What goes on the front page is user configurable on Slashdot. You can have only "Games" articles on the front page if you choose. Or only Book Reviews. Or everything except Games, or Book Reviews.
So "on the front page" is not an absolute, especially after they changed the html code and enhanced this features on slashdot several weeks ago.
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Personally, I don't use dual cpus for servers because they are faster. As you say, they are not, kernel wise anyway. Dual CPUs do offer a higher availability, and the ability to crank the crud out of one cpu (compiling, etc.) while you can still get stuff done with the other. I use dual cpu VERY limited on desktop, but even then, I notice a difference in my ability to switch back and forth and start new apps, etc. while I am doing very heavy tasks.
On the server side, if a single threaded process goes haywire, instead of locking the box up, I can still log in and kill the process, no biggie. I have accidently "infinite looped" myself to death on single cpu boxes, and had to hard boot them, where on the dual, that wouldn't be an issue. That is just my experience, but I've been using dual cpus on several servers for over 6 years now. I would rather have dual 1gz than single 2.5ghz any day.
If you're going to deride them at least do it when it's appropriate... not when they're taking a legit step toward finding a solution.
I agree with you, but more importantly, I'm disappointed with the sheer lack of jokes about how they must have been running Windows on that computer they let get so blasted infected in just 20 days.
No "20 Days? More like 20 minutes!" No "The first time failed because they installed Linux."
Personally, I think there are plenty of reasons to not like Microsoft's software on a purely objective level, tactics aside. But with their spyware software and now this, at least they are trying to do something to clean a mess they helped make.
This of course was because of "total free market" situation
It was because a great number of speculators had bought stocks on margin, and once the fall began, it rippled down quickly because no one could make their margin calls. 10% margins on many stocks.
I am not against ALL regulations, but there is a broad difference in the Great Depression, and customers going a few days without internet access, which no one had 10 years ago anyway.
If there was a "Great Internet Crash" or something, then I would be more open, but in this case, it was settled faster than the ink on any new regulation could have dried. In the big scheme of things, this is a tiny blip.
Writing regulations because of this one event would be a knee jerk reaction, where the "cure" could easily be more damaging than the disease. When all is said and done, the system WORKED. It caused minor problems for lots of people (including me) and loss of service for a few. The "damage" was much less than the outages you would get with a hurricane, and much shorter lived.
The free market isn't always pretty, but she's still the prettiest girl at the dance.
I don't want massive regulation, but something simple to prevent deliberate cut-offs would be nice, and it appears that the free market didn't solve that problem.
Capitalism is a self correcting system by itself, it is just not instantanious.
Regulations are not self correcting, and require that people who are being paid under the table by corporations, make the right choice and do what is right. If ABC, Inc. donates enough to congressmen, they get the better end of the regulation stick.
True Capitalism is similar, except the customer benefit, not congressmen. They have to "pay off" the consumer with lower prices or better quality, or they won't get what they want, money.
As to regulation making these "cut offs" less likely, it comes at the expense of higher prices and less choice for the consumer. In the end, they get a lower quality, higher priced product with a theoretical higher reliability rate. Regulations always equals higher prices, if for other reason than the expense of compliance.
The free market, on the other hand, means you get cut offs, but very seldom since the companies don't want to piss their customers off. It sounds like Cogent just didn't follow up, and didn't believe Level 3 would cut them off. Who is "right", I don't know and it doesn't matter since they have already decided this amoungst themselves in what *must* be an equitable arrangement, since both parties agree.
I am not against all regulations, but the purpose of any regulation should only insure there is a level playing field for the companies to compete in, thus giving the customer more choice and eventually better prices. I have no confidence that the government can set rules for a business it doesn't understand.
The best example is the regulations that required phone companies to open up their wires for competing DSL companies. It is still more expensive in most areas, still nowhere near as available as cable, and the actual implimentation is generally poorer.
Regulations are like lawyers. Yes, we need them every now and then, but if they are not used sparingly, they tend to fuck everything up and make a bad situation worse.
People who haven't been in the military, don't understand the military. People like myself who actually served in the military (1980s) just get modded down for pointing out the fact that the vast majority of soldiers really do believe in what they are doing there.
Same when I talk about why I support the Iraq war, and how I have been bitching about how we didn't finish the job in 1991, and how it is a moral obligation that we do finish the job. I get a flood of replies about how I'm a fool and being brainwashed.
If oil prices go down, then "it's so you American's can have cheap oil". If they go up, then "So the oil companies can profit". So in their eyes, you can't win because they don't care about the truth, they only care about bashing everything American.
Half just can't imagine Americans doing something because its the right thing to do, and the other half don't care, they just want to bitch about America because they think we have it easy. Neither is likely to ever change their opinions, and I have finally realized it doesn't matter, and we should do what we think is right regardless.
