The BBC article talks about how hackers [sic] are starting to target routers and switches in order to bring things down. Just a small point to make, though: wouldn't it cause more damage to physically take out some of these links? Instead of trying to crack a box, take a backhoe and sever the cables outside the building. This has happened before, when some unwitting backhoe operator severed some cables and caused network routes to go all over hell's half-acre. Wouldn't a physical attack be easier and just as effective? I guess it's not nearly 1337 enough, though.
I sent this email to Rusty earlier today. I haven't received a reply as of yet, which isn't surprising considering everything that's going on.
"Howdy. I've been reading k5 for a few months now, and I was really getting to enjoy it. Not just the site, but the community of people that read and posted there. Needless to say, I was saddened to find that k5 has been brought down by script kiddies. I'd like to do something to help, but I probably can't offer anything in the way of coding skills that you guys don't already have. Thus, I was wondering if I'd be able to send you guys some sort of monetary donations, to be put towards higher-end hardware or better net connectivity or whatever. The only other person I've talked to about this is interested in donating as well.
Hey, we're a community, right? And aren't community members supposed to help each other out in times of need?"
It's not so much about which OS you want to develop on, it's about which tools are available on the OS. It's also about your target audience. I couldn't get away with developing database solutions under Linux for people who are going to be using NT.
And for the people who said that virtual desktops are a necessity, and this is a reason to use Linux over Windows, check out VirtuaWin. I've used it under W98, NT4, and W2000. It's virtually foolproof, it's free (as in beer), and it's open source. People should -really- start checking out options before resorting to zealotry.
3082166927 Here is your navigator : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0) Just a security hole of Slashdot. You can find this kind of hole in all sites which has a forum. I think that in site like e-trade you can make some people asks for stocks. You can contact me there : Krakus.Irus à voila.com If you want to retry. If you want to know more.
319320611 Here is your navigator : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0) Just a security hole of Slashdot. You can find this kind of hole in all sites which has a forum. I think that in site like e-trade you can make some people asks for stocks. You can contact me there : Krakus.Irus à voila.com If you want to retry. If you want to know more.
6166270629 Here is your navigator : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0) Just a security hole of Slashdot. You can find this kind of hole in all sites which has a forum. I think that in site like e-trade you can make some people asks for stocks. You can contact me there : Krakus.Irus à voila.com If you want to retry. If you want to know more.
Can you really say that Linux users were unaffected? Sure, they don't actually have the opportunity to get infected by the virus, but that doesn't mean that they weren't affected. Some people had files on Linux boxes shared by Samba changed/moved/renamed/deleted. I'd say there's a Linux user who was affected. And what about the people using Linux who depended on people using Windows for information? Suppose I ran a Linux machine at work, and one of our clients running Windows got knocked out by the ILOVEYOU worm. I wouldn't be able to get any information from that client. Thus, I'm an affected Linux user.
Things like this can't be pinned down to one specific group of people. Linux people can't sit back and laugh at Windows people for their grief. Well, they can, but they shouldn't to the extent that they are. Just because your actual Linux box wasn't infected doesn't mean that you weren't affected.
Ditto. I had too much fun playing Breakout in matrix algebra classes. It's a wonder I didn't fail I played so much.
Unfortunately I lost all my games a couple of months ago somehow. Couldn't have been a battery change, since I went through two or three of those no problem. Oh well.
There are three of them at modernhumorist.com. Strangely enough, the original poster had the website name on it. Not giving credit where credit is due isn't really nice.
DVD competes with THX? How so? They're completely different things. And there are "THX-encoded" DVDs out there. My copy of Army Of Darkness does the whole THX song and dance.
Hrm. I'm reminded of a time I was stranded in the airport in Little Rock. I was trying to make a collect call back to Canada, and AT&T does their collect call stuff all by computer/automated voice, so that when it calls the person, there's a two-second delay, and then the computer voice kicks in asking if they want to accept the charges. Well, I kept trying to make my collect call, but the guy I was calling kept hanging up before the computer voice would kick in! That got really old really fast.
