It took 44 other replies along the lines of "I can't wait to be invisible" before you posted the logical, scientific analysis of what they are doing. Moderators, do your duty.
I had a similar thought when I saw this. They've been experimenting with glycerol and some additives to get the refractive index to match the intercellular R.I. Then they can see subcutaneous features with a non-invasive look. Just another tool in the doctors kit.
I've resolved to use the word cunt where I would normally use fuck, just to see what kind of reaction I get. For the moment, nobody around me has seemed to notice. There is a movement on british television lately to slip the word past the censors as often as possible. Its a trend.
See You,
N.T.
A good argument, misses the point
on
Is UNIX An OS?
·
· Score: 4
Sun's commercial motivations helped make Unix a much more stable OS--for example, it created the Network Filing System (NFS)
More stable? He clearly doesn't remember the bad old days of Sun's first attempts at NFS:-)
The author does make a good argument for a change in semantics for the term OS. He derides the purist computer sci people who still claim the OS is nothing more than the kernel and a shell. He is taking a luser^H^H^H^Hconsumer oriented view of computers.
He is trying to change the semantics of a term with a long history. When refering to the unix world, the OS is just the kernel and a handful of required utilities. But did you ever stop and think what is the OS part of windoze NT or MacOS? On the Mac, it is the system file, the finder application (a shell), and the extensions which load at boot time (modules and drivers). Similarly, NT could be trimmed down to just a bare core of applications and drivers, but nobody ever does it.
When was the last time you put just a kernel and a shell on a machine? Didn't you also add dozens or hundreds of useful applications and utilities? With NT, tons of stuff gets loaded, you don't have a choice. The same with the Mac.
In the linux world, we use the term distribution to indicate our preference for a particular flavor of OS. We run redhat, debian, or slack, not just the 2.3 kernel with bash and a serial driver.
So maybe the author has a good point, the OS is now more than just the kernel. But changing the purists is a battle of similar proportions to changing the mass media's usage of hacker to include all infocriminals. A good fight, but in the end a futile one.
Just hours after announcing GiS going on hiatus, we get another GiS story. Of course, its missing the inane audio track and rambling subject matter, so it doesn't live up to its predecessors:-)
ObOnTopic, a cavitation missile would have made a horrendous noise which could have been picked up by many nations underwater listening posts. The ruski press tends towards sensationalistic stories so outlandish it makes british tabloids seem resposible by comparison. But a cavitation missile which couldn't leave the tube for whatever techincal reason could have caused the first explosion, leading to the warhead or other explosives in the area getting set off.
It was with this one particular release of M$SQL that the sa password was left blank during install, with no prompt or warning. Prior versions had a less user friendly install which would prompt for an sa password, ensuring most sites were protected. So idiots installing this latest release would leave the password blank. It has been on the market for a few months now, and the script kiddies have had a scanning kit for at least 2 months.
Those of us who watch security probing trends, noticed a huge increase in scanning on ports 1433 and 1434. When there was an M$SQL server sitting on 1433, the script checked for a blank password. It took a month of detective work by the white hats to come up with a reason for the sudden increase in this particular exploit. Now the egg is on micr~1.oft's face, but their PR department has squashed most news coverage, which is the reason for this/. rant^H^H^H^Harticle.
I'd put about 60% of the blame on BT, and the rest on a very naive AV. BT makes all kinds of promises when Oftel is watching, but they seldom follow up and drag out the process as long as possible. AV should have counted this into their business plan, but the suits believed BT and ignored their own people who were cautioning them.
I know personally several of the people who told AV to lay off all promotions and PR until BT actually turned up the trunks and calls could be passed. BT has a long history of screwing over any potential competitor, much in the same way american telcos behaved in the first few years after divestiture. They block access to equipment in buildings, cut power at odd times, jinx circuits, lose trouble tickets, and ignore regulator's demands.
So yes, blaming BT rings very true. But AV is also to blame for not realising this is business as usual for BT.
So why haven't I read about it? Because I get all my news from slashdot, and this is the first they posted it:-)
Seriously, this exploit has been known for many weeks now. Probes for MS-SQL ports have equalled all other probes on our honeypots. When we did put up an MS-SQL server and recorded the responses, it seems there are already several kits out there looking for a blank sa password. Silly us, we set the sa password to sa, and nobody guessed:-)
You are right about the press giving micr~1.oft a free ride. But wait until a this exploit gets some better kits. 'Rooting' an SQL db does not give you as much control over a machine as rooting the whole OS does, and the general lack of SQL knowledge out there will limit what script kiddies can do. But given the widespread use of M$SQL server for web engines, there should be some spectacular hacks in the coming months.
