And on another subject, I'm right in the middle of getting Linux approved for use within the DoD and, by extension, the Air Force.
No, I kid you not. Linux is getting the COE suite ported to it, elements of DISA are gung-ho about bringing it in, and some elements of AF/SC are doing their best to help. The specifics of who is doing what in what time frame are not things that can be discussed here.
And how is this justified? What military program is forging the way for this OS (which is getting so big, commercially speaking, that every high tech company EXCEPT Microsoft and most of the gaming industry has a strategy on how to get in on the action) to be brought into the fold? Who had to put their [appropriate genitals] on the line in a military manner to get this going forward?
The weather men.
I kid you not. And you know what the biggest stumbling block is, besides office-internal politics? AF Communications. Capt. gsfprez (I'm guessing here) is right: Comm sold the Air Force infrastructure to Microsoft, and most of the old clever Sergeants and Airmen and young LTs who knew their UNIX during the dot-com times said, "Good-bye, sir! Patriotism and service warms the heart, but six figures will warm a whole house, and provide the house, too." So now the Comm field is whining "We can't have Linux! We don't have anyone who can administer it! We structured our entire training cycle around Windows! We're lucky to have two Unix-savvy people left in the whole squadron, and they're the overworked Master Sergeants." (Conjecture: I'm not in Comm. But I do get email from them.)
Yep, Linux is coming the the DoD. The smug excuse of "Linux isn't an AF-approved operating system" will soon be susceptable to the rebutal of "Wanna bet?" Soon it will be time for stalwart young LTs and Captains to make Powerpoint presentations to the Majors and Lt Cols of the Comm squadron explaining why they should move vital network services to a Linux box. They're probably going to get slapped down; bureaucratic intertia is like that. But LTs and Captains become Majors and Lt Cols, some day.
Oh, and by the way, the weather system that runs on Linux works so well that profanity is usually used as a magnifying adjective to words like "incredible" and "outstanding". [Any active duty guys who wants some details, email is welcome.]
#include std.disclaimer: None of these statements are made on behalf of the AF. All opinions are my own. My perceptions may not take into account facts that have not been available to me. I may be wrong about any number of things. If you're going to get flustered by something you read on Slashdot, you seriously need to re-examine your priorities.
FreeBSD users have the program obliterate in the sysutils part of the ports collection. It takes pains to overwrite the data in order to make sure the file, even if re-linked, is unusable.
If I understand correctly, it open the file for writing multiple times first. First it writes 0s, then 1s, then alternate beginning 0s and 1s, then 1s and 0s, then patterns of 1s and 0s of all descriptions, then several passes from/dev/rand.
The upshot is that even if you find the inode and relink to the data, it's been overwritten so many times than you really can't possibly recover it even using forensic methods.
Could you imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these babies? It'd be like, like... a BAND!
</idiot>
Now we just need ethernet ports in drum kits, synthesizers, net-attachments for brass, woodwind, and string instruments, and you could play your piece of a song over the 'net. I don't think the "multiplayer" option will arrive, though... different latencies tend to really kill the song.
Of course, this report is just a tad late. CNN had a story on this in January. I don't know if it made the web site, but I did see it early in the morning in one of their science/tech segments.
I remember it because < name drop> I used to work for the guy. </name drop>
Loads of possibilities, though:
PRO: Not only do you get continuous thrust, but you get uniform uniform. As the spacecraft moves away from the sun, the mini-magnetosphere will un-deform (if that's a word) so that it has a larger apparent area with regard to the sun, thus trapping more particles. Of course, the closer to the sun you are, the more the field deforms, and thus, less "sail"-area.
There are limits to the amount of thrust you get depending on your field strength and distance from the star.
CON: You only get thrust according to the strength of the solar wind. Thus, you get no thrust on the dark side of planets, and no thrust while inside a planet's magnetosphere. Heck, you couldn't even have the thing on near a planet unless you have very accurate plots of its magnetic field, because the consequences would be indeterminant. You also can't be exactly sure how much thrust you're getting because the strength of the solar wind is in no way constant or uniform. You'd have to be continuously re-adjusting your flight plan and field strength to stay on any semblance of a course.
But, heck, you're getting a nearly free ride! Done properly, you don't even necessarily need coils... remember that you can generate a magnetic field from a rotating cylinder. Moving charged particles, yadda yadda, doncherknow. You'll just have to generate the power to spin the cylinder (and the nonconductive counter-cylinder so you don't torque your spacecraft into a tizzy), bolt the thing firmly to load-bearing members (the force comes through the magnet), and get ready for the slowest acceleration you could even hope to barely notice.
