...but if the "Heaven's Gate" cult was right, we might be killing several aliens and the spirits of all the 39 dead humans who "warped" to the comet after committing suicide.
The individuals this article recognizes are more commmonly known as FXPer's. These are often legitimate and illegitimate FTP server operators.
Ago, who reportedly (see http://www.livejournal.com/users/gravito/2197.html for explanation) stole the HL2 code, was a botnet coder. While botnets are designed primarily for three purposes: DDoSing, File Trading, and Spamming, they are not used for stealing source code. Instead, this is someone that acted of their own will to use a botnet to hide their identity when stealing the source. The source was also propagated via this method.
The FXPer's are actually an echelon higher than botnet herders. The FXPer's have nothing to do with stealing Half-Life 2's source code. They are, indeed, the closest thing we have to romantic pirates. They also purchase the majority of the software they crack and distribute, ironically. They do this as a philosophical movement, and do not believe in copyright law or IP law.
A good deal of the FXPer's also contribute to open source and are active on Slashdot.
The idea that nanobots will enhance our capabilities out of the box is flawed. Here's why:
1) The security issues surrounding nanobots have not even started along the path to fruition. One of the problems that comes with creating nanobots is securing them. As past history has shown, flaws that allow compromises in new technology are rampant as it is. Injecting nanobots is going to be risky for the sake of a "hostile takeover" of their control mechanisms.
2) Flaws. It's yet to be determined if there will actually even be "enhancements" from cybernetic changes to the human body. Devices now that let the blind see also have negative side effects of which the depth of such cannot even be described. What is to happen if in throwing a baseball the stress involved will cause a player to hurl the object at 150 mph instead of a more adequate 90 mph? What then, if there is a death because of a stress-related injury?
3) Longevity. The current problem with creating devices that run on little or no power is that they still need an energy source. Supposing there were thousands of nanobites required to make an olympian do a one-foot higer long jump. Where is the power going to come from if not the individual? If they are power by battery and die out, then are they really aiding the player in any way?
4) Along the lines of the above, it is obvious that steroids give players a "nanotech-like" advantage. Yet, steroids are illegal. Why then, would nanotechnology be fair use in any game? Who is to say that world governments will not ban their use from their inception do to safety concerns?
Well, I think part of the problem is I'm running 10.3 and have the Microsoft Office package running then. Unfortunately, it's the only Word processing/Office suite we can use here.
I have yet to see any major vendors (like Best Buy or CompUSA) offer upgrades for the new iMac in the hard drive department. Right now, we have to do purchases like that directly through Apple or an authorized vendor, and it's not cheap.
I think the issue is the Office suite and how well it works with the other software. I know it takes up ridiculous amounts of RAM, just like XP does, but the difference is that with XP I can trim the OS down to next to nothing using software like nLite. Hell, I just got done making an XP CD with SP2 slipstreamed and IE and IE core ripped out. I have FireFox available on the same CD too, so I can just install it.
There just seems to be so much more flexibility with Windows and PCs than with OSX and Macs. To each their own. I just know that I don't want to buy a computer like I would an appliance.
Honestly, this is incredibly tiresome. Can't we all just agree that there are many segments to the computer market, and that Apple Computer, Inc. can cheerfully be profitable without trying to dominate every portion of the market this decade?
Actually no. Because it bothers me to no end that whenever there is a story about Apple, everyone gets out their mod points to rate up these BS posts about how God himself granted Jobs the divine power of foresight and the crown of geekdom.
There's about as much innovation in Jobs as there is Gates. To be honest, I don't personally like either of them. The thing is that Bill Gates didn't try from the start to dominate both the hardware *and* the software. Which is why he "won".
IMHO, the only thing Jobs has going for him are pity points from geeks that like Wozniak (who I do respect), and can't seem to pinpoint exactly what Jobs is standing for. He wants to make the computer an appliance, something that you buy once ever few years and then throw away. This goes against every fiber for what the computer market should be, and is the same problem the automotive industry went through. Eventually it comes down to just a few key players, and custom building and truly innovated design gets lost.
My mother wants an Apple because she used to work with one at her previous job and thought it was so "cute". People who think computers are cute (yes, even my mother) should not be the ones making the decisions to purchase them.
