And you know you're now secure how..?
on
Black Hat
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· Score: 1
"John Bigg's new book Black Hat: Misfits, Criminals, and Scammers in the Internet Age is an entertaining and educational book that provides me with more than enough information about how to protect my vulnerable computer."
Considering that you already said that you're not very technical, I fail to see how you are qualified to make this judgement.
Hopefully the book makes the point that the only truly secure computer is one that is locked in a shielded vault without any internet connection (and some would say that the power cord should be unplugged just to make damn sure...).
Even the "experts" have been wrong about what it means to be "secure" before. Once upon a time you were ok as long as you didn't run any executables that were sent to you. Then you were ok as long as you didn't run any server programs. These days just the act of surfing the web without the latest patches or leaving your computer connected to the internet without a firewall is inviting disaster. Who would have thought?
I used to laugh at Star Trek episodes where a virus would make it onto the Enterprise by travelling backwards through a carrier wave or something equally ridiculous, and I always thought "haha, no computer viruse would ever spread that way, fools!". Now I have to think "heck, who knows... in the future maybe computer viruses *will* spread that way".
IANAL, but isn't there a standard process for registering a legal assumed name? So we all just register the common assumed name of "John Smith", or whatever, and when asked what our name is, we offer that up.... and its legally correct.
I tell every person I know who gets a broadband connection to buy a hardware firewall device. If they invest in a wifi router for about $80, then they not only get a built-in firewall but also wifi a hub/switch as a bonus. As far as I am concerned, this is an absolute requirement these days.
The NAT that is setup by default for all such routers is just the ticket to avoid viruses like blaster.
I had this EXACT same problem with my ISP. It turned out that the LISA daemon that comes standard with Mandrake (dunno about other distros...) burps out ICMP pings over your network. My ISP took his ICMP ping traffic to be port scanning and/or some MS-Blast virus, and disconnected my connection. The bastards finally turned it back on once I tracked down exactly what was generating this (very minor) ping traffic.
Just wanted to take note of some strangeness. In the last week or so as SCO's position has arguably been considerably weakened from its already weak position, SCO stock has actually gone UP from about $7 to about $11 now. Very strange.
It's really funny to me that we have this "separation" of Church and State yet we have to worry about "values"? Blue Laws, gambling restrictions, anti-abortion, etc, are all issues stemming from *religious* beliefs whether those in office say they are or not.
This is a vast oversimplification of morality and religion. Fist, most religious based morality did, at one time, make practical sense. Go back a thousand years or so and maybe you'll find it wise not to eat pork, for instance, because people who did had a way of getting worms. At this point, however, pork is perfectly safe to eat, so there is now a fundamental disconnect between some religious morality and reality.
This does not take away from the fact that, at one time, it actually made sense. You can have morality without religion, simply because certain behaviors tend to lead people to live longer and/or be more successful. If these behaviors are formulated into some sort of code, voila, you have "morality".
To take one example from your list, I do not think you need religion to consider gambling "immoral", because it is pretty clear that people with gambling problems are at a serious competitive disadvantage, and those that refrain are at a competitive advantage. No religion is required to formulate a moral code that says excessive gambling is a bad thing.
What would work for me would be a database that has all of the normal file attributes stored in it, and the directories created dynamically by SQL. Mounted and used transparently, this would be quite handy. Imagine a directory that magically contains all of your MP3 files, no matter what their home directory is. Hmmm... maybe I can set some people to work on this.
Unless you prefer Intel for some reason, the HP Pavillion 210e with Win XP is still a lot cheaper. So even if you buy that and replace Win XP with Linux you're getting more for your money than with the comparable D220 with Linux. Granted, you don't get to thumb your nose at Microsoft... but I think HP could do more to offer a real cost savings to consumers who opt to not pay the Microsoft tax.
I have yet to hear any plan of action that could have given the Columbia astronauts any significant chance of survival even if they had perfect knowledge of the damage done by the foam.
The shuttle had limited fuel so could only stay up there so long, and couldn't reach the ISS. No other shuttle was prepped for launch, and that takes a LONG time. Flying some re-entry pattern designed to minimize heat on the damaged side would have only have improved their changes slightly. They didn't have the material or capability to fix the shuttle themselves. So what would have been done??
Perhaps most are stillborn..?
on
Chimera Twins Story
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Apologies if this is mentioned in the radio program (I have not listened to it), but it seems to me that even if there are theoretically "millions" of these multiple DNA chimera born each year, is it not likely that a very large percentage of them are stillborn due to complications brought on by their condition? The number of *living* chimera may be much smaller.
I am a commercial user of the Linux kernel. As the president of my company I hereby declare that I am willfully using Linux without any additional licensing from SCO beyond acceptance of the terms of the standard GPL. Go ahead and try to sue me you sick pathetic morons. I'd love to see it.
There, you have been notified. Maybe I'll send some certified mail as well, just for good measure. Any lack of action on your part constitutes acceptance that SCO owns no rights to Linux kernel source code outside of those provided by the GPL.
I've read through many of the posts and seen quite a few that negatively refer to the Star Child from the original V series. This is in line with my reaction to the whole Star Child story line: why throw religious mysticism into a sci-fi flick??
I'm glad to see that there appears to be general agreement that the Star Child story thread was a disaster and ought to be shot into the sun (along with the planet Zeist from the second Highlander movie).
Slashdot Mirror
"John Bigg's new book Black Hat: Misfits, Criminals, and Scammers in the Internet Age is an entertaining and educational book that provides me with more than enough information about how to protect my vulnerable computer."
