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Eric S. Raymond, author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, was involved in this which is where I first heard of it.

Paul

OS and JEDGAR

This story says a lot about the ITS ethos.

On the ITS system there was a program that allowed you to see what was being printed on someone else's terminal. It spied on the other guy's output by examining the insides of the monitor system. The output spy program was called OS. Throughout the rest of the computer science world (and at IBM too) OS means `operating system', but among old-time ITS hackers it almost always meant `output spy'.

OS could work because ITS purposely had very little in the way of `protection' that prevented one user from trespassing on another's areas. Fair is fair, however. There was another program that would automatically notify you if anyone started to spy on your output. It worked in exactly the same way, by looking at the insides of the operating system to see if anyone else was looking at the insides that had to do with your output. This `counterspy' program was called JEDGAR (a six-letterism pronounced as two syllables: /jed'gr/), in honor of the former head of the FBI.

But there's more. JEDGAR would ask the user for `license to kill'. If the user said yes, then JEDGAR would actually gun the job of the luser who was spying. Unfortunately, people found that this made life too violent, especially when tourists learned about it. One of the systems hackers solved the problem by replacing JEDGAR with another program that only pretended to do its job. It took a long time to do this, because every copy of JEDGAR had to be patched. To this day no one knows how many people never figured out that JEDGAR had been defanged.

Interestingly, there is still a security module named JEDGAR alive as of late 1994 -- in the Unisys MCP for large systems. It is unknown to us whether the name is tribute or independent invention.

[from "Monty Python's Flying Circus"]

...the term `spam' has gone mainstream, though without its original sense or folkloric freight - there is apparently a widespread myth among lusers that "spamming" is what happens when you dump cans of Spam into a revolving fan.

Only if your PC has a Cup Holder. As a member of CUPS I ought to know.

No, the fact that they used the word "duplicate" shows that they do not, in fact, "get it".

The definition of "spam" in the Jargon File lists duplication as the primary criterion under senses 3 and 4. Junk E-mail (UBE) enters the picture only in sense 5.

Funny: The first listed sense of "spam" refers to a buffer overflow.

Seriously, MS spent millions(from what I understand) studying GUI's and making them look better.

...and failed miserably, IMHO. Try creating a quick-launch bar and then copy the Calculator and Notepad shortcuts from the start menu into the quick-launch bar. In WinXP, the icons are so similar that you have to look carefully to tell the difference. On my Win2K boxen, the Calculator and Notepad icons are easily distinguishable by shape and shading. Everything in XP looks like the same pastel shades...maybe the focus groups liked it, but I think it makes things more difficult.

(There's an option to at least get rid of the hideous new title bars, start menu, etc. and replace them with the older types. It's too bad this wasn't extended to replacing the icons as well.)

I still want the focus to follow my mouse, among other things

Ick...that's been a major annoyance for me with the twm that's bundled with the Cygwin port of X. If something accidentally moves the mouse to another window, the focus shifts? No thanks. Fortunately, KDE doesn't suffer from this deficiency...you either Alt-Tab to the window or you click on it to bring it into focus, which is The Way Things Ought To Be. (I feel a holy war coming on...:-))

From the jargon definition of troll:

"The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it."

Of course he used IceWM as an example of non-Windows like design! I looks exactly like Windows 95!

Now we are just waiting for someone to do an intercal version of Sokoban.

I assume that posting and follow-up access to other newsgroups must be only for for "internal" Microsoft users.

This is fine if he is just using it for providing support for Microsoft users in the local nz.comp newsgroup - but using it to post Anti-Linux FUD?

Does it qualify as astroturfing?

I know he can be greedy and want a strictly regulated economy (for his benefit). But he shouldn't throw around terms like "socialist" and "communist" as slurs unless he's against a regulated market.

However, I get a kick out of tweaking psuedo-libertarians who want a free market (for them to abuse) but a set of very strict rules that force people to put up with it, and not pull similar tricks on them.

Some people just like being the big fish in a small pond. These guys obviously believe in KDE and will plug along long past the point that it makes any sense. They totally dismissed that Gnome had any office applications and were very appreciative that the GNU idealists finally accepted them all in one breath. Are KDE people going to become like Amiga users? These guys remind me a lot of Amiga Persecution Complex.

ESR is an excellent spokesperson and Open Source advocate. I've met him a couple times. Check out his webpage Eric Raymond's Homepage.

Apparently, you've not heard of the tiger teams that test security for the military. To quote from the Jargon File entry on Tiger Team (it sums it up better than I could), "A subset of tiger teams are professional crackers, testing the security of military computer installations by attempting remote attacks via networks or supposedly `secure' comm channels. Some of their escapades, if declassified, would probably rank among the greatest hacks of all times." Some of the really "good" security people (as you call them) simply can't talk about what they do.

