Unfortunately, many updates are not worth doing for the majority of people. If IE 3.0 does what you want, you shouldn't have to make a 2-hour plus download just to stop a bug that shouldn't have existed in the first place.
Another problem with upgrading is what I call the Bullshit program' problem. On my Windows box, I use Office 97. I saved a word file and sent it to a friend. It was just under 1.5 MB. He uses Word 2000, and a while later, e-mailed me the file back, for reasons I won't go into. It had grown to 4Mb, and was in the Word 2000 format, which I couldn't open. I e-mailed him and asked what he had changed in the file, other than the format. He said: Nothing.
Many upgrades give the average user nothing more than features like OS integration and annoying talking paper clips. Which they don't want. These 'upgrades' regularly have a large download time and/or price tag.
I blame Microsoft. After all, this IS Slashdot.
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
Re:Spam legislation won't stop the problem
on
MAPS vs. ORBS
·
· Score: 1
Hey!
While government legislation is a great symbolic step, I'm not sure how much it will actually do to alleviate the 200-300 messages a day that I sometimes get in my mailbox.
I think what we need is a big line of solidarity of users, ISPs and the government. If you get unsolicited e-mail, it has to include contact details because it would be stupid to say 'We here at PornWorld would like you to visit our website at and look at out pictures', and not give out an address and/or telephone number. If people were thouroughly educated to send thier spam to a certain government address with headers, a government department could say 'Ah, telephone 800 1234 5678! That's (Check's database) Bob Bastard!'. They could then have a government fine-collecting department that pays your local brutal repossesion company to enter your house and take $500 worth of goods for every spam recorded, plus an extra $2,500 for repossesion fees. That would sure stop them!
Won't all this simply move the problem offshore?
It might do, but with cooperation from large ISPs and backbone providers, an Internet Death Penalty could be enforced on the senders. There could be an e-mail address at each major domain, dedicated to collecting spam, that is different at every different domain, i.e. Colex@slashdot.org. These could be posted by users at will on any site where they expected spam, with a warning and a real but spamprofed address nearby. Admins could choose to forward all this to the government automaticlly, or could review it and impose blocks on router traffic before sending to the government.
Obviously, the system wouldn't be entirely automated - Heaven forbid the government of any country should have the ability to destroy the internet.
Or maybe I'm talking out of my ass. All I know is I can expect several spam messages every daym from companies like StyleShop and they need to be discouraged. My current system of putting offendor's e-mail addresses in my/. reply-to box isn't as satisfying as $500 could be.
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
The "theft of focus" issue was partially addressed TWO YEARS AGO with Windows 98. Have you ever seen that obnoxious blinking button in the taskbar?
Interestingly, the problem I have is with Windows 98. It might not be intentional, maybe all windows automatically grab attention when they minimise, (something to do with the stupid minimise animation?) but whatever it is, it's definately happening.
And what is it with that flashing taskbar thing? and why does Outlook use it so much? if I send and recieve e-mail, every time it does ANYTHING, even finishes downloading message 1 and proceeds to message 2, the taskbar button thing starts flashing. I hate it!
Don't even get me started on the problems in window ordering when you close the active window in Win2K...
One of these days, my SCSI card will come back from QLogic repair and I can start installing Linux...
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
I have yet to see a single Siggraph paper from someone with MS Research in their title.
Caution: Rant follows.
What you have to remember is all the inherent improvements in Microsoft products that are too small for most people to notice. Take, for instance, windows which use the ability to take focus off whatever you are doing. There's one that REALLY drives me mad. You choose a dial-up networking connection and tell it to dial. Then you bring up your web browser so you can type in the address of the first site you want to visit. You type in the first bit, 'www.slas', then teh SODDING DUN WINDOW takes focus. this wouldn't be so bad if it then did something, but it takes focus then, immediately, minimises to a tray icon, returning focus to the web browser window. And the STUPID interface decides that action is like making a single-click selection of the box I was last in, and highlights it all. This has all heppened quickly because I have a very fast machine, and barely noticing, I type in 'hdot.org'. No problem, one would think. But nooo... the DUN window taking focus, then minimising selected all in the address bar, and typing things overwrote it. ALL I'M TRYING TO DO IS TYPE IN AN URL! WHY THE HELL DOES THE DUN WINDOW HAVE TO TAKE FOCUS???!!! DID I ASK TO KNOW THAT A WINDOW IS MINIMISING??? DO THEY EVEN KNOW HOW ANNOYING THAT IS??? IF THEY DID, WOULD THEY FIX IT???