Other large commercial DBs require you to set the sa password as part of the installation process.
250 miles from Kent. Northward, puts you in the middle of nowhere. Eastward, puts you in my area, kannstu neerlanders sprekken? Southward, puts you in froggyland, and they don't know technology:-)
So call up your interview contact the day before leaving and ask them if there will be an NDA to sign, and if so could they please fax you a copy. Sound pro, they like that
the AC
[who is considering a major move from Leuven to Reading, bleh!]
Very much so. The/. karma system has been broken for months now, and mojo is still ideaware. Neither work very well.
Do they have Mojo whores there? Cool. Now I can be a MojoWhore as well as a KarmaWhore:-) I've actually got a few boxes sitting on some major backbones just being wasted as honeypots for some security studies. I'd love to turn one of them into a Mojo box, just for the egoboo.
Do what I do when someone surprises me like that. Tell them that you are a professional and you would never sign a contract until both you and your lawyer have reviewed it. Tell them you feel disappointed in their lack of professionalism for not telling you in advance you would be presented with a contract before starting the interview. Put the feeling of guilt on their side. In fact, you should think through several responses that would be appropriate, and maybe practice the scenario with some friends. You'll want to sound calm, cool, and completely in control of the interview to pull it off.
Then offer to schedule another interview with them after you and your lawyer have reviewed the NDA. Give yourself at least one day, but no more than 4 or 5. Then excuse yourself and leave with the NDA, go home and read through it. If there are any outlandish statements in it, underline them and think about wanting to work for a company who would try to screw you before you have even interviewed for them. If you do go back to them, make sure you have crossed out the objectionable lines, and ask them if they would accept a modified NDA. If they won't, then they probably won't be flexible when negotiating your salary and benefits.
Starting out in your career, it really isn't necessary to have a lawyer, but at some point you should find one. I have a couple of lawyers, both are good friends, who help me review things from time to time. In return I help them stay connected to the internet and help out with the computers in their offices. Only a few times have I ever had to pay them for some serious work, and it was worth having them around.
I, too, used to live in a household with no phone lines. All of us used cell phones exclusively, and suffered through all kinds of Denials of Services because we weren't wired.
If it weren't for the electric bill and local taxes, we wouldn't have had any documentation of proof of residence. Many services here require you to be in good standing with the phone company, it is sort of a cheap way of doing a background credit check on potential customers, since phone service is one of the first services to go when a person gets into money trouble.
Its amazing how many new devices now count on copper-fed dial tone, at a time when more and more people are cutting themselves free of the copper loop. Especially in Europe, where a cell phone doesn't really cost more than a land line for casual use. Approximately 10% of young people in Europe this year leaving university and setting up in a new household aren't bothering to get telephone service, which is worrying the old telcos and thrilling the cell phone providers.
The only reason I have copper dialtone in my house is that I have sDSL for a permanent internet connection. It would be nice to see true internet appliances on the market soon, with 10BaseT connectors on the back. I'm wired for it. Others are wiring homes right now.
Yeah, I could probably sue for false advertising. I'm sure there are laws in the US protecting consumers from showing one price for an item, then tacking on an additional charge later just for the hell of it. But its not worth my time to bother suing, I'll leave that up to some rabid grandmother with nothing better to do than go after big, bad shops.
This is stupid, but there doesn't seem to be any enforcement of consumer protection laws in the US. Over here, if a shop were cited for violating the law, they would risk having their business license revoked. It happens occasionally, enough to make shop managers think twice about pulling any major scams.
I found this unfinished press release poking blindly around the Mainsoft press release directory. Enjoy!
Mainsoft announces major breakthrough in porting Windows functionality to Linux
San Jose, Calif - April 1, 2001 - Mainsoft, the leader in common code-base cross-platform solutions for the enterprise, today announced a major breakthrough in porting Microsoft Windows functionality to the Linux Operating System.
The first breakthrough is a patch to the linux kernel, kernmem.sys, allowing any linux machine to display important debugging information any time an application needs to. This is an important first step to porting other Windows applications, as it allows any user to immediately see when an application has requested the system to be rebooted.
