Until someone proves me that the NSA Linux distro contains any backdoor, or something that allowes the NSA to snoop on you while running their distro, this is all F-U-D.
When I say something, you want facts right ?
Now it's your time to give that facts, I've read no real fact until now.
So upon then, you are just making a fool of your self with these conspiracy theories. Gimme facts about a backdoor in the NSA distro.
"The final step is represented in Figure 7. This simply adds a second Trojan horse to the one that already exists. The second pattern is aimed at the C compiler. The replacement code is a Stage I self-reproducing program that inserts both Trojan horses into the compiler. This requires a learning phase as in the Stage II example. First we compile the modified source with the normal C compiler to produce a bugged binary. We install this binary as the official C. We can now remove the bugs from the source of the compiler and the new binary will reinsert the bugs whenever it is compiled. Of course, the login command will remain bugged with no trace in source anywhere.
Moral
The moral is obvious. You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code. In demonstrating the possibility of this kind of attack, I picked on the C compiler. I could have picked on any program-handling program such as an assembler, a loader, or even hardware microcode. As the level of program gets lower, these bugs will be harder and harder to detect. A well installed microcode bug will be almost impossible to detect. "
A definate read !
Believe it or not, as Ken Thompson says, you will be 100% secure.
Let me first begin to state, that Trolls do not exist.
Yes correct, and I mean not even on Slashdot.org.
Someone people say Slashdot.org is facing a crisis, with
all the trolling going on. It's even for some a fun game
to play. Both planting trolls, and also the anti-trolls
like the game. With replies showing up stating: 'Troll'.
It's like spotting Easter Eggs and saying "Great, I found another one.".
Even as most people don't seem to like good trolls, a lot of people
don't mind spotting/pointing out a troll, because I see a lot
of those replies. Second to that: good trolls, make a lot of replies.
If you don't like trolls, why bother to reply then ?
You know you're right and he or she isn't.
I think it's because;
Most people like discussing, if you don't like it than don't read
comments on Slashdot.
Responding to trolls, is basically the same
as responding to normal postings.
You either agree, or disagree with the content of a "normal" posting,
or a "troll" posting. With both postings you state why you agree/disagree
with his/her point.
Somehow we feel we need to reply to trolls. Or else most trolls would not
get any replies. Somehow we have this urge. Where does this come from ?
Because *you* cannot accept that someone else might have a completely different
point of view. And *you* have the urge to shove your opinion upon some troll,
so you get the false feeling that you did a good thing, and to justify your own
view.
If someone says: 'Linux sucks, FreeBSD rocks'.
This person obviously doesn't know what he's talking about, so don't go
into discussion with him/her then. You don't try to discuss math with a 1
year old, do you ? So why reply to such bull.
Trolls don't exist, you create them yourself.
Tomshardwarepage.COM Conclusion
on
The New Athlons
·
· Score: 4, Informative
This is what Tom says about the new CPU's:
"AMD's newly released Athlon 1400/266 is able to beat Intel's Pentium 4 1.7 GHz in a lot of benchmarks. The Intel processor performs better in Internet content creation software and some new 3D-games. Athlon can leave Pentium 4 far behind in 3D-rendering software, because of its superior FPU-performance.
Except for 3D-rendering software, Athlon 1400 and Pentium 4 1.7 GHz are pretty much neck on neck. However, the lower price tag of Athlon 1400/266 is clearly making it the more attractive product. It is also more versatile, as you can find inexpensive (though lower performing) PC133 platforms as well as DDR-motherboards for it, while Pentium 4 is still only supported by Intel850 platforms that require the expensive RDRAM memory. "
The whole article is here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q2/010608/athl on 1400-17.html
I've used Intel CPU's all my life, and never had a problem with them. The offer the most Ghz, are stable, fast, and 100% compatible with common applications. Can do SMP and have the MMX.
Why should I decide to go for AMD CPU's ?
This is how your average joe thinks when walking into a computer store for his new computer.7
How do you convince them, that AMD is "better" ?
They don't care it gives 5 frames more in Quake, when you've already got 40+ @ 1024x768. Then only know the Pentium and MMX buzzwords etc.
