In other words, before you decide to make a "scathing" post that you plan on getting modded "Insightful," it might be a Good Thing to check up on your facts beforehand.
Actually, I was trying for "light sarcasm" rather than "scathing", and although lacking anything as grandiose as an actual "plan", my thought was that I might pick up a +1 Funny. Unfortunately, so far only one moderator has picked up on the absurd watermelon comparison and the South Park "Chewbacca Defense" catchphrase about the silly monkey.
For the remaining moderators, who have assigned everything from Insightful to Interesting to Flamebait, I can only assume that either (a) my watermelon and monkey references were far too subtle, or (b) they didn't read more than the first line or two of my post, and moderated based on their own pro-/anti-nuclear biases. Personally, I'm voting for (b) as the explanation.
Frankly, I'm as disappointed as you are about my post currently showing an "Insightful" rating. If it makes you feel any better, it went through several periods where it was "Flamebait". I could certainly see the Flamebait mods, although I think Overrated would've been a more suitable response. (I.e., first moderator gave a +1 Funny, and others might not have agreed that watermelons and monkeys were humorous.) I truly don't understand the Insightful and Interesting mods. But after all, this is Slashdot.;-)
I fear that you also missed the attempted humor in my post, but otherwise I thought you put together a good summary of the postive points of the vitrification treatment process. (Yes, I'm aware of the Savannah River Site.) Don't interpret my previous post as an anti-nuke stance -- it was supposed to be poking fun of the parent post describing nuclear energy as "clean". I'm not rabidly anti-nuclear, but "clean" is not the word I'd use for describing a power source that produces material that remains toxic to humans for millenia.
Vitrification does indeed look far more promising than previous storage methods. One should keep in mind that researchers are still working on ways to assess its long-term stability. One of the tests that Savannah has been conducting is the straight-forward approach of burying test samples, then digging them back up at various intervals for evaluation. IIRC, they recently completed a review of some 16-year samples earlier this year, and the tests confirmed that the samples were still stable. (Possibly this was late last year -- I'm pretty sure that Savannah started the burial test/evaluation study in 1986, which should place the 16-year review in 2002 rather than 2003.)
The tricky part with radioactive waste containment evaluations is trying to extrapolate the preliminary results over the lifetime of the hazardous material -- millenia, for the longest-lived waste products. This leads to what I personally find to be one of the more interesting aspects of vitrification research, which is collaboration between the vitrification researchers and archeologists. The idea is that by studying glass artifacts, we might be able to figure out why some types of glass appear to be incredibly resistent to change (essentially unaltered after something like 4-5 millenia), while other types of glass fall victim to chemical alterations and become susceptible to leaching over time. The thought is that if we can identify elements of composition, manufacturing, and/or environment that are specific to glass with long-term stability (or at least find and avoid things that result in near-term instability), then this information could be applied to the nuclear waste vitrification process. I think research like this -- trying to create materials that can remain stable for thousands of years -- is simply fascinating.
The hope is that vitrification has produced a glass-like material that will have long-term stability and be extremely resistant to leaching. And testing thus far is indeed looking positive.
So is THAT what they call it these days? You sicko!
Don't worry -- he'll get his just rewards. Studies have shown that virtually all self-described "12 year old girls" in the file-sharing services are actually grizzled 65-year old ex-FBI agents trying to run sting operations for the RIAA.
Helpful tip folks: if your new file-sharing "friend" starts talking about how she really really likes Perry Como and wants to know if you've got any of his songs to trade -- RUN!
[is there] still (somehow) enough interest out there to him to milk...?
My first thought, being a long-time Breathed fan, was to reply with "Milk me, Berkeley Breathed, milk me with everything you've got!"
Yet somehow, despite being a perfectly valid response on a syntactic level, I can't help thinking that I'd be violating at least half a dozen indecency laws...;-)
The only way spamming will significantly reduce, is when each e-mail has to be paid for. Say 1c postage for sending an e-mail. I would have no problem paying the $10 for the 1000 e-mails I send a year. A spammer would need to pay this amount every millisecond of sending spam.
I see this idea pop up every time the topic of spam reduction comes up, but I'm a wee bit fuzzy on how it would actually work. Perhaps an "email postage stamp" proponent could clear up some of the areas that seem unclear to me:
How are these fees going to be assessed and collected? Does all email in the world pass through a central government clearing house? Which government should maintain this site? Or do we establish an international oversight committee, along the lines of ICANN? (Hopefully with better accountability than ICANN.;-)
Do you have to pay for each message prior to sending it, or afterwards? It might be a little difficult to collect if payment comes after the mail is sent -- spammers are presumably smart enough to provide falsified contact information.
