Slashback: Security, Telephony, Solicitude

Slashback with more on Linux telephony, Mailblocks' terms of service, the scary disease known as SARS, the status of civilian GPS accuracy and more -- read on for the details.

A good oversight to correct. AndyMan! writes "Regarding yesterdays 'Building A Better Inbox,' I got the following email from support@mailblocks.com:

"'Our apologies, we picked up an old version of our TOS when we went live. We will NOT be allowing 3rd parties to send unsolicited email to our userbase. Please check the site this evening for the updated and correct TOS. We apologize for any confusion or inconvenience.'"

All the government you pay for. dunng808 writes "Despite frequent speculation to the contrary, Security Enhanced Linux is alive and well. Government Executive Magazine has a report from a conference on open-source software at which Peter Loscocco, a senior NSA scientist, revealed that the agency has continued to work on SE Linux despite efforts by Microsoft and the Initiative for Software Choice. "We spent a lot of time educating our managers, who accepted a lot of the flack that has come back to NSA about SE Linux," Loscocco said. For those readers trying to win acceptance of open-source software in the workplace, what effort have you undertaken to educate management, and what has worked?"

Also safe for now is GPS. As an anonymous reader writes, "Following last week's thread on GPS, and the possibility that the Pentagon might goof around with the civilian signal, Forbes checks in with the folks in charge and finds we have nothing to worry about."

OK, both of these things involve series of coherent vibrations in air ... A few months back, we mentioned that TheKompany was selling software to let Zaurus owners use Net2Phone for telephone service, and that they were working on a desktop version as well. Well, now it's ready. HeUnique writes "TheKompany just released tkcphone for the Linux desktop. This is the first product which lets Linux users to use their existing net2phone accounts to talk either through net2phone to net2phone or net2phone to standard POTS phone with the best audio quality (G.729 codec)."

And in almost-but-not-totally-unrelated news, jackjumper writes "Shawn Gordon of The Kompany fame has started his own record label, ProgRock Records. From the interview at Linux and Main: "The idea...is to provide progressive rock music to listeners at a low price while allowing more of that money to find its way to the artists' pockets than happens with conventional recording contracts and at the same time making a gesture -- you know the one -- to the established recording cartel." This sounds really cool."

A deadly pathogen by any other name. waytoomuchcoffee writes "The leading hypothesis for what is causing Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is now thought to be a coronavirus, one of the virii that can cause the common cold. The New York Times (archive version for those non-members) has a story here. The global toll is now more than 750 stricken and 22 dead. Singapore is quarantining hundreds of people in an effort to stop the outbreak, while the head of the city's hospitals has taken ill with symptoms consistent with SARS. Both the Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization have pages up now, which include FAQs and progression information."

How many times do we have to go over this? Vajsvarana writes "The major free Desktop Environment GNOME and KDE has released a common open statement on recent XFree86 troubles. 'Innovation should happen in the open, with all affected parties able to participate early in the process' seems a clear and strong request to XFree86 people."

Comments

Mailblocks MAY Spam You

[waldoj]

Some how I don't feel better by Mailblocks' assertation that they're not going to spam users. Their privacy policy says:

Not now, but in the future, Mailblocks may permit third parties, such as advertisers, to furnish our members, through the Services and otherwise, with information from time to time.

So, were they lying to us before, or are they lying to us now; and if now, in which instance are they lying?

-Waldo Jaquith

SARS and chinese gov

[gsmb]

being in china now i am getting really concerned about SARS. while i am a long way from the epicentre the gov here is very quiet and now there are reports of possible infections in beijing...http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/singapo re/story/0,4386,179331,00.html if beijing becomes a new epicentre for spread of this then we are ALL in deep sh*t cos its such a big city (i think 13m+) the first thing that will happen is that everyone will want to LEAVE in different directions WHAT A DISASTER WAITING TO HAPPEN. i cant imagine the chinese gov (as with any other) preventing the spread. no way of "patching" this one!

GPS is having problems

[thogard]

There are many areas in the world that are having problems with GPS but its not due to jaming, its due to the fact that there isn't a full constilation up. PRN 22 went dead a while back and hasn't been replaced. The current plan is to spread out the sats in that orbital ring (the B plane) to help fill up the gap but that will result in more outages in more places for short times compared to the current 1/2 hour outages seen directly in the flight path. The NavCen are recomending that you change your mask angle to 5 degrees if its set higher (many people use 15 degrees).

Right now you can see the problems on this map (mirrored here). The black areas are where GPS isn't going to give a 3d position and the red areas are where it wont get a 4d (3d+time) fix. The dark blue will have issues if any part of the sky is blocked. I don't think I've seen the GPS status this bad for a long time. Maybe its time to launch a few new navstar sats.

The Difference Between Military and Civilian GPS

[Nova Express]

What the Forbes article fails elucidate is the difference between military and civilian GPS. Not only is the military GPS on a different band, and considerably more accurate, but it's also encrypted. In fact, SOP if an aircraft is shot down is for the pilot to press a "data destruct" key that formats internal memory storage so the enemy doesn't get ahold of any information on the military band. The encryption keys are also changed daily.

BTW, both military and civilian GPS can increase the accuracy of the signal by using differential GPS, which uses stationary ground stations to reduce uncertainty to well under an inch.

Re:SARS predictions

[tfoss]

SARS is likely to be as bad as a smallpox epidemic.

Hold on there nostradamus, how on earth could you have an rational basis for that kind of claim?

I predict that this virus will hit Silicon Valley hard; I've seen a lot of techies, especially foreign 'guests', just not practicing simple hygiene like washing hands coming out of the restrooms, sneezing widely into the air, etc.

Nice vague tinge of racism.

Also, the disease hit China, and so much manufacturing is now there, so there are plenty of chances for it to be contracted and brought back to the US. I think we have a real problem coming.

Except everything so far suggests this virus (if it is) requires close respiratory contact with infected people. Breathing on a tv that will be boxed, packaged, shipped and left on a ship for weeks hardly counts as close respiratory contact.

I suspect SARS is a two-component disease; first you are hit with the new mutant virus, which sets up your immune system to fail to handle certain things, then the second virus characterizing this disease attacks you unhampered.

Again, on what basis do you make these wild-ass statements? Do you work in a research lab studying SARS? When those researching this aren't even ready to make this kind of statement (they say it's possible, but by no means proven, and always stated as 'might,' 'could,' 'would be unusual,' &c. ), how are your prescient enough to?

We do not have any effective way to combat that.

True, just like we don't have any effective way to handle the vast majority of viral infections we get. We let our immune system go at it, and more often than not we get better.

-Ted