Where are those on http://www.mozilla.org/ or http://www.getfirefox.com/? I just spent 15 minutes searching for the MD5 sums for the latest Firefox (1.0.7) and until I dug my way thru their ftp server, I couldn't find them.
Assume most people get their software thru a web site and most clueless users don't know FTP from FTD, and then rant to me about getting the hashes from a trusted website.
Enlighten me. How do MD5 sums protect you from trojaned software? If it was a mistake on the part of the maintainer, wouldn't they have hashed the trojaned software to begin with? If it was malicious, anyone who could have uploaded the trojan could have uploaded the hash.
In either case, the hash would have shown valid. I was under the impression hashes (MD5, SHA-1) were mostly just for making sure nothing was corrupt in the transfer.
Digital signatures are for ensuring validity, though they wouldn't protect against the case of a maintainer signing infected code by mistake.
You would notice many of them if they were missing. The overall affect of the product would be diminished. Attention to all those details is what will make an "average" product "good" and a "good" product "great".
DBAN doesn't -- last I checked -- have SCSI or RAID drivers, so it is only viable if you're on a plain vanilla IDE system. I dont' know about SATA.
dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda bs=512 count= (get this from fdisk) will do the trick in a pinch.
On the other hand, has anyone here actually tried to "secure wipe" at 200+ Gb hard drive? It can take DAYS.
Just drill a hole in the case; pour in some caustic drain cleaner or CLR (bathroom cleaner); plug the hole; shake vigorously then let sit for a couple days before throwing it out.
Finding a library guilty of copyright infringement for placing a photocopier right next to a stack of books. So close, it induced people to copy books! The horror!
Well, Congress did consider a standing Army. Jefferson was in the losing camp (Anti-Federalist) of not wanting to have one at all, and only calling one up -- made of the State Militias -- in times of war. http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jef f1480.htm
They were aware of large, scary enemies that might require large armies, as there was much debate over Napoleon's conquest of Europe. The counter argument was their army of Militia had just beaten the best standing army in the world -- the British, so why keep a standing one.
I think that regardless of the standing army issue, which was eventually approved, it is clear that Congress has the exclusive rights to ship troops around and declare war. This was done purposfully because they didn't want a repeat of the British monarchs who kept their country in perpetually expensive war. Another part of this check & balance was giving Congress control of the purse strings. If a President won't stop committing troops, stop giving him money.
Congress has more power than it realizes, it just is much harder for it to act in unison than a single-person Executive branch.
The POTUS can only do what he does because Congress collectively is spineless.
The whole phrase (Article 2, Section 2) is:
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;"
See that last clause? That means ONLY when CONGRESS exercises its rights under Article 1, Section 8 is the President CIC. Not before. It isn't a perpetual power -- only one granted when Congress sees the need.
Congress, however, is a bunch of spineless political pussies.
The Shay's Rebellion was 1787 -- a full year before the ratification of the Constitution. Troops were called out by the Governor of Massachucettes, not the President as Arthur St. Clair didn't have the authority. http://www.calliope.org/shays/shays2.html
While President George Washington led troops to quash the Whiskey Rebellion, they were not U.S. troops but Virginial Militia called out under the authority of the Governor.
Section 8, Clause 15 is rather clear about who has the authority to call up troops. As far as "Commander in Chief" goes, everyone conveniently forgets the rest of that sentence "when called into the actual Service of the United States". Called into by Congress, that is.
Congress, however, doesn't have the backbone to seriously enforce that. Their best attempt has been the War Powers Act.
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health, and making ice without electricity, what have the Romans ever done for us?
You forgot public baths, the orgy, gladiators at the coluseum and Roman Numerals! Without all of the above, where would Hollywood be today?
Of course, the large temperature difference between the day and night in the desert it what drives it. That method probably won't work in tropical climates.
They have so many laws it takes them a while to get around to arresting people for all of them.
Importing anything with Chinese writing on it is illegal in Singapore. Importing chewing gum is illegal. Lots and lots of stuff is illegal in Singapore.
This is the country that jailed a Jehova's Witness missionary (little old lady, none the less) for holding classes. JW is a "banned" religion in Singapore. I believe the rationale was the conflict between Singapore's mandatory military service and the resusal to serve by JWs.
I flew thru there once and stayed at the Marriott in the airport while connecting the next day to Jakarta. My impression was it was a very, very neat, clean and orderly little corporate police state and I couldn't wait to get the hell out. Serious bad vibes.
Except listen to some of the interviews with people who didn't evacuate. Some of them DID have the means, but said things like "well, we never really thought it would happen".
Thus, there was no "need" and many people didn't really believe it could happen to them. Hell, they've survived storm after storm and the city was still there after 300 years, right?
There is no good economy for the plan. The capital for the plan went into the gov't, not the market. Federal, State and municipal funding over the years went to the city and State, not the market. There was no need to fill, as gov't had already taken it off the blocks.