Europeans need to understand this: if you bitch about everything we Americans do, sooner or later, we start ignoring what you have to say because it is always the same thing. No matter what we do, it is bad in your eyes, thus you actually lose influence.
Well, it's true that in the rest of the world, when we say "America", we usually mean the continent. So "americans" is a bit weird.
That would make no sense. "America" isn't a contitent. There is North America, South America, and "The Americas", meaning both, but no singular "America" as in a single contintent.
You have "North Americans", including Canada and Mexico. Central Americans (or Latin Americans) (which isn't a continent at all). Then you get into the US states. Although I live in North Carolina, I was born and raised in Texas, so I still consider myself a Texan. My wife is a North Carolinian.
You could also say we are both Southerners (live south of the Mason Dixon line and east of the Rockie Mountains). People above the Mason Dixon line would be called Northerners, or the slang term "Yankees" by people in the southeast. Yankees (or Yanks) is the term the British use for all Americans. Then again, we often call the United Kingdom "England", although England is only one part of the UK. We have several other terms, like "Midwesterner" to describe the regions that people live in. We also geographically break the country into regions like the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, Plains (or upper Plains), Northwest, Southwest, Southeast, Mid Atlantic, North East, New England (subsection of North East), etc.
Now, living in America, we have African-Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Alucians (Native Alaskans), Native Americans, Mexican Americans (old slang: Chicanos), Latin Americans (or Latinos/Latinas). And white people.
Some people would use terms like Caucasian, Anglo-Saxon, or "People of European descent" to describe white people. Most white people do not care what you call them, and if you asked what race they were, they would reply "American", meaning a mix of everything but light to medium skin colored. The proverbial melting pot.
If we United Statesians can keep up with all these other terms, surely you can remember that we are all Americans.
You fucking American whiners don't realize how good you have it, and you won't until you have to deal with a bunch of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who declare themselves in charge of your lives and societies.
Ironic you would say that. Many of us do realize how good we have it, which is why we are willing to sacrifice to help Iraq acheive the same freedoms (Its ok to disagree with me on whether the war is good or not, but the REASON for supporting it for most Pro-Iraq war Americans is still to spread Freedom. Free people seldom bomb each other.)
If you study a little history, "Taxation without representation" was the main force behind the American Revolution. We didn't get to elect anyone or have any type of reprensentation in England but had to pay taxes to England. Americans still loathe taxes.
Most American's would quickly agree that the UN is crap. Liberal or Conservative, most think it is spineless. This is why the US will often go around the UN, and US citizens never give the govt. any heat over it. We NEED some kind of UN like organization, but the one we have is entirely too corrupt and gives people like Castro the moral equivelancy to continue his brutal dictatorship.
So many of us realize how good we have it here, and most Americans are not very fond of the UN for the same reasons you state.
As a side note: There are 600 million guns in the world. Over 250 million of them are in the US alone. That is almost 1 gun for every man, woman and child. I firmly believe this is one reason why American's don't worry about some dictator trying to take over, and why do army could really "invade" us in a traditional sense. Of course, I have a few, and a license to carry them concealed.
I'm sure no enlightened European leftist would ever do such a crass and intolerant thing.
You keep forgetting that the 30% of the population that agree with them are the "mainstream", and the other 70% that agree with you, are the "extremists".
Besides, everyone knows that global warming must be man made and it can't be part of a larger, global cycle. I heard so on CNN. Stop confusing the issue with facts.
Thats actually a good question, however, since the copyrighted material is not being used as a means to sell the chips, or to improve the chips, I would image this would fall under "Fair Use". Then again, so does backing up your own DVD's and that hasn't stopped the MPAA from coming out against it.
Now you make me wonder about tattoos. If a tattoo artist did a Bugs Bunny tatto for me, would he be violating copyright because he charged me for it? I'm sure I wouldn't be because I didn't profit from it, but I see lots of toon tattos. My brother even has one.
Oh Christ, don't start that. There was a thread a couple weeks ago where someone found a way to blame the US and George Bush for global warming on Mars. They are also blaming the hurricanes on global warming, even though any meteorologist will tell you that global warming will create LESS hurricanes, not more.
I am firmly of the belief that we don't know because we don't have long enough records, and frankly, humans are just not as smart or powerful as we like to think we are. The planet has withstood a lot more than we are throwing at it, so I have my doubts.
I like lower emissions so the air doesn't make me barf. I like increased fuel efficiency because I am tired of giving money to terrorist nations. What I don't like is people who really don't care about the environment, but are just using it as a political tool because they hate capitalism. And the suckers who believe them because they are too lazy to do a little homework.
Oh, I don't know, how about face to face with people their own age where they can learn such things as manners, etiquette, constructive dialog, the fact that "teh" is not a word.
