tuwien.ac.at · Domains · Slashdot Mirror

Design arguments by alext · 2001-12-31 08:34 · Score: 1 · on Parrot Updates

Interesting as these detailed implementation aspects are, I'd like to take a moment to step back and look at the potential of, er, Parrot-like developments.

Linux as a platform won't continue to grow relative to .NET and Java unless it includes a VM. As we know, cross-hardware platform distribution issues are already affecting PPC and ARM users and this will get worse as small non-x86 devices spread.

Linus should therefore make a New Year resolution be to 'anoint' a VM as the future target platform and encourage libraries to be built around it. Parrot could be this VM, but from this point of view Parrot doesn't offer any fundamental technical advantage over the Java or .NET VMs, which brings me on to my next point.

While code distribution requirements alone are sufficient to justify a 'Linux VM', there is another very interesting potential benefit which I haven't seen discussed yet. This applies specifically to Open Source and the principles behind it. This is that a VM could be implemented where the source code and compiled code were semantically equivalent. This means, of course, that all that ever needs to be distributed is the 'compiled' form and, by its very nature, this code is always open.

This is almost the case with Java bytecode, in that decompilers such as JAD can (usually) produce editable code from compiled .class files. However, comments (and layout) are not stored in the bytecode and this is starting to emerge as a significant problem for advanced development tools. For a brief illustration, consider a problem with IBM's new Eclipse IDE. Eclipse extracts Javadoc-style comments from source code that describe methods, parameters and other API aspects. It makes these available as tool-tip-like hints when you start to code a call to a particular method. However, commercial code is not distributed as source but as class files with accompanying Javadoc-generated HTML files. Although, between the two, all the information that Eclipse needs is there in principle, in practice it is hard for it to put the pieces back together and use them.

Perhaps a better example of sourcecode equivalence goes back to the old days of home computers with interpreted BASIC. Most people will remember that BASIC code was 'tokenized', including keywords, blank lines, punctuation and comments, in a way that could be both edited and executed. Unfortunately, the spread of this useful model was halted when PCs became big enough for 'real' compilers to run.

What's needed, therefore, is a more sophisticated version of the old tokenized program representation, and such systems have been developed for Scheme (and FORTH, I think), usually known as Abstract Syntax Tree interpreters, in contrast to bytecode interpreters like Parrot's current implementation. There may be some middle ground here - I have a few pointers to research in this area, such as Anton Ertl's work.

Now, having solved Linux's portability problem and given a big boost to open source, we could perhaps rest there with some satisfaction. However, I'd argue that there's one more important requirement to address and this time it will be one that is familiar to programmers already, if mostly only those working with languages like LISP and Scheme. This is the provision of dynamic reflective capabilities, meaning the ability to treat programs as data.

They say that any large C application includes an interpreter for a higher-level language. In finance, we see applications supporting the entry of complex formulas; in CAD/CAM people build parts which are themselves programmable such as a parameterizable aircraft undercarriage. These features turn users into programmers, but programmers working with a high-level, specialized language.

LISP is a much better language to build such applications (which is why a lot of AutoCAD is in LISP) since LISP programs are themselves data structures that can be added and played with at run-time. Java, .NET, Perl 5 and Python have some limited features in this area, mostly to do with loading code dynamically and supporting development tools, but they are awkward and ugly in the extreme. There is demonstrably huge potential for a mainstream language with this level of flexibility - any sophisticated business will be able to come up with examples like those above.

So, to wrap up, it looks like others have left the goalposts wide open for us and there is a significant opportunity to exploit. It will be interesting to see whether this Parrot can do more than mimic other platforms.

Re:Mirrors by Yokaze · 2001-09-27 02:16 · Score: 3, Redundant · on Mandrake 8.1 Released

Austria
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/pub/linux/Mandrake/iso/ (Vienna)
Canada
http://sunsite.ualberta.ca/pub/Mirror/Linux/mandra ke/mandrake-8.0/iso/ (Alberta)
Czech Republic
ftp://klobouk.fsv.cvut.cz/pub/linux-mandrake/Mandr ake/iso/ (Prague)
ftp://mandrake.redbox.cz/Mandrake/iso/
France
ftp://chronos.iut-bm.univ-fcomte.fr/pub/linux/dist ributions/Mandrake/iso/(Belfort)
ftp://ftp.club-internet.fr/pub/unix/linux/distribu tions/Mandrake/iso/ (Paris)
ftp://ftp.uvsq.fr/pub/mandrake/mandrake/iso/ (Versailles) Germany
ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/mandrake/iso/ (Chemnitz) Spain ftp://ftp.cica.es/pub/Linux/Mandrake/iso/ (Sevilla) United Kingdom
ftp://ftp.mirror.ac.uk/sites/sunsite.uio.no/pub/un ix/Linux/Mandrake/iso/ (Canterbury) United States
ftp://ftp-linux.cc.gatech.edu/pub/linux/distributi ons/mandrake/iso/ (Georgia)
ftp://ftp.stealth.net/pub/mirrors/ftp.mandrake.com /Mandrake/iso/
ftp://jungle.metalab.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributio ns/mandrake/Mandrake/iso/ (North Carolina)

Great general QC background. by RobertFisher · 2001-08-20 10:54 · Score: 2 · on MIT And HP Announce Joint Quantum Computer Project

The link posted above contained a really good general QC background, written up as part of this fellow's Master's thesis, intended for CS people, starting with basic quantum physics and going on to qubits and basic quantum computing. I think it is worthwhile pointing out the link :

http://tph.tuwien.ac.at/~oemer/doc/quprog/index.ht ml

Bob

Re:Wait, wait.. a "computer"? by Anonymous Coward · 2001-08-20 09:50 · Score: 0 · on MIT And HP Announce Joint Quantum Computer Project

Regarding your programming language question, you can get the Quantum Computation Language (QCL) here.