Besides, the new mobile Athlon is not *that* impressive, I'd definately go for a Transmeta CPU.
Let's not forget their very cool feature of saving websites. When I search on Google for something, they have this 'proxy' link beneath a hit.
Click it and you get the page as indexed by Google. Usually (especially home-)pages changes very rapidly, so sometimes the links are already 404, but luckily just clicking the 'proxy/cache' link beneath still let's you view the page !
Interview with the IBM people behind Linux watch!
on
IBM Linux Watch v2.0
·
· Score: 2
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9330943155. html
For second, outside of the geek community people need to get their work done. A lot of people outside of the community still have this believe that GNU/Linux is hard to learn, and unpratical in use. Why would they try GNU/Linux on their PDA then ? Which is meant to be fast and *simple*.
Let alone the diffuculties they could get with syncronizing their M$ Outlook Email and Agenda stuff ?
I don't see how they would get a lot of market share on with GNU/Linux on these people...And I don't believe this PDA is purely marketed for "geeks" which is still a relativly small market.
In that case I think you mean the IP-Protocol,
and the FTP protocol would be useful. HTTP is hardly useful for transfering files, I think FTP would be a much more suited way.
Why would we want to run GNU/Linux which is still mostly CLI based on our PDA ? Most of them don't even feature a keypad...
IMHO we need an OS which is most pratical to us on the PDA device, not what is "cool" in the short-run. That's why Palm/OS is still the most popular, not because it features a fancy GUI (like PocketPC/WinCE) but because it is pratical.
I don't see how GNU/Linux could be pratical on a PDA. Do we really want to run a HTTP-Daemon on our PDA, I don't think so. A PDA is still mostly used as a Agenda/Calendar, so I don't care which OS it runs aslong as it is *PRATICAL*.
How come everything always has to be GNU/Linux ?
Please then go run NetBSD instead which runs on more equipement than GNU/Linux.
What I think he means is; stuff from the base-system (like telnetd, inetd etc.) cannot be upgraded using the ports-system. But that's not
what the ports-system is about. If you want to upgrade/patch stuff from the base-system, you can easily do that via cvs. Just checkout the new version of telnetd, and compile and install it.
The 'Ports' collection on FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD, still one of the best working systems! And it works without 'X'. APT from Debian is the next best thing. But the Ports Collection simply rules, never any compile or dependency failures. It's fast, clean AND easy.
Life without the ports-system would suck.
I love my FreeBSD with the Ports system!
Hooray!
I just bought a new $3500 State-of-the-Art (TM)
PC with a super duper 3D card, Dolby Surround Sound, and a 21 inch screen.
Ready, Set, Go [to play the games] !...
Huh? Where did all those flashy 3d effects go ?.../me looks at the box
Oh shit, they're all DOGME complaint now...
*PLONK*
In the micro-computing [commodore64, MSX, etc], and early personal-computing [Intel 8086/88,286] it was a lot easier for creative people to bring their idea to life in the form of a computer game. You didn't have to spend 1 million dollars just to produce a game. Some spare time over a couple of months did magic. You didn't need to have as much knowledge as today. But nowadays, you need 5+ people to create a GOOD game.
Also, with console gaming, people with good ideas and the how-to to implement, could not create their idea into a game. Because only licensed games could be produced for cartridge based games.
Today it's simply impossible for one person (as in the old days) to write a good game. In the early days a lot of people where programming in their spare time for micro-computers, and personal computers meaning a lot of games appeared, all with a very different touch and alot
of creativity (everyone could write their own game).
But this is today simple not possible anymore.
The games industry has grown, and with budgets reaching over a million dollars the companies cannot take big risks of bringing out *different* mainstream games.
But still there a lot of innovative games:
Black & White, Dungeon Keeper, Everquest, Ultima Online, Jet Set Radio (DC), Metal Gear Solid, Pappa the Rappa (dancing game, DC), Halflife Counterstrike etc...
