Personally, I hate video games. But figuring out how a system works, now THAT is fun. Building linux from scratch using the lfs book (http://linuxfromscratch.org/) that is fun. If you don't want to do it, that's fine, but why disparage the efforts of those who do enjoy it?
I don't have or want an Xbox, but I can understand how much fun it would be to get one to boot linux. Then again, I'm an electrical engineer, so there's probably something wrong with me to start with.
MM --
Re:doesnt this have an adverse effect
on
LinuXbox Boots
·
· Score: 1
Well, considering that the people who are doing this are partially motivated by hatred of Microsoft, I would say that driving up the cost of the games is not one of their concerns. In fact, if they cause the entire Xbox endeavor to fail (I'm not saying they will), they will most likely call that a huge success.
Yeah, but if I understand correctly, there is no ordinary BIOS on the xbox, so someone had to write one. That might well be just as hard as porting linux!
Besides, for a lot of people, doing this sort of thing is fun as an ends to itself.
If a criminal really wants your data or kid, they can still take it from you and now the method they have to use to take it really sucks for you or your kid... ouch.
This is the logic of appeasement, which I believe is a bankrupt approach to dealing with hostility. In fact, the attitude that we should just give criminals what they want so they will go away is one of the biggest problems with our society today, IMO. The policy of appeasing hijackers was one of the things that allowed the Sep 11 attack to succeed. The everyday philosophy of appeasing criminals is encouraging more criminals.
Just watch, anyone who puts up a fight against a mugger or other robber is typically denounced by the media for being foolish and taking too much of a risk.
But I say fight to keep what is yours. Never give in unless someone has clearly got the drop on you with a weapon or whatever. Make it harder for criminals to succeed. Heck, if you just fork-over your wallet or purse, the cops probably won't even investigate the crime (depends where it happens), so you are basically letting the bad guy off scott-free.
Instead, scream, kick, punch, yell. If he's going to take something from you (I know, I'm assuming the perp is a male), make him assault you to get it. Then the cops will have to try to find the guy. If I thought this would result in a lot more assaults, I wouldn't be saying it. I think it will discourage the weak-spirited criminals, and allow law-enforcement effort to be focused on the worst offenders.
Also, if you can inflict wounds on the perp, they can help quite a bit in identifying him immediately after the attack. (Sorry officer, I didn't get a good look at him, but hear is his left ear.)
The de-pressurisation would possibly kill everyone anyway
That is pure and total FUD. The air-marshalls are being armed with rounds which may well be capable of piercing the fuselage. The primary criterion for round selection was high probability of stopping the perpetrator (you can take that to mean lead with a partial metal jacket and a hollow- or soft-point). A plane is not going to de-pressurize rapidly from a -.38 or 0.44" diameter hole. Once the action starts, the pilot can descend to a safe altitude (~3,000 M, say) Furthermore, such a round will not exit from a human body with enough energy left to do a whole lot of damage.
I would feel more safe on an airplane where many people were KNOWN to be armed than on one where everyone is KNOWN to be un-armed. The problem isn't guns, it's bad guys with guns. It's OK for the good guys to have guns. Sheesh.
Hmmm, I am pretty sure I remember a thread on/. a long time ago where it was conclusively proved (hah, hah) that speed of sound depends much more critically on temperature than on pressure.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Since I don't know what Cp and Cv are, I am not sure how this jibes with your equation.
Most of the calculators I find on a google search don't even ask what the pressure is, but only the temperature and humidity.
From the SECOND PARAGRAPH of the article: "Michel Fournier...will pass through temperatures as low as minus 115C and reach a top speed of Mach 1.68 (1,680kph at that height)..."
The first paragraph says this: "A retired French army colonel is soon to make mankind's biggest jump with a 40,000-metre free fall - that's 25 miles"
So, since the original article was metric-centric, why are you just repeating information that was in the article in the first place?
Besides, your implied criticism isn't fair to the article, since it mentioned metric units first in the article body. It was only the headline that used archaic units (miles).
Also, it is perilous to translate Mach into an actual speed if you don't know the conditions. So you really did a great disservice my claiming that mach 1.68 is 2000 kph.
