Who says you'd even have to go to the trouble of actually encrypting it. Well encrypted data should be indistiguishable from randomness.
Not quite. Look at a PGP message, for instance. Most people would probably agree that, properly used, PGP provides good encryption--but it also has a very recognizable message format. There's an entity which specifies the algorithm to use (IDEA, 3DES, CAST128, etc.), an entity which is the sender's public key, an entity which is... etc., and so on. If the PGP message format was not precisely defined and recognizable, it would be vastly more difficult to use PGP. ("Damn! Err, okay, so what algorithm did they use to encrypt this, anyway?")
Besides, perfectly random data stands out like a sore thumb. Data with no redundancy is either (a) compressed or (b) encrypted or (c) useless noise.
Far be it from me to question the editorial decisions of slashdot, but isn't this super-old? I mean, hasn't it already been on slashdot quite a while ago? It wasn't mentioned as a repeat, or old...
First we saw i-opener being hacked, now that Tivo is getting hacked. I am not sure if this is a good thing for linux. It gives the industry an example: "Do anything with them Linux, you'd be hacked silly."
Except the i-opener had nothing to do with linux, save that people who like linux got the i-opener to run it. People also got it to run some variant of BSD, and Windows 98, and so forth... Maybe it was just because the linux advocates were screaming the loudest when Netpliance started forcing people to buy the service when they bought the device...
Think about it. The firm distributing this movie is in the quiet period before their IPO. This is a great way to get press, and even if the file is cracked and distributed, they can always blame Microsoft. But that's not what they're worried about. Think about it this way: modern law enforcement is not so much aimed at preventing crimes as it is punishing the offenders after the fact. So, if the movie is "cracked" by actually purchasing the right to view it, then intercepting the video stream and saving that... Well, let's suppose that the keys and algorithms used in decrypting the movie are (1) all different and (2) all provide a slightly plaintext (the movie). You don't notice these differences unless you do a bit-by-bit comparison of two different decrypted copies of the movie. You don't notice them when you're watching, because, hey, there's a lot of information in a movie. Granted, the more you compress a movie, the less room you have for just throwing random bits in and having them be less noticeable, but bear with me... So now you can trace exactly which copy was pirated. (This is nothing new -- distributing a bunch of slightly different copies of something, so that when one gets leaked you can tell who leaked it). So now maybe the person who originally leaked the movie can be prosecuted. Or maybe it was somebody using a stolen credit card in a far-off nation, and they don't get punished. Regardless, the threat is still there, and people get a little bit more scared.
Who cares if people are scared?
Think about how long MP3s were around. A lot longer than Napster. So why are they only getting so much attention now? Cause they've become mainstream! No more navigating IRC or pop-up porn banner sites to get ftp passwords... Anyone can download Napster and start grabbing mp3s in minutes. Anyone. Which means there are now a LOT more pirates than there were, simply because it's now so easy...
Piracy will always exist. It's hard to secure data that passes, cleartext, through unprotected regions (video signal to a monitor). The point is to make it hard or dangerous enough that most people won't consider piracy an option. Then it will just be back to the "underground" doing it, and there will be far less public outcry when they get cracked down on...
Who would watch this movie if it was a normal theater release? Ok, how about if it was distributed online? Ok, now how about if it was distributed online, but securely, then got cracked and famous for being an early example of the "failure" of secure, digital distribution of audio/video... How many more people would want a copy, just because?
No, at least for me, it looks at the last one, and assigns an icon accrdingly. Then, if the particular extension is not set to "Always Show Extension", then the extension is not displayed
That is true, for explorer. However, in Outlook the icon displayed for a file is NOT dependant on the extension -- it's set by the person sending you the e-mail. (I get documents created in Word 2000 that have the Word 2000 icon depicting them -- despite the fact that I don't even have Office 2000 installed). Here's one way to do this:
A questionable point in my mind: Just how does one track a user to an IP address based on email?
Just look at the 'Recieved:' headers.. Here's one from an actual piece of spam I've got sitting in my mailbox.
