Ok, all you slashdot people that are claiming "stored energy in magnets", or that this thing doesn't violate thermodynamics should be ashamed of yourself. You people may know computers, but you know jack squat about physics.
The GPL is something that GIVES you rights. The GPL is a license to copy and use software that's copyrighted. If the GPL is invalid, you're in violation of copyright law.
The disposable DVDs sucked because they were too expensive. Who wants to pay $10 for a limited time use DVD when you can rent one for $3? If they could get the price down to $4 I think you've got a great idea. I hate returning videos, and would probbably pay an extra $1 to not have to return the thing.
if I'm going to donate CPU cycles I want to know they're not being wasted by computing overhead.
And save them to be wasted on a pointless crypto problem that's well understood, and will take 10 years of waiting for computers to get faster to have any chance of solving.
I guess you could call it "art", whatever that means. I personally wouldn't lower it down to that level though. Let's face it, what people call art these days is meaningless self-masturbation, and this is far more interesting than that.
I think it's more like journalism, or some kind of subversive research. As someone else pointed out, this isn't "nothing to see here". Your claim would seem to be the "Oh my god look at that horrible device" is the thing to see, and since it doesn't exist, forget about it. The far more startling fact is that this thing isn't that far away from what's possible. Sure, you couldn't really do the GPS tracking because of power requirements. But what about shooting someone with just an RFID? The range of the transmitter wouldn't be very good of course, but it would be proof later on that someone was at the protest.
from www.jakobboeskov.com For this daredevil project Jakob S. Boeskov infiltrated an armsfair in Beijing with "the ID Sniper - the worlds most horrible hi-tech weapon" Too fantastic to be true? No its not! Read parts of the story here:
In June 2002 Jakob S. Boeskov travelled to the belly of the dragon to meet the enemy eye to eye - infiltrating China Police 2002 the first international weapons fair in China. He brings with him four hundred fake business cards, a promotional poster of a horrible hitech weapon, and the worst stomach cramps ever. Tag along to the Kingdom in the Middle and meet robot salesmen, enthusiastic Chinese entrepreneurs and singing teenage policemen.
Basically, the idea was to come up with the most terrible weapon imaginable, and to test it in a real environment. We had three days to finish up the weapon. Our fake company, Empire North, already had a logo and a slogan ("The Logical Solution" aping the Nazi classic "The Final Solution") but we had no weapon yet. Genius designer Von B and I worked overtime, and in two days we had the ID Sniper ready. The day before I was leaving, BLACK BOX editor Mads Brügger called designer Von B and asked him to change the design, because "it was too far out and he couldn't be responsible for what happened, if I was found out." Changing was not possible at this late stage. I guess he knew that. Maybe he was just, more or less elegantly, trying to shake off his share of the burden. I can understand it, because we were all becoming afraid. Afraid of what would happen if I was found out, and afraid of what might happen if the weapon was taken seriously. Would it be copied? Would we be responsible for the production of one of the most inhumane weapons in the history of man? We justified our project by telling ourselves that right now, a few people were walking around with socalled VeriChips implanted in their bodies, chips manufactured by the company Applied Digital Solutions. We kept reminding ourselves that right, now prisoners in Sweden are doing time at home wearing GPS chip wristbands. It would merely be a question of time before the technology would be used preemptively on suspicious persons, and as we repeatedly told ourselves, all new technology has been used for military purposes, and this technology would too, we concluded. Why not bring it out prematurely, so at least we could have a small part in getting a thorough discussion about this kind of technology? With this question, we basically came up with a brand new art concept. Let's for now just call it scifi conceptual art, defined like this: take the essence of an imagined future, turn it into a concept and present this concept in present day reality. Report the reactions. Would this new concept lead to a brave journey, searching for truth or would it just be a highly irresponsible prank? There was only one way to find out, and that was to do it. This is how it was done.