Actually, yes.

It's been 15 seconds since you hit 'reply'! Grrr!

but would you rather pin your business on a 50 node cluster of failure-prone DELL boxes (that may catch fire at any minute) or a slick, bulletproof mainframe? It's just good business sense to buy reliability.

If you really wanna get pissed with esr, try this unforgivable thing:

http://tuxedo.org/jargon/html/entry/W2K-bug.html

But so what? "Micros~1" is in the Jargon file (of which esr is the co-editor), and used fairly widely, is fun, and makes a valid, true point.

It is wittier and more truthful that the other one myself and others use widely "m$". Tho I find m$ a more useful abbreviation when in a hurry.

You guys seem to be humour-impaired (and satire-impaired). Take a chill pill guys.

http://tuxedo.org/jargon/html/entry/micros1.html

micros~1

An abbreviation of the full name Microsoft resembling the rather bogus way Windows 9x's VFAT filesystem truncates long file names to fit in the MS-DOS 8+3 scheme (the real filename is stored elsewhere). If other files start with the same prefix, they'll be called micros~2 and so on, causing lots of problems with backups and other routine system-administration problems. During the US Antitrust trial against Microsoft the names Micros~1 and Micros~2 were suggested for the two companies that would exist after a break-up.

Lately I have been feeling isolated while reading Slashdot. Not knowing all the common abbreviations and whatnot.

AFAIK (IANAL) ISTR TMTOWTDI. FWIW, YMMV; TIA.

First way

Second way

Third way

The project says that it feeds malignant spiders poisoned addresses. Don't people check their addresses for addresses that don't deliver? Is this useful? I like the teergrube idea better. Can you modify apache to do this?

FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. Marketing tactic. If your product is not competing strongly, or even not existent, you let on how something awful is about to befall your competitor.

PHB: Pointy-Haired Boss. It's a reference to the cartoon Dilbert.

TCO: Total Cost of Ownership. Corporate-speak. Said of IT components. Recognition that an upfront price tag is not the whole story. There are other costs in the long run: hardware and software, maintenance, support, staff, licensing, etc.

In the future, you might try the Jargon File.

Heh, actually it's been around for a while. From the jargon file:

--------
automagically /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ adv.

Automatically, but in a way that, for some reason (typically because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the speaker doesn't feel like explaining to you. See magic. "The C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically invokes cc(1) to produce an executable."

This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s in jargon and probably much earlier. The word `automagic' occurred in advertising (for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s.
--------

Heh, actually it's been around for a while. From the jargon file:

--------
automagically /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ adv.

Automatically, but in a way that, for some reason (typically because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the speaker doesn't feel like explaining to you. See magic. "The C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically invokes cc(1) to produce an executable."

This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s in jargon and probably much earlier. The word `automagic' occurred in advertising (for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s.
--------

I puked when I found out the the 4 drives I need to get this running will cost me $3500.00 from compaq.
...why cant they use standard hotplug drives and mounts?

It is well understood that the more times you see an image, the more likely you are to purchase its related product when you are wandering down the store aisles, wondering what to purchase. You've had the moment when you're standing in front of seven different brands of raisin brans, and you opt for one or another, little calculating that the one you purchased was simply imprinted upon your brain more times in recent advertising.

Google strides like a valiant and noble knight, a Don Quixote on a mission from heaven, to clear the mindscape of all those lurching, fragmented thoughts: "buy me!" "buy me!" "buy me!"

Like a gift from another universe, where things are cleaner, and evaluated by merit rather than popularity, Google presents an elaborate algorithm for sorting websites into fields of clarity. So insightful is their methodology, other larger search engines have bowed to this upstart. Even the mighty Yahoo, the first big engine on the 'net, has Google under the hood. So do a dozen other search engines, and thousands of sites who have turned their proprietary search functions over to the agile Google churner. AltaVista, Lycos, metacrawlers, and a few other great ones keep the American principle of competition solid, yet here we behold the miracle of Google.

We programmers watched Google come from behind, for we needed a relevance-based engine long before anyone else did: we had to have it so we could put it in the hands of others who needed our services; we were developers: we knew the information was out there, and were willing to spend hours tracking it down. Somewhere along the way, we'd stumble across this small search engine called Google, and discover that it turned up amazingly relevant searches, time and time again. No advertising. Quick.

So we bookmarked it, then we earmarked it, and finally we began to deliver the most precious kind of advertising which can be earned: we told our friends about it. And we delighted in the lack of advertising. Truly a geek's machine; sleek and relevant.

We watched the Internet bubble come crashing down around its own self- exuberance; we all know at least one programmer humbled by the rapid withdrawal of venture capital.

