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The press has analyzed this to death. Most recently, Friday's Wall Street Journal had an article about the Wii shortages. Wired also had an article last month. In a nutshell, Nintendo was screwed by poor forecasting which is key to their just-in-time manufacturing model.

The whole point of JIT is to keep inventory as low as possible in order to lower costs. Unfortunately, their original forecast for the fiscal year was 3.5 million units short of their current forecast. Low inventory on hand means they have to scramble to ramp up production. Even more unfortunate is that all their manufacturing is outsourced which apparently makes it harder to quickly bring capacity online. The WSJ article also mentions difficulties in properly allocating inventory across different markets.

Believe it or not, Netflix digital distribution might be coming to Mac (and maybe Linux) by using Microsoft technology: Silverlight. Silverlight, a Flash competitor, will supposedly bring cross-platform video support to multiple browsers (including Safari and Firefox) and its optional DRM component will supposedly be studio-sanctioned. I say "supposedly" because Windows Media has been available for the Mac for a long time, but I don't remember the DRM component ever being ported. But was it ever promised?

Netflix, Mac, and Silverlight were brought up by "Steve" (who's "responsible for the instant watching feature" on Netflix's site) on Netflix's community blog:

• Instant watching on Mac, Firefox, and more

I haven't got any motivation here except compassion for a fellow human being, and with that in mind I'm going suggest you seek help.

It seems MS is trying hard to get XP to work on the OLPC, but since the SD connection is not a standard one, they need to make the drivers to all the hardware themselves AND they so definitely can not touch any olpc GPL code they need to be very careful! Things are not going as smooth as MS would like it to be.

Some interesting stories:
concerns for this all
general info about the things MS is doing

XP is faster than vista http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2007/11/windows-xp-serv.html/

Might've been "a ballpoint pen"

FigurePrint Demo

This blog says that you'll also get a special in-game pet. Those who don't play WoW don't understand how much value people put on such things. Many people buy blizzcon tickets ($100) each year just to collect the in-game pet from that year.

You speak as if the jury actually had a choice.

Yes, they did have a choice, and made the choice to punish her severely — although not as severely as some of the jurors wanted. We even know their opinion on the matter:

In the end, "after bickering," they settled on $9,250 for each song.

"That is a compromise, yes," said Hegg, a 38-year-old steelworker from Duluth, Minnesota. "We wanted to send a message that you don't do this, that you have been warned."

During a 45-minute telephone interview, Hegg said jurors found that Thomas' defense -- that she was the victim of a spoof -- was unbelievable.

"She should have settled out of court for a few thousand dollars," Hegg said. "Spoofing? We're thinking, 'Oh my God, you got to be kidding.' "

"She's a liar," added Hegg, who just returned home following his 14-hour night shift.

From the first link - http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/12/macgyver-scienc.html

In addition to making some simpler devices, Khine and her team emblazoned a Christmas tree design into a piece of PDMS and showed how it can blend different types of food coloring to make a rainbow pattern. Since microfluidic devices are sometimes used for biological research, the young professor also showed that Chinese Hamster Ovary cells can flow through through the narrow channels.

I think it was tagged such because that's what we nerds were thinking. A new way to construct microfluidic devices, huh? Well, can we send hamster ovaries through the channels?

will be forced to repeat it.

Behold exhibit A, TBWA Chiat/Day.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/chiat.html

Yeah, and they weren't the only ones doing it back then. I remember visiting an IBM campus that had a very similar arrangement back in '97. They also had the "brilliant" idea of not having enough desk space for all of their employees, in order to encourage people to arrive early.

Look at the picture #3

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multimedia/2007/11/ff_futurama_slideshow?slide=3&slideView=5

and then say again "it's actually a carefully constructed work area" and try to remain serious.

This is from "Wired", pics about new "Futurama". The company seems to be the same one, but there are two pictures, from two offices:

From the one of the most developed country in the world (USA):
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multimedia/2007/11/ff_futurama_slideshow?slide=3&slideView=2
And from one of the "developing countries", i.e. Korea:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multimedia/2007/11/ff_futurama_slideshow?slide=11&slideView=3
Where would you like to work?

