Australia?
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: -1, Troll
THIS IS AN EMERGENCY POST, REPEAT, EMERGENCY POST:
MY PET CRAYFISH IS DYING!!!
Gentle Sirs--
I recently acquired a cherax speciman, air-mailed from Australia last week. Since then I've had the cray in a 50-gallon freshwater aquarium. The water was seasoned from known-safe tap-water, since I didn't feel using creek water containing local microorgasms would be safe for the cherax. Feeding him bloodworms, earthworms, and lettuce the cherax seemed fine until this Thanksgiving evening.
Returning home with several tubs of leftovers from a Thanksgiving dinner, I proceded to feed my cherax some chilled, roasted turkey (in.2cm strips), mashed potatoes (by means of a q-tip) and gravy (through an eyedropper). Sirs, after feeding him this meal I left my aquarium room for several hours-- and returned to find my cherax in his current state!
My cherax is now lying on his side, twitching, with a string of dark fecal matter trailing from its anus and several strange, white beads of mucus oozing from its mouth-parts. I immediately checked the water for Ph levels and nitrids and found the results to be not only well within acceptable limits for the cherax but also identical to my last such test made 16 hours prior to this one. Increasing the intensity of the flow to and from the filter and increasing oxygen levels in the tank seemed to ease the twitching but the cherax is still mostly inert. At this moment its only activity is gill-fanning and the occasional eye-cleaning movement.
I've seen molts begin like this (aside from the feces and mucus), but at this stage in the process the carapace should have split by now, and there is no indication of such with my cherax. There are also no signs of acute parasitic infestation. What could be causing this strange behaviour in my cherax? I fear it will die soon if I can not identify the problem and treat it. Do any of these symptoms seem familiar to anyone reading this forum?
Please contact me if you have any information regarding this!
Thank you sirs.
P.S. His name is Bob.
Most Unsecure OS? Yep, It's Linux
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: -1, Troll
According to a new Aberdeen Group report, open-source solution Linux has surpassed Windows as the most vulnerable OS, contrary to the high-profile press Microsoft's security woes receive. Furthermore, the Aberdeen Group reports that more than 50 percent of all security advisories that CERT issued in the first 10 months of 2002 were for Linux and other open-source software solutions. The report muddles the argument that proprietary software such as Windows is inherently less secure than open solutions. And here's another blow to the status quo: Proprietary UNIX solutions were responsible for just as many security advisories as Linux in the same time period. Could Windows be the most secure mainstream OS available today?
"Open-source software, commonly used in many versions of Linux, UNIX, and network routing equipment, is now the major source of elevated security vulnerabilities for IT buyers," the report reads. "Security advisories for open-source and Linux software accounted for 16 out of the 29 security advisories--about one of every two advisories--published for the first 10 months of 2002. During this same time, vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft products numbered seven, or about one in four of all advisories."
The stunning report makes several claims that seem to fly in the face of widely accepted beliefs. First, the Aberdeen Group says that Windows-based Trojan horse attacks peaked in 2001, when CERT released six such advisories, then bottomed out this year, when CERT didn't issue any alerts. However, Trojan horse-based attacks on Linux, UNIX, and open-source projects jumped from one in 2001 to two in 2002. The Aberdeen Group says this information proves that Linux and UNIX are just as prone to Trojan horse attacks as any other OS, despite press reports to the contrary, and that Mac OS X, which is based on UNIX, is also vulnerable to such attacks. Even more troubling, perhaps, is the use of open-source software in routers, Web servers, firewalls, and other Internet-connected solutions. The Aberdeen Group says that this situation sets up these devices and software products to be "infectious carriers" that intruders can easily usurp.
According to the Aberdeen Group, the open-source community's claim that it can fix security vulnerabilities more quickly than proprietary developers can means little. The group says that the open-source software and hardware solutions need more rigorous security testing before they're released to customers. This statement is particularly problematic because many Linux distributions lack the sophisticated automatic-update technologies modern Windows versions contain.
We can rail against Microsoft and its security policies, but far more people and systems use Microsoft's software than the competition's software. I believe that we'll never know how secure Linux is, compared with Windows, until a comparable number of people and systems use Linux. But despite the fact that Linux isn't as prevalent as Windows, we're still seeing a dramatic increase in Linux security advisories today. I think the conclusion is obvious.
