Yes, you're absolutely right. But when dealing with common users using the system these are problems you simply have to expect. My comment was mainly geared to production www servers, mail servers, DNS servers, etc. The systems that (if I weren't trying to protect the damn things) would be trying to break into;) I worked at an ISP and could not believe the number of people that used "password" for their password. Jeeze. DranoK
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.
The thing I love are all these spiffy articles how cool ways that people break into systems. I am constantly SHOCKED by just how poor security is on most UNIX systems. UNIX has the ability to be so completely and blatently secure that not even a micron could get through. The problem is most sysadmins don't implement security very well. First off, if you're not behind a firewall you just made it 10,000 times easier to get into the system. If you have more than 10 computers, I think a firewall is almost a necessity. Second, my point really, is that you can NEVER, read N-E-V-E-R, use telnet or ftp. Anyone with an account on your system (or connected to your network or other ways if they're clever) can sniff any plain-text username and password in under 10 minutes. Use ssh, scp, whatever; just make sure any text transmitted over a network is encrypted. This is the #1 security hole I see most places making. Just my $2.00 worth. DranoK
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.
See, I've never used them before...so one long programming night I decide that it would be nice to download the ROM (Rivers of Mud) source code and print out the socket code for reference (ever notice there aint too many *NIX socket references?)
So everything is going along just fine, right? Well, I tried to print 1.5 pages, and somehow I f*cked up and printer all of it. Yes, all of the ROM code, all those thousands of pages. My boss wasn't too happy with me =)
Printers are the Devil incarnate!!!! BOYCOTT PRINTERS!!!
Sadly enough you're absolutely right...a Pizza *does* sound very good right now...
I think I'll go to Arby's instead =)
--DranoK
BTW, I was wrong at the cost of a 30-second spot on the Super Bowl.:/ It's gone up. Can't believe more people watch that Super Bowl (of crap) than vote.
I'm not sure exactly which aspect of this is more depressing:
1) That Pizza Hut paid 125 times my annual sallary to pull a publicity stunt that, other than a few newspapers, nobody will actually *see* (Well, very few.) I mean, even a 30 second spot on the Super Bowl is only about $1 million.
Or 2) That $2.5 million dollars worth of customers will read about this and say, "Screw Domino's, let's go to Pizza Hut!!!" Sheesh.
Don't blame the advertising companies too much...Remember, it's the customers who really pay for these ads.
This entire situation seems like a "no-way-out" situation. There are two sides, which each have equally valid points. On the one side, we need to protect free speech on the Internet. Just because I say some "profane" four-letter-word could end up in forcing a rating which would eliminate the possibility for many people to read this. It could also give strong leverage for some groups, such as the Christian Coalition. Gay/Lesbian pages could be flagged as having an R (or equivilent) rating, and many teens would be unable to view these valuable resources. Libraries and schools would likewise impose a filtering system to only allow G-rated material. The Internet, for me and several friends, and people accross the world, has provided a safe-haven of resources and information that couldn't be viewed anywhere else. Suicidal kids may find the support they need, but not if they are limited to only G-rated material, which would be very sparse. I don't concern myself with the morals or the philosphy of Internet censorship, but rather with the information which would cease to be available to those who need it. And who knows. Little 13-year-old Johnny might not be able to download GameSpy since it's a product which encourages the playing of such violent games as UT and Q3.
On the other hand, I understand the need to protect the children. A very informative post has already been written and I won't repeat him, but I agree with much of what he says. For instance, we probably wouldn't want our children to accidently run accross a KKK page, or an explicit sex site.
I guess what all this rambleing comes down to is one simple fact: Smut, hate, and misinformation exist. Porn isn't going to go away just because we find a way to not allow childeren to view it. I don't understand this -- kids aren't supposed to know anything about sexuality or view porn until they're 18, when suddenly everything changes? Yeah...right. Like that's ever going to happen.
Disgusting things exist, but that's the world we live in. We can't shelter people from it, or the problem will only get worse. Remember, these same children we're claiming are losing their innosence at one time were subjected to viewing executions at all ages. These executions were considered to be festivities, and children learned to become excited over the death of another human. IMHO, this is much worse than the digital information they can view today.
Filtering does not eliminate the problem, it only makes it worse. You can cut information off from those who need it, and brainwash others into thinking this doesn't exist. Remember all the bans on racist books and movies? This didn't make racism go away, it only made people think racism no longer existed. Ignoring and filtering out the problem only makes things worse.
