You don't have to steal the phone to be able to re-program it. Many time stolen phones are sold to a "middle-man" who re-programs it and then sells the new phone on the black market. Sure, the person who is changing the ID number knows the phone is stolen, but if they didn't steal it themselves they didn't commit the crime of theft.
The worst someone like that could possibly be charged with is knowingly receiving stolen goods, or whatever your local equivalent is.
The FedEx system works amazingly well, from my experience. Its a heluvalot easier to read my department's 3000-digit account number right off the card rather than typing it into my phone. I'm used to a keyboard's numpad, which is upside-down from a phone, so I inevitably mistype the account number...
I've never had the system misunderstand me, unless I obviously mumbled into the phone. I guess my only complaint is that its a tad slow when processing what you say, but otherwise its pretty convenient.
My S2462 problems have, for the most part, cleared up. Took care of a rogue SCSI terminator, and all seems to be well now.
I think you are quite right with regards to the AMD 760/VIA KT133/VIA KT266A. It's just taken VIA a while to get it right. I expect Nvidia to have the same problems with stability early on. If it's true that the nForce is not performing as well as the VIA chips, I think you can expect that to change quickly, especially if Nvidia sticks to its 6-month development cycle.
One issue to keep in mind when talking about AMD/VIA chipsets is that most, if not all, AMD chipsets are meant to be reference designs only and to get new technology (like DDR) on the market before others can catch up. For example, the 760MP, which is only present on two Tyan boards, is being phased out for the 760MPX. Those Tyan boards have been in production for only about 6 months. The AMD 760 (sans MP) is being phased out because there are DDR chipsets being produced in mass quantity by VIA and SIS. Most AMD chipsets don't last very long because AMD expects VIA, SIS, and now Nvidia to pick up the ball from there with their own chipsets.
As far as stability, I've had just the opposite experience you've had. My two Tyan motherboards with VIA chipsets have worked flawlessly since I received them, but my Tyan S2462 board was RMA'd once and cursed at many more times. The Tyan S2462 (Thunder K7) and S2460 (Tiger MP) have many known problems with memory and power supply compatibility as well as high DOA rates; just search groups.google for tyan's newsgroup.
Living in Milwaukee, I can tell you that is closer to the truth than you might think. Sure, it's not like New York, but for a city with a population of ~650,000 and a metro area of ~1,000,000 we have quite a prolific graffiti community. There's one in particular named NCR who has tagged various large items (like signs and buildings) within a 15 mile radius of downtown. He makes sure you can still see the tag if you're severely near-sighted.
They've tried the mural-type projects with varying success. I don't know if this idea will fly, but hey, its better than nothing.
Isn't that kind of like saying "stealing a Playstation 2 from Toys R Us shouldn't be a misdemeanor. Toys R Us should just sue every shoplifter."
It is just as easy to protect against "real world" theft as it is "virtual" theft. Security cameras, secret shoppers, employee training, and theft tags: the "real world" equivalent of firewalls, IDS, honeypots...
Shoplifting these days is a lot harder than it used to be. Just like with computer security, though, any system can be cracked, real or vitual. Theft is theft, and companies have relied on the law to help when their own systems fail. The same should apply in cases like this.
West didn't "intend" as in pre-meditated, but when the opportunity magically presented itself, he went for it. If you see that the owner of a store accidentally forgot to lock the deadbolt on the front door, does that mean it's ok to go inside a take a few things, hide them, and then call the police? Sure, the owner was a dolt, but that doesn't excuse stealing.
Then again, maybe all that Catholic school education has gotten to me:)
My boss (Windows NT admin) and I were just discussing MySQL. We're running a number of small databases with Oracle on NT (with a University License), but we started talking about MySQL when I mentioned Slashdot was powered by it. Our web server and my workstation are Linux in NT land, and I try to plug Linux wherever I can. My boss is even learning Perl so he can code for our web server.
He liked MySQL until he heard that it couldn't do two things: stored procedures and subselects. He said "I don't see how it could be useful without those things." All of the database apps he's ever written use those.
It's great to see stored procedures being implemented. It would be even better if/when subselects are implemented. I could make a stronger case for moving some things over.
I work for Computer Operations in Sandburg at UWM, and I can hopefully give you some information to help you when you get here.
When you get to Sandburg you'll need to stop by the main desk and ask for a Network Use Agreement (NUA). Read and fill out that agreement and drop it off at the main desk, along with your $25 network access fee. That fee is one-time only, and covers installation, 10mbps network access, and a patch cable to get connected. Any other hardware is your responsibility.
