arraigned instead for violating 18 USC 371, Conspiracy to Defraud the US Government. Smathers pled NOT guilty at the arraignment.

Then we have today's proceedings, with Smathers trying to enter a guilty plea, apparently to violating CAN-SPAM.

An "information" documentfiled at his arraignment does suggest Smathers was involved in sending decpetive and misleading spam using the AOL customer list. So maybe there is a CAN-SPAM aspect to this case.

But it really does look like the US Attorney's office was trying too hard to get a CAN-SPAM conviction under its belt.

I spoke to the Zend guys about this at OSCON six months ago. They said they had a suexec version of PHP in "private Beta". I sent them several emails afterwards asking whether we could test it / help out etc, and haven't received a single reply, so I have no idea whether that's still coming.

Anyone have any more info on this?

cLive ;-)

As much as this sounds like a long shot, well at least to me, I just read a couple of days ago, O'Reilly's Google Hacks and it would be possible to do what you say. It also inspired me to try a few things, your proposition would be totally do-able in html and a little javascript. For example, try searching for the name of anything you want followed by filetype:torrent in the google search bar and see what comes up.

Good news, most major Linux distributions have moved or are moving to SElinux. A reasonable preconfigured SElinux policy will protect even the most clueless "AOL luser".

The power of NSA's SElinux is awesome. It is still relatively new to a large portion of the Linux community. But a migratation is taking place, and the "mystery" of SElinux is fast disappearing as it becomes part of "standard operating procedure" for common distributions. O'Reilly's new book SELINUX will surely hasten the adoption of SElinux. The book couldn't have come to market at a better time.

Mastering Algorithms with C

Lacking a computer science degree, I didn't understand a lot of basic algorithms as well as I should -- some I didn't understand at all. I just used what worked even if something else might have worked better.

Mastering Alorithms with C went a *looong* way toward teaching me the pros and cons of various sorts, trees, graphs and queues. (There's also nice sections on compression and encryption).

The explanations are very thorough. It helps to have at least a minimal understanding of C, but you can get a lot out of the book without it. Lots of pretty pictures and diagrams for the visually inclined.

If you don't have a formal education in computer science, I recommend that you run out and buy this book right now -- you'll be doing yourself a huge favor.

Pretty good book, I ended up getting a copy for a fellow geek friend.

It took me a while to find a copy in NYC, but I finally found a store that had it.

Clinky Link

Give them a subscription to Safari.

Good quality search engines have lots of qualities that Google lacks.

One solution is to use google to locate a superset of the target articles and then use a more powerful search engine to winnow the google result set. For an individual, this approach would mean maintaining a personal index of the articles but that is a problem of storage space and bandwidth which is relatively cheap.

The two main problems that google solves is

• having access to the articles in the first place
• reducing the number of possible articles to a managable level

One could imagine a plugin for browsers that would add the additional search facilities to a google search. Until then, Google Hacks will get you started.

And there is already an O'Reilly series on it...

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/mindhks/

True enough.

Whenever I can, I link to my friends book - which was featured on Slashdot last month. I do keep things on-topic of course - I don't want to shill his book, just point out every instance where it would be helpful - like "Clearing viruses from Windows? It's easy with Knoppix - go get this book to show you how." in respone to a lament about a tough to get rid of infection.

Since I'm advocating a purchase, I am advertising, but moreover trying to be helpful - to my fellow /.ers as well as my friend.

Soko

A Knoppix CD and this book are all you need. There's a hack on there for virus spyware removal from Windows. Trust me, it's easier to treat an un-concious patient than one that's awake and trying to stop you from helping.

But that book, BTW - it rocks!

Soko

For the rest of us I think the Belkin TuneDok Car Holder looks pretty cool. Griffin also has a lot of iPod stuff. Both companies offer car chargers too. Check out the iPod Lounge forums for user recommendations before buying.

I dumped my notes to my blog. I use an Ericsson T616 under AT&T's service. Works well enough. The solution I came up with involved horking a few scripts from Knoppix (thanks to Kyle Rankin for the excellent book Knoppix Hacks, which inspired me to try using GPRS in this manner. Made life real easy as I didn't have to mess with PPP chat scripts and the like - yuck.