Here in the Netherlands, we have a basic
TV package, with some non-commercial, and
a few commercial TV stations. If you want
to have more channels, you pay an extra fee
per month. The same counts for the Canal+ movie
channel, you pay extra for it if you want to
see the latest movies. You can even make a selection, 5 standard channels and 2 extra
to choose from.
I don't see how this is any different from what
you are saying. And there will always be
Free Software to use.
Please go read Tomshardware stuff on RDRAM or
Hardwarecentrals article.
"However, when the memory system is under higher load the answer can be quite different. When one or more additional transactions are being serviced, factors such as bank conflicts and address bandwidth become important issues. The higher bank count of RIMMs versus DIMMs means that the probability of bank conflicts occurring is much lower. Therefore, the high latency and bandwidth penalties associated with bank conflicts occur far less often in RDRAM-based systems than in SDRAM-based systems. Furthermore, as illustrated in the previous timing diagrams, the need for 2-cycle addressing on an address bus used to specify both Row and Column addresses means that the address bus may not be available to start a subsequent transaction in SDRAM-based memory. During periods of higher memory utilization, when more than one request is sent to the memory controller, some memory requests may be delayed waiting for the address bus. For these reasons, under higher loads RDRAM-based memory can be much more efficient, achieving lower latency and higher bandwidth than SDRAM. "
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/r ev iews/1787/9/
If you disagree, please provide some resources as foundation.
Hardware central SDRAM vs RDRAM
[SDRAM vs RDRAM, Facts and Fantasy @harwarecentral.com]
"We think it is about time to step away from the endless price/performance discussion and open our eyes to the potential Rambus Direct RDRAM has to offer. We're not saying you shouldn't keep an eye on good value, but due to all the negative press Rambus and Intel have gotten for adapting this new memory architecture, the focus hasn't been on the performance potential of Rambus, but on the price and supposedly poorer performance of Rambus modules.
Given the technological advantages Rambus Direct RDRAM offers over current and upcoming memory technologies and its scalability we're confident that once prices start dropping and the technology becomes more commonplace we'll value its performance, bandwidth, robustness, and above all its scalability. " (See link)
So: No you're wrong, RDRAM's time will come!:-)
RDRAM is certainly the way to go, although
the high price is not a factor when using
RDRAM in servers.
I think the desktop market
will be still using cheap SDRAM for the next
couple of years. RDRAM is nice for servers,
but for normal pc-usage it's just too expensive.
(Look at the videocard prices for the GeForce
cards, mostly because of the expensive memory
used....)
I'll stick with SDRAM for awhile because it's
very cheap.
NB: Tom Hardware has a really neat article about
Rambus:
http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/00q1/000315/ index.html
Why don't you people in the US try to resolve
matters in person, besides going to court directly ?
The Censorware thing, sucks as you state.
Software is not perfect, don't you have an
internet connection at home, to browse to
those edu-sites that the software doesn't allow
you to ? Is not like the school *MUST* allow
access to them. If you don't like it, go to
some other school.
But, selling surfing habits is plain wrong indeed.
Why don't you step to the sysadmin of your school,
with a proposal of some other censorware-product
that works "better" instead of going to court...
If you come up with a better solution, I don't think they'll mind switching over in time.
--Sn0w
Slashdot Mirror
Until someone proves me that the NSA Linux distro contains any backdoor, or something that allowes the NSA to snoop on you while running their distro, this is all F-U-D.
When I say something, you want facts right ?
Now it's your time to give that facts, I've read no real fact until now.
So upon then, you are just making a fool of your self with these conspiracy theories. Gimme facts about a backdoor in the NSA distro.
Then read this:
http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95
(Reflections on Trusting Trust - Ken Thompson)
"The final step is represented in Figure 7. This simply adds a second Trojan horse to the one that already exists. The second pattern is aimed at the C compiler. The replacement code is a Stage I self-reproducing program that inserts both Trojan horses into the compiler. This requires a learning phase as in the Stage II example. First we compile the modified source with the normal C compiler to produce a bugged binary. We install this binary as the official C. We can now remove the bugs from the source of the compiler and the new binary will reinsert the bugs whenever it is compiled. Of course, the login command will remain bugged with no trace in source anywhere.
