I am pretty sure this is the type of outside use that Google is against. Even so, it may be a useful technology to incorporate INTO Google, as a future Google service, or even to be provided by other services.
Imagine if Google was to provide some sort of remote filesystem storage for ANY OS, perhaps accessible via FTP or other protocol-over-HTTP. A searchable public filestore: not just what people keep in their websites, but the files that they keep... Intentionally made public, of course. The "technology" to do this exists in some forms already.
Yeesh, but then the various corporate execs would have fits because people were storing their favorite MP3s, DVD rips, TV shows, or whatever in their Google Public Share.
If it was not so abusive to FTP servers, I have thought more than once that an FTP search would be pretty cool. Let us say that you are looking for a specific filename that someone has in their anonymous FTP account. Punch it into Google, and blammo!
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what developes from this over the course of the next few years.
WinAmp can actually look like different kinds of real CD players!
I get a chuckle out of programs that are made to resemble real articles. Not that it is a bad thing, I just think sometimes we go over-board, like with games. I am waiting for the day a 3D game is advertised as "so real, it's like you got your lazy ass up off the couch and really played the actual game it simulates!"
And since when do we trust anything the US government says? Sorry, but the fact that it has now stepped in and said so simply dilutes the argument to switch.
Mostly MP. I tried WinAmp in the past and found it too bloated, and admittedly have not tried in quite a while. There was a pretty cool one which I cannot remember which had some neat visuals and used less CPU than WinAMP. I like XMMS on my Solaris boxes, as well as mpg123.
Mostly I have had to deal with MP3-to-CD encodings. When I have played them on a CD player, the sound is attrocious. But then, that might be the program used to convert the MP3 back to audio. There's about a bazillion out these days, so that's a good deal of experimenting.
But, nah, I haven't written them off totally. In many cases for me they are "good enough" quality with which to live. But the majority of my listening cases are not.
Which brings me to a question... has anyone else noticed the dramatic drop in music sound quality on radio stations which have switched to digital files? The music sounds really tin-canny to me, and painfully digital. I have stopped listening to some stations because of this. What is really funny to me is that radio is already low quality, you would think that using MP3s might not be noticible.
That's not what I said. I said the person who has nothing but downloaded MP3s and CD-Rs burned from downloaded MP3s.
I make this statement from experience. I have known several people whose entire collection is such. They check out CDs from the library just to rip them and borrow CDs from friends for the same, after having been eventually twarted by retail stores' non-return policies.
I would like to believe that the ones of us who use MP3 downloads as a "try-before-you-buy" are in the majority. I would also like to believe that we are also the ones who would be able to offer music we like to other for preview. That is how it was when I first started sharing MP3s in the IRCs. At some point the sharing apparently turned more devious.
I still believe that the RIAA missed the boat. The Internet is probably the greatest medium the world has or will ever see. Its uses far exceed what any of us can imagine, and it is a shame that as a culture we are simply not prepared for it. But in the simplest form, the Internet is a great distribution medium, and if embraced in the proper manner could bring in more wealth than current distribution channels and the lawsuits designed to keep those channels flowing (evolving, even.) The RIAA missed this point, and the 'Net Hippies (free love, man) got to it first. Until proven otherwise, I still stand firm on my conclusion that the problem is not the LOSS of money because of P2P, but because of the LACK of DIRECT INCOME from P2P.
As far as that goes, I would have never bought some of the CDs I have without having been exposed to them through P2P. Just the same as I would have never gotten into some of the bands which I have had I not been given tapes (*cough* Metallica.)
But my argument doesn't necessarily pivot on the whole concept of low or high fidelity. I maintain that those who really ARE concerned about their music quality and really want to enjoy it will buy the genuine article. (Other will argue that those who TRULY care about audio quality would stick with LPs and tube amps... but that can be addressed much much later;) There are plenty of people who, like you say, will put up with lower quality products (especially free) because it is just good enough. This is the same mentality which induces people to pay $5 for something which will wind up lasting 2 years instead of $10 for something which will last 10 years. I honestly do not have a solution in mind for this particular phenomena, but I will wager that such a person's entire collection is not solely MP3s; there are some real CDs mixed in there as well.
My involvement in P2P has stayed a practice of try something new, try before I buy. If I but a crappy album, I have lost that money. This way I have satisfaction in knowing that I will not be wasting my money. Some albums are just not worth buying, and I do not keep those MP3s on my system for very long. But there are plenty that I have downloaded, enjoyed thouroughly, and gone out and bought if reasonably priced or even available to me. (Those are other arguments into which I might get dragged.)
