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There's a new article at the Wired News site:

Slashdot Enters Dutch IPO Oven

There's a new article at the Wired News site:

Slashdot Enters Dutch IPO Oven

• Mother Earth, Motherboard, a terrific study of global data networking
• In The Kingdom of Mao Bell about telecommunications in Shenzhen

• Mother Earth, Motherboard, a terrific study of global data networking
• In The Kingdom of Mao Bell about telecommunications in Shenzhen

Yeah. I read the wired article and had the same reaction you did. I thought I'd post the link since it is a very good article: http://www.wired.com/news/news/politics/story/2181 0.html

E-Commerce, may be the ticket, but this article from HotWired actually has, IMHO, the best and most intelligent explanation for all this hoopla.

Read it, and go "ah-ha"!

According to the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) piracy is not the key issue facing the music industry. She feels that by locking down internet music distribution people might be encouraged even more to 'steal' [music].

This was said in front of a lot of music industry suits at the recent Digital Distribution and the Music industry '99 conference.

I've seen a lot of arguments for the free electronic distribution of music via the internet. One that usually surfaces is that people will be encouraged to buy the original after having easy&free access to it.

My question is: will people or are people currently doing this? I have to admit that the most of the MP3's on my workstation != the CD's in my car!

...by the pricking of my thumbs,

According to the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) piracy is not the key issue facing the music industry. She feels that by locking down internet music distribution people might be encouraged even more to 'steal' [music].

This was said in front of a lot of music industry suits at the recent Digital Distribution and the Music industry '99 conference.

I've seen a lot of arguments for the free electronic distribution of music via the internet. One that usually surfaces is that people will be encouraged to buy the original after having easy&free access to it.

My question is: will people or are people currently doing this? I have to admit that the most of the MP3's on my workstation != the CD's in my car!

...by the pricking of my thumbs,

William Gibson had a very good piece in Wired on the same subject at http://www.wired.com/wired/archiv e/7.01/ebay.html. It also (very successfully and poetically, I thought) brought eBay addiction into a more far-reaching context. Plus it convinced me that he could do much, much more than sci-fi.

Yep, that's what the Munich Censorship Summit is really about: scared corporations who understand that the decentralized nature of the Internet is a cheap distribution system which undermines the channels they have dominated for years. There is an interesting sidebar to this in Steve Kettman's Wired report today on the summit titled "Untangling the Web We Weave" http://www.wired.com/news/ news/politics/story/21719.html Pay careful attention to page 3, especially the four paragraphs which start with: "Established publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post would not rate themselves -- it was agreed they would likely consider the ratings demeaning. But a media white list would identify both papers." I live in Washington, DC and occasionally read the Post. It's a crappy paper, no better than just about any other daily paper in the U.S. It's standards for accuracy are no better than any other paper either. In fact, it can be demonstrated that the Post is simply the official organ of the U.S. State Department. The NY Times is little better, as critics like Noam Chomksy have demonstrated. We need to disabuse people of the notion that just because a website is the official voice of a corporation with lots of name recognition, that this means that the site is more accurate OR USEFUL than some DIY site made by Jane Public. For example, would you rather go to some Star Trek fan site, or the one run by Microsoft? The idea that the "papers of record" would be exampt from any ratings scheme shows what the true intentions of the proposals are: to control the Internet and turn it into a contnet delivery mechanism such as television or the distro networks controlled by newspapers (newstand sales, distro trucks, printing plants, etc.) I think they will fail in the long run, because they really don't understand that the Internet is beyond their control, but they will screw it up as much as they can. Lastly, I greatly prefer and rely on the technology news of Slashdot over anything the Washington Post or the NY Times can dish out. Slashdot is a glowing example of how DIY and alternative media can do a better job of providing information to interested readers, once the barriers of money are removed. Against Bertelsmann's gold-plated soapbox, Chuck0 Mid-Atlantic Infoshop http://www.infoshop.org Editor, Alternative Press Review http://flag.blackened.net/apr/

Methods of "soft-regulation" can be more dangerous than direct!

Reagle. Why the Internet is Good: Community governance that works well.

The US Constitution is an adept instrument of constraining direct legal regulation, "Congress shall make no law ...." However, modern regulation often is indirect, it sets incentives and disincentives for others (usually the market) to implement and enforce policies more effectively than the government ever could. Whereas Reidenberg suggests that governments should shift the "focus of government action away from direct regulation and towards indirect influence;" I find this trend to be frightening because he makes an assumption that I am unwilling to make: "The shift can, nevertheless, still preserve strong attributes of public oversight." [Reid97, 588] The US Constitution is poorly equipped to constrain indirect regulation.

Consider the following mechanisms of cyberspace regulation:

• direct: threat of violence, monetary penalties, and imprisonment by a centralized authority. Applies if you have a locatable physical presence or assets.
• indirect: direct methods are applied to third parties to create incentives or disincentives against the governed. (My ontology is similar to but differs from Reidenberg's [Reid97, 588])
• link : associate the resolution of a contentious proposal to one for which there is greater support. The US Government's Clipper III proposal linked the government's contested desire to access citizens' private encryption keys to the government's ability to grant much needed legal legitimacy to digital signatures.
• choke : regulate those that are easy to go after. Bavarian authorities prosecuted the head of the German Compuserve division for providing access to Internet materials including pornography and games that were violent or had Nazi imagery.
• gouge : regulate those that have deep pockets, often used with choke. A US Government copyright proposal criminalized the contributory infringement of copyright and made Internet Service Providers fiscally liable for the actions of their users.
• browbeat :threaten further regulatory action. US privacy policy has to date been predicated on the - rather weak - threat that if the "industry" doesn't self regulate, the government will get involved.
• herd : selectively place and remove liability to channel policy towards a goal without overtly setting the direction. "Mandatory self regulation" and safe harbor provisions are frequently proposed solutions to Internet issues.

These are the principal methods by which real world governments would like to regulate the Internet. Let us now turn to the methods the Internet has developed to regulate itself.

888-802-0082

I just switched to this plan. They announced it last week, and they seem to be overwhelmed with calls, but you can leave a message and they'll call you back (took about 2 days for me).

