The only reason I became interested in computers was the C64!
I, personally, got interested with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum - a stunning machine to program for, with a lot of games.
I think the Spectrum was a better machine at the time, it had many more games, and it was possible to get assemblers, c compilers and many fun things for it.
I always thought that the Commodore only took off in a big way in the time of the 16 bit machines - where there was the great computer holy war: Atari vs. Amiga
(Hmm, Macintosh vs. PC, sounds familiar;)
I think its fair to say that the most popular 8 bit machine in the UK was the Spectrum, partly because it was very cheap, and partly because it was well made - except for the bizarre way it had of entering BASIC keywords, (eg. Press 'p' to type "PRINT"), but hey, I was young then, and didn't know any better.
I started programming originally on a 48k, rubber keyed, Spectrum. After finding the BASIC too limitting I progressed to z80 machine code.
After that when I was first exposed to PC's I wanted to find an assembler straight away. (Not having ever heard of C/C++/Perl by then - I was only 16 or so;).
I wrote major, single-person, projects in pure x86 assembly language. Nowadays I wouldn't dream of doing that any more - but I have written Win32 programs in pure assembly; just to see if it could be done easily...
One of the few times I ever bother with assembly language nowadays is when I'm decompiling drivers - to reverse engineer protocols, and the like. (eg. My attempt at a Linux driver for the MPIO MP3 player).
As I'm interested in security I occaisonally find an exploit of my own, and being able to code in assembler is pretty essential for this.
I have to say that even if I never used assembly language again I'm so glad I learnt it, because it really has helped me understand how computers work; something that the current generation of programmers, fresh out of college, miss.. IMHO.
(Recent graduates seem to think the computers talking greek when presented with a stack dump/core file... I find that very depressing.)
I'm involved with a similar setup, in operation in Edinburgh: freecomputers.org.uk .
The intention is that we'll collect "old" machines/pieces from local businesses, or individuals, in the Edinburgh area, and redistribute them to other people - complete with Linux installed;)
Anybody local who has stuff drop us a line, or if you know of other people who do this sort of thing make yourself known..
Why in the heck would I want my text below the part I'm replying to? So the person can read through 14 consecutive replies before they get to the good stuff?
Because as good Netiquette you should be trimming the text of the message you're quoting to the bare essentials - obviously.
I maintain GNUSoftware.com - which may be a little bit relevant.
It stores pointers to Linux/Unix applications that are available on the Windows platform - this could enable you to try out, for example, Emacs on your current platform and get used to it before you switch.
Similarly you could download a port of GCC and get used to its command line interface, options etc, without leaving the environment with which you're already comfortable..
Sorry, but that's exactly wrong - security through obscurity doesn't work.. not longterm anyway.
There have been many programs in wide scale use, with no source, that have been exploited by [ch]rackers - all it takes is one knowledgable person, and a dissasembler.
I've spent many a happy evening at home reverse engineering communications protocols, and the like - theres a fine example of something thats not automatically secure just because the details aren't published.
But the only way the hackers find out is by reading bugtrak
Granted some script kiddie[sz] will find details of exploits from reading SecurityFocus, and BugTrack - but if those sites didn't exist they'd be talking about them on IRC anyway.
A talented [hc]racker isn't going to need somebody to spoonfeed him/her exploits - they will sit and discover them by examining source code, or binaries.
Any language with such a massive library so oriented to network programming would have this advantage.
One thing that nobody has mentioned, yet, is the huge size of the Java "standard library"
There are API's for doing everything under the Sun which is great news for developers.
Although any new language coming out in the past few years would have to be called braindead for not including a Regular Expression class.
(Maybe I've been corrupted by too much Perl, or Ruby ).
Steve
---
Re:Anecdotes missing from previous releases?
on
Catch Me If You Can
·
· Score: 1
scam I remember from the book would probably still work today.
This is a true story of a "scam"
I pulled off a while ago - in keeping with the hacker ethic.. I've got to brag;)
Several months ago I was thinking about some "famous" psychology
experiments, (mainly the Milli[gk]an electric shock one), where
people are basically shown to be gullible when presented with a
convincing actor in convincing clothes.
Anyway, I usually travel to work by bus, and I'd noticed that
occasionally some people who work for LRT manage to cadge free
rides..
So, naturally enough, it occurs to me that it would be fun to
dress up as a bus driver and see how easy it would be to blag
free rides..
