you people are testing what we expect to sell as 'enterprise' for a premium later on
If you want to download RHEL for free, get CentOS. Identical to RHEL, but free. And, from what I hear, RedHat doesn't mind CentOS' existence.
The issue with Ubuntu is that it's buggy as hell. RedHat at least admits that Fedora Core is an open beta; Ubuntu 8.10 is an open beta but Ubuntu didn't inform me of this fact.
I've had enough of Ubuntu's bugs. I'm going back to Fedora Core.
My issue with Ubuntu is that it's buggy as hell. I've been using Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit for a month and it's been one headache after another headache. I have written about some of my issues on my blog.
I am going to go back to Redhat. The difference between Ubuntu and Fedora Core is that RedHat admits that Fedora Core is an open beta. If you don't want a beta, you can get RHEL for free as CentOS.
the vendor will tell me to go fuck myself when something does not work
Canonical will tell you the same thing if you do a sudo apt-get for anything not on the short list of packages they support.
Anyway, you're reframing the issue. At first you were complaining that RedHat sucks because there aren't that many RPMs out there; I gave you several solutions to this issue. Now you're shifting the subject and saying that the issue is that there aren't that many supported applications for RedHat.
My issue with Ubuntu is that they release a beta but call it "stable". I don't want to be a beta tester of broken software. I want software that works. This is why I like CentOS; it works as long as I'm using compatible hardware (cue my rant of how it's a pain to backport new drivers to older kernels).
I don't know why Ubuntu users are scared by this simple process. It gives you a more updated version of the software package in question. Yeah, there's a bunch of sudo apt-getwhatever-dev, but you know, if you can't compile a program, perhaps you should go back to Windows.
Ubuntu has been a royal headache for me that makes me run to the Linux Haters blog; I was wondering if other people who have had issues with Ubuntu (here are the issues I have had) have had a better experience with Fedora/CentOS/whatever (I like RedHat distributsion more than Ubuntu; sudo is for wimps; real mean use "su").
Oh, I can rant about Windows too. My biggest issue with Windows is security; Micorsoft had no business having Windows XP run autorun.inf without thinking from removable writable media; this is one of the most common vectors for moving viruses from computer to computer.
Yes, it can be turned off but requires register voodoo so arcane even Microsoft's own security bulletins get it wrong at times.
I also don't like the way the system, over time takes longer and longer and longer to start up after logging in. My old system originally could start up right away after logging in; after a year and a half of bit rot, it took about three minutes after logging in before I could actually do any work in Windows XP.
So yes, Windows has a lot of issues too. And, yes, I think I will try out Mandrivia and Fedora Core and CentOS 5.3 when it comes out and maybe even Mepis. The nice thing about Linux is that there is choice, and maybe there is a desktop distribution that won't need a bunch of band-aids before being a desktop I can do my work on.
For the record, I am no fan of DJB. I feel he has acted unprofessional and childlike at time; his response to an announcement of my DNS server on Bugtraq being just one example of his inappropriate behavior. But, personal differences aside, I recognize he's a genius and that he's the original discoverer of this particular DNS issue.
(I also wish DJB would own up to the remote denial of service bug DjbDNS has, but that's another issue)
My frustration is with people thinking that Windows is more dominant only because it's what users are comfortable with or because of close file formats. No, I'm sorry, Linux is not ready for the desktop. It's getting closer; for the end user where we're at now is a lot better than in 1995 when FVWM was the main desktop.
But, still, the code seems to be in a perpetual state of being beta-quality. The quality of Linux is like a really early beta of Windows 95. A lot of programs don't work correctly or have issues with crashing. On a stock Ubuntu install.
I mean, if Gnome Baker is so much better than Brasero, than why does Ubuntu use Brasero instead of Gnome Baker? There really needs to be more quality control here.
I simple don't understand why Ubuntu is so popular. It's been a massive headache for me. I've mentioned a lot of my issues on my blog and one poster points out I might be better off with Mepis or Fedora Core.
I think I will give Fedora core a chance; the nice thing about Fedora core is every few years, RedHat takes this software and makes an ultra-stable version of it that's supported for seven years (thay last did this with Fedora Core 6 around 2006-2007 and should be making RHEL 6 from Fedora core 10 or 11 late this year or early next year), which can be freely downloaded as CentOS.
Right now, Gnome is the desktop of choice since KDE basically threw out all of their work in the KDE3->KDE4 transition. Hopefully, once Nokia LGPLs Qt we will see the KDE developers calm down and make something that's stable and supported for the long-term.