It might sound trivial, but it keeps on happening, and it gets on my wick like you wouldn't imagine.
Rant ends. You can open your eyes now.
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
I don't condone piracy, of course (Honest!), but if I did, I'd suggest Napster authors put an MP3 rip utility into Napster which always produced the same extract, they might be able to pull off something like this. IIf they automatically removed lead- and trail-silence then used an audio-editing thing to read, say, 1 minute into the song and take the volume, and again 5 seconds later, and once more in another 5 seconds, then see if it's uniform across all the songs. They could also use something similar to let you resume from OTHER USERS!
I must say, however, from what I've seen of Napster, it doesn't seem to be the best-written, feature-rich programming I've ever seen...
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
Damn! They almost had me believing "Monopolisation, closed source, buy-outs, proprietry technology, trade secrets, poorly documented APIs, limited technical support and strongarming OEMs into not *actually* supplying media spurs innovation!
Thanks! }
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
If I worked for D-net, I'd mark every submission with the time the client has been running. Then I'd work out a maximum processing speed, and compare it with the maximum processing speed for other systems on the same processor and OS. If it's above the previous record by more than, say, 1.5%, I'd start to worry.
To backstop this, I'd have every client encrypt thier submission before sending it to the server, and I'd secure the executable before making it availiable for download (I don't know how easy it would be to do, but software DVD decoders (well, the ones that DIDN'T get cracked) did something similar...). This way, everything but the key by which the data is encrypted can be open-sourced. I think.
Finally, I'd get every client to return data on the plaintext if hypothetically the key HAD worked. I'd then tie this to the username and perform random checks, optionally by redundently distributing blocks.
Hey, I'm not much of a crypto expert (IANACE) but I think these could work... If anyone knows better, feel free to correct me.
Why didn't this make the front page, where it might get some responses?
Repeating from my previous post, but a look Here says:
Microsoft Research IPv6 The most current version of the Microsoft Research IPv6 stack may be downloaded at http://www.research.microsoft.com/msripv6. This implementation runs as a separate protocol stack on both Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000. There are no plans to im.plement IPv6 for the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 operating systems at this time.
...Which blocks out most consumer machines. I can see ISPs doing some sort of 'Big NAT' where they do something like have the entire set of IPv4 addresses to use, and ALL thier routers can translate to IPv6 and back. Or something. I'm not a network expert.
I can see the big problem after Windows being with consumer programs like ICQ. It doesn't have IPv6 support coded in. Everyone would have to be convinced to upgrade.
Whilst this man not seem like a problem, consider this: When you phone printer tech support, the first two things they ask are, in my experience, "Is the printer turned on" and "Is it connected to your computer". This doesn't make me that confident about the liklihood of an average user upgrading thier OS for support for IPv6.
Windows 2000 supports IPv6, but a look here reveals:
There are no plans to im.plement IPv6 for the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 operating systems at this time.
Aside from that, the document seems quite a good explanation. It's taken from one of M$'s many books. Could be worth a read, if you're quite new to the subject.
What I can't wait to see is the script kiddies with thier Windows 95 port scanners, and the reaction when they find *everyone* has a block of, say, FFFF (65535) IP addresses, and most people only have one system connected in thier *entire* subnet.
I say roll on IPv6! I want an entire subnet to myself, please!
Bad form replying to my own post, but here's a quick follow-up qoute from the main page:
"All cellular telephones within the specified range of active SESP jammers are unable to make or receive calls, and calls in progress are immediately cut off when the unit is activated. 'No service' appears on the phone's LCD display. As soon as the jammer is switched off, the cellular service is immediately restored.
The specifications of each jammer manufactured are sharply defined which means that the jammers will never interfere with the proper operation of any RF activity outside the narrowly designated frequency band width of the jammer. This includes aircraft, police, military and security communications, pagers, 2 way radios etc.
Principles of operation:
All cellular systems used today in all countries employ simultaneously two different groups of frequencies. This is to enable the user to communicate in full duplex, ie to speak and listen simultaneously (unlike a standard walkie-talkie). The first group of frequencies is used for the 'downlink' communication between the cellular towers and the mobile phones themselves. The second group is used for the 'uplink' between the phone and the tower. Clients have the choice of either jamming the tower or selected mobile phones. Normally, jammers are used to block cellphones and not the towers of cellular companies JAMMING THE ACTUAL TOWER MAY RENDER HALF A CITY PARALYSED.
