If someone bothered to name a Roman god after it, it's a planet. Pluto, Mars, Jupiter--all friendly planets.
Alpha Centauri? Bah--probably a reflection off that Hubble thingy.
Silly article, sensationalism and slim facts
on
Windows Rootkits
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· Score: 2, Funny
Jon Littman wrote an interesting book about Kevin Mitnick entitled The Fugitive Game. In it he partly addresses the situation of an FBI informant and not-so-l33t hax0r, Kevin Poulsen. 100 to 1 this is the same l33t hax0r. Way back in the day--1990--Poulsen was described as not very l33t:
Their UNIX expertise was not high....I got the feeling these were guys not used to thinking in terms of multiuser systems, not being alert to the fact that "who"s and "ps"s casually invoked by someone else could expose them.
Now I grant you that 13 years is a lot of time for someone to change and learn to abandon stupid sensational media tactics. But look at the substance of the linked slashdot article : "I wrote a rootkit for Windows, I'm cool, and I ran a script kiddie workshop so lots of people can do it! By the way, I screwed up the old code. But the new ones the evil hax0rs will make will be really bad... So hire me as a consultant!"...um, yeah, right.
"Cash-strapped lawyer sues local playgrounds for infringement on swing patent"? Honestly.
It seems to me that if you're not going to vigorously defend your patent for years on end in face of its open--literally, in the case of open-source IBM/Linux initiatives--then you shouldn't be able to sue every manufacturer on the block like this for what amount to arbitrary infringements. I grant that patent rights are important to protect, but inaction unfairly intimates apathy (cough Rambus) and obfuscation only exacerbates the problem.
As thousands of Slashdotters with nearly identical opinions have elucidated before far better than can I, the American patent system badly needs great reform. Tsk.
I agree wholeheartedly that the abuse of SSN is a problem. However, realize that most US educational institutions will assign you another unique student ID which is not your SSN; it is not impossible to dodge their use, and if you truly care about your security you will never use this number except when forced to. You have the right to protest its use otherwise, but consider that this distinguishing characteristic may not be so good socially--the people around you might not be quite as apt to understand your rabid protection of this number, even if many of the more privacy-oriented do.
Moreover, as much as it is claimed (and perhaps rightly) that "the system" wants you to use this one unique identifier, there is a definite advantage to having an easy-to-remember number associated with almost everything, instead of separate account and unique personal identification numbers. However, some privacy experts agree, as do I, that the SSN should only be used for, well, Social Security when possible.
Looking at that aformentioned letter, I find a passage which states that "from a technical viewpoint, the SSN is not a good identifier. It is not unique, [and] there are multiple users of a single SSN". While I can find no proof of this assertion elsewhere, I have heard anecdotally heard of people who used Richard Nixon's SSN throughout college (567-68-0515)--the results are obviously mixed. Overreliance on this number poses an undue threat to college students who, frustrated by this kind of wholesale theft which could lead to troubling financial consequences should the perpetrator preserve a copy of the data, might turn to forging SSN's--an OK idea until you get caught at it.
There were two, Luna and Zond. (See that link if you trust the federal government). The Soviet missions ran from 1959 to 1976 overall; Luna was the ground mission which picked up three lunar ground samples (Luna 16, 20, 24) and Zond was the satellites that flew over the moon (probably trying to set up a laser defense array or something).
The important thing isn't that moon travel has happened before; it's that it's being seriously considered again.
With all those veiled Internet trolls to whom Art Bell &c. give a voice.
I hope they figure out who owns what before it touches down, too, or we'll end up with frivolous lawsuits aplenty over lunar property rights.
Slashdot Mirror
If someone bothered to name a Roman god after it, it's a planet. Pluto, Mars, Jupiter--all friendly planets.
Alpha Centauri? Bah--probably a reflection off that Hubble thingy.
Jon Littman wrote an interesting book about Kevin Mitnick entitled The Fugitive Game. In it he partly addresses the situation of an FBI informant and not-so-l33t hax0r, Kevin Poulsen. 100 to 1 this is the same l33t hax0r. Way back in the day--1990--Poulsen was described as not very l33t:
Now I grant you that 13 years is a lot of time for someone to change and learn to abandon stupid sensational media tactics. But look at the substance of the linked slashdot article : "I wrote a rootkit for Windows, I'm cool, and I ran a script kiddie workshop so lots of people can do it! By the way, I screwed up the old code. But the new ones the evil hax0rs will make will be really bad. .. So hire me as a consultant!"...um, yeah, right.
"Cash-strapped lawyer sues local playgrounds for infringement on swing patent"? Honestly.
It seems to me that if you're not going to vigorously defend your patent for years on end in face of its open--literally, in the case of open-source IBM/Linux initiatives--then you shouldn't be able to sue every manufacturer on the block like this for what amount to arbitrary infringements. I grant that patent rights are important to protect, but inaction unfairly intimates apathy (cough Rambus) and obfuscation only exacerbates the problem.
As thousands of Slashdotters with nearly identical opinions have elucidated before far better than can I, the American patent system badly needs great reform. Tsk.
I agree wholeheartedly that the abuse of SSN is a problem. However, realize that most US educational institutions will assign you another unique student ID which is not your SSN; it is not impossible to dodge their use, and if you truly care about your security you will never use this number except when forced to. You have the right to protest its use otherwise, but consider that this distinguishing characteristic may not be so good socially--the people around you might not be quite as apt to understand your rabid protection of this number, even if many of the more privacy-oriented do.
Moreover, as much as it is claimed (and perhaps rightly) that "the system" wants you to use this one unique identifier, there is a definite advantage to having an easy-to-remember number associated with almost everything, instead of separate account and unique personal identification numbers. However, some privacy experts agree, as do I, that the SSN should only be used for, well, Social Security when possible.Looking at that aformentioned letter, I find a passage which states that "from a technical viewpoint, the SSN is not a good identifier. It is not unique, [and] there are multiple users of a single SSN". While I can find no proof of this assertion elsewhere, I have heard anecdotally heard of people who used Richard Nixon's SSN throughout college (567-68-0515)--the results are obviously mixed. Overreliance on this number poses an undue threat to college students who, frustrated by this kind of wholesale theft which could lead to troubling financial consequences should the perpetrator preserve a copy of the data, might turn to forging SSN's--an OK idea until you get caught at it.
...how much of that was outgoing? i.e, how much did AOL users themselves generate? Probably more than they want to let on...
There were two, Luna and Zond. (See that link if you trust the federal government). The Soviet missions ran from 1959 to 1976 overall; Luna was the ground mission which picked up three lunar ground samples (Luna 16, 20, 24) and Zond was the satellites that flew over the moon (probably trying to set up a laser defense array or something).
The important thing isn't that moon travel has happened before; it's that it's being seriously considered again.
With all those veiled Internet trolls to whom Art Bell &c. give a voice.
I hope they figure out who owns what before it touches down, too, or we'll end up with frivolous lawsuits aplenty over lunar property rights.