Apart from the horrid word, it's hardly a new process. Every electable official since the days of... well, since there were elections, has been a product shaped to win a constituency.
Dean did well using the Internet was because his constituency was one that relies on the Net for news and views.
But he failed for the same reason: he still spoke to a minority. For the majority, presidents have to be Presidential. In todays' world this means good looks and charm and political skill.
Expect future party machines to use the Internet much more, yes, but don't expect future presidents to be any less chosen on their ability to look good on television.
1. For active projects, once per week to review status and plan work. Without face to face meetings, projects derail rapidly.
2. To solve problems, get the people or individuals out of their context, face-to-face for half an hour, give them attention, fix whatever's wrong.
3. To explain emergency situations: get the whole team to stop and sit down, listen, and work together on the next steps.
4. To sell an idea or plan: face to face with the customer, no presentations or power point, discuss the issues and use a flip board if you need to draw something.
And the useless kinds:
1. Anything with powerpoint.
2. Any meeting that is not for a specific project or problem.
Call me cynical but I think this story is a well-constructed lie.
First, the accurate but uncheckable details: name of some guy in Austria, his 15-year old girlfriend.
Secondly, as has been remarked, the photos. They are just too well shot, and I can't for a second believe that a virus author would sit still while the makeup girls did their thing, lighting got the shadows right... no frigging way!
Thirdly, the technical details are obviously wrong. Formatting hard drives? Deleting files? That is so 1980's. Today's virus writers are obsessed with the social interface: how to confuse people into clicking the attachment.
Forthly, the timing. A long, detailed investigation into youthful virus writers just as the worst ever virus hits the Internet, with no mention of mafia connections, of zombie spam engines, of "sorry, andy, but this was just my job",...? WTF?
Conclusion: it's a set-up. These young dudes don't exist as described, the shots are of actors, and the story was invented behind a desk. Someone wants to create a convincing enemy for new legislation which will paint uncontrolled hacker youthdom as the enemy of all that is right and proper. Long prison sentences for simply creating the wrong kind of software ("because it could be released and do harm"). Rapid implementation across the globe ("cause these guys are in, like, Austra!").
Now, allow me to get really cynical and ask this question: why is no-one bothering with profiles of the organized criminals behind most of the damage done to people's computers? Could it be because misdirecting the blame at youth hackerdom means the problem will not be solved, and so the hand of oppressive government can become stronger and stronger...
Of course, I could be wrong, and really viruses like mydoom could just be the work of guys like this.
First reading of the article gave the impression that Nissan's new cars would be equipped with some kind of sound raygun which could be used for far more interesting things than blocking hailstones. Hey, aim that raygun at Ms Jone's house, watch the windows shatter. Cops coming? A little blast of decibels and their cars explode. Not to mention their eardrums and maybe even heads. Ugh.
But no, we're not going to see commercialized versions of the famous Somalian 'technicals', pick-ups with anti-aircraft guns mounted in the back.
Instead it's some kind of 'Highlander 2' plot in which giant rays are going to be beamed into the sky in order to prevent catastrophe raining down.
So, I have three questions.
(a) does anyone actually believe it's possible to stop hailstones forming in the heart of giant thunderclouds whose energies are hugely more than anything we can produce.
(b) what happened to the 'roof'? A simple, yet efficient way of stopping hailstones.
(c) who sold Nissan this thing? I'm looking for a good salesman for my company.
It's not about using the software today. It's about the historical record. Software - especially landmark software like this - is part of a common heritage, and should be accessible to all. I'd like to see more companies release the source code for their crown jewels when the commercial exploitation phase has ended.
Use their feedback form and let them know what you think. Be polite. Here is what I wrote:
------------------
A poor article with several serious flaws.
Firstly, it accepts without discussion the proposition that people are simply influenced by what they see on the Internet. This is far from obvious.
Secondly, it pretends that the Internet is simple to change. This is hubris. The Internet has grown, not been built. There is a fundamental difference.
Thirdly, it pretends that the Internet is a channel like cinema. It is not. It is fundamentally about individuals choosing protocols and applications with which to exchange ideas. The sheer force behind individual's desire to choose and control their personal communications with other individuals means that censoring the Internet is not just a bad idea, it is impossible.
Responsible authors should not pretend that this is a simple matter of social and technical engineering. If the 20th century taught us one thing, it is that such projects fail, miserably, and often at great cost.