So if your kid hangs out with other kids, he will start saying "Please" and "Thank You", use the small fork for his salad and put the napkin on his lamp, plus have conversations about current events AND speak proper English with improved grammar?
I agree that face to face interaction teachs them that actions have consequences, like getting popped in the mouth for talking trash, but they can also try out some stuff they saw on Jackass or Crank Yankers.
The internet doesn't screw up kids, apothetic parents do.
I would respectfully disagree. "News for Nerds", to me, includes How-To articles. The fact that the modification has no practical application is not important, since few would attempt it even if it did. It DOES however, jar some imaginations, and gets people thinking about how things work. I won't do this mod, but I didn't know how easy it was to hack an IPod before this article.
What it DOES show, is that the guy who did this was pretty damn smart and also had a good sense of humor. Then again, I'm working on an underwater camera fishing rig, so impractical but real How-To articles appeal to me. I was going to use a stun gun mounted to the camera, but I think that's illegal here in NC. (Really, not making it up)
I say we have MORE articles were people use technology and know-how in unusual, if impractical, applications. With all the dupes, there is obviously room to fit it on the front page.;)
When I saw the article title: "Microsoft Sees Future in IPTV" and the line "...Microsoft's biggest dreams may finally be coming true:"
The first thing I thought was "Intellectual Property Television", and "oh great, Microsoft is going to try to patent the idea of selling things on TV. AND start their own TV home shopping channel to boot.".
Must be too many anti-MS articles lately, I'm getting trigger happy....
How does it follow that a patent is in the best interests of society?
I don't think that the best interests of society is the first concern. The individual inventor is. Society benefits if individual inventors are able to profit from their inventions, because they get new products.
The problem isn't that we have patents in general, or even that you can patent software (although I think software patents should be EXTREMELY rare and should undergo peer review if you are going to allow them). The problem is that the patent office rubber stamps patent applications and just lets the courts clean up the mess.
This is not what it was set up to do. Now it harms the individual inventor, and society because it stifles innovation. It is broke, and it isn't just in software either.
I was discussing a patent on a "new" technique for a fluorescent lighting ballast with a manufacturer's rep/engineer. He said he couldn't tell me how they were going to achieve a particular goal because it was "secret", and they had not applied for the patent yet. I started explaining how it must work (which freaked him out) and I handed him some old patents, some over 100 years ago, that describe the same basic concepts. He wasn't familiar with this "Tesla" guy, so he couldn't comment (he IS an electrical engineer, I swear to god). They have several patents like this, the uspto just holds them a few years and rubber stamps them.
He probably thinks that Marconi invented radio, too.
Your comment made more sense than 90% of the others. This is the point I was trying to make, that while there is always security risks, it would be pretty easy to make the system reasonably secure.
Amazing how security conscience people are on Slashdot, when in reality their wireless hubs are not password protected, their AV is 2 months out of date, and they go to questionable websites regularly, and their pirated copy of XP is out of date, thus more vulnerable.
This could have been a great group of threads about a this very interesting idea of diskless hotel access. Instead it was filled with paranoid wankers who don't have a pot to piss in, and couldn't afford to go to a hotel that would have this system. Most of the security related "concerns" clearly demonstrate that the average slashdot poster is NOT as nerdy as some would believe, worring about the wrong things, and ignorant of the current risks. Totally fucking amazing.
On a more positive note, I finally figured out what the hell your sig means.
Surely someone who can do this to an ATM can do what I suggest to an in-room hotel computer, no?
Not likely. Most nicer hotels that would actually offer this service have pretty good security. Its easier to get to an ATM machine, just walk up to it. You MIGHT could do this in a hotel (or likely get caught), but if you can do that, you would know much easier ways to get the data without the unnecessary risk. This is a hammer to kill a fly, thus what the FBI would do, not phishers.
But if you have some sensitive data that someone wants, perhaps the hotel you're staying in provides some black-market services you're not aware of?
When I pay $300-$500 a night to stay at the Sheraton in Brussels, I'm pretty sure they aren't just a front for a credit card fraud ring. After all, I have already GIVEN them a scan of my credit card to put on file during my stay. This is the kind of hotel that would be offering computers. Better quality business class hotels near major airports and travel destinations.
The Model 6 on the edge of town where the crack whores stay isn't gonna start having free computer access anytime soon.
Come on, a little perspective goes a long way folks. You guys must not travel much.
Again, who is going to install this keylogger? The hotel? The FBI? Some "bad guy/thief"?
I'm pretty sure Holiday Inn won't, and the FBI could get the info using an easier method. I mean, if I'm trying to screw you over and get your data, this would be the most expensive and difficult way to do it.
What am i going to do, install keyloggers on all hotel rooms? Normally, you don't get your room number until you show up, so how can I install it in advance to just screw you over, if I was going after you individually? If I just install it to catch ANYONE, there is a record that I was there, so it could be traced back to me.