OK, but the original author said that no common editor supports soft wrapping. He also said that 'even vi...only support[s] "hard wrapping."'
Since vim is a common editor and it supports soft wrapping, it's pretty clear that the author was incorrect.
Also, on many systems vi is really a sym-link to vim, in which case the assertion that vi supports only hard-wrapping is wrong.
As for the orignal, ancient vi, the author is probably correct that it doesn't support soft wrapping, but I doubt that the original vi is used much on linux or open source xBSD's, so I don't think the author meant to refer to the original vi. But since he didn't elaborate I can only guess.
You may know this already, but for the benefit of any others lurking, you should flush first (-F), then set the policy (with the -P, as above), then enable any traffic you want. With an unmodified policy of deny, reject, reject, you are effectively cut off from the internet altogether, and if that is what you wanted, you would most likely just pull out the cable.
It is some kind of old-fashioned NVP that really isn't used right now. Check this out:
Detection
=========
Any network traffic using an unusual protocol should be suspect. This tool uses protocol 11, but could easily be recompiled to use another protocol. As protocol 11 is not currently used, any network traffic using this protocol should be assumed to be communication between handlers and agents of this tool. The signature for detecting agent / handler communication was described in the previous section.
Note that the source address of a packet from handler -> agent should not be assumed to be the actual address of the handler. The source address in the IP header is most likely to be spoofed. Similarly, data from agent -> handler is often faked to increase the difficulty of tracing the attacker's whereabouts.
To hide from casual detection, the agent changes its process name to [mingetty]. This is the standard getty for RedHat, and Slackware versions pre 7.0.
To detect a running agent on a system, netstat can be used to determine if any processes are using protocol 11. The following command and response shows a running agent process.
# netstat -pan | grep raw | grep:11 raw 0 0 0.0.0.0:11 0.0.0.0:* 7 5226/[mingetty]
If found, all instances of mingetty should be killed (to ensure that children are caught as well). This will kill valid mingetty processes as well, but they will be respawned by the init process.
I suggest you read the info on the pages referenced in the top-level post. Here is an excerpt.
Detection
=========
Any network traffic using an unusual protocol should be suspect. This tool uses protocol 11, but could easily be recompiled to use another protocol. As protocol 11 is not currently used, any network traffic using this protocol should be assumed to be communication between handlers and agents of this tool. The signature for detecting agent / handler communication was described in the previous section.
Note that the source address of a packet from handler -> agent should not be assumed to be the actual address of the handler. The source address in the IP header is most likely to be spoofed. Similarly, data from agent -> handler is often faked to increase the difficulty of tracing the attacker's whereabouts.
To hide from casual detection, the agent changes its process name to [mingetty]. This is the standard getty for RedHat, and Slackware versions pre 7.0.
To detect a running agent on a system, netstat can be used to determine if any processes are using protocol 11. The following command and response shows a running agent process.
# netstat -pan | grep raw | grep:11 raw 0 0 0.0.0.0:11 0.0.0.0:* 7 5226/[mingetty]
If found, all instances of mingetty should be killed (to ensure that children are caught as well). This will kill valid mingetty processes as well, but they will be respawned by the init process.
The system should immediately be taken off the network and analysed to determine how the attacker gained root access.
I don't believe it would do you any harm to block protocol 11. I would recommend that you block all protocols except for udp, icmp, and tcp, while you are at it. In fact, you can probably allow TCP and UDP only if you are a home user. I would just allow ICMP for the hell of it. Just set up a default incoming policy for all packets of "DROP," then accept all TCP packets, or all TCP packets meeting certain criteria, as desired. iptables allows you to specify protocols by number or name in a rule, using the "-p" parameter. You should be able to block everything except TCP with something like:
iptables -F INPUT iptables -P INPUT DROP iptables -A INPUT -p TCP -j ACCEPT
if you also want to accept UDP (you do), then add this: iptables -A INPUT -p UDP -j ACCEPT
for ICMP: iptables -A INPUT -p ICMP -j ACCEPT
Note that ping, and a variety of other things, use ICMP, so I reccommend that you enable it.