Evils and evil people are a product of human nature and its many faces, not of the Internet. It would be more constructive to analyse how violent and dangerous individuals can be identified and isolated from the general population than to pretend that a simple tweaking of our communications infrastructure can eliminate this kind of tragedy.
Any attempt to sell digital music while keeping the current cost model (where a huge part of the proceeds go to feeding record company structures) is going to be a loser.
Apple don't mind because they drive hardware sales with it, and the lossy business model will drive off competitors.
The questions for me are: how long can the music industry survive when it can't even make the Internet a cost-effective channel for distribution? And what will happen than?
Surely wishy-washy attempts to trace cultural influences of violence ignore the basic evidence that the human male character and physique have been selected for violence amongst other traits, and this for at least millions of years.
I've seen violent behaviour in children from the ages of 7 up, and it is not influenced by watching others any more than children who doodle patterns in the sand are influenced by watching art.
From watching people, I would say violence is latent in most young men (and the occasional woman, but it's much rarer) especially between the ages of 16 and 25. You can definitely shift these limits - see child soldiers who kill at the age of 7 and up. But violence is almost never random and spontaneous, except in sick people. Violent behaviour is almost a predictable and (from the individual's point of view) a rational response to an environment where it's the best strategy for success.
In other words: place a normal young male in a social setting where violence is the best route to success (which simply means reproductive success through whatever short or long-term route), and you will see a violent young male emerge. Place the same male in a setting where intellectual and commercial ambition are better strategies, and you will see a young man who puts his energies into those directions.
There are extreme cases - people who are violent in most settings, and people who are not violent in most settings - but we're talking about mass influence here, right?
Video games are in no possible way a factor in deciding how to proceed in life. They are fantasy, and even a six-year old child can maintain totally coherent fantasy worlds that do not affect their real life.
So the debate about video games is on the wrong track entirely... we can solve problems of violence in youth only by changing economics of behaviour so that non-violence works better. It's quite possible that suppressing violent video games could even increase violent tendencies, since they provide an avenue for expression of violent nature, in the same way as porn provides an safe avenue for sexual fantasy.
Luckily the formula for reducing violent behaviour seems clear: a stable system of government where long-term good behaviour is rewarded and short-term bad behaviour is suboptimal.
Modern societies are incredibly pacifistic compared with historical ones. The USA may seem violent compared to Switzerland, but it's a haven of peace and calm compared to most places on earth.
The UK weather sucks, it rains more and is colder than in Belgium.
UK transport sucks. Trains are shitty and expensive, roads are congested. Belgium has good public transport and only moderate congestion at times.
The UK is insular compared to the cultural mix in Belgium. Many people here speak two, three languages, and cities like Brussels are rich and varied, even while they're quite small.
Belgian taxes are painful. But the Belgian tax service is always happy to negotiate. UK administration is efficient and minimalistic but if you make a mistake you can get in serious trouble.
Belgian girls are way cuter than British girls, who put on too much makeup and tend to look cheap and nasty. Or fat and pasty. I could never go for that 'fair English rose' type. Belgian girls range from the blonde northern (repeat after me: "Hmmm, blondes" in a Homer voice) to the dark hispanic. This, actually, was the reason I stayed in Belgium.
Belgian beer is of course an inspiration to drinkers everywhere. There are some good beers in the UK these days but they're largely inspired by Belgian brews, and honestly, if you've never tried a triple-hopped Orval, you don't know what _real_ beer can taste like.
The Belgian music scene is amazing: underground and frantic: electro jazz, trance, salsa, jazz, congolese-arab fusion, it's just eclectic and vibrant.
The UK has these ridiculously paternalistic ideas about forcing people to drink only within certain hours, resulting in a nation of binge drinkers. Amateur alcoholics! Belgians drink professionally.
Brussels is 1.5 hours by train from Paris, from London, from Amsterdam. If you can't get what you want in Brussels, it's simple to find it.
Belgium has a relaxed attitude to soft drugs, meaning young people can enjoy themselves without becoming criminals.
The UK has the English. Belgium has Dutch tourists. OK, par on that one.
The Belgians got over their empire ages ago. We do not believe it's our moral obligation to topple foreign dictators just because they pull faces at us.
The UK strip searches asylum seekers and tourists who are pigmentally gifted. My Congolese sister in law had a full anal probe last time she visited the UK. "Stiff upper lip, old girl!" Belgium gives them 30 days to leave the country, and then forgets about them.
I could go on, but I'm going to go to the Pain Quotidienne on Dansaertstraat to have a breakfast: espresso, dark bread, fresh orange juice, one egg.
Monitoring cameras are not about democracy vs. oppression, they are about eliminating the tragedy of the commons.
Take speeding: when you speed, you save some journey time. When others speed, they endanger your life. Cameras on the road (as seen recently in France) tell individuals "your acts are not cost-free", and so they behave better.
Britain is a pretty sad place to live in, but this has nothing to do with cameras and a lot to do with geography and history. The explosion of cameras in public places may not have eliminated crime, but they appear to have kept it in check, despite rising drug use, increasing poverty in many areas, etc.
I have to vote in favour of the cameras: it's one of those cases where the common need for decent behaviour in public places overrides the individual's right to privacy. I've often thought that in other countries - like Belgium, where I live - surveillence cameras would be a good thing, cutting down on the petty crime: bag theft, broken car windows, men pissing in public, muggings, etc. which make the average citizen feel insecure and end up voting for right-wing parties.
Ironically, better public behaviour is probably better for democracy, not the reverse, since historically extremist governments rise from situations of uncertainty, not from stable societies. Crime waves push people to accepting extreme leaders in the name of law and order.
- false WHOIS information - false email headers - spoofed IP addresses - misleading web pop-ups - spyware authors - technomorons who install spyware - coverage of mydoom by the BBC - jj's boobs
You can do this quite easily by using a hashing algorithm that incorporates a shared secret. Let's say you hash the current date and time and the shared secret and use this to generate four port numbers. Then a procedure such as 'knock on these three ports and then connect on this fourth one' can be implemented so that the same port sequence never occurs twice, and any sniffing is useless. Of course you now need a secure way of exchanging the shared secret.
It was smartsearch.ws, as far as I could tell, but it might have been Gator. Since the PC had multiple infestations, it was a matter of killing various processes, and trying again until I could get a web page up. MSIE was being pointed to smartsearch.ws and Mozilla was being terminated after about 10 seconds, whatever page I tried to reach. Netscape 4.7 worked fine. When I'd finally removed all the junk, Mozilla worked fine again.
We organize the occasional party in our garage. The local equivalent of the RIAA (the Belgian SABAM) came knocking and asking for their cut. They were very reasonable, a clean 15% of the gross. I asked whether this covered live groups too. Oh yes. How about artists that are not members of the SABAM? Oh yes. But we're willing to make you a gooood price. At which point I realize that this is just the local mob.
It really makes me wonder... when you cannot stand up on stage and play your guitar for a public without having to fill-in a form and pay protection money. I don't see P2P ever being legit in such a world.
Go on, mod me -1 irrelevant, but this was the first time I saw a music industry enforcer in action and I was quite impressed.
Has anyone any statistics on the cost to end users of spyware/trojans as compared to viruses? Yesterday I cleaned-up a Windows PC that was being used by a visitor to the company, ad-aware found something like 10 different trojans and spywares on it. Nothing worked anymore: MSIE always went to some advertising site, Mozilla died (was killed, actually), installing ad-aware took ages because one of the trojans was deliberately killing the install program...
My solution was to wipe the PC and stick on Xandros. But this is not feasible for everyone. So how much time and money do spywares actually cost, and is there no way these creeps can be persecuted for theft of computing resources or interference in operations? I know that the EU cybercrime laws prohibit at least some aspects of spyware (such as interference in normal system operations and interception of private communications).
Why is everyone surprised that every technique designed to eliminate spam can be fought? It's obvious that this is going to happen.
The question should be: how do we live in a world where 99.9(n)% of email is spam? When the virus writers and zombie masters and spysters start using their communications infrastructure for its intended goal of delivering advertising?
It's inevitable, and no amount of spam filtering will avoid it.
Here's a prediction I made maybe 6 months ago on Slashdot: we're going to start seeing viruses that modify real outgoing emails to include their advertising messages. (And no Outlook jokes, thanks...) How does one filter spam when real emails are also infected?
It takes a lot longer when you can't download it because your browser is refusing to access anything other than the spyware site. And when you run the installer, the spyware kills it. And when try another browser the spyware kills that too...
Yesterday I spent at least a couple of hours clearing some spyware from a PC: it had completely infiltrated the registry, was replacing all attempts to reach other web sites via MSIE with its own page, killing Mozilla, killing the various anti-spyware programs... OK, killing various processes with names like 'sistem' and deleting a bunch of recently-installed DLLs helped me recover control.
But I pity the millions of people whos PCs are infested with dialers, trojans, browser-infecting gremlims. These are not technical 'viruses' because they don't propagate. But they are very serious time wasters,
Hey, I'm famous. Oh yes, I'm heir^^^anonymous. OK, there's a small catch here somewhere but it's one I can live with.
BTW, those complaining about my use of the word "terrorism", this is called (wait for it, wait for it) a "figure of speech". I think most people understood that writing a virus (or adapting an existing one) is not literally terrorism in the sense that no-one has been blown-up, shot, kidnapped, or mutilated. However, millions of people have found their email boxes filled with garbage. Thousands of help desks around the world have been trying to explain why all the spam filters failed. Hundreds of journalists have been forced to try to find wise words to write on the issue (and they must be desperate if they quote an anonymous source from Slashdot, come on guys, get a grip...).
It's literally terrifying, to speak metaphorically with a touch of parabolic irony.
"Thugware" is my invention, and I'm proud to see it used by Wired. We need to spread the message that the hacker community is large and varied and while it contains its shaven-head boot boy yobo element, most of us are respectable citizens that believe in the rule of law and the resolution of disputes (however fraudulent) through the instruments of democratic justice, not vandalism./soapbox
Anyone antisocial and misdirected enough to spend effort writing software that does damage cannot have enough of a sense of wrong and right to give a damn about the SCO case.
This is someone who just wants to feel important and who thinks that by DDoS'ing SCO everyone will call him a hero.
Well, you stupid ignorant bastard, if you're reading this, and you probably are since you expect that the Slashdot hordes will applaud your bravery in damaging thousands of people's computers, NO ONE ADMIRES YOU. We spit on you, you're the bastard offspring of a lemming and a hamster and your mother had a beard!
With enemies like this SCO hardly needs friends. Anyone who wants to see SCO suffer for the wrongs they have done should unequivocally condemn such acts of terrorism. SCO will be broken by the weight of justice and right, not by mindless thugware.
It's no use sending out resumes at random. You need to know who you are speaking to and what they need. Then, try to explain clearly why hiring you will save them money and/or provide other concrete benefits.
The hardest part is getting an interview but normally decent firms will interview several candidates. You can also call before you send your resume, find the person doing the selection, and ask them whether your CV was clear or not. This can help to get it to the top of the stack.
Last piece of advice: this is such a hard time to find tech jobs that you may be better starting your own business one way or another. Ironically, the dot-com boom was better for employees than for businessmen, and this period is the reverse.
Well, despite posting on Slashdot, I've spent many months in Nigeria and while 1200 Km of expressways sounds a lot, it's not for a country that is almost a million square Km. As soon as you leave the main cities you are on secondary roads made of a thin layer of tarmac over hard earth. Cables? Where?
Microwave links are used, yes, but mainly as we might use leased lines - expensive point-to-point links between two business locations, between an ISP and a company, that kind of thing.
Microwave links do not work when it rains, however. This means they are out of action (in Nigeria's south) for a day or more per week during the rainy season. As you go north this is less of a problem. In countries like Congo it rains even more and the air is so humid microwave links are a problem.
Good communications are always a boost for a country - look at GSM networks, which in some places have multiplied people's standards of living by a factor of five or more simply because they can work around the sheer awfulness of the roads and communications infrastructure and start to do business efficiently.
Of course Africa needs better communications. The challenges are not trivial, however, nor the same as we know in the US and Europe.
Zip file management has virtually been absorbed into both Windows and Linux, and even if these two vendors agreed on a standard it would not mean much. PKzip became irrelevant when Infozip's portable zip tool became widely available, around 15 years ago. Further, all archiving tools today already deal with such a variety of formats that I can't see the crying need for a standard.
Slashdot Mirror
Apart from the horrid word, it's hardly a new process. Every electable official since the days of... well, since there were elections, has been a product shaped to win a constituency.
