I was in a plane during the shower (due to a fuck-up by ATA. `8r/ Thank you united for saving me!) flying back from Vegas. We were somewhere over the middle of the US when it started happening. It was a bit difficult because I could only see the obliques, but it was REALLY cool. I saw like 6 happen all at once in one small area. and a few that were absolutely huge! `8r)
But, Chicago was fogged in at the time, so I'm glad I was able to see anything. `8r) yay!
Excellent. Unfortunately, the site was down yesterday due to the/. effect, but I'm glad to see more than just all Valks...
And damn, these are some hardcore point values too! Last year, my best score ever would have come in second place, but that was after playing around at the top stairs for like two weeks.
Here's the real problem, this tournament will favor valks because they are so easy to ascend. They really should have some major prizes for those of us who like a challenge, like ascending tourists. `8r)
I would join if I could kill a week of just playing NetHack. and i've done it too. Because right now, I don't have the 8 hours dedicated to just gem sorting and poly-piling required before i climb the top stairs... heh
The only major question i have is how do they make sure that they are all using the same version with the same options? I mean, someone with -W access can do some serious damage, as well as any server that tweaked the magic lamp distribution number.
I love the repeated use of Monty Python references in many of his writings...
Unless it's animated by Terry Gilliam.
...which is exactly the type of blinkard, Philistine, pig ignorance I've come to expect from that non-creative garbage. They sit there, on their spotty behinds, picking blackheads, with their bleeding Hollywood Insider secret handshakes...I always wanted to be a Hollywood Insider, but they wouldn't let me!
You'd have these cameras dump your choice in disk arrays. I might suggest an EMC Symmetrix as they are particularly reliable and very fast. also, they support the sizes of data you're talking about, and even have a specific unit designed for video. The nice thing is if it's on disk, then your retrieval time is going to be very quick. then you get a product such as NetBackup's TSM or ADSM's HSM solution. Hook that to a library, done.
So what HSM means is Hiarchial Storage Management. Basically, when file hits a threshold of time, space or whatever, it will take that file and put it to tape. Then, it will replace the original file with a stub of a file that says 'when this file is needed, it's located here!'
Now, for tape storage, I highly recommend going with LTO as a tape format. You might consider doing SCSI LTO tape drives with a Crossroads 4450 connected to Broccade switches to make a SAN as well. By putting it on a SAN, you'll have the ability to spread around your clusters that you'd be putting in. LTO can spool data at about 10-20 MB/sec. Hence, if you get an STK or IBM storage library with LTO, you can fit around 20 tapes in there, and do 200 MB/sec. Plus, LTO has variable speed when writing to it, so it's better than DLT in that regard. Not to mention LTO's 100 Gig native capacity and a better compression ratio than DLT. (2.0 vs 2.2) Then, it's just a matter of cycling tapes through. If you're honestly talking that high amount of data to keep INDEFINATLY, then you might want to look at STK's Powererhorns, which hold around 2000 tapes. Plus, you can always add another wall of Tapes if you're not getting the throughput you're expecting. Or you could look at some of the larger scale robots out there, but they don't support LTO tape format yet.
By doing the EMC SAN solution to an STK powderhorn, you're looking at an enterprise level solution that will support you for years to come. Course, this comes from someone who's a vendor-neutral consultant with experience with similar technology, so your YMMV. `8r)
The problems with delta force are many. They would not be good 'training'. If you consider training to consist of 'spot the moving pixel' and 'save and retry' then maybe. It's too easy to spot soldiers moving. In real life, you might not see them. Also, the map shows which way everyone is facing. don't think you have that luxury in the field. Then you have your grenades that go straight out and land just wherever, with very little planning on your part. Also, the ability to pick up whole guns and not just the clip...
Anyway, there are lots of problems with Delta Force (even Landwarrior) but the most significant one is the fact that it doesn't support squads. Hell, half the missions you're just trying to catch up to your 'support'. The guy runs to the edge of the camp, shoots one person, then everyone in the camp is aware of his position and start laying the smack down. we're only lucky they don't require your team to live!
Anyway, i don't think it'd work well. besides, the game is fun but very pixelated. those single pixels you end up shooting... not good combat training. 'oh crap, someone is shooting at me, i'll stand stock still and will only move if they hit me.'
If you join a gang, you learn their secret customs.
