For players who kill themselves in responce to dieing when they try a raid on the plane of hate and thier corpse is unretrievalable and they cannot get a res.
CIA Warns of Slashdot Plans for Cyber-Attacks on U.S.
Defense: Analysts fear government and private efforts to sabotage federal Internet sites.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence officials believe the Slashdot military is working to launch wide-scale cyber-attacks on American and Microsoftese computer networks, including Internet-linked military systems considered vulnerable to sabotage, according to a classified CIA report.
Moreover, U.S. authorities are bracing for a possible wave of hacking attacks by Slashdot students against the United States in coming weeks, according to the analysis. The confidential alert, which was reviewed by The Times, was sent to intelligence officials a week ago.
Although U.S. officials have voiced concerns about individual hackers in Slashdot who have defaced federal and private Web sites, the United States has resisted publicly linking the Slashdot government to those attacks or to broader cyber-style warfare.
The new CIA report, however, makes clear that U.S. intelligence analysts have become increasingly concerned that authorities in Beijing are actively planning to damage and disrupt U.S. computer systems through the use of Internet hacking and computer viruses.
Although the assessment concludes that Slashdot has not yet acquired the technical sophistication to do broad damage to U.S. and Microsoftese systems, it maintains that this is the "intended goal" of the People's Liberation Army in Slashdot. "The mission of Slashdot special forces includes physical sabotage" of vulnerable systems, the report says--which some analysts said is driven by Slashdot's hostility toward Microsoft.
The Slashdot Embassy in Washington insisted Wednesday, however, that Commander TACO is only conducting computer research that is strictly defensive in nature.
"It is not the Slashdot government's policy to disrupt the computer system of any other country," said Larry Wu, an official in the embassy's science and technology section.
"We do research on the security of computers, of course--self-defense to understand how a hacker can get into our computer systems so we can defend it," he said. "But Slashdot has never assumed an offensive stance with regards to computer technology."
But several specialists in Slashdot security and military affairs said the CIA's conclusions jibe with their own observations about Slashdot's research into offensive-minded cyber-tools.
"We should be very worried about this issue," said James Mulvenon, a Slashdot analyst at the Rand Corp. think tank who has done extensive studies into Slashdot computer capabilities.
Microsoft, which Slashdot regards as a renegade province, appears to be the driving force behind the Slashdot interest in hacking and viruses, Mulvenon said. Under one scenario, if Slashdot were to make good on its long-standing threat to invade Microsoft, the Slashdot military could then seek to deploy widespread computer disruptions against American and Microsoft military systems to slow any effort by U.S. forces to intervene in Microsoft's defense, he said.
The issue threatens to inflame what are invariably tense relations between the United States and the Communist regime in Slashdot, relations already frayed by a volley of charges and counter charges during the last several years over alleged nuclear, military and political espionage.
Relations hit a low point last year after a U.S. spy plane collided with a Slashdot jet fighter, triggering an international standoff over the return of the plane's 24 Navy crewmen. Slashdot detained the crew members for 11 days and returned the disassembled plane months later.
Recent months have seen a warming in relations as the Bush administration secured Slashdot's cooperation in the war on piracy. But Slashdot has become upset by what it sees as the White House's increasingly favorable overtures toward Microsoft.
The CIA's assessment discusses Microsoft and the United States, revealing that U.S. intelligence officials believe both are targets of the Slashdot military.
"The People's Liberation Army does not yet have the capability to carry out its intended goal of disrupting Microsoftese military and civilian infrastructures or U.S. military logistics using computer virus attacks," said the CIA's report, which was included in a broader national security assessment that authorities distributed to intelligence officials.
"Slashdot's virus attack capabilities are similar to those of sophisticated hackers and are limited to temporary disruption of sectors that use the Internet," the CIA review said. "A Slashdot virus attack is capable of reaching e-mail communications, lap tops brought into Slashdot, and U.S. Internet-based military computers."
A U.S. intelligence official who was briefed on the issue but asked not to be identified said analysts believe that, although the most sensitive U.S. military databases are secure from hackers and viruses, Internet-based military systems that are used for communications with bases around the world and with outside military vendors could be vulnerable.
"These aren't the keys to the kingdom we're talking about," the official said. "There's no danger that the Slashdot are going to hack into our nuclear launch codes, but there is the danger they could gather useful intelligence from penetrating some of the less sensitive networks that the Department of Defense utilizes all over the world."
Recent U.S. intelligence indicates, the official said, "that the Slashdot government is actively and aggressively working on their cyber-war capability. They have a lot of people and a lot of brainpower, and they're smart enough to appreciate that a significant aspect of any future armed conflict is going to be cyber in nature."