You'll basically need to set up your box (Mac, Windows, or Linux) with an Ethernet card, TCP/IP and DHCP. If you're not familiar with the setup, you can bring your machine to our office and we'll set it up for you as part of the fee. When you get your computer up to your room, plug it in and start it up. When you get to a desktop start a browser. You'll see the registration page at this point. Fill out the registration page with your UWM email and password, your student ID number, and your receipt number from the NUA (if you registered within a few days).
Once you submit the form you'll have to reboot (yes, even on Linux) and then you should have Internet access. If at any point you run into a problem you can't resolve, you can call us at x4606 or stop down at our office in the Commons and we'll help you any way we can.
What's lame is spending hundreds of dollars and countless hours tweaking a game server only to have people leave/not play because the whole game is overrun by cheaters.
What's lame is working with the game developers via email to track down the cause of underground cheats only to have a major hardware distributor legitimize cheating in online gaming.
What's lame is playing a game in my free time, which I have little of, to gain some skill only to have that negated by some 14 year old l33t d00d who can move faster/jump higher/see me before I can see them.
What's lame is Asus trying to sell a product, not because of it's technical merits, but because it lets you do something that was never intended by the game's developers.
I didn't put time and money into something only to have Asus ruin it for me. I, and scores of other server admins, have worked with the developers at Valve software to thwart the speed cheats, the server-crashing scripts, the invisibility hacks, the unbanning tools, and who knows what else for Counter Strike/Team Fortress Classic/Half-Life. I want my server to be fun and enjoyable for everyone who plays there.
Why is that lame, Rob?
Geez, how the h*ll did you graduate? I almost had to repeat my senior year. Somehow I lit a fire under my posterior and got my term paper finished and aced my final... And that was before becoming a coding geek (I was still a geek on my Apple IIGS, but I didn't write more than a couple of crappy AppleSoft BASIC programs).
I see that you're writing some software, which from personal experience I know is no small task, regardless of the language or goals of the project. Being in college, I basically only write code during breaks or right away in the beginning of the semester, when my work load is light.
I remember high-school to be just as hectic as college, with the addition of the hormonal upheaval caused by adolescence. How do you find time to write code? How do you think it has affected your lifestyle (compared to your non-geek peers)?
According to Ace's hardware, AMD has announced the 760 chipset. A variant soon to follow, the 760MP, will have SMP support. All the AMD reps will say is that these chipsets are due in the second half of this year (thanks for narrowing it down). Tyan supposedly has a motherboard planned to be released before the new year that will have dual Athlon support. Head over to Ace's Hardware and search for "760MP".
My only issue is that this will allow two processors. We just got a server here at work with quad Pentium III Xeon 550MHz. Wow. I want that for my Athlon system.
I think this is great. Things like this are going to help MandrakeSoft move out from the shadow of Red Hat and distance themselves from the label of "Red Hat ripoff". They've done a lot to improve their distribution, and now it seems they are working overtime to improve the Open Source community. Projects like Bochs, Lothar, and DiskDrake are proving that MandrakeSoft has a vested interest in Open Source and improving Linux, and not just copying Red Hat.
I hope that in a year or two MandrakeSoft will be a major Open Source player. So far they proven to me that they are moving in the right direction.
A few days ago everyone was decrying the DMCA for being a bunch of crap designed to solely benefit big greedy corporations. Now the Clinton administration states that existing laws are sufficient, and THIS is a bunch of crap done for the businesses.
Ok, I'll buy that. No new intervention is better than some bad intervention. I guess I was a little pessimistic, but I've listened to people like Al Gore for way too long stick their nose in and take credit for things they're not involved in. US government is really good for that. Every opportunity to stick a law or regulation into something like the internet is not taken lightly. The fact that this report goes against that is something to be happy about.
Take pride, Wraithlyn, it's not too often someone can change my mind like that.:) --
Did you have any expectation that they'd set up legislation that would mandate that if your PC gets hacked,
No. It's just funny to see this show of farce, I mean force, by the DOJ. They are basically saying that they will use existing laws to punish crackers. Fine. My point is that if my house is broken into the local police will investigate even minimal damage/loss (I know cuz it happened, I lost $70 to a burglar who threatened to shoot my brother who caught him in the act even though he didn't have a gun). If my computer is cracked into nothing will happen. This report is merely hot air, unless your computer/data is worth $40,000+ and then it means someone might care. It doesn't mean that they can do anything about it.
