Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Quinn, InfoCards, McKinnon
Globe's Ombudsman silent no longer. Andy Updegrove writes "For two months, the ombudsman of the Boston Globe has been silent on the reporting that helped bring about Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn's resignation. Last night, in response to an entry pointing out that silence at the Standards Blog, ombudsman Richard Chacon at last responded, admitting to "lingering questions over why the [Quinn travel investigation] story was allowed to run without comment from Eric Kriss," but standing by "the initial reasons for looking into the story." Chacon also promises to report back with further observations after contacting Peter Quinn."
Microsoft continues push for 'InfoCards'. FrankieBoy writes "Bill Gate kicked off the RSA computer conference in San Jose, CA by unveiling a few more details about their new 'InfoCard' system in the upcoming IE7. With InfoCards people could save personal information on virtual cards on their computers which websites would recognize removing the need for many different internet passwords."
Gary McKinnon extradition hearing reopened. earthlingpink writes "BBC News is reporting that the extradition hearing has reopened for Briton Gary McKinnon who is accused by the US of hacking into military computers. The damages he has caused is estimated at £370,000 (about $640,000 today) and he is said to face more than 45 years in prison. The original story and audio interview were both covered by Slashdot in June of last year."
Bugs to help kick oil addiction. Mr. Ghost writes "Bugs such as certain species of termites and fungi such as Trichoderma reesei may be the key to effectively and cheaply generate ethanol from cellulose. Small companies like Iogen and large international energy companies like Royal Dutch Shell are putting more and more money into this research. This type of technology may even be a way for the American automobile industry to gain back market share from its competitors."
So stealing my laptop will allow anyone to go to websites and impersonate me?
That's a real logical leap. Anyone can build cars that run on any available fuel. How will the use of bio-fuel give an advantage to the American auto industry?
I see how Microsoft would like to position their system (passes, OS, Mail Client, etc.) as the "standard". Even previous versions of Windows allowed users to talk to everybody and anybody. Now it seems they have found another way to cut out 3rd-party companies, or get license fees (thus still dominating the market).
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They can do that now, depending on what tools you use to store your information. All of the better browsers have some kind of password memory. If you took Bill's bait, you are using passport, the one password to rule them all. Of course, any of the keyloggers that propagate by M$ born worm will remember your passwords without telling you and Microsoft's "fast find" has kept a log of everything you type since 98. The real thing to worry about is the system being compromised from afar. Someone who knows what they are doing does not have to steal your laptop to get what they want out of it. Non Microsoft tools have taken local and remote attack into consideration but all bets are off with silly stuff like fast find.
Things are better on non M$ platforms.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Microsoft already had a universal password system fail: Passport. The majority of web site owners simply didn't trust Microsoft enough to integrate their security in any way.
Developers: We can use your help.
The idea here is mostly that the US auto industry is SERIOUSLY hurting as a result of high oil prices in the U.S.. People are not as interested in cars and not interested in the same kinds of cars as they would be in an economy, like that of the 90s, with low oil prices. The U.S. auto industry has been harder hit by the oil situation than foreign carmakers, both because the U.S auto industry so heavily targets U.S. customers, and because the U.S. auto industry has so heavily invested in low-economy cars such as SUVs. At least one major analyst marked up Ford's recent plant closures as being a direct byproduct of oil prices.
Technology which could lower the price of fuel would reverse or at least negate this effect, allowing the U.S. car industry to recover.
Lowering oil prices would also benefit Japanese carmakers, of course, but who cares? Economics is not a zero-sum game. It's possible for something to benefit both American carmakers and foreign carmakers.
"The only problem is, this will put the oil companies out of business."
If you think about it why would they let themselves go out of business? Who is to say they wont buy out bio firms and farms working on alt fuels? Trust me, one day driving by exxon and shell farms producing the raw material for ethanol and bio diesel.
McKinnon did not accidently wander into those systems, he did it intentionally knowing he was breaking the laws in both the UK and the USA. I took over as SA on a machine he had previously compromised. When it was determined that it had been "hacked" (yeah it takes mad skillz to exploit the old default MS SQL password) I had to report it and deal with the ensuing fun. After the forensic analysis (which was very fruitful) the box had to be reinstalled from scratch:NT,SQL and a particularly ugly document management application. Now those of you reading this who are actual professional system administrators know that we probably had other things to do. So if Gary is worried about spending time in a Virginia prison, tough. Thats where we keep criminals. (Sorry, didn't mean to rant).