Here's a Wired News story with more information.

Apparently there was just a story on Wired News about an 'Entropy Engine' which sucked the latent heat out of the air around it and converted it into electrical energy. Take a look: http://www.wired.com/new s/news/technology/story/21641.html Take a look. Verence verence@usa.net

Now I got this question, what about those companies that buy domain names and then sell them for -a lot of- money ?

A company called "One in a Million" tried this in the UK some years ago, buying up a number of '.co.uk' domain names and attempting to sell them at an inflated price to the companies in question. There was a big court battle between them and a number of large companies, including Virgin and BT. The outcome was fairly predictable, I think. (Wired also has an old news article about it, as does Boardwatch.)

In the USA, the rules are a little murkier, it would seem - as this old Slashdot article shows.

--
This isn't the post you're looking for. Move along.

This whole issue has been fun to watch. When I read the first message about how Microsoft had the NSA key in Windows, I kinda wondered if they would really do that.. Couldn't really decide either way.

But the number of people that read it and instantly assumed it was true was astounding. I've had friends ask me out of the blue about it. I've heard of it through mainstream media. I've seen story after story about it.

Most of the the media people still won't admit it was jumping to conclusions. That's what really bothers me. They're mostly sticking to the "well Microsoft says it's false but who can know for sure" lines to cover their own asses (and credibility).

A Wired story says "Questions lingered Friday over whether or not security experts overreacted to a scientist's charge that Microsoft built a backdoor in Windows for a US spy agency to enter". Isn't it fairly clear that they overreacted? Or is this going to happen again the next time?

(If it's a real issue, like the Hotmail thing, then they deserve to get slammed... but come on, let's verify this stuff before we go nuts).

They run "Linux 2.0" but I couldn't find the exact distribution.

Basically they sell Linux boxes with Apache and Perl on them. Nothing that a typical /. user couldn't make, but the convenience factor is nice, and presumably they're simple enough to administer that even an MCSE could do it. .

You can start at Cobaltnet for their home page, or, being provincial, go to their North American mirror.

They were also mentioned in WiReD 7.05.

From there, you can read scads of reviews from Linuxworld and ZDNet, product specs, etc.

They seem to have a good product for someone (ISPs?) needing to add cheap, reliable, high performing web servers without needing too much inhouse expertise. And the cube is a funky cobalt blue box.

Why is this good for Linux? I suppose when you can go to a professional looking web site with your PHB and get some nifty servers preloaded with Linux shipped to you for far less than NT, you might start seeing more Linux boxes show up. It makes them more of a web page toaster than a complex, arcane, unsupported hack.

George

Invented at GCHQ, then kept secret for 30 years.

I would personally like to see a newer, more up and coming director take over the AI project. I can't really put my finger on why, but the idea of Spielberg, whom I feel is a wonderful director, directing this film is really disappointing.

In the week after Kubrick's death, the New Yorker published a piece by Ian Watson wherein Watson talked about how he and Kubrick were changing "Super Toys" for the film version. I believe it was this same New Yorker piece which said that the only reason Kubrick agreed to do Eyes Wide Shut was that Warner Bros. agreed to fund AI in return. I really wish they had agreed to fund AI, first, as the world suffers from a lack of truly challenging SF films (In this decade, I liked The Matrix, Ghost In the Shell, Pi, 12 Monkeys, Dark City and Cube. The decade's almost over. That's not even a film a year.).

Back when Wired was good, they published "Super Toys Last All Summer Long" in the issue dedicated to HAL's birth. They also published "The Intelligence Behind AI," which is a piece on Kubrick & the AI project.

The combination of such an intriguing story with such an intriguing director combined with recent special effects advances would have made for a hell of a film. I'm hoping that if Spielberg does get the film, he doesn't sentimentalize (is that even a word?) it. And for the sake of all that is holy, please, please, please do not let George Lucas or James Cameron anywhere near it. This should be a character-driven film, IMHO.

Chris Cunningham, the director attatched to another on-again, off-again, potentially brilliant film based on another decidedly brilliant piece of fiction, Neuromancer was said to have apprenticed under Kubrick. Why not let him have a go? I think this project needs a new director, & Cunningham's stuff has certainly been gritty and unsentimental thus far.

I would personally like to see a newer, more up and coming director take over the AI project. I can't really put my finger on why, but the idea of Spielberg, whom I feel is a wonderful director, directing this film is really disappointing.

In the week after Kubrick's death, the New Yorker published a piece by Ian Watson wherein Watson talked about how he and Kubrick were changing "Super Toys" for the film version. I believe it was this same New Yorker piece which said that the only reason Kubrick agreed to do Eyes Wide Shut was that Warner Bros. agreed to fund AI in return. I really wish they had agreed to fund AI, first, as the world suffers from a lack of truly challenging SF films (In this decade, I liked The Matrix, Ghost In the Shell, Pi, 12 Monkeys, Dark City and Cube. The decade's almost over. That's not even a film a year.).

Back when Wired was good, they published "Super Toys Last All Summer Long" in the issue dedicated to HAL's birth. They also published "The Intelligence Behind AI," which is a piece on Kubrick & the AI project.

The combination of such an intriguing story with such an intriguing director combined with recent special effects advances would have made for a hell of a film. I'm hoping that if Spielberg does get the film, he doesn't sentimentalize (is that even a word?) it. And for the sake of all that is holy, please, please, please do not let George Lucas or James Cameron anywhere near it. This should be a character-driven film, IMHO.

Chris Cunningham, the director attatched to another on-again, off-again, potentially brilliant film based on another decidedly brilliant piece of fiction, Neuromancer was said to have apprenticed under Kubrick. Why not let him have a go? I think this project needs a new director, & Cunningham's stuff has certainly been gritty and unsentimental thus far.

But I wonder about a company that, with version 1.0 of the G3 firmware, allowed a G3 to be upgraded to a G4, but then disabled this option in version 1.1 of the firmware.

