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Slashback: SmoothWall, Gopher, Be

Slashback tonight on the slipping of Be through the fingers of Palm, further squashing of ZeoSync, the age of gophers, the invention of everyone's favorite electric-powered pronoun, and more -- just read on.

But can you backtrack through a google cache? pointym5 writes "Checked out the ZeoSync web site lately? Remember all those PhDs on the scientific staff? Well, like I'm sure others did, I sent e-mail to a few of them expressing interest in more technical details. All that I contacted responded with absolute disclaimers of any relationship whatsoever with ZeoSync. This morning I note that most names are gone from the 'org chart' and the scientific team list. There are only five left, including Dr. Piotr Blass, 'developer of one of the world's first web sites.' Wow!"

How smooth is smooth? juct writes: "I appreciate it, that Slashdot gave the SmoothWall Team an opportunity to answer to the concerns in my review of their firewall. But it is full of errors and might leave a wrong feeling of security. So I invite everybody to my Tour on SmoothWall where you can judge for yourself."

Whispered words of wisdom, 'Let it be.' Sander van Dragt writes: "Many BeOS news lately. Not all so good for the BeOS community though. BeUnited, the organization which tried to license BeOS from Palm, has received today a final answer from Palm: '...we have made a firm decision NOT to license any part of this technology other than that which we incorporate into the Palm OS.' It is already known that the new 32-bit PalmOS will feature some elements of the Be technology, but that OS is built for PDAs, not for the desktop."

You can read that letter and the rest of the article on OS news.

And take this as you will -- An Anonymous Coward writes: "osnews.com is reporting that there is a new version of BeOS on the way... A German company called 'yellowTab' is said to be ready to ship a new version of BeOS (Just when everyone thought it was dead, and the final shovel full of dirt laid on top), get the full article here ... Hrm, I sure liked BeOS, I hope this one works out."

Dig, my brethren -- the Gopher Palace is almost complete! SuperguyA1 writes "Lwn is reporting that the gopher team has done it again with a 3.0 release marking Gopher's 10th anniversary. Happy birthday gopher. Thanks for helping me find all the muds I wasted so much time in college on:)"

"Bad connection, say again, you invented WHAT?" mi writes: "Yahoo! reports a potential problem, the Segway Scooter may have in Japan -- a Japanese robotics professor seems to have a patent on something very very similar since 1996. On the other hand, the USPTO knew about, when granting the patent to Segway's Dean Kamen, but still found Mr. Kamen's invention worthy of a patent in 1999. My favorite is the Kazuo Yamafuji's words: 'I would hand over my patent for one dollar if Mr. Kamen admitted that we were first.' Indeed, he just sat on the invention for 15 years."

296 comments

  1. Gopher's Alive! by Tattva · · Score: 3, Funny

    Let us dump this web silliness and return to the age of ftp and telnet.

    --
    personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
    1. Re:Gopher's Alive! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      I agree. My packet sniffers haven't been catching anything lately with all this god damned encryption. Between SSL, SSH, secure POP and IMAP, etc. I can't get any accoutz anymore. I'm going to have to go back to paying for internet access! :-(

    2. Re:Gopher's Alive! by mini+me · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This isn't as far fetched as it may sound!

      The first time I tried Freenet I instantly thought of Gopher. A Gopher like protocol that runs over Freenet is exactly what it needs to make it more user friendly.

      Freenet doesn't need the depth of the WWW, it just needs simple resources to navigate around to find stuff. Something like Gopher just seems perfect to me.

    3. Re:Gopher's Alive! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Someone rate this guy as insightful. For he knows the truth, "The Web is Lame Dicksmack!".

  2. Compression by athakur999 · · Score: 5, Funny
    Remember all those PhDs on the scientific staff? ... There are only five left

    The others didn't leave, they were simply compressed down to only 5 people using their revolutionary compression algorithm.
    --
    "People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
    1. Re:Compression by the_quark · · Score: 3, Informative
      This IT World Article notes that Steve Smale (the Berkley Prof that's one of the five yet remaining) says he's spent "one hour" working for ZeoSync and that he is "in no position to say anything about these claims."

      St. George (the ZeoSync founder) also basically says (in classic snake-oil-salesman style) that the reason everyone says it's bunk is because they have a vested interest in the status quo. That tends to be one of the classic hallmarks of a "false" visionary.

      I also love it when the article quotes him:
      "For every person who says it might not work, there are 10 saying it does," he said, adding that he's received many congratulatory e-mails since the announcement.
      Uh, yeah. I bet if we put up a /. poll, we'd get 10-1 the other way, and it's be just as scientific. Even better, he's holding up as evidence in favor of his claim the opinion of a bunch of people who no nothing about compression, and haven't even seen the technology. Wow, that's convincing.
    2. Re:Compression by grytpype · · Score: 2

      That article is a hoot.... unfortunately, ZeoSync does not seem to be a publicly traded corporation, so we can't short their stock.

      --

      - Have a picture

    3. Re:compression by superpeach · · Score: 1
    4. Re:Compression by chryptic · · Score: 1
      "For every person who says it might not work, there are 10 saying it does," he said, adding that he's received many congratulatory e-mails since the announcement.
      You may not trust that quote but you can't ignore this statement:
      The Company will become the world's foremost provider of this state-of-the-art technology
      It has to be true I found it on their web site
      --
      The two most common things in the Universe are hydrogen and stupidity. -- Harlan Ellison
    5. Re:compression by dupper · · Score: 1

      Look, 3:1! 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

    6. Re:Compression by Anonymous+DWord · · Score: 2

      Uh, yeah. I bet if we put up a /. poll, we'd get 10-1 the other way, and it's be just as scientific.

      The other way? You mean, Cowboy Neal?

      --
      "If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he's sorely mistaken." Bush on bin Laden
    7. Re:Compression by rjkimble · · Score: 1

      ....I bet if we put up a /. poll, we'd get 10-1 the other way, and it'd be just as scientific....

      You're right about the the result, but you're wrong about the scientific merit. A /. poll of this would be much more scientific, because the "10-1 the other way" would be right. :-)

      --

      Guns don't kill people -- people kill people.
      But the guns seem to help a bit. (apologies to Eddie Izzard)
    8. Re:Compression by ethereal · · Score: 1

      Maybe they left out of disgust over a site that requires Flash? All those years pursuing a doctorate must have taught them something :)

      On the plus side, having a Flash intro is probably a good indicator of all the smoke-and-mirrors waiting within...

      --

      Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and

    9. Re:Compression by frozenray · · Score: 1

      Good one, thanks.

      I also predict that they will also achieve an impressive compression rate on their venture capital :P

      --
      "There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
    10. Re:Compression by the_quark · · Score: 2

      That's like those "collectable" plates you see advertised on late-night television. You know, with pictures of Princess Di on them or somesuch. I heard one once say, "Analysts predict that this plate will be treasured by you and your family for years to come." Wow. Some analysis - people who order these plates will like them.

      All of this is bracketed, of course, with hinting suggestions that these plates will be worth something, someday.

  3. I want to see the ZeoSync letters! by grytpype · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Can whoever contacted the ZeoSync "scientific advisory board" give more details about the responses? I don't know why I'm so interested, I guess I just find fraud really fascinating.

    --

    - Have a picture

    1. Re:I want to see the ZeoSync letters! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Heh ... there's a certain breed of academic that wants to take as much credit as possible for as many things as possible, regardless of whether they actually contributed.

      I wonder if some of those "advisors" never even investigated the "technology" that they were attaching their names to, then suddenly realized that they were being played for suckers and backed away to avoid having their reputations destroyed!

    2. Re:I want to see the ZeoSync letters! by pointym5 · · Score: 2

      The ones I sent mail to seemed (from, mainly, their personal/professional web sites) to be "regular guys". They're real researchers and educators.

    3. Re:I want to see the ZeoSync letters! by grytpype · · Score: 2

      I didn't mean they guys were involved in the fraud, I meant it was part of ZeoSync's fraud to say that these guys were involved with the magical compression project.

      --

      - Have a picture

    4. Re:I want to see the ZeoSync letters! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Dude, the link in your .sig is broken.

    5. Re:I want to see the ZeoSync letters! by pointym5 · · Score: 1

      I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was all a big typo :-)

  4. Segway Gopher by shrikel · · Score: 1
    Yeah, I remember seeing something on a Japanese gopher site about the "Segway Sukuutaa" seven or eight years ago.

    Heck with patents -- Open-source it all!!

    --
    Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
  5. BeOS as Embedded OS by cliffy2000 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    BeOS makes quite a capable OS for embedded systems. It seems completely logical that a portable computing company would want an interest in them. It's one of the most efficient OSes (on a operation/cycle) level and it's compatible with many different boards (x86, PPC, 68k, etc). It's really a waste that Palm's letting it go... in some ways, it's the wave of the future, but I guess (to Palm) it's also a relic of the past.

    1. Re:BeOS as Embedded OS by _johnnyc · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree. It makes perfect sense. What doesn't make sense is how a superb piece of technology like BeOS winds up in the dustbin of computing history. A sleek and lean desktop OS. Who knows how things might have turned out if there was such a thing as competition in the desktop market?

      I was hoping that Palm would consider doing something else with it. Too bad. It's the perfect answer for those Mac people who hate PCs.

    2. Re:BeOS as Embedded OS by rbeattie · · Score: 2

      In the first week in February, Palm is having it's annual developer's conference called PalmSource in San Jose. This year it looks like they are going to be releasing details about the new PalmOS v5.0 which is the next generation, 32-bit Palm OS incorporating bits of BeOS. (They started working on the OS before they bought Be.) Remember that Palm is also spinning off their operating systems division soon, so I assume that they are going to try to use this conference as some sort of launching pad. Here's a link to an InfoSync article about the new Palm OS.

      -Russ

      --
      Me
    3. Re:BeOS as Embedded OS by GypC · · Score: 2

      What doesn't make sense is how a superb piece of technology like BeOS winds up in the dustbin of computing history.

      Well I hate to say it but 'I told you so.' I swore I would never get burned again after Amiga. I found Linux and *BSD a few years later and realized that these are systems that will always be here while they are useful. They are not vulnerable to pricks in suits.

      BeOS had some interesting ideas and some great implementations, but I'm glad I didn't invest time in it only to have my heart broken again.

    4. Re:BeOS as Embedded OS by iomud · · Score: 2

      Exactly. It's the choice of being given $1000 today or $1 a day for the rest of your life. Though the single dollar may be less attractive now but in the end it's the smarter choice.

    5. Re:BeOS as Embedded OS by poot_rootbeer · · Score: 2, Funny

      WARNING: blind zealot-like advocacy ahead!

      Too bad. [BeOS is] the perfect answer for those Mac people who hate PCs.

      Yeah, it's got the same dearth of available software as the Mac, but it runs on x86 hardware! Splendid!

      Honestly, I would imagine the perfect answer for Mac people who hate PCs would be... a Mac?

    6. Re:BeOS as Embedded OS by Cato · · Score: 2

      I doubt there will be many bits of BeOS used in PalmOS 5.0 - as you say, Palm started working on 5.0 before buying Be, and Palm have said publicly that they bought Be for its packaging technology and its developers.

      The best hope for BeOS is that Palm licenses it on reasonable terms. I'd never heard of Yellow Tab in earlier Be discussions, so I'd be interested to hear how it got a license, though.

      All this excitement about licensing and the death or continued life of BeOS does go to show that if you want a dull life, you should use an open source OS - it will just be there, quietly being enhanced and bugfixed, while companies are born and die around it :)

  6. Gopher by Syre · · Score: 4, Interesting

    back before I had SLIP (or PPP), the choice was Gopher or WWW via Lynx. Of the two, I found Gopher much easier to use.

    If asked, I would have said that WWW was going to be a flash in the pan, and that Gopher was the future.

    Oh well...

    1. Re:Gopher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      If asked, I would have said that WWW was going to be a flash in the pan, and that Gopher was the future.
      Jean Gasse, is that you?
    2. Re:Gopher by RetroGeek · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If everyone wasn't so busy re-inventing the wheel...

      Like a Web based message board where NNTP would do?

      --

      - - - - - - - - - - -
      I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.
    3. Re:Gopher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the major browser vendors seemed to have left the code in a state of neglect

      gopher: is still supported in IE and Mozilla. Try it.

    4. Re:Gopher by dangermouse · · Score: 2
      Werd. I was all about gopher holes... made it all the way around the world through gopher holes one day, and was so stoked I just left the connection up for a while. All the way around the world!, I told my Mom. And it's a local call!

      But the WWW included gopher. That's what I thought was so cool about the Web. You had all those protocols under one roof, with one uniform method of accessing them! telnet, gopher, ftp, the archie servers...

      Funny how I use my web browser for http almost exclusively now.

      But wow, when I fired up Mosaic for the first time and went to the Louvre's site... that was a real kick. "Look! You can view their collection on the Internet!" *clickclickclick*

    5. Re:Gopher by daviddennis · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I was going to start running some kind of Internet server back in 1994. The folks who developed Gopher wanted a $ 500 license fee which I wasn't sure whether I had to pay or not, but I sure knew I couldn't afford.

      So I fired up the NCSA web server and never looked back. And once I started using the web and taking advantage of its power, I knew it would soon surpass Gopher.

      And, of course, I was right.

      D

    6. Re:Gopher by roryi · · Score: 1


      of course, the "graphical" gopher clients - like Veronica - were expected by some to wipe out the fledgling http browsers like XMosaic and Viola/Cello.

      What happened then?

      Well, when Mosaic and Veronica were ported to MacOS and Windows, the number of users of both systems shot up.

      Alongside this, more and more sites began to install the cern httpd daemon on their servers, providing a single interface to all of their publically-accessible information facilities.

      However, the gopher protocol requries a proprietary, licensed back-end server, so the number of gopher sites for those users to visit didn't rise in the same dramatic fashion.

      Users began to abandon Veronica and other gopher tools, since those gopher sites that did exist almost always ran an http server providing access to the same information.

      And without the user base, there was no real incentive to continue gopher's development, whereas the state of the art in web browesers changed continually.

      This is a fairly good illustration of the strengths inherent in a well thought-out, open (and free-to-implement) comms protocol.

      --
      http://www.klub.org/
  7. gopher (probably slightly off topic( by Gryftir · · Score: 1

    I remember the first time I used gopher. It was a search for ascii pr0n. Of course by 1998 ascii pr0n was scarce.

    --
    http://www.santacruzbynight.com/index.shtml Santa Cruz By Night Vampire Larp
    1. Re:gopher (probably slightly off topic( by Tattva · · Score: 3, Funny
      If you ever read Slashdot at -1 you will know that ASCII pr0n is alive and well, thank you very much.