This is from "Wired", pics about new "Futurama". The company seems to be the same one, but there are two pictures, from two offices:

From the one of the most developed country in the world (USA):
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multimedia/2007/11/ff_futurama_slideshow?slide=3&slideView=2
And from one of the "developing countries", i.e. Korea:
http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/multimedia/2007/11/ff_futurama_slideshow?slide=11&slideView=3
Where would you like to work?

I recall the Wired article on Chiat Day - the employees were not happy campers and they eventually abandoned the effort - perhaps too ahead of the curve? A very funny/sad article. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/chiat.html

will be forced to repeat it.

Behold exhibit A, TBWA Chiat/Day.

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/7.02/chiat.html

But oil is pretty fungible. Reduce U.S. demand and international oil prices drop, and tyrants with their hands on the pumps get less money.

Agreed! I'd love to see an Apollo sized research program to develop a hydrogen infrastructure. Now, the problem though is that hydrogen is extracted from fossil fuels. Instead perhaps algae could be used to produce hydrogen.

DENIED! http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/11/introducing-tas.html

... but I am as confident as I am that the Sun will rise tomorrow that it will be safe from terrorists. After all, we have the children to think about.

July 12, 2005

Copyright © 2005 Michael David Crawford.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.

It seems that David Clark, who led the development of the Internet way back in the '70's - did you know there even was a '70's? - wants to create a whole new Internet that will fix many of the problems the current Internet is plagued with. The New Internet's engineers will be much more careful this time around to make sure it works better than the first one did.

I'm afraid, though, that the engineers are not the only ones who will be deciding how our New Internet will work.

If one is able to find any privacy or anonymity in this New Internet, it will be because of some undiscovered security hole, which will be quickly repaired, rather than any kind of conscious design decision. Probably one reason they are accepting proposals before rolling it out is to avoid the sort of accidental security holes that enable pr0n, peer-to-peer filesharing and left-wing political activism.

Microsoft, a leading contributor both to this nation's technology base and to the campaign coffers of its leaders, will embrace this new technology and extend it in such a way that the development and dissemination of Open Source software will be, if not mathematically and physically impossible, at least as intractible as factoring a 2048-bit public key.

Imagine, if you will, Trusted Computing implemented at the router level, in such a way that any packets that go farther than one hop are certified not only to support protocols whose patent licenses are fully paid-up and on file with the legal department in Redmond, but whose content is compliant with the Windows standard. The faintest whisp of a Public License, GNU or otherwise, will result in the dropping not only of the individual packet, not only in the cancellation of the entire file transmission, but, within microseconds, the reporting of the physical location of the offending server to responsible law enforcement personnel. The identities of its rogue administrators will be fetched instantly from the database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. (You will have to submit fingerprints and DNA samples to obtain a Windows server license, as after all, Internet servers can be used to disseminate explosives r

Wired Magazine famously squatted mcdonalds.com in 1994. Worth a read for those wondering what the pre-dot-com corporate mentality was like.

But... Microsoft told me they take security seriously! They wouldn't lie to me!

Code scavenging is seen as the most frequent and least complex way of re-using code and has been common practice at an informal level since programming first began. Programming is difficult to teach and most programmers learn their chops by looking at working code and using it as the basis for building their own programs. In other words, they "scavenge" the good bits and tweak them to a new purpose.

The term scavenging appears to have first surfaced as a formal concept in a 1992 paper by Charles Krueger of Carnegie Mellon University. It was tested by academics in the 1990s but rejected because it yielded few gains for a lot of effort.

According to Hackett, code scavenging is worth re-visiting because the Web makes it easier to find code and re-use it. He points to sites where massive amounts of existing code are available for potential scavenging such as Google code search, Sourceforge, Code Project, Microsoft's Codeplex, and O'Reilly's Code Search. Others include the Free Software Foundation (FSF), FreeVBcode.com, Freecountry and Freshmeat.