If you join a web group, you learn their secret locations for web documents
In a gang, you have undying loyality to the leader, without any justification why.
In a web group, you have undying loyality to your particular brand of web server, without any justification why.
In a gang, you are forced to do stupid things, like homemade tattoos.
In a web group, you're forced to use stupid products, like Weblogics.
In a gang, you carry a gun that you use a lot.
In a web group, you carry an ego that you could use to kill someone.
If you leave the gang, they try to kill you.
If you leave the web group, they kill your access.
I don't think the 'anti-openbsd' stance was one that aleph1 maintained, but more one of the community as a whole, only because the sheer amount of activity on other OS's.
and yes, if you attempt to prove that there is an unhackable OS, sorry you're going to get slashed up and down. `8r)
I've been reading BugTraQ for years, and Elias has done a fantastic job running it. I've been impressed by the sheer amount of mail he's been able to manage, going through several different mass mailers. and the signal to noise ratio has been one of the highest on the internet for security related information. He was quick to admit when the mailers had issues, he was quick to compile data for massive attacks that were immediately ongoing, he would always keep us informed, and most importantly, he rarely let the traffic slow.
The 'usual discussions' were sometimes let through, but Elias never let them go on too long. The spam was almost non-existant. And anytime I had a problem with recieving items from the mailing lists, he was always quick to fix them.
Aleph1's contribution to the security community has been sizable, and he shall be remembered. Even if only for future "gR33+5 +0 4l3ph1!!" in exploit code to come.
Thank you for contributing your time and energy herding 50,000 cats at the same time. Some of us appreciate it a great deal.
(Not to downplay david's already noticable contribution of course. `8r) )
Actually, in the 1970's it had a great following as being amateur, graphic, and low-budget stuff. A guy with a hand-held doing his own stuff was termed 'gonzo porn'. It didn't exactly fit in the way gonzo as an adjective normally works, I'm sorry that I did not explain that fully.
You'll have to trust me on this one. I'm at work and can't surf to a valid link, but having the name 'Gonzo' in real life tends to help when finding new terms for your name.
technically, that uses the celluose from the playing cards, which can be made into an explosive. you can make a quite competent pipe bomb from that.
Re:Please don't link to bugzilla from the front pa
on
Chief Lizard Wrangler axed
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Why don't you just do a apache redirect? Instead of dynamically create that page, add an apache rule to the httpd.conf to redirect the traffic to a static page, or better yet, off the site entirely using a different server. It's a quick hack to get your users back up and running.
But I think a better solution would be to create a forum for such discussions, not within the bug discussions themselves.
Most of these are somewhat complex and some require like +3% solutions of acids/bases, which are difficult to get at best. In fact, some of these chemicals are 'call in the EPA if there is a spill'. But there are a lot of easy ones with materials that easy to get. Maybe they'll tune it a bit so they can list the ones you can do at home. I don't think I'm allowed to own 100% Hydrogen perxoide. `8r)
As far as explosives go, lots of cool things to do with chemicals like magnesium and nitrates. Just might have to search a bit harder. `8r) But hell, just making hydrogen is fun, from electricity and water.
We might consider the web democratic only because we have MORE say than we have other places. And that might be just a gradient of percentages.
80% of the wealth is controled by 10% of the population. If we have 50% of the web controled by 1% of the population, that's a little bit better in some respects.
The thing that scares me is that we have so many opinion sites that are advocating new products and they arn't revealing their affilations. A good example is Tom's Hardware. And while this is a guy who had a bias from the start (and the bias isn't that bad), what happens when we have only a few media companies and everything is spawn by them? You might read some reviews on yahoo, unable to know they are owned by the company that is releasing the products. And while not directly lying about what's good and bad, they might put the 'good' reviews of their own products closer to the top.
Eventually, you'll have things like "AT&T would like you to get 3 months of free cable modem service, but only if you go see the great movie 'Plotless'!" The ideas of cross promotions are only just starting to be explored on the internet. Or imagine that search engines tend to exclude items. It just goes down hill from there.
This is why grassroots sites will always be helpful, until places start astroturfing. The question is, where does slashdot fall in this range?