Cellular systems covered:
Our products can jam any analogue or digital cellular system you specify including AMPS, N-AMPS-800, D-AMPS/TDMA, CDMA, ETACS-900, NMT-450, TACS-900, GSM-900, GSM-1800, DCS-1800, PCS-1900, PDC, etc.
SESP have jammers currently in stock that can be used in any country in the world, FOR JAMMING ANY CELLULAR SYSTEM."
Look at http://sesp.co.uk/4.htm - it's a UK company and they sell, among other things, cell phone jammers for commercial, security and military reasons. I'll just take a 100W/multiple kilometers unit for my house, and a 2W/50m unit for the car.
Don't know about thet import legality... I live in the UK already. I'm going looking for prices.
Colleges are seeing a lack of interest in Computer Science because computer science classes are seen as "old school" Everyone knows that you don't learn computer skills in school. You don't learn how to program in a classroom environment. You DO learn by DOING. Staying up all night hacking.
In my (Not very good, in my opinion) UK school IT lessons, you don't learn IT skills in school. I never have to ask for help, but those people who do are often told "It's better if you find how to do it yourself", because the mark scheme offers more marks this way, and "It'll make you remember it better".
When you download something from, say, www.slashdot.org, the/. servers are told your IP. If/. decides they want some DoubleClick banners to raise cash, they put thier banners up, and when you load slashdot, you load the banners from DoubleClick servers. And DoubleClick then knows your IP, and that you are looking at/.
From this, they can say, hey 127.201.194.163 has been regularly loading adverts for 1 hour from the slashdot page. He must be an open-source fan. They can then tell thier servers that any time any page sends 127.201.194.163 to get adverts from the DoubleClick servers, it will return open-source oriented adverts.Then they can say, hey 127.201.194.163 clicks on banners coloured blue 50% more often than other types of banner! then they can ask clients for a selection of banners, and they can target you with banners you respond to best.
That's my take on the situation... maybe I'm wrong. Who knows?
> I'm pretty sure in JavaScript 1.2 you can > disable the contextual menu as well if > you want to be really evil.
Sure you can! well, not quite disable, but you can make an info-box display if people right click, not a contect menu. This (http://www.sub-host.com/underground/iwa/indexa.ht ml) warez site does it, trying to make it hard for people to steal links, I expect.
Here is the code. I don't know how well the/. HTML parse thingies will cope with it:
var mymessage = "no need to right click \njust use getright and regularly click on the links"; function rtclickcheck(keyp){ if (navigator.appName == "Netscape" && keyp.which == 3) { alert(mymessage); return false; } if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE") != -1 && event.button == 2) { alert(mymessage); return false; } } document.onmousedown = rtclickcheck //-->
I think that's the bit that does it. I don't know... I don't *do* JavaScript.
And it reinforces the idea that the threat posed by these guys pinging and tracerouting random systems poses roughly as much danger as a wrong number on the telephone ("Some stranger knows my phone number works! Run!").
Yeah, but if a company set a machine up to phone up random numbers and if someone answers, add them to an advertising database correlated by time, for instance, and they woke you up at 5am with a computerized message and automatically hung up, that would be considerably bas etiquette. Most victims would consider it 'annoying', or even 'very annoying'.
I don't think we can pass judgement, or for that matter think up a valid analogy, until we know what the company does. As far as I'm concerned, if they won't tell me what they are doing, I'm going to assume they're doing something bad. The IP ranges they have registered are blocked at my router computer.
Are those the only two choices? Between them, a), but then, what about word processing? Spreadsheets? These are the primary focus of most schools, these days. I don't know of one that teaches 'programming'. I reccomend unix workstations running X even at the elemetary school level. They're cheaper than DOS/Win boxes now, too. Let the kids learn gcc or perl -- or any of the any other myriad languages avaiable for *nix -- if they want to program....
Well, I'm british and I don't know much about the American education system, so this might seem a bit nonsensical, but...
I am doing a course at 'GCSE' level. This starts age 14 and ends age 16 (High). There is no programming involved. Everything is done on low-end (Well, compared to MY system) Windows systems. It's all mail-merge and spreadsheets and word-processing. My teacher was visibly impressed when I put some VBA into a database we were doing for a pretend hospital that encrypted the details of the patients' illnesses.
This is not advanced stuff... schoold don't teach programming, or certainly not to anybody below 16.
