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User: whuppy

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Comments · 82

  1. Thank you slashdot on Digital Camera Failures · · Score: 1

    My Canon zr60 had these symptoms, and I had lost all the paperwork on the bugger. I was looking to eat the cost of replacement/repair when I saw the article this morning. Reading Slashdot pays for itself!

  2. Next step: Declaratory Judgment on SCO Gives Notice To 6,000 Unix Licensees · · Score: 2, Interesting

    IMHO, that letter creates a "case or controversy." Now it's time for everyone who received one of them to go to court and file for a declaratory judgment against SCO. This should be fun.

  3. Right on, right on! on Delta 4 Inaugural Launch A Success · · Score: 1

    If we had half the balls that they had during the
    first age of exploration--one single, decently-sized
    testicle--and we'd be on Mars now. Hell, give us both
    balls and we'd be setting out to colonize Titan.

  4. We're coming in from the North, below their radar on AT-ATs Coming to a Forest Near You · · Score: 1

    "When will you be back?"
    "I can't tell you that. It's classified."

  5. Re:Internal ATX MoBo. on IMSAI Series Two · · Score: 1

    I believe you meant to say "the coolest thousand dollar case ever."

  6. Now you're onto something on IMSAI Series Two · · Score: 1

    Forget about the guts of the thing, how could would it be to have an IMSAI 8080 chassis as your case?

  7. No need to fake on Covad Faked DSL Trouble For Verizon? · · Score: 1

    If my experience with Verizon and Covad is any indicator (and a quick perusal of DSL Reports says it is) then there's no need for Covad to fake DSL trouble with Verizon. I waited over three months for those Baby Bell clowns to get their act together. Once they did, one quick visit from Covad and I was off and running.
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  8. Hey, that's not a troll! Mod it back up! on FreeBSD 4.1.1 vs. Linux 2.4 · · Score: 1

    Thank you, Brew Bird! PICO BSD is exactly the sort of critter I had in mind!

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  9. Skinny FreeBSD router-only install? on FreeBSD 4.1.1 vs. Linux 2.4 · · Score: 1

    A co-worker recently gave me his old 486, and I was psyched to set it up as a FreeBSD masq..., er I mean NAT box, but it turned out there wasn't enough disk space for the obligatory kernel rebuild. I may not be asking the question properly, but: Does anyone have any suggestions for setting up a FreeBSD NAT box on an old 486 with .le. 500M of storage? (I did get it to work under Linux, but that was no fun because I've done it before.)
    PS: I really liked the old school, no nonsense feel of FreeBSD's setup program.
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  10. Help! Have I been zapped? on DirecTV's Secret War On Hackers · · Score: 1

    I'm a legitimate subscriber to DirecTV and my channels went flaky over the weekend. Further investigation revealed that I'm only picking up odd-numbered transponders; specifically the odd-numbered transponders would have a strength of 79-82, where the even numbered transponders would have zero strength. The DirecTV tech support person said this is a classic symptom of LNB failure up on the dish itself, but I find the timing of events to be suspicious. Is it possible that DirecTV's ECM over the weekend is responsible for this malfunction? My dish is only four months old, so I sure hope it's not the LNB.
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  11. It's not just microsoft.com on Microsoft's DNS Down · · Score: 1

    The outage is affecting other msoft sites,
    notably hotmail. There. The outage affects me because I use hotmail, so sue me.
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  12. Employment at will on Getting Fired For Not Taking A Promotion? · · Score: 1

    Unless he's got a contract with him that they're breaking, (or unless they're firing him for racist/sexist reasons) in most states they can fire him at any time for any reason or no reason. Sorry, but there's no legal recourse for mere managerial stupidity; if there were, the courts would be even more crowded, I suspect.
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  13. Re:Speaking of cellular automata... on Turing Machine Implemented in Life · · Score: 1
    Stephen has left the open, peer reviewed world of academia to pursue his highly proprietary , solo research effort. We know how well this works for software, we shall see how that works for math...

    You're trolling, right? Or are you simply unaware that his highly proprietary, (practically) solo effort Mathematica is one of the most amazing computer programs ever produced?
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  14. Naah, what we need is . . . on On Asteroid Mining · · Score: 1

    . . . a really big war. It'll help reduce overpopulation and it'll be good for the economy.
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  15. The UW-Madison Film on Slashback: Injunction, Waivers, Black Hole · · Score: 1
    I saw that one too. Hilarious!