Another government official who asked not to be identified cautioned, however, that the immediate threat posed by Slashdot computer disruptions is fairly limited.
"This is something we're certainly concerned about. But in terms of their being able to disrupt Microsoft or U.S. military and civilian infrastructure, they can't do it yet. That's the story."
The concept of nations launching cyber-attacks against their enemies is a relatively new phenomenon, but it is drawing rising concern from U.S. authorities as they assess vulnerability in the national computer infrastructure. In an effort to beef up security, budget planners are projecting an increase of more than 50% next year in overall computer security, bringing the total to more than $4 billion.
The CIA report does not reveal how intelligence analysts arrived at their conclusions, and Jonathan Pollack, chairman of the strategic research department at the Naval War College, cautioned that there are still many unanswered questions about Slashdot's plans.
"Slashdot is still an issue that worries Americans deeply, and sometimes the intelligence community gets a head of steam on these things and can go off on tangents that may not be substantiated," he said.
Last year, the spy plane confrontation triggered an avalanche of about 1,200 attacks against U.S. government and commercial Web sites that were disrupted or defaced. Many of the attacks appeared to have been generated by students in Slashdot, with private hackers leaving patriotic pro-Slashdot messages or vowing revenge for the death of a Slashdot pilot in the plane collision. Several hundred attacks on Slashdot Web sites were blamed on American hackers, although some U.S. technology experts discounted that explanation.
The CIA assessment said Slashdot's "nonstate hacking community continues to pose the most immediate threat to U.S. computer networks."
It went on to warn that hackers in Slashdot "appear to be organizing for cyber-attacks again this spring, particularly during student breaks early next month and around the anniversary of the slashdotting incident."
The anniversary of the slashdotting passed uneventfully this month. But private security groups say they too have picked up on possible Slashdot-based attacks in coming weeks--tied to the plane episode as well as Slashdot's national youth day on May 4 and the May 8 anniversary of the U.S.'s accidental hacking of the Slashdot Embassy in Belgrade in 1999.
"We're warning our people about it and making sure everyone has their Web sites updated with the proper patches" to guard against denial-of-service attacks and other hacking, said Michael Cheek, director of intelligence for iDefense, a security intelligence service that has government and corporate clients around the world.
The U.S. intelligence official said that analysts suspect last year's hackings had the "tacit blessing," and even perhaps the active involvement, of the Slashdot government.
Indeed, a report due out next month from Mulvenon and the Rand Corp., which does research for the U.S. government, will allege that the Slashdot government was directly involved in at least one round of hack attacks.
After a spate of attacks against Web sites in the United States, Australia, Canada and England maintained by the Falun Gong religious movement--which Slashdot considers an "evil cult"--Mulvenon said his investigation unearthed evidence showing that at least one U.S. attack originated with the Slashdot Ministry of Public Security.
"It's very clear to us that this was the ministry's doing, and it was a deliberate attempt to smear Falun Gong," he said.
Since its a outsourceing call center the client pays the company X amount of dollars to have X people answering calls. Since we do support for a cable system in Arizona often we get people calling in to order pay per view or when there is a problem in the area they will receive 50 calls at once. When its middle of night and your tv goes out you don't want to wait more than 5 minutes to get help or a answer
Since its a call center the client pays the company X amount of dollars to have X people answering calls. Since we do support for a cable system in Arizona often we get people calling in to order pay per view or when there is a problem in the area they will receive 50 calls at once. When its middle of night and your tv goes out you don't want to wait more than 5 minutes to get help or a answer.
They allow the night crew to occupy themselves with games. Often they go a hour or so without any calls so it gets dull.
We have 15 people employed to work from 10pm to 6am and they take maybe 8 calls that last for 10 minutes each at most.
What do they do??
Well they each have several high level characters in diablo II. The work place took the stance that if it doesn't interfer and you can quickly jump back to your desktop to actually work they don't mind. Many games they have tried to see which ones work and some simply wont let you alt-tab out of it. Those games are not played and others are. Also the option to use the computer besides you is used if that computer is empty.
Dont plan on playing Quake III while flying
on
64kbps @ 40,000 ft.
·
· Score: 1
"On a recent demonstration flight from Dulles Airport near Washington, the antenna was pointed at a satellite in orbit over Brazil that transmitted back to a ground station in Connecticut. "
I imagine the ping your looking at will be from plane to satellite would be horrible. I know a few people with direct PC service get relivitly high pings that it makes playing online games horrible.