And so we watch Google carefully now, knowing that it is still bearing fruit for its venture capital investors, yet also knowing that our economy is continuing to draw inward, and as carefully as we form our sentences regarding the future of our welfare... we hold our breath when we visit Google each day for its wealth of free, friendly, and advertising-free three billion interrelated facets of information.

We watched Google handle the September 11 tragedy, worried that it might spark them into becoming a news portal, since their cache ability made them compete with sites like CNN which were swamped with 50,000 hits per second... and we saw Google come out cleanly, building on the crisis in a noble, not-capitalizing-on-the-crisis, manner. Now you can visit Google and find current information; it's a portal, yet ever so quietly, since there are no advertisements. Portals have become synonymous with a barrage of advertising, so what do we call this gallant creature who will not stoop to capitalism?

It's just a humble search engine: A search engine which points the way into a future with a clean mindscape. We may not all make it there; spammers prove that they'll come into such a future kicking and screaming for attention, and since we know that we all have to arrive together or else we none of us can arrive, we tolerate them.

Yes, we hold our breath each time we visit Google, lest they make that sad plunge into our noisy world instead of rising above it. And we are continually surprised by the improvements which they are making. These are not trivial improvements, simple cosmetic additions; one by one they have expanded our notion of how powerful a search engine can be, how it can nimbly reach into the deepest crevices of the Internet and produce a slew of relevant information on obscure topics. Search within groups. Search for images. Search only for images which are wallpaper sized from sites in Europe and are black and white.

The essence of the Internet, the information revolution, has somehow been bestowed upon the novel minds working for Google. We look at their job offerings, and yearn for the day when we can deserve such benevolence as to work for Google. Certainly only the best of the best work for Google (or id). They play hockey in their parking lots, and eat catered food every day. Ah, there we begin holding our breath. We like to have fun at work, but too much fun is a sign of venture capital.

How do they do it, how do they keep going, and going, and going without losing integrity by selling ads or trying to do too much? Google quietly inspires us to consider a world without advertising. Oh, they take advertising alright, yet look at it: it's extremely targeted, intended to be relevant to the searcher. With a thick black line separating advertising and content. No advertiser images. None of this irrelevant barrage. Looking for a new ISP? Here's twenty links, and over here in the corner, ten folks who've paid us money to be listed when you search for ISPs. Google drew a distinct line between the advertiser content and their own content. And they steadfastly looked toward our needs when they tolerated no images. Text- based. Get the information into the hand of the gentleman while he needs it, and trust that he will come back later with a thank-you note in hand.

Well, here is one thank you note. I hold my breath each time I visit Google, and I use it extensively, and have for years. I was Googling when Google wasn't yet cool, and I'm delighted to see it surviving. I hope they remain solid in their condition of accepting no image-based advertisements, and pray they will continue to inspire us with clarity on the concept of what it means to serve.

The cache concept, now firmly entrenched in the way we conceive of the Internet, is perhaps the greatest aspect of the information revolution: You once published a site, but now it is defunct. Or your site is presently being slashdotted or DOS'd. No problem, visit the Google cache for the site, and there's your info, as clear and sometimes quicker than the original version. The folks at archive.org have taken this idea and run with it, yet I must admit the first time I realized how profoundly differently we were going to be processing information in the future came when I understood what Google was doing with their cache. I prayed then, and the prayer was answered, that the cache would not be shut down because of re-publishing rights issues. Now Google has enough momentum that it would take an act of Congress to shut off their caching.

Take a look at Google. Unlike most companies with bold pretty mission statements hiding inner corruption, Google somehow matches their ten operating principles with immediate proof. They do it right; they work hard for their money.

How much ass does Google kick? All of it.

Remember when searching the Internet was hard? The dark days when we relied on dumb-as-sand machine intelligences, like those on the back-ends of AltaVista and Lycos, to rank the documents that matched our keywords? The grim era before Google, when searching was a spew of boolean mumbo-jumbo, NEAR this, NOT that, AND the other?

God, that sucked.

Lucky for the Internet, Google figured out the One True Way to make sense of the Internet, to defeat gamers of the system and send info-free brochureware plummeting to number n - 1 out of n results.

They did it with our help. Google's near-magical ordering of the Internet is built around the notion that computers are good at doing repetitive, uncreative things -- fetishistically counting things, for example -- and rotten at understanding why they're being asked to do these boring tasks. By contrast, human beings are great at understanding why they're doing something, but they're woefully deficient in the do-the-same-thing-perfectly-and-forever department.

AltaVista tried to get computers to do both the repetitive parts (capturing billions of documents) and the creative parts (figuring out what the documents are about). This yielded the largest collection of randomly organized documents in the world, a Web-accessible version of a library where all the books have been re-shelved by axe-grinding illiterates who wanted to make sure that no matter what you were looking for, you'd find porn.