FACTS THE ID SNIPER RIFLE AS PRESENTED ON THE EMPIRE NORTH POSTER
GPS microchip based identification rifle
Empire North is proud to present the preliminary showcase of the ID Sniper Rifle a brand new tool in longterm riot control, and antiterror management. Please notice that some aspects of this cuttingedge technology are still in its outmost infancy, and more research is needed before the ID Sniper Rifle is a reality. Hence we are welcoming investors and business partners to join us in the important quest of developing the ID Sniper Rifle.
What is the ID Sniper Rifle?
To put it short, the idea is to implant a GPS microchip in the body of a human being, using a highpowered sniper rifle as the long distance injector. The microchip will enter the body and stay there, causing no internal damage, and only a very small amount of physical pain to the target. It will feel like a mosquito bite, lasting a fraction of a second. At the same time, a digital camcorder with a zo
And why is it necessarily Nextel at fault, and not a building blocking the signal, out of range, or sunspots? I'm sorry, but Americas Most Wanted isn't really a news source I really trust. That and the dumb cops of the world and you've got a news source less reliable than slashdot.
The fact that he wasn't trained and isn't skilled impresses me all that much more.
Are you also impressed when people are able to try a hundred differed different doors and find one that's open? He's not a genious, he's not overly impressive, it's just that security in big corps sucks. It almost has to when you have to let in hordes of people. There's tons of people that "aren't trained" that figure out how to do things. They aren't geniouses, they just don't require hand-holding.
The plain fact is that most people including me and you cant do that
Most people can't find their ass unless they're told where it is. The comparison with "most people" doesn't raise someone far beyond the ass finding level.
I can't do what he does because I don't have 8 hours a day spent trying to get into every website on the planet. I also have no motivation to do so, and for me prison is something to avoid. I suppose if I were homeless, a nice federal white collar prison would be an upgrade. I'm not a genious, and there's plenty of people that could quite easily do what he did, they just lack the motivation, time, etc to do it.
I know this is supposed to be "a good thing", but Ted Kazinski didn't "see things like other people did", and neither does anyone who's schizophrenic.
He's no Unabomber, and he's not schizo, but not "seeing things like other people do" isn't something that should be considered a universal good. Let's face it, he gets press because he's homeless. Homeless people get sympathy value in the press, especially when big corps like the NYT are pitted against them. The contrast of big rich super-corp vs. penniless homeless guy with computer is just so compelling that people eat it up. Of _course_ people are going to identify with poor, innocent homeless guy and not big NYT. People love the story of some seemingly powerless guy toppling the great powers of super-corp.
He doesn't seem like a bad guy.. my main complaint is all the people holding up some script kid like he's a hero, or genious or something. He's just a guy with a lot of time to open a lot of doornobs, so to speak. The takehome here is that you don't HAVE to be some genious to break into the NYT, you just have to try a lot.
I can't get to the interview, but the wired article seems to imply this guy is just a script kid. Basically it sounds like he's doing the modern day equivalant of war dialing.
He gets the press coverage because he's "homeless", but doesn't fit the alcoholic loser bum image of most homeless people. People like hearing such stories because it gives them hope that all the homeless (or more accurately, bums) might be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Total bullshit of course, but it makes for good copy.
A workaround is a simple method of fixing the problem without patching the software. Usually it involves configuration changes, disabling parts of the software, or even firewalls. For this particular problem it's easy to see why there's no workaround.
The fix is a software patch. Many admins prefer a workaround as a short-term solution (can change simple config in a few minutes). A software patch is obviously more complicated, and often has higher impact on other services.
I'm tired of hearing of this "what about the theoretical doctor on call for the dying patient" nonsense. We don't live in a world where you're guaranteed your cell phone works everywhere.