Received: from alan (PPPa55-ResaleFtLauderdale1-2R7288.saturn.bbn.com [4.48.80.212]) by outmail3.pacificnet.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id QAA10239 for <[deleted]> Thu, 4 May 2000 16:24:05 -0700 (PDT)
Obviously, I took out my real address and put [deleted] in there, but you get the point..
Just reading the first page causes me to shudder at the way it's written.. Take this quote, for example:
By carefully examining the email headers and message body of previously sent spams I was able to identify a unique signature that appeared in every email the spammer sent. I designed an email filter to detect this signature, and placed it on the mail gateway of a high volume Internet mail server... Finally on the fourth day my digital pager went off. The message on the LCD read; "Spammer is on-line!"
The above just makes me laugh, if you ignore the question of, "how'd you get that filter program on the 'high volume internet mail server'?" Did you use your h4x0ring sk1llz, or was it your own for your business of providing advanced TCP/IP know-how?
Once I had escalated my remote access to that of a full privileged local user
We're talking windows 95 here.. At least judging from the screenshots. EVERY user is fully privileged.
There was only one way to find out how many of them were forging my domain. I was going to have to hack them all!
I love that quote. It sounds like it came straight out of "Hackers."
Regardless of whether or not it's fake, it's entertaining in two ways -- once as a fantasy tale of someone taking revenge on spammers, and once as a badly written overly dramatic technical article from an advanced TCP/IP know-how provider who can use advanced tools like NSLOOKUP and WHOIS...
Consider this: anyone can set up their own TLD. I can set up my root DNS servers for.god or whatever I want. But nobody who doesn't already know about you (and add a DNS server in your network to their configuration) will be able to reach you. Because, the people in charge of the REAL root servers don't have your TLD in there. We could all set up.god TLDs. (Ever hear of AlterNIC? The masses won't reach any.god addresses until ICANN adds them... and nothing in the article said they were going to add.god.. just that they would be considering new TLDs in meetings soon. Which is nothing new).
Speaking of ads, I know somebody that likes ads. Slashdot! Yellow journalism, here we come. Controversial stories = page impressions.
Let's quote something from the 'analysis' appended to the story: I suspect that the Time-Warner media empire might take in a few dollars from banner ads. I suspect they might not like giving users a way to block almost all banner ads with just a few clicks. They don't mind a small percentage of us using a squid proxy, Junkbusters, or creative/etc/hostsing. But to turn that power over to everyone would seriously threaten their revenue stream.
I suspect whoever wrote that needs to get a clue. Seriously, this is sad. This from the same website that says, "We're not anti-corporate! Just some of our commenters are." And they're not, they're chameleonlike. They're skinnable! Slashdot-skins! Just pick the green one, everytime.
Where is the Dr Watson, or Norton AntiVirus, or PC-Cillin for Linux ????
They don't exist. That does not mean Linux virii don't exist
Actually, there IS an anti-virus scanner for Linux. One of the major ones. The name escapes me at the moment.. Anyway, it doesn't scan for Linux viruses, it scans for Windows viruses, on a linux machine (i.e. you use the linux machine as a file server).
What worries me, and I like to have this explained, is why people continue to use Outlook.
First it was Melissa, now it is ILOVEYOU.. you would think that someone would wake up and do something constructive such as switching to a mail program that would and could not be affected
It has nothing to do with Outlook. It's merely an email attachment, comparable to sending an executable to someone and seeing if they'll execute it. Actually, since it's a VBScript, it will only run if you have IE5 or have installed WSH for some reason.
Of course, security-wise, you should have done the following to protect any installations of WSH, given the recent rash of VBScript worms: delete HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VBSFile\Open and Open2. Then, when user double-clicks attachment: they get the script in Notepad.
The fact of the matter is they don't give a damn about any of us, they're driven by pure greed. And not "good" greed (where they'd ramp up and try to supply those of us who'd want a device without the strings)
Hrm. So, "good" greed means they'll sell you a device at a loss. They'll go out of business, just because YOU want a cheap computer from them, so damnit, they'd better give it to you.
