Why do game companies care if people are using roms from 5 years ago! They aren't going to make any money off them, the only who people who might are used games resellers, and not much. The only thing they do is alienate their customers, with no benefit that I can see.
"He's accused of accessing the system March 8 in an alleged intrusion that cost the county a reported $5,000 to clean up."
Well of course it's going to cost money to clean up! He just showed the courthouse there's a BIG vulnerability in their network. That is more of a result of bad administration, than his "hacking". I can't think of any reason to punish this man for doing the courthouse a service.
The post says that to demonstrate that would be violating the DMCA. I was under the impression that DVD zones were illegal (by the DMCA) in the first place! I thought I read that here on slashdot.. or am I just too tired?
Google only updates it cache on unpopular websites every month or so, which is unacceptable for someone that wants to immediately remove something from the cache. So, they should make an option to update the site immediately (within an hour), once a month or so. That way, if they suddenly become aware that Google is caching them, they can pull something down and reset the cache. Identifying the site owner would be the fun part.. maybe mandate putting a temporary Google logo on the website as proof:)
I've been thinking more on the legality of this sort of thing, and I think 'by default' it is definately legal to retransmit information. In Google's case, since they are just displaying their cache, which they try to keep as current as possible, they are providing a service to the Webmaster. Think of all the sites that are less slashdotted:) This is one of those topics that is very complicated however, and really has no inheritance from any other decisions at all.
As anyone with low capped connections, bad quality of service, and terrible uptimes, broadband must be opened! Cable companies must be forced to share lines, etc etc, or else they will end up owning the end users on the internet.
I'm afraid I disagree with Lasser. First of all, Microsoft has not yet said what type of code will be 'signed'. One can assume it would be applications. Let's say I do a buffer overflow on IIS, and use shell code. The shell code is not a new program, and runs 'inside' the other program. These are instructions, not a program, and really can't be signed or protected against.
Microsoft is truly foolish if they expect to have people switch to Palladium. The majority of their customers were pissed with XP, just having to call Microsoft if they updated their hardware. Now, they expect people to buy new hardware so they can be told what they can't run? Personally, I think Palladium might end up being a new NT, but I seriously doubt it will ever be like Microsoft claims it will.
We're also working with others throughout the industry to improve Internet protocols to stop email that could propagate misleading information or malicious code that falsely appears to be from trusted senders.
Microsoft has found the way to be vulnerability free. Instead of fixing their bad code, they will just break IP so much that you can't even send any exploited code! Great idea, Microsoft. (Morons)
IDSes are NOT meant to work out of the box. Snort's FAQ specifically states that you should disable rules for things you don't need! By default, it includes a lot of stuff. Luckily, the rules are neatly organized into files, so you can comment them out, and stop getting warnings you don't want! Likewise, using Snort without Acid is well... not very common. Yet, there is no mention of Acid in this article. I can only imagine that the rest of this article is flawed due to the reviewer's lack of knowledge.
Maybe if you are doing a parallel build on EVERY file at the same time, but otherwise no. I've compiled OpenOffice with 120 MB free, so it obviously doesn't take 6GB.
Complete build time is 8 hours on 4 way PIII Xeon 550 with 50Gb disk and 512k RAM.
Now, read this:
Complete build of win2k time is 8hrs on 4way PIII and requires 50GB of hard drive space.
The former comes from the article, and the latter from the front page. Microsoft must be using some pretty good compression if they can take 50GB of stuff and put it into one cd.
Nope, hardly. I am saying that closed source requires you to have a good, non changing API. Open source does not, as you can just change the kernel itself. Unfortunately, as the kernel is changing also from release to release this makes for problems.
1. X is clunky for desktop use. It's just not fast enough. This isnt a 386! I shouldnt have to feel like im using one. For home use a smaller, more efficient X is definantly necesary.
You did try accelerated drivers, yes? For most people X is much faster than Windows.
2. Interacting with the command line does suck. Especially editing files with cryptic names just to get things working "like windows comes out of the box".
Such as? Mandrake will let most people edit things without going into the console.
3. The filesystem - POSIX filesystem is a bloated piece of junk! Couldn't we get some standards on where files are put? I'm sick of checking 4 bin directories and having my icons and pixmaps in different folders. The FS is confusing to people who are used to a nice C: drive.
"Posix filesystem"? I'll assume you're talking about the layout. Why are you checking bin directories? Just put them in your $PATH. Usually pixmaps and icons are handled by programs/WMs, and the path doesn't really matter. Where are your icons in Windows, hmm?