After some preparation I managed to acquire reasonably LRT-like
clothes; black trousers, white shirt, generic tie, and reddish
jumper.
(Oh, and I removed the Septum piercing- something that I do terribly
rarely).
The only thing that I couldn't copy exactly was the LRT black
jackets that all the drivers are issued with. So I cheated by
wearing a black jacket and carrying my bag in such a manner that
it covered the area where the logo would have been - if I'd had
one...
So, I got all dressed up, and headed to the nearest bus stop..
After a ten/fifteen minute wait a bus pulled up.
I casually got in nodded to the driver, and sat down on one
of the sideways facing seats at the front of the bus.
*result*
After this initial success I rode around on buses, randomly,
for the rest of the afternoon.
Bizarrely I seemed to do best when I said "'ello" to the driver,
if I just wandered in the bus driver gave me confused looks - but
never once stopped me.
Remember in the 80's a lot of people had the implicit assumption that anti-virus companies were actually creating, and releasing viruses into the wild - purely to further their own survival?
Its an interesting idea, and I'm, just, cynical enough to believe it.
They probably don't have to bother any more, with all the "elite" VB coders out there - at least when I was into virus coding/playing it took some real skill.. I can't imagine many of these VB trojan-kids learning how to write stuff in x86 assembler, can you?
And who's to say that "US English" and "British English" are really all that different?
LOL!
Speaking as a British, (well Scottish;), person.. the langauge itself is the same, but there are differences.
Spelling, for example, varies between the two different "dialects" of English. We use "Colour" - US people use "Color" etc.
(This can be frustrating when you're using a US produced piece of software that refuses to supply a UK English dictionary).
Other minor differences include words which have strangely diffent meanings between the two places... eg. "Rubber" to me means an eraser - whereas an American would think of something else entirely...
I've hit against this problem so many times.. from the other direction.
If I'm using a program that has a missing feature I really want.. I'll spend a while knocking it up, and submit it to the author.
95% of the time the developer will ignore my mail, and not even respond.
(Of course there are exceptions, like FreeAmp gave me write access to the repository on the strength of one context diff;)
Even more depressing, though, is the number of times I've sent people diffs/patches to allow their Linux based apps to compile/run on Windows - these are almost always ignored.
Seems to me like lots of developers don't care about feedback. I'm always ecstatic to receive feedback on any of my code.. good or bad, and I've applied several patches random people mailed me..
I believe it has quite a high version number, and the diary page on the web site goes back to February of this year.
While I've heard of this for a while now, (not sure how long - but I've seen it on Kernel-Traffic), its good that this is covered now, why?
Because too often we get stories covered here, about software that is verson.0.01, or are
under planning stages.
This is different; because to somebody who hasn't heard about it theres a nice suprize.. they can actually download this and play with it.. without too much hassle. Which is a good thing.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, as a result of seeing this post I've just nabbed MyBookmarks.org.uk..
While Blink.com, and Blacklink.com may be very reliable, and honest I just don't like the idea of entrusting my private bookmarks to them...
I think I'll be setting up something very similar though - Wouldn't it be interesting if you could moderate somebodies, (anonymous), bookmarks?
Hmm, this will be a fine excuse for me to learn how to deal with databases... ;)
Steve
---
The only reason I became interested in computers was the C64!
I, personally, got interested with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum - a stunning machine to program for, with a lot of games.
I think the Spectrum was a better machine at the time, it had many more games, and it was possible to get assemblers, c compilers and many fun things for it.
I always thought that the Commodore only took off in a big way in the time of the 16 bit machines - where there was the great computer holy war: Atari vs. Amiga
(Hmm, Macintosh vs. PC, sounds familiar ;)
I think its fair to say that the most popular 8 bit machine in the UK was the Spectrum, partly because it was very cheap, and partly because it was well made - except for the bizarre way it had of entering BASIC keywords, (eg. Press 'p' to type "PRINT"), but hey, I was young then, and didn't know any better.
Steve
---
Does anyone know of a shell that's been ported to Windows 2000? Or if not an entire shell, just the command-line tools would make me happy.
Why not look here, for a whole range of GNU software running on Windows..
Steve
---
Here's a telling thing:
C:\WINNT\system32>strings ftp.exe | grep -i copy
(#) Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
Steve
---
I started programming originally on a 48k, rubber keyed, Spectrum. After finding the BASIC too limitting I progressed to z80 machine code.
After that when I was first exposed to PC's I wanted to find an assembler straight away. (Not having ever heard of C/C++/Perl by then - I was only 16 or so ;).
