Yep, it's one of the oldest lessons in the book. NEVER trust the client. ALWAYS do any authentication, state-management, etc on the SERVER side.
I preached about this to Blizzard Entertainment for ages (via email, and on their forums) and they STILL don't get it. The client should only get access to the data it needs, and any data from the client must be sanitized and verified before being accepted.
In the case of cable modems in a WAN, relying on the customer-installed cable modem, residing on their property -- where you DON'T have full control of it, to handle security or resource management is like asking people at the buffet to only take one plate of food.
The best way cable ISP's can handle this is to have the first tier routers do bandwidth shaping, and put both soft and hard caps in place. If you exceed the soft cap for more than N minutes, you get clamped, and you can't exceed the hard cap at all.
Of course, if we could just make spamming a capital crime, there would be PLENTY of bandwidth to go around!:)
Disclaimer: I'm NOT one of the lucky people who can get insane transfer rates like this... so this is hypothetical to me.:(
So what? If you buy a car that can go 200MPH, and you find a nice straight road that has a big neon sign saying "NO SPEED LIMIT", and you go ahead and drive 200MPH, how is that YOUR fault when the road crews come along and say you can't drive on their road anymore because it damages the pavement?
If they don't want people to use what they're paying for, then they should stop advertising an unlimited service. I have NO sympathy for a company that lies to their customers and refuses to provide common-sense information when asked for it.
I would encourage people to abuse the hell out of their service and when they get cut off, form a class-action suit. This is clearly false advertising, and this company needs to lose both money and face so they'll learn from their mistakes and not do it again.
I *DO* sympathize with the people who are just trying to play Diablo and keep dying due to the lag...
We've discovered a security problem where computers that receive tcp/ip packets are vulernable to various attacks.
To protect yourself from these attacks, plese type each tcp/ip packet by hand into your editor, print them out and mail them to their destination. When the reply arrives, please type them in by hand to ensure no malicious trojans sneak their way into your tcp/ip stack.
It's interesting how all the big ideas of the 1940s and 1950s have come to nothing
Easily explained by this simple equation:
Rate of Progress = Hours of Research / Number of Lawyers
I'm not being sarcastic, sarcasm is inappropriate citizen.
We can't eat meat because animals are thinking creatures, and it looks like plants now fall into the same category. Which leaves only one source of food that we know does NOT think...
Well, yes, there are two ways to win most games. You can try to outperform your opponents, and thus finish first, or best, or whatever metric shows that you won... or you can try to remove your opponents so that you win by default.
Soooooo, you mean I can no longer print out my own Monopoly Money???? Bastards!
Seriously, what if I'm a game designer (I wish!) and wanted to print out samples of a game currancy to play-test something? My printer decides it's real money and won't do it?
Why is everyone suddenly convinced that products need to protect themselves? There are ALREADY laws making counterfeit a crime. There are already laws making the use of counterfeit currency a crime. There is this thing called a court system, where they used to hold things called trials... and if guilt can be established (yeah, they used to have to PROVE guilt, weird huh?) people went to jail.
Now, everyone is a criminal, so the products just don't let you use them for anything that MIGHT be a crime. I can only assume that Thought Crime is almost ready, and that anyone who might even be thinki...
Having been a big fan of both TOS and TNG, I am actually rather happy to see B&B's version go down in flames. I feel bad for the actors, who are probably just getting into their parts and thinking of ways to really improve their characters (despite the drivel they're handed each week). I will miss seeing the overall story arc move closer to resolution... oh wait, they don't HAVE a story arc beyond the current season yet...
The Next Generation was the last Star Trek show that Gene Roddenberry had a real part in producing, and it shows. As his involvement diminished, he turned more and more control over to Beavis and... er.. Brennan and Braga. The quality of the programmes diminished in lockstep. Enterprise was a last-ditch effort to save the franchise without taking it away from B&B, who clearly have no idea how to run something like this. It reminds me of the death-spiral of Doctor Who, resulting mostly from JNT's mismanagement and equally poor writing.
IMHO, the only way to revive this undead horse is to fire those two and get someone in there who actually cares about the show. One of them (I forget which) is quoted as being proud to have never seen an episode of the original Star Trek... and he's in charge of producing the new ones!
If you want to see what constant fan pressure, and people who really care about the show can do, just look back to what happened when The Next Generation was spawned. Nobody expected it to have a chance, following in the footsteps of TOS, and it was a bit shaky but those in charge at the time paid attention. Also, check out the Doctor Who section of the BBCi website -- that show's revival is still over a year away and they're already releasing flash-animated short stories featuring some of the new characters.