      --
      personal attacks hurt, especially when deserved
    2. Re:gopher (probably slightly off topic( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ah the good old days. I spent many an hour getting free internet access via gopher thanks to a loophole at my local university's dial-in library catalogue. With any valid student number (easily obtained) you could access a gateway to gopherspace, and from there get onto the still-emerging web via a telnet gateway to CERN, as well as USENET through a number of nttp-gopher gateways.

      They eventually plugged the loophole, but not before I had downloaded a ton of free usenet pr0n, all using a 2400 baud modem on a DOSbox and a Telemate script.

    3. Re:gopher (probably slightly off topic( by damiam · · Score: 2

      Penis birds don't really count as pr0n ... well, maybe for some people.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    4. Re:gopher (probably slightly off topic( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      occasionally a goatse.cx ascii pic will slip by the filters (which aren't too effective, IMHO).

    5. Re:gopher (probably slightly off topic( by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      occasionally a goatse.cx ascii pic will slip by the filters (which aren't too effective, IMHO).
      If you had any idea how many times it works (post blocked) before a (particularly resourceful) manages to slip one by, YHO would be a different one.

    6. Re:gopher (probably slightly off topic( by damiam · · Score: 1

      goatse.cx pics aren't pr0n either, at least not for normal people.

      --
      It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
    7. Re:gopher (probably slightly off topic( by beebware · · Score: 2

      How about the ASCII goatsex picture? When I had a stint of moderating, I did the 'proper thing' and browsed at -1, *shudder* - I thought I had seen practically everything on the internet until I saw that!

  8. Segway: Chicken or Egg? by john82 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The Yahoo article says that the Segway patent mentions Yamafuji's patent. It does not make clear whether the note was made by the USPTO or Kamen. i.e., did Kamen come up with the same idea independently or based on advances over Yamafuji's work? There's also an aside in the article that casts further aspersions on Kamen's stair-climbing wheelchair. That too is patented in the US.

    1. Re:Segway: Chicken or Egg? by polymath69 · · Score: 1
      Neither of these guys really "invented" the segway. I'd give the credit to Heinlein.
      ... It had been a long time since the Chief Engineer had ridden one of these silly-looking vehicles, and he felt awkward. A tumblebug does not give a man dignity, since it is about the size and shape of a kitchen stool, gyro-stabilized on a single wheel. But it is perfectly adapted to patrolling the maze of machinery 'down inside', since it can go through an opening the width of a man's shoulders, is easily controlled, and will stand patiently upright, waiting, should its rider dismount.

      The Roads Must Roll, Robert Heinlein, 1940

      OK, so he called for one wheel instead of two, but still... gotta give him credit.
      --

      --
      I don't want to rule the world... I just want to be in charge of mayonnaise.
  9. Segway vs Yamafuji by TheMCP · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Kazuo Yamafuji's words: 'I would hand over my patent for one dollar if Mr. Kamen admitted that we were first.'


    Since I think Kamen actually cited Yamafuji's invention in his patent application, that rather implies that he does acknowledge that Yamafuji was first. I don't get what Yamafuji is upset about.
    1. Re:Segway vs Yamafuji by ImaLamer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      From what I'm reading Yamafuji isn't all to upset.

      He could of course sue Kamen and his company to the point where releasing the product isn't possible.

      He just wants the nod, and he should get it. Kamen should at least give him two bucks to show that he appreciates Yamafuji's view of IP and patents.

      Look at it from this side: he could be like Prodigy and try to shut everyone down that uses the hyperlink. eBay and the rest should take note from Yamafuji.

      He seems to be someone who won't let progress be stopped because of a piece of paper sitting in the patent office.

      Hell, why not have the two get together and work on another invention. Kamen on the surface seems to be a nice guy. Yamafuji seems to be even nicer.

      Kamen: Get Yamafuji on your staff. Don't turn this into a Xerox-Apple-Microsoft battle.

      Note:I'm sure if Kamen repackaged Yamafuji's invention and tried to market it as all his own - Yamafuji might not be so open about this deal

    2. Re:Segway vs Yamafuji by HydroCarbon10 · · Score: 1

      "Look at it from this side: he could be like Prodigy and try to shut everyone down that uses the hyperlink."

      Prodigy got sued by BT for 'infringement' on their 'patent'. Just a friendly reminder :)

      --
      The best way to accelerate a windows box is at 9.8 meters per second square.
    3. Re:Segway vs Yamafuji by ImaLamer · · Score: 2

      You are right.

      I didn't think I was right when I typed it, but I'm to lazy to check things out.

  10. Announcement *on* Gopher by maggard · · Score: 2
    Hey! I went looking only last month for a Gopher that could run on an old MacOS or Win9x/2k box only to find none still extant. Now there's a whole new release :)

    Anyway, check out gopher://gopher.quux.org:70/h0/3.0.0.html for the news properly gophered.

    Now I want a good TurboGopher 3D client rereleased :)

    --
    I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
    1. Re:Announcement *on* Gopher by JacobO · · Score: 1

      OT:

      Just wondering about the word "extant". I know what it means, but I have never heard anyone speak it. It just sort of sounds wrong. Do you actually use it in conversation?

    2. Re:Announcement *on* Gopher by psamuels · · Score: 1
      Just wondering about the word "extant". I know what it means, but I have never heard anyone speak it. It just sort of sounds wrong. Do you actually use it in conversation?

      I do, all the time. It's probably my favorite "not usually used in spoken language" words to use in spoken language. Deprecate would be my second favorite.

      --
      "How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?" — Metacity README
    3. Re:Announcement *on* Gopher by dangermouse · · Score: 1
      I use 'extant' very frequently, at work. It's useful when you spend a lot of time setting stuff up and knocking it down.


      My second favorite Work Word is "Weltanschauung", which is useful when you spend a lot of time telling people how it is.

  11. Gopher by crisco · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I noticed the gopher update in sid a few days back. In a fit of nostalgia months earlier I put the gopher daemon on my linux box and set about learning how to 'create gopher sites'. Surely it couldn't be as easy as dropping some files in some directories :)

    Its really amazing how quickly gopher dried up as http took off. The gopher clients for windows are all written for Windows 3.1 or NT 3.1 and the major browser vendors seemed to have left the code in a state of neglect.

    I was also amazed to find CGI like scripts for handling gopher+ (or something like that, my memory is hazy and in true /. fashion I'm too lazy to recheck facts) forms. If everyone wasn't so busy re-inventing the wheel gopher might have made a good base for all the low bandwidth wireless devices running around today instead of WAP. A few modifications and it might have worked. Problem is, 'gopher' just isn't as sexy on the resume as all those modern TLA's...

    --

    Bleh!

  12. gopher, Be and oh my by linuxislandsucks · · Score: 1

    To risk getting attacked..

    Listen to the words of Gopherism and let it BeOS..

    Let it BeOS Let it BeOs..

    By the way the Founder was informed in early 1997 to port BeOS to PDAs..gee why did he take so long to listen to me?

    --
    Don't Tread on OpenSource
  13. SmoothWall by Corvidae · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not trying to be a karma whore here (well, not REALLY trying), but this site really is worth a look if you're thinking about using Smoothwall. IMO, the REAL security concern with it is not the package itself, but the developers in charge of it. I, for one, refuse to support a product led by a group of developers with their heads that far up their ass when it comes to dealing with potential customers. Especially when they beg as loudly as they do for donations...

    --
    -Corvidae
    1. Re:SmoothWall by ikekrull · · Score: 2, Redundant

      Come on, it's a fucking *FIREWALL*.

      If you want GCC, then grab it from gnu.org and use it.

      --
      I gots ta ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
    2. Re:SmoothWall by Incongruity · · Score: 1, Insightful
      I'm with you 100%, Corvidae.

      When the first response to user's letter of complaint, a reasonably written one at that, is a series of three rude emails, something is *very wrong* with that group of developers.

      Email #1:

      "go away :)"

      Email #2:

      And if you email me again I'll procmail your ass.

      I fund SmoothWall

      I invented SmoothWall

      If you have an issue don't fucking use it

      Email #3:

      and gcc ??? Oh dude go investigate me on the team page and stop teaching me to suck eggs. Dusty is a QUALIFIED MEMBER OF UK MILITARY INTELLIGENCE and you are not.

      I didnt get richard@linux.com for not knowing my way around the OS. GCC is NOT on Smoothie - never will be now get a life

      The general attitude shown in those emails is amazingly foul. Either we're not being told the whole story or the people behind SmoothWall don't know the first thing about PR and consumer relations. I am actually inclined to go with the second option.

    3. Re:SmoothWall by Corvidae · · Score: 1

      I'm with you 100%, Corvidae.

      Thanks. =)

      The general attitude shown in those emails is amazingly foul. Either we're not being told the whole story or the people behind SmoothWall don't know the first thing about PR and consumer relations. I am actually inclined to go with the second option.

      As am I. I'm quite close friends with the poster of the page, and I heard about every email as it was received. At the time, I commented to him that maybe he was pushing a little too hard at times, but the sheer attitude pulled by Morrell, et al. was just incredible to believe. Imagine the uproar you'd hear if some commercial company treated its customers like this. Just because it's open-source, it's now suddenly okay to treat consumers like shit? And these people actually want to be PAID for doing this...

      This attitude isn't just limited to this incident, either. The original post had several cases that were even more egregious, including one where the founder of Smoothwall, good ol' Dick Morrell himself, verbally abused someone asking a (IMO) valid question and banned him for not knowing the answer. Is that the kind of attitude we want to portray ourselves as? I certainly don't...

      --
      -Corvidae
    4. Re:SmoothWall by shinji1911 · · Score: 1

      I just read the entire site. Very honestly, the user was being a fuckwit. Sure, the team members on the IRC Channel and in other places could have responded more nicely, but the facts were on their side in the end.

      Re-read the original IRC logs that started the whole thing -- while Richard might be a dickhead, the webmaster of said site is a total, incomprehensible idiot. I kid you not.

    5. Re:SmoothWall by k8to · · Score: 2, Insightful

      This is pretty silly.

      1) User comes onto some IRC channel, and makes some foolish requests.

      2) People on the channel give less then amazingly helpful answers.

      3) User gets his back up because he doesn't undertand the unhelpful answers.

      4) IRC channel people kick him out.

      5) Ego brused, poor user writes longwinded complaint to project staff.

      6) Project lead is far more juvenile than user; a pissing contest ensues.

      short form: foolish and juvenile users should stay away from pissy and volatile developer retards.

      --
      -josh
    6. Re:SmoothWall by tph · · Score: 1

      Perhaps the user didn't show the clue level of the "security professionals" he was dealing with. Perhaps he even fought back to hard when being told to drop the subject of including GCC...

      ... But there is absolutely no need to mail three increasingly abusive replies to a soberly written complaint! That is just way out of line!

      If he "owns SmoothWall" he can take it down with him!

    7. Re:SmoothWall by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0


      Are you kidding me, the report or whiner is a complete idiot. Contacting the ISP for reprimanding? What the hell?

      He was told they weren't interested about 10 times before he even started to get a clue.

      Anybody who ever says something like 'If you reply to this I'll take it up with blah blah blah' is a complete lamer. WTF? Why not just not reply? I'll tell you why, because the whiner is the one with the ego trip, and he has to get the last word in.

      God, I hope he learns something by the time he graduates from junior high..

    8. Re:SmoothWall by Zeekamotay · · Score: 1

      TellarHK, you are truly a dolt. The absolute very first answer you got from a project member was, "SmoothWall will *never* have a public webserver nor GCC." It is perfectly succint and civil. To anybody who knows anything about firewalls, the answer "It's a *firewall*" is plainly meaningful. Obviously, you are not one of those people, and so you refused to take no for an answer. Ok, well, I give you points for persistence, but amigo, If you keep poking somebody in the eye, don't get upset when they kick you in the head.

      This just kills me, "...when I casually mention what -my- needs include...", and you highlight the word "my". How insolent! I would have kicked you right there. The Smoothwall team _donates_ their time, resources, and expertise to you, and yet you have the audacity to make inane demands of them? Accept your virtual bitch slap on your feet, chalk it up to experience, and move on already. You're making yourself look more incompetent every second you drag this issue out.

      Oh, and um... for future reference, if you go around telling people how to run their projects after using them "for all of 7 hours" -- expect more of the same.

      "Contemplate this on the tree of woe." - Thulsa Doom

    9. Re:SmoothWall by zcat_NZ · · Score: 1
      OK, I read that entire site and here's my comment in brief;

      "It's a firewall"

      OK, I'll start by letting you know that I have no involvement with smoothwall or the developers and I can't really speak for them, but here's a paraphrasing of what they appear to be saying;

      smoothwall (like any other firewall product) is not a general-purpose distribution that includes things such as GCC or a publically accessable webserver, because that would make it less secure as a firewall. If you want apache and/or gcc and/or any other services, install them by all means on a box behind your firewall. Hell, even install smoothwall and then -add- the packages if you want and if you're happy with the slightly reduced security that this represents. Or if you feel that you don't need the level of security smoothwall aims to provide, use a general purpose install with ipchains or iptables. Sure the developers were a little harsh, but only because the original suggestion was both stupid and presumptuious.

      If it comes to a tradeoff between 'professional conduct' and damn solid code written from an uncompromising position, I know what I'd rather have on my firewall.

      --
      455fe10422ca29c4933f95052b792ab2
    10. Re:SmoothWall by cmkrnl · · Score: 1

      > Dusty is a QUALIFIED MEMBER OF UK MILITARY
      > INTELLIGENCE

      Which if true, and the individual referred to is an honest to goodness UK military spook, that little nugget is going to get someones arse severely kicked.

      IIRC last time I looked, To work for UK spooks, civil or military, after passing all the positive vetting procedures & signing the Official Secrets Act. The signer is prohibited by law for discussing it with anyone for the rest of ones natural life. Penalties for breech are severe and HMG takes it very seriously.

      So obviously someone on "active service" as a military spook so to speak, is not likely to be opening their trap blabbing about what they do/dont do.

      Now I cant say I know what a "Qualified Member" is. If OTOH "Dusty" is just a civvy with Security Clearance. Well big f*cking deal. HMG even hands those out to us shifty Irish types if they have use for the individuals skills in question.

      And the answer to the next question is "No".

      Curmudgeon.