So, no, you can't use it for a launch system, and no, you can't use it for orbital corrections, and no, you can't direct the thrust, but at least you don't have to toss four fifths of your craft's mass out the back end to get anywhere.
You know, if you just take the FreeBSD Ports Collection way of doing things (my asbestos underwear is on, Penguinistas!), the absolutely most ideal way to install your fancy-dancy new game with all the lastest libraries, drivers, bells whistles and gongs is like this:
homebox:/mnt/cdrom/install# make install
Don't re-invent the wheel, lords and ladies. The system for maintaining your system's collection of packages and libraries is out there. Now some motivated Penguin Wrangler just needs to sit down with about a weekend free and a fridge full of dark ale and make what works flawlessly elsewhere, work flawlessly on Linux. Assuming, of course, that this has not already been done.
The Slashdot effect is not kind to those businesses with "hard transfer limits" set by their ISP. I suppose right now their CIO is looking at their ISP bill and wondering what the hell happened...
I know a bit about the Certification and Accreditation process, seeing as I've had to oversee the process for two systems I work with daily and started another for a FreeBSD-based system I'm developping on my own time.
Despite the hoopla being tossed around about this operating system or that operating system having a C-[1|2|3|4] rating, this is the straightest possible poop: You can't get a C-* rating for an operating system. A C&A package accredits a complete system I.E. a specific OS version and its accompanying system tools, a specific hardware setup, a specific set of included applications/services and a very specific method of connecting that system to other systems, including networks. Part of the process is to have the Comm-weinies run a cracking tool against the system after the system specification is gelled. Without each and every part of the system accounted for, the package won't go through. After the process is completed, if you change anything in the system that is not accounted for in the original C&A, you're got to go through the process again, albiet in an abbreviated manner. You may not think that's so much, but that includes simple things like adding RAM, installing a larger hard drive or installing a faster network card... all of which require a C&A revision. And if you want to update parts of the OS, just open a vein.
Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, the C&A process is a PITA, mostly because you have to submit it through people who have nearly no idea what you're talking about and you have to either dumb it down for them or bring them up to speed.
Now, there is one useful thing about the C&A process: you can shamelessly plagarize another C&A package. If your system you're C&A'ing uses UNIX, you can rip off a lot of information from a similar system.
Now, the problem is that even though you have a lot of smart cookies working on these C&A packages, the truly clueful in the mysteries of system security are kinda few and far between. This is in no small part because a clueful person can make 3 to 10 times his base military pay in starting salary in the civilian world. So you've got the nearly-clued writing up these packages for approval by the not-very-clued, a process which takes a couple months, and in the meantime the script-kiddies have written enough to make the process meaningless. And, when you get down to it, C-2 isn't all that hot. The ideal UN*X security model qualifies for at least C-3... and you've just got to find an implementation that doesn't have enough holes in it to invalidate that.
You really have to check into the specifics of this NT system that's getting the C-2 certification. If I remember correctly, the last NT system that MS was harping about with a C-2 rating was accreditted as long as it wasn't hooked up to a network. It quite possibly have been the world's most secure Solitaire machine.
Like the author of this review, OpenBSD was also my first. I had a Boeing-surplus Sun station I was running on a shoestring budget for an college organization I was in, and when the hard drive blew up before I could procure a back-up device and I didn't have any installation media (I know, I know... playing with fire), I found myself in the un-enviable position of having to find a replacement OS to put on the replacement hard drive. And yet, I was on a shoestring (and spit and chewing gum) budget... so I did some checking around. Wanting to try the OS before dedicating my precious collegiate hours to the installation process, I found that OpenBSD would run on both Sun and Intel platforms, and that there was really good Sun binary compatibility. Actually, I was tossing coins between NetBSD and OpenBSD, but the security audit was a good selling feature.
So I proceeded to install OpenBSD on my 4 year old 486 from floppy images. (I didn't have the funds to buy the CD, either, but I did have some old AOL promo disks.) After a day and some of fiddling, I had the system up and running, although I had many of the same troubles as the author of the review, but without the prior Linux experience to draw upon. I installed X11 and a few other necessary programs, and ba-da-bing, it ran fine.
About a year later, after I was no longer in charge of that organization's computer woes, I transitioned to FreeBSD, since it had better focus on the Intel platform and in particular supported the odd arrangement I was resorting to to drive my CDROM. Still, for a first foray into the wild, wild world of installing and running UNIX from scratch, OpenBSD was pretty good!