But, yes Ubuntu makes me want to run to the Linux hater's blog. Thankfully, it's easy for me to switch OSes; I do all of my real work in VMware virtual machines and it's a simple matter of backing up and restoring my virtual machines to a new OS, whether it be Linux or Windows.
My only issues with Linux are it being a desktop OS. It's an excellent server OS, especially if one uses RHEL or CentOS (Maybe CentOS 5.3 will work with all of my hardware, which would be nice since then I won't have to reinstall until early 2014)
Thanks for taking the time to reply to me and for the suggestion. I have just removed Brasero and installed Gnome Baker. We'll see if this works any better.
There was, once upon a time a perfectly useful desktop, KDE3. Then came KDE4, which was a complete rewrite.
Well, actually, it's an incomplete rewrite. KDE4 doesn't have basic functionality you would expect a desktop environment to have, such as a GUI tool for configuring the network. KDE3 had one, but they never bother to write one for KDE4.
Gnome has issues too, such as a CD burner that doesn't create correct Windows-compatible long file names (Brasero), a screensaver that likes to crash, resulting in having all applications close and having to log in again, among other issues.
Linux is not ready for the desktop (all of these examples come from Ubuntu 8.10, which in a moment of foolishness installed on my system and am still using)
It is my feeling that the Wikipedia is getting better. The community has put rules and procedures in place that make the place more pleasant to edit. In the mid-2000s, there were some issues where people could edit their own biography, and people could be obnoxious, flame and stalk other editors.
Since then, policies and procedures have been put in place. You can no longer get in to edits wars without [[WP:3RR]] stopping you. You can no longer belittle editors who disagree with you without getting blocked for [[WP:NPA]]. You can no longer edit the article about your small open-source project without getting slapped for [[WP:COI]]
Yes, these policies are not perfect, and yes a lot of articles still have unverified claims, and yes, like any democracy, it sometimes takes time and insanely excessive discussion to get to consensus. But the process on Wiki works and the new policies minimize the problems with articles. Did I mention that it's against Wikipedia policy to control articles on the Wiki, as per [[WP:OWNERSHIP]]
I've been digging around to find a good CentOS 5.2 VMware image. There are four (OK, five since Linhost.info has both a desktop and server VMware image of CentOS 5.2) available on the web:
Thought Police. Lousy image; the VMware tools aren't installed so there are issues like the clock being incorrect and not being able to seamlessly go from your desktop to the image and back again, nor the ability to dynamically resize the desktop.
Bagside has a really nice CentOS 5.2 VMware image. In addition to haveing all of the VMware tools installed, it also has its own unique Bagside default theme which looks nice. If the theme annoys you, it can be changed. Also, the image is a bit large (nearly a gig)
VM planet has some nice VMware images, which I haven't had a chance to try out yet.
Note that hosting VMware images is expensive, so if you use an image and really like it, it's polite to make a small donation to offset their large hosting and bandwidth costs.
OK, let's stop right there. This is a classic advocate (should I say "fanboy") argument: Blame the victim for usability problems with {software advocated}.
If someone says they're having problems using a piece of software, telling them they're an idiot may make you feel nice and smug and keep you in your pattern of denial that {software being advocated} doesn't have any problems, but doesn't do anything to encourage other people to use {software advocated}.
Linux has serious desktop usability problems. This is why almost no one buys Dells with Linux pre-installed. These issues will not get resolved by telling people who have issues with Linux that they are airheads.
Mr. Montalban was probably the most significant Latino in Star Trek. It's very interesting; in the original Star Trek, when we had all of this racial integration: Uhura being a significant black person, Sulu being a significant Asian, Chekov being a significant Russian, etc. However, the only real latino we had in Star Trek was Mr. Montalban, who was the antagonist in both Space Seed and its sequel, The Wrath of Kahn.
I remember, when The Wrath of Kahn came out, watching an interview with Mr. Montalban. He talked about how his success as an actor (he also had the very famous role as Mr. Roarke in Fantasy Island) made his role one of the first really successful Latino roles in Hollywood (There was also, before him, Desi Arnaz in I Love Lucy, whose success resulted in Desilu Productions who later on produced Star Trek). Of course, with such beautiful Latinas as Jessica Alba, Christina Aguilera, and Jennifer Lopez on the silver screen today, nobody thinks twice about a Latino having a title role, but it wasn't always that way.
yeah, there are liberals who believe that kind of nonsense, but I haven't seen that kind of nonsense on Daily KOS, which is roughly the liberal equivalent of World Net Daily.
