Slashback: Retail, Preparedness, Games

Tonight in Slashback: More on TransGaming's approach to the world (and licenses), another sweet box of French Linux goodness, another piece of the stolen-Enigma puzzle is pressed firmly into place, and a small piece of travel advice.

"Getting off easy" defined. dgroskind writes: "This AP story might be interesting as a slashback followup to an item about the theft of the Enigma machine from Bletchly Park. The accused got 10 months with the charge of blackmail left open for possible later prosecution. Also, this story today says a U.S. spy tipped off the Germans that the Enigma code had been broken but they didn't believe it."

Of course, you could tell your boss it got blown up. You may have already written your congressional representatives (especially if you live in South Carolina) about Fritz Holling's proposed SSSCA, but for air-traveling technical types, there's another post-bomb consideration. cloudscout writes: "In the past, I've always been nervous before travelling... am I remembering my toothpaste? Razor? Shoes? Now I've learned there is something else to remember. Charge my batteries. The current state of air travel security means more random searches and since I tend to travel with lots of electronic gadgets, these searches take a while and they test every device. I was chosen for a random search. Notebook, PDA, Digital Camera, Camcorder, Cellphone... the MiniDisc player had a dead battery. I was stuck. I didn't know what to do. They demanded that I prove the devices functionality. I dug around in my bag and, luckily, was able to take a battery from another device in order to power up the MD but it could have been a much worse situation if I didn't have a spare battery. The lesson here? If you're going to fly, be prepared."

Last week, flying between several supposedly very security-conscious airports (Dulles, Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt), I never had to turn my laptop on, probably because I had carefully charged the battery beforehand.

I'll believe it when I record my 2nd sample FMD disk. Perhaps unimpressed with the perpetually promised quarter-sized CDs mentioned the other day, an Anonymous Coward writes: "What optical medium has 8 layers, stores 24 GBs, and plays at 22Mbits/sec? And it's just the first age, with plans to reach 140 GB soon afterwards. Constellation 3D are developing FMD-ROM format that will change the capacity of data storage we use today, furtheir information can be obtained from FMD insider which is a news site that reports the progress and general information about this product. Constellation 3D seem to have lowered their expectations of their first line of products, to something more realistic and affordable, and they expect to make the technology available to some markets by the end of 2002.
Are you ready?"

Street performances need to beware Sturgeon's Law. joestar writes "As said on Slashdot this week-end, Transgaming is about to release - with Electronic Arts and MandrakeSoft - a special Linux distro aimed at games called Mandrake Linux Gaming Edition. Their technology - WineX - is actually a DirectX to Mesa translator that allows to port most recent Windows games to Linux apparently very efficiently compared to a simple Wine port. A great article with lots of details about that project GameSpyDaily has just been released. By the way, WineX is released under the Alladin License."

Picking your poison gets more complicated. Red Hat 7.2 is out, but as you might expect, MandrakeSoft isn't sitting still: The newest Mandrake, 8.1, is also available in stores. (But when will 8.1 PPC be ready? ;))

Comments

Broken devices

[Anonymous Coward]

What do they do to broken things. Seems kinda silly to not allow a broken radio or gameboy on the plane. Thought in todays paranoia that is to be expected.

Re:Broken devices

[Rick the Red]

If it's broken, why carry it onboard? Why not check it in your suitcase?

Re:Broken devices

[BlueTurnip]

Well, perhaps you're not checking luggage, especially if you're on a weekend trip.

A couple of years ago I was on a weekend trip and had only one carry-on bag. While I was visiting my friend, my portable CD player broke and I had to carry back a broken one. I thought nothing of it, but I guess if it happened today and I was targetted for a search, I would be out a CD player, or possibly in jail indefinitely as a "potential material witness".

Re:Broken devices

[HyperbolicParabaloid]

Seriously Don't know?
They are concerned that you may have emptied the guts out of your PC/Phone/PDA and put a bomb inside. By demonstrating that it functions you are showing that you haven't done that.

On the other hand, the Israelis assasinated a PLO/Hezbola/xxx leader once buy replacing his cell phone with one that had a little plastique inside. They called him on the phone; when he answered it, they detonated the bomb.

Which goes to show the "show me that it works" test isn't fool-proof.

Re:Broken devices

[Rick the Red]

A couple of years ago I was on a weekend trip and had only one carry-on bag. While I was visiting my friend, my portable CD player broke and I had to carry back a broken one. I thought nothing of it, but I guess if it happened today...

If it happened today, you would put it in your checked suitcase; today (depending on the airline and airport) you probably cannot have a carry-on bag. Used to be women could have both a carry-on and a purse; now the carry-on must be checked and the purse must be tiny and mostly empty. Men are allowed a wallet and comb and that's about it.

Embrace and extend

[Winged Cat]

So, how long before Microsoft denounces WineX as communist or somesuch ("red WineX"), shortly before releasing its binary-only ActiveX-on-Linux emulator ("white WineX")?

Re:Embrace and extend

[Anonymous Coward]

I prefer the BSD Port.

You wouldn't need batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone just followed my advice 10 years ago and installed solar panels on all electronic equipment. If there's anything even approaching a 'perpetual motion machine', it's a solar powered electronic device.

Re:You wouldn't need batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's anything even approaching a 'perpetual motion machine', it's an ADAMS MOTOR.

Re:You wouldn't need batteries

[Anonymous Coward]

...and have you tested all your solar-powered gadgets in the dim lighting in an airplane?

Of course, any true terrorist will have charged batteries, because his detonators will need charged batteries. So someone with many gadgets and with all batteries charged should be more suspicious than one with a dead gadget or two.

The value of an Enigma

[joel.neely]

I just found it interesting that one of two surviving Enigma boxen is "valued at" $144,000. How would such a figure be determined? (I assume that standard "what it would bring at auction" concepts don't apply, there being only two instances, neither of which is -- any more -- on the open market.)

Re:The value of an Enigma

[NecroPuppy]

Most likely, an 'expert' appraised it, and whoever holds it, insured it for that amount or more.

My best guess.

NecroPuppy

Re:The value of an Enigma

[PD]

Insurance sets the value. If you don't have any clue what some unique artifact is worth, just buy a million bucks worth of insurance for it. If you lose it, you'll find that it was worth a million bucks.

Seriously, appraisers take a look at the thing. They take their best guess at what it's worth, what it could fetch at auction or sale, and they declare it to be that value.

Re:The value of an Enigma

[darkonc]

appraising the value of (relatively) unique items is difficult at best. A friend of mine has been studying silversmithing for a few years. He was recently comissioned to do a 1/3 scale solid silver broadsword. It was delivered this summer, and the person who comissioned the work sent it off to get appraised. Months later, the appraiser still hasn't figured out a price.

I can think of two obvious issues to take into account when trying to value a unique item: One would be replacement cost --- how much would it cost to have someone replace the appearance and functionality of the pice. The other would be putting some sort of ballpark on the fact that it's an "original", and even a functional equivalent wouldn't be quite the same.

Pieces like the Mona Lisa are called 'priceless' -- I assume because it's believed that nobody could really do a 'good enough' copy of the piece if it were lost -- and they probably make enough off of the piece that any price payable wouldn't really cover the loss in revenues.

Re:The value of an Enigma

[Kevin DeGraaf]

I just found it interesting that one of two surviving Enigma boxen is "valued at" $144,000.

What? Didn't we just hear an announcement that Enigma is free (as in beer AND speech)?

Re:The value of an Enigma

[Troed]

Crappy appraiser - the cost is what your friend (should be contacted) or someone like him would charge to do another one.

Re:The value of an Enigma

[darkonc]

The intent was to get an independant appraisal. The problem is, apparently, finding someone else who could/would do something similar.

Re:The value of an Enigma

[Anonymous Coward]

...which apprently means you cannot value works of art (being that each one is unique).

Which is crap.

Think for god sake.

Re:The value of an Enigma

[geekplus]

There are more than two surviving. The story said the Navy captured several (do I remember "fourteen"?).

The story clearly statest that there are only two on public display.

Re:The value of an Enigma

[Tackhead]

> > I just found it interesting that one of two surviving Enigma boxen is "valued at" $144,000.
> What? Didn't we just hear an announcement [slashdot.org] that Enigma is free (as in beer AND speech)?

And besides, why pay $144,000 for a cryptosystem that was cracked 60 years ago?

Oh, I get it, that's gonna be the "civilian-grade" encryption US companies will be allowed to use when all this terrorist mess is over ;-)

(And under DMCA, reading about Bletchley Park is illegal -- so evidently the first American to buy an Enigma and cr4x0r it again will have a big leg up on the rest of us ;-)

Re:The value of an Enigma

[tangledweb]

Firstly, I believe that there are a few enigma machines stil around. The article in the link above, says that there are two on public exhibition, which is not the same as two surviving.

This means that some probably have come up for sale from time to time over the years. Somebody could extrapolate from those sales an approximation of today's value. The thing of course is that this would only be an approximation.

I suspect that the reason this value sounds so precise is that it has been converted from pounds to dollars. Somebody quoted a value of 100000 UK pounds. Some concrete thinking journalist pulled out their calculator and put $144000 dollars into an article.

Journalists generally do not understand significant figures. I suspect that the person who originally came up with the approximation of 100000 was not claiming to be accurate down to the nearest $1000.

Airport security

[Rombuu]

Last week, flying between several supposedly very security-conscious airports (Dulles, Munich, Berlin, Frankfurt), I never had to turn my laptop on, probably because I had carefully charged the battery beforehand.

Hell, I flew the first day they opened up air traffic after Sept 11th, and then seven or eight times in the next couple of weeks through lots of airports, carrying a laptop, a cell phone, a palm pilot, and a GBA and was never asked to turn any of them on.

Re:Airport security

[compwizrd]

I've walked through the metal detectors at Detroit Metro, with two sets of keyrings, my sunglasses, and about 10-15 dollars of loonies and toonies(bigger than your US dollar coins), and not set the alarm off. There were 10 keys total on the keyring, and the change is a fair mass, along with the sunglasses.

I'm sure a knife or something has a lot less mass in it.

I walked through security at Philadelphia doing similar, and the detector beeped. I had been standing in the arch for a few seconds, waiting for the person in front of me. So what did they do? Told me to walk through it again, and when it didn't beep, that was it.

White Plains(New york) and Dulles are more competent though, they're doing scans with the hand batons, and pat down searches as well. Random bag checks too. National Guard with M16's waiting too. Neither DTW or PHL seemed to be doing bag checks when i was there. Unarmed guards at DTW and IAD, from what i saw.

Then again HPN didn't check the end pocket of my duffle bag when they searched it, where I had all my stuff like toothbrushes, shaving stuff, etc.

Re:Airport security

[aurispector]

There was a news item the other week about the company that provides security for PHL as well as other large airports. The FAA had ordered them to fix security flaws and they didn't bother to comply. Backround checks were not performed resulting in convicted felons being hired to work as security guards. A few days after the 9/11 attack a local guy got arrested for carrying a box cutter through security checkpoints *twice*. He then called the police to complain about the lax security and was promptly arrested for his trouble...

Re:Airport security

[motherhead]

I not only fly out of O'hare often but I also often have to meet people in the terminals.

I would never claim that O'hare has better then average security, but i recall since at least 1999 (in at least the United, American and Delta terminals) i have been asked to turn on my Palm Pilot or Laptop. (though i can't remember them checking my cell, ever)

I never thought twice about it. I think it's creepy that even after recent events other airports don't.

