Makes me think fondly of Bill Gates. I mean sure his practices have caused a lot of grief... but he has some good qualities... like, for example, he is not Steve Jobs
Well, I suppose you could consider it a merit that you at least don't have to wonder whether you'll be getting the good Bill Gates or the Evil Bill Gates.... there's only the Evil Bill Gates.
More seriously, Bill is a lot more tolerant of personal criticism. Not that doesn't loathe it like any sane human, but he at least can remain polite and smiling when someone takes a jab at him and his products.
Rule #1 when dealing with rootkits (or other break-ins)... The system can no longer be trusted. That means any and all executables on the system are suspect (including System Restore functionality) and may have been tampered with.
[...]
-Boot a Knoppix CD/DVD and fingerprint your system regularly for a baseline to compare against at a future date.
Note that Rule #1 means NO file on the system can be trusted. Therefore the system fingerprint needs to be stored on removable media, with removable write-once/read-many media preferred.
did you think of obtaining a second computer, mounting that disk as a secondary and copying the data off?
Additional solutions on this line include
1) buying a second hard drive and an external USB/FW enclosure; installing OS, minimum drivers, and AV software on the second drive; booting to the second drive, and scanning the orginal
2) Creating a Windows Boot CD using Bart PE or similar; booting to the CD drive, and scanning the orginal
Yes, once this sort of rootkit trick becomes common, life on Windows will begin to suck intolerably. Mac users may be even less happy; many of them don't have AV software, since there hasn't been a Mac virus in about three years. Many don't update regularly, either... which worries me, given that there have been a handful of remote arbitrary code exploits for the Mac since moving to OS X. The *nix rootkit is a fairly mature software technology.
Their insistence on the "resource" fork always struck me as idiotic: data is data. If it is in a file, it is a bunch of bytes (or even blocks of bytes) -- no need to have separate "meta" information.
It's not much stupider than using a three-char postfixed extension to describe whether a file is a word processing document, executable application, picture, spreadsheet, or binary random data for one-time-pad encryption.
Having messed around on Mac, PC, and Linux, I felt the real weakness of the resource forks was how Apple did not have a good metaphor for translating the resource fork back and forth to filesystems like FAT not so equipped. As proof of that, OS9 and OSX use incompatible means of solving that problem. That Apple has a M$Office grade self-compatibility problem is indicative of how big a kludge the implementation was.
The current method, prefixing resource fork file names with._ to indicate them, is progress. I still don't think Apple has everything right, however; when creating such files on a FAT/FAT32 disk, OS X really should set the "hidden" attribute as well. I regularly have to help Mac users in a panic, thinking their pen-drive stored presentation won't open on a PC... because they selected the resource fork._Presentation.PPT file rather than the Presentation.PPT file proper. If I had been given a 0.1% raise every time I explained that this was the solution, and an 1% raise every time I had to repeat this to a Mac user who had forgotten that this was the problem, I'd be able to retire at the end of April.
Would it also be "shocking" if a Catholic church only offered mass to Catholics?
Bad example: actually, it would. If I recall, doing so would be a violation of Vatican policy; the ceremony is normally open to all, building size permitting and the rare private family service aside. It's only the sacrament of the Eucharist (getting the cookies and cool-aid) that is restricted to practicing Catholics... which is probably what you were thinking of.
Of course, more liberal Catholic priests sometimes elect to quietly ignore the issue. When my older sister was in high school, one of her freinds was killed in a car crash — back in pre-MADD days when this was still utterly shocking. The victim had been Catholic, and so the funeral was held at a Catholic mass, and since she had been fairly popular as well, there were a lot of students from the high school who elected to go. I recall my sister later mentioning the incident when closed communion came up in my religious education with a snicker. Probably a dozen Jewish kids (and parents) got their First Communion that day, and probably less than half of those in attendance were Catholic. The church pastor was an eminiently sensible man, however, and elected not to raise an annoying issue of church doctrine to those in mourning.