Then again, maybe they SHOULD do that... after all, losing money seems to be the surest way to be a successful "dotcom" these days..
now attempting to satiate the teeming masses of Open Source developers that it has alienated
Pardon me for being blunt, but why would they want the "teeming masses of Open Source developers" as customers? They're not going to buy the ISP service, they're just going to buy the cheap hardware and avoid paying for the service. If everyone did that, netpliance would be out of business. So, people think that they're clever because they managed to get the device and not pay for the service -- great. Now they whine when netpliance starts realizing they can't keep letting people buy devices w/o service and makes it mandatory.
But what really bothers me is that i've only met a hand full of people that remember the show. But all of them loved it and would give their right testicle to see the series again.
Count me as one of those.. None of my friends seem to remember this show, but I do.. Fondly enough that I wondered to myself, "Hey I wonder if that Disney movie is based on the show.. maybe I should go see it.."
Companies like this just make my blood boil. The only reason I can think of they're doing this is because they're greedy.
All I can say to that is... well, duh. What is the point of a company? To make money. How can a company be greedy when its sole purpose is to produce revenue? A company can be stupid -- in that its quest for money isn't tempered with enough wisdom to keep from alienating customers. But then again, Unisys isn't going to alienate any of its customers with these practices -- its customers are large companies and government institutions, not individual consumers.
Well, I think it might be difficult to have laws that block both, or treat both (DDoS and telemarketing) the same way.
DDoS is malicious traffic with the intent to disable/damage your services.
Telemarketers just want you to buy something! Although you might classify that as inherently malicious, it's not, especially not on the same scale as DDoS attacks. Sure, you may not like telemarketers and calls during dinner, but do you want to be arrested 5 years from now because you accidentally dialed the wrong number?
what is the reasoning behind that quite odd bit at the last part of the GNU su man page.....
I think he's referring to this part: This program does not support a "wheel group" that restricts who can su to super-user accounts, because that can help fascist system administrators hold unwarranted power over other users.
But, my version has an explanation at the end...
Why GNU su does not support the wheel group (by Richard Stallman)
Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.)
However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he can tell the rest. The "wheel group" feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers.
I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this idea strange at first.
interesting stuff, and makes some good points about Open Source.
Is it just me, or is this the line they use to sum up every little blurb from a linux three-letter person? How can it make good points about open source, when we've already heard them a million times before?
Oh, and maybe ESR should do more research instead of just jumping on unfounded rumors... There is not a secret password that will let anyone into an IIS web site. The phrase, "Netscape engineers are weenies!" is the key used to encrypt the password used when Frontpage using web authors are being authenticated to the server.
(You know what else is really annoying? Forgetting to put a subject, and slashdot won't let you post, so I go back and add one, and then it tells me to slow down, I have to wait 70 seconds... "Slashdot: only one troll per user per 70 seconds!" Now that's quality. [Wonders if typing that in wasted enough time that he can submit the post now. Nope, it wasn't. Might as well ramble some more]).
This probably will sound hopelessly naive and uninformed to people who solution to every problem is to sue... But if you don't want people deep-linking to your website, why not use technical means to keep them out? Check the HTTP-Referrer, or only let them in if they have cookies that where set at the top level of your site... I guess by sueing, you don't have to worry about implementing the above methods, and then having people get around them. But I figure that if you don't want people getting to something, password-protect it. Of course, in the curious world of advertising, you can want people to see something, but only if you have control over it..
What exactly makes the line between me, and say, my friend's house unsuitable for DSL?
The fact that there isn't a line between you and your friend's house. Simplifying it a bit (a lot?), there's a line from your house to the CO, and a line from your friend's house to the CO. When you dial your friend's number, the CO switch connects your line to his line. When you hang up, the lines are no longer connected.