Re:@Home not blocking port 80 yet
on
Code Redux
·
· Score: 2
On some segments, they have. If you're on what was MediaOne's old segments, they have set it up. They just haven't admitted it yet. They say 'no servers' but they actually mean 'no servers for public use'. I personally consider every machine in my house a server... heh
Port 80 blocking on AT&T (aka Mediaone segment)
on
Code Redux
·
· Score: 2
My server was blocked at 9AM on August 5th. I use it mostly for my resume. I have since relocated my server to port 8080 and it works fine again. I also spoke with a couple different people concerning their blocking port 80, and they totally deny it.
Wow, that's kind of weird considering the traffic ended at EXACTLY 9AM for old pages I used to host on that server. And wow, someone couldn't get to my resume that day, and emailed me about the problem they had. Very odd. I don't have a problem if they are going to block it for whateverreason, but at least admit it in the Agreement. I just want it for personal use...
heh, see, that's an example of the types of responses you get. usually you get a mumbling of 'Data, Presentation, uh... Leaking layer... i don't know'. But sometimes you get people who talk about layer-2 and layer-3 switching, and that's what you find interesting. `8r)
But just the fact that they bothered to learn the acronym is a sign that they learned 'something' in case it's ever brought up. which it is never. heh but it is funny to talk about how different the TCP and OSI is. `8r)
Usually I use this to segue into their networking skills of TCP and switches/routers, etc.
But you're dead on about OSI. 'Drop it already' is a good answer.. heh
I've interviewed quite a few, and there are 'sets' of questions you can ask. You don't want to follow a work book, but there are a bunch of formulaic questions you might ask:
Describe the process in which your favorite version of comes boots up from a cold state. Please use as much detail as possible.The advantage of this question is that there are TONS of sideroads to check. Also, you find out how interested in the underlying part they are. Also, you can see what run control scripts they hit, and you can hit those applications later... Or better yet, they can tell you things like what run level 4 on Solaris is, etc. (ie, trick questions)
OSI layers? BSD vs. SysV?This tests if they are well rounded. You see if they've touched networking, you can see if they even know the book learning on the different OS's, and get general 'you need to read a book to know this' type stuff. Also, asking the differences between things in the simplest possible terms is another good test to see if the candiate has the ability to talk to managers. `8r)
Favorite OS and why.Any good unix candiate belives in 'the right tool for the job'. Anyone who says that 'Linux is the answer to everything' is fooling themselves. All the different Unix OS's have their advantages, and the key to having them explain theirs. They don't have to agree with you! that's the key. But they should at least make sense. But don't hold it against them if the answer is 'Because I know that OS the best'. It's a common one. But do NOT let them just say 'Oh, AIX sucks' etc. If they can't back that statement up with facts, they obviously havn't looked at it close enough.
How would you rate yourself on DNS? Ah, an expert, eh? What are the different types of records? What are some limitations of MX ones? Get deep into at least one major unix process. Sendmail, NFS, NIS, and file systems are all very good parts to go into detail on. By asking how they rate themselves, they show either a) they know what they're talking about and rated themselves appropriately and b) They are rating themselves guru-level when they have trouble remembering even the names of the parts of the program.
So I had this really hard problem... I was seeing this kind of behavior... What sort of things would you check to solve the problem? No, I tried using This calls into all their troubleshooting skills. You see how deep they go, what they go to next, and why. There are a couple sendmail and NFS problems that can run the gamut.
One more thing... Don't expect excrutiating detail on a process that you don't know either. IE, don't ask a person questions that you don't know the answer to either! And if you do feel inclined to ask about something you don't know, make it clear that you're coming at it from a newbie's point of view.
If people have further questions, i'd be happy to answer them.
Just to prefix this, i'm a bitter sysadmin who's had to deal with crappy computers running into all sorts of problems. My main reason for vi is because I can always expect it to be there. And you can't normally expect to install a program on all 300 machines of a production heterogenus environment and not have someone squawk.
Anyway, I'm not sure if you've ever used vi over a slow link, say 300 baud modem slow, but the unneeded screen redraws on pico tend to screw things up. Or if you're using vi on a crappy terminal that's not even VT52 compatible, it will default to a useable mode of 'ed', which is easy to use if you know vi. However, if you're using pico, you're SOL unless you can quickly learn ed. `8r) Plus, there is usually a statically linked copy of/bin/vi on most unices, hence if you have a crash, you can recover. However, pico (and joe and emacs) are all in/usr or/opt or/usr/local/, which could be corrupt. if you have/, you can get your system back up and running.