There are some things a government does better, and should be best left to them instead of the private sector.
The problem with the current disaster has nothing to do with who handled it, it has to do with a lack of a decent plan and very poor implementation of the plan they did have.
Hell, the sad part is, it could have been a LOT worse. Katrina was a Cat 4, not a Cat 5 storm and jogged to the east before making landfall. Had it continued on the path it was the day before it jogged, they would have seen a 25' surge instead of a 14' one as they faced the full fury of the rotating winds. Add another 25 mph on the wind speeds and that extra water and you'd be looking at probably everyone in the Superdome being dead right now.
Private industry did a wonderful job of evacuating those in New Orleans who relied on it. It was called "personal transportation", and everyone with it -- that wanted to -- evacuated fine.
Those that didn't evacuate for one reason or another relied on the GOVERNMENT to handle it for them. The gov't was more worried about their precious historic area than the poor.
Private industry was never asked to handle emergency evacuation of those people. GOVERNMENT was the one responsible for all the municipal school and city busses sitting in their parking lots, under water, instead of being loaded with people and somewhere safe. Good plan, that.
They might have been much better off taking the budget spent on Gov't planning and contracting with a private company to come up with and execute an evacuation plan. THEN you could have pointed a finger of blame at the private sector.
Right now the blame lays firmly with those directly responsible for those citizens and that evacuation plan: the gov'ts of the municipalities and the State of Louisana.
I think while methane hydrates are just laying around for the picking, and in large supply -- that supply is on the bottom of the ocean. Just getting down there to do the picking is damned expensive.
Either way, there is more stored energy just "lying around for the taking" than people realize.
The other option is, well ironic. We need fuel cells to free ourselves from foreign oil.
No, we don't. We will use domestic* oil to free ourselves. The tar sands of Colorado are the largest petrolium reserves in the world, and the ones in Alberta are nothing to sneeze at, either.
Of course, now that I look for the exact reference I can't find it...
But, here are a few that give the basics of original construction. The Fort that was later New Orleans was built upon the only non-swamp "high ground" at the time. The city was basically set up to be a scam, if you read the history.
The U. of Texas has an EXCELLENT digital map library. The Historical New Orleans are enlightening. Too bad they don't show elevation, though. The one from 1849 shows depth of flooding at the time: 4-6 feet in the western part of the city.
Now, maybe, the promise of the "paperless office" that has been just around the corner for 20 years may become a reality.
I haven't printed 10 pages all year. My three kids, all in high school, have tons of papers to do. And ALL of them are submitted via e-mail or brought in as a file on a USB key, CD or floppy.
The few times I need actual photographs from my digital camera I just upload them to Walmart or Shutterfly and pick them up on the way to or from work.
At the office, maybe 100 pages a month are printed out for 26 employees in a high-tech business. Most of what used to be printed is now presented on a projector and distributed via FTP or on a CD-R. No more of this "one printed copy per attendee" waste.
Think about it. What really do you need paper copies for? How much do you really print? Vote with your wallet and let the ink companies DCMA themselves out of business.
Good riddance.
-Charles Sales and marketing materials are mass duplicated at Kinko's
Linspire does make the source available to GPL code. However, their distro includes Sun's JVM, Macromedia's Flash plug-in, Acroread, Real Player and several other non-free bits and pieces.
They also have a legally-licensed DVD player (plug-in to Xine) and MP3 codec that are available cheaply ($5 ?) to subscribers.
So, the entire PACKAGE isn't available for give away - normally.
Slashdot Mirror
Cool.
Where are those on http://www.mozilla.org/ or http://www.getfirefox.com/? I just spent 15 minutes searching for the MD5 sums for the latest Firefox (1.0.7) and until I dug my way thru their ftp server, I couldn't find them.
Assume most people get their software thru a web site and most clueless users don't know FTP from FTD, and then rant to me about getting the hashes from a trusted website.
Enlighten me. How do MD5 sums protect you from trojaned software? If it was a mistake on the part of the maintainer, wouldn't they have hashed the trojaned software to begin with? If it was malicious, anyone who could have uploaded the trojan could have uploaded the hash.
In either case, the hash would have shown valid. I was under the impression hashes (MD5, SHA-1) were mostly just for making sure nothing was corrupt in the transfer.
Digital signatures are for ensuring validity, though they wouldn't protect against the case of a maintainer signing infected code by mistake.
-Charles
A great deal of the research and publications generated by these universities are done so at the public expense. Tax dollars, grants, etc.
That info needs to be available to the taxpayers for use as they see fit.
-Charles
I would basically alternate passes with the same character - 00s, ffs, f0s, 0fs, 75s, 57s, and throw some random passes in between them.