Linux Unwired, written by Roger Weeks, Edd Dumbill, Brian Jepson and published by our friends at O'Reilly, is an invaluable reference for anything that is Linux and wireless. It has several chapters on 802.11 (picking a card, setting it up, using security, setting up or building a Linux access point), and also covers a variety of other systems: Bluetooth, IrDA, cellular networking, and GPS. Their wireless chapter gives instructions and suggested equipment for (IIRC) AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile, Verizon, and possibly one or two others. It's reasonably priced, and chock full of useful stuff--I would definitely recommend picking up a copy of it to learn how to do this.

(Note: I am not associated with O'Reilly in any relationship other than being a satisfied customer.)

Linux Unwired, written by Roger Weeks, Edd Dumbill, Brian Jepson and published by our friends at O'Reilly, is an invaluable reference for anything that is Linux and wireless. It has several chapters on 802.11 (picking a card, setting it up, using security, setting up or building a Linux access point), and also covers a variety of other systems: Bluetooth, IrDA, cellular networking, and GPS. Their wireless chapter gives instructions and suggested equipment for (IIRC) AT&T Wireless, T-Mobile, Verizon, and possibly one or two others. It's reasonably priced, and chock full of useful stuff--I would definitely recommend picking up a copy of it to learn how to do this.

(Note: I am not associated with O'Reilly in any relationship other than being a satisfied customer.)

Since lots of people are linking to books on Amazon, it seems a good time to mention a useful trick mention in O'Reilly's Amazon Hacks: you can link to Amazon products in a much friendlier way, like so:

http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/059600542

Where the numeric parameter is the product's ASIN (which, for most books, is also the ISBN). This hack is also detailed on Oreilly.com.

Unfortunately, some books have horrible indeces.

Because I don't have a lot of room for books, and because I would need them both at and away from home, I like to use O'Reilly's Safari service. $10/mo to rent up to 5 books at a time and read them with any web browser. (That's the low-end package.)

Ok, I had already spent a modpoint in this topic, but I realized it is better to speak up to defend your position than to stand on the sides and give out points to "your" team.

Article is Slashdotted, so I can't comment on the content, but just to reply to some of the posts that will defenitely come up, because they ALWAYS come up when Java is discussed-

EJB are bloated etc:
J2EE is does NOT equal Enterprise Javabeans. J2EE contains classes for lots of things. XML processing, messages, web servers, database connectivity, etc. You don't have to use EJB. Lots of Java developers don't like EJB because they are too cumbersome, and there are plenty of alternatives. Check out for instance O'Reillys recent book Better, Faster, Lighter Java.

Java is slow:
Startup time for the JVM is still slow yes. This rarely matters for a web/application server. When it comes to running, it is plenty enough.

It isn't open source:
So what. It's close enough.

Ok, that over with, was this darn topic necessary? I like both LAMP and Java. They have their uses, why did the poster and the article have to turn this into a confrontation?

Hack 5: Free Your CD to Make Knoppix Run Faster (PDF Format)
Hack 33: Install Knoppix as a Single-Boot System (PDF Format)
Hack 40: Create an Emergency Router (PDF Format)
Hack 61: Migrate to a New Hard Drive (PDF Format)
Hack 78: Scan for Viruses (PDF Format)

Take a look at How to become a hacker by ESR It's the basis of Oreilly's hack series. The books goals are to stimulate "hackers" and get them started. Often the hacks will offer ideas to "hack the hack" but leave it up to the reader to figure out how. I've got Linux Server Hacks and I've found it to be an invaluable resource, a reference book, but much more as it gives me all types of new ideas for my servers.... Nice job Oreilly.

How on Earth do you come to that false conclusion? You clearly are a troll, but I am not above feeding trolls.

Just quickly: new page orientation, multi documents, large document handling, quick key macros, obvious placement of header and footer menu, logical and reliable image/graphic/table/textbox placement, placing anything above an object at the top of a document, tables and borders, page numbering, dot leaders, tab stops, help, and of course: reveal codes.

I know there is more, but it has been a long time. I have used WordPerfect since version 4.2 for DOS, I taught version 5 onwards and co-written some manuals and self paced exercise books for many of the old WordPerfects and the newer MS Words.