Yahoo tried just the opposite, getting human beings to manually identify and describe all the documents comprising what was meant to be an exhaustive index of all the worthwhile pages on the Web. There were "scaling issues" involved in this laudable effort (for "scaling issues" here, substitute "catastrophic failures"), and over time, Yahoo's directory dwindled to an increasingly marginal sliver of the Internet's vastness. At the rate that Yahoo's army of indexers work, and at the rate that the Internet's unwashed horde of writers is adding to the noosphere, it's only a matter of a few years before every human being alive will have to pass his or her every working hour contributing to Yahoo's index, just to keep its sliver from dwindling into utter pointlessness.

Let humans do what they do; let computers do the same.

Google bridges the divide between human-generated indexes and machine-generated analysis.

Y'see, the Web is full of people like you and me, making links between documents; human beings, making decisions about documents, voting with their links. When I link to some arbitrary document, it's an indication that I think that it's in some way authoritative. When you link to a document I wrote, you're indicating that I'm in some way authoritative. The Internet is already structured in a meaningful way, but that structure is obscured. Google teases out the relationship between the URLs, examining the webs of authority: this person is linked to by 50,000 others, and he links to this other person over here, which indicates that person one is a pretty sharp individual, one who's inspired 50,000 human beings to take time out of their busy schedules to link to him; and person one thinks that person two is on the ball, which suggests that person two knows what she's on about.

It's a best-of-both-worlds solution. The computers at Google are asked to tirelessly count and re-count the number and destination of links on every page that Scooter, the Googlebot, can lay its user-agent on. Those links are made by human beings, doing what they do best, link by link, drip by drip, layering a film of order over the Internet.

The approach works well. Eerily well. Enter a couple of search terms, and biff-bam, the most authoritative documents containing those keywords are served up in an instant. Nearly every document on the Web has a human decision associated with it for Google to glom onto; that's because nearly every document on the Web has a human author. Human authors don't just put documents onto the Web; they put them into the Web, into the meshed hairball of incoming and outgoing links, indicating not only what keywords the document contains, but also who the document's author believes is authoritative, and vice versa.

It's quite elegant.

An imperfect forgettery

Meatspace ASCII, the revered printed word, has many things going for it:

• It's high-resolution: Whether scrawled with a toddler's crayon or hammered out by a quaint, humming Selectric's print-ball, a traditionally printed word is an order of magnitude sharper and better-defined than the phosphors marching across your screen.
• It requires no specialized reader: A printed word can be read by any literate human being during daylight hours without any particular technological assist, specialized readers, or even electricity.
• It is hard to make obsolete: Printed works don't staledate the way that electronic words do. It's difficult to apply "digital rights management" schemes to the printed word that will stymie generations to come with bizarre cryptosystems that seek to circumvent posterity.

As someone in possession of tens of thousands of books, I understand why people get misty and sentimental about dead-tree libraries. As someone who has moved twice in the past 18 months, I feel compelled to point out that the printed word has a couple of major downsides:

• It is fragile: We print books on the same substrate we employ for cleaning our nether regions after excreting. Think about that for a second: Paper is considered degradable enough to flush billions of sheets of it down the crapper every day, and yet we entrust our precious words to a material that auto-incinerates if you put it into contact with oxygen.

  Well, so what? We've got mass production techniques that will let us preserve our most important documents by making millions of copies of them. Which brings us to the next problem:

• It is bulky. Moving-box companies sell specialized shipping boxes for books, boxes that are smaller than all the other species of boxen. That's because books are freakin' heavy. They're made from trees!

Every year, storage media increases in density, decreases in size, and gets cheaper. I can fit all the hard drives of all the computers I've owned, plus all the floppies for all the computers that I owned before hard drives were common, onto the hard drive of my latest laptop, with storage to spare. Hell, most of that stuff will fit on my iPod! The data that previously occupied a roomful of storage devices now fits comfortably in my pocket.

In a world of degradable storage, replicating copies is the surest way to guarantee longevity. Whether your data is in atoms or bits, the more copies you make of it and the more widely you disperse it, the greater the likelihood that your data will persist forever. (That's why Jaron Lanier jokingly proposed encoding printed matter into the DNA of the notoriously prolific cockroach, as a means of ensuring archives through a nuclear war and beyond.)

With bulky printed words, only the commercially successful (and hence prolific) and very lucky works are likely to survive the voyage through history. All the words we write try to crowd into the lifeboat, but only a lucky few survive.

The historical forgettery is something of a blessing, though. Many's the word that's been penned, in casual correspondence or published works, that is best forgotten. I know that I've written a few things I'd rather no one ever saw. Much of it is embarrassing; most of it is banal. History flenses away the great bulk of utterance and leaves behind a barely manageable archive that we can get our heads around.