So, code scavenging is... um, re-use? Can anyone make better sense of that than I can?

"In other words, they 'scavenge' the good bits and tweak them to a new purpose."

Um, no. You scavenge the pieces you need, not necessarily the good bits. Have you ever been looking for some code to do parse phone numbers, and while looking at source, said "Hey! This looks like a great way to compare two lists!" Probably not. You're only looking for formatting code, so that's all you see, so that's all you get. Looking at source is not like looking at produce at the food store, where you can walk by the tomatoes and they catch your eye because they're perfectly ripe and really, really nice-looking.

Rather than searching Google, I think every good programmer should take the time to create a really good library. I don't mean take the time writing great code, I mean take the time to organize it into a proper library: make one, clean, well-commented version; put things into variables, ($tableName in queries instead of the actual table name, etc.) and pull code from that when you need it, rather than just copying-and-pasting from the last place you remember using it and then changing all the variable names, table names, etc.

I plan to make mine Real Soon Now. :-)

>> So, how quickly would you run afoul of Intellectual Property laws doing this?

> That's a great knee-jerk reaction.

No, that's just the first thing that popped into his head. (Pardon me if I'm putting words in your mouth, Mr. Gambit.) With that one sentence, he did not say (or imply) "The only people who would use this are thieves." He just put out that question for people to discuss. That topic came up here just a couple days ago. I highly recommend reading that discussion. There are some very good points; among them, that if you publish something with no licensing info, it is copyrighted to you by default. (In the US at least,

I have a five month old and I've been observing his progress since birth. It is quite interesting how he learns. First of all, you have to understand that long before a baby is born it is moving around in the dark, learning muscle control (feedback loop). When it is born, the senses of touch, smell, hearing and sight are already there and developed. The baby just doesn't know what to make of the stimuli. Learning is when the baby starts associating one or more of these inputs with satisfying it's needs (hunger, changed, sleep, general attention). Babies "see" with their mouths, since the mouth is the most sensitive touch center, so they are constantly trying to bring things to their mouths, or their mouths to things. I heard about a project (Deb Roy at MIT) to capture literally every input a baby recieves while he/she is developing. He wired his house with cameras and microphones so all stimuli are being captured. They are also in tandem storing developmental milestones in the baby's life. From the resulting data warehouse they are hoping to find patterns that will help develop language learning models.

Motion is quite a bit simpler, only with language do we truely understand why we want to grab something, and that influences everything about our grasp. We know to grab a rock with both hands, and an egg gently.

Isn't that not just bad and nasty but completely illegal?


That's a firm 'maybe'. It's not a real stretch to apply a law like criminal impersonation to this. (see above thread) The problem would be to get a decent AG to actually file the charges. It would be much easier to just file a fraud lawsuit and turn it into a class action.

Ryan Singel at Wired has some notes about this as well. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/09/are-comcasts-al.html

"You always have plausible deniability"

Yeah, that worked splendidly in the Jammie Thomas case.

"Nothing can protect you from having to deal with the police or the FBI."

Well, not completely, but I would say not allowing people to commit crimes on your network would do something to dissuade that a little bit. And this headline couldn't more clearly refute your claim - "Child porn case shows that an open WiFi network is no defense". From TFA -
The merits of leaving your wireless access point (WAP) open have been discussed and debated at length, especially when it comes to law enforcement. There is a growing belief that file sharers can protect themselves against lawsuits by keeping their wireless access points open. The problem is, it won't necessarily.
A Texas man who was convicted of possessing child pornography tried to use his open WiFi network as a defense, saying that someone else could have used the same network to traffic in pornographic images. The US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit didn't buy his argument and upheld the conviction.

So while I do admire your spirit, you are obviously NAL and should stop dispensing questionable legal advice. I mean who should I believe - you or the US Supreme Court when it comes to legal questions about WiFi?

There are open source patent portfolios which have been accumulated specifically to defend open source projects. I am sure that they infringe at least a few, perhaps more. Hit them with infringement suits and a cease and desist order for their products, and I expect they would quickly come to some bilateral licensing agreement.