If I understand the Wired article correctly - it appears that Apple intentionally crippled its G3 firmware to prevent users from upgrading a G3 to a G4 with a CPU swap, presumably in order to "encourage" folks to buy a whole G4 box rather than just the chip upgrade.

At least with Intel, I may need a new motherboard for CPU swaps... but at least I can keep the video card, sound card, and, umm... plain white case :)

Can any Mac folks out there explain what's up with the G3/G4 firmware issue?

http://www.slashdot.org/art icles/99/09/04/0130235.shtml
http://www.wired.com/new s/news/technology/story/21583.html

Given the hoops the upgrade manufacturers will need to jump through, I can't blame Be for not wanting to play in the Apple G4 space. It is sort of like IBM's Win-OS/2 support - Microsoft began the Win32s API of the day program, forcing IBM to keep releasing updates of their own.

If Be finds a workaround, Apple can introduce a new firmware version to break BeOS. That is a vicious cycle Be is smart to stay away from.

There is another, little bit longer story at Wired.

So by late next year, maybe the following year, e-books will indeed be on the horizon. :-)

Boy. I bet this guy must have been pissed when he realized he could leave the country after all.

According to this article the first ping went out on October 20th. Anyone know what's what?

--

A story on Wired News claims the first "ping" was sent on October 20, 1969. They cite this website, the International Internet Day site, as a source of information. Would anyone be so kind as to explain the difference of dates? Was the first ping time a month?

A story on Wired News claims the first "ping" was sent on October 20, 1969. They cite this website, the International Internet Day site, as a source of information. Would anyone be so kind as to explain the difference of dates? Was the first ping time a month?

Hey, the first ping was on October 20, 1969.

Read the Wired article here .

Anyway, it's another occasion to celebrate! 30 years, that's at least a keg...

Prolly have to prep the brain first, like this with genetic therapies first.
Are the brain people talking to the gene people yet?

I wrote this email to the contact listed on the press release. Hopefully someone important will read it, but probably not.

Hi, I am writing to you in response to a press release from David Bowie's official website at this address on August 30th. The Outside Org website is listed to obtain more information at the end of the release and on David Bowie's page on Outside Org, this email address is listed as the contact. Forgive me if I am directing this to the wrong place and I would appreciate it if you could forward to the right person.

While I certainly believe that digitally downloaded music is the far, if not near, future of music, I am disappointed with David Bowie's (and/or his record label's) decision to release his album in only Liquid Audio and MS Audio, encoded with SDMI. I, along with many other consumers, would have preferred the open and flexible MP3 standard, which started this digital music revolution. Because anyone is free to write an MP3 player and anyone is free to write an MP3 encoder (as long as they do not use a patented algorithm) without paying licensing fees, there is a much wider selection of MP3 players for a wide variety of computer systems. Personally, I use the open source Linux operating system, for which I believe there is no Liquid Audio or MS Audio player. A quick search on the de facto website to get Linux software (Freshmeat), reveals no matches for "SDMI" or "Liquid Audio" (I also looked at Liquid Audio's official site which only has players for Windows and Macintosh), while almost 100 matches for "MP3". This includes MP3 players, encoders, and graphical frontends which make it simple for people to create MP3's from their own purchased CDs. Without a doubt, an MP3 release would enable many more people on different hardware to have access to David Bowie's music. Not only is it wrong to force people to deal with one or two companies (in this case Microsoft and Liquid Audio) as the sole source for a certain format, it is also bad business. While the technically superior Betamax was held tight by Sony, the open VHS standard won the consumer war. I expect that formats such as Liquid Audio and MS Audio (and maybe even SDMI, though it is open) will fail in the same way.

There is a concern growing in the traditional record industry that downloadable music is more subject to piracy than normal purchased CD's and that a secure, encrypted standard that only allows play only on one device is necessary for commercially released music. This is wrong for, at least, two reasons. First, most of the music available illegally in MP3 format was not originally downloaded from a website. It was originally purchased on a CD and then encrypted to MP3 and put on the internet. There is no way to stop this from happening. If you release your album on a CD and it is popular, it is subject to being encrypted into MP3 and put onto the internet. In fact, if you ever intend for music to be listened to, then it will always be technically possible to copy it. Secondly, as fast as new "secure" formats are being created, they are being unsecured. Read this article about Microsoft's WMA format being cracked for evidence of this.

While there will always be some people who insist on pirating music, the majority of consumers simply don't have the time for it. It usually takes more than $15 worth of effort to find a CD that you would pay $15 for in MP3 format illegally on the web, especially if you want a certain CD in particular. When given the choice between affordable, easy-to-use, downloadable music in a popular format from reputable companies and illegal, hard-to-find from who-knows-where, _most_ consumers will pick the former. By using non-open standards to release digital music, such as Liquid Audio and MS Audio, and using encryption such as SDMI, you are simply making it harder for consumers to get and enjoy legal music.

There are also some interesting "facts" about David Bowie's involvement with digital music and how he is the "first" to do this and the "first" to do that. He is most certainly _not_ the first major recording artist to release an entire album online (some have even made some albums available _only_ online). Check out Emusic for this. Some of the more notable artists are Frank Black (former lead singer of the Pixies and a guest at Bowie's 50th birthday bash, where he performed with Bowie on stage at Madison Square Garden) and They Might Be Giants. But press hype is what it is. I suppose I should expect it.

Despite of this, I am a very big fan of David Bowie. I will buy his new album, though not online, because I couldn't listen to it even if I did. I will wait for the CD and encode it myself into MP3 format so that I can listen to it through my computer and on a portable MP3 player. I hope that in the future he will realize the demands of market and use an open standard that is available to everyone.

Wired and ZD Net also have stories up that debunk Microsoft pretty well. I just haven't seen any stories that get it right in "mainstream" press yet, like Reuters, AP, CNN, or NYT. Any links? I would think that this is a story that has some legs still...

Wired is reporting that the same thing happened 6 months ago, and it was fixed without getting any media attention. The cr/hacker group that reported this one was supposedly publicizing it because MS only fixes things right when it lands on the front page news, and they wanted to call attention to that problem.

Wired also reports speculation that it was a deliberate backdoor that was supposed to be secured by obscurity.

