I was at the UKUUG thing too (tall guy wearing a suit and a long black coat standing by the door, if anyone's curious) and RMS didn't give any indication to me that he supports slave labour.
And so what if he's a bit extreme about free software and so on? Every movement needs it's advocates...
So you think that America is the source of all encryption software?
The Brits were breaking encryption before the Yanks knew what a computer was!
D.
I just want to have sex with supermodels..
on
Wired on Kipling
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· Score: 1
Has it occured to you that the geeks/hackers/programmers/etc. of yesterday are the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs of today?
Three years ago, I was a hacker-DJ, living an almost completely nocturnal lifestyle, DJ'ing in nightclubs and spending most of the remainder of my waking hours sat in front of a computer.
These days, I do scary things like wearing suits and legitimately logging in as root on computers which cost more than a four-bedroomed house in a posh are of north London.
Quite a few of my former partners in crime are doing a similar sort of thing. some of us have even come close to setting up our own security consultancy.
"Information wants to be Free" - the cry of the new Cyber Socialists!;)
Agreed. Butler is just part of Microsoft's FUD machinery - He's always being quoted in Computer Weekly and on Silicon.Com.
By the way, above you seem to indicate that 'The Butler Group' and Martin Butler are not the one and the same entity - I personally suspect that they are.
Dodger Founder, President, CEO, Teaboy & General Dogsbody The Dodger Group
>..sony uses linux as the OS for their new game > system which would mean that they would have to > make their modified source available for all us > geek-types to see
Who says?
That's like saying that because Oracle are porting 8i to Linux, they have to make the source for 8i available to all of us...
What's to stop Sony from grabbing the Linux source code, putting together their own distribution with precompiled kernel, binaries, etc., sticking it on a CD and sending it to their developers?
>This may be the push Linux needs to once and >for all solidify itself as the OS of the future.
Uhm... Isn't this attaching an awful lot of importance to what is a relatively minor event, in the overall scheme of things? The news that IBM, HP, etc. are planning to support Linux is much more significant, imho.
By contrast, corps aren't likely to view Sony's choice of Linux as a development platform as a major reason to switch from NT...
> I hope the court will rule yahoo cannot be held responsible.
Uhm... The court will NOT rule upon whether Yahoo can be held responsible or not.
Why?
Because noone's asking them to rule that Yahoo _is_ responsible.
The only thing that might happen to Yahoo is they might get a subpoena requiring that they provide the court with the email adresses (or whatever) of the people who made the posts.
I'll just say it again, so everyone understands:
NOONE IS FUCKING SAYING THAT YAHOO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE POSTS THAT AC'S MAKE USING YAHOO'S FORUMS!
ok?
Although it ires me slightly when people don't know what they're talking about, it pisses me off infinitely more when people can't even be bothered to read an article before posting their opinions.
Christ, it's not as if the article doesn't say, quite fucking clearly, that "Yahoo! is not a target of the lawsuit."
In fact, I find myself wondering why CmdrTaco is even worried about this.
Dodger,
Stressed out and taking a break from conducting mortal combat with sendmail. "I'll get it to work if I die trying!!"
I was actually thinking about the telephone company example when I was writing that comment, so what you've outlined above is what I was thinking of.
Your point regarding the whole editorial control and ISPs implementing a policy is valid. imho. However, I think that/. is more likely to be a common carrier than an ISP, because CmdrTaco and his henchmen [;)] exercise no editorial control _whatsoever_. Admittedly, they do say that "Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated." but this is followed by "(You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold).", so I'm assuming that this means that no message, no matter what it's content, is ever deleted.
Perhaps CmdrTaco would like to comment at this point?
Why not find a country where the owner of anon.penet.fi could never have been forced to reveal anyone's true identity, and set up a box there?
Oh yeah - money.
Okay. How's about we declare independence as a virtual nation and establish an "embassy" in the form of a broom-cupboard-sized room in a Telehouse somewhere with a few Linux boxes.
I can see it now. Slashdot - the world's first virtual nation. It would have to be a Republic, with a President as Head of State (first one would be CdrTaco, OF COURSE!). An elected Cabinet, led by a Prime Minister (i.e. a Minister who can't be factored!;), with Ministers for Bandwidth, Disk Storage, Processing Power, etc.
#1 - Slashdot could claim immunity from being sued for a slanderous comment by an AC as a 'common carrier'.
#2 - This is OLD news. Slashdot ignored my submission, as usual, about half a week ago.