Re:Airport security

[gregorio]

I've walked through the metal detectors at Detroit Metro, with two sets of keyrings, my sunglasses, and about 10-15 dollars of loonies and toonies(bigger than your US dollar coins), and not set the alarm off. There were 10 keys total on the keyring, and the change is a fair mass, along with the sunglasses.

Any space left for a couple of hammers or something?

Re:Airport security

[compwizrd]

Heh. It was by accident that i discovered about the detectors first time. Forgot to take my keys out of my pocket as I went through.. Next time i went to that airport, i figured i'd see what it took. I forgot to mention about having my pager on me as well, the one time. You'd think _something_ would have set it off.

I think a hammer would set it off, well.. maybe not at Detroit....

Re:Airport security

[ca1v1n]

A knife would have sharp edges. Sharp edges do much stranger things to magnetic fields than keys and coins do. A large knife would probably be detected, though a small boxcutter might still get through. As we now know, it doesn't take much.

Re:Airport security

[danox]

I went through security at Copenhagen airport once. I had this hammer with a sharp pointy end that was specificaly designed for breaking glass on a train in an energency. I had put it in the pocket of my jacket months ago, and it has slipped through a hole, into the lining of my jacket, and I had completely forgotten about it.

I went through the metal detector and it went off. I took every metal thing I had out of my pockets (one of them was actually a pocket knife). it still went off. Eventualy they got out the hand sensor thing, and found it went off around the left side of my jacket. I felt there, and noticed something hard. Spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out what it was, eventually I found the hole in my pocket, fished around inside my jacket lining, and pulled out this glass breaking hammer.

As you can imagine I was quite embarressed and was ready to be pulled in for questioning. However the security guard just handled me back my stuff (inlcuding the pocket knife) and waved me past WITH THE HAMMER IN MY HAND. I couldn't believe that I had gotten away with that. I still can't. This, I think, is an even better example of bad security than people sneaking guns through. I mean the guy saw the hammer. saw that I had it hidden inside the lining of my jacket, he didn't just let me go, he let me take the thing with me. bizzare.

Re:Airport security

[Aerolith_alpha]

Wow... I had to go through the metal detectors to pick up my friend at his gate and they made me turn on my PDA to prove it worked. Just making it work is kinda silly to me though--The compact flash slot on my nino is big enough that you could probably but something 'bad' in there and get it in with the device still intact. I would image laptops have even more internal space... like the ones with second HD bays, etc.

Re:Airport security

[jschrod]

And what would you have done with your emergency hammer?

Breaking a glass during the flight? Damn good idea.

Your pocket knife does not raise the risk either, not more than bringing in hard-plastic sharp pieces (or box cutters, coincidentially...). It is not possible to prevent this.

Do yourself a favour and read Bruce Schneier's special Crypto-Gram issue for an insightful piece.

Re:Airport security

[danox]

Well, I could have used either to hold up the plane and fly it into a building for example.

Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[ajuda]

Isn't it possible to hide a weapon or explosive inside of a working device? I mean, there is plenty of room inside the average laptop to stick some nasties... What's the point of making people turn these devices on?

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[jeffy124]

that's a good point. you can tuck something inside a second battery slot or empty drive slot. But then again, laptops are required to still go through the xray machine, where something would (hopefully) be found.

But honestly, I dont know what turning something on would provide. A terrorist can always key a fake electronic device to act like a real device when placed under inspection. A cell phone is perfect for that, as they dont go through xray nor metal detectors (at least that was the case last time I was at an airport last August), and all one has to do is turn on the backlight or display panel.

Maybe it's just a false sense of security that some policy maker thought up.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[czardonic]

What's the point of making people turn these devices on?

Their aim is to squander your valuable time on creating a false sense of security. They know that it would take real money and effort to provide security measures that might actully prevent a person from bringing a weapon on board a plane. So, in order to maximise shareholder value, they gamble on these illusory measures. Terrorism is still quite rare, so they take the chance.

How often do you hear about some local investigative reporter sneaking a gun through security. How often do you hear about an ACTUAL criminal being foiled by these measures. (And what's with the National Guard. Are they afraid that terrorists are going to storm the gates?

More than anything, these are publicity stunts. By harassing the general public, they create the false sense that security is strict.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[gmack]

They have yet to EVER ask me to remove my steel toe boots.

I set off the detector every time and all they do is wave the stupid wand and make sure my boots are actually metalic.

Lucky for them I'm mostly harmless.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[sllort]

Isn't it possible to hide a weapon or explosive inside of a working device?

From How Airport Security Works:

Electronic items, such as laptop computers, have so many different items packed into a relatively small area that it can be difficult to determine if a bomb is hidden within the device. That's why you may be asked to turn your laptop or PDA on. But even this is not sufficient evidence since a skilled criminal could hide a bomb within a working electronic device. For that reason, many airports also have a chemical sniffer.

In short, it raises the bar. It is necessary but not sufficient. Packing a windows emulator and a bomb into a notebook is harder than just packing a bomb. Unless you're got a dell inspiron 8000, in which case just remove one of the dual 20 pound batteries and replace it with C4. But I digress.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[slickwillie]

It's the same thing as confiscating fingernail clippers from little old ladies.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[OmegaDan]

There must be *some* reason. I think in 97 or 98 I was at a bob dole rally (my g/f drug me), and the secret service checked everyone who was close to bob dole -- demonstrate cell phones, examine pagers, and they made me show them my pilot 1000 ... curiously they'd never seen one before but they were satisfied to look at the program manager.

Curiously, I attended a sunny bono and was close enuf to spit on him and no one cared :)

(These anticdotes shouldn't be considered an endorsement of republicanism)

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[bill.sheehan]

Many moons ago, Penn Jillette (the talking half of Penn & Teller) wrote a column for PC Magazine. Well known for practical jokes and a sense of humor that skirts the borders of sick, he once suggested an autoexec.bat file for laptops that went something like this:

echo off
echo Arming....
echo Armed...
echo 10...
echo 9...
echo 8...

Decidedly NOT recommended in these hypersensitive times!

Will you kill him in his bed? Stick a dagger in his head? I would not, could not kill the king. I would not do this evil thing. I will not wed this girl, you see. So get her to a nunnery. -- Green Eggs and Hamlet

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[bluehell]

Cell phones have to go through the airport's xray, at least in the european airports i've been to lately (london stansted, salzburg, frankfurt). actually i had to put everything except my clothes in my bag, even my newspapers, and this bag had to go through the xray. you and your clothes go through the metal detector then. the only things that don't get checked by the metal detectors or the xray are your keys and your wallet.

us airports HAVE to learn a lot more about security. i can't believe you were able to go tothe gates WITHOUT a ticket... european airports have a stronger sense of security, because almost every flight is an international flight.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[psych031337]

Put in some delay between the counting - the way it is right now, it would just rush down and then display the DOS prompt. A delay function of 1000ms in between every echo and echoing a CTRL-G would most likely get you shot pretty fast nowadays.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Argy]

Definitely room for nasties in a functioning laptop. I've got a Panasonic industrial laptop, with a decently thick metal exterior...I've always wondered if you couldn't just stick a loaded handgun in the swappable FD/CD-ROM slot. But I gather law enforcement takes a dim view of "I was just testing to see whether it would get through or not." :-)

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe it's just a false sense of security that some policy maker thought up.

hee hee hee. "maybe"

silly jeffy124

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[benb]

> It is necessary but not sufficient.

It is also necessary that my belt doesn't contain a mini-knife or something. Do they check that? No.

My point: Concentrate on checks that /sufficiently/ rule out possibilities *and* that don't harm the "good" people's rights too much. Many of the recently introduced checks (and laws BTW) seem to fail both criteria.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Teferi]

I have an Inspiron 8k. The batteries are actually pretty damn small, considering the amount of life I get out of 'em.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Bishop]

Yes please try that. And while you are in prison you can tell us what it is like.

Unless the case is lead the Xrays will go right through.

on a funny note: when I was much younger the xray operator had a troubled look on his face as my backpack went through the xray machine. He pulled me aside and asked what was in my backpack pointing at the xray screen. It was a box of well packed lego with the old big red, blue, and yellow gears. I guess it looked like a big machenical bomb. :)

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[jpmkm]

Maybe it's just a false sense of security that some policy maker thought up.

As George Carlin said, airport security is designed to make white people feel safe.

What is keeping a strong person with big hands from killing a flight attendant? It's not the weapons, people. They do all this high tech bullshit to look for weapons, but there is no way to xray people's heads or anything to find out if they are going to hijack the airplane. Too bad there are so many stupid people.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[s390]

you can tuck something inside a second battery slot or empty drive slot. But then again, laptops are required to still go through the xray machine, where something would (hopefully) be found.

Not really. LiMH has a density (what airport xray machines "see") similar to C4/Semtex, i.e., rather dense. That's one reason why the FAA has installed explosives "sniffer machines" at major airports. I guess they figure terrorists will be sloppy enough to fashion their bombs in the same space where they keep the luggage they'll use to carry them. Of course, the FAA never dreamed anyone would hijack airplanes with box-cutters either.

Of course, people _really_ interested in personal defense capability have been carrying concealed ceramic knives for 10 years or more on airplanes.
And after reloading small-arms ammo, always wash your hands before packing. Not doing so might result in major inconvenience later at the airport.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Neon Spiral Injector]

I'm getting ready to fly out to ALS next month, coast to coast. I'm taking my laptop.

I had thought (for a split second) about throwing a count down at the end of my init scripts.

A cow-orker that is going with me does have a count down on his machine already when logging in as root, but it is just for how many bottles of beer are left on the wall. I told him that he probally shouldn't log in as root if he is asked to demonstrate his laptop. As a good *nix user, he replied, "root access wouldn't be required for that task anyway."

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Anonymous Coward]

The "8000" signifies the laptop's weight in millipounds. Nice, but not light.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[beowulfshaeffer]

At SJC I actually had to put everything except my keys through the X-Ray machine. This included my wallet. If the metal detector happened to detect my keys, they probably would have gone through too.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Anonymous Coward]

hehe :-)

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Anonymous Coward]

These anticdotes shouldn't be considered an endorsement of republicanism

Or spitting.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Teferi]

Oh, absolutely...but I love it. Huge screen, nice gfx card, and so on.
The battery is significantly smaller than the battery from my old Quantex N30W (Dell sold it as the Inspiron 5000), and seems to last longer, just making that point.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[Anonymous Coward]

A clockwork red, blue, and yellow?

You're right, before fancy electronic detonators became favored by Hollywood, a good old mechanical alarm clock was sufficient for a time bomb.

Of course, everyone knows that all bombs have a countdown timer, a flashing light, and they BEEP once a second.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[sql*kitten]

So, in order to maximise shareholder value, they gamble on these illusory measures. Terrorism is still quite rare, so they take the chance.

I don't think this is the case at all. Planes are expensive, lawsuits from families of passengers are expensive, reputational damage is expensive. Given the choice, the average airline would have excellent security. If they didn't, the auditors employed by their insurers would up the premiums.

More than anything, these are publicity stunts. By harassing the general public, they create the false sense that security is strict.


No, this is just general, federal-grade cluelessness. Like there is a no standing rule on some flights now. Exactly how does that help? How does being asked to empty your pockets more than once help? How does banning metal cutlery from the diner in the waiting area help?