And yea, it is kind of a religious debate. I'm just going with the 'sysadmin' point of view. any developer would tell me i'm silly for not using emacs. and i'd agree with them for their job. For me, doing text editing, i find vi to be the fastest with all it's control keys. But this comes from someone to hates to even hit the right arrow for more than 5 characters. (5l to move 5 characters right).
It's the whole 'right tool for the job' thing. And many NT people believe that there is only one tool for any job, and in the subject of text editors, my experience says that 'pico' is the only one they know. only because they don't want to use the full power of vi, because they don't care, they just want something that works. I prefer something that works well. but then again, most NT admins don't have to go onto unix boxes, so pico is fine for the tasks that they need to do.
Anyway, not to get into a flame war either, this is all just coming from someone who does entirely too much unix for his own good at work.
what, you don't want any of your systems to be usable by other people? doing sysadmin functions in 'unique ways' does not endear yourself to other sysadmins.
Yeah, I don't think it allows you to remotely store configs and addresses, yet, but that's what scp is for. Hell, even an rsync would work. I run two copies of it at all times, one for work and one for home. and I use POP or IMAP if I need info from another email address (if I'm using a remote machine's email address.)
Then again, it's a geek tool. you spent two days tweaking it, and then share youre tweaks with every new mutt user out there. It's an acquired taste I guess.
If you know elm, you can learn mutt easily. To properly configure it, it takes a bit. But doing things like spliting digest mailing lists, threading mail messages, and having MANY options for automatically saving messages is so nice. Plus, the options to do multiple mailboxes, do IMAP and POP, all from the command line. Plus, index in a split window, advanced aliasing, hooks, etc. If you currently use a text mail reader, definately check out mutt. plus get the.muttrc examples, they are worth.
And how could ANY geek not use vi. It's on every unix out there, it's easy, it's so much faster than pico (learn 8 commands and you're started), and it's low bandwidth. pico is only 'easier' if you've only used one unix platform and didn't ever want to leave lunix. Pico is the 'lazy' way for NT admins to edit unix files.
Slashdot Mirror
Feel free to use it if you want. (Just US version)
I was in a plane during the shower (due to a fuck-up by ATA. `8r/ Thank you united for saving me!) flying back from Vegas. We were somewhere over the middle of the US when it started happening. It was a bit difficult because I could only see the obliques, but it was REALLY cool. I saw like 6 happen all at once in one small area. and a few that were absolutely huge! `8r)
But, Chicago was fogged in at the time, so I'm glad I was able to see anything. `8r) yay!
And damn, these are some hardcore point values too! Last year, my best score ever would have come in second place, but that was after playing around at the top stairs for like two weeks.
Good to see they break it down.
I would join if I could kill a week of just playing NetHack. and i've done it too. Because right now, I don't have the 8 hours dedicated to just gem sorting and poly-piling required before i climb the top stairs... heh
The only major question i have is how do they make sure that they are all using the same version with the same options? I mean, someone with -W access can do some serious damage, as well as any server that tweaked the magic lamp distribution number.
Perfect timing for this article considering Cisco just announced their new Mobile IP stuff.
Unless it's animated by Terry Gilliam.
So what HSM means is Hiarchial Storage Management. Basically, when file hits a threshold of time, space or whatever, it will take that file and put it to tape. Then, it will replace the original file with a stub of a file that says 'when this file is needed, it's located here!'
Now, for tape storage, I highly recommend going with LTO as a tape format. You might consider doing SCSI LTO tape drives with a Crossroads 4450 connected to Broccade switches to make a SAN as well. By putting it on a SAN, you'll have the ability to spread around your clusters that you'd be putting in. LTO can spool data at about 10-20 MB/sec. Hence, if you get an STK or IBM storage library with LTO, you can fit around 20 tapes in there, and do 200 MB/sec. Plus, LTO has variable speed when writing to it, so it's better than DLT in that regard. Not to mention LTO's 100 Gig native capacity and a better compression ratio than DLT. (2.0 vs 2.2) Then, it's just a matter of cycling tapes through. If you're honestly talking that high amount of data to keep INDEFINATLY, then you might want to look at STK's Powererhorns, which hold around 2000 tapes. Plus, you can always add another wall of Tapes if you're not getting the throughput you're expecting. Or you could look at some of the larger scale robots out there, but they don't support LTO tape format yet.