Dean did well using the Internet was because his constituency was one that relies on the Net for news and views.
But he failed for the same reason: he still spoke to a minority. For the majority, presidents have to be Presidential. In todays' world this means good looks and charm and political skill.
Expect future party machines to use the Internet much more, yes, but don't expect future presidents to be any less chosen on their ability to look good on television.
The good kinds of meeting:
1. For active projects, once per week to review status and plan work. Without face to face meetings, projects derail rapidly.
2. To solve problems, get the people or individuals out of their context, face-to-face for half an hour, give them attention, fix whatever's wrong.
3. To explain emergency situations: get the whole team to stop and sit down, listen, and work together on the next steps.
4. To sell an idea or plan: face to face with the customer, no presentations or power point, discuss the issues and use a flip board if you need to draw something.
And the useless kinds:
1. Anything with powerpoint.
2. Any meeting that is not for a specific project or problem.
Call me cynical but I think this story is a well-constructed lie.
First, the accurate but uncheckable details: name of some guy in Austria, his 15-year old girlfriend.
Secondly, as has been remarked, the photos. They are just too well shot, and I can't for a second believe that a virus author would sit still while the makeup girls did their thing, lighting got the shadows right... no frigging way!
Thirdly, the technical details are obviously wrong. Formatting hard drives? Deleting files? That is so 1980's. Today's virus writers are obsessed with the social interface: how to confuse people into clicking the attachment.
Forthly, the timing. A long, detailed investigation into youthful virus writers just as the worst ever virus hits the Internet, with no mention of mafia connections, of zombie spam engines, of "sorry, andy, but this was just my job",...? WTF?
Conclusion: it's a set-up. These young dudes don't exist as described, the shots are of actors, and the story was invented behind a desk. Someone wants to create a convincing enemy for new legislation which will paint uncontrolled hacker youthdom as the enemy of all that is right and proper. Long prison sentences for simply creating the wrong kind of software ("because it could be released and do harm"). Rapid implementation across the globe ("cause these guys are in, like, Austra!").
Now, allow me to get really cynical and ask this question: why is no-one bothering with profiles of the organized criminals behind most of the damage done to people's computers? Could it be because misdirecting the blame at youth hackerdom means the problem will not be solved, and so the hand of oppressive government can become stronger and stronger...
Of course, I could be wrong, and really viruses like mydoom could just be the work of guys like this.
First reading of the article gave the impression that Nissan's new cars would be equipped with some kind of sound raygun which could be used for far more interesting things than blocking hailstones. Hey, aim that raygun at Ms Jone's house, watch the windows shatter. Cops coming? A little blast of decibels and their cars explode. Not to mention their eardrums and maybe even heads. Ugh.
But no, we're not going to see commercialized versions of the famous Somalian 'technicals', pick-ups with anti-aircraft guns mounted in the back.
Instead it's some kind of 'Highlander 2' plot in which giant rays are going to be beamed into the sky in order to prevent catastrophe raining down.
So, I have three questions.
(a) does anyone actually believe it's possible to stop hailstones forming in the heart of giant thunderclouds whose energies are hugely more than anything we can produce.
(b) what happened to the 'roof'? A simple, yet efficient way of stopping hailstones.
(c) who sold Nissan this thing? I'm looking for a good salesman for my company.
It's not about using the software today. It's about the historical record. Software - especially landmark software like this - is part of a common heritage, and should be accessible to all. I'd like to see more companies release the source code for their crown jewels when the commercial exploitation phase has ended.
Use their feedback form and let them know what you think. Be polite. Here is what I wrote:
------------------
A poor article with several serious flaws.
Firstly, it accepts without discussion the proposition that people are simply influenced by what they see on the Internet. This is far from obvious.
Secondly, it pretends that the Internet is simple to change. This is hubris. The Internet has grown, not been built. There is a fundamental difference.
Thirdly, it pretends that the Internet is a channel like cinema. It is not. It is fundamentally about individuals choosing protocols and applications with which to exchange ideas. The sheer force behind individual's desire to choose and control their personal communications with other individuals means that censoring the Internet is not just a bad idea, it is impossible.
Responsible authors should not pretend that this is a simple matter of social and technical engineering. If the 20th century taught us one thing, it is that such projects fail, miserably, and often at great cost.
Evils and evil people are a product of human nature and its many faces, not of the Internet. It would be more constructive to analyse how violent and dangerous individuals can be identified and isolated from the general population than to pretend that a simple tweaking of our communications infrastructure can eliminate this kind of tragedy.
Any attempt to sell digital music while keeping the current cost model (where a huge part of the proceeds go to feeding record company structures) is going to be a loser.
Apple don't mind because they drive hardware sales with it, and the lossy business model will drive off competitors.
The questions for me are: how long can the music industry survive when it can't even make the Internet a cost-effective channel for distribution? And what will happen than?
He will never look back and you can tell him "honey, remember how much you like Linux now, well that's how much I like to get flowers..."
Surely wishy-washy attempts to trace cultural influences of violence ignore the basic evidence that the human male character and physique have been selected for violence amongst other traits, and this for at least millions of years.
I've seen violent behaviour in children from the ages of 7 up, and it is not influenced by watching others any more than children who doodle patterns in the sand are influenced by watching art.
From watching people, I would say violence is latent in most young men (and the occasional woman, but it's much rarer) especially between the ages of 16 and 25. You can definitely shift these limits - see child soldiers who kill at the age of 7 and up. But violence is almost never random and spontaneous, except in sick people. Violent behaviour is almost a predictable and (from the individual's point of view) a rational response to an environment where it's the best strategy for success.
In other words: place a normal young male in a social setting where violence is the best route to success (which simply means reproductive success through whatever short or long-term route), and you will see a violent young male emerge. Place the same male in a setting where intellectual and commercial ambition are better strategies, and you will see a young man who puts his energies into those directions.
There are extreme cases - people who are violent in most settings, and people who are not violent in most settings - but we're talking about mass influence here, right?
Video games are in no possible way a factor in deciding how to proceed in life. They are fantasy, and even a six-year old child can maintain totally coherent fantasy worlds that do not affect their real life.
So the debate about video games is on the wrong track entirely... we can solve problems of violence in youth only by changing economics of behaviour so that non-violence works better. It's quite possible that suppressing violent video games could even increase violent tendencies, since they provide an avenue for expression of violent nature, in the same way as porn provides an safe avenue for sexual fantasy.
Luckily the formula for reducing violent behaviour seems clear: a stable system of government where long-term good behaviour is rewarded and short-term bad behaviour is suboptimal.
Modern societies are incredibly pacifistic compared with historical ones. The USA may seem violent compared to Switzerland, but it's a haven of peace and calm compared to most places on earth.
I'll take the bait.
The UK weather sucks, it rains more and is colder than in Belgium.
UK transport sucks. Trains are shitty and expensive, roads are congested. Belgium has good public transport and only moderate congestion at times.
The UK is insular compared to the cultural mix in Belgium. Many people here speak two, three languages, and cities like Brussels are rich and varied, even while they're quite small.
Belgian taxes are painful. But the Belgian tax service is always happy to negotiate. UK administration is efficient and minimalistic but if you make a mistake you can get in serious trouble.
Belgian girls are way cuter than British girls, who put on too much makeup and tend to look cheap and nasty. Or fat and pasty. I could never go for that 'fair English rose' type. Belgian girls range from the blonde northern (repeat after me: "Hmmm, blondes" in a Homer voice) to the dark hispanic. This, actually, was the reason I stayed in Belgium.
Belgian beer is of course an inspiration to drinkers everywhere. There are some good beers in the UK these days but they're largely inspired by Belgian brews, and honestly, if you've never tried a triple-hopped Orval, you don't know what _real_ beer can taste like.
The Belgian music scene is amazing: underground and frantic: electro jazz, trance, salsa, jazz, congolese-arab fusion, it's just eclectic and vibrant.
The UK has these ridiculously paternalistic ideas about forcing people to drink only within certain hours, resulting in a nation of binge drinkers. Amateur alcoholics! Belgians drink professionally.
Brussels is 1.5 hours by train from Paris, from London, from Amsterdam. If you can't get what you want in Brussels, it's simple to find it.
Belgium has a relaxed attitude to soft drugs, meaning young people can enjoy themselves without becoming criminals.
The UK has the English. Belgium has Dutch tourists. OK, par on that one.
The Belgians got over their empire ages ago. We do not believe it's our moral obligation to topple foreign dictators just because they pull faces at us.