Why not use a preprocessor? by Erasmus+Darwin · 2001-07-22 12:15 · Score: 3 · on Mod Layout 3.0 Escapes Beta

From what little information there is, I don't see how this is significantly different from using a preprocessor to add static elements to your webpages. The one that I'm mildly familiar with is the Chakotay preprocessor (chpp). It seems preprocessing the pages would be more computationally efficient (do it once rather than every time you serve a page). (As a side note, does anyone have a favorite preprocessor? I never really got into chpp and don't know how it compares to some of the other ones out there.)

Personally, I can think of two reasons for mod_layout, though neither one is especially compelling:

Completeness - There's no major "cost" to having mod_layout available. If someone doesn't use it, they don't incur any extra overhead. If they do use it, then it's solving a need.
CGI stuff - I'm not sure, but it appears that mod_layout might work on things other than straight .html files. Since those can't be preprocessed, mod_layout would be the way to go (unless you wanted to manually add the static elements to each CGI, which is feasible in some cases, but can sometimes be a pain in the ass).

Overall, I personally don't like the Slashdot blurbs that link to a less-than-informative release message that was probably kicked out by a programmer who'd just spent the last N hours killing bugs and is in a hurry to get things up and available. I don't blame the programmer (who's doing a public service, usually for free), and I don't blame Slashdot (their role is mostly as an index rather than a direct content producer), but I still wish there was something a little more concrete, short of wading through the documentation of the actual module.

What's so important about this? by Tini+Kanooo · 2001-05-23 21:53 · Score: 1 · on Reiser On ReiserFS's Future And More

Other than Helen Hunt's home address, WHAT does Paul Reiser need to protect by developing file system encryption? Maybe that dog Murray has some kitty-porn on that computer!

The Current Tally... by jd · 2001-05-01 01:19 · Score: 5 · on XFS 1.0 is Released

There are a LOT of journalling filesystems for Linux. Excluding extensions (which effectively double the number of unique systems), there are five "genuine" journalling filesystems for Linux.

(I don't count NTFS, because that is hard-pushed enough to be called a genuine filesystem, never mind a journalling one.)

Feel free to reply to this, adding any that I've missed.

The Logging filesystem does much the same thing as Ext3 - it is an extension to Ext2 - but it looks like it would be a lot more useful than Ext3. IMHO, it'd be much better if neither of them were so FS-specific and could be used as a generic wrapper. SnapFS does exactly this, for example.

Anyway, on with the list of Journalling Filling systems...

... -IN- the main kernel tree:

ReiserFS

... at a stable release:

XFS

... at a developmental release:

JFS
Ext3FS

... currently abandoned:

LogFS

... extensions for:

SnapFS - versioning for journalling filesystems

When slashdotted, here are mirrors by Anonymous Coward · 2001-04-18 19:52 · Score: 4 · on Mandrake 8.0 Comes Out

OK, so when this is slashdotted, here is a list of mirrors for all you downloaders out there! Linux-Mandrake 8.0 release candidate mirrors for i586 processors.

Austria, France, Germany , Sweden

Re:Clustering ain't just Beowulf by kzanol · 2000-11-05 02:09 · Score: 1 · on What's The Best Linux Distribution For Clustering?

Quite right. I guess the question asked just isn't specific enough; the setup needed for high availability failover stuff is quite different compared to load balancing / process distribution high performance clusters.

A very good place to start looking at various stuff available for linux clustering is www.linux-ha.org.

Also worth mentioning if you think about the high availability (active/standby) configuration: if there's more than one service to be provided, you can get quite nice performance boosts by distributing active / standby roles on the machines in your cluster - having a database server for an ISP with oracle active on one node and postgres / mysql on the 2nd node gives you both great performance and high availability.

It means an active-standby configuration with a shared disk

Not necessarily; Personaly I like the solution of having seperate, local raid0 (or raid5) disk arrays in each of the nodes and keeping them synchronized over the network.

You don't need the special hardware for shared disk stuff.
it's much easier to physicaly seperate the nodes - all that's needed is a reliable network connection between the nodes.
You avoid the single point of failure you'd get with the shared disk device.

For a practical implementation of disk synchronisation at the blockdevice level have a look at drbd.

If you do want to go with shared media you'd best consider two seperate raid 0 or raid5 devices, each connected to both boxes (seperate scsi bus for each device). The two devices are then configured as raid 0 (mirror); if you throw in some scsi seperatores you should be set - the aim is to avoid the problems arising from a single device rendering the whole scsi bus unusable if it fails in a nasty way.

You'll still want to have some aditional hardware for your cluster: having a good method for I/O fencing (guaranteeing that both nodes trying to write to a device at the same time scrambling the data) is a realy good idea; the easiest way to achive this is to provide a method for one node to controll the others power suply; in case a node decides it has to take over functionality because the previously active node is no longer responding it can power down or at least power cycle the other node to make sure it's REALLY down and not just hung for a few seconds.

Designing and building clusters can be fun :-)

Go with GSM by Ignatius · 2000-10-04 07:51 · Score: 2 · on Open Standard For Recording Compressed Voice?