As private institutions, private schools are not subject to any restrictions in terms of violations of the rights of students.
Almost, but not quite true. Certain civil rights are inviolable, even by private institutions. However, your overall point is on the mark, because free speech isn't one of those rights.
That's a trademark issue - they *have* to defend it. No-one has to defend a presidential seal
The protected status of the Presidential seal is a matter of Federal Law (18 USC 713). As the executive branch is charged with the enforcement of federal law, such defense of the seal if needed falls under the purview of the executive; and it seems in this case the White House general counsel's office. If you don't think such protection is real, just try selling keychains with the presidential seal on them on a DC sidewalk and see what happens.
Of course, there is the question of whether the Onion's use of the seal is a violation under 18 USC 713... but while I'd say not, it's arguable either way, which would make it a question of fact to be decided in court by a jury. The free speach and parody issue might be another arguement, but would probably need to reach the Supreme Court. I suspect that it won't get to either of those. Either the Onion will start using a parody seal, or the White House (having enough teapot tempests for now) will grant the use exception requested in the Onion's response.
I'd suggest they should use a modified version, like whitehouse.org does.
Whitehouse.org looks to be substituting a vulture for the eagle on their parody seal. I'd suggest that the Onion might find putting a turkey on to be an appropriate replacement for their version. The ghost of Ben Franklin would approve... along with members of any political party not currenly holding the White House. It will even work nicely no matter who holds the office; we're not likely to ever get anyone as respected as George Washington in office ever again.
Re:Scientists need to stop playing God!
on
The Los Alamos Bug
·
· Score: 1
Am I the only one who is slightly disturbed by this trend for scientists to attempt to usurp the powers of our Almighty Creator?
I would agree, it is utterly wretched. I feel the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the person who started this recent trend, that bastion of immorallity, Ben Franklin. If he and his gang had left mucking around with lightning in the hands of the Almighty where it belonged, it would still be doing its job of smiting the unrighteous, the proud, and any church with hubris enough to build a shiny copper steeple. But no, he had to go and invent the lightning rod, taming lightning so that Morse could use it for telegraphy, Edison could invent incandescent lighting and motion pictures, Shockley could figure out the transistor, and Kilby could pull of the integrated (shudded) circuit. Together, they're the reason for the infernal internet being infested by porn. And people mocked those who said that integration would lead to immorallity....
Indeed. I don't particularly trust my government, and trust other countries governments no further (and rather less in most cases). On the other hand, governments at least nominally answer to the population as a whole, rather than to the subset who are stockholders... and again, only nominally.
I value my time -- that leaves Linux out. I value my productivity -- that omits Windows. I value my sanity, that leaves OS X.
I value expandabilty, which rules out Apple laptops and iMac/eMac, and value the contents of my wallet... which knocks out Apple PowerMacs.
I dual boot at home: Win2K on the hard drive for normal goofing off (email, web, OpenOffice, gaming), Knoppix on one of the (three) DVD drives for on-line banking. At work on the other hand — where I'm NOT footing the bill — I'm very happy on a four year old dual 1GHz G4 running 10.2. My boss was mildly reluctant to get me one, but I (successfully) argued that since the department wanted my to support Mac users, the best way to make sure I was familiar with one was to make a Mac my primary desktop either at home or work. He elected to have the department buy the Mac, rather than giving me a raise suitable for allowing me to afford one. And thus I continue saving my pennies. =)
If I ever get a portable, it will be a PowerBook; the price gap is narrower in the laptop market, with Apple even having some advantage. And I am contemplating whether I want a MacMini or a Web Appliance for my DMZ host at home. But for a mid-range desktop... sorry, the local white-box PC wins.
I have a few loaner Macs that are somewhat elderly (4+ years). Rather than try and keep an up-to-date copy of Microsoft office on these seldom used machines, I leave the version that they came with (Office 98, whee!) and put NeoOffice on instead. The combination seems to leave everyone content.