I wrote major, single-person, projects in pure x86 assembly language. Nowadays I wouldn't dream of doing that any more - but I have written Win32 programs in pure assembly; just to see if it could be done easily...
One of the few times I ever bother with assembly language nowadays is when I'm decompiling drivers - to reverse engineer protocols, and the like. (eg. My attempt at a Linux driver for the MPIO MP3 player).
As I'm interested in security I occaisonally find an exploit of my own, and being able to code in assembler is pretty essential for this.
I have to say that even if I never used assembly language again I'm so glad I learnt it, because it really has helped me understand how computers work; something that the current generation of programmers, fresh out of college, miss .. IMHO.
(Recent graduates seem to think the computers talking greek when presented with a stack dump/core file... I find that very depressing.)
Steve
---
you can't turn off animated gifs. I don't think that's accidental
Actually you can, I mostly don't bother - because I use my own modified version of Junkbuster - which filters out JavaScript popups too.
Still here's how you do it:
Steve
---
I'm paying out a fair bit of money having a site hosted, which is indexing GNU software - for Windows.
I'd like to recoup some money - but I think that visitors would be turned off by even seeing a "donate-money" button.
So while I would like the cash I'm not gonna do this because:
Steve
---
I'm involved with a similar setup, in operation in Edinburgh: freecomputers.org.uk .
The intention is that we'll collect "old" machines/pieces from local businesses, or individuals, in the Edinburgh area, and redistribute them to other people - complete with Linux installed ;)
Anybody local who has stuff drop us a line, or if you know of other people who do this sort of thing make yourself known..
Steve
---
Why in the heck would I want my text below the part I'm replying to? So the person can read through 14 consecutive replies before they get to the good stuff?
Because as good Netiquette you should be trimming the text of the message you're quoting to the bare essentials - obviously.
Steve
---
I maintain GNUSoftware.com - which may be a little bit relevant.
It stores pointers to Linux/Unix applications that are available on the Windows platform - this could enable you to try out, for example, Emacs on your current platform and get used to it before you switch.
Similarly you could download a port of GCC and get used to its command line interface, options etc, without leaving the environment with which you're already comfortable..
Steve
---
Security through obscurity works, in the end.
Sorry, but that's exactly wrong - security through obscurity doesn't work .. not longterm anyway.
There have been many programs in wide scale use, with no source, that have been exploited by [ch]rackers - all it takes is one knowledgable person, and a dissasembler.
I've spent many a happy evening at home reverse engineering communications protocols, and the like - theres a fine example of something thats not automatically secure just because the details aren't published.
But the only way the hackers find out is by reading bugtrak
Granted some script kiddie[sz] will find details of exploits from reading SecurityFocus, and BugTrack - but if those sites didn't exist they'd be talking about them on IRC anyway.
A talented [hc]racker isn't going to need somebody to spoonfeed him/her exploits - they will sit and discover them by examining source code, or binaries.
Steve
---
well, you already have notepad.
Or, you could use Emacs - which is also available for Windows.
Steve
---
Any language with such a massive library so oriented to network programming would have this advantage.
One thing that nobody has mentioned, yet, is the huge size of the Java "standard library"
There are API's for doing everything under the Sun which is great news for developers.
Although any new language coming out in the past few years would have to be called braindead for not including a Regular Expression class.
(Maybe I've been corrupted by too much Perl, or Ruby ).
Steve
---
scam I remember from the book would probably still work today.
This is a true story of a "scam" I pulled off a while ago - in keeping with the hacker ethic .. I've got to brag ;)
Several months ago I was thinking about some "famous" psychology experiments, (mainly the Milli[gk]an electric shock one), where people are basically shown to be gullible when presented with a convincing actor in convincing clothes.
Anyway, I usually travel to work by bus, and I'd noticed that occasionally some people who work for LRT manage to cadge free rides..
So, naturally enough, it occurs to me that it would be fun to dress up as a bus driver and see how easy it would be to blag free rides..
After some preparation I managed to acquire reasonably LRT-like clothes; black trousers, white shirt, generic tie, and reddish jumper. (Oh, and I removed the Septum piercing- something that I do terribly rarely).
The only thing that I couldn't copy exactly was the LRT black jackets that all the drivers are issued with. So I cheated by wearing a black jacket and carrying my bag in such a manner that it covered the area where the logo would have been - if I'd had one...
So, I got all dressed up, and headed to the nearest bus stop..
