Slashback: Folding, Cursing, Exporting

Slashback tonight brings updates and clarifications on the odds of Apple Computer buying Universal Music, the Evil Bit RFC, and more, including Niels Provos' reasons for moving his cryptographic research tools off-shore.

The more numerous the laws ... friscolr writes "The Register has an article about security researcher Niels Provos's (creator/collaborator for systrace, honeyd, openssh, various steg tools, and more) struggle to continue his Ph.D. studies amidst an increasingly restrictive set of U.S. and Michigan laws. This isn't the first time a prominent security researcher in Michigan has voiced serious concerns over new laws."

You may remember several earlier stories mentioning Provos' research, such as this article on his honeynet creation tool honeyd.

Apple Records has a certain ring, though, doesn't it? egoff writes "The Apple/Universal Music deal is unlikely, according to the New York Times (reg req), nor would it be a sure hit with investors. However, if the deal did go through, it would be because of Steve Job's vision for the future of digital music. Said one former Apple exec: 'Apple always needs to pull a rabbit out of its hat. Universal is a pretty big rabbit.'"

Swearing in another language doesn't count. Chilliwilli writes with an update to the recent Anger As a Software Design Philosophy: "Anyone that took a look at the foul language feckfeck might be amazed to see that somebody has actually risen to one of the three challenges and written a quine in this more irritating of languages. Congratulations go to 'hoser'."

Upping their meds. Elyjah writes "Steve Bellovin has compiled a short list of emails he got regarding his most recent RFC (3514) which appeared this last April 1st. (I believe you may have seen something on Slashdot about it.) Some people just...don't...get it."

If you go beyond the Enterprise, doesn't that invalidate their theme song? Built enough floppy-disk Enterprises? GaryK writes "With Dell getting rid of 3.5" disk drives, I'm quite sure we'll have to come up with creative uses for the hundreds and hundreds of floppies we have around our offices. This guy should serve as an inspiration to us all.

Comments

Floppy disks...

[sleeperservice]

...also knows as "Old School Coasters", for those of us who remember a time before AOL CD-ROMs.

One easy answer

[Dicky]

Good Afternoon,

What or who determines the "evilness" or "goodness" of the packet? If a security admin or OS can determine or flag bits as good, what keeps the hacker from spoofing this process by setting the bit to "good"? Does the bit change based on behavior? Or maybe a database with signatures of "bad" bits?

(name deleted)
Microsoft Corporation

Not to worry, good sir - there is a simple and easy answer to your question. All Microsoft software and systems should automatically set the bit to evil! On the off-chance of the packet passing through a clean system, the bit could be set to good, but all data originating from a Microsoft system are, by definition, evil.

HTH, HAND...

Re:One easy answer

[inertia187]

Yes, that is truely scary. Especially the part where he or she says, "Or maybe a database with signatures of "bad" bits?" Man, that's gotta be a tiny database:

create table good_bad_bits (
bit boolean not null primary key,
evil boolean not null
) ;

insert into good_bad_bits ( bit, evil ) values ( true, true ) ;
insert into good_bad_bits ( bit, evil ) values ( false, true ) ; /* Ok, I guess I'm done. */

Re:One easy answer

[Krondor]

... all data originating from a Microsoft system are, by definition, evil.

Nevermind that "Evil" is a relative term, but I was under the impression that in fact all FreeBSD packets should in fact be "Evil". I mean they have a daemon (albeit a cute one for a mascot). I think they are more then deserving for that fact alone, but hasn't the FreeBSD crowd been the one primarily pushing for this bit to begin with?

Universal is a pretty big rabbit

[djupedal]

...and Steve wears a pretty big hat.

Microsoft Records?

[SHEENmaster]

I'd really rather apple buy out the company. Despite my complaints about QuickTime, apple has been rather nice about keeping iTunes using mp3 for output, and more recently support Ogg Vorbis for playback. They might start including digital copies of music in addition to the CD tracks, and definitly wouldn't go to the extreme of copy protection schemes that crash macintoshes (anyone have a link?)

Floppy women?

[saskboy]

http://sdcc15.ucsd.edu/~mrossmas/recycle.html

I think the fellow "recycling" floppies into star ships should construct a floppy woman. It may be the only chance he will get.

High density

Double sided

write protect hole

Re:Floppy women?

[Alsee]

Top 10 reasons floppies are better than a woman:

10. You may have to format them before you use them, but heay, it's cheaper than buying them dinner.
9. You friends are always willing to give you one of their floppies they aren't using at the moment.
8. You can pick them up ten at a time.
7. They only remember what you want them to remember.
6. Drive as long as you want, they never tell you to stop for directions.
5. Foreplay consists of A:[enter]
4. If you get bored you can always use them as frisbies.
3. It's a lot easier to get rid of a virus you caught from a floppy.
2. Floppies don't need an instruction manual.

And the number one reason floppies are better than a woman...

Floppies never ask FAT (Y/N)?

-

Apple Trademark violation

[Anonymous Coward]

Back when Apple Computers(AC( was founded, Apple Records(AR) (who put out the Beatles records in America) sued AC for the name Apple. AC had to agree not to go into the music recording business in order to use the name Apple. If AC makes this move into music recording, would they not be violating that agreement?

Re:Apple Trademark violation

[Anonymous Coward]

AR sued AC for including a MIDI adaptor (i think) with the apple II (i think). AC settled for a large sum and bought out the previous agreement.

So no.

Re:Apple Trademark violation

[prockcore]

AR sued AC for including a MIDI adaptor (i think) with the apple II (i think). AC settled for a large sum and bought out the previous agreement.