Huh? It sounds like the guts of the eMac minus the display, and while the eMac isn't a great machine I certainly wouldn't call it crappy.
Like I said, I work technical support. I'm not getting any replies from people that say, "I WORK TECH SUPPORT AND SUPPORT APPLE COMPUTERS". Of course, if they did say that, they'd have to learn to turn off the caps key.
Still, there's some unquestioned belief on/. that geeks just love Apple computers. Yet no one has ever bothered to ask those that support them in corporations or educational instutitions how they feel.
All I am saying is that, as one who does support Apple labs and PC labs, I enjoy the simplicity of upgrading and replacing the PCs far more than I do the Apples.
The eMac actually *is* crappy. I encourage you to use one as your office computer sometime. Indeed, use one with the latest OS X and 256 meg RAM. I'm sure you'll find it a bundle of never-ending joy.
For basic stuff like browsing the web, checking mail, music and DVDs, 256MB is fine.
Running just Word, Safari, and playing an mp3 in the background drags the 256 meg eMac to its knees in the latest OS X. Try it sometime, I do on a regular basis for our lab workstations and my test lab station. The average time to switch between Word and Safari is two seconds, which may not seem like long, but was virtually non-existant before I had to give up the 512 meg RAM stick that I had in it before.
Bullshit. Take a look at the new iMac for starters.
Okay. Where do I plug in the 512 meg RAM, 160 gig Serial ATA HD, and new Dual Layer DVD burner?
Oh wait.. you mean I have to buy external firewire/USB drives? Damn. That sucks. I might as well buy a new computer.
My point still stands. If anything, this new iMac only reinforces it.
Exactly why will this peice of crap be a pain in the ass to support?
See point 1. This kind of computer is not upgradable, and will probably still be around in 3 years, with a professor asking me why it can't reliable run the latest Office, Safari, and MP3's at the same time on OS 11.
I'll have to explain that because of security and compatibility issues, we had to upgrade to OS 11, and since the OS is such a GD resource hog, everything runs like crap.
Please don't do drugs while posting in Slashdot. OK?
Wow, what a witty and totally original comment to end on.
I was amazed that the NASA scientists name wasn't mentioned in the/. blurb, but then I started reading the article and realized why it wasn't. It's just Gross.
I wonder if anyone ever called him by his last name, then first in school.
Apparently too few Slashdot patrons actually use Pricewatch anymore, maybe they think they are getting "deals" from Dell. I see highly modded posts talking about how great having a $500 Mac would be for "geeks", as if the individual writing them is the figurehead for some quiet geek movement.
Let me explain why a $500 Mac is wrong:
1) 256 meg RAM and 40 gig. This is not 2001, people. 256 meg RAM hasn't been "enough" RAM since the nineties.
2) Since Jobs came back to Apple, he developed the iMac line, which was suppose to address the issue of future computer compatibility (USB) while getting rid of legacy architecture (serial ports and floppy drives). All this was done in one, standalone unit. It is Apple's corporate image for their products to be like "appliances", disposable and an all-in-one product. They are to be reliable, and Jobs has even said on occasion that he wants to "be the Sony of the computer market".
You're not _meant_ to upgrade a Mac. This new line of computers would require an upgrade pretty much out of the box. It also does not address, in my opinion, the biggest Mac issue of the last decade: gaming and gaming development.
3) Tech support. I work in this area, and if this computer is as crappy as they describe, I don't want to support it.
4) $500 places this kind of a computer within reaching price of my mother, who has always wanted an Apple, is an impulse buyer, but could never afford one.
Apple draws impulse buyers like stink on (edited due to PG-13 rating). My mother is one of those. If Jobs actually *puts* a computer within her reach as a consumer, she very well may buy one, and have a hell of a time when she has problems and I refuse to support it.
The problem is that impulse buyers love to find reasons to hate the products they purchased on impulse. They also like to hate the companies that produce them. If Jobs puts a computer within financial reach of nearly every family in North America and Europe then Apple will no longer be a niche market player in the minds of consumers.
Saying, "I got a Mac!" will not make your (once again, the PG-13 rating) any bigger. It won't get you laid, not that it ever did in the first place, nor will one in the house turn heads.
The thing is, iPods were cool, because you might be the only one to have them. Now, they are still cool, because you can talk about "how long you had it".