As for Anonymous Cowards, the comments posted in reponse to the (bullshit) story about the UK satellite being taken over by hackers, confirmed for me that Slashdot's usefulness as a place where interesting and informative discussion takes place, is severely compromised by ACs.
Dodge
PS: You Americans, go see 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' (released in theatres across the States last Friday). It rocks.
I've been using the international version of PGP for years. Yet, I've never been to the United States. Does this tell you anything about how effective banning cryptography/making key escrow compulsory, would be?
Criminals won't need to resort to stenography or anything else - they'll just use whatever the fuck they like. And if they haven't got the technical know-how, they'll hire some wannabe hacker kiddies to do it for them. And if you think that's fantasy, think again - it's already happening.
Personally, I laugh in the face of any government, British, American or anything else, which tries to deny me the right or the ability to do whatever the fuck I like when it comes to computers.
Reading about the sort of stock giveaways that are available, in that news.com article, I was reminded a lot of pyramid marketing schemes... And a little of co-operative organisations...
I really, _really_ miss the days when Yahoo was a hobby site run by a couple of guys from their dorm rooms, when commercial traffic was banned from the backbone (and AOL didn't have 'Net access) and when Mosaic Communications' Netscape (anyone remember www.mcom.com?) was fucking cool because it displayed JPEGs...
GoldenEye is old tech - it's been known ever since Hiroshima that detonating a nuclear device in the upper ionosphere results in a huge electro-magnetic pulse. The lack of atmosphere results in the energy which would normally be expended as a fireball, being released as electro-magnetic energy. And, because it's released all at once, it's a pulse. Hence "EMP".
However, the idea of directing all that energy at one particular area is something which I don't believe is exactly possible. Please correct me if I'm wrong, though - I'm not exactly a nuclear scientist.
Luckily, international agreements outlaw space-based nuclear weapons, so we can all relax, safe in the knowledge that there are no nukes in orbit.
Well, I was tempted to hook up with an unscrupulous stockbroker in a scheme to do just that - sell short. Then do something nasty, like put a press release on Amazon's home page headlined "Amazon.com appoint administrators, goes into Chapter 11" and watch the stock fall through the floor...
Today's (29/JAN/99) Financial Times: 'Greenspan says internet stocks have the appeal of a lottery... Prices going though roof, but vast majority of companies likely to fail, warns Fed chairman... Alan Greenspan: Investors' high hopes for some internet-related stocks are "pie-in-the-sky"'.
This really does prove that the American internet industry represents the very worst of a consumer society on speed.
I'm not even going to bother explaining why I feel that stocks like Yahoo! and Amazon.com are ridiculously over-valued. Hell, right here on my desk, I have today's Financial Times' FT 500 supplement, which now lists Microsoft as the worlds biggest company.
I'm so tempted to turn anachist, become some form of apocalyptic darkside hacker, dedicate my life to the downfall of Microsoft and other over-valued Internet stocks, and basically become a real-life Bond villain.
I was in fucking stitches watching that - the relaxation exercises and so on, and the fact that they got that contact....
Monsieur Thomas is fucking good. Reminded me of the Need To Know guys - www.ntk.net
Dodge
PS: Perhaps Chris can confirm that this "Indonesia carry out infowar on E.Timor" story was on brekafast television?
Slashdot mentioned in the BBC news story.
on
First Virtual War
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· Score: 1
The BBC story has been updated with a bit about the Slashdot "News for Nerds" site. In response to the Beavis & Butthead theory, "Martin Maguire responded he could not see ordinary crackers expending their energy for nine months on testing defences and then mounting a worldwide co-ordinated campaign."
If Maguire's reading this, I'd like him to tell us WHY he thinks it was the same crackers testing his security over the last nine months and why doesn he think it unusual that hackers might use machines on several different continents? The first rule of hacking is to cover your tracks, a chara. It's not unusual for hackers to use machines on the opposite side of the glode from where they're actually sat.
Okay, let's posit for one moment that the Indonesian Government were behind this. The first thing to ask is "What were they trying to do?" There are two possibilities:
1. They were going to carry out some form of propaganda compaign involving misuse of the website.
2. They intended to take down the site.
If the first was true, then their first action would have been to alter the www.freedom.tp webpage. If the second was true, their first action would have been to rm the server.
From the (admittedly limited) information I have, it would appear that the intruders did neither of these things. Instead, they went about establishing the need.tp domain. In fact, the only reason that the website is down is because Connect Ireland pulled the plug when they realised that the system's security had been breached.