The only difference is that you could get a computer scientist who doesn't work for the manufacturer to explain it.
Oooh! Can you say, "expert witness", children? Very good!
As stands, the only individual who can explain it is an agent of the govenment... not acceptable given first principles under an adversarial system of law. Yes, there are limited sovereign exceptions such as for national security, but this would hardly qualify for such.
(IANAL; I am not admitted to the bar, I just drink with law students at the pub.)
However, security is not a binary condition (you're either totally secure or wide open), it's relative. AKA, I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you.
The former is true, the latter less so in general. The banking problem is one security issue where you only have to outrun the bear. Computer security in general sometimes include problems where you're not trying to outrun the bear, but outrun a hurricane... or the radiation shockwave from a nuclear blast. Warhol worms are freinds to no-one.
It would be difficult, but not impossible, to fake. I suspect, however, that the main reason the US gubbernment wanted it put in is to make counterfeits easier to spot and track down. Adding more dots might make the tracking down harder, but would only make counterfeit recognition easier.
I don't think they included the fact that lots of devices are including internet conectivity, and looks like they could be TheNextBestThing, and would increase the rate IPv4 address space gets used up
But will this increase the depletion of IPv4, or just result in home NAT starting to support the use of CIDR/16 chunks of of 172.16/12 instead of CIDR/24 chunks of 192.168/16? As an example, my Zyxel DSL Modem was pretty trivial to switch over to using 10/8 on the inside its NAT, and would have been easier if it was a model that the manufacturer intended to allow a normal sized NAT pool. (The Zyxel firmware tries to prevent use of spaces above CIDR/30 for non-router hardware.) While my five-year old router isn't thrilled at this sort of thing, my 1 yr old Belkin router is completely content with any IP space I want to assign it.
So the question is, how many of these devices will have Internet (as opposed to LAN) VISIBILITY (as opposed to merely connectivity) be a feature?
I only enjoyed ender's game, honestly the rest is paper waste
You might enjoy First Meetings In the Enderverse. My local (Charlottesville, VA) B&N had the hardcover in the bargain/clearance books area for ~$5. It consists of four novellas, at least two published previously in Analog SF Magazine, and the other two perhaps published elsewhere. Don't pay even full Amazon cover price for it, though. Check for a used or bargain bin-copy, or patronize your local library.
The main reason I think you might find it worthwhile is because it includes the original novella length version of Ender's Game... frankly, one I think is much more subtle and elegant than the novel. (I also picked it up because my copy of the original Analog Magazine is getting a little dog eared.)
I rather enjoyed "Ender's Shadow" as well — Card's second visit to the story of Ender's Game, from a different character perspective — but the Hegemon-related followups struck me as weaker, in much the same way that Speaker For the Dead struck me as weaker than Ender's Game. I would tend to agree that far too much of Card's work is not worth paying even new paperback prices for. Also, given his political stance on a number of issues, I prefer picking up his works in the clearance bin (for which sales authors usually get almost no royalties) or at the local library, rather than as new hardcovers.
MOO3? You can do better than that... (Galactic Civilizations, for one).
Probably; one of the main reasons I haven't finished it is a bug in the GUI during the troop combat phase. Together with intermittent crashes that occur even with the final released patches, I give the interface a D+. I bought it because I had profoundly enjoyed MOO1 and MOO2, and the complexity and subtlety is almost everything I expected. I was mildly disappointed in that technological advancement still seems to be pretty much "progress" only — subtle things like the invention of the internet resulting in the development of Slashdot to waste productivity would have been amusing, especially if pre-requisites for more critical more advanced technologies — and a smarter viceroy would have been nice. But I still have fun with it every now and again, when I have the time.