Making an iCrap, and selling it for $500 is simply *not* going to work and will end up ruining Apple's image. The only reason the iPod didn't was because it is seen as a device and not a computer. There was also a real lack of any good cheap mp3 players.
I would agree. There *are* legitimate reasons to not do drugs. Unfortunately, the issues that the government and subsidiaries (spelling) of seem to harp on, are not indicative of them.
I actually think that, compared to most states, Iowa is more technically advanced. We've got two good colleges that both promote security, and the Jabber protocol was developed by an Iowan.
A little girl is out near the pool, putting the inflatable toy out over the deep end, all by herself. She struggles to get it in the water, then walks to the edge...
Cut to a woman's voice saying, "Just tell her parents you were busy downloading the latest Leisure Suit Larry game."
So, to sum things up from all the previously high-rated comments on the multiple/. articles regarding the object: you still have plenty of time to get laid, fix the unix time epoch issue, and finish coding Duke Nukem Forever.
...at the rate these bumps have been going; by April 13th 2029, Slashdot will be reporting a 3876/3877 chance of the asteroid hitting Earth with an estimated 9 out of every 10 stories having to deal with collisions with Near-Earth Objects.
Excuse me if insinuate that this story is starting to get old now. As is the topic itself. Those that want to know are following the story themselves now.
IMHO, this is a cleverly disguised appeal for more funding, and I don't mind getting modded down for telling it as I see it.
Is anyone else somewhat disturbed by not so much the prediction, but how far out this is predicted to occur?
I mean, saying something is going to hit in 3 years is fine, but the timespan on this collision is extremely long. I would have to say that just because of the variables involved, there's no way they could be accurate worth a damn past 5 years at this point.
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I remember just 2 years ago there was a story on Slashdot about how more money (I'm assuming federal) should go into NEO (Near Earth Object) research because of this massive threat of asteroids hitting the Earth.
Then there was a story about how under-funded it is. I mean, don't get me wrong, but how is a horribly funded institution claiming that some asteroid is going to hit in 30 years anything other than a plea for more funding?
I guess I just don't buy into this "asteroid is going to destroy the Earth" religion. It smacks of a not-so-cleverly-disguised request for more year-end funding.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see more research done on this, but right now just seems really, really, fishy.
I had to explain this to a colleague earlier in layman's terms, so I'm repeating it here:
For those of you who think this is solely a PHP or PHPBB bug, it's actually quite a bit more involved than that. A series of exploits for PHP were released, and subsequently, a lot of forum software, not just phpBB, is exploitable.
This worm uses a legitimate function which the phpBB developers have for functionality of their forum software. This legitimate function is exploitable in certain versions of PHP. Due to the speed in which the exploit was released, it could be that the worm developer had the engine ready and was simply looking for a PHP exploit to come out for a function that was used with a widely available web application package. They hit jackpot with phpBB and PHP together.
The developer didn't thinking to make it so that it added a random element to it's Google searches or didn't use different search engines. In fact, it almost looks like this was simply a trial run for a future worm that will be much more complex and may possibly span a multitude of web applications.
A concept was written up earlier this year here: http://www.imperva.com/application_defense_ center/ white_papers/application_worms.html?show=appworm It now appears that niddhog (the concept worm) has been made evident. Fortunately, it did not include such things as Code Red and Nimda did with using IE exploits to infect the clients that would view these websites.
It is a bleak future with the idea of Web Application Worms coupled with IE exploits. Not only do you have the method and distribution combined, but such a thing would be highly anonymous for the malware author and could spread to the highest point of infection in a matter of hours as IE users visited their favorite community websites running exploitable forum software.
Libertarians (that's with the capital "L") take a lot of flak on/. because many still adhere to this assumption that copyright law is property law. And we know how us "L"s can be on property rights! It's not. An idea cannot (as far as we know) be physically "taken away" from someone. The idea still exists, it just now exists in someone else's mind as well. To have copyright law is to control how neurons in our brains are arranged.
I'm a Libertarian that sees no actual theft in copying. I would see theft if in taking the idea if it was removed from the other individual's brain, but that simply NEVER happens.
I tried to explain it to another L buddy of mind like this, if someone has a pair of jeans, that pair of jeans is theirs. Even down to a cellular level, those jeans are physically and totally theirs. If I take a look at those jeans and think, "Damn I want those!" I can just take them and run. That is stealing. The other thing I can do is make a copy and use them.