"Windows has had this functionality for a long time." said Yaacov Cohen, president of Mainsoft. "In the Windows world, this feature is known as the Blue Screen of Debugging". He continued, "We feel this has been a missing feature of Linux since its beginning, and will allow normal users of Windows to feel comfortable that Linux now behaves like a real Operating System."
The second breakthrough is the porting of the registry to Linux. The registry will obviate the need for hundreds of configuration files in the/etc directory and spread around the file system.
"With a working registry in Linux, we can replace all those antiquated file and user permissions and SUID bits that clutter up the Linux system." said Miguel De Icaza, Linux pundit "Now every Linux system will be as secure as a Windows machine, allowing consumers to feel safer about automatic registration and other new Microsoft technologies."
The largest breakthrough is the porting of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack to Linux. Containing the most widely used applications on computers today, the Entertainment Pack will bring Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Yambo to Linux.
"These productivity applications account for more than 50% of all CPU time used on Windows machines" said Rob Malda, Chief Productivity Application Tester at slashdot.com. "With these applications now available on all Microsoft Linux compatible distributions, productivity will soar".
Future enhancements to Linux will include the return to the Single User - Single Machine philosophy which fueled the explosive growth of the PC market in the 1980's. Removing the ability to have more than one user logged into a machine at any single time makes more efficient use of the resources of that machine, and simplifies licensing of future applications under the M$GPL.
I was reading these statements and thinking to myself "this sounds a lot like the american politicians running for president right now" in that their answers to this particular forum are exactly what the forum wants to hear.
Lets us all go over to eviloverlord.org and ask similar questions over there. The answers might come back pandering to the Maelevolent Evil Overlord herself:-)
Then lets fake an email from the CEO of NSI, and see if most of the at-large candidates re-spin their tune to be in line with what NSI wants to do.
But don't worry. The way the ICANN elections are rigged, the Malevolent Evil Overlord's current position is ensured. These pesky rebels are no match for power of the empire.
If you are looking at cheap consumer grade products, then you will see comparisons with VHS. If you work on professional gear, you will see the term "broadcast quality".
VHS is a rather limited method of storing video signals. It roughly equates to under 480 scan lines with about 2.6 MHz of horizontal bandwidth and a fair amount of jitter in the timing signals. Compare that to a broadcast signal, which has 525 lines and 4.8 MHz of bandwidth, and very tight jitter for timing.
By cutting down on the bandwidth, you lose a lot of the clarity in the horizontal, and a little in the vertical. Since some of the scan lines are lost, the picture is a bit smaller and may be stretched or distorted to hide the fact. Text in credits is much harder to read and is usually blurry.
VHS quality means it is good enough for casual playback for the average couch potato viewer. The average viewer doesn't really care about signal losses, noise, jitter and jump in their picture, because their sets don't show the difference.
Do yourself a favor and take a look at broadcast quality gear sometime, and compare it side by side with VHS quality. There is a big difference, both is viewing pleasure and cost, you get what you pay for:-)
But the term VHS quality just means its good enough for average consumers not to complain too much.
It wasn't in the phrasing or the marketing. There were two prices posted for every item on the shelf. There was the regular price, and the loyalty card price. But once you go to the checkout stand, they add on an additional 10% if you refuse to fill out a 4 page application for a loyalty card.
Since I only had a few items and was in a bit of a rush, I decided it wasn't worth my time to argue with the teenager running the stand. So I told her exactly that, and walked out.
The manager explained to me they are under pressure from the regional office to get 92% of their customers onto the cards, and to employ every trick in the book to get people signed up. A percentage are audited to keep the stores from faking it. The manager was a fairly decent and sympathetic guy, and he seemed clued in about not wanting to give up privacy but assured me they hadn't started selling their lists, yet. I told him I didn't live in the US, and would seldom ever use their shop again even if I did bother to fill out the loyalty card.
So the store is having problems meeting a stupid quota, and are turning to high-pressure tactics to sign up shoppers. Certainly this is to increase the value of their database of shopper habits, so they can start selling the information.
the AC
Re:(clank!) Bring out your dead! (clank!)
on
Voteauction.com
·
· Score: 2
The same in Corsica.