How do you pay? Automatic billing to your credit card? (And will having a credit card become a prerequisite for sending email?) International credit card fraud is already enough of a problem that some companies refuse to accept credit card payment from certain overseas regions/countries. And I suspect that spammers would have no qualms about using falsified credit card info.
At what level are the fees assessed? Do I pay when I send my email to my ISP's SMTP server? And do they pay again when they relay my message to its destination? (I'm particularly thinking in terms of mailing lists -- I send one message, the list-serv forwards it to hundreds of other people.)
If my non-spam mail never reaches its destination -- maybe the sysop on the destination server uses a black-listing service that includes my domain, or their server is down, or the recipient's mailbox is full, etc -- do I get my postage refunded?
What happens to all this money being collected? With snail-mail postage, the money goes to the postal organization delivering the mail. If I run my own SMTP server (either as an individual or as a large company/ISP/etc), do I get some of this money back? Or do all the fees go to the government/committee running the centralized billing/processing servers?
If someone believes they've been incorrectly billed for email they never sent, can they dispute the charges? Do they have to pay the bill first and wait for their case to come up, or are the charges suspended until the case is reviewed is six/twelve/whatever months?
What exactly constitutes proof that mail was or wasn't sent by somone? Who has the burden of proof? (I.e., are you innocent until proven guilty, or vice versa?)
If Joe Sixpack's home machine is cracked and used as a spam relay for a week (viruses and trojans and worms, oh my!), are they stuck paying thousands of dollars in email postage? Can they appeal for a "reduced sentence" since they weren't intentionally spamming? Will there be "mass amnesties" granted for the next Melissa/SoBig/etc outbreak, where thousands of people become temporary spammers? Or are these events just wonderful windfalls where buckets of cash pile into the email postage agency's coffers?
Folks, pay no attention to the radioactive waste. Nothing to see here.
clean
We repeat: Pay no attention to the radioactive waste. Move along...
power. There is the issue of disposing nuclear waste,
Folks...errr...we might need to slightly modify our previous "emission-free, clean" statements. The statements are still true, but for a slightly smaller value of "true" than we'd used originally.
but I'm confident that issue will also be dealt with as technology advances.
All right folks, we'll level with you. There are a few by-products that are created by our nuclear power plants, and they're what you might describe as "incredibly hazardous". But remember, a watermelon can also be very hazardous if you try to swallow it whole. Just want to keep things in perspective here.
However, the good news is that these clean, non-emissive, watermelon-like by-products will be around for thousands of years, so there's ample time to study them, and we're sure that technology will someday be able to deal with them. Until that time arrives, we'll just be...ummm...well, kind of shoving it in a hole in the ground.
Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!
It kind of reminds me of the times when Europe was the known world.:)
I.e., all the world known to Europeans at that time. While other places like Japan, China, and the Americas had people living in them, these places weren't actually "known", and for several millenia their inhabitants believed they were actually located in the suburbs of Ipswich.;-)
One of the requirements of registration is that you have to apply all of the patches for the recent Blaster, SoBig, etc. viruses.
Out of curiosity, how do they verify that these patches have been applied?
After the main registration session ends, the university will release a custom DCOM worm of their own. After infecting an unpatched machine, it automatically contacts the university's online registration site and unregisters the student from all of their classes. Students who come back to re-register afterwards will be required to wear Microsoft Bob t-shirts for the next two weeks, and perform community service consisting of 20 hours staffing the IT department's Help Desk.
Salo2112:
That being said, on my network I used a free tool from MS that scanned all ip addresses on the subnet and it told me which PCs were vulnerable and which were not by ip address.
geekoid:
and the name of that tool is.....??
I believe Salo2112 is referring to DCOM-KB826369-X86-ENU.exe
The direct link is probably too long to avoid the/. lameness filters, so just go to Microsoft's Blaster Page and follow the link in the section for network administrators.
Bull999999 quoth: I signed up for it but I still get calls from my in-laws.
Didn't you read the exemption list?