I would also like to state that I believe that making Alt+F4 close a window was a malicious act on Microsoft's behalf against WordPerfect users.

This was a good book in it's time Word Annoyances.

I seem to recall a story from somewhere about sketchy companies with closed source printer drivers. I think the guy who was affected by it did something or other ...

As I am considering the advanced Unix users that browse this forum, I'd suggest having a look at that book too/instead.

"enough people have said it [All related to the OP], but it's worth while saying again. RDF is totally flawed and will never meet the vision of W3C [And that is?]. The whole idea that an RDF resource is true and authorative is just silly [Just like the present web]. Look at what happened to HTML metadata tag. I got abused instantly and search engines stopped using them [They're used, just not alone]. RDF rules is monotonic, which is just totally silly. that basically means any rules written in RDF will timeout if the data isn't already on that particular server [Can you say local, and intranet?]. W3C should just give up already on RDF and move on. [Just like the advice we give those KDE guys]"

Read this.

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/pracrdf/index.html/

Maybe you'll learn something.

Most techie book these days are quickie grab-bags, and you end up paying for a lot of dead trees that you aren't interested in.

And so I suggest a service like O'Reilly's Safari Bookshelf. It includes the full text of over 2,000 technical books, many not published by them. No killing trees, far less money than buying books, plus full text search.

Andy Tanenbaum

For those of you not in the know, there was a lively discussion between Andrew and Linus back when Linux was just getting started. The debate has been preserved for posterity in several places on the net.

It's a funny read today, but back then who would have known?

Andrew Tanenbaum. He's also known for a little discussion with someone named Linus Torvalds.

Thanks for the warez!

Read Free as in Freedom Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software

Post some links!

Read Free as in Freedom. Richard Stallman's Crusade for Free Software.

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerbkfb/
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/ibkfanbk/

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/powerbkfb/
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/ibkfanbk/

Because Lawrence Lessig is cool Stanford Professor that argued in front of the Supreme Court about copyright extensions, and Richard Stallman is hippy-looking MIT drop-out that argues with geeks about Linux really being GNU/Linux?

I know this is a trendy thing here to insult Richard Stallman, but please at least stick to facts. First of all, he is not an "MIT drop-out." Back in 1971, as an 18 years old freshman at Harvard University he was hired by MIT as a hacker in the AI Lab. If working as a teenager in The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the early '70s is not "cool" than I seriously don't know what is.

Second of all, it is slightly more complicated than "Linux really being GNU/Linux." You might want to read the GNU/Linux naming controversy article on Wikipedia for a good start. Do you remember the Seattle Times interview with Linus Torvalds which was posted here just a week ago? This is the first sentence of the opening paragraph: "Linus Torvalds [pronounced LEE-nus] started a revolution of sorts in the computer industry when he created the Linux operating system and decided to share it with fellow programmers on the Internet."

The problem is that Torvalds didn't start any revolution in 1991. The revolution had already been happening becuase that very operating system had been being written since Linus was 14 years old. Eight years later he wrote the final piece, the kernel, and finally made GNU usable.

This was a great achievemnt. But the fact that taking an 8 years old project and renaming it after one's name can often start flame wars should not be surprising to anyone. Do you remember the recent outrage with CherryOS and PearPC? There are a lot of strong emotions involved where one puts many years of hard work into a project. But that is even not the most important thing here.

It is not important whose name is on the project. It is not important who started it, but it is very important why. The GNU project was started because of some ideals. Those very ideals made it possible. And those ideals made it needed in the first place. When people read such intervies and get the impression that Torvalds wrote the entire operating system starting a revolution and don't even know that GNU has ever existed, they read "Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary" Torvald's autobiography and get the impression that it is all about fun. Meanwhile, the real revolution has started because of freedom and nothing else.

And this revolution was not about starting something new, but rather saving something old.

I strongly urge you to read Free as in Freedom written by Sam Williams to know how, when and why the revolution was started. The entire book is released under the GNU Free Documentation License and is available on-line.

Stallman, an MIT hacker in the 1970s, wanted a source code for his printer drivers to fix them. A fellow programmer refused to give it to him because of an NDA. It outraged Stallman who considered it a personal insult and who repeatedly refused to get software which was offered to him for free but with an NDA, alienating himself and making his life as a programmer much harder, because at the end he was pretty much the only person in the AI Lab with no access to all of the proprietary software there.