B&B would never do that. It doesn't fit their teenage-boy marketing segment analysis. It assumes the viewer has some intelligence and might overlook cheap graphics in favour of a story-line.
So, if Enterprise must be sacrificed so that the franchise can be freed from the infidels.... so be it!
I don't have a problem watching commercials for FREE television broadcasts. However, when I pay for my television programming (both "pay channels" and cable/subscription-based satellite), I don't think I need to pay a second time by being forced to watch commercials.
Likewise, if I had free network access (ah, the good old days), commercials would be an annoyance, but one I could live with. Since I pay for my internet service, I don't think the burden of maintaining dumbass.com's website should be mine. I pay my own fees for connectivity, domain names, and equipment.
Maybe if the people trying to foist advertising on everyone would make a product that was worth something, intrinsicly, they wouldn't have to resort to commercials to sell it?
Oh well, I already run ad-blocking software, I'm sure this just means there will be more frequent updates.
when was the last time those of you who live in democracies voted?
Well, unfortunately, we in the US live in a representative democracy... AKA an oligarchy. We don't have the opportunity to vote on 99% of the issues that are pertinant, becuase they are not in our local district (the only things we CAN vote on directly). As a result, we have to trust the representatives we elect to do the voting.
Of course, the odds that a given representative will agree with you on any random item are close to NIL, since the only thing you know about them is where they stand on the big-ticket issues. An otherwise pro-free-speech congressman may have business dealings with a particular book publisher, and thus bow to their request to allow a censorship law to pass. Or, they may just have a personal beef against radio and shoot down anything to do with radio, even though they pass free speech measures elsewhere.
So, yes, the patent office doesn't do their job. There's not much we, as individuals, can do about it until and unless a member of the oligarchy decides to become publically annoyed with the USPTO.
Sorry, I'm sure I hold current patents on the disassembly and reassembly of collections of subatomic particles, as instantiated in complex systems of atoms and molecules, for the purposes of archival, transmission, or deletion.
Oh, and my secretary tells me I have a patent pending on the use of the legal system to obtain monetary redress and compensation for percieved infringement of thoughts and ideas. So whatever you were going to reply, please remit payment first!
Hmmmm, troll looks HUNGRY.. guess I'll toss a bone.
I, personally, am deeply offended by the insane attempts of far too many otherwise intelligent people in this decade to bury the age-old stereotypes, differences of belief, and general feelings beneath a very thin veneer of political correctness. What's so wrong about being honest?
I'm not against integration, and I cherish diversity. Learning about other cultures is a good thing, but pretending they aren't different when they are is stupid. If wearing a red shirt is offensive to the group of people who were extras on ST:TOS, should everyone stop wearing red shirts because they MIGHT feel bad? I'd suggest that those people who become upset over P.C. issues should ask themselves why they're upset... and maybe grow up a little.
Where are the Satanists to defend their beliefs? Seriously, if Christians can get all bent out of shape at the logo of a devil, why can't Satanists demand that the cross be banned from public display because it offends them? Either it works both ways, or not at all.
The logo in question is being dragged through the mud because a few religious zealots woke up and started looking at free operating systems and saw a devil? What, are they so stupid that they assumed this literally meant "Satan Inside"? Didn't the cute smile tip them off about the concept of caricature?
I checked my calendar... it's not 040401 yet, and 040104 has passed (YYMMDD anyways), so let's repost this when the time is right.
Of course, with a stupid name like KISS Technologies, they're destined to fail one way or another (unless they jump into cosmetics or pr0n pretty quick!)
Attention does not imply correctness. Popularity does not imply correctness.
No one ever said it did... but even bad publicity is still publicity. The great(TM) thing about a capitalist society is that money is the root of all achievement, and the end goal of every endeaver. There's no better way (in this society) to get people to buy your product than to get its name plastered everywhere you can. If SCO were just another unix company, selling a good product, and behaving itself... would anyone care?
The fact is, a good number of my non-technical friends have heard of SCO -- becaue of this ongoing soap-opera. They know Darl's name! It doesn't matter (to SCO) how things turn out, they have made and will continue to make boatloads of money. If they win, they'll have oil-tanker sized mounds of cash and be in a position to establish a mini-monopoly alongside Bill. If they lose, they can sell things off and everyone involved STILL gets nice ocean-liner sized payouts.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Bill making Darl a few promises about the future if things do turn out bad for Linux. Afterall, he needs to get his server market back, and Windows Server 2003 isn't going to do it.