I don't mind well-formed conservative arguments; John Ringo, for example, is a writer who is quite conservative but who I greatly enjoy reading.
My issue is that a pretty mainstream conservative site is giving us "OMG, Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii" nonsense. Or, likewise, the mainstream conservative news network (Fox news, or should I say, "Faux News") gave us "Obama is a Muslim" nonsense and doesn't apologize for their gross errors of fact.
When a non-conservative news source uses questionable or false information, heads roll (Dan Rather had to step down for a report based on information later discovered to be questionable). I would like to see conservative news sources held to the same level of accountability for correctly presenting facts. Until then, I simply can not trust a conservative source to give me accurate information.
I spent a few hours the other day looking over all of the submissions; Keccak and Skein are my favorite contributions. My criteria was "does the hash generate a fixed-length output, or is the hash capable of also being used as a stream cipher".
There are only four unbroken contributions that can generate arbitrarily long streams of numbers: Keccak, LUX, MeshHash, and Skein. Of these contributions, LUX and MeshHash, while not broken, already have cryptanalysis done against them that make me a little uneasy using them.
I prefer Keccak over Skein, for the simple reason there is a bonda-fide 32-bit variant of Keccak that can run quickly on 32-bit systems. Skein is designed to run well only on 64-bit systems. Part 5.4 of the Skein paper talks about the possibility of making a 32-bit variant of Skein but that they need to come up with rotation and permutation constants, and figure out how many rounds a 32-bit Skein variant would need. I would like to see Schneier, et al (the team responsible for Skein) actually do this. Skein is more flexible that Keccak (I think threefish is the first tweakable block cipher since the somewhat broken Hasty Pudding Cipher), and is faster on 64-bit systems, but I would like to see it run on embedded and legacy systems better.
I understand the new Battlestar Galactica series is a reboot of the original series. That said, as I understand it, the new series has shown critters that look like the original 1970s series Cylons, saying they were an "older model" of the Cylons.
Now that we are in the past of the series, I wonder if we will get to see more of these Cylons that are faithful to the original series, and whether scenes like the destruction of the planet will be like the pilot to the original series.
DNSsec, obviously, is the solution. The problem is the same problem with IPv6: The old way of doing things are so entrenched that it's very hard to make the transition. The other problem is that we're still trying to figure out how to do it correctly; the last time I looked over the specs, DNSsec allowed you to have it so the signing machine didn't have to be online, made it difficult to forge NXDOMAINs ("This host does not exist" DNS messages), but made it trivial to list all of the hosts in a given domain.
As a implementer of a somewhat obscure Open-source DNS server, from where I stand I don't like DNSsec, mainly because it's a pain to implement (Don't even get me started on the mess that is the BIND zonefile format; there's a reason DJB was too lazy to implement BIND zonefiles at all).
But, yes, considering the number of programs that actually trust a DNS packet (web browsers, cough cough), we need to make these packets secure.
- Sam
I'm no crypto guru, but I have read Schneier's Applied Cryptography and have read various papers describing cryptographic primitives. Looking at the blog entry (yes, I do read Slashdot for its articles), the paper hasn't been published yet. We don't know, at this point, whether this is a theoretical attack or a practical attack.
It doesn't affect AES; it may or may not affect RC4, which is pretty widely used. What it appears to affect is Radio Gatun, a nice, fairly new construction that can either be a hash or stream cipher, taking a key of any length. Radio Gatun is nice because its core can fit in under 2k of memory and it's an elegant, extensible construction.
However, scanning the paper describing the function, I note the quote "It has algebraic degree 2" on page 10. So it looks like a nice, small elegant cryptographic primitive has fallen.
This has been brought up before. Basically, movies are cheaper because a movie makes a good deal of its money from a theatrical release. CDs don't have the equivalent of a theatrical release, so they have to cost more.
Slashdot Mirror
you people are testing what we expect to sell as 'enterprise' for a premium later on
If you want to download RHEL for free, get CentOS. Identical to RHEL, but free. And, from what I hear, RedHat doesn't mind CentOS' existence.
The issue with Ubuntu is that it's buggy as hell. RedHat at least admits that Fedora Core is an open beta; Ubuntu 8.10 is an open beta but Ubuntu didn't inform me of this fact.