In my course, the marks aren't related to what you produce anyway. You get marks by producing multicoloured flow-charts listing what I did to produce the system, i.e. Double-clicked excel icon... this is really no skill involved stuff.
My teachers always *INSTRUCT* everyone to turn thier monitors off. I wrote her an app using an INI file in a networked drive to turn off everyone's screens once.
She wouldn't trust me to *create a networked drive* on a server computer though, and she didn't know how to, so it never worked out.
Here are some enviroments the IntelliMouse probably can't work in:
1) The inside of a sealed microchip wafer handling enclosure that DOESN'T CONTAIN A COMPUTER, and doesn't have a gap for the cable to come out. 2) Shreader. Try turning on your shreader and rolling your IntelliMouse over the top. I bet it stops when you get to the bit with the rotating blades!! 3) 500m water. Particularly if you take the plastic off first. And don't do anything to stop the water pressure crushing it. 4) On a curved of 120-watt lightbulbs which are lashing randomly. 5) On an oven hot-plate set to 800 degrees centigrade. 6) On a plate of Frankium, whilst being exposed to copious amounts of Flourine. 7) On a skier's gas powered wax-melting heater, whilst there is wax on it. 8) In a decompression chamber set to 75 feet. 9) On top of a cheese and tobato pizza. 10) Air, Whilst skydiving. 11) In space, with nothing to rest it on. 12) In a gas-chamber. 13) Gravel. 14) Sand. 15) Burning coals. etc...
I think the reason that most Males pursue IT-related careers is because they love technology, where as most women don't. The big question is, however, *WHY* do we like technology?
My theory is simple: All technology was sreated with one aim: Women...
Fire --> Keep warm, whilst seducing women. Club --> Threaten and impress women. Printing press --> Look at women. TV --> Watch women. VCR --> Watch more women. Internet --> Look at neked women without having to go into embarrasing shops. etc...
He got a reply from his MP? He's lucky. I sent mine a detailed description of possible misinterpretations of the RIP bill, and I dodn't even get a reply.
That's what I love about living in a democracy. You can really tell your representative cares about your opinions.
Wouldn't web-banner blocking programs (i.e. Norton Internet Security) block these 'web bugs' out? Furthermore, wouldn't it be easy to get a porn-site-listing-and-blocking firewall and change the names of porn sites for those of companies like doubleclick? If everyone did this, doubleclick wouldn't get the views.
SUB MANICLAUGH { write("They would be crushed BWHAHAHAHAH!") }
This would be a good thing for privacy. If we could get a big ISP like AOL into the blocking, it would be interesting to see the results.
Everyone can understand marking papers and counting them, while most can't understand cryptography and digital signatures.
Why don't we make digital signatures optional? here's my example election model:
Option 1: Vote online using your secure digital signature. Option 2: Going out to vote.
To ensure security and transparency of the voting system, the software should be... wait for it... open source! Crypto experts can then check it over, and if there are any faults, point them out.
Just because I have an idea, and I feel like sharing it, here's how I'd run digital signatures: 1) You go to the voting website and siggn in with your secure digital certificate 2) You get sent a small file containing, say, 128k of random data. This has been digitally signed by the vote administrators. If you vote for party 1, you crop off and return the top 64k of data signed with your certificate. If you vote for party 2, you crop off and return the bottom 64k of the data signed with your digital certificate.
Well, I'd do something similar to that, but then, I'm obsessed with applications involving signing and/or encrypting random data.
Yeah. Did you? It's about allocation *and* blocking:
"It [PacketShaper] analyzes traffic patterns and measures response times, enforces bandwidth allocation and implements service-level agreements and generates reports on application behavior."
"Another solution is PacketHound, developed by Palisade Systems Inc.. It's a software and hardware solution that allows administrators to block a number of bandwidth-eating applications, including Gnutella, RealAudio and RealVideo and Napster."
I don't want to, like, dis' you at all, but if you're going to criticise other people, make sure you're right.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey!
People are still using IE 3.0!
Unfortunately, many updates are not worth doing for the majority of people. If IE 3.0 does what you want, you shouldn't have to make a 2-hour plus download just to stop a bug that shouldn't have existed in the first place.
Another problem with upgrading is what I call the Bullshit program' problem. On my Windows box, I use Office 97. I saved a word file and sent it to a friend. It was just under 1.5 MB. He uses Word 2000, and a while later, e-mailed me the file back, for reasons I won't go into. It had grown to 4Mb, and was in the Word 2000 format, which I couldn't open. I e-mailed him and asked what he had changed in the file, other than the format. He said: Nothing.