What we are seeing here is officials who have absolutely no idea how to deal with the threat grasping at straws in a desperate attempt to show that they are doing "something". I certainly don't feel any safer; all this has proved is that security is *worse* than anyone suspected, since these people clearly don't know what they're doing.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[jeffy124]

now that you say it, I do recall BWI (Baltimore/Washington) having my phone go through the xray machine. San Fran and Birmingham had me put the phone in they tray with my keys. But I still had to demo the backlight for them.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[czardonic]

I don't think this is the case at all. Planes are expensive, lawsuits from families of passengers are expensive, reputational damage is expensive.

But (at least in America) memories are short and denial is rampant.

No, this is just general, federal-grade cluelessness.

In the US, the Feds don't control security in the airports. This is left to the Airlines, who contract it out to the lowest bidder. The Airlines are fighting tooth and nail to avoid stricter regulations and to avoid beefing up security to any meaningful level. Even the Flight Attendents are talking about how lax things are.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[mellon]

This is pretty obvious if you think about it. Batteries are extremely dense energy storage devices. What's another dense energy storage device? Plastique. Do they look different on the X-ray? Probably not enough to tell.

So they make you turn the device on to make sure that your energy-storage device stores electrical energy, not kinetic energy. This makes perfect sense, and what concerns me is that they don't always check.

Re:Am I the only one who doesn't get this?

[blang]

Then there are plastic guns

According to this laws have been passed to ban manufactoring of any guns that can not be spotted on x-ray. However, I can imagine any handy man a la mcgyver could construct a gun concealed as a working cigarette lighter, working ballpoint pen, and bottle of sugar coated vitamin pills for bullets.

FMD Discs

[Patrick Cable II]

Will there be Digital Rights Management[DRM] software in these discs? I hope not.

-
Patrick

Windows = NonFunctional?

[terpia]

But what if some clueful person in security (yeah yeah I know its not likely) decides that my compnay laptop with Win2k is a "non-functional device"? They'd be pretty much right of course, but does that mean I can't take it with me?

Enigma...

[jeffy124]

...hmmm ....

You'd think the Germans would have figured out that someone cracked Enigma when the Allied forces knew about their secret plans on a consistent basis.

OTOH, kudos to the Brits for knowing how to handle decrypted info. In Zimmermann's Note, for example, they intercepted and cracked the original message, but made it look like lax security in Mexico compromised the Note to the US.

Re:Enigma...

[Indomitus]

One of the main problems the English had with using the Enigma information was to make sure the Germans thought they got the information in other ways. For instance, if they caught a message that said a ship convoy was headed in a certain direction, they would fly planes over a large area that included the area where the ships were so the Germans would think they accidently got caught. They didn't actually use Enigma information that often without getting the information some other way (spies, reconnaissance, etc) IIRC.

Re:Enigma...

[casret]

If Neal Stephenson is to be believed in Cryptonomicon, Turing used information theory to only use just enough secret information that would be attributable to chance.

Re:Enigma...

[kzinti]

You'd think the Germans would have figured out that someone cracked Enigma when the Allied forces knew about their secret plans on a consistent basis.

The Allies were very careful to disguise the source of their knowledge. A target was never struck without first sending out a reconnaissance mission and letting the Germans spot it. Or so the pop-history sources say. You can also read about this sort of thing in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon.

--Jim

Re:Enigma...

[RollingThunder]

Which is also a good idea - disinformation is also sent via coded messages on occasion, so you need to make sure that the message was accurate before you deploy forces.

Re:Enigma...

[DCowern]

Could you imagine a beowulf cluster of these...

Oh... wait... nevermind. ;-)

Re:Enigma...

[jeffy124]

yup. That's what the case was in Zimmermann's Note.

The story goes that he transmitted it from Berlin to the Mexican Ambassador to the US in Washington DC, and that is what was picked up by the Brits. Some of the Note was intended for him, the rest was to be sent on to Mexico City, including that part about regaining control of some of the southwestern US states.

The Brits knew that the Ambassador would rewrite the note before passing on the appropriate parts to Mexico City. The Brits did that and then gave the note to the US.

When Germany investigated the compromise (after it became known that the US had the Note), they concluded that poor security by the Mexicans allowed an Allied spy to find the message in Mexico City. Hence they continued using Enigma on messages and the Brits continued cracking them.

That (and the example you give) allowed the Allied forces to continue breaking messages, because they feared the Axis powers would begin using a different encyption technique should they find out about the compromise of Enigma.

Re:Enigma...

[kzinti]

disinformation is also sent via coded messages on occasion, so you need to make sure that the message was accurate before you deploy forces.

That hadn't occurred to me - at least not in this context. My understanding is that the Germans were so confident in the security of Enigma that they would have considered disinformation unnecessary.

--Jim

Re:Enigma...

[Anonymous Coward]

The allies often times ignored information given to them by Enigma to protect it. IIRC, in one instance a ship in the Mediterranian full of allied wounded was allowed to be sunk by the Germans even though the British had full knowledge this might happen.

Re:Enigma...

[aurispector]

AFAIK this is correct. The nazis were being told by their crypto guys that it was mathematically impossible to crack enigma. The british finished work begun by the poles exploiting subtle flaws in the system that allowed it to be cracked.

The quality of information flowing over enigma confirmed to the allies that the nazis never lost faith in the basic concept embodied by enigma, even if they did add rotors later in the war.

Re:Enigma...

[hayden]

In the end they were unhappy if they didn't have that days code by 6am (they were changed at midnight). The shortest time it took was 10 minutes.

It was actually a screw up by a German signals officer which gave the British the biggest gains in cracking the code. The officer sent a message but it was scrambled at the receiving end and a retransmit was requested. What he should have done was reset the wheels to what they were and resent the message so sending exactly the same thing again. What he actually did was send the message again with a new wheel setting. Thus giving the British two different encryptions of the same text.

Re:Enigma...

[Detritus]

You forgot the part where the Germans tattooed the message on the scalp of an young Austrian corporal, A. Schickelgruber, let his hair grow out and sent him to Mexico via the German submarine U-571. The British destroyer HMS "Two Sheds" Jackson depth charged the submarine and forced it to the surface. An alert Royal Navy lieutenant, Alfred Hill, noticed the tattoo and covertly made a transcription of it for RN Intelligence. The crew of the U-571 was turned over to the Mexican authorities for repatriation. The message was decoded by British codebreakers and passed to the Foreign Office. Prime Minister Robert Borden passed the decoded message on to the Americans.

Re:Enigma...

[psych031337]

You forgot the part where the Germans tattooed the message on the scalp of an young Austrian corporal, A. Schickelgruber

Huh? Is there something I am missing? Schicklgruber was Hitler's family name before he changed it. And Hitler indeed was serving the army in Austria in WWI (but he was not ranked corporal but private).

Re:Enigma...

[Paul Komarek]

I think you missed 'HMS "two sheds" Jackson', a name from a Monty Python sketch. A fairly funny sketch, at that.

-Paul Komarek

Re:Enigma...

[Grab]

They thought it was unbreakable though. And the work required to change every Enigma everywhere would have been incredible. Mind you, just changing the rotor designs would've stopped the Brits breaking it for a while.

But the thing is, the British very quickly developed good radar, so incoming planes weren't a surprise, and the RAF established air superiority so that incoming raids were hugely expensive for the Luftwaffe. And when the convoys were really getting hit bad, the Brits came up with seriously effective sonar, so attacking convoys became hugely expensive for the U-boats, and radio direction-finding could pinpoint a U-boat fast when it came up to transmit. And finally, the desert troops (after getting beat up a bit) eventually started kicking ass. So generally, I reckon it wasn't too surprising for the Germans when shit happened. The Enigma information was mainly used to inform the Allies of general strategy so that it could be counteracted, and there's little difference between fighting an enemy who knows what you're doing, and fighting an enemy who's a good strategist and has good technology. They just assumed we had good generals and good gear.

And even the _Americans_ didn't believe the British could break Enigma. The British told the Americans there was a U-boat off the US coast. The Americans ignored the warning. The U-boat sank a large number of ships in US harbours. The Americans then looked around and said, "Hey, you guess mebbe them Limeys was tellin' the truth?" DOH!

Grab.

Re:Enigma...

[geekplus]

Anyone interested should read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Over half the book covers this *exact* issue of how to take advantage of a broken code without revealing to the enemy that you've broken it.

The book is 900 pages though -- but as anyone who's read it knows, you can just read every odd-numbered chapter to get the WWII stuff. (kidding... a little).

Re:Enigma...

[b1t r0t]

The officer sent a message but it was scrambled at the receiving end and a retransmit was requested.

Wasn't that the trick behind figuring out the other important code the Germans had? The one which was basically a binary XOR with a key?

Re:Enigma...

[Anonymous Coward]

which raises the question, why didnt the germans think "hmm, those recon crews always seem to be out here a lot after we mention it over enigma"

OT: interesting that you and others all mentioned this Cyrptonomicom book.

Re:Enigma...

[jeffy124]

that wasnt the problem for the allied forces. They feared that if the germans would truly find out about Enigma's compromise, they would simply pull out a backup plan or quickly throw one together, which would mean trouble for those responsible for decrypting those messages.

Yes, technology did advance in radar, sonar, etc, but SIGINT was still a very critical piece of the war.

D-Day was another example. The Allied forces knew that one of their encryption schemes (whatever it was) had been broken by the Axis powers. So during the planning of D-Day, the Allies sent out false plans using that encryption just to let the Axis powers find it. That's why the Axis troops weren't at Normandy the morning of D-Day, the troops were at another location far away from Normandy. Yes there were still troops to contend with at Normandy, but that was a very small number because most of them were sent to the other location.

Some call that a key piece to ending the war in Europe, or at least to the success of D-Day for the Allies.

Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[slickwillie]

How are you supposed to write to your representative if their mail isn't getting delivered, due to the Anthrax scare?

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm.. one of the first questions when a crime has been committed is: Who benefits? Sounds like we have some new Anthrax suspects...

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[NecroPuppy]

Just the Fax, sir...

Sorry... Columbo marathon going on... :)

NecroPuppy

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[Kefabi]

Don't mail. Fax. They will get it, they don't have to worry about anthrax, and sending something by fax seems a lot more spiffier to them than by standard mail.

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[mlong]

How are you supposed to write to your representative if their mail isn't getting delivered, due to the Anthrax scare?

I wrote Senator Hollings since I live in SC and he never wrote back. This was in August. So it doesn't matter if it's delivered or not...Hollings won't read it anyway.

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[BradleyUffner]

I was listening to NPR on the way home from work today. There was a story about how anthrax spores were found in the area where mail for the whitehouse is tranfered from one mailroom to the next and is checked. Officials were quoted as saying are considering burning all the unopened mail in the facility destined for the whitehouse in order to protect the president and whitehouse staff. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this?

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[SEE]

Telegram. When you care enough to pay $9.95 to send a 1000-character-maximum message.

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[ivancich]

How about a fax? That's how I make my views known to my senators and representative.

How can you easily determine one of their fax numbers? The following links will likely work, although you may have to call the listed voice number to ask for the fax number.

For the Senate, start at http://www.senate.gov/senators/senator_by_state.cf m.

For the House, start at http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.html.

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Why don't you volunteer to sort and open all of it. Be sure to breathe deeply.

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[cymen]

Not really. Why even accept public mail to the Whitehouse? What is the value? Little Timothy got to write to old Georgie? I say burn it all and start refusing delivery!

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[Kinetix303]

I'm fairly sure Telex doesn't run their telegraph service any more, and my local western union just sends faxes for 60 cents a page....