I've had enough of Ubuntu's bugs. I'm going back to Fedora Core.
My issue with Ubuntu is that it's buggy as hell. I've been using Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit for a month and it's been one headache after another headache. I have written about some of my issues on my blog.
I am going to go back to Redhat. The difference between Ubuntu and Fedora Core is that RedHat admits that Fedora Core is an open beta. If you don't want a beta, you can get RHEL for free as CentOS.
the vendor will tell me to go fuck myself when something does not work
Canonical will tell you the same thing if you do a sudo apt-get for anything not on the short list of packages they support.
Anyway, you're reframing the issue. At first you were complaining that RedHat sucks because there aren't that many RPMs out there; I gave you several solutions to this issue. Now you're shifting the subject and saying that the issue is that there aren't that many supported applications for RedHat.
- Sam
You only have to compile on one machine. After that, I can think, off the top of my head, of two options:
rsync
scp (Make sure you don't encrypt your key on a secure machine so you can run this in a script without having to type in your passphrase every time)
Or, if that bothers you, you can either roll your own RPM or use one of the various repositories out there on the net.
My issue with Ubuntu is that they release a beta but call it "stable". I don't want to be a beta tester of broken software. I want software that works. This is why I like CentOS; it works as long as I'm using compatible hardware (cue my rant of how it's a pain to backport new drivers to older kernels).
I don't know why Ubuntu users are scared by this simple process. It gives you a more updated version of the software package in question. Yeah, there's a bunch of sudo apt-get whatever-dev, but you know, if you can't compile a program, perhaps you should go back to Windows.
Does CentOS or Fedora core work on these things?
Ubuntu has been a royal headache for me that makes me run to the Linux Haters blog; I was wondering if other people who have had issues with Ubuntu (here are the issues I have had) have had a better experience with Fedora/CentOS/whatever (I like RedHat distributsion more than Ubuntu; sudo is for wimps; real mean use "su").
- Sam
Oh, I can rant about Windows too. My biggest issue with Windows is security; Micorsoft had no business having Windows XP run autorun.inf without thinking from removable writable media; this is one of the most common vectors for moving viruses from computer to computer.
Yes, it can be turned off but requires register voodoo so arcane even Microsoft's own security bulletins get it wrong at times.
I also don't like the way the system, over time takes longer and longer and longer to start up after logging in. My old system originally could start up right away after logging in; after a year and a half of bit rot, it took about three minutes after logging in before I could actually do any work in Windows XP.
So yes, Windows has a lot of issues too. And, yes, I think I will try out Mandrivia and Fedora Core and CentOS 5.3 when it comes out and maybe even Mepis. The nice thing about Linux is that there is choice, and maybe there is a desktop distribution that won't need a bunch of band-aids before being a desktop I can do my work on.
I started to RTFA when something caught my eye: "his discovery of a significant DNS flaw -- known as the Kaminsky Bug"
Except Kaminsky wasn't the original discoverer of this bug (or the workaround). Dr. Bernstein is. Dr. Bernstein discusses hte Kaminsky bug here; that page has been around since about late 2000.
For the record, I am no fan of DJB. I feel he has acted unprofessional and childlike at time; his response to an announcement of my DNS server on Bugtraq being just one example of his inappropriate behavior. But, personal differences aside, I recognize he's a genius and that he's the original discoverer of this particular DNS issue.
(I also wish DJB would own up to the remote denial of service bug DjbDNS has, but that's another issue)
My frustration is with people thinking that Windows is more dominant only because it's what users are comfortable with or because of close file formats. No, I'm sorry, Linux is not ready for the desktop. It's getting closer; for the end user where we're at now is a lot better than in 1995 when FVWM was the main desktop.
But, still, the code seems to be in a perpetual state of being beta-quality. The quality of Linux is like a really early beta of Windows 95. A lot of programs don't work correctly or have issues with crashing. On a stock Ubuntu install.
I mean, if Gnome Baker is so much better than Brasero, than why does Ubuntu use Brasero instead of Gnome Baker? There really needs to be more quality control here.
I simple don't understand why Ubuntu is so popular. It's been a massive headache for me. I've mentioned a lot of my issues on my blog and one poster points out I might be better off with Mepis or Fedora Core.