Other than MP3 or RA, GSM has been designed primarily for compressing speech (afaik it's optimized for a German speaking male voice, ymmv). I record radio programs via cron job on a daily basis, and at a sample frequency of 11025 Hz (8 MB/hour) - as opposed to the standard 8 kHz - there is practically no audible difference between the (mono) FM broadcast and the GSM replay. Moreover the compression doesn't use too much CPU so even some old 486 should do it in realtime.
If you looking for a lightweight command-line tool for GSM compression, check out the GSM Tools from my homepage (thx to Jutta Degener and Carsten Bormann for their GSM library).

Fun with Databases by F.O.Dobbs · 2000-09-29 05:10 · Score: 1 · on Inside the CueCat Hardware

After seeing the link about reprogramming the eeprom I started thinking. Why don't we just create a script that randomizes the serial code for your cuecat everytime you use it, filling their database with junk.

Just a thought...
F.O. Dobbs
Portal-Potty.com Founder and Mr. Brown drinker

Re:What line to clip? by Cy+Guy · 2000-09-20 20:51 · Score: 4 · on Privacy Concerns and The CueCat

Detailed instructions are available from the Dissecting the CueCat page.

I'm not sure, but I think there is a way to just flash the eeprom so it no longer sends out the ID. At least I think that's what this does.

Re:Not yet... by Anonymous Coward · 2000-08-30 00:26 · Score: 3 · on More Threats From The MPAA

Language for quantum computers by AlpineR · 2000-08-14 23:00 · Score: 5 · on IBM Develops Quantum Computer

While searching for quantum physics simulations, I came across

A Programming Language for Quantum Computers

There is also a good, comprehensive website at

OpenQubit

but it seems to be in need of a new maintainer.

My understanding is that quantum computer simulators allow one to mimic the output of a quantum computer, but without the time speed-up that real quantum hardware would provide. So algorithms can be tested out, slowly, even before powerful quantum hardware is developed. I suspect some problems can also be better expressed in a quantum computing language and would therefore be solved more easily even on classical hardware.

On the subject of simulating quantum physics on classical hardware, in the book The Feynman Processor and in Feynman's own papers it is stated that a classical computer can never perfectly simulate quantum physics. But from the evidence they give it seems merely impractical, not impossible. There can be a huge penalty in the number of steps and time required but no clear reason why a simple quantum physics system could not be perfectly simulated on a powerful classical computer. Anyone have any insight on this problem?

AlpineR

Re:DeCSS = 1st amendment by BlueUnderwear · 2000-07-18 03:36 · Score: 2 · on Linux Supported DVD-RW Coming Soon

Still, do you think there's many people mirroring DeCSS in Zimbabwe?

Who talked about Zimbabwe? There are other countries besides the US and Zimbabwe: Austria, the Christmas Islands, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Israrel, Italy, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, Nieu, Norway, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Tonga, The United Kingdom, just to name a few

you can't deny that the US is a significant portion of the west.

However, lately, Europe has rediscovered its self esteem, and doesn't hesitate to occasionnally give the finger to the US (see recent Echelon investigation, and some recent crypto decisions).

Mirrors with 1.0 by Halo1 · 2000-07-12 15:06 · Score: 4 · on FreePascal v1.0 Released

Since the main site seems to be pretty slashdotted already (and the US isn't even awake yet :), here are the mirror links (I've only added those of which I know for sure they have 1.0):

Austria
Belgium
Canada
Germany
The Netherlands (= ftp.freepascal.org)
FTP-only mirrors in Brazil, Turkey and the US: see the links section on your favorite mirror.

--

Not as fast as you might wish by Ignatius · 2000-05-24 21:57 · Score: 3 · on Big Step in Quantum Searching

Just like Grover's original search algorithm, this new extention to more flexible search terms still requires O(srqt(N)) quantum operations. From the abstract:

[...] This yields new applications - an algorithm is presented that can create an arbitrarily specified quantum superposition on a space of size N in O(sqrt(N)) steps.[...]

So while providing a significant speedup over the classic O(N/2) steps, this search algorithms does not overcome the barrier from exponential to polynomial search times (like e.g. Shor's quantum algorithm for prime factorisation); i.e. you would still require O(2^(k/2)) steps to find some k-bit string.

If you are interested in quantum computation, check out QCL, my quantum computation language and QC simulator (for Linux, you guessed it ;-)). An implementation of Grover's original search algorithm is included in the tarball.

LinLogFS by eMBee · 2000-03-25 07:48 · Score: 1 · on What About A File System That Uses Snapshots?

check out LinLogFS.

from the FAQ:

What is a Log-Structured Filesystem, Anyway?

A Log-Structured Filesystem (LFS) brings database-like semantics to disk writes. Disk writes are performed in a way that they are either recognized as "completed as a whole" or "hasn't happened at all" even in the case of a power failure/OS crash... whilst a write is in progress.

Basically, this can be achieved by writing to the disk in an append-only manner. So every change to the filesystem causes the updated information to be appended at the end of the log (i.e: no "update in place").

So, an LFS can offer you a variety of advantages:

Fast crash recovery.
Easy support for logical volume management (resizing partitions)
Undoing (even multiple levels of) filesystem changes
Increased write performance (since all writes are performed in large, sequential chunks).

Is a Log-Structured Filesystem the Same as a Journaling Filesystem?

