I hate Microsoft like the next guy, but M$SQL is light years ahead of MySQL. If you've got to show off a database alternative that's really ahead and kicks M$SQL's ass and runs on Linux then show them DB/2. M$SQL is a toy database just like MySQL compared to DB/2.
regarding your plans to release a new version of windows...
The last Windows version I used was Windows 98 se. I used that for playing games, but nowadays I don't need that anymore because the games I play all have Linux ports. Other than that there was a copy of Windows NT4 running on my company notebook but I've upgraded that notebook to Linux two weeks after I got it. (mainly due to the usability and stability issues with your OS).
I also use Star Office. I get around compatibility issues to your office product by using PDF files if necessary. Mozilla has ever since version 0.9.2 been my browser of choice.
So, you see, there's hardly any reason at all for for me to use any Microsoft product. Not even if you added all the DRM features and marketing data collection capabilities no user could ever possibly want.
Regards.
We beat you again, just like we did in 1942!!!
on
Time Travel
·
· Score: 1
The US Government surrendered on the next day when Germany nuked Washington DC and Baltimore on Dec. 25th 1942. There's a Fatherland out there, mein Kamerad, where Swastika banners proudly fly and black boots stomp the rhythm of human advancement! There's a world where Eisenhower and the rest of the war criminals and traitors were executed in Bergen-Belsen. The American Nazi Party has ruled this country for other 60 years now ever since George Lincoln Rockwell became Amerika's new Fuehrer.
This timeline of yours is perversely wrong in almost everything detail I can come up with, Kamerad. For example, I remember from history class, the mass execution of thousands of American "Resistance Fighters" terrorists in Bethel New York, August 1969. Over in your timeline they had a rock concert called "Woodstock" instead.
However, soon this sickening charade of a parallel history of yours is about to undergo major revisions whether you like it or not. We have a time machine and you don't. We have beaten you again, just like we did 1942 when we beat you to the nukes!
NSA-Skipjack != Clipper. Skipjack been broken yet to my knowledge and the breakable encryption system (clipper) you're talking about had session key recovery built in on purpose.
Programs don't 'blow' or dump core or whatever on IBM machines.. they 'abend' (abnormal end).. Been there. Seen it:-)
Oh and I don't think you would use SYSIN for dumps.
The statement maps the symbolic file reference SYSIN as it is known in the program(s) to be run by the job step to a file '*'.. It's been years that I had to fsck around with JCL but '*' might mean input from the reader or maybe a terminal device.
I'd say it's the other way around... most commercial sattelites are in geosynchronous orbits and most military sattelites are in non-geosynchronous orbits and some of these military sats have a lot of fuel for switching orbits, but who gives a fsck, this is slashdot and I don't work in that field.
Oh and as far as pulling the plug on somebody else's antenna is concerned... a couple of years ago someone jammed a couple of transponders on a chinese tv bird. Took them a couple of months to find that transmitter.
My two cents about unsecured sats.. Even if it can't be used as a weapon in of itself, one could at least deplete it's fuel tanks rendering it soon useless.
Published in the Winter 2000 Harvard Journal on Legislation this draft would make it possible to prosecute those who run disparaging web sites aimed at corporations and their products or otherwise by their activities on the net cause damage to corporation's public image or revenues:
(excerpt) The development of the Internet as a means of communication marks a dramatic change in the manner in which information is exchanged and disseminated in our culture. Quickly fading are the days in which a person's main venue for expressing her revolutionary views included standing on a soapbox or distributing leaflets. Instead, the Internet provides any person with any opinion the ability to reach a virtually unlimited audience without the formidable barriers previously posed by costly and inaccessible mainstream visual or print media. n1 In the current "Information Age," the marketplace of ideas is booming on the Internet.