Words-as-bytes need not be forgotten! Storage is cheap, storage is compact, and the lifeboat has got plenty of room for every jot and tittle keyed into the Internet. Brewster Kahle built an archive with several copies of the Web at different times, using off-the-shelf PCs and standard drives.

This is a good thing, but it's also a pain in the ass. Our embarrassing excesses, drunken rants, typos and brain farts and flames no longer vanish into our sub-consciences, but rather hang around like embarrassing relatives, undeniably ours, with us forever.

There's an upside, of course. The enduring presence of our publicly stated positions acts as an accountability system, making us own up to our errors and perhaps encouraging us to think carefully before putting our fingers on our keyboards. Old Usenet clients used to have a standard warning that would appear the first time you used Usenet to send a message, a dire warning to the effect that your words were about to pass from your computer and onto the computers of thousands of other people, and are you really sure that you've expressed yourself adequately?

Perfect surveillance

Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn features Lionel Essrog, a private detective with Tourette's Syndrome whose obsessive-compulsive illness makes him ideal for long, boring stake outs and wiretap parties. Once the compulsion to listen for a keyword in the soup of a rambling conversation or to continually re-check a staked-out doorway for a suspect has been planted in Lionel's Tourettic brain, he is unable to do anything except listen and watch until the compulsion has been satisfied.

Boring, repetitive, endless tasks don't actually require someone with a compulsive disorder to do them; computers can do them just fine. A computer can sieve through the torrent of packets passing over the Internet and look for keywords like "terrorism" and "anthrax" and "fissile" and "child-porn," then flag them for later consideration by law-enforcement officials at spooky three-letter agencies.

Law enforcement doesn't really need any specialized equipment to surveil the average netizen. Google does it better than anything else possibly could (dirty snitch), and it doesn't cost a cent.

But Google only acts on the public data that human beings are free to link to and that the Googlebot is free to discover. Private documents (email, instant messages, internal memos) are off-limits to Google. Even if you manually poured them down the Googlebot's throat, the absence of incoming or outgoing links to these documents means that they won't be placed in any meaningful context in the Googleverse.

Increasingly, law-enforcement agencies are pushing for (or owning up to) the creation of really creepy spyware projects like Eschelon, Magic Lantern, and Carnivore, systems that are placed on your computer, at your ISP or at a major Internet backbone, and used to indiscriminately capture all of the data they encounter, shunting it off to shadowy bunkers where the secret masters of the universe can use it to shine a light up the skirts of your privacy and, possibly, that of criminals, too.

People are, rightfully, very upset about all of this. Continuous wiretapping of the entire Internet is a revolting idea, something like the Panopticon, a prison where the warders can see your every move from perfect obscurity. It's enough to make you want to draw your blinds and curl up under the sofa.

AltaVista for them, Google for us

But what do they do with all of that data that they collect? Filter it for keywords? Fat chance. The volume of false positives (e.g., people talking about child pornography who aren't child pornographers) far exceeds the volume of actual criminal activity. Even creaky old Lycos gave up on plain-old keyword matching a long, long time ago.

Maybe they manually check it. After all, that approach worked for Yahoo, right? Oh, right, it didn't work. Scratch that.

Then they must use some hybrid approach: human editors and AI (Artificial Intelligence or Almost Implemented, take your pick) working in concert to tweeze out the most relevant material as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Right. AltaVista.

Poor bastards.

Since you knew it was a computer users' convention, you should have checked the Jargon File before resorting to the lusers' dictionaries.

I'll admit I don't know much about computer science, but I do know that it's important to keep your code clear, well-documented and easy to understand.

Well, unfortunately it's not always that simple. Let's take the Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker v3.1.9 as an example. It can crack every single password encrypted with crypt(3) containing 1 to 8 lowercase latin letters. It uses a sophisticated cryptoanalysis method, which scientists call the "Brute Force". Its main purpose is to hide domain of my electronic-mail address from spammers (see my bio). Here's the source code:

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# Shiny Metal Brute Force Crypt Cracker v3.1.9
#
# Copyright (C) 2001,2002 shiny@key.salt (shiny@output)
# http://slashdot.org/~Shiny+Metal+S./
#
# This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
# modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
# of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
# GNU General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU General
# Public License along with this program;
# if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
# 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
#
$x=substr$q,q,0,,q,2,if$q=q,plfeY04jaJnYI,;for
(++$_..$_<<3){qq,$q,eq crypt$_,$x and die
qq,$_.$x,for q,a,x$_..q,z,x$_}