Acutally, these two terms are often used as synonyms, but they aren't. Journaling can be viewed as a way that allows you to add fast crash recovery capabilities to "classic" filesystems without making big changes to the existing filesystem. This is done by applying the logging approach to filesystem metadata changes. Journaling filesystems put things like "block x allocated to file y" into a log that they use for replaying filesystem changes after a crash.

greetings, eMBee.
--

LinLogFS by eMBee · 2000-03-25 07:48 · Score: 1 · on What About A File System That Uses Snapshots?

check out LinLogFS.

from the FAQ:

What is a Log-Structured Filesystem, Anyway?

A Log-Structured Filesystem (LFS) brings database-like semantics to disk writes. Disk writes are performed in a way that they are either recognized as "completed as a whole" or "hasn't happened at all" even in the case of a power failure/OS crash... whilst a write is in progress.

Basically, this can be achieved by writing to the disk in an append-only manner. So every change to the filesystem causes the updated information to be appended at the end of the log (i.e: no "update in place").

So, an LFS can offer you a variety of advantages:

Fast crash recovery.
Easy support for logical volume management (resizing partitions)
Undoing (even multiple levels of) filesystem changes
Increased write performance (since all writes are performed in large, sequential chunks).

Is a Log-Structured Filesystem the Same as a Journaling Filesystem?

Acutally, these two terms are often used as synonyms, but they aren't. Journaling can be viewed as a way that allows you to add fast crash recovery capabilities to "classic" filesystems without making big changes to the existing filesystem. This is done by applying the logging approach to filesystem metadata changes. Journaling filesystems put things like "block x allocated to file y" into a log that they use for replaying filesystem changes after a crash.

greetings, eMBee.
--

Open Source Quantum Computing by Ignatius · 2000-03-24 02:10 · Score: 3 · on First 7-qubit Quantum Computer Developed

As part of my master thesis, I've developed a programming language for quantum computers. While the interpreter is still somewhat experimental, it works under Linux and the best part of it: it's Open Source (GPL). So if you want to play around with quantum algorithms and can't afford the real hardware, you might want to give it a try.

Re:ASP yes, but IIS? by bornholtz · 2000-03-23 22:57 · Score: 1 · on Cobalt buys Chilli!soft

How about mod_auth_smb?

If you are running apache on Win32 then you can use mod_ntlm

Mirrors by Nicodemus · 2000-03-02 05:54 · Score: 3 · on Parsec Demo For Linux Released

Mirrors by Nicodemus · 2000-03-02 05:54 · Score: 3 · on Parsec Demo For Linux Released

Mirrors by Nicodemus · 2000-03-02 05:54 · Score: 3 · on Parsec Demo For Linux Released

Mirrors by dsplat · 2000-02-22 02:11 · Score: 2 · on XFree86 3.9.18 Today, v4.0 in March

When their server couldn't talk to be, it gave me the following list of mirror sites. Typos introduced into the list in converting it to HTML are mostly my fault. However, Slashdot is fighting me on the lists a little bit, introducing spaces in my end tags.

Australiasia
Korea
- ftp://ftp.kreonet.re.kr/pub/Linux/xfree86
Australia
- ftp://mirror.aarnet.edu.au/pub/XFree86
- ftp://x.physics.usyd.edu.au/pub/XFree86

US

Europe

Austria
- ftp://gd.tuwien.ac.at/hci/X11/XFree86
Finland
- ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/X11/XFree86
France
- ftp://ftp.lip6.fr/pub/X11/XFree86
Germany
- ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/xfree86/XFree86
- ftp://ftp.cs.tu-berlin.de/pub/X/XFree86
Italy
- ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/XFree86
Norway
- ftp://sunsite.uio.no/pub/XFree86
United Kingdom
- ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/XFr ee86

Mirrors part 1 by Anonymous Coward · 2000-01-19 02:42 · Score: 0 · on Corel Draw 9 for Linux Needs Beta Testers

Visit Humpin! (No, it's not what you think!)

Temporary restraining order DENIED!

Thanks to the efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the organization and support provided by a few of our fellow defendants we are still here! Another hearing is scheduled for January 14th.

We would like to point out to all of the mirror sites with things like "fuck the lawyers" on them that it is because of a generous group of lawyers that we are still here. These lawyers are working for free (or much less than they could get by going over to the Dark Side) and don't deserve this kind of abuse.

Here is the EFF's stance on this case.

Save a copy of this web page now!

We have just been informed that the DVD Copy Control Association is seeking a restraining order against us (named as "Doe 28") for distributing DeCSS and linking to pages that distribute it and linking to pages that link to pages that distribute it.

Section 48 of this request states that we supposedly "have received notice through the MPA and refused to remove the information at issue". This is absolutely false! We have never received any such request (from the MPA or anybody else for that matter) and we obviously were not given the opportunity to refuse! Either Jared Bobrow needs to go back to law school or the DVD CCA needs to get a new firm. This is the kind of sloppy work that could get an important document thrown out.

Here is a 2600 story on this.

Explanation on legality of this information

The software (source as well as binaries) offered on this site can be freely redistributed because it was published under the GNU General Public License. The purpose of this software is not illegal copying of DVD disks. It is meant to provide information necessary to be able to program a DVD player for Linux. To do this, the CSS system needs to be incorporated in the player. Recently the (very weak) DVD content scrambling system was deciphered, freeing the way for a Linux DVD player. The CSS system is not a copy protection system, since it does not prevent copying of the disk. Writing information about the way an encryption scheme functions is completely legal. The source code and binaries on this site are completely legal too, since they contain no code from the DVD consortium or its members. The sources and programs on this site were written by third parties using clean-room reverse engineering methods which are (ready?) completly legal.