Ok, so you can't use them because there's no dedicated (nailed) connection. It's only there when you ask for it. So, what if you ask for it all the time? Well, you don't have copper running straight from building to building, and at some point your analog signal (you talking into your phone) gets encoded into a digital signal. And only 64 or 56k is allocated for that signal. The lines run from the CO to your house COULD support a lot more than 56k -- but back before phone lines were used for anything more than phones, there was no reason to, and every reason not to: aggregating 24 64k channels = 1 T1. What if each channel was, well, 768k?
One more thing that should be pointed out for this article is... the "roll your own DSL" is somewhat confusing. The guy that did it could do it, because he already had a connection to the internet. The "roll your own dsl" part was the fact that he was then able to connect other people to him, via phone lines / DSL modems. Just don't expect to buy some DSL modems, order a dry circuit, and magically have internet connectivity..
If Apple doesn't want to release the source code to the Sorenson CODEC
It's not their codec, and they can't legally release the source. (How many times does one have to tell people this before they get it in their heads? Quicktime is an (open) format. Sorensen et al are codecs. The codecs are what won't be released.
Wasn't this an afterschool special? It was about this teacher, who had his students join a secret society that had a distinctive hand gesture to identify members (i.e. "the wave") and exclusionist tactics... Then at the end, he said, "Want to meet your secret leader? Here he is!" and showed them film clips of Adolf Hitler. The kids, for some strange reason (because it was an after-school special), were disgusted and learned their lesson about secret clubs.
But comparing "geek profiling" (a favorite Katz buzzword) to Hitler Youth.. well.. it just seems like he's heard of Godwin's Theorem, and hasn't bothered for arguments to degenerate -- he'll START with the Hitler comparisons.
Slashdot Mirror
Who says you'd even have to go to the trouble of actually encrypting it. Well encrypted data should be indistiguishable from randomness.
Not quite. Look at a PGP message, for instance. Most people would probably agree that, properly used, PGP provides good encryption--but it also has a very recognizable message format. There's an entity which specifies the algorithm to use (IDEA, 3DES, CAST128, etc.), an entity which is the sender's public key, an entity which is... etc., and so on. If the PGP message format was not precisely defined and recognizable, it would be vastly more difficult to use PGP. ("Damn! Err, okay, so what algorithm did they use to encrypt this, anyway?")
Besides, perfectly random data stands out like a sore thumb. Data with no redundancy is either (a) compressed or (b) encrypted or (c) useless noise.
Far be it from me to question the editorial decisions of slashdot, but isn't this super-old? I mean, hasn't it already been on slashdot quite a while ago? It wasn't mentioned as a repeat, or old...
..someone please stick transactions in it?
Uhm... it does have transactions (in the latest development versions). You have to use the BDB table type.
First we saw i-opener being hacked, now that Tivo is getting hacked. I am not sure if this is a good thing for linux. It gives the industry an example: "Do anything with them Linux, you'd be hacked silly."
Except the i-opener had nothing to do with linux, save that people who like linux got the i-opener to run it. People also got it to run some variant of BSD, and Windows 98, and so forth... Maybe it was just because the linux advocates were screaming the loudest when Netpliance started forcing people to buy the service when they bought the device...
Think about it. The firm distributing this movie is in the quiet period before their IPO. This is a great way to get press, and even if the file is cracked and distributed, they can always blame Microsoft. But that's not what they're worried about. Think about it this way: modern law enforcement is not so much aimed at preventing crimes as it is punishing the offenders after the fact. So, if the movie is "cracked" by actually purchasing the right to view it, then intercepting the video stream and saving that... Well, let's suppose that the keys and algorithms used in decrypting the movie are (1) all different and (2) all provide a slightly plaintext (the movie). You don't notice these differences unless you do a bit-by-bit comparison of two different decrypted copies of the movie. You don't notice them when you're watching, because, hey, there's a lot of information in a movie. Granted, the more you compress a movie, the less room you have for just throwing random bits in and having them be less noticeable, but bear with me... So now you can trace exactly which copy was pirated. (This is nothing new -- distributing a bunch of slightly different copies of something, so that when one gets leaked you can tell who leaked it). So now maybe the person who originally leaked the movie can be prosecuted. Or maybe it was somebody using a stolen credit card in a far-off nation, and they don't get punished. Regardless, the threat is still there, and people get a little bit more scared.