I worked at UKIRT for a year as a software engineer/astronomer. Although I didn't work on the UFTI side (that's an imaging camera, and I worked with their spectroscopic cameras CGS4 and the upcoming Michelle), I worked with the software that probably reduced these images. Most/.'ers would be pleased to know that Perl plays a big role in reducing the data at UKIRT. The software (known as ORAC-DR) that reduces UFTI and IRCAM (the previous-generation imager) data is written in Perl, with calls to specific image reduction tasks written in FORTRAN. And let me tell you this: it was a gem to write. If you've done image processing before with conventional programs like IRAF, then ORAC-DR would be a breeze for you to use. And from the programmer's point of view, it's much easier to use Perl than the "language" that IRAF uses. For one, Perl's waycool.
What basically happens is that the data comes in off the telescope, and when ORAC-DR sees it, the data gets reduced. It automagically removes any sorts of defects that are common to CCD observations (flat-fields, bias levels, sky levels), and often produces publication-quality results. We were joking that astronomers wouldn't even have to write their papers. We'd just reduce the data, fill in some fields on a paper template, then ship the paper off to the appropriate journal. *heh* When I left there was some talk of dedicating a Linux box to the data reduction (instead of the Solaris box they had then).
And it's a Perl-friendly environment at the Joint Astronomy Centre (the place that runs UKIRT in Hawaii). My supervisor (Frossie Economou) has written articles for The Perl Journal, she's got a stuffed penguin on her desk, and the license plate for her Jeep? "PERL5". Another software guy (Tim Jenness) has written stuff for Perldl and is altogether cool for Perl (and stereo equipment too...).
ORAC-DR information is found here. Props to Frossie, Tim, and Chad (who wrote the Apache modules that give the look-and-feel to the JAC webpages -- look for it on CPAN).
Re:"e" Day == Feb. 71??
on
Happy Pi Day!
·
· Score: 1
I remember that key fondly. Whenever my brother and I were doing weird stuff on our Vic20, we didn't have a clue what that symbol was, so we called it 'the dog'. There was something really surreal about putting dogs in strings.
Y'know, I was reading through the ruling, and peppered throughout was the phrase "the defendants offered no evidence to back up this claim" (or words to that effect). That suggests to me that the lawyers for the defendants are doing a poor job. Here they're saying that DeCSS's purpose was to provide DVD playback on Linux boxes, and they don't even prove it! That's the whole idea behind providing evidence: you can't say something and then not provide evidence to back it up.
It's almost as if a store accuses you of shoplifting a book, and then doesn't provide proof that you've got that book in your bag.
In any basic argumentative case such as this, you have to back up your claims, else your argument gets thrown out. It's pretty simple, actually.
I sent an email to Shaw@Home (Canadian supplier of the @Home service) yesterday regarding the UDP, and here's what they had to say:
--- begin e-mail We are aware that a UDP has been issued against @Home and it is clearly an @Home issue. @Home is aware of the problem and is working on meeting the requirements to have the UDP lifted so that you will continue to enjoy the use of the news service. Due to the current activity and attention to this issue Shaw does not anticipate that the UDP will go into effect. --- end e-mail
I still want a case that's clear. Forget this transparent garbage, I want to actually see inside my case without taking it off. Plexiglass would be ideal.
Well, not really. Thermal IR picks up differences in temperature. If the parked cars were recently parked, their engines will still be warm, so you'll be able to see them. In addition, the only way something would be invisible to IR would be if it's in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings. Odds are that unless the car has been sitting for a long time, it will retain heat from the daytime, and thus still be warmer than the ambient air at nighttime. I can't say for certain, but intuition tells me that a car should only reach thermal equilibrium well into the night, if at all.
Plus, you gave a good rebuttal for your argument in your own post. Parked cars aren't going to be directly in front of you (I'd hope!) so they'll fall outside of the HUD field-of-view. They'd be just as invisible as they are now -- meaning they're not.