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[Thing 1]

Officials were quoted as saying are considering burning all the unopened mail in the facility destined for the whitehouse in order to protect the president and whitehouse staff. Does anyone else see anything wrong with this?

I certainly do, especially after seeing on CNN that the spores were found on a "slitter" -- a mail opening device.

So burning unopened mail? Sounds fishy. My question would be "Which officials? Hollings?"

Re:Speaking of Hollings and the SSSCA

[Zach Baker]

As far as I can tell, Western Union merely types up submitted telegrams on their stationery and sends them Airborne Express next-day. Sure, more expensive than a fax, but probably given regard approaching actual handwritten mail (unlike faxes and in particular email).

Prove functionality?

[Black Acid]

I deal with broken PCBs and computer systems on a daily basis. Surplus, used, or thrown away, I have it, sell it, and salvage it. These airport's new security regulations require all electronic devices to be proved functional, as I understand it.

This is of course a huge problem for the business of salvaging broken or obsolete customer electronics. Prove functionality? My junk hasn't been functional in 20 years! Hopefully the guards will understand my situation.

Re:Prove functionality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you bringing broken parts in your plane carry-on? Check it or mail it and there wouldn't be any problem.

Re:Prove functionality?

[Black Acid]

Why are you bringing broken parts in your plane carry-on? Check it or mail it and there wouldn't be any problem.

Good question. Mainly, I do this because my time is limited and I have to unsolder components whenever I can. I'd love to use a 110V bulk unsolder gun, but in truth my 9V one works fine. Just ask one of my employees.

Re:Prove functionality?

[MrResistor]

I'm guessing it's only carry-on stuff that's subject to these searches, so just don't carry it on. If they're huffy about the stuff being in checked baggage, just ship it overnight to yourself. It's not as expensive as you think.

Re:Prove functionality?

[Mr. Slippery]

Mainly, I do this because my time is limited and I have to unsolder components whenever I can. I'd love to use a 110V bulk unsolder gun, but in truth my 9V one works fine.

Activities that produce lead vapors are not recommended for enclosed spaces like airplane cabins.

Re:Prove functionality?

[shatteredpottery]

I wouldn't be too sure that the guards will be understanding. When I was little, (in the 70's, when hijacking was also a big problem) I and my family accompanied my uncle to the airport to see him off. He was taking an electronics package from the federal agency (I'm not trying to be mysterious, I just don't remember which one. Nothing exciting. DOT? It was for testing particulates in exhaust or something. Hey, I was seven!) he worked at to a laboratory back east, had TONS of paperwork, all official government stuff, his supervisors had cleared it with the airport, etc., etc.

Of course the guards didn't care, they wouldn't call their supervisor, they were positive it was a bomb, they hauled us off to a holding room and called various police agencies and so forth. By the time he got cleared, the plane had left. Of course. And we had arrived three hours early. No apologies, nothing.

Re:Prove functionality?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of lead-free solder? I thought everyone used it.

Re:Prove functionality?

[Anonymous Coward]

I swear to christ, if the guy sitting next to me on a plane ever pulls out a soldering iron and a PCB and starts pulling components, I don't care if I'm smelling lead or not, I'm going to stick the fucking thing in his eye and twist.

Re:Prove functionality?

[Mr. Slippery]

Ever heard of lead-free solder? I thought everyone used it.

For plumbing, crafts, and metalwork, yes, the solder used is almost always lead-free.

For electonics, you'll still find the lead-bearing stuff in general use - the rosin core solder you get at your local Radio Shack is most likely still 60/40 tin/lead.

There is work underway to eventually eliminate the use of lead-bearing solders in electronics, but it's still a way off. And who knows how long it will be before it's adopted worldwide.

So solder/desolder only where there's adequate ventilation.

FMD disk

[Picass0]

Wow! I should be able to fit my entire DVD collection on just a couple of these babies! (For archival purposes, of course.)

Repeats

[brunes69]

OK /. editors, this is getting ridiculous. You mean these magical FMDs in this article? Or this one? Oh wait, its the same thing.

Come on guys, I'm just a casual reader and i IMMEDIATLY said "I've seen this many times before". How about you start reading your own site.

Re:Repeats

[CtrlPhreak]

Come on, this is slashback. The whole point of this is to revisit previous articles and point out any new developments about the topics.

Re:Repeats

[anonicon]

Two words: Vaporware Redux.

When they ship these to electronics stores near me I'll stop smoking crack through the butt of my Tickle Me Elmo.

Oh come on.

[Gannoc]

in order to power up the MD but it could have been a much worse situation if I didn't have a spare battery.

Yeah, if you can't prove the device works, they incinerate it, and sometimes you as well.

Re:Oh come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

In some parts of the Middel East, the luggage is lined up next to the aircraft, and each passenger is required to identify their suitcase, etc. Any bags not matched to passengers after boarding are detonated on the spot.

Re:Oh come on.

[aridhol]

In some parts of the Middel East, the luggage is lined up next to the aircraft, and each passenger is required to identify their suitcase, etc. Any bags not matched to passengers after boarding are detonated on the spot.

That must be really annoying if you and your baggage manage to get separated. Or do their airlines never send luggage to the wrong place?

Re:Oh come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lost luggage is the least of your worries. Try being cavity searched with a baton...or flying on outdated aircraft where the passengers are up and about during take-off and landing. If the only thing that happens is a missing suitcase, and you arrive as planned, you're a happy camper :)

Re:Oh come on.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like to search your cavity with my baton. email me!

Communism?

[TeknoHog]

Like this?

;-)

At least your airport has checks...

[stoopidguy]

I'm kind of scared to fly out of JIA [Jacksonville, FL] because the past three flights I have been on since Sept. 11th I have had no sort of extra search. I do not mind consenting to a quick frisking or the like; but absolutely no heightened security frightens me. Same thing with the Jags games; I can walk right into the gate as usual. And if I happen to be pushing kegs (working at the stadium stocking booths for extra money) then I can carry a duffel bag in without even getting a strange look. Security seems to be a joke down here. Also, before you guys tell me "we don't need no stinking searches" and "searches are a false sense of security"; I do agree with the statements somewhat. It is a false sense of security, but it is extremely sad to next to no-security at our airports even after the attacks that occurred.

Re:At least your airport has checks...

[geekoid]

There has been nothing in any air serurity that wouldn't allow this to happen again. nothing,0, zip, nada.
really the only thing that would prevent this again is the fact if you and 3 of your buds stood up with knife, you would get the sh*t kicked out of you by the other passengers. There's your security.
And if someone wants to bring a plane down, do you really think they need to be on it?
The only thing these new security measures will impact is honest persons lives.

Re:At least your airport has checks...

[t]

Let me guess, you and most people around you are old or white right?

Re:At least your airport has checks...

[stoopidguy]

Try young and shayd looking :(

As far as what the other person was saying, yes it is true; the only thing that will keep a takeover from occuring would be 5 guys standing up and beating the hijacker's arse.

SuSE 7.3

[FreakOfTheWeek]

Don't forget about SuSE 7.3...annother distro to keep an eye on this week.

Re:SuSE 7.3

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't you mean poke an eye out? If I made RPMs as crappy as SuSE, I'd be amazed it booted at all...

Re:SuSE 7.3

[Anonymous Coward]

SuSE sucks my ass. They never release a real downloadable version of SuSE Linux. Just that stupid "runs from CD only" garbage. Screw SuSE. I get my thrills at http://www.redhat.com

Mandrake Linux 8.1 Beta 1 "Raklet" reference

[Black Acid]

For those interested in the new features of Mandrake 8.1, be sure to check out this information. The newest killer features include, according to their website:

• Draknet (network configuration tool), test and enjoy this thoroughly reworked version.
• Support for the Euro
• Mime Type managing reworked
• Renewed URPMI (package installer) and Software Manager
• The reworked Mandrake Control Center will provide a convenient embedded root console as well as new tools such as Logdrake, a graphical frontend to the system log files, or Drakinst, which allows easy setup of an auto-install disk.
• Renewed HardDrake (disk partitioner)
• Fresh version of PrinterDrake to get all the power of your printer.

Although Beta 1 obviously has less features than the final release, it's a good read.

I admit I'm a bit confused as to what they mean by "support for the Euro" - isn't is supported given Unicode support, character U+20AC? If anyone is curious, I recommend Microsoft's FAQ on the Euro.

Re:Mandrake Linux 8.1 Beta 1 "Raklet" reference

[belg4mit]

HardDrake is like kudzu, hardware detection.

*Disk*Drake is the repartitioner.

Re:Mandrake Linux 8.1 Beta 1 "Raklet" reference

[tdye]

My guess is that it's marketing akin to the "designed for Windows 95" labels you saw on keyboards and mousepads and blank floppy disks, back when 95 was released.

People here in Ireland are freaking out hardcore about the Euro changeover, and there's a marketing campaign going on that's only slightly less vigorous than the Win95 one was.

Re:Mandrake Linux 8.1 Beta 1 "Raklet" reference

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is this misinformation "Informative?!"

a newbie's opinion on RedHat 7.2 vs. Mandrake 8.1

[NeoTomba]

First off, I'm a Linux newbie. I've been running Linux for a month. Despite that, I've picked up a lot of stuff quickly. I started off with Mandrake 8.0, which, while good, seemed a little outdated.

And it was. 2 days later Mandrake 8.1 came out. I upgraded, and though buggy, its extremely nice.

However, I've been waiting for RH7.2 for quite some time. I installed RH years ago with my friend Peter, but we didn't know how to do shit (though we did manage to install it fine, go figure). If only we had known to type "startx" maybe we could have become linux zealots back in high school.

In any case, RH 7.2 blows me away. The installation interface is very professional and the default configurations are rock solid. I saw no need to personalize every little thing since everything looked so good right off. Mandrake, despite its simplicity in so many areas, required much more configuration, in my opinion. Theres a lot to set up, and Mozilla still isn't it's default browser.

If I only I knew enough to mount my windows partition under RH 7.2, I might start using it instead of Mandrake.

But then, its only a short wait for the 8.1 gaming edition to come out, and maybe I'll switch again. Linux is fun like that.

Don't flame me too hard for these uninformed opinions. I apologize ahead of time for being too stupid to mount my windows partition.
-NeoTomba

*nix laptops?

[terpia]

On a serious note, *Nix users beware:
On an international flight coming back into the states, I was taken aside and told I matched a profile and I would be searched. I was told this wasnt unusual and was for the safety of everyone. They decided that my laptop did need to be scanned. For what exactly, I have never been sure. I was running Redhat at the time and their scanning machine had NO provisions for *nix OSes...and I was questioned as to why I was NOT running windows. (like i was automatically suspect because of this!) They had to bring in a computer "expert" (an airport IT guy) to evaluate the computer. He seemed clued in to what was going on and after a quick look see, assured the security goons that there was nothing on my laptop that could end the world. This whole process took almost 2 hours, which isnt terribly long, but long enough to miss my connecting flight out. The moral to this? Be prepared to explain yourself if you have anything the security guys dont recognize.

Re:*nix laptops?

[statusbar]

Is this true?

What airport did this happen at?

--jeff

Re:*nix laptops?

[terpia]

Portland International Airport. COming back from Japan. I negelcted to mention this was almost two years ago.

Re:*nix laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

lesson here: Dedicate half a gig to Win95. I'm sure you could find a pirated version online or swipe a copy from a neighbor.

