Yep, my mistake. TeliaSonera was threatening Junik with sanctions if they didn't cut Real Host off. That's what happens when you go from memories of a late night... There's some more background info on the Zeus trojan that Real Host was running the C&C servers for, including a rather incriminating AS map, over at HostExploit. Given the nature of the last couple of hops and liklihood of some RBN involvement, I'm actually inclined to believe that Junik is either a front or is seriously in someone's pocket...
Probably not. The ISP in question, Real Host, appears to have only had a single upstream to the Internet via the Scandinavia ISP TeliaSonera and it was TeliaSonera being threatened with sanctions if they continued to provide connectivity to Real Host that resulted in the disconnection. Chances are that the operators behind Real Host (there is evidence to suggest at least some are ex-RBN staffers) are looking for other ISPs to provide them connectivity at this moment and Real Host with be coming to an Internet Sewer near you Real Soon.
I can't read the article due to Slashdot effect, but if shuttle launches are contributing to or causing (big difference there!) the formation of the noctilucent clouds then there should be a correlation to check for. Specifically, there should be a fall in the number of observed clouds during the two extended periods of time when the shuttle wasn't flying following the Challenger and Columbia disasters. IIRC, there was a similar fall off in percentage cloud cover over the US during the days after 9/11 when almost no aircraft were flying within US airspace.
Yes, that's pretty obvious, as is stuff like putting solar panels at suitable points. I was thinking more of the innovative ideas that they might come up with or adapt from other waste energy reclaimation efforts that are underway. Another idea that occured is that since gas turbines and nuclear reactors also generate a considerable amount heat it might be practical to adapt geothermal generators to capture some of it and put it to productive use. There are obviously some limitations though; windmills are not going to be a good idea for instance since they will have a detrimental effect on the radar profile, which is not exactly a good thing for a vessel that might be targetted by a radar guided missile, similarly anything that generates noise is out of the question for a submarine.
Ships have had multiple methods of propulsion for a long time; early ocean going steamships also had masts and rigging for sail in emergencies, German U-Boats in in WWII had dual diesel/electric engines. Frankly, I'm surprised that this research hadn't already been started, albeit to reduce dependence of foreign oil rather than out of any concern for the environment given the stance of the Bush Presidency on such matters. Still, it'll be interesting to see what they can come up with. Maybe something like the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) that was used in some Formula One cars this year; use the motion of water past the hull and in the wake to generate electricity while the vessel is underway.
I'm having some back problems at the moment and tend to most comfortable in positions that don't suit either a desktop or full size laptop setup. I was just thinking last night how useful a subnote with a flippable screen would be for letting me do things like reviewing and marking up documents that don't really require a fast startup and processor but is beyond the capabilities of most (all?) eBook readers.
The media are also following the story, KOMO a local station was knocked offline but are broadcasting from a backup site.
Way to go guys! At least two national, and maybe even international, ICT companies on whom numerous affiliates depend upon fail to provide for an adequate backup facility and continuity plan, yet the local AM radio station manages to pull it off. I'm guessing that some heads are gonna roll after the holiday weekend...
The only times I've seen FTP report a successful file transfer and have a file discrepency is when a binary file has been transferred in ASCII mode and the CR/LF sequences are being swapped for just CRs, or visa versa. Nothing wrong with the protocol, PEBKAC...
I use SyncToy at work to sync my laptop up with the network for a quick and dirty solution that just requires a simple replication of data, but I've found it to be less than satisfactory for more complex tasks and interminably slow when there is a large quantity of files in a sizeable directory structure.
For home use (a mix of Linux and Windows boxes) where things are more involved I started using Unison for a cross platform solution but in the end settled on a simple RSync for the Linux data and SyncBack SE for the more complicated Windows stuff. SyncBack SE might not be free (it's $30), but it is lightning fast, extremely flexible and can handle very sophisticated synchronisation and backup tasks including versioning, support for more than one target, remote targets via FTP and email), bandwith controls... Worth a look!
Trees won't grow where there is no water or soil. You could put these things in the middle of a desert, on a glacier or on the top of an office block roof and they'd still be productive, although perhaps more so in the case of the office block due to the liklihood of there being more CO2 around. Managed forests would be the ideal solution for cost effective sinking of CO2, especially if the use that the resultant wood was put to was controlled, but this could still be a useful alternative in places where that isn't a practical proposition.
Actually, there are no house odds in poker played with a real deck of cards. For anything involving a computer (or mechanics, historically) it's just a matter of how you implement the game.