Brother-in-law:Bull, we're a little short on cash this month, could you lend us a bit to tide us over until payday? DNC Status: Exempt, charity call
Brother-in-law:Bull, would you rather keep working in that dead-end programming job, or get a great job selling Amway products like I do? DNC Status: Exempt, poll
Sister-in-law:Bull-wife, I don't know why you stay with that good-for-nothing man of yours. You ought to kick him out and look for a better partner. There's a guy in my AA meeting who's an ideal candidate. DNC Status: Exempt, political campaign
Mother-in-law:Bull, my daughter deserves someone better than you. DNC Status: Exempt during first 18 months of marriage (purchased product from caller).
The functions to calculate integrals (need that to calculatr bond rates,) sucked big time in Excell. Insufficient precision.
If you're working on a multi-million dollar, long-term bond that comes to quite a bit of change dropped betwen the cracks.
Actually, Microsoft Excel sweeps those cracks every evening, and any loose change it finds is transferred to a secret compartment in your Microsoft Wallet. Then the next time you use your Microsoft Passport to access your Microsoft Hotmail account, Excel quickly grabs this money from your Wallet and tucks it into the back of your Passport, where it's slipped to the Microsoft Agent program that inspects your credentials.
You've all heard how Office products are one of the two main revenue sources for Microsoft. You didn't actually think all that revenue just came from sales, did you?;-)
We got this crap at work. Firewalls didnt help
because someone in the office took his notebook
home, got infected and then brought notebook
into work. Silent infection.
However, if your IT department had actually updated the machines with the fix that MS released last month, then the rogue laptop wouldn't have been able to infect the other computers. Firewalls are only one part of a security strategy -- maintaining/updating the system software is also rather important, as your post aptly illustrates. (And keeping things updated is just as important whether you're running Windows, Linux, or any other OS.)
You can build multiple firewalls but it is worth nothing if your users dont protect their networks at home.
And yet you'd still be vulenerable if a lazy sys admin hasn't patched your work machines against the two hundred assorted security holes that were fixed after your OS was originally released. Even if you banned commuter laptops at your office, it'd only take one clueless desktop luser who still hasn't learned their lesson about opening email attachments to infect your network. (Remember that a variation of this worm was being propogated via an email attachment, and MSBlaster is hardly the only virus/worm that gets sent around this way.)
Yes, your rogue laptop user needs a liberal application of the old cluestick. But it sounds like your IT boffins need a few wake-up bonks as well.
I can't seem to find the relevant RFC governing IP over smoke signals, only a draft document. Was this protocol ever finalized?
The protocol was nearly finalized, but had to be withdrawn after SCO threatened to sue, claiming that the "smoke signals" protocol infringed on as much as 50% of the IP contained in their "smoke and mirrors" business model.
NAI report that this is a self-removing worm after 1st January 2004.
Well, that's a relief. So I've only got to wait another 4 1/2 months before the hundreds of "fixed" Winboxes on my subnet stop slamming my Linux firewall every couple of seconds to see if it's suddenly transmogrified into a Windows box that wants to join the Nachi Collective?
Thank goodness for that. And here I was afraid these worms might get annoying...
It also gives us the ability to say "Iraq's been using too much power. We're about to go war with them." And get all the other providers to stop sharing power.
Ah yes, a "Coalition of the Generating".;-)
This scenario makes the assumption that Iraq would be getting a significant amount of its energy from the United States and U.S. allies, which I rather doubt is the case. It's difficult to inconvenience a country by embargoing a product that the country doesn't actually import from you. (Seems to me that this would be rather like the U.S. refusing to sell cigars to Cuba.)
It might be interesting to ponder which countries would likely become major power producers if there were a worldwide distribution grid. Would oil-rich countries find that it becomes economically advantageous to stop shipping petroleum all over the place, and instead use their resources domestically to run power plants, exporting electricity instead? Instead of OPEC being the "Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries", might it be re-acronymed as the "Organziation of Power Exporting Countries"?
And at the other end of the supply/demand curve, which countries would be major importers of power? How much of the U.S. power demand is actually met using domestic resources? Would the U.S. be able to meet all of its power needs, and be able to export power in significant quantities to other countries? Or would the United States instead have to rely on imported electricity? (Perhaps forming a "North Atlantic Transmission Organization" to ensure that it has a reliable supply of power in the event of a war?)
In short, if a conflict arise in the future, isn't it more likely that the United States would be at the receiving end of an energy embargo, rather than being in a position where it could instigate an embargo on its own?
This is getting extremely annoying - I'm still getting hits daily from Code Red & Nimda. I'd like to personally line up each person who hasn't patched thier system and slap them.