Re:*nix laptops?

[terpia]

Alas, that laptop suffered a catastrophic failure. (apparently it had an issue with the pint of beer i tried to kindly nourish it with...) And my current laptop? Company owned and running win2k, but i do carry a QNX floppy disk so i can feel cool....

Re:*nix laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit - but a nice attempt at a troll. Keep trying.

Re:*nix laptops?

[philovivero]

I'd heard one way to get by this is simply login to the shell and set your prompt accordingly:

export PS1='C:\>'

This, I was told, will convince the guy everything's fine.

If he's a confused GUI guy, just run FVWM95 to make him happy.

If you don't have enough RAM to run XWindows on your laptop, have a JPEG screenshot of a Windows desktop and use your favourite console-mode JPEG viewer to bring it up.

Unfortunately, although everyone is 100x more paranoid now than they were before, they're absolutely no smarter, so you've got to play stupid games like this.

Don't think you're above these stupid games. If you can't give a security guy what he expects in his tiny little worldview, he will want to ass-search you.

Re:*nix laptops?

[GNU Zealot]

Anyone else smell some BS?

If they were scanning for something that could damage the plane or people, why would they care about the software? They would probably be looking for physical things. A modification to control or conceal some weird device, or perhaps some bomb residue.

This is probably BS, however international airports can be weird at times.

Re:*nix laptops?

[TeknoHog]

Nice tricks, but what if someone there has half a clue and they realize you're faking the OS? Dunno if you'd get into trouble eventually, but it might take a lot of explaining.. and it's not usually good to piss off those officers. It's like the smart-asses who send flour or something in letters to mimic anthrax deliveries.

Re:*nix laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly this is Microsoft's fault. Sue them. They are now using government muscle to squash the competition. That is a monopolistic violation of the anti-trust laws if ever I've heard of one.

I wonder if I could have bitten my tongue hard enough not to blurt out something like, "Because Windows is such a piece of crap that only an idiot who didn't know better would use it!"

Re:*nix laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was asked to turn on my laptop a few weeks ago going through airport security (domestic flight). The security woman asked me to let it boot up into the OS. When it got to the grub loader, she saw the nice gui and said 'ok'. Moral of the story, have a nice gui boot loader so you can get through quicker.

btw, I find your story hard to beleive, do you look like a terrorist? What is your "profile"?

Re:*nix laptops?

[psych031337]

I was running Redhat at the time and their scanning machine had NO provisions for *nix OSes...

So, they were scanning the machine for the HDD contents?? Damn weird!

When I was travelling to the US (from Frankfurt) 4 years ago I was travelling with a broken laptop - get me right, all the stuff worked fine and my data was on it, but someone special had just stepped on the screen and it would show absolutely nothing except for all these beautiful cracks.

Then they told me they either had to get visual confirmation of this being a computer or *at least* some beeping from the machine. Well, it was a DRDOS/4DOS machine, and some CTRL-G's later I was allowed to continue...

Re:*nix laptops?

[terpia]

wow, certainly a lot of BS calling here....but of course I have nothing to substantiate this with except my word. At any rate I certainly dont think I look like the cnn stereotyped terrorist. I really dont know what they were looking for; if it was child porn, stolen software or what...

Another thing that i wonder about security officers checking electronic devices is that with one the size of a laptop, couldn't the battery be replaced by one of the same external size, having a just small battery inside with enough power to boot up, but enough extra space to store/transport drugs/explosives/anthrax/etc? I dont know what betteries look like going thru an xray machine...but I assume they are pretty dense and thus a bit easier to disguise a replacement.

Re:*nix laptops?

[Anonymous Coward]

*Beep*

*Beep*

*Beep*

*Beep*

*Beep*

*BOOM*
Not good at all. This is stupid. Lameness Filter? Ack

Re:*nix laptops?

[digitalunity]

Sucky. I've been flying in and out of PDX for many years. Probably flown to Salt Lake City about 15 times from here. Never had a problem with security. My Nokia 6190 was strapped to my side when I got into security. It was turned off. I set it on the tray, walked through, took my stuff. No one asked to look at my phone. Didn't even have to turn it on.

Another time, I forgot to take my keys out of my pocket. Set it off, got the wand. So, the guy says empty your pocket. I pull out my keys, he says 'yup, just keys. Move along now'. So, I could have had a gun in my pocket with my keys, and still walked right through.

Just recently, they commented on the news how an investigative reporter got a simulated weapon through security twice in the same day.

go figure

Re:*nix laptops?

[anticypher]

So, they were scanning the machine for the HDD contents??

British security has been scanning hard drives for years now. I've been scanned twice entering the UK, once at heathrow (missed an important morning meeting, cost me a bundle) and once at Waterloo after getting off the Eurostar.

Go search on The Register and you will find some articles about the UK system. They have no problem scanning solaris x86 UFS, linux ext2fs, or any other system. They take the HD out of the laptop, copy the whole thing in a machine that apparently does a low level bit copy including boot tracks and bad sectors, and later scan for *ANY* pr0n. They will also copy every CD you have. The process takes at least an hour, during which they offer you the worst tea or coffee ever produced, bad even by low UK standards.

Everyone I know who travels regularly into London for work knows to clean out their browser caches, and to make sure if someone sends the funny pic of the day of a woman+dog, to scrub the free space with some utility. There have been prosecutions for some poor fools, mostly they just hit you up with a large fine. If you don't pay it, expect to be arrested next trip through customs. One good friend has a court appearance soon to justify all of the software found on his system, they won't tell him the exact list they found, but he had Oracle 8i and a ton of development apps licensed to his workplace, and they aren't cooperating.

Searches at PDX sound like a hunt for pr0n that is legal in Japan but totally offends American tastes. Pr0n that may be legal in the US is still illegal to import or export.

the AC

Re:*nix laptops?

[edwazere]

If they took the disk out of my laptop I would be pretty pissed, bye bye warranty.

This bloody Sony takes about half an hour just to stick a RAM upgrade in it. (Including a very dodgy piece of plastic which I wouldn't want to pull on many times.)

I don't even know where abouts the drive is in the casing.

Not to mention, why the hell would you transfer illegal porn/software/etc. on a laptop? surely you would just email it?

Anyway if they want my pr0n they will have to decrypt the pgpdisk volume first.

Re:*nix laptops?

[anticypher]

Anyway if they want my pr0n they will have to decrypt the pgpdisk volume first.

Ahhh, you haven't heard about the RIP act. If the police (any policeman, whether acting for a court or just to violate your human rights) can ask you to decrypt your PGPed disk. If you refuse, you can be held without charge forever. If you forget your key, you can be held for up to 5 years without charge. If they think you might in some way be connected to a terrorist organisation, or might commit some crime while on british soil, they can hold you on the Prevention of Terrorism Act for as long as they want, and they never have to report your detention to the public, or allow you to contact the outside world. Ever.

Welcome to England. The most criticised country in Europe for human rights violations (but I'd vote for France and Greece in 1st and 2nd place).

If they took the disk out of my laptop ... bye bye warranty.

The guys claimed they are all certified dell/sony/compaq hardware technicians, and their damage^Wwork doesn't violate the warranty. Yeah, I believe that.

the AC

Transparent Digital Cameras

[Kasreyn]

One bit of advice is, get a transparent digital camera - that is, one with a clear(ish) plastic housing so you can see the phone board through it. Just a glance at it and you can tell it's not a bomb. Might save you some hassle, though there is the drawback of it looking like a child's toy.

Mine's just a little Earthstink cam though, not very good. Got it free with a membership my dad signed up for recently. =P I don't know if you can get NICE cameras transparent.

-Kasreyn

Re:Time to hire competent security folks

[maxpublic]

Not spic welfare druggies who can't speak English

Don't forget white trash fuckwit drunks who refer to latinos as 'spics'. That sort of racist trash is the kind you want to see behind bars, not running security.

Max

Re:_Nice_ Transparent Digital Cameras?!

[Tumbleweed]

> I don't know if you can get NICE cameras transparent.

I'd say, by definition of 'nice', that would be NO. :)

who cares, it would be broken in days anyways.

[dox]

digital rights management will never work

Windows partitions

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure how you can mount a partition in Mandrake and not in RH, unless you're using some sort of graphical partition mounting system (I don't know, I dislike both distros), but you should be able to mount your drive from any terminal (straight console or xterm/wterm/aterm/etc) that has permissions to the device files in /dev...

mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /windows

this assumes that your windows partition is partition 1 on the primary master IDE drive, and that you wish to mount it into /windows (which must already exist).

Re:Windows partitions

[NeoTomba]

Mandrake, interestingly, automatically mounts fat32 partitions, so I didn't have to know anything.

Thanks for the tip, Anonymous Coward.

-NeoTomba

Re:Windows partitions

[Anonymous Coward]

right, this will work, unless the windows partition is ntfs.... then you are in for a kernel recompile ---w00t

Re:Windows partitions

[brayra]

One thing to be careful of. I only run Windows 2000 while programming windows (for work only). And, all my partitions are ntfs.

I don't know about 7.2, but 7.1 does not have ntfs added by default. You will probably need to compile the ntfs module.

In 7.1 using the 2.4.3 kernel I had some difficulty reading the partitions. What's more, writing to ntfs is not yet recommended.

Re:Windows partitions

[Abwh]

In Mandrake 8.1 the ntfs driver is included, but not mounted automatically. I added it manually to fstab, but read only... it seems it's kind of flaky for writes...

check the man page for mount, for the options applicable to it...

Gerry

What's the functionality of a bomb?

[IvyMike]

They demanded that I prove the devices functionality.

Ironically, if the device actually was a bomb, that pretty much amounts to them asking you to blow it up right there.

(But don't point that out to them, unless you want to see exactly how humorless airport security is these days.)

Re:What's the functionality of a bomb?

[TeknoHog]

Ironically, if the device actually was a bomb,

Would a laptop running XP count as one?

Re:What's the functionality of a bomb?

[Tony Shepps]

If it included strong encryption software, it could in fact be classified for export as "munitions".

Re:What's the functionality of a bomb?

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if you're the kind of fool that assumes anything from Microsoft is worthless, and anything Open Source is Holy and Good. In that case, yes - I doubt you would even have to have run XP to believe that.

Re:What's the functionality of a bomb?

[SilentChris]

You mean Linux.

Re:What's the functionality of a bomb?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Teach it phenomenology."

bring a lregular laptop and say it's a bomb later

[BroadbandBradley]

once you're inflight:
if they don't buy it and it's legit you set if off and die.

if they do buy it and it's legit/falsebomb then you do what you want.

if they don't buy it, you loose, only wising you could set off a bomb rather than go to court/jail for saying you had one.

so, you go this route, and either die, get away with it, or go to jail. who gives a shit if you were planning on dying anyhow if your mission was a success?

Charging Batteries?

[jelwell]

"The current state of air travel security means more random searches and since I tend to travel with lots of electronic gadgets, these searches take a while and they test every device."

This isn't even remotely new. Everytime I walk through the metal detector they ask me to turn on each device in my pocket, that means pda, cellphone, etc.

Normally going through the xray is enough proof that the device isn't a bomb, but it doesn't surprise me in the least if they're asking you to turn on items in stowed luggage as well.

Joseph Elwell.

Re:a newbie's opinion on RedHat 7.2 vs. Mandrake 8

[dltaylor]

Redhat should have automatically added the partition to the file (/etc/fstab) that specifies which partions mount where. It's usually called "/mnt/windows"; see if you can navigate there with either your file browser or with "cd /mnt/windows" from the command line.