After a ten/fifteen minute wait a bus pulled up.
I casually got in nodded to the driver, and sat down on one of the sideways facing seats at the front of the bus.
*result*
After this initial success I rode around on buses, randomly, for the rest of the afternoon.
Bizarrely I seemed to do best when I said "'ello" to the driver, if I just wandered in the bus driver gave me confused looks - but never once stopped me.
Steve
---
Remember in the 80's a lot of people had the implicit assumption that anti-virus companies were actually creating, and releasing viruses into the wild - purely to further their own survival?
Its an interesting idea, and I'm, just, cynical enough to believe it.
They probably don't have to bother any more, with all the "elite" VB coders out there - at least when I was into virus coding/playing it took some real skill.. I can't imagine many of these VB trojan-kids learning how to write stuff in x86 assembler, can you?
Steve
---
No, because in order to get anything done in cgi, you have to use lots of those "unix-specific functions" you allude to
Just in case you've not seen this, there's a project underway to re-implement most common UN*X commands in Perl
Find it here http://language.perl.com/ppt/what.html
These tools can be used on multiple systems, and can be used if you think you need a Unix command...
Steve
---
and we have to ration his access to the power cable
Which is interesting because my cat, Tigger, has just learnt to turn my PC off when I'm not paying too much attention.
I've seen him do this out of the corner of my eye - its litterally one large bang against the, recessed, power switch .. with his nose.
Steve
---
Relatable does something similar to this already.
If you're using the stunning, portable, MP3 player FreeAmp there is the option of "signaturing" all the MP3's in your playlist.
The intention is that then you can do automatic lookup of them on the Relatable site - and I suppose perform automatic MP3 info tagging.
Steve
---
Everything you say there is true, but I have to say that the Microsoft compiler they used for Visual J++ was the best java compiler I ever used.
I'm reasonably certain that the MS JVM was one of the faster ones available for a long time.
See the one Java Compiler bug I found ..
Steve
---
And who's to say that "US English" and "British English" are really all that different?
LOL!
Speaking as a British, (well Scottish ;), person .. the langauge itself is the same, but there are differences.
Spelling, for example, varies between the two different "dialects" of English. We use "Colour" - US people use "Color" etc. (This can be frustrating when you're using a US produced piece of software that refuses to supply a UK English dictionary).
Other minor differences include words which have strangely diffent meanings between the two places... eg. "Rubber" to me means an eraser - whereas an American would think of something else entirely...
Steve
---
I've hit against this problem so many times .. from the other direction.
If I'm using a program that has a missing feature I really want .. I'll spend a while knocking it up, and submit it to the author.
95% of the time the developer will ignore my mail, and not even respond.
(Of course there are exceptions, like FreeAmp gave me write access to the repository on the strength of one context diff ;)
Even more depressing, though, is the number of times I've sent people diffs/patches to allow their Linux based apps to compile/run on Windows - these are almost always ignored.
Seems to me like lots of developers don't care about feedback. I'm always ecstatic to receive feedback on any of my code .. good or bad, and I've applied several patches random people mailed me ..
Steve
---
Is there any way to better filter the slashdot comments? Maybe something could be done using Mozilla's new Formzilla?
Well, if you're using Emacs, (and who isn't ?), then you can use the Mail/News reader GNUS, to view slashdot comments as if they were a newsgroup.
Doing this is so cool, because you can take advantage of both the slashdot scoring system, and GNUS filtering/kill filing.
See here for instructions on setting up GNUS.
Steve
---
IE's channel bar doesn't do one-tenth of what the new sidebar does under Netscape (try using the Google integration, it's very cool).
Just for those of you that are stuck with IE at work, or whatever, there is an extension to allow google to be used as a "sidebar" for IE.
Download it from the Google.com website here:
http://www.google.com/winexplorer.html
Steve
---
I believe it has quite a high version number, and the diary page on the web site goes back to February of this year.
While I've heard of this for a while now, (not sure how long - but I've seen it on Kernel-Traffic), its good that this is covered now, why?
Because too often we get stories covered here, about software that is verson .0.01, or are
under planning stages.
This is different; because to somebody who hasn't heard about it theres a nice suprize .. they can actually download this and play with it .. without too much hassle. Which is a good thing.
Steve
---
You might want to check out Ogg Vorbis
I'd definately recommend this, it can be played on the open source, player Freeamp - which runs on Solaris, Linux, BSD, and Windows.
Steve
---