As you can clearly see, the main algorithm used in this program (in the main loop) is able to always find every password (from the 1-8 lowercase latin characters set) but what does it mean? I had to use strong cryptography, because otherwise my electronic-mail address could be harvested by spambots (and therefore be used to perform unsolicited commercial mass mailing), but it also means, that this algorithm could be used to crack passwords from your /etc/passwd (or even from /etc/shadow), which usually contain passwords encrypted with crypt(3) and this could compromise the whole system security (imagine hackers having unlimited access to your PC). It's a very dangerous problem. Most of password cracking tools use the, so called, "Dictionary Method" to guess passwords, which mean that you're safe as long as you have a password like "wmctsbvg" or "obwhdrle" or even "awxolfrk", but this program will guess such passwords. My point is, that it can be to dangerous to publish a clear and well documented source code to such a dangerous tool. It could be used by one of many underground hacker groups, like the famous Script Kiddies, who don't even care that reverse engineering of this code is illegal under the DMCA. Fortunately, this program was written in Perl, which was found to be the only language, with mathematically proved possibility of secure one-way obfuscating (also known as WOL - "write only language", or WORN paradigm - "write once - read never"), so it is impossible to reverse engineer. The situation will be even improved when Perl 6 is released (read Apocalypse I, Apocalypse II, Exegesis II, Apocalypse III, Exegesis III and Apocalypse IV for a good introduction to this subject). That way, people can still use crypt(3) to encrypt their passwords, with no fear that hackers know how to crack them, the crypt(3) encryption method is as secure as before. When this program will be rewriten in Perl 6, the crypt(3) method will be actually even more secure than before, thanks to the strong source code obfuscation method. I hope I explained where the obfuscated code can be useful, but this is only one example, I'm sure there are many places where the good old obfuscation will be priceless for many decades. If you have any additional questions, feel free to contact me.

Nowadays, the money doesn't flow quite as freely. Although we only occasionally remodel our office space (usually turning old kitchens and other "play areas" into rental space), we typically do things with an eye to the budget because cheap is in, and luxury is out. And that brings me to my point here: at $400 a crack, a "smart whiteboard" is a waste of money. Even back in 1999, we paid about $10 each for standard chalkboards. And they serve their purpose: chalk is cheap (much cheaper than those fancy whiteboard markers) and they don't require a special cleaning fluid to erase them after the ink has dried for a few days. We just can't justify paying 40 times the cost just because it's "cool."

Sometimes employees will complain about the chalk dust and threaten to sue us under the ADA because they think their chalk allergies are a "disability." Recent Supreme Court rulings are in the employer's favor over such fabricated disabilities, though, and we have never actually been sued. Typically we make a habit of ridding the organization of such squeaky wheels anyway, since they hinder productivity and lower morale amongst their right-thinking co-workers.

Just my 2c.

/ali

One of these on every desk, remotely accessible over the network, and it's every(?) sysadmin's dream come true: a minimum effort LART :)

what year did the "endless September" arrive?

1993.

Uh, try the Jargon File entry for blinkenlights.

they were a hybrid endianess where the native word was big endian but the words in a long-word were swapped.

Does this mean the designers "did it all for the NUXI?" (Apologies to Limp Bizkit.) (Read More about endianness)

What an appropriate article... Now we will have to change the old Blinkenlichten so as to protect our information...

ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!
Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.

From:
http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/blink enlights.html

I believe that the word you are looking for is TANSTAAFL.

To use Raymond's The Cathedral and the Bazaar point of view as well as Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning... , as well), Windows has less and less sale value, while operating systems (including Linux and Windows) have tremendous, and ever-growing use value.

Microsoft depends on the sale value of its operating system to generate the revenue necessary to fund its continued research and development. Linux depends on its use value for futher adoption and enhancement from the community that uses and supports it.

If all goes according to ESR's and SN's predictions, operating systems will be free, unless some provide compelling value, above and beyond the capability of other free operating systems. My point is, there will probably be no room for commercial operating systems in the near future.

I think you're right. There will be room for both free and commercial software. Microsoft will just need to focus on software that can still be productized and sold for profit. Windows will likely soon not meet that burden as Linux continues to make progress.

troll

1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flame s; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbie s" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT . 2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Compare kook . 3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait , that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter .

The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings.

troll

1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flame s; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbie s" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT . 2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Compare kook . 3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait , that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter .

The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings.

troll

1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flame s; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbie s" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT . 2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Compare kook . 3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait , that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter .

The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings.

troll

1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flame s; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbie s" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT . 2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Compare kook . 3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait , that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter .

The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings.

troll

1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flame s; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbie s" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT . 2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Compare kook . 3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait , that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter .

The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings.

troll

1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flame s; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbie s" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT . 2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Compare kook . 3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait , that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter .

The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings.

troll

1. v.,n. [From the Usenet group alt.folklore.urban] To utter a posting on Usenet designed to attract predictable responses or flame s; or, the post itself. Derives from the phrase "trolling for newbie s" which in turn comes from mainstream "trolling", a style of fishing in which one trails bait through a likely spot hoping for a bite. The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies and flamers to make themselves look even more clueless than they already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't fall for the joke, you get to be in on it. See also YHBT . 2. n. An individual who chronically trolls in sense 1; regularly posts specious arguments, flames or personal attacks to a newsgroup, discussion list, or in email for no other purpose than to annoy someone or disrupt a discussion. Trolls are recognizable by the fact that they have no real interest in learning about the topic at hand - they simply want to utter flame bait. Like the ugly creatures they are named after, they exhibit no redeeming characteristics, and as such, they are recognized as a lower form of life on the net, as in, "Oh, ignore him, he's just a troll." Compare kook . 3. n. [Berkeley] Computer lab monitor. A popular campus job for CS students. Duties include helping newbies and ensuring that lab policies are followed. Probably so-called because it involves lurking in dark cavelike corners.

Some people claim that the troll (sense 1) is properly a narrower category than flame bait , that a troll is categorized by containing some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial. See also Troll-O-Meter .

The use of `troll' in either sense is a live metaphor that readily produces elaborations and combining forms. For example, one not infrequently sees the warning "Do not feed the troll" as part of a followup to troll postings.

The original document is available on ESR's site, BTW. (If you're interested.)

The original document is available on ESR's site, BTW. (If you're interested.)

Good point, there. Some of us just can't find the time for fritterware.

When you see someone with their operating system's default setup, you can conclude one of two things:

• they are too dense to know that they can customize it
• they are actually using their computer to compute

In the fight between open source and the feds, bet on the guys with the guns and badges.

I don't know about the badges, but both sides have guns.

When you have a crime to investigate, and you have no suspects, where do you start? Obviously you begin by looking at the person or persons who have the most to gain by perpetrating the crime.

This is why we must consider: who had something to gain from the disasterous crimes of September 11th? Obviously not Osama Bin Laden, who would net no financial windfall from the destruction of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he has loudly applauded the "terrorist" acts of September 11th and even tacitly taken credit for them, there is no reason to believe that he is anything more than a bandwagon jumper. Being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center has done more for his image than any amount of militant Islamic rhetoric.

But if not Bin Laden, then who?

It so happens that on December 11th, "coincidentally" 2 months after the tragedy, Credit Suisse First Boston quietly agreed to pay out US$100 million in order to settle an 18 month old investigation into its handling of certain high-profile technology IPOs (Initial Public Offerings). One of the most controversial amongst these being the IPO of VA Linux Systems, Inc. (LNUX) .

VA Linux Systems, Inc., now known as VA Software, is widely derided as a poster child of the dot-com bust, though inexplicably still in business. At the time of the IPO, VA Linux (Software) shares opened trading at nearly 10 times their $30 offer price, closing the first day of trading at $239.25. This meteoric rise made many early investors rich, strangely on account of a company which purports to sell a hobbyist operating system which can be obtained for free on the Internet. "The VA Linux initial public offering is a prime example of market manipulation in an IPO by investment banks, their customers and the issuing firm," said Steven Schulman, a partner in the law firm Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach, which specializes in filing shareholder suits.

"Because certain favored customers of the investment banks agreed to buy shares in a new issue at inflated prices in the aftermarket (in return for getting an allocation of the shares at the initial offering price) the share prices to which the IPO eventually soared were actually driven by artificial market forces," continues Schulman.

But what does the VA Software (Linux) IPO have to do with the attacks on September 11th, and what has that to do with the Credit Suisse settlement? Well, considering that VA Linux (Software) got CSFB into trouble in the first place, it stands to reason that the VA Linux (Software) Board of Directors were complicit in the stock fraud from beginning to end. As the investigation progressed against CSFB, the unscrupulous VA Software/Linux executives, their pockets bulging with filthy lucre plundered from trusting, hard-working investors, must have realized that their days in the country club were numbered if the SEC discovered their wrongdoings.

The SEC, or Securities Exchange Commission, is a federal regulatory agency, and cannot be bribed. Therefore, with a possible stint in federal prison looming large, Larry Augustin and the rest of the crooks, including outspoken gun violence advocate Eric S. Raymond, decided to undertake more active means to halt the investigation.

The Plan

It so happened that all the evidence in the CSFB/VA Linux investigation was held at the SEC Northeast Regional Office in Manhattan. More specifically, 7 World Trade Center, Suite 1300. The board decided that a simple burglary or arson attempt would not be satisfactory to destroy the evidence; anything so simple had a significant chance of being botched, and regardless of success would leave too many witnesses or living accomplices.

It was then that Eric S. Raymond suggested something he had read in a book by Tom Clancy. Crashing two planes into the World Trade Center Plaza would guarantee the destruction of the SEC offices, killing the operatives and possibly a number of SEC investigators at the same time. The plan seemed flawless, and would cost little more than the price of a few plane tickets. In a secret session, the board voted unanimously in favour of Eric's suggestion, and began to put it into action.