Who cares if people are scared?
Think about how long MP3s were around. A lot longer than Napster. So why are they only getting so much attention now? Cause they've become mainstream! No more navigating IRC or pop-up porn banner sites to get ftp passwords... Anyone can download Napster and start grabbing mp3s in minutes. Anyone. Which means there are now a LOT more pirates than there were, simply because it's now so easy...
Piracy will always exist. It's hard to secure data that passes, cleartext, through unprotected regions (video signal to a monitor). The point is to make it hard or dangerous enough that most people won't consider piracy an option. Then it will just be back to the "underground" doing it, and there will be far less public outcry when they get cracked down on...
Who would watch this movie if it was a normal theater release? Ok, how about if it was distributed online? Ok, now how about if it was distributed online, but securely, then got cracked and famous for being an early example of the "failure" of secure, digital distribution of audio/video... How many more people would want a copy, just because?
No, at least for me, it looks at the last one, and assigns an icon accrdingly. Then, if the particular extension is not set to "Always Show Extension", then the extension is not displayed
That is true, for explorer. However, in Outlook the icon displayed for a file is NOT dependant on the extension -- it's set by the person sending you the e-mail. (I get documents created in Word 2000 that have the Word 2000 icon depicting them -- despite the fact that I don't even have Office 2000 installed). Here's one way to do this:
Open up Wordpad.
Drag whatever file you want to send in there.
Click on Edit ->Package Object ->Edit Package.
Change the icon to whatever you want.
Click Update, then close that window.
Drag your new object into an email and send it.
It's never as simple as it seems...
A questionable point in my mind: Just how does one track a user to an IP address based on email?
Just look at the 'Recieved:' headers.. Here's one from an actual piece of spam I've got sitting in my mailbox.
Received: from alan (PPPa55-ResaleFtLauderdale1-2R7288.saturn.bbn.com [4.48.80.212])
by outmail3.pacificnet.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id QAA10239
for <[deleted]> Thu, 4 May 2000 16:24:05 -0700 (PDT)
Obviously, I took out my real address and put [deleted] in there, but you get the point..
Just reading the first page causes me to shudder at the way it's written.. Take this quote, for example:
... Finally on the fourth day my digital pager went off. The message on the LCD read; "Spammer is on-line!"
By carefully examining the email headers and message body of previously sent spams I was able to identify a unique signature that appeared in every email the spammer sent. I designed an email filter to detect this signature, and placed it on the mail gateway of a high volume Internet mail server
The above just makes me laugh, if you ignore the question of, "how'd you get that filter program on the 'high volume internet mail server'?" Did you use your h4x0ring sk1llz, or was it your own for your business of providing advanced TCP/IP know-how?
Once I had escalated my remote access to that of a full privileged local user
We're talking windows 95 here.. At least judging from the screenshots. EVERY user is fully privileged.
There was only one way to find out how many of them were forging my domain. I was going to have to hack them all!
I love that quote. It sounds like it came straight out of "Hackers."
Regardless of whether or not it's fake, it's entertaining in two ways -- once as a fantasy tale of someone taking revenge on spammers, and once as a badly written overly dramatic technical article from an advanced TCP/IP know-how provider who can use advanced tools like NSLOOKUP and WHOIS...
Consider this: anyone can set up their own TLD. I can set up my root DNS servers for .god or whatever I want. But nobody who doesn't already know about you (and add a DNS server in your network to their configuration) will be able to reach you. Because, the people in charge of the REAL root servers don't have your TLD in there. We could all set up .god TLDs. (Ever hear of AlterNIC? The masses won't reach any .god addresses until ICANN adds them... and nothing in the article said they were going to add .god.. just that they would be considering new TLDs in meetings soon. Which is nothing new).