Bah. It is 3:00am, and I am losing my train of thought here, so I will end abruptly.
At the time I was using an Amiga 500 with no CD-ROM; four hard drives, but no CD-ROM. Later I got ahold of a 2x SCSI CD-ROM which I could use a program to pull the raw audio data from the drive, then use Sox to convert and resample all I wanted.
The idea then was music on-demand. No swapping CDs, skipping tracks, etc. The quality was tolerable. Once I got a large enough hard drive (2GB,) I wasn't concerned too much about the amount of space the songs were taking and began recording in stereo. That effectively doubled the space used for each song. So long as I didn't turn the audio filter off during playback, everything was fine!
Even though I was using Play16 which could play back WAV files, I still converted to IFF with F-D compression for the space savings (minimal, really) and the native playback in some programs. An upgrade to OS3 a few years down the road (I think I was in 2.04 until around 96) and datatypes helped allay this scheme.
Thinking on this time line now, I believe I was actually using his Windows 3.1 machine for my recordings. Yowsa!
It is a response I have made in the past to their "we are losing money because of the downloads."
Horseshit, try again.
The person who has nothing but downloaded MP3s and CD-Rs burned from downloaded MP3s was NOT going to buy the album in the first place. Instead, the person would have bummed a copy off of a friend who had purchased it.
IMO, downloading MP3s is no different than when we used to trade tapes at the skating rink or youth center. These tapes were often made from the radio (remember sitting with your finger on the PAUSE button?)
The facts are that MP3s are LOW quality (completely horrid, as far as I am concerned,) and CD-R media has a finite life-span. Anyone who is genuinely concerned about their music is willing to buy the CD/tape/LP/8-track if only for the quality of the sound.
I started out in digital music back with the music rack that came with some sound card back in early days of Windows 95. I would use a friend's Win95 computer to sample a track mono, 8-bit at 11kHz, then upload that to my Amiga at 2400bps over the phone. I would convert it to IFF with Fibonacci-Delta compression and play the songs back later when I felt like it. I got about 1MB per 1 minute of music. The playback was usable, but still horrrible. To me, a 44kHz 16-bit MP3 at 192kb/s sounds just the same. I would rather buy the CD and listen to it in the CD player. Not quite as portable, but at least hi-hats are not turned into high-frequency slosh, and vocals do not sound as is sung through a fan.
One big question I have is, for the purpose of non-profitable distribution, can an MP3 even be considered the original product? Because that seems to be part of the argument.
More questions which could be asked in court, on the record, and give the US legal system a chance to decide once and for all what is allow, and where the limitations lie.
This is all to common a theme these days. People are unwilling to stand up against tyranny, which is exactly what this legal campaign is. It's very similar, IMO, to the racketeering of DirecTV against people who had purchased smart card programming equipment.
If people would take a stand against the RIAA/MPAA when it comes a-knocking, a lot of light would be shed on their lair of demons. As said by the original poster, this would be a great chance to publically question the (RI|MP)AA about their calculations and figured, and tactics, and have the answers on record. Even if the individual being sued had a judgement made against him/her, I do not believe it would be anywhere near what the desired settlement would be, and it would finally set a precedence for limiting what could be sought in future cases.
If no one stands up against them, they will continue to rape and pillage the consumer. Think about "A Bug's Life,"; the RIAA/MPAA grasshoppers NEED us ants, and they KNOW we are strong and outnumber them, but somehow they are able to bully us into submission.
I actually had not meant the xx to be limited to two characters. xx can be of any length, including the necessary length to accomodate a 32-bit signed (or unsigned) number.
In that case, then it should be the responsibility of the DNS daemon to use numbers larger than 32-bit as comparisons?
I was under the impression that the standard for serial numbering was YYYYMMDDrr where rr is the current "revision" number. I see that used in Bind systems, though I see MS-DNS using incremental numbers from 1.
So, extend the serial numbering scheme to allow YYYYMMDDxx, where xx is an actual recognizable number, perhaps 32-bit singed or unsigned. Then that would allow that many revisions in a single day, rather than overall. Comparisons would hinge on the year, month, day, then revision. If the serial number is not in this format, then a straight value comparison.
I meant to address only the point the original poster made about patching. At least twice a week I hear from some admin or IT pro that he/she does not allow auto updating because of the potential of a bad patch.
In fact, I agree with YOUR point, and I will expand with my own views below.
When the last couple of worms made their way through systems I got asked by someone how much I had made because of this worm. My answer was that I did not profit from this worm; my client sites were all updated shortly after the update was released. Forced updates are not the solution for everyone, and I cannot imagine that Microsoft should allow such a schema on everyone.
I have worked with Windows servers on the Internet in the past, and am back in the position again. Other than the two Windows servers I manage sitting right on the Internet, all my client sites are behind NAT and/or some kind of firewalling.
I would never support the idea of leaving an Exchange server naked on the Internet, and that was not my intention in my post.
My job is to maintain small offices and installations which do not have server redundancy and cannot afford downtime, and I cannot afford the resources necessary to individually test each site. There is a lower probability that serveral sites will have a problem with a given patch, and higher that, if any, only one or a couple will have problems and I can fix that with a minimal amount of down time. For these offices, and for what I do, our best defense is automated, updated services -- be it server/workstation OS, email, antivirus, maintenance, etc. -- and site monitoring.
For a larger installation, something better than a single-server SUS solution is appropriate. I have not had the chance to use it in production, but I believe SMS can selectively push updates. That is a potential solution to help segregate test machines from production. This is expecting that a larger installation has the resources necessary to allow for testing before rolling to production. I can invision a partitioned network in which multiple SUS or SMS servers are available to segregate the installation into smaller portions whish would allow an admin to work with each unit as a smaler installation.
Blah blah blah...
There is a lot of work involved in what we all do, but the best medicine is the ounce of prevention.
Does anyone have a valid reason for not using some form of birth control -- the pill, condoms, pull-out, personality -- or is it better to just deal with the consequences? Protection from STD's? Beacuse really, when you have a network or a system that has any kind of Internet access, you're hanging your pecker out the window, just waiting to see what happens.
I wish I had time to pretty this up, but the girl friend is home. Play time is over:)
All of my client sites running 2000 or better have SUS running, along with a script which auto-approves updates. I've never had a problem.
Even though the update is due to push out tonight, I pushed the registry changes out today with group policies. On systems (still, though I'm pushing them to update) running NT Server, a login script and a.reg file does the trick quit nicely.
In the end, it takes much less time to roll-back a bad patch than it does to clean a system or entire network raped, ravaged, and left for dead by a virus or worm. Both of which are, unfortunately, part of the game we play and, fortunately, what we get paid to do -- REGARDLESS of your operating system.
Several hours to roll-back a patch, as opposed to a day or better of complete down time because the system was ravaged by a virus or worm, then spread to other computers on the network.
Choose your battles; it's the lesser of two evils.
Well, the bad news is that the joystick part is not built any sturdier than the originals; white plastic ring connected to the bottom of the stick. Remember how those wear out?
The good news is that inside there are NO metal blisters, instead using rubber "buttons" with a plastic hold down, which is in turn screwed down. That part seems pretty tough.
No store in my area seems to carry the Ms. Pac-Man stick... where did you find yours?
I haven't seen that one (Ms. Pac-Man pack) yet, but will definitely check it out, especially if Xevious is included (my favorite game ever!)
The noise generator may issue white noise, but there are most definitely other noises missing from the games. I'll have to post up recordings of the joystick games versus the actual games so we can tell the difference.
I have thought about opening the Pac-Man joystick and cutting out a 8-way path for the stick. I figure I have used 8-way controllers for two- and four-way games all my life, so I can adapt for this.
Aterwards, the Weather Information Association of America will lobby the government to introduce the Digital Millenium Weather Act which will make predicting, forecasting, or even speaking of the weather an incarcerable offense, as such actions would circumvent the for-pay protection scheme of the WIAA. As part of the effect of this law, anyone who owns or purchases equipment capable of detecting barometric preasure, temperature, wind speed, and other atmospheric factors would be guilty of posession of the implements of a felony.
I imagine the FBI busting into Wal-Mart HQ looking for records of people who bought glass barometers and those cool Gallileo thermometers.
I haven't taken my Atari joystick apart yet... I've kind-of forgotten to do that. But now you have reminded me and I will be performing surgery tomorrow after a good night's rest:)
And you are absolutely right about the Atari 800's distinctive look. Really, most platforms from that era have distinctive looks: C64, Vic-20, Atari 400/800, TI-99/4A.
Most of us familiar with the TMS-9918A video processor know as soon as we see a system using the same chip. I spotted it right off in the Colecovision when I was... God, how old WAS I? heheheh
Hey, speaking of the old TI. I was watching "The Running Man" the other day and it hit me that the keyboard in the "sonic deadlock" control cases looked familier. I paused the DVD and sure enough, it's a keyboard from the beige TI-99/4A! I remember Radio Shack was selling replacement TI keyboards and video modulators around the same time, so I'm guessing the 'Shack made a good source for prop parts.