As for saying that this was the culmination of a "six month" campaign - what proof, if any, is there that all those attacks were carried about by the same individual or group? Did all these attacks come from the same IP address? If so, why didn't Connect Ireland take some form of action?
I know hackers who use automated scripts to scan thousands of hosts for vulnerabilities. Now, I know what people are going to say - why should someone scan the.tp domain? Well, are you trying to tell me that Connect Ireland had an entire server dedicated to a single website? Or even several websites under the.tp domain? I doubt it very much - I'm willing to bet, in fact, that there are quite a few websites hosted on that machine.
Now, admittedly, I could be wrong, and if facts are presented to me which contradict my assumptions, I will quite openly revise my analysis of this incident. But, from what I know, I continue to regard the assertion that the Indonesian Govt are behind this attack as unfounded and I think that Connect Ireland are being deliberately misleading.
The Dodger
Hacking as a Political Statement = Free Speech?
on
First Virtual War
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· Score: 1
As the inventor of ethical hacking, (a term which has since been hijacked by IBM and others) I believe that although ethical hacking is illegal, it is generally not immoral. Earth First hacking the Exxon site would be an ethical hack assuming that they only altered the main website (ethical hacking doesn't involve destroying data - that would be monkeywrenching).
Republican vs. Democrat isn't, because the aim of the hack is selfish, as opposed to unselfish. In other words, the intention isn't 'noble', to use a slightly anachronistic term.
Based upon my experience of hacking, hackers and my knowledge of information warfare, I have to say that I doubt very much that this attack was carried out by the Indonesian Government.
From the information available on the BBC site, it seems a lot more likely that the "attack" was by a group (or possibly just one) juvenile hackers, probably American, who thought the idea of having a Beavis'n'Butthead-style domain (need.tp.for.my.bungholio?) would be cool.
Sounds to me like there's a bit of spin-doctoring going on.
Slashdot Mirror
I was at the UKUUG thing too (tall guy wearing a suit and a long black coat standing by the door, if anyone's curious) and RMS didn't give any indication to me that he supports slave labour.
And so what if he's a bit extreme about free software and so on? Every movement needs it's advocates...
D.
That's right! You can't call me a Brit.
Wanna know why?
Because I'm not British!
So, if YOU don't want to be counting the fingers you haven't GOT, I suggest you stop calling me a Brit!
Why does an Irishman wear two condoms?
2BSure, 2BSure...
D.
It can't be anywhere near as good as the Dodger Unix operating system, more commonly referred to as Dynix. ;)
D.
Hey! Come on now! If it doesn't leak oil (or liquid mitrogen), it's not worth tinkering with! :)
And please don't refer to me as a Brit.
D.
So you think that America is the source of all encryption software?
The Brits were breaking encryption before the Yanks knew what a computer was!
D.
Has it occured to you that the geeks/hackers/programmers/etc. of yesterday are the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs of today?
;)
Three years ago, I was a hacker-DJ, living an almost completely nocturnal lifestyle, DJ'ing in nightclubs and spending most of the remainder of my waking hours sat in front of a computer.
These days, I do scary things like wearing suits and legitimately logging in as root on computers which cost more than a four-bedroomed house in a posh are of north London.
Quite a few of my former partners in crime are doing a similar sort of thing. some of us have even come close to setting up our own security consultancy.
"Information wants to be Free" - the cry of the new Cyber Socialists!
Dodger
Agreed. Butler is just part of Microsoft's FUD machinery - He's always being quoted in Computer Weekly and on Silicon.Com.
By the way, above you seem to indicate that 'The Butler Group' and Martin Butler are not the one and the same entity - I personally suspect that they are.
Dodger
Founder, President, CEO, Teaboy & General Dogsbody
The Dodger Group
> ..sony uses linux as the OS for their new game
> system which would mean that they would have to
> make their modified source available for all us
> geek-types to see
Who says?
That's like saying that because Oracle are porting 8i to Linux, they have to make the source for 8i available to all of us...
What's to stop Sony from grabbing the Linux source code, putting together their own distribution with precompiled kernel, binaries, etc., sticking it on a CD and sending it to their developers?
Dodger
>This may be the push Linux needs to once and
>for all solidify itself as the OS of the future.
Uhm... Isn't this attaching an awful lot of importance to what is a relatively minor event, in the overall scheme of things? The news that IBM, HP, etc. are planning to support Linux is much more significant, imho.
By contrast, corps aren't likely to view Sony's choice of Linux as a development platform as a major reason to switch from NT...
Dodger
> I hope the court will rule yahoo cannot be held responsible.
Uhm...