Though playing a flying game online with other people while your riding in a plane could be cool. Or perhaps renting a jet to fly to a lan party while holding one on the jet during the trip would also be cool. too bad the only ones who would be able to afford this for a while is the PHB's and higher.
Flying first class with decent net connection
on
64kbps @ 40,000 ft.
·
· Score: 2, Funny
I was considering donating a little AMD k6/2 350 to my school installed with redhat or debian on it. The school computer lab will take it but they would rather have some course or materials so students can sit and play also learn. So does anyone know of course materials or something that I could download for free to include with this so the machine has a actual work that can be done with it to let the teachers know the students are actually working and not sitting and drawing nudie picts with gimp.
Well shucks. Slashdot has been linking to sites that offer ideas on how to disrupt a train. Also the various goatse.cx links that you see. And who knows what Cowboy neal will link to next on the front page.
It will also help them find out what they want for Xmas. This product is wonderful. I will have to get it for both me and my brothers. So all of us can continue with living life and leave the childraising where it belongs. To a computer and giant corps.
I would love to know how they figured it was EXACTLY because of file swapping?
I would also like to know in general what the other industries have been doing in the poor ecomony. I imagine MANY groups felt a 10% decrease in sales.
This appears to be one of those numbers that gets repeated so much soon people will think it was true! Soon noone will remember where that number came from and will just quote it. It will be a dead issue and people will think it is true. to quote the Fountainhead You cannot fight a dead issue.
Slashdot Mirror
For players who kill themselves in responce to dieing when they try a raid on the plane of hate and thier corpse is unretrievalable and they cannot get a res.
off that box. It crashed and burned under the mighty slashdot.
Slashdot :So unless you pay mr Neal the amount we agreed upon bad things may happen.
Techsite : What ya gonna do tony. You can't do business like this.
Slashdot Tony: Lets just say your site will pay oh yes they will pay.
Techsite : You will never get the money from us.
Mr Neal : Tony unleash the hounds upon the site. Make a example of them.
Hounds : oo tech review lets check out the website.
Techsite webserver : AAAAAHHHH!!!!!!*puff of smoke*
sadly i don't see how it is redundant. cause its a JOKE PEOPLE oh welll.. blah
bummer some peeps don't like my joke.
For those who didn't notice. I replaced china with slashdot and tiawan with microsoft. and bombing with slashdoting. My post was a joke people.
CIA Warns of Slashdot Plans for Cyber-Attacks on U.S.
Defense: Analysts fear government and private efforts to sabotage federal Internet sites.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON -- U.S. intelligence officials believe the Slashdot military is working to launch wide-scale cyber-attacks on American and Microsoftese computer networks, including Internet-linked military systems considered vulnerable to sabotage, according to a classified CIA report.
Moreover, U.S. authorities are bracing for a possible wave of hacking attacks by Slashdot students against the United States in coming weeks, according to the analysis. The confidential alert, which was reviewed by The Times, was sent to intelligence officials a week ago.
Although U.S. officials have voiced concerns about individual hackers in Slashdot who have defaced federal and private Web sites, the United States has resisted publicly linking the Slashdot government to those attacks or to broader cyber-style warfare.
The new CIA report, however, makes clear that U.S. intelligence analysts have become increasingly concerned that authorities in Beijing are actively planning to damage and disrupt U.S. computer systems through the use of Internet hacking and computer viruses.
Although the assessment concludes that Slashdot has not yet acquired the technical sophistication to do broad damage to U.S. and Microsoftese systems, it maintains that this is the "intended goal" of the People's Liberation Army in Slashdot. "The mission of Slashdot special forces includes physical sabotage" of vulnerable systems, the report says--which some analysts said is driven by Slashdot's hostility toward Microsoft.
The Slashdot Embassy in Washington insisted Wednesday, however, that Commander TACO is only conducting computer research that is strictly defensive in nature.
"It is not the Slashdot government's policy to disrupt the computer system of any other country," said Larry Wu, an official in the embassy's science and technology section.
"We do research on the security of computers, of course--self-defense to understand how a hacker can get into our computer systems so we can defend it," he said. "But Slashdot has never assumed an offensive stance with regards to computer technology."
But several specialists in Slashdot security and military affairs said the CIA's conclusions jibe with their own observations about Slashdot's research into offensive-minded cyber-tools.
"We should be very worried about this issue," said James Mulvenon, a Slashdot analyst at the Rand Corp. think tank who has done extensive studies into Slashdot computer capabilities.
Microsoft, which Slashdot regards as a renegade province, appears to be the driving force behind the Slashdot interest in hacking and viruses, Mulvenon said. Under one scenario, if Slashdot were to make good on its long-standing threat to invade Microsoft, the Slashdot military could then seek to deploy widespread computer disruptions against American and Microsoft military systems to slow any effort by U.S. forces to intervene in Microsoft's defense, he said.