If the installation did not add the information to "/etc/fstab", you can still mount it manually (as root). First, make sure that there is a directory of an appropriate name (if "ls /mnt/windows" fails, run "mkdir /mnt/windows"), then you need to know the location of the partition. If it was your "C" drive on your first IDE/ATAPI disk, the it's probably "/dev/hda1". The command "mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows" would then do the trick.

There are lots of options to "mount", and you probably want it to mount automatically, so could try "man mount" and "man fstab" to explain those things to you.

Of course, there is the possibility that you no longer have a windows partition; be sure that you can still boot into M$-Windows.

Interesting advice...but...

[dcigary]

....what happens when you don't use LapTop batteries? I carry around an old 200Mhz laptop simply for backing up pictures from my digital camera, and have long ago given up on trying to find the replacement batteries for it. Plus, it's lighter to carry around without those pesky batteries! Do they have plugs I can plug my Laptop adapter into at the search-n-frisk stations?

Re:Interesting advice...but...

[Jaysyn]

Nice to know I am not the only one that does this..

Jaysyn

Re:Interesting advice...but...

[gvonk]

Why don't you just check the bag with the laptop? You're not going to use it on the plane!

Re:Interesting advice...but...

[Anonymous Coward]

> Why don't you just check the bag with the laptop? You're not going to use it on the plane!

Because I still want to use the laptop after I get off the plane. (Have you seen what they do to checked baggage? ;-)

Er, not quite.

[MichaelKVance]

WineX - is actually a DirectX to Mesa translator

Uh... not quite. Mesa is an implementation of the OpenGL API, and is only relevant to DirectX insofar as OpenGL is a competing API to Direct3D, a component of DirectX. What you probably meant was:

WineX - which includes a reimplimentation of the DirectX API using *nix interfaces such as X11, OpenGL, and OSS.

Get it right, then get it right again.

m.

Re:Er, not quite.

[MindStalker]

Actually he was just quoting from the press release. Thats what they said, but most likly you are more accurate, as always.

Re:Er, not quite.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am guessing but it seems that the wineX implementation does actually translate Direct3D API calls to OpenGL to do HW accel

ULTIMATE fantasy

[Anonymous Coward]

My ultimate fantasy has become one of a nearly impossible hope. Yet, that small grain of light it does reluctantly yield continues to build this fantasy further. I erect instantly at the thought of relationship with this charming person. As a young gay man, my ultimate fantasy is to get fucked by Rusty of Geekizoid dot com. Why this person? Because he seems so excellent at trolling, he is obviously a disgruntled, frustrated person -- one similar in emotion to myself. I think that a lot of trolls out there are really self-denying homosexuals; they don't know how to come to terms with their true desires and need a way to take out pent-up aggression. He is also extremely beautiful to me.

I really think it could work between us. Rusty, if you are hearing me, please give me some way to contact you. I am going to divulge some of the fantasy context further.

I find a method to contact you and arrange to meet you. You arive at the consented location. I outstretch my arms to hug you... Your warm, firm body... Your short, beautiful hair... You weren't expecting the hug but it feels so nice to be loved, loved by someone who truly would do anything for you.

When we arive to the secluded location, I begin touching you all over. I remove your shirt, run my hands down your chest, tickle your armbits. Next, I undo your zipper with my mouth, unbotton your pants and slide them delicately down. I run your inner thigh and you quiver. I touch your manhood from a protective layer of cloth.

We move to shower together, myself taking care to clean us both meticulously. Next, we move to the bed, and I take your cock in my mouth. You move my head with your hands and begin a constant motion. I move you over to your other side and place light kisses on your bum-cakes. After a few minutes or so, I get on all fours which is met with you ramming your cock into me. You begin a steady flow of movement, occassionally stopping to hug my back with your chest and whisper dirty sentences in my ear. I tighten my inner muscles. You have never felt a sensation like this before and marvel at it's intenseness. The fact that it is being given by someone who truly adores and appreciates you is even more encouraging. I start moving my behind to meet your thrusts. You finally come, crying out, lashing my insides even further. When you have finally pulled out, I stroke your hair, kiss your chest and compliment you on your performance. "I want to be yours, forever."

If Rusty would please come through or one of his associates -- please supply an address, IRC nickname, etc. Surrendor data(s). False information will be ignored. I love Rusty.

EA releasing a Linux distro? Hahahahaha!

[Old Man Kensey]

That really amuses me, simply because their flagship online content, ea.com, has always been very Linux-hostile. Try going to it with anything but Netscape >=4 && <6 or IE 4+, running on MacOS or Windows. Denied!

This despite the fact that if you tell Opera to masquerade as IE, thus fooling the site into letting you past the front page, most of the stuff works fine except a) some JavaScript that isn't essential anyway and b) some blatantly non-compliant HTML (which I tried to get fixed on ADA grounds, a request which was never actually denied but simply fell into the memory hole and disappeared).

I made a moderate-sized stink about this when I worked there and basically got told "Shut up, Linux is such a tiny fraction of the gamer market we don't give a shit."

Lynx on my system declines to auto-redirect without user intervention, so the site is actually semi-usable with it...

Re:a newbie's opinion on RedHat 7.2 vs. Mandrake 8

[Anonymous Coward]

To mount your Windows partition under Linux:

First create a directory where you will mount it,
/WinME (or whatever)
then type (at a command, or 'shell' window):
mount /dev/hda1 /WinME
where 'hda1' is your Windows partition, and /WinME is your mount directory.
you may need to be root to mount it (depending on your distribution), if so:
su [hit enter}
[enter your root password] then try the 'mount' command

Re:a newbie's opinion on RedHat 7.2 vs. Mandrake 8

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and make sure the /WinME (or whatever) directory is 'user' accessable ...by modifying the 'permissions' under 'preferrences' for the directory.

I am a very gay homosexual

[Anonymous Coward]

I am so gay. That is why I read and post messages to Slashdot. I have a crush on CmdrTaco and Hemos. They are even gayer than I.

install redhat inside dos partition

[abe ferlman]

This is what I did with my work laptop which has to run lotus notes- there's an option when you get to the partioning section of the install that lets you choose to install on top of the windows partition. Down side is you need a boot floppy and the red-hat system partition is limited to 2 gigs (which I gather is the max file size on a dos partition). But it works flawlessly on top of my windows 98 install on my work thinkpad. Also, the windows partition is automatically mounted as /initrd/loopfs so you can access all the files on the windows partition anyway.

That's redhat 7.1, I am assuming the option still exists for 7.2.

Brybuy

Re:install redhat inside dos partition

[G Money]

Lotus Notes runs flawlessly with wine. Trust me, I use it. I don't have anything Microsoft, installed it onto the fake_windows partition that wine sets up for you, and it has worked great ever since. The install was a bit of a pain because timezone detection by Notes is weird, but if you just copy your whole Notes folder onto your linux partition and then run wine /path/to/notes.exe it should work fine. Try it first, then do yourself a favor and loose Windows forever. Email me if you need help: delder @ novacoast.com.

Re:install redhat inside dos partition

[haystor]

I call bullshit. I've never seen Notes run flawlessly...ever.

Re:install redhat inside dos partition

[G Money]

Well, I haven't used it for anything wacky, but it's more stable than when it's running under Windows (you're at least getting rid of one unstable element). It definately could use some polish though...

MEEPT!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Compare the slashdot icon for microsoft and the slashdot icon for lunix... now who would you bet on in a fight??

YES!! The same one you'd bet on for mission critical systems!!

Ho! Ho! Ho!

MEEPT!!

FMD and HDTV

[Tom7]

First off, I'd like to say that this technology looks great; I hope they can deliver.

All over their site I see propaganda about how current DVD technology could not deliver HDTV quality video. I don't think this is true. By using a better compression algorithm (ie, MPEG-4), it would seem to me that we'd get incredible quality at reasonable bitrates. We'd just need to upgrade the software standard and our DVD players/firmware (software on the computer); not develop new reading and manufacturing technology.

So it seems that there is a software solution to this "problem" as well. Is this just their popaganda, or is there something I'm missing?

Re:FMD and HDTV

[Anonymous Coward]

MPEG-4 doesn't really count as current DVD technology. And it's a poor option for high-quality video. We should be looking to uncompressed video streams, not higher compression on media which don't deliver the bandwidth or capacity for high quality video. And that goes for their puny 22Mbps as much as for DVD.

Re:FMD and HDTV

[MindStalker]

There are forms of MPEG-4 that offer NO downgrade in quality. You don't get as much compression as you would if you accepted minimal quality downgrade. But the amount of filesize you can save by simple pattern sampling combined with high bit rate audio compression is amazing.

One of the features of FMD: IP

[Tom7]

From the features list for FMD:

"Intellectual Property"

"The FMD/C technology is presently protected by over 120 Japanese, European, and US patents, approved and/or pending, dozens of priority establishing disclosures, and the exceptional know-how of an unprecedented group of physicists cooperating across the world."

Why is being proprietary a feature?

Re:One of the features of FMD: IP

[Jonathan]

Why is being proprietary a feature?

It isn't a feature for consumers, but it is a very important feature for potential investors. I've met with venture capitalists on two occassions and the first words out of their mouths were "Is your technology patented?"

Laptops

[istartedi]

I've never understood that whole business of turning the thing on. How do they know the switch isn't connected to a presurized nerve gas cylinder or a wad of C-4?

No security here.. just hassle.

[schmim]

You know ... the question that I and my friend Jonathan were discussing yesterday was ... "How much of our civil rights are we willing to lose for security?"
I'm having a really hard time with this. Just to give a little bit of context .. my parents were both Pakistani and moved here about five or six years before I was born.
Anyway.. I work out in Arizona and my job requires me to travel from time to time.. And look at me .. middle-eastern (sort of), early 20s.. travelling alone and single.
These random security checks always manage to pick me out of the crowd.
in san jose i was asked for my passport.. and when i told them i didn't have one i was detained and missed my flight. last i checked, you didn't need a passport to cross a state line.
sorry.. i didn'tk now i had to have all my papers in order for random inspection.
okay.. so i'm a tad bitter.. but .. blah..

Has been tried - an succeeded

[benb]

I saw a 2 year old (IIRC) report on TV where a reporter tested airport security by putting a pistol in his shue. He got through the checks (2 times, IIRC).

Re:bring a lregular laptop and say it's a bomb lat

[Anonymous Coward]

Was there alot of lead paint where you grew up?

Re:a newbie's opinion on RedHat 7.2 vs. Mandrake 8

[HoldmyCauls]

check for the module for FAT32 fs support:

/lib/modules//kernel/fs/vfat/vfat.o[.gz]

then, once you're sure you have support for it one way or another, make a directory to mount that sucker:

mkdir /mnt/windows

and then mount [that sucker]!

mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows(or, if that doesn't work):
mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/windows

of course, I'm assuming that you have only one drive, IDE, and that your Windows part is the first partition, but that is a standard assumption

and in PERL . . .

