Let's also not forget the BBB is not the best organization. It used to be different, but has changed with the times. Nowadays it's "pay money each year to show our logo".
Nope, 2 are needed at the very least in case the first doesn't do the job. Those two also need to have backups in case they rust away, decay, are stolen, or destroyed pre-emptively. Oh, in that case let's make two more to stop people who may destroy them pre-emptively, and also two more for those... etc..
That line of thinking continues until you have thousands of WMDs, instead of just one. A vicious cycle in a dangerous game.
I work for no server company, seller or reseller. Again, if I had bought from pghoster.com I wouldn't be posting this to Ask Slashdot. I currently use FatCow, they're cheap and reliable. If FatCow uses EV1 servers, I don't know about it. Moreover, if both pghoster and FatCow use EV1 but one has services not provided by the other, then the *use* of EV1 is different. I'm not here to advertise jack shit, I guess I should have listed a thousand different hosting companies just to get trolls off my back. I've checked out Dyni.net, they use FreeBSD but have the websever and mail server separate, so no luck with SSL. I've used InnoTech for Mac OS X hosting, and they don't provide SSL.
Sadly, it's not. If I thought that the company I listed in my submission was viable (pghoster), I wouldn't be posting to Ask Slashdot in the first place.
I could list other companies I have contacted (FatCow, DyNi.net, etc...) just to make sure other people don't recommend places I've already looked.
If critical backups get messed up because of security testing, that would be a security hole.
Amen. My point in a nutshell.
This a critical system, this is the real world. No holds barred. Now, abomb threat to clear the building as a "test" is severe, yes. It's costly, causes a panic, and may not be appropriate. But, it needs to be tested for as well (maybe in conversation, such as "What are your procedures for a bomb threat? Do you lock the doors behind you and log out?) or do it on a Saturday. Hell, even announced it is a TEST bomb scare, people will go through their routines and procedures and security holes will come to light. But make sure it is done at an unknown time, and with unknown factors to make it as real as possible.
There are no such things as rules of engagement. All bets are off, all techniques are viable, no holds barred.
Dress up as a tech guy and talk you way in? Go for it. Hack through someone's PC, why not? Send in a small remote control vehicle to snoop? Definitely. Fake some IDs, listen to employee conversations at a nearby bar after work, sleep with employees and get them to tell secrets, go through trash, make phone calls, take photos, plant bugs, rob, steal, cheat, lie.....
That's how it's done "for real", so why not train that way? Why not TEST that way?
What's wrong with "Train like you fight, fight like you train"?
I'm glad they were shut down if they threw a hissy fit because they couldn't agree on "rules of engagement". Wake up to the real world ladies and gentlemen.
Re:Can't build security on a weak foundation
on
Exploiting Software
·
· Score: 1
Any Ada compilers I ever used were just a layer on top of a C compiler. Meaning, your Ada code was translated to C, and then compiled. That may not be an exact representation, but it's close. In that kind of a situation, you are subject to the graces of the compiler writer, and still vulnerable to certain C security issues.
But, as a whole, Ada was a good way to write something with fewer problems. Most of it was due to its higher attention to compile time warnings/errors (most things were errors), strict data type checking, etc.... and any of that can be applied to other languages. Just turn warnings into errors (show stoppers), write the compiler to slap people on the hand for things like "if x=0" instead of "if 0=x" and you're on your way to mimicking what Ada did.
They're less costly over the long run, have a BIG company behind them so the old "but who do we go for when we need tech support?" dilemma is solved, they run Microsoft Office, are easy to use and powerful.
Even I have a hard time recommending Macs at my job, so I can't imagine what trouble I would have if I were to recommend a flavor of GNU/Linux. It's all in the way you present it, and how you can educate others. Show them examples of compatibility, have a "test" computer on the network for a month to show that GNU/Linux can not only sit on the network, share files, open those files, and be useful for work, but it is also safe, good-looking and free.
Cost is either a primary issue or a final issue. Meaning? Primary issue: We need something cheap! or Final issue: Sure that's nice, but it's cheap/free so it must have some hidden costs or be a wolf in sheep's clothing
Either you go to buy something for the price, and not the quality, or you go for quality and price is figured in last. Show M$FT alternatives based on power, speed, ease of use, and quality. Once they see that, hit them with the price tag.