VA Software/Linux, at the time of planning the attacks, had no shortage of H1-B visa workers, who they employed for the purpose of writing and improving hacking, encryption, and other terrorist tools for the Linux operating system. It had been decided that a hand-picked few of these foreign H1-B workers would be used as the "patsies" in the operation. A contest was held, and the most zealotous Linux advocates were chosen for this secret assignment, direct from the board of directors. They accepted their mission after being told that, if successful, it would guarantee the adoption of Linux in the desktop market.

Alan Cox was brought into the fold to provide some planning and logistics for the mission. It was he who determined that since there was no adequate flight simulator software for Linux, the patsies would need to train at a flight school in order to pull off the plan successfully. It was also his idea to hijack a third and fourth plane for the purpose of crashing them into Washington D.C., to express his extreme rage over the DMCA, or Digital Millenium Copyright Act. The board of directors agreed with this addition to the plan in the hopes that it would help divert attention from the purpose of the WTC attack.

The H1-B workers were given false identities by using Linux hacking tools. Once they had attended the necessary flight training, they stayed at the Massachusetts home of Richard M. Stallman for a brief "faith building" retreat. During this time spent at the house of Stallman, between the nauseating stench of patchouli, Stallman's incessant, pitiful recorder playing, and Stallman's droning seminars on the grammatical and syntactical accuracy of various statements by Microsoft representatives, the H1-B workers were effectively hypnotized to the point that they were ready to lay down their lives for Free Software. It was then that they departed for Boston's Logan International Airport to board the planes.

(The preceding inside information has been obtained from a credible source close to the VA Linux/Software Board of Directors. He/she is in hiding for obvious reasons in light of this damning evidence, but has presented hard, physical evidence of VA Software/Linux's complicity in the events of 9/11 to federal investigators.)

From the annals of the Troll Library .

"Bad design or stupid user?"

Or, "Wiseass user being deliberately obtuse"?

I believe that's the best way to phrase it. Honestly, I'm not claiming that it's perfectly clear, but it never occurred to me to not get the lock icon thing. Sure, maybe it's bad UI design. Maybe one could even use it (along with so many other things in MOSX) as ammo for a philosophical argument about Object-Oriented Programming encouraging too much reuse, leading to special cases for important little details being smoothed over in the name of streamlining, even when a miswart would be appropriate.

But if he's honestly claiming that he couldn't figure out that the dialog wanted him to re-enter his password, that the closed lock icon at the bottom was an indication that the dialog was locked, and that the solution might have something to do with the "Click Me" label next to the lock... Sorry, I don't buy it. I wonder if he's yet come across a panel where, instead of the "You need an administrator name and password" text, the controls are shown but grayed out -- Andrew, if you're reading this: even though the text isn't there, the way to activate the controls is to click the lock and enter your password.

"Hmm, it says I need an admin password. There's even a little padlock icon showing that the dialog is protected. Nice window dressing, that. But where do I enter my password? The padlock's label says "Click Me", but that can't be it... Better go to System Preferences and create a new user..." Sorry, that can only be deliberate obtusity.

I don't think it's really that hard to grasp the idiom here: any panel that controls actions that require authentication has that lock, and you open it by clicking it and authenticating yourself. If you're logged in as an admin user, you can just enter your password; otherwise, if you know an admin username/password, you can enter that. Maybe the "Click the lock to make changes" text is too generic and should be customized for the specific function of each panel, and maybe the entry field should even be built into the panels (the miswart I mentioned), but is it really, honestly, that confusing?

However, his next gripe about "The item 'guest Deleted' cannot be moved to the Trash because it cannot be deleted." is completely and totally RIGHT! In fact, it's only one symptom of the syndrome that is, to me, MOSX's greatest failing: integrating and merging the metaphors and mechanisms used on the Mac side and the Unix side so that they can work together seamlessly. There are so many bugs in this area, with components not adequately aware of things like Unix permissions <=> the old Mac "locked" bit, old Mac aliases <=> Unix links, and don't even get me started on file types (too late: Couldn't they have at least made files created by Unix tools default to Mac type 'TEXT'? Then I could, for example, edit a file in Emacs and still be able to open it with CodeWarrior).

The e-mail, purportedly sent from an MSN.com address, was actually routed through the server of an elementary school in Chonnam, Korea. (emphasis mine)

It might be amusing for Wired, or one of Jones's opponents for that matter, to get in touch with the Korean embassy on this issue. I know (believe me, I know) that a lot of Korean sites are doing precious little about their open relays ... but what, I wonder, would the Korean government think about its educational resources being stolen for the furtherance of an American politician's campaign?

"We've replaced this antispammer's whack-a-mole mallets with axes of evil. Let's see if he notices ...."