Who knows? But if I had a hotmail account I'd assume that people had been reading my mail (and doing Bog knows what else) for months.

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This page was generated by a Swarm of Psycho Chickens for justo (2858).

Slashdot Load Testing (Continues) Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 02:13 PM EDT
from the ain't-this-fun? dept.
Fixed so far:

• Dropped http MaxClients down to 75
• increased mysql max_connections to to 250

( Read More... | 190 of 190 comments )

Help Test Our New Server! Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 12:51 PM EDT
from the load-testing-is-cool dept.
So here it is: A mirror of Slashdot (as of a week or so ago). It exists now for testing: So feel free to post comments and help test the new load balancer. For the curious, the new system has 3 http machines (P2s) and one mysql box (a dual P2) with a load balancer trying to keep everyone all equally busy. And its about time: the old setup has been really stressed out trying to keep up with everyone. Anyway, don't get to attached to any of your comments here, when we're satisfied that the new setup is stable, I'm gonna mirror over Slashdot and make the final switcheroo.

( Read More... | 335 of 335 comments )

Interview: Mandrake Answers Posted by Roblimo on Fri August 20, 12:00 PM EDT
from the x-leads-to-enlightenment dept.
Monday a whole bunch of people had questions for Mandrake, one of the heavies behind Enlightenment. Slashdot Moderators picked the best ones. We forwarded them, unedited, to Mandrake on Tuesday. His (excellent) answers appear below.

( Read More... | 11562 bytes in body | 9 of 9 comments )

Geeks in the Space: The Attack of 5 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 04:10 AM EDT
from the more-stuff-to-listen-to dept.
Well, we've done it again. Yes, Geeks in Space, Episode 5 has been released. In it, we lament the lack of good news, talk about anti-matter, and the hiring of hacks by companies. You can also become...educated in my long-term plan for the hostile takeover of a certain Redmond-based company.

( Read More... | 14 of 17 comments )

Apple announces Darwin 0.3 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 12:24 AM EDT
from the more-to-download dept.
J. FoxGlov writes "Macintouch reports that v0.3 of Darwin, the open-source foundation for Mac OS X Server is available on Apple's Public Source site. Apple Developer Connection members can get it on CD for $29. Check Public Source for more about the Darwin SDK and the new Darwin. "

( Read More... | 67 of 68 comments )

Microsoft's New Audio Format Cracked Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:23 PM EDT
from the secure-this-buddy dept.
Barcode (JPB) was one of the first to send us the word from Wired that the new audio format Microsoft introduced (Two days ago), supposed to be a secure format (resricting playback) has already been cracked. Dimension Music first carried the news-and what a name the crack has *grin*.

( Read More... | 238 of 240 comments )

Find your Star Wars Twin Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:16 PM EDT
from the what-freud-really-wanted-to-do dept.
The_Monk writes "Ever wanted to know your Star Wars twin? Now this incredibly important information can be verified. It placed me the likes of Astro Mech Droids, 'Tarkin, and R2-D2. " Ahem-as the lost twin of Lando (extraversion), I have a Cloud City I'd like to sell someone. But I'm about as agreeable as Boba, always a bonus.

( Read More... | 94 of 94 comments )

Now Police Can 'See' Through Walls Posted by Roblimo on Wed August 18, 12:40 PM EDT
from the move-along-there's-nothing-to-see-here dept.
Bram writes "Just found an article about another way to invade privacy." He's talking about hand-held radar systems police can use to detect breathing, beating hearts or other motion through walls and other obstacles. Sounds like a declassified version of the Ground Support Radar [GSR] units we used years ago in the Army. I can see why police would want them, and I can also see why Bram considers them a privacy threat. Depends on how they're used, I suppose.

( Read More... | 205 of 205 comments )

FreeType posts patent warning Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 11:53 AM EDT
from the i-want-my-verdonna dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "According to the the FreeType web page, there have been some new concerns raised about Apple's patents on TrueType. I hope this doesn't affect the planned TrueType support in XF86 4. " It appears that they are still checking into the issue, but I'd really like TrueType support. A lot. Let's hope Apple responds nicely.

( Read More... | 202 of 206 comments )

Microsoft to "publish code" to Instant Messenger Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 09:49 AM EDT
from the want-more-market-share dept.
VFVTHUNTER writes "According to this article at cnet, MS, in an attempt to gain a share of AOL's Instant Messenger Service Market, announced today it is going to publish the protocol to its own messenger service. " It's important to note it's NOT the source code, just the protocol.

( Read More... | 192 of 192 comments )

natelinx

ai

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cnn

smug

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superbad

mod_perl

everything

space ghost

oostendorp.net

Be News

Unisys gif-lzw-license Model Changed

YMF724 Driver Patch

Guidelines for Sane Advocacy

BeNews Is Moving - Outages Planned

Audio Buzz "Fixes" Announced

Austin BUG Meeting This Wednesday

Wacom Driver Goes Open Source

3dsound Secrets Revealed

ACE Bot, Devastation for Quake2

Be.com Frontpage Layout Updated Get more Be...

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NOP v2.1 Released

etc.

Game Name Builder v1.32

John Carmack Updated His .plan

Voice Actors Needed

KOTS Mod Needs Servers

More Ass Kicking Quake Action...

Dr. Dobb's TechNetCast

Open Source At Work

LIVE From LinuxWorld

What's Wrong with HTTP and Why It Doesn't Matter

Inside the BeOS

A Brief History of Unix and the Internet

Author of sendmail on open-source and early days of email

Linus Torvalds on State of Linux

Creator of Tcl/Tk: Open-Source Creates Commercial Opportunities

Inside the Netscape Gecko Open Source Browser Team More TechNetCast

Hollywood Bitchslap

Review: Bowfinger - 'Funniest Eddie Murphy movie in a decade. Steve Martin showed...'

Review: Mickey Blue-Eyes - 'Not as funny as it could have been'

Feature: Robert Towne - From Chinatown to Hollywood. More from Hollywood Bitchslap

Slashdot Poll Preferred Compression
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[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:383 | Votes:24104

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Features The latest installment of Geeks in Space is up at The Sync. We talk about the Red Hat IPO, crazy naming schemes, and much more.