At least that's what us Mac zealots do to win over PHBs.:-)
Does this mean Thunderbird should be updated soon?
on
Mozilla 1.6 Released
·
· Score: 1
It looks like two or three changes were done to the Mail portion of Mozilla, so I hope Thunderbird comes out with a new version soon and includes those changes. Has anyone heard anything remotely related to that?
Seems no one is really taking the subject seriously here in Slashdot, meaning it's a moot point or it's probably not true. In tech wars (ie. VHS vs. Beta; Microsoft vs. Apple) there's a winner and loser, but the main goal is to take advantage of a new, large, or profit friendly market. Yes, bluetooth is a new market product, but that market is so small now that I think the author is confusing the death of bluetooth with the over-rating of a short-distance data transfer protocol/hardware market.
That is to say, is it the bluetooth standard that is "dying" or is it the fact that the market it occupies is not as BIG as people said it would be?!? Or, is the market dying all-together? Do we have to see bluetooth on every street corner before we call it "alive"?
I think it's a niche market, useful, and meant to grow. But, it's NOT going to make millions of dollars like other tech markets, and in that regard, it's probably misconstrued as lying there in death throws. Not every printer, PDA, phone, mouse, keyboard, microscope, answering machine, coffee maker, or refridgerator needs to be Bluetooth enabled, and certainly not right away.
Maybe the author should have discussed the market that bluetooth occupies, and not the product itself. Short distance communication between devices isn't exactly going to revolutionize the world, it's certainly a slow-growth market, and though it's useful, it's not going to be blowing any skirts up for a while.
Only benchmarks that show G5 performing well are OK benchmarks?
No, you missed the point! He looked at an article that was a close call, and also slightly opinionated, and gave a contrary opinion. Both used factual data. And, in actuality, he's right, it was only fair to test using programs that weren't optimized for one or the other. The G5 showed strong numbers, and that's it.
In a world of 85% Microsoft, the minute someone in a crowd yells "Apple is good!" they get beat-down.
Well said. It's too immature to rant and rave about Apple's "Marketing" and tactics, but not put any numbers too it. Even if the G5's were bought at consumer level prices, the idea still stands, it's a far cheaper cluster than anything else out there. Face facts folks, and mod up ivan256 for being rational and looking at the numbers to show the truth.
I see your point. We did let them redefine
keys to what they are used to, change mouse
sensitivity, brightness, etc.. but they had
no time to make an alias.
By not allowing all of them to make they game setup
similar to what they were used to, we would have lessened
their abilities compared to the others.
We tried to make it as fair as possible, on a system that is configurable. We had guys who played Action Quake for a living get the snot
beat out of them regular old gamers. Sometimes
customized setups give you an edge, but mostly
they teach you to be dependent on a system and
not honed skills, so when you go to something different, you look like a bafoon.
(ie. You alias 180 degree turn at home, use
bots, or alias weapon changes. These all give
you added frags, but they don't teach good skills
like checking corners, looking up before you enter
a room, listening for footsteps, etc..)
With all of the computing peripherals in CA, it's
no wonder they're having power drains. For years
now the AC power adapters (little black plugs you plug into the wall, and then into your scanner, modem, etc..) are power hungry beasts. At idle, when the peripheral is turned off, they average a power consumption of around 3 watts! This is a relative term of course. I forget if it's per hour, and if there has been progress made in recent years, but it's still absurd for a device that needs no power when it is off to be draining that many watts from the grid. If you add up every single one of those from each desk in CA, you get some large numbers.
We used to do the same kind of thing for our Engineering week.
Since I was heading up the ACM group, I had
to come up with an idea for an event to take place
during that week. We did a tournament, starting with Quake the first year, Quake 2 the next, and
winners would get $100 in cash. It ALWAYS attracted
a lot of people, and not all of them left
the room talking as much trash when they entered.:) (That was one of the reasons why I liked it.)
We had a local LAN in a reserved lab with all identical computers, and no Bots. (they also used headphones)
If it was setup just like that, it would be fair.
In Norway (or was it the Netherlands?) the
government HAS to divulge anything when asked.
Now, this may be a rumor, but if you look
at all of the other things the Norwegians are
doing, it all adds up to a nice place to live
(aside from the high taxes). But before you
leave the USA....
<br><br>
If you are paranoid about privacy, as I am,
then write Congress.
Go to <a href="http://www.junkbusters.com/">http://www.j unkbusters.com/</a> and "take action".