Unless this is a company that stands to make more from "certain investors" than from continuing in their normal line of business, in which case we need to make an example by invalidating their patent claims and sue them for infringement of OS patents.

Wht I've sen pretty often as well is that once the strikers get all they wanted after weeks of strikes: pay us our strike days or we keep going.

On top of that unions often behave as mobs; torture, kidnaping and even eco-terrorism (dump toxic stuff in rivers) is not beyond them.

Well, considering Vista's "Content Protection" is talked about very specifically by Microsoft itself, including Windows Vista Content Protection - Twenty Questions (and Answers), it would appear that nobody including Microsoft is denying its existence in Vista, or that it goes far beyond what any previous operating system would do with regard to "Content Protection."

Here's a quote specifically from the the link above, which is provided by Microsoft itself:

"Windows Vista includes content protection infrastructure specifically designed to help ensure that protected commercial audiovisual content, such as newly released HD-DVD or Blu-Ray discs, can be enjoyed on Windows Vista PCs. In many cases this content has policies associated with its use that must be enforced by playback devices. The policies associated with such content are applicable to all types of devices including Windows Vista PCs, computers running non-Windows operating systems, and standalone consumer electronics devices such as DVD players. If the policies required protections that Windows Vista couldn't support, then the content would not be able to play at all on Windows Vista PCs."

Just because you have yet to run into Vista's DRM or that you don't deal much with A/V content that would cause you to notice limitations when using Vista doesn't mean that it isn't a significant issue for many people. Oh, and if you read the questions Microsoft responded to in the Vista blog you will also notice that Microsoft does admit the DRM will increase CPU resource consumption.

Wired also has an article covering Vista's DRM that specifically addresses criticism of Vista's DRM and Microsoft's response to that criticism. And if you'd like to see what your boss is reading, Forbes also has an article on Vista DRM entitled "Why Vista's DRM Is Bad For You."

Perhaps you should do some research before you post.

I wrote a blog post that asked the question: Can Tasers Kill People? From that point on, scientific literature did the talking for me. http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2007/11/scientists-tase.html Shortly after that Taser International sent sixty demand letters to different news agencies that had run stories slamming their product. Luckily, we did not get one. http://www.edmontonsun.com/News/Canada/2007/11/21/4674977.html They appear to be more litigious than the Church of Scientology. Xenu be praised.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2007/10/gallery_fluorescentneurons

So, in other words, the British nukes could have been armed by anyone possessing a Bic pen.

"According to this article, our good friends at the NSA "may" have put backdoors in some of the technologies that could be used by Skype."

Roll your own, use a publicly available AES implementation, or Rijndael's original cipher. Also, the NSA aren't quite as clever as you think. Pretty good I'm sure, but the level of paranoia about them is nuts.

There's no reason at all not to be able to do secure comms on windows. And if it's behind NAT then there's no reason that it should be compromised either. Any OS surely has the capability to intercept and record audio from the sound card, but will present different difficulties in gaining access and/or installing the software.

"the Bundespolizei (that's German police to you) may not have the means to decipher your skype communications right now. But it's getting there, thank you very much"

I would dispute this. Unless they can come into your house and gain physical access to your PC whilst you're out.

"And there are agencies out there who certainly can, and will."

I don't think so.

According to this PDF document, Skype encryption is based on open standard (such as AES, SHA-1, etc).

According to this article, our good friends at the NSA "may" have put backdoors in some of the technologies that could be used by Skype.

And, then, according to this other article, it does not matter what technologies you use, if your CPU is wide open to analysis and crypto attacks.

And, of course, there is the question of using a 'secure' communication system on a completely insecure operating system, such as Windows. Why do you think they talk of intercepting the communication before it becomes encrypted? Probably because the vast majority of suspects use Windows. Using Linux, or MacOS, would not be much of an improvement either.