It is not an unreasonable idea to try to apply the existing laws
Sure, if it involves an US server being cracked by a US citizen. Outside of that, what will happen? Nothing. The foreign government has to cooperate with US authorities. Do you think that will happen in places like Russia or the Middle East? Did they catch that guy who stole the database of credit card numbers? They know who he is... Why won't they do anything? Because they can't. He's in Russia (I think). Unless someone else knows different, in which case I'll stand humbly
a problem to which existing laws... already apply.
This isn't legislation. This was a report designed to make Americans feel better about what is being done about crackers. Maybe they don't realize it, but all it will do is lull corporate America into believing that they are protected.
This is another example of legislators who think that the Internet doesn't stretch beyond our borders. Sure we invented it, but it's way too late to try and control it. The emphasis should be on educating Sys Admins on how to secure their network better rather than telling them they can rely on the DOJ to handle problems after the fact. --
What about the crackers from other countries? The Russians 'claim' to be able to crack any US server at any time they want. How will we prosecute them? This is all just a bunch of crap designed to make big business feel better. In reality the government doesn't have a whole lot of options when it comes to crackers. They'll just keep using "reports" like this and examples like Kevin Mitnick to scare potential script kiddies.
What I'd like to know is what would happen if I set up a server running Linux on an IP from my ISP and it is cracked into. Will Janet Reno and her crack crew of lawyers spring into action for me? Doubtful.
So far out of the titles that Loki has released I can't say that I'm a big fan of any of them. I do play games on my PC, however, and I would love to see the day that I don't have to have a seperate partition for Windows just to play games. My fear is that the games I love to play will never see an ext2 filesystem. Since the current offering doesn't interest me how I can still support Loki and the whole Linux gaming movement so that more and more games are made available?
That's funny. My university uses SLIRP to maintain dialin access for the entire campus. About a thousand modems all run through SLIRP on three DEC Alpha servers. The only problem is that their student help desk has no clue how to help people set it up or diagnose problems with it.
I work at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee as a "Network Support Technician", or 'geek tech'. The dept. of Residence Life has a policy such that no server of any kind may be run from the residence halls network. While we don't scan all the time, we do scan and partition the ports of any student running any server, including napster (note: napster acts as both a client and a server). You can download mp3's and have them on your computer, you just can't serve them. Merely possesing mp3's is an issue between the student and the copyright holder.
For us, it's not a bandwidth issue. We have plenty of that. The reason we ban servers is that we receive weekly threats from the RIAA telling us to shut down IP's in the dorms. Since the state of Wisconsin doesn't want to take sides in the issue we comply. Basically the state doesn't want the liability associated with students running unmoderated servers.
Every student is given 10Mb free space on the university web server, free unix shell email, and free ftp access to their own account with a 25MB quota. Students may post anything they wish as long as it isn't profitable to them or it doesn't violate any local, state or federal regulation. There is no reason to run a server.
We also shut down connections for any student caught scanning networks and looking for holes.
The students sign an agreement to this effect before we turn on their port and 99% of violators admit they knew what they were doing is wrong. Besides, I wouldn't complain too much if I had a dedicated 10Mb/s connection for a one time fee of $25.
Slashdot Mirror
https://nocall.wisconsin.gov/web/includes/help/con sumerfaq.asp#howlong
I've always found that the best configuration tool for cups is cups itself...
http://localhost:631
This works by default on Gentoo, I would hope that this is the same for any distro using cups.
You don't have to steal the phone to be able to re-program it. Many time stolen phones are sold to a "middle-man" who re-programs it and then sells the new phone on the black market. Sure, the person who is changing the ID number knows the phone is stolen, but if they didn't steal it themselves they didn't commit the crime of theft.
The worst someone like that could possibly be charged with is knowingly receiving stolen goods, or whatever your local equivalent is.
The FedEx system works amazingly well, from my experience. Its a heluvalot easier to read my department's 3000-digit account number right off the card rather than typing it into my phone. I'm used to a keyboard's numpad, which is upside-down from a phone, so I inevitably mistype the account number...
I've never had the system misunderstand me, unless I obviously mumbled into the phone. I guess my only complaint is that its a tad slow when processing what you say, but otherwise its pretty convenient.
My S2462 problems have, for the most part, cleared up. Took care of a rogue SCSI terminator, and all seems to be well now.
I think you are quite right with regards to the AMD 760/VIA KT133/VIA KT266A. It's just taken VIA a while to get it right. I expect Nvidia to have the same problems with stability early on. If it's true that the nForce is not performing as well as the VIA chips, I think you can expect that to change quickly, especially if Nvidia sticks to its 6-month development cycle.