If I may ask, isn't this just wanking? If you're that paranoid, why bother? Just belt-sand the platters, smash 'em and toss it in the trash.
Running thru a 5-7 pass wipe like you say on a 200 Gb hard drive will take, ummm... a LONG time.
Hard drives also make very good pistol targets, if you live out in the country.
-Charles
You would notice many of them if they were missing. The overall affect of the product would be diminished. Attention to all those details is what will make an "average" product "good" and a "good" product "great".
-Charles
Which brings up a good question, what IS the best way to secure wipe a RAID setup?
Probably to break the array and wipe the drives independently. Hell, you can probably run them all simultaneously in different terminals for "speed".
Knoppix is the other option. I've had very good luck with Knoppix recognizing RAID devices then being able to wipe them with dd.
-Charles
DBAN doesn't -- last I checked -- have SCSI or RAID drivers, so it is only viable if you're on a plain vanilla IDE system. I dont' know about SATA.
dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sda bs=512 count= (get this from fdisk) will do the trick in a pinch.
On the other hand, has anyone here actually tried to "secure wipe" at 200+ Gb hard drive? It can take DAYS.
Just drill a hole in the case; pour in some caustic drain cleaner or CLR (bathroom cleaner); plug the hole; shake vigorously then let sit for a couple days before throwing it out.
-Charles
Finding a library guilty of copyright infringement for placing a photocopier right next to a stack of books. So close, it induced people to copy books! The horror!
Well, Congress did consider a standing Army. Jefferson was in the losing camp (Anti-Federalist) of not wanting to have one at all, and only calling one up -- made of the State Militias -- in times of war. http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jef f1480.htm
They were aware of large, scary enemies that might require large armies, as there was much debate over Napoleon's conquest of Europe. The counter argument was their army of Militia had just beaten the best standing army in the world -- the British, so why keep a standing one.
I think that regardless of the standing army issue, which was eventually approved, it is clear that Congress has the exclusive rights to ship troops around and declare war. This was done purposfully because they didn't want a repeat of the British monarchs who kept their country in perpetually expensive war. Another part of this check & balance was giving Congress control of the purse strings. If a President won't stop committing troops, stop giving him money.
Congress has more power than it realizes, it just is much harder for it to act in unison than a single-person Executive branch.
The POTUS can only do what he does because Congress collectively is spineless.
The whole phrase (Article 2, Section 2) is:
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States;"
See that last clause? That means ONLY when CONGRESS exercises its rights under Article 1, Section 8 is the President CIC. Not before. It isn't a perpetual power -- only one granted when Congress sees the need.
Congress, however, is a bunch of spineless political pussies.
-Charles
The Shay's Rebellion was 1787 -- a full year before the ratification of the Constitution. Troops were called out by the Governor of Massachucettes, not the President as Arthur St. Clair didn't have the authority. http://www.calliope.org/shays/shays2.html
While President George Washington led troops to quash the Whiskey Rebellion, they were not U.S. troops but Virginial Militia called out under the authority of the Governor.
Section 8, Clause 15 is rather clear about who has the authority to call up troops. As far as "Commander in Chief" goes, everyone conveniently forgets the rest of that sentence "when called into the actual Service of the United States". Called into by Congress, that is.
Congress, however, doesn't have the backbone to seriously enforce that. Their best attempt has been the War Powers Act.
-Charles
All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health, and making ice without electricity, what have the Romans ever done for us?
You forgot public baths, the orgy, gladiators at the coluseum and Roman Numerals! Without all of the above, where would Hollywood be today?
The Romans used to make ice in the deserts of Palestine and North Africa. It seems to me they were around before electricity and Frigidaire.
5 40.Sh.r.html
http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/nov99/941723
Of course, the large temperature difference between the day and night in the desert it what drives it. That method probably won't work in tropical climates.
-Charles
They have so many laws it takes them a while to get around to arresting people for all of them.
Importing anything with Chinese writing on it is illegal in Singapore. Importing chewing gum is illegal. Lots and lots of stuff is illegal in Singapore.
This is the country that jailed a Jehova's Witness missionary (little old lady, none the less) for holding classes. JW is a "banned" religion in Singapore. I believe the rationale was the conflict between Singapore's mandatory military service and the resusal to serve by JWs.
I flew thru there once and stayed at the Marriott in the airport while connecting the next day to Jakarta. My impression was it was a very, very neat, clean and orderly little corporate police state and I couldn't wait to get the hell out. Serious bad vibes.
-Charles
How about just having volunteers walk in and hand out all the radios, then set up OUTSIDE the Astrodome and use a directional antenna.
Tell the JIC to go fuck off and broadcast anyway.
-Charles
Gmail is beta. Gmail does not have guaranteed uptime.
:-)
Oh wise prophet, how did you forsee this?
Server Error
Gmail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We're sorry for the inconvenience.
