My humble prediction: Bluetooth is never going to amount to more than a lot of tradepress column inches, some PR, and a lot of R&D spending. Further prediction: exactly the same fate will befall Jini. Wireless networking is riddled with security holes; thus, as the inferior technology, it is bound to beat out the others.
Apache decreased, what, 1.5% or something? This is somehow a signal of the end of Open Source? When Microsoft loses a dime a share, does that signal its imminent demise too?
Well, 4.5% actually, if you'd bothered to follow the link before whoring away with predictable zealotry. But yeah, let's get real. The very same Netcraft whose monthly survey gives that "more than half the web runs on Apache" claim, that OS zealots reckon makes it one of the most "successful" (in terms of users) projects going, do a survey of actually meaningful servers - not 2U Lintel boxes running 500 incomplete & illiterate h4ck3r Cr3w sites, but SSL enabled servers - ecommerce, remember that? The stuff that isn't just a hobby. Microsoft have over 50% of the market in terms of live SSL servers *right now*.
Apache is below 20% in the same survey.
Wake up... complacency is Microsoft's best friend. Just assume we're winning already and suddenly we'll find they've stolen the goalposts and the spectators, moved to the next field over, built a stadium & are making millions from the pay-per-view market. Zealotry, and a blind preference for whatever version of the story
puts OSS/Free software in the best light, gets us nowhere.
" Their 10-person IT staff supports 800 users running 400 devices (as Dave calls the thin clients). There is no way they could adequately support that many users and devices with such a small staff if they ran Windows on individual desktops. Dave says that if they had gone that route, "We'd be doing nothing but running around fixing PCs all day."
Sorry dude, but that's COMPLETE BULLSHIT. I was a member of a nine-person team (and I was the developer, and one other was the IT manager) who supported >350 management consultants on *Windows 95*. These are your worst-luser-from-hell nightmare types: demanding (and of course getting) the right to install whatever the hell they wanted, saving multiple copies of 500Mb Access databases "for backups" (of course the file servers were backed up daily), screaming blue murder whenever anything didn't work *just so*. It wasn't much fun, but we did it. So who's FUDding now?
I find it really depressing to find the "good guys" - Roblimo and the general Salshdot population - are, as many people have pointed out, just as happy to resort to knee-jerk FUD, myths and downright lies to support Linux and Free software. Free software is Free as in speech, and that's all that should matter. Trying to claim it's more secure or easier to use is a feeble attempt to gild the lily and the temptation should be resisted at all costs. IMHO:)
Another list to do one day - Open Source FUD myths of our time, starting with "Apache runs more of the web than IIS" and taking all those other pathetic lies about X Windows, Gnome, the joy of the CLI, the "many eyes == shallow bugs == all open software is secure and bug free" nonsense...
Pardon my ranting, it's been an exasperating day all round. Just "-1, flamebait" me as usual when someone points out some errors...
...everything's based on rsh! Haven't these people learnt *anything* from the last few years of security catastrophes? I'm amazed no-one else has picked up on this.
The developers of this setup should have their fingers smashed with mallets... well OK that's a bit extreme, but I mean, really - if this is people's idea of a reference site for deploying Linux... god help us all. *head in hands*
Cerebus is absolutely amazing, I strongly recommend it. if you have too much time on your hands look for the monthlies with letters columns and editorialising. Sim can be, let's say... controversial at times, but he's never less than thought-provoking. The "Mind Games" episodes still blow my mind (man.)
He announced when he started that he'd tell the whole story in 300 monthly episodes, and then that's it - no more Cerebus, and we already know the ending (Cerebus, the eponymous aadvark hero) dies. There's no point me babbling about it any longer, just get some monthlies (you need at least a good half-dozen to get a feel for the story enough for it to make some sort of sense, BTW) and, um, enjoy. Cerebus is really good, and Dave Sim is an Artist of the highest calibre. No question.
of course, you know you can run your standard sshd, as well as VNC (hey, why not tunnel the former out via the latter?)
The tempation to dig some IPs from the logs and go for a wee look around at open machines is pretty intense (not that I'll be giving in, I hasten to add - bad ethics innit?)... and it's at times like this I wish I'd gone to the effort of finding a commandline MTA for NT, though; it's a real pain manually looking up the POC & mailing them...