Conclusion? Well, the Bundespolizei (that's German police to you) may not have the means to decipher your skype communications right now. But it's getting there, thank yo uvery much. And there are agencies out there who certainly can, and will.

And what happened to free german crypto? I thought Germany had the only sane policy about crypto in the industrial world?

Check out this Wired piece: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.02/wind.html

What a conjob
"# With the initial mapping of the human genome, scientists are moving rapidly toward the following likely breakthroughs for gene-based products and services:
* creation of an individual's genome map for a retail price of less than $1,000

This was announced last week...no waiting. Come on down.

Not exactly. Google's doing this everywhere. It's not because of privacy laws (there are very, very few privacy laws on the books in the U.S. and Canada, btw -- there is no such thing as a 'Constitutional right to privacy'), but only because of complaints. In the words of Google's Marissa Mayer: "[We] looked at it and we thought that's really silly because that's not the point of this product. The purpose is to show what the stores look like, what houses look like, if someone says, 'Hey, there's a face here,' ... it doesn't matter whose face it is." (source)

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/11/pgp-creator-def.html

Perhaps most of physics is "right" (-ish, that is of course), and you only take exception to some small portion of it that's clearly wrong?

You know, if you weren't so stubborn about reading things that you don't already agree with, you could quite easily find the answer. It's interesting that you will waste your time arguing with me over these things, and yet you won't actually spend the money or time to understand what the theory states. I am confident of my understanding of what is happening because I've expanded my awareness of what they theory says beyond yours. Your carefully-crafted arguments seem to me like one long drawn-out excuse to avoid challenging your own belief system. The idea that you would be preventing me from spreading misinformation on Slashdot is silly when you've yet to fully read what is being alleged.

"Some scientists were scorned during life and posthumously proven correct, so it's at least likely if not necessary that scorned scientists are correct." That's a false generalization.

That's clever. It wasn't meant as a generalization. It was intended as a rebuttal to your allegation that ...

If there's observation in support of a scientific model, then that is the model that "mainstream" science will accept, ipso facto.

Your perception that I'm making sweeping generalizations is not accurate. The debate over the mathematical modeling of space plasmas is specific in its claims and philosophy and history of science can assist us in reaching a conclusion.

The majority of EU proponents steadfastly ignore the fact that the Standard Model is a more thorough framework, with fewer holes and more supporting evidence than the competing and largely mutually exclusive EU theory.

And yet, your thorough framework could come crumbling down like a house of cards at any moment ...

http://plasmascience.net/tpu/downloadsCosmo/Verschuur-CIV-HI-TPS-Aug2007b.pdf

Or in layman's terms ...

http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2007/11/big_bang

As a sidenote, Wallace Thornhill's "The Electric Universe" was the first published book
to reference Verschuur's allegations ...

When the COBE satellite measured the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) at 2.7 Kelvin, proponents of the Big Bang immediately announced that the measurement ?confirmed? their theory. Principal investigator of the COBE team, Dr. John Mather: ?The Big Bang Theory comes out a winner.? John Huchra, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University: ?The discovery of the 2.7 degree background was the clincher for the current cosmological model, the hot Big Bang.? And astrophysicist Michael Turner: ?The significance of this cannot be overstated. They have found the Holy Grail of cosmology.? Did the measurement of the CMBR actually confirm a prediction of the Big Bang hypothesis? The truth is that predictions by other theorists, who did not base their estimates on the Big Bang, were a great deal closer.

The first astronomer to collect observations from which the temperature of space could be calculated was Andrew McKellar. In 1941 he announced a temperature of 2.3K from radiative excitation of certain molecules. But World War II occupied everyone?s attention and his paper was ignored. In 1954, Finlay-Freundlich predicted 1.9K to 6K based on ?tired light? assumptions. Tigran Shmaonov estimated 3K in 1955. In 1896, Charles Edouard Guillaume predicted a temperature of 5.6K from heating by starlight. Arthur Eddington refined the calculations in 1926 and predicted a temperature of 3K. Eric Regener predicted 2.8K in 1933.