I've bought a few of these to do web reviews, as well as for the novelty value. I have the Atari 10-in-1, the Activision 10-in-1, and the Namco Arcade joystick.
They flat out suck.
I am horrbily disappointed that, in this day and age of microcontrollers and well-written emulators, a better product could not be produced.
TVGames is slaughtering at least my memory of these classic games. Amongst other things, I found that all three are lacking a noise generator (makes explosions sounds like "boops", especially in Missile Command,) the colors are off, and the Namco arcade joystick is locked into four positions but includes Bosconian -- an eight-position game. In their defense, the game play for most games are identical to the originals.
What it comes down to is that if you DON'T have the console or a good emulator and rights (term used loosly) to the ROM image, it's not a bad $19. Otherwise, stick with the emulators and, of course, the original console; the former posessing much more longevity.
Hrmmmm. I like it when others tell me what I said.
No, I did not issue a statement admitting it was a false report. I said that a critical element did not show up in testing of newly purchased equipment.
And I am not sure how I feel about Mr. Seltzer's article. Especially his statement about trust. It is obvious that we should trust him over others because he is the author of the "Official" book on LinkSys. I do not, however, think that we should dismiss, or not trust, anything anyone has to say about security, regardless of stature. True, my announcement was not confirmed, and the more responsible in the Internet news community did indeed hold off on their reports while responses and discussions continued. Bravo.
LinkSys has "told" us by proxy of Mr. Seltzer that the units I got with the odd behaviors were customer returns. Well, I cannot speak for what LinkSys says -- they certainly did not say that to me. I do say that is pure conjecture, on both my and LinkSys' part, but it does make for a reasonable assumption concerning the three units used in later testing.
Just for information, there is no comment from LinkSys on this issue on its press release page http://www.linksys.com/press/press.asp , nor from Cisco http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/index.html
Even so, I still stand firmly by my original findings. Two older units *did* do this, even after a factory reset. Bad hardware? Pre-release firmware? Who knows. I saw what I saw. But it does go to prove one very important point: we should not be complacent about our perception of security. If you install Internet-facing equipment for clients, you are providing a great service to everyone if you port-scan the device. When you purchase Internet equipment, check the configurations and make sure it matches up to what you expect. Do not take your security for granted.
As an aside, Larry Seltzer, regardless of his credibility, is another journalist who has never contacted me for clarification or expanded information.
It should, somewhat. At first I felt bad, like perhaps I *had* jumped the gun when I made my first report. Even after I went over my original notes, I still wasn't satisfied due to the fact that I was getting people who stated they could not reproduce this, while others said they could.
So I put some more $$ into it and got three new ones. Sure as shit, it didn't work OTS, nor after flashing. So I spent some serious time trying to vindicate my original findings, which are now seemingly worthless.
Because of that, I put out a follow-up as quickly as I could, detailing my experience with more recent hardware, admitting that results from the tests in March was indeed dated.
Then today I see my name and my original post blasted around, as if I had never posted the follow up to clarify the whole affair. Word travels fast, huh!
Cisco/LinkSys never got back to me to help with troubleshooting after I made the results of my testing available to them, the firmware version on the website never changed, and I had the results of two new units on which to base my report. Once I collected responses to my post, I made the effort to keep from looking like an ass, and also to try to figure out why and if this would be coming from LinkSys as-is.
What it boils down to is that some people may be able to reproduce this behavior off the shelf with v2.02.7. Others will only see this behavior after disabling the firewall. The bug certainly exists, but it doesn't seem to be entirely LinkSys's fault if that behavior makes it to the home user.
I tried two different units and both showed the same results. Even after resetting the units, I was able to hit port 80 and 443.
However, as my follow-up says, and as no one else has mentioned, I bought three brand new units from local retailers, each came with v2.02.2, and they weren't vulnerable OOB, except for one that came with firewall off -- and I assume that had to be a customer return.
However, in the end, if firewall IS disabled, it DOES work as described on newer units. I cannot explain why the first ones I got with v2.02.7 behaved this way without any configuration changes.
Though I couldn't think of a response to the "legalizing burglar's tools" bit to fit in with the rhythm... In previous argument and persuasion experience, such a statement would have been forced out, anyway.
As one of your constituents, I am writing to ask you to support H.R. 107, the Digital Media Consumer Rights Act.
I am a consumer. Every year I purchase copyrighted works and face the difficult task of personally using these works in manners which I see fit.
This bill only makes a bad situation better by giving people explicit permission to create and distribute software to defeat any copy protection measures used to prevent me from making digital archives, physical backup copies, and to prevent play-back on equipment alternative to the mainstream.
I am also excited that the bill's extensive labeling requirement for music discs containing copyright protection sets a fantastic precedent for other copyright owners who take such steps to limit consumers fair-use rights. As a consumer, I desire the ability to make more informed purchasing decisions, thereby voting with my dollar buy purchasing only items which do not limit my personal use.
Slashdot Mirror
I am pretty sure this is the type of outside use that Google is against. Even so, it may be a useful technology to incorporate INTO Google, as a future Google service, or even to be provided by other services.
Imagine if Google was to provide some sort of remote filesystem storage for ANY OS, perhaps accessible via FTP or other protocol-over-HTTP. A searchable public filestore: not just what people keep in their websites, but the files that they keep... Intentionally made public, of course. The "technology" to do this exists in some forms already.
Yeesh, but then the various corporate execs would have fits because people were storing their favorite MP3s, DVD rips, TV shows, or whatever in their Google Public Share.
If it was not so abusive to FTP servers, I have thought more than once that an FTP search would be pretty cool. Let us say that you are looking for a specific filename that someone has in their anonymous FTP account. Punch it into Google, and blammo!
Anyway, it will be interesting to see what developes from this over the course of the next few years.
I remember one from when I started programming: "Nothing can be made fool-proof because fools are so ingenious."
I wish I knew who said that. Maybe I will look it up on Google some day.
And since when do we trust anything the US government says? Sorry, but the fact that it has now stepped in and said so simply dilutes the argument to switch.
Just kidding, Dubya.
Mostly MP. I tried WinAmp in the past and found it too bloated, and admittedly have not tried in quite a while. There was a pretty cool one which I cannot remember which had some neat visuals and used less CPU than WinAMP. I like XMMS on my Solaris boxes, as well as mpg123.
Mostly I have had to deal with MP3-to-CD encodings. When I have played them on a CD player, the sound is attrocious. But then, that might be the program used to convert the MP3 back to audio. There's about a bazillion out these days, so that's a good deal of experimenting.
But, nah, I haven't written them off totally. In many cases for me they are "good enough" quality with which to live. But the majority of my listening cases are not.
Which brings me to a question... has anyone else noticed the dramatic drop in music sound quality on radio stations which have switched to digital files? The music sounds really tin-canny to me, and painfully digital. I have stopped listening to some stations because of this. What is really funny to me is that radio is already low quality, you would think that using MP3s might not be noticible.
That's not what I said. I said the person who has nothing but downloaded MP3s and CD-Rs burned from downloaded MP3s.
;) There are plenty of people who, like you say, will put up with lower quality products (especially free) because it is just good enough. This is the same mentality which induces people to pay $5 for something which will wind up lasting 2 years instead of $10 for something which will last 10 years. I honestly do not have a solution in mind for this particular phenomena, but I will wager that such a person's entire collection is not solely MP3s; there are some real CDs mixed in there as well.
I make this statement from experience. I have known several people whose entire collection is such. They check out CDs from the library just to rip them and borrow CDs from friends for the same, after having been eventually twarted by retail stores' non-return policies.
I would like to believe that the ones of us who use MP3 downloads as a "try-before-you-buy" are in the majority. I would also like to believe that we are also the ones who would be able to offer music we like to other for preview. That is how it was when I first started sharing MP3s in the IRCs. At some point the sharing apparently turned more devious.
I still believe that the RIAA missed the boat. The Internet is probably the greatest medium the world has or will ever see. Its uses far exceed what any of us can imagine, and it is a shame that as a culture we are simply not prepared for it. But in the simplest form, the Internet is a great distribution medium, and if embraced in the proper manner could bring in more wealth than current distribution channels and the lawsuits designed to keep those channels flowing (evolving, even.) The RIAA missed this point, and the 'Net Hippies (free love, man) got to it first. Until proven otherwise, I still stand firm on my conclusion that the problem is not the LOSS of money because of P2P, but because of the LACK of DIRECT INCOME from P2P.
As far as that goes, I would have never bought some of the CDs I have without having been exposed to them through P2P. Just the same as I would have never gotten into some of the bands which I have had I not been given tapes (*cough* Metallica.)
But my argument doesn't necessarily pivot on the whole concept of low or high fidelity. I maintain that those who really ARE concerned about their music quality and really want to enjoy it will buy the genuine article. (Other will argue that those who TRULY care about audio quality would stick with LPs and tube amps... but that can be addressed much much later
My involvement in P2P has stayed a practice of try something new, try before I buy. If I but a crappy album, I have lost that money. This way I have satisfaction in knowing that I will not be wasting my money. Some albums are just not worth buying, and I do not keep those MP3s on my system for very long. But there are plenty that I have downloaded, enjoyed thouroughly, and gone out and bought if reasonably priced or even available to me. (Those are other arguments into which I might get dragged.)