Makes perfect sense to us! We are the Mysterons, secret controllers of the UN, good buddies of the Martians their puppets in the CIA black helicopters... this helps us out cos it will further mess with America's already atrocious education system, hastening the collapse of the American empire and it's replacement with a cadre of faceless global megacorps. Oh, wait - sorry - that was last year! --
For goodness' sake, this is only a proposed law, with (as far as I can tell) very little chance of making it to the statute book. See
The Register for some dry British humour on the subject... --
I find it interesting that I've been scanned once already
on my home dialup. As I'm paying UK connection charges and
I'm rather broke at present (see.sig) I tend to go online
for short periods, collect/send mail and grab a ton of
pages for offline reading. (I'm even writing this offline
in emacs.) If I'm getting hit during those very narrow
windows of opportunity, it implies there's a rather large
number of scans taking place.
OTOH, when Incidents
isn't Slashdotted, it looks like the curve is flattening out at
around 25% of the total infected last time - about 60,000 +/-
5000 is my guess. The question is, is that enough infected
hosts to cause enough ARP floods to impact global
connectivity. So far connectivity has been patchy for me
- jobserve was down all afternoon, a couple of other sites
were patchy, everything else was OK. Same as normal, in
other words.
Many companies - clueful ones, at least - will do this sort of background check; in the Olde Days that meant a check on Dejanews for Usenet posts. These days it means Google, Slashdot, and the Security Focus mailing lists.
Shameless plug*: my employer just went bust without paying salaries for July... anyone hiring security / web / Perl / sysadmin / netadmin type people in London?
Yeah, people like Cisco who embedded it in some of their lower end routers. Smart move huh? It also crashes HP JetDirect cards, not sure whether they have IIS embedded or it's just a fluke.
The degree of schadenfreude amongst the Linux zealots here today is really rather nauseating. No doubt you patch your Linux boxen every time there's a new buffer overflow in something that comes with every distro? (yeah yeah, only people who DO patch will reply... the point is, lots of others WON'T be patched & up to date.)
Running a box is a fulltime job. Outlaw hobbiuest computers, I say;) --
...read Incidents list??
Check this out. ( http://www.securityfocus.com/templates/archive.pik e?fromthread=1&end=2001-07-21&list=75&mid=198320&s tart=2001-07-15&threads=1& ). It's a proper mathematical analysis of the spread of the worm, by someone who knows what they're talking about (unlike Steve Gibson.)
Be afraid. Think about what it would be like if this was an Apache or Sendmail hole.
>>Secondly, it means we are forced into Microsoft's vision of the future
>No it doesn't. It means we have another choice.
Er... how do you work that out? Seems to me that if (1) Microsoft come up with some new scheme for 0wning the net ^W^W^W empowering customers... and then (2) some well-respected and prominent Free software groups begin a project to engineer a Free version of it... then (3) our choice is limited to which implementation of Microsoft's vision to use.
Chuck, could you expand on your previous assertion, please?
--
What a depressing post. I've just (2 hours ago) finished reading Carl Sagan's last book, "Billions and billions". It's a collection of essays (and the odd speech and oped piece) extended to chapter length and, hmmm, well. It's very good. And the ending is an absolute choker (really, I got a bit tearful actually, it's very moving...)
Anyway, a theme he returns to throughout the text is the incredible over-supply of unneccessary, expensive instruments of mass destruction. If we're going to achieve anything this century, please god let us have real peace. And if it takes a world government to get there, bring it on, say I. Arms control treaties, by definition, can only be a Good Thing. --
I'm seriously thinking of doing a site just to keep track of all the laws being enacted around the world that are obviously (to us, at least) Broken - in the sense of b0rked, crap, useless, stupid, malicious, counter-productive etc.
Here in the UK a law was just passed making it illegal to work in the field of security without a license. Yes, that includes working as a consultant and running Bastille or tweaking a client's iptables setup or whatever. When the UK's various tech organisations rose up in protest the government replied that the law was intended to police nightclub biouncers and the like; they admitted the wording was sufficiently vague that it would cover IT workers, too, but "would we ever use it liek that? no no nooooo, how could you ever THINK such a thing?" etc. IN Australia they're trying `to ban porn. And of course the EU is looking at a DMCA-like law to cover all 350 million European Union citizens.
Apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at ALL... </hhg>
PS Baggsie me gets first dibbs on craplaws.org! --
I don't see why not; after all, in the UK, you need a license to be a computer security administrator (which, IMHO, would include all single-user Linux boxen where you choose to run Bastille or set up iptables...). No, I'm not making it up. Couldn't get Slashdot to post the story though - goodness knows why, it seemed pretty damn newsworthy to me... --
Sorry to say, but
when I first said this (replying to someone else who said it first, tho!;)
it seemed like those of us saying it were lone voices crying in the wilderness... everyone else seemed to think this was a really clever way to turn the tables on Microsoft.