In fact, the proponents of the Big Bang had made the worst predictions. Rob

This is my Samsung Z5 music player. I bought it new for £125, you can get it for a fair bit less now.

This is the Bang & Olufsen Beosound 6. Looks kinda similar, doesn't it? That's because it's the same player with a bit of a facelift. It's yours for £400 if you're stupid enough.

Sometimes you do get what you pay for, it's true. But not if it's B&O.

Here are some some links that were in related /. stories :

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70179-0.html?tw=wn_index_2
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0515/p13s01-stct.html

Basically about 50% of replies between normal people are misinterpreted.

jdb2

"And really, don't say to me that there is no value-added way to use JavaScript on webpages" - by FST777 (913657) on Monday November 19, @10:33AM (#21407579) ----

Yes, you mean like THESE (which you also missed in your skimming):

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/11/doubleclick

&

http://apcmag.com/5382/microsoft_apologises_for_serving_malware_to_customers

For example - if you follow security related news, you will see that JavaScript is the key avenue being used against you in today's attacks (even thru adbanners!

(You know - the kind of "value adds" in the adbanners that slow you down as is by loading them (ADBANNER HOSTS FILE BLOCKING TIME, lol), but also, expose you to virus/trojan/spyware/malware, as those do above)

They are NOT the only ones the past few years either, but 2 of many I could site in fact where adbanners that are javascript driven create exploits like these...

(Heck - most of the exploits plaguing browsers & email clients today? Javascripted (or, activeX but you see far more javascript ones lately in spywares)).

Yea... some "value add" there, that (no thanks, I'll stay safe & virus/trojan/spyware/malware free instead)!

----

"There are many, but they are not often used, because we have to keep in mind that a lot of paranoid sheep disable JavaScript completely." - by FST777 (913657) on Monday November 19, @10:33AM (#21407579)

LOL, sure some (that are good, for banking &/or shopping sites, 2 examples I put up in my init. post you'd be right, but... check out the two "many value adds" (not) I point out above, one is VERY RECENT (past couple days in fact)).

Plus - I addressed that already (I make exceptions sites & state it explicitly & HOW TO, as safely as possible in my init. post by using either Opera 9.24 OR Netscape 9.0.0.3 as the choices I'd use since they bear the least unpatched vulnerabilities @ 0% for BOTH)!

Again - your skimming did you in badly...

APK

P.S.=> Better luck next time, & DO read folks' posts completely thru next time ok? It'll save you some "egg on your face", but... you only have yourself to blame on that account, not I... apk

The one in the article is broken

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/11/doubleclick

Make no mistake, the Japanese -are- pissed because as far as they're concerned, fansubs devalue their product.

They are and they aren't. In Japan fan-based Manga is not usually squashed, on the condition that print volumes are small and they aren't trying to make money off them. The attitude is that companies won't go after these creators, if these creators keep things small. Japanese Manga companies realise that much of the future talent is going to be found in these fan-based comics. This is the sort of thing that companies in the USA haven't understood yet, but then again when you consider the readership in Japan of Manga you will realise how important it is to modern Japanese pop culture.

The latest issue of Wired has a good article on this:

  http://www.wired.com/wired/issue/15-11

with an online version being here:

  http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-11/ff_manga

Make no mistake, the Japanese -are- pissed because as far as they're concerned, fansubs devalue their product.

They are and they aren't. In Japan fan-based Manga is not usually squashed, on the condition that print volumes are small and they aren't trying to make money off them. The attitude is that companies won't go after these creators, if these creators keep things small. Japanese Manga companies realise that much of the future talent is going to be found in these fan-based comics. This is the sort of thing that companies in the USA haven't understood yet, but then again when you consider the readership in Japan of Manga you will realise how important it is to modern Japanese pop culture.

The latest issue of Wired has a good article on this:

  http://www.wired.com/wired/issue/15-11

with an online version being here:

  http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/15-11/ff_manga

The flibby link is identical to this Wired blog post by Betsy Schiffman, dated four days earlier.

