Two-factor authentication is a reality. There has been smart card support in Windows 2000 since it first came out, and it's definitely in XP. There should be support for it in the various free xNICes. To make the smart card work, you put it in a reader and enter a PIN. Windows uses EAP/TLS for the encryption protocol, and I suspect that if there is support in Linux/*BSD/MacOS X they'd use same or similar...I don't think EAP is a strictly MS thing.
Another way of doing two-factor authentication is with biometrics, but that is proving to be problematic to say the least. And a smart card can double as a physical access badge and can even be used in some timeclock systems.
It's definitely not for everyone. But for example, lots of banks use simple mag-stripe cards for physical access to their facilities. Those are fairly easy to fake out, alas. A smart card would be much harder to fake, and could be used for authentication and authorization on their workstations too.
Of course, a sophisticated Social Engineer could worm their way into getting a smart card but it's fairly easy for security to revoke a particular card's access.
I would say that about VIA's chipsets for AMD and Intel processors, but the EPIA platform is a very interesting one for some light-duty applications. Especially now that the EPIA-M, with its MPEG2 decoder onboard, is out. I could see some Chinese company building DVD players as basically EPIA-M PC boxes.
This S3/VIA video circuitry could be an interesting addition to a future EPIA platform motherboard. If you look at this card as a potential gaming card you will probably be disappointed. But in conjunction with EPIA and the kind of things one does with EPIA it might be worthwhile.
3a.)Some people think that FreeBSD actually performs better on the desktop than Linux. From personal experience, I am in this camp. However, Linux is EASIER on the desktop...it doesn't require the same amount of tweaking that FreeBSD on the desktop does. However, the rewards of all that tweaking are amazing. Also: a non-optimized FreeBSD install can be passed between two machines with disparate equipment without problems. Just did it recently. A HD originally set up on a 733MHz PIII was transfered to a 180MHz Pentium Pro box without bad consequences. However, once you recompile the kernel from Generic, it's a different story...
Aside from some issues with amd and the way they have it set up in the distro (had to yank out nfsd and related proggies by the roots in order to shut down gracefully) Mandrake 9 has been the least troublesome Linux installation I have ever had the pleasure of running.
Urpmi and the update wizard have kept things running smoothly and securely. I have every app I need right at my fingertips. I'm impressed. Hope Mandrake doesn't go belly-up...they have a great distro.
"Mighty fine nerve tonic...and boy do I have nerve!"
Cartoon reference...anyway, I digress...
The first Celerons were junk. No cache. Wretched things. Ugh. However, the Mendocino Celerons, the Coppermine Celerons and best of all the Tualatin Celerons were almost as good as their respective PIII "big brothers." Great price point made them the choice for anything that didn't absolutely, positively need all the caching the PIII provided.
However, the "Celeron...eew!" equation has become a reality again. Basically the chips Intel are selling as Celerons are very neutered P4s. Avoid them like the plague.
They do exist. In fact, MS has just recently gotten more heavily into networking hardware...particularly WiFi. Couldn't tell you if their stuff is good or bad, but it's out there.
I think that's his point exactly. The alpha geek in your company prolly had a miserable life at the hands of jocks and soshes...the kind of people who grow up to be company execs and marketdroids. BE NICE to your SysAdmin. Otherwise you might find yourself in a world of hurt, because s/he still has scores to settle.
This one looks like it is really and truly cross-platform. FreeBSD, Linux and Mac seem to be affected, as are drivers written for Windows.
To be perfectly honest, this is not a vulnerability that sends chills down my spine. Sure, someone could snarf a packet or two, but the fact is, there is nothing on my system at home which I'd care about someone sniffing.
Now, if this allowed for remote sploits, running of arbitrary code, etc...then I'd be worried. However, if I had some big gnarly trade secrets on my network, I would be very worried about this.
...that's what I'd tell all these TV execs with their panties in a twist.
I would pay a modest fee per month ($5? $10?) to get unlimited access to a video stream of television shows that are no longer on the air.
For example: "Daria" is only shown in the US on a small cable channel called Noggin, or "The N" as it is known at night. There aren't many cable systems which receive Noggin. It is also heavily censored in these rebroadcasts. I would gladly pay MTV Networks $5 monthly to get access to that and other MTV Animation shows like Beavis and Butt-Head, The Maxx and Aeon Flux. Especially if I could get the original cuts of the episodes, not the bowdlerized versions.