My advice to parents: Keep open communications with your kids!!! Make sure your children understand that they can talk to you for anything, and never make them afraid to come to you. If your child views sex pics which disturb him, make sure he can talk to you. Only then can you teach your child your ideas of right and wrong, and what is moral and what isn't. If your child, on the other hand, thinks you'd scold him for viewing such material, he will never tell you, and may believe such is the norm. This, I believe, is the only viable solution: Build Better Parents.
Let's look at the basic nature of Government from the beginning of time:
At some point in our distant past people gave up some of their rights in exchange for protection. This has continued to grow, through the Monarchistic empires to the (sic)civilized Government empires we have today.
The Government and other powers that be, such as school legislators do not do things like this for "security". They do this for the sole purpose of regulation and control.
These shootings are by no means the first time political and social bodies have naysayed the school system. The shootings merely give an excuse to catagorize and enforce the school population. This is something that Governments have always wanted.
Why did Caeser demand a census over 2 thousand years ago? He wanted to know 1) How many people he controlled and 2) How many people weren't paying taxes. If you can catagorize something, you can control it.
Think of the benefits this ID system can give to our great nation! These id's can be required to open a door, or, better yet, can just be automatically read when a student walks through a door. An electronic scale was stolen from a physics lab? Well, now, with the new-and-improved student tracking system, the suspects can be narrowed down in record time. A police officer arrests a student and needs their record? No problem! Scan the kid's barcode and find out their entire history. Just think of the possible benefits of knowing every time a kid gets in trouble -- no! just think of the benefits we can have by tracking a child's every move! Every trip to the bathroom! Every website visited on the Internet! Want to get rid of that uneasy gay problem? Easy! Just tag 'em! With this revolutionary tracking system we can find out what video games a kid plays, what movies he watches, and stop him from comitting a crime before he even thinks of it! And why not? Children are just property after all. They have no rights.
But why stop there? Think of the potential of tracking EVERY citizen of this great nation! A vicious murder-to-be checks out a bunch of books about bombs and buys all the supllies? 'nab 'em!!! Someone buys/rents a bunch of material that is anti-government? 'NAB 'EM!!! The possibilities are ENDLESS!!!!
Sound a little to paranoid? Think about it. Is there any possible outcome other than a complete tracking system? Such a system is already coming into place; credit reports, health history, everything tied to you by your social security number. No, you are not required to give your number to everyone, but forget about doing some of your favorite things! I grew up like this. I was born in 1980 and had my SS number memorized by the sixth grade. I was PROUD of this!! I never hesitated to give the number for anything. Talk about socialization. How do you enforce this kind of categorization? You make the children used to it and reinforce to them that it's right. It will take time, but give it about another 50 years, and you'll be able to get the exact number of times you've taken a dump.
Activists can delay this, but it is inevitable that eventually all humans will be tagged 'n tracked.
My ears hurt. It's been awhile since I've read an article that made my ears hurt.
Sorry slashdot for wasting your bandwidth replying to this...um....whatever is lower than a biological creature.
Sir, I think you've had as much, if not more, of a hellish experience in High School as the rest of us, and you too are feeling resentful. Instead of killing 13 people, however, you just scream at us and separate yourself further to get away from everything. You have never faced your scars and you are still hurting for it. And that's exactly what society subconsciously wants for outcasts and outsiders to do: stick up for the popular and get the f*ck out of the way.
It really pisses me off to no extent when people I know start raving about how High School was the greatest time of their life. To me, all school I ever went to has been absolutely hellish. I never bitch about it because I know that so many people have gone through the same thing I have. Sometimes I just really wish the "authorities" would get their noses out of their asses and figure out why kids can crack.
I really thought college would be different. I got a free ride to the University of Montana, but just recently dropped out. As far as I could tell, it was all the same. Teachers never really cared about any kids except for the popular ones, because that in turn made them more popular. I'm 18 now living on my own, and I'm as happy as I've ever been not going to school. School, I think, is just a common torture geeks must bare. My best friend is 16 and dropped out in 8th grade when everything just became too much for him. He's my local *NIX guru who solves all my problems, and is probably one of the smartest people I know. School, at least the education content of it, is far underrated.