Write letters to everyone you can think of.
In addition, make a stink about the use of our
Social Security numbers as identification. It
wasn't their intended use!
<BR>
You can also throw out all of your Jewel,
Safeway, IGA, or any other supermarket "savings"
cards because that is how they track what you buy.
<br>
Start telling the DMA you don't want them to sell your info. Tell your credit card providers the same thing.
Look, in regards to standards compliance, NO company
is going to be 100% compliant unless they are saints. The fact that Netscape 6 is trying to be is a good thing. You don't see IE striving for that now do you? In fact, Microsoft is more interested in creating proprietary tags than it is being standards compliant.
In the past, IE has been more leniant on bad HTML as well. Is this a good thing? Is this because it is going easy on the bad HTML coders out there? Personally I think it is because it has to display the crappy code FrontPage spews out. Does this make it better than Netscape?
I write code by hand, and I test it in Netscape because if it works in Netscape, it will work in IE (for the most part). If you write good code, pages format just fine in both browsers, in the same speed, in most cases. (using image width and height tags, well formed, etc..)
As for the real point of the article, using Mozilla code to tout Netscape, I do agree that the AOL/Netscape/Sun/Time Warner (soon to be) mega-corporation
has the potential to be as power abusive as M$, if it isnt already. Just as M$ wanted to bundle IE with their OS, Netscape wants to blanket your screen with Netscape symbols. It's not that great, but it's not life threatening.
If you are upset that they are using Mozilla code to do so, it's
probably something you need to get over. The code is free, and I'm sure M$ is using the code as well in some fashion.
In this world, weigh the pro's and con's and pick your poison, or stick to open source software.
Slashdot can't post everything, so even though each one of us has submitted interesting and worthwhile articles, they may never get posted. It has nothing to do with being Open Source (IMHO) but has more to do with persons in charge. Review processes in general. The Internet is a great way to get published. When you start submitting your work for review so that it will be published, whether at Slashdot or anywhere else, you run into the same "cliques".
Slashdot Mirror
Amen.
Let's also not forget the BBB is not the best organization. It used to be different, but has changed with the times. Nowadays it's "pay money each year to show our logo".
I mean, isn't 1 enough???
Nope, 2 are needed at the very least in case the first doesn't do the job. Those two also need to have backups in case they rust away, decay, are stolen, or destroyed pre-emptively. Oh, in that case let's make two more to stop people who may destroy them pre-emptively, and also two more for those... etc..
That line of thinking continues until you have thousands of WMDs, instead of just one. A vicious cycle in a dangerous game.
I work for no server company, seller or reseller.
Again, if I had bought from pghoster.com I wouldn't be posting this to Ask Slashdot. I currently use FatCow, they're cheap and reliable. If FatCow uses EV1 servers, I don't know about it. Moreover, if both pghoster and FatCow use EV1 but one has services not provided by the other, then the *use* of EV1 is different.
I'm not here to advertise jack shit, I guess I should have listed a thousand different hosting companies just to get trolls off my back. I've checked out Dyni.net, they use FreeBSD but have the websever and mail server separate, so no luck with SSL. I've used
InnoTech for Mac OS X hosting, and they don't provide SSL.
I use FatCow right now, they may or may not use EV1 in a reseller role.
Sadly, it's not. If I thought that the company I listed in my submission was viable (pghoster), I wouldn't be posting to Ask Slashdot in the first place.
I could list other companies I have contacted (FatCow, DyNi.net, etc...) just to make sure other people don't recommend places I've already looked.
If critical backups get messed up because of security testing, that would be a security hole.
Amen. My point in a nutshell.
This a critical system, this is the real world. No holds barred. Now, abomb threat to clear the building as a "test" is severe, yes. It's costly, causes a panic, and may not be appropriate. But, it needs to be tested for as well (maybe in conversation, such as "What are your procedures for a bomb threat? Do you lock the doors behind you and log out?) or do it on a Saturday. Hell, even announced it is a TEST bomb scare, people will go through their routines and procedures and security holes will come to light. But make sure it is done at an unknown time, and with unknown factors to make it as real as possible.
There are no such things as rules of engagement. All bets are off, all techniques are viable, no holds barred.
Dress up as a tech guy and talk you way in? Go for it.
Hack through someone's PC, why not?