Hell, I would even tolerate interstitial ads for this privelege! Keep the damn commercials in if that's the price to pay for this service.
Rather than being so stick-happy, Big Media should look at the value of throwing their customers a nice juicy carrot every so often.
You know what, AC? If something like that did happen, it would be unfortunate and would hurt on an emotional level, but as far as real effects go, it wouldn't mean jack. Open Source is bigger than Linus Torvalds, it's bigger than Alan Cox, it's bigger than Jordan Hubbard, it's bigger than any "superstar" you'd care to name.
This is the beauty of Open Source. It's not the proprietary creation of any one person or company. If Linus had a heart attack (Goddess forbid!) or whatever, there will be others stepping up to the plate to keep it going. And the source code isn't a big, deep, dark secret in someone's vault. No, it's available EVERYWHERE. A project need not die when the "key man" dies or becomes incapacitated.
Some genius in St. Petersburg or New Delhi or Beijing or Chiang Mai or Edinburgh or Toronto or West Bumblefsck Tennessee could be out there and take over tomorrow morning if his/her skillz are 'leet enough. The next F/OSS coder superstar could be your next door neighbor and you might not even know it.
This is why MS is running so scared now. Actually it's more like the Federation facing down The Borg rather than the other way around. The Enterprise can destroy a single Borg colony ship, but there are others out there. Kill the Borg Queen? Her successor could come from any given Borg incubator, and you wouldn't know where it was to strangle that baby in its crib. You cannot fully eradicate termites and fire ants from an ecosystem they have colonized.
I hate how Republicans and those to the right of Republicans spit out "The Democrat Party" as if it was a curse word. In fact, in an "issue" ad funded by Soft Money that the RNC ran during the 2000 Presidential campaign, the word Democrats was associated with the word RATS.
Lycoris. Mandrake. and the 800 lb. gorilla in the race, MacOS X.
Yes there are xNIX-like operating systems on the desktop. When I get home from working at a Windows-centric company and am finished fighting Windows quirks and MS Office quirks for the day, I fire up my PC running Mandrake 9 with KDE and I am HOME AGAIN. Yes, Linux has its own peculiar set of quirks. But I don't mind them.
Please note: this is my opinion. Do not just say "oh yeah, another Windoze SuX0rz post." If you really, really like Windows, that's your prerogative. Enjoy.
http://www.lycoris.com/ . That is, if you like KDE. They choose one app for each function you might want. Installs in 15 minutes on a PIII. If you want to be able to reconfigure the kernel and/or develop with it you must install the "Devtools" disk, but the default install is on one disk.
BTW I like Mandrake 9 for the very reason you are bitching about it: choice. Lycoris chooses which app of every app you use, Mandrake allows ME to choose. Yeah, there are multiple choices for apps, but it allows me to decide which app is "best of breed" for me.
if you put recyclables in a City-marked recycling bin, they become property of the City. I know that sounds like one of those "Soviet Russia" trolls, but it is true. Homeless people have been busted for raiding recycling bins. This is why I cut out the middleman and give my bottles and cans to the local gleaners. Let them get the California Redemption Value. They need it more than I do.
...Philips' preferred name for the files are CD-DA (Compact Disk - Digital Audio) files. Since 8.3 format (DOS, Windows 3.x) did not allow more than a three character extension,.CDDA was out of the question.
I don't even think that files on a Red Book CD are "files" the way we think of them. They are chunks of raw digital audio at 44.1KHz. "Ripper" programs take that raw digital audio and reformats it into actual files a computer can understand.
Development on the XWindow system at MIT started in 1984. This was during the conflict between Borland and Microsoft over the "windows" name. However, both Xerox PARC and Apple were using the generic term "window" long before that time.
In developing countries, Free/Open software makes tremendous sense. When your average worker doesn't make enough money in the average month to buy a license to Microsoft's latest OS, you know there's a disconnect.
Maybe my home state (CA, the new capital of hideous debt) might take a lesson from India.