--
One issue to keep in mind when talking about AMD/VIA chipsets is that most, if not all, AMD chipsets are meant to be reference designs only and to get new technology (like DDR) on the market before others can catch up. For example, the 760MP, which is only present on two Tyan boards, is being phased out for the 760MPX. Those Tyan boards have been in production for only about 6 months. The AMD 760 (sans MP) is being phased out because there are DDR chipsets being produced in mass quantity by VIA and SIS. Most AMD chipsets don't last very long because AMD expects VIA, SIS, and now Nvidia to pick up the ball from there with their own chipsets.
As far as stability, I've had just the opposite experience you've had. My two Tyan motherboards with VIA chipsets have worked flawlessly since I received them, but my Tyan S2462 board was RMA'd once and cursed at many more times. The Tyan S2462 (Thunder K7) and S2460 (Tiger MP) have many known problems with memory and power supply compatibility as well as high DOA rates; just search groups.google for tyan's newsgroup.
--
Wisconsin's AG is James Doyle.
http://www.doj.state.wi.us
I'd hate to have someone call asking for James Dyle.
--
Living in Milwaukee, I can tell you that is closer to the truth than you might think. Sure, it's not like New York, but for a city with a population of ~650,000 and a metro area of ~1,000,000 we have quite a prolific graffiti community. There's one in particular named NCR who has tagged various large items (like signs and buildings) within a 15 mile radius of downtown. He makes sure you can still see the tag if you're severely near-sighted.
They've tried the mural-type projects with varying success. I don't know if this idea will fly, but hey, its better than nothing.
--
Isn't that kind of like saying "stealing a Playstation 2 from Toys R Us shouldn't be a misdemeanor. Toys R Us should just sue every shoplifter."
:)
It is just as easy to protect against "real world" theft as it is "virtual" theft. Security cameras, secret shoppers, employee training, and theft tags: the "real world" equivalent of firewalls, IDS, honeypots...
Shoplifting these days is a lot harder than it used to be. Just like with computer security, though, any system can be cracked, real or vitual. Theft is theft, and companies have relied on the law to help when their own systems fail. The same should apply in cases like this.
West didn't "intend" as in pre-meditated, but when the opportunity magically presented itself, he went for it. If you see that the owner of a store accidentally forgot to lock the deadbolt on the front door, does that mean it's ok to go inside a take a few things, hide them, and then call the police? Sure, the owner was a dolt, but that doesn't excuse stealing.
Then again, maybe all that Catholic school education has gotten to me
My boss (Windows NT admin) and I were just discussing MySQL. We're running a number of small databases with Oracle on NT (with a University License), but we started talking about MySQL when I mentioned Slashdot was powered by it. Our web server and my workstation are Linux in NT land, and I try to plug Linux wherever I can. My boss is even learning Perl so he can code for our web server.
He liked MySQL until he heard that it couldn't do two things: stored procedures and subselects. He said "I don't see how it could be useful without those things." All of the database apps he's ever written use those.
It's great to see stored procedures being implemented. It would be even better if/when subselects are implemented. I could make a stronger case for moving some things over.
Any chance of it happening?
When you get to Sandburg you'll need to stop by the main desk and ask for a Network Use Agreement (NUA). Read and fill out that agreement and drop it off at the main desk, along with your $25 network access fee. That fee is one-time only, and covers installation, 10mbps network access, and a patch cable to get connected. Any other hardware is your responsibility.
You'll basically need to set up your box (Mac, Windows, or Linux) with an Ethernet card, TCP/IP and DHCP. If you're not familiar with the setup, you can bring your machine to our office and we'll set it up for you as part of the fee. When you get your computer up to your room, plug it in and start it up. When you get to a desktop start a browser. You'll see the registration page at this point. Fill out the registration page with your UWM email and password, your student ID number, and your receipt number from the NUA (if you registered within a few days).
Once you submit the form you'll have to reboot (yes, even on Linux) and then you should have Internet access. If at any point you run into a problem you can't resolve, you can call us at x4606 or stop down at our office in the Commons and we'll help you any way we can.
--
What's lame is working with the game developers via email to track down the cause of underground cheats only to have a major hardware distributor legitimize cheating in online gaming.
What's lame is playing a game in my free time, which I have little of, to gain some skill only to have that negated by some 14 year old l33t d00d who can move faster/jump higher/see me before I can see them.
What's lame is Asus trying to sell a product, not because of it's technical merits, but because it lets you do something that was never intended by the game's developers.