Or the maid could install it perhaps? There are much easier ways to rip people off than CREATING this hardware, test it, get the job, find the time to get in and install it, and hope like hell you don't get caught because you have to show your drivers license and social security card to get hired. So whenever they find it out, you WILL be a suspect. It is not that it is impossible, it is just that it is the least likely of the security concerns.
This is a theoretical problem that has no bearing in reality short of the FBI, and if they want your data, they will get your data. Possible, yes, but you and I have a much larger chance of getting hit by lightening, but you aren't fretting about that.
The REAL potential is at the hotel's proxy server / router, where the vendor's IT guy could be recording all nonencrypted traffic, which would include most webmail. This is in software, and would be easier to cover up. Then you have access to the email, and can go from there. This could be secured, but would require users are not dumb. THIS is the main security issue. This is a concern NOW, not in the future, and not theoretical.
What's to stop something from copying your data off the usb drive before/during/after booting?
An encrypted filesystem. Its already in use by millions today using Linux, and even Windows. Very easy to do. And as soon as Knoppix started to boot, you would know something is wrong because it would detect the hardware. Linux is very good about this.
Add a hardware keyboard logger to this setup
Obviously your own keyboard is the simple answer, although not very convenient. I would bet be a parallel keyboard logger can be detected, since it has to accept input and give feedback, by design.
You also have to ask why would Holiday Inn do this to me? No one else knew my room number, and I didn't even know it until I showed up at the hotel to check in. If you are James Bond, then by all means, bring your own laptop. Your "problems" are not spyware, these would be major FBI style offensives and require sophisticated hardware. If this is a problem, what keyboard you are using is a minor concern.
Again, I would worry more about bugs in my room, cameras, and listening devices that can hear my keyclicks and then tell what I pressed (article on that here a month ago). Those use technology that is on the shelf TODAY, but people aren't freaking out because they know the odds are against them being used.
Just because hotels install diskless computers, that doesn't mean the FBI is all of a sudden interested in you, Berj Q. Public. They could be doing much worse to you NOW, but you don't give it a second thought, so why does THIS worry you, except it is just something new to worry about, that doesn't even exist yet. Its a matter of perspective, and it bothers me that everyone is "oh my god, now the FBI is going to log my keystrokes!" instead of thinking how cool it is. I promise, no one reading Slashdot right now is important enough for the FBI to give a damn what you type, and they are the only ones who could do what you are suggesting. Or the hotel owners.
Or just hook up as this: USB drive - hidden USB inside box - USB connector. The hidden USB could read yours, but keep or send a copy off somewhere. I'm sure you can do more variations on this. If this gets significantly popular people will find a way and it's popularity will plummet down to nothing.
First, Knoppix doesn't mount any foreign disk by default. Second, if it was a drive that was "interupting" my keydrive, knoppix would likely see that and tell me. No such drive exists today, writing the code to view it would be very trivial, its hardware and knoppix reads ALL the hardware on every boot.
I would be more worried that they have cameras in the smoke detectors and watching your keystrokes. THIS would actually be easier to pull off because the gear exists to do it.
Ironically, I will bet you anything the majority of people who are being all paranoid about this 1) Dont travel anyway 2) Use wireless routers, no password and/or 3) Use Windows XP and the free version of Zone Alarm.
So pardon me if I'm a bit nonplussed by all the "security experts" posting their invalid concerns. Most of these concerns can be easily overcome with about 10 seconds of thought. There ARE some potential issues, but not a single valid one is expressed in the comments.
It's like all the people who couldn't pass CS101 are posting on how dangerous this is, not understanding at ALL how computers work. If I boot from my Knoppix flashdrive, even if they HAD a "secret windows drive with viruses and spyware" it wouldn't bother me because it would not be mounted, and it likely won't run on Linux, and even if it WOULD, Knoppix doesn't run everything as root.
If I encrypt everything else I do on the network (ever hear of https?) then there isn't much for them to steal. It is no more dangerous than any other computer on any other network. It's actually safer than your Windows XP box connected to a cable modem. Much.
We are talking about Linux as a remote OS, not Windows. Its not that Linux is bulletproof, but Knoppix is already designed to do this TODAY, and has been for years. No real modification is needed to do this except paring it down to fit on the flashdrive unzipped. Windows Only users just have no idea how configurable Linux is as an entire distribution, and they seem to worry about the wrong things.
Slashdot Mirror
What goes on the front page is user configurable on Slashdot. You can have only "Games" articles on the front page if you choose. Or only Book Reviews. Or everything except Games, or Book Reviews.
So "on the front page" is not an absolute, especially after they changed the html code and enhanced this features on slashdot several weeks ago.
Click on preferences, then go wild with the clicky widgets and see.