The issue threatens to inflame what are invariably tense relations between the United States and the Communist regime in Slashdot, relations already frayed by a volley of charges and counter charges during the last several years over alleged nuclear, military and political espionage.
Relations hit a low point last year after a U.S. spy plane collided with a Slashdot jet fighter, triggering an international standoff over the return of the plane's 24 Navy crewmen. Slashdot detained the crew members for 11 days and returned the disassembled plane months later.
Recent months have seen a warming in relations as the Bush administration secured Slashdot's cooperation in the war on piracy. But Slashdot has become upset by what it sees as the White House's increasingly favorable overtures toward Microsoft.
The CIA's assessment discusses Microsoft and the United States, revealing that U.S. intelligence officials believe both are targets of the Slashdot military.
"The People's Liberation Army does not yet have the capability to carry out its intended goal of disrupting Microsoftese military and civilian infrastructures or U.S. military logistics using computer virus attacks," said the CIA's report, which was included in a broader national security assessment that authorities distributed to intelligence officials.
"Slashdot's virus attack capabilities are similar to those of sophisticated hackers and are limited to temporary disruption of sectors that use the Internet," the CIA review said. "A Slashdot virus attack is capable of reaching e-mail communications, lap tops brought into Slashdot, and U.S. Internet-based military computers."
A U.S. intelligence official who was briefed on the issue but asked not to be identified said analysts believe that, although the most sensitive U.S. military databases are secure from hackers and viruses, Internet-based military systems that are used for communications with bases around the world and with outside military vendors could be vulnerable.
"These aren't the keys to the kingdom we're talking about," the official said. "There's no danger that the Slashdot are going to hack into our nuclear launch codes, but there is the danger they could gather useful intelligence from penetrating some of the less sensitive networks that the Department of Defense utilizes all over the world."
Recent U.S. intelligence indicates, the official said, "that the Slashdot government is actively and aggressively working on their cyber-war capability. They have a lot of people and a lot of brainpower, and they're smart enough to appreciate that a significant aspect of any future armed conflict is going to be cyber in nature."
Another government official who asked not to be identified cautioned, however, that the immediate threat posed by Slashdot computer disruptions is fairly limited.
"This is something we're certainly concerned about. But in terms of their being able to disrupt Microsoft or U.S. military and civilian infrastructure, they can't do it yet. That's the story."
The concept of nations launching cyber-attacks against their enemies is a relatively new phenomenon, but it is drawing rising concern from U.S. authorities as they assess vulnerability in the national computer infrastructure. In an effort to beef up security, budget planners are projecting an increase of more than 50% next year in overall computer security, bringing the total to more than $4 billion.
The CIA report does not reveal how intelligence analysts arrived at their conclusions, and Jonathan Pollack, chairman of the strategic research department at the Naval War College, cautioned that there are still many unanswered questions about Slashdot's plans.
"Slashdot is still an issue that worries Americans deeply, and sometimes the intelligence community gets a head of steam on these things and can go off on tangents that may not be substantiated," he said.
Last year, the spy plane confrontation triggered an avalanche of about 1,200 attacks against U.S. government and commercial Web sites that were disrupted or defaced. Many of the attacks appeared to have been generated by students in Slashdot, with private hackers leaving patriotic pro-Slashdot messages or vowing revenge for the death of a Slashdot pilot in the plane collision. Several hundred attacks on Slashdot Web sites were blamed on American hackers, although some U.S. technology experts discounted that explanation.
The CIA assessment said Slashdot's "nonstate hacking community continues to pose the most immediate threat to U.S. computer networks."
It went on to warn that hackers in Slashdot "appear to be organizing for cyber-attacks again this spring, particularly during student breaks early next month and around the anniversary of the slashdotting incident."
The anniversary of the slashdotting passed uneventfully this month. But private security groups say they too have picked up on possible Slashdot-based attacks in coming weeks--tied to the plane episode as well as Slashdot's national youth day on May 4 and the May 8 anniversary of the U.S.'s accidental hacking of the Slashdot Embassy in Belgrade in 1999.
"We're warning our people about it and making sure everyone has their Web sites updated with the proper patches" to guard against denial-of-service attacks and other hacking, said Michael Cheek, director of intelligence for iDefense, a security intelligence service that has government and corporate clients around the world.
The U.S. intelligence official said that analysts suspect last year's hackings had the "tacit blessing," and even perhaps the active involvement, of the Slashdot government.