Proper firewall configuration is a complex topic (and I'm not an expert at it). What I have posted above is not intended to create a safe firewall. I am hoping that you can figure the rest out yourself, or modify the above to suit your needs.
I guess what it comes down to is whether you have a sense of pride about how you speak and write. If you do, you will attempt to follow the rules of usage.
Certainly if your aim is to make a good impression on those who may have an academic or pedantic streak (which includes far more people than you may realize) you should avoid misusing words and phrases.
For example, do you spell check your resume? I mean, why bother, I'm sure everyone will know what you mean.
I believe that it is bad form to use words such as "irregardless" and "ain't" in formal communication with people you don't really know. It makes a bad impression.
And I believe that those who misuse terms like "beg the question" make themselves look ignorant. It's not a big deal in on-line forums and what-have-you, but when TV newscasters or reporters do it, I think it looks bad, because these people are supposed to know better.
I think I am with you 100 percent. I just wasn't sure (IANAL) whether the Supreme court had the flexibility to strike down parts of a law without a severability clause. (If they can, then why do some people bother with the clauses in the first place?)
I don't want to dismiss the rest of the arguments completely, but I am most convinced by the retroactive argument.
I don't believe that Hamidi's behavior should be illegal, and as I understand it, no one is trying to say that on its face, Hamidi's behavior was illegal. What is at stake is whether he may be enjoined from doing what he was doing. Please correct me if I am wrong.
What I believe is after the first round of emails, it should be possible for intel to obtain a restraining order (or other enjoinder) against him forbidding him from emailing any xxx@intel.com address. In the scenario of a restraining order, I don't believe free speech really comes into it that much. Afterall, if you are the subject of a restraining order, you are not allowed to talk to certain people at all (as I understand it). No one (AFAIK) worries that this is a 1st ammendment issue.
No one is proposing a new law here or a new interpretation of an existing law. The question is whether someone may be enjoined from emailing employees of a corporation. I believe the only possible challenge would come from labor law precedent.
I read about 60% of the opening brief and I find it VERY convincing when it argues that retroactive extensions of copyright are unconstitutional.
Does anyone know whether the various acts extending copyright have severability clauses in them? If not, does that mean that the extensions might be struck down entirely? That could be a bombshell.
I would like to read some arguments submitted by Ashcroft/US on this matter, however.
I see what you are saying. Nevertheless, as long as there is a concept that a threshold must be crossed, in terms of number of emails sent and an unambiguous warning issued beforehand, I'm not sure that the trespass to chattel precedent bothers me that much. Maybe I just haven't thought it through well enough.
If the judges make no mention of the neccessity for a warning ahead of time and for egregiousness in terms of number of emails or addressees, then this COULD be a bad precedent. But otherwise it doesn't bother me that much.
I do think it makes Intel look VERY bad, but I have a low opinion of them to begin with. The culture is extremely paranoid and anti-competitive. If I were Intel, I would be quietly praying for the whole thing to go away instead of escalating the matter to CA supreme court. They are really making it appear that there is indeed information which they desperately wish to keep from their employees.
Just my $0.02
MM --
Re:Here's another something to chew on...
on
More on Intel v. Hamidi
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
It would be perfectly legal for Mr. Hamidi to have called each and every one of these employees and given them a piece of his mind. People can hang up, not be at their desk, or screen calls with caller ID if they wanted to avoid him. I don't think there are many (if any) legal precedents in this area that show this to be illegal.
I think you are wrong.
Say he called Jane, an Intel employee, and pestered her so much she told him not to call again. If he called Jane again, despite her protestations, couldn't she conceivably have a restraining order placed against him because he is harrassing her? In any event, I can pretty much guarantee you that he would be enjoined before he finished calling all 29,000 Intel employees on his list. There is no "right to harrass," nor should there be, in my opinion.
"There is no more new frontier-- we have got to make it here."
That's from an Eagle's song, actually, but it's quite apt. US citizens should stay in the US and help fix it so that it works the way it is supposed to. To a certain extent, anyone who leaves is selling out his or her fellow citizens. Afterall, if the people who care about liberty and justice all leave, who will be left?
We have a responsibility to stay here. Let's not forget that in addition to Civil Liberties, we have Civic Duties.