In fact, Ugg probably copied Ogk's idea of wearing a hide somewhere along the line, while Ogk copied Ugg's idea for the wheel. I highly doubt that Ogk got into a bitter legal dispute or physical tuffle with Ugg over the "pelt as clothing" idea. However when Ugg took Ogk's woman Leena... well, I'm spending too much time on this story already.
The problem I have with copyright law is that it is subjective. It simply *has* to be. There is no objective reasoning that can be used to justify it. Cries that no intellectual property laws will stifle innovation are just like cries that we should "save the children". Utilitarian arguments are pathetic in that they are contructed to appeal to our "pathos" and not "logos". Logically, it does not make sense to have arbitrary "copy protection". It's like making laws for population control. You wouldn't have to worry about population control if you didn't feel obligated to force some government entity to save people's lives to begin with.
Actually, greylisting is probably the best solution to SPAM yet. It increases the cost of sending it for the SPAMMER, and decreases the amount of it in my Inbox. Since 90% of spam comes from compromised machines, the idea of "reject first" works.
That's scary. That's the reality of the Internet. I can crash your browser whenever I like it. It's why others say to "get Firefox".
Now get back to class and come back to write for your college newspaper here in a week when you're next "assignment" is due. I'll start by teaching you about TCP/IP fundamentals, sniffing, MitM attack, and subpeonas to servers hosting chats, all of which can and are used to track down Terrorists.
Hmmmm, wait a minute. I went to www.getfirefox.com, not mirror.sg.depaul.edu. I don't have any idea where that place is, and it sure makes me nervous. IE has informed me that "If you do not trust the source, do not run or save this software."
Google for "windows update error" and you'll see that many users have to go figure out what their x803833828 codes actually mean from sites other than Microsoft.
Here's what I got as a result of clicking a Microsoft link in a search for "download IE": http://www.gravito.com/sheepdot/IE1.gif
Why do I get cookies from Microsoft websites other than the ones I'm going to? http://www.gravito.com/sheepdot/IE2.gif
Don't get me wrong, this guy has somewhat of a point, but it's lost in the fact that he's using IE to download Mozilla. Microsoft won't even let Mozilla users download IE. I think that it's pretty obvious that they don't have any intention of getting people to switch, let alone "switch back". I currently use a program called "nLite" to strip IE and IE core from my XP installations. This only started recently due to the lack of a fix for an iframe crashing bug that allowed spyware companies to bypass all those fancy "don't run the exe" windows and just drop malware into the stack. Two weeks for a fix, Microsoft. Two weeks! Mozilla devs have had serious issues like this resolved within a day, sometimes in hours of the first report. The heap overflow in rendering images is another example of how seriously open source developers take security risks.
Lastly, the Flash and especially Java install with IE is a quagmire as well. What happens when the mirror takes longer than 30 seconds to kick in? Well, I click the link and it asks if I really wanted to run/save the EXE. Who cares about signed content, Spybot isn't signed and I need that. Nor is half the open source software. But Gator is signed. Hell, somewhere around 10 to 20 percent of spyware is signed!
Also, the double security windows issue regarding downloaded EXEs in IE is more of a hindrance than a help. Especially when it's been shown that malware authors can write ActiveX to just run it outside of asking the user if it is okay anyway.
Intentions are a messy thing. I do agree that a lot of those on/. think they have some sort of bonfide right to download and play other's works. To a certain extent, I would agree that it's better that they have a right than for some megacorp to come in and universally demand royalities.
My biggest beef is that these publishers oftentimes have sole rights to copyrighted material and then refuse to reprint it. What are you going to do when you are 75 and think back to that good old Eminem album you had and you will no longer be able to legally listen to it, because the publisher has demanded no new copies be made?
Slashdot Mirror
...but if the "Heaven's Gate" cult was right, we might be killing several aliens and the spirits of all the 39 dead humans who "warped" to the comet after committing suicide.
The individuals this article recognizes are more commmonly known as FXPer's. These are often legitimate and illegitimate FTP server operators.
l for explanation) stole the HL2 code, was a botnet coder. While botnets are designed primarily for three purposes: DDoSing, File Trading, and Spamming, they are not used for stealing source code. Instead, this is someone that acted of their own will to use a botnet to hide their identity when stealing the source. The source was also propagated via this method.