4. Hardware - despite improvements, i still cant burn CDs or watch DVDs.
That's funny, I can.
5. Dep-hell - apt-get is great for debian but the rest of us with RPM's are constantly in dep hell.
Urmpi
6. KDE Applications take too long to load - KMail is way slower than outlook, Konqueror. takes many times longer to load, render pages, and open new windows.
Not sure what to say here.. KDE is much faster and lightweight than Microsoft equivilants for most people.
Mac hardware is overly expensive. Sorry, but Apple makes profit on the high prices, not because the machines are oh-so-much better. If the machines were priced fairly, I would probably buy some, but they aren't - they're a ripoff. You can build a PC that's very powerful for $500. $500 for a Mac? You can get an iPod!
This article has a few good points. One of the major things (IMHO) that is going to hinder Linux's advancement in desktop use is the way the kernel is structured. Please note the following is constructive criticism; Linus and the gang do a wonderful job, much better than I could do, and I only wish for them to achieve even greater sucess.
Linus started work on Linux by himself. We can all remember his famous usenet posting:) Back then, Linus did everything himself (and with a few others), but everyone contributing was a kernel hacker. Now, there are lots of people contributing, some just send patches every once a while, others work on large projects that need kernel patching, creating problems. One such project that I will use as an example is vserver, which lets you run multiple "virtual servers" on one Linux machine. They have a kernel patch, and from watching the dev list, grow frustrated from some updates in the kernel that break their patch. The same can be said for drivers as well, companies don't want to keep a developer just so their linux driver is up to date. Linus isn't about to let them put it in the kernel tree either, so what can be done?
Believe it or not, being closed source has some advantages. One of the strongest points of Windows (and there aren't many) is that of binary compatibility. Why? Because there is actually a need for an API that doesn't change with every release.
Linux must provide a stable, non-changing API for lower level functionality, if it is going to suceed in the mainstream. You can't keep writing your own drivers forever! This is something that most hardcore kernel developers don't think about, because they are constantly updating things.
The whole concept of open source is that if you don't like it, you can change it. If you make ads mandatory, someone will just make them optional.
#define SHOWADS 0
You could distribute it under an open source-like license, and forbid changing the ad code, but chances are it would read and obeyed as much as we all read and love Microsoft's EULAs.
Slashdot, a "geek serving" news service, owned by OSDN recently has announced they will stop announcing news, instead begging people for money, while having ads on their website.
CmdrTaco said during an interview: "Well, slashdot kept getting slashdotted, so we decided to post useless crap that no one would want to look at it, and could find elsewhere if they did want to look at it. Yes, that's it."
Some rumors from the slashdot team have indicated that perhaps the person that started this new trend, "chrisd", was really under the influence of heroin, and his/friends were covering for him. This same source said the new trend could be over as soon as the next post. More news as it comes in.
For those of you running Windows, look at Trillian. It's basically like Everybuddy, except with all the bells and whistles (file sends, chats, etc). Although it's not open source, the developers had hinted that they might open the project up when it is more mature (although I think it's mature enough:))
I think it's hard for us to imagine what it's like for other people trying to figure out how to use something like a computer. For us, we can open a new program we've never used or seen before, and instinctively know where to look to get it working the way we want it to. Why can we do this? We've used computers long enough to understand how the programmers think... heck, most of us are programmers:)
So why doesn't this work for Joe Q. User? They don't know how we think. Let's take IE for example.. for most of "us" it's pretty easy to get around with (yes, it still sucks but that's another story;)) Let's say Joe wants to get into the options. We'll save him some trouble and let him know that it's in one of the menus, somewhere... Where does he go? File? Well, the configuration is in a file.. we'll go there. Edit? Yes! I want to edit the options, that must be it. View? Yes, let's view the settings. Tools? Well, that must not be it... I want options, not tools.
Yet, the experienced computer user will almost immediately check tools and find options. It doesn't make sense, but we're used to it! Windows XP was supposed to help with this.. and it did, a little. Take a look at the search, it's dumbified. My grandma could use it. Unfortunately, whenever I use it it's annoyingly preschoolish to me.
So, what can be done? Well, there's two things. First, we can start making all software dumbified. tar -xvIf? No.... tar, please extract this tar with bzip2 compression. Some of it simply isn't possible, and the experienced users (meaning the people who write the software) aren't going to like it. Scratch the move everything to dumb idea.
So, that leaves a partial dumbification. Programs need dumb modes. Even Windows XP's search as I mentioned earlier has a someone un-dumbified mode. It's not perfect, but it's the right idea. We need different modes of programs for different types of users.