I don't game as much as I used to, but that's mainly because of a lack of time. My parents tried to cancel my internet account several times, but it's amazing how many accounts you can get with a few CC# and a strong drive. I, like most of us, was a complete outcast at school. The only time people were ever nice to me is when they were buying passwords from me I ripped from the school database. Hellgate was a real dunce--they stored the passwords in plain text files, not encrypted, and thought that not having access to a shell would stop us from breaking in. Easiest password-grabbing I've ever done; I just used QBasic.:)
We all have these same stories to share, because when it comes right down to it our classmates were afraid of us. We don't follow the rules, and are by nature non-conformists, and that in itself is enough reason for society as a whole to hate us. --DranoK
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, you're absolutely right. But when dealing with common users using the system these are problems you simply have to expect. My comment was mainly geared to production www servers, mail servers, DNS servers, etc. The systems that (if I weren't trying to protect the damn things) would be trying to break into ;) I worked at an ISP and could not believe the number of people that used "password" for their password. Jeeze. DranoK
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.
The thing I love are all these spiffy articles how cool ways that people break into systems. I am constantly SHOCKED by just how poor security is on most UNIX systems. UNIX has the ability to be so completely and blatently secure that not even a micron could get through. The problem is most sysadmins don't implement security very well. First off, if you're not behind a firewall you just made it 10,000 times easier to get into the system. If you have more than 10 computers, I think a firewall is almost a necessity. Second, my point really, is that you can NEVER, read N-E-V-E-R, use telnet or ftp. Anyone with an account on your system (or connected to your network or other ways if they're clever) can sniff any plain-text username and password in under 10 minutes. Use ssh, scp, whatever; just make sure any text transmitted over a network is encrypted. This is the #1 security hole I see most places making. Just my $2.00 worth. DranoK
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons even death may die.
I'm boycotting printers! FOREVER!!!
See, I've never used them before...so one long programming night I decide that it would be nice to download the ROM (Rivers of Mud) source code and print out the socket code for reference (ever notice there aint too many *NIX socket references?)
So everything is going along just fine, right? Well, I tried to print 1.5 pages, and somehow I f*cked up and printer all of it. Yes, all of the ROM code, all those thousands of pages. My boss wasn't too happy with me =)
Printers are the Devil incarnate!!!! BOYCOTT PRINTERS!!!
Heh.
Sadly enough you're absolutely right...a Pizza *does* sound very good right now...
:/ It's gone up. Can't believe more people watch that Super Bowl (of crap) than vote.
I think I'll go to Arby's instead =)
--DranoK
BTW, I was wrong at the cost of a 30-second spot on the Super Bowl.
I'm not sure exactly which aspect of this is more depressing:
1) That Pizza Hut paid 125 times my annual sallary to pull a publicity stunt that, other than a few newspapers, nobody will actually *see* (Well, very few.) I mean, even a 30 second spot on the Super Bowl is only about $1 million.
Or 2) That $2.5 million dollars worth of customers will read about this and say, "Screw Domino's, let's go to Pizza Hut!!!" Sheesh.
Don't blame the advertising companies too much...Remember, it's the customers who really pay for these ads.
--DranoK
On the other hand, I understand the need to protect the children. A very informative post has already been written and I won't repeat him, but I agree with much of what he says. For instance, we probably wouldn't want our children to accidently run accross a KKK page, or an explicit sex site.
I guess what all this rambleing comes down to is one simple fact: Smut, hate, and misinformation exist. Porn isn't going to go away just because we find a way to not allow childeren to view it. I don't understand this -- kids aren't supposed to know anything about sexuality or view porn until they're 18, when suddenly everything changes? Yeah...right. Like that's ever going to happen.
Disgusting things exist, but that's the world we live in. We can't shelter people from it, or the problem will only get worse. Remember, these same children we're claiming are losing their innosence at one time were subjected to viewing executions at all ages. These executions were considered to be festivities, and children learned to become excited over the death of another human. IMHO, this is much worse than the digital information they can view today.
Filtering does not eliminate the problem, it only makes it worse. You can cut information off from those who need it, and brainwash others into thinking this doesn't exist. Remember all the bans on racist books and movies? This didn't make racism go away, it only made people think racism no longer existed. Ignoring and filtering out the problem only makes things worse.