Perhaps you are seeking Jon Katz's series of articles related to recent events in Colorado. These articles include Voices from the Hellmouth, More Stories from the Hellmouth or The Price of Being Different,

With all the hype about the recent MindCraft Linux/NT benchmarks, you might be interested in reading ESR's Response to the Mindcraft Fiasco

For something different, try reading my little essay Thoughts from the Furnace about the internet, and flame.

Update: 05/03 01:48 by CT : Past Features

Mozilla.org

PerLDAP v1.4 Released

M9 Released

Mozilla BOF at O'Reilly OSS Convention

cvs-mirror.mozilla.org Is (no longer) Sick

Mozilla Birds-Of-A-Feather Session

Getting Involved

Blackwood

Bugathon Needs JavaScripters

News From The Front

M8 On The Wire

Mozilla for BeOS

Mozilla is Alive and Well

BugAThon 300

New Newsgroup Announcements

M7 Binaries Released

Slashdot

Load Test the New Slashdot Setup

Microwave T1 Service

Internet Tax Moratorium Over?

Feature: Is Open Source for Windows Less Important?

Interview: Ask Alan Cox

3rd State of the Perl Onion

LinuxPPC challenge rides again

Review: The First 20 Million is Always the Hardest

Star Office to become Open Source?

Palm Gameboy Emulator update & screens

Linuxnewbie.org

Your Hotmail Account Has Been Exposed

Securing The Home Linux System: Updated

Glibc2 Slackware is here!

Segfault.org: South Park Story

TWO New Slackware Mailing Lists More LinuxNewbie.org...

Freak Tech

Molecular-based logic gates

10 Gbps optical though air.

Magnetic spacecraft propulsion

Linuxdev.net

Interview with Borland Sr. Product Mgr

Gizmo3D v0.92 Released

CORBA 3 News

More On XHTML 1.0

Oracle Offer Linux Technology Track More LDN...

Wired Webmonkey

Webmonkey Guides

Cheap and Cool Photos

Hiring a Site Developer

Searching for Mr. Burrito

Introduction to Apache

Why Ask Why?

PHP/MySQL Tutorial

Wait for It More Webmonkey

Older Stuff

Wednesday August 18

Scientists create digital bug-life (131)

New Space Propulsion System Uses Sun's Magnetic Field (120)

Cassini visits Earth (175)

Descent 3 Linux Client (71)

Tuesday August 17

Playstation 2 Outperforms Everything? (240)

SIGGRAPH '99 OpenGL/Linux BOF Minutes (37)

Dell Belgium forced to install Windows only? (75)

Relativity Used to Devise New Form of Crypt (24)

Robots Battle to the Death! (124)

Will PPC Become the Preferred Linux Platform? (277)

IBMs 15 hour Laptop Batteries (72)

Feature: After the Red Hat IPO Ball is Over (236)

Feature:Obscurity as Security (194)

l0pht develops Sniffer Sniffer (101)

NASA collecting anti-matter with giant ballon (109)

CIA releases its own X-Files (111)

Packet Storm Security is back (36)

Monday August 16

Sun Claims MS Steals Vision (162)

Scientists Find Evidence of Black Holes Sucking (163)

MS Dirty Pool Against AOL? (204)
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Slashdot Load Testing (Continues) Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 02:13 PM EDT
from the ain't-this-fun? dept.
Fixed so far:

• Dropped http MaxClients down to 75
• increased mysql max_connections to to 250

( Read More... | 190 of 190 comments )

Help Test Our New Server! Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon August 30, 12:51 PM EDT
from the load-testing-is-cool dept.
So here it is: A mirror of Slashdot (as of a week or so ago). It exists now for testing: So feel free to post comments and help test the new load balancer. For the curious, the new system has 3 http machines (P2s) and one mysql box (a dual P2) with a load balancer trying to keep everyone all equally busy. And its about time: the old setup has been really stressed out trying to keep up with everyone. Anyway, don't get to attached to any of your comments here, when we're satisfied that the new setup is stable, I'm gonna mirror over Slashdot and make the final switcheroo.

( Read More... | 335 of 335 comments )

Interview: Mandrake Answers Posted by Roblimo on Fri August 20, 12:00 PM EDT
from the x-leads-to-enlightenment dept.
Monday a whole bunch of people had questions for Mandrake, one of the heavies behind Enlightenment. Slashdot Moderators picked the best ones. We forwarded them, unedited, to Mandrake on Tuesday. His (excellent) answers appear below.

( Read More... | 11562 bytes in body | 9 of 9 comments )

Geeks in the Space: The Attack of 5 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 04:10 AM EDT
from the more-stuff-to-listen-to dept.
Well, we've done it again. Yes, Geeks in Space, Episode 5 has been released. In it, we lament the lack of good news, talk about anti-matter, and the hiring of hacks by companies. You can also become...educated in my long-term plan for the hostile takeover of a certain Redmond-based company.

( Read More... | 14 of 17 comments )

Apple announces Darwin 0.3 Posted by Hemos on Thu August 19, 12:24 AM EDT
from the more-to-download dept.
J. FoxGlov writes "Macintouch reports that v0.3 of Darwin, the open-source foundation for Mac OS X Server is available on Apple's Public Source site. Apple Developer Connection members can get it on CD for $29. Check Public Source for more about the Darwin SDK and the new Darwin. "

( Read More... | 67 of 68 comments )

Microsoft's New Audio Format Cracked Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:23 PM EDT
from the secure-this-buddy dept.
Barcode (JPB) was one of the first to send us the word from Wired that the new audio format Microsoft introduced (Two days ago), supposed to be a secure format (resricting playback) has already been cracked. Dimension Music first carried the news-and what a name the crack has *grin*.

( Read More... | 238 of 240 comments )

Find your Star Wars Twin Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 05:16 PM EDT
from the what-freud-really-wanted-to-do dept.
The_Monk writes "Ever wanted to know your Star Wars twin? Now this incredibly important information can be verified. It placed me the likes of Astro Mech Droids, 'Tarkin, and R2-D2. " Ahem-as the lost twin of Lando (extraversion), I have a Cloud City I'd like to sell someone. But I'm about as agreeable as Boba, always a bonus.