(I'm replying to Garin's post and not one of the replies because this is a sort of blanket reply to those ones...)
I think what Garin was trying to get across is that if you put your site up on an ISP, that ISP, because they actually own the computers that you're using, can do whatever they want with them. If I own an ISP, I have the freedom to do whatever I want with it (to a limit -- I couldn't use it to promote hate literature or provide a safe haven for criminals, for example). I could, very realistically, refuse to put your page up for no reason. Because I own it means I have the right to do that to you. There's nothing in the Constitution that says that I have to provide to you the means to display your messages.
However, as someone pointed out, the Constitution says something to the effect that the government cannot stem free speech. That's where the Constitutional bit comes in. Did the FBI exert undue pressure upon the ISP to have this guy's site shut down, or did they merely "politely discuss" the possibility of the site coming down? In my view, they overstepped the bounds. If this was a hate-mongering site, then fine, because hate literature isn't protected by the Constitution. However, it appears that this was a simple video clip showing a possible outcome of Y2K. Nothing more serious than what was shown on TV the other day.
I want to know if anybody's actually seen this video. Perhaps it included something about the President being killed in riots. That would be a reason to pull down the site, as that could be construed as a threat uttered against the President, which is illegal.
The basic point here is that we don't have all the facts, and until we get all the facts (which is unlikely in cases such as this) we're just here waving hands at things. I'm not saying that's useless, though, because it's providing debate which should be followed through.
I just commented to a friend (Hi Chad!) a couple of days ago that/. has to change their slogan, because I don't feel like a nerd. As many people've said (and the article said), nerd has a more negative connotation associated with it. I certainly think of the typical glasses-with-tape-wearing, pocket-protecting, slide-ruling, socially-inepting, pizza-facing guy when I think of nerd.
A geek, on the other hand, knows what they're doing, can carry on a conversation outside of computers, and knows what the best beer in town is (Hermann's, yeah!).
My non-computer friends keep trying to insult me by calling me a geek. I always thank them. If they start calling me a nerd, however...
Slashdot Mirror
The BBC article talks about how hackers [sic] are starting to target routers and switches in order to bring things down. Just a small point to make, though: wouldn't it cause more damage to physically take out some of these links? Instead of trying to crack a box, take a backhoe and sever the cables outside the building. This has happened before, when some unwitting backhoe operator severed some cables and caused network routes to go all over hell's half-acre. Wouldn't a physical attack be easier and just as effective? I guess it's not nearly 1337 enough, though.
Well, since they're replacing more with less, it would stand to reason that they're replacing true with false.
"Howdy. I've been reading k5 for a few months now, and I was really getting to enjoy it. Not just the site, but the community of people that read and posted there. Needless to say, I was saddened to find that k5 has been brought down by script kiddies. I'd like to do something to help, but I probably can't offer anything in the way of coding skills that you guys don't already have. Thus, I was wondering if I'd be able to send you guys some sort of monetary donations, to be put towards higher-end hardware or better net connectivity or whatever. The only other person I've talked to about this is interested in donating as well.
Hey, we're a community, right? And aren't community members supposed to help each other out in times of need?"
It's not so much about which OS you want to develop on, it's about which tools are available on the OS. It's also about your target audience. I couldn't get away with developing database solutions under Linux for people who are going to be using NT.
And for the people who said that virtual desktops are a necessity, and this is a reason to use Linux over Windows, check out VirtuaWin. I've used it under W98, NT4, and W2000. It's virtually foolproof, it's free (as in beer), and it's open source. People should -really- start checking out options before resorting to zealotry.
3082166927
Here is your navigator : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)
Just a security hole of Slashdot. You can find this kind of hole in all sites which has a forum. I think that in site like e-trade you can make some people asks for stocks.
You can contact me there : Krakus.Irus à voila.com
If you want to retry.
If you want to know more.
319320611
Here is your navigator : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)
Just a security hole of Slashdot. You can find this kind of hole in all sites which has a forum. I think that in site like e-trade you can make some people asks for stocks.