Slashdot Mirror
And on another subject, I'm right in the middle of getting Linux approved for use within the DoD and, by extension, the Air Force.
No, I kid you not. Linux is getting the COE suite ported to it, elements of DISA are gung-ho about bringing it in, and some elements of AF/SC are doing their best to help. The specifics of who is doing what in what time frame are not things that can be discussed here.
And how is this justified? What military program is forging the way for this OS (which is getting so big, commercially speaking, that every high tech company EXCEPT Microsoft and most of the gaming industry has a strategy on how to get in on the action) to be brought into the fold? Who had to put their [appropriate genitals] on the line in a military manner to get this going forward?
The weather men.
I kid you not. And you know what the biggest stumbling block is, besides office-internal politics? AF Communications. Capt. gsfprez (I'm guessing here) is right: Comm sold the Air Force infrastructure to Microsoft, and most of the old clever Sergeants and Airmen and young LTs who knew their UNIX during the dot-com times said, "Good-bye, sir! Patriotism and service warms the heart, but six figures will warm a whole house, and provide the house, too." So now the Comm field is whining "We can't have Linux! We don't have anyone who can administer it! We structured our entire training cycle around Windows! We're lucky to have two Unix-savvy people left in the whole squadron, and they're the overworked Master Sergeants." (Conjecture: I'm not in Comm. But I do get email from them.)
Yep, Linux is coming the the DoD. The smug excuse of "Linux isn't an AF-approved operating system" will soon be susceptable to the rebutal of "Wanna bet?" Soon it will be time for stalwart young LTs and Captains to make Powerpoint presentations to the Majors and Lt Cols of the Comm squadron explaining why they should move vital network services to a Linux box. They're probably going to get slapped down; bureaucratic intertia is like that. But LTs and Captains become Majors and Lt Cols, some day.
Oh, and by the way, the weather system that runs on Linux works so well that profanity is usually used as a magnifying adjective to words like "incredible" and "outstanding". [Any active duty guys who wants some details, email is welcome.]
#include std.disclaimer: None of these statements are made on behalf of the AF. All opinions are my own. My perceptions may not take into account facts that have not been available to me. I may be wrong about any number of things. If you're going to get flustered by something you read on Slashdot, you seriously need to re-examine your priorities.
FreeBSD users have the program obliterate in the sysutils part of the ports collection. It takes pains to overwrite the data in order to make sure the file, even if re-linked, is unusable.
/dev/rand.
If I understand correctly, it open the file for writing multiple times first. First it writes 0s, then 1s, then alternate beginning 0s and 1s, then 1s and 0s, then patterns of 1s and 0s of all descriptions, then several passes from
The upshot is that even if you find the inode and relink to the data, it's been overwritten so many times than you really can't possibly recover it even using forensic methods.
< idiot mode="on>
Could you imagine a Beowulf Cluster of these babies? It'd be like, like... a BAND!
</idiot>
Now we just need ethernet ports in drum kits, synthesizers, net-attachments for brass, woodwind, and string instruments, and you could play your piece of a song over the 'net. I don't think the "multiplayer" option will arrive, though... different latencies tend to really kill the song.
Of course, this report is just a tad late. CNN had a story on this in January. I don't know if it made the web site, but I did see it early in the morning in one of their science/tech segments. I remember it because < name drop> I used to work for the guy. < /name drop>
Loads of possibilities, though:
PRO: Not only do you get continuous thrust, but you get uniform uniform. As the spacecraft moves away from the sun, the mini-magnetosphere will un-deform (if that's a word) so that it has a larger apparent area with regard to the sun, thus trapping more particles. Of course, the closer to the sun you are, the more the field deforms, and thus, less "sail"-area. There are limits to the amount of thrust you get depending on your field strength and distance from the star.
CON: You only get thrust according to the strength of the solar wind. Thus, you get no thrust on the dark side of planets, and no thrust while inside a planet's magnetosphere. Heck, you couldn't even have the thing on near a planet unless you have very accurate plots of its magnetic field, because the consequences would be indeterminant. You also can't be exactly sure how much thrust you're getting because the strength of the solar wind is in no way constant or uniform. You'd have to be continuously re-adjusting your flight plan and field strength to stay on any semblance of a course.
But, heck, you're getting a nearly free ride! Done properly, you don't even necessarily need coils... remember that you can generate a magnetic field from a rotating cylinder. Moving charged particles, yadda yadda, doncherknow. You'll just have to generate the power to spin the cylinder (and the nonconductive counter-cylinder so you don't torque your spacecraft into a tizzy), bolt the thing firmly to load-bearing members (the force comes through the magnet), and get ready for the slowest acceleration you could even hope to barely notice.
