Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Security, Telephony, Solicitude
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."
-Waldo Jaquith
Good news is this virus seems to be close contact only (family memebers, health care workers) and does not seem highly infectious...
Now if they could actually confirm which bug it is and get a good test then we would be good shape...
DJMD - The fourth man - Planetary
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!
It's really nice to see unified support by KDE and GNOME on this issue. The way they have been getting along lately i would'nt be supprised if we saw some joint projects...
Won't you be my my neighbor?
The Initiative for Software Choice seems like a whitewash organization backed by Microsoft.
It seems to me that every time it becomes politic to get somewhat more relaxed towards Microsoft, lest you draw mocking cries of 'Linux zealot! Stallman Fanboy!' that Microsoft turn around and prove to everyone just how justified the ire against them is.
Here are a few choice quotes:
"Policymakers should not make rigid intellectual property licensing choices a precondition for eligibility for procurement, nor should they discriminate between developers that choose to license their intellectual property on commercial terms, and developers that choose not to charge licensing fees...."
"Lately, concerns have emerged that policy makers, through government procurement policies, research funding or standards policies, may seek to favor one software development model over another."
I won't bother with any more.
The scary thing about this organization is that their party line appears to be quite subtle. Where they fail is that they appear to be up in arms about purchasing regimes which haven't happened yet.
They also use their contentions to subtly dig at the GPL... 'rigid intellectual property licensing' indeed. I wonder if anybody at the Initiative for Software Choice has ever tried to install Windows 2000 in Application Server mode. THAT is 'rigid licensing' at its best.
MH
You're doing it wrong.
22 dead out of 750 infected is definitely not insignificant. Assuming a rate of 20 deaths out of 1000 infections, and a 30% infection rate, equals what, 150k deaths in the US? Not trivial.
This is only a test Sig. If this were a real Sig, it would be witty, pithy, or rude, just like all the other Sigs.
Ya gotta hate 'em, but they know how to do this. No direct slams at open source or linux, just very friendly, helpful suggestions that offering users choice is better than not, isn't it? They've been doing this for decades. If it weren't for the other crap, you know, the illegal immoral stuff, I might even like the bastards.
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.
Well, I told the manager that it was free. He squinted. Then I told him there was no support, but if he opened a port to an IRC server we could get by. He squinted a little more. Then I told him it doesn't really run any of the software we use. He squinted even more. Finally I told him we'd have to use Java or something because .NET doesn't really run in Linux. It will soon, though! He was beginning to look like a japanese psycho on speed by then, so fearing for my job I backpedaled out of his office, bowing a few times and muttering something I heard on the Iron Chef the other day that sounded important. To this day he's not speaking to me.
That's my story. Anyone else?
SARS is likely to be as bad as a smallpox epidemic. The Chinese are stonewalling, that's bad, and the Hongkong authorities are trying to play it down so it won't hurt tourism. These idiocies will get us all in trouble. 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. 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. Don't fly unless you wear a respiratory mask, either. 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. We do not have any effective way to combat that.
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.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
"STFU, not STFES.
Learn More." [reference.com]"
LOL! Burn!
Heh. That made my day. I'm tired of being corrected on stupid things like the difference between "viruses" and "virii". Normally I wouldn't mind, but once you've studied latin it's hard to avoid the urge to call it 'virii'. I wish people who use that term would be cut a little slack, it's not like we're all posting with spell and grammar checkers here. Afterall, this is just a forum. It's not a Scholastic Competition. When you correct somebody on use of a term that nobody could possibily mistake, you just sound like an arrogant ass, especially when done with such little tact.
Okay, I'm done ranting. Please spare me your ill-based theory that if people don't speak 100% correct English 100% of the time that we'll all end up communicating via a series of grunts and moans.
"Derp de derp."
The proper form is gruntii and moanii. Sheesh.
Use the spatula, Luke
Wow 750 infected and 22 dead. How about the millions dead from AIDs? This study says that after 22 years of education 14.7 percent -- one in seven -- of gay and bisexual black men ages 23 to 29 become HIV-positive each year. Since the discovery of AIDS -- first reported in a 1981 government health bulletin as a strange form of pneumonia -- there have been about 750,000 reported cases in America. Nearly 450,000 of those patients have died.
The Washington Post reports that world wide there are now 42 million people living with HIV infection and by 2010 there will be between 50 million and 75 million cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection in India, China, Ethiopia, Nigeria and Russia alone.
Why was AIDs not decleared a contagious disease back in 1981 and infected people quaratined? Were the rights of a few worth more than the rights of 75 million?
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
I'm surprised we don't see more folks making dual mode GPS/GLONASS systems.
.eu is starting to set up THEIR OWN system. I cannot say I blame them - I'd want my own system as well, were I them.
GLONASS, for those of you too lazy to Google it, is basically GPS-ski - it's the Russian answer to GPS. Same basic idea, but at a different frequency.
That's important. The biggest reason a military GPS receiver is still more accurate than a civilian rig is that the military rig uses 2 frequencies - the first is the frequency the civilian rigs use, the second is a military only frequency and is encrypted.
The reason this helps accuracy is that the ionosphere bends radio waves, including the GPS signal. Since the signal does not take a straight line path, it travels a bit farther. How much farther - aye, that's the rub. Unless you know what the ionosphere is doing you have no idea.
However, the amount of bend is propotional to frequency - if you use 2 different frequencies, you can determine the difference between them, and thus the amount of bending the ionosphere is adding.
Now, back to GLONASS - being on a different frequency, if you used it plus GPS, you could, in theory, get the same information about the behavior of the ionosphere, and reduce the error. (In practice you wouldn't get the same level of accuracy since the signals are not coming from the same birds, but...)
I've seen some chipsets in the trade journals that do both, but I've not seen any consumer units that do so.
And the
So, if we could only get a triple-threat system....
www.eFax.com are spammers
The purpose of my desktop is to fight against Microsoft?
I think not.
I want to get work done in a timely and cost effective manner not be part of a Jihad.
I'd be rather upset if the people contributing were all fucked up with "must beat Microsfot, must beat Microsoft" rather than "must write good code, must write good code"
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter