Actually, I probably am good enough to do this under Windows - but I hate M$'s business practices, and their software is shit.
I am a Linux "convert" - I run SuSE Linux 7.2 at home, currently learning Perl. At work I do VB and Java coding. I have seen the code of the ILoveYou virus - it is dead simple. I am certain these other "viruses" are similar in scope. I am aware of various virus coding sites, and I keep up from time to time on the "underground" - side hobby of mine.
I could probably patch together such a "virus" as described, and even release it without leaving behind a "trail". The only thing keeping me from doing anything like this is that I know ultimately it wouldn't benefit anybody, not even myself - and would be unlikely to affect Microsoft, either. All it would cause would be anger, lost time, and money. So why do it? Of course, all of these other viruses out there do the same thing - so someone either is really fucked up in the head, or there must be some kind of motive.
Yes I would - If there was a series of speakers, heck - even one speaker (hell, I would volunteer to speak!) - I would be willing to attend.
If such a thing ever occurs, I propose that we do an actual march/walk to the site where the rally would be held - say over the course of 10-20 miles. Hold the rally for a couple of days - camp out if need be.
I am tired of all this shit - I want my rights - all of them!
What the hell, people? Why aren't more people replying to this comment? Do any of you really care? WTF??!!
I have written my congressmen about this issue - I will be participating in the Saturday meet in Phoenix (missed last saturday, and can't get off work for today's meet - but I will be there this weekend!).
You know it and I know it, and I am certain that most people here on/. know it, too.
I tend to wonder if these "viruses" we have been seeing are merely "shots across the bow", so to speak. I mean - why hasn't a virus as you described come out yet?
Most of the source code to these viruses is available for free, if you know where to search.
It is obvious that MS products are buggy, full of holes to exploit, and rarely patched - not to mention that users of the systems tend to be lazy and ingnorant about security precautions - constantly clicking to see the next naked Brittany Spears image - so why haven't we seen true chaos yet?
But really - there is no way to easily increase storage, or put shows "off-line" or to an external array...
Think about it - why do VCRs exist? The law says that time-shifting is legal. So many of us "time-shift" shows to a tape - so we may watch them again and again - including shows that we may never see again! I have all the episodes of X-Files on tape, as well as all the episodes of Millenium. Which one will most likely go into syndication? X-Files. Millenium will never be seen from again - but I have a copy I can watch again if I want to (including the pilot episode - which has never been rerun, AFAIK - due to the graphic violence portrayed in it).
Guess what? With these PVRs - time-shifting is still allowed - but archiving goes out the door. Slap the DMCA on top of encrypted content - disallow recording shows that you have to pay for (if you can record them at all) - and force subscribed content - and you have a televisions exec's wet dream.
Furthermore, you will never be able to watch those old shows - only what they want to allow you to watch.
This is why I am keeping my VCR as long as I can - at least until HDTV becomes standard - when that occurs, I might just chuck my TV.
Unless we can build an open homebrew platform for movie and TV watching, at-home TV entertainment is screwed as we know it.
Prior to this, the best sounding speech synthesis I had heard was from the Festival system, which is still pretty good - epecially considering it has an open source license, something the AT&T system doesn't.
Another good speech synthesizer, no doubt an early version of the AT&T one (possibly?), is by Lucent.
Still, I am amazed at the quality of the AT&T system - it sounds almost perfectly natural. To the naysayers that say "No, it isn't natural" - what all of you have to realize is that this simply demo doesn't allow you to tweak all the variables that would really allow the inflections or type of voice (like whispering, etc) to really come through - it is too bad they don't give an advanced interface with a FAQ or some other form of documentation to allow this, but I imagine that if they did, it would probably take quite a while to compose even a simple sentence (I remember the hell you had to go through with an old Radio Shack speech synth for the Color Computer, specifying individual phoenomes (sp?) just to get proper speech to come out - it could pronounce many words, but others it just fell flat on its face).
Finally - something I want everyone to ponder. Take a look at this old article (it was about Square redubbing FFTM) - once it loads, search for "cr0sh" and "I dare say" - you will come across a series of comments about what I think may happen in the future - what is funny is that the comments in reply to my take on things sound like your typical naysayers. How many computers were we supposed to only need back in the 60's? How much memory would people "only" need again Mr. Gates?
What I predict will come about - probably sooner than we can all imagine. It may not be cheap enough to do it now, at a quality that people would watch, fast enough to be done quicker than what can be done with live actors - but it is all software and hardware - this stuff will get faster and cheaper. Anybody who has been in this business long enough knows that it will happen. There might still be a need for actors, and voice artists, and such - but they probably won't have the "god" status society seems to confer on them now (with the exception, perhaps, of stage acting - which will probably enjoy a huge comeback).
Remember the computer history books - a large collection of these is essential to any library, to see where this all started from, and where it may be heading to.
There are a few good recently published "History of Computers" books, but honestly, the best way to get a history of computers is to find older computer reference books (ie, books which when sold presented "state-of-the-art" information about computers - I have some real interesting ones from the 40's and 50's).
Books on Babbage, Pascal, Lord Kelvin, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, etc - would also be welcome additions to such a section. Throw in books on Hollerith, as well. Add recent stuff (hacker history - like the Jargon File, etc - and others), as well as more "popular" stuff - like "The Media Lab" and Steven Levy's "Hackers"...
Gotta know where all this came from, and where are roots are, as well...
Do not even attempt to try to do ANY of this stuff until you have read up and fully understand the consequences of failure! Once you understand that, start experimenting, and take as many precautions as you can to protect your body.
I had an email conversation with this guy on Friday (7/27), and I can tell you that I still have a ton of questions. He did say that a pulse jet engine could probably be built using off the shelf parts (steel piping and exhaust piping) - but it wouldn't last as long as using stainless steel piping (read: expensive) - but that much of the rusting and corrosion could be slowed by using high temp engine header paint.
Typical pulse jets use a form of spring steel (or blade steel) reed or flap valves - that tend to wear out after a while (because of the flexing). In his conversations, he told me that he had hit upon a way to make a new type of valve (in both design and materials used) that actually lasts many times longer than common designs - in effect, advancing the state of the art for pulse jet engines.
These devices can be dangerous - he shows one engine that he built that "exploded", but ripped down the side of the exhaust pipe as planned (he welded it to fail that way). Even so, it caused a lot of surrounding damage - buckling a nearby garage door. Had he not designed the pipe to fail (say, instead he had used common steel pipe) - it most likely would've caused significantly more damage - possibly lethal damage.
Valved pulse jet engines are harder to build, mainly because of the machining of the valve. The valveless designs are much easier to construct - I am willing to wager that such a design could be built using common pipe and parts found at an Auto Zone and Home Depot. Probably take a few hours to put together (weekend project?), then a little longer to tweak and "tune" the engine to running resonance (once more, I must mention that reading up on how these engines work is important - better to build an engine than a potential bomb).
Realize that pulsejet engines tend to glow red, sometimes near-white hot (actually, if built from standard, non-stainless steel pipe, it will fail before it gets that hot - blowing apart in a shower of hot steel first) when in operation for an extended (>5 min) period of time. They are LOUD - louder than you can possibly imagine. Being around one of these running engines for too long can desensitise your nerve endings - then when they resensitise afterward, they become hyper-sensitive for an extended (> 3 days) period - where every sound/touch/etc - is PAINFUL. Just ask Mark Pauline from SRL (I helped him set up for a pulsejet demo here in Phoenix last year - that engine was valveless as well - and quite powerful).
So, in short - learn about them as much as you can, see one in operation first to know what kind of power you are dealing with (I heartily recommend an SRL demo, if at all possible), then learn some more - finally, buy the best parts, take the right precautions, keep a fire extinguisher and another person nearby in case of emergency - work outside or in a WELL ventilated large area. Know what you are dealing with - and maybe, just maybe - you will only walk away with a few burns, if you are lucky.
Well, I know they aren't real firewalls - but that is how they are typically marketed. And your point about static routes is well taken (I actually plan at some point to try to set up a web server for bookmarks, and FreeSco makes it pretty easy to select a port and route it where you want - but it definitely won't be to my main box).
OK - I admit I only scanned this article - but in their explanation of the honeypot, they seem to indicate that there was no form of a firewall set up in front of the machines in the honeypot.
I currently run FreeSco on my homebrew firewall, which is a simple NAT affair. It seems to run well, but sometimes I tend to wonder if it (and associated connected systems) might get rooted.
I check the logs on occasion - but I am not a grand admin - so while I can tell from the logs when a portscan for 138/139 is occurring (SMB) - other possible probes would elude me.
Or am I reading this wrong - was the honeypot protected with a cheapo (read "consumer") firewall product (like a DLink or Linksys router/firewall)?
If not, what would the statistics have looked like if it was?
Where the heck did you manage to find a first edition (and if I may ask, how much did it cost)?
I personally love books, and I really try to seek out older books (one of my favorites is a Coynes School text book from the 30's - detailing the latest in TV systems - including Nipkow disk scanning techniques) - but have yet to find anything much over 100 years old that strikes my interest (what I mean is I have found many 100-150 year old books - but none were on subjects that I fancy). Being able to find such an edition of an encyclopedia would make my day (I think the oldest book I have is an algebra primer from the late 1800's) - provided it didn't break the bank.
I wish I could mod this up - Britannica does stand for quality - my parents scraped enough together to get me two different sets of Britannica (one an older set for everyday reference, the other a current set for occasional reference, as well as each yearbook every year up until a few years ago) when I was younger. The quality of that encyclodpedia, compared to cheesy things like Comptons, or World Book (I think that is right) - uncomparable. Brittanica ruled.
I hope they stay in business - someday I would like to purchase a quality bound encyclopedia for my library - and I would like it to be Brittanica.
Re:The closest approximation I can come up with...
on
The Sound of Safety?
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· Score: 2
I hope not!!! I just listened to all the MP3s - and these things sound similar to the bugs (not sure if they are cicada's or not) we have here during the monsoons in Arizona.
Just yesterday we had a pretty humid day, and they came out in full force - I am up in an office on the fourth floor - and they were still loud!
Yes - you and the other poster have a good point, and one that I missed - the research and materials involved _do_ cost a lot, and thus the actual paper and publication is probably only a small fraction of all that.
As far as moderation by "smart geeks" and "laymen" is concerned, the way I would want it structured would be the more "insightful", etc type posts, the higher the karma (with no karma capping), and you would gain higher status for the review. Established practitioners could come in with a preset karma, while laymen/geeks would come in with zero karma, and have to work their way up. Hopefully some of those with the highest karma (ie, the scientists) would moderate those with bad ideas, suggestions, etc - down, and hopefully some of those would be meta-moderators as well.
Just because someone is considered a layman (ie, doesn't have phd tacked onto the end of their name), doesn't mean their intelligence and ability to reason is any less than someone who isn't - it just means they have gone down a different path in life. I am not saying all laymen are fit to review such papers - but I would wager a fair percentage are smarter than you would think (though having a background in the subject being considered would be much more helpful than just being book taught).
As I understand it, the process for a paper to appear in the journal goes something like this:
1. Individual writes paper. 2. Individual submits paper to journal. 3. Journal sends paper for review to peers. 4. Paper may be rejected or need changes, goto 1. 5. Paper is accepted. 6. Paper is printed in journal. 7. Individual buys journal to see paper.
Now, the expensive part (for the individual) lies in step 7 - that expense is to recoup the cost the publisher of the journal incurs for steps 3-6 (staff, mailing, printing, etc).
All this still has to be replicated (well, aside from the printing and buying part) for internet distribution.
Someone mentioned doing all of this via a k5 or/. style engine - which is an excellent plan, actually - but the rub with that idea is that such a site, in order to handle the number of viewers (which could get quite large - especially when/. gets wind of the URL!), you need a central server site - which costs money - which leads back to step 7.
What doesn't cost money (or at least - what only costs the money that the individual submitting the paper is willing to go through)? Personal web site for the paper! However, how do you get peer review?
What about a something akin to a webring - but with posting, moderation, peer review - basically a distributed Slashdot! Could this be done? Personally, I think it could - each individual who wants to publish would set up a node, on which papers could be reviewed, published, updated, moderated, commented upon, etc - the owner of the node would be responsible for its upkeep. These nodes would be connected to each other in groups - possibly by "area of interest" (biology, physics, etc) - all could be connected to each other, or possibly through a central node (maybe hosted by the NSF?) - and all nodes would communicate to each other ratings, etc - of the papers on the individual hosted nodes.
Now, the only ones bearing the cost are the individuals - by bringing in moderation, meta-moderation, karma (or whatever else you want to call it) - you could open it up to everyone - scientist, laymen and geeks alike - thus you would gradually get a collection of "peers" - composed not only of scientists, but of really smart laymen and geeks, giving you feedback on the papers, etc - those same laymen and geeks would also be able to set up nodes of their own, if they are so inclined - allowing the various garage scientists to collaborate as well, amongst each other, and with the more "monied" scientists (both corporate and grant-funded researchers).
Does this sound like something that would be useful? Does it sound reasonable? Does it sound like something that could work?
Well, if the shady spot is moving, put the connect somewhere halfway in between.
BTW - we are talking serial comms here, not ethernet. According to this FAQ:
The RS-232 specification defines the the maximum length of serial cable to be 75 feet at 9,600 bps. This is a pretty conservative figure and has been stretched as far as several thousand feet, especially at this baud rate.
Even if we were talking 10BaseT or 100BaseT here, you still have 100 meters as spec, and I am certain that is conservative as well - but that is over 300 feet!
As far as the garage is concerned, it should be possible to reach it in some manner - but given the situation, I would forego the access - it just doesn't sound worth it. Still, it could be done - it wouldn't be easy, and you might need to get help from neighbors (to string the cable on the outside of the building) - but it could be done (the hard part would be getting the building owner or landlord, depending on the situation, to allow you to do it, or to sneak it past them).
Your point about the ethernet outlet is taken - but that is why every self respecting geek brings along a battery powered hub before jacking in.
...as much as most other/.'ers - but as far as using it for open source and making money from the software, it seems to be a real difficult thing to do. What about this as a solution - while not GPL, it might allow the making of money from open source software:
Basically, when you bought the product, you would receive the source, with a license stating that you could only share the source and any modifications with other license holders of the software, as well as with the company - in fact, make it a necessity that the company gets the mods , so the new users/buyers of the software get the mods as well in their copy of the source. Maybe have some kind of CVS system set up for all of this.
The license would have to state that any sharing of the source or binaries outside the group would be prohibited. Finally, the license would have to state that in the event that the company goes under, is bought out, etc - that the source would be automatically transferred to GPL status.
Would this even work? Would it be appealing? I am looking at this and am thinking it isn't that appealing (I am a GPL zealot for the most part), but it would make money. I also have this nagging idea that this is already being done by a company, but I can't put my finger on it.
This isn't too bad of an idea - disregarding the fact that computers are rarely stolen from homes, since they depreciate so quickly, by the time the thief got it to a hock shop, the damn thing is most likely obsolete...
Really, though - in theory, if one could get a "sheet" of lead - ie, about 14-15 inches on the side and 1.5-2 inches thick - well, bolt that to the side of your tower lid (on the inside of the left cover, if you are facing the front of the machine) - of course, your tower may lean and/or fall over to the left now...
A flat blade shovel (to lift up the grass chunks carefully) and a bit of work to lay a PVC conduit would work fine for this.
My friend's apartment, one floor down and on the other side of the hallway.
Tougher, but doable given enough ingenuity (pop the cable out a window, perhaps?) - possible use unused phone lines, and rewire the junction box (just don't get caught).
The garage
Surely you can run a wire to the garage through the attic, right?
The coffee shop I live upstairs from
Tougher, but if you are a regular customer, and they aren't a Starbucks (what I mean is if they are a mom-n-pop joint), maybe you can get them to allow you to run the cable. Or perhaps set up an arrangement, get a fractional T1 and supply internet access to the coffee shop? This one would take some work...
I am not saying that a wire is right for all applications - but for most apps, it easily and inexpensively does the trick, provided you are willing to go to the effort and sweat to install the thing.
What is in between 300 feet that you can't string a simple cable?
If you absolutely have to have wireless, look into radio modems (also known as packet radio). Most of these are relatively inexpensive, small, and easy to use. Most require some kind of backend transmitter/receiver - a cheap hacked CB would work.
Also, look up homebrew lasercomm systems - some of these use actual lasers (here is one such project) - I have seen one (Ronja) that uses high brightness LEDs.
There are many solutions to this problem - but the cheapest (not to mention easiest, and quickest) one is a cable.
I recently bought the personal version of 7.2 - to use to update my 6.3 box. Being a relative newbie on Linux, I had my doubts and "fears" on doing the update (after all, it was a major version upgrade). I wasn't sure the update would work properly, or that something would break after reboot, or what...
I figured something would go wrong - how could it go smooth?
But you know something - it did! The update worked great - no problems at all. Reboot happened and everything was fine...
Ok, not everything was fine - everything worked and appeared OK - but I found that X4.0 hadn't replaced the old X, though KDE updated fine. The kernel didn't get updated either (that was my own fault, in a way - earlier I had patched my 2.2.13 kernal, that comes standard with SuSE 6.3, to 2.2.14, to fix a bug with the parallel port zip drive. I had placed the vmlinuz in/, and told Lilo to look there, based on the patching HOW-TO - SuSE 7.2 places the new kernel in/boot - so I had to simply repoint Lilo, and reboot to fix the issue - still have to rebuild the kernel anyhow, and customise it, cause I lost joystick support).
Even so, with all that - I am highly pleased with the results. I have updated a lot of my software, and KDE2 is a joy to use and see. I have a love/hate relationship with the NVidia drivers for my TNT card now (I was using the "reference" source drivers - or whatever they were - under X3 - but they don't work for 4) - they are faster, but I hate that damn logo - anybody know how to get rid of it (the only reference I found was something involving a hex edit patching of a binary - not something I really want to do).
I am really pleased. I loved the update so much, I really want to see how/what a virgin install is like, on a brand new system. Something tells me "simple as pie"...
That Dimitri was the "clean room" RE specialist for developing the software for Elcomsoft?
Under the DMCA, one is supposed to be allowed to reverse engineer, provided it is done in "clean room" fashion (ie, where there is a third party that describes how the device works to the party doing the building of the workalike device - such that those doing the developing never come into contact with the original device - thus "clean").
What the hell is going on here? Is this true - or am I reading something into this here due to the broken english (nothing against you or anyone else whose first language isn't english, mind you - I just don't know if I am reading this correctly)...
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I probably am good enough to do this under Windows - but I hate M$'s business practices, and their software is shit.
I am a Linux "convert" - I run SuSE Linux 7.2 at home, currently learning Perl. At work I do VB and Java coding. I have seen the code of the ILoveYou virus - it is dead simple. I am certain these other "viruses" are similar in scope. I am aware of various virus coding sites, and I keep up from time to time on the "underground" - side hobby of mine.
I could probably patch together such a "virus" as described, and even release it without leaving behind a "trail". The only thing keeping me from doing anything like this is that I know ultimately it wouldn't benefit anybody, not even myself - and would be unlikely to affect Microsoft, either. All it would cause would be anger, lost time, and money. So why do it? Of course, all of these other viruses out there do the same thing - so someone either is really fucked up in the head, or there must be some kind of motive.
Boggles me...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Yes I would - If there was a series of speakers, heck - even one speaker (hell, I would volunteer to speak!) - I would be willing to attend.
If such a thing ever occurs, I propose that we do an actual march/walk to the site where the rally would be held - say over the course of 10-20 miles. Hold the rally for a couple of days - camp out if need be.
I am tired of all this shit - I want my rights - all of them!
What the hell, people? Why aren't more people replying to this comment? Do any of you really care? WTF??!!
I have written my congressmen about this issue - I will be participating in the Saturday meet in Phoenix (missed last saturday, and can't get off work for today's meet - but I will be there this weekend!).
What does it take?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
You know it and I know it, and I am certain that most people here on /. know it, too.
I tend to wonder if these "viruses" we have been seeing are merely "shots across the bow", so to speak. I mean - why hasn't a virus as you described come out yet?
Most of the source code to these viruses is available for free, if you know where to search.
It is obvious that MS products are buggy, full of holes to exploit, and rarely patched - not to mention that users of the systems tend to be lazy and ingnorant about security precautions - constantly clicking to see the next naked Brittany Spears image - so why haven't we seen true chaos yet?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Sure, right now they are all hackable...
But really - there is no way to easily increase storage, or put shows "off-line" or to an external array...
Think about it - why do VCRs exist? The law says that time-shifting is legal. So many of us "time-shift" shows to a tape - so we may watch them again and again - including shows that we may never see again! I have all the episodes of X-Files on tape, as well as all the episodes of Millenium. Which one will most likely go into syndication? X-Files. Millenium will never be seen from again - but I have a copy I can watch again if I want to (including the pilot episode - which has never been rerun, AFAIK - due to the graphic violence portrayed in it).
Guess what? With these PVRs - time-shifting is still allowed - but archiving goes out the door. Slap the DMCA on top of encrypted content - disallow recording shows that you have to pay for (if you can record them at all) - and force subscribed content - and you have a televisions exec's wet dream.
Furthermore, you will never be able to watch those old shows - only what they want to allow you to watch.
This is why I am keeping my VCR as long as I can - at least until HDTV becomes standard - when that occurs, I might just chuck my TV.
Unless we can build an open homebrew platform for movie and TV watching, at-home TV entertainment is screwed as we know it.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Prior to this, the best sounding speech synthesis I had heard was from the Festival system, which is still pretty good - epecially considering it has an open source license, something the AT&T system doesn't.
Another good speech synthesizer, no doubt an early version of the AT&T one (possibly?), is by Lucent.
Still, I am amazed at the quality of the AT&T system - it sounds almost perfectly natural. To the naysayers that say "No, it isn't natural" - what all of you have to realize is that this simply demo doesn't allow you to tweak all the variables that would really allow the inflections or type of voice (like whispering, etc) to really come through - it is too bad they don't give an advanced interface with a FAQ or some other form of documentation to allow this, but I imagine that if they did, it would probably take quite a while to compose even a simple sentence (I remember the hell you had to go through with an old Radio Shack speech synth for the Color Computer, specifying individual phoenomes (sp?) just to get proper speech to come out - it could pronounce many words, but others it just fell flat on its face).
Finally - something I want everyone to ponder. Take a look at this old article (it was about Square redubbing FFTM) - once it loads, search for "cr0sh" and "I dare say" - you will come across a series of comments about what I think may happen in the future - what is funny is that the comments in reply to my take on things sound like your typical naysayers. How many computers were we supposed to only need back in the 60's? How much memory would people "only" need again Mr. Gates?
What I predict will come about - probably sooner than we can all imagine. It may not be cheap enough to do it now, at a quality that people would watch, fast enough to be done quicker than what can be done with live actors - but it is all software and hardware - this stuff will get faster and cheaper. Anybody who has been in this business long enough knows that it will happen. There might still be a need for actors, and voice artists, and such - but they probably won't have the "god" status society seems to confer on them now (with the exception, perhaps, of stage acting - which will probably enjoy a huge comeback).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Remember the computer history books - a large collection of these is essential to any library, to see where this all started from, and where it may be heading to.
There are a few good recently published "History of Computers" books, but honestly, the best way to get a history of computers is to find older computer reference books (ie, books which when sold presented "state-of-the-art" information about computers - I have some real interesting ones from the 40's and 50's).
Books on Babbage, Pascal, Lord Kelvin, Ada Lovelace, Alan Turing, etc - would also be welcome additions to such a section. Throw in books on Hollerith, as well. Add recent stuff (hacker history - like the Jargon File, etc - and others), as well as more "popular" stuff - like "The Media Lab" and Steven Levy's "Hackers"...
Gotta know where all this came from, and where are roots are, as well...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Do not even attempt to try to do ANY of this stuff until you have read up and fully understand the consequences of failure! Once you understand that, start experimenting, and take as many precautions as you can to protect your body.
I had an email conversation with this guy on Friday (7/27), and I can tell you that I still have a ton of questions. He did say that a pulse jet engine could probably be built using off the shelf parts (steel piping and exhaust piping) - but it wouldn't last as long as using stainless steel piping (read: expensive) - but that much of the rusting and corrosion could be slowed by using high temp engine header paint.
Typical pulse jets use a form of spring steel (or blade steel) reed or flap valves - that tend to wear out after a while (because of the flexing). In his conversations, he told me that he had hit upon a way to make a new type of valve (in both design and materials used) that actually lasts many times longer than common designs - in effect, advancing the state of the art for pulse jet engines.
These devices can be dangerous - he shows one engine that he built that "exploded", but ripped down the side of the exhaust pipe as planned (he welded it to fail that way). Even so, it caused a lot of surrounding damage - buckling a nearby garage door. Had he not designed the pipe to fail (say, instead he had used common steel pipe) - it most likely would've caused significantly more damage - possibly lethal damage.
Valved pulse jet engines are harder to build, mainly because of the machining of the valve. The valveless designs are much easier to construct - I am willing to wager that such a design could be built using common pipe and parts found at an Auto Zone and Home Depot. Probably take a few hours to put together (weekend project?), then a little longer to tweak and "tune" the engine to running resonance (once more, I must mention that reading up on how these engines work is important - better to build an engine than a potential bomb).
Realize that pulsejet engines tend to glow red, sometimes near-white hot (actually, if built from standard, non-stainless steel pipe, it will fail before it gets that hot - blowing apart in a shower of hot steel first) when in operation for an extended (>5 min) period of time. They are LOUD - louder than you can possibly imagine. Being around one of these running engines for too long can desensitise your nerve endings - then when they resensitise afterward, they become hyper-sensitive for an extended (> 3 days) period - where every sound/touch/etc - is PAINFUL. Just ask Mark Pauline from SRL (I helped him set up for a pulsejet demo here in Phoenix last year - that engine was valveless as well - and quite powerful).
So, in short - learn about them as much as you can, see one in operation first to know what kind of power you are dealing with (I heartily recommend an SRL demo, if at all possible), then learn some more - finally, buy the best parts, take the right precautions, keep a fire extinguisher and another person nearby in case of emergency - work outside or in a WELL ventilated large area. Know what you are dealing with - and maybe, just maybe - you will only walk away with a few burns, if you are lucky.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
The article most likely could have been summed up as:
"If you run a system without a firewall and it is hooked up to the internet, be prepared to be cracked at some point, sooner rather than later."
All I have to say about this is "Duh!".
Actually, learning the techniques and tools used could be helpful - I will give it that much.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Well, I know they aren't real firewalls - but that is how they are typically marketed. And your point about static routes is well taken (I actually plan at some point to try to set up a web server for bookmarks, and FreeSco makes it pretty easy to select a port and route it where you want - but it definitely won't be to my main box).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I don't know about a penny, but I have seen what happens when a bolt fall off the top of an oil derrick and hits someone's helmet:
Think 2 inch deep impact mark.
Fortunately, the helmet was steel, and the person I knew who had this happen to him (I was a kid at the time) didn't get killed...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
In theory, I could walk out of my employer's office with a few ZIP disks filled with their code.
But why bring a ZIP drive to work when I can go down to supplies, grab a box of CD-Rs, find a machine with a burner, and burn away?
The whole issue is trust - I trust them not to watch me, and they trust me not to use their own equipment to scam code...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
OK - I admit I only scanned this article - but in their explanation of the honeypot, they seem to indicate that there was no form of a firewall set up in front of the machines in the honeypot.
I currently run FreeSco on my homebrew firewall, which is a simple NAT affair. It seems to run well, but sometimes I tend to wonder if it (and associated connected systems) might get rooted.
I check the logs on occasion - but I am not a grand admin - so while I can tell from the logs when a portscan for 138/139 is occurring (SMB) - other possible probes would elude me.
Or am I reading this wrong - was the honeypot protected with a cheapo (read "consumer") firewall product (like a DLink or Linksys router/firewall)?
If not, what would the statistics have looked like if it was?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Where the heck did you manage to find a first edition (and if I may ask, how much did it cost)?
I personally love books, and I really try to seek out older books (one of my favorites is a Coynes School text book from the 30's - detailing the latest in TV systems - including Nipkow disk scanning techniques) - but have yet to find anything much over 100 years old that strikes my interest (what I mean is I have found many 100-150 year old books - but none were on subjects that I fancy). Being able to find such an edition of an encyclopedia would make my day (I think the oldest book I have is an algebra primer from the late 1800's) - provided it didn't break the bank.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Right.
I wish I could mod this up - Britannica does stand for quality - my parents scraped enough together to get me two different sets of Britannica (one an older set for everyday reference, the other a current set for occasional reference, as well as each yearbook every year up until a few years ago) when I was younger. The quality of that encyclodpedia, compared to cheesy things like Comptons, or World Book (I think that is right) - uncomparable. Brittanica ruled.
I hope they stay in business - someday I would like to purchase a quality bound encyclopedia for my library - and I would like it to be Brittanica.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
I hope not!!! I just listened to all the MP3s - and these things sound similar to the bugs (not sure if they are cicada's or not) we have here during the monsoons in Arizona.
Just yesterday we had a pretty humid day, and they came out in full force - I am up in an office on the fourth floor - and they were still loud!
If this is the sound it makes - aggggh!!!
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Which is one of the reasons why I suggested a web ring approach, with a central server run by the NFS - there would be the archive.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Yes - you and the other poster have a good point, and one that I missed - the research and materials involved _do_ cost a lot, and thus the actual paper and publication is probably only a small fraction of all that.
As far as moderation by "smart geeks" and "laymen" is concerned, the way I would want it structured would be the more "insightful", etc type posts, the higher the karma (with no karma capping), and you would gain higher status for the review. Established practitioners could come in with a preset karma, while laymen/geeks would come in with zero karma, and have to work their way up. Hopefully some of those with the highest karma (ie, the scientists) would moderate those with bad ideas, suggestions, etc - down, and hopefully some of those would be meta-moderators as well.
Just because someone is considered a layman (ie, doesn't have phd tacked onto the end of their name), doesn't mean their intelligence and ability to reason is any less than someone who isn't - it just means they have gone down a different path in life. I am not saying all laymen are fit to review such papers - but I would wager a fair percentage are smarter than you would think (though having a background in the subject being considered would be much more helpful than just being book taught).
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
As I understand it, the process for a paper to appear in the journal goes something like this:
/. style engine - which is an excellent plan, actually - but the rub with that idea is that such a site, in order to handle the number of viewers (which could get quite large - especially when /. gets wind of the URL!), you need a central server site - which costs money - which leads back to step 7.
1. Individual writes paper.
2. Individual submits paper to journal.
3. Journal sends paper for review to peers.
4. Paper may be rejected or need changes, goto 1.
5. Paper is accepted.
6. Paper is printed in journal.
7. Individual buys journal to see paper.
Now, the expensive part (for the individual) lies in step 7 - that expense is to recoup the cost the publisher of the journal incurs for steps 3-6 (staff, mailing, printing, etc).
All this still has to be replicated (well, aside from the printing and buying part) for internet distribution.
Someone mentioned doing all of this via a k5 or
What doesn't cost money (or at least - what only costs the money that the individual submitting the paper is willing to go through)? Personal web site for the paper! However, how do you get peer review?
What about a something akin to a webring - but with posting, moderation, peer review - basically a distributed Slashdot! Could this be done? Personally, I think it could - each individual who wants to publish would set up a node, on which papers could be reviewed, published, updated, moderated, commented upon, etc - the owner of the node would be responsible for its upkeep. These nodes would be connected to each other in groups - possibly by "area of interest" (biology, physics, etc) - all could be connected to each other, or possibly through a central node (maybe hosted by the NSF?) - and all nodes would communicate to each other ratings, etc - of the papers on the individual hosted nodes.
Now, the only ones bearing the cost are the individuals - by bringing in moderation, meta-moderation, karma (or whatever else you want to call it) - you could open it up to everyone - scientist, laymen and geeks alike - thus you would gradually get a collection of "peers" - composed not only of scientists, but of really smart laymen and geeks, giving you feedback on the papers, etc - those same laymen and geeks would also be able to set up nodes of their own, if they are so inclined - allowing the various garage scientists to collaborate as well, amongst each other, and with the more "monied" scientists (both corporate and grant-funded researchers).
Does this sound like something that would be useful? Does it sound reasonable? Does it sound like something that could work?
Comments?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Well, if the shady spot is moving, put the connect somewhere halfway in between.
BTW - we are talking serial comms here, not ethernet. According to this FAQ:
The RS-232 specification defines the the maximum length of serial cable to be 75 feet at 9,600 bps. This is a pretty conservative figure and has been stretched as far as several thousand feet, especially at this baud rate.
Even if we were talking 10BaseT or 100BaseT here, you still have 100 meters as spec, and I am certain that is conservative as well - but that is over 300 feet!
As far as the garage is concerned, it should be possible to reach it in some manner - but given the situation, I would forego the access - it just doesn't sound worth it. Still, it could be done - it wouldn't be easy, and you might need to get help from neighbors (to string the cable on the outside of the building) - but it could be done (the hard part would be getting the building owner or landlord, depending on the situation, to allow you to do it, or to sneak it past them).