Still, I'll note GalCiv for picking up when it hits the clearance shelves. =)
While FOX probably fulfilled their obligation, listing someone as "Executive Director of Americans for Technical Leadership" is more misleading than it is helpful. If I were not inclined to look much further I'd infer from that organization's name its mission was to advocate best applications of technology. Maybe ATL thinks that about themselves, but if you know anything about ATL they (especially the author) are clearly are Microsoft shills.
Actually, it looks like the final verdict is that "You were Right, I was Wrong" (How often do you see that on Slashdot?); Fox didn't adequately fulfill their obligation... and even admits it. From a followup article over at FoxNews:
The column "Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument" that appeared on FOXnews.com Sept. 28 identified author James Prendergast as executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership, but failed to disclose that Microsoft is a founding member of that organization.
ATL is a coalition of technology companies, professionals and organizations that advocates for limited government regulation of technology and for competitive market solutions to technology policy. In addition to Microsoft, ATL's founding members include Staples, Inc., CompUSA, Citizens Against Government Waste, CompTIA, Small Business Survival Committee, Clarity Consulting, Cityscape Filmworks, Association for Competitive Technology and 60Plus Association.
Mr. Prendergast's affiliation with Microsoft should have been stated clearly in the article.
It looks like the Fox News editorial board has standards and/or pretensions to serious journalistic ethics. I think I need to go lie down....
Slashdot Mirror
No, no... it's the "analog" hole, not the "anal log" hole.
Well, I suppose you could consider it a merit that you at least don't have to wonder whether you'll be getting the good Bill Gates or the Evil Bill Gates.... there's only the Evil Bill Gates.
More seriously, Bill is a lot more tolerant of personal criticism. Not that doesn't loathe it like any sane human, but he at least can remain polite and smiling when someone takes a jab at him and his products.
[...]
-Boot a Knoppix CD/DVD and fingerprint your system regularly for a baseline to compare against at a future date.
Note that Rule #1 means NO file on the system can be trusted. Therefore the system fingerprint needs to be stored on removable media, with removable write-once/read-many media preferred.
Additional solutions on this line include
1) buying a second hard drive and an external USB/FW enclosure; installing OS, minimum drivers, and AV software on the second drive; booting to the second drive, and scanning the orginal
2) Creating a Windows Boot CD using Bart PE or similar; booting to the CD drive, and scanning the orginal
Yes, once this sort of rootkit trick becomes common, life on Windows will begin to suck intolerably. Mac users may be even less happy; many of them don't have AV software, since there hasn't been a Mac virus in about three years. Many don't update regularly, either... which worries me, given that there have been a handful of remote arbitrary code exploits for the Mac since moving to OS X. The *nix rootkit is a fairly mature software technology.
Not quite that simple; she has to point and giggle.
It's not much stupider than using a three-char postfixed extension to describe whether a file is a word processing document, executable application, picture, spreadsheet, or binary random data for one-time-pad encryption.
Having messed around on Mac, PC, and Linux, I felt the real weakness of the resource forks was how Apple did not have a good metaphor for translating the resource fork back and forth to filesystems like FAT not so equipped. As proof of that, OS9 and OSX use incompatible means of solving that problem. That Apple has a M$Office grade self-compatibility problem is indicative of how big a kludge the implementation was.
The current method, prefixing resource fork file names with ._ to indicate them, is progress. I still don't think Apple has everything right, however; when creating such files on a FAT/FAT32 disk, OS X really should set the "hidden" attribute as well. I regularly have to help Mac users in a panic, thinking their pen-drive stored presentation won't open on a PC... because they selected the resource fork ._Presentation.PPT file rather than the Presentation.PPT file proper. If I had been given a 0.1% raise every time I explained that this was the solution, and an 1% raise every time I had to repeat this to a Mac user who had forgotten that this was the problem, I'd be able to retire at the end of April.