"UAC is basically SEWindows" - by ctr2sprt (574731) on Sunday November 18, @06:48PM (#21401669)

No, this is more like it (& the 12 steps it uses to make Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003, & yes, even VISTA in many of its principles, more secured):

http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?s=f4b0388085f46ffe45bbc0c4acf7b358&p=500261#post500261

It works.

APK

P.S.=> It's as secure as I can make a Windows machine, & I hope you all try it (those of you that use Windows) & gain the same as I have... I would also add this onto it (stopping Java/JavaScript/ActiveX usage on the public internet since unfortunately, they are used against you @ times, even in adbanners the past few years now):

AN IMPORTANT POINT:

STOP JAVASCRIPT USAGE IN YOUR BROWSERS (along with ActiveX & JAVA) On the PUBLIC internet, PERIOD!

Why? Well, read on:

Fact is, that today? Well... Javascript's dangerous & can be used AGAINST you, as well as help you... it truly is, or can be, a 'double-edged sword'...

(For example - if you follow security related news, you will see that JavaScript is the key avenue being used against you in today's attacks (even thru adbanners!)). Some examples:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/11/doubleclick

&

http://apcmag.com/5382/microsoft_apologises_for_serving_malware_to_customers

If you MUST use Javascript (for instance, on a particular site like banking or shopping oriented ones)?

Try "NoScript" (the .xpi addon for FireFox/Mozilla/NetScape 9 etc.) & let it let YOU decide sites to use it on, & then DISABLE JAVA/JAVASCRIPT globally...

(& if you use IE, trying to do the same can be a nightmare (as IE will "nag you to death" if you turn off javascript on sites that use it)).

Opera has similar functionality, ALBEIT, built into it by default as a NATIVE tool!

I.E.-> The ability to GLOBALLY block scripting tools like Javascript, BUT... to also allow it for sites you MUST use it on as exceptions to the GLOBAL rule set in Tools, Preferences menus it has on its menubar.

Opera has the NATIVE BUILT IN ABILITY to allow you to use it on sites you visit IF you must, via rightclicks on the page & "EDIT SITE PREFERENCES" popup menu submenu item that appears.

Either way? It works, & I STRONGLY recommend this. I also recommend Opera for these reasons (less security holes period, & the 1 it had yesterday? Patched yesterday too... fast!)

SECUNIA DATA ON BROWSER SECURITY (dated 10/20/2007):

Opera 9.24 security advisories @ SECUNIA (0% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/product/10615/?task=advisories

* NETSCAPE 9.0.0.3 also qualifies here, as does Opera, with 0% unpatched known bugs/issues!

FireFox 2.0.0.9 security advisories @ SECUNIA (25% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/product/12434/

IE 7 (latest cumulative update from MS) security advisories @ SECUNIA (40% unpatched):

http://secunia.com/product/12366/

Those %'s are the latest for FireFox 2.0.0.8, IE7 after last "patch Tuesday" from MS with the "CUMULATIVE IE UPDATES" they have (see the security downloads URL I post in the 12 steps above to secure yourself), & Opera 9.24... all latest/greatest models.

So, as you can see?

Well, NOT ONLY IS OPERA MORE SECURE/BEARING LESS SECURITY VULNERABILITIES?

It's faster too, on just about ANYTHING a browser does, & is probably the MOST sta

Just use a lava lamp or a camera with the lens cap on.

Would you trust a secure webmail company that uses Outlook? This certainly looks like a printout from Outlook to me. http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/files/hush_klp.pdf

1. Hushmail was served with a court order issued by the British Columbia Supreme Court (the Feds in Bakersfield, CA had to forward their request to the Canadian government)
2. Hushmail glosses over the vulnerability to private key capture in their non-Java based web client, but it is mentioned. The Java client never transmits the private key (you still must trust the client, source code is available; compare the hashes)
3. No, Hushmail's TOS do not prevent them with complying with a legal court order. Their users also must not break the law, per the TOS.
4. Hushmail followed Canadian law perfectly.