The iPod looks pretty cool and I would buy one, however, I am waiting for Ogg Vorbis support. MP3 is a lame technology due to software patents. Not to mention that my entire CD collection is in Ogg Vorbis format and I am not about to convert it. But as soon as Apple sees the light I'll be all over it.
Right. It would be a real bummer if the master computer sent an order to kill those pesky humans and the robot got snapped back by the network cable. I mean how embarrassing.
Every hologram storage unit will come with a demo Professor Moriarty simulation that will commandeer your computer until you discover a way to beam him out.
The Internet is a public place. To say that "No one can see where I browse or who I email" is alot like Microsoft saying that it should be illegal to post discovered flaws in their products to the public.
As far as the individual goes email content can be encrypted. But it looks like the government wants the headers of email and web traffic. Therefore I think there are some things that site maintainers can do to make things more secure.
Always run a web site in SSL mode. Even if you don't have a valid site certificate at least the traffic is encrypted
Run SMTP over SSL? There must be a way to get things like sendmail to try SMTP over SSL before falling back to unencrypted mode
Create a secure Internet backbone? There are virtual Internets out there that run on top of the Internet like mbone and 6bone. If we setup an encrypted backbone using IPsec tunnels site to site then the ISPs wouldn't ever see unencrypted traffic and would have nothing to log. They would just be passing packets with garbage. Then if we play with routing tables if a destination is reachable over the secure backbone the packets would be dumped onto it instead of your local ISP.
As a systems administrator I download and install alot of opensource software. If I just did the standard./configure ; make ; make install my/usr/local would become such a mess.
Therefore I had to turn to packaging the software I download. I started using the native solaris packaging mechanism, but it has a number of short falls.
It is a pain in the ass to build a solaris package
I would have to keep a notebook on how I built a particular package. What configure options I used. What patches I applied just to get it to build. That sort of thing so that when I am upgrading a package I know what I had to do last time.
pkgadd only registers the software on the system I am installing it on. What I mean is that if I install the software on one system's/usr/local and a whole network of clients are NFS mounting/usr/local, the clients have no idea that the software was packaged. Therefore, if the machine that I installed the package on disappears then the package information is lost.
One needs to rebuild the package for each and every release of solaris that comes out. Did I mention that building solaris packages is a pain in the ass?
I then stumbled across rpm. How it has saved my life:
I have rpm configured so that it stores it's database in/usr/local/rpm/db. Now every client that mounts/usr/local can see the RPMs installed and can install, update, or remove RPMs.
I have one NFS server for all my clients. My NFS server exports/usr/local as/export/local/$OSNAME/$OSREL. No longer is the package tied to the machine it was installed on.
RPM uses db files to store the package information. This makes package operations fast
RPM can verify an installed package letting me know if it has been tampered with or is just broken
I can gpg sign a package so I know the file hasn't been tampered with
RPM creates a source RPM which basically documents the build process for me. i.e. I threw out my notebook
I support solaris on sparc (5.6, 5.7, 5.8, & 5.9) as well as x86 (5.8). If I had to build solaris packages for all those archs I would never finish. The ability to merely --rebuild a package on another architecture saves me soooo much time. I have about 200 RPMs. That's 1000 packages. I would need a team of people to keep up.
So for me RPM is vital to my work as a Solaris administrator.
Re:It's not completely the sysadmins problem
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Ethical Obligations
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· Score: 1
Yes, I agree. The sysadmin should report the problem to an officer of the company. Probably the CEO or CFO. The company can then make a formal communication to any customers affected by the breach of security, usually through customer service and to the press via Public Relations.
Rumor has it that the crowd laughed during a pre-screening or some kind of audience test where Lucas was present. Apparently he got upset because it was supposed to be a serious scene. If this is true the man has lost all touch with reality.
ICANN is more evil than the Government. Granted it would be better if it was transfered to an international body to better reflect the international community that the Internet has become, but the US government is certainly a step in the right direction. Our government is supposedly of, by, and for the people. ICANN doesn't have such obligations. God I hate them.
So are you suggesting Windows where everything is a right-click-properties, performance tuning is a slider that goes from slow to fast, and every problem is solved by hitting the reset button? Thanks, but I prefer the team of mechanics that understands what is under the hood.
Slashdot has the answer to your question right here. I honestly don't see how one can change the views of Microsoft when they are making claims like that.
Can you say LCD Projector? It isn't much of a "theater" if the screen is measured in inches. I true theater screen has to be measured in feet. Otherwise, what's the point?