A headline of "Le Canard Enchaine" (the chained duck, a french political weekly) lamenting the poor turnout in the last elections was:
meme les morts s'abstenir en nombres Even the dead didn't have a large turnout
one of two things would happen. He would either be facing a considerable jail sentence, or he
would become one of the most powerful men in America.
This sums it up well. Depending on who he upsets and who he makes rich, he will either go to jail or get very wealthy. I like it, real risk with real payoff, all for calling attention to how corrupt modern democratic politics has become.
Does anyone remember the greek word for government by money? Specicratic? Does this make the US a dollaracracy?
Hushmail was the first thought in my mind when I read Cringeley's article. I'd love to see an open source version of a mail reader, similar to Imp, using either SSL or a java applet with a reasonable encryption.
A better solution for major companies is to block external access to their internal e-mail, thus forcing their executives to use something other than kiosks to check in. There will be a worry of keystroke grabbers on the kiosks, and packet sniffers at various locations on that network. I would expect any smart company already forbids logging into the company network from the internet side, except for a slightly secured home machine. Certainly you wouldn't log into root on your home machine from an olympic kiosk, would you?
As for terrorists needing communications, they probably do. If it is a small group of inbred hicks from north carolina wanting to set off pipe bombs, they may be stupid enough to email each other with enough information for the FBI to pick them up after the fact. They might use cell phones, assuming they can't be tracked, or maybe even pay phones. The sad fact, for terrorists, is that the counter-terrorist parts of the FBI cover all forms of communication already.
Rumour has it the algerian terrorists in france a few years ago shunned all electronic communication, making it very difficult for the french to track them down. All communication between the cells was face to face, the only exception was a guy in Lille made a call on a payphone in his neigborhood to a payphone in Lyon, and that unwrapped the case. The french anti-terrorist investigators had to fall back on footwork and following leads the old fashioned way, which is why it took years to capture most of the terrorists.
the AC
(I just realised my post has enough keywords in it to trigger every echelon filter from here to langley:-)
allow an "opt out" policy for customers for whom privacy is a concern. After all, it costs them nothing
Aha! You are the bastard killing e-commerce with your shallow and deceptive advice.:-)
One of the biggest turn-offs for many new users on the internet is the perceived lack of privacy. Although most people haven't a clue about cookie abuse and web bugs, there is a general, low-level feeling that anything they do will end up in the hands of some anonymous black-hats. Black-hats in this case not being hackers, but con artists, high pressure telephone sales scammers, and credit reporting agencies. So they stay away from e-commerce.
We, the more knowledgable users of/., can spot your post as the troll it is.
There's a lot of hype and FUD around at the moment about privacy, and invasions of it, and falling for it simply limits your options and decreases the enjoyment of your net experiance
Because many of us are professionals in the internet biz, we are well aware of the privacy issue, and we can see through the FUD. There is a huge problem with privacy on the internet and in real life, and people are starting to become aware of it. Because most people have been burned by a scam at some point in their life, they will limit their options and their net experience. They will stay away from sites such as Tesco, because they have been scammed from giving away too much information before, and don't want Tesco selling the fact they own a cat and work too many hours to get to the shop.
Many people, myself included, are limiting our options because the net experience doesn't give us anything better than spending a little extra time in real life just like we have always had to do.
I recently was in the states and ended up walking out of a grocery store when they couldn't seem to sell me some groceries without a loyalty card. The poor girl at the checkout stand had been told by the manager that anyone without a loyalty card had to be forced to sign up for one. When she told me there was a new 10% extra fee added to any bill without a loyalty card, I just walked out. The manager tried to stop me, to check if I was shoplifting. His argument was that all stores have to charge more to people who don't have loyalty cards, and "everyone" was doing it. I went to the next shop down the road, and wasn't even asked for a loyalty card.
Some brick and mortar stores are desperate to skim every last little bit of profit from their customers that they can. Mining personal information is just the latest twist, and there are many stores now trying to sell that information through brokers. But for the moment, there are always alternatives who would rather have your custom than try to mine your data as well.
Slashdot Mirror
It took 44 other replies along the lines of "I can't wait to be invisible" before you posted the logical, scientific analysis of what they are doing. Moderators, do your duty.
I had a similar thought when I saw this. They've been experimenting with glycerol and some additives to get the refractive index to match the intercellular R.I. Then they can see subcutaneous features with a non-invasive look. Just another tool in the doctors kit.
the AC
I've resolved to use the word cunt where I would normally use fuck, just to see what kind of reaction I get. For the moment, nobody around me has seemed to notice. There is a movement on british television lately to slip the word past the censors as often as possible. Its a trend.