By doing the EMC SAN solution to an STK powderhorn, you're looking at an enterprise level solution that will support you for years to come. Course, this comes from someone who's a vendor-neutral consultant with experience with similar technology, so your YMMV. `8r)
Let us know how it goes!
Anyway, there are lots of problems with Delta Force (even Landwarrior) but the most significant one is the fact that it doesn't support squads. Hell, half the missions you're just trying to catch up to your 'support'. The guy runs to the edge of the camp, shoots one person, then everyone in the camp is aware of his position and start laying the smack down. we're only lucky they don't require your team to live!
Anyway, i don't think it'd work well. besides, the game is fun but very pixelated. those single pixels you end up shooting... not good combat training. 'oh crap, someone is shooting at me, i'll stand stock still and will only move if they hit me.'
If you join a gang, you learn their secret customs.
If you join a web group, you learn their secret locations for web documents
In a gang, you have undying loyality to the leader, without any justification why.
In a web group, you have undying loyality to your particular brand of web server, without any justification why.
In a gang, you are forced to do stupid things, like homemade tattoos.
In a web group, you're forced to use stupid products, like Weblogics.
In a gang, you carry a gun that you use a lot.
In a web group, you carry an ego that you could use to kill someone.
If you leave the gang, they try to kill you.
If you leave the web group, they kill your access.
See, very very similar.
I don't think the 'anti-openbsd' stance was one that aleph1 maintained, but more one of the community as a whole, only because the sheer amount of activity on other OS's.
and yes, if you attempt to prove that there is an unhackable OS, sorry you're going to get slashed up and down. `8r)
The 'usual discussions' were sometimes let through, but Elias never let them go on too long. The spam was almost non-existant. And anytime I had a problem with recieving items from the mailing lists, he was always quick to fix them.
Aleph1's contribution to the security community has been sizable, and he shall be remembered. Even if only for future "gR33+5 +0 4l3ph1!!" in exploit code to come.
Thank you for contributing your time and energy herding 50,000 cats at the same time. Some of us appreciate it a great deal.
(Not to downplay david's already noticable contribution of course. `8r) )
You'll have to trust me on this one. I'm at work and can't surf to a valid link, but having the name 'Gonzo' in real life tends to help when finding new terms for your name.
but it's a moot point.
Then I read the fine print. and I was all excited too...
Course, if you also realize that 'gonzo' also is a method of filming low-budget porno, this book takes on a whole new meaning.
technically, that uses the celluose from the playing cards, which can be made into an explosive. you can make a quite competent pipe bomb from that.
But I think a better solution would be to create a forum for such discussions, not within the bug discussions themselves.
As far as explosives go, lots of cool things to do with chemicals like magnesium and nitrates. Just might have to search a bit harder. `8r) But hell, just making hydrogen is fun, from electricity and water.
80% of the wealth is controled by 10% of the population. If we have 50% of the web controled by 1% of the population, that's a little bit better in some respects.
The thing that scares me is that we have so many opinion sites that are advocating new products and they arn't revealing their affilations. A good example is Tom's Hardware. And while this is a guy who had a bias from the start (and the bias isn't that bad), what happens when we have only a few media companies and everything is spawn by them? You might read some reviews on yahoo, unable to know they are owned by the company that is releasing the products. And while not directly lying about what's good and bad, they might put the 'good' reviews of their own products closer to the top.
Eventually, you'll have things like "AT&T would like you to get 3 months of free cable modem service, but only if you go see the great movie 'Plotless'!" The ideas of cross promotions are only just starting to be explored on the internet. Or imagine that search engines tend to exclude items. It just goes down hill from there.
This is why grassroots sites will always be helpful, until places start astroturfing. The question is, where does slashdot fall in this range?
On some segments, they have. If you're on what was MediaOne's old segments, they have set it up. They just haven't admitted it yet. They say 'no servers' but they actually mean 'no servers for public use'. I personally consider every machine in my house a server... heh
Wow, that's kind of weird considering the traffic ended at EXACTLY 9AM for old pages I used to host on that server. And wow, someone couldn't get to my resume that day, and emailed me about the problem they had. Very odd. I don't have a problem if they are going to block it for whatever reason, but at least admit it in the Agreement. I just want it for personal use...
But just the fact that they bothered to learn the acronym is a sign that they learned 'something' in case it's ever brought up. which it is never. heh but it is funny to talk about how different the TCP and OSI is. `8r)
Usually I use this to segue into their networking skills of TCP and switches/routers, etc.