When I first saw the title of the article I got a little worried. But then after reading the article it seems that the Government is actually smart enough to realize that MS is full of crap. I am so proud of them.
It is not about designing a chip that you could sell to another company. It is about the home electronic hobbyist. I remember reading Circuit Cellar in Byte magazine a decade ago. It was always cool to sit down at your bench with a bread board and a collection of parts from Radio Shack and do it yourself. I'm glad Circuit Cellar is still alive and kicking.
It is not like they are asking for biometric information that can be left at a crime scene, unless I accidentally leave my retinas there. Therefore I don't really care.
Maybe Evolution will be better than Outlook.... if they can keep the thing from core dumping. The primary reason I hate MS apps is that they are buggy as hell. While there is plenty of OSS out there that is high quality, Evolution has a way to go on the stability front. I'll stick with Kmail.
In Nevada's past nuclear testing happened. It led to a Nuclear weapon that helped put an end to WWII which ultimately led to fewer lives lost on our side. That, in turn, led to a form of power generation that is, I hate to say, cleaner to the environment than fossel fuels. The waste merely needs to be dealt with responsibly.
So if Nevada wants to be proud of their history instead of ashamed of it, more power to them.
There is alot of information left out of this article.
When they say they have a dedicated server for sharing files does that mean they merely have a file server or are they running something like gnutella that is distributing the files? If the employees were playing the files from a central file server and not copying the files to their PC I would think it would lessen the RIAAs case.
Were the files downloaded from the Internet or were they ripped from CDs by the employees? If the company was able to reproduce the actual CDs would they still be held liable? I wouldn't think so.
I put together a system that I use in-house for doing just that (hence it wouldn't be hard for anyone else to reproduce).
The way I did it such that the passwords are never stored on disk is to encrypt the passwords using MySQLs built-in encryption with a really long password randomly generated by perl.
But then I would have to store this password somewhere if I wanted to decrypt any password thereby defeating the purpose. So what I did was to encrypt this password using the user's apache auth password which wasn't stored anywhere but in the user's head. A consequence is that if everyone forgets their password then all the passwords are lost forever.
Therefore, to view a list of passwords, a user would go to the SSL encrypted web page and enter their password to authenticate against the web server. The web server would take that password and use it to decrypt the key stored in the database. That decrypted key is then used to decrpyt all the passwords and display them.
The web page was also set to not cache on the client side.
Now granted, this isn't fool proof, such as the browser could ignore the caching hints, and the fact that the decrypted password key would exist in the apache process for short periods of time, but it is good enough for me.
I feel that experience speaks far stronger than any certification can. People seem to think that if they get a certification they can land a high paying job in IT. I know plenty of people with various certifications who are dumb as a box of rocks. I personally think it is a waste of a company's money to pay for certifications and I think it is a waste of people's time to get them. Not to say that there isn't value in classes to get up to speed on something quickly when there isn't enough time to spend reading the book first. But when time isn't an issue read the book.
Eight years ago I started out as a UNIX administrator by reading "Essential System administration" and then getting an entry level job making not much money. From their I started reading "DNS & Bind", "sendmail", etc, etc. Now I am a Sr. Unix Administrator (with a book shelf full of Oreily books). A few years ago I wanted to get into databases, so I read Oracle beginners guide and then the DBA handbook. I started doing DBA tasks and my company sent me to a backup and recovery class to get up to speed on it quickly. I have no certifications, nor do I have the desire to pursue them.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if one really wants to get into IT they have to enjoy it to the point that they feel motivated to learn new things on their own. Too many people just equate certification to salary.
Special effects do not a movie make. I wanted to walk out of Episode I half way through, even with all of the stunning special effects. I will definitely not be going to the cinema for this one. I probably won't even rent it. I'll wait for it to be broadcasted over the air waves. That way the special effects will be on par with the plot and characters. That is how I will let Lucas know that he ruined Star Wars. Of course that won't make any difference because the rest of you lemmings will camp out 1 week before the debute.
And just for the record, I thought the muppets looked far more realistic than the lame computer graphics of Episode I.
Slashdot Mirror
The iPod looks pretty cool and I would buy one, however, I am waiting for Ogg Vorbis support. MP3 is a lame technology due to software patents. Not to mention that my entire CD collection is in Ogg Vorbis format and I am not about to convert it. But as soon as Apple sees the light I'll be all over it.
Right. It would be a real bummer if the master computer sent an order to kill those pesky humans and the robot got snapped back by the network cable. I mean how embarrassing.
