Slashdot Mirror
Oracle Breakable After All
Billy writes "Unless you've been living in a cave, you've seen Oracle's Unbreakable campaign (Can't break it. Can't break in.), which was kicked-off by Larry Ellison personally at Comdex last November. Now U.K. security researcher David Litchfield says you can break in, thanks to at least seven different security holes in Oracle 9i, according to this SecurityFocus story. Oracle's top security manager is quoted as saying that "unbreakable" doesn't really mean unbreakable, or something."
I'm expecting Terry Pratchett to write a book about this any day now, it's right up his alley.
(I decided to post in this thread, even though it undoes all my moderation, as moderating appears to be a completely pointless action anymore.)
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
What's even funnier is that they've started modding down on-topic posts in this thread, presumably to keep the parent from being seen.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Let's see how quickly I get modded down...
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
- a primary focus on all things technical ("hard" technical stuff, not "this new cool gadget will be out real soon now! i want one!")
- frequent updates
- a good interface (nested view?)
- no moderation, or at least not an inherently broken one like
/. employs
- perhaps some kind of existing userbase
:)
?I just thought I'd donate some of my (much limited) karma to the cause.
Here goes...
The Day Our Eyes Were Opened
I just thought I'd donate some of my (much limited) karma to the cause . . .
Here goes...
The Day Our Eyes Were Opened
Thanks. I already know about those sites and am a frequent user there, and while /. sorely needs), spoil it for me. If you take that away, there just isn't
I appreciate their value, it's still not what I'm looking for; too much politics
or, IMHO, (pseudo-)philosophical pondering and meta-discussions (which, ironically,
is what
much left that'll get me through the boring hours at home/work and where I feel
I'm learning something instead of just spending time.
... and don't meta-moderate either. If the editors want to have total control over moderation then let them have it. Perhaps when they get tired of having to do it all themselves, or tired of seeing most posts at 1 or 2, they'll realize that for moderation to work, first of all they need to trust their community's judgement. They need to other things as well, but that's the first step.
We're up to 453 moderations on the parent post now. Amazing.
I hope there are people keeping copies of this thread for posterity since Slashdot will erase it.
Amazing! From a moment ago, here's a celebratory quote of the even 500:
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=211, Flamebait=4, Troll=25, Redundant=3, Insightful=55, Interesting=120, Informative=29, Funny=7, Overrated=9, Underrated=37, Total=500
Slashdot editor chrisd has posted a comment on this. Also check the replies, they are interesting and insightful.
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=213, Flamebait=4, Troll=25, Redundant=3, Insightful=57, Interesting=120, Informative=29, Funny=7, Overrated=9, Underrated=37, Total=504.
I don't have a lot of karma but I can spare a little.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
Go to your user settings and set the modifier for Offtopic to +6. Suddenly everything in this thread is scored 5 Offtopic! It looks great! It looks as if the editor's great struggle to keep all this material modded down had suddenly been cancelled!
:-)
We should all do this, as a manifestation, so the editors will think again.
Yeah, I know. Fat chance that the editors would care, even if they did interpret it as a manifestation, which of course they wouldn't do, even if a large number of people changed the setting, which of course isn't too likely.
But it's worth doing anyway, because it looks great on your screen
YES I've seen the typos. DON'T BARK
Well it has now ! 11:30 next morning.....
brrp. flup. wibble.
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
Your reference to the old /. poll would be a hell of a lot more relevant if it were asked today. There were only 1666 people voting in that poll. The 'Legend of the Rangers' poll from 1/19/2002 currently has over 13000 votes. When there were only a few thousand readers, a dozen moderators may have made sense, but with the tens of thousands of readers it becomes problematic just to set a number on them.
I do like the idea of meta moderation. I meta-moderate all the time (as well as moderate) and I find that on some days, all the moderation that I meta-moderate is downward. I usually follow my own meta-moderation rules of NOT meta-moderating posts that I would have responded too. It keeps me from meta-moderating based on the post rather than the original moderation.
I generally only moderate up since I find modding down to be a waste of points. It's just a personal preference of the moderator I guess.
Ummm, Jon, aren't you supposed to be dead...? - Otter(3800)
You don't think you were modded by someone who actually read your post and thought about it, do you?
It's been a couple days; I'm curious as to how much attention is still being paid to this thread. Will I be taking the three point karma hit? Will jamie decide to rip 150 points away in one fell swoop? Anyway, consider this my vote cast for "we need front page discussion on why the moderation system is broken and how to fix it". This thread is offtopic because there's no better place to put it, not because it didn't need to be said.
We had to set up an Oracle database recently. Works like a champ. It seemed pretty solid but big and it's unlikely that a pig like that will ever be totally unbreakable.
Pushin' 'n dealin', shovin' 'n stealin'
This is just a random +2 post.
Will it be modded down? Let's find out!
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Just for the record...