Bah. It is 3:00am, and I am losing my train of thought here, so I will end abruptly.
At the time I was using an Amiga 500 with no CD-ROM; four hard drives, but no CD-ROM. Later I got ahold of a 2x SCSI CD-ROM which I could use a program to pull the raw audio data from the drive, then use Sox to convert and resample all I wanted.
The idea then was music on-demand. No swapping CDs, skipping tracks, etc. The quality was tolerable. Once I got a large enough hard drive (2GB,) I wasn't concerned too much about the amount of space the songs were taking and began recording in stereo. That effectively doubled the space used for each song. So long as I didn't turn the audio filter off during playback, everything was fine!
Even though I was using Play16 which could play back WAV files, I still converted to IFF with F-D compression for the space savings (minimal, really) and the native playback in some programs. An upgrade to OS3 a few years down the road (I think I was in 2.04 until around 96) and datatypes helped allay this scheme.
Thinking on this time line now, I believe I was actually using his Windows 3.1 machine for my recordings. Yowsa!
It is a response I have made in the past to their "we are losing money because of the downloads."
Horseshit, try again.
The person who has nothing but downloaded MP3s and CD-Rs burned from downloaded MP3s was NOT going to buy the album in the first place. Instead, the person would have bummed a copy off of a friend who had purchased it.
IMO, downloading MP3s is no different than when we used to trade tapes at the skating rink or youth center. These tapes were often made from the radio (remember sitting with your finger on the PAUSE button?)
The facts are that MP3s are LOW quality (completely horrid, as far as I am concerned,) and CD-R media has a finite life-span. Anyone who is genuinely concerned about their music is willing to buy the CD/tape/LP/8-track if only for the quality of the sound.
I started out in digital music back with the music rack that came with some sound card back in early days of Windows 95. I would use a friend's Win95 computer to sample a track mono, 8-bit at 11kHz, then upload that to my Amiga at 2400bps over the phone. I would convert it to IFF with Fibonacci-Delta compression and play the songs back later when I felt like it. I got about 1MB per 1 minute of music. The playback was usable, but still horrrible. To me, a 44kHz 16-bit MP3 at 192kb/s sounds just the same. I would rather buy the CD and listen to it in the CD player. Not quite as portable, but at least hi-hats are not turned into high-frequency slosh, and vocals do not sound as is sung through a fan.
One big question I have is, for the purpose of non-profitable distribution, can an MP3 even be considered the original product? Because that seems to be part of the argument.
More questions which could be asked in court, on the record, and give the US legal system a chance to decide once and for all what is allow, and where the limitations lie.
This is all to common a theme these days. People are unwilling to stand up against tyranny, which is exactly what this legal campaign is. It's very similar, IMO, to the racketeering of DirecTV against people who had purchased smart card programming equipment.
If people would take a stand against the RIAA/MPAA when it comes a-knocking, a lot of light would be shed on their lair of demons. As said by the original poster, this would be a great chance to publically question the (RI|MP)AA about their calculations and figured, and tactics, and have the answers on record. Even if the individual being sued had a judgement made against him/her, I do not believe it would be anywhere near what the desired settlement would be, and it would finally set a precedence for limiting what could be sought in future cases.
If no one stands up against them, they will continue to rape and pillage the consumer. Think about "A Bug's Life,"; the RIAA/MPAA grasshoppers NEED us ants, and they KNOW we are strong and outnumber them, but somehow they are able to bully us into submission.
I actually had not meant the xx to be limited to two characters. xx can be of any length, including the necessary length to accomodate a 32-bit signed (or unsigned) number.
Even so, that does not answer my question.
In that case, then it should be the responsibility of the DNS daemon to use numbers larger than 32-bit as comparisons?
I was under the impression that the standard for serial numbering was YYYYMMDDrr where rr is the current "revision" number. I see that used in Bind systems, though I see MS-DNS using incremental numbers from 1.
So, extend the serial numbering scheme to allow YYYYMMDDxx, where xx is an actual recognizable number, perhaps 32-bit singed or unsigned. Then that would allow that many revisions in a single day, rather than overall. Comparisons would hinge on the year, month, day, then revision. If the serial number is not in this format, then a straight value comparison.
Or am I missing something here?
I meant to address only the point the original poster made about patching. At least twice a week I hear from some admin or IT pro that he/she does not allow auto updating because of the potential of a bad patch.
:)
In fact, I agree with YOUR point, and I will expand with my own views below.