Keep in mind that a number of the Code Red/Nimbda/etc probes that you see probably aren't actually generated by an unpatched system. Toolkits for these exploits are out there, and once a toolkit is available there's always going to be a group of script-kiddies trying it out so they can demonstrate just how 3l337 they are.
There's certainly unpatched, compromised systems out there -- if you point you check the machine where a Code Red probe originated and find that it's running IIS, it's a good bet that the operator needs a firmly-applied cluestick to their noggin. But you'll also find a number of machines that aren't running a web server and are still generating scans -- chances are good that the scans from these boxes are just wannabe script-kiddies. (Especially if you find that the IP belongs to a dial-up ISP.)
A live CD is one where you can boot and run a fully-functional operating system entirely from the CD. (I.e., you don't have to go through the typical song-and-dance of booting off an installation CD, installing the software onto your hard drive, then booting off your hard drive to run the OS.)
A live CD might have options to use other media if it's available (mounting a Windows/Linux/swap/whatever partition on your hard drive, storing user preferences and files on a floppy or flash disk, etc), but a live CD doesn't *require* any other media to run.
Just as a simple example, earlier this year the hard drive on my girlfriend's laptop died while she was away at school. On the other side of the country. Two weeks before the end of the semester. Not exactly the best situation to be in.
So I sent her a copy of Knoppix (a popular live CD distro -- there's a link to it in the/. article) via Fed-Ex. Since it could run completely off her CD-ROM drive, she was able to boot her computer, browse the web to do research, access her email, even write her last couple of papers (hoorah for OpenOffice:-) and save them on one of those little USB flash drives -- all without having a working hard drive.
I've been digging around the web, and I can't seem to find out how to protect myself. I can't seem to find anything that prevents this virus from attacking my linux or as/400 servers. Help!
In a press conference held earlier today, SCO announced that the virus incorporates unspecified proprietary IP belonging to their company, and is demanding $699 per copy to license the virus for any Unix-style OS. The author of the virus was unable to afford these fees, so at the current time the software is unavailable for non-Windows platforms.
(Windows users are covered under a previous agreement in which Microsoft Corporation purchased a license to "any and all of SCO's IP" -- a deal reportedly worth in excess of $1.27)
Darl McBride indicated that interested parties running Linux or IBM operating systems can contact SCO to purchase licenses allowing them to run the virus on their machines. McBride also warned that Linux and IBM users caught running unlicensed copies of the virus could be held liable for "millions...maybe even billions" in damages and legal fees for infringing on SCO's IP.
"All voting software and results should be subject to scrutany by the OSS community. All fraud is shallow when subjected to so many eyeballs."
But how do you ensure that the community audited, and declared-sound software, is actually what ends up on each machine?
Every voting machine will be shipped with an OSS developer and a copy of Gentoo 2.0 LiveVote on CD-ROM, doubly-encrypted using DNA from the developer and a copy of Metallica's latest album.
The DNA encryption ensures that the designated OSS developer (or at least a portion of the developer) is present for the software installation. The Metallica encryption layer ensures that the wrath of RIAA will be unleashed against anyone who attempts to crack or even copy the CD while it is en route. (Vengence is far too important to leave to mere government agencies.)
Once on site, the OSS developer merely has to bootstrap the machine with the CD, type "emerge apps-govt/voting-booth", and *presto* -- seven days later the machine is ready for use.
If you have to reinstall Windows, it'll kill your existing Linux partition because it will overwrite the drive with its image.
True, if you use the Microsoft restoration CD to reinstall Windows. Alternatively, once you've installed Linux you can just use Linux to create a backup of your resized Windows partition and use that backup if you ever need to restore Windows.
Use "dd" to copy an image of your Windows partition to a file. Compress file. Write to your favorite backup media -- DVD, CD, punchcard, etc. If Windows ever bites the dust, pull out your backups and restore the partition.
Or even better, install Windows, download/install the 300 patches/bugfixes/service packs, update all your drivers, etc. Now go and make a backup image of your Windows partition. If you have to restore, you won't have to download all those updates again. (You'll just have to download the 300 new patches/bugfixes/service packs/etc.:-)
Tip: The Windows swapfile and the free space on the partition are essentially vast tracts of random data. Random data compresses poorly. Prior to making your "dd" image of the partition, consider temporarily removing the swap file, and zeroing the free space on the partition. Zeros compress really really well.:-)
$69.95 for some software that'll only be used once? Wow, I thought it was possible to install Linux for free.