Attention www.rhythm.cx was hosting a list of mirrors for these files. That list of mirrors has been replaced with a page reading "This site has been taken down for legal reasons." Here's what the maintainer put on the site the day it was shut down:

NOTE (Thu, Nov 11, 12:17pm EST): I've recently been informed that a law firm which is likely to be one that would try get these mirrors taken down has been visiting this mirror site as well as others. With that said, there is a possibility that I may have to remove this site in the near future because like everyone else, I can't afford to go to court to fight it. Luckly, it seems fairly unlikely that any law firm will ever be able to get rid of all these mirrors at this point (there are currently 41 in 8 different countries and this list is growing every day). However, I have only seen very few mirror _lists_ like this one anyplace. If anyone has the resources, it might be wise to mirror this list of mirrors as well so that the right people will still know that these mirrors exist.

Here is a 2600 story with more details on how rhythm.cx was shut down.

Current Mirrors Last updated: Wed, Jan 19, 12:13am EST
Numbers are only for the maintainer's convenience

We apologize for the length of time between updates. This list has gotten quite large and thus more difficult to maintain.

Much thanks to this site for listing mirrors of the mirror lists.

Mirrors part 1 by Anonymous Coward · 2000-01-16 07:10 · Score: 0 · on New DVD Lawsuits Filed by the MPAA (UPDATED)

Note: This mirror list has been copied from http://www.humpin.org/decss/, on January 2nd 2000 13:13 GMT

Mirrors since 28-Dec-99 added by me.
To my main DVD page (containing list of lists of mirrors) Visit Humpin! (No, it's not what you think!)

Temporary restraining order DENIED!

Thanks to the efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the organization and support provided by a few of our fellow defendants we are still here! Another hearing is scheduled for January 14th.

We would like to point out to all of the mirror sites with things like "fuck the lawyers" on them that it is because of a generous group of lawyers that we are still here. These lawyers are working for free (or much less than they could get by going over to the Dark Side) and don't deserve this kind of abuse.

Here is the EFF's stance on this case.
If you need a REAL reason to host these files, try reading this. Truth has never been more purely distilled.

Save a copy of this web page now!

We have just been informed that the DVD Copy Control Association is seeking a restraining order against us (named as "Doe 28") for distributing DeCSS and linking to pages that distribute it and linking to pages that link to pages that distribute it.

Section 48 of this request states that we supposedly "have received notice through the MPA and refused to remove the information at issue". This is absolutely false! We have never received any such request (from the MPA or anybody else for that matter) and we obviously were not given the opportunity to refuse! Either Jared Bobrow needs to go back to law school or the DVD CCA needs to get a new firm. This is the kind of sloppy work that could get an important document thrown out.

Here is a 2600 story on this.

Explanation on legality of this information

The software (source as well as binaries) offered on this site can be freely redistributed because it was published under the GNU General Public License. The purpose of this software is not illegal copying of DVD disks. It is meant to provide information necessary to be able to program a DVD player for Linux. To do this, the CSS system needs to be incorporated in the player. Recently the (very weak) DVD content scrambling system was deciphered, freeing the way for a Linux DVD player. The CSS system is not a copy protection system, since it does not prevent copying of the disk. Writing information about the way an encryption scheme functions is completely legal. The source code and binaries on this site are completely legal too, since they contain no code from the DVD consortium or its members. The sources and programs on this site were written by third parties using clean-room reverse engineering methods which are (ready?) completly legal.

Attention www.rhythm.cx was hosting a list of mirrors for these files. That list of mirrors has been replaced with a page reading "This site has been taken down for legal reasons." Here's what the maintainer put on the site the day it was shut down:

NOTE (Thu, Nov 11, 12:17pm EST): I've recently been informed that a law firm which is likely to be one that would try get these mirrors taken down has been visiting this mirror site as well as others. With that said, there is a possibility that I may have to remove this site in the near future because like everyone else, I can't afford to go to court to fight it. Luckly, it seems fairly unlikely that any law firm will ever be able to get rid of all these mirrors at this point (there are currently 41 in 8 different countries and this list is growing every day). However, I have only seen very few mirror _lists_ like this one anyplace. If anyone has the resources, it might be wise to mirror this list of mirrors as well so that the right people will still know that these mirrors exist.

Here is a 2600 story with more details on how rhythm.cx was shut down.

Current Mirrors Last updated: Fri, Dec 31, 8:18pm EST
Numbers are only for the maintainer's convenience

Much thanks to this site for listing mirrors of the mirror lists.

OOPS - Trying Humpin list again by Anonymous Coward · 1999-12-30 11:08 · Score: 0 · on DVD Hearing Victory: We Won - For Now

You have one bat and there are 100 million holes Visit Humpin! (No, it's not what you think!)

Temporary restraining order DENIED!

Thanks to the efforts of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the organization and support provided by a few of our fellow defendants we are still here! Another hearing is scheduled for January 14th.

We would like to point out to all of the mirror sites with things like "fuck the lawyers" on them that it is because of a generous group of lawyers that we are still here. These lawyers are working for free (or much less than they could get by going over to the Dark Side) and don't deserve this kind of abuse.

Here is the EFF's stance on this case.
If you need a REAL reason to host these files, try reading this. Truth has never been more purely distilled.

Save a copy of this web page now!

We have just been informed that the DVD Copy Control Association is seeking a restraining order against us (named as "Doe 28") for distributing DeCSS and linking to pages that distribute it and linking to pages that link to pages that distribute it.