See You,
N.T.
Sun's commercial motivations helped make Unix a much more stable OS--for example, it created the Network Filing System (NFS)
:-)
More stable? He clearly doesn't remember the bad old days of Sun's first attempts at NFS
The author does make a good argument for a change in semantics for the term OS. He derides the purist computer sci people who still claim the OS is nothing more than the kernel and a shell. He is taking a luser^H^H^H^Hconsumer oriented view of computers.
He is trying to change the semantics of a term with a long history. When refering to the unix world, the OS is just the kernel and a handful of required utilities. But did you ever stop and think what is the OS part of windoze NT or MacOS? On the Mac, it is the system file, the finder application (a shell), and the extensions which load at boot time (modules and drivers). Similarly, NT could be trimmed down to just a bare core of applications and drivers, but nobody ever does it.
When was the last time you put just a kernel and a shell on a machine? Didn't you also add dozens or hundreds of useful applications and utilities? With NT, tons of stuff gets loaded, you don't have a choice. The same with the Mac.
In the linux world, we use the term distribution to indicate our preference for a particular flavor of OS. We run redhat, debian, or slack, not just the 2.3 kernel with bash and a serial driver.
So maybe the author has a good point, the OS is now more than just the kernel. But changing the purists is a battle of similar proportions to changing the mass media's usage of hacker to include all infocriminals. A good fight, but in the end a futile one.
the AC
This is what we need for a simple, easy to use, GUI for linux.
:-)
Workbench!
No more cunting around with XF86Config
the AC
Just hours after announcing GiS going on hiatus, we get another GiS story. Of course, its missing the inane audio track and rambling subject matter, so it doesn't live up to its predecessors :-)
ObOnTopic, a cavitation missile would have made a horrendous noise which could have been picked up by many nations underwater listening posts. The ruski press tends towards sensationalistic stories so outlandish it makes british tabloids seem resposible by comparison. But a cavitation missile which couldn't leave the tube for whatever techincal reason could have caused the first explosion, leading to the warhead or other explosives in the area getting set off.
the AC
It was with this one particular release of M$SQL that the sa password was left blank during install, with no prompt or warning. Prior versions had a less user friendly install which would prompt for an sa password, ensuring most sites were protected. So idiots installing this latest release would leave the password blank. It has been on the market for a few months now, and the script kiddies have had a scanning kit for at least 2 months.
/. rant^H^H^H^Harticle.
Those of us who watch security probing trends, noticed a huge increase in scanning on ports 1433 and 1434. When there was an M$SQL server sitting on 1433, the script checked for a blank password. It took a month of detective work by the white hats to come up with a reason for the sudden increase in this particular exploit. Now the egg is on micr~1.oft's face, but their PR department has squashed most news coverage, which is the reason for this
the AC
I'd put about 60% of the blame on BT, and the rest on a very naive AV. BT makes all kinds of promises when Oftel is watching, but they seldom follow up and drag out the process as long as possible. AV should have counted this into their business plan, but the suits believed BT and ignored their own people who were cautioning them.
I know personally several of the people who told AV to lay off all promotions and PR until BT actually turned up the trunks and calls could be passed. BT has a long history of screwing over any potential competitor, much in the same way american telcos behaved in the first few years after divestiture. They block access to equipment in buildings, cut power at odd times, jinx circuits, lose trouble tickets, and ignore regulator's demands.
So yes, blaming BT rings very true. But AV is also to blame for not realising this is business as usual for BT.
the AC
So why haven't I read about it? Because I get all my news from slashdot, and this is the first they posted it :-)
:-)
Seriously, this exploit has been known for many weeks now. Probes for MS-SQL ports have equalled all other probes on our honeypots. When we did put up an MS-SQL server and recorded the responses, it seems there are already several kits out there looking for a blank sa password. Silly us, we set the sa password to sa, and nobody guessed
You are right about the press giving micr~1.oft a free ride. But wait until a this exploit gets some better kits. 'Rooting' an SQL db does not give you as much control over a machine as rooting the whole OS does, and the general lack of SQL knowledge out there will limit what script kiddies can do. But given the widespread use of M$SQL server for web engines, there should be some spectacular hacks in the coming months.