Flippant answer: It is possible -- just don't install that silly Windows OS. Presto! No more problem installing Linux, no need for any non-free software.
Semi-flippant answer: Why not turn this question around and ask why the wonderful copy of Windows you got "free" with your machine (and I use "free" here only in the loosest sense) requires you to spend $69.95 just for the privilege of installing a second operating system on the machine that you own?
Non-flippant answer: You don't have to spend any additional money to install Linux. There's several free options available. Here's three of them just off the top of my head:
Knoppix - the most recent version includes qtparted, which can resize NTFS. And even after you've installed the distro of your choice, Knoppix makes a great recovery CD, so hang onto it. Downside for the bandwidth-challenged is that this is a 700MB ISO image.
Mandrake - the first Mandrake 9.1 installation CD can resize NTFS partitions. Slightly smaller (650MB ISO) download than Knoppix. Might be handy if you don't have any 700MB CD-Rs handy.
BootIt NG - the maintenance mode has a very easy-to-use NTFS resizer. (Shareware, 30-day free trial use. If you can't get your NTFS partition resized within a month, give up and have the 8-year-old kid from next door give you a hand.) Very small download -- it's a bootable floppy image -- so a decent option if you're stuck with dial-up access and want to avoid sucking down a 650-700MB ISO image.
Most giveaways are explicitly required to have rules that allow people to be eligible to win without purchasing a product. If such a rule applies to this contest, they'll have to have a way for people to enter without purchasing Windows, won't they?
But doesn't everyone get a copy of Windows when they buy their computer? After all, only evil vendors catering to software pirates would sell computers without Windows.
Or at least that's what I learned from Microsoft's OEM section a couple of years ago when they talked about the evils of "Naked PCs".
(For those who don't remember the "Naked PC" campaign, you'll have to go to the
Wayback Machine
to find a copy of Microsoft's page -- Microsoft removed it from their OEM area after this PR campaign failed.)
I dont care about anything but one thing, how many mandrake club members are there? All of these groups dont want to tell us how many members are in the club yet they expect us to join it?
Rules of Mandrake Club
You do not talk about Mandrake Club.
You do not talk about Mandrake Club.
When someone yells "We're broke!", the Mandrake distribution is over.
Only 3 CDs to a distribution.
Only one installation at a time.
No winmodems, no winprinters.
Uptime goes on as long as it has to.
If this is your first download from Mandrake Club, you have to install.
Those who refuse to fail will never achieve any measure of success.
Microsoft announced today that they have achieved record levels of success, thanks in large part to their long-running program of accepting, even embracing, failure in their products.
Top NASA executives announced today that, after careful review of Microsoft's business model, the next Helios prototype will be built out of baling wire, bubblegum, and discarded Bud Light cans. A spokesman for the troubled research group said "With a plan like this, we expect measurable success -- the sky will literally be the limit." The NASA officials then returned to chugging cans of Bud Light to help build up inventory for the Helios II.
SCO announced today that they will be suing both Microsoft and NASA, claiming they own the rights to the "success by accepting failure" business model.
Industry analysts spoke out today against the lawsuits, insisting that SCO first show proof that their business model ever contained "success". SCO replied that they would show proof to qualified parties, but only if they were allowed to shoot anyone who viewed the proof.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I was trying for "light sarcasm" rather than "scathing", and although lacking anything as grandiose as an actual "plan", my thought was that I might pick up a +1 Funny. Unfortunately, so far only one moderator has picked up on the absurd watermelon comparison and the South Park "Chewbacca Defense" catchphrase about the silly monkey.
For the remaining moderators, who have assigned everything from Insightful to Interesting to Flamebait, I can only assume that either (a) my watermelon and monkey references were far too subtle, or (b) they didn't read more than the first line or two of my post, and moderated based on their own pro-/anti-nuclear biases. Personally, I'm voting for (b) as the explanation.