Personally, I don't use dual cpus for servers because they are faster. As you say, they are not, kernel wise anyway. Dual CPUs do offer a higher availability, and the ability to crank the crud out of one cpu (compiling, etc.) while you can still get stuff done with the other. I use dual cpu VERY limited on desktop, but even then, I notice a difference in my ability to switch back and forth and start new apps, etc. while I am doing very heavy tasks.
On the server side, if a single threaded process goes haywire, instead of locking the box up, I can still log in and kill the process, no biggie. I have accidently "infinite looped" myself to death on single cpu boxes, and had to hard boot them, where on the dual, that wouldn't be an issue. That is just my experience, but I've been using dual cpus on several servers for over 6 years now. I would rather have dual 1gz than single 2.5ghz any day.
If you're going to deride them at least do it when it's appropriate... not when they're taking a legit step toward finding a solution.
I agree with you, but more importantly, I'm disappointed with the sheer lack of jokes about how they must have been running Windows on that computer they let get so blasted infected in just 20 days.
No "20 Days? More like 20 minutes!"
No "The first time failed because they installed Linux."
Personally, I think there are plenty of reasons to not like Microsoft's software on a purely objective level, tactics aside. But with their spyware software and now this, at least they are trying to do something to clean a mess they helped make.
This of course was because of "total free market" situation
It was because a great number of speculators had bought stocks on margin, and once the fall began, it rippled down quickly because no one could make their margin calls. 10% margins on many stocks.
I am not against ALL regulations, but there is a broad difference in the Great Depression, and customers going a few days without internet access, which no one had 10 years ago anyway.
If there was a "Great Internet Crash" or something, then I would be more open, but in this case, it was settled faster than the ink on any new regulation could have dried. In the big scheme of things, this is a tiny blip.
Writing regulations because of this one event would be a knee jerk reaction, where the "cure" could easily be more damaging than the disease. When all is said and done, the system WORKED. It caused minor problems for lots of people (including me) and loss of service for a few. The "damage" was much less than the outages you would get with a hurricane, and much shorter lived.
The free market isn't always pretty, but she's still the prettiest girl at the dance.
I don't want massive regulation, but something simple to prevent deliberate cut-offs would be nice, and it appears that the free market didn't solve that problem.
Capitalism is a self correcting system by itself, it is just not instantanious.
Regulations are not self correcting, and require that people who are being paid under the table by corporations, make the right choice and do what is right. If ABC, Inc. donates enough to congressmen, they get the better end of the regulation stick.
True Capitalism is similar, except the customer benefit, not congressmen. They have to "pay off" the consumer with lower prices or better quality, or they won't get what they want, money.
As to regulation making these "cut offs" less likely, it comes at the expense of higher prices and less choice for the consumer. In the end, they get a lower quality, higher priced product with a theoretical higher reliability rate. Regulations always equals higher prices, if for other reason than the expense of compliance.
The free market, on the other hand, means you get cut offs, but very seldom since the companies don't want to piss their customers off. It sounds like Cogent just didn't follow up, and didn't believe Level 3 would cut them off. Who is "right", I don't know and it doesn't matter since they have already decided this amoungst themselves in what *must* be an equitable arrangement, since both parties agree.
I am not against all regulations, but the purpose of any regulation should only insure there is a level playing field for the companies to compete in, thus giving the customer more choice and eventually better prices. I have no confidence that the government can set rules for a business it doesn't understand.
The best example is the regulations that required phone companies to open up their wires for competing DSL companies. It is still more expensive in most areas, still nowhere near as available as cable, and the actual implimentation is generally poorer.
Regulations are like lawyers. Yes, we need them every now and then, but if they are not used sparingly, they tend to fuck everything up and make a bad situation worse.
Our 200 point match engine
Do they really need 200 points to match up for a prison mate? I was thinking one point is sufficient: "are you in the same cell?"
I mean, for this kind of match up, it really doesn't matter what the "lady" is looking for in a relationship, does it?
People who haven't been in the military, don't understand the military. People like myself who actually served in the military (1980s) just get modded down for pointing out the fact that the vast majority of soldiers really do believe in what they are doing there.
Same when I talk about why I support the Iraq war, and how I have been bitching about how we didn't finish the job in 1991, and how it is a moral obligation that we do finish the job. I get a flood of replies about how I'm a fool and being brainwashed.
If oil prices go down, then "it's so you American's can have cheap oil". If they go up, then "So the oil companies can profit". So in their eyes, you can't win because they don't care about the truth, they only care about bashing everything American.
Half just can't imagine Americans doing something because its the right thing to do, and the other half don't care, they just want to bitch about America because they think we have it easy. Neither is likely to ever change their opinions, and I have finally realized it doesn't matter, and we should do what we think is right regardless.
Europeans need to understand this: if you bitch about everything we Americans do, sooner or later, we start ignoring what you have to say because it is always the same thing. No matter what we do, it is bad in your eyes, thus you actually lose influence.