Other large commercial DBs require you to set the sa password as part of the installation process.
the AC
250 miles from Kent. Northward, puts you in the middle of nowhere. Eastward, puts you in my area, kannstu neerlanders sprekken? Southward, puts you in froggyland, and they don't know technology :-)
So call up your interview contact the day before leaving and ask them if there will be an NDA to sign, and if so could they please fax you a copy. Sound pro, they like that
the AC
[who is considering a major move from Leuven to Reading, bleh!]
Sounds a lot like the Slashdot karma system.
/. karma system has been broken for months now, and mojo is still ideaware. Neither work very well.
:-) I've actually got a few boxes sitting on some major backbones just being wasted as honeypots for some security studies. I'd love to turn one of them into a Mojo box, just for the egoboo.
Very much so. The
Do they have Mojo whores there?
Cool. Now I can be a MojoWhore as well as a KarmaWhore
the AC
Try this for a slightly deeper discussion on the subject. If you can read the whole thing, your internet isn't being filtered.
the AC
Do what I do when someone surprises me like that. Tell them that you are a professional and you would never sign a contract until both you and your lawyer have reviewed it. Tell them you feel disappointed in their lack of professionalism for not telling you in advance you would be presented with a contract before starting the interview. Put the feeling of guilt on their side. In fact, you should think through several responses that would be appropriate, and maybe practice the scenario with some friends. You'll want to sound calm, cool, and completely in control of the interview to pull it off.
Then offer to schedule another interview with them after you and your lawyer have reviewed the NDA. Give yourself at least one day, but no more than 4 or 5. Then excuse yourself and leave with the NDA, go home and read through it. If there are any outlandish statements in it, underline them and think about wanting to work for a company who would try to screw you before you have even interviewed for them. If you do go back to them, make sure you have crossed out the objectionable lines, and ask them if they would accept a modified NDA. If they won't, then they probably won't be flexible when negotiating your salary and benefits.
Starting out in your career, it really isn't necessary to have a lawyer, but at some point you should find one. I have a couple of lawyers, both are good friends, who help me review things from time to time. In return I help them stay connected to the internet and help out with the computers in their offices. Only a few times have I ever had to pay them for some serious work, and it was worth having them around.
the AC
Ahhhh, another wireless person.
I, too, used to live in a household with no phone lines. All of us used cell phones exclusively, and suffered through all kinds of Denials of Services because we weren't wired.
If it weren't for the electric bill and local taxes, we wouldn't have had any documentation of proof of residence. Many services here require you to be in good standing with the phone company, it is sort of a cheap way of doing a background credit check on potential customers, since phone service is one of the first services to go when a person gets into money trouble.
Its amazing how many new devices now count on copper-fed dial tone, at a time when more and more people are cutting themselves free of the copper loop. Especially in Europe, where a cell phone doesn't really cost more than a land line for casual use. Approximately 10% of young people in Europe this year leaving university and setting up in a new household aren't bothering to get telephone service, which is worrying the old telcos and thrilling the cell phone providers.
The only reason I have copper dialtone in my house is that I have sDSL for a permanent internet connection. It would be nice to see true internet appliances on the market soon, with 10BaseT connectors on the back. I'm wired for it. Others are wiring homes right now.
the AC
When they said the longest layout, I assumed a straight shot going from Seattle to Miami or maybe just as far as Portland.
:-)
But this track is in a large room. Sigh! It would be fun to go help them for a day and get to play with trains on such a fun layout
the AC
Yeah, I could probably sue for false advertising. I'm sure there are laws in the US protecting consumers from showing one price for an item, then tacking on an additional charge later just for the hell of it. But its not worth my time to bother suing, I'll leave that up to some rabid grandmother with nothing better to do than go after big, bad shops.
This is stupid, but there doesn't seem to be any enforcement of consumer protection laws in the US. Over here, if a shop were cited for violating the law, they would risk having their business license revoked. It happens occasionally, enough to make shop managers think twice about pulling any major scams.
the AC
I found this unfinished press release poking blindly around the Mainsoft press release directory. Enjoy!
/etc directory and spread around the file system.
Mainsoft announces major breakthrough in porting Windows functionality to Linux
San Jose, Calif - April 1, 2001 - Mainsoft, the leader in common code-base cross-platform solutions for the enterprise, today announced a major breakthrough in porting Microsoft Windows functionality to the Linux Operating System.