But you're dead on about OSI. 'Drop it already' is a good answer.. heh
- Describe the process in which your favorite version of comes boots up from a cold state. Please use as much detail as possible. The advantage of this question is that there are TONS of sideroads to check. Also, you find out how interested in the underlying part they are. Also, you can see what run control scripts they hit, and you can hit those applications later... Or better yet, they can tell you things like what run level 4 on Solaris is, etc. (ie, trick questions)
- OSI layers? BSD vs. SysV? This tests if they are well rounded. You see if they've touched networking, you can see if they even know the book learning on the different OS's, and get general 'you need to read a book to know this' type stuff. Also, asking the differences between things in the simplest possible terms is another good test to see if the candiate has the ability to talk to managers. `8r)
- Favorite OS and why. Any good unix candiate belives in 'the right tool for the job'. Anyone who says that 'Linux is the answer to everything' is fooling themselves. All the different Unix OS's have their advantages, and the key to having them explain theirs. They don't have to agree with you! that's the key. But they should at least make sense. But don't hold it against them if the answer is 'Because I know that OS the best'. It's a common one. But do NOT let them just say 'Oh, AIX sucks' etc. If they can't back that statement up with facts, they obviously havn't looked at it close enough.
- How would you rate yourself on DNS? Ah, an expert, eh? What are the different types of records? What are some limitations of MX ones? Get deep into at least one major unix process. Sendmail, NFS, NIS, and file systems are all very good parts to go into detail on. By asking how they rate themselves, they show either a) they know what they're talking about and rated themselves appropriately and b) They are rating themselves guru-level when they have trouble remembering even the names of the parts of the program.
- So I had this really hard problem... I was seeing this kind of behavior... What sort of things would you check to solve the problem? No, I tried using This calls into all their troubleshooting skills. You see how deep they go, what they go to next, and why. There are a couple sendmail and NFS problems that can run the gamut.
One more thing... Don't expect excrutiating detail on a process that you don't know either. IE, don't ask a person questions that you don't know the answer to either! And if you do feel inclined to ask about something you don't know, make it clear that you're coming at it from a newbie's point of view.If people have further questions, i'd be happy to answer them.
Anyway, I'm not sure if you've ever used vi over a slow link, say 300 baud modem slow, but the unneeded screen redraws on pico tend to screw things up. Or if you're using vi on a crappy terminal that's not even VT52 compatible, it will default to a useable mode of 'ed', which is easy to use if you know vi. However, if you're using pico, you're SOL unless you can quickly learn ed. `8r) Plus, there is usually a statically linked copy of /bin/vi on most unices, hence if you have a crash, you can recover. However, pico (and joe and emacs) are all in /usr or /opt or /usr/local/, which could be corrupt. if you have /, you can get your system back up and running.
And yea, it is kind of a religious debate. I'm just going with the 'sysadmin' point of view. any developer would tell me i'm silly for not using emacs. and i'd agree with them for their job. For me, doing text editing, i find vi to be the fastest with all it's control keys. But this comes from someone to hates to even hit the right arrow for more than 5 characters. (5l to move 5 characters right).
It's the whole 'right tool for the job' thing. And many NT people believe that there is only one tool for any job, and in the subject of text editors, my experience says that 'pico' is the only one they know. only because they don't want to use the full power of vi, because they don't care, they just want something that works. I prefer something that works well. but then again, most NT admins don't have to go onto unix boxes, so pico is fine for the tasks that they need to do.
Anyway, not to get into a flame war either, this is all just coming from someone who does entirely too much unix for his own good at work.
--
Gonzo Granzeau
what, you don't want any of your systems to be usable by other people? doing sysadmin functions in 'unique ways' does not endear yourself to other sysadmins.
--
Gonzo Granzeau
Then again, it's a geek tool. you spent two days tweaking it, and then share youre tweaks with every new mutt user out there. It's an acquired taste I guess.
--
Gonzo Granzeau
And how could ANY geek not use vi. It's on every unix out there, it's easy, it's so much faster than pico (learn 8 commands and you're started), and it's low bandwidth. pico is only 'easier' if you've only used one unix platform and didn't ever want to leave lunix. Pico is the 'lazy' way for NT admins to edit unix files.
--
Gonzo Granzeau