What we've forgotten is that it's NOT a holy war of Open Source vs. Evil Proprietary Code. It's not about linux vs. SCO... it's about *MONEY*, and that's all it has ever been about. For all we know, Darl himself might be a linux fan, but being one won't get him a new personal jet. Having his company in a position to sue thousands of corporate users for license infringment (if he wins) will. Boosting his stock value (even if he loses) and slowly selling parts of it off, also will.
Sugars and starchs are simply not available in large consistenet quantities to hunter/gatherers dominant for the previous 90,000 years.
So, hunter/gatherer types never foraged for fruit? While meat would be a big part of a nomadic tribe's diet, I'm pretty sure they'd also eat any fruit or vegetables that were in the area and didn't kill anyone. Starch might have been harder to come by, but there are lots of kinds of fruit and berries around -- all of which have tons of sugar (just not processed sugar).
A no-carb diet may help you burn off excess fat (if it doesn't destroy your liver, or give you a heart attack in the process), but a balanced diet is more likely to keep you healthy.
BTW: I'm still waiting for those fat-consuming nanobots that will just take all my excess flesh and turn it into a faster CPU for my cranial co-processor.... c'mon Wintel, what's the holdup here?
You realize that before they made a fuss, people would have (maybe) noticed the line about the Hatians and had a small chuckle or two before going about their buisness in the game. NOW, they're going to find that line and think "Yeah, damn Hatians trying to ruin a perfectly good game because they have no sense of humor".
Way to be devisive and make sure you're always treated differently than everyone else guys. Equality means equal, as in equal rights AND equal rights to be ridiculed. If you can take the latter, you don't deserve the former.
I'm not addicted to caffeine (as in, I don't get headaches), but I have another addiction that's probably almost as bad. I keep having to breathe air. If I stop breathing for more than a few minutes, my chest hurts and I start to get light-headed until I breathe again. I don't have the will-power to break this addiction myself...
*grin*
Actually, to be somewhat helpful, a few people I know who were addicted found that switching to half decaf/ half normal coffee helped quite a bit. Basically, you get enough caffeine to stop the headaches from forming, but still less than normal so your system starts adjusting to the new levels. If you keep cutting down the non-decaf portions, you should eventually be caffeine-free. You could do the same for Coca-cola if you feel like mixing them in another bottle.
Of course, another friend of mine started trying to quit and eventually said "Why am I doing this?" and went back to full caffeine.
In other news, Eskimos in arctic wasteland discovered to be using stone knives and bearskins. When their grunts and gestures were translated, they claimed that "it was good enough for my grandfather!"
Slashdot Mirror
Yep, it's one of the oldest lessons in the book. NEVER trust the client. ALWAYS do any authentication, state-management, etc on the SERVER side.
:)
I preached about this to Blizzard Entertainment for ages (via email, and on their forums) and they STILL don't get it. The client should only get access to the data it needs, and any data from the client must be sanitized and verified before being accepted.
In the case of cable modems in a WAN, relying on the customer-installed cable modem, residing on their property -- where you DON'T have full control of it, to handle security or resource management is like asking people at the buffet to only take one plate of food.
The best way cable ISP's can handle this is to have the first tier routers do bandwidth shaping, and put both soft and hard caps in place. If you exceed the soft cap for more than N minutes, you get clamped, and you can't exceed the hard cap at all.
Of course, if we could just make spamming a capital crime, there would be PLENTY of bandwidth to go around!
Disclaimer: I'm NOT one of the lucky people who can get insane transfer rates like this... so this is hypothetical to me. :(
So what? If you buy a car that can go 200MPH, and you find a nice straight road that has a big neon sign saying "NO SPEED LIMIT", and you go ahead and drive 200MPH, how is that YOUR fault when the road crews come along and say you can't drive on their road anymore because it damages the pavement?
If they don't want people to use what they're paying for, then they should stop advertising an unlimited service. I have NO sympathy for a company that lies to their customers and refuses to provide common-sense information when asked for it.
I would encourage people to abuse the hell out of their service and when they get cut off, form a class-action suit. This is clearly false advertising, and this company needs to lose both money and face so they'll learn from their mistakes and not do it again.
I *DO* sympathize with the people who are just trying to play Diablo and keep dying due to the lag...
We've discovered a security problem where computers that receive tcp/ip packets are vulernable to various attacks.
To protect yourself from these attacks, plese type each tcp/ip packet by hand into your editor, print them out and mail them to their destination. When the reply arrives, please type them in by hand to ensure no malicious trojans sneak their way into your tcp/ip stack.
and you thought your silly blocking software could stop us!
Am I the only one who heard this and immediately pictured the Holy Grail scene with the Black Knight?