Send in a small remote control vehicle to snoop? Definitely.
Fake some IDs, listen to employee conversations at a nearby bar after work, sleep with employees and get them to tell secrets, go through trash, make phone calls, take photos, plant bugs, rob, steal, cheat, lie.....
That's how it's done "for real", so why not train that way? Why not TEST that way?
What's wrong with "Train like you fight, fight like you train"?
I'm glad they were shut down if they threw a hissy fit because they couldn't agree on "rules of engagement". Wake up to the real world ladies and gentlemen.
Any Ada compilers I ever used were just a layer on top of a C compiler. Meaning, your Ada code was translated to C, and then compiled. That may not be an exact representation, but it's close.
In that kind of a situation, you are subject to the graces of the compiler writer, and still vulnerable to certain C security issues.
But, as a whole, Ada was a good way to write something with fewer problems. Most of it was due to its higher attention to compile time warnings/errors (most things were errors), strict data type checking, etc.... and any of that can be applied to other languages. Just turn warnings into errors (show stoppers),
write the compiler to slap people on the hand for things like "if x=0" instead of "if 0=x" and you're on your way to mimicking what Ada did.
They're less costly over the long run, have a BIG company behind
:-)
them so the old "but who do we go for when we need tech support?" dilemma is solved, they run Microsoft Office, are easy to use and powerful.
Even I have a hard time recommending Macs at my job, so I can't imagine what trouble I would have if I were to recommend a flavor of GNU/Linux.
It's all in the way you present it, and how you can educate others. Show them examples of compatibility, have a "test" computer on the network for a month to show that GNU/Linux can not only sit on the network, share files, open those files, and be useful for work, but it is also safe, good-looking and free.
Cost is either a primary issue or a final issue. Meaning?
Primary issue: We need something cheap!
or
Final issue: Sure that's nice, but it's cheap/free so it must have
some hidden costs or be a wolf in sheep's clothing
Either you go to buy something for the price, and not the quality, or you go for quality and price is figured in last.
Show M$FT alternatives based on power, speed, ease of use,
and quality. Once they see that, hit them with the price tag.
At least that's what us Mac zealots do to win over PHBs.
It looks like two or three changes were done to the Mail portion of Mozilla, so I hope Thunderbird comes out with a new version soon and includes those changes. Has anyone heard anything remotely related to that?
I've found, in general, that they're more reliable. Panther is a big improvement (well worth the price IMHO) and helps with such issues as well.
Since I'm too overstuffed with desserts, eaten during their making process, to try do the patching myself.
Seems no one is really taking the subject seriously here in Slashdot, meaning it's a moot point or it's probably not true.
In tech wars (ie. VHS vs. Beta; Microsoft vs. Apple) there's a winner and loser, but the main goal is to take advantage of a new, large, or profit friendly market.
Yes, bluetooth is a new market product, but that market is so small now that I think the author is confusing the death of bluetooth with the over-rating of a short-distance data transfer protocol/hardware market.
That is to say, is it the bluetooth standard that is "dying" or is it the fact that the market it occupies is not as BIG as people said it would be?!? Or, is the market dying all-together? Do we have to see bluetooth on every street corner before we call it "alive"?
I think it's a niche market, useful, and meant to grow. But, it's NOT going to make millions of dollars like other tech markets, and in that regard, it's probably misconstrued as lying there in death throws. Not every printer, PDA, phone, mouse, keyboard, microscope, answering machine, coffee maker, or refridgerator needs to be Bluetooth enabled, and certainly not right away.
Maybe the author should have discussed the market that bluetooth occupies, and not the product itself. Short distance communication between devices isn't exactly going to revolutionize the world, it's certainly a slow-growth market, and though it's useful, it's not going to be blowing any skirts up for a while.
Only benchmarks that show G5 performing well are OK benchmarks?
No, you missed the point! He looked at an article that was a close call, and also slightly opinionated, and gave a contrary opinion. Both used factual data. And, in actuality, he's right, it was only fair to test using programs that weren't optimized for one or the other. The G5 showed strong numbers, and that's it.
In a world of 85% Microsoft, the minute someone in a crowd yells "Apple is good!" they get beat-down.
Well said. It's too immature to rant and rave about Apple's "Marketing" and tactics, but not put any numbers too it. Even if the G5's were bought at consumer level prices, the idea still stands, it's a far cheaper cluster than anything else out there.
Face facts folks, and mod up ivan256 for being rational and looking at the numbers to show the truth.
I see your point. We did let them redefine keys to what they are used to, change mouse sensitivity, brightness, etc.. but they had no time to make an alias. By not allowing all of them to make they game setup similar to what they were used to, we would have lessened their abilities compared to the others. We tried to make it as fair as possible, on a system that is configurable. We had guys who played Action Quake for a living get the snot beat out of them regular old gamers. Sometimes customized setups give you an edge, but mostly they teach you to be dependent on a system and not honed skills, so when you go to something different, you look like a bafoon. (ie. You alias 180 degree turn at home, use bots, or alias weapon changes. These all give you added frags, but they don't teach good skills like checking corners, looking up before you enter a room, listening for footsteps, etc..)
With all of the computing peripherals in CA, it's no wonder they're having power drains. For years now the AC power adapters (little black plugs you plug into the wall, and then into your scanner, modem, etc..) are power hungry beasts. At idle, when the peripheral is turned off, they average a power consumption of around 3 watts! This is a relative term of course. I forget if it's per hour, and if there has been progress made in recent years, but it's still absurd for a device that needs no power when it is off to be draining that many watts from the grid. If you add up every single one of those from each desk in CA, you get some large numbers.
We used to do the same kind of thing for our Engineering week. Since I was heading up the ACM group, I had to come up with an idea for an event to take place during that week. We did a tournament, starting with Quake the first year, Quake 2 the next, and winners would get $100 in cash. It ALWAYS attracted a lot of people, and not all of them left the room talking as much trash when they entered. :) (That was one of the reasons why I liked it.)
We had a local LAN in a reserved lab with all identical computers, and no Bots. (they also used headphones)
If it was setup just like that, it would be fair.
In Norway (or was it the Netherlands?) the
government HAS to divulge anything when asked.
Now, this may be a rumor, but if you look
at all of the other things the Norwegians are
doing, it all adds up to a nice place to live
(aside from the high taxes). But before you
leave the USA....
<br><br>
If you are paranoid about privacy, as I am,
then write Congress.
Go to <a href="http://www.junkbusters.com/">http://www.j unkbusters.com/</a> and "take action".
Write letters to everyone you can think of.
In addition, make a stink about the use of our
Social Security numbers as identification. It
wasn't their intended use!
<BR>
You can also throw out all of your Jewel,
Safeway, IGA, or any other supermarket "savings"
cards because that is how they track what you buy.
<br>
Start telling the DMA you don't want them to sell your info. Tell your credit card providers the same thing.
Look, in regards to standards compliance, NO company
is going to be 100% compliant unless they are saints. The fact that Netscape 6 is trying to be is a good thing. You don't see IE striving for that now do you? In fact, Microsoft is more interested in creating proprietary tags than it is being standards compliant.
In the past, IE has been more leniant on bad HTML as well. Is this a good thing? Is this because it is going easy on the bad HTML coders out there? Personally I think it is because it has to display the crappy code FrontPage spews out. Does this make it better than Netscape?
I write code by hand, and I test it in Netscape because if it works in Netscape, it will work in IE (for the most part). If you write good code, pages format just fine in both browsers, in the same speed, in most cases. (using image width and height tags, well formed, etc..)
As for the real point of the article, using Mozilla code to tout Netscape, I do agree that the AOL/Netscape/Sun/Time Warner (soon to be) mega-corporation
has the potential to be as power abusive as M$, if it isnt already. Just as M$ wanted to bundle IE with their OS, Netscape wants to blanket your screen with Netscape symbols. It's not that great, but it's not life threatening.
If you are upset that they are using Mozilla code to do so, it's
probably something you need to get over. The code is free, and I'm sure M$ is using the code as well in some fashion.
In this world, weigh the pro's and con's and pick your poison, or stick to open source software.
good eye!
Slashdot can't post everything, so even though each one of us has submitted interesting and worthwhile articles, they may never get posted.
It has nothing to do with being Open Source (IMHO) but has more to do with persons in charge.
Review processes in general. The Internet is a great way to get published. When you start submitting your work for review so that it will be published, whether at Slashdot or anywhere else, you run into the same "cliques".
The idea has been around for a long time but implementing it is the hard part. Well I should say getting widespread acceptance is the hard part.
Don't forget, their code is still free for download...