Moral
The moral is obvious. You can't trust code that you did not totally create yourself. (Especially code from companies that employ people like me.) No amount of source-level verification or scrutiny will protect you from using untrusted code. In demonstrating the possibility of this kind of attack, I picked on the C compiler. I could have picked on any program-handling program such as an assembler, a loader, or even hardware microcode. As the level of program gets lower, these bugs will be harder and harder to detect. A well installed microcode bug will be almost impossible to detect. "
A definate read !
Believe it or not, as Ken Thompson says, you will be 100% secure.
They released this under GPL/some sort of Open Source license right ?
[i]Backdoors are not a do it yourself job.[/i]
I thought that Opensource allowed you to find backdoors ? That's the whole idea right ?
And I think the NSA has much better ways to get your information, then to release some sort of backdoored Linux version, don't you think ?
Sorry, but the Windows/Mac Market is much bigger then the Linux userbase, so it's less interesting for the NSA. Get over it.
Why are u guys complaining everytime (!)...?
When IBM does something for GNU/Linux it must be evil, when NSA implements some really neat features, you guys also complain.
Why are you people always moaning when some big company supports GNU/Linux ?
That's what *you* want, ne c'est pas ?
GNU/Linux is still lacking behind in some areas, but when some $random company fixes this, it cannot be good...Why ?
I'm sick of this FUD of yours.
You're not doing the stuff yourself, so be happy.
Trolling on Slashdot ?
--
Let me first begin to state, that Trolls do not exist.
Yes correct, and I mean not even on Slashdot.org.
Someone people say Slashdot.org is facing a crisis, with
all the trolling going on. It's even for some a fun game
to play. Both planting trolls, and also the anti-trolls
like the game. With replies showing up stating: 'Troll'.
It's like spotting Easter Eggs and saying "Great, I found another one.".
Even as most people don't seem to like good trolls, a lot of people
don't mind spotting/pointing out a troll, because I see a lot
of those replies. Second to that: good trolls, make a lot of replies.
If you don't like trolls, why bother to reply then ?
You know you're right and he or she isn't.
I think it's because;
Most people like discussing, if you don't like it than don't read
comments on Slashdot.
Responding to trolls, is basically the same
as responding to normal postings.
You either agree, or disagree with the content of a "normal" posting,
or a "troll" posting. With both postings you state why you agree/disagree
with his/her point.
Somehow we feel we need to reply to trolls. Or else most trolls would not
get any replies. Somehow we have this urge. Where does this come from ?
Because *you* cannot accept that someone else might have a completely different
point of view. And *you* have the urge to shove your opinion upon some troll,
so you get the false feeling that you did a good thing, and to justify your own
view.
If someone says: 'Linux sucks, FreeBSD rocks'.
This person obviously doesn't know what he's talking about, so don't go
into discussion with him/her then. You don't try to discuss math with a 1
year old, do you ? So why reply to such bull.
Trolls don't exist, you create them yourself.
This is what Tom says about the new CPU's:
l on 1400-17.html
"AMD's newly released Athlon 1400/266 is able to beat Intel's Pentium 4 1.7 GHz in a lot of benchmarks. The Intel processor performs better in Internet content creation software and some new 3D-games. Athlon can leave Pentium 4 far behind in 3D-rendering software, because of its superior FPU-performance.
Except for 3D-rendering software, Athlon 1400 and Pentium 4 1.7 GHz are pretty much neck on neck. However, the lower price tag of Athlon 1400/266 is clearly making it the more attractive product. It is also more versatile, as you can find inexpensive (though lower performing) PC133 platforms as well as DDR-motherboards for it, while Pentium 4 is still only supported by Intel850 platforms that require the expensive RDRAM memory. "
The whole article is here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/01q2/010608/ath
I've used Intel CPU's all my life, and never had a problem with them. The offer the most Ghz, are stable, fast, and 100% compatible with common applications. Can do SMP and have the MMX.
Why should I decide to go for AMD CPU's ?
