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User: MasterOfMagic

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  1. CableCard Support on Preview the New MythTV User Interface · · Score: 1

    Let me know when they support CableCard and then I'll be interested. I shouldn't need to do IR blasting or capturing through Firewire. It's great that there's a new interface, but if you can't record the shows you want in HD, it's pointless.

  2. Re:Every language is an emulator on Java Trial Support Coming In Linux Standard Base · · Score: 1

    Every computer simulates a Turing machine.

    Discuss.

  3. Re:Wrong crowd on Woman Admits Sending $400K To Nigerian Scammer · · Score: 1

    4. Divorce

  4. Re:let it collapse on 40-Gbps DDoS Attacks Worry Even Tier-1 ISPs · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    You assume the people in Congress care about the Joe the Plumbers of the world with no money and no job instead of the wealthy Wall Street contributors. Who's going to make sure that filthy lucre flows into the machine coffers and the re-election funds? Certainly not Joe who has no job, no healthcare, and no future. So take the tribute that your citizens pay you in income taxes and give it to your Wall Street friends who, like all good money launderers, will take some off the top and return the rest in kickbacks, fact-finding mission funds, and contributions to political campaigns. All-American graft at its finest.

  5. European Parliament on EU Will Not Divulge Microsoft Contracts · · Score: -1, Troll

    When has the European Parliament and the public interest ever coincided?

  6. Re:I can't bring myself to have much pity for them on Circuit City Files For Bankruptcy · · Score: 1

    It sounds like he was nothing more then some smug jerk who was too infatuated with gloating about his rights and showing them off.

    Imagine that, wanting to use the rights that you have. Amazing. Next you'll be telling me that I'm a bastard by refusing to quarter soldiers or I'm just an asshole for owning a shotgun.

    He did something wrong when he refused to show ID to the police officer.

    According to Ohio law (which is indexed by Google), he's not required to show ID.

  7. Re:The boy who cried wolf... on The Real Story On WPA's Flaw · · Score: 1

    I said that I understood the argument for keeping vulnerabilities under wraps until they are fixed by the vendor. I didn't say that I agreed with it.

    You are right, there are many ways you can mitigate vulnerabilities that aren't fixed yet - you can take vulnerable machines offline, you can disable the vulnerable service, you can switch to another piece of software without that vulnerability, or you can do nothing. Only the user of the software knows which course of action is right for them because they're the only one that can look at their configuration and know what the costs of action and inaction are for them.

    As for making sure that the vulnerabilities are real, it's much easier to vet a vulnerability based on a writeup from a security researcher that is released to everyone than waiting for them to release a writeup after getting their 15 minutes of fame at a con, even if the vulnerability isn't fixed by the vendor.

  8. Re:The boy who cried wolf... on The Real Story On WPA's Flaw · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is exactly why the trend of waiting to release news at security conventions is a bad idea. By announcing that there's an exploit but withholding the details, real harm can be done. I understand that security researcher is not a glamorous position (being one myself), and I understand the desire to keep certain details of an exploit under wraps until a vendor fixes them. Ultimately, if you want to wait until the vendor fixes the problem, you do not publish. It's that simple.

    Otherwise you end up with, "omg the sky is falling!11!!!11!1! TKIP sux lol may just use open wifi".

  9. Why is Fruit of the Loom so popular? on Ubuntu 8.10 vs. Mac OS X 10.5.5 Benchmarks · · Score: 1

    Distros are like underwear - everyone has their favorite kind, some have none at all, but odds are you'll dislike someone else's brand because you are used to your own.

  10. Re:Brilliant! on Inventor Open Sources "TV-B-Gone," and Why · · Score: 1

    Or they could use a small piece of electrical tape, but you know, keep on smoking that crack...

  11. Re:Morphine changed to Med-X on Fallout 3 Launches Amidst Controversy · · Score: 1

    The painkiller, duh! But it's close between that and the f-bomb!

    AMERICA, FRICK YEAH!

  12. Re:New Bill on Fraud Threat Halts Knuth's Hexadecimal-Dollar Checks · · Score: 4, Informative

    The right way is a money order. The USPS actually issues money orders for this very purpose, and they charge only a very nominal fee on top of it.

  13. Re:Centralisation is why BT is so popular on Researchers Decentralize BitTorrent · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, and you can still do this even with Tribler. They're not mutually exclusive.

  14. Re:good point on US District Court Says Calculating a Hash Value = Search · · Score: 2, Informative

    According to the article, the computer was removed from the defendant's residence by his landlord's friend because the landlord was in the process of evicting the defendant for non-payment of rent. This computer was not found abandoned on the side of the road with the trash. There's no clear indicator that the defendant gave the computer to the landlord's friend, which means the computer is the defendant's property. Therefore, the landlord's friend does not have the right to consent to a search of the computer. This means that the police need a warrant to search that computer, and given the evidence that the landlord's friend had, they would have likely gotten a warrant without any issue.