Speaking of ads, I know somebody that likes ads. Slashdot! Yellow journalism, here we come. Controversial stories = page impressions.
/etc/hostsing. But to turn that power over to everyone would seriously threaten their revenue stream.
Let's quote something from the 'analysis' appended to the story: I suspect that the Time-Warner media empire might take in a few dollars from banner ads. I suspect they might not like giving users a way to block almost all banner ads with just a few clicks. They don't mind a small percentage of us using a squid proxy, Junkbusters, or creative
I suspect whoever wrote that needs to get a clue. Seriously, this is sad. This from the same website that says, "We're not anti-corporate! Just some of our commenters are." And they're not, they're chameleonlike. They're skinnable! Slashdot-skins! Just pick the green one, everytime.
Where is the Dr Watson, or Norton AntiVirus, or PC-Cillin for Linux ????
They don't exist. That does not mean Linux virii don't exist
Actually, there IS an anti-virus scanner for Linux. One of the major ones. The name escapes me at the moment.. Anyway, it doesn't scan for Linux viruses, it scans for Windows viruses, on a linux machine (i.e. you use the linux machine as a file server).
Because slashdot wants the ad impressions. Duh?
What worries me, and I like to have this explained, is why people continue to use Outlook.
First it was Melissa, now it is ILOVEYOU.. you would think that someone would wake up and do something constructive such as switching to a mail program that would and could not be affected
It has nothing to do with Outlook. It's merely an email attachment, comparable to sending an executable to someone and seeing if they'll execute it. Actually, since it's a VBScript, it will only run if you have IE5 or have installed WSH for some reason.
Of course, security-wise, you should have done the following to protect any installations of WSH, given the recent rash of VBScript worms: delete HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\VBSFile\Open and Open2. Then, when user double-clicks attachment: they get the script in Notepad.
The fact of the matter is they don't give a damn about any of us, they're driven by pure greed. And not "good" greed (where they'd ramp up and try to supply those of us who'd want a device without the strings)
Hrm. So, "good" greed means they'll sell you a device at a loss. They'll go out of business, just because YOU want a cheap computer from them, so damnit, they'd better give it to you.
Then again, maybe they SHOULD do that... after all, losing money seems to be the surest way to be a successful "dotcom" these days..
now attempting to satiate the teeming masses of Open Source developers that it has alienated
Pardon me for being blunt, but why would they want the "teeming masses of Open Source developers" as customers? They're not going to buy the ISP service, they're just going to buy the cheap hardware and avoid paying for the service. If everyone did that, netpliance would be out of business. So, people think that they're clever because they managed to get the device and not pay for the service -- great. Now they whine when netpliance starts realizing they can't keep letting people buy devices w/o service and makes it mandatory.
But what really bothers me is that i've only met a hand full of people that remember the show. But all of them loved it and would give their right testicle to see the series again.
Count me as one of those.. None of my friends seem to remember this show, but I do.. Fondly enough that I wondered to myself, "Hey I wonder if that Disney movie is based on the show.. maybe I should go see it.."
Companies like this just make my blood boil. The only reason I can think of they're doing this is because they're greedy.
All I can say to that is... well, duh. What is the point of a company? To make money. How can a company be greedy when its sole purpose is to produce revenue? A company can be stupid -- in that its quest for money isn't tempered with enough wisdom to keep from alienating customers. But then again, Unisys isn't going to alienate any of its customers with these practices -- its customers are large companies and government institutions, not individual consumers.
Well, I think it might be difficult to have laws that block both, or treat both (DDoS and telemarketing) the same way.
DDoS is malicious traffic with the intent to disable/damage your services.
Telemarketers just want you to buy something! Although you might classify that as inherently malicious, it's not, especially not on the same scale as DDoS attacks. Sure, you may not like telemarketers and calls during dinner, but do you want to be arrested 5 years from now because you accidentally dialed the wrong number?
what is the reasoning behind that quite odd bit at the last part of the GNU su man page.....