The UK strip searches asylum seekers and tourists who are pigmentally gifted. My Congolese sister in law had a full anal probe last time she visited the UK. "Stiff upper lip, old girl!" Belgium gives them 30 days to leave the country, and then forgets about them.
I could go on, but I'm going to go to the Pain Quotidienne on Dansaertstraat to have a breakfast: espresso, dark bread, fresh orange juice, one egg.
Have a nice day!
Monitoring cameras are not about democracy vs. oppression, they are about eliminating the tragedy of the commons.
Take speeding: when you speed, you save some journey time. When others speed, they endanger your life. Cameras on the road (as seen recently in France) tell individuals "your acts are not cost-free", and so they behave better.
Britain is a pretty sad place to live in, but this has nothing to do with cameras and a lot to do with geography and history. The explosion of cameras in public places may not have eliminated crime, but they appear to have kept it in check, despite rising drug use, increasing poverty in many areas, etc.
I have to vote in favour of the cameras: it's one of those cases where the common need for decent behaviour in public places overrides the individual's right to privacy. I've often thought that in other countries - like Belgium, where I live - surveillence cameras would be a good thing, cutting down on the petty crime: bag theft, broken car windows, men pissing in public, muggings, etc. which make the average citizen feel insecure and end up voting for right-wing parties.
Ironically, better public behaviour is probably better for democracy, not the reverse, since historically extremist governments rise from situations of uncertainty, not from stable societies. Crime waves push people to accepting extreme leaders in the name of law and order.
- false WHOIS information
- false email headers
- spoofed IP addresses
- misleading web pop-ups
- spyware authors
- technomorons who install spyware
- coverage of mydoom by the BBC
- jj's boobs
I'm curious what you discover. Stick it in your journal tomorrow?
You can do this quite easily by using a hashing algorithm that incorporates a shared secret. Let's say you hash the current date and time and the shared secret and use this to generate four port numbers. Then a procedure such as 'knock on these three ports and then connect on this fourth one' can be implemented so that the same port sequence never occurs twice, and any sniffing is useless.
Of course you now need a secure way of exchanging the shared secret.
It was smartsearch.ws, as far as I could tell, but it might have been Gator. Since the PC had multiple infestations, it was a matter of killing various processes, and trying again until I could get a web page up. MSIE was being pointed to smartsearch.ws and Mozilla was being terminated after about 10 seconds, whatever page I tried to reach. Netscape 4.7 worked fine. When I'd finally removed all the junk, Mozilla worked fine again.
We organize the occasional party in our garage. The local equivalent of the RIAA (the Belgian SABAM) came knocking and asking for their cut. They were very reasonable, a clean 15% of the gross. I asked whether this covered live groups too. Oh yes. How about artists that are not members of the SABAM? Oh yes. But we're willing to make you a gooood price. At which point I realize that this is just the local mob.
It really makes me wonder... when you cannot stand up on stage and play your guitar for a public without having to fill-in a form and pay protection money. I don't see P2P ever being legit in such a world.
Go on, mod me -1 irrelevant, but this was the first time I saw a music industry enforcer in action and I was quite impressed.
Has anyone any statistics on the cost to end users of spyware/trojans as compared to viruses? Yesterday I cleaned-up a Windows PC that was being used by a visitor to the company, ad-aware found something like 10 different trojans and spywares on it. Nothing worked anymore: MSIE always went to some advertising site, Mozilla died (was killed, actually), installing ad-aware took ages because one of the trojans was deliberately killing the install program...
My solution was to wipe the PC and stick on Xandros. But this is not feasible for everyone. So how much time and money do spywares actually cost, and is there no way these creeps can be persecuted for theft of computing resources or interference in operations? I know that the EU cybercrime laws prohibit at least some aspects of spyware (such as interference in normal system operations and interception of private communications).
Why is everyone surprised that every technique designed to eliminate spam can be fought? It's obvious that this is going to happen.
The question should be: how do we live in a world where 99.9(n)% of email is spam? When the virus writers and zombie masters and spysters start using their communications infrastructure for its intended goal of delivering advertising?
It's inevitable, and no amount of spam filtering will avoid it.
Here's a prediction I made maybe 6 months ago on Slashdot: we're going to start seeing viruses that modify real outgoing emails to include their advertising messages. (And no Outlook jokes, thanks...) How does one filter spam when real emails are also infected?