-Charles
Not bad, you can read! Now point out the part in the post you replied to that said they used the free version...
Take your time...
-CH
Except listen to some of the interviews with people who didn't evacuate. Some of them DID have the means, but said things like "well, we never really thought it would happen".
Thus, there was no "need" and many people didn't really believe it could happen to them. Hell, they've survived storm after storm and the city was still there after 300 years, right?
There is no good economy for the plan. The capital for the plan went into the gov't, not the market. Federal, State and municipal funding over the years went to the city and State, not the market. There was no need to fill, as gov't had already taken it off the blocks.
There are some things a government does better, and should be best left to them instead of the private sector.
The problem with the current disaster has nothing to do with who handled it, it has to do with a lack of a decent plan and very poor implementation of the plan they did have.
Hell, the sad part is, it could have been a LOT worse. Katrina was a Cat 4, not a Cat 5 storm and jogged to the east before making landfall. Had it continued on the path it was the day before it jogged, they would have seen a 25' surge instead of a 14' one as they faced the full fury of the rotating winds. Add another 25 mph on the wind speeds and that extra water and you'd be looking at probably everyone in the Superdome being dead right now.
Private industry did a wonderful job of evacuating those in New Orleans who relied on it. It was called "personal transportation", and everyone with it -- that wanted to -- evacuated fine.
Those that didn't evacuate for one reason or another relied on the GOVERNMENT to handle it for them. The gov't was more worried about their precious historic area than the poor.
Private industry was never asked to handle emergency evacuation of those people. GOVERNMENT was the one responsible for all the municipal school and city busses sitting in their parking lots, under water, instead of being loaded with people and somewhere safe. Good plan, that.
They might have been much better off taking the budget spent on Gov't planning and contracting with a private company to come up with and execute an evacuation plan. THEN you could have pointed a finger of blame at the private sector.
Right now the blame lays firmly with those directly responsible for those citizens and that evacuation plan: the gov'ts of the municipalities and the State of Louisana.
-Charles
I think while methane hydrates are just laying around for the picking, and in large supply -- that supply is on the bottom of the ocean. Just getting down there to do the picking is damned expensive.
Either way, there is more stored energy just "lying around for the taking" than people realize.
-Charles
The other option is, well ironic. We need fuel cells to free ourselves from foreign oil.
i sts/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_4051709,00.html
No, we don't. We will use domestic* oil to free ourselves. The tar sands of Colorado are the largest petrolium reserves in the world, and the ones in Alberta are nothing to sneeze at, either.
Take a look at this, and tell me I'm wrong: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_column
But you're right that nuclear is probably the only other realistic, large-scale option.
-Charles
* "Domestic" here means US/Canada, since I'm in the U.S.
Of course, now that I look for the exact reference I can't find it...
- pe.city04sep04,1,5490304.story?coll=bal-oped-headl ines
But, here are a few that give the basics of original construction. The Fort that was later New Orleans was built upon the only non-swamp "high ground" at the time. The city was basically set up to be a scam, if you read the history.
http://techcentralstation.com/090305A.html
http://slate.msn.com/id/2125229/nav/tap2/
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal
The U. of Texas has an EXCELLENT digital map library. The Historical New Orleans are enlightening. Too bad they don't show elevation, though. The one from 1849 shows depth of flooding at the time: 4-6 feet in the western part of the city.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/louisiana.html
Finally, page 20 of this PDF would be nice to own -- if I had $850 to spare.
http://www.arkway.com/pdfs/Cat49.pdf
-Charles
Actually, when New Orleans was founded, it was about 160 ft ABOVE sea level. It has sunk over the past couple hundred years.
Wonderful! EXCELLENT news!
Now, maybe, the promise of the "paperless office" that has been just around the corner for 20 years may become a reality.
I haven't printed 10 pages all year. My three kids, all in high school, have tons of papers to do. And ALL of them are submitted via e-mail or brought in as a file on a USB key, CD or floppy.
The few times I need actual photographs from my digital camera I just upload them to Walmart or Shutterfly and pick them up on the way to or from work.
At the office, maybe 100 pages a month are printed out for 26 employees in a high-tech business. Most of what used to be printed is now
presented on a projector and distributed via FTP or on a CD-R. No more of this "one printed copy per attendee" waste.
Think about it. What really do you need paper copies for? How much do you really print? Vote with your wallet and let the ink companies DCMA themselves out of business.
Good riddance.
-Charles
Sales and marketing materials are mass duplicated at Kinko's
Linspire does make the source available to GPL code. However, their distro includes Sun's JVM, Macromedia's Flash plug-in, Acroread, Real Player and several other non-free bits and pieces.
They also have a legally-licensed DVD player (plug-in to Xine) and MP3 codec that are available cheaply ($5 ?) to subscribers.
So, the entire PACKAGE isn't available for give away - normally.
-Charles