I think he's referring to this part:
This program does not support a "wheel group" that restricts who can su to super-user accounts, because that can help fascist system administrators hold unwarranted power over other users.
But, my version has an explanation at the end...
Why GNU su does not support the wheel group (by Richard Stallman)
Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.)
However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with the ordinary users, he can tell the rest. The "wheel group" feature would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers.
I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you might find this idea strange at first.
If you want an explanation of THAT... ask RMS.
interesting stuff, and makes some good points about Open Source.
Is it just me, or is this the line they use to sum up every little blurb from a linux three-letter person? How can it make good points about open source, when we've already heard them a million times before?
Oh, and maybe ESR should do more research instead of just jumping on unfounded rumors... There is not a secret password that will let anyone into an IIS web site. The phrase, "Netscape engineers are weenies!" is the key used to encrypt the password used when Frontpage using web authors are being authenticated to the server.
(You know what else is really annoying? Forgetting to put a subject, and slashdot won't let you post, so I go back and add one, and then it tells me to slow down, I have to wait 70 seconds... "Slashdot: only one troll per user per 70 seconds!" Now that's quality. [Wonders if typing that in wasted enough time that he can submit the post now. Nope, it wasn't. Might as well ramble some more]).
This probably will sound hopelessly naive and uninformed to people who solution to every problem is to sue... But if you don't want people deep-linking to your website, why not use technical means to keep them out? Check the HTTP-Referrer, or only let them in if they have cookies that where set at the top level of your site... I guess by sueing, you don't have to worry about implementing the above methods, and then having people get around them. But I figure that if you don't want people getting to something, password-protect it. Of course, in the curious world of advertising, you can want people to see something, but only if you have control over it..
What exactly makes the line between me, and say, my friend's house unsuitable for DSL?
The fact that there isn't a line between you and your friend's house. Simplifying it a bit (a lot?), there's a line from your house to the CO, and a line from your friend's house to the CO. When you dial your friend's number, the CO switch connects your line to his line. When you hang up, the lines are no longer connected.
Ok, so you can't use them because there's no dedicated (nailed) connection. It's only there when you ask for it. So, what if you ask for it all the time? Well, you don't have copper running straight from building to building, and at some point your analog signal (you talking into your phone) gets encoded into a digital signal. And only 64 or 56k is allocated for that signal. The lines run from the CO to your house COULD support a lot more than 56k -- but back before phone lines were used for anything more than phones, there was no reason to, and every reason not to: aggregating 24 64k channels = 1 T1. What if each channel was, well, 768k?
One more thing that should be pointed out for this article is... the "roll your own DSL" is somewhat confusing. The guy that did it could do it, because he already had a connection to the internet. The "roll your own dsl" part was the fact that he was then able to connect other people to him, via phone lines / DSL modems. Just don't expect to buy some DSL modems, order a dry circuit, and magically have internet connectivity..
If Apple doesn't want to release the source code to the Sorenson CODEC
It's not their codec, and they can't legally release the source. (How many times does one have to tell people this before they get it in their heads? Quicktime is an (open) format. Sorensen et al are codecs. The codecs are what won't be released.
Wasn't this an afterschool special? It was about this teacher, who had his students join a secret society that had a distinctive hand gesture to identify members (i.e. "the wave") and exclusionist tactics... Then at the end, he said, "Want to meet your secret leader? Here he is!" and showed them film clips of Adolf Hitler. The kids, for some strange reason (because it was an after-school special), were disgusted and learned their lesson about secret clubs.
But comparing "geek profiling" (a favorite Katz buzzword) to Hitler Youth.. well.. it just seems like he's heard of Godwin's Theorem, and hasn't bothered for arguments to degenerate -- he'll START with the Hitler comparisons.
Is it just me, or is there an interview with Miguel featured every week on Slashdot? There ARE other people to interview, you know...