  14. Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by Mr.+Uptime · · Score: 5, Informative
    As the final project for my Engineering Law class last semester, we studied this issue at length and even read the documents the PTO released under FOIA justifying their acceptance of the Kamen patent. Some of the major points we found were:
    • Kamen has been working on the Segway for a lot longer than 15 years. Most people don't realize how old Dean Kamen is; Yamafuji probably was just a young tot when Kamen introduced his "cripple cart."
    • The Segway employs a sophisticated transmission system that adjusts gear ratios depending on how difficult the terrain is (uphill, flat, or downhill) and the desired speed. This improves battery life and performance. Kazou's project had no such feature.
    • As was clearly stated in the patent, Kamen used a gyroscope while Yamafiji used a clumsy set of concentric rings and Hall effect sensors. It's like the difference between using GNOME 1.0 and KDE 2.0 - there's just no comparison.
    • Kamen's software was considerably more streamlined because it was written as a true embedded system, in pure ASM. Yamafiji's model used C++ because, well, it was just a model and it would have been useless if it were not hooked up to the portable computer he used to build it.
    Kamen deserves every penny he can make frmo Segway, both here and in Japan. For once, the USPTO did the right thing - and the media owes it to DK to stop complaining.

    Mr. Uptime

    1. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He deserves a patent because he wrote the controller in ASM instead of C++?

      The god damned moderators should spend more time selling their ass for crack, and less time randomly clicking the fucking links on this site.

    2. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) irrelevant. what matters is the filing date of the patents in question.

      2) this is an improvement on the original, patented design. there is a special kind of patent you can get for this case, but you still have to liscense the patent you base it on.

      3) may or may not be relevant, depending on the wording of the claim that mentions the orientation detection system. these days, you can get a patent for "a device with a number of wheels that automatically balances using orientation sensing equipment" with no futher details.

      4) irrelevant. this is a pure implementation detail, of the sort that the patent office no longer differentiates thanks to the unlegislated easing of requirements.

    3. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by BJH · · Score: 1

      And I'm sure you have absolutely no idea how old Prof. Yamafuji is (he's a Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo). In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he's been doing robotics for longer than Kamen (see http://www.tokyoclassified.com/tokyofeaturestories archive299/269/tokyofeaturestoriesinc.htm for an article that mentions him). BTW, his name's spelt "Kazuo", not "Kazou". To help you retain this, just remember: "Yamafuji is not a musical instrument!".

      Also, WTF is that about the language used for the software? In case you didn't know, a patent is for a *design* - the PTO wouldn't give a shit if it were written in ASM, C++, Cobol or Eiffel.

    4. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1. Not true. Read up on "Prior Art"

      2. Is that in the US or in Japan? The odds of the laws being the same in these two countries are rather remote.

      3. True. At least in the US.

      4. You're 100% correct.

    5. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by huie · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I find it hard to believe that there is only one patent involved in the Segway.

      As mentioned in the Yahoo article, "the basic ideas incorporated in the Segway scooter are the same: a computer processor to detect minute shifts in balance to keep the machine upright on two parallel wheels." That is hard to refute (at least according to the patent dates), but yes, they do differ in actual implementation.

      As mentioned, the gyroscope is a lot different from using an outrigger or pendulum sensor, and that's probably what distinguished the Segway from Yamafuji's enough to justify a patent.

      But that's just implementation (as is the transmission). The basic idea is still Yamafuji's.

      If I were Kaman, I'd swallow my pride, admit that Yamafuji invented the thing first and buy his patent for a buck. This would prevent anyone else from implementing the Segway differently (for instance, with a pendulum, accelerometer, or mere tilt-switch) and trying to market it even in the US.

      Rather, the Segway patent can't be for the parallel wheel bicycle since that's what Yamafuji's patent is (prior art). So Kaman better have that patent if he wants to protect himself from cheap Taiwanese/Chinese knock-offs that don't use such expensive things as transmission systems, solid-state gyroscopes and redundancy.

      I figure that Yamafuji is doing the decent thing: he realizes he hasn't done anything to capitalize on the patent and Kaman may very well deserve it, so the way to save face for essentially giving away a potentially lucrative patent is to seek recognition from his peer.

    6. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      its a classic "fill in the gaps" form troll

    7. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree, Japan invented parallel scooter, but the gearbox, and electronics - cripes - it is a feedback mechinism and obvious as heck. Now if you want to add a headlight for night driving, you will need some smarts, but it is obvious too, as is adding bumpers, a security chain, and perhaps an airbag or three.
      gearbox indeed. Variable belt drives and transmissions, is just mere implementation. If segway used the words like new concept - wrong .
      A much more worthy fight can be had by chinas claim to patents on soapless washing machines, after they were on sale in Japan. I digress..

    8. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How long you work on it matters diddly squat.

      Gosh transmission systems which try to keep the motor at an optimal rev count for the torque it has to deliver at a given speed ... whatever will they think up next.

      Who cares how you measure tilt? Small gyroscopes were expensive 15 years ago ... measuring tilt with gyroscopes is hardly innovation, simply a trivial adaption.

    9. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by psych031337 · · Score: 2

      i'd pay the Japanese guy anyway. It is just a buck and Kamen could get a laugh from it by paying with his pi note (his own currency from his independent island Northern Dumpling) and demanding proper change.

      --
      +++ath0
    10. Re:Why Kamen deserved the Segway patent by mericet · · Score: 1
      Kaman can't do that, if the Japanese patent wasn't filed in the USA, anyone can use that technology in the USA (and after one year of the Japanese filing it can't be filed in the US AFAIK). This means that Kamen is only protected against usage of his cool innovations.

      Furthermore, if his patent claims a self balancing scooter, etc, the USPTO should have rejected those claims and any court will.

  15. problem by Joe+the+Lesser · · Score: 0

    I had a problem with Gopher once. It kept rummaging through my garden and eating my carrots! Silly gophers and their veggie stealing ways.

    --
    "I only speak the truth"
    Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
    1. Re:problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      threaten it with IE.
      It'll soon run away.

  16. Wow, IE fetches gopher links by imrdkl · · Score: 4, Informative
    I had never pointed IE at a gopher server. Dare I say I am just ever so slightly impressed? Perhaps not. When UMinn decided to charge, I wrote them a perl script which implements a gopher client in about 50 lines.

    I dont guess they ever made any money of gopher at UMinn, but perhaps we shouldn't have been so hard on them for trying. Bygones.

    1. Re:Wow, IE fetches gopher links by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 1

      50? It looks an awful lot more like 135 to me...

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    2. Re:Wow, IE fetches gopher links by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Didn't IE came from Mosaic? Mosaic probably had support for it, and MS probably just left it in.

    3. Re:Wow, IE fetches gopher links by Tower · · Score: 1

      There's 94 semicolons, so 94 LOC would be a decent measurement, too... still nearly double the claimed 50.

      --
      "It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
  17. Don't forget by eclectro · · Score: 5, Informative

    the Be auction the day after tomorrow for those who are lucky enough to be near menlo park.

    Who knows, maybe some of that stuff will become collectible.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
  18. Old Internet Irony by Da+Penguin · · Score: 5, Funny

    I have recently become quite interested in Gopher and I got to reading "The Whole Internet" which was basically the first internet book. When I got to the chapter on Gopher, it also mentioned the "Web" and said that:

    "Admittedly, Web servers and hypertext editors are scarce; but the potential here makes the World-Wide Web one of the most interesting new tools on the Internet."

    Oh how the tables have turned.

  19. Yet another smoothwall security hole by swuser · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just downloaded smoothwall 0.9.9se and had a search on google.

    bash$ id
    uid=99(nobody) gid=99(nobody) groups=99(nobody),14(smoothwa)
    bash$ ls -l /usr/sbin/pppoe
    -rwsr-x--- 1 root nobody 23888 Aug 6 12:36 /usr/sbin/pppoe
    bash$ /usr/sbin/pppoe -D /etc/test
    bash$ ls -l /etc/test
    -rw-rw-r-- 1 root nobody 367 Jan 10 03:11 /etc/test

    Though it's not surprising it's full of holes with code that the smoothwall people write:

    ...
    if (setgid(0)) { fprintf(stderr, "Couldn't set GID to 0\n"); return 0; }
    if (setuid(0)) { fprintf(stderr, "Couldn't set UID to 0\n"); return 0; }
    ...
    snprintf(command, STRING_SIZE - 1, "/var/patches/%s/setup", argv[1]);
    if (!(p = popen(command, "r")))
    return -1;

    etc. etc.
    It's full of setgid(0);setuid(0);system(command);
    absolutely unbelievable.

    1. Re:Yet another smoothwall security hole by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      Could you explain that a little more slowly? Why are the setgid, setuid, and system statements a bad thing?

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    2. Re:Yet another smoothwall security hole by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      UID and GID 0 are root. When a program becomes root a lot it makes it more likely that someone will be able to overwrite the executing code with malicious code that will execute as root. Malicious executing as root allows an attacker to open up a back door. System calls run external commands, if you can hijack the string that is fed to the system call, you can make the program run a malicious command.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    3. Re:Yet another smoothwall security hole by gmhowell · · Score: 1

      Okay, that I got. But... What did the code that the original poster post actually do? 'Just' make the running process run as root?

      TIA

      --
      Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
    4. Re:Yet another smoothwall security hole by Webmonger · · Score: 2

      Furthermore, there are much safer ways than system() to execute an external command-- fork() followed by exec(), for example.

    5. Re:Yet another smoothwall security hole by slashdot.org · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yes, it runs it as root.

      And like the guy says, if you can hijack the string (= argv[1]) you can execute almost any program as root.

      Since popen hands this to a shell, things like .. are expanded. E.g. you can execute most anything,- consider for example argv[1] = "../../usr/sbin/bla > "

      This would basically execute
      /usr/sbin/bla > /setup

      If you want you can also remove the /setup by just adding "../usr/../usr/../usr" (or plain whitespace may work too) until you overflow the buffer and have snprintf throw the rest away.

      In this case I don't know where argv[1] comes from, but it would have to be a very trustworthy source. In general it's fairly stupid to execute commands based on a parameter, especially as root.

    6. Re:Yet another smoothwall security hole by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Isn't that what system does ?

    7. Re:Yet another smoothwall security hole by Webmonger · · Score: 2

      No, system() invokes a shell and passes your string to it, which makes it far more dangerous.

      Say I use system() to echo a message:
      gets(message);
      sprintf(buffer, "echo %s" message);
      system(buffer);

      Now, suppose for my message I enter
      "foo; rm -R *"

      The shell will do "echo foo", then "rm -R *".

      The exec family will never permit this to happen. It's far safer to use exec than to try to sanitize the user input.

  20. 15 years by Daengbo · · Score: 0

    I would not say the invention was sat on for 15 years, considering he applied for the patent in 1987, but was awarder it in 1996. That seems to be the government sitting on it, not him.

  21. Actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    There's no comparison between GNOME and KDE at all. They serve completely different purposes. GNOME is an experimental windowing system, and KDE is a practical, robust application environment that actually has real world uses.

    You ask me why I'm bitter? I lost a huge contract for using GNOME because the end users didn't like the interface and the client didn't want to pay to rewrite it with KDE.

    1. Re:Actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      So you gave them an SRS, they approved it, you wrote it, then they said they didn't want it and didn't pay you? Let me let you in on a little secret:

      YOU'RE IN THE WRONG LINE OF WORK PAL!

      Or, what, you didn't write an SRS? Come on, you can admit it. I guess a degree would have helped in this situation, eh?

    2. Re:Actually by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its a poor musician who blames his/her instrument.

      Or in other words, its far more likely that your client just realized that you were an idiot.

  22. hrm. by AnalogBoy · · Score: 2

    "segue" is a verb [imparitive, intransitive] or a noun.

    "Segway" is a proper noun as of a few weeks ago. Don't worry timothy, i suck at grammar too.

    Speaking of backtracking, allow me to segue (teehee) into this offtopic question: Does anyone have any good techniques for backtracking, through google or otherwise, your old slashdot posts? it seems you can search by everything else but you're own name.

    1. Re:hrm. by timothy · · Score: 1

      '"Segway" is a proper noun as of a few weeks ago. Don't worry timothy, i suck at grammar too.'

      Huh? I didn't come up with that scooter's silly name ;) Did I misuse it somewhere?

      timothy

      --
      jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
    2. Re:hrm. by tag · · Score: 1
      "segue" is a verb [imparitive, intransitive] or a noun.

      "Segway" is a proper noun as of a few weeks ago. Don't worry timothy, i suck at grammar too.

      But the Segway's code name was "IT," which is a pronoun. That's they way I took what he wrote.

    3. Re:hrm. by mr+qix · · Score: 1

      i think analogboy is referring to the fact that you called the Segway an "electric-powered pronoun" when it should either be a verb or a proper noun, but not a pronoun. pronouns would be he, she, it, they, etc.

      --

      sig me a sog
    4. Re:hrm. by jeffehobbs · · Score: 2, Funny

      "you're" is a contraction of the words "you are".

      "your" is an adjective, and generally connotes possession of something.

      neener, neener...

      neener.

      ~jeff

    5. Re:hrm. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Segway wasn't IT. IT is still coming.

    6. Re:hrm. by PiterPan · · Score: 1

      Segway also used to be known as "IT". Pronoun all right.

      --

      --
      On scale from -14 to 56 this post is '-15, Nonexistent'
  23. SmoothWall: Not Quite Free Tech Support. by dotderf · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Tech support is free, as long as you donate! (huh?) Just check out this IRC log.

    So it's free, but only if you pay for it. Why don't they just use a pay model?

    1. Re:SmoothWall: Not Quite Free Tech Support. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      i read that as you won't get free support but if you've donated you earn support

      it's badly worded to be sure tho'

      but you went into their irc and started hassling them, knowing what you've read the last few days and not looking up anything about what their project is? you should have expected to be flamed!

    2. Re:SmoothWall: Not Quite Free Tech Support. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why don't they just use a pay model?

      because they're morons?

      Seriously.. someone releases something under the GPL, then gets pissed when people offer coding help instead of money..

      Way to make friends, Dick...

  24. compression by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    compress these pieces of data!

    000
    001
    010
    011
    100
    101
    110
    111

  25. Speaking of BE.. Did anyone going to the auction? by caferace · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Frankly, I'd love to go and pick up a BeBox just to toy with. It starts tomorrow, and all the bidding stuff is on Wednesday....

    That being said, it's in Menlo Park, Ca. Don't buy your plane tickets tonight. Some of these auctions end up WAY overbid...

  26. an intresting read more about zeosync by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you go to archive.org and type in zeosync.com in the wayback machine you can see an older site with some different information.