[Savage Henry Matisse]

#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# pandt.pl- a lame joke that violates FAA regulations.
#
# all code original "Savage" Henry Matisse
#
# released to public domain April, 1998
#
# Penn and Teller made me do it!

system "clear";
print "READY\n";
sleep 4;
system "clear";

print "ARMING\n";

print "ARMING.\n";

print "ARMING..\n";

print "ARMING...\n";


print "ARMED!\n";
sleep 3;

$seconds = "17";
system "clear";
{
if ($seconds >= 0){
print "ARMED!\n";
print "00:00:$seconds UNTIL DETONATION\n";

$seconds --;
redo;
}else{
next;
};
};

{
if ($t =~ /1000/){
next;
}else{
print " BOOM!!! ";
$t++;
redo;
};
};

print "\n";

sub sweep{
sleep 1;
system "clear";
};

Re:and in PERL . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy, that's gotta be the ugliest Perl code I've _ever_ seen! (and it's not even portable).

I'm sure even the Perl motto doesn't cover what you've written. You don't code in VB for a living do you?

Who'duv thought they'd gone this long...

[warrior389]

Also, this story today says a U.S. spy tipped off the Germans that the Enigma code had been broken but they didn't believe it.

And after all this time... silly Germans ;)

Re:Who'duv thought they'd gone this long...

[SEWilco]

Is it too late to tell the Germans that their Enigma system is no longer secret, or is it now illegal for me to disclose such details about encryption? Maybe it's now illegal to send The History Channel outside the USA cable TV system.

transgaming

[Anonymous Coward]

their subscription service is now live. go subscribe

turn ons...

[Anonymous Coward]

They are testing you and your reactions, not the operational status of the device. If they ask you anything about the thing in your pocket, and you stutter or shake or hesitate or show any nervousness, they move to step 2, which involves taking their time looking over the device, while monitoring your reactions and moving you around so the video camera can do a front and side profile face scan...the police refer to as "watching and waiting to see if the suspect 'rabbits'" (a rabbit will lie still until the last minute if approached by a predator and it has some cover, before resorting to panic and departure). If you panic and run, you've done their job for them. All they have to do is round you up....guilty as thought.

Re:turn ons...

[istartedi]

All well and good, unless the terrorist wants to kill the gaurds and all the people near the head of the line.

Liar

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only one who noticed that there wasn't anything about TransGaming in that article?

Re:a newbie's opinion on RedHat 7.2 vs. Mandrake 8

[Anonymous Coward]

heh. you got a zillion responses saying how to mount the vfat. :P

i was really interested in your opinion... the first impression is one of the most important.

Airport checks....another small tip

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of carring your laptop thru security and making them wait while it starts up, simply put it to sleep while you are standing in line, so it wakes when they ask to see it work....then do a shut down. This could save a couple of minutes, and make friends along the way.

Don't ask about the time they wanted to know what the wireless mouse was supposed to be....

Picture this ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you're on a plane and a guy in the next row over opens up his back pack and pulls out some electronic junk. Then he pulls out a device which fits in his hand and has a trigger.

Am I missing something here, or is this guy a prime candidate for impromptu passenger vigilante action?

Re:what do you expect

[gregorio]

I know that you are just a racist troll but: Metal detectors are machines, the kind of machine that does not need any human interaction at all.

Transgaming copy protection

[Webmonger]

I want to like Transgaming wholeheartedly, but seeing that they're licensing CD copy protection from Macrovision makes me a little less enthusiastic. . .

Re:Transgaming copy protection

[Anonymous Coward]

unless you are expecting the average user to defeat copy protection for every game they want to install, this licencing of safedisk is absolutely needed for them to even have aproduct

Re:Transgaming copy protection

[Chris Pimlott]

I want to like Transgaming wholeheartedly, but seeing that they're licensing CD copy protection from Macrovision makes me a little less enthusiastic. . .

Yeah, I noticed that too. But I wonder if they have made Wine good enough to run the no-CD cracks too... ;)]

Re:Transgaming copy protection

[eviltypeguy]

Er...yes, the "alternate" executables work just fine :)

Do not do this with NiCd batteries

[Skapare]

Fully charged NiCD batteries have an occaisional possibility of catching fire. Discharged they are safe (OTOH, Alkaline batteries have exactly the opposite scenario). When I take my ham radio equipment on an airplane, I DISCHARGE them for safety reasons. I've actually had one explode on me, and it wasn't pretty. It had been off the charger for over 4 hours and was nice and cool. It wasn't even being used when all of a sudden it just went into meltdown mode and the battery case of the radio caught fire and let out some nasty fumes. This would have been a very serious incident had it been on an airplane. Later research confirmed the US military already knew about this and that it was related to the batteries being "topped off" and not used. Slightly older batteries with breakdowns in the rolled layers tended to have this problem.

BTW, Alkaline batteries are at risk for this when they are mostly discharged and either shorted out, or attempted to be charged. They tend to be even more frightful when they go, because they can go boom. I've seen that happen before, too, although less dramatic than I've heard about.

I have found that 2 minutes of charging can put in enough power to make the radio work briefly, and hopefully that is enough for the security guys to see that it is a real radio.

Also, ham radio operators should be sure to carry their license with them. Obviously if you're taking radios, you're probably expecting to use them and you should have the license anyway. But it can help if the security people are wondering why you might have a radio transmitter or two.

I do remember once when the xray operator asked me "what are all those metal balls?". My reply was "huh?". He invited me over to see the xray screen he had frozen even after my bag came through. I laughed. He got the radio batteries viewed on their ends. They showed up solidly black and round so he thought they were metal balls. I offered to show him the radios (I had 3 radios and 9 battery packs in there) but he just said to go on. Today that would worry me if he didn't insist on looking inside. I should have worried about it back then.

Oh, and don't forget the chargers :-)

73, KA9WGN

My TransGaming experience

[Grond]

I subscribed to the TransGaming service on the 22nd, the day it was released. I also submitted an article to slashdot about it, but got rejected :(

Anyway, my experience has been overwhelmingly positive. The games that I have tested it with (Half-Life/Counter-strike, Baldur's Gate 1, and the Diablo II demo) have worked excellently with little or no configuration. I think Slashdot, as a major Linux news outlet, has done TransGaming a great disservice by not posting an article about it, but that's a rant I don't want to get into.

As far as what you get for your $5/month (if you don't want to go it alone with the source code) are prepackaged binaries (rpms and debs) and the ability to post in the support forums. Speaking of the support forums, I found them tremendously helpful. Two small issues I had with Baldur's Gate were resolved within half an hour of each posting, once by other subscribers and once by the TransGaming staff. They are obviously very committed to making this a success.

I really recommend that people give it a shot. If you don't have much money, give the source code version a shot. If it works (even partially) consider subscribing! $5/month isn't much (less than an hour's wages here in the States) and by subscribing you get better support and help to improve the program.

By the way, even though the TransGaming website doesn't mention the Matrox G400 in their bit about devices that work well with WineX and the DRI, I can play Counter-strike on Linux as fast as on Windows, near as I can tell. My last barrier to wiping my Windows partition is finally lifted! :)

Re:My TransGaming experience

[Troed]

I think Slashdot, as a major Linux news outlet, has done TransGaming a great disservice by not posting an article about it, but that's a rant I don't want to get into

here

... which is a duplicate story of ...

this

I see why you don't want a rant, you'd lose ;)

Re:My TransGaming experience

[crazney]

No. TransGaming's subscription service went live AFTER these two posts of yours. Subscribe here

Re:My TransGaming experience

[chrisvdp74656]

Yeah, ditto, although I didn't subscribe - I downloaded it using CVS, compiled and installed that way. And it _still_ ran Half Life, Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction and Quake 3 Arena without a hitch. Except for the _snd_mixahead bug in half life (that's where there's a delay in the HL sound and the cvar _snd_mixahead gets ignored). Any fix for that?

Chris

People that feel compelled to travel with...

[uradu]

every electronic device known to man on their body deserve to have every cavity examined.

Zimmerman Telegram was WWI

[crisco]

The Zimmerman Telegram was WWI, sent in 1917.

The Enigma Machine wasn't developed until the '30s.

Interesting OT side note concerning the Zimmerman Telegram, some feel that it is tied into the historical British support for a Jewish homeland, leading to the formation of Israel at the expense of the Palestinians. Valid or not, I don't know, but this is definately stuff I wasn't taught in school.

Re:Zimmerman Telegram was WWI

[jeffy124]

[homer]D'oh![/homer]

guess i got the facts mixed up. Still, the same or similar rules for handling decrypted info that were part of WWII also existed in WWI.

They don't read it anyway

[upper]

Whether or not it protects people from anthrax, I say it's a good idea. We know that mail to elected officials isn't really read -- at most it's skimmed to determine which form letter to reply with. Refusing to accept it in the first place is more honest than what they've been doing, so I'm for it.

Re:They don't read it anyway

[BradleyUffner]

How would you feel if you wrote a letter to your congressman and then found out that all the mail was burned because a single anthrax spore was found somewhere in the mail sorting complex? I'm pretty sure that the president is more important then someone from the congres. Even if the letter has little chance of being read and responded to it should not be burned before it even gets to it's destination. We elected Bush, our letters to him deserve at least a CHANCE to be heard.

Re:bring a lregular laptop and say it's a bomb lat

[Thing 1]

so, you go this route, and either die, get away with it, or go to jail. who gives a shit if you were planning on dying anyhow if your mission was a success?

That's one thing I don't get about the terrorists. How can anyone be convinced that "dying for jihad is better than living"?

Someone here said we need to act quickly and decisively to avoid bin Laden from becoming the next Hitler. He sure seems to have twisted his followers' brains around -- a scary parallel.

Transgaming.

[crazney]

For those that don't know. TransGaming subscription service is now live. Subscribers get a full participation in the process of choosing which areas of wine and which games to focus on. They also get support in the forums and so on!
so go subscribe!!

Re:a newbie's opinion on RedHat 7.2 vs. Mandrake 8

[Paul Komarek]

First time I installed linux, it didn't support the bizarre-o serial ports on my Packard Hell 386 SUX-20, so I gave up on it (that was early 1993). Later, I got a copy on CD with a small manual in the sleeve ("How to Install X Without Calling the Fire Department") and we installed it on a friends 486DX 50 (not many of those were made). xroach was terrifice! I was so let down when I had a 486DX-2 100, because xroach ran too fast to be enjoyable. But at least I was hooked. This was about 1995. That's 2 quality years of linux I wasted because of crappy serial ports!

-Paul Komarek

working devices not so safe...

[pherthyl]

ok, if there are any terrorists on /. look away!

what if you stuff your laptop full of .. Your laptop would still be working and you could demonstrate it for the security personnel. But as soon as you had it running for a few minutes, the fan would turn on and everything would be blown around the airplane...

anyways, happy traveling!

As we know from Fight Club

[Anonymous Coward]

Modern bombs don't tick, they vibrate.

Same here

[TommyBear]

I also had my post rejected :( I thought it was a breaking story.

Re:Same here

[friedmud]

Me too, it was my first slashdot submission and I thought I had really found a gem.

Why doesn't slashdot post a story about it!?!? It really makes me mad. Here is the one chance for linux users to get their game on and no one knows about it yet - what a shame.

Derek

I'll bet it takes more than "box cutters" today!

[BLKMGK]

Yeah, prior to 9/11 you could take over a plane with a "box cutter" and hold a group at bay telling them you were "going back to the airport" but I'd hazard to guess that if you did that today you'd be attacked pretty quick. Would YOU sit still and believe them if they told you they weren't going to kill you? For that matter even if they claimed to have a bomb, as one group apparently did, would you sit still?

Personally I'd prefer to take my chances and try to take the plane back as chances of them not killing me anyway don't seem terribly high. That trick worked once, I doubt it'll work again. As we saw in PA it IS possible to stop a hijacking even if it's at th eexpense of our own lives. Given th ealternative of losing our lives AND having thousands of others killed at the same time I'd think that many people would prefer to take their chances...