So, no, you can't use it for a launch system, and no, you can't use it for orbital corrections, and no, you can't direct the thrust, but at least you don't have to toss four fifths of your craft's mass out the back end to get anywhere.
You know, if you just take the FreeBSD Ports Collection way of doing things (my asbestos underwear is on, Penguinistas!), the absolutely most ideal way to install your fancy-dancy new game with all the lastest libraries, drivers, bells whistles and gongs is like this:
homebox:/mnt/cdrom/install# make install
Don't re-invent the wheel, lords and ladies. The system for maintaining your system's collection of packages and libraries is out there. Now some motivated Penguin Wrangler just needs to sit down with about a weekend free and a fridge full of dark ale and make what works flawlessly elsewhere, work flawlessly on Linux. Assuming, of course, that this has not already been done.
The Slashdot effect is not kind to those businesses with "hard transfer limits" set by their ISP. I suppose right now their CIO is looking at their ISP bill and wondering what the hell happened...
I know a bit about the Certification and Accreditation process, seeing as I've had to oversee the process for two systems I work with daily and started another for a FreeBSD-based system I'm developping on my own time.
Despite the hoopla being tossed around about this operating system or that operating system having a C-[1|2|3|4] rating, this is the straightest possible poop: You can't get a C-* rating for an operating system. A C&A package accredits a complete system I.E. a specific OS version and its accompanying system tools, a specific hardware setup, a specific set of included applications/services and a very specific method of connecting that system to other systems, including networks. Part of the process is to have the Comm-weinies run a cracking tool against the system after the system specification is gelled. Without each and every part of the system accounted for, the package won't go through. After the process is completed, if you change anything in the system that is not accounted for in the original C&A, you're got to go through the process again, albiet in an abbreviated manner. You may not think that's so much, but that includes simple things like adding RAM, installing a larger hard drive or installing a faster network card... all of which require a C&A revision. And if you want to update parts of the OS, just open a vein.
Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, the C&A process is a PITA, mostly because you have to submit it through people who have nearly no idea what you're talking about and you have to either dumb it down for them or bring them up to speed.
Now, there is one useful thing about the C&A process: you can shamelessly plagarize another C&A package. If your system you're C&A'ing uses UNIX, you can rip off a lot of information from a similar system.
Now, the problem is that even though you have a lot of smart cookies working on these C&A packages, the truly clueful in the mysteries of system security are kinda few and far between. This is in no small part because a clueful person can make 3 to 10 times his base military pay in starting salary in the civilian world. So you've got the nearly-clued writing up these packages for approval by the not-very-clued, a process which takes a couple months, and in the meantime the script-kiddies have written enough to make the process meaningless. And, when you get down to it, C-2 isn't all that hot. The ideal UN*X security model qualifies for at least C-3... and you've just got to find an implementation that doesn't have enough holes in it to invalidate that.
You really have to check into the specifics of this NT system that's getting the C-2 certification. If I remember correctly, the last NT system that MS was harping about with a C-2 rating was accreditted as long as it wasn't hooked up to a network. It quite possibly have been the world's most secure Solitaire machine.
Like the author of this review, OpenBSD was also my first. I had a Boeing-surplus Sun station I was running on a shoestring budget for an college organization I was in, and when the hard drive blew up before I could procure a back-up device and I didn't have any installation media (I know, I know... playing with fire), I found myself in the un-enviable position of having to find a replacement OS to put on the replacement hard drive. And yet, I was on a shoestring (and spit and chewing gum) budget... so I did some checking around. Wanting to try the OS before dedicating my precious collegiate hours to the installation process, I found that OpenBSD would run on both Sun and Intel platforms, and that there was really good Sun binary compatibility. Actually, I was tossing coins between NetBSD and OpenBSD, but the security audit was a good selling feature.
So I proceeded to install OpenBSD on my 4 year old 486 from floppy images. (I didn't have the funds to buy the CD, either, but I did have some old AOL promo disks.) After a day and some of fiddling, I had the system up and running, although I had many of the same troubles as the author of the review, but without the prior Linux experience to draw upon. I installed X11 and a few other necessary programs, and ba-da-bing, it ran fine.
About a year later, after I was no longer in charge of that organization's computer woes, I transitioned to FreeBSD, since it had better focus on the Intel platform and in particular supported the odd arrangement I was resorting to to drive my CDROM. Still, for a first foray into the wild, wild world of installing and running UNIX from scratch, OpenBSD was pretty good!