It takes a lot longer when you can't download it because your browser is refusing to access anything other than the spyware site. And when you run the installer, the spyware kills it. And when try another browser the spyware kills that too...
Yesterday I spent at least a couple of hours clearing some spyware from a PC: it had completely infiltrated the registry, was replacing all attempts to reach other web sites via MSIE with its own page, killing Mozilla, killing the various anti-spyware programs... OK, killing various processes with names like 'sistem' and deleting a bunch of recently-installed DLLs helped me recover control.
But I pity the millions of people whos PCs are infested with dialers, trojans, browser-infecting gremlims. These are not technical 'viruses' because they don't propagate. But they are very serious time wasters,
Hey, I'm famous. Oh yes, I'm heir^^^anonymous. OK, there's a small catch here somewhere but it's one I can live with.
/soapbox
BTW, those complaining about my use of the word "terrorism", this is called (wait for it, wait for it) a "figure of speech". I think most people understood that writing a virus (or adapting an existing one) is not literally terrorism in the sense that no-one has been blown-up, shot, kidnapped, or mutilated. However, millions of people have found their email boxes filled with garbage. Thousands of help desks around the world have been trying to explain why all the spam filters failed. Hundreds of journalists have been forced to try to find wise words to write on the issue (and they must be desperate if they quote an anonymous source from Slashdot, come on guys, get a grip...).
It's literally terrifying, to speak metaphorically with a touch of parabolic irony.
"Thugware" is my invention, and I'm proud to see it used by Wired. We need to spread the message that the hacker community is large and varied and while it contains its shaven-head boot boy yobo element, most of us are respectable citizens that believe in the rule of law and the resolution of disputes (however fraudulent) through the instruments of democratic justice, not vandalism.
Anyone antisocial and misdirected enough to spend effort writing software that does damage cannot have enough of a sense of wrong and right to give a damn about the SCO case.
This is someone who just wants to feel important and who thinks that by DDoS'ing SCO everyone will call him a hero.
Well, you stupid ignorant bastard, if you're reading this, and you probably are since you expect that the Slashdot hordes will applaud your bravery in damaging thousands of people's computers, NO ONE ADMIRES YOU. We spit on you, you're the bastard offspring of a lemming and a hamster and your mother had a beard!
With enemies like this SCO hardly needs friends. Anyone who wants to see SCO suffer for the wrongs they have done should unequivocally condemn such acts of terrorism. SCO will be broken by the weight of justice and right, not by mindless thugware.
Except that you are the product.
It's no use sending out resumes at random. You need to know who you are speaking to and what they need. Then, try to explain clearly why hiring you will save them money and/or provide other concrete benefits.
The hardest part is getting an interview but normally decent firms will interview several candidates. You can also call before you send your resume, find the person doing the selection, and ask them whether your CV was clear or not. This can help to get it to the top of the stack.
Last piece of advice: this is such a hard time to find tech jobs that you may be better starting your own business one way or another. Ironically, the dot-com boom was better for employees than for businessmen, and this period is the reverse.
Well, despite posting on Slashdot, I've spent many months in Nigeria and while 1200 Km of expressways sounds a lot, it's not for a country that is almost a million square Km. As soon as you leave the main cities you are on secondary roads made of a thin layer of tarmac over hard earth. Cables? Where?
Microwave links are used, yes, but mainly as we might use leased lines - expensive point-to-point links between two business locations, between an ISP and a company, that kind of thing.
Microwave links do not work when it rains, however. This means they are out of action (in Nigeria's south) for a day or more per week during the rainy season. As you go north this is less of a problem. In countries like Congo it rains even more and the air is so humid microwave links are a problem.
Good communications are always a boost for a country - look at GSM networks, which in some places have multiplied people's standards of living by a factor of five or more simply because they can work around the sheer awfulness of the roads and communications infrastructure and start to do business efficiently.
Of course Africa needs better communications. The challenges are not trivial, however, nor the same as we know in the US and Europe.
Zip file management has virtually been absorbed into both Windows and Linux, and even if these two vendors agreed on a standard it would not mean much. PKzip became irrelevant when Infozip's portable zip tool became widely available, around 15 years ago. Further, all archiving tools today already deal with such a variety of formats that I can't see the crying need for a standard.