Anyway, in my opinion the most onerous thing about the ruling is that Kaplan enjoined 2600 from LINKING to websites that have deCSS (or similar). I believe this is a clear violation of freedom of speech/freedom of the press. The rest of the judgement is almost silly, because if you accept that deCSS is a circumvention device, then all the things that 2600 is not allowed to do (save linking) are already illegal under the DMCA anyway.
Furthermore, it's not like 2600 is the only place you can find this stuff anyway. That makes the permanent injunction seem unfair and arbitrary. That is, what the court has provided is not practically speaking relief, but rather a form of revenge.
Slashdot Mirror
Go ahead, amuse yourself.
Personally, I hate video games. But figuring out how a system works, now THAT is fun. Building linux from scratch using the lfs book (http://linuxfromscratch.org/) that is fun. If you don't want to do it, that's fine, but why disparage the efforts of those who do enjoy it?
I don't have or want an Xbox, but I can understand how much fun it would be to get one to boot linux. Then again, I'm an electrical engineer, so there's probably something wrong with me to start with.
MM
--
Well, considering that the people who are doing this are partially motivated by hatred of Microsoft, I would say that driving up the cost of the games is not one of their concerns. In fact, if they cause the entire Xbox endeavor to fail (I'm not saying they will), they will most likely call that a huge success.
MM
--
Yeah, but if I understand correctly, there is no ordinary BIOS on the xbox, so someone had to write one. That might well be just as hard as porting linux!
Besides, for a lot of people, doing this sort of thing is fun as an ends to itself.
--
MM
Sounds like I unfairly accused you of endorsing appeasement. Sorry. ;-)
Best of luck.
MM
--
This is the logic of appeasement, which I believe is a bankrupt approach to dealing with hostility. In fact, the attitude that we should just give criminals what they want so they will go away is one of the biggest problems with our society today, IMO. The policy of appeasing hijackers was one of the things that allowed the Sep 11 attack to succeed. The everyday philosophy of appeasing criminals is encouraging more criminals.
Just watch, anyone who puts up a fight against a mugger or other robber is typically denounced by the media for being foolish and taking too much of a risk.
But I say fight to keep what is yours. Never give in unless someone has clearly got the drop on you with a weapon or whatever. Make it harder for criminals to succeed. Heck, if you just fork-over your wallet or purse, the cops probably won't even investigate the crime (depends where it happens), so you are basically letting the bad guy off scott-free.
Instead, scream, kick, punch, yell. If he's going to take something from you (I know, I'm assuming the perp is a male), make him assault you to get it. Then the cops will have to try to find the guy. If I thought this would result in a lot more assaults, I wouldn't be saying it. I think it will discourage the weak-spirited criminals, and allow law-enforcement effort to be focused on the worst offenders.
Also, if you can inflict wounds on the perp, they can help quite a bit in identifying him immediately after the attack. (Sorry officer, I didn't get a good look at him, but hear is his left ear.)
MM
--
DADA: The FAA and many other organizations have tested the idea that a gun could take an airplane down, and that is UNTRUE.
Reality Master 101:Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.
ME: No, really, it's total BS. The air-marshalls will be armed with ammo that probably will pierce the fuselage. They are not worried about it.
MM
--
The de-pressurisation would possibly kill everyone anyway
That is pure and total FUD. The air-marshalls are being armed with rounds which may well be capable of piercing the fuselage. The primary criterion for round selection was high probability of stopping the perpetrator (you can take that to mean lead with a partial metal jacket and a hollow- or soft-point). A plane is not going to de-pressurize rapidly from a -.38 or 0.44" diameter hole. Once the action starts, the pilot can descend to a safe altitude (~3,000 M, say) Furthermore, such a round will not exit from a human body with enough energy left to do a whole lot of damage.
I would feel more safe on an airplane where many people were KNOWN to be armed than on one where everyone is KNOWN to be un-armed. The problem isn't guns, it's bad guys with guns. It's OK for the good guys to have guns. Sheesh.
MM
--
Hmmm, I am pretty sure I remember a thread on /. a long time ago where it was conclusively proved (hah, hah) that speed of sound depends much more critically on temperature than on pressure.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Since I don't know what Cp and Cv are, I am not sure how this jibes with your equation.