There's plenty of buildings that have thick contruction that you can't get reception in. Any doctor that it's THAT important to get ahold of on a moments notice already knows this and would check if he/she had service. Pagers have been around forever and typically have better reception where you can't get cell-phone coverage. Anyone that needs ultra-reliable means of contacting someone relies on the pager. The batteries last longer, the coverage is better, and they're smaller and more portable.
I do think the answer is probbably still a social one than a technological one. Cell phones are still relatively new, sociologically speaking. It takes time for the lunkheads of the society to get the message when they're acting like asses.
My guess is this interview was done over email. Spaf refers to "see my answer above" at one point, which indicates to me the interview wasn't done in real time. There's also no follow ups, or referring to previous answers in any of the questions, all telltale signs of an email interview.
The journalist is still at fault of course. Roger Rustad should have done his homework and found out that Spaf doesn't research viruses. He wasted half his questions on this fairly boring topic. Anyway, it sounds like Spaf is mostly an administrator and doesn't do much of his own research.
There's always a motive to release the source to something. It means you'll get OTHER PEOPLE TO DO THE DEVELOPMENT. Do you think open source exists just for "feel good nicey nicey" purposes? MS of course wants great installers for it's own operating system. They'd much rather all software be easy to install on MS OS's, just like anyone distributing an OS. The obvious way to do that is release open that particular software open source.
It's much more advantageous for Microsoft to have a freely available installer for their OS than it is to make a couple dollars selling it to an already flooded Windows installer software market.
wouldn't it would feel a bit different in the police, without warrant, were to do the same themselves imagine worst case of them bugging all internet cafes to examine generic traffic without individualized suspicion. it's bad enough they want to see what we do at the library....
Huh? None of that even came _close_ to happening. What does "imagine if thing X happened" have to do with this case. Imagine if the police beat the guy senseless and shoved toilet plungers up his ass. Wouldn't that be a violation of his rights? Duh, of course. Didn't happen though. There's no slipperly slope here. The monitoring was all done by the sysadmin with no co-ersion by the police.
someone who acts at the behest of the government -- an agent -- pretty much *is* the government, and i wonder if this interpretation colors the reaction of anyone here on privacy
To some degree I agree with you. In this case though the sysadmin did it all ON HIS OWN, and AFTER it became clear that the spammer was breaking the law. The police didn't contact him and tell him to wiretap the spammer. The police didn't coerce the guy into working as their agent. He wasn't even working as their agent at all. The police only said you'd have to bring us proof. The monitoring was all quite clearly an independent action of the sysadmin, not someone acting as an agent of the goverment.
If you're concerned about privacy, I suggest you not surf the net on unencrypted wireless internet connections in public cafes where you aren't paying for access.
At least in english, gender has come to refer to human assigned sex-roles. Man-ness, or Woman-ness essentially. Sex is biological and refers to plumbing or genetics. It reminds me of the News Radio episode where Beth says "All dogs are boys, and all cats are girls".
I thought it was funny as hell. I guess slashdotters can't see the humour in themselves. i.e All open source projects are Good, all government restrictions on software are Bad.
My only real complaint is there are just too damn many April fools jokes on slashdot. If the majority of the stories were actually real and only a few stories were jokes it'd be much easier to put one over on everyone.
Yah, a friend of mines car was stolen a number of years ago. The car ran out of gas, and was parked next to a police station in a no parking zone. It had several tickets on it before it was towed away. Even then they didn't realize it was stolen until several days later when no one came to pick the car up at the impound lot.
He's charged with "counterfeiting" (which I guess is equivalent to breaking copyright laws). The whole thing sounds very strange, since I'm not sure how coding exploits would break any copyright law. France has never been very open with regard to free expression in code. I don't know if it's still true, but France used to have several laws controlling the use of encryption in France.
So your argument boils down to: Intelligent, rich people don't file baseless lawsuits. Let's take a look at that claim with regard to stock prices and the actions of SCO's higher ups.