( Read More... | 94 of 94 comments )

Now Police Can 'See' Through Walls Posted by Roblimo on Wed August 18, 12:40 PM EDT
from the move-along-there's-nothing-to-see-here dept.
Bram writes "Just found an article about another way to invade privacy." He's talking about hand-held radar systems police can use to detect breathing, beating hearts or other motion through walls and other obstacles. Sounds like a declassified version of the Ground Support Radar [GSR] units we used years ago in the Army. I can see why police would want them, and I can also see why Bram considers them a privacy threat. Depends on how they're used, I suppose.

( Read More... | 205 of 205 comments )

FreeType posts patent warning Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 11:53 AM EDT
from the i-want-my-verdonna dept.
Anonymous Coward writes "According to the the FreeType web page, there have been some new concerns raised about Apple's patents on TrueType. I hope this doesn't affect the planned TrueType support in XF86 4. " It appears that they are still checking into the issue, but I'd really like TrueType support. A lot. Let's hope Apple responds nicely.

( Read More... | 202 of 206 comments )

Microsoft to "publish code" to Instant Messenger Posted by Hemos on Wed August 18, 09:49 AM EDT
from the want-more-market-share dept.
VFVTHUNTER writes "According to this article at cnet, MS, in an attempt to gain a share of AOL's Instant Messenger Service Market, announced today it is going to publish the protocol to its own messenger service. " It's important to note it's NOT the source code, just the protocol.

( Read More... | 192 of 192 comments )

natelinx

ai

bsi

cnn

smug

garden

taco hell

superbad

mod_perl

everything

space ghost

oostendorp.net

Be News

Unisys gif-lzw-license Model Changed

YMF724 Driver Patch

Guidelines for Sane Advocacy

BeNews Is Moving - Outages Planned

Audio Buzz "Fixes" Announced

Austin BUG Meeting This Wednesday

Wacom Driver Goes Open Source

3dsound Secrets Revealed

ACE Bot, Devastation for Quake2

Be.com Frontpage Layout Updated Get more Be...

Alta Vista Search Alta Vista

any language Chinese Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French German Greek Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Italian Japanese Korean Latvian Lithuanian Norwegian Polish Portuguese Romanian Russian Spanish Swedish

Q3Arena.com

Quake3 Launcher

Site Movement

New Carmack Worklog

NMS v3.0

NOP v2.1 Released

etc.

Game Name Builder v1.32

John Carmack Updated His .plan

Voice Actors Needed

KOTS Mod Needs Servers

More Ass Kicking Quake Action...

Dr. Dobb's TechNetCast

Open Source At Work

LIVE From LinuxWorld

What's Wrong with HTTP and Why It Doesn't Matter

Inside the BeOS

A Brief History of Unix and the Internet

Author of sendmail on open-source and early days of email

Linus Torvalds on State of Linux

Creator of Tcl/Tk: Open-Source Creates Commercial Opportunities

Inside the Netscape Gecko Open Source Browser Team More TechNetCast

Hollywood Bitchslap

Review: Bowfinger - 'Funniest Eddie Murphy movie in a decade. Steve Martin showed...'

Review: Mickey Blue-Eyes - 'Not as funny as it could have been'

Feature: Robert Towne - From Chinatown to Hollywood. More from Hollywood Bitchslap

Slashdot Poll Preferred Compression
zip
gzip
bzip
compress
arj
other
[ Results | Polls ]
Comments:383 | Votes:24104

Crazy Person

Lunch

The Funnies (?)

User Friendly

Red Meat

Dilbert

Sluggy Freelance

Bastich

Punc & Mark

Helen

Goats

Pokey the Penguin

Superosity

Kevin & Kell

Doonesbury

The Fifth Wave

Features The latest installment of Geeks in Space is up at The Sync. We talk about the Red Hat IPO, crazy naming schemes, and much more.

Perhaps you are seeking Jon Katz's series of articles related to recent events in Colorado. These articles include Voices from the Hellmouth, More Stories from the Hellmouth or The Price of Being Different,

With all the hype about the recent MindCraft Linux/NT benchmarks, you might be interested in reading ESR's Response to the Mindcraft Fiasco

For something different, try reading my little essay Thoughts from the Furnace about the internet, and flame.

Update: 05/03 01:48 by CT : Past Features

Mozilla.org

PerLDAP v1.4 Released

M9 Released

Mozilla BOF at O'Reilly OSS Convention

cvs-mirror.mozilla.org Is (no longer) Sick

Mozilla Birds-Of-A-Feather Session

Getting Involved

Blackwood

Bugathon Needs JavaScripters

News From The Front

M8 On The Wire

Mozilla for BeOS

Mozilla is Alive and Well

BugAThon 300

New Newsgroup Announcements

M7 Binaries Released

Slashdot

Load Test the New Slashdot Setup

Microwave T1 Service

Internet Tax Moratorium Over?

Feature: Is Open Source for Windows Less Important?

Interview: Ask Alan Cox

3rd State of the Perl Onion

LinuxPPC challenge rides again

Review: The First 20 Million is Always the Hardest

Star Office to become Open Source?

Palm Gameboy Emulator update & screens

Linuxnewbie.org

Your Hotmail Account Has Been Exposed

Securing The Home Linux System: Updated

Glibc2 Slackware is here!

Segfault.org: South Park Story

TWO New Slackware Mailing Lists More LinuxNewbie.org...

Freak Tech

Molecular-based logic gates

10 Gbps optical though air.

Magnetic spacecraft propulsion

Linuxdev.net

Interview with Borland Sr. Product Mgr

Gizmo3D v0.92 Released

CORBA 3 News

More On XHTML 1.0

Oracle Offer Linux Technology Track More LDN...

Wired Webmonkey

Webmonkey Guides

Cheap and Cool Photos

Hiring a Site Developer

Searching for Mr. Burrito

Introduction to Apache

Why Ask Why?