You can contact me there : Krakus.Irus à voila.com
If you want to retry.
If you want to know more.
6166270629
Here is your navigator : Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.01; Windows NT 5.0)
Just a security hole of Slashdot. You can find this kind of hole in all sites which has a forum. I think that in site like e-trade you can make some people asks for stocks.
You can contact me there : Krakus.Irus à voila.com
If you want to retry.
If you want to know more.
Yeah, I thought of that when the original ILOVEYOU virus got out. I'm sure I wasn't the first, but I feel a little bit of vindication. :)
Here's where I put it up.
Can you really say that Linux users were unaffected? Sure, they don't actually have the opportunity to get infected by the virus, but that doesn't mean that they weren't affected. Some people had files on Linux boxes shared by Samba changed/moved/renamed/deleted. I'd say there's a Linux user who was affected. And what about the people using Linux who depended on people using Windows for information? Suppose I ran a Linux machine at work, and one of our clients running Windows got knocked out by the ILOVEYOU worm. I wouldn't be able to get any information from that client. Thus, I'm an affected Linux user.
Things like this can't be pinned down to one specific group of people. Linux people can't sit back and laugh at Windows people for their grief. Well, they can, but they shouldn't to the extent that they are. Just because your actual Linux box wasn't infected doesn't mean that you weren't affected.
Junkbuster actually works quite nicely under Windows. I run it under NT all the time, and it blocks ads well and doesn't act nastily at me.
Ditto. I had too much fun playing Breakout in matrix algebra classes. It's a wonder I didn't fail I played so much.
Unfortunately I lost all my games a couple of months ago somehow. Couldn't have been a battery change, since I went through two or three of those no problem. Oh well.
There are three of them at modernhumorist.com. Strangely enough, the original poster had the website name on it. Not giving credit where credit is due isn't really nice.
Rejected because it's already been posted. Peep here.
DVD competes with THX? How so? They're completely different things. And there are "THX-encoded" DVDs out there. My copy of Army Of Darkness does the whole THX song and dance.
Hrm. I'm reminded of a time I was stranded in the airport in Little Rock. I was trying to make a collect call back to Canada, and AT&T does their collect call stuff all by computer/automated voice, so that when it calls the person, there's a two-second delay, and then the computer voice kicks in asking if they want to accept the charges. Well, I kept trying to make my collect call, but the guy I was calling kept hanging up before the computer voice would kick in! That got really old really fast.
What basically happens is that the data comes in off the telescope, and when ORAC-DR sees it, the data gets reduced. It automagically removes any sorts of defects that are common to CCD observations (flat-fields, bias levels, sky levels), and often produces publication-quality results. We were joking that astronomers wouldn't even have to write their papers. We'd just reduce the data, fill in some fields on a paper template, then ship the paper off to the appropriate journal. *heh* When I left there was some talk of dedicating a Linux box to the data reduction (instead of the Solaris box they had then).
And it's a Perl-friendly environment at the Joint Astronomy Centre (the place that runs UKIRT in Hawaii). My supervisor (Frossie Economou) has written articles for The Perl Journal, she's got a stuffed penguin on her desk, and the license plate for her Jeep? "PERL5". Another software guy (Tim Jenness) has written stuff for Perldl and is altogether cool for Perl (and stereo equipment too...).
ORAC-DR information is found here. Props to Frossie, Tim, and Chad (who wrote the Apache modules that give the look-and-feel to the JAC webpages -- look for it on CPAN).
I remember that key fondly. Whenever my brother and I were doing weird stuff on our Vic20, we didn't have a clue what that symbol was, so we called it 'the dog'. There was something really surreal about putting dogs in strings.
Crazy.
eel
llama
aardvark
Y'know, I was reading through the ruling, and peppered throughout was the phrase "the defendants offered no evidence to back up this claim" (or words to that effect). That suggests to me that the lawyers for the defendants are doing a poor job. Here they're saying that DeCSS's purpose was to provide DVD playback on Linux boxes, and they don't even prove it! That's the whole idea behind providing evidence: you can't say something and then not provide evidence to back it up.
