Well I have been reading a few webpages and I follow BUGTRAQ and a pgp newsgroup, so I feel I qualify as a Slashdot Expert(tm).
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you are talking about Email security. If you use windows, you want to use one of the PGPckt builds found at http://www.ipgpp.com These are pretty much the standard in the Windows PGP world, as commercial PGP has gone closed-source and GPG isnt perfect on windows. *nix/*BSD users should use GPG.
What you want to avoid with the recent PGP's and GPG is an interoperability problem. GPG doesnt ship with IDEA encryption, and that was the standard in PGP for years. It can be added easily, and I suggest you do that. If you do use GPG, please enable all of the PGP compatability options, or it will come back to bite you later. As for choice of algorithm, there is no reason not to use the RSA/IDEA combo that has been used with PGP for years, just boost up the length of your public key to 2048 or so. Oh, and dont bother going past 3000 or so, as that key would be harder to break that the 100(?) byte IDEA key that is actually used to encrypt the message.
As for computer security, there isn't much you can do asside from patching regularly, reading BUGTRAQ, choosing secure passwords, and never allowing unsecured logins. It also helps if you get to know your system and check up on anything that starts acting different that what you are used to.
Disk encryption under windows is best done by ScramDisk (found at http://www.scramdisk.clara.net), which is a disk encrypter that whose source code is available online. OpenBSD people should enable encrypted swap partitions, though that may be done by default, I dont know. Linux has several encrypted filesystems. Use One.
I think I remember reading someplace that one of the two (i forget which one, I think the Intel) has an additional 32-bit core inside to deal with legacy processes.
I admit that I love the "C for Dummies" series, by Dan Gookin. It came out a few years ago, but it presents beginner's programming conceps in a fairly straight forward manner.
I didnt mention this, but the older (28.6kbs) Richochet modems can be found on Ebay every so often for little more than a song. If your just doing a serial terminal to some hidden box, this may be enough. The newer Ricochets are 128kbs, but run about $50 each on ebay.
I dont know about the 7xxx series, but I have a 8100, internal ide CD-RW from HP that I am really happy about.
You see, this drive has been through HELL. I mean HELL. At its worst, It was thrown against a wooden wall, hard enough for most of the plastic faceplate to crack off.
Still works great!
On my recomendation/ravings a friend bought a 9xxx drive and had to return it like 4 times to get one that worked.
So, moral of the stories is, 7xxx's and 9xxx suck, but the 8xxx's can take a licking and keep working.
Kinda reminds you about the linux kernal. Avoid the Odd numbers!
I'm In highschool, and untill this year I was in the Honors-track math classes (I didn't feel like taking my school's uber-high-pressure AP Calc Class).
Simply put, I do almost all of my work in my head.
I know the problem, I know the steps, but I can't really help jumping ahead of where my pencil is.
I know this is a bad practice, but someone like me gets penalized by a partial-credit type of grading system where correctness does not equal full credit.
I know the material, I don't cheat (they stopped accusing me of that by the end of Soph. year, I had a 'reputation'), if I get 85% of the answers correct, why do I deserve a D?
I'm know as the schools "hacker" (read: I can fix computers, not hack).
What I did to insulate myself, once I learned that I was known as the hacker in my school, was to get to know the main computer teacher.
Once he trusted me, I would mention that there were various holes in the school's server (Ex. the folder containing the school district's website was set to read/write over smb with no password) to the teacher and not the main network guy.
That way I wasn't threatening the Guy In Charge but I was able to alert the proper folks without risking my neck. Though, I seem to get alot of comments about how "It's good your on our side."
Moral of the Story: Don't tell the admin. Alert someone below the admin, who simply has to pass the message on.
For years I was the "Hacker" at my high school only because I understood what to do when windows/dos fscked up. No one else understood what DOS was, other than the black screen before windows loaded. I was 13 (1994-5) when I got on the internet. This was when evil hackers and the alt.sex.everything usenet groups were making the news.
Great. So what, having people think you are a hacker really doesnt do anything to your life, except bother teacher in your schools. Folks found out how I got on the internet (remember this is 1994) and got crap from folks: I dialed into my library's card catalog, bounced my connection to a gopher on NJIT's card catalog, and was on my way. NJIT at the time had a choice on their gopher that opened up lynx to connect to another college's webpage. I just pointed lynx to a real page and off I was.