Ago, who reportedly (see http://www.livejournal.com/users/gravito/2197.htm
The FXPer's are actually an echelon higher than botnet herders. The FXPer's have nothing to do with stealing Half-Life 2's source code. They are, indeed, the closest thing we have to romantic pirates. They also purchase the majority of the software they crack and distribute, ironically. They do this as a philosophical movement, and do not believe in copyright law or IP law.
A good deal of the FXPer's also contribute to open source and are active on Slashdot.
So I RTFA and played the #1 game.
It sucks. Original idea? Yeah. Good game? Well, I'd rather play HL2, and it only cost me 20 bucks more than the full verison of this.
There's a reason these games are indy, and it isn't because they are simply unique.
The idea that nanobots will enhance our capabilities out of the box is flawed. Here's why:
1) The security issues surrounding nanobots have not even started along the path to fruition. One of the problems that comes with creating nanobots is securing them. As past history has shown, flaws that allow compromises in new technology are rampant as it is. Injecting nanobots is going to be risky for the sake of a "hostile takeover" of their control mechanisms.
2) Flaws. It's yet to be determined if there will actually even be "enhancements" from cybernetic changes to the human body. Devices now that let the blind see also have negative side effects of which the depth of such cannot even be described. What is to happen if in throwing a baseball the stress involved will cause a player to hurl the object at 150 mph instead of a more adequate 90 mph? What then, if there is a death because of a stress-related injury?
3) Longevity. The current problem with creating devices that run on little or no power is that they still need an energy source. Supposing there were thousands of nanobites required to make an olympian do a one-foot higer long jump. Where is the power going to come from if not the individual? If they are power by battery and die out, then are they really aiding the player in any way?
4) Along the lines of the above, it is obvious that steroids give players a "nanotech-like" advantage. Yet, steroids are illegal. Why then, would nanotechnology be fair use in any game? Who is to say that world governments will not ban their use from their inception do to safety concerns?
Well, I think part of the problem is I'm running 10.3 and have the Microsoft Office package running then. Unfortunately, it's the only Word processing/Office suite we can use here.
I have yet to see any major vendors (like Best Buy or CompUSA) offer upgrades for the new iMac in the hard drive department. Right now, we have to do purchases like that directly through Apple or an authorized vendor, and it's not cheap.
I think the issue is the Office suite and how well it works with the other software. I know it takes up ridiculous amounts of RAM, just like XP does, but the difference is that with XP I can trim the OS down to next to nothing using software like nLite. Hell, I just got done making an XP CD with SP2 slipstreamed and IE and IE core ripped out. I have FireFox available on the same CD too, so I can just install it.
There just seems to be so much more flexibility with Windows and PCs than with OSX and Macs. To each their own. I just know that I don't want to buy a computer like I would an appliance.
Honestly, this is incredibly tiresome. Can't we all just agree that there are many segments to the computer market, and that Apple Computer, Inc. can cheerfully be profitable without trying to dominate every portion of the market this decade?
Actually no. Because it bothers me to no end that whenever there is a story about Apple, everyone gets out their mod points to rate up these BS posts about how God himself granted Jobs the divine power of foresight and the crown of geekdom.
There's about as much innovation in Jobs as there is Gates. To be honest, I don't personally like either of them. The thing is that Bill Gates didn't try from the start to dominate both the hardware *and* the software. Which is why he "won".
IMHO, the only thing Jobs has going for him are pity points from geeks that like Wozniak (who I do respect), and can't seem to pinpoint exactly what Jobs is standing for. He wants to make the computer an appliance, something that you buy once ever few years and then throw away. This goes against every fiber for what the computer market should be, and is the same problem the automotive industry went through. Eventually it comes down to just a few key players, and custom building and truly innovated design gets lost.
My mother wants an Apple because she used to work with one at her previous job and thought it was so "cute". People who think computers are cute (yes, even my mother) should not be the ones making the decisions to purchase them.
Huh? It sounds like the guts of the eMac minus the display, and while the eMac isn't a great machine I certainly wouldn't call it crappy.