Offtopic=248, Flamebait=4, Troll=26, Redundant=3, Insightful=65, Interesting=145, Informative=32, Funny=7, Overrated=11, Underrated=44, Total=585.
The Day Our Eyes Were Opened
* Digging deep into the history of slashdot, I found this poll [slashdot.org], which clearly indicates the vast majority does NOT want the moderation we have here today. 'nuff said.
Actually, you found evidence that the people voting back then didn't like it; but only 1600 people voted on that poll.
And in the very next poll, only 20% don't like the proposed new system.
Feel free to use this information to your advantage.
But check it out first, because some of it is bullshit.
This whole thing is quite the shame.
Hey, editors! If your users are all off topic, is it they who are really off topic, or are you? At the very least you ought to give them some place to be on topic, if you want them to discuss it somewhere else. Otherwise we might all think that disucssion is not something you favor.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
It's at 633 mod points so far... When it reaches 666 I wonder if that will signal the apacolypse?
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
I meta-moderate most days of the week, however I have yet to see _any_ moderations on this entire thread pass my way. wtf ?
Are some moderations excluded from the meta-moderation system ?
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=272, Flamebait=4, Troll=26, Redundant=3, Insightful=72, Interesting=158, Informative=32, Funny=8, Overrated=11, Underrated=48, Total=634.
How long till we reach 1000 ?
"Free software as in beer, copy protection as in racket" - Telsa Gwynne
Hey, thanks for putting this together. However, on the topic of polls I would *much* rather have the current system instead of no moderation. Yes, its not perfect. Yes, there are great inconsistencies in the moderation. However, due to the volume of traffic and posts on here the moderation system is far superior to the alternative. I visit other flat sites with no moderation and read a bunch of crap posts. At least here I have a chance of an insightful comment rising out of the ashes. Anyway, you obviously put alot of work into getting this info together. Thanks again for doing that.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
I also M2'ed two mediocre comments that were posted early in a thread as unfair, because they were not insightful in any way. They were painfully obvious.
Now, wasn't that a little unfair? I'm always very generous in meta-moderation, and very rarely say that an upward moderation is unfair. After all, what these mediocre comments said may have been painfully obvious *to you*, but can never underestimate the knowledge level of the general Slashdot reading populace.
(if you think I'm being harsh, wait until a subject comes up that you know well -- as in the recent article about Ogg for me. There is so much crap and rubbish floating around, that even an obvious post is worth an up-mod.)
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
It's not your fucking website, therefore you can winge all you want. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. If you don't like it then fuck off and go elsewhere. BTW, I've never had mod points, and have been moderated up and down. I may not agree with all of the moderation, but I live with it. Grow up.
Burning karma is fun! Someone tell slashdot to stop censoring these posts. I can't believe they bitchslapped the thread so it automatically goes down, that's mega lame.
"I have not failed. I've simply found 10,000 ways that won't work." --Thomas Edison
Alright...here's to karma burn!
Wow, the moderators went absolutely nuts on this one.
Moderation Totals: Offtopic=353, Flamebait=4, Troll=27, Redundant=5,
Insightful=90, Interesting=196, Informative=48, Funny=10, Overrated=11,
Underrated=57, Total=801.
I think there should be clarification on Interstesting versus
Insightful. If I were to mod this post up (I agree with the
off-topics, it's a reply to a story about Oracle), I'd say it was
Insightful simply because it shows real thought based mostly in opinion.
If it was mostly stating facts and backing it up, or similar,
Interesting.
Help us build a better map!
"More moderator points are being used to mod posts down than up."
That could be indicative of nothing more than a low signal-to-noise ratio, which seems to be true of human society in general.
"Furthermore, when modding a post up, every moderator seems to follow previous moderators in their choices, even when it's not a particularly interesting or clever post."
You assume that all the points came from different moderators. A single moderator may just be burning off their mod points to get rid of them.
"There are a LOT more +5 posts than +3 or +4."
But are there more mod points spent on +5 posts than +3 or +4? Remember, a poster that gets modded up often gets a +1 bonus on their post. A poster that often gets modded up three times will already have a 2 point starting point.
"Logged in people are modded down faster than anonymous cowards."
Now you've flip-flopped. Where before you were talking about final score instead of points applied, here you're talking about points applied insead of final score. Logged-in posters tend to have a higher starting point (1 or 2) than ACs (0). You might want to take this into account before jumping to conclusions about moderators.
"A lot of the modded down posts are actually quite clever, funny, etc., and they are only modded down because they are offtopic."
It's been my impression that "Offtopic" means just that. Funny and clever are all well and good, but when you're looking for information and opinions it's more important that a post is in the proper category than it be funny or clever. The site's logo is "News for Nerds," not necesarily "Jokes for Nerts."
A post may very well warrant reading, but it belongs someplace else ("There's a place for everything and everything has its place."). For example, your post may be both interesting and informative, but it still has jack to do with Oracle and its security. People came here to read information about Oracle. If you wanted to target an audience interested in moderation debates, you've missed your audience by putting this post here.