I don't blame them. I have so far resisted the siren call of 802.11x because of all the security problems. WEP is pretty damn lame, VPNs are a pain and usually are also proprietary solutions, and even with wired Internet there are some people out there who view your network as a challenge to surmount. This is why I intend to take all the machines on my network that run Windows OFF the network. The Macs and the Linux and FreeBSD boxen can stay on, but the Spawn Of Bill get no gateway address or DNS information. Their IP addresses and hardware NIC IDs also will get filtered. I suspect this will solve a multitude of problems.
...to be used as payment in their stores. Basically your card gets hooked up to your savings or checking account, and they basically get their money via an Electronic Funds Transfer. Here's the info on the Vons site: http://www.vons.com/smartcheck.asp. Actually Vons has been doing this for quite a while, but they are relaunching the service.
The fingerprint reader could have sensors on it to determine if what it's reading is a warm, live finger, or a cold inanimate object. If it's warm, it's accepted. If it's cold, it gets kicked back. This is not only good for the gelatin fake finger trick, it's also useful in the absolute worst case scenario where the finger was cut from a corpse, or a living person. Ouch! I believe that mil-spec fingerprint readers have this capability...those consumer-grade readers like U-R-U and the IBM laptop thingy don't have this kind of sophistication.
Actually I think that this new Anime bloc on TechTV is great. I have been waiting for someone to pick up Serial Experiments: Lain, and was actually hoping that MTV would be the ones to do it. However, TechTV is a great venue for this to show up on. Lain in particular is all about the same stuff that is TechTV's stock in trade: it's all about people's place in a world of accelerating technology.
Now if they'd pick up.hack...that would rock. Plenty of room for the kind of synergies they love there, especially when you consider that Sony is putting out a translated.hack MMRPG this coming year. Extended Play, anyone?.hack on The Screensavers' LAN Party (powered by NVidia)? It would be a suit's dream.
I'd also like to see Excel Saga there, but I doubt it would fit the TechTV format. Actually I can't think of a cable channel off-hand where it would fit. Comedy Central? Too wild for them. Sundance? IFC? Maybe there, but I've never seen Anime on either. Oh well.
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Two-factor authentication is a reality. There has been smart card support in Windows 2000 since it first came out, and it's definitely in XP. There should be support for it in the various free xNICes. To make the smart card work, you put it in a reader and enter a PIN. Windows uses EAP/TLS for the encryption protocol, and I suspect that if there is support in Linux/*BSD/MacOS X they'd use same or similar...I don't think EAP is a strictly MS thing.
Another way of doing two-factor authentication is with biometrics, but that is proving to be problematic to say the least. And a smart card can double as a physical access badge and can even be used in some timeclock systems.
It's definitely not for everyone. But for example, lots of banks use simple mag-stripe cards for physical access to their facilities. Those are fairly easy to fake out, alas. A smart card would be much harder to fake, and could be used for authentication and authorization on their workstations too.
Of course, a sophisticated Social Engineer could worm their way into getting a smart card but it's fairly easy for security to revoke a particular card's access.
Kiki's Delivery Service was released in a subbed VHS version too...I know, I have a copy. Japanese language track, English subtitles.
I would say that about VIA's chipsets for AMD and Intel processors, but the EPIA platform is a very interesting one for some light-duty applications. Especially now that the EPIA-M, with its MPEG2 decoder onboard, is out. I could see some Chinese company building DVD players as basically EPIA-M PC boxes.
This S3/VIA video circuitry could be an interesting addition to a future EPIA platform motherboard. If you look at this card as a potential gaming card you will probably be disappointed. But in conjunction with EPIA and the kind of things one does with EPIA it might be worthwhile.
3a.)Some people think that FreeBSD actually performs better on the desktop than Linux. From personal experience, I am in this camp. However, Linux is EASIER on the desktop...it doesn't require the same amount of tweaking that FreeBSD on the desktop does. However, the rewards of all that tweaking are amazing. Also: a non-optimized FreeBSD install can be passed between two machines with disparate equipment without problems. Just did it recently. A HD originally set up on a 733MHz PIII was transfered to a 180MHz Pentium Pro box without bad consequences. However, once you recompile the kernel from Generic, it's a different story...
;-)
7a.) You have two entries under "7.)"
Aside from some issues with amd and the way they have it set up in the distro (had to yank out nfsd and related proggies by the roots in order to shut down gracefully) Mandrake 9 has been the least troublesome Linux installation I have ever had the pleasure of running.