Before SCO filed the lawsuit in February of 2003, the stock was trading at about $2.50. At its height the stock price climed to around $22. That's an increase of almost 9 times. The upper management of SCO has been selling their stock like mad when the stock price was skyrocketing.
We have two facts:
1. The stock price has gone up enormously. 2. The upper management has profited from this enormously by selling stock.
Your claim is that intelligence people wouldn't file baseless lawsuits, (presumably because they'd never win, and thus wouldn't profit from it). Obviously the management HAS profitted from this lawsuit even before it's gone to court. The fact that the management is selling their stock doesn't mean the lawsuit is baseless, but it certainly throws out the "intelligent people don't file baseless lawsuits" argument. The motivation is most certainly there to file baseless lawsuits since it HAS inflated the stock price to outrageous levels.
The fact remains that you're walking around with a 300-500 device with you that's easy to sell and run off with. If you advertise the fact that you don't have just a cheap walkman, you will increase your chances of being mugged.
Walk around in the wrong neighborhood with those distintive headphones, and you could quite easily be mugged. Do you walk around with a big fat wallet with hundred dollar bills sticking out because worries about being robbed are only "media fearmongering"?
Are you really running an environment where an extra 1% is going to affect anything? Most of the time you're probbably not even going to get that much. Unless a package isn't provided in your distribution, don't bother compiling it yourself. While some people like the "tough guy macho factor" of compiling everything from source, there's usually little reason to do so.
Your time is better spent on properly configuring your server to be secure than screwing around optimizing everything to squeeze out a last 2% of performance out of a webserver. If you compile everything yourself you lose the ability for your package providers to maintain the packages. Do you really enjoy going and getting new kernel source, compiling it, and installing it every time there's a security patch?
Try to remember that you only have a finite amount of time. You sound like you already know how to compile apps, so it's not like you're learning much new. Time spent optimizing and controling is time lost that you could be doing something more productive.
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, all you slashdot people that are claiming "stored energy in magnets", or that this thing doesn't violate thermodynamics should be ashamed of yourself. You people may know computers, but you know jack squat about physics.
The GPL is something that GIVES you rights. The GPL is a license to copy and use software that's copyrighted. If the GPL is invalid, you're in violation of copyright law.
The disposable DVDs sucked because they were too expensive. Who wants to pay $10 for a limited time use DVD when you can rent one for $3? If they could get the price down to $4 I think you've got a great idea. I hate returning videos, and would probbably pay an extra $1 to not have to return the thing.
if I'm going to donate CPU cycles I want to know they're not being wasted by computing overhead.
And save them to be wasted on a pointless crypto problem that's well understood, and will take 10 years of waiting for computers to get faster to have any chance of solving.
I guess you could call it "art", whatever that means. I personally wouldn't lower it down to that level though. Let's face it, what people call art these days is meaningless self-masturbation, and this is far more interesting than that.
I think it's more like journalism, or some kind of subversive research. As someone else pointed out, this isn't "nothing to see here". Your claim would seem to be the "Oh my god look at that horrible device" is the thing to see, and since it doesn't exist, forget about it. The far more startling fact is that this thing isn't that far away from what's possible. Sure, you couldn't really do the GPS tracking because of power requirements. But what about shooting someone with just an RFID? The range of the transmitter wouldn't be very good of course, but it would be proof later on that someone was at the protest.
from www.jakobboeskov.com
For this daredevil project Jakob S. Boeskov infiltrated an armsfair in Beijing with "the ID Sniper - the worlds most horrible hi-tech weapon" Too fantastic to be true? No its not! Read parts of the story here:
In June 2002 Jakob S. Boeskov travelled to the belly of the dragon to meet the enemy eye to eye - infiltrating China Police 2002 the first international weapons fair in China. He brings with him four hundred fake business cards, a promotional poster of a horrible hitech weapon, and the worst stomach cramps ever. Tag along to the Kingdom in the Middle and meet robot salesmen, enthusiastic Chinese entrepreneurs and singing teenage policemen.