I didn't put time and money into something only to have Asus ruin it for me. I, and scores of other server admins, have worked with the developers at Valve software to thwart the speed cheats, the server-crashing scripts, the invisibility hacks, the unbanning tools, and who knows what else for Counter Strike/Team Fortress Classic/Half-Life. I want my server to be fun and enjoyable for everyone who plays there. Why is that lame, Rob?
--
--
--
I remember high-school to be just as hectic as college, with the addition of the hormonal upheaval caused by adolescence. How do you find time to write code? How do you think it has affected your lifestyle (compared to your non-geek peers)?
--
According to Ace's hardware, AMD has announced the 760 chipset. A variant soon to follow, the 760MP, will have SMP support. All the AMD reps will say is that these chipsets are due in the second half of this year (thanks for narrowing it down). Tyan supposedly has a motherboard planned to be released before the new year that will have dual Athlon support. Head over to Ace's Hardware and search for "760MP".
My only issue is that this will allow two processors. We just got a server here at work with quad Pentium III Xeon 550MHz. Wow. I want that for my Athlon system.
I hope that in a year or two MandrakeSoft will be a major Open Source player. So far they proven to me that they are moving in the right direction.
--
Mike
Hey, life sucks, get a helmet. ;)
A few days ago everyone was decrying the DMCA for being a bunch of crap designed to solely benefit big greedy corporations. Now the Clinton administration states that existing laws are sufficient, and THIS is a bunch of crap done for the businesses.
Ok, I'll buy that. No new intervention is better than some bad intervention. I guess I was a little pessimistic, but I've listened to people like Al Gore for way too long stick their nose in and take credit for things they're not involved in. US government is really good for that. Every opportunity to stick a law or regulation into something like the internet is not taken lightly. The fact that this report goes against that is something to be happy about.
Take pride, Wraithlyn, it's not too often someone can change my mind like that. :)
--
No. It's just funny to see this show of farce, I mean force, by the DOJ. They are basically saying that they will use existing laws to punish crackers. Fine. My point is that if my house is broken into the local police will investigate even minimal damage/loss (I know cuz it happened, I lost $70 to a burglar who threatened to shoot my brother who caught him in the act even though he didn't have a gun). If my computer is cracked into nothing will happen. This report is merely hot air, unless your computer/data is worth $40,000+ and then it means someone might care. It doesn't mean that they can do anything about it.
It is not an unreasonable idea to try to apply the existing laws
Sure, if it involves an US server being cracked by a US citizen. Outside of that, what will happen? Nothing. The foreign government has to cooperate with US authorities. Do you think that will happen in places like Russia or the Middle East? Did they catch that guy who stole the database of credit card numbers? They know who he is... Why won't they do anything? Because they can't. He's in Russia (I think). Unless someone else knows different, in which case I'll stand humbly
a problem to which existing laws ... already apply.
This isn't legislation. This was a report designed to make Americans feel better about what is being done about crackers. Maybe they don't realize it, but all it will do is lull corporate America into believing that they are protected.
This is another example of legislators who think that the Internet doesn't stretch beyond our borders. Sure we invented it, but it's way too late to try and control it. The emphasis should be on educating Sys Admins on how to secure their network better rather than telling them they can rely on the DOJ to handle problems after the fact.
--
What I'd like to know is what would happen if I set up a server running Linux on an IP from my ISP and it is cracked into. Will Janet Reno and her crack crew of lawyers spring into action for me? Doubtful.
Michael Danicich
That's funny. My university uses SLIRP to maintain dialin access for the entire campus. About a thousand modems all run through SLIRP on three DEC Alpha servers. The only problem is that their student help desk has no clue how to help people set it up or diagnose problems with it.
For us, it's not a bandwidth issue. We have plenty of that. The reason we ban servers is that we receive weekly threats from the RIAA telling us to shut down IP's in the dorms. Since the state of Wisconsin doesn't want to take sides in the issue we comply. Basically the state doesn't want the liability associated with students running unmoderated servers.
Every student is given 10Mb free space on the university web server, free unix shell email, and free ftp access to their own account with a 25MB quota. Students may post anything they wish as long as it isn't profitable to them or it doesn't violate any local, state or federal regulation. There is no reason to run a server.
We also shut down connections for any student caught scanning networks and looking for holes.
The students sign an agreement to this effect before we turn on their port and 99% of violators admit they knew what they were doing is wrong. Besides, I wouldn't complain too much if I had a dedicated 10Mb/s connection for a one time fee of $25.