I think I will give Fedora core a chance; the nice thing about Fedora core is every few years, RedHat takes this software and makes an ultra-stable version of it that's supported for seven years (thay last did this with Fedora Core 6 around 2006-2007 and should be making RHEL 6 from Fedora core 10 or 11 late this year or early next year), which can be freely downloaded as CentOS.
Right now, Gnome is the desktop of choice since KDE basically threw out all of their work in the KDE3->KDE4 transition. Hopefully, once Nokia LGPLs Qt we will see the KDE developers calm down and make something that's stable and supported for the long-term.
But, yes Ubuntu makes me want to run to the Linux hater's blog. Thankfully, it's easy for me to switch OSes; I do all of my real work in VMware virtual machines and it's a simple matter of backing up and restoring my virtual machines to a new OS, whether it be Linux or Windows.
My only issues with Linux are it being a desktop OS. It's an excellent server OS, especially if one uses RHEL or CentOS (Maybe CentOS 5.3 will work with all of my hardware, which would be nice since then I won't have to reinstall until early 2014)
Thanks for taking the time to reply to me and for the suggestion. I have just removed Brasero and installed Gnome Baker. We'll see if this works any better.
There was, once upon a time a perfectly useful desktop, KDE3. Then came KDE4, which was a complete rewrite.
Well, actually, it's an incomplete rewrite. KDE4 doesn't have basic functionality you would expect a desktop environment to have, such as a GUI tool for configuring the network. KDE3 had one, but they never bother to write one for KDE4.
Gnome has issues too, such as a CD burner that doesn't create correct Windows-compatible long file names (Brasero), a screensaver that likes to crash, resulting in having all applications close and having to log in again, among other issues.
Linux is not ready for the desktop (all of these examples come from Ubuntu 8.10, which in a moment of foolishness installed on my system and am still using)
It is my feeling that the Wikipedia is getting better. The community has put rules and procedures in place that make the place more pleasant to edit. In the mid-2000s, there were some issues where people could edit their own biography, and people could be obnoxious, flame and stalk other editors.
Since then, policies and procedures have been put in place. You can no longer get in to edits wars without [[WP:3RR]] stopping you. You can no longer belittle editors who disagree with you without getting blocked for [[WP:NPA]]. You can no longer edit the article about your small open-source project without getting slapped for [[WP:COI]]
Yes, these policies are not perfect, and yes a lot of articles still have unverified claims, and yes, like any democracy, it sometimes takes time and insanely excessive discussion to get to consensus. But the process on Wiki works and the new policies minimize the problems with articles. Did I mention that it's against Wikipedia policy to control articles on the Wiki, as per [[WP:OWNERSHIP]]
I've been digging around to find a good CentOS 5.2 VMware image. There are four (OK, five since Linhost.info has both a desktop and server VMware image of CentOS 5.2) available on the web:
Note that hosting VMware images is expensive, so if you use an image and really like it, it's polite to make a small donation to offset their large hosting and bandwidth costs.
The woman is an airhead.
OK, let's stop right there. This is a classic advocate (should I say "fanboy") argument: Blame the victim for usability problems with {software advocated}.
If someone says they're having problems using a piece of software, telling them they're an idiot may make you feel nice and smug and keep you in your pattern of denial that {software being advocated} doesn't have any problems, but doesn't do anything to encourage other people to use {software advocated}.
Linux has serious desktop usability problems. This is why almost no one buys Dells with Linux pre-installed. These issues will not get resolved by telling people who have issues with Linux that they are airheads.
Mr. Montalban was probably the most significant Latino in Star Trek. It's very interesting; in the original Star Trek, when we had all of this racial integration: Uhura being a significant black person, Sulu being a significant Asian, Chekov being a significant Russian, etc. However, the only real latino we had in Star Trek was Mr. Montalban, who was the antagonist in both Space Seed and its sequel, The Wrath of Kahn.
I remember, when The Wrath of Kahn came out, watching an interview with Mr. Montalban. He talked about how his success as an actor (he also had the very famous role as Mr. Roarke in Fantasy Island) made his role one of the first really successful Latino roles in Hollywood (There was also, before him, Desi Arnaz in I Love Lucy, whose success resulted in Desilu Productions who later on produced Star Trek). Of course, with such beautiful Latinas as Jessica Alba, Christina Aguilera, and Jennifer Lopez on the silver screen today, nobody thinks twice about a Latino having a title role, but it wasn't always that way.
yeah, there are liberals who believe that kind of nonsense, but I haven't seen that kind of nonsense on Daily KOS, which is roughly the liberal equivalent of World Net Daily.