Basically, the idea was to come up with the most terrible weapon imaginable, and to test it in a real environment. We had three days to finish up the weapon. Our fake company, Empire North, already had a logo and a slogan ("The Logical Solution" aping the Nazi classic "The Final Solution") but we had no weapon yet. Genius designer Von B and I worked overtime, and in two days we had the ID Sniper ready.
The day before I was leaving, BLACK BOX editor Mads Brügger called designer Von B and asked him to change the design, because "it was too far out and he couldn't be responsible for what happened, if I was found out."
Changing was not possible at this late stage. I guess he knew that. Maybe he was just, more or less elegantly, trying to shake off his share of the burden. I can understand it, because we were all becoming afraid. Afraid of what would happen if I was found out, and afraid of what might happen if the weapon was taken seriously. Would it be copied? Would we be responsible for the production of one of the most inhumane weapons in the history of man? We justified our project by telling ourselves that right now, a few people were walking around with socalled VeriChips implanted in their bodies, chips manufactured by the company Applied Digital Solutions. We kept reminding ourselves that right, now prisoners in Sweden are doing time at home wearing GPS chip wristbands. It would merely be a question of time before the technology would be used preemptively on suspicious persons, and as we repeatedly told ourselves, all new technology has been used for military purposes, and this technology would too, we concluded. Why not bring it out prematurely, so at least we could have a small part in getting a thorough discussion about this kind of technology? With this question, we basically came up with a brand new art concept. Let's for now just call it scifi conceptual art, defined like this: take the essence of an imagined future, turn it into a concept and present this concept in present day reality. Report the reactions.
Would this new concept lead to a brave journey, searching for truth or would it just be a highly irresponsible prank? There was only one way to find out, and that was to do it.
This is how it was done.
FACTS
THE ID SNIPER RIFLE AS PRESENTED ON THE EMPIRE NORTH POSTER
GPS microchip based identification rifle
Empire North is proud to present the preliminary showcase of the ID Sniper Rifle a brand new tool in longterm riot control, and antiterror management. Please notice that some aspects of this cuttingedge technology are still in its outmost infancy, and more research is needed before the ID Sniper Rifle is a reality. Hence we are welcoming investors and business partners to join us in the important quest of developing the ID Sniper Rifle.
What is the ID Sniper Rifle?
To put it short, the idea is to implant a GPS microchip in the body of a human being, using a highpowered sniper rifle as the long distance injector. The microchip will enter the body and stay there, causing no internal damage, and only a very small amount of physical pain to the target. It will feel like a mosquito bite, lasting a fraction of a second.
At the same time, a digital camcorder with a zo
And why is it necessarily Nextel at fault, and not a building blocking the signal, out of range, or sunspots? I'm sorry, but Americas Most Wanted isn't really a news source I really trust. That and the dumb cops of the world and you've got a news source less reliable than slashdot.
The fact that he wasn't trained and isn't skilled impresses me all that much more.
Are you also impressed when people are able to try a hundred differed different doors and find one that's open? He's not a genious, he's not overly impressive, it's just that security in big corps sucks. It almost has to when you have to let in hordes of people. There's tons of people that "aren't trained" that figure out how to do things. They aren't geniouses, they just don't require hand-holding.
The plain fact is that most people including me and you cant do that
Most people can't find their ass unless they're told where it is. The comparison with "most people" doesn't raise someone far beyond the ass finding level.
I can't do what he does because I don't have 8 hours a day spent trying to get into every website on the planet. I also have no motivation to do so, and for me prison is something to avoid. I suppose if I were homeless, a nice federal white collar prison would be an upgrade. I'm not a genious, and there's plenty of people that could quite easily do what he did, they just lack the motivation, time, etc to do it.
He doesn't see things like other people do
I know this is supposed to be "a good thing", but Ted Kazinski didn't "see things like other people did", and neither does anyone who's schizophrenic.