When the last couple of worms made their way through systems I got asked by someone how much I had made because of this worm. My answer was that I did not profit from this worm; my client sites were all updated shortly after the update was released. Forced updates are not the solution for everyone, and I cannot imagine that Microsoft should allow such a schema on everyone.
I have worked with Windows servers on the Internet in the past, and am back in the position again. Other than the two Windows servers I manage sitting right on the Internet, all my client sites are behind NAT and/or some kind of firewalling.
I would never support the idea of leaving an Exchange server naked on the Internet, and that was not my intention in my post.
My job is to maintain small offices and installations which do not have server redundancy and cannot afford downtime, and I cannot afford the resources necessary to individually test each site. There is a lower probability that serveral sites will have a problem with a given patch, and higher that, if any, only one or a couple will have problems and I can fix that with a minimal amount of down time. For these offices, and for what I do, our best defense is automated, updated services -- be it server/workstation OS, email, antivirus, maintenance, etc. -- and site monitoring.
For a larger installation, something better than a single-server SUS solution is appropriate. I have not had the chance to use it in production, but I believe SMS can selectively push updates. That is a potential solution to help segregate test machines from production. This is expecting that a larger installation has the resources necessary to allow for testing before rolling to production. I can invision a partitioned network in which multiple SUS or SMS servers are available to segregate the installation into smaller portions whish would allow an admin to work with each unit as a smaler installation.
Blah blah blah...
There is a lot of work involved in what we all do, but the best medicine is the ounce of prevention.
Does anyone have a valid reason for not using some form of birth control -- the pill, condoms, pull-out, personality -- or is it better to just deal with the consequences? Protection from STD's? Beacuse really, when you have a network or a system that has any kind of Internet access, you're hanging your pecker out the window, just waiting to see what happens.
I wish I had time to pretty this up, but the girl friend is home. Play time is over
::nods in agreement with you and thedillybar::
.reg file does the trick quit nicely.
All of my client sites running 2000 or better have SUS running, along with a script which auto-approves updates. I've never had a problem.
Even though the update is due to push out tonight, I pushed the registry changes out today with group policies. On systems (still, though I'm pushing them to update) running NT Server, a login script and a
In the end, it takes much less time to roll-back a bad patch than it does to clean a system or entire network raped, ravaged, and left for dead by a virus or worm. Both of which are, unfortunately, part of the game we play and, fortunately, what we get paid to do -- REGARDLESS of your operating system.
Several hours to roll-back a patch, as opposed to a day or better of complete down time because the system was ravaged by a virus or worm, then spread to other computers on the network.
Choose your battles; it's the lesser of two evils.
Well, the bad news is that the joystick part is not built any sturdier than the originals; white plastic ring connected to the bottom of the stick. Remember how those wear out?
The good news is that inside there are NO metal blisters, instead using rubber "buttons" with a plastic hold down, which is in turn screwed down.
That part seems pretty tough.
No store in my area seems to carry the Ms. Pac-Man stick... where did you find yours?
I haven't seen that one (Ms. Pac-Man pack) yet, but will definitely check it out, especially if Xevious is included (my favorite game ever!)
The noise generator may issue white noise, but there are most definitely other noises missing from the games. I'll have to post up recordings of the joystick games versus the actual games so we can tell the difference.
I have thought about opening the Pac-Man joystick and cutting out a 8-way path for the stick. I figure I have used 8-way controllers for two- and four-way games all my life, so I can adapt for this.
Thanks for the info!
Aterwards, the Weather Information Association of America will lobby the government to introduce the Digital Millenium Weather Act which will make predicting, forecasting, or even speaking of the weather an incarcerable offense, as such actions would circumvent the for-pay protection scheme of the WIAA. As part of the effect of this law, anyone who owns or purchases equipment capable of detecting barometric preasure, temperature, wind speed, and other atmospheric factors would be guilty of posession of the implements of a felony.
I imagine the FBI busting into Wal-Mart HQ looking for records of people who bought glass barometers and those cool Gallileo thermometers.
Whhheeeeeeeeeeee!!!
I haven't taken my Atari joystick apart yet... I've kind-of forgotten to do that. But now you have reminded me and I will be performing surgery tomorrow after a good night's rest :)
And you are absolutely right about the Atari 800's distinctive look. Really, most platforms from that era have distinctive looks: C64, Vic-20, Atari 400/800, TI-99/4A.