    My favorite part was the "soundtrack," which consisted of some folkie with a guitar singing the names of the different components of the reactions. It doesn't sound too funny, but you had to hear the enthusiasm in his voice as he shouted out "t-RNA!"

    Thanks for the memory.
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  16. More on Satellite Cards on Obfuscated Circuitry? · · Score: 2
    If you want to have examples of obfuscated circuitry, you only have to look at satellite smart cards.
    Agreed. This is really the canonical example, IMHO. Hundreds of thousands of copies of valuable circuits put into hostile environments. And unlike, say, cash cards, the cracked circuit can stay airgapped from the outside world.
    I don't know about the situation here in North America . . .
    Well then, here's a quick precis of what I've been able to find out about it. Enjoy!

    DirecTV receivers contain a smartcard which serves as an authentication token to the receiver. The smartcard can be reprogrammed via a datastream in the satellite's signal. Once you've successfully pointed your dish, you call up DirecTV and tell them the number on your smartcard. They in turn send a signal in the satellite's datastream that activates the card.

    DirecTV is currently transitioning from its second ("H") to its third ("HU") generation of smartcards. (The first ("F") generation was cracked and phased out long ago.)

    Cracks exist for the H cards, but here's the catch: Nobody's ever cracked the ASIC on the H card. The best anybody's been able to do is figure out how to reprogram the firmware in the H card to harness its ASIC for their own nefarious purposes. H card emulators exist, but even they need an actual, physical H card plugged into them.

    Why bother with an emulator, then? Good question. DirecTV buys and analyzes pirated H cards and devises ways to reprogram them via their satellite data stream in such a way as to disable them but leave legit users untouched. These electronic countermeasures ("ECMs") can reprogram the card into an irreparable infinite loop, whereas an emulator can just be terminated and reprogrammed once a counter-countermeasure is devised.

    In the near-to-mid term, DirecTV will send HU cards to all of its subscribers, and then make the H cards cease to function. As far as I've been able to find out, no cracks at all exist yet for HU cards.
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  17. BO-ring! on Code Book Cipher Cracked · · Score: 1

    Wake me up when someone cracks DirecTV's HU card.

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  18. Local radio has been dead for a while on Technical Analysis Of VMSK · · Score: 3

    Wake up. Local identification has been dead for a long time.

    Have you driven cross-country in the last decade?
    Every single radio station sounds exactly like its counterpart in the next market over. For example, pick any two "Modern Rock" stations at random. Chances are they're using the exact same playlist. They pay big money to a consultant for the privilege of being told what to play. Ditto for "Urban Contemporary", double ditto for "Classic Rock."

    I agree with you that radio sucks, but look for the culprit elsewhere (hint: deregulation).

    ps: The "Alternative" playlist on Music Choice is actually pretty good, with no commercials!

    pps: Don't even get me started about local news. "Your kids may be about to EXPLODE!!!!!!! More at 11."

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  19. Re:Please leave DC alone. on "Cloudy Future" For CueCat · · Score: 1

    There's no room for sentiment in big business.
    He's right you know.
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  20. Re:text on "Cloudy Future" For CueCat · · Score: 1

    Thanks, Mr. or Ms. Coward!
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  21. Re:SecurityFocus sucks! Someone pleez filter! on "Cloudy Future" For CueCat · · Score: 1

    Thanks for the advice!
    Hmm. "Making SecurityFocus readable" sounds like an itch that needs scratching.
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  22. Hooray. A free bar code scanner. on "Cloudy Future" For CueCat · · Score: 1

    Before I bother installing the Linux driver for this critter, can anyone suggest any plausible uses for My Very Own Home Barcode Scanner?

    So far, the best suggestion I've heard is to use it as a motion sensor. Any other bright ideas?
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  23. SecurityFocus sucks! Someone pleez filter! on "Cloudy Future" For CueCat · · Score: 1

    Does someone, anyone, have a filtering URL that I could point to that would allow me to read SecurityFocus? For some reason I can't get to any of the content on SF when using The Proxomitron. The page just loads forever, and there's nothing there when I hit cancel. This sort of dysfunction has not occured with any other site. And no, I'm not turning off The Proxomitron, thankyouverymuch.
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  24. Re:Essential bits for a well oiled geek house on Constructing A Geek House · · Score: 1

    And they're handy for destroying lots of data really quickly.

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  25. What can I do with my Cue Cat? on Digital Convergence Changes EULA, and Gets Cracked · · Score: 1

    Should I just throw it out now and avoid the hassle, or can it do something useful?
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