He's no Unabomber, and he's not schizo, but not "seeing things like other people do" isn't something that should be considered a universal good. Let's face it, he gets press because he's homeless. Homeless people get sympathy value in the press, especially when big corps like the NYT are pitted against them. The contrast of big rich super-corp vs. penniless homeless guy with computer is just so compelling that people eat it up. Of _course_ people are going to identify with poor, innocent homeless guy and not big NYT. People love the story of some seemingly powerless guy toppling the great powers of super-corp.
He doesn't seem like a bad guy.. my main complaint is all the people holding up some script kid like he's a hero, or genious or something. He's just a guy with a lot of time to open a lot of doornobs, so to speak. The takehome here is that you don't HAVE to be some genious to break into the NYT, you just have to try a lot.
When the comment was posted, the article wasn't available.
I can't get to the interview, but the wired article seems to imply this guy is just a script kid. Basically it sounds like he's doing the modern day equivalant of war dialing.
He gets the press coverage because he's "homeless", but doesn't fit the alcoholic loser bum image of most homeless people. People like hearing such stories because it gives them hope that all the homeless (or more accurately, bums) might be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Total bullshit of course, but it makes for good copy.
I think you're being too literal. It must mean it's the only interview PUBLISHED since his arrest.
A workaround is a simple method of fixing the problem without patching the software. Usually it involves configuration changes, disabling parts of the software, or even firewalls. For this particular problem it's easy to see why there's no workaround.
The fix is a software patch. Many admins prefer a workaround as a short-term solution (can change simple config in a few minutes). A software patch is obviously more complicated, and often has higher impact on other services.
I'm tired of hearing of this "what about the theoretical doctor on call for the dying patient" nonsense. We don't live in a world where you're guaranteed your cell phone works everywhere.
There's plenty of buildings that have thick contruction that you can't get reception in. Any doctor that it's THAT important to get ahold of on a moments notice already knows this and would check if he/she had service. Pagers have been around forever and typically have better reception where you can't get cell-phone coverage. Anyone that needs ultra-reliable means of contacting someone relies on the pager. The batteries last longer, the coverage is better, and they're smaller and more portable.
I do think the answer is probbably still a social one than a technological one. Cell phones are still relatively new, sociologically speaking. It takes time for the lunkheads of the society to get the message when they're acting like asses.
My guess is this interview was done over email. Spaf refers to "see my answer above" at one point, which indicates to me the interview wasn't done in real time. There's also no follow ups, or referring to previous answers in any of the questions, all telltale signs of an email interview.
The journalist is still at fault of course. Roger Rustad should have done his homework and found out that Spaf doesn't research viruses. He wasted half his questions on this fairly boring topic. Anyway, it sounds like Spaf is mostly an administrator and doesn't do much of his own research.
There's always a motive to release the source to something. It means you'll get OTHER PEOPLE TO DO THE DEVELOPMENT. Do you think open source exists just for "feel good nicey nicey" purposes? MS of course wants great installers for it's own operating system. They'd much rather all software be easy to install on MS OS's, just like anyone distributing an OS. The obvious way to do that is release open that particular software open source.
It's much more advantageous for Microsoft to have a freely available installer for their OS than it is to make a couple dollars selling it to an already flooded Windows installer software market.
wouldn't it would feel a bit different in the police, without warrant, were to do the same themselves imagine worst case of them bugging all internet cafes to examine generic traffic without individualized suspicion. it's bad enough they want to see what we do at the library....