Considering that you already said that you're not very technical, I fail to see how you are qualified to make this judgement.
Hopefully the book makes the point that the only truly secure computer is one that is locked in a shielded vault without any internet connection (and some would say that the power cord should be unplugged just to make damn sure...).
Even the "experts" have been wrong about what it means to be "secure" before. Once upon a time you were ok as long as you didn't run any executables that were sent to you. Then you were ok as long as you didn't run any server programs. These days just the act of surfing the web without the latest patches or leaving your computer connected to the internet without a firewall is inviting disaster. Who would have thought?
I used to laugh at Star Trek episodes where a virus would make it onto the Enterprise by travelling backwards through a carrier wave or something equally ridiculous, and I always thought "haha, no computer viruse would ever spread that way, fools!". Now I have to think "heck, who knows... in the future maybe computer viruses *will* spread that way".
IANAL, but isn't there a standard process for registering a legal assumed name? So we all just register the common assumed name of "John Smith", or whatever, and when asked what our name is, we offer that up.... and its legally correct.
I tell every person I know who gets a broadband connection to buy a hardware firewall device. If they invest in a wifi router for about $80, then they not only get a built-in firewall but also wifi a hub/switch as a bonus. As far as I am concerned, this is an absolute requirement these days.
The NAT that is setup by default for all such routers is just the ticket to avoid viruses like blaster.
I had this EXACT same problem with my ISP. It turned out that the LISA daemon that comes standard with Mandrake (dunno about other distros...) burps out ICMP pings over your network. My ISP took his ICMP ping traffic to be port scanning and/or some MS-Blast virus, and disconnected my connection. The bastards finally turned it back on once I tracked down exactly what was generating this (very minor) ping traffic.
Just wanted to take note of some strangeness. In the last week or so as SCO's position has arguably been considerably weakened from its already weak position, SCO stock has actually gone UP from about $7 to about $11 now. Very strange.
It's really funny to me that we have this "separation" of Church and State yet we have to worry about "values"? Blue Laws, gambling restrictions, anti-abortion, etc, are all issues stemming from *religious* beliefs whether those in office say they are or not.
This is a vast oversimplification of morality and religion. Fist, most religious based morality did, at one time, make practical sense. Go back a thousand years or so and maybe you'll find it wise not to eat pork, for instance, because people who did had a way of getting worms. At this point, however, pork is perfectly safe to eat, so there is now a fundamental disconnect between some religious morality and reality.
This does not take away from the fact that, at one time, it actually made sense. You can have morality without religion, simply because certain behaviors tend to lead people to live longer and/or be more successful. If these behaviors are formulated into some sort of code, voila, you have "morality".
To take one example from your list, I do not think you need religion to consider gambling "immoral", because it is pretty clear that people with gambling problems are at a serious competitive disadvantage, and those that refrain are at a competitive advantage. No religion is required to formulate a moral code that says excessive gambling is a bad thing.
... to unlock the hidden partitions!!
The first HDD maker to be outed by Slashdot for intentionally hiding vast swaths of storage!
(Manufacturers Warning: Actually using more than 200GB on this product may result in complete data loss)
What would work for me would be a database that has all of the normal file attributes stored in it, and the directories created dynamically by SQL. Mounted and used transparently, this would be quite handy. Imagine a directory that magically contains all of your MP3 files, no matter what their home directory is. Hmmm... maybe I can set some people to work on this.
Unless you prefer Intel for some reason, the HP Pavillion 210e with Win XP is still a lot cheaper. So even if you buy that and replace Win XP with Linux you're getting more for your money than with the comparable D220 with Linux. Granted, you don't get to thumb your nose at Microsoft... but I think HP could do more to offer a real cost savings to consumers who opt to not pay the Microsoft tax.
I have yet to hear any plan of action that could have given the Columbia astronauts any significant chance of survival even if they had perfect knowledge of the damage done by the foam.
The shuttle had limited fuel so could only stay up there so long, and couldn't reach the ISS. No other shuttle was prepped for launch, and that takes a LONG time. Flying some re-entry pattern designed to minimize heat on the damaged side would have only have improved their changes slightly. They didn't have the material or capability to fix the shuttle themselves. So what would have been done??
Apologies if this is mentioned in the radio program (I have not listened to it), but it seems to me that even if there are theoretically "millions" of these multiple DNA chimera born each year, is it not likely that a very large percentage of them are stillborn due to complications brought on by their condition? The number of *living* chimera may be much smaller.
To whom it may concern,
I am a commercial user of the Linux kernel. As the president of my company I hereby declare that I am willfully using Linux without any additional licensing from SCO beyond acceptance of the terms of the standard GPL. Go ahead and try to sue me you sick pathetic morons. I'd love to see it.
There, you have been notified. Maybe I'll send some certified mail as well, just for good measure. Any lack of action on your part constitutes acceptance that SCO owns no rights to Linux kernel source code outside of those provided by the GPL.
[Name and address]
I don't know if this is 100% or not, but its been true on all of my computers, at least:
USB 1.1 ports are black and USB 2.0 ports are white.
I've read through many of the posts and seen quite a few that negatively refer to the Star Child from the original V series. This is in line with my reaction to the whole Star Child story line: why throw religious mysticism into a sci-fi flick??
I'm glad to see that there appears to be general agreement that the Star Child story thread was a disaster and ought to be shot into the sun (along with the planet Zeist from the second Highlander movie).
Let's just hope the writers got the memo on this.