Section 48 of this request states that we supposedly "have received notice through the MPA and refused to remove the information at issue". This is absolutely false! We have never received any such request (from the MPA or anybody else for that matter) and we obviously were not given the opportunity to refuse! Either Jared Bobrow needs to go back to law school or the DVD CCA needs to get a new firm. This is the kind of sloppy work that could get an important document thrown out.

Here is a 2600 story on this.

Explanation on legality of this information

The software (source as well as binaries) offered on this site can be freely redistributed because it was published under the GNU General Public License. The purpose of this software is not illegal copying of DVD disks. It is meant to provide information necessary to be able to program a DVD player for Linux. To do this, the CSS system needs to be incorporated in the player. Recently the (very weak) DVD content scrambling system was deciphered, freeing the way for a Linux DVD player. The CSS system is not a copy protection system, since it does not prevent copying of the disk. Writing information about the way an encryption scheme functions is completely legal. The source code and binaries on this site are completely legal too, since they contain no code from the DVD consortium or its members. The sources and programs on this site were written by third parties using clean-room reverse engineering methods which are (ready?) completly legal.

Attention www.rhythm.cx was hosting a list of mirrors for these files. That list of mirrors has been replaced with a page reading "This site has been taken down for legal reasons." Here's what the maintainer put on the site the day it was shut down:

NOTE (Thu, Nov 11, 12:17pm EST): I've recently been informed that a law firm which is likely to be one that would try get these mirrors taken down has been visiting this mirror site as well as others. With that said, there is a possibility that I may have to remove this site in the near future because like everyone else, I can't afford to go to court to fight it. Luckly, it seems fairly unlikely that any law firm will ever be able to get rid of all these mirrors at this point (there are currently 41 in 8 different countries and this list is growing every day). However, I have only seen very few mirror _lists_ like this one anyplace. If anyone has the resources, it might be wise to mirror this list of mirrors as well so that the right people will still know that these mirrors exist.

Here is a 2600 story with more details on how rhythm.cx was shut down.

Current Mirrors Last updated: Thu, Dec 30, 2:55am EST
Numbers are only for the maintainer's convenience

Much thanks to this site for listing mirrors of the mirror lists.

This site contains some good technical documentation as well as more source code that the DVD consorium's lawyers would rather you not see:
http://crypto.gq.nu/

Semi-broken Mirrors
(These mirrors sometimes work and sometimes don't)
http://joe.to/storage/files/decss.zip
ftp://eris.giga.or.at/pub/hacker/crypt/ DVD/
http://gullii.stu.rpi.edu/dvd/files/D eCSS.zip and http://gullii.stu.rpi.edu/dvd/f iles/css-auth.tar.gz
http://www.discordia.de/decss/DeCSS.zip and http://www.discordia.de/decss/css-aut h_tar.gz and http://www.discordia.de/decss/LiVid.tgz

Broken Mirrors
(These are listed here for the notification of the people who run them)
http://members.theglobe.com/avoiderman/css-auth.ta r.gz
ftp://mikpos.dyndns.org/pub/cssdvd.zip
ftp://195.115.63.44/pub/DeCSS.zip
http://home.c2i.net/buddha9/
http://frodo.campus.luth.se/~iocc/tip.html
http://home.t-online.de/home/skinner01/decss.zip
ftp://ftp.firehead.org/pub/
http://freeweb.digiweb.com/business/avoiderman/
http://www.hack.b3.nu/

Mirrors shut down by The Man
(A moment of silence, please.)
http://www.rhythm.cx/dvd/css-auth.tar.gz and http://www.rhythm.cx/dvd/DeCSS.zip
http://dvdcracked.tvheaven.com/index.html
http://home.worldonline.dk/~andersa/download/DeCSS .zip
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10079-100-143 3209.html?tag=st.dl.10001_104_3.lst.titl edetail
http://www.theresistance.net/files.html
http://cryptome.org/dvd-css.htm
http://www.d.umn.edu/~dchan/css/
http://caspian.twu.net/dvd/
http://mclaughlin.orange.ca.us/~andrew/
ftp://134.173.94.44

Mirrors by Anonymous Coward · 1999-12-29 06:42 · Score: 0 · on DVD Hearing Today - Are You Ready to Rumble?

You have one bat and there are 100 million holes Visit Humpin! (No, it's not what you think!)

Save a copy of this web page now!

We have just been informed that the DVD Copy Control Association is seeking a restraining order against us (named as "Doe 28") for distributing DeCSS and linking to pages that distribute it and linking to pages that link to pages that distribute it.

Section 48 of this request states that we supposedly "have received notice through the MPA and refused to remove the information at issue". This is absolutely false! We have never received any such request (from the MPA or anybody else for that matter) and we obviously were not given the opportunity to refuse! Either Jared Bobrow needs to go back to law school or the DVD CCA needs to get a new firm. This is the kind of sloppy work that could get an important document thrown out.

Here is a 2600 story on this.

Explanation on legality of this information

The software (source as well as binaries) offered on this site can be freely redistributed because it was published under the GNU General Public License. The purpose of this software is not illegal copying of DVD disks. It is meant to provide information necessary to be able to program a DVD player for Linux. To do this, the CSS system needs to be incorporated in the player. Recently the (very weak) DVD content scrambling system was deciphered, freeing the way for a Linux DVD player. The CSS system is not a copy protection system, since it does not prevent copying of the disk. Writing information about the way an encryption scheme functions is completely legal. The source code and binaries on this site are completely legal too, since they contain no code from the DVD consortium or its members. The sources and programs on this site were written by third parties using clean-room reverse engineering methods which are (ready?) completly legal.