Unless you're really fussed about free (speech) software or desperately strapped for hardware resources, you could try the free (beer) version of the VMware ESXi Hypervisor. You don't get all of the nice toys of the paid for version, but it's a pretty neat way of trying out distros when hardware resources are limited and has next to no impact when only running one VM. Some of the main advantages to this:
Unless resources are really tight, you can still run multiple OS's side by side should it be helpful to do so
You have the fallback of not needed to completely blow away an existing setup until you are happy with the new one
Makes it very easy to make every install a clean build
Makes it very easy to make every install an upgrade (of a copy) too - what's your preference?
Having had a few OS installs go wrong and being down a system for a few days, I'm giving some serious thought to doing this on all my personal systems in future, but what would be even better for that would be to get the Hypervisor in the BIOS. At the moment though, that kind of functionality seems to be only available on higher end motherboards aimed at the server market...
Actually, this has almost nothing to do with attacking VMs and more to do with the simple fact that LxLab's code is an extremely poorly written piece of crap from a security standpoint that leaves the VM wide open to attack. Having read through the 24 sample exploits when they were first published on milw0rm, the errors are pretty damn fundamental and indicate a complete ignorance of many of the established best practices in secure coding. It was just a matter of time before one of LxLab's users got hit and hit hard; frankly I'm surprised it took so long.
The only thing that I found surprising about the attack on VAserv is that the perpetrator decided to blow away the servers instead of subvert them for sending spam or hosting related websites; 100,000 web hosts have got to be worth quite a few dollars on the right market. While it sucks to be VAserv or one of their customers right now, it's probably better things went this way than the alternative for everyone else. Of course, it's just a matter of time before the next users of LxLabs HyperVM gets hit - if they haven't been already - and at least some of them are almost certainly going to be end up doing something less than legitimate.
So, instead of the Martians coming here, blowing stuff up and then catching a cold and dying out, we go there, give them heat and wipe them out first? I suppose the best defense really is a good offense!
Absolutely they will. Anyone who has been in the UK recently can't help but have seen some coverage of the MP Expenses scandal which The Telegraph has been milking for a couple of weeks now. This is good old fashioned journalism at its best; a competent team of reporters going over a huge amount of data and expressing it clearly and succinctly in terms the public can understand. Sure, there's some sensationalism in there too, but the results speak for themselves; a respectable UK broadsheet seeing an increase in circulation of over 50,000 a day is phenomenal for a medium that is supposed to have been left in the dust by "iReporters" and the "Blogosphere". You can bet that there has been a similar uptick in what the paper is charging people wanting to advertise in the paper as well, and it's probably already a forgone conclusion which paper will be walking away with the big journalism awards in the UK this year.
John Naughton's approach is probably the correct one, but as we've seen from the examples set by the music and movie industries, the media business isn't exactly quick to adapt and has the funds to struggle on for a very long time. I'm all for seeing a few of Rupert Murdoch's red tops go to the wall, but unfortunately "Peter and Jordon to divorce" still sells far more papers than "MP claimed for moat on expenses" (yes, really). It's probably going to be a case of the few standing taking all, but unfortunately I suspect that some of those left standing are going to be those who have the funds to muddle and sue their way through the end.
That's true, but in this case only *one* party (the RIAA's lawyers) was represented in the Judge's chambers whereas I gather that normally representatives are both sides are present in the interests of a fair and balanced trial. What matters here is whether having only one party in camera is acceptable, and if so under what circumstances did it occur here.
IANAL and only have TV and books to go from but, somewhat apropos, the only times I can recall instances of only one lawyer being present with the judge is when that happens to be the lawyer representing the Mafia and they are trying to "make an offer that the judge can't refuse"...
What seems to be lacking here is more information on the circumstances that led to the in camera meeting, which is probably the crux of the matter. "Eldavojohn" presents a plausible sounding circumstance above where this might happen, so the questions I have are:
Are there any other instances of one side (either one) being in camera with the judge alone?
If so, how often does it happen? (Not very, if at all, judging by NYCL's reaction)
Were the lawyers for Tanya Anderson present when this meeting was initiated?
If so, presumably they either agreed to the meeting or objected and were overruled - which was it?
If Tanya Anderson's lawyers agreed to the meeting, then one can only hope they know what they are doing, but if it's the latter then I can't imagine how that might play out bearing in mind the the RIAA et al are the *defendants* here. If it were the other way around, I'd go for "instant mis-trial", but does that still hold in any way should the RIAA escape censure in the case?