There are strong emotions involved. There are ideals, fight for freedom at the cost of personal sacrifices. It is not "just for fun." Richard Stallman was not an "MIT drop-out." He r

Because Lawrence Lessig is cool Stanford Professor that argued in front of the Supreme Court about copyright extensions, and Richard Stallman is hippy-looking MIT drop-out that argues with geeks about Linux really being GNU/Linux?

I know this is a trendy thing here to insult Richard Stallman, but please at least stick to facts. First of all, he is not an "MIT drop-out." Back in 1971, as an 18 years old freshman at Harvard University he was hired by MIT as a hacker in the AI Lab. If working as a teenager in The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the early '70s is not "cool" than I seriously don't know what is.

Second of all, it is slightly more complicated than "Linux really being GNU/Linux." You might want to read the GNU/Linux naming controversy article on Wikipedia for a good start. Do you remember the Seattle Times interview with Linus Torvalds which was posted here just a week ago? This is the first sentence of the opening paragraph: "Linus Torvalds [pronounced LEE-nus] started a revolution of sorts in the computer industry when he created the Linux operating system and decided to share it with fellow programmers on the Internet."

The problem is that Torvalds didn't start any revolution in 1991. The revolution had already been happening becuase that very operating system had been being written since Linus was 14 years old. Eight years later he wrote the final piece, the kernel, and finally made GNU usable.

This was a great achievemnt. But the fact that taking an 8 years old project and renaming it after one's name can often start flame wars should not be surprising to anyone. Do you remember the recent outrage with CherryOS and PearPC? There are a lot of strong emotions involved where one puts many years of hard work into a project. But that is even not the most important thing here.

It is not important whose name is on the project. It is not important who started it, but it is very important why. The GNU project was started because of some ideals. Those very ideals made it possible. And those ideals made it needed in the first place. When people read such intervies and get the impression that Torvalds wrote the entire operating system starting a revolution and don't even know that GNU has ever existed, they read "Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary" Torvald's autobiography and get the impression that it is all about fun. Meanwhile, the real revolution has started because of freedom and nothing else.

And this revolution was not about starting something new, but rather saving something old.

I strongly urge you to read Free as in Freedom written by Sam Williams to know how, when and why the revolution was started. The entire book is released under the GNU Free Documentation License and is available on-line.

Stallman, an MIT hacker in the 1970s, wanted a source code for his printer drivers to fix them. A fellow programmer refused to give it to him because of an NDA. It outraged Stallman who considered it a personal insult and who repeatedly refused to get software which was offered to him for free but with an NDA, alienating himself and making his life as a programmer much harder, because at the end he was pretty much the only person in the AI Lab with no access to all of the proprietary software there.

There are strong emotions involved. There are ideals, fight for freedom at the cost of personal sacrifices. It is not "just for fun." Richard Stallman was not an "MIT drop-out." He r

From what I know of the open source world, documentation is one area that people make money on the free product.

What was at first the so called BSD (Berkeley Software Distribution) by Bill Joy? Essentialy it was a Pascal Development System for UNIX bundled with UNIX itself. The improvements in UNIX were made by Joy in order to have an easy to use Pascal system. Don't believe? Look here.
Well Pascal was at that time really important.

The Pickaxe book, named for the tool on the cover, is the definitive reference to this highly-regarded language.

Juat as PerlFans refer to The Camel or The Panther.

The Pickaxe book, named for the tool on the cover, is the definitive reference to this highly-regarded language.

Juat as PerlFans refer to The Camel or The Panther.

The full story here. I sent Linus a $200 check for beer money about the time of the 386 port(I'm honestly not sure if he ever cashed the check-he didn't remember it when I asked once). I can't swear it was the first money sent-but it was sure sent early on. I was working at Sun at the time and felt that was the best contribution I could make. I was director of tiny non-profit organization which also made a small donation to the Wine Project--which clearly did register.

Knoppix can do that and a whole lot more.

Knoppix Hacks

Virus scanning, emergency router, write to NTFS, even fire up a mythtv box.