Many upgrades give the average user nothing more than features like OS integration and annoying talking paper clips. Which they don't want. These 'upgrades' regularly have a large download time and/or price tag.
I blame Microsoft. After all, this IS Slashdot.
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
Hey!
/. reply-to box isn't as satisfying as $500 could be.
While government legislation is a great symbolic step, I'm not sure how much it will actually do to alleviate the 200-300 messages a day that I sometimes get in my mailbox.
I think what we need is a big line of solidarity of users, ISPs and the government. If you get unsolicited e-mail, it has to include contact details because it would be stupid to say 'We here at PornWorld would like you to visit our website at and look at out pictures', and not give out an address and/or telephone number. If people were thouroughly educated to send thier spam to a certain government address with headers, a government department could say 'Ah, telephone 800 1234 5678! That's (Check's database) Bob Bastard!'. They could then have a government fine-collecting department that pays your local brutal repossesion company to enter your house and take $500 worth of goods for every spam recorded, plus an extra $2,500 for repossesion fees. That would sure stop them!
Won't all this simply move the problem offshore?
It might do, but with cooperation from large ISPs and backbone providers, an Internet Death Penalty could be enforced on the senders. There could be an e-mail address at each major domain, dedicated to collecting spam, that is different at every different domain, i.e. Colex@slashdot.org. These could be posted by users at will on any site where they expected spam, with a warning and a real but spamprofed address nearby. Admins could choose to forward all this to the government automaticlly, or could review it and impose blocks on router traffic before sending to the government.
Obviously, the system wouldn't be entirely automated - Heaven forbid the government of any country should have the ability to destroy the internet.
Or maybe I'm talking out of my ass. All I know is I can expect several spam messages every daym from companies like StyleShop and they need to be discouraged. My current system of putting offendor's e-mail addresses in my
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
Hey,
The "theft of focus" issue was partially addressed TWO YEARS AGO with Windows 98. Have you ever seen that obnoxious blinking button in the taskbar?
Interestingly, the problem I have is with Windows 98. It might not be intentional, maybe all windows automatically grab attention when they minimise, (something to do with the stupid minimise animation?) but whatever it is, it's definately happening.
And what is it with that flashing taskbar thing? and why does Outlook use it so much? if I send and recieve e-mail, every time it does ANYTHING, even finishes downloading message 1 and proceeds to message 2, the taskbar button thing starts flashing. I hate it!
Don't even get me started on the problems in window ordering when you close the active window in Win2K...
One of these days, my SCSI card will come back from QLogic repair and I can start installing Linux...
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
Hey!
I have yet to see a single Siggraph paper from someone with MS Research in their title.
Caution: Rant follows.
What you have to remember is all the inherent improvements in Microsoft products that are too small for most people to notice. Take, for instance, windows which use the ability to take focus off whatever you are doing. There's one that REALLY drives me mad. You choose a dial-up networking connection and tell it to dial. Then you bring up your web browser so you can type in the address of the first site you want to visit. You type in the first bit, 'www.slas', then teh SODDING DUN WINDOW takes focus. this wouldn't be so bad if it then did something, but it takes focus then, immediately, minimises to a tray icon, returning focus to the web browser window. And the STUPID interface decides that action is like making a single-click selection of the box I was last in, and highlights it all. This has all heppened quickly because I have a very fast machine, and barely noticing, I type in 'hdot.org'. No problem, one would think. But nooo... the DUN window taking focus, then minimising selected all in the address bar, and typing things overwrote it. ALL I'M TRYING TO DO IS TYPE IN AN URL! WHY THE HELL DOES THE DUN WINDOW HAVE TO TAKE FOCUS???!!! DID I ASK TO KNOW THAT A WINDOW IS MINIMISING??? DO THEY EVEN KNOW HOW ANNOYING THAT IS??? IF THEY DID, WOULD THEY FIX IT???
It might sound trivial, but it keeps on happening, and it gets on my wick like you wouldn't imagine.
Rant ends. You can open your eyes now.
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
Hey,
I don't condone piracy, of course (Honest!), but if I did, I'd suggest Napster authors put an MP3 rip utility into Napster which always produced the same extract, they might be able to pull off something like this. IIf they automatically removed lead- and trail-silence then used an audio-editing thing to read, say, 1 minute into the song and take the volume, and again 5 seconds later, and once more in another 5 seconds, then see if it's uniform across all the songs. They could also use something similar to let you resume from OTHER USERS!