Huh? None of that even came _close_ to happening. What does "imagine if thing X happened" have to do with this case. Imagine if the police beat the guy senseless and shoved toilet plungers up his ass. Wouldn't that be a violation of his rights? Duh, of course. Didn't happen though. There's no slipperly slope here. The monitoring was all done by the sysadmin with no co-ersion by the police.
someone who acts at the behest of the government -- an agent -- pretty much *is* the government, and i wonder if this interpretation colors the reaction of anyone here on privacy
To some degree I agree with you. In this case though the sysadmin did it all ON HIS OWN, and AFTER it became clear that the spammer was breaking the law. The police didn't contact him and tell him to wiretap the spammer. The police didn't coerce the guy into working as their agent. He wasn't even working as their agent at all. The police only said you'd have to bring us proof. The monitoring was all quite clearly an independent action of the sysadmin, not someone acting as an agent of the goverment.
If you're concerned about privacy, I suggest you not surf the net on unencrypted wireless internet connections in public cafes where you aren't paying for access.
At least in english, gender has come to refer to human assigned sex-roles. Man-ness, or Woman-ness essentially. Sex is biological and refers to plumbing or genetics. It reminds me of the News Radio episode where Beth says "All dogs are boys, and all cats are girls".
I thought it was funny as hell. I guess slashdotters can't see the humour in themselves. i.e All open source projects are Good, all government restrictions on software are Bad.
My only real complaint is there are just too damn many April fools jokes on slashdot. If the majority of the stories were actually real and only a few stories were jokes it'd be much easier to put one over on everyone.
Yah, a friend of mines car was stolen a number of years ago. The car ran out of gas, and was parked next to a police station in a no parking zone. It had several tickets on it before it was towed away. Even then they didn't realize it was stolen until several days later when no one came to pick the car up at the impound lot.
He's charged with "counterfeiting" (which I guess is equivalent to breaking copyright laws). The whole thing sounds very strange, since I'm not sure how coding exploits would break any copyright law.
France has never been very open with regard to free expression in code. I don't know if it's still true, but France used to have several laws controlling the use of encryption in France.
So your argument boils down to: Intelligent, rich people don't file baseless lawsuits. Let's take a look at that claim with regard to stock prices and the actions of SCO's higher ups.
Before SCO filed the lawsuit in February of 2003, the stock was trading at about $2.50. At its height the stock price climed to around $22. That's an increase of almost 9 times. The upper management of SCO has been selling their stock like mad when the stock price was skyrocketing.
We have two facts:
1. The stock price has gone up enormously.
2. The upper management has profited from this enormously by selling stock.
Your claim is that intelligence people wouldn't file baseless lawsuits, (presumably because they'd never win, and thus wouldn't profit from it). Obviously the management HAS profitted from this lawsuit even before it's gone to court. The fact that the management is selling their stock doesn't mean the lawsuit is baseless, but it certainly throws out the "intelligent people don't file baseless lawsuits" argument. The motivation is most certainly there to file baseless lawsuits since it HAS inflated the stock price to outrageous levels.
The fact remains that you're walking around with a 300-500 device with you that's easy to sell and run off with. If you advertise the fact that you don't have just a cheap walkman, you will increase your chances of being mugged.
Walk around in the wrong neighborhood with those distintive headphones, and you could quite easily be mugged. Do you walk around with a big fat wallet with hundred dollar bills sticking out because worries about being robbed are only "media fearmongering"?
If you knew you were going to be slashdotted, wouldn't you link to a static version of the article instead of one running a PHP script?
Are you really running an environment where an extra 1% is going to affect anything? Most of the time you're probbably not even going to get that much. Unless a package isn't provided in your distribution, don't bother compiling it yourself. While some people like the "tough guy macho factor" of compiling everything from source, there's usually little reason to do so.
Your time is better spent on properly configuring your server to be secure than screwing around optimizing everything to squeeze out a last 2% of performance out of a webserver. If you compile everything yourself you lose the ability for your package providers to maintain the packages. Do you really enjoy going and getting new kernel source, compiling it, and installing it every time there's a security patch?
Try to remember that you only have a finite amount of time. You sound like you already know how to compile apps, so it's not like you're learning much new. Time spent optimizing and controling is time lost that you could be doing something more productive.