My advice to parents: Keep open communications with your kids!!! Make sure your children understand that they can talk to you for anything, and never make them afraid to come to you. If your child views sex pics which disturb him, make sure he can talk to you. Only then can you teach your child your ideas of right and wrong, and what is moral and what isn't. If your child, on the other hand, thinks you'd scold him for viewing such material, he will never tell you, and may believe such is the norm. This, I believe, is the only viable solution: Build Better Parents.
--DranoK.
At some point in our distant past people gave up some of their rights in exchange for protection. This has continued to grow, through the Monarchistic empires to the (sic)civilized Government empires we have today.
The Government and other powers that be, such as school legislators do not do things like this for "security". They do this for the sole purpose of regulation and control.
These shootings are by no means the first time political and social bodies have naysayed the school system. The shootings merely give an excuse to catagorize and enforce the school population. This is something that Governments have always wanted.
Why did Caeser demand a census over 2 thousand years ago? He wanted to know 1) How many people he controlled and 2) How many people weren't paying taxes. If you can catagorize something, you can control it.
Think of the benefits this ID system can give to our great nation! These id's can be required to open a door, or, better yet, can just be automatically read when a student walks through a door. An electronic scale was stolen from a physics lab? Well, now, with the new-and-improved student tracking system, the suspects can be narrowed down in record time. A police officer arrests a student and needs their record? No problem! Scan the kid's barcode and find out their entire history. Just think of the possible benefits of knowing every time a kid gets in trouble -- no! just think of the benefits we can have by tracking a child's every move! Every trip to the bathroom! Every website visited on the Internet! Want to get rid of that uneasy gay problem? Easy! Just tag 'em! With this revolutionary tracking system we can find out what video games a kid plays, what movies he watches, and stop him from comitting a crime before he even thinks of it! And why not? Children are just property after all. They have no rights.
But why stop there? Think of the potential of tracking EVERY citizen of this great nation! A vicious murder-to-be checks out a bunch of books about bombs and buys all the supllies? 'nab 'em!!! Someone buys/rents a bunch of material that is anti-government? 'NAB 'EM!!! The possibilities are ENDLESS!!!!
Sound a little to paranoid? Think about it. Is there any possible outcome other than a complete tracking system? Such a system is already coming into place; credit reports, health history, everything tied to you by your social security number. No, you are not required to give your number to everyone, but forget about doing some of your favorite things! I grew up like this. I was born in 1980 and had my SS number memorized by the sixth grade. I was PROUD of this!! I never hesitated to give the number for anything. Talk about socialization. How do you enforce this kind of categorization? You make the children used to it and reinforce to them that it's right. It will take time, but give it about another 50 years, and you'll be able to get the exact number of times you've taken a dump.
Activists can delay this, but it is inevitable that eventually all humans will be tagged 'n tracked.
Better start sucking up to Big Brother now.
Sorry slashdot for wasting your bandwidth replying to this...um....whatever is lower than a biological creature.
Sir, I think you've had as much, if not more, of a hellish experience in High School as the rest of us, and you too are feeling resentful. Instead of killing 13 people, however, you just scream at us and separate yourself further to get away from everything. You have never faced your scars and you are still hurting for it. And that's exactly what society subconsciously wants for outcasts and outsiders to do: stick up for the popular and get the f*ck out of the way.
--DranoK
I really thought college would be different. I got a free ride to the University of Montana, but just recently dropped out. As far as I could tell, it was all the same. Teachers never really cared about any kids except for the popular ones, because that in turn made them more popular. I'm 18 now living on my own, and I'm as happy as I've ever been not going to school. School, I think, is just a common torture geeks must bare. My best friend is 16 and dropped out in 8th grade when everything just became too much for him. He's my local *NIX guru who solves all my problems, and is probably one of the smartest people I know. School, at least the education content of it, is far underrated.
I don't game as much as I used to, but that's mainly because of a lack of time. My parents tried to cancel my internet account several times, but it's amazing how many accounts you can get with a few CC# and a strong drive. I, like most of us, was a complete outcast at school. The only time people were ever nice to me is when they were buying passwords from me I ripped from the school database. Hellgate was a real dunce--they stored the passwords in plain text files, not encrypted, and thought that not having access to a shell would stop us from breaking in. Easiest password-grabbing I've ever done; I just used QBasic. :)
We all have these same stories to share, because when it comes right down to it our classmates were afraid of us. We don't follow the rules, and are by nature non-conformists, and that in itself is enough reason for society as a whole to hate us. --DranoK