--
Many, many of the proposed changes (for example, the -> ~ . operator modifications mentioned in the article) will both break virtually all existing Perl code, and require fairly fundamental relearning by Perl coders.
No, no, no! Perl 6 has a Perl5 compatability mode. It'll run Perl 5 code without any problems, transparently. This just isn't an issue. --
Perl 6 has an fantastically cool Perl5 mode; both Perl 5 and 6 (and any other languages you feed it) will be compiled down to the say intermediate bytecode. (Approximately... surely someone here is better informed about how this works?) I still don't begin to understand how the compiler can be so lightning fast compared to, say, Java. Incidentally I'd love to see some performance comparisons between Perl and Java - anyone know of any? URLs?
The MPAA are already causing trouble for users of P2P file-sharing apps. See
this post to the Incidents list. Unfortunately, Greg doesn't say what happened to the unfortunate who attracted their ire. Presumably they're running these apps themselves (or their bounty hunters are) and they're planning to arrest every user in the world, one by one.
This is a complete fantasy. The "small chemical plant" would be far to big and heavy to send - even if such a thing were practical, which is highly speculative to put it politely. --
If a dramatic increase in technology reduced it to
around $1 billion, I can imagine private investors funding
the mission -- imagine Larry Ellison or Bill Gates as the
first man on Mars!
If my aunt was a bicycle, I could ride her into town. As they say.
Reason to Go. Right now the reasons to go include
"because it's there" and "because we might find
evidence of life".
There is of course no need for a crewed Mars mission to
find evidence of life on Mars, unless it's buried under
hundreds of metres of rock - even then, it's probable that
pushing automated technology to the point where that scale of
drilling could be done remotely would be much cheaper and
safer than sending humans. Why would discovery of life make
a crewed mission more likely? Surely it would increase the
risk of contamination, thus making it LESS likely.
Otherwise, the only reasons to go are "It would make cool TV"
and vague handwaving "human spirit" type guff. Frankly I want
something a bit more substantial for my $200 billion.
--
Slashdot Mirror
A couple of Register stories: Psion dump Bluetooth due to lack of demand; and Microsoft knifes Bluetooth in the back. Let's hear it for good old fashioned British sarcasm, cynicism and *hey!* accurate reporting ;)
Wake up... complacency is Microsoft's best friend. Just assume we're winning already and suddenly we'll find they've stolen the goalposts and the spectators, moved to the next field over, built a stadium & are making millions from the pay-per-view market. Zealotry, and a blind preference for whatever version of the story puts OSS/Free software in the best light, gets us nowhere.
Sorry dude, but that's COMPLETE BULLSHIT. I was a member of a nine-person team (and I was the developer, and one other was the IT manager) who supported >350 management consultants on *Windows 95*. These are your worst-luser-from-hell nightmare types: demanding (and of course getting) the right to install whatever the hell they wanted, saving multiple copies of 500Mb Access databases "for backups" (of course the file servers were backed up daily), screaming blue murder whenever anything didn't work *just so*. It wasn't much fun, but we did it. So who's FUDding now?
I find it really depressing to find the "good guys" - Roblimo and the general Salshdot population - are, as many people have pointed out, just as happy to resort to knee-jerk FUD, myths and downright lies to support Linux and Free software. Free software is Free as in speech, and that's all that should matter. Trying to claim it's more secure or easier to use is a feeble attempt to gild the lily and the temptation should be resisted at all costs. IMHO :)
Another list to do one day - Open Source FUD myths of our time, starting with "Apache runs more of the web than IIS" and taking all those other pathetic lies about X Windows, Gnome, the joy of the CLI, the "many eyes == shallow bugs == all open software is secure and bug free" nonsense... Pardon my ranting, it's been an exasperating day all round. Just "-1, flamebait" me as usual when someone points out some errors...
The developers of this setup should have their fingers smashed with mallets... well OK that's a bit extreme, but I mean, really - if this is people's idea of a reference site for deploying Linux... god help us all. *head in hands*
He announced when he started that he'd tell the whole story in 300 monthly episodes, and then that's it - no more Cerebus, and we already know the ending (Cerebus, the eponymous aadvark hero) dies. There's no point me babbling about it any longer, just get some monthlies (you need at least a good half-dozen to get a feel for the story enough for it to make some sort of sense, BTW) and, um, enjoy. Cerebus is really good, and Dave Sim is an Artist of the highest calibre. No question.