I must say, however, from what I've seen of Napster, it doesn't seem to be the best-written, feature-rich programming I've ever seen...
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
SUB JOKE(Microsoft)
Michael Tandy
...another insightless comment from Michael Tandy.
Hey,
If I worked for D-net, I'd mark every submission with the time the client has been running. Then I'd work out a maximum processing speed, and compare it with the maximum processing speed for other systems on the same processor and OS. If it's above the previous record by more than, say, 1.5%, I'd start to worry.
To backstop this, I'd have every client encrypt thier submission before sending it to the server, and I'd secure the executable before making it availiable for download (I don't know how easy it would be to do, but software DVD decoders (well, the ones that DIDN'T get cracked) did something similar...). This way, everything but the key by which the data is encrypted can be open-sourced. I think.
Finally, I'd get every client to return data on the plaintext if hypothetically the key HAD worked. I'd then tie this to the username and perform random checks, optionally by redundently distributing blocks.
Hey, I'm not much of a crypto expert (IANACE) but I think these could work... If anyone knows better, feel free to correct me.
Why didn't this make the front page, where it might get some responses?
Michael Tandy
Repeating from my previous post, but a look Here says:
I can see the big problem after Windows being with consumer programs like ICQ. It doesn't have IPv6 support coded in. Everyone would have to be convinced to upgrade.
Whilst this man not seem like a problem, consider this: When you phone printer tech support, the first two things they ask are, in my experience, "Is the printer turned on" and "Is it connected to your computer". This doesn't make me that confident about the liklihood of an average user upgrading thier OS for support for IPv6.
Just my $0.02
Michael Tandy
Hey!
Windows 2000 supports IPv6, but a look here reveals:
There are no plans to im.plement IPv6 for the Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows 98 operating systems at this time.
Aside from that, the document seems quite a good explanation. It's taken from one of M$'s many books. Could be worth a read, if you're quite new to the subject.
What I can't wait to see is the script kiddies with thier Windows 95 port scanners, and the reaction when they find *everyone* has a block of, say, FFFF (65535) IP addresses, and most people only have one system connected in thier *entire* subnet.
I say roll on IPv6! I want an entire subnet to myself, please!
Michael Tandy
Bad form replying to my own post, but here's a quick follow-up qoute from the main page:
"All cellular telephones within the specified range of active SESP jammers are unable to make or receive calls, and calls in progress are immediately cut off when the unit is activated. 'No service' appears on the phone's LCD display. As soon as the jammer is switched off, the cellular service is immediately restored.
The specifications of each jammer manufactured are sharply defined which means that the jammers will never interfere with the proper operation of any RF activity outside the narrowly designated frequency band width of the jammer. This includes aircraft, police, military and security communications, pagers, 2 way radios etc.
Principles of operation:
All cellular systems used today in all countries employ simultaneously two different groups of frequencies. This is to enable the user to communicate in full duplex, ie to speak and listen simultaneously (unlike a standard walkie-talkie). The first group of frequencies is used for the 'downlink' communication between the cellular towers and the mobile phones themselves. The second group is used for the 'uplink' between the phone and the tower. Clients have the choice of either jamming the tower or selected mobile phones. Normally, jammers are used to block cellphones and not the towers of cellular companies JAMMING THE ACTUAL TOWER MAY RENDER HALF A CITY PARALYSED.
Cellular systems covered:
Our products can jam any analogue or digital cellular system you specify including AMPS, N-AMPS-800, D-AMPS/TDMA, CDMA, ETACS-900, NMT-450, TACS-900, GSM-900, GSM-1800, DCS-1800, PCS-1900, PDC, etc.
SESP have jammers currently in stock that can be used in any country in the world, FOR JAMMING ANY CELLULAR SYSTEM."
The prices are high though. Over £1000 per unit.
That's all,
Michael Tandy
Hey!
Look at http://sesp.co.uk/4.htm - it's a UK company and they sell, among other things, cell phone jammers for commercial, security and military reasons. I'll just take a 100W/multiple kilometers unit for my house, and a 2W/50m unit for the car.
Don't know about thet import legality... I live in the UK already. I'm going looking for prices.
Just my $0.02
Michael Tandy
Hey!
Colleges are seeing a lack of interest in Computer Science because computer science classes are seen as "old school" Everyone knows that you don't learn computer skills in school. You don't learn how to program in a classroom environment. You DO learn by DOING. Staying up all night hacking.