Frankly, I'm as disappointed as you are about my post currently showing an "Insightful" rating. If it makes you feel any better, it went through several periods where it was "Flamebait". I could certainly see the Flamebait mods, although I think Overrated would've been a more suitable response. (I.e., first moderator gave a +1 Funny, and others might not have agreed that watermelons and monkeys were humorous.) I truly don't understand the Insightful and Interesting mods. But after all, this is Slashdot. ;-)
I fear that you also missed the attempted humor in my post, but otherwise I thought you put together a good summary of the postive points of the vitrification treatment process. (Yes, I'm aware of the Savannah River Site.) Don't interpret my previous post as an anti-nuke stance -- it was supposed to be poking fun of the parent post describing nuclear energy as "clean". I'm not rabidly anti-nuclear, but "clean" is not the word I'd use for describing a power source that produces material that remains toxic to humans for millenia.
Vitrification does indeed look far more promising than previous storage methods. One should keep in mind that researchers are still working on ways to assess its long-term stability. One of the tests that Savannah has been conducting is the straight-forward approach of burying test samples, then digging them back up at various intervals for evaluation. IIRC, they recently completed a review of some 16-year samples earlier this year, and the tests confirmed that the samples were still stable. (Possibly this was late last year -- I'm pretty sure that Savannah started the burial test/evaluation study in 1986, which should place the 16-year review in 2002 rather than 2003.)
The tricky part with radioactive waste containment evaluations is trying to extrapolate the preliminary results over the lifetime of the hazardous material -- millenia, for the longest-lived waste products. This leads to what I personally find to be one of the more interesting aspects of vitrification research, which is collaboration between the vitrification researchers and archeologists. The idea is that by studying glass artifacts, we might be able to figure out why some types of glass appear to be incredibly resistent to change (essentially unaltered after something like 4-5 millenia), while other types of glass fall victim to chemical alterations and become susceptible to leaching over time. The thought is that if we can identify elements of composition, manufacturing, and/or environment that are specific to glass with long-term stability (or at least find and avoid things that result in near-term instability), then this information could be applied to the nuclear waste vitrification process. I think research like this -- trying to create materials that can remain stable for thousands of years -- is simply fascinating.
The hope is that vitrification has produced a glass-like material that will have long-term stability and be extremely resistant to leaching. And testing thus far is indeed looking positive.
Don't worry -- he'll get his just rewards. Studies have shown that virtually all self-described "12 year old girls" in the file-sharing services are actually grizzled 65-year old ex-FBI agents trying to run sting operations for the RIAA.
Helpful tip folks: if your new file-sharing "friend" starts talking about how she really really likes Perry Como and wants to know if you've got any of his songs to trade -- RUN!
My first thought, being a long-time Breathed fan, was to reply with "Milk me, Berkeley Breathed, milk me with everything you've got!"
Yet somehow, despite being a perfectly valid response on a syntactic level, I can't help thinking that I'd be violating at least half a dozen indecency laws... ;-)
I see this idea pop up every time the topic of spam reduction comes up, but I'm a wee bit fuzzy on how it would actually work. Perhaps an "email postage stamp" proponent could clear up some of the areas that seem unclear to me:
Folks, pay no attention to the radioactive waste. Nothing to see here.
We repeat: Pay no attention to the radioactive waste. Move along...
Folks...errr...we might need to slightly modify our previous "emission-free, clean" statements. The statements are still true, but for a slightly smaller value of "true" than we'd used originally.
All right folks, we'll level with you. There are a few by-products that are created by our nuclear power plants, and they're what you might describe as "incredibly hazardous". But remember, a watermelon can also be very hazardous if you try to swallow it whole. Just want to keep things in perspective here.
However, the good news is that these clean, non-emissive, watermelon-like by-products will be around for thousands of years, so there's ample time to study them, and we're sure that technology will someday be able to deal with them. Until that time arrives, we'll just be...ummm...well, kind of shoving it in a hole in the ground.
Here, look at the monkey. Look at the silly monkey!
I.e., all the world known to Europeans at that time. While other places like Japan, China, and the Americas had people living in them, these places weren't actually "known", and for several millenia their inhabitants believed they were actually located in the suburbs of Ipswich. ;-)
Yes. It also explains the feelings of fear and dread that people experience when they hear the phrase "This...is CNN". ;-)
After the main registration session ends, the university will release a custom DCOM worm of their own. After infecting an unpatched machine, it automatically contacts the university's online registration site and unregisters the student from all of their classes. Students who come back to re-register afterwards will be required to wear Microsoft Bob t-shirts for the next two weeks, and perform community service consisting of 20 hours staffing the IT department's Help Desk.
I believe Salo2112 is referring to DCOM-KB826369-X86-ENU.exe
The direct link is probably too long to avoid the /. lameness filters, so just go to Microsoft's Blaster Page and follow the link in the section for network administrators.