The tempation to dig some IPs from the logs and go for a wee look around at open machines is pretty intense (not that I'll be giving in, I hasten to add - bad ethics innit?) ... and it's at times like this I wish I'd gone to the effort of finding a commandline MTA for NT, though; it's a real pain manually looking up the POC & mailing them...
Makes perfect sense to us! We are the Mysterons, secret controllers of the UN, good buddies of the Martians their puppets in the CIA black helicopters... this helps us out cos it will further mess with America's already atrocious education system, hastening the collapse of the American empire and it's replacement with a cadre of faceless global megacorps. Oh, wait - sorry - that was last year!
--
For goodness' sake, this is only a proposed law, with (as far as I can tell) very little chance of making it to the statute book. See The Register for some dry British humour on the subject...
--
OTOH, when Incidents isn't Slashdotted, it looks like the curve is flattening out at around 25% of the total infected last time - about 60,000 +/- 5000 is my guess. The question is, is that enough infected hosts to cause enough ARP floods to impact global connectivity. So far connectivity has been patchy for me - jobserve was down all afternoon, a couple of other sites were patchy, everything else was OK. Same as normal, in other words.
Shameless plug*: my employer just went bust without paying salaries for July... anyone hiring security / web / Perl / sysadmin / netadmin type people in London?
(* but I need the money!!)
The degree of schadenfreude amongst the Linux zealots here today is really rather nauseating. No doubt you patch your Linux boxen every time there's a new buffer overflow in something that comes with every distro? (yeah yeah, only people who DO patch will reply... the point is, lots of others WON'T be patched & up to date.)
Running a box is a fulltime job. Outlaw hobbiuest computers, I say ;)
--
Turn a non-tech hobby into your career.
--
Practical Unix and Internet Security: Garfinkel & Spafford (O'Reilly)
Web Security and Commerce: Garfinkel & Spafford (O'Reilly again)
lots more at the isscc.org site: check their reading list.
--
Chuck, could you expand on your previous assertion, please?
--
Anyway, a theme he returns to throughout the text is the incredible over-supply of unneccessary, expensive instruments of mass destruction. If we're going to achieve anything this century, please god let us have real peace. And if it takes a world government to get there, bring it on, say I. Arms control treaties, by definition, can only be a Good Thing.
--
Here in the UK a law was just passed making it illegal to work in the field of security without a license. Yes, that includes working as a consultant and running Bastille or tweaking a client's iptables setup or whatever. When the UK's various tech organisations rose up in protest the government replied that the law was intended to police nightclub biouncers and the like; they admitted the wording was sufficiently vague that it would cover IT workers, too, but "would we ever use it liek that? no no nooooo, how could you ever THINK such a thing?" etc. IN Australia they're trying `to ban porn. And of course the EU is looking at a DMCA-like law to cover all 350 million European Union citizens.
Apathetic bloody planet, I've no sympathy at ALL... </hhg>
PS Baggsie me gets first dibbs on craplaws.org!
--
I don't see why not; after all, in the UK, you need a license to be a computer security administrator (which, IMHO, would include all single-user Linux boxen where you choose to run Bastille or set up iptables...). No, I'm not making it up. Couldn't get Slashdot to post the story though - goodness knows why, it seemed pretty damn newsworthy to me...
--
Sorry to say, but when I first said this (replying to someone else who said it first, tho! ;)
it seemed like those of us saying it were lone voices crying in the wilderness... everyone else seemed to think this was a really clever way to turn the tables on Microsoft.
--
Man, I haver *got* to stop submitting stories to Slashdot just before crashing for fourteen hours... I swear, the next time I wake up and find I've missed the opportunity to spam my own story,.. I'll, I'll.. *thwack*!!
--
No, no, no! Perl 6 has a Perl5 compatability mode. It'll run Perl 5 code without any problems, transparently. This just isn't an issue.
--
thanks...
--
--
This is a complete fantasy. The "small chemical plant" would be far to big and heavy to send - even if such a thing were practical, which is highly speculative to put it politely.
--
If my aunt was a bicycle, I could ride her into town. As they say.
There is of course no need for a crewed Mars mission to find evidence of life on Mars, unless it's buried under hundreds of metres of rock - even then, it's probable that pushing automated technology to the point where that scale of drilling could be done remotely would be much cheaper and safer than sending humans. Why would discovery of life make a crewed mission more likely? Surely it would increase the risk of contamination, thus making it LESS likely.Otherwise, the only reasons to go are "It would make cool TV" and vague handwaving "human spirit" type guff. Frankly I want something a bit more substantial for my $200 billion.
--