In my (Not very good, in my opinion) UK school IT lessons, you don't learn IT skills in school. I never have to ask for help, but those people who do are often told "It's better if you find how to do it yourself", because the mark scheme offers more marks this way, and "It'll make you remember it better".
The inspirational moral? I forget...
Michael Tandy
Hey,
/. servers are told your IP. If /. decides they want some DoubleClick banners to raise cash, they put thier banners up, and when you load slashdot, you load the banners from DoubleClick servers. And DoubleClick then knows your IP, and that you are looking at /.
When you download something from, say, www.slashdot.org, the
From this, they can say, hey 127.201.194.163 has been regularly loading adverts for 1 hour from the slashdot page. He must be an open-source fan. They can then tell thier servers that any time any page sends 127.201.194.163 to get adverts from the DoubleClick servers, it will return open-source oriented adverts.Then they can say, hey 127.201.194.163 clicks on banners coloured blue 50% more often than other types of banner! then they can ask clients for a selection of banners, and they can target you with banners you respond to best.
That's my take on the situation... maybe I'm wrong. Who knows?
Hey!
t ml) warez site does it, trying to make it hard for people to steal links, I expect.
/. HTML parse thingies will cope with it:
> I'm pretty sure in JavaScript 1.2 you can
> disable the contextual menu as well if
> you want to be really evil.
Sure you can! well, not quite disable, but you can make an info-box display if people right click, not a contect menu. This (http://www.sub-host.com/underground/iwa/indexa.h
Here is the code. I don't know how well the
var mymessage = "no need to right click \njust use getright and regularly click on the links";
function rtclickcheck(keyp){
if (navigator.appName == "Netscape" && keyp.which == 3) {
alert(mymessage);
return false;
}
if (navigator.appVersion.indexOf("MSIE") != -1 && event.button == 2) {
alert(mymessage);
return false;
}
}
document.onmousedown = rtclickcheck
//-->
I think that's the bit that does it. I don't know... I don't *do* JavaScript.
Just my $0.02
Michael Tandy
Hey,
And it reinforces the idea that the threat posed by these guys pinging and tracerouting random systems poses roughly as much danger as a wrong number on the telephone ("Some stranger knows my phone number works! Run!").
Yeah, but if a company set a machine up to phone up random numbers and if someone answers, add them to an advertising database correlated by time, for instance, and they woke you up at 5am with a computerized message and automatically hung up, that would be considerably bas etiquette. Most victims would consider it 'annoying', or even 'very annoying'.
I don't think we can pass judgement, or for that matter think up a valid analogy, until we know what the company does. As far as I'm concerned, if they won't tell me what they are doing, I'm going to assume they're doing something bad. The IP ranges they have registered are blocked at my router computer.
Just my $0.02
Michael Tandy
Hey!
Are those the only two choices? Between them, a), but then, what about word processing? Spreadsheets? These are the primary focus of most schools, these days. I don't know of one that teaches 'programming'. I reccomend unix workstations running X even at the elemetary school level. They're cheaper than DOS/Win boxes now, too. Let the kids learn gcc or perl -- or any of the any other myriad languages avaiable for *nix -- if they want to program....
Well, I'm british and I don't know much about the American education system, so this might seem a bit nonsensical, but...
I am doing a course at 'GCSE' level. This starts age 14 and ends age 16 (High). There is no programming involved. Everything is done on low-end (Well, compared to MY system) Windows systems. It's all mail-merge and spreadsheets and word-processing. My teacher was visibly impressed when I put some VBA into a database we were doing for a pretend hospital that encrypted the details of the patients' illnesses.
This is not advanced stuff... schoold don't teach programming, or certainly not to anybody below 16.
In my course, the marks aren't related to what you produce anyway. You get marks by producing multicoloured flow-charts listing what I did to produce the system, i.e. Double-clicked excel icon... this is really no skill involved stuff.
Just my $0.02
Michael Tandy
Hey,
My teachers always *INSTRUCT* everyone to turn thier monitors off. I wrote her an app using an INI file in a networked drive to turn off everyone's screens once.
She wouldn't trust me to *create a networked drive* on a server computer though, and she didn't know how to, so it never worked out.
That was almost interesting, wasn't it?
Michael Tandy
Hey!
...but the entire of the Microsoft corperation can't make a hyperlink point to a page that exists.