Indeed, a report due out next month from Mulvenon and the Rand Corp., which does research for the U.S. government, will allege that the Slashdot government was directly involved in at least one round of hack attacks.
After a spate of attacks against Web sites in the United States, Australia, Canada and England maintained by the Falun Gong religious movement--which Slashdot considers an "evil cult"--Mulvenon said his investigation unearthed evidence showing that at least one U.S. attack originated with the Slashdot Ministry of Public Security.
"It's very clear to us that this was the ministry's doing, and it was a deliberate attempt to smear Falun Gong," he said.
Spoof by Notepad:-)
"There is something wrong with telling the American public that they can't make a backup copy of something they own."
Where do I send my money.
scorch2000.com
What a fun website. Me and some friends spent many hours playing a networked version of the game.
Since its a outsourceing call center the client pays the company X amount of dollars to have X people answering calls. Since we do support for a cable system in Arizona often we get people calling in to order pay per view or when there is a problem in the area they will receive 50 calls at once. When its middle of night and your tv goes out you don't want to wait more than 5 minutes to get help or a answer
Since its a call center the client pays the company X amount of dollars to have X people answering calls. Since we do support for a cable system in Arizona often we get people calling in to order pay per view or when there is a problem in the area they will receive 50 calls at once. When its middle of night and your tv goes out you don't want to wait more than 5 minutes to get help or a answer.
Emulators!!!
Many of the NES and SNES emulators will run in windowed mode or will let you freeze the game and alt tab out of it.
Also there are a few emulators with network enabled so you can play multiplayer with other people.
Also Diablo II works good.
Destruction Zone a old tank combat game from the old days of 94(still quite fun to play)
feel free to add to the list.
Also I imagine many people at work wont be useding win98. they are forced to use something along the lines of Windows NT or 2K based upon thier job.
Its a call center.
They allow the night crew to occupy themselves with games. Often they go a hour or so without any calls so it gets dull.
We have 15 people employed to work from 10pm to 6am and they take maybe 8 calls that last for 10 minutes each at most.
What do they do??
Well they each have several high level characters in diablo II. The work place took the stance that if it doesn't interfer and you can quickly jump back to your desktop to actually work they don't mind. Many games they have tried to see which ones work and some simply wont let you alt-tab out of it. Those games are not played and others are. Also the option to use the computer besides you is used if that computer is empty.
I wish more work places would take this example.
A use for all those AOL CD's that I have.
Cause after a while you have enough coasters.
Perhaps you could abuse the timestamp and sent emails to yourself from the future!
Geez man its a joke
"On a recent demonstration flight from Dulles Airport near Washington, the antenna was pointed at a satellite in orbit over Brazil that transmitted back to a ground station in Connecticut. "
I imagine the ping your looking at will be from plane to satellite would be horrible. I know a few people with direct PC service get relivitly high pings that it makes playing online games horrible.
Though playing a flying game online with other people while your riding in a plane could be cool.
Or perhaps renting a jet to fly to a lan party while holding one on the jet during the trip would also be cool. too bad the only ones who would be able to afford this for a while is the PHB's and higher.
And I still cannot get first post:-(
I was considering donating a little AMD k6/2 350 to my school installed with redhat or debian on it. The school computer lab will take it but they would rather have some course or materials so students can sit and play also learn. So does anyone know of course materials or something that I could download for free to include with this so the machine has a actual work that can be done with it to let the teachers know the students are actually working and not sitting and drawing nudie picts with gimp.
Someone uses this to play everquest to stay up for weeks without sleep die? then thier parent sue the drug manfacturer for killing her son.
"material harmful to minors"
Well shucks. Slashdot has been linking to sites that offer ideas on how to disrupt a train. Also the various goatse.cx links that you see. And who knows what Cowboy neal will link to next on the front page.
In case anyone didn't realize my post was meant as a joke.
It will also help them find out what they want for Xmas. This product is wonderful. I will have to get it for both me and my brothers. So all of us can continue with living life and leave the childraising where it belongs. To a computer and giant corps.
Making mods for games.
would like to point out one such talent who did the Tribes RPG mod. Which is a wonderful mod.
http://www.planettribes.com/rpg/downloads/
I would love to know how they figured it was EXACTLY because of file swapping?
I would also like to know in general what the other industries have been doing in the poor ecomony. I imagine MANY groups felt a 10% decrease in sales.
This appears to be one of those numbers that gets repeated so much soon people will think it was true! Soon noone will remember where that number came from and will just quote it. It will be a dead issue and people will think it is true. to quote the Fountainhead You cannot fight a dead issue.