Well, it's true that in the rest of the world, when we say "America", we usually mean the continent. So "americans" is a bit weird.
That would make no sense. "America" isn't a contitent. There is North America, South America, and "The Americas", meaning both, but no singular "America" as in a single contintent.
You have "North Americans", including Canada and Mexico. Central Americans (or Latin Americans) (which isn't a continent at all). Then you get into the US states. Although I live in North Carolina, I was born and raised in Texas, so I still consider myself a Texan. My wife is a North Carolinian.
You could also say we are both Southerners (live south of the Mason Dixon line and east of the Rockie Mountains). People above the Mason Dixon line would be called Northerners, or the slang term "Yankees" by people in the southeast. Yankees (or Yanks) is the term the British use for all Americans. Then again, we often call the United Kingdom "England", although England is only one part of the UK. We have several other terms, like "Midwesterner" to describe the regions that people live in. We also geographically break the country into regions like the Pacific Northwest, Midwest, Plains (or upper Plains), Northwest, Southwest, Southeast, Mid Atlantic, North East, New England (subsection of North East), etc.
Now, living in America, we have African-Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Alucians (Native Alaskans), Native Americans, Mexican Americans (old slang: Chicanos), Latin Americans (or Latinos/Latinas). And white people.
Some people would use terms like Caucasian, Anglo-Saxon, or "People of European descent" to describe white people. Most white people do not care what you call them, and if you asked what race they were, they would reply "American", meaning a mix of everything but light to medium skin colored. The proverbial melting pot.
If we United Statesians can keep up with all these other terms, surely you can remember that we are all Americans.
You fucking American whiners don't realize how good you have it, and you won't until you have to deal with a bunch of unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who declare themselves in charge of your lives and societies.
Ironic you would say that. Many of us do realize how good we have it, which is why we are willing to sacrifice to help Iraq acheive the same freedoms (Its ok to disagree with me on whether the war is good or not, but the REASON for supporting it for most Pro-Iraq war Americans is still to spread Freedom. Free people seldom bomb each other.)
If you study a little history, "Taxation without representation" was the main force behind the American Revolution. We didn't get to elect anyone or have any type of reprensentation in England but had to pay taxes to England. Americans still loathe taxes.
Most American's would quickly agree that the UN is crap. Liberal or Conservative, most think it is spineless. This is why the US will often go around the UN, and US citizens never give the govt. any heat over it. We NEED some kind of UN like organization, but the one we have is entirely too corrupt and gives people like Castro the moral equivelancy to continue his brutal dictatorship.
So many of us realize how good we have it here, and most Americans are not very fond of the UN for the same reasons you state.
As a side note: There are 600 million guns in the world. Over 250 million of them are in the US alone. That is almost 1 gun for every man, woman and child. I firmly believe this is one reason why American's don't worry about some dictator trying to take over, and why do army could really "invade" us in a traditional sense. Of course, I have a few, and a license to carry them concealed.
I'm sure no enlightened European leftist would ever do such a crass and intolerant thing.
You keep forgetting that the 30% of the population that agree with them are the "mainstream", and the other 70% that agree with you, are the "extremists".
Besides, everyone knows that global warming must be man made and it can't be part of a larger, global cycle. I heard so on CNN. Stop confusing the issue with facts.
I do this with images I publish. Hide initials in the image so if the offending thief says otherwise, I can point it out.
Usually, I just write the standard issue "I'm glad you like our images but.." letter and that works.
And here I was thinking this Slashdot story from exactly 2 years ago was a bit late...
;)
No, it's just that the Slashdot editors have been really busy lately, and they are getting behind on their dupes
Thats actually a good question, however, since the copyrighted material is not being used as a means to sell the chips, or to improve the chips, I would image this would fall under "Fair Use". Then again, so does backing up your own DVD's and that hasn't stopped the MPAA from coming out against it.
Now you make me wonder about tattoos. If a tattoo artist did a Bugs Bunny tatto for me, would he be violating copyright because he charged me for it? I'm sure I wouldn't be because I didn't profit from it, but I see lots of toon tattos. My brother even has one.
Then how do you explain the warming that is also taking place on MARS?? http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_ice-age _031208.html
Oh Christ, don't start that. There was a thread a couple weeks ago where someone found a way to blame the US and George Bush for global warming on Mars. They are also blaming the hurricanes on global warming, even though any meteorologist will tell you that global warming will create LESS hurricanes, not more.
I am firmly of the belief that we don't know because we don't have long enough records, and frankly, humans are just not as smart or powerful as we like to think we are. The planet has withstood a lot more than we are throwing at it, so I have my doubts.