/. that geeks just love Apple computers. Yet no one has ever bothered to ask those that support them in corporations or educational instutitions how they feel.
Like I said, I work technical support. I'm not getting any replies from people that say, "I WORK TECH SUPPORT AND SUPPORT APPLE COMPUTERS". Of course, if they did say that, they'd have to learn to turn off the caps key.
Still, there's some unquestioned belief on
All I am saying is that, as one who does support Apple labs and PC labs, I enjoy the simplicity of upgrading and replacing the PCs far more than I do the Apples.
The eMac actually *is* crappy. I encourage you to use one as your office computer sometime. Indeed, use one with the latest OS X and 256 meg RAM. I'm sure you'll find it a bundle of never-ending joy.
For basic stuff like browsing the web, checking mail, music and DVDs, 256MB is fine.
Running just Word, Safari, and playing an mp3 in the background drags the 256 meg eMac to its knees in the latest OS X. Try it sometime, I do on a regular basis for our lab workstations and my test lab station. The average time to switch between Word and Safari is two seconds, which may not seem like long, but was virtually non-existant before I had to give up the 512 meg RAM stick that I had in it before.
Bullshit. Take a look at the new iMac for starters.
Okay. Where do I plug in the 512 meg RAM, 160 gig Serial ATA HD, and new Dual Layer DVD burner?
Oh wait.. you mean I have to buy external firewire/USB drives? Damn. That sucks. I might as well buy a new computer.
My point still stands. If anything, this new iMac only reinforces it.
Exactly why will this peice of crap be a pain in the ass to support?
See point 1. This kind of computer is not upgradable, and will probably still be around in 3 years, with a professor asking me why it can't reliable run the latest Office, Safari, and MP3's at the same time on OS 11.
I'll have to explain that because of security and compatibility issues, we had to upgrade to OS 11, and since the OS is such a GD resource hog, everything runs like crap.
Please don't do drugs while posting in Slashdot. OK?
Wow, what a witty and totally original comment to end on.
I was amazed that the NASA scientists name wasn't mentioned in the /. blurb, but then I started reading the article and realized why it wasn't. It's just Gross.
I wonder if anyone ever called him by his last name, then first in school.
Apparently too few Slashdot patrons actually use Pricewatch anymore, maybe they think they are getting "deals" from Dell. I see highly modded posts talking about how great having a $500 Mac would be for "geeks", as if the individual writing them is the figurehead for some quiet geek movement.
Let me explain why a $500 Mac is wrong:
1) 256 meg RAM and 40 gig. This is not 2001, people. 256 meg RAM hasn't been "enough" RAM since the nineties.
2) Since Jobs came back to Apple, he developed the iMac line, which was suppose to address the issue of future computer compatibility (USB) while getting rid of legacy architecture (serial ports and floppy drives). All this was done in one, standalone unit. It is Apple's corporate image for their products to be like "appliances", disposable and an all-in-one product. They are to be reliable, and Jobs has even said on occasion that he wants to "be the Sony of the computer market".
You're not _meant_ to upgrade a Mac. This new line of computers would require an upgrade pretty much out of the box. It also does not address, in my opinion, the biggest Mac issue of the last decade: gaming and gaming development.
3) Tech support. I work in this area, and if this computer is as crappy as they describe, I don't want to support it.
4) $500 places this kind of a computer within reaching price of my mother, who has always wanted an Apple, is an impulse buyer, but could never afford one.
Apple draws impulse buyers like stink on (edited due to PG-13 rating). My mother is one of those. If Jobs actually *puts* a computer within her reach as a consumer, she very well may buy one, and have a hell of a time when she has problems and I refuse to support it.
The problem is that impulse buyers love to find reasons to hate the products they purchased on impulse. They also like to hate the companies that produce them. If Jobs puts a computer within financial reach of nearly every family in North America and Europe then Apple will no longer be a niche market player in the minds of consumers.
Saying, "I got a Mac!" will not make your (once again, the PG-13 rating) any bigger. It won't get you laid, not that it ever did in the first place, nor will one in the house turn heads.
The thing is, iPods were cool, because you might be the only one to have them. Now, they are still cool, because you can talk about "how long you had it".
Making an iCrap, and selling it for $500 is simply *not* going to work and will end up ruining Apple's image. The only reason the iPod didn't was because it is seen as a device and not a computer. There was also a real lack of any good cheap mp3 players.