Didn't you read the exemption list?
Brother-in-law: Bull, we're a little short on cash this month, could you lend us a bit to tide us over until payday?
DNC Status: Exempt, charity call
Brother-in-law: Bull, would you rather keep working in that dead-end programming job, or get a great job selling Amway products like I do?
DNC Status: Exempt, poll
Sister-in-law: Bull-wife, I don't know why you stay with that good-for-nothing man of yours. You ought to kick him out and look for a better partner. There's a guy in my AA meeting who's an ideal candidate.
DNC Status: Exempt, political campaign
Mother-in-law: Bull, my daughter deserves someone better than you.
DNC Status: Exempt during first 18 months of marriage (purchased product from caller).
Actually, Microsoft Excel sweeps those cracks every evening, and any loose change it finds is transferred to a secret compartment in your Microsoft Wallet. Then the next time you use your Microsoft Passport to access your Microsoft Hotmail account, Excel quickly grabs this money from your Wallet and tucks it into the back of your Passport, where it's slipped to the Microsoft Agent program that inspects your credentials.
You've all heard how Office products are one of the two main revenue sources for Microsoft. You didn't actually think all that revenue just came from sales, did you? ;-)
However, if your IT department had actually updated the machines with the fix that MS released last month, then the rogue laptop wouldn't have been able to infect the other computers. Firewalls are only one part of a security strategy -- maintaining/updating the system software is also rather important, as your post aptly illustrates. (And keeping things updated is just as important whether you're running Windows, Linux, or any other OS.)
And yet you'd still be vulenerable if a lazy sys admin hasn't patched your work machines against the two hundred assorted security holes that were fixed after your OS was originally released. Even if you banned commuter laptops at your office, it'd only take one clueless desktop luser who still hasn't learned their lesson about opening email attachments to infect your network. (Remember that a variation of this worm was being propogated via an email attachment, and MSBlaster is hardly the only virus/worm that gets sent around this way.)
Yes, your rogue laptop user needs a liberal application of the old cluestick. But it sounds like your IT boffins need a few wake-up bonks as well.
The protocol was nearly finalized, but had to be withdrawn after SCO threatened to sue, claiming that the "smoke signals" protocol infringed on as much as 50% of the IP contained in their "smoke and mirrors" business model.
Well, that's a relief. So I've only got to wait another 4 1/2 months before the hundreds of "fixed" Winboxes on my subnet stop slamming my Linux firewall every couple of seconds to see if it's suddenly transmogrified into a Windows box that wants to join the Nachi Collective?
Thank goodness for that. And here I was afraid these worms might get annoying...
Ah yes, a "Coalition of the Generating". ;-)
This scenario makes the assumption that Iraq would be getting a significant amount of its energy from the United States and U.S. allies, which I rather doubt is the case. It's difficult to inconvenience a country by embargoing a product that the country doesn't actually import from you. (Seems to me that this would be rather like the U.S. refusing to sell cigars to Cuba.)
It might be interesting to ponder which countries would likely become major power producers if there were a worldwide distribution grid. Would oil-rich countries find that it becomes economically advantageous to stop shipping petroleum all over the place, and instead use their resources domestically to run power plants, exporting electricity instead? Instead of OPEC being the "Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries", might it be re-acronymed as the "Organziation of Power Exporting Countries"?
And at the other end of the supply/demand curve, which countries would be major importers of power? How much of the U.S. power demand is actually met using domestic resources? Would the U.S. be able to meet all of its power needs, and be able to export power in significant quantities to other countries? Or would the United States instead have to rely on imported electricity? (Perhaps forming a "North Atlantic Transmission Organization" to ensure that it has a reliable supply of power in the event of a war?)
In short, if a conflict arise in the future, isn't it more likely that the United States would be at the receiving end of an energy embargo, rather than being in a position where it could instigate an embargo on its own?
Keep in mind that a number of the Code Red/Nimbda/etc probes that you see probably aren't actually generated by an unpatched system. Toolkits for these exploits are out there, and once a toolkit is available there's always going to be a group of script-kiddies trying it out so they can demonstrate just how 3l337 they are.
There's certainly unpatched, compromised systems out there -- if you point you check the machine where a Code Red probe originated and find that it's running IIS, it's a good bet that the operator needs a firmly-applied cluestick to their noggin. But you'll also find a number of machines that aren't running a web server and are still generating scans -- chances are good that the scans from these boxes are just wannabe script-kiddies. (Especially if you find that the IP belongs to a dial-up ISP.)