However, along with the benefits of increased access to information, ease of communication, and new avenues for commerce have come the problems associated with a largely unregulated {page 160} environment. In its present infant stage, the Internet resembles the lawless "Wild West." The Internet is open to governance by human instincts, including those of greed, deception, and hate. In recent months there has been an alarming increase in the use of the Internet to sponsor, solicit and encourage the use of "commercial terrorism." n2 For the purposes of this Model Statute , "commercial terrorism" is defined as the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce commercial interests. (/excerpt)
Now to be sure, this is just a draft. It may not even have entered the "legislative process" yet. But all the same it certainly is an indication that people are thinking along these lines... and given the laws that have been passed the last five years I wouldn't be the least surprised if something like this would come up in the near future.
Add to that, that you would have to deal with proxies which means you can't just track an individual browser with it's ip address but have to resort to cookies or http-gets with a parameter that tracks a browsing session and you have to do that across a number of different ad servers outside your organization... yeah... that's an onerous task alright, doomed to fail. On top of that if you really wanted this to be viable you'd have to standardize the method so it gets implemented on a lot of ad servers which makes it even easier for the ad-blockers: you would still have to deal with browsers that perfectly emulate a valid access sequence and still do not display your ads. Save from making people use certified hardware and software and making it illegal to avoid ads there is no technically feasible way to force ads down everybody's throat.
What is this license for? I know that charges for
zOS on a utilization basis (cpu utilization, usage
of OS facilities etc.) but do I also have to pay
for using the hardware to run another OS? Maybe
they're saying that you have to have a license
for the CPU microcode and the license costs are
in turn determined by what OS you're using? Is
it for using an IBM Linux distribution? If so
isn't that violating the GPL?
Bull. The way M$Marketing works is that if they had had a 64-bit Itanium prototype they would have gleefully flaunted that months ago. Compared to IBM and Sun products, both Microsoft _and_ Linux still have a long way to go before they can live up to the demands of an enterprise server environment, especially when it comes to high availability and scalability both have a rocky road ahead of them. Whether Itanium based servers cut it there, also remains to be seen btw.
Coordinator:
McCluskie, Michael (MM1671-ARIN) michaelm@rangerinc.com
604 638 9578
Record last updated on 26-Dec-2000.
Database last updated on 22-Aug-2001 23:12:27 EDT.
Filesystem access threats using .ps and .pdf...
on
PDF Virus Spotted
·
· Score: 1
For a virus to infect a system and spread by propagating through files exchanged among users it must be able to access the filesystem.
Adobe Postscript does have provisions for allowing a postscript program access to the filesystem:
See section 3.8 of the Adobe Postscript Language Reference manual "File Input and Output".
Of course it is up to the postscript interpreter to implement this functionality and even if implemented limit it to certain files and directories. This is not be an issue if the postscript program is run (= printed) on a postscript printer.
As opposed to a postscript, PDF is neither a programming language nor are there any functions to access the filesystem. However, one way to render a PDF file is by prepending PDF interpreting postscript code which in turn is executed by a postscript interpreter. If so, embedded Postscript XObjects containing postscript code per section 4.10 of the Adobe PDF Reference 2.0 are executed.
a.) a server which issues digitally signed timestamps (so people don't spoof the clock)
b.) a dedicated secure hardware to view the book with (so people don't do screen capture etc.)
c.) about 600,000 morons who will pay for our
special reader device (so we don't go broke).
d.) The Digital Millenium Copyright Enforcement Death Squads (so people don't film off the screen or copy to paper by hand).
Actually ASN.1 is a formal way of specifying
how to encode data into binary representations
like BER, CER, DER and PER which do save bandwidth compared to XML.
Those of you that want to find out more about
ASN.1, can pick up free e-books on ASN.1
here. There's some blatant propaganda in them
for OSS Nokalva's ASN.1 compiler, but of course
there's also snacc, an GPL'd open source ASN.1 compiler. Snacc however only generates code for encoding to BER, so you might also want to check out the a hacked version of snacc from Queensland University of Technology.
ASN.1 is a base technology for a lot of standards out there like X.509, PKCS and LDAP, the OSI application layer protocols etc.
