Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Spambots, Retroism, VoIPhooey
Let's find the spamsters and turn them over to Hormel. Neil Gunton writes: "Further to my previous article about stopping Spambots with Apache, Perl, MySQL and ipchains, it appears that the spambots have evolved somewhat. They seem to come in using a search engine to find promising pages, and then spoof the User-Agent field and generally try to behave as much like a real person as possible. Here is an update to my original article. This is something that anyone who runs a website and dislikes spambots should be aware of..."
If I ever have children I might let it go at that. jamie writes: "'If I ever have children,' says Rich Dreher, 'I would want them to see and touch one of the very first 'real' personal computers, not some simulation of an Apple in a window on a Pentium VIII running Windows 2012.' Over the last few months he's put together a CompactFlash/IDE adapter card for the Apple //e and IIgs, and now he's taking orders. The largest hard drive that ProDOS supports, as flash RAM, costs $14! Seeing the card really brought back memories..."
We mentioned this a while ago, before the pressing need of Apple ][ owners was quite so evident.
What's a little $80 million mistake among friends? Sinjun writes: "In what is believed to be one of the first prison sentences given to the creator of a virus, David L. Smith of the infamous Melissa plague recieves 20 months in federal lockup. I would have thought he would recieve more, seeing the massive amount of money lost by corporate America resulting from Melissa. Oh well, this is the precedent that has been set."
Smith should be grateful that his victims weren't allowed to each pluck one hair from his body per Melissa message received.
But what about the GBA? bobbydigitales writes: "A while back someone suggested porting linux to Samsungs GP32 handheld games console. As I own one, I did a bit of 'googling' and found a post from a guy at Samsung about a problem he was having with his linux port to the s3c2400x chip (this constitutes most of the GP32's hardware). It seems he finished his port as he sent me all the patches and instructions needed to compile the kernal for the s3c2400x.
As I dont have any experience porting linux i thought I'd share this information with the world and see if anyone could offer help and/or suggestions on how to proceed. Here are the files and info.
Samsung have completed the following drivers:
- LCD
- Serial
- USB Host (with mouse driver),
- Sound
- Keyboard
- Network (not actually on the GP32 chip)
Things that are missing:
- bootloader,
- SmartMedia Card driver"
I knew I should have ordered a few. Alex Law writes "Only days after Slashdot's article about Creative Labs great deal on VoIP Blasters, it appears that they are no longer in production or available from Creative's web site. Shame; mine arrived yesterday, and we were all quite impressed."
From the Mozilla front: Lots of good reports and an oops.
The good stuff -- reaper20 writes "With 1.0 around the corner, it seems like the folks over at Mozilla.org have their hands full. Between interviews and last minute security bug fixes, it seems like the Mozilla is poised for the big push to 1.0.
David Hyatt brings up the IE Advantage, and the death of user-experince based browsers. Mozilla.org itself has stood firm on some of these marketing driven issues - yet some changes have caused some interesting developments in the Mozilla community. The recent context menu revisions and personal toolbar recommendations by Netscape have caused a bit of controversy. (Bugzilla entries ommitted for obvious reasons)
Recently, the mozilla/browser and Chimera projects have been started to address certain usability problems and the desire for OS X native widgets. With Galeon and other Mozilla derivatives getting better and better, it seems that Mozilla 'proper' will serve as a platform for derivative browsers customized for the target platform.
Lots of standards-compliant clients each tailored to user needs, sounds like what web was originally designed for."
And the oops -- An Anonymous Coward writes: "An Israeli software firm has discovered a flaw in Netscape and Mozilla software that allows code hidden in a Web page to read files from the user's PC. The bug is a more serious variant of one patched in Microsoft's Internet Explorer in February."
I have a 1GB hard drive hooked up to my IIGS right now...and all the space can be used. ProDOS 8 only allows 32MB partitions, but RamFAST and Apple rev. D SCSI cards provide various methods for mapping more than two drives to a physical slot. (ProDOS 8 itself allows for four drives if the controller is in particular slots.) The number of slot/drive combinations limits you to somewhere around 300-350MB maximum online storage with ProDOS 8 (the RamFAST will let you mark partitions active or inactive). If you're using a IIGS and its GS/OS, though, you just create a couple of 32MB ProDOS partitions (to boot and to run your 8-bit apps) and one big HFS partition to use up the entire drive. (The only downside to HFS is that you'll need a Mac to fix the partition if it's corrupted.)
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
The site is prob. already slashdotted so here is the introduction text from the site.
Project Introduction:
This page describes a project to create a CompactFlash / IDE Interface card for Apple II computers. The card is ProDOS 8 compatible, and GS/OS compatible with an extra driver. I did the original wire-wrap prototype over the span of several months. This project is very much a case of old technology (the Apple II computer) meets new (CompactFlash cards and Altera CPLDs).
My reasoning for this project is described in detail in the Background section , but suffice it to say, I wanted to be able to pull out my old Apple II and use it from time to time to reminisce about the early days of personal computers. I wanted a reliable way to store my Apple II programs and data files for many years to come. Due to the long term reliability prospects of floppy drives, and my general laziness, I decided a mass storage device is what I needed.