    Don't know if this helps anybody in evaluating.

  27. I already submitted this! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I submitted the Segway article to Slashdot about Yamafugi's patent with a story on ananova soon after IT was revealed.

    Here is the story dated from Story filed: 10:48 Friday 14th December 2001. Why the editors didn't post it is not right.

    Here is another interesting link about police using the Segway.

  28. For not Be-ing, they deserve the Palm... by mmu_man · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So yes it's really over. well that goes only for the Palm deal, since there are already some projects to make an OpenSource BeOs:
    http://www.openbeos.org/
    http://blueos.free.fr/
    And those surely won't stop their efforts !

    That's yet another example of the dangers of closed source systems... :-(

    RIP BEOS.

    1. Re:For not Be-ing, they deserve the Palm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      That's yet another example of the dangers of closed source systems... :-(

      RIP BEOS.

      Oh, come on. BeOS will be incorporated into millions of Palm devices over the next five or six years. Even if The Real BeOS were released as open source, it wouldn't have a tenth that many desktops in the same time. Be gave away BeOS to consumers for the price of a free beer, and they still couldn't gain traction.

      If anything, a realistic view is that Palm is the best thing that ever could have happened to Be's amazing OS.

      Anonymous cowards will not make the obligatory Hamlet joke.

    2. Re:For not Be-ing, they deserve the Palm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      BlueOS isn't OpenSource :(

  29. Beos: Amiga, TNG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Every few years a new, closed-source alternative OS appears to gain a rabid following and when it inevitably dies they are left with nothing but press releases and desperate attempts at revival.

    It's time for the BeOS crowd to learn from the Amiga, OS/2, OS9 (no, not MacOS9), and every other alternative PC OS. Give it up. It's dead and it will never come back. Don't make bets on closed source alternative PC OS's. It doesn't pay off.

    1. Re:Beos: Amiga, TNG by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Just a note :) i dont use AmigaOS, but i know that its not dead. Depending on your deffinition of Dead.

      I dont think its owned by Amiga Inc who is currently upgrading the OS to PPC. Very imbitous plans for it too.

      They have had several OS upgrades in the last few years, and Dedicated Amiga companies still bring out regular hardware.

      Amiga Inc no longer tie their OS to one type of hardware. Within years (if we get that far) AmigaOS will exist on several CPU's (this is a port from the current OS, NOT DE, although VP coding will help AmigaOS be very portable)

      Anyway, by my view, and thousands (10's of thousands) of other people, AmigaOS insnt dead. The classic platform had had support stop, however the new AmigaOS to be released in reb will be able to run on 2-4 PPC boards and future version will run on several CPU types. So, i dont know what your deffinition of dead is, but it sure isnt mine.

      ----------
      Rodney McDonell

  30. Try the Internet Archive instead. by ratguy · · Score: 1

    Googol doesn't offer old copies of websites, unfortunately. (perhaps they should) There is one site that does though, although it's somewhat limited. A search at The Internet Archive turned up a very old copy of ZeoSync's website The archive is great for viewing old versions of websites you like to frequent.

  31. Will we finally have free Be? by quakeroatz · · Score: 1

    I'm a cheap linux bastard, I don't like paying for software, except for games of course .

    Now that Be has gone chapter 11, can I finally get a free copy _FULL_ of Be?

    I may have missed the boat here, but I'd really like to try this deceased OS.

    1. Re:Will we finally have free Be? by mmu_man · · Score: 1

      No you can't, just because BeOS it belongs to Palm now.

    2. Re:Will we finally have free Be? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      you can wait for www.yellowtab.com to release their updated version. It will cost tho'

    3. Re:Will we finally have free Be? by mlk · · Score: 1

      the full copy only really included Real Player, most of the other stuff (MP3 encoded for example) you could get of BeBits.

      Or, you could wait a bit, and get OpenBeOS or BlueOS. The latter of which is based on Linux.

      mlk

      --
      Wow, I should not post when knackered.
  32. ZeoSync's Claims by MathJMendl · · Score: 2, Insightful

    ZeoSync really should look up the pigeonhole principle. You can't fit n pieces of data into n-1 slots with one piece of data in each slot.

    Basically, if you can reduce 1 million bits to 10,000, then you can only represent 2^10000 different outcomes. But, they need to represent all 2^1000000 outcomes! There are only so many outcomes in there that can be compressed, and that means that the other outcomes take up more space.

    In other words, their data is not random.

    If a 12th grade high school student can figure this out, surely people with PHD's can see how this idea is flawed. I am surprised that such an absurd idea is even being taken seriously in the news.

    --


    "I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
    1. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by SilentTristero · · Score: 1

      I agree with you that they are a fraud, however your argument is incomplete. Most real data is not random. If you can figure out a more effective way to exploit nonrandomness in a data set, you can compress it.

      Unfortunately Mr. Shannon has some bad news for these boys with his Sampling Theorem.

    2. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Azog · · Score: 4, Interesting
      You are correct, they should look up the Pigeonhole principle.

      The "Layman Process" explaination of their technology is worth a read just for the amusement value. They claim that it is not a compression technology, but that it works by "sending more data across less bandwidth while saving time", and that it "stores massive amounts of data compared to standard binary compression". Well, that sounds like compression to me. You might think that maybe they're referring to a different encoding method, but no, they also say that the data is able to "move rapidly on a fixed set of binary carriers through existing digital transmission devices".

      So: They take binary data, do something magical to it, and then it can go across a digital, binary network, faster than any standard binary compression. OK, so what kind of magic is this?

      Moving on to the "Technical Process", they have some astonishingly blatant smokescreen to their impossible claims.

      First of all, they talk about the "solution to the Pidgeonhole Principle". Well, that's not something you solve, it just is. That's like saying you've learned to fly by "solving" gravity.

      And then they "define" the pidgeonhole principle:
      Given a number of pidgeons within a sealed room that has a single hole, and which allows only one pigeon at a time to escape the room, how many unique markers are required to individuall mark all of the pigeons as each escapes, one pigeon at a time? After some time a person will reasonably conclude that: "One unique marker is required for each pigeon that flies throught the hole, if there are one hundred pigeons in the group then the answer is one hundred markers".
      Well, that's not what the pigeonhole principle is. The pigeonhole principle is simply: If you have more pigeons than holes, then there must be more than one pidgeon in at least one hole. Conversely, if you have less pidgeons than holes, then there must be at least one hole with no pidgeon.

      Getting this basic theory wrong proves that they are either hopelessly ignorant or total frauds.

      Furthermore, the reason the pidgeonhole principle disproves ridiculous compression claims is there are exponentially more long bitstrings than short bitstrings. So if you claim to be able to represent every long bitstring (the pidgeons) as a short bitstring, (the holes) then there must be at least two long bitstreams represented by one short bitstream. (Two pidgeons in one hole). But that means you can't tell which long bitstream was represented by the short bitstream, and you don't have a real compression algorithm - at least not a lossless one.

      And then, Zeosync's alleged "technical explanation" veers off into the most amazing bullsh*t I've read in a long time:
      In higher, multi-dimensional projective theory, it is possible to create string nodes that describe significant components of simultaneously identically yet different mathematical entities."
      Simultaneously identical yet different. Sure. Uh-huh. Giggle.

      But wait! Reading further, I see that they use the word "lossy". The surrounding context simply doesn't make sense, but if you're talking about lossy compression, the pidgeonhole principle is irrelevant, because it's OK to not know exactly which long bitstream a shorter bitstream encodes - that's the whole point of lossy compression - you loose some detail. But then why discuss the pidgeonhole principle at all?

      I hope someone sues these hucksters into a smoking crater. I hate it when people lie about fundamental mathematics.
      --
      Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
      "HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
    3. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      On the contrary.

      Take a stream of numbers like, oh, I don't know. PI, lets say. Or some other equation that will give you a stream of numbers that can go one forever (doesn't necessarily have to be random or even close. It only has to fit the job.

      Lets say I find, at a position of so many digits down the stream, a particular "segment" of that stream, at x digits long exactly matches the data I'm trying to "compress."

      So I use a couple of bytes to describe my equation or equations. Maybe I've got a library of a couple hundred that work well. I can describe over 60000 different equations in 16 bytes. 32 bytes, and I can describe a starting position of over 4.2 billion digits down that stream. 64 bytes and I can go 4.2billion^4.2 billion digits down that stream. another 16 or 32 bits, and I can describe how long of a stream to look for.

      It's not "compression" per se, but it is expressing data in a much much smaller form than you started out with.

      The trick here, of course, is finding the occurance of a particular sequence within a particular stream of numbers in a short amount of time. Solve that piece of the puzzle, and you're going to wind up a very rich person indeed.

    4. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Azog · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Digging around I found some more interesting stuff. First of all, if you get the PDF org chart, the information on that essentially contradicts the Flash propaganda - the technical staff seems to be divided into two teams, one "Advanced Compression Technologies Team" and one "Singular Bit Varience [sic] Encoder Team".

      The org chart also mentions Wavelets, Fractals, and Sub-band compression... So much for the website that claims their technology isn't actually compression...

      Maybe, just maybe, the scientists actually do have some sort of interesting compression technology, but the marketing / business people have spun and hyped it up, totally out of control and totally out of touch with reality. But I don't think so - marketing people alone wouldn't be able to come up with the pseudo-scientific drivel on that website.

      Moving on, you see that Dr. Burko Fuhrt and Dr. Piotr Blass are from Florida Atlantic University. Sure enough, doing a search of the university website turns up a few computer science classes... but that's interesting... All of Fuhrt's classes for Fall 2001 were cancelled, and they don't seem to be teaching anything in Spring 2002... Blass is an Instructor, apparently not a tenured professor, while Furht is a professor. They don't seem to have home pages so it's hard to know much about them.

      Dr. Steve Smale of Berkely, on the other hand, looks like the real thing - a serious mathemetician. Someone should contact him and find out if he knows he's on the Zeosync org chart, and if so, what he thinks of their web site... I'd hate to see a genuine researcher inadvertently associated with something phony.

      The Zeosync website claims that John Post of the University of Arkansas is on the Zeosync team, but a search of that University's directory turns up no hits for that name, and he doesn't have a home page there.

      Very strange indeed.

      --
      Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
      "HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
    5. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I thought about that but it doesnt work because of the pigeonhole principle, since you still are going to wind up not being able to fit the # of cases into it

    6. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      How about this then, one static example of random data isn't random!

      You can't compress when you're dealing with any example of true random data - but you can compress instances of random data, certainly.

    7. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by aardvarkjoe · · Score: 2
      The problem with this is still the same ... as it turns out, it's going to take at least as much information to store the address of a particular sequence of data (on average) that it does to store the data itself. (Sorry to any mathmaticians whose ears I've hurt with that pseudo-explanation, but this is a form that even I can understand, even if it's not absolutely accurate.) Of course, it could well happen that the gigabyte of data you want to store occurs starting at the 20th digit of pi, and so in the occasional case it may work, however, for truly random data, that will be the case only exceedingly rarely.


      (For a do-it-yourself version of this, there's a website around -- piquery
      which allows you to search for a certain substring in the digits of pi. Try plugging in a random sequence of digits, and then look at how many digits it takes to represent the address. For the several I tried, the resulting addresses were all longer than the string I typed, and a couple did not exist. Try it -- it's great fun :)

      --

      How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
    8. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by volsung · · Score: 2

      What you are describing is the "algorithmic information content" of the string. It is the roughly the size of the Turing Machine required to produce the string. As was mentioned in an earlier Slashdot article (about programming project estimates), it is provable that there is no algorithm to compute the algorithmic information content of all strings. (Not to say there isn't an approximate solution that would be useful in some cases.)

    9. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Fat+Cow · · Score: 2, Informative

      Stephen Smale is a _very_ eminent mathematician. A fields medal winner. He proved the poincare conjecture for dimensions greater than 4.

      --
      stay frosty and alert
    10. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by realdpk · · Score: 2

      "In other words, their data is not random."

      Again, I must ask, who would want to compress truly random data? What would be the point of that?

      Something that can compress data people actaully want to download, like movies or music or whatever, better than currently used algorithms, is a good thing. It remains to be seen by the public if this will do that. But I think y'all are focusing too hard on the term "random".

    11. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    12. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      As a serious mathematician, I'm embarrassed to admit that I've met Dr. Piotr Blass. He once visited my $HIGHLY_RANKED_MATH_DEPARTMENT, about 10 or 12 years ago.

      As an academic, he is just barely legitimate. If you have a net connection through a research university, you can look at his list of (mostly bogus) publications at mathscinet

      Almost surely, this is a scheme to separate naive investors from their money.

    13. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He seems to have some Algebraic Geometry papers in good journals (PAMS, J. Algebra), but all of them are from at least 10 years ago. Almost all of his recent work is in the Ulam Quarterly, a fairly obscure electronic journal.

    14. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Professor Smale isn't seen around the department much, probably thanks to his emeritus status, so I can't immediately verify anything. His recent work is in algorithms, not data compression, so I doubt he is associated with this.

    15. Re:ZeoSync's Claims by Azog · · Score: 1

      Ahhh... A Fields medal winner (!) you know, I thought I'd heard his name before. This makes me even more suspicious that he doesn't really know what's going on with Zeosync.

      I suspect he's just really, really busy, and was invited to be an advisor to the company... they probably told him they were doing compression research, and he may not know about the claims they are making...

      Betcha that as soon as he finds out, he'll get himself disassociated from them ASAP.

      --
      Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
      "HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
  33. Copyright failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So it looks like BeOS is going to be lost forever -- the modern day equivalent of being bulldozed into a pit, burned, and buried under concrete.

    Think of this as another example of the failure of modern-day copyright law. The purpose of copyright law is to place fine examples of the arts into the public domain -- if instead of computer software, BeOS consisted of a series of patents, then 20 years from now we would all have complete, free, access to BeOS, because the patents would have:

    (1) been disclosed when the monopoly was granted
    (2) expired

    However, in the case of copyrighted computer object code, in exchange for granting a government monopoly of 95 years, the public gets nothing. Zilch. Nada. Copyright law hasn't just "tilted" to the side of copyright holders, it has no other master. The public interest is completely removed from consideration. Modern copyright law is NOTHING more then corporate welfare. It no longer benefits the public, and like all laws that work directly against the public interest, no longer deserves respect. Want to get rid of ancient, outdated, overreaching copyright law? Disobey it. Sit in the front of the bus -- in the seat labeled "for corporations only."