I would agree. There *are* legitimate reasons to not do drugs. Unfortunately, the issues that the government and subsidiaries (spelling) of seem to harp on, are not indicative of them.
I actually think that, compared to most states, Iowa is more technically advanced. We've got two good colleges that both promote security, and the Jabber protocol was developed by an Iowan.
News.com.com.com
News.com.com.com: If our name doesn't say we're definitely from the Internet, nothing does.
I can just imagine the future.
A little girl is out near the pool, putting the inflatable toy out over the deep end, all by herself. She struggles to get it in the water, then walks to the edge...
Cut to a woman's voice saying, "Just tell her parents you were busy downloading the latest Leisure Suit Larry game."
Cue the music.
I live in Iowa. Warez is like a pastime here. If it's gone we might have to resort to spamming to make up for all the spare time.
So, to sum things up from all the previously high-rated comments on the multiple /. articles regarding the object: you still have plenty of time to get laid, fix the unix time epoch issue, and finish coding Duke Nukem Forever.
...at the rate these bumps have been going; by April 13th 2029, Slashdot will be reporting a 3876/3877 chance of the asteroid hitting Earth with an estimated 9 out of every 10 stories having to deal with collisions with Near-Earth Objects.
Excuse me if insinuate that this story is starting to get old now. As is the topic itself. Those that want to know are following the story themselves now.
IMHO, this is a cleverly disguised appeal for more funding, and I don't mind getting modded down for telling it as I see it.
Is anyone else somewhat disturbed by not so much the prediction, but how far out this is predicted to occur?
I mean, saying something is going to hit in 3 years is fine, but the timespan on this collision is extremely long. I would have to say that just because of the variables involved, there's no way they could be accurate worth a damn past 5 years at this point.
Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I remember just 2 years ago there was a story on Slashdot about how more money (I'm assuming federal) should go into NEO (Near Earth Object) research because of this massive threat of asteroids hitting the Earth.
Then there was a story about how under-funded it is. I mean, don't get me wrong, but how is a horribly funded institution claiming that some asteroid is going to hit in 30 years anything other than a plea for more funding?
I guess I just don't buy into this "asteroid is going to destroy the Earth" religion. It smacks of a not-so-cleverly-disguised request for more year-end funding.
Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see more research done on this, but right now just seems really, really, fishy.
No offense, but Bush doesn't have anything to do with this. Yours is just a ploy to get modded up. Congrats on it working.
I had to explain this to a colleague earlier in layman's terms, so I'm repeating it here:
_ center/ white_papers/application_worms.html?show=appworm
For those of you who think this is solely a PHP or PHPBB bug, it's actually quite a bit more involved than that. A series of exploits for PHP were released, and subsequently, a lot of forum software, not just phpBB, is exploitable.
This worm uses a legitimate function which the phpBB developers have for functionality of their forum software. This legitimate function is exploitable in certain versions of PHP. Due to the speed in which the exploit was released, it could be that the worm developer had the engine ready and was simply looking for a PHP exploit to come out for a function that was used with a widely available web application package. They hit jackpot with phpBB and PHP together.
The developer didn't thinking to make it so that it added a random element to it's Google searches or didn't use different search engines. In fact, it almost looks like this was simply a trial run for a future worm that will be much more complex and may possibly span a multitude of web applications.
A concept was written up earlier this year here:
http://www.imperva.com/application_defense
It now appears that niddhog (the concept worm) has been made evident. Fortunately, it did not include such things as Code Red and Nimda did with using IE exploits to infect the clients that would view these websites.
It is a bleak future with the idea of Web Application Worms coupled with IE exploits. Not only do you have the method and distribution combined, but such a thing would be highly anonymous for the malware author and could spread to the highest point of infection in a matter of hours as IE users visited their favorite community websites running exploitable forum software.
Exactly.
/. because many still adhere to this assumption that copyright law is property law. And we know how us "L"s can be on property rights! It's not. An idea cannot (as far as we know) be physically "taken away" from someone. The idea still exists, it just now exists in someone else's mind as well. To have copyright law is to control how neurons in our brains are arranged.
... well, I'm spending too much time on this story already.
At least, that's how it should be.