Bad example: actually, it would. If I recall, doing so would be a violation of Vatican policy; the ceremony is normally open to all, building size permitting and the rare private family service aside. It's only the sacrament of the Eucharist (getting the cookies and cool-aid) that is restricted to practicing Catholics... which is probably what you were thinking of.
Of course, more liberal Catholic priests sometimes elect to quietly ignore the issue. When my older sister was in high school, one of her freinds was killed in a car crash — back in pre-MADD days when this was still utterly shocking. The victim had been Catholic, and so the funeral was held at a Catholic mass, and since she had been fairly popular as well, there were a lot of students from the high school who elected to go. I recall my sister later mentioning the incident when closed communion came up in my religious education with a snicker. Probably a dozen Jewish kids (and parents) got their First Communion that day, and probably less than half of those in attendance were Catholic. The church pastor was an eminiently sensible man, however, and elected not to raise an annoying issue of church doctrine to those in mourning.
Almost, but not quite true. Certain civil rights are inviolable, even by private institutions. However, your overall point is on the mark, because free speech isn't one of those rights.
Teapot tempest; move along....
The protected status of the Presidential seal is a matter of Federal Law (18 USC 713). As the executive branch is charged with the enforcement of federal law, such defense of the seal if needed falls under the purview of the executive; and it seems in this case the White House general counsel's office. If you don't think such protection is real, just try selling keychains with the presidential seal on them on a DC sidewalk and see what happens.
Of course, there is the question of whether the Onion's use of the seal is a violation under 18 USC 713... but while I'd say not, it's arguable either way, which would make it a question of fact to be decided in court by a jury. The free speach and parody issue might be another arguement, but would probably need to reach the Supreme Court. I suspect that it won't get to either of those. Either the Onion will start using a parody seal, or the White House (having enough teapot tempests for now) will grant the use exception requested in the Onion's response.
Whitehouse.org looks to be substituting a vulture for the eagle on their parody seal. I'd suggest that the Onion might find putting a turkey on to be an appropriate replacement for their version. The ghost of Ben Franklin would approve... along with members of any political party not currenly holding the White House. It will even work nicely no matter who holds the office; we're not likely to ever get anyone as respected as George Washington in office ever again.
I would agree, it is utterly wretched. I feel the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the person who started this recent trend, that bastion of immorallity, Ben Franklin. If he and his gang had left mucking around with lightning in the hands of the Almighty where it belonged, it would still be doing its job of smiting the unrighteous, the proud, and any church with hubris enough to build a shiny copper steeple. But no, he had to go and invent the lightning rod, taming lightning so that Morse could use it for telegraphy, Edison could invent incandescent lighting and motion pictures, Shockley could figure out the transistor, and Kilby could pull of the integrated (shudded) circuit. Together, they're the reason for the infernal internet being infested by porn. And people mocked those who said that integration would lead to immorallity....
This evil plot of theirs MUST be stopped, or who knows where it will end?
I value expandabilty, which rules out Apple laptops and iMac/eMac, and value the contents of my wallet... which knocks out Apple PowerMacs.
I dual boot at home: Win2K on the hard drive for normal goofing off (email, web, OpenOffice, gaming), Knoppix on one of the (three) DVD drives for on-line banking. At work on the other hand — where I'm NOT footing the bill — I'm very happy on a four year old dual 1GHz G4 running 10.2. My boss was mildly reluctant to get me one, but I (successfully) argued that since the department wanted my to support Mac users, the best way to make sure I was familiar with one was to make a Mac my primary desktop either at home or work. He elected to have the department buy the Mac, rather than giving me a raise suitable for allowing me to afford one. And thus I continue saving my pennies. =)
If I ever get a portable, it will be a PowerBook; the price gap is narrower in the laptop market, with Apple even having some advantage. And I am contemplating whether I want a MacMini or a Web Appliance for my DMZ host at home. But for a mid-range desktop... sorry, the local white-box PC wins.