Um, no. Apple Records sued Apple Computers because of the Apple][gs. The ][gs contained an Ensoniq synthesizer, making it the most powerful music composer on the market. Part of the agreement was that Apple Computers couldn't ever have a hardware synth solution. This is still true today. Apple Computers didn't buy any rights, and they are still not allowed to enter the record business.

Search the web for "Ensoniq Apple lawsuit" for more information.

Re:Apple Records?

[Nintendork]

When Apple ran into the legal problem of using the name Apple, the record company said they could use it so long as they didn't go into the music business. Hence the system beep, "Sosume".

I just did a google search and found another /. post explaining this in more depth.

-Lucas

Email regarding Evil Bit RFC

[Bradee-oh!]

Good Afternoon,

What or who determines the "evilness" or "goodness" of the packet? If a security admin or OS can determine or flag bits as good, what keeps the hacker from spoofing this process by setting the bit to "good"? Does the bit change based on behavior? Or maybe a database with signatures of "bad" bits?

(name deleted)
Microsoft Corporation

Dear (name deleted),

The complete protocol is not yet formalized, but you can be assured that any packet from your companies domain should have the bit set.

Signed,
-All irrational slashdot readers who flame MS as a reflex

(it's a joke, people)

Apple pulled a what out of its what?!

[no_opinion]

Said one former Apple exec: 'Apple always needs to pull a rabbit out of its hat. Universal is a pretty big rabbit.'

You don't save a drowning man by throwing him another drowning man.

What's a Quine?

[_xeno_]

I hope I'm not the only one who didn't recognize what a "Quine" was, so here we go:

A quine is a program that, when run, exactly reproduces its source code. Nifty - although not particularly useful, it's still kinda neat.

Anyway, find quines in, uh, many languages at The Quine Page.

RFC

[genka]

It should be noted that if evil bit (RFC 3514) is used with TCP by Pigeon (RFC 1149), evil bit is dropped. In fact, a lot of evil bits are dropped

Quine

[FosterSJC]

For those not so programming-savvy (i.e. me, 5 minutes ago), a quine is "a program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output."

Apparently Douglas Hofstadter (of GEB fame)coined the phrase after logician Willard van Orman Quine.

For more see: http://www.nyx.net/~gthompso/quine.htm

Floppy RAID is cool.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me for "hanging" this on your funny-post, but the FDD-RAID project is just soo funny and I'd like more people to see it.

It is really cool when you access the drives the way they flash each light and spin in no particular order that I can discern. It is of course faster than a standard single drive. I was able to transfer "DEVO Uncontrolable Urge.mp3" which is 3.6 MB in 32 seconds. Which is pretty good I think.

(Really, with people posting "what's vorbis?" with every Vorbis story, I'm sure there must be persons out there for which this is new)

evil bit

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

"[...]April 1st. (I believe you may have seen something on Slashdot about it.) "
Yes, but could you please post a full story on it.

no such thing

[minus_273]

There are no AOL users on the Internet there will never be, never!. AOL users are commiting suicide at the gateways of the internet and we will contune to encourage more suicides. AOL has never had any share of the market and at the moment is a small stupid little company that has no power what so ever. AOL never distrubited CD's or floppies. The author of the article is a liar. These are lies! lies i tell you!
-Mhmd al-sharif, former iraqi information minister

Re:CD Sculptures?

[boomgopher]

Speaking of floppies and CDs...

http://www.georgehart.com/sculpture/sculpture.html

Robot parts!

[Smidge204]

Granted, the motors in floppy drives are pretty weak... but each drive contains two stepper motors, one uni-directional servo motor, at least 3 input switches (either optical or mechanical), and all the electronics to drive them!

The whole thing can be controlled with simple pulses to the various pins on the cable connector, which means an old floppy drive is a cheap (free) way to add motor controls to any microcontroller project, or even drive it with the PC's printer port. Ideal for science fair projects and other low-low budget / non critical / fun stuff.

Here and here are just some of many examples.

Fun fun!
=Smidge=

Build a hard drive wind chime...

[Jonah Hex]

Since the days of the death of MFM hard drives I've been stripping dead drives of their platters and using them for wind chimes. The platters resonate with crystal clear tones when struck against each other, and I've never had one I couldn't use from notebook drives to IDE/SCSI drives.

Besides the usual nylon line and a wooden dowel or two for the upper support, you do need a few different type of screwdriver bits, since most drives use odd shaped star/torx screwheads. If you have any trouble just grab a drill and destroy the screws, at this stage who cares about what the case ends up looking like. And a final tip, you may want to spray the platters with a thin clear coat if your putting them outside.

Jonah Hex

Embrace and extend - was "One easy answer"

[AltGrendel]

I believe that there is a secret memo floating around Microsoft to extend this standard by one bit:

0x00 - If set to 0, the packet has no evil intent, as it was sent by a Microsoft product. There is no need for any security measures as all Microsoft products are inherently secure.

0x01 - If set to 1, the packet may have no evil intent other than taking away market share from Microsoft and should be regarded with suspicion. These packets should be randomly dropped by all Microsoft products and blame put on the third party vendor.

0x10 - If set to 2, the packet MAY have evil intent, but since it comes from a Microsoft product, there is no need for any security measures as all Microsoft products are inherently secure. Any Microsoft product that receives this packet should be setup to automatically notify Microsoft marketing and it's legal staff to start blaming Open Source software in the media.

0x11 - If set to 3, the packet has evil intent since it comes from a third party, most likely an Open Source developer. All packets should be dropped immediately, any Microsoft product that receives this packet should be setup to automatically notify Microsoft marketing and it's legal staff to start blaming Open Source software in the media.