The first breakthrough is a patch to the linux kernel, kernmem.sys, allowing any linux machine to display important debugging information any time an application needs to. This is an important first step to porting other Windows applications, as it allows any user to immediately see when an application has requested the system to be rebooted.
"Windows has had this functionality for a long time." said Yaacov Cohen, president of Mainsoft. "In the Windows world, this feature is known as the Blue Screen of Debugging". He continued, "We feel this has been a missing feature of Linux since its beginning, and will allow normal users of Windows to feel comfortable that Linux now behaves like a real Operating System."
The second breakthrough is the porting of the registry to Linux. The registry will obviate the need for hundreds of configuration files in the
"With a working registry in Linux, we can replace all those antiquated file and user permissions and SUID bits that clutter up the Linux system." said Miguel De Icaza, Linux pundit "Now every Linux system will be as secure as a Windows machine, allowing consumers to feel safer about automatic registration and other new Microsoft technologies."
The largest breakthrough is the porting of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack to Linux. Containing the most widely used applications on computers today, the Entertainment Pack will bring Solitaire, Minesweeper, and Yambo to Linux.
"These productivity applications account for more than 50% of all CPU time used on Windows machines" said Rob Malda, Chief Productivity Application Tester at slashdot.com. "With these applications now available on all Microsoft Linux compatible distributions, productivity will soar".
Future enhancements to Linux will include the return to the Single User - Single Machine philosophy which fueled the explosive growth of the PC market in the 1980's. Removing the ability to have more than one user logged into a machine at any single time makes more efficient use of the resources of that machine, and simplifies licensing of future applications under the M$GPL.
the AC
Man, just think of how fast I could clean up with one of those. Hurry up NASA, you've finally created a useful bit of technology! :-)
the AC
I was reading these statements and thinking to myself "this sounds a lot like the american politicians running for president right now" in that their answers to this particular forum are exactly what the forum wants to hear.
:-)
Lets us all go over to eviloverlord.org and ask similar questions over there. The answers might come back pandering to the Maelevolent Evil Overlord herself
Then lets fake an email from the CEO of NSI, and see if most of the at-large candidates re-spin their tune to be in line with what NSI wants to do.
But don't worry. The way the ICANN elections are rigged, the Malevolent Evil Overlord's current position is ensured. These pesky rebels are no match for power of the empire.
the AC
If you are looking at cheap consumer grade products, then you will see comparisons with VHS. If you work on professional gear, you will see the term "broadcast quality".
:-)
VHS is a rather limited method of storing video signals. It roughly equates to under 480 scan lines with about 2.6 MHz of horizontal bandwidth and a fair amount of jitter in the timing signals. Compare that to a broadcast signal, which has 525 lines and 4.8 MHz of bandwidth, and very tight jitter for timing.
By cutting down on the bandwidth, you lose a lot of the clarity in the horizontal, and a little in the vertical. Since some of the scan lines are lost, the picture is a bit smaller and may be stretched or distorted to hide the fact. Text in credits is much harder to read and is usually blurry.
VHS quality means it is good enough for casual playback for the average couch potato viewer. The average viewer doesn't really care about signal losses, noise, jitter and jump in their picture, because their sets don't show the difference.
Do yourself a favor and take a look at broadcast quality gear sometime, and compare it side by side with VHS quality. There is a big difference, both is viewing pleasure and cost, you get what you pay for
But the term VHS quality just means its good enough for average consumers not to complain too much.
the AC
It wasn't in the phrasing or the marketing. There were two prices posted for every item on the shelf. There was the regular price, and the loyalty card price. But once you go to the checkout stand, they add on an additional 10% if you refuse to fill out a 4 page application for a loyalty card.
Since I only had a few items and was in a bit of a rush, I decided it wasn't worth my time to argue with the teenager running the stand. So I told her exactly that, and walked out.
The manager explained to me they are under pressure from the regional office to get 92% of their customers onto the cards, and to employ every trick in the book to get people signed up. A percentage are audited to keep the stores from faking it. The manager was a fairly decent and sympathetic guy, and he seemed clued in about not wanting to give up privacy but assured me they hadn't started selling their lists, yet. I told him I didn't live in the US, and would seldom ever use their shop again even if I did bother to fill out the loyalty card.