Thank god this was the days before schools had LANs because I would have been in deep shit everytime something went wrong. I was the hacker, it had to be my fault. I couldn't convince anyone that I wasn't a hacker, and for years, I couldnt convince the parents of my friends that if their computer was left unsupervized that I wouldnt "hack something". Were busy eating pizza and playing playstation, and they were worried about me leving the room we were in, sneaking off alone, dialing into "something" from their pc, and "hacking" while they were off doing something else.
I don't think anyone is that lame.
Besides, I couldnt hack.
I just understood what I was doing on a pc. Come to the later years of high school, into the days of LAN's in school, and I got continued references to "Thank god your on 'our side'". By this time I was the kid they asked when something was broken. I went out of my way to be helpful to the teachers running the network to prove I could be trusted, and that if something happened, it wouldnt have been me.
I guess its a good thing I was there, the teacher involved didn't know that the entire hard drive the school's webpage was stored on had file sharing on, and had no password. Eventuallly someone would have found it and done something stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
I read the article, and he did touch on the endemic issue I've run into of "that patch didn't come from us, so it's rejected (or ignored)".
Actually, I think it was a Billy Joel album...
>who wants to be the first to write an app that makes
>random requests to random domains constantly so as to screw up their database?
You mean actually follow the links on a slashdot story?
Real men use ed.
Well I have been reading a few webpages and I follow BUGTRAQ and a pgp newsgroup, so I feel I qualify as a Slashdot Expert(tm).
I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume that you are talking about Email security. If you use windows, you want to use one of the PGPckt builds found at http://www.ipgpp.com These are pretty much the standard in the Windows PGP world, as commercial PGP has gone closed-source and GPG isnt perfect on windows. *nix/*BSD users should use GPG.
What you want to avoid with the recent PGP's and GPG is an interoperability problem. GPG doesnt ship with IDEA encryption, and that was the standard in PGP for years. It can be added easily, and I suggest you do that. If you do use GPG, please enable all of the PGP compatability options, or it will come back to bite you later. As for choice of algorithm, there is no reason not to use the RSA/IDEA combo that has been used with PGP for years, just boost up the length of your public key to 2048 or so. Oh, and dont bother going past 3000 or so, as that key would be harder to break that the 100(?) byte IDEA key that is actually used to encrypt the message.
As for computer security, there isn't much you can do asside from patching regularly, reading BUGTRAQ, choosing secure passwords, and never allowing unsecured logins. It also helps if you get to know your system and check up on anything that starts acting different that what you are used to.
Disk encryption under windows is best done by ScramDisk (found at http://www.scramdisk.clara.net), which is a disk encrypter that whose source code is available online. OpenBSD people should enable encrypted swap partitions, though that may be done by default, I dont know. Linux has several encrypted filesystems. Use One.
One reason that they might have changed to "XXXX" is that the eEye scanner used "X" instead of "N" to gage how affected the internet could be.
That or this puppy has been around for longer than we think
I think I remember reading someplace that one of the two (i forget which one, I think the Intel) has an additional 32-bit core inside to deal with legacy processes.
Did you just cut and paste a press release onto the front page of Slashdot?
I sure hope you Slashdot isn't selling Front Page space to any little company that pays...
Here's a link to a FAQ on using your Ricochet Modem outside Metricom's Network.
/ ricochet%20gs%20modem.htm
http://www.enlightenment-engine.com/eeng/ricochet
The DOJ was finally allowed to install Carnivore.
David McOwen is going for installing the destributed.net client.
SOLUTION!
Install distributed.net on Carnivore.
Kalrand
-The Voice of Reason
I admit that I love the "C for Dummies" series, by Dan Gookin. It came out a few years ago, but it presents beginner's programming conceps in a fairly straight forward manner.
The author still updates that books with additional chapters on his website: http://www.c-for-dummies.com
It taught me years ago, and it got atleast one kid I know through his CompSci 1 class who otherwise would never had made it.
Kalrand
-The Voice of Reason
That depends if you consiter the goatse.cx page to be porn.