Most of the calculators I find on a google search don't even ask what the pressure is, but only the temperature and humidity.
MM
--
You wrote:
"1.68 Mach [dry air, 273 Kelvin] = 2005.6498391999999 kilometers/hour"
From the SECOND PARAGRAPH of the article:
"Michel Fournier...will pass through temperatures as low as minus 115C and reach a top speed of Mach 1.68 (1,680kph at that height)..."
The first paragraph says this:
"A retired French army colonel is soon to make mankind's biggest jump with a 40,000-metre free fall - that's 25 miles"
So, since the original article was metric-centric, why are you just repeating information that was in the article in the first place?
Besides, your implied criticism isn't fair to the article, since it mentioned metric units first in the article body. It was only the headline that used archaic units (miles).
Also, it is perilous to translate Mach into an actual speed if you don't know the conditions. So you really did a great disservice my claiming that mach 1.68 is 2000 kph.
MM
--
Mach is always relative to the speed of sound where the travelling body is.
I believe that's why they use Mach instead of specifying an actual velocity or speed.
MM
--
OK, but the original author said that no common editor supports soft wrapping. He also said that 'even vi...only support[s] "hard wrapping."'
Since vim is a common editor and it supports soft wrapping, it's pretty clear that the author was incorrect.
Also, on many systems vi is really a sym-link to vim, in which case the assertion that vi supports only hard-wrapping is wrong.
As for the orignal, ancient vi, the author is probably correct that it doesn't support soft wrapping, but I doubt that the original vi is used much on linux or open source xBSD's, so I don't think the author meant to refer to the original vi. But since he didn't elaborate I can only guess.
MM
--
Heh, it has 2600.net listed (crim.skills), but not 2600.com. (they both go to the same place)
At a former employer the firewall blocked 2600.net, but allowed me to browse 2600.com. I wonder if there is a connection?
MM
--
I believe it will take care of everything.
You may know this already, but for the benefit of any others lurking, you should flush first (-F), then set the policy (with the -P, as above), then enable any traffic you want. With an unmodified policy of deny, reject, reject, you are effectively cut off from the internet altogether, and if that is what you wanted, you would most likely just pull out the cable.
MM
--
I like to ping once and a while. Sometimes its a quick and easy way to see where the problem is.
MM
--
As they say in Autstralia, "no worries, Mate."
By the time I looked at the thread again, your first comment was modded down to -1, anyway, so I had to change my threshold to even read it.
take care!
MM
--
It is some kind of old-fashioned NVP that really isn't used right now. Check this out: Have a nice day.
MM
--
I don't believe it would do you any harm to block protocol 11. I would recommend that you block all protocols except for udp, icmp, and tcp, while you are at it. In fact, you can probably allow TCP and UDP only if you are a home user. I would just allow ICMP for the hell of it. Just set up a default incoming policy for all packets of "DROP," then accept all TCP packets, or all TCP packets meeting certain criteria, as desired. iptables allows you to specify protocols by number or name in a rule, using the "-p" parameter.
You should be able to block everything except TCP with something like:
iptables -F INPUT
iptables -P INPUT DROP
iptables -A INPUT -p TCP -j ACCEPT
if you also want to accept UDP (you do), then add this:
iptables -A INPUT -p UDP -j ACCEPT
for ICMP:
iptables -A INPUT -p ICMP -j ACCEPT
Note that ping, and a variety of other things, use ICMP, so I reccommend that you enable it.
Proper firewall configuration is a complex topic (and I'm not an expert at it). What I have posted above is not intended to create a safe firewall. I am hoping that you can figure the rest out yourself, or modify the above to suit your needs.
I have to run, so good luck.
MM
--
I guess what it comes down to is whether you have a sense of pride about how you speak and write. If you do, you will attempt to follow the rules of usage.
Certainly if your aim is to make a good impression on those who may have an academic or pedantic streak (which includes far more people than you may realize) you should avoid misusing words and phrases.
For example, do you spell check your resume? I mean, why bother, I'm sure everyone will know what you mean.
I believe that it is bad form to use words such as "irregardless" and "ain't" in formal communication with people you don't really know. It makes a bad impression.
And I believe that those who misuse terms like "beg the question" make themselves look ignorant. It's not a big deal in on-line forums and what-have-you, but when TV newscasters or reporters do it, I think it looks bad, because these people are supposed to know better.
MM
--
OK, thanks. I think I finally get it now.
The link to harvard really helped.
best regards,
MM
--
I think I am with you 100 percent. I just wasn't sure (IANAL) whether the Supreme court had the flexibility to strike down parts of a law without a severability clause. (If they can, then why do some people bother with the clauses in the first place?)
I don't want to dismiss the rest of the arguments completely, but I am most convinced by the retroactive argument.
Anyway, thanks for answering the question.
MM
--
OK, here's my view.
I don't believe that Hamidi's behavior should be illegal, and as I understand it, no one is trying to say that on its face, Hamidi's behavior was illegal. What is at stake is whether he may be enjoined from doing what he was doing. Please correct me if I am wrong.
What I believe is after the first round of emails, it should be possible for intel to obtain a restraining order (or other enjoinder) against him forbidding him from emailing any xxx@intel.com address. In the scenario of a restraining order, I don't believe free speech really comes into it that much. Afterall, if you are the subject of a restraining order, you are not allowed to talk to certain people at all (as I understand it). No one (AFAIK) worries that this is a 1st ammendment issue.
No one is proposing a new law here or a new interpretation of an existing law. The question is whether someone may be enjoined from emailing employees of a corporation. I believe the only possible challenge would come from labor law precedent.
Just my $0.02
MM
--
I read about 60% of the opening brief and I find it VERY convincing when it argues that retroactive extensions of copyright are unconstitutional.
Does anyone know whether the various acts extending copyright have severability clauses in them? If not, does that mean that the extensions might be struck down entirely? That could be a bombshell.
I would like to read some arguments submitted by Ashcroft/US on this matter, however.
MM
--
I see what you are saying. Nevertheless, as long as there is a concept that a threshold must be crossed, in terms of number of emails sent and an unambiguous warning issued beforehand, I'm not sure that the trespass to chattel precedent bothers me that much. Maybe I just haven't thought it through well enough.
If the judges make no mention of the neccessity for a warning ahead of time and for egregiousness in terms of number of emails or addressees, then this COULD be a bad precedent. But otherwise it doesn't bother me that much.
I do think it makes Intel look VERY bad, but I have a low opinion of them to begin with. The culture is extremely paranoid and anti-competitive. If I were Intel, I would be quietly praying for the whole thing to go away instead of escalating the matter to CA supreme court. They are really making it appear that there is indeed information which they desperately wish to keep from their employees.
Just my $0.02
MM
--
I think you are wrong.
Say he called Jane, an Intel employee, and pestered her so much she told him not to call again. If he called Jane again, despite her protestations, couldn't she conceivably have a restraining order placed against him because he is harrassing her? In any event, I can pretty much guarantee you that he would be enjoined before he finished calling all 29,000 Intel employees on his list. There is no "right to harrass," nor should there be, in my opinion.
MM
--
"There is no more new frontier--
we have got to make it here."
That's from an Eagle's song, actually, but it's quite apt. US citizens should stay in the US and help fix it so that it works the way it is supposed to. To a certain extent, anyone who leaves is selling out his or her fellow citizens. Afterall, if the people who care about liberty and justice all leave, who will be left?
We have a responsibility to stay here. Let's not forget that in addition to Civil Liberties, we have Civic Duties.
Anyway, in my opinion the most onerous thing about the ruling is that Kaplan enjoined 2600 from LINKING to websites that have deCSS (or similar). I believe this is a clear violation of freedom of speech/freedom of the press. The rest of the judgement is almost silly, because if you accept that deCSS is a circumvention device, then all the things that 2600 is not allowed to do (save linking) are already illegal under the DMCA anyway.
Furthermore, it's not like 2600 is the only place you can find this stuff anyway. That makes the permanent injunction seem unfair and arbitrary. That is, what the court has provided is not practically speaking relief, but rather a form of revenge.
MM
--