Every hologram storage unit will come with a demo Professor Moriarty simulation that will commandeer your computer until you discover a way to beam him out.
Hey, if it was hard to code it should be hard to use. Oh wait, maybe that was in reference to documentation.
As far as the individual goes email content can be encrypted. But it looks like the government wants the headers of email and web traffic. Therefore I think there are some things that site maintainers can do to make things more secure.
Yup, me too. It's a little old when Reader's Digest gets the jump on Slashdot.
Therefore I had to turn to packaging the software I download. I started using the native solaris packaging mechanism, but it has a number of short falls.
I then stumbled across rpm. How it has saved my life:
So for me RPM is vital to my work as a Solaris administrator.
Yes, I agree. The sysadmin should report the problem to an officer of the company. Probably the CEO or CFO. The company can then make a formal communication to any customers affected by the breach of security, usually through customer service and to the press via Public Relations.
-Star Wars: Not the choice of a new generation.
ICANN is more evil than the Government. Granted it would be better if it was transfered to an international body to better reflect the international community that the Internet has become, but the US government is certainly a step in the right direction. Our government is supposedly of, by, and for the people. ICANN doesn't have such obligations. God I hate them.
So are you suggesting Windows where everything is a right-click-properties, performance tuning is a slider that goes from slow to fast, and every problem is solved by hitting the reset button? Thanks, but I prefer the team of mechanics that understands what is under the hood.
Slashdot has the answer to your question right here. I honestly don't see how one can change the views of Microsoft when they are making claims like that.
Then why wouldn't DeCSS fall into that category? I'd say that was a pretty good research project.
Well, Duh!!!!
I'm just glad that my wide screen Laser Discs of the Trilogy are still in perfect condition.
Can you say LCD Projector? It isn't much of a "theater" if the screen is measured in inches. I true theater screen has to be measured in feet. Otherwise, what's the point?
--
"Windows - The Pinto of the 21st century"
It is not about designing a chip that you could sell to another company. It is about the home electronic hobbyist. I remember reading Circuit Cellar in Byte magazine a decade ago. It was always cool to sit down at your bench with a bread board and a collection of parts from Radio Shack and do it yourself. I'm glad Circuit Cellar is still alive and kicking.
What the hell is the point? Episode II is going to suck just as bad as Episode I did, therefore, it isn't even worth downloading.
It is not like they are asking for biometric information that can be left at a crime scene, unless I accidentally leave my retinas there. Therefore I don't really care.
-Dave
So if Nevada wants to be proud of their history instead of ashamed of it, more power to them.
When they say they have a dedicated server for sharing files does that mean they merely have a file server or are they running something like gnutella that is distributing the files? If the employees were playing the files from a central file server and not copying the files to their PC I would think it would lessen the RIAAs case.
Were the files downloaded from the Internet or were they ripped from CDs by the employees? If the company was able to reproduce the actual CDs would they still be held liable? I wouldn't think so.
The way I did it such that the passwords are never stored on disk is to encrypt the passwords using MySQLs built-in encryption with a really long password randomly generated by perl.
But then I would have to store this password somewhere if I wanted to decrypt any password thereby defeating the purpose. So what I did was to encrypt this password using the user's apache auth password which wasn't stored anywhere but in the user's head. A consequence is that if everyone forgets their password then all the passwords are lost forever.
Therefore, to view a list of passwords, a user would go to the SSL encrypted web page and enter their password to authenticate against the web server. The web server would take that password and use it to decrypt the key stored in the database. That decrypted key is then used to decrpyt all the passwords and display them.
The web page was also set to not cache on the client side.
Now granted, this isn't fool proof, such as the browser could ignore the caching hints, and the fact that the decrypted password key would exist in the apache process for short periods of time, but it is good enough for me.
Eight years ago I started out as a UNIX administrator by reading "Essential System administration" and then getting an entry level job making not much money. From their I started reading "DNS & Bind", "sendmail", etc, etc. Now I am a Sr. Unix Administrator (with a book shelf full of Oreily books). A few years ago I wanted to get into databases, so I read Oracle beginners guide and then the DBA handbook. I started doing DBA tasks and my company sent me to a backup and recovery class to get up to speed on it quickly. I have no certifications, nor do I have the desire to pursue them.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that if one really wants to get into IT they have to enjoy it to the point that they feel motivated to learn new things on their own. Too many people just equate certification to salary.
And just for the record, I thought the muppets looked far more realistic than the lame computer graphics of Episode I.