This is how your average joe thinks when walking into a computer store for his new computer.7
How do you convince them, that AMD is "better" ?
They don't care it gives 5 frames more in Quake, when you've already got 40+ @ 1024x768. Then only know the Pentium and MMX buzzwords etc.
Besides, the new mobile Athlon is not *that* impressive, I'd definately go for a Transmeta CPU.
Why are you linking to a crappy article on Securityfocus.com ? Please go read the original document:
http://www.macfergus.com/niels/dmca/index.html
He talks about why DMCA sucks. The Copyright issues, Jurisdiction, Freedom of Speech etc.
A must read !
Let's not forget their very cool feature of saving websites. When I search on Google for something, they have this 'proxy' link beneath a hit.
Click it and you get the page as indexed by Google. Usually (especially home-)pages changes very rapidly, so sometimes the links are already 404, but luckily just clicking the 'proxy/cache' link beneath still let's you view the page !
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT9330943155. html
t os.html
:-))
and: http://www.research.ibm.com/WearableComputing/pho
I like the technical one better
"For one, outside of the geek community..."
For second, outside of the geek community people need to get their work done. A lot of people outside of the community still have this believe that GNU/Linux is hard to learn, and unpratical in use. Why would they try GNU/Linux on their PDA then ? Which is meant to be fast and *simple*.
Let alone the diffuculties they could get with syncronizing their M$ Outlook Email and Agenda stuff ?
I don't see how they would get a lot of market share on with GNU/Linux on these people...And I don't believe this PDA is purely marketed for "geeks" which is still a relativly small market.
In that case I think you mean the IP-Protocol,
and the FTP protocol would be useful. HTTP is hardly useful for transfering files, I think FTP would be a much more suited way.
Why would we want to run GNU/Linux which is still mostly CLI based on our PDA ? Most of them don't even feature a keypad...
IMHO we need an OS which is most pratical to us on the PDA device, not what is "cool" in the short-run. That's why Palm/OS is still the most popular, not because it features a fancy GUI (like PocketPC/WinCE) but because it is pratical.
I don't see how GNU/Linux could be pratical on a PDA. Do we really want to run a HTTP-Daemon on our PDA, I don't think so. A PDA is still mostly used as a Agenda/Calendar, so I don't care which OS it runs aslong as it is *PRATICAL*.
How come everything always has to be GNU/Linux ?
Please then go run NetBSD instead which runs on more equipement than GNU/Linux.
--Sn0w
Nope. You can use 'Mergemaster' for that.
(Simply merge any changes)
Check the FreeBSD handbook on updating your
system...
http://www.freebsd.org/handbook
What I think he means is; stuff from the base-system (like telnetd, inetd etc.) cannot be upgraded using the ports-system. But that's not
what the ports-system is about. If you want to upgrade/patch stuff from the base-system, you can easily do that via cvs. Just checkout the new version of telnetd, and compile and install it.
The 'Ports' collection on FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD, still one of the best working systems! And it works without 'X'. APT from Debian is the next best thing. But the Ports Collection simply rules, never any compile or dependency failures. It's fast, clean AND easy.
Life without the ports-system would suck.
I love my FreeBSD with the Ports system!
Hooray! I just bought a new $3500 State-of-the-Art (TM) PC with a super duper 3D card, Dolby Surround Sound, and a 21 inch screen. Ready, Set, Go [to play the games] ! ...
Huh? Where did all those flashy 3d effects go ? ... /me looks at the box
Oh shit, they're all DOGME complaint now...
*PLONK*
In the micro-computing [commodore64, MSX, etc], and early personal-computing [Intel 8086/88,286] it was a lot easier for creative people to bring their idea to life in the form of a computer game. You didn't have to spend 1 million dollars just to produce a game. Some spare time over a couple of months did magic. You didn't need to have as much knowledge as today. But nowadays, you need 5+ people to create a GOOD game.
Also, with console gaming, people with good ideas and the how-to to implement, could not create their idea into a game. Because only licensed games could be produced for cartridge based games.