The Apple II was an excellent example of an open system, with unheard-of-today documentation like system schematics, firmware listings, and peripheral design tips. Indeed the only thing that was totally hidden was the source for the BASIC interpreter - "AppleSoft" written by giga-monopoly Microsoft. In the spirit of the Apple II this project is also an open project.
I am currently in the process of assembling a run of 100 units and I am now taking orders. I have contacted everyone who has expressed some interest in this project. If you would like to order a CFFA unit, assembled and tested, please check out my order page . I am assembling these boards by hand and will fill orders in the order in which I receive payments. Also, please realize that hand assembly will mean that I will probably need a month or more to build them all. I will fill orders in batches of 10 or so, which could easily result in a delay of several weeks for your order.
IIRC, IE always looks for a "favicon.ico" file. If the browser has a User-Agent corresponding to IE, but doesn't request favicon.ico, it's a spambot. This is easy for the spambot to defeat, but it's one more step.
Back and Forward were removed from most context menus, except the one for the page itself, slowing down navigation.
Of course, this was to simplify and shorten the menus, so there are valid arguments for both sides, but personally I like having Back and Forward on all the menus.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
This bug was fixed yesterday, the day that it was known by the mozilla developers. The crash is fixed, the bug is fixed, it's all fixed. You can see the bugzilla entry here.
Maybe that example will, but not others. I'm using Mozilla under Linux too, and their other example allows me to browse my harddrive and look at files (the full page one--link is near the bottom of their page). I would assume that this technique can be used to send the contents of files to some server...this is bad.
I don't know much about XMLHTTP. I suppose you still have to go to and evil site to be exploited, but still.
I just want a browser that supports the more basic stuff HTTP, SSL, HTML, images, CSS, cookies, and simple javascript. Maybe I should just go back to Lynx--no images or javascript which means some sites don't work, however I'd rather be inconvienced than hacked.
Opera and Omniweb are funded by smaller companies, companies that don't have deep pockets like AOL or Microsoft, so in some small way they can be forgiven for the steps that they take to make money to support themselves. These browsers at least offset their nagging with the ability to block popups and images.
Now, how about saving sets of opened page to continue browsing them anytime. I have several of them, one for each subject I commonly browse for. And continue to browse the last opened pages if your browser/operating system crashes. Import and Export bookmarks and email contacts. Browse offline content, delete every personal info left on your computer by your browser with two clicks (for the privacy freaks), multiple languages supported, pre defined texts to fills forms, 13 search engines available in a tab. Skins, layout customization, modify settings of html text and link tags, load your own css, zoom, block frames, load only cached images, report Javascript errors. Identify the browser as being another (right, "you must use IE to view this page" crap). Full control over cache and cookies. And password protection. Not to mention fully functionals email and newsgroup clients, low comsumption of computer resources, all in 3.2 megas.
And if everything here didn't catch your attention, two words:
"Mouse gestures".
That alone is worth a thousand dollars. Hover a link, right click and up+down with mouse. Page loads at the background. Open 25 links this way, hold mouse button, down+right, close current window. Do it for every page you have found. Hold mouse button and press another, back to pages you previously visited. Another way of buttons, forward the pages.
Opera was worth every cent I paid for. With it, my productivity raised so much I can't live without anymore. I do programming for living, and if having +20 windows opened at the same time, searching for information with Google, discussing at newsgroups, and reading mailing lists, weren't delivered so fast and nice over the last years that I am using Opera, I know a lot of work would not have been done.
Buy a Nintendo DS Lite
Nothing wrong with the linkage to the VoIP, it has not been removed from their production web site. I ordered my 4 units days after the initial /. post!
c t. asp?maincategory=7&category=&product=203&nav=spec
http://www.americas.creative.com/products/produ
So if you can see that link then it proves them wrong! Unless they have run out of stock, they seem to be still selling units.
It isn't a lie if you belive it.
Bug 141061 - XMLHttpRequest allows reading of local files
When an http server redirects the user to a local file, XMLHttpRequest gets tricked into thinking the page came from the http server.
Bug Reported on 2002-04-29 17:46
Bug Fixed on 2002-05-01 09:11
MOD THE CHILD UP!
As I understand it, the bug allows local files to be read into JavaScript variables, which can then be sent to the server.
Also, it has been fixed so future builds will not have this problem. (#141061: added to bugzilla on the 29th, fixed on the 30th, marked as fixed on the 1st)
$80,000,000 US. I don't believe this number, but holy shit.
Anyway, you are over-generalizing your personal experience.
Everyone has heard someone say something along the lines of "I don't wear seat belts, because my uncle was in a car accident and was thrown free. If he had his seat belt on he would have been killed in the fire." Even if we assume this anecdote to be true it in no way controverts the statistical fact that a seat belt is far more likely to save the life of an adult than to end it.
So, without regard to your personal experience cigarettes cause cancer, seat belts save lives, and Outlook is a security risk.
-Peter
Its a 64mb flash card
I think it's the difference between posession (of a firearm) and the use of one in a crime.
-- weave, Law and Order syndicated rerun graduate of 2002
Filling their database by hundreds of false email :
Just add an hidden link (for example a 1x1 image)
to a page where there is hundreds of random-generated emails. If many sites use this most of their database will be filled with noise, and may be unusable.