A live CD is one where you can boot and run a fully-functional operating system entirely from the CD. (I.e., you don't have to go through the typical song-and-dance of booting off an installation CD, installing the software onto your hard drive, then booting off your hard drive to run the OS.)
A live CD might have options to use other media if it's available (mounting a Windows/Linux/swap/whatever partition on your hard drive, storing user preferences and files on a floppy or flash disk, etc), but a live CD doesn't *require* any other media to run.
Just as a simple example, earlier this year the hard drive on my girlfriend's laptop died while she was away at school. On the other side of the country. Two weeks before the end of the semester. Not exactly the best situation to be in.
So I sent her a copy of Knoppix (a popular live CD distro -- there's a link to it in the /. article) via Fed-Ex. Since it could run completely off her CD-ROM drive, she was able to boot her computer, browse the web to do research, access her email, even write her last couple of papers (hoorah for OpenOffice :-) and save them on one of those little USB flash drives -- all without having a working hard drive.
In a press conference held earlier today, SCO announced that the virus incorporates unspecified proprietary IP belonging to their company, and is demanding $699 per copy to license the virus for any Unix-style OS. The author of the virus was unable to afford these fees, so at the current time the software is unavailable for non-Windows platforms.
(Windows users are covered under a previous agreement in which Microsoft Corporation purchased a license to "any and all of SCO's IP" -- a deal reportedly worth in excess of $1.27)
Darl McBride indicated that interested parties running Linux or IBM operating systems can contact SCO to purchase licenses allowing them to run the virus on their machines. McBride also warned that Linux and IBM users caught running unlicensed copies of the virus could be held liable for "millions...maybe even billions" in damages and legal fees for infringing on SCO's IP.
Every voting machine will be shipped with an OSS developer and a copy of Gentoo 2.0 LiveVote on CD-ROM, doubly-encrypted using DNA from the developer and a copy of Metallica's latest album.
The DNA encryption ensures that the designated OSS developer (or at least a portion of the developer) is present for the software installation. The Metallica encryption layer ensures that the wrath of RIAA will be unleashed against anyone who attempts to crack or even copy the CD while it is en route. (Vengence is far too important to leave to mere government agencies.)
Once on site, the OSS developer merely has to bootstrap the machine with the CD, type "emerge apps-govt/voting-booth", and *presto* -- seven days later the machine is ready for use.
True, if you use the Microsoft restoration CD to reinstall Windows. Alternatively, once you've installed Linux you can just use Linux to create a backup of your resized Windows partition and use that backup if you ever need to restore Windows.
Use "dd" to copy an image of your Windows partition to a file. Compress file. Write to your favorite backup media -- DVD, CD, punchcard, etc. If Windows ever bites the dust, pull out your backups and restore the partition.
Or even better, install Windows, download/install the 300 patches/bugfixes/service packs, update all your drivers, etc. Now go and make a backup image of your Windows partition. If you have to restore, you won't have to download all those updates again. (You'll just have to download the 300 new patches/bugfixes/service packs/etc. :-)
Tip: The Windows swapfile and the free space on the partition are essentially vast tracts of random data. Random data compresses poorly. Prior to making your "dd" image of the partition, consider temporarily removing the swap file, and zeroing the free space on the partition. Zeros compress really really well. :-)
Flippant answer: It is possible -- just don't install that silly Windows OS. Presto! No more problem installing Linux, no need for any non-free software.
Semi-flippant answer: Why not turn this question around and ask why the wonderful copy of Windows you got "free" with your machine (and I use "free" here only in the loosest sense) requires you to spend $69.95 just for the privilege of installing a second operating system on the machine that you own?
Non-flippant answer: You don't have to spend any additional money to install Linux. There's several free options available. Here's three of them just off the top of my head:
But doesn't everyone get a copy of Windows when they buy their computer? After all, only evil vendors catering to software pirates would sell computers without Windows.
Or at least that's what I learned from Microsoft's OEM section a couple of years ago when they talked about the evils of "Naked PCs".
(For those who don't remember the "Naked PC" campaign, you'll have to go to the Wayback Machine to find a copy of Microsoft's page -- Microsoft removed it from their OEM area after this PR campaign failed.)
That would be the classic "Schroedinger's Fridge" paradox...
Rules of Mandrake Club