Attention www.rhythm.cx was hosting a list of mirrors for these files. That list of mirrors has been replaced with a page reading "This site has been taken down for legal reasons." Here's what the maintainer put on the site the day it was shut down:

NOTE (Thu, Nov 11, 12:17pm EST): I've recently been informed that a law firm which is likely to be one that would try get these mirrors taken down has been visiting this mirror site as well as others. With that said, there is a possibility that I may have to remove this site in the near future because like everyone else, I can't afford to go to court to fight it. Luckly, it seems fairly unlikely that any law firm will ever be able to get rid of all these mirrors at this point (there are currently 41 in 8 different countries and this list is growing every day). However, I have only seen very few mirror _lists_ like this one anyplace. If anyone has the resources, it might be wise to mirror this list of mirrors as well so that the right people will still know that these mirrors exist.

Here is a 2600 story with more details on how rhythm.cx was shut down.

Current Mirrors Last updated: Wed, Dec 29, 3:14pm EST
Numbers are only for the maintainer's convenience

Much thanks to this site for listing mirrors of the mirror lists.

This site contains some good technical documentation as well as more source code that the DVD consorium's lawyers would rather you not see:
http://crypto.gq.nu/

Semi-broken Mirrors
(These mirrors sometimes work and sometimes don't)
http://joe.to/storage/files/decss.zip
ftp://eris.giga.or.at/pub/hacker/crypt/ DVD/
http://gullii.stu.rpi.edu/dvd/files/D eCSS.zip and http://gullii.stu.rpi.edu/dvd/f iles/css-auth.tar.gz
http://www.discordia.de/decss/DeCSS.zip and http://www.discordia.de/decss/css-aut h_tar.gz and http://www.discordia.de/decss/LiVid.tgz

Broken Mirrors
(These are listed here for the notification of the people who run them)
http://members.theglobe.com/avoiderman/css-auth.ta r.gz
ftp://mikpos.dyndns.org/pub/cssdvd.zip
ftp://195.115.63.44/pub/DeCSS.zip
http://home.c2i.net/buddha9/
http://frodo.campus.luth.se/~iocc/tip.html
http://home.t-online.de/home/skinner01/decss.zip
ftp://ftp.firehead.org/pub/
http://freeweb.digiweb.com/business/avoiderman/
http://www.hack.b3.nu/

Mirrors shut down by The Man
(A moment of silence, please.)
http://www.rhythm.cx/dvd/css-auth.tar.gz and http://www.rhythm.cx/dvd/DeCSS.zip
http://dvdcracked.tvheaven.com/index.html
http://home.worldonline.dk/~andersa/download/DeCSS .zip
http://download.cnet.com/downloads/0-10079-100-143 3209.html?tag=st.dl.10001_104_3.lst.titl edetail
http://www.theresistance.net/files.html
http://cryptome.org/dvd-css.htm
http://www.d.umn.edu/~dchan/css/
http://caspian.twu.net/dvd/
http://mclaughlin.orange.ca.us/~andrew/
ftp://134.173.94.44

Can't beat the new Microfost keyboards by Lazy+Jones · 1999-11-25 07:02 · Score: 0 · on New Intel uP for Ultra-Cheap PCs

look! (sorry for the dyslexia :-))

Re:Quantum Encryption by Ignatius · 1999-11-22 23:17 · Score: 1 · on The Possible Effects of Quantum Computing

The richest ressource on quantum computing is the LANL e-print archive on quantum physics. A more structued site dedicated only to QC is the Oxford Centre for Quantum Computation. My own stuff can be found here.

A different list of mirrors by Anonymous Coward · 1999-11-17 02:48 · Score: 0 · on deCSS Listed On Download.com

Here is the most recent version of the css-auth CVS code as well as DeCSS. Please mirror & redistribute.
This page was originally a mirror of http://www.rhythm.cx/dvd/, but then rhythm.cx was forced down.
So I've taken it on myself to keep a list of mirrors. I try to update and check the status of the listed sites at least once per day. If you know of any mirrors not in my list, if you wish to mirror this page, or if you find that any of the listed sites went down, then contact me.

you can download the following three files from here:
DeCSS.zip - DeCSS
css-auth.tar.gz - CSS authentication source
LiVid.tgz - Linux DVD Code

MD5 Sums:
d0aff684327a5c7bf110951e42ec3cae DeCSS.zip 8653090161e8f287d365132acb098581 css-auth.tar.gz a940de43a3c20895cf56bbca75c6d7a7 LiVid.tgz

Known Mirrors (as of 17/Nov/1999, 08:30 GMT):

Sites that copied this site (lemuria.org): http://josefine.ben.tuwien.ac.at/~davi d/dvd/
http://www.c0ke.com/DVD/
http://209.68.37.134/decss/
http://rockme.virtualave.net/
http://caspian.twu.net/dv d/mirrors/www.lemuria.org/DeCSS/

http://www.homestead.com/avoid erman/files/index.html
http://www.angelfire.com/jazz/avoiderman/
http://freeweb.digiweb.com/business /avoiderman/
http://www.intelcities.com/Main_ Street/Avoiderman/
http://members.theglobe.com/avoiderm an/dvd.htm
http://members.xoom.com/lkjhgfdsa2/