I don't mind well-formed conservative arguments; John Ringo, for example, is a writer who is quite conservative but who I greatly enjoy reading.
My issue is that a pretty mainstream conservative site is giving us "OMG, Obama wasn't really born in Hawaii" nonsense. Or, likewise, the mainstream conservative news network (Fox news, or should I say, "Faux News") gave us "Obama is a Muslim" nonsense and doesn't apologize for their gross errors of fact.
When a non-conservative news source uses questionable or false information, heads roll (Dan Rather had to step down for a report based on information later discovered to be questionable). I would like to see conservative news sources held to the same level of accountability for correctly presenting facts. Until then, I simply can not trust a conservative source to give me accurate information.
Fox Mulder forever!
There is, sadly, a lot of truth to the statement that conservatives are more likely to fall for conspiracy theories. There is iron-clad proof that Obama's birth certificate is real; despite this, conservative news sites still continue to believe "Obama's birth certificate is fake" conspiracy theories.
I spent a few hours the other day looking over all of the submissions; Keccak and Skein are my favorite contributions. My criteria was "does the hash generate a fixed-length output, or is the hash capable of also being used as a stream cipher".
There are only four unbroken contributions that can generate arbitrarily long streams of numbers: Keccak, LUX, MeshHash, and Skein. Of these contributions, LUX and MeshHash, while not broken, already have cryptanalysis done against them that make me a little uneasy using them.
I prefer Keccak over Skein, for the simple reason there is a bonda-fide 32-bit variant of Keccak that can run quickly on 32-bit systems. Skein is designed to run well only on 64-bit systems. Part 5.4 of the Skein paper talks about the possibility of making a 32-bit variant of Skein but that they need to come up with rotation and permutation constants, and figure out how many rounds a 32-bit Skein variant would need. I would like to see Schneier, et al (the team responsible for Skein) actually do this. Skein is more flexible that Keccak (I think threefish is the first tweakable block cipher since the somewhat broken Hasty Pudding Cipher), and is faster on 64-bit systems, but I would like to see it run on embedded and legacy systems better.
Now that we are in the past of the series, I wonder if we will get to see more of these Cylons that are faithful to the original series, and whether scenes like the destruction of the planet will be like the pilot to the original series.
DNSsec, obviously, is the solution. The problem is the same problem with IPv6: The old way of doing things are so entrenched that it's very hard to make the transition. The other problem is that we're still trying to figure out how to do it correctly; the last time I looked over the specs, DNSsec allowed you to have it so the signing machine didn't have to be online, made it difficult to forge NXDOMAINs ("This host does not exist" DNS messages), but made it trivial to list all of the hosts in a given domain. As a implementer of a somewhat obscure Open-source DNS server, from where I stand I don't like DNSsec, mainly because it's a pain to implement (Don't even get me started on the mess that is the BIND zonefile format; there's a reason DJB was too lazy to implement BIND zonefiles at all). But, yes, considering the number of programs that actually trust a DNS packet (web browsers, cough cough), we need to make these packets secure. - Sam
It has long been rumoured that Apple makes its money from iPods not iTunes.
If Apple wasn't making money on it, why did Amazon start their mp3s for sale service? Major labels too.
Perhaps you can explain how Amazon can have their mp3 purchase service. Check it out at amazon.com; mp3s without DRM, major label bands.
It won't affect Carbon dating, because of dendrochronlogy. And, oh the usual creationist objections to dendrochronlogy have been refuted.
I'm no crypto guru, but I have read Schneier's Applied Cryptography and have read various papers describing cryptographic primitives. Looking at the blog entry (yes, I do read Slashdot for its articles), the paper hasn't been published yet. We don't know, at this point, whether this is a theoretical attack or a practical attack.
It doesn't affect AES; it may or may not affect RC4, which is pretty widely used. What it appears to affect is Radio Gatun, a nice, fairly new construction that can either be a hash or stream cipher, taking a key of any length. Radio Gatun is nice because its core can fit in under 2k of memory and it's an elegant, extensible construction.
However, scanning the paper describing the function, I note the quote "It has algebraic degree 2" on page 10. So it looks like a nice, small elegant cryptographic primitive has fallen.
This has been brought up before. Basically, movies are cheaper because a movie makes a good deal of its money from a theatrical release. CDs don't have the equivalent of a theatrical release, so they have to cost more.
A web browser using Python for client-side scripting? It's been done