Today it's simply impossible for one person (as in the old days) to write a good game. In the early days a lot of people where programming in their spare time for micro-computers, and personal computers meaning a lot of games appeared, all with a very different touch and alot
of creativity (everyone could write their own game).
But this is today simple not possible anymore.
The games industry has grown, and with budgets reaching over a million dollars the companies cannot take big risks of bringing out *different* mainstream games.
But still there a lot of innovative games:
Black & White, Dungeon Keeper, Everquest, Ultima Online, Jet Set Radio (DC), Metal Gear Solid, Pappa the Rappa (dancing game, DC), Halflife Counterstrike etc...
Well, it's already a fact with TV.
Here in the Netherlands, we have a basic
TV package, with some non-commercial, and
a few commercial TV stations. If you want
to have more channels, you pay an extra fee
per month. The same counts for the Canal+ movie
channel, you pay extra for it if you want to
see the latest movies. You can even make a selection, 5 standard channels and 2 extra
to choose from.
I don't see how this is any different from what
you are saying. And there will always be
Free Software to use.
Ah ok. Luckily we don't have that here in the Netherlands, where you are free to chose to go to any public school you like.
;-)
Then indeed, the kid has a problem
No videocards indeed,
but the Playstation 2 videochip
set uses Direct RDRAM though.
No, you're wrong.
r ev iews/1787/9/
Please go read Tomshardware stuff on RDRAM or
Hardwarecentrals article.
"However, when the memory system is under higher load the answer can be quite different. When one or more additional transactions are being serviced, factors such as bank conflicts and address bandwidth become important issues. The higher bank count of RIMMs versus DIMMs means that the probability of bank conflicts occurring is much lower. Therefore, the high latency and bandwidth penalties associated with bank conflicts occur far less often in RDRAM-based systems than in SDRAM-based systems. Furthermore, as illustrated in the previous timing diagrams, the need for 2-cycle addressing on an address bus used to specify both Row and Column addresses means that the address bus may not be available to start a subsequent transaction in SDRAM-based memory. During periods of higher memory utilization, when more than one request is sent to the memory controller, some memory requests may be delayed waiting for the address bus. For these reasons, under higher loads RDRAM-based memory can be much more efficient, achieving lower latency and higher bandwidth than SDRAM. "
http://www.hardwarecentral.com/hardwarecentral/
If you disagree, please provide some resources as foundation.
Hardware central SDRAM vs RDRAM :-)
[SDRAM vs RDRAM, Facts and Fantasy @harwarecentral.com]
"We think it is about time to step away from the endless price/performance discussion and open our eyes to the potential Rambus Direct RDRAM has to offer. We're not saying you shouldn't keep an eye on good value, but due to all the negative press Rambus and Intel have gotten for adapting this new memory architecture, the focus hasn't been on the performance potential of Rambus, but on the price and supposedly poorer performance of Rambus modules.
Given the technological advantages Rambus Direct RDRAM offers over current and upcoming memory technologies and its scalability we're confident that once prices start dropping and the technology becomes more commonplace we'll value its performance, bandwidth, robustness, and above all its scalability. " (See link)
So: No you're wrong, RDRAM's time will come!
RDRAM is certainly the way to go, although the high price is not a factor when using RDRAM in servers. I think the desktop market will be still using cheap SDRAM for the next couple of years. RDRAM is nice for servers, but for normal pc-usage it's just too expensive. (Look at the videocard prices for the GeForce cards, mostly because of the expensive memory used....) I'll stick with SDRAM for awhile because it's very cheap. NB: Tom Hardware has a really neat article about Rambus: http://www.tomshardware.com/mainboard/00q1/000315/ index.html
Why don't you people in the US try to resolve matters in person, besides going to court directly ? The Censorware thing, sucks as you state. Software is not perfect, don't you have an internet connection at home, to browse to those edu-sites that the software doesn't allow you to ? Is not like the school *MUST* allow access to them. If you don't like it, go to some other school. But, selling surfing habits is plain wrong indeed. Why don't you step to the sysadmin of your school, with a proposal of some other censorware-product that works "better" instead of going to court... If you come up with a better solution, I don't think they'll mind switching over in time. --Sn0w