PHP/MySQL Tutorial

Wait for It More Webmonkey

Older Stuff

Wednesday August 18

Scientists create digital bug-life (131)

New Space Propulsion System Uses Sun's Magnetic Field (120)

Cassini visits Earth (175)

Descent 3 Linux Client (71)

Tuesday August 17

Playstation 2 Outperforms Everything? (240)

SIGGRAPH '99 OpenGL/Linux BOF Minutes (37)

Dell Belgium forced to install Windows only? (75)

Relativity Used to Devise New Form of Crypt (24)

Robots Battle to the Death! (124)

Will PPC Become the Preferred Linux Platform? (277)

IBMs 15 hour Laptop Batteries (72)

Feature: After the Red Hat IPO Ball is Over (236)

Feature:Obscurity as Security (194)

l0pht develops Sniffer Sniffer (101)

NASA collecting anti-matter with giant ballon (109)

CIA releases its own X-Files (111)

Packet Storm Security is back (36)

Monday August 16

Sun Claims MS Steals Vision (162)

Scientists Find Evidence of Black Holes Sucking (163)

MS Dirty Pool Against AOL? (204)
Older Articles
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Don't kid yourself. Little is relevant, and nothing lasts forever. All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-99 Andover.Net. [ home | awards | supporters | rob's homepage | contribute story | older articles | Andover.Net | advertising | past polls | about | faq ]

"3. that within 7 days of providing this undertaking you will provide email addresses of all those persons who you are aware of who have downloaded the panorama Tools from Your Site;"

Geeze, I never realized that I should avoid sending "thank you" and "great job" emails to free software developers whose software I use. I'd be risking legal action if that developer becomes target of a patent and has, for some reason, kept my email.

Secondly, according to this wired article, one of the companies IPIX went up against had overwhelming prior-art. Here's a snipit:

A jury reviewed all the prior art, listened to the testimony of the IPIX scientists who developed the patented techniques, and decided to uphold the IPIX patent in its patent infringement suit against competitor Infinite Pictures. This despite a parade of Infinite Pictures witnesses and lawyers who argued the "prior art" defense to the point of absurdity, he said. "They went over and over it. The jury laughed," said Phillips [IPIX CEO].

So basically, prior-art doesn't matter, as long as you put on a good show for a jury. You know, I dont think I'd mind them having a patent on this type of technology, but from the look at the above two articles, this is a company who knows that others have had the idea, there is overwhelming prior-art, but they have managed to slip though legal holes and only care about cashing in ($25 per use!?).

This wired story has a bit of history of the Xanadu project. Very good read. Xanadu must be one of the largest software disasters known to mandkind. Kind of quite sad really.

The Curse of Xanadu

Being in the electronic publishing industry does however make some of the ideas behind xanadu quite interesting for me. Most the ideas were good. But good ideas are just the beginning.

Here's a link at Wired for lots of stuff about Ted Nelson, including the article about him and Xanadu mentioned above. http://www.wired.com/wired/ar chive/people/ted_nelson/

http://www.wired.com/wired/a rchive/3.06/xanadu_pr.html

Warning: It's a substantial read.

"This isn't the typical buffer overflow exploit at all. It seems like AOL is using those extra 24 or so bits as a kind of checksum or key to their servers. ... This really doesn't fit the description of the typical buffer overflow exploit does it?"

The server is sending more data than the client can handle, so yes, this is a buffer overflow. AOL isn't exploiting this to hack into people's computers, but someone else could. If someone could modify the AOL's DNS information, they could redirect clients to their own server and execute whatever code they want (this can be done).

"Microsoft and the users of the Mircosoft software are tresspassing on AOL property (The AOL servers). AOL has told Microsoft to get lost. Therefore AOL has every right to ban the use of the Mircosoft software on *AOL*'s servers, just like the owners of the IRC servers can and have banned people from acessing their networks."

Microsoft is not connecting to AOL's servers, the MSN Messenger users are. They have already created an account with AOL, and have a right to use that account (the AOL terms of service do not say you can only use certain software to connect). The owners of IRC servers ban abusive people, not programs - they will not ban you because of the IRC client you use.

Maybe I'm just a conspiracy minded freak, but since the X10 Firecracker giveaway a while ago, X10 went from almost 0 presence in my everyday haunts to almost weekly presence. Is it just coincidence, or has X10's advertising department or PR firm just spend a BUTTLOAD of money getting the word out? The weird thing is, they all seem to come up as stories on "legit" sites but read like press releases rather than reporting. For example, recent links & stories:

Slashdot:
10.Jul.1999: Promotional Freshmeat X10 Firecrackers
23.Jun.1999: More Firecracker Kits For Free
21.Jun.1999: Home automation gadgets for free

Freshmeat:
10.Jul.1999: Free Firecracker Giveaway from X10

Wired News:
19.Aug.1999: MP3s Rock the House
7.Aug.1999: Wireless DVD on TV

Of course, I'm already an advertising casualty because I ordered the Firecracker kit, and then after playing with it ordered US$50 more in stuff. And no, I'm seriously looking at the little camera and radio video transmitter they have for my apartment's web cam.

But don't be like me! This is a warning beacon! Stay back! *BEEP* *BEEP* This meme is under quaranteen! *BEEP* *BEEP* Danger Will Robinson!

Er...

Maybe I'm just a conspiracy minded freak, but since the X10 Firecracker giveaway a while ago, X10 went from almost 0 presence in my everyday haunts to almost weekly presence. Is it just coincidence, or has X10's advertising department or PR firm just spend a BUTTLOAD of money getting the word out? The weird thing is, they all seem to come up as stories on "legit" sites but read like press releases rather than reporting. For example, recent links & stories:

Slashdot:
10.Jul.1999: Promotional Freshmeat X10 Firecrackers
23.Jun.1999: More Firecracker Kits For Free
21.Jun.1999: Home automation gadgets for free

Freshmeat:
10.Jul.1999: Free Firecracker Giveaway from X10

Wired News:
19.Aug.1999: MP3s Rock the House
7.Aug.1999: Wireless DVD on TV

Of course, I'm already an advertising casualty because I ordered the Firecracker kit, and then after playing with it ordered US$50 more in stuff. And no, I'm seriously looking at the little camera and radio video transmitter they have for my apartment's web cam.