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THIS IS AN EMERGENCY POST, REPEAT, EMERGENCY POST:
MY PET CRAYFISH IS DYING!!!
Gentle Sirs--
I recently acquired a cherax speciman, air-mailed from Australia last week. Since then I've had the cray in a 50-gallon freshwater aquarium. The water was seasoned from known-safe tap-water, since I didn't feel using creek water containing local microorgasms would be safe for the cherax. Feeding him bloodworms, earthworms, and lettuce the cherax seemed fine until this Thanksgiving evening.
Returning home with several tubs of leftovers from a Thanksgiving dinner, I proceded to feed my cherax some chilled, roasted turkey (in .2cm strips), mashed potatoes (by means of a q-tip) and gravy (through an eyedropper). Sirs, after feeding him this meal I left my aquarium room for several hours-- and returned to find my cherax in his current state!
My cherax is now lying on his side, twitching, with a string of dark fecal matter trailing from its anus and several strange, white beads of mucus oozing from its mouth-parts. I immediately checked the water for Ph levels and nitrids and found the results to be not only well within acceptable limits for the cherax but also identical to my last such test made 16 hours prior to this one. Increasing the intensity of the flow to and from the filter and increasing oxygen levels in the tank seemed to ease the twitching but the cherax is still mostly inert. At this moment its only activity is gill-fanning and the occasional eye-cleaning movement.
I've seen molts begin like this (aside from the feces and mucus), but at this stage in the process the carapace should have split by now, and there is no indication of such with my cherax. There are also no signs of acute parasitic infestation. What could be causing this strange behaviour in my cherax? I fear it will die soon if I can not identify the problem and treat it. Do any of these symptoms seem familiar to anyone reading this forum?
Please contact me if you have any information regarding this!
Thank you sirs.
P.S. His name is Bob.
November 26, 2002 | Paul Thurrott
According to a new Aberdeen Group report, open-source solution Linux has surpassed Windows as the most vulnerable OS, contrary to the high-profile press Microsoft's security woes receive. Furthermore, the Aberdeen Group reports that more than 50 percent of all security advisories that CERT issued in the first 10 months of 2002 were for Linux and other open-source software solutions. The report muddles the argument that proprietary software such as Windows is inherently less secure than open solutions. And here's another blow to the status quo: Proprietary UNIX solutions were responsible for just as many security advisories as Linux in the same time period. Could Windows be the most secure mainstream OS available today?
"Open-source software, commonly used in many versions of Linux, UNIX, and network routing equipment, is now the major source of elevated security vulnerabilities for IT buyers," the report reads. "Security advisories for open-source and Linux software accounted for 16 out of the 29 security advisories--about one of every two advisories--published for the first 10 months of 2002. During this same time, vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft products numbered seven, or about one in four of all advisories."
The stunning report makes several claims that seem to fly in the face of widely accepted beliefs. First, the Aberdeen Group says that Windows-based Trojan horse attacks peaked in 2001, when CERT released six such advisories, then bottomed out this year, when CERT didn't issue any alerts. However, Trojan horse-based attacks on Linux, UNIX, and open-source projects jumped from one in 2001 to two in 2002. The Aberdeen Group says this information proves that Linux and UNIX are just as prone to Trojan horse attacks as any other OS, despite press reports to the contrary, and that Mac OS X, which is based on UNIX, is also vulnerable to such attacks. Even more troubling, perhaps, is the use of open-source software in routers, Web servers, firewalls, and other Internet-connected solutions. The Aberdeen Group says that this situation sets up these devices and software products to be "infectious carriers" that intruders can easily usurp.
According to the Aberdeen Group, the open-source community's claim that it can fix security vulnerabilities more quickly than proprietary developers can means little. The group says that the open-source software and hardware solutions need more rigorous security testing before they're released to customers. This statement is particularly problematic because many Linux distributions lack the sophisticated automatic-update technologies modern Windows versions contain.
We can rail against Microsoft and its security policies, but far more people and systems use Microsoft's software than the competition's software. I believe that we'll never know how secure Linux is, compared with Windows, until a comparable number of people and systems use Linux. But despite the fact that Linux isn't as prevalent as Windows, we're still seeing a dramatic increase in Linux security advisories today. I think the conclusion is obvious.