I like lower emissions so the air doesn't make me barf. I like increased fuel efficiency because I am tired of giving money to terrorist nations. What I don't like is people who really don't care about the environment, but are just using it as a political tool because they hate capitalism. And the suckers who believe them because they are too lazy to do a little homework.
Oh, I don't know, how about face to face with people their own age where they can learn such things as manners, etiquette, constructive dialog, the fact that "teh" is not a word.
So if your kid hangs out with other kids, he will start saying "Please" and "Thank You", use the small fork for his salad and put the napkin on his lamp, plus have conversations about current events AND speak proper English with improved grammar?
I agree that face to face interaction teachs them that actions have consequences, like getting popped in the mouth for talking trash, but they can also try out some stuff they saw on Jackass or Crank Yankers.
The internet doesn't screw up kids, apothetic parents do.
You've got to admit, this is borderline "news".
;)
I would respectfully disagree. "News for Nerds", to me, includes How-To articles. The fact that the modification has no practical application is not important, since few would attempt it even if it did. It DOES however, jar some imaginations, and gets people thinking about how things work. I won't do this mod, but I didn't know how easy it was to hack an IPod before this article.
What it DOES show, is that the guy who did this was pretty damn smart and also had a good sense of humor. Then again, I'm working on an underwater camera fishing rig, so impractical but real How-To articles appeal to me. I was going to use a stun gun mounted to the camera, but I think that's illegal here in NC. (Really, not making it up)
I say we have MORE articles were people use technology and know-how in unusual, if impractical, applications. With all the dupes, there is obviously room to fit it on the front page.
When I saw the article title: "Microsoft Sees Future in IPTV" and the line "...Microsoft's biggest dreams may finally be coming true:"
The first thing I thought was "Intellectual Property Television", and "oh great, Microsoft is going to try to patent the idea of selling things on TV. AND start their own TV home shopping channel to boot.".
Must be too many anti-MS articles lately, I'm getting trigger happy....
How does it follow that a patent is in the best interests of society?
I don't think that the best interests of society is the first concern. The individual inventor is. Society benefits if individual inventors are able to profit from their inventions, because they get new products.
The problem isn't that we have patents in general, or even that you can patent software (although I think software patents should be EXTREMELY rare and should undergo peer review if you are going to allow them). The problem is that the patent office rubber stamps patent applications and just lets the courts clean up the mess.
This is not what it was set up to do. Now it harms the individual inventor, and society because it stifles innovation. It is broke, and it isn't just in software either.
I was discussing a patent on a "new" technique for a fluorescent lighting ballast with a manufacturer's rep/engineer. He said he couldn't tell me how they were going to achieve a particular goal because it was "secret", and they had not applied for the patent yet. I started explaining how it must work (which freaked him out) and I handed him some old patents, some over 100 years ago, that describe the same basic concepts. He wasn't familiar with this "Tesla" guy, so he couldn't comment (he IS an electrical engineer, I swear to god). They have several patents like this, the uspto just holds them a few years and rubber stamps them.
He probably thinks that Marconi invented radio, too.
Your comment made more sense than 90% of the others. This is the point I was trying to make, that while there is always security risks, it would be pretty easy to make the system reasonably secure.
Amazing how security conscience people are on Slashdot, when in reality their wireless hubs are not password protected, their AV is 2 months out of date, and they go to questionable websites regularly, and their pirated copy of XP is out of date, thus more vulnerable.
This could have been a great group of threads about a this very interesting idea of diskless hotel access. Instead it was filled with paranoid wankers who don't have a pot to piss in, and couldn't afford to go to a hotel that would have this system. Most of the security related "concerns" clearly demonstrate that the average slashdot poster is NOT as nerdy as some would believe, worring about the wrong things, and ignorant of the current risks. Totally fucking amazing.
On a more positive note, I finally figured out what the hell your sig means.
Surely someone who can do this to an ATM can do what I suggest to an in-room hotel computer, no?
Not likely. Most nicer hotels that would actually offer this service have pretty good security. Its easier to get to an ATM machine, just walk up to it. You MIGHT could do this in a hotel (or likely get caught), but if you can do that, you would know much easier ways to get the data without the unnecessary risk. This is a hammer to kill a fly, thus what the FBI would do, not phishers.
But if you have some sensitive data that someone wants, perhaps the hotel you're staying in provides some black-market services you're not aware of?
When I pay $300-$500 a night to stay at the Sheraton in Brussels, I'm pretty sure they aren't just a front for a credit card fraud ring. After all, I have already GIVEN them a scan of my credit card to put on file during my stay. This is the kind of hotel that would be offering computers. Better quality business class hotels near major airports and travel destinations.
The Model 6 on the edge of town where the crack whores stay isn't gonna start having free computer access anytime soon.
Come on, a little perspective goes a long way folks. You guys must not travel much.
Again, who is going to install this keylogger? The hotel? The FBI? Some "bad guy/thief"?