Other sites where DeCSS, css-auth and/or LiVid are mirrored: http://home.worldonline.dk/~ andersa/download/DeCSS.zip
http://douglas.min.net/~drw/css-auth/
http://www.devzero.org/freecss.html
http://home.t-online.de/home/skinn er01/decss.zip
http://www.chello.nl/~f .vanwaveren/css-auth/css-auth.tar.gz
http://www.vexed.net/CSS
http://members.brabant.chello.nl/~j.vr eeken/
http://www.dvd.eavy.de/css-auth.tar.gz and http://www.dvd.eavy.de/DeCSS.zip
http://www.eavy.net/stuff/dvd/css-aut h.tar.gz and http://www.eavy.net/stuff/dvd/DeCSS.zip
http://www.dynamsol.com/satanix/DeCSS.zip and http://www.dynamsol.com/satanix/css -auth.tar.gz
http://frozenlinux.com/civ/decss/
http://www.humpin.org/decss/
http://www.unitycode.org/
http://dirtass.beyatch.net/decss.zip
http://www.free-dvd.org.lu/
http://mclaughlin.orange.ca.us/~andrew/
http://batman.jytol.fi/~vuori/dvd/
http://www.zpok.demon.co.uk/deCSS/CSS.ht ml
http://plato.nebulanet.net:88/css/
http://www.d.umn.edu/~dchan/css/
http://www.logorrhea.com/main.html
http://people.delphi.com/salfter/LiVi d.tar.gz
http://www.theresistance.net/files.html
ftp://193.219.56.32/pub/dvd/LiVi d.CVS-11.06.tar.gz and ftp://193.219.56. 32/pub/dvd/LiVid.CVS-11.06.css-stuff-only.tar.gz
http://merlin.keble.ox.ac.uk/~a drian/css/index.html
http://www.dvd-copy.com/
http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/dvd/css /css-auth.tar.gz and http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/dvd/css/DeCSS .zip
ftp://ftp.firehead.org/pub/ (very slow - 33.6 line)
http://members.tripod.co.uk/bap/css/cs s.html
http://www.tasam.com/~fenkt/dvd/
ftp://eris.giga.or.at/pub/hacker/crypt/ DVD/
http://therapy.endorphin.org/DVD/
http://www.discordia.de/decss/DeCSS.zip and http://www.discordia.de/decss/css-aut h_tar.gz and http://www.discordia.de/decss/LiVid.tgz
http://www.dvdlinks.co.uk/css/
http://caspian.twu.net/dvd/
http://www.twistedlogic.com/htm l/tl_archive_map.htm
http://www.jonhanson.com/dvd/

http://www.geociti es.com/ResearchTriangle/Campus/8877/index.html
http://www.angelfire.com/mt/popefelix/ http://members.tripod.lycos.nl/jvz/
http://www.angelfire.com/in2/mirror/
http://www.sent.freeserve.co.uk/css -auth.tar.gz and http://www.sent.freeserve.co.uk/DeCSS.zip

Mirrors that appear have gone down since 12/Nov/1999: http://www.rhythm.cx/dvd/css-auth.tar.gz and http://www.rhythm.cx/dvd/DeCSS.zip
http://www.xs4all.nl/~predator/freecss/freecss.htm l
http://sharedlib.org/decss.zip
http://decss.tripod.com/index.html
ftp://134.173.94.44/
http://gullii.stu.rpi.edu/dvd/files/DeCSS.zip and http://gullii.stu.rpi.edu/dvd/files/css-auth.tar.g z ftp://alma.dhs.org/pub/DVD/ http://home.worldonline.dk/~andersa/download/DeCSS .zip

The following site contains some good technical documentation as well as more source code that the DVD consortium's lawyers would rather you not see:
http://crypto.gq.nu/
Local Mirror: /DeCSS/crypto.gq.nu

You can contact me at tom@lemuria.org if you have any questions regarding mirroring, or want your mirror added here.

Note to lawyers and other scum:
This information is widely available by now, and no matter what you do, you will not be able to supress it. It was the DVD consortium that f***ed up, and now you're trying to solve a technological problem with threats and legal action?
If there were fines on stupidity, yours would cover the national debts of most western countries.

Re:No. Just No. by Anonymous Coward · 1999-08-25 21:11 · Score: 0 · on Ask Slashdot: What is the Best GUI Framework?

Judging by the replies you've posted to this discussion, you must be a really closed-minded individual. I wonder how you got your permanent +2 rating.

Anyway, for more info on Objective C, try this link.

Dump RealAudio, use GSM instead. by Ignatius · 1999-07-14 23:59 · Score: 1 · on Premiere Episode of Slashdot Radio:Geeks in Space

Quality issuses aside (streaming simply sucks when more than just a few people want to see the same content at the same time) afaik Real Networks charges huge licence fees for their proprietary servers.
While the semi-free MP3 format is the agreed-on standard, why not use GSM as an alternative format. The quality for speech compression is superb (with 11025Hz (2273 b/s) there is virtually no difference from an FM transmission), the format is free and supported by sox. (My own GSM-tools can be found here.)

One project here. by Booker · 1999-04-06 02:49 · Score: 1 · on WSJ Says Linux Lags

Not *exactly* journaling, but one project is here.

Logging Filesystem by Jordy · 1999-01-18 02:53 · Score: 1 · on Ask Slashdot: How Reliable are Enormous Filesystems in Linux?

Ext2fs would take months to fsck that thing. :)

There is a log-structured filesystem for linux called "dtfs" available at their home page. The author tells me he will be shooting for inclusion in 2.3.0 and that the bulk of it is working just fine.

Slashdot Mirror

Domain: tuwien.ac.at

Comments · 186