Most of us familiar with the TMS-9918A video processor know as soon as we see a system using the same chip. I spotted it right off in the Colecovision when I was... God, how old WAS I? heheheh
Hey, speaking of the old TI. I was watching "The Running Man" the other day and it hit me that the keyboard in the "sonic deadlock" control cases looked familier. I paused the DVD and sure enough, it's a keyboard from the beige TI-99/4A! I remember Radio Shack was selling replacement TI keyboards and video modulators around the same time, so I'm guessing the 'Shack made a good source for prop parts.
I've bought a few of these to do web reviews, as well as for the novelty value. I have the Atari 10-in-1, the Activision 10-in-1, and the Namco Arcade joystick.
They flat out suck.
I am horrbily disappointed that, in this day and age of microcontrollers and well-written emulators, a better product could not be produced.
TVGames is slaughtering at least my memory of these classic games. Amongst other things, I found that all three are lacking a noise generator (makes explosions sounds like "boops", especially in Missile Command,) the colors are off, and the Namco arcade joystick is locked into four positions but includes Bosconian -- an eight-position game. In their defense, the game play for most games are identical to the originals.
What it comes down to is that if you DON'T have the console or a good emulator and rights (term used loosly) to the ROM image, it's not a bad $19. Otherwise, stick with the emulators and, of course, the original console; the former posessing much more longevity.
Or better, set your home page as "Blank," and uncheck "Automatic proxy detect" (annoyingly set on as default. Seems like that works fine for me.
Hrmmmm. I like it when others tell me what I said.
No, I did not issue a statement admitting it was a false report. I said that a critical element did not show up in testing of newly purchased equipment.
And I am not sure how I feel about Mr. Seltzer's article. Especially his statement about trust. It is obvious that we should trust him over others because he is the author of the "Official" book on LinkSys. I do not, however, think that we should dismiss, or not trust, anything anyone has to say about security, regardless of stature. True, my announcement was not confirmed, and the more responsible in the Internet news community did indeed hold off on their reports while responses and discussions continued. Bravo.
LinkSys has "told" us by proxy of Mr. Seltzer that the units I got with the odd behaviors were customer returns. Well, I cannot speak for what LinkSys says -- they certainly did not say that to me. I do say that is pure conjecture, on both my and LinkSys' part, but it does make for a reasonable assumption concerning the three units used in later testing.
Just for information, there is no comment from LinkSys on this issue on its press release page http://www.linksys.com/press/press.asp , nor from Cisco http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/index.html
Even so, I still stand firmly by my original findings. Two older units *did* do this, even after a factory reset. Bad hardware? Pre-release firmware? Who knows. I saw what I saw. But it does go to prove one very important point: we should not be complacent about our perception of security. If you install Internet-facing equipment for clients, you are providing a great service to everyone if you port-scan the device. When you purchase Internet equipment, check the configurations and make sure it matches up to what you expect. Do not take your security for granted.
As an aside, Larry Seltzer, regardless of his credibility, is another journalist who has never contacted me for clarification or expanded information.
It should, somewhat. At first I felt bad, like perhaps I *had* jumped the gun when I made my first report. Even after I went over my original notes, I still wasn't satisfied due to the fact that I was getting people who stated they could not reproduce this, while others said they could.
So I put some more $$ into it and got three new ones. Sure as shit, it didn't work OTS, nor after flashing. So I spent some serious time trying to vindicate my original findings, which are now seemingly worthless.
Because of that, I put out a follow-up as quickly as I could, detailing my experience with more recent hardware, admitting that results from the tests in March was indeed dated.
Then today I see my name and my original post blasted around, as if I had never posted the follow up to clarify the whole affair. Word travels fast, huh!
Cisco/LinkSys never got back to me to help with troubleshooting after I made the results of my testing available to them, the firmware version on the website never changed, and I had the results of two new units on which to base my report. Once I collected responses to my post, I made the effort to keep from looking like an ass, and also to try to figure out why and if this would be coming from LinkSys as-is.
What it boils down to is that some people may be able to reproduce this behavior off the shelf with v2.02.7. Others will only see this behavior after disabling the firewall. The bug certainly exists, but it doesn't seem to be entirely LinkSys's fault if that behavior makes it to the home user.
I tried two different units and both showed the same results. Even after resetting the units, I was able to hit port 80 and 443.
However, as my follow-up says, and as no one else has mentioned, I bought three brand new units from local retailers, each came with v2.02.2, and they weren't vulnerable OOB, except for one that came with firewall off -- and I assume that had to be a customer return.
However, in the end, if firewall IS disabled, it DOES work as described on newer units. I cannot explain why the first ones I got with v2.02.7 behaved this way without any configuration changes.
Dammit... I missed a type-o. Before someone else points it out, "buy" in my penultimate paragraph should be "by." UGH!