    It's a procedural screwup on the part of the police. It happens. They're human.

  15. Re:good point on US District Court Says Calculating a Hash Value = Search · · Score: 2, Informative

    Chain of custody. Very important in forensics.

    The landlord and his friend might have had a motive to lie about the guy that was behind on his rent payments. From the blurb from the article, it doesn't seem that his landlord had completed the eviction procedure yet, and was anxious to get Crist out of his house and a new tenant in. The eviction process is not immediate. So he gives Crist's computer to his friend, his friend backdates the clock, and his friend puts kiddie porn on there and turns it over to the cops.

    The fact is that the police cannot be certain of the chain of custody in this case without a warrant. With a warrant, they take affidavits in support of chain of custody before they go poking around. It's clear and documented using established procedure. The landlord and his friend can still lie, but they're now subject to the penalties for filing a false statement. Without that supporting documentation and especially because of the nature of the case and the possible motives of the landlord and his friends, it makes the chain of custody issue important.

  16. Re:Blocking owners? on Nintendo Blocks Homebrew Installation · · Score: 1

    All Wii discs are locked to a specific version of the IOS. This is to ease testing - you only need to test a game against the IOS it was developed to use instead of all past and future IOS releases. Games that require a higher IOS than the first IOS from launch day include the proper updates on the disc, so you're never in a position where you have to download something from the Internet but don't have an Internet connection.

  17. Re:Lack of firewire is NOT the end of the world... on Users Rage Over Missing FireWire On New MacBooks · · Score: 1

    FireWire is a dying standard.

    Tell that to digital video camera makers.

  18. Re:agent identities on FBI Says Dark Market Sting Netted 56 Arrests · · Score: 3, Insightful
  19. Re:WTF?! (Off-topic, yes I know) on Nation-Wide Internet Censorship Proposed For Australia · · Score: 1

    I'm big enough to handle my own affairs and sane enough to give my baby girl a happy and balanced childhood filled with pony's, daffodils, geek, and a sense of place and purpose within society.

    Would you swap out the first two for anything if your baby girl was actually a baby boy, and if so, why?

  20. Re:WTF?! on Nation-Wide Internet Censorship Proposed For Australia · · Score: 1

    You forgot "kiddy porn" and "piracy", but otherwise, you've got it pretty much nailed.

  21. Re:agent identities on FBI Says Dark Market Sting Netted 56 Arrests · · Score: 2, Funny

    They need to do way instain fbi> who kill thier agnets, becuse these anget can't fright back? It was on the news this morning a mother in DE, who had kill her three agent. They are taking the three feds back to New York to lady to rest my pary are with the father who lost his feds ; i am truley sorry for Mueller's lots.

  22. Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'... on Bugs Delay Release of Debian Lenny · · Score: 1

    Yes, like I said, this is a bug. It should be reported. I would ask someone on #debian first though.

  23. Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'... on Bugs Delay Release of Debian Lenny · · Score: 1

    From the aptitude documentation

    changelog
            Downloads and displays the Debian changelog for each of the given source or binary packages.
            By default, the changelog for the version which would be installed with "aptitude install" is downloaded. You can select a particular version of a package by appending =version to the package name; you can select the version from a particular archive by appending /archive to the package name.

  24. Re:Meanwhile, In 'Unstable'... on Bugs Delay Release of Debian Lenny · · Score: 1

    The changelog presented in aptitude should be up to date as well. It's pulled from the package. He can likely file the same bug as before mentioning the fact that the changelog isn't showing up in aptitude (which could be an aptitude bug, after all), but having never done that, I'm not sure what the response would be.

    Weird about the problem on p.d.o before. I've had problems recently with apt-listbugs not being able to connect to the bug tracking system to check the bugs before an install or upgrade on unstable.

  25. Re:If you're that worried... on Tips For Taking Your Laptop Into and Out of the US? · · Score: 1

    The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that something like mounting a Samba share on your home machine over a VPN link is the way to go. Most of the things that you create (besides video and perhaps some pictures) aren't going to be incredibly large.

    The bonus here is that you control the machine running the Samba share and VPN endpoint. Since you're uploading, your home machine is downloading which means you get the better part of the asymmetric deal on the receiving end. You can add other layers of encryption (disk encryption on both the laptop and on the Samba server, files encrypted with GPG or an entire TrueCrypt drive image) on top of it easily. The only downside I can see would be having to leave your machine and modem/router on at home ($$$).

    Of course, you could always just use SSH, but Samba share over VPN has a much higher non-geek acceptance rate as all you need is a file browser (and for the non-Unix using, Windows Explorer and Finder on the Mac would work just fine) and a "click-here-to-connect" button after it's all set up.