All of this can be applied to electronics in general too. Think stereos, think play buttons.. couldn't they just write 'play'?
Well, when I saw the tidbit on/., I thought, wow, a billion dollars worth of software in a Linux distro? That is not what this article says. It simply says that RedHat (would have) had to pay the developers a billion dollars to complete that much work. To find out how much it should probably cost, add some money for profit, and divide that by how many probably users there are. This would only make sense for Linux as a whole, and not just RedHat.
This is an interesting idea.. and I agree that open and closed source are almost equally secure. What does this mean? The amount of public vulernabilities discovered is just about the same. Open source is better, because it contains less problems, however. Closed source software probably has tons of vulnerabilities just waiting to be discovered. Even Microsoft admits it:)
Putting something on the web is 'opt-ing in' to allowing people to look at it, index it, and save it if they wish. Do you have a problem with search engines? If not, you shouldn't be complaining about this. Personally, I think the WBM is a good thing (tm), but I think webmasters should be able to opt out if they want.. for whatever reason. I don't know for sure, but maybe the WBM reads robots.txt?
Unfortunately, this article misses the big problem in the package world. The problem is, there just aren't enough packages! The author suggests that the big RPM distros get together, but I doubt that is going to happen, so, what can be done?
First of all, building from source makes things a lot easier. Gentoo/ports style package databases should be the future.. the compatibility is much better. Still, if you manually upgrade something (without the package), the package manager is still clueless that you have installed a new version.
So, what can we do? For instance, a few weeks ago when I was trying out Gentoo, I got the BitchX package and installed it. Unfortunately, the latest version was old and still had a number of bugs. The solution is very simple, have something monitor the files as you install! Imagine something like INSTALL_CMD="make install" emerge --manual --version 3.2.1 BitchX And emerge would monitor file changes, new files, and then update the package database. Obviously the details recorded for this wouldn't be as great as from a manual package, and the package might even be compiled with the wrong options. Still, it's definately an improvement. Comments/ideas?
Slashdot Mirror
Why do game companies care if people are using roms from 5 years ago! They aren't going to make any money off them, the only who people who might are used games resellers, and not much. The only thing they do is alienate their customers, with no benefit that I can see.
Well of course it's going to cost money to clean up! He just showed the courthouse there's a BIG vulnerability in their network. That is more of a result of bad administration, than his "hacking". I can't think of any reason to punish this man for doing the courthouse a service.
The post says that to demonstrate that would be violating the DMCA. I was under the impression that DVD zones were illegal (by the DMCA) in the first place! I thought I read that here on slashdot.. or am I just too tired?
I've been thinking more on the legality of this sort of thing, and I think 'by default' it is definately legal to retransmit information. In Google's case, since they are just displaying their cache, which they try to keep as current as possible, they are providing a service to the Webmaster. Think of all the sites that are less slashdotted :) This is one of those topics that is very complicated however, and really has no inheritance from any other decisions at all.
As anyone with low capped connections, bad quality of service, and terrible uptimes, broadband must be opened! Cable companies must be forced to share lines, etc etc, or else they will end up owning the end users on the internet.
Microsoft is truly foolish if they expect to have people switch to Palladium. The majority of their customers were pissed with XP, just having to call Microsoft if they updated their hardware. Now, they expect people to buy new hardware so they can be told what they can't run? Personally, I think Palladium might end up being a new NT, but I seriously doubt it will ever be like Microsoft claims it will.
Microsoft has found the way to be vulnerability free. Instead of fixing their bad code, they will just break IP so much that you can't even send any exploited code! Great idea, Microsoft. (Morons)
I love the pun...
The link was broken, it has now been fixed. Sorry about that.
Service should be restored by:
Friday, July 12 at 4:00 PST - (July 12 at 12:00 GMT)
Hmm, I think they found out ;)
IDSes are NOT meant to work out of the box. Snort's FAQ specifically states that you should disable rules for things you don't need! By default, it includes a lot of stuff. Luckily, the rules are neatly organized into files, so you can comment them out, and stop getting warnings you don't want! Likewise, using Snort without Acid is well... not very common. Yet, there is no mention of Acid in this article. I can only imagine that the rest of this article is flawed due to the reviewer's lack of knowledge.
Maybe if you are doing a parallel build on EVERY file at the same time, but otherwise no. I've compiled OpenOffice with 120 MB free, so it obviously doesn't take 6GB.