For patch cables it's just not worth the hassle of crimping your own, nor is it very cost efficient unless you have a skilled cable crimper working at near minimum wage, while for laying new distribution looms paid contractors are usually the best option. For very long, one off cable runs however, or cables that need to take specific routes that preclude the connector being attached (think industrial environments), then I'll hand crimp as and when required.
As to quality, I've never had any problems with my hand crimped cables at all, even on cables running high load Gigabit, but I do use decent cable, ends and tools and know how to do a proper crimp. On the subject of the cable, do make sure get the right type for the cable run! Nearly all the places where I've seen problems have ultimately been down to the wrong cable type more often than a bad crimping job; the flexible cable is for patching, the stiff cable is for horizontal/vertical distribution!
So you mean there are people capable of hacking the US energy grid but who can't start the attacks from a hacked box in Madagascar?
Maybe the attackers did start the attacks from the box in Madagascar or wherever, but if that box could be hacked by the attackers then I suppose it's possible that it was also hacked by those tracking these attacks who found evidence pointing back to the usual suspects. That becomes all the more likely if at least some of the hacked systems are parts of a honey net or monitoring of compromised systems in the US shows an abnormally high level of communication back to some countries and not others.
What I find quite interesting about this though is that it's the older cold war opponents being singled out, and not the terrorists like all of those alleged Al Qaeda sympathisers in in quite well connected countries like Pakistan that we keep hearing about. If this were a FUD campaign, then which of those is Joe Public more likely to get worked up about, do you suppose?
Actually, I think we're going to struggle to come up with with the lengthy list we that might imagine here. Most "Sci Fi" terms actually come from blue sky mathematics and science texts:
"Grey Goo" was coined by Eric Drexler in the book "Engines of Creation" (1986).
"Space Elevator" was coined by Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovskii in an 1895 (not a typo!) astronomy paper.
"Portal" was in common use long before it because associated with science fiction, SciFi just repurposed it - half a point at best.
"Hyperspace" originated in 19th century English mathematical and science texts to describe Euclidean geometries with greater than 3 dimensions.
"Warp speed" though, I'm not sure on. I'm pretty sure it predates Roddenberry though... Any takers?
From Dan Kaminsky's site, immediately under the bit that looks like the Slashot story funnily enough, so I'm guessing it got dropped to save space on the Slashdot front page:
The technical details are not complicated -- Conficker, in all its variants, makes NetpwPathCanonicalize() work quite a bit differently than either the unpatched or the patched MS08-067 version -- but I'll let Tillmann and Felix describe this in full in their "Know Your Enemy" paper, due out any day now with all sorts of interesting observations about this annoying piece of code. (We didn't think it made sense to hold up the scanner while finishing up a few final edits on the paper.)
to use a car analogy, Shell has gotten off the future express way and is driving down a dead end street. it may be a very long road, but it will come to an end.
That's not a very good analogy really. Right now, oil is probably more representative of a highway that comes to an abrupt end in a very dry and barren desert; you know that it's going to end at some point, but you are not 100% sure quite where that it is. Alternative energy is a maze of meandering side roads and dead ends that lie to either side of the high way that represent higher short-term running costs, research that leads to economically or environmentally nonviable solutions, or equally bad dead ends as oil. Some of those roads, however, do lead to the future express way and those are the ones we have to find, but the problem is we don't really have a good map yet.
I'd say Shell has simply decided that, right now, they need to sit out The Recession with what to them at least is a safe and financially sound proposition in the form of biofuels, by getting back onto the dead-end highway for a while. This is really just the same basic strategy being taken by all those other business that have been focusing on their core operating markets recently. At least that way they're still moving and they know that the road remains good for a while yet, and it doesn't preclude them from doing a little more exploring of the side roads later on, and there might even be some better maps by then...
The poster doesn't make any indication of how much traffic each of those "1,000+ visitors a day" will generate, either in terms of the number of requests or the number of bytes. Nor is any indication given as to the nature of the service, required resiliance or the method of information exchange provided. For a simple HTML form, back-end DB based system without high uptime requirements, then the required infrastructure is trivial, but if we're going to the opposite extreme and talking about five nines uptime, extended voice conversations, or even video conferencing, with large file downloads (FTP was mentioned) as well... Admittedly, that's unlikely for a non-profit, but it's kind of hard to extrapolate anything other than generics from the information currently available.
Assuming that it wasn't butchered by the Slashdot editors, it's a very poorly thought out submission, IMHO.
The ones that I'll even consider buying any more do. The same goes for any another gadget with a potential for connection to a PC and a realistic expectation that USB will be capable of providing enough juice to charge it up. Heck, even some of my devices (a desktop fan and a *toothbrush*) that have zero real need for a PC connection use a Mini-USB socket for their power needs. Being able to go away and only pack one wall wart, plus have the confidence that even if you lose it you can get a local replacement without any hassle at all is about as good as it gets for portable devices.
Also, can anyone *please* explain what possible reasoning might lie behind EICTA's Tony Graziano statement that Verheugen's demand is "legally and technically impossible" due to differences in voltage and battery requirements within the European Union? Seriously. Inquiring minds want to know! I have a USB wall wart with a modular mains connector that you just snap the appropriate plug onto and that handles just about any input voltage you care to chuck at it and it has the EU stamp of approval on it, so I think it's absolutely legally and technically possible.
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, my mistake. TeliaSonera was threatening Junik with sanctions if they didn't cut Real Host off. That's what happens when you go from memories of a late night... There's some more background info on the Zeus trojan that Real Host was running the C&C servers for, including a rather incriminating AS map, over at HostExploit. Given the nature of the last couple of hops and liklihood of some RBN involvement, I'm actually inclined to believe that Junik is either a front or is seriously in someone's pocket...
Probably not. The ISP in question, Real Host, appears to have only had a single upstream to the Internet via the Scandinavia ISP TeliaSonera and it was TeliaSonera being threatened with sanctions if they continued to provide connectivity to Real Host that resulted in the disconnection. Chances are that the operators behind Real Host (there is evidence to suggest at least some are ex-RBN staffers) are looking for other ISPs to provide them connectivity at this moment and Real Host with be coming to an Internet Sewer near you Real Soon.
I can't read the article due to Slashdot effect, but if shuttle launches are contributing to or causing (big difference there!) the formation of the noctilucent clouds then there should be a correlation to check for. Specifically, there should be a fall in the number of observed clouds during the two extended periods of time when the shuttle wasn't flying following the Challenger and Columbia disasters. IIRC, there was a similar fall off in percentage cloud cover over the US during the days after 9/11 when almost no aircraft were flying within US airspace.
"Comic Sans" would be nice, just for a change...
/ducks
Yes, that's pretty obvious, as is stuff like putting solar panels at suitable points. I was thinking more of the innovative ideas that they might come up with or adapt from other waste energy reclaimation efforts that are underway. Another idea that occured is that since gas turbines and nuclear reactors also generate a considerable amount heat it might be practical to adapt geothermal generators to capture some of it and put it to productive use. There are obviously some limitations though; windmills are not going to be a good idea for instance since they will have a detrimental effect on the radar profile, which is not exactly a good thing for a vessel that might be targetted by a radar guided missile, similarly anything that generates noise is out of the question for a submarine.
Ships have had multiple methods of propulsion for a long time; early ocean going steamships also had masts and rigging for sail in emergencies, German U-Boats in in WWII had dual diesel/electric engines. Frankly, I'm surprised that this research hadn't already been started, albeit to reduce dependence of foreign oil rather than out of any concern for the environment given the stance of the Bush Presidency on such matters. Still, it'll be interesting to see what they can come up with. Maybe something like the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS) that was used in some Formula One cars this year; use the motion of water past the hull and in the wake to generate electricity while the vessel is underway.
I'm having some back problems at the moment and tend to most comfortable in positions that don't suit either a desktop or full size laptop setup. I was just thinking last night how useful a subnote with a flippable screen would be for letting me do things like reviewing and marking up documents that don't really require a fast startup and processor but is beyond the capabilities of most (all?) eBook readers.
SOLD! When does it ship in the UK?
It is going to ship in the UK, isn't it?
The media are also following the story, KOMO a local station was knocked offline but are broadcasting from a backup site.
Way to go guys! At least two national, and maybe even international, ICT companies on whom numerous affiliates depend upon fail to provide for an adequate backup facility and continuity plan, yet the local AM radio station manages to pull it off. I'm guessing that some heads are gonna roll after the holiday weekend...
The only times I've seen FTP report a successful file transfer and have a file discrepency is when a binary file has been transferred in ASCII mode and the CR/LF sequences are being swapped for just CRs, or visa versa. Nothing wrong with the protocol, PEBKAC...
I use SyncToy at work to sync my laptop up with the network for a quick and dirty solution that just requires a simple replication of data, but I've found it to be less than satisfactory for more complex tasks and interminably slow when there is a large quantity of files in a sizeable directory structure.
For home use (a mix of Linux and Windows boxes) where things are more involved I started using Unison for a cross platform solution but in the end settled on a simple RSync for the Linux data and SyncBack SE for the more complicated Windows stuff. SyncBack SE might not be free (it's $30), but it is lightning fast, extremely flexible and can handle very sophisticated synchronisation and backup tasks including versioning, support for more than one target, remote targets via FTP and email), bandwith controls... Worth a look!
Trees won't grow where there is no water or soil. You could put these things in the middle of a desert, on a glacier or on the top of an office block roof and they'd still be productive, although perhaps more so in the case of the office block due to the liklihood of there being more CO2 around. Managed forests would be the ideal solution for cost effective sinking of CO2, especially if the use that the resultant wood was put to was controlled, but this could still be a useful alternative in places where that isn't a practical proposition.
It still seems like a wacky concept though...
Actually, there are no house odds in poker played with a real deck of cards. For anything involving a computer (or mechanics, historically) it's just a matter of how you implement the game.
Having had a few OS installs go wrong and being down a system for a few days, I'm giving some serious thought to doing this on all my personal systems in future, but what would be even better for that would be to get the Hypervisor in the BIOS. At the moment though, that kind of functionality seems to be only available on higher end motherboards aimed at the server market...
Actually, this has almost nothing to do with attacking VMs and more to do with the simple fact that LxLab's code is an extremely poorly written piece of crap from a security standpoint that leaves the VM wide open to attack. Having read through the 24 sample exploits when they were first published on milw0rm, the errors are pretty damn fundamental and indicate a complete ignorance of many of the established best practices in secure coding. It was just a matter of time before one of LxLab's users got hit and hit hard; frankly I'm surprised it took so long.
The only thing that I found surprising about the attack on VAserv is that the perpetrator decided to blow away the servers instead of subvert them for sending spam or hosting related websites; 100,000 web hosts have got to be worth quite a few dollars on the right market. While it sucks to be VAserv or one of their customers right now, it's probably better things went this way than the alternative for everyone else. Of course, it's just a matter of time before the next users of LxLabs HyperVM gets hit - if they haven't been already - and at least some of them are almost certainly going to be end up doing something less than legitimate.
So, instead of the Martians coming here, blowing stuff up and then catching a cold and dying out, we go there, give them heat and wipe them out first? I suppose the best defense really is a good offense!
Absolutely they will. Anyone who has been in the UK recently can't help but have seen some coverage of the MP Expenses scandal which The Telegraph has been milking for a couple of weeks now. This is good old fashioned journalism at its best; a competent team of reporters going over a huge amount of data and expressing it clearly and succinctly in terms the public can understand. Sure, there's some sensationalism in there too, but the results speak for themselves; a respectable UK broadsheet seeing an increase in circulation of over 50,000 a day is phenomenal for a medium that is supposed to have been left in the dust by "iReporters" and the "Blogosphere". You can bet that there has been a similar uptick in what the paper is charging people wanting to advertise in the paper as well, and it's probably already a forgone conclusion which paper will be walking away with the big journalism awards in the UK this year.
John Naughton's approach is probably the correct one, but as we've seen from the examples set by the music and movie industries, the media business isn't exactly quick to adapt and has the funds to struggle on for a very long time. I'm all for seeing a few of Rupert Murdoch's red tops go to the wall, but unfortunately "Peter and Jordon to divorce" still sells far more papers than "MP claimed for moat on expenses" (yes, really). It's probably going to be a case of the few standing taking all, but unfortunately I suspect that some of those left standing are going to be those who have the funds to muddle and sue their way through the end.
That's true, but in this case only *one* party (the RIAA's lawyers) was represented in the Judge's chambers whereas I gather that normally representatives are both sides are present in the interests of a fair and balanced trial. What matters here is whether having only one party in camera is acceptable, and if so under what circumstances did it occur here.
IANAL and only have TV and books to go from but, somewhat apropos, the only times I can recall instances of only one lawyer being present with the judge is when that happens to be the lawyer representing the Mafia and they are trying to "make an offer that the judge can't refuse"...
If Tanya Anderson's lawyers agreed to the meeting, then one can only hope they know what they are doing, but if it's the latter then I can't imagine how that might play out bearing in mind the the RIAA et al are the *defendants* here. If it were the other way around, I'd go for "instant mis-trial", but does that still hold in any way should the RIAA escape censure in the case?
For patch cables it's just not worth the hassle of crimping your own, nor is it very cost efficient unless you have a skilled cable crimper working at near minimum wage, while for laying new distribution looms paid contractors are usually the best option. For very long, one off cable runs however, or cables that need to take specific routes that preclude the connector being attached (think industrial environments), then I'll hand crimp as and when required.
As to quality, I've never had any problems with my hand crimped cables at all, even on cables running high load Gigabit, but I do use decent cable, ends and tools and know how to do a proper crimp. On the subject of the cable, do make sure get the right type for the cable run! Nearly all the places where I've seen problems have ultimately been down to the wrong cable type more often than a bad crimping job; the flexible cable is for patching, the stiff cable is for horizontal/vertical distribution!
So you mean there are people capable of hacking the US energy grid but who can't start the attacks from a hacked box in Madagascar?
Maybe the attackers did start the attacks from the box in Madagascar or wherever, but if that box could be hacked by the attackers then I suppose it's possible that it was also hacked by those tracking these attacks who found evidence pointing back to the usual suspects. That becomes all the more likely if at least some of the hacked systems are parts of a honey net or monitoring of compromised systems in the US shows an abnormally high level of communication back to some countries and not others.
What I find quite interesting about this though is that it's the older cold war opponents being singled out, and not the terrorists like all of those alleged Al Qaeda sympathisers in in quite well connected countries like Pakistan that we keep hearing about. If this were a FUD campaign, then which of those is Joe Public more likely to get worked up about, do you suppose?
The technical details are not complicated -- Conficker, in all its variants, makes NetpwPathCanonicalize() work quite a bit differently than either the unpatched or the patched MS08-067 version -- but I'll let Tillmann and Felix describe this in full in their "Know Your Enemy" paper, due out any day now with all sorts of interesting observations about this annoying piece of code. (We didn't think it made sense to hold up the scanner while finishing up a few final edits on the paper.)
to use a car analogy, Shell has gotten off the future express way and is driving down a dead end street. it may be a very long road, but it will come to an end.
That's not a very good analogy really. Right now, oil is probably more representative of a highway that comes to an abrupt end in a very dry and barren desert; you know that it's going to end at some point, but you are not 100% sure quite where that it is. Alternative energy is a maze of meandering side roads and dead ends that lie to either side of the high way that represent higher short-term running costs, research that leads to economically or environmentally nonviable solutions, or equally bad dead ends as oil. Some of those roads, however, do lead to the future express way and those are the ones we have to find, but the problem is we don't really have a good map yet.
I'd say Shell has simply decided that, right now, they need to sit out The Recession with what to them at least is a safe and financially sound proposition in the form of biofuels, by getting back onto the dead-end highway for a while. This is really just the same basic strategy being taken by all those other business that have been focusing on their core operating markets recently. At least that way they're still moving and they know that the road remains good for a while yet, and it doesn't preclude them from doing a little more exploring of the side roads later on, and there might even be some better maps by then...
The poster doesn't make any indication of how much traffic each of those "1,000+ visitors a day" will generate, either in terms of the number of requests or the number of bytes. Nor is any indication given as to the nature of the service, required resiliance or the method of information exchange provided. For a simple HTML form, back-end DB based system without high uptime requirements, then the required infrastructure is trivial, but if we're going to the opposite extreme and talking about five nines uptime, extended voice conversations, or even video conferencing, with large file downloads (FTP was mentioned) as well... Admittedly, that's unlikely for a non-profit, but it's kind of hard to extrapolate anything other than generics from the information currently available.
Assuming that it wasn't butchered by the Slashdot editors, it's a very poorly thought out submission, IMHO.
The ones that I'll even consider buying any more do. The same goes for any another gadget with a potential for connection to a PC and a realistic expectation that USB will be capable of providing enough juice to charge it up. Heck, even some of my devices (a desktop fan and a *toothbrush*) that have zero real need for a PC connection use a Mini-USB socket for their power needs. Being able to go away and only pack one wall wart, plus have the confidence that even if you lose it you can get a local replacement without any hassle at all is about as good as it gets for portable devices.
Also, can anyone *please* explain what possible reasoning might lie behind EICTA's Tony Graziano statement that Verheugen's demand is "legally and technically impossible" due to differences in voltage and battery requirements within the European Union? Seriously. Inquiring minds want to know! I have a USB wall wart with a modular mains connector that you just snap the appropriate plug onto and that handles just about any input voltage you care to chuck at it and it has the EU stamp of approval on it, so I think it's absolutely legally and technically possible.