    Take this as a warning. No matter how "cool" a piece of software is, if it is proprietary software, it is absolutely worthless. It can disappear at any moment, and it contributes nothing to the progress of computer science. nothing. Sure, you can pretend that you're part of the future by playing with a "cool" proprietary OS, but you're just wasting your time and energy on someone else's game. ... and in the end you have no one but yourself for getting fucked over and spit out.

    Score: -1: Troll

    1. Re:Copyright failure by mmu_man · · Score: 1

      How much that can't be more accurate :-(

    2. Re:Copyright failure by gilmae · · Score: 1

      It is still there, isn't it? I mean, Palm didn't come around and knock on people's doors demanding install discs be returned, did they? I know it is a lot more inconvenient now that people can't buy it new anymore, but I'm sure if they really want it they can go out and get an unwanted copy.

    3. Re:Copyright failure by brendano · · Score: 1
      Take this as a warning. No matter how "cool" a piece of software is, if it is proprietary software, it is absolutely worthless. It can disappear at any moment, and it contributes nothing to the progress of computer science.
      Give me a break. The world's a lot bigger than computer science -- real people in the real world actually use computer software to actually do things. Not everyone is living in luxury enough to sit around and tinker with the guts of their operating systems. Playing around with Linux is fun, but programming is NOT the end-all be-all of programs. It's a shame that the insightful parts of your post about corporate power have to be overshadowed by your techno-elitism.
      --
      -Brendan
    4. Re:Copyright failure by Chandon+Seldon · · Score: 1

      In a few years, when it becomes impossible to puchase a PC that BeOS will run on, no one will have the source to port it to the new hardware.

      --
      -- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
    5. Re:Copyright failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... and you still have no source code, so you have no way of fixing bugs or porting it to new hardware.

      Face it; it's a dead operating system now.

    6. Re:Copyright failure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      People can only benefit if they have access to the source code. That's the difference between patents and software copyright. The public benefit in patents and copyrights is supposed to be that the public gains the knowledge that went into the product. In the case of computer object code, the public realizes no such benefit. The arts and sciences are not advanced by the publication of copyrighted object code.

    7. Re:Copyright failure by ratboy666 · · Score: 1

      Of COURSE the world is bigger
      than computer science, but there will be no
      contribution to that science from proprietary
      software. You loose. And what does Linux have
      to do with this? What does programming have to
      do with this?

      --
      Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
  34. Hilarious. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Twenty fucking emails! Don't these people have anything better to do? This guy should have a chat with Bernie Shiffman or whatever his name is.

  35. NYTimes: Time.ca Faux Pas by instinctdesign · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This wasn't one of the mentioned Slashbacks, but it probably could have been. The NY Times is running a story on Time Canada's (free reg...) apparent faux pas on the new iMac announcement. The article is a bit more about the content of the article than the error which was oh so recently immortalized here on slashdot, but its still a good read.

    --
    forma3
  36. I don't agree by dirtyeye · · Score: 0

    I read your link, and think the guy is trying to pick fights. Not the smoothwall team, the reporter.

    Seems to be a lot of people trying to stitch up smoothwall at the mo, you don't support IPCop by chance do you???

    I didn't see any real display of security concerns, just a guy who wants GCC on a firewall, which I to think is un necessary, it just bloats the install. jsu my 2c

    1. Re:I don't agree by Corvidae · · Score: 1

      If you mean "support" as in "contribute code," no. Never have, never will. I support what they're trying to do and wish them success, but nothing more than that. I don't even use IPCop (or Smoothwall, but I'd think that's pretty much implied). You'd think someone whose product relies on trust would be a little less condecending and arrogant towards their customers, don't you?

      --
      -Corvidae
    2. Re:I don't agree by xtremex · · Score: 1

      Dick Morrell called me a fuckwad for asking him a question about getting gcc to compile a new kernel...NICE attitude

      --
      If you're not a Liberal in your 20's, then you have no heart.If you're still a Liberal in your 30's you have no brain.
    3. Re:I don't agree by cmkrnl · · Score: 1

      Seems like all his fanboys are out in force on /. tonight.

      Curmudgeon

  37. Be Amiga by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 1

    Yes - they made fun of me until I bought a PC when I held onto my Amiga. Get used to it - its a fundametal law of computing these days - the best don't always win.

    http://www.lineo.com/news_events/announcements/2 00 1/06.05.html

    Ironically they turned the amiga name into a PDA as well. Oh well...

  38. Re:Sad day ... Stephen King is dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My god! AGAIN? How many times can that poor man die?

  39. IANAL, but by Alien54 · · Score: 2
    I thought it was possible for two people to have a patent on the same thing from different countries. there is now such thing as a world wide patent system.

    Think of how many people invented the car in the various countries around the world.

    --
    "It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
    1. Re:IANAL, but by mlk · · Score: 1

      invented the car
      The car was invented in the UK, by a farmer who saw no use for it?!?

      It was later reinvented by someone in Germany (I think).

      Brits can be a bit daft like this, very much "Ohh thats cool, but no one would actual want to use it!

      --
      Wow, I should not post when knackered.
  40. it's about innovation by markj02 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    If the basic design for a two-wheeled scooter with wheels side-by-side was patented by someone else prior to Kamen's patent, then Kamen doesn't "deserve" a patent on it. If Kamen came up with improvements on the basic design, he deserves a patent on those improvements. And if the improvements are essential to making the device useful, then his patent will be valuable. If his improvements are not useful or essential, his patent will be worthless.

    And if you actually took an "Engineering Law Class" and you were taught that people deserve patent protection because they implement their controller software in "ASM" as opposed to C++, you should ask for your tuition back. But perhaps you just made that up.

    1. Re:it's about innovation by Spasemunki · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Someone brought up the irrelevancy of the language below, but I think the poster meant to indicate something else. Yes, a product is not significantly different (and deserving of a seperate patent) because it is implemented in a seperate langauge. But, to quote the original post:
      it would have been useless if it were not hooked up to the portable computer he used to build it.


      It sounds like the earlier machine relied on an external computer system running a piece of homade software to fiddle the inputs from the sensors and produce the balancing effect. The new machine has a built in computer, integral to the device, that implements the logic to operate the scooter either in hardware, firmware, or embedded software. At any rate, the new scooter does not require an external computer connected to it in order to operate correctly.

      Of course, this is just an incrimental improvement over the external-computer model, but combined with the other improvements, could warrant a different patent. More importantly, it represents more of a difference between the two systems than just being implemented in a different language. So we can all stop ragging on the original poster now ;)
    2. Re:it's about innovation by ArchAngelQ · · Score: 0

      I know I'm going to be labeled flaimbate for even replying to this part of your post, but ah well. The reason he mentioned the asm vs c++ thing is not for the point that the asm vs c++ part was important, but because the systems needed to power them, i.e. an embeded computer system vs an external computing system was one aspect as was the language used, as an indicator of the software design that was used. He didn't make this horrifly clear in his post, I'll grant, but none the less, when you want to say something quick on here, it's easy to just post the argument you've got in your head, not the one that'll make since 5 min later ;)

    3. Re:it's about innovation by markj02 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I believe the Japanese robotics professor built the original version 15 years ago, a model scaled down in size. A lot of research robots back then were tethered. Fitting equivalent hardware into a full size device 15 years later doesn't seem like a big technological advance.

      Don't get me wrong: I'm sure Kamen made real technical contributions, and those are then protected by patents.

  41. Backtrack through cache by imuffin · · Score: 0, Redundant

    But can you backtrack through a google cache? pointym5 writes "Checked out the ZeoSync web site lately?

    No, you can't backtrack through a google cache, but you can backtrack through the Web Archive's caches and they do have one link to Zeosync's website from July of 2001. Of course they didn't seem to have links to all those people back then, either.

  42. zerosync by peterjm · · Score: 2

    God damn do they have an annoying site! has anyone visited it?
    I always cringe when, in movies, they show someone at a computer. inenvitably, the computer beeps, whines, or makes some sort audible response at the slightest keystroke or button press. I sometimes explain to the geek friends that i'm watching with how f*cking annoying it would be if computers actually did this, i'm sure it's something everyone here as thought about at least once. (as an aside, a friend of mine once went so far as to create a new term for those operating systems; MOS, or Movie Operating system) anyway, their site is like a web based version of mos.
    I Just put my mouse over the damn menu, and I know i did that because you're wasting my cpu with this crappy flash animations, I DON'T MY COMPUTER TO BEEP AS WELL!
    *beep* *beep* *beep*

    1. Re:zerosync by GigsVT · · Score: 1

      I prefer old clicky keyboards like IBM used to sell, and always buy them at the thrift shop..... hmmm. :)

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
    2. Re:zerosync by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your friend is lying, the term MOS has been around for ages.

    3. Re:zerosync by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't exactly call him a lyer! Good heavens, its not as though thats the hardest damn thing to come up with...

      I personally have always called them "Non-operating Operating Systems" or NO!OS's. I'm sure someone else came up with this same idea and name before me - I've just never heard anyone say they have. Don't be so harsh...

  43. Gopher alive and kicking by imuffin · · Score: 1

    I'm really glad to see that gopher is alive and kicking. Not only that, but you can still search gopherspace using Veronica!

    Personally, I think it's much better than the web.

  44. smoothwall--readable files by markj02 · · Score: 3, Insightful
    There may be other problems with SmoothWall but this doesn't look like one. Even if the files were completely readable, it shouldn't be a big deal. People aren't supposed to log into firewalls. If you buy a proprietary firewall, it likely stores all that stuff in plain text and "world readable" as well, if it even has a notion of file protection and users in its embedded OS.

    The part I can't figure out is why anyone would bother with a Linux software firewall running on a PC if you can get good firewall appliances with web-based configuration for little more than $100.

    1. Re:smoothwall--readable files by ZxCv · · Score: 2

      Even better, I've seen good quality ones for closer to $60. But I've asked the same question you did, particularly on the local LUG mailing list. The answer? It comes down to someone having an extra PC (usually old), the free software, and plenty of free time, versus someone having the $60 for the firewall. Some people just want to tinker, which considering the OS in the first place, shouldn't be a shock to anyone.

      --

      Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
    2. Re:smoothwall--readable files by linzeal · · Score: 1

      Those 60$ router/firewalls are pretty good (I block all the major trojan ports inbound on there and dnat through the firewall to the syslogd on my freebsd box next to me) but I still enjoy a nice stateful packet inspection firewall and those usually go for 140+$, you can roll your own or get a firewall distro that has it.

    3. Re:smoothwall--readable files by oliphaunt · · Score: 1

      The part I can't figure out is why anyone would bother with a Linux software firewall running on a PC if you can get good firewall appliances with web-based configuration for little more than $100.

      I hope you're kidding. The reason I bothered is that your 'good' hardware firewall costs me $100, while writing a linux software firewall.rc is FREE. Yeah, I had money to burn when I worked for a dotcom, but just because that company closed and now I don't have $$ doesn't mean that I want to give control of my machines to some punk in Tajikistan.

      --




      Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
    4. Re:smoothwall--readable files by SL2C · · Score: 1

      Yes, this _is_ a big deal.

      This firewall can be administered remotely. As far as I understand, this can happen via a web server. You do not have to "log in" to the firewall to break it. It is enough to convince an application running on it to do it for you. And btw, "logging in" just means that you convince some trusted application (sshd, login, and so on) to spawn a shell process for you. You do that _somehow_, not necessarily following the protocol it tries to implement. If you're an intruder, you'll maybe exploit a bug in the implementation.

      As the httpd seems to be running as user nobody, you can try to make it read/change all these files owned by nobody. Plus any world readable/writable files, of course.

      The point is that you do not deactivate security mechanisms just because you think they are redundant (because you hink another security measure already takes care of it). Redundancy is a primary strength of any secure system (not only with computers).

      Build "defense in depth". Don't create single points of failure.

      It is always possible that there is a bug in an implementation.

      It is always possible that someone can think of a way to break your security that you have not thought of.

      It is always possible that a person administering, or equally likely a person in the interior network, inadvertently, intentionally, or by beeing fooled (think trojan horses delivered by mail, social engineering, ...) opens up a hole.

      If you have only one security measure you trust, you are fucked in all these cases.

      If you have several measures that have to be broken one after the other, AND IF YOU KEEP GOOD LOGS AND LOOK AND THEM REGULARLY, then you may notice the intrusion attempt.

      To deactivate standard measures such as shadow passwords is particularly moronic.

      And to prove the point, c't have now broken this firewall design.

      I want to comment on another thing that came up in the original thread, which was by far the most depressing thread I ever read on Slashdot, starting with the posted article itself.

      This is the claim that "it just has to get the job done".

      This is not wrong in itself, but you have to think what job this is. Quick installation is not your goal, but securing your network is, and this must define what you are going to do. An out-of-the box installation whose workings and weaknesses you don't understand likely will just hurt your users (by denying them some internet services, for example) and the attackers will only laugh about it. A standard installation may protect you against known standard tools as used by script kiddies, but not much more than that. This may be convenient, but it has little to do with security.

    5. Re:smoothwall--readable files by dohcvtec · · Score: 1

      From what I've seen of the little "firewall appliances" I get the feeling that they are very limited in terms of flexibility. In other words, if you don't know what you're doing, fine, the box will work as is, but when you want to start customizing things, you start running into dead ends. This is where a *nix based PC firewall comes in; you have virtually infinite configuration flexibility, much better logging, greater frequency/ease of security patches. Firewall appliances have essentially (2) advantages: low power consumption and ease of use (take it out of the box and plug it in.)

      --
      -- Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with a baseball bat.
    6. Re:smoothwall--readable files by cmkrnl · · Score: 1

      Mod this UP NOW! One of the most sensible and coherent on the topic to date.

      Curmudgeon

  45. Re:The Dead Of Night by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you should post something not off of exciter,like violator would be good or songs of faith and devotion

  46. [OT] archie by s20451 · · Score: 1

    On the subject of old but useful internet services ... whatever happened to archie? Does anybody still use it?

    --
    Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
    1. Re:[OT] archie by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yes: Jughead.

    2. Re:[OT] archie by Dahan · · Score: 1

      Occasionally, yeah... although Google serves pretty much all of my needs these days. I use ftpsearch.ntnu.no as the server.

  47. Dr. John Post at the University of Arkansas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    As far as I can tell, that list of 5 PhDs should be 4 or less. There doesn't appear to be a Dr. John Post anywhere at the University of Arkansas:
    1. Re:Dr. John Post at the University of Arkansas by blach · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There is no Dr. John Post on the math faculty here, and as far as I am aware, not in the CS or CE departments either.

      Sad to think they had to make up names. They're sinking fast.