... would be to program our nanite to make fat cells revert back to 'stem cell mode' ( Washington Post article) and then reprogram them to turn into bone cells. Now we got this really fat fella with a sudden craving for calcium rich foods and who is developing a turtle like shell around his waist...
"You have no right to privacy when using company equipment. When I pay for your time and own the equipment, I reserve the right to monitor how you use it."
But the reality is that you're just another MCSE on a power trip after they told you where to click for the web proxy logs and what plugin extension to install in Exchange Server to intercept emails.
BTW... Some of the people tried to pull a stunt like that where I work. They wanted to install censorware on the web proxy and were thinking out loud about intercepting email. What's more they were accusing other people in the company of not working hard enough... Well... Since we're an e-commerce company I briefed upper management on why it is not a good idea to use censorware - some products actually block our company's homepage(!) and I also explained what it would mean if they were also to block our services... Well... the people who were pushing for censorware and email interception got their asses kicked _really_ hard for worrying about bullshit and not doing their work.
Now that you've done reading this, do re-read your job description.
I'm not going to tell you who I'm with but I do
want to let you know that we will depend on our
own extensive user databases and authentication
means we've been using all along in Europe. These
databases contain valuable customers
who pay their bills on time and have the right
demographics.
For M-commerce applications we will continue using
MSISDN based identification in combination with
PIN/digital signature extensions to the SIM and as
far as E-commerce is concerned.. it is extremely
doubtful that any major player would consider
turning to Microsoft.
C'mon this is more than 6 years from now... Surely
by that time the internet will have become a far
more safer and saner environment by then and there will be plenty legislation and international cooperation to keep it that way. If anybody thinks they can abuse the chinese internet to access or spread unamerican propaganda......
Slashdot Mirror
I hate Microsoft like the next guy, but M$SQL is light years ahead of MySQL. If you've got to show off a database alternative that's really ahead and kicks M$SQL's ass and runs on Linux then show them DB/2. M$SQL is a toy database just like MySQL compared to DB/2.
Dear Microsoft,
regarding your plans to release a new version of windows...
The last Windows version I used was Windows 98 se. I used that for playing games, but nowadays I don't need that anymore because the games I play all have Linux ports. Other than that there was a copy of Windows NT4 running on my company notebook but I've upgraded that notebook to Linux two weeks after I got it. (mainly due to the usability and stability issues with your OS).
I also use Star Office. I get around compatibility issues to your office product by using PDF files if necessary. Mozilla has ever since version 0.9.2 been my browser of choice.
So, you see, there's hardly any reason at all for for me to use any Microsoft product. Not even if you added all the DRM features and marketing data collection capabilities no user could ever possibly want.
Regards.
The US Government surrendered on the next day when Germany nuked Washington DC and Baltimore on Dec. 25th 1942. There's a Fatherland out there, mein Kamerad, where Swastika banners proudly fly and black boots stomp the rhythm of human advancement! There's a world where Eisenhower and the rest of the war criminals and traitors were executed in Bergen-Belsen. The American Nazi Party has ruled this country for other 60 years now ever since George Lincoln Rockwell became Amerika's new Fuehrer.
This timeline of yours is perversely wrong in almost everything detail I can come up with, Kamerad. For example, I remember from history class, the mass execution of thousands of American "Resistance Fighters" terrorists in Bethel New York, August 1969. Over in your timeline they had a rock concert called "Woodstock" instead.
However, soon this sickening charade of a parallel history of yours is about to undergo major revisions whether you like it or not. We have a time machine and you don't. We have beaten you again, just like we did 1942 when we beat you to the nukes!
"Let's just say that anybody who manages to get data off the disk would have to have deep pockets to get the equipment they need."
I didn't know the Dreamcast console was so expensive
Zetatalk is a good starting point for information on that theory.
NSA-Skipjack != Clipper.
Skipjack been broken yet to my knowledge and the breakable encryption system (clipper) you're talking about had session key recovery built in on purpose.