Urpmi and the update wizard have kept things running smoothly and securely. I have every app I need right at my fingertips. I'm impressed. Hope Mandrake doesn't go belly-up...they have a great distro.
Working there is its own punishment. :P
"Mighty fine nerve tonic...and boy do I have nerve!"
Cartoon reference...anyway, I digress...
The first Celerons were junk. No cache. Wretched things. Ugh. However, the Mendocino Celerons, the Coppermine Celerons and best of all the Tualatin Celerons were almost as good as their respective PIII "big brothers." Great price point made them the choice for anything that didn't absolutely, positively need all the caching the PIII provided.
However, the "Celeron...eew!" equation has become a reality again. Basically the chips Intel are selling as Celerons are very neutered P4s. Avoid them like the plague.
They do exist. In fact, MS has just recently gotten more heavily into networking hardware...particularly WiFi. Couldn't tell you if their stuff is good or bad, but it's out there.
I think that's his point exactly. The alpha geek in your company prolly had a miserable life at the hands of jocks and soshes...the kind of people who grow up to be company execs and marketdroids. BE NICE to your SysAdmin. Otherwise you might find yourself in a world of hurt, because s/he still has scores to settle.
Apple is vulnerable too...RTFA.
This one looks like it is really and truly cross-platform. FreeBSD, Linux and Mac seem to be affected, as are drivers written for Windows.
To be perfectly honest, this is not a vulnerability that sends chills down my spine. Sure, someone could snarf a packet or two, but the fact is, there is nothing on my system at home which I'd care about someone sniffing.
Now, if this allowed for remote sploits, running of arbitrary code, etc...then I'd be worried. However, if I had some big gnarly trade secrets on my network, I would be very worried about this.
How to lock down Windows?
;-)
First, you take your Windows boxen OFF the Internet.
Then you apply all relevant service packs.
Then you don't let those puppies on the Internet ever again.
...that's what I'd tell all these TV execs with their panties in a twist.
I would pay a modest fee per month ($5? $10?) to get unlimited access to a video stream of television shows that are no longer on the air.
For example: "Daria" is only shown in the US on a small cable channel called Noggin, or "The N" as it is known at night. There aren't many cable systems which receive Noggin. It is also heavily censored in these rebroadcasts. I would gladly pay MTV Networks $5 monthly to get access to that and other MTV Animation shows like Beavis and Butt-Head, The Maxx and Aeon Flux. Especially if I could get the original cuts of the episodes, not the bowdlerized versions.
Hell, I would even tolerate interstitial ads for this privelege! Keep the damn commercials in if that's the price to pay for this service.
Rather than being so stick-happy, Big Media should look at the value of throwing their customers a nice juicy carrot every so often.
You know what, AC? If something like that did happen, it would be unfortunate and would hurt on an emotional level, but as far as real effects go, it wouldn't mean jack. Open Source is bigger than Linus Torvalds, it's bigger than Alan Cox, it's bigger than Jordan Hubbard, it's bigger than any "superstar" you'd care to name.
This is the beauty of Open Source. It's not the proprietary creation of any one person or company. If Linus had a heart attack (Goddess forbid!) or whatever, there will be others stepping up to the plate to keep it going. And the source code isn't a big, deep, dark secret in someone's vault. No, it's available EVERYWHERE. A project need not die when the "key man" dies or becomes incapacitated.
Some genius in St. Petersburg or New Delhi or Beijing or Chiang Mai or Edinburgh or Toronto or West Bumblefsck Tennessee could be out there and take over tomorrow morning if his/her skillz are 'leet enough. The next F/OSS coder superstar could be your next door neighbor and you might not even know it.
This is why MS is running so scared now. Actually it's more like the Federation facing down The Borg rather than the other way around. The Enterprise can destroy a single Borg colony ship, but there are others out there. Kill the Borg Queen? Her successor could come from any given Borg incubator, and you wouldn't know where it was to strangle that baby in its crib. You cannot fully eradicate termites and fire ants from an ecosystem they have colonized.
WE ARE EVERYWHERE! Resistance is futile!