I have a few loaner Macs that are somewhat elderly (4+ years). Rather than try and keep an up-to-date copy of Microsoft office on these seldom used machines, I leave the version that they came with (Office 98, whee!) and put NeoOffice on instead. The combination seems to leave everyone content.
Oooh! Can you say, "expert witness", children? Very good!
As stands, the only individual who can explain it is an agent of the govenment... not acceptable given first principles under an adversarial system of law. Yes, there are limited sovereign exceptions such as for national security, but this would hardly qualify for such.
(IANAL; I am not admitted to the bar, I just drink with law students at the pub.)
The former is true, the latter less so in general. The banking problem is one security issue where you only have to outrun the bear. Computer security in general sometimes include problems where you're not trying to outrun the bear, but outrun a hurricane... or the radiation shockwave from a nuclear blast. Warhol worms are freinds to no-one.
It would be difficult, but not impossible, to fake. I suspect, however, that the main reason the US gubbernment wanted it put in is to make counterfeits easier to spot and track down. Adding more dots might make the tracking down harder, but would only make counterfeit recognition easier.
But will this increase the depletion of IPv4, or just result in home NAT starting to support the use of CIDR/16 chunks of of 172.16/12 instead of CIDR/24 chunks of 192.168/16? As an example, my Zyxel DSL Modem was pretty trivial to switch over to using 10/8 on the inside its NAT, and would have been easier if it was a model that the manufacturer intended to allow a normal sized NAT pool. (The Zyxel firmware tries to prevent use of spaces above CIDR/30 for non-router hardware.) While my five-year old router isn't thrilled at this sort of thing, my 1 yr old Belkin router is completely content with any IP space I want to assign it.
So the question is, how many of these devices will have Internet (as opposed to LAN) VISIBILITY (as opposed to merely connectivity) be a feature?
You might enjoy First Meetings In the Enderverse. My local (Charlottesville, VA) B&N had the hardcover in the bargain/clearance books area for ~$5. It consists of four novellas, at least two published previously in Analog SF Magazine, and the other two perhaps published elsewhere. Don't pay even full Amazon cover price for it, though. Check for a used or bargain bin-copy, or patronize your local library.
The main reason I think you might find it worthwhile is because it includes the original novella length version of Ender's Game... frankly, one I think is much more subtle and elegant than the novel. (I also picked it up because my copy of the original Analog Magazine is getting a little dog eared.)
I rather enjoyed "Ender's Shadow" as well — Card's second visit to the story of Ender's Game, from a different character perspective — but the Hegemon-related followups struck me as weaker, in much the same way that Speaker For the Dead struck me as weaker than Ender's Game. I would tend to agree that far too much of Card's work is not worth paying even new paperback prices for. Also, given his political stance on a number of issues, I prefer picking up his works in the clearance bin (for which sales authors usually get almost no royalties) or at the local library, rather than as new hardcovers.
Yes.
Probably; one of the main reasons I haven't finished it is a bug in the GUI during the troop combat phase. Together with intermittent crashes that occur even with the final released patches, I give the interface a D+. I bought it because I had profoundly enjoyed MOO1 and MOO2, and the complexity and subtlety is almost everything I expected. I was mildly disappointed in that technological advancement still seems to be pretty much "progress" only — subtle things like the invention of the internet resulting in the development of Slashdot to waste productivity would have been amusing, especially if pre-requisites for more critical more advanced technologies — and a smarter viceroy would have been nice. But I still have fun with it every now and again, when I have the time.
Still, I'll note GalCiv for picking up when it hits the clearance shelves. =)
Actually, it looks like the final verdict is that "You were Right, I was Wrong" (How often do you see that on Slashdot?); Fox didn't adequately fulfill their obligation... and even admits it. From a followup article over at FoxNews:
It looks like the Fox News editorial board has standards and/or pretensions to serious journalistic ethics. I think I need to go lie down....
I expect a Coyote v. Acme comparison may be helpful and instructive as well....