Programs don't 'blow' or dump core or whatever on IBM machines.. they 'abend' (abnormal end).. Been there. Seen it :-)
Oh and I don't think you would use SYSIN for dumps.
The statement maps the symbolic file reference SYSIN as it is known in the program(s) to be run by the job step to a file '*'.. It's been years that I had to fsck around with JCL but '*' might mean input from the reader or maybe a terminal device.
I'd say it's the other way around... most commercial sattelites are in geosynchronous orbits and most military sattelites are in non-geosynchronous orbits and some of these military sats have a lot of fuel for switching orbits, but who gives a fsck, this is slashdot and I don't work in that field.
Oh and as far as pulling the plug on somebody else's antenna is concerned... a couple of years ago someone jammed a couple of transponders on a chinese tv bird. Took them a couple of months to find that transmitter.
My two cents about unsecured sats.. Even if it can't be used as a weapon in of itself, one could at least deplete it's fuel tanks rendering it soon useless.
that you've probably watch too much Judge Judy.
... if they ever pass this "Proposed Federal Criminal Statute Addressing the Solicitation of Commercial Terrorism Through the Internet" or a comparable piece of legislation.
Published in the Winter 2000 Harvard Journal on Legislation this draft would make it possible to prosecute those who run disparaging web sites aimed at corporations and their products or otherwise by their activities on the net cause damage to corporation's public image or revenues:
(excerpt) The development of the Internet as a means of communication marks a dramatic change in the manner in which information is exchanged and disseminated in our culture. Quickly fading are the days in which a person's main venue for expressing her revolutionary views included standing on a soapbox or distributing leaflets. Instead, the Internet provides any person with any opinion the ability to reach a virtually unlimited audience without the formidable barriers previously posed by costly and inaccessible mainstream visual or print media. n1 In the current "Information Age," the marketplace of ideas is booming on the Internet.
However, along with the benefits of increased access to information, ease of communication, and new avenues for commerce have come the problems associated with a largely unregulated {page 160} environment. In its present infant stage, the Internet resembles the lawless "Wild West." The Internet is open to governance by human instincts, including those of greed, deception, and hate. In recent months there has been an alarming increase in the use of the Internet to sponsor, solicit and encourage the use of "commercial terrorism." n2 For the purposes of this Model Statute , "commercial terrorism" is defined as the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce commercial interests. (/excerpt)
Now to be sure, this is just a draft. It may not even have entered the "legislative process" yet. But all the same it certainly is an indication that people are thinking along these lines... and given the laws that have been passed the last five years I wouldn't be the least surprised if something like this would come up in the near future.
Dammit! I could be rich if I weren't so goddamm lazy!
Add to that, that you would have to deal with proxies which means you can't just track an individual browser with it's ip address but have to resort to cookies or http-gets with a parameter that tracks a browsing session and you have to do that across a number of different ad servers outside your organization... yeah... that's an onerous task alright, doomed to fail. On top of that if you really wanted this to be viable you'd have to standardize the method so it gets implemented on a lot of ad servers which makes it even easier for the ad-blockers: you would still have to deal with browsers that perfectly emulate a valid access sequence and still do not display your ads. Save from making people use certified hardware and software and making it illegal to avoid ads there is no technically feasible way to force ads down everybody's throat.
Unknown Terrorist: "Hey Osama, I just installed
the latest version of..."
Osama: "Take this man outside and shoot him."
What is this license for? I know that charges for
zOS on a utilization basis (cpu utilization, usage
of OS facilities etc.) but do I also have to pay
for using the hardware to run another OS? Maybe
they're saying that you have to have a license
for the CPU microcode and the license costs are
in turn determined by what OS you're using? Is
it for using an IBM Linux distribution? If so
isn't that violating the GPL?
Bull. The way M$Marketing works is that if they had had a 64-bit Itanium prototype they would have gleefully flaunted that months ago. Compared to IBM and Sun products, both Microsoft _and_ Linux still have a long way to go before they can live up to the demands of an enterprise server environment, especially when it comes to high availability and scalability both have a rocky road ahead of them. Whether Itanium based servers cut it there, also remains to be seen btw.