Libertarians (that's with the capital "L") take a lot of flak on
I'm a Libertarian that sees no actual theft in copying. I would see theft if in taking the idea if it was removed from the other individual's brain, but that simply NEVER happens.
I tried to explain it to another L buddy of mind like this, if someone has a pair of jeans, that pair of jeans is theirs. Even down to a cellular level, those jeans are physically and totally theirs. If I take a look at those jeans and think, "Damn I want those!" I can just take them and run. That is stealing. The other thing I can do is make a copy and use them.
In fact, Ugg probably copied Ogk's idea of wearing a hide somewhere along the line, while Ogk copied Ugg's idea for the wheel. I highly doubt that Ogk got into a bitter legal dispute or physical tuffle with Ugg over the "pelt as clothing" idea. However when Ugg took Ogk's woman Leena
The problem I have with copyright law is that it is subjective. It simply *has* to be. There is no objective reasoning that can be used to justify it. Cries that no intellectual property laws will stifle innovation are just like cries that we should "save the children". Utilitarian arguments are pathetic in that they are contructed to appeal to our "pathos" and not "logos". Logically, it does not make sense to have arbitrary "copy protection". It's like making laws for population control. You wouldn't have to worry about population control if you didn't feel obligated to force some government entity to save people's lives to begin with.
Actually, greylisting is probably the best solution to SPAM yet. It increases the cost of sending it for the SPAMMER, and decreases the amount of it in my Inbox. Since 90% of spam comes from compromised machines, the idea of "reject first" works.
Here's a "Dark alley of the Internet" for you, the author of the article:
http://sec.gravito.com/crash/test20.html
That's scary. That's the reality of the Internet. I can crash your browser whenever I like it. It's why others say to "get Firefox".
Now get back to class and come back to write for your college newspaper here in a week when you're next "assignment" is due. I'll start by teaching you about TCP/IP fundamentals, sniffing, MitM attack, and subpeonas to servers hosting chats, all of which can and are used to track down Terrorists.
Hmmmm, wait a minute. I went to www.getfirefox.com, not mirror.sg.depaul.edu. I don't have any idea where that place is, and it sure makes me nervous. IE has informed me that "If you do not trust the source, do not run or save this software."
Google for "windows update error" and you'll see that many users have to go figure out what their x803833828 codes actually mean from sites other than Microsoft.
Here's what I got as a result of clicking a Microsoft link in a search for "download IE":
http://www.gravito.com/sheepdot/IE1.gif
Why do I get cookies from Microsoft websites other than the ones I'm going to?
http://www.gravito.com/sheepdot/IE2.gif
Don't get me wrong, this guy has somewhat of a point, but it's lost in the fact that he's using IE to download Mozilla. Microsoft won't even let Mozilla users download IE. I think that it's pretty obvious that they don't have any intention of getting people to switch, let alone "switch back". I currently use a program called "nLite" to strip IE and IE core from my XP installations. This only started recently due to the lack of a fix for an iframe crashing bug that allowed spyware companies to bypass all those fancy "don't run the exe" windows and just drop malware into the stack. Two weeks for a fix, Microsoft. Two weeks! Mozilla devs have had serious issues like this resolved within a day, sometimes in hours of the first report. The heap overflow in rendering images is another example of how seriously open source developers take security risks.
Lastly, the Flash and especially Java install with IE is a quagmire as well. What happens when the mirror takes longer than 30 seconds to kick in? Well, I click the link and it asks if I really wanted to run/save the EXE. Who cares about signed content, Spybot isn't signed and I need that. Nor is half the open source software. But Gator is signed. Hell, somewhere around 10 to 20 percent of spyware is signed!
Also, the double security windows issue regarding downloaded EXEs in IE is more of a hindrance than a help. Especially when it's been shown that malware authors can write ActiveX to just run it outside of asking the user if it is okay anyway.
Intentions are a messy thing. I do agree that a lot of those on /. think they have some sort of bonfide right to download and play other's works. To a certain extent, I would agree that it's better that they have a right than for some megacorp to come in and universally demand royalities.
My biggest beef is that these publishers oftentimes have sole rights to copyrighted material and then refuse to reprint it. What are you going to do when you are 75 and think back to that good old Eminem album you had and you will no longer be able to legally listen to it, because the publisher has demanded no new copies be made?