But don't be like me! This is a warning beacon! Stay back! *BEEP* *BEEP* This meme is under quaranteen! *BEEP* *BEEP* Danger Will Robinson!

Er...

At an interview on CNN. Here is a Wired article about it. Here is a really funny site about it.

Now it seems that the federal government is trying to censor such discussion. For example, we have the "Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act of 1999", which would criminalize many discussions of drug policy.

I believe that you can't have a meaningful discussion on, for instance, the sentancing guidelines for possession of crack vs. powder cocaine without an understanding of how crack is made. Thus, my drug policy site has such information.

Trying to censor "dirty" bits is bad enough, but to censor political discussion is utterly abhorant. Political censorship is a life-and-death issue - people will fight, kill, and die for free speech. What, short of bullets, is it going to take to stop the cybercensors? (Or should I just go buy more bullets while I still can?)

This is something that has bothered me for some time. Why do slashdotters take it upon themselves to tell the media what terms they should use to define hackers? You guys have absolutly no business saying how to define someone else. Kevin Mitnick is a hacker, you people, have no right to insist he be called anything else.

You're right that Slashdot has a hell of a lot of influence. Largely due to the sheer volume of traffic and emails Slashdot people generate. What's so troubling is that reading these posts, almost every single one is horribly inaccurate. GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGT GUYS!! At least read the damn article.. But if your not going to read about the rest of the case, don't assume you know what it's about... because most people here, have simply regurgitated the hype, myths, rumors and flat out lies about Kevin. I don't have the time to go into correcting them, but you could even read posts from previous Mitnick subjects on Slashdot, for better info (also http://www.freekevin.com). Know the facts before you demonize someone you don't know as a "Cracker".

Also, mind you Kevin hasn't been convicted.. so, how is it that someone is a hacker, and then when they get arrested, all of a sudden he's a cracker? Never mind the choice of word, just going by what it's said to mean. It's ridiculous. There are hackers, and there are criminals. Some hackers are also criminals.. That does not negate that they are still hackers. One should look at what the alleged crime IS before attacking someone.

Doug Thomas has written many articles on the Mitnick case for Wired.. In each article he calls Kevin a hacker, and in each one the editor changes it to read "Celebrity Cracker" - Doug Thomas bitterly opposed them changing his wording, Wired persisted, Doug Thomas even stopped writing for Wired in protest, still Wired has insisted on using that phrase. In fact they thought it was kind of funny, in this article (http://www.wired.com/news/ news/politics/story/20053.html) they sneaked that phrase in as quoting me saying "just don't call him a 'celebrity cracker'" (and for the record, I didn't growl). I spoke to various Wired reporters and editors, and you know what they told me? They were forced to do that because they get bombarded with emails from "angry slashdot users" whenever they call him a hacker. YOU PEOPLE HAVE NO RIGHT TO PASS JUDGEMENT LIKE THIS. I know many of you consider yourselves hackers, if you feel you share the hacker spirit, more power to you.. Just learn to be more tolerant and respectful towards your "underground" counterparts. It is incredibly arrogant and pretentious to do otherwise. For those of you who insist on rejecting other groups of people in the hacker community, stop worrying about how they're labeled, if you're not one of them, it's none of your goddamn business! The worst part of using the word "cracker" is that it's totally subjective who and what a cracker is... so if ANYONE is going to decide to use it, it sure as hell shouldn't be slashdot.

Language evolves as is needed, and as the public accepts it. This use of the word 'cracker' has been rejected by most people and media outlets. It serves no legitimate purpose for anyone other than ignorant, narrow-minded, egotistical, jerks - who are such snobs that they can't stand to be associated with anyone who dares to act and think differently, but are too damn conceited to call themselves something else, so they insist on calling other people names.

As far as I'm concerned it is libelous.

1. We have a First Amendment but it has limits. Lots of limits. So many limits in fact, that it is really just a nice idea that should only be followed when the Free Speech doesn't offend anyone. See Dick Armey's "Reflection on Values" Notice the way he says, I'm for free speech, but I'm not for free speech, on the same page.(Sorry for picking of the Republicans, but I haven't found anything equally stupid from the Democrats on the Web.)

2. Technology is Scary: Plenty of articles on this, including this one from Wired, The Bus Stops Everywhere. I actually think the reason why so many politicians are out to regulate technology to such an absurd degree is what has been called future shock in which technology has moved ahead way to fast for some people to keep up with it. Suddenly, your in the future, and you don't like it. It is akin to culture shock like when French radio stations are required to program X-amount of French programming because too much American stuff is popular. So they play a lot of Celine Dion songs over and over again...

3. Electronic Speech is just plain evil: You don't have Jack Valenti (or someone like him) rushing down to capitol hill whenever electronic speech is attacked, because technology companies I think (much like me) would like to pretend politics don't exist. It's this dirty, ugly, mind-numbingly stupid world, and besides we've only got X-amount of time to get that code done before M$ beats us to it. Who has time to go vote when you've got a milestone to deliver that week? So you combine the fact that there is no Pro-Tech lobby, politicians resent having to keep up with computers and the current disrepute of the First Amendment, and you've got a recipe for authoritarianism.

The Bus Stops Everywhere

I hate seeing our government turn into the one from Dr. Strangelove.

This story (Wired News, 15.Dec.98) has some related information on Entrust. "An initially modest deal could grow into a project that provides digital IDs for everyone in Canada's most populous province."

Too bad Iridium seems to be in such bad shape... after all their initial hype, they're losing so much money that they're apparently near closing their doors. Motorola is near pulling funding for them as well.

Check out this article on wired for more.

-s

This media gimmick should flash out so fast on the news cycle that it will make Rob Toup's 95 phenom "Babes of the Web" seem like it lasted an eternity. Hopefully they can nab at least 15 suckers, if the birthing rate for them remains constant to Barnam's era.