      Regards
      James

    2. Re:Dr. John Post at the University of Arkansas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course the company itself is just so much crap, but strictly speaking you won't necessarily find every PhD working at a university by a simple web search. That typically only works for staff, faculty, and people who happen to get linked up by accident or design. It will usually ignore contract workers, postdocs, and various other lowly forms of doctoral life.

      So a "Dr. John Post" may well be a 25 year old postdoc in some CS department.

    3. Re:Dr. John Post at the University of Arkansas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Well, it appears that ZeoSync doesn't know where their elite team of technical advisors work. John Post is not at the University of Arkansas, but at Arkansas Tech. In fact, he's such an established and respected academic that his web site is blank:
      http://engr.atu.edu/Faculty/Post/Post.html
      And his own school doesn't know where he got his degrees (so he probably doesn't have any):
      http://engr.atu.edu/faculty.html

      For more info, see this article at pcworld.com.

    4. Re:Dr. John Post at the University of Arkansas by tinsel · · Score: 1

      For what it's worth, there is a Dr. John Post
      recently hired as an Assistant Professor of
      Electrical Engineering at Arkanasas Tech.

  48. ZeoSynch website is crap by MrResistor · · Score: 2
    What kind of asshole builds their site entirely in Flash? Have they never heard of usability? My hand has painfully cramped up from clicking on their stupid down arrow 100 times. And what's with the new-age meditation soundtrack coupled with the jarring beep everytime you hover over a link? This is the most annoying, unusable site I've seen since the Cyborg Manifesto. At least they had the decency to give you a scrollbar, even if they had no concept contrast between text and background.

    --
    Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
  49. that was the problem of BeOS from the beggining by sanermind · · Score: 1

    '...we have made a firm decision NOT to license any part of this technology other than that which we incorporate into the Palm OS.'


    ...that it was a propriatary platform. Although it had posix support, it was a commercial offering, free only as in beer [which likely would not have lasted if it had achieved successfull market penetration and widespread use].

    That's why I stayed away from it and stayed with the free OS'es we know and love. I know that I will never be at the mercy of some rights-holder deciding that the technology I have come to depend on using, and have invested so much time/money into developing for and setting up, can be yanked away at their pervue.

    --

    ---
    the pen is mightier than the sword, the sword is mightier than the court, the court is mightier than the pen.
  50. Re:Gopher how without Slip or PPP by tupps · · Score: 1

    Slip and PPP are ways of making a connection to transmit TCP-IP traffic. Gopher and http (for the web) are protocols for transmitting data. How could you have used http or gopher without some sort of connection?

    --
    Go out and get sailing!
  51. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  52. Re:Gopher how without Slip or PPP by Syre · · Score: 4, Informative

    mosaic required a direct TCP/IP connection (SLIP, if you were on dialup). Gopher would work as text mode on a terminal.

    lynx would do www on text mode terminals too, but was harder to use in text mode than gopher was.

    Even on SLIP, mosaic was slow because it would load the entire page, including all images, before you could see anything. On a slow dialup line (14.4) that could take a while.

    of course then Netscape came out and the rest is history... the main feature of Netscape that made everyone use it was that partial pages were displayed while the images downloaded.

  53. Not exactly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The guy was using a dialup connection which sent him the text directly rather then PPP or Slip information.

  54. Re:Gopher how without Slip or PPP by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    dial-in to a unix shell and use gopher/lynx/telnet from their.

    I used to have internet (gopher & ftp) access via a local community college BBS intenet gateway (1 hour time limit :(

  55. Gopher support by autopr0n · · Score: 2

    Its really amazing how quickly gopher dried up as http took off. The gopher clients for windows are all written for Windows 3.1 or NT 3.1 and the major browser vendors seemed to have left the code in a state of neglect.

    Mozilla and all versions of Internet explorer support gopher. Just type in gopher:// and then the rest of the URL the way you normally would. You don't need to go digging up ancient software to browse.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
    1. Re:Gopher support by crisco · · Score: 2
      dang, they snuck this in starting in 0.8 and completing the code in 0.9.x milestones. And I didn't notice. At least it wasn't in there when I first was looking around...

      Thanks pr0ndud!

      --

      Bleh!

  56. Segway - Why the Hype ? by sfm · · Score: 1

    With all due respect to Mr. Kamen, I'm sure Segway took a LOT of work. But can anyone explain why this device is preferred to any of the many other electric scooters available??
    Cost ? At $3K each, not hardly
    Speed? Many other electrics are faster
    Range? No (See "Speed")
    Size? Similar to a folded scooter
    Weight? Again, not enough difference to note
    Ease of use ? Not for anyone that already can ride a bike
    All Terrain? Maybe on this point Ginger wins, maybe.

    Does this invention really deserve all they hype ?

    1. Re:Segway - Why the Hype ? by harlows_monkeys · · Score: 2
      Size: approximately the same footprint as a person while in use. Not true for a folded scooter.

      Ease of use: obviously, you've never used a bike in a city. Bikes are incredibly awkward as soon as you go indoors with them. Try riding a bike in an elevator, or down a hallway.

  57. We can do that.... by pcwhalen · · Score: 1

    Carl Spackler: Correct me if I'm wrong, Sandy, but if I kill all the golfers they're gonna lock me up and throw away the key.

    Sandy MacReedy: Gophers! You great git! Not golfers! The little brown furry rodents!

    Carl Spackler: We can do that. We don't even have to have a reason.

    Caddyshack

    --
    Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
  58. God grow some skin by autopr0n · · Score: 2

    No one is threating lawsuits here. Just because the guy flamed you dosn't mean you have to get all bitchy about it. So he's a dick? So what? Does it make any real diffrence in your life?

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
    1. Re:God grow some skin by TellarHK · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, the problem isn't with me needing to grow some skin, it's with people needing to understand just what sort of person Richard Morrell is. If you're going to consider trusting your security to someone who uses tactics like these, both in a personal manner and in his use of Open Source as an excuse to try and make a fast buck, you should be aware of the situation. His blatant demand for donation before support is a really poor example for the Open Source community to be showing, a true poster child for unpleasantness.

      It costs me just a little bit of time to whip up a page like mine, and even less time to respond to comments like this. Richard didn't threaten lawsuits so much as he threatened (and attempted) to have me falsely accused of hacking. He threatened, repeatedly to "make this personal". My only point in bringing up the specter of legal action was to simply get that on record, if nothing else, to show the scorn and rudeness so often displayed in Richard's correspondence. I have seen other erratic behavior from Richard and others at SmoothWall, such as posting to a mailing list by both Richard and one other, saying that the developers of SmoothWall don't read the list(!). Not only this, but Richard and said other team member were -regulars- on the list.

      As I've said a number of times, I may have made some mistakes. But nothing deserving of what occurred, and I'm quite pleased that the majority of responses from people who've read the site have been positive and in some cases informative.

      Prior to the 14th, I had no knowledge of the SourceForge forked project "IPCop", and am pleased to say that I wish that team well, and hope that other members of the SmoothWall team with less of a temper issue find a more respectable leader.

    2. Re:God grow some skin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Jeez, shut up, you fucking wanker. You went in and provoked someone whose knowledge in regards to security issues obviously far outweighs you, and you expect sympathy from the slashdot crowd? Grow up, already.

    3. Re:God grow some skin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fair enough. Fork the damn project and have some we like to work on it.

    4. Re:God grow some skin by cmkrnl · · Score: 1

      LOL, Now we all know who that is now dont we. Would these be the same 'experts' who had their arses handed to them on certain uk.* linux newsgroups by any chance ?

      Curmudgeon

  59. BeOS: WHIP-*CRACK* WHIP-*CRACK* by Hunsvotti · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Q: Why isn't the horse moving or whinnying or anything?

    A: BECAUSE IT'S DEAD.

    Does yellowTab really think anyone wants to pay some tens of dollars U.S. for an O/S that has far less application support than damn near everything else?

    Or that they'd want it for free for use as anything other than a toy, like AtheOS?

    Hmm. Maybe we could use it to power an Internet applia-- oh, wait, Be already went there. Buying into BeOS is like learning Latin: it's cool and all, but unless there is some killer app (which is doubtful), it's just cool, pretty perhaps, but not the optimal choice.

  60. OT: Re:Announcement *on* Gopher by maggard · · Score: 1, Troll
    Do I use the word "extant" in conversation?

    Yes, if it's appropriate in context. I wouldn't use it speaking to gradeschoolers, non-native anglophones or shouting at buddies over the blaring music in a bar but in an extended conversation with reasonably literate folks of whom I can expect a broad vocabularly I've used "extant" with some regularity.

    I expect it's usage (along with any other English words not in the core 3,000 or so) is heavily dependant on the types of conversations you hold and the backgrounds of those involved.

    --
    I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
    1. Re:OT: Re:Announcement *on* Gopher by Ozx · · Score: 0, Funny

      Apparently the usage of "it's" and "its" aren't important enough for your retarded ass to learn...

      I'll keep in mind that I should only use them with reasonably literate folks, or whatever fucking group of people ironically retarded 2000+ posts/day dotters think are worthy of such an honor...

    2. Re:OT: Re:Announcement *on* Gopher by maggard · · Score: 1
      Apparently the usage of "it's" and "its" aren't important enough for your retarded ass to learn...
      You're right. Three languages muddling my writing, content to my contribution to the discussion, such a pity.

      You must lead such a small bitter life.

      I'm off to meet up with a half dozen friends and party some - won't miss you :) kiss kiss.

      --
      I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
    3. Re:OT: Re:Announcement *on* Gopher by Ozx · · Score: 0, Interesting

      I'll eat at your soul, because I own you... I've drilled right into your flesh with my ironic retard beating stick, and I'm not letting go... You picked this war with reason by embodying a form of hypocrisy unignorable any longer...

      Your posts are filled with complete drivel, often incorrect, and always from a position of undeserved prestige...

      Accept yourself and stop harping like you matter...

      Make sure to do all sorts of gay stuff thinking of me, sweety...

    4. Re:OT: Re:Announcement *on* Gopher by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      VAGINA

  61. Hrm by autopr0n · · Score: 2

    Well, I didn't read through the whole thing, just the first few messages. But what I don't get is why you kept replying with these long emails when it was mostly obvious that the guy didn't really want to do anything other then piss you off.

    --
    autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
    1. Re:Hrm by TellarHK · · Score: 1

      Because, honestly, by that point there was a part of me that -did- want to give him a little more rope to hang himself with. And also, about two mails into it, it ceased to have any relation whatsoever to GCC or even SmoothWall itself, and became a harassment issue. Mea culpa.

      However, I'd have to say overall the experience has been positive in what kind of response was given. There've been a few trolls, and even an AC post that I -think- was Dick. I figure, with as much whining as Dick does about SmoothWall and how much money he's dumped into it, with only a shred of donations... well, I figure that I'll outlast him. And that makes me smile.

    2. Re:Hrm by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      so tellarhk are you going to report all these people on slashdot who have insulted you in the last couple of days even more publically than morrel did?

    3. Re:Hrm by acceleriter · · Score: 1

      Probably not, since they're just AC wankers, probably on the smoothwall team, anyway.

      --

      CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.

  62. Is PR part of the job? by dirtyeye · · Score: 0

    Its hard to draw the line between getting the job done and keeping people happy sometimes. But it does seem a waste to shun people that may help improve the product. Reminds me of theo and bsd, he wasn't such a nice guy to a lot of people, but at least he could justify his views on his work. In comparison the smoothwall people seem to think it doesn't need justifacation, they think their way is allways right, which isn't in the opensource spirit. I do still think the reporter was trying to pick a fight, but thats another issue.

  63. Why smoothwall by dirtyeye · · Score: 0

    In two words, usb adsl.

    I've done maybe 15 builds from scratch to try and get it working, and never had any luck. First 2 smoothwalls, works like a charm. But your idea is right, as soon as i get this working on another distro, i'll be dropping smoothwall and all it ipchains guified goodness faster than you can say
    .sig

  64. The reason for the hype. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can understand the hype, completely. It
    reminds me of a project that I was involved
    in. It's all about the interface. This is a
    product, that while not so impressive to look
    at, when you actually go to use it, makes
    you grin like an idiot. Some things are just
    so cool to use.

    It's completely about that grining idiot
    feeling. Note that everyone who actually gets
    onto one of these things gushes unintellegibly.
    And wants to have one, even though they are
    way too expensive.

  65. propagandized language alert by SubtleNuance · · Score: 1

    ..and consumer relations.

    Im going to call a time out right there.

    Tell me, exactly how does one treat a "consumer"?

    Further, what is this "Consumer" thing of which you speak, in that context, it sounds as if it is a person of somesort, maybe a citizen of Consume-land?

  66. ZeoSync does not claim lossless compression? by Arkaein · · Score: 3, Interesting
    After seeing the renewed comments about ZeoSync's supposed compression technique I decided it might be worth checking out their site to read whatever technical info they might have that wasn't deeply disscused here the last time around.

    The most interesting thing I read is in their Technical Description, where they state that they "will have for all intents and purposes successfully encoded lossy universal compression". No where in their description can I find anything that explicitly states that their algorithm is lossless.

    They also talk about mapping binary strings into higher dimensional spaces, but that these spaces cannot become super saturated or their "multi dimensional circumvention of the pigeonhole principle breaks down". In other words they do claim to be able to compress all strings of equal size down to smaller strings.

    This makes me look at them in a different light. I'm still skeptical because they have offered no proof of their algorithms, but at least in their "technical description" they do not seem to make claims that have already been proven impossible. I also find their talk about multi dimensional representations intriguing, because lots of typical information does become more compressible in higher dimensions. Look at how much better video compression works when encoding just the changes between frames rather than encoding frames individually. An ideal compression algorithm would find such representations in any kind of data (maybe that's where the marketspeak about "random" data came in) and be able to compress it, since all meaningful data is full of patterns.

    Think of music, specifically 74 minutes of 16 bit, 44.1 kHz audio. Uncompressed = 650 MB, or about 5e9 bits. That means 2^(5e9) possible 74 minute sound samples. Now think about how many of those are likely to match anyone's idea of music. I don't know if ZeoSync has actually found a way to extract that kind of pattern from arbitrary data, but it seems like the way to go for a universal lossy compression algorithm.

    1. Re:ZeoSync does not claim lossless compression? by krazyninja · · Score: 1

      I am not able to check out their site, but if what you are saying is true, then they can always achieve a desired compression ratio because, in some higher dimension, the "lossy" compressed information can always be made to be "intelligible", and hence we can always make a claim on the compression ratio.