The court will NOT rule upon whether Yahoo can be held responsible or not.
Why?
Because noone's asking them to rule that Yahoo _is_ responsible.
The only thing that might happen to Yahoo is they might get a subpoena requiring that they provide the court with the email adresses (or whatever) of the people who made the posts.
I'll just say it again, so everyone understands:
NOONE IS FUCKING SAYING THAT YAHOO ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE POSTS THAT AC'S MAKE USING YAHOO'S FORUMS!
ok?
Although it ires me slightly when people don't know what they're talking about, it pisses me off infinitely more when people can't even be bothered to read an article before posting their opinions.
Christ, it's not as if the article doesn't say, quite fucking clearly, that "Yahoo! is not a target of the lawsuit."
In fact, I find myself wondering why CmdrTaco is even worried about this.
Dodger,
Stressed out and taking a break from conducting mortal combat with sendmail.
"I'll get it to work if I die trying!!"
I was actually thinking about the telephone company example when I was writing that comment, so what you've outlined above is what I was thinking of.
/. is more likely to be a common carrier than an ISP, because CmdrTaco and his henchmen [;)] exercise no editorial control _whatsoever_. Admittedly, they do say that "Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated." but this is followed by "(You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold).", so I'm assuming that this means that no message, no matter what it's content, is ever deleted.
Your point regarding the whole editorial control and ISPs implementing a policy is valid. imho. However, I think that
Perhaps CmdrTaco would like to comment at this point?
D.
Obviously US regulations aren't the same as European ones. Elucidate, please.
D.
Why not find a country where the owner of anon.penet.fi could never have been forced to reveal anyone's true identity, and set up a box there?
;), with Ministers for Bandwidth, Disk Storage, Processing Power, etc.
:)
Oh yeah - money.
Okay. How's about we declare independence as a virtual nation and establish an "embassy" in the form of a broom-cupboard-sized room in a Telehouse somewhere with a few Linux boxes.
I can see it now. Slashdot - the world's first virtual nation. It would have to be a Republic, with a President as Head of State (first one would be CdrTaco, OF COURSE!). An elected Cabinet, led by a Prime Minister (i.e. a Minister who can't be factored!
Argh! Shades of The Diamond Age's CyrptNet.
The Dodger
Minister of Offe^H^H^H^HDefence.
"No, I'm not planning a military coup, honest..."
#1 - Slashdot could claim immunity from being sued for a slanderous comment by an AC as a 'common carrier'.
#2 - This is OLD news. Slashdot ignored my submission, as usual, about half a week ago.
As for Anonymous Cowards, the comments posted in reponse to the (bullshit) story about the UK satellite being taken over by hackers, confirmed for me that Slashdot's usefulness as a place where interesting and informative discussion takes place, is severely compromised by ACs.
Dodge
PS: You Americans, go see 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' (released in theatres across the States last Friday). It rocks.
sed -e 's/international/US//'
Okay, so it's Friday afternoon and I've been drinking beer and Red Bull w/ vodka...
Sue me.
D.
I've been using the international version of PGP for years. Yet, I've never been to the United States. Does this tell you anything about how effective banning cryptography/making key escrow compulsory, would be?
Criminals won't need to resort to stenography or anything else - they'll just use whatever the fuck they like. And if they haven't got the technical know-how, they'll hire some wannabe hacker kiddies to do it for them. And if you think that's fantasy, think again - it's already happening.
Personally, I laugh in the face of any government, British, American or anything else, which tries to deny me the right or the ability to do whatever the fuck I like when it comes to computers.
Dodge
Reading about the sort of stock giveaways that are available, in that news.com article, I was reminded a lot of pyramid marketing schemes... And a little of co-operative organisations...
I really, _really_ miss the days when Yahoo was a hobby site run by a couple of guys from their dorm rooms, when commercial traffic was banned from the backbone (and AOL didn't have 'Net access) and when Mosaic Communications' Netscape (anyone remember www.mcom.com?) was fucking cool because it displayed JPEGs...
Dodge
GoldenEye is old tech - it's been known ever since Hiroshima that detonating a nuclear device in the upper ionosphere results in a huge electro-magnetic pulse. The lack of atmosphere results in the energy which would normally be expended as a fireball, being released as electro-magnetic energy. And, because it's released all at once, it's a pulse. Hence "EMP".
However, the idea of directing all that energy at one particular area is something which I don't believe is exactly possible. Please correct me if I'm wrong, though - I'm not exactly a nuclear scientist.
Luckily, international agreements outlaw space-based nuclear weapons, so we can all relax, safe in the knowledge that there are no nukes in orbit.