Your point about the ethernet outlet is taken - but that is why every self respecting geek brings along a battery powered hub before jacking in.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
...as much as most other /.'ers - but as far as using it for open source and making money from the software, it seems to be a real difficult thing to do. What about this as a solution - while not GPL, it might allow the making of money from open source software:
Basically, when you bought the product, you would receive the source, with a license stating that you could only share the source and any modifications with other license holders of the software, as well as with the company - in fact, make it a necessity that the company gets the mods , so the new users/buyers of the software get the mods as well in their copy of the source. Maybe have some kind of CVS system set up for all of this.
The license would have to state that any sharing of the source or binaries outside the group would be prohibited. Finally, the license would have to state that in the event that the company goes under, is bought out, etc - that the source would be automatically transferred to GPL status.
Would this even work? Would it be appealing? I am looking at this and am thinking it isn't that appealing (I am a GPL zealot for the most part), but it would make money. I also have this nagging idea that this is already being done by a company, but I can't put my finger on it.
Comments?
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
This isn't too bad of an idea - disregarding the fact that computers are rarely stolen from homes, since they depreciate so quickly, by the time the thief got it to a hock shop, the damn thing is most likely obsolete...
Really, though - in theory, if one could get a "sheet" of lead - ie, about 14-15 inches on the side and 1.5-2 inches thick - well, bolt that to the side of your tower lid (on the inside of the left cover, if you are facing the front of the machine) - of course, your tower may lean and/or fall over to the left now...
:)
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
The shady spot under the tree in the backyard.
A flat blade shovel (to lift up the grass chunks carefully) and a bit of work to lay a PVC conduit would work fine for this.
My friend's apartment, one floor down and on the other side of the hallway.
Tougher, but doable given enough ingenuity (pop the cable out a window, perhaps?) - possible use unused phone lines, and rewire the junction box (just don't get caught).
The garage
Surely you can run a wire to the garage through the attic, right?
The coffee shop I live upstairs from
Tougher, but if you are a regular customer, and they aren't a Starbucks (what I mean is if they are a mom-n-pop joint), maybe you can get them to allow you to run the cable. Or perhaps set up an arrangement, get a fractional T1 and supply internet access to the coffee shop? This one would take some work...
I am not saying that a wire is right for all applications - but for most apps, it easily and inexpensively does the trick, provided you are willing to go to the effort and sweat to install the thing.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
What is in between 300 feet that you can't string a simple cable?
If you absolutely have to have wireless, look into radio modems (also known as packet radio). Most of these are relatively inexpensive, small, and easy to use. Most require some kind of backend transmitter/receiver - a cheap hacked CB would work.
Also, look up homebrew lasercomm systems - some of these use actual lasers (here is one such project) - I have seen one (Ronja) that uses high brightness LEDs.
There are many solutions to this problem - but the cheapest (not to mention easiest, and quickest) one is a cable.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Go out and _buy_ the ISO!
/, and told Lilo to look there, based on the patching HOW-TO - SuSE 7.2 places the new kernel in /boot - so I had to simply repoint Lilo, and reboot to fix the issue - still have to rebuild the kernel anyhow, and customise it, cause I lost joystick support).
I recently bought the personal version of 7.2 - to use to update my 6.3 box. Being a relative newbie on Linux, I had my doubts and "fears" on doing the update (after all, it was a major version upgrade). I wasn't sure the update would work properly, or that something would break after reboot, or what...
I figured something would go wrong - how could it go smooth?
But you know something - it did! The update worked great - no problems at all. Reboot happened and everything was fine...
Ok, not everything was fine - everything worked and appeared OK - but I found that X4.0 hadn't replaced the old X, though KDE updated fine. The kernel didn't get updated either (that was my own fault, in a way - earlier I had patched my 2.2.13 kernal, that comes standard with SuSE 6.3, to 2.2.14, to fix a bug with the parallel port zip drive. I had placed the vmlinuz in
Even so, with all that - I am highly pleased with the results. I have updated a lot of my software, and KDE2 is a joy to use and see. I have a love/hate relationship with the NVidia drivers for my TNT card now (I was using the "reference" source drivers - or whatever they were - under X3 - but they don't work for 4) - they are faster, but I hate that damn logo - anybody know how to get rid of it (the only reference I found was something involving a hex edit patching of a binary - not something I really want to do).
I am really pleased. I loved the update so much, I really want to see how/what a virgin install is like, on a brand new system. Something tells me "simple as pie"...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Are you saying what I think you are saying?
That Dimitri was the "clean room" RE specialist for developing the software for Elcomsoft?
Under the DMCA, one is supposed to be allowed to reverse engineer, provided it is done in "clean room" fashion (ie, where there is a third party that describes how the device works to the party doing the building of the workalike device - such that those doing the developing never come into contact with the original device - thus "clean").
What the hell is going on here? Is this true - or am I reading something into this here due to the broken english (nothing against you or anyone else whose first language isn't english, mind you - I just don't know if I am reading this correctly)...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!