Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Taxes, Fraudulence, Woodland Creatures
After francokleptomania, restoring GNOME dignity. Bob Smith writes: "KDE beta was anounced but GNOME beta wasn't." Well, GNOME's latest freeze stage on the way to 1.2 was announced back in January, and Miguel answered questions about the state of GNOME in March, but point taken. With all the developments in GNOME, neither Miguel or his programs are likely to hurt for Slashdot coverage. You can grab the beta Bob mentions here.
Now, gentlemen, is there a way to perhaps merely maim this Golden Goose? Misch writes to point out this item on "ABCNews [which]reports that the House of Representatives has passed an extension of the Internet Tax Moratorium. Looks like it's tax free time on the Internet (depending on where you shop)."
Barely enough for a coven ... nullstar writes: "The NTIA has posted its report to Congress concerning the comments it received in regard to section 1201(g) of the DMCA, which deals with exceptions to the prohibition on circumventing encryption techniques intended to protect access to copyrighted materials. They basically claim, 'it's too soon to tell what effects the restriction will have on encryption research, etc., as the exception doesn't go into effect until October, so we're not yet recommending changes in the wording of the law.' Only 13 people submitted comments. "
Conflict of interest is an interesting term here ... full_tide writes "2600 has posted some news about how the MPAA is trying to get Martin Garbus (2600's hot-shot defense attorney) disqualified for a conflict of interest. Cryptome has posted a very long, but equally interesting, reply brief Mr. Garbus has writting in response to the injunction (damn, he's good). Also, the MPAA's web site is back up after a DDOS attack a few weeks back, and much downtime since. They appear to have added some fresh, juicy propaganda concerning the case."
Yessir, the gen-yoo-ine article, you betcha, mate. Jai From Insane Hardware writes: "Well, you may have heard all the rumours and whatnot about the Australian Fake Athlon deal and I confirm that it is true. But we have more info on the subject like on how they came about arriving in Oz and how they leaked thru the channel. This issue is very "close to home" for me so it's worthwhile reading for all the Aussies that go to your site. We also have exactly how the chips were modded. link " Meanwhile, Netsnipe wrote to point out that "Lucien Wells has updated his Web site Techwatch's coverage of the AMD Athlon tampering scandal. "Techwatch has now received press releases from two distributors involved, DMA and RTV Computers which claim that 'Neither RTV Computers Pty Ltd nor DMA (Direct Memory Access Pty Ltd) whom have their stickers on the CPU's knowingly at fault in this situation. At present legal action is underway to find the source of this problem.' At this stage AMD has not yet responded to Techwatch's requests for more information, says Lucien."
I'd like to point out an astonishing amount of hostility recently. In the last few weeks I have noticed it especially, when someone chooses to make a statement they don't just make the statement, they litter it with insults, formulating an angry comment dripping with either sarcasm or invective, for no reasonable purpose that I can see. Just the 18 or so comments in this article so far alone contain more hostility than I see in an entire week in any other medium.
This in itself is a concern, it displays a marked lack of respect towards the others the comment is aimed at. On this very same page you can find a comment querying the lack of information on the recent problems with slashdot. Was the use of the word "Pathetic" really necessary? Was the implied accusation that Slashdot is no longer "open" included for any other purpose than vitrol? A single feather does not a bird make, and a single action by the editors should not be held up, against an astounding amount of evidence to the contrary, as an example of how it has become "closed" or "less responsive".
I single out this post only because, being in the same article, it is easy to point to, make no mistake it is merely the tip of the iceberg as far as posts containing unnecessary attacks go.
Please keep in mind that the editors of slashdot, the users who make comments here, the employees of the organisations that are referred to (yes, even those of Microsoft), and all the other people who are somehow brought to our attention in this forum are, in fact, just that. People. And too often I see them judged, instantly, upon such a scrap of information as wouldn't feed a shrimp. Indeed all too often one reads an article only to discover that people are being abused on the basis of nothing more than rumour.
They are people, they deserve respect by default, the respect given to those who are human, who may make mistakes, but who have lived years of their lives, making hard decisions and taking responsibility for their actions.
Some calm yes? some thought before writing, and perhaps a little dose of old saying.
"If you don't have anything good to say, keep your mouth shut."
Flames will be read, considered, and appreciated. Thankyou for your time.
You can't win a fight.
The people who should tell the server/DDoS story are the ones who are doing the actual server work, and right now they're simply too busy working to do any story-telling.
They're also mad. This site is their "baby," and I think that if Martin, the two Pats, Chris, Liz or anyone else on that team tried to write anything right now, we'd get nothing but a string of cusswords.
Give them some time. Let them work without everyone trying to look over their shoulder. I'm as frustrated as anyone else, but I'm willing to wait until there's an end to the story and hear the whole thing at once.
- Robin
My own connection is flaky. For all I know, when I can't reach Slashdot, my local network is screwed up, or any number of other problems between me and slashdot.org. I'll keep trying to fix it until I know it's out of my hands.
Being attacked is nothing to be ashamed of, but keeping it hidden from friendly parties is the wrong way to deal with it. I would think it's easier to post a short note once than deal with hundreds of emails asking what's going on. You're sitting there at Andover, but the rest of us are in the dark.
Anyway, good luck in fixing it. Afterwards, please tell us what happened so we can a) offer insight on how to avoid it in the future, and b) guard against it on our own sites. You know, the old open-source approach.
Sorry, guys, but it is really pathetic that there has been no news here about the problems you've been suffering. There have been tons of people reporting SQL problems today, we all know the site has been shut down repeatedly over the last couple of days, and wired reported that you had a router die. I hate to make a "in the old days /. was better" but it isn't that hard to look through the archives and find CT saying "oops... our server died/crashed/whatever." That kind of honesty and straightforwardness is what made /. a community first and a news site second. It's sort of sad that this kind of openness (which is much more important than source) is apparently no longer a priority.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY