Computer voting booths
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 3
Here in Brazil our elections are all done on computers now. This is a massive step forward from the previous paper ballot and canvas bag from 8, my 1st election. The computers - hardware wise - are very redundant, 2 HDs (redundant), some EM shielding, heavy duty LCD screen behind a few mm of acrylic, large, tough and clickity numerical buttons (with braile on them) and 3 other buttons (vote blank, correct and accept) - the CPU is an AMD (at least the one I saw). The software is a totally different matter that I won't go into since it would have to vary in an election in another country...
This is a perfect solution (with the exception of the software that really does need a better public auditing) to our election system 'cause we are obliged to vote - it's a law here, you must vote or loose a sliver of your citizenship. Being as such we are all given a 'Voters License' that is specific to a voting booth so all we do is show up at the correct location, someone specified types up our license and the booth is opened for voting.
Anyway, the whole software problem from up above is that this process allows vote auditing by someone. You can corelate (sp?) the voter's license and the vote cast. The brazilian government branch responsible for electoral transparency and privacy doesn't release the software's source code or present a valid working machine for reverse engineering even though they are obligated by our constitution.
Anyway, that works for our electoral system - at least in theory, I'd love to participate in a hack-a-booth contest. It's feasable but I don't know if it's practical for everybody.
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
If they managed to count 10 different men and the Europeans manage to look so different from each other doesn't that mean that there must of been a whole lot of willing ladies around at that time? Luck dogs...:)
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
AFAIK (I haven't used that in a while) Japanese hentai has a bunch of 15, 16 year old girls pretending to be barely 18 being gang raped by aliens. Isn't that also "against the law" or are drawings any different than CGI? Also, does that mean that if someone gets a Britney fake and says that she was 17 when that was made is it a crime? Damn, does that mean that everybody has to throw out their favorite Britney fake where Eminem is 'taking her roughly'?
Anyway, on a similar note, when two 16 year old kids are caught having sex should both of them be acused of abusing a minor? Times have changed people, 15 year old girls ARE NOT the same 15 year old girls of 15 years ago!
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Before I rant, when/. was bought a year and some back I really thought that had been bought by Andorra... It goest to show that a little more attention reading is always good.
Anyway, the countries that didn't sign the WIPO agreement aren't factors in the internet or in pretty much anything else - some of them have deep political problems, others are just plain anti-american or does anyone think that WIPO isn't an american strategy to corner inginuity (sp?)? You talked about these issues in the long term, by then there's a probabilistic chance that things will change... in favor of what WIPO wants.
These poor little countries can't survive or stand alone without international trade (look at China for example). Eventually - like it or not - they will open up and they will fall in line like everyone else because the World's biggest economic titan - the USA - will set the Rule which is "You will obey me".
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
In case any brazilian folks near here are reading. I'd sure love to meet a few fellow Slashdot freaks, I wear one of my/. t-shirts whenever I go someplace populated by nerds and no one, as of yet, has asked for my screen name.
BTW, damn Cliff, this could have been posted to the main page, it would've been fun!
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
I really hoped that no one would read that part...:)
But seriously, he's posted a few flame arena articles the past few weeks - no 8k to 12k blurb, just a flamable topic and let us flame eachother to death. I kinda like that, debates always show us different points of view.
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Maybe Katz could start an article about other countries views of US politics - I'd like to put my 2 (brazilian) cents in...
Anyway, the media around here has a definite pro-Gore outlook on the american election while the government has an apparent pro-Bush outlook, I for one would like Nader, Bush is a dumbass and Gore is a dope, both of them will rape the internet in favor of corporations. Both of them will take away the little liberty that's left online for the americans which - like it or not - will touch the whole world, not just John and Jane Redneck.
Frankly - despite cheering for Nader, Bush will win and I have a good reason: Will Farrel does a wicked drunk prez "Dublya" and Dana Carvey could always do a guest spot as "Dad".
--
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
.. any kind of copying of copyright material is illegal. You may buy a CD but under no circumstances may you copy it. This is for any kind of copying, not just digital copies.
As the law stands nobody gives a sh*t, we rip CDs for all we got and participate actively in the former Napster, as a test I had only one MP3 in my Napster a few months back, a rare track from a famous brazilian artist - in 2 days I had more than 50 downloads (tracked and identified, of course) to, at least, 40 brazilians.
Oh, there's an HP commercial that airs with some girl walking in New York listening to some music then burning a CD with the tunes - I bet most of you have seen it. Well, at the end of the commercial, in TINY letters is written something like "it's illegal to copy"... Well, I guess that kinda kills the whole campaign - "Look but don't touch"...
Some artists allow their music to be played on half-assed internet "radio stations" using, exclusively, WMA and/or RA for streaming.
---
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Benchmarks on NICs aren't easy to do, especially ethernet - also known as cheap-as-dirt-net, also known as that's-why-we-love-it-net.
The throughput is inversely proportional to the number of NICs on the line. The protocol used in the transactions also influences throughput - TCP/IP is a military grade protocol (no matter what buzzword people say, it was a military project) so it has massive redundancy, verification and overhead. Don't forget at in the packet itself - all the layers' overheads are large, for a simple HTTP packet, there's IP, TCP and the HTTP headers which take up bandwidith but aren't counted as throughput (at least to most people).
In my experiances, DEC (tulip) and Intel (eepro100) chipsets run at about 90 Mbps on a Fast Ether and 8.5 Mbps on a simple Ether rigged on a switch linking only 2 machines (exact copies, both machines were bought at the same time from the same company) running Linux 2.2.11 with properly wired RJ45 connectors. I tried the same thing out using RTL 8092AS chipset and got a lower 80 Mbps (fast) and 8 Mbps (ether). The speed tests were run using "tar cf - | nc" and "nc -l | tar xf -" (not great but VERY fast) transfering "dd if=/dev/random bs=4k count=1M" (just for fun).
Due to those tests that I ran and counting the pile of burned out cards that I have stacked in a corner at my office, I tend to side with the 'name brand' chipsets, especially DEC (Accton cards for example) since they are cheaper than the Intel chipset and are much better than the RTL chipsets - there are 9 burned out RTL Fastethernet NICs compared to 1 Intel and 0 (ZERO) DEC.
I don't think that I helped that much and answered your question but benchmarks are though to run on NICs due to the great unknown of network deployment.
--
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
I was laughing so loud during the mandatory Kurt bashing (after the Lucas Midgets and Pater's Dwarf Wrestling) that people came over to see if I was alright. This GiS has got to be one of the best ones ever! It's as great as the early Emmet and Roblimo ones - CowboyNeal is the best!!!
BTW, CmdrTaco - you may be shy but when we come up to ask you questions we're also shy - you are important to the Linux community - dude, we REALLY like and admire you (at least some of us) and maybe by asking you a lame question is our way of letting you know that. I for one would ask for an autograph, tell you that you're REALLY cool, take a photo and BEG for a Slashdot t-shirt (not that I already don't have one). Pretty lame huh? But that's my shy way of telling you that I admire you.
-- All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
I really don't know what the filter's name is but I do know that it stops known files, mangles attachment extensions, mangles IMG tags and a whole other truck load of stuff, best of all it doesn't interfere with anything but depends on procmail of course.
It is score based, runs really fast, sanitizes headers, HTML and MIME attachments - since it's based on the procmail ruleset, it can easily be adapted to your needs. It features external "poisoned" files (and extensions) that you can block off.
I've been using it since 1.088 (I think) and I've had no bad things to say about it!
I dunno, the article's "tech experts" sounds a little too prefabricated to me. It seems to me that people that say things like:
I'm completely amazed at the idiocy of the open-source movement in opposing ["Hack SDMI"]. If I were a hacker or an open-source person and I didn't like what SDMI is trying to do, I would think that I would want to break the technology(...)
Aren't trying to rally support for the hacking attempt - they're throwing fuel on a pile of wood to start a bonfire! I can't help remembering that these people are working for the SDMI, if they didn't agree with it they should have left a long time ago, heck, if they're good enough to code a watermarking algorithm they're good enough to code for any other high paying company.
I usually trust Salon so I'm not complaining about the article but this smells too much like a stunt to attract attention.
I say let the script kiddies hack it! I also say, let them wake up with a horse's head next to them the very next day.
I have IPAudit running on two of my servers to keep tabs on internet usage. It sniffs the network and generates a dump text file with all the TCP/IP connections made during the program's runtime. It's files are easy to understand and parse and the processor usage isn't that high (on my 100Mb intranet, with 50% usage the process never goes beyond 25% on a PII 266MHz).
A link to the Freshmeat page is here.
I scoured Freshmeat for a userspace/rootspace solution for a bandwidth meter and IPAudit was the best because of it's simplicity. I personally prefer piping data into a perl program to parse the data than to let it become "Someone Else's Problem". The overhead is low and a parsing script isn't that hard to work out, the one I use (actually it's a suite of 2 programs) took 2 days to code and another week to tweak the filtering rules.
I also made a cute little web interface for the higher ups (computer illiterate) to browse through the user's usage - and it wasn't that hard to make. Oh, I don't release it 'cause it's a mess, one day I'll document it and release it, until then - sorry...:)
Yup, I remember - I still read it every so often. I never really managed to finish the adventure without getting blasted, eaten or something like that.
Those where the good old days, when real men were real men, real women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...:)
But that's part of modern geek culture. We read the whole damn script, what leeked sniplets, flame the whole movie in the weeks before the opening... then, on opening day, we wear our Jedi t-shirts, get our 20 year old lightsabers, make Darth Vader like noises and go to the local cineplex to watch a movie we already know from start to finish like it's brand new and full of mystery.
We'll all watch it at least once - if someone likes it they'll watch it twice and if someone REALLY likes it, they'll watch it 3 times or more.
And besides, you can't really blast it if you haven't watched it - better watch hating and continue to hate it later than to not know why people hate it so much. Come on, you can't HATE Jar Jar just by reading about him - you have to watch to feel it.
Speaking of sponsorship, an intresting little ditty...
The Brazilian 4 x 100m swimming team (that won bronze after the aussies and the americans) was almost disqualified because one of the athletes had a minuscule logo from one of his Brazilian sponors on the shirt he was wearing.
IOC didn't approve (i.e. received money from) the Brazilian sponsor so they really were gonna take the medal away. They gave up after a few days and a lot of begging on part of the athletes - I suspect that the brazilian company gave Samaranch a nice fat envelope at his wife's funeral.
Cool net admins == cool networks! It's awsome to browse on a network when the admin looks out for you (privacy filters and anonimyzing proxies to scour for p0rn). I like that so much in college thatI set it up on my network.
My school blocks Napster to all computers but one - it saves a ton of bandwidth and since you can share files from SMB shares, the whole network's on Napster. If you want an MP3, you sit down at the terminal, save it and copy it from your PC.
Someone already mentioned IMP and Horde but didn't mention why they used it so I'll give my 2 cents.
The IMP suite emulates the look and feel of most of the webmail sites out there - the login page is simple, the pages are simple and elegant - the one thing I miss though is a trash can but that doesn't bother anyone around here.
My users are pains in the arse when it comes to ease of use - just as a side note, in 80 computers there are 4 types of email clients in use other than my webmail system - access through IMP is used by 20 users (ranking number 2 after Netscape Mail). So far the only complaint I've heard from them is that I mangle file attachments (nothing to do with IMP but they blame it anyway) - a number much lower than the 5 complaints a day for Netscape Mail.
Something else I like about IMP is that it's incredibly easy to setup. Untar, rename directories, cp old config, restart apache (optional) a wham-o. BTW, they've had a recent run with some nasty exploits - it would be wise to get the most recent version if you intend on using it.
Oh, it has POP3 and IMAP support (I firewall my IMAP ports except for the tunnel I have between the webmail server and my mail server so it doesn't hurt security too much). Something that's VERY useful for me is that it's already multilingual!
I guess the subject says it all... I really want to buy an imac to play around with - hey, it's cute and boots linux - but just the thought of giving Steve Jobs a boatload of money (here in Brazil an imac isn't very cheap, as it isn't in the whole universe) is enough to give me the heebeejeebees...
Nice one Steve, why don't your lawyers slam all your positive press so that they don't say good things about you... Oh, wait...
First of all, I like Hole and since Ms. Love started fighting against the label I've started to like her even more...
After all Courtney's doing, it makes me kinda imagine her as that girl that wore thick glasses, was kinda bad dressed (not that she isn't now), had a funny snorting laugh, played Nethack hidden in the corner of the computer lab and watched anime... Damn, the more I think about it the more of a crush I have on her - look at her now, a grown woman, widow to the great Kurt Corbain and a major, 100% pure, b*tch!
I have soft spot for these girls. Courtney, if you end up reading this - call me up if you're ever in Brazil...
The first rule of cracking the SDMI is you do not crack the SDMI. The second rule of cracking the SDMI is that you DO NOT crack the SDMI.
Come on people, some 1337 k1dd13 (actually a MS hacker) WILL crack the SDMI and when he goes to collect he'll have to sign an agreement to not publish his work. The SDMI collective will have the work (probably patent it so they can sue anyone that reverse engineers it) and the guy will have to keep quiet about it - that's how things happen now a days!
Slashdot Mirror
Here in Brazil our elections are all done on computers now. This is a massive step forward from the previous paper ballot and canvas bag from 8, my 1st election. The computers - hardware wise - are very redundant, 2 HDs (redundant), some EM shielding, heavy duty LCD screen behind a few mm of acrylic, large, tough and clickity numerical buttons (with braile on them) and 3 other buttons (vote blank, correct and accept) - the CPU is an AMD (at least the one I saw). The software is a totally different matter that I won't go into since it would have to vary in an election in another country...
This is a perfect solution (with the exception of the software that really does need a better public auditing) to our election system 'cause we are obliged to vote - it's a law here, you must vote or loose a sliver of your citizenship. Being as such we are all given a 'Voters License' that is specific to a voting booth so all we do is show up at the correct location, someone specified types up our license and the booth is opened for voting.
Anyway, the whole software problem from up above is that this process allows vote auditing by someone. You can corelate (sp?) the voter's license and the vote cast. The brazilian government branch responsible for electoral transparency and privacy doesn't release the software's source code or present a valid working machine for reverse engineering even though they are obligated by our constitution.
Anyway, that works for our electoral system - at least in theory, I'd love to participate in a hack-a-booth contest. It's feasable but I don't know if it's practical for everybody.
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
If they managed to count 10 different men and the Europeans manage to look so different from each other doesn't that mean that there must of been a whole lot of willing ladies around at that time? Luck dogs... :)
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
AFAIK (I haven't used that in a while) Japanese hentai has a bunch of 15, 16 year old girls pretending to be barely 18 being gang raped by aliens. Isn't that also "against the law" or are drawings any different than CGI? Also, does that mean that if someone gets a Britney fake and says that she was 17 when that was made is it a crime? Damn, does that mean that everybody has to throw out their favorite Britney fake where Eminem is 'taking her roughly'?
Anyway, on a similar note, when two 16 year old kids are caught having sex should both of them be acused of abusing a minor? Times have changed people, 15 year old girls ARE NOT the same 15 year old girls of 15 years ago!
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Before I rant, when /. was bought a year and some back I really thought that had been bought by Andorra... It goest to show that a little more attention reading is always good.
Anyway, the countries that didn't sign the WIPO agreement aren't factors in the internet or in pretty much anything else - some of them have deep political problems, others are just plain anti-american or does anyone think that WIPO isn't an american strategy to corner inginuity (sp?)? You talked about these issues in the long term, by then there's a probabilistic chance that things will change... in favor of what WIPO wants.
These poor little countries can't survive or stand alone without international trade (look at China for example). Eventually - like it or not - they will open up and they will fall in line like everyone else because the World's biggest economic titan - the USA - will set the Rule which is "You will obey me".
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
In case any brazilian folks near here are reading. I'd sure love to meet a few fellow Slashdot freaks, I wear one of my /. t-shirts whenever I go someplace populated by nerds and no one, as of yet, has asked for my screen name.
BTW, damn Cliff, this could have been posted to the main page, it would've been fun!
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Are you sure you want to encourage him?
:)
I really hoped that no one would read that part...
But seriously, he's posted a few flame arena articles the past few weeks - no 8k to 12k blurb, just a flamable topic and let us flame eachother to death. I kinda like that, debates always show us different points of view.
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Maybe Katz could start an article about other countries views of US politics - I'd like to put my 2 (brazilian) cents in...
Anyway, the media around here has a definite pro-Gore outlook on the american election while the government has an apparent pro-Bush outlook, I for one would like Nader, Bush is a dumbass and Gore is a dope, both of them will rape the internet in favor of corporations. Both of them will take away the little liberty that's left online for the americans which - like it or not - will touch the whole world, not just John and Jane Redneck.
Frankly - despite cheering for Nader, Bush will win and I have a good reason: Will Farrel does a wicked drunk prez "Dublya" and Dana Carvey could always do a guest spot as "Dad".
--
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
.. any kind of copying of copyright material is illegal. You may buy a CD but under no circumstances may you copy it. This is for any kind of copying, not just digital copies.
As the law stands nobody gives a sh*t, we rip CDs for all we got and participate actively in the former Napster, as a test I had only one MP3 in my Napster a few months back, a rare track from a famous brazilian artist - in 2 days I had more than 50 downloads (tracked and identified, of course) to, at least, 40 brazilians.
Oh, there's an HP commercial that airs with some girl walking in New York listening to some music then burning a CD with the tunes - I bet most of you have seen it. Well, at the end of the commercial, in TINY letters is written something like "it's illegal to copy"... Well, I guess that kinda kills the whole campaign - "Look but don't touch"...
Some artists allow their music to be played on half-assed internet "radio stations" using, exclusively, WMA and/or RA for streaming.
---
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Benchmarks on NICs aren't easy to do, especially ethernet - also known as cheap-as-dirt-net, also known as that's-why-we-love-it-net.
The throughput is inversely proportional to the number of NICs on the line. The protocol used in the transactions also influences throughput - TCP/IP is a military grade protocol (no matter what buzzword people say, it was a military project) so it has massive redundancy, verification and overhead. Don't forget at in the packet itself - all the layers' overheads are large, for a simple HTTP packet, there's IP, TCP and the HTTP headers which take up bandwidith but aren't counted as throughput (at least to most people).
In my experiances, DEC (tulip) and Intel (eepro100) chipsets run at about 90 Mbps on a Fast Ether and 8.5 Mbps on a simple Ether rigged on a switch linking only 2 machines (exact copies, both machines were bought at the same time from the same company) running Linux 2.2.11 with properly wired RJ45 connectors. I tried the same thing out using RTL 8092AS chipset and got a lower 80 Mbps (fast) and 8 Mbps (ether). The speed tests were run using "tar cf - | nc" and "nc -l | tar xf -" (not great but VERY fast) transfering "dd if=/dev/random bs=4k count=1M" (just for fun).
Due to those tests that I ran and counting the pile of burned out cards that I have stacked in a corner at my office, I tend to side with the 'name brand' chipsets, especially DEC (Accton cards for example) since they are cheaper than the Intel chipset and are much better than the RTL chipsets - there are 9 burned out RTL Fastethernet NICs compared to 1 Intel and 0 (ZERO) DEC.
I don't think that I helped that much and answered your question but benchmarks are though to run on NICs due to the great unknown of network deployment.
--
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
I was laughing so loud during the mandatory Kurt bashing (after the Lucas Midgets and Pater's Dwarf Wrestling) that people came over to see if I was alright. This GiS has got to be one of the best ones ever! It's as great as the early Emmet and Roblimo ones - CowboyNeal is the best!!!
BTW, CmdrTaco - you may be shy but when we come up to ask you questions we're also shy - you are important to the Linux community - dude, we REALLY like and admire you (at least some of us) and maybe by asking you a lame question is our way of letting you know that. I for one would ask for an autograph, tell you that you're REALLY cool, take a photo and BEG for a Slashdot t-shirt (not that I already don't have one). Pretty lame huh? But that's my shy way of telling you that I admire you.
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Isn't it great to know that even after the roaches reach out into space a tiny little picture of man and a woman will still hang out there.
Rest in peace little guy, we're all riding with you.
I really don't know what the filter's name is but I do know that it stops known files, mangles attachment extensions, mangles IMG tags and a whole other truck load of stuff, best of all it doesn't interfere with anything but depends on procmail of course.
Here's a link to the homepage.
It is score based, runs really fast, sanitizes headers, HTML and MIME attachments - since it's based on the procmail ruleset, it can easily be adapted to your needs. It features external "poisoned" files (and extensions) that you can block off.
I've been using it since 1.088 (I think) and I've had no bad things to say about it!
I dunno, the article's "tech experts" sounds a little too prefabricated to me. It seems to me that people that say things like:
I'm completely amazed at the idiocy of the open-source movement in opposing ["Hack SDMI"]. If I were a hacker or an open-source person and I didn't like what SDMI is trying to do, I would think that I would want to break the technology(...)
Aren't trying to rally support for the hacking attempt - they're throwing fuel on a pile of wood to start a bonfire! I can't help remembering that these people are working for the SDMI, if they didn't agree with it they should have left a long time ago, heck, if they're good enough to code a watermarking algorithm they're good enough to code for any other high paying company.
I usually trust Salon so I'm not complaining about the article but this smells too much like a stunt to attract attention.
I say let the script kiddies hack it! I also say, let them wake up with a horse's head next to them the very next day.
I have IPAudit running on two of my servers to keep tabs on internet usage. It sniffs the network and generates a dump text file with all the TCP/IP connections made during the program's runtime. It's files are easy to understand and parse and the processor usage isn't that high (on my 100Mb intranet, with 50% usage the process never goes beyond 25% on a PII 266MHz).
:)
A link to the Freshmeat page is here. I scoured Freshmeat for a userspace/rootspace solution for a bandwidth meter and IPAudit was the best because of it's simplicity. I personally prefer piping data into a perl program to parse the data than to let it become "Someone Else's Problem". The overhead is low and a parsing script isn't that hard to work out, the one I use (actually it's a suite of 2 programs) took 2 days to code and another week to tweak the filtering rules.
I also made a cute little web interface for the higher ups (computer illiterate) to browse through the user's usage - and it wasn't that hard to make. Oh, I don't release it 'cause it's a mess, one day I'll document it and release it, until then - sorry...
Yup, I remember - I still read it every so often. I never really managed to finish the adventure without getting blasted, eaten or something like that.
:)
Those where the good old days, when real men were real men, real women were real women and small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri...
But that's part of modern geek culture. We read the whole damn script, what leeked sniplets, flame the whole movie in the weeks before the opening... then, on opening day, we wear our Jedi t-shirts, get our 20 year old lightsabers, make Darth Vader like noises and go to the local cineplex to watch a movie we already know from start to finish like it's brand new and full of mystery.
We'll all watch it at least once - if someone likes it they'll watch it twice and if someone REALLY likes it, they'll watch it 3 times or more.
And besides, you can't really blast it if you haven't watched it - better watch hating and continue to hate it later than to not know why people hate it so much. Come on, you can't HATE Jar Jar just by reading about him - you have to watch to feel it.
BTW, that was not flamebait.
Sirs (and madams),
We need mirrors to those images! They're not slashdotted per-say, but they're very hard to take a look at without a broken image (max connections).
Thank you.
Speaking of sponsorship, an intresting little ditty...
The Brazilian 4 x 100m swimming team (that won bronze after the aussies and the americans) was almost disqualified because one of the athletes had a minuscule logo from one of his Brazilian sponors on the shirt he was wearing.
IOC didn't approve (i.e. received money from) the Brazilian sponsor so they really were gonna take the medal away. They gave up after a few days and a lot of begging on part of the athletes - I suspect that the brazilian company gave Samaranch a nice fat envelope at his wife's funeral.
I was r00ted through IMAP once (script kiddie, as you could have guessed) - a sad moment in my life.
I second that notion... :)
Cool net admins == cool networks! It's awsome to browse on a network when the admin looks out for you (privacy filters and anonimyzing proxies to scour for p0rn). I like that so much in college thatI set it up on my network.
My school blocks Napster to all computers but one - it saves a ton of bandwidth and since you can share files from SMB shares, the whole network's on Napster. If you want an MP3, you sit down at the terminal, save it and copy it from your PC.
Simple and not that horribly bad.
Someone already mentioned IMP and Horde but didn't mention why they used it so I'll give my 2 cents.
The IMP suite emulates the look and feel of most of the webmail sites out there - the login page is simple, the pages are simple and elegant - the one thing I miss though is a trash can but that doesn't bother anyone around here.
My users are pains in the arse when it comes to ease of use - just as a side note, in 80 computers there are 4 types of email clients in use other than my webmail system - access through IMP is used by 20 users (ranking number 2 after Netscape Mail). So far the only complaint I've heard from them is that I mangle file attachments (nothing to do with IMP but they blame it anyway) - a number much lower than the 5 complaints a day for Netscape Mail.
Something else I like about IMP is that it's incredibly easy to setup. Untar, rename directories, cp old config, restart apache (optional) a wham-o. BTW, they've had a recent run with some nasty exploits - it would be wise to get the most recent version if you intend on using it.
Oh, it has POP3 and IMAP support (I firewall my IMAP ports except for the tunnel I have between the webmail server and my mail server so it doesn't hurt security too much). Something that's VERY useful for me is that it's already multilingual!
I guess the subject says it all... I really want to buy an imac to play around with - hey, it's cute and boots linux - but just the thought of giving Steve Jobs a boatload of money (here in Brazil an imac isn't very cheap, as it isn't in the whole universe) is enough to give me the heebeejeebees...
Nice one Steve, why don't your lawyers slam all your positive press so that they don't say good things about you... Oh, wait...
First of all, I like Hole and since Ms. Love started fighting against the label I've started to like her even more...
After all Courtney's doing, it makes me kinda imagine her as that girl that wore thick glasses, was kinda bad dressed (not that she isn't now), had a funny snorting laugh, played Nethack hidden in the corner of the computer lab and watched anime... Damn, the more I think about it the more of a crush I have on her - look at her now, a grown woman, widow to the great Kurt Corbain and a major, 100% pure, b*tch!
I have soft spot for these girls. Courtney, if you end up reading this - call me up if you're ever in Brazil...
The first rule of cracking the SDMI is you do not crack the SDMI. The second rule of cracking the SDMI is that you DO NOT crack the SDMI.
Come on people, some 1337 k1dd13 (actually a MS hacker) WILL crack the SDMI and when he goes to collect he'll have to sign an agreement to not publish his work. The SDMI collective will have the work (probably patent it so they can sue anyone that reverse engineers it) and the guy will have to keep quiet about it - that's how things happen now a days!