      --
      "Do something man. Right now."
    2. Re:ZeoSync does not claim lossless compression? by Arkaein · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure of what you mean. Most lossy compression techniques allow for either guaranteed ratio or guaranteed quality. With MP3 compression most MP3s have constant bitrates (CBR), which is a guaranteed compression ratio (for instance 128 kbps). The actual quality for any fixed CBR will vary across compression codecs used, though.

      I'm fairly sure that most lossy compression also allows for guaranteed quality, although the actual measure of quality is more subjective. Photoshop allows you to specify the quality used when saving JPEGs, higher quality generally means larger files. So I'm not sure whther the dimesnionality of the representation actually has anything to do with a guaranteed compression ratio, unless higher dimensional representations always mean more compression at (probably) more lossiness.

    3. Re:ZeoSync does not claim lossless compression? by krazyninja · · Score: 1
      The actual quality for any fixed CBR will vary across compression codecs used, though

      Thats exactly what I meant. Think of it this way: MP3Pro or WMA or AAC get more compression ratios by looking at more dimensions of the audio signal, compared to MP3.

      --
      "Do something man. Right now."
    4. Re:ZeoSync does not claim lossless compression? by pointym5 · · Score: 2

      As far as I can tell, the materials on the web site have changed. I curse myself for not saving any of the original stuff that was out there when their press releases went out. It's hard to recall clearly whether they used the term "lossless" originally, mainly because all the information on the site is such obfuscated gibberish.

      Search around for articles based on the original press release, however, and you'll note that they all discuss "lossless compression". Indeed, that fact is what made it so obvious a scam in the first place.

      They've revised their bogus org chart, so it would not surprise me at all if they'd rescind the claims of lossless "hundreds to one" compression. Way less interesting in that case, of course.

  67. [ot] Re:Hey Slashback idiots! by BrianGa · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    How does this get through the lameness filters, anyway?

  68. publicity, perhaps by twilight30 · · Score: 2
    For either side, really. Tempest in a teapot, but it did make for amusing reading.

    Can you imagine what would happen if everyone overreacted like this every time there was a slight?

    We'd have lots of publicity, pop stars arguing about the boils on each other's arses... (Oh wait, they're like that now...)

    --
    ========================================
    Death will come, and will have your eyes
    -- Pavese
  69. Viewing partial pages in web browsers by yerricde · · Score: 3, Interesting

    of course then Netscape came out and the rest is history... the main feature of Netscape that made everyone use it was that partial pages were displayed while the images downloaded.

    Both IE and Netscape had problems displaying partial pages that contained tables. (IE still does.) The fact that Mozilla can display a partial page (right-click anywhere to force a reflow) makes browsers based on Mozilla code (skipstone, k-meleon, netscape 6.x, etc) feel faster than browsers based on MSHTML (winamp, neoplanet, msie, etc), especially when displaying tall tables such as the one Slashdot's standard mode uses to draw its page.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:Viewing partial pages in web browsers by Tower · · Score: 1

      Just a (dumb) question: You can browse the web with Winamp? I've never looked into that - only used it for mp3, really... scrolling text and some visualization plugins hardly seems like HTML.

      --
      "It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
  70. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 2

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  71. Advantages of Slash over Usenet by yerricde · · Score: 2

    [Reinventing the wheel] Like a Web based message board where NNTP would do?

    NNTP doesn't support mass moderation or metamoderation. NNTP doesn't readily support banner advertisements that keep the server free. NNTP servers often don't have very long retention of old discussion. NNTP doesn't have server-side search. Slash supports all of the above.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:Advantages of Slash over Usenet by Phexro · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "NNTP doesn't support mass moderation or metamoderation."
      ...which are completely broken and cause more problems than they solve.

      "NNTP doesn't readily support banner advertisements that keep the server free."
      i'll grant you this, but it wouldn't be too difficult to hack an article-ad-interruptor, where the first (or middle, or a random) bit of the article has a textual ad (with http link) inserted.

      "NNTP servers often don't have very long retention of old discussion."
      ...which isn't a problem if you run your own.

      "NNTP doesn't have server-side search."
      yes, it has working client-side searching, rather than broken/incomplete server-side searching.

      seriously, have you ever tried to find something you saw on slashdot, say, two months ago? what if it was a comment, not a story? it's virtually impossible. you can't even query for all the posts that user xyz has posted. i wanted to find an old (~1 year) post of mine - couldn't. if i search for "phexro" in "stories", i get some stories i submitted. if i search in "comments" i get nothing. if i search in "users", i get me, and the last 24 posts i made. if i search for some key words in my post, i get page after page after page of incorrect results. if i search for a specific phrase, i get the same thing.

      i've been meaning to bitch about this... thanks for the chance to let me do it on-topic. :)

    2. Re:Advantages of Slash over Usenet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      With regard to your sig.

      It takes away all credibility that anyone could give you when your 'translation' of the dmca is so far more biased than its supporters could even think of making their opinion.

      You and your causes will never be taken seriously unless you grow up and learn to present your views in a fashion that someone with any intelligence could see as being reasonable.

    3. Re:Advantages of Slash over Usenet by gorgon · · Score: 2

      I agree that the /. search engine is pretty weak, so I just use google. Here's a search for you by google. It looks like it might miss some posts, but I can't really tell for sure without knowing how many posts you have per average story you post in.

      --

      And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
      Berke Breathed
    4. Re:Advantages of Slash over Usenet by yerricde · · Score: 1

      [Your article, "DMCA in Plain English,"] takes away all credibility that anyone could give you when your 'translation' of the dmca is so far more biased than its supporters could even think of making their opinion.

      Have you written up your objections in a response to my journal entry?

      --
      Will I retire or break 10K?
    5. Re:Advantages of Slash over Usenet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm doing a Bad Thing and responding to the parent's comments...just want to (cons (parent my-comments))...

      > "NNTP doesn't readily support banner
      > advertisements that keep the server free."

      There a lot of NNTP clients out there that support HTML...just add it to the top of articles, or every post...

      > "NNTP servers often don't have very long
      > retention of old discussion."

      A lot of them do...try clicking "Get Next 300 Articles" or something...and it's all on Google...and it's completely configurable...and as the previous poster stated, you can run your own...

      NNTP is designed for the purpose...the web was originally designed to display static documents...

  72. Re:Will we finally have free Bono? by yerricde · · Score: 2, Funny

    Now that Be has gone chapter 11, can I finally get a free copy _FULL_ of Be?

    Yes. In ninety-five years.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  73. Gopher vs. WAP by dangermouse · · Score: 4, Insightful
    You know, that was my first thought when I read about WAP and WML and all the other weird contortions people are coming up with in the "net-enabled device" scene.

    Come to think of it, I still don't get why the hell they don't just use gopher. The protocol is there, it's lightweight, and it's perfect for providing text-based menus to access text content.

    Oh, wait. These are phone companies...

  74. Re:VPN by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please tell me the names of the $100 firewall appliances that have IPSEC VPNs.

  75. Where is Arkanasas Tech? by EdlinUser · · Score: 1

    And how is this related to a Dr. John Post at the University of Arkansas?

  76. Oh, yeah? Then why is Windows still around? by ghibli · · Score: 1

    You said: "Every few years a new, closed-source alternative OS appears to gain a rabid following and when it inevitably dies they are left with nothing but press releases and desperate attempts at revival."

    Oh, yeah? Then why is Windows still around?

    Be, Inc. made SEVERAL mistakes during the early years of their OS. The problem ISN'T that it is a "closed-source" OS. The problem is that the company directors were CLOSED-MINDED. By neglecting the true needs and demands of the current marketplace, Be Inc. lost out on a wonderful opportunity.

  77. pronouncement by timothy · · Score: 1

    As above poster mentions, before "Segway" (and I think before "Ginger") it was called "IT." That's also what I meant by "WHAT" ;)

    Cheers,

    timothy

    --
    jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
  78. ZeoSync's Website by asv108 · · Score: 1

    You think with all that brainpower, they could figure out that you should not have a Flash Only site.

  79. Re:BeOS is the ONLY operating system!!! by styrotech · · Score: 1

    Hmmmm... something tells me you are exaggerating, but I can't quite put my finger on it.

  80. You act like you had a right to the code by Ars-Fartsica · · Score: 2
    So it looks like BeOS is going to be lost forever -- the modern day equivalent of being bulldozed into a pit, burned, and buried under concrete.

    You're talking about someone's private property. Its theirs to sell or destroy as they see fit. You're talking like you were swindled out of something you had rights against.

    Please explain further.

    1. Re:You act like you had a right to the code by Cheetahfeathers · · Score: 1

      Here's my go at explaining this. Property is an abstract concept. To say 'I own such and such' or that 'you own such and such' is meaningless, except in the abstract... this includes things that you make. Such things gain meaning because of the social group we are in having a generally agreed upon view of who owns what. Part of the social group of a large number of us is the USA, which originally defined some level of ownership of this kind of stuff in the following terms:
      To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

      Please note the purpose of allowing these limited term exclusive rights.

      Not to agree or disagree with what it is now, but this is the original, intended purpose in the laws of the USA.

    2. Re:You act like you had a right to the code by Sloppy · · Score: 2

      You're talking about someone's private property. Its theirs to sell or destroy as they see fit. You're talking like you were swindled out of something you had rights against.

      In some sense, that is what happened.

      Intellectual property, unlike physical property, is not real and natural. We (society) have laws/conventions to pretend that it exists, because it is in our interests to do so. Giving IP creators some artificial rights that they otherwise would not have, gives them incentive to create. But the only reason we want to give them that incentive, is because there is something in it for us. We get to buy/license it from them and then both sides benefit from the deal, and then we all get to use it for free 14 (oops, somebody redefined the constant) years later when it falls into PD. Everybody (both the creator, and members of the society that gives additional rights to the creator) comes out ahead. It's a very clever and good invention, and we're better off as a result.

      But when IP is buried and the time-timits are extended to ridiculous durations, there isn't anything in it for us. It's a one-sided contract, and that's no contract at all.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    3. Re:You act like you had a right to the code by jeti · · Score: 1

      Have a look at BeBits.com. There's loads of software
      for BeOS. And some of it is really good.

      There's a lot more man-years in the 3rd party software
      than in the OS. I think these developers do have a
      certain right to the OS. Because when it ceases to
      run on standard PCs in a few years, all this work
      will become worthless.

      And yes, they knew their risk.

    4. Re:You act like you had a right to the code by j7953 · · Score: 2
      You're talking about someone's private property.

      Of course, you cannot force anyone to publish the source code they've written. Just like you can't force anyone to tell the world about the inventions they've made. But, if you don't tell about your inventions, you don't get a patent either. The same principle ought to apply to software -- if you want the monopoly that copyright grants to you, you'll have to publish the source code.

      The code is your property, but copyright law artificially increases its value, and I think the public should get something in return.

      --
      Sig (appended to the end of comments I post, 54 chars)
    5. Re:You act like you had a right to the code by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. Copyright is supposed to be a two-sided contract. In exchange for a government-granted monopoly, the public receives the work into the public domain.

      Except that copyright law has been twisted so that now, in the case of computer software, by only publishing object code, a publisher can receive all the benefits of copyright, and avoid the obligation to place their work in the public domain.

    6. Re:You act like you had a right to the code by ratboy666 · · Score: 1

      No, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to use
      such dead code? All of its ideas, innovations,
      and advances are now beyond anyones use for this
      lifetime, possibly the next. Bow your head in
      silence for the loss.

      --
      Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
    7. Re:You act like you had a right to the code by amchugh · · Score: 1

      If we were talking about _someone's_ private property, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion. BeOS was the product of a corporation, if the individual creator's had rights to the project (instead of work for hire) they'd probably have too much of a sense of pride and accomplishment to see it destroyed to protect some narrow market niche.

      Anyway, I'm not sure even the most ardent libertarian wouldn't make a distinction between physical and intellectual property. No intellectual property exists in this country without borrowing it's basis from other people's ideas. RMS is a libertarian, and a believer in Open Source. How do you think he rationalizes this? Essentially everyone who has contributed (or whose predecessors have) to any project have some _faint_ right to the intellectual property. Think of it as a 99 year lease on common land. If you build a house on it, and don't remove it before the lease is up, it reverts to community property.

      Besides if it were real property, wouldn't we have to pay propert tax on the assessed value? I think this would be a great idea for forcing intellectual works to either make a profit or move into the public domain. However, I could see it stifling innovation if not done exactly right, and it wouldn't be done right by any government I've heard of :-).

  81. Gopher by jdavidb · · Score: 2

    According to Google's USENET timeline, Gopher is actually younger than the World Wide Web. That was news to me.



    I was just thinking about Gopher last night: when I installed my first home UN*X system a couple of years back, I was anxious to try out every kind of server on it: NNTP, HTTP (plug), NFS, NIS, SMTP, DNS, and just about anything I knew about. It wasn't until last night, though, that the thought of running a Gopher server ever occurred to me.



    My first CSE textbook contained the statement, "It is possible to spend many exciting hours in Gopherspace." I never found that to be the case; I started my degree in 1996.



    Another interesting subject in that same textbook caught my eye, though: USENET via tin. I owe a gigantic chunk of my education to USENET. It sure saddened me when my University shut down our news server. I was a little jealous that the gopher server was (and still is) left in operation.



    Congrats to the Gopher team; I had no idea you guys were still going. Best of luck.



    Hmmmm. The next event in the Google timeline is the announcement of Linux. Maybe early Linux development was spurred on by Linus' secret desire to run his own Gopher server. :)





    Hmm. After reading the Gopher Manifesto, I now have an appreciation for what Gopher could give us. This seems promising.

  82. Slipknot by AwenAnam · · Score: 1

    Woot..? did none of you guys ever used slipknot? please tell me I'm not the only one who used that project, it was hard, buggy but great.... slipknot used lynx, wget (or something similar I think) and rz (zmodem) to enable you to navigate www graphically from a windows (I think they had an X tree too) using a dialup without slip or ppp :)

    Ps. Don't try and search for slipknot today all you'll get are page on a musical group, if anybody finds a link please oh share it.

  83. St. George's ZeoSync bio by Jay+L · · Score: 1

    "St. George dedicated himself to the telecommunications industry over two decades ago working as an independent international technology consultant specializing in the delivery of bandwidth solutions to second and world countries throughout South America, South Pacific and Asia."

    Translation: he was the Cable Guy.

  84. I thought it was just me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    I thought I was the only one who felt this way after reading that whiny little bitch-a-thon.