"Your computer has crashed!"
"It's only a flesh wound, have at you!"
for the Humanitarians!
We can't eat meat because animals are thinking creatures, and it looks like plants now fall into the same category. Which leaves only one source of food that we know does NOT think...
I'm a free.... oh, wait.
Nope, I am not 192.168.49.100, I'm a free 192.168.50.6!
Well, yes, there are two ways to win most games. You can try to outperform your opponents, and thus finish first, or best, or whatever metric shows that you won... or you can try to remove your opponents so that you win by default.
SCO has chosen the second option.
Soooooo, you mean I can no longer print out my own Monopoly Money???? Bastards!
Seriously, what if I'm a game designer (I wish!) and wanted to print out samples of a game currancy to play-test something? My printer decides it's real money and won't do it?
Why is everyone suddenly convinced that products need to protect themselves? There are ALREADY laws making counterfeit a crime. There are already laws making the use of counterfeit currency a crime. There is this thing called a court system, where they used to hold things called trials... and if guilt can be established (yeah, they used to have to PROVE guilt, weird huh?) people went to jail.
Now, everyone is a criminal, so the products just don't let you use them for anything that MIGHT be a crime. I can only assume that Thought Crime is almost ready, and that anyone who might even be thinki...
Yes officer! No Sir! I was only&#**.,as83f
NO CARRIER
Having been a big fan of both TOS and TNG, I am actually rather happy to see B&B's version go down in flames. I feel bad for the actors, who are probably just getting into their parts and thinking of ways to really improve their characters (despite the drivel they're handed each week). I will miss seeing the overall story arc move closer to resolution... oh wait, they don't HAVE a story arc beyond the current season yet...
... er.. Brennan and Braga. The quality of the programmes diminished in lockstep. Enterprise was a last-ditch effort to save the franchise without taking it away from B&B, who clearly have no idea how to run something like this. It reminds me of the death-spiral of Doctor Who, resulting mostly from JNT's mismanagement and equally poor writing.
The Next Generation was the last Star Trek show that Gene Roddenberry had a real part in producing, and it shows. As his involvement diminished, he turned more and more control over to Beavis and
IMHO, the only way to revive this undead horse is to fire those two and get someone in there who actually cares about the show. One of them (I forget which) is quoted as being proud to have never seen an episode of the original Star Trek... and he's in charge of producing the new ones!
If you want to see what constant fan pressure, and people who really care about the show can do, just look back to what happened when The Next Generation was spawned. Nobody expected it to have a chance, following in the footsteps of TOS, and it was a bit shaky but those in charge at the time paid attention. Also, check out the Doctor Who section of the BBCi website -- that show's revival is still over a year away and they're already releasing flash-animated short stories featuring some of the new characters.
B&B would never do that. It doesn't fit their teenage-boy marketing segment analysis. It assumes the viewer has some intelligence and might overlook cheap graphics in favour of a story-line.
So, if Enterprise must be sacrificed so that the franchise can be freed from the infidels.... so be it!
I don't have a problem watching commercials for FREE television broadcasts. However, when I pay for my television programming (both "pay channels" and cable/subscription-based satellite), I don't think I need to pay a second time by being forced to watch commercials.
Likewise, if I had free network access (ah, the good old days), commercials would be an annoyance, but one I could live with. Since I pay for my internet service, I don't think the burden of maintaining dumbass.com's website should be mine. I pay my own fees for connectivity, domain names, and equipment.
Maybe if the people trying to foist advertising on everyone would make a product that was worth something, intrinsicly, they wouldn't have to resort to commercials to sell it?
Oh well, I already run ad-blocking software, I'm sure this just means there will be more frequent updates.
An articles about a joystick, which promotes exercising various muscles, and does NOT involve pr0n??? Somebody dropped the ball somewhere here...
If this doesn't interest you, you must be a traitor. Please report yourself to the nearest incineration booth.
All hail the computer!
Of course, the odds that a given representative will agree with you on any random item are close to NIL, since the only thing you know about them is where they stand on the big-ticket issues. An otherwise pro-free-speech congressman may have business dealings with a particular book publisher, and thus bow to their request to allow a censorship law to pass. Or, they may just have a personal beef against radio and shoot down anything to do with radio, even though they pass free speech measures elsewhere.
So, yes, the patent office doesn't do their job. There's not much we, as individuals, can do about it until and unless a member of the oligarchy decides to become publically annoyed with the USPTO.
Sorry, I'm sure I hold current patents on the disassembly and reassembly of collections of subatomic particles, as instantiated in complex systems of atoms and molecules, for the purposes of archival, transmission, or deletion.