Look at the 'high-tech happenings' page: Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is the most admired man among information technology executives, according to a survey by RHI Consulting. Gates clinched 37 percent of the vote, and 19 percent of chief information officers polled chose Dell Computer Chairman and CEO Michael Dell. Candidates included Apple Computer's Steve Jobs, Scott McNealy of Sun Microsystems and Larry Ellison of Oracle.
Michael Tandy
Here are some enviroments the IntelliMouse probably can't work in:
1) The inside of a sealed microchip wafer handling enclosure that DOESN'T CONTAIN A COMPUTER, and doesn't have a gap for the cable to come out.
2) Shreader. Try turning on your shreader and rolling your IntelliMouse over the top. I bet it stops when you get to the bit with the rotating blades!!
3) 500m water. Particularly if you take the plastic off first. And don't do anything to stop the water pressure crushing it.
4) On a curved of 120-watt lightbulbs which are lashing randomly.
5) On an oven hot-plate set to 800 degrees centigrade.
6) On a plate of Frankium, whilst being exposed to copious amounts of Flourine.
7) On a skier's gas powered wax-melting heater, whilst there is wax on it.
8) In a decompression chamber set to 75 feet.
9) On top of a cheese and tobato pizza.
10) Air, Whilst skydiving.
11) In space, with nothing to rest it on.
12) In a gas-chamber.
13) Gravel.
14) Sand.
15) Burning coals.
etc...
Got you there, didn't I?
Michael Tandy
Hey,
I think the reason that most Males pursue IT-related careers is because they love technology, where as most women don't. The big question is, however, *WHY* do we like technology?
My theory is simple: All technology was sreated with one aim: Women...
Fire --> Keep warm, whilst seducing women.
Club --> Threaten and impress women.
Printing press --> Look at women.
TV --> Watch women.
VCR --> Watch more women.
Internet --> Look at neked women without having to go into embarrasing shops.
etc...
It could easily be true, you've got to admit...
Michael Tandy
Hey,
He got a reply from his MP? He's lucky. I sent mine a detailed description of possible misinterpretations of the RIP bill, and I dodn't even get a reply.
That's what I love about living in a democracy. You can really tell your representative cares about your opinions.
Michael Tandy
Hey!
Wouldn't web-banner blocking programs (i.e. Norton Internet Security) block these 'web bugs' out? Furthermore, wouldn't it be easy to get a porn-site-listing-and-blocking firewall and change the names of porn sites for those of companies like doubleclick? If everyone did this, doubleclick wouldn't get the views.
SUB MANICLAUGH {
write("They would be crushed BWHAHAHAHAH!")
}
This would be a good thing for privacy. If we could get a big ISP like AOL into the blocking, it would be interesting to see the results.
Michael Tandy
Hey!
Everyone can understand marking papers and counting them, while most can't understand cryptography and digital signatures.
Why don't we make digital signatures optional? here's my example election model:
Option 1: Vote online using your secure digital signature.
Option 2: Going out to vote.
To ensure security and transparency of the voting system, the software should be... wait for it... open source! Crypto experts can then check it over, and if there are any faults, point them out.
Just because I have an idea, and I feel like sharing it, here's how I'd run digital signatures:
1) You go to the voting website and siggn in with your secure digital certificate
2) You get sent a small file containing, say, 128k of random data. This has been digitally signed by the vote administrators. If you vote for party 1, you crop off and return the top 64k of data signed with your certificate. If you vote for party 2, you crop off and return the bottom 64k of the data signed with your digital certificate.
Well, I'd do something similar to that, but then, I'm obsessed with applications involving signing and/or encrypting random data.
Just my $0.02
Michael Tandy
Yeah. Did you? It's about allocation *and* blocking:
"It [PacketShaper] analyzes traffic patterns and measures response times, enforces bandwidth allocation and implements service-level agreements and generates reports on application behavior."
"Another solution is PacketHound, developed by Palisade Systems Inc.. It's a software and hardware solution that allows administrators to block a number of bandwidth-eating applications, including Gnutella, RealAudio and RealVideo and Napster."
I don't want to, like, dis' you at all, but if you're going to criticise other people, make sure you're right.
Michael Tandy
Hey,
The DOJ *CANNOT* prosecute any non-monopoly US company for anticompetitive practices, barring a few very basic practices like price fixing.
If this isn't price-fixing, I'm not sure what is. For those of you who feel so inclined, you can e-mail the attorney-general: antitrust@usdoj.gov.
In any case, I won't be buying RDRAM from now on.
Michael Tandy