MamasBorg
They won dirty, but they won, and that's what counts, right? Here's an article from the CNN site dating back from when that happened: http://www.cnn.com/2000/ALLPOLITICS/stories/09/13/ bush.ad/
OK, lemme break it down for you...
Lycoris.
Mandrake.
and the 800 lb. gorilla in the race, MacOS X.
Yes there are xNIX-like operating systems on the desktop. When I get home from working at a Windows-centric company and am finished fighting Windows quirks and MS Office quirks for the day, I fire up my PC running Mandrake 9 with KDE and I am HOME AGAIN. Yes, Linux has its own peculiar set of quirks. But I don't mind them.
Please note: this is my opinion. Do not just say "oh yeah, another Windoze SuX0rz post." If you really, really like Windows, that's your prerogative. Enjoy.
-.\\-H-
http://www.lycoris.com/ . That is, if you like KDE. They choose one app for each function you might want. Installs in 15 minutes on a PIII. If you want to be able to reconfigure the kernel and/or develop with it you must install the "Devtools" disk, but the default install is on one disk.
BTW I like Mandrake 9 for the very reason you are bitching about it: choice. Lycoris chooses which app of every app you use, Mandrake allows ME to choose. Yeah, there are multiple choices for apps, but it allows me to decide which app is "best of breed" for me.
if you put recyclables in a City-marked recycling bin, they become property of the City. I know that sounds like one of those "Soviet Russia" trolls, but it is true. Homeless people have been busted for raiding recycling bins. This is why I cut out the middleman and give my bottles and cans to the local gleaners. Let them get the California Redemption Value. They need it more than I do.
...Philips' preferred name for the files are CD-DA (Compact Disk - Digital Audio) files. Since 8.3 format (DOS, Windows 3.x) did not allow more than a three character extension, .CDDA was out of the question.
I don't even think that files on a Red Book CD are "files" the way we think of them. They are chunks of raw digital audio at 44.1KHz. "Ripper" programs take that raw digital audio and reformats it into actual files a computer can understand.
Development on the XWindow system at MIT started in 1984. This was during the conflict between Borland and Microsoft over the "windows" name. However, both Xerox PARC and Apple were using the generic term "window" long before that time.
Lightweight xNIX-like OS for Macs over here: http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/. Moof!
...good for them!
In developing countries, Free/Open software makes tremendous sense. When your average worker doesn't make enough money in the average month to buy a license to Microsoft's latest OS, you know there's a disconnect.
Maybe my home state (CA, the new capital of hideous debt) might take a lesson from India.
I don't blame them. I have so far resisted the siren call of 802.11x because of all the security problems. WEP is pretty damn lame, VPNs are a pain and usually are also proprietary solutions, and even with wired Internet there are some people out there who view your network as a challenge to surmount. This is why I intend to take all the machines on my network that run Windows OFF the network. The Macs and the Linux and FreeBSD boxen can stay on, but the Spawn Of Bill get no gateway address or DNS information. Their IP addresses and hardware NIC IDs also will get filtered. I suspect this will solve a multitude of problems.
...to be used as payment in their stores. Basically your card gets hooked up to your savings or checking account, and they basically get their money via an Electronic Funds Transfer. Here's the info on the Vons site: http://www.vons.com/smartcheck.asp. Actually Vons has been doing this for quite a while, but they are relaunching the service.
The fingerprint reader could have sensors on it to determine if what it's reading is a warm, live finger, or a cold inanimate object. If it's warm, it's accepted. If it's cold, it gets kicked back. This is not only good for the gelatin fake finger trick, it's also useful in the absolute worst case scenario where the finger was cut from a corpse, or a living person. Ouch! I believe that mil-spec fingerprint readers have this capability...those consumer-grade readers like U-R-U and the IBM laptop thingy don't have this kind of sophistication.
Now if they'd pick up .hack...that would rock. Plenty of room for the kind of synergies they love there, especially when you consider that Sony is putting out a translated .hack MMRPG this coming year. Extended Play, anyone? .hack on The Screensavers' LAN Party (powered by NVidia)? It would be a suit's dream.
I'd also like to see Excel Saga there, but I doubt it would fit the TechTV format. Actually I can't think of a cable channel off-hand where it would fit. Comedy Central? Too wild for them. Sundance? IFC? Maybe there, but I've never seen Anime on either. Oh well.