Oh, and my secretary tells me I have a patent pending on the use of the legal system to obtain monetary redress and compensation for percieved infringement of thoughts and ideas. So whatever you were going to reply, please remit payment first!
Hmmmm, troll looks HUNGRY.. guess I'll toss a bone.
I, personally, am deeply offended by the insane attempts of far too many otherwise intelligent people in this decade to bury the age-old stereotypes, differences of belief, and general feelings beneath a very thin veneer of political correctness. What's so wrong about being honest?
I'm not against integration, and I cherish diversity. Learning about other cultures is a good thing, but pretending they aren't different when they are is stupid. If wearing a red shirt is offensive to the group of people who were extras on ST:TOS, should everyone stop wearing red shirts because they MIGHT feel bad? I'd suggest that those people who become upset over P.C. issues should ask themselves why they're upset... and maybe grow up a little.
Where are the Satanists to defend their beliefs? Seriously, if Christians can get all bent out of shape at the logo of a devil, why can't Satanists demand that the cross be banned from public display because it offends them? Either it works both ways, or not at all.
The logo in question is being dragged through the mud because a few religious zealots woke up and started looking at free operating systems and saw a devil? What, are they so stupid that they assumed this literally meant "Satan Inside"? Didn't the cute smile tip them off about the concept of caricature?
I checked my calendar... it's not 040401 yet, and 040104 has passed (YYMMDD anyways), so let's repost this when the time is right.
Look, I don't care WHAT the RFID scanner says, it's a candy bar, not a stick of C2!
It looks like SCO does indeed have a fan!
Of course, with a stupid name like KISS Technologies, they're destined to fail one way or another (unless they jump into cosmetics or pr0n pretty quick!)
their web site is running on one of these things... probably in someone's pocket (ow!).
The fact is, a good number of my non-technical friends have heard of SCO -- becaue of this ongoing soap-opera. They know Darl's name! It doesn't matter (to SCO) how things turn out, they have made and will continue to make boatloads of money. If they win, they'll have oil-tanker sized mounds of cash and be in a position to establish a mini-monopoly alongside Bill. If they lose, they can sell things off and everyone involved STILL gets nice ocean-liner sized payouts.
I wouldn't be at all surprised to see Bill making Darl a few promises about the future if things do turn out bad for Linux. Afterall, he needs to get his server market back, and Windows Server 2003 isn't going to do it.
What we've forgotten is that it's NOT a holy war of Open Source vs. Evil Proprietary Code. It's not about linux vs. SCO... it's about *MONEY*, and that's all it has ever been about. For all we know, Darl himself might be a linux fan, but being one won't get him a new personal jet. Having his company in a position to sue thousands of corporate users for license infringment (if he wins) will. Boosting his stock value (even if he loses) and slowly selling parts of it off, also will.
A no-carb diet may help you burn off excess fat (if it doesn't destroy your liver, or give you a heart attack in the process), but a balanced diet is more likely to keep you healthy.
BTW: I'm still waiting for those fat-consuming nanobots that will just take all my excess flesh and turn it into a faster CPU for my cranial co-processor.... c'mon Wintel, what's the holdup here?
You realize that before they made a fuss, people would have (maybe) noticed the line about the Hatians and had a small chuckle or two before going about their buisness in the game. NOW, they're going to find that line and think "Yeah, damn Hatians trying to ruin a perfectly good game because they have no sense of humor".
Way to be devisive and make sure you're always treated differently than everyone else guys. Equality means equal, as in equal rights AND equal rights to be ridiculed. If you can take the latter, you don't deserve the former.
I feel your pain.
I'm not addicted to caffeine (as in, I don't get headaches), but I have another addiction that's probably almost as bad. I keep having to breathe air. If I stop breathing for more than a few minutes, my chest hurts and I start to get light-headed until I breathe again. I don't have the will-power to break this addiction myself...
*grin*
Actually, to be somewhat helpful, a few people I know who were addicted found that switching to half decaf/ half normal coffee helped quite a bit. Basically, you get enough caffeine to stop the headaches from forming, but still less than normal so your system starts adjusting to the new levels. If you keep cutting down the non-decaf portions, you should eventually be caffeine-free. You could do the same for Coca-cola if you feel like mixing them in another bottle.
Of course, another friend of mine started trying to quit and eventually said "Why am I doing this?" and went back to full caffeine.
In other news, Eskimos in arctic wasteland discovered to be using stone knives and bearskins. When their grunts and gestures were translated, they claimed that "it was good enough for my grandfather!"