Funny you should mention washing hands...

[BLKMGK]

First, is that good enough? I'd think it would require more than a simple wash, no?

Anyway, a friend of mine actually uses the same bag that he carries his guns to the range with as his carry on when he flies! When he told me this I was shocked as my bags have been "sniffed" more than once. He claims he's NEVER had a problem doing this in the past but that he won't be doing it in the future after we chatted about it. He wasn't aware of the chemical sniffers being used having never had to submit to one of those checks (sigh).

Yes, our airports have MUCH to learn about security. Creating a device that looks like it works but contains most anything you want would be pretty trivial for anyone with a modest amount of electronics knowledge. I've always laughed at the "power on" requirements as have friends. Just how stupid are these security people? That's a silly feel good for the bystanders, it provides zip in the way of real security!

For a real bit of fun try setting up a screen saver that "counts down" when the machine is powered up. Think you'd get some sort of reaction? :-)

Re:Funny you should mention washing hands...

[Tackhead]

> For a real bit of fun try setting up a screen saver that "counts down" when the machine is powered up.

Yeah, I've gotta change my "Danger / Self-Destruct System Activated" BIOS boot-logo. Looks great when plugged into a projector or big-screen TV and I'm about to start DJing with a pile of MP3z on the hard drive. Probably looks less-than-great if I have to power up at an airport.

My encounter with airport security (funny)

[BLKMGK]

As much as I've always DESPISED airport security as being a joke (my Father worked for the airlines, I've got lot's of stories) I did have one encounter that surprised me a great deal.

Flying from the East coast to 'Vegas I had boarded the plane and was awaiting the gate push back. Suddenly they're announcing my name over the PA asking me to come up front. Puzzled I walked on up and was told that I had to go down to the jetway and open my bag. Puzzled I went back to my seat to recover the keys from my girlfriend and headed down the steps to the ground.

Seems my bag was "vibrating" and they were a bit *concerned* by this. Sure enough, over the noise of the jets, I could feel some slight vibration. How the baggage handler had noticed this is beyond me but there it was - and I had NO idea what the heck was buzzing in there. I thought at first that it was my girlfriend's bag and that perhaps she had put something "extra" inside but the bag had MY tags not hers. I told the security guy point blank that I didn't know what was vibrating and he proceeded to list of a slew of things that "commonly" cause this problem! One of them is electric razors and sure enough I'd packed mine in there. Digging around in the bag I dug up my razor buried in the clothes buzzing away (sigh). No harm, no foul, apparently this occurs pretty often but I was shocked they noticed it. Made me feel a little better about security - until 9/11 that is :-(

Embarrassed I climbed back up the stairs an announced to the plane's occupants who were staring at me that it was my girlfriend's bag not mine and just grinned. Problem solved, they pushed us back from the gate and we were on our way :-) Will be a long while before my office let's me forget the vibrating bag check...

Re:My encounter with airport security (funny)

[Ben Hutchings]

"9 times out of 10 it's an electric razor. But the other time it's a dildo. Company policy is never to refer to it as 'your dildo', merely as 'a dildo'." - (probably misquoted from) Fight Club

RH 7.2 retrospect....

[Lumpy]

I went out and purchased the rretail box of RH 7.2.

My observations? Why does it cost $59.95? I gagged when I saw the price. and then mentioned to the non-linux friend that the cost is for support... Oh which is non-existant now... No telephone support unless you buy the $199.00 professional version.

So I was asked point blank from this non-linux friend what was the advantage of buying redhat linux , I started talking about how I was supporting a linux company and that you aren't tied to the EULA noose... well guess what, on the CD package you see .. " Opening this package signifies that you agree to the EULA that is available for reading on www.redhat.com"

Redhat 7.2 creators ... I dont agree to your EULA, and I installed it anyways.. , this will be the last redhat product I purchase or install. There are several tennants that Linux stands for and are based on, One is not gouging your customers, the other is not forcing EULA's down our throats. My friend and I both feel that I was ripped off, (Mandrake cd is sitting next to REDhat on the shelf at $39.95, and turbolinux is there for $19.95) I try hard to support the linux companies, I have purchased every loki game released, and I purchase my redhat releases at a retail level.

But not anymore, not for redhat.

Move your pricing for the retail box to a sane level, and restore telephone support.. (web support... how to I access support if I can't access the net because my redhat install bombed?)

I used to be highly impressed with redhat and I reccomended it at every turn, Now I have to find another distribution to reccomend to newbies instead of redhat.

Re:RH 7.2 retrospect....

[SomeOtherGuy]

Here...Here. Well said, mod this guy up. The following line (he typed) is a classic: "(web support... how to I access support if I can't access the net because my redhat install bombed?)"

I would love an "Ask Slashdot" on what distribution off the shelf provides the most value and highest level of support.

Re:RH 7.2 retrospect....

[eviltypeguy]

(web support... how to I access support if I can't access the net because my redhat install bombed?)

Easy, buy the option that includes phone support :) Support is most of the cost of that retail product. And other distributions are raising their prices too. You just have to remember that Red Hat was profitable and they want to stay that way, and the sad truth of the matter is that prices must go up and not down to a certain extent.

Re:RH 7.2 retrospect....

[Lumpy]

Very true, but people shell out the money for Redhat in assumption that they are going to get tech support. Paying 60 bucks and then finding out you dont get phone support after opening the box is not cool... it should at least have a big sticker proclaiming "New! now without telephone support!"

The ONLY reason to buy the retail box and not download it is the tech support. and now that reason is now history. (My reason was to support the company)

Only some Enigmen are rare

[Russ Nelson]

Remember, the Germans made hundreds and hundreds of these. Only some of them are rare. The price is determined by an assessor. More properly called a guessessor, he applies his experience to determine a price.
-russ

Re:a newbie's opinion on RedHat 7.2 vs. Mandrake 8

[Anonymous Coward]

You'll have to excuse me for not taking your newbie linux user's opinion as Golden.

Something about running linux for a month tells me you're still in 'Oooooh, Pretty' stage, gawk at gnome, caper about in kde, are excited at englightenment, and wouldnt know a console from Konsole.

"Linux is fun like that"

Learn about GCC, Mesa and the linux kernel, and maybe you wont need to update to 8.1 gaming edition.

FMD - more old vapor

[billcopc]

Please quit it with the cheezy news about 'new' storage breakthroughs. We don't need an 8-layer dvd clone right now, because regular DVD-R's still aren't affordable and the drives are rather sucky, just like the first few CD-R's from ten years ago. Once the standard DVD-R hardware hits that mass production point where it becomes as cheap and easy as current CD-RW drives, then these guys will be more than welcome to extend the format, but until then they will just be reinventing the wheel.

If I want 40gb's of space, I'll buy a 79$ hard drive, not a 799$ FMD burner (expect the media to be expensive too). You'll say this will appeal to businesses who need large backup systems ? They still have tape drives, that are getting faster and bigger year after year and don't pose too many problems. Why bother inventing a product that is neither cheaper nor better than what we already have ?

Figures... Rejected...

[ender-]

* 2001-10-22 19:02:02 Transgaming Interview (articles,games) (rejected)

Re:a newbie's opinion on RedHat 7.2 vs. Mandrake 8

[StikyPad]

Just play this little flash animation on boot up and you should be good to go.

Next Time Say....

[huckda]

I don't run Windows because I'm not a completely clueless dumbass, who doesn't want to pay more for his OS and software than he did for his laptop.

I think the submitter is full of shit

[Galvatron]

I've carried laptops through a number of times, and they used to make me turn them on about 5 years ago, but not anymore. Now, on occasion, they put my bag on a metal table and rub the zippers with things that look kind of like Oxy pads. Then they stick them into a little machine. My guess is they're trying to find tiny amounts of explosive material that may have rubbed off or something.

Regardless, they DON'T make people turn electronic devices on anymore.

and toddlers, too.

[hawk]

Several years ago, probably about '93, a very concerned and agitated airport security agent demanded, "sir, what's in that box."
"Huh"
"Your box. Over there."
Sitting atop the conveyor system, one of the copy-paper boxes we'd packed stuff in was jumping up and down. I thought for a moment, and started laughing.
We'd bought my toddler a bubmle-ball. The stupid things turn on by pushing the button in . . .

hawk

We used to use ^M for that

[hawk]

*sigh* THe average slashdot reader probably wasn't born yet when we were cdoing this . . .

The mechanical consoles needed time to return the carriage to the left margian. As such, ^M frequently had a delay built into the drivers. This frequently carried over to vt's.

The DEC-20 mainframe (upgraded to a staggering half a meg of memory my senior year [but that was probably half a meg of 36 bit words]) went down, a lot, but usually managed to give a couple of minutes of warning.

Among other things, we send a mail to a neurotic friend across the room, interrupting a sentence with

[%DEC-SYSTEM 20 GOING DOWN IN 10 SECONDS%]

followed by several timing slugs and then
[%DEC-SYSTEM 20 DOWN%]

You could also use the slugs for asci animation on a single line.

hawk

Feel-good security

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in the same building as the office of a prominent ex-Vice-Presidential candidate and Senator from Connecticut, no names please, and the building has been doing "security checks" since the 911 incident. The memo from building management stated that security will accept a company issued photo ID, or a building access card which has no photo, for entry into the building.

Well, security quickly dwindled down to a wave it as you walk by attitude. When I have forgotten my ID upstairs I have flashed my local supermarket discount card, my bright red drugstore discount card, and my NRA membership card. None have photos on them, if security had bothered to check.

I realize that this is a satellite office for the senator while in his home state, and he is not around that often, but he must get mail delivery here and his office shares the ventilation system with the other tenants. I have also heard that he is already taking antibiotics as a precaution.

Feel-good security is no security. Especially if applied at a high-risk or target area.

Re:I think the submitter is full of...

[encebollado]

Actually they do. Everytime I've been to the airport they ask me to turn on my PDA and show them a lit screen. Maybe not laptops, though.

Energy terms...

[qubezz]

The device would only have kinetic energy if it was moving in relation to a frame of reference - if you dropped it, it's potential energy would be turned into kinetic energy.

Both the battery and the explosive would probably be considered chemical energy using this physics teacher nomenclature - equal energy if they mass the same (E=mc^2). C-4 just goes kaboom much better than lithium in the latrine.

Re:Energy terms...

[mellon]

Yes, the energy in both objects is potential energy, and yes, it is also chemical energy. But it is also the case that a battery *stores* electrical energy, and a bomb *stores* kinetic energy, and this is the important distinction between a battery and a bomb. Indeed, in the sense that you describe them, the battery and the bomb are both equivalent, so your way of looking at the problem, at least as it relates to security, is nonsensical.

Re:I think the submitter is full of...

[kennyj449]

Actually, three years ago I had an old Apple Powerbook 520 that I used mostly for retrogaming, Filemaker development, and schoolwork, and I was asked ONCE in about 5 round trips to turn it on. While the batteries worked just fine and were charged, the internal battery was bad... So, I either had to keep it in sleep mode or find a wall outlet whenever I wanted to use it on the go. Good thing I planned on using it during the flight.

Re:Time to hire competent security folks

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the problem? It's short for "Hispanics", right?

It's not like "wetback" or "greaser" - there's no derogatory implications at all. So why is "spic" so offensive?

Seriously. (AC for obvious reasons)