I'm pretty sure Holiday Inn won't, and the FBI could get the info using an easier method. I mean, if I'm trying to screw you over and get your data, this would be the most expensive and difficult way to do it.
What am i going to do, install keyloggers on all hotel rooms? Normally, you don't get your room number until you show up, so how can I install it in advance to just screw you over, if I was going after you individually? If I just install it to catch ANYONE, there is a record that I was there, so it could be traced back to me.
Or the maid could install it perhaps? There are much easier ways to rip people off than CREATING this hardware, test it, get the job, find the time to get in and install it, and hope like hell you don't get caught because you have to show your drivers license and social security card to get hired. So whenever they find it out, you WILL be a suspect. It is not that it is impossible, it is just that it is the least likely of the security concerns.
This is a theoretical problem that has no bearing in reality short of the FBI, and if they want your data, they will get your data. Possible, yes, but you and I have a much larger chance of getting hit by lightening, but you aren't fretting about that.
The REAL potential is at the hotel's proxy server / router, where the vendor's IT guy could be recording all nonencrypted traffic, which would include most webmail. This is in software, and would be easier to cover up. Then you have access to the email, and can go from there. This could be secured, but would require users are not dumb. THIS is the main security issue. This is a concern NOW, not in the future, and not theoretical.
What's to stop something from copying your data off the usb drive before/during/after booting?
An encrypted filesystem. Its already in use by millions today using Linux, and even Windows. Very easy to do. And as soon as Knoppix started to boot, you would know something is wrong because it would detect the hardware. Linux is very good about this.
Add a hardware keyboard logger to this setup
Obviously your own keyboard is the simple answer, although not very convenient. I would bet be a parallel keyboard logger can be detected, since it has to accept input and give feedback, by design.
You also have to ask why would Holiday Inn do this to me? No one else knew my room number, and I didn't even know it until I showed up at the hotel to check in. If you are James Bond, then by all means, bring your own laptop. Your "problems" are not spyware, these would be major FBI style offensives and require sophisticated hardware. If this is a problem, what keyboard you are using is a minor concern.
Again, I would worry more about bugs in my room, cameras, and listening devices that can hear my keyclicks and then tell what I pressed (article on that here a month ago). Those use technology that is on the shelf TODAY, but people aren't freaking out because they know the odds are against them being used.
Just because hotels install diskless computers, that doesn't mean the FBI is all of a sudden interested in you, Berj Q. Public. They could be doing much worse to you NOW, but you don't give it a second thought, so why does THIS worry you, except it is just something new to worry about, that doesn't even exist yet. Its a matter of perspective, and it bothers me that everyone is "oh my god, now the FBI is going to log my keystrokes!" instead of thinking how cool it is. I promise, no one reading Slashdot right now is important enough for the FBI to give a damn what you type, and they are the only ones who could do what you are suggesting. Or the hotel owners.
Or just hook up as this: USB drive - hidden USB inside box - USB connector. The hidden USB could read yours, but keep or send a copy off somewhere. I'm sure you can do more variations on this. If this gets significantly popular people will find a way and it's popularity will plummet down to nothing.
First, Knoppix doesn't mount any foreign disk by default. Second, if it was a drive that was "interupting" my keydrive, knoppix would likely see that and tell me. No such drive exists today, writing the code to view it would be very trivial, its hardware and knoppix reads ALL the hardware on every boot.
I would be more worried that they have cameras in the smoke detectors and watching your keystrokes. THIS would actually be easier to pull off because the gear exists to do it.
Ironically, I will bet you anything the majority of people who are being all paranoid about this 1) Dont travel anyway 2) Use wireless routers, no password and/or 3) Use Windows XP and the free version of Zone Alarm.
So pardon me if I'm a bit nonplussed by all the "security experts" posting their invalid concerns. Most of these concerns can be easily overcome with about 10 seconds of thought. There ARE some potential issues, but not a single valid one is expressed in the comments.
It's like all the people who couldn't pass CS101 are posting on how dangerous this is, not understanding at ALL how computers work. If I boot from my Knoppix flashdrive, even if they HAD a "secret windows drive with viruses and spyware" it wouldn't bother me because it would not be mounted, and it likely won't run on Linux, and even if it WOULD, Knoppix doesn't run everything as root.
If I encrypt everything else I do on the network (ever hear of https?) then there isn't much for them to steal. It is no more dangerous than any other computer on any other network. It's actually safer than your Windows XP box connected to a cable modem. Much.
We are talking about Linux as a remote OS, not Windows. Its not that Linux is bulletproof, but Knoppix is already designed to do this TODAY, and has been for years. No real modification is needed to do this except paring it down to fit on the flashdrive unzipped. Windows Only users just have no idea how configurable Linux is as an entire distribution, and they seem to worry about the wrong things.