/. have a link to it somewhere.
I mean, most of the articles on
Kalrand
-The Voice of Reason
I didnt mention this, but the older (28.6kbs) Richochet modems can be found on Ebay every so often for little more than a song. If your just doing a serial terminal to some hidden box, this may be enough.
The newer Ricochets are 128kbs, but run about $50 each on ebay.
Kalrand
-The Voice of Reason
This might require you to hack a bit of software, but it is a true wireless serial link.
Here's a link on how the whole thing works.
Ricochet Modem FAQ
Kalrand
-The Voice of Reason
Fraunhofer
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
I bet he was thinking Sid Meyer's Alpha Centauri.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
Duh. Mozilla, while an achievenment, is the bigges, most bloated application since Windows ME.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
You see, this drive has been through HELL. I mean HELL. At its worst, It was thrown against a wooden wall, hard enough for most of the plastic faceplate to crack off.
Still works great!
On my recomendation/ravings a friend bought a 9xxx drive and had to return it like 4 times to get one that worked.
So, moral of the stories is, 7xxx's and 9xxx suck, but the 8xxx's can take a licking and keep working.
Kinda reminds you about the linux kernal. Avoid the Odd numbers!
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
Simply put, I do almost all of my work in my head.
I know the problem, I know the steps, but I can't really help jumping ahead of where my pencil is.
I know this is a bad practice, but someone like me gets penalized by a partial-credit type of grading system where correctness does not equal full credit.
I know the material, I don't cheat (they stopped accusing me of that by the end of Soph. year, I had a 'reputation'), if I get 85% of the answers correct, why do I deserve a D?
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
IIRC AOL was working on something like this.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
I mean, web browsing from a N64 would rock.
I'd buy a few if I could change the ISP settings.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
I'm know as the schools "hacker" (read: I can fix computers, not hack).
What I did to insulate myself, once I learned that I was known as the hacker in my school, was to get to know the main computer teacher.
Once he trusted me, I would mention that there were various holes in the school's server (Ex. the folder containing the school district's website was set to read/write over smb with no password) to the teacher and not the main network guy.
That way I wasn't threatening the Guy In Charge but I was able to alert the proper folks without risking my neck. Though, I seem to get alot of comments about how "It's good your on our side."
Moral of the Story: Don't tell the admin. Alert someone below the admin, who simply has to pass the message on.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
For years I was the "Hacker" at my high school only because I understood what to do when windows/dos fscked up. No one else understood what DOS was, other than the black screen before windows loaded. I was 13 (1994-5) when I got on the internet. This was when evil hackers and the alt.sex.everything usenet groups were making the news.
Great. So what, having people think you are a hacker really doesnt do anything to your life, except bother teacher in your schools. Folks found out how I got on the internet (remember this is 1994) and got crap from folks: I dialed into my library's card catalog, bounced my connection to a gopher on NJIT's card catalog, and was on my way. NJIT at the time had a choice on their gopher that opened up lynx to connect to another college's webpage. I just pointed lynx to a real page and off I was.
Thank god this was the days before schools had LANs because I would have been in deep shit everytime something went wrong. I was the hacker, it had to be my fault. I couldn't convince anyone that I wasn't a hacker, and for years, I couldnt convince the parents of my friends that if their computer was left unsupervized that I wouldnt "hack something". Were busy eating pizza and playing playstation, and they were worried about me leving the room we were in, sneaking off alone, dialing into "something" from their pc, and "hacking" while they were off doing something else.
I don't think anyone is that lame.
Besides, I couldnt hack.
I just understood what I was doing on a pc. Come to the later years of high school, into the days of LAN's in school, and I got continued references to "Thank god your on 'our side'". By this time I was the kid they asked when something was broken. I went out of my way to be helpful to the teachers running the network to prove I could be trusted, and that if something happened, it wouldnt have been me.
I guess its a good thing I was there, the teacher involved didn't know that the entire hard drive the school's webpage was stored on had file sharing on, and had no password. Eventuallly someone would have found it and done something stupid.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason
Simple, the dark matter is using those really cheap K-Mart folding tables that absolutely refuses to fold after the 4th or 5th time they've been used.
Kalrand
-the voice of reason