It's almost as if a store accuses you of shoplifting a book, and then doesn't provide proof that you've got that book in your bag.
In any basic argumentative case such as this, you have to back up your claims, else your argument gets thrown out. It's pretty simple, actually.
I sent an email to Shaw@Home (Canadian supplier of the @Home service) yesterday regarding the UDP, and here's what they had to say:
--- begin e-mail
We are aware that a UDP has been issued against @Home and it is clearly an @Home issue. @Home is aware of the problem and is working on meeting the requirements to have the UDP lifted so that you will continue to enjoy the use of the news service. Due to the current activity and attention to this issue Shaw does not anticipate that the UDP will go into effect.
--- end e-mail
I still want a case that's clear. Forget this transparent garbage, I want to actually see inside my case without taking it off. Plexiglass would be ideal.
It says that my New Year's resolution is to "stop spending money on expensive electronic gadgets."
What! No! It can't be! I really want a DVD player! I have to have a Palm Pilot! I need another computer for my firewall!
I guess there's some redemption in the "What you will actually do" category: buy a spare Palm VII for the bathroom.
But y'know, a magazine for the bathroom beats a Palm VII every time. You can't tear out pages from a Palm if you run out of toilet paper.
Well, not really. Thermal IR picks up differences in temperature. If the parked cars were recently parked, their engines will still be warm, so you'll be able to see them. In addition, the only way something would be invisible to IR would be if it's in thermal equilibrium with its surroundings. Odds are that unless the car has been sitting for a long time, it will retain heat from the daytime, and thus still be warmer than the ambient air at nighttime. I can't say for certain, but intuition tells me that a car should only reach thermal equilibrium well into the night, if at all.
Plus, you gave a good rebuttal for your argument in your own post. Parked cars aren't going to be directly in front of you (I'd hope!) so they'll fall outside of the HUD field-of-view. They'd be just as invisible as they are now -- meaning they're not.
(I'm replying to Garin's post and not one of the replies because this is a sort of blanket reply to those ones...)
I think what Garin was trying to get across is that if you put your site up on an ISP, that ISP, because they actually own the computers that you're using, can do whatever they want with them. If I own an ISP, I have the freedom to do whatever I want with it (to a limit -- I couldn't use it to promote hate literature or provide a safe haven for criminals, for example). I could, very realistically, refuse to put your page up for no reason. Because I own it means I have the right to do that to you. There's nothing in the Constitution that says that I have to provide to you the means to display your messages.
However, as someone pointed out, the Constitution says something to the effect that the government cannot stem free speech. That's where the Constitutional bit comes in. Did the FBI exert undue pressure upon the ISP to have this guy's site shut down, or did they merely "politely discuss" the possibility of the site coming down? In my view, they overstepped the bounds. If this was a hate-mongering site, then fine, because hate literature isn't protected by the Constitution. However, it appears that this was a simple video clip showing a possible outcome of Y2K. Nothing more serious than what was shown on TV the other day.
I want to know if anybody's actually seen this video. Perhaps it included something about the President being killed in riots. That would be a reason to pull down the site, as that could be construed as a threat uttered against the President, which is illegal.
The basic point here is that we don't have all the facts, and until we get all the facts (which is unlikely in cases such as this) we're just here waving hands at things. I'm not saying that's useless, though, because it's providing debate which should be followed through.
I just commented to a friend (Hi Chad!) a couple of days ago that /. has to change their slogan, because I don't feel like a nerd. As many people've said (and the article said), nerd has a more negative connotation associated with it. I certainly think of the typical glasses-with-tape-wearing, pocket-protecting, slide-ruling, socially-inepting, pizza-facing guy when I think of nerd.
A geek, on the other hand, knows what they're doing, can carry on a conversation outside of computers, and knows what the best beer in town is (Hermann's, yeah!).
My non-computer friends keep trying to insult me by calling me a geek. I always thank them. If they start calling me a nerd, however...