Uh, yeah right...
Dodge
Well, I was tempted to hook up with an unscrupulous stockbroker in a scheme to do just that - sell short. Then do something nasty, like put a press release on Amazon's home page headlined "Amazon.com appoint administrators, goes into Chapter 11" and watch the stock fall through the floor...
... Prices going though roof, but vast majority of companies likely to fail, warns Fed chairman ... Alan Greenspan: Investors' high hopes for some internet-related stocks are "pie-in-the-sky"'.
Today's (29/JAN/99) Financial Times:
'Greenspan says internet stocks have the appeal of a lottery
Goto www.ft.com or something...
Dodge
This really does prove that the American internet industry represents the very worst of a consumer society on speed.
I'm not even going to bother explaining why I feel that stocks like Yahoo! and Amazon.com are ridiculously over-valued. Hell, right here on my desk, I have today's Financial Times' FT 500 supplement, which now lists Microsoft as the worlds biggest company.
I'm so tempted to turn anachist, become some form of apocalyptic darkside hacker, dedicate my life to the downfall of Microsoft and other over-valued Internet stocks, and basically become a real-life Bond villain.
The Dodger
aka Alec Trevelyan, 006.
I was in fucking stitches watching that - the relaxation exercises and so on, and the fact that they got that contact....
Monsieur Thomas is fucking good. Reminded me of the Need To Know guys - www.ntk.net
Dodge
PS: Perhaps Chris can confirm that this "Indonesia carry out infowar on E.Timor" story was on brekafast television?
The BBC story has been updated with a bit about the Slashdot "News for Nerds" site. In response to the Beavis & Butthead theory, "Martin Maguire responded he could not see ordinary crackers expending their energy for nine months on testing defences and then mounting a worldwide co-ordinated campaign."
If Maguire's reading this, I'd like him to tell us WHY he thinks it was the same crackers testing his security over the last nine months and why doesn he think it unusual that hackers might use machines on several different continents? The first rule of hacking is to cover your tracks, a chara. It's not unusual for hackers to use machines on the opposite side of the glode from where they're actually sat.
Dodger
Okay, let's posit for one moment that the Indonesian Government were behind this. The first thing to ask is "What were they trying to do?"
.tp domain? Well, are you trying to tell me that Connect Ireland had an entire server dedicated to a single website? Or even several websites under the .tp domain? I doubt it very much - I'm willing to bet, in fact, that there are quite a few websites hosted on that machine.
There are two possibilities:
1. They were going to carry out some form of propaganda compaign involving misuse of the website.
2. They intended to take down the site.
If the first was true, then their first action would have been to alter the www.freedom.tp webpage. If the second was true, their first action would have been to rm the server.
From the (admittedly limited) information I have, it would appear that the intruders did neither of these things. Instead, they went about establishing the need.tp domain. In fact, the only reason that the website is down is because Connect Ireland pulled the plug when they realised that the system's security had been breached.
As for saying that this was the culmination of a "six month" campaign - what proof, if any, is there that all those attacks were carried about by the same individual or group? Did all these attacks come from the same IP address? If so, why didn't Connect Ireland take some form of action?
I know hackers who use automated scripts to scan thousands of hosts for vulnerabilities. Now, I know what people are going to say - why should someone scan the
Now, admittedly, I could be wrong, and if facts are presented to me which contradict my assumptions, I will quite openly revise my analysis of this incident. But, from what I know, I continue to regard the assertion that the Indonesian Govt are behind this attack as unfounded and I think that Connect Ireland are being deliberately misleading.
The Dodger
As the inventor of ethical hacking, (a term which has since been hijacked by IBM and others) I believe that although ethical hacking is illegal, it is generally not immoral. Earth First hacking the Exxon site would be an ethical hack assuming that they only altered the main website (ethical hacking doesn't involve destroying data - that would be monkeywrenching).
Republican vs. Democrat isn't, because the aim of the hack is selfish, as opposed to unselfish. In other words, the intention isn't 'noble', to use a slightly anachronistic term.
The Dodger
Based upon my experience of hacking, hackers and my knowledge of information warfare, I have to say that I doubt very much that this attack was carried out by the Indonesian Government.
From the information available on the BBC site, it seems a lot more likely that the "attack" was by a group (or possibly just one) juvenile hackers, probably American, who thought the idea of having a Beavis'n'Butthead-style domain (need.tp.for.my.bungholio?) would be cool.
Sounds to me like there's a bit of spin-doctoring going on.
The Dodger