So the store is having problems meeting a stupid quota, and are turning to high-pressure tactics to sign up shoppers. Certainly this is to increase the value of their database of shopper habits, so they can start selling the information.
the AC
The same in Corsica.
A headline of "Le Canard Enchaine" (the chained duck, a french political weekly) lamenting the poor turnout in the last elections was:
meme les morts s'abstenir en nombres
Even the dead didn't have a large turnout
the AC
I like the last quote in the article
one of two things would happen. He would either be facing a considerable jail sentence, or he
would become one of the most powerful men in America.
This sums it up well. Depending on who he upsets and who he makes rich, he will either go to jail or get very wealthy. I like it, real risk with real payoff, all for calling attention to how corrupt modern democratic politics has become.
Does anyone remember the greek word for government by money? Specicratic? Does this make the US a dollaracracy?
the AC
Hushmail was the first thought in my mind when I read Cringeley's article. I'd love to see an open source version of a mail reader, similar to Imp, using either SSL or a java applet with a reasonable encryption.
:-)
A better solution for major companies is to block external access to their internal e-mail, thus forcing their executives to use something other than kiosks to check in. There will be a worry of keystroke grabbers on the kiosks, and packet sniffers at various locations on that network. I would expect any smart company already forbids logging into the company network from the internet side, except for a slightly secured home machine. Certainly you wouldn't log into root on your home machine from an olympic kiosk, would you?
As for terrorists needing communications, they probably do. If it is a small group of inbred hicks from north carolina wanting to set off pipe bombs, they may be stupid enough to email each other with enough information for the FBI to pick them up after the fact. They might use cell phones, assuming they can't be tracked, or maybe even pay phones. The sad fact, for terrorists, is that the counter-terrorist parts of the FBI cover all forms of communication already.
Rumour has it the algerian terrorists in france a few years ago shunned all electronic communication, making it very difficult for the french to track them down. All communication between the cells was face to face, the only exception was a guy in Lille made a call on a payphone in his neigborhood to a payphone in Lyon, and that unwrapped the case. The french anti-terrorist investigators had to fall back on footwork and following leads the old fashioned way, which is why it took years to capture most of the terrorists.
the AC
(I just realised my post has enough keywords in it to trigger every echelon filter from here to langley
allow an "opt out" policy for customers for whom privacy is a concern. After all, it costs them nothing
:-)
/., can spot your post as the troll it is.
Aha! You are the bastard killing e-commerce with your shallow and deceptive advice.
One of the biggest turn-offs for many new users on the internet is the perceived lack of privacy. Although most people haven't a clue about cookie abuse and web bugs, there is a general, low-level feeling that anything they do will end up in the hands of some anonymous black-hats. Black-hats in this case not being hackers, but con artists, high pressure telephone sales scammers, and credit reporting agencies. So they stay away from e-commerce.
We, the more knowledgable users of
There's a lot of hype and FUD around at the moment about privacy, and invasions of it, and falling for it simply limits your options and decreases the enjoyment of your net experiance
Because many of us are professionals in the internet biz, we are well aware of the privacy issue, and we can see through the FUD. There is a huge problem with privacy on the internet and in real life, and people are starting to become aware of it. Because most people have been burned by a scam at some point in their life, they will limit their options and their net experience. They will stay away from sites such as Tesco, because they have been scammed from giving away too much information before, and don't want Tesco selling the fact they own a cat and work too many hours to get to the shop.
Many people, myself included, are limiting our options because the net experience doesn't give us anything better than spending a little extra time in real life just like we have always had to do.
the AC
I recently was in the states and ended up walking out of a grocery store when they couldn't seem to sell me some groceries without a loyalty card. The poor girl at the checkout stand had been told by the manager that anyone without a loyalty card had to be forced to sign up for one. When she told me there was a new 10% extra fee added to any bill without a loyalty card, I just walked out. The manager tried to stop me, to check if I was shoplifting. His argument was that all stores have to charge more to people who don't have loyalty cards, and "everyone" was doing it. I went to the next shop down the road, and wasn't even asked for a loyalty card.
Some brick and mortar stores are desperate to skim every last little bit of profit from their customers that they can. Mining personal information is just the latest twist, and there are many stores now trying to sell that information through brokers. But for the moment, there are always alternatives who would rather have your custom than try to mine your data as well.
the AC