Ranger Online (Canada) Inc. (NETBLK-RONLINEUU1)
1188 West Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC V6E 4A2
CA
Netname: RONLINEUU1
Netblock: 204.92.244.208 - 204.92.244.223
Coordinator:
McCluskie, Michael (MM1671-ARIN) michaelm@rangerinc.com
604 638 9578
Record last updated on 26-Dec-2000.
Database last updated on 22-Aug-2001 23:12:27 EDT.
For a virus to infect a system and spread by propagating through files exchanged among users it must be able to access the filesystem.
Adobe Postscript does have provisions for allowing a postscript program access to the filesystem: See section 3.8 of the Adobe Postscript Language Reference manual "File Input and Output".
Of course it is up to the postscript interpreter to implement this functionality and even if implemented limit it to certain files and directories. This is not be an issue if the postscript program is run (= printed) on a postscript printer.
As opposed to a postscript, PDF is neither a programming language nor are there any functions to access the filesystem. However, one way to render a PDF file is by prepending PDF interpreting postscript code which in turn is executed by a postscript interpreter. If so, embedded Postscript XObjects containing postscript code per section 4.10 of the Adobe PDF Reference 2.0 are executed.
a.) a server which issues digitally signed timestamps (so people don't spoof the clock)
b.) a dedicated secure hardware to view the book with (so people don't do screen capture etc.)
c.) about 600,000 morons who will pay for our
special reader device (so we don't go broke).
d.) The Digital Millenium Copyright Enforcement Death Squads (so people don't film off the screen or copy to paper by hand).
Actually ASN.1 is a formal way of specifying how to encode data into binary representations like BER, CER, DER and PER which do save bandwidth compared to XML.
Those of you that want to find out more about ASN.1, can pick up free e-books on ASN.1 here. There's some blatant propaganda in them for OSS Nokalva's ASN.1 compiler, but of course there's also snacc, an GPL'd open source ASN.1 compiler. Snacc however only generates code for encoding to BER, so you might also want to check out the a hacked version of snacc from Queensland University of Technology.
ASN.1 is a base technology for a lot of standards out there like X.509, PKCS and LDAP, the OSI application layer protocols etc.
It's a big story because it's happening in the USA and not in the backwater where you're from.
... would be to program our nanite to make fat cells revert back to 'stem cell mode' ( Washington Post article) and then reprogram them to turn into bone cells. Now we got this really fat fella with a sudden craving for calcium rich foods and who is developing a turtle like shell around his waist...
"You have no right to privacy when using company equipment. When I pay for your time and own the equipment, I reserve the right to monitor how you use it."
But the reality is that you're just another MCSE on a power trip after they told you where to click for the web proxy logs and what plugin extension to install in Exchange Server to intercept emails.
BTW... Some of the people tried to pull a stunt like that where I work. They wanted to install censorware on the web proxy and were thinking out loud about intercepting email. What's more they were accusing other people in the company of not working hard enough... Well... Since we're an e-commerce company I briefed upper management on why it is not a good idea to use censorware - some products actually block our company's homepage(!) and I also explained what it would mean if they were also to block our services... Well... the people who were pushing for censorware and email interception got their asses kicked _really_ hard for worrying about bullshit and not doing their work.
Now that you've done reading this, do re-read your job description.
I'm not going to tell you who I'm with but I do want to let you know that we will depend on our own extensive user databases and authentication means we've been using all along in Europe. These databases contain valuable customers who pay their bills on time and have the right demographics. For M-commerce applications we will continue using MSISDN based identification in combination with PIN/digital signature extensions to the SIM and as far as E-commerce is concerned.. it is extremely doubtful that any major player would consider turning to Microsoft.
C'mon this is more than 6 years from now... Surely by that time the internet will have become a far more safer and saner environment by then and there will be plenty legislation and international cooperation to keep it that way. If anybody thinks they can abuse the chinese internet to access or spread unamerican propaganda... ...