    For someone who can read between the lines and find *asterisk* highlighting to be confontational and insulting, this dickwad has a remarkable lack of clarity with regard to his own messages. There are few people more frustrating to deal with than self-important shit bags who seem to think that if they don't swear or menace in a message, how can *they* be the one who started this?(mouth agape).

    TellarHK, taunting and condescension will eventually get a response and then you yowl wildly that the bad men won't be nice. Poke a dog enough times and it will bite you.

    The irc guy was perfectly civil in his messages to you, until you poked enough times. Then, the "I'm telling" message sent to the boss. Okay, one of 2 or 3 things can happen here.

    • Boss says thanks for the email, we respect our customers blah blah, the person has been killed and eaten.
    • Boss ignores you and never replies
    • Boss does what this one did.


    Okay, maybe sending 3 messages was over the top, but Christ dude, let it die. Obviously, the company has no interest in your business and even less interest in your opinion of them. You were over-sensitive to be initially insulted by the irc and to continue to whine to an obviously dis-concerned company serves only to give you more ammo to "tell on them again". Did you think that eventually they would simply relent and like you?

    I don't own one of these firewalls, have no interest in owning one. Your publishing of the event makes me more upset that I spent the time giving creedence to a mewing shitpile such as yourself.
  85. Consumer by dorward · · Score: 1

    One that consumes, especially one that acquires goods or services for direct use or ownership rather than for resale or use in production and manufacturing.

    http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=c on sumer

    The consumers are the people who use the product, the term customer isn't really apropriate as Smoothwall users haven't paid for the product.

  86. revitalize gopher? Share mp3's with it! by fenux · · Score: 1

    hmmz, if we would tell the newbies it's the new way to share mp3's i bet we can get gopher alive :)
    anyway, i recentely rediscovered gopher(2 weeks ago, at the start of the exams), and i was amazed.. no banners.. imagine!

  87. BeOS - the future's so bright... by Max+Webster · · Score: 1
    A German company called 'yellowTab' is said to be ready to ship a new version of BeOS

    German company rescues great OS from failed hardware company? Oh, like that'll work! Shades of Amiga...

  88. Flash but no substance by darkonc · · Score: 2
    I think that that pretty much describes that website. Lots of hand waving about how they're going to do compression in a way never before seen, but no examples of that compression in action and not even a hint about how the algorithm works -- other than talk about (stool?) pidgeons.

    The scariest thing about this is that some poor sod is giving them money to develop that site -- and I think that they're expecting to make a profit on this.

    --
    Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
  89. Don't mess with c't... by morgus+morphus · · Score: 1

    After SmoothWall's rather insulting reply to the article in c't (essentially accusing the reporter of being an idiot), this is on the heise news page (heise is the publisher of c't):
    Sicherheitsloch in SmoothWall (Update)(Security hole in Smoothwall)
    I says that they have now found an actuall exploit for the security issues they had identified in the original article. Their advice is to close the browser after accessing smoothwall through the web interface (so I'm guessing a session id grabbing exploit of some kind).
    They have sent this information to smoothwall, and smoothwall claims to have issued a patch already (that's not bad response time at least, I guess they take c't reporters more seriously now ;)

  90. My first days on the internet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In 1993 was the first time I had ever used the internet... it was through a dialup to citadel college in charleston SC... they had a dialup that lead you to a gopher server... from there you could do just about anything... even spawn a telnet connection to some BBSes that were on the internet at the time. It was way cool because I found several boards online that offered pir8 and l33t files haha. Yup it was lame, but it was fun!1

  91. Search problems with Slash and Usenet by yerricde · · Score: 2

    [Slashdot's M1 and M2] are completely broken and cause more problems than they solve.

    At least it keeps the gay porn out 95% of the time.

    [retention] isn't a problem if you run your own.

    And restrict your audience (although this may not be entirely a bad thing). Many users don't know how to switch their NNTP server. Others use newsreaders that support only one NNTP server per installation. Some users can't switch it at all (such as users of America Online).

    [Usenet] has working client-side searching, rather than broken/incomplete server-side searching.

    Client-side searching requires the user to have downloaded multigigabytes of Slashdot's previous stories. Not all users who want to search Slashdot have the T1 to download the whole site.

    i've been meaning to bitch about this... thanks for the chance to let me do it on-topic.

    Another place for complaining about Slashcode bugs: Slashcode Bug Tracker

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:Search problems with Slash and Usenet by Phexro · · Score: 1

      "At least it keeps the gay porn [goatse.cx] out 95% of the time."

      it doesn't keep it out - it keeps it hidden, for the people who choose to hide it. kinda like how filters & blacklists work for usenet readers.

      besides, usenet supports moderation, it just doesn't encourage - or allow - the people who abuse the service to do it.

      "And restrict your audience (although this may not be entirely a bad thing). Many users don't know how to switch their NNTP server. Others use newsreaders that support only one NNTP server per installation. Some users can't switch it at all (such as users of America Online)."

      news://nntp.slashdot.org/msft.general.bitching would work on 99% of the browsers out there - the slashdot.org webpage could be replaced with a page that has that link.

      besides, isn't this site supposed to be news for nerds? how many nerds out there do you know who use aol, or don't know how to configure a newsreader?

      "Client-side searching requires the user to have downloaded multigigabytes of Slashdot's previous stories. Not all users who want to search Slashdot have the T1 to download the whole site."

      unless, of course, they search through the headers. or, have older articles moved into yearly-monthly groups, e.g. discussion in msft.general.bitching from january 1999 gets moved into 1999.jan.msft.general.bitching via a modified article expiry. then, if you had some idea when the article/comment you were searching for was posted you could search within that timeframe.

      "Another place for complaining about Slashcode bugs: Slashcode Bug Tracker"

      thanks, i'll take my bitching there.

  92. Zeosync - 3G beat goes on ... so be Zar by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yesterday: ZeoSync Expects Data Compression Science To Improve Wireless

    01/14/2002 Summary: A Florida-based scientific research company expects its technology, which compresses digital signals for transmission and storage, to enable wireless operators to deliver third-generation capabilities without deploying 3G infrastructure.

    Experts question compression 'breakthrough' 1/10/02

    Experts Question Compression Breakthrough Friday 11, 2002

    Zariski surfaces:

    Zariski surfaces by Piotr Blass ASIN: 8301019719 Zariski Surfaces and Differential Equations in Characteristic P-O Zar Piotr Blass, Jeffrey Lang 2nd Rev edition, Marcel Dekker; ISBN: 0824776372

    ULAM Previous

    Students

    Blass, Piotr; 1977 Thesis: Zariski Surfaces.

    Previously cited Archive.orgzeosync

    Big Number Mathematics

    The Real Life Problem

    It takes days to download a large (say one movie) file today.

    To increase communication speeds throughput over the Internet.

    For doing the above a very high compression ratio in the tune of 1000:1 needs to be achieved.

    The Possible Approach

    In order to do solve the same we have approached the problem using: BIG NUMBER MATHEMATICS.

    How Big is this Number ?

    The number is in the range of 28,000,000,000

    The base of this number system is 232

    But the big numbers can not be handled by the computers that exist today

    How can Computers handle Big Numbers?

    Only if these Big Numbers are converted into numbers which lie within the scope of computation by computers that are present today.

    The Challenge

    To represent these big numbers by smaller integers.

    Encode Big Number into a Small Integer.

    And finally Decode the Small Integer and re-create back the Big Number without any loss.

    Assumptions in the Big Number Space Domain

    No Negative Numbers
    No Floating Numbers
    Minimize Divisions

  93. Palm Will Burn in Hell Forever by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0



    Love,
    Sandwich Boy

  94. Update posted for Smoothwall by Anemophilous+Coward · · Score: 2
    Apparently after this article by c't came out, some action was taken by the smoothwall team.

    They now have a new patch released for it. Interestingly enough, it seems to fix a few things mentioned on here that should be fixed. From the patch release:

    Notes
    From: William Anderson
    Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 17:35:00 +0000 (GMT)
    Subject: Info file for fixes7

    * Patches pppsetup CGI to further increase security of ppp secrets file

    * Upgrades passwd file to shadow passwords

    * This patch removes the capability to connect to the web admin interface
    over the RED (external) interface by DNS name - you must use the IP
    address instead, e.g. https://213.123.312.231:445/ instead of
    https://mymachine.someisp.net:445/

    Apparently the exploit c't found involved the admin of smoothwall visiting a page on the Interent, directly after establishing a connection with the admin interface of the smoothwall (all on the green or internal, safe network). It did have a few caveats to it, like needing to know the name of the smoothwall box (often default set to 'smoothwall'), but apparently was severe enough to warrent a fix. Details on the proof of concept attack can be found in this article on the smoothwall site.

    However, the team leader, Richard Morrell still seems to mock the individual at c't as evidenced in this article. Odd that he berates the individual for shoddy reporting, and yet they still release a patch.

    Regardless of the pissing match between various individuals and the smoothwall team, I'd suggest all the users of said program head over and update their machines.

    -A non-productive mind is with absolutely zero balance.
    - AC
  95. Names please! by jotaeleemeese · · Score: 1

    Like which ones? I would be willing to drop my old Pentium 166 for one of these things. I don't want to spend to much on it, that is why I used an old machine (first I tried SmoothWall, did not like it, I am working with Mandrake firewall now).

    --
    IANAL but write like a drunk one.
    1. Re:Names please! by ZxCv · · Score: 2

      My recommendation is the D-Link DI-704, as I've used 3 of these devices in different locations already and have had nothing but great success with them. This company I'm linking to has them available for $73.50 right now, but there is a $20 rebate to make them only $53.50.

      http://www.comready.com/broadband.html

      --

      Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
  96. One too many commas and a misattribution by msouth · · Score: 2

    I think the title of this was supposed to be "SmoothWall, Gopher Be"--yoda.

    Doesn't he tell Anakin this in the second prequel?

    --
    Liberty uber alles.
  97. Leagal options for opening up BEOS source code by saibee · · Score: 1

    Is there any legal options to force palm open up BeOS source code. I think it might be possible.. since
    * many users *need* bug fixes for existing BeOS software. By locking up the source code palm is denying them the opportunity to use their product in a viable manner in the future. So either palm should continue to provide fixes/upgrades or provide source code to users under a reasonable license.

    *the commercial who invested in BeOS is lossing their investment due to actions of Palm, so they could ask for compensation from Palm.

  98. Using the Winamp minibrowser by yerricde · · Score: 2

    Just a (dumb) question: You can browse the web with Winamp? I've never looked into that

    Winamp 2.x embeds MSHTML, the browser engine at the core of IE. Press Alt+t to open the minibrowser, then press Ctrl+o http://slashdot.org to open Slashdot. It looks much better if you set Slashdot to Simple HTML first. To change text size in any MSHTML app, use Ctrl+mousewheel.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
    1. Re:Using the Winamp minibrowser by Tower · · Score: 1

      Maybe I'll try that when I get home... just a novelty, I suppose :) For something that I load a list or a dir into, and then minimize or shade, a browser doesn't seem all that useful.

      Don't have one of those wheels, either... I have the Logitech Trackman Marble... I tried the updated one with the wheel, and I nearly threw it across the room after a little while. Still looking for a good replacement - my brother has the MS Optical mouse (tracks well, extra buttons, and a decent feel). That's actually the closest I've found to a mouse/wheel that doesn't suck. The wheel is a great thing, but is placed wrong ("The wheel should not be button 3, it should be next to button 3. The wheel should not be..." You get the point)

      --
      "It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."
  99. debian gopher package available? by wheel · · Score: 1

    I'm running the 'testing' disro, and it only shows version 2.3.1-14. How long before we can see 3.0 in Testing?

  100. Self balancing Unicycle. by Amrik · · Score: 1

    Wasn't there a self balancing motorised unicycle in Iain M. Banks' SF novel 'Against a Dark Background'. I'm sure that was before '96.

    That counts as prior art.

  101. But even the headers would take gigabytes by yerricde · · Score: 2

    it doesn't keep it out - it keeps it hidden, for the people who choose to hide it. kinda like how filters & blacklists work for usenet readers.

    Filters and blacklists don't catch users who change their e-mail address regularly to avoid the filters. The analogous action in Slash is to create several new accounts, but moderators quickly moderate down the individual comments that a new account posts. The difference lies in moderating the user vs. moderating the posts.

    news://nntp.slashdot.org/msft.general.bitching would work on 99% of the browsers out there

    It works on IE=>Outlook Express and Netscape=>Netscape, but the last version of Forte Agent that I tried (1.7) has a bug such that any news: URL that includes a hostname requires the user to re-enter the registration code.

    how many nerds out there do you know who use aol, or don't know how to configure a newsreader?

    Not all nerds have been nerds for years; some are still learning, and some aren't 18 yet. Elitism will get you nowhere.

    unless, of course, they search through the headers.

    Only if the subject of a message adequately describes the content. Often, this is not the case because Usenet users tend to put the same subject on replies that the parent article had because many common newsreaders do a poor job of parenting followups. Even then, with nearly three million comments in Slashdot's database, you'd still have to download gigabytes of headers.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  102. Re:VPN by cmkrnl · · Score: 1

    http://www.linksys.com/press/press.asp?prid=60&cye ar=2001

    The RRP is $179, but on the high street as we all know it's likely to be rather less than that.

    Personally I would be less than keen on allowing an end user to tunnel into a corportate network using something that implicitly splits the tunnel by default & gives the vpn server end no control over that.

    Curmudgeon

  103. Re:BeOS: WHIP-*CRACK* WHIP-*CRACK* by himself · · Score: 1

    >
    > Buying into BeOS is like learning Latin: it's cool and all...
    >
    Good point -- but perhaps instead of being just cool or an amusement, people will study BeOS, like they study Latin, in order to help them learn other stuff. Consider this analogy: study_BeOS:understand_another_OS::learn_Latin:lear n_another_romance_language

  104. Old Internet Irony by Sugaku · · Score: 1

    I have recently become quite interested in Gopher and I got to reading "The Whole Internet" which was basically the first internet book. When got to the chapter on Gopher, it also mentioned the "Web" and said that:

    "Admittedly, Web servers and hypertext editors are scarce; but the potential here makes the World-Wide Web one of the most interesting new tools on the Internet."

    Oh how the tables have turned.

  105. Not that impressive by fm6 · · Score: 2
    Web browsers have always handled gopher pages. That's a big reason why people switched over so quickly -- using a web client allowed you to access gopher pages, but not vice versa.

    But. They still haven't fixed the bug I found so irritating when I first started using the web. Web clients just don't grok the fact that Gopher keeps the page title in the directory, not in the page file itself. So all Gopher pages display with a URL in place of a title. This would be a scandle -- if anybody gave a shit.