Complete build time is 8 hours on 4 way PIII Xeon 550 with 50Gb disk and 512k RAM.
Now, read this:
Complete build of win2k time is 8hrs on 4way PIII and requires 50GB of hard drive space.
The former comes from the article, and the latter from the front page. Microsoft must be using some pretty good compression if they can take 50GB of stuff and put it into one cd.
Nope, hardly. I am saying that closed source requires you to have a good, non changing API. Open source does not, as you can just change the kernel itself. Unfortunately, as the kernel is changing also from release to release this makes for problems.
You did try accelerated drivers, yes? For most people X is much faster than Windows.
2. Interacting with the command line does suck. Especially editing files with cryptic names just to get things working "like windows comes out of the box".
Such as? Mandrake will let most people edit things without going into the console.
3. The filesystem - POSIX filesystem is a bloated piece of junk! Couldn't we get some standards on where files are put? I'm sick of checking 4 bin directories and having my icons and pixmaps in different folders. The FS is confusing to people who are used to a nice C: drive.
"Posix filesystem"? I'll assume you're talking about the layout. Why are you checking bin directories? Just put them in your $PATH. Usually pixmaps and icons are handled by programs/WMs, and the path doesn't really matter. Where are your icons in Windows, hmm?
4. Hardware - despite improvements, i still cant burn CDs or watch DVDs.
That's funny, I can.
5. Dep-hell - apt-get is great for debian but the rest of us with RPM's are constantly in dep hell.
Urmpi
6. KDE Applications take too long to load - KMail is way slower than outlook, Konqueror. takes many times longer to load, render pages, and open new windows.
Not sure what to say here.. KDE is much faster and lightweight than Microsoft equivilants for most people.
Mac hardware is overly expensive. Sorry, but Apple makes profit on the high prices, not because the machines are oh-so-much better. If the machines were priced fairly, I would probably buy some, but they aren't - they're a ripoff. You can build a PC that's very powerful for $500. $500 for a Mac? You can get an iPod!
All of those programs come with Mandrake, and for that matter have generic binaries too.
Linus started work on Linux by himself. We can all remember his famous usenet posting :) Back then, Linus did everything himself (and with a few others), but everyone contributing was a kernel hacker. Now, there are lots of people contributing, some just send patches every once a while, others work on large projects that need kernel patching, creating problems. One such project that I will use as an example is vserver, which lets you run multiple "virtual servers" on one Linux machine. They have a kernel patch, and from watching the dev list, grow frustrated from some updates in the kernel that break their patch. The same can be said for drivers as well, companies don't want to keep a developer just so their linux driver is up to date. Linus isn't about to let them put it in the kernel tree either, so what can be done?
Believe it or not, being closed source has some advantages. One of the strongest points of Windows (and there aren't many) is that of binary compatibility. Why? Because there is actually a need for an API that doesn't change with every release.
Linux must provide a stable, non-changing API for lower level functionality, if it is going to suceed in the mainstream. You can't keep writing your own drivers forever! This is something that most hardcore kernel developers don't think about, because they are constantly updating things.
#define SHOWADS 0
You could distribute it under an open source-like license, and forbid changing the ad code, but chances are it would read and obeyed as much as we all read and love Microsoft's EULAs.
CmdrTaco said during an interview: "Well, slashdot kept getting slashdotted, so we decided to post useless crap that no one would want to look at it, and could find elsewhere if they did want to look at it. Yes, that's it."
Some rumors from the slashdot team have indicated that perhaps the person that started this new trend, "chrisd", was really under the influence of heroin, and his /friends were covering for him. This same source said the new trend could be over as soon as the next post. More news as it comes in.
For those of you running Windows, look at Trillian. It's basically like Everybuddy, except with all the bells and whistles (file sends, chats, etc). Although it's not open source, the developers had hinted that they might open the project up when it is more mature (although I think it's mature enough :))
So why doesn't this work for Joe Q. User? They don't know how we think. Let's take IE for example.. for most of "us" it's pretty easy to get around with (yes, it still sucks but that's another story ;)) Let's say Joe wants to get into the options. We'll save him some trouble and let him know that it's in one of the menus, somewhere... Where does he go? File? Well, the configuration is in a file.. we'll go there. Edit? Yes! I want to edit the options, that must be it. View? Yes, let's view the settings. Tools? Well, that must not be it... I want options, not tools.
Yet, the experienced computer user will almost immediately check tools and find options. It doesn't make sense, but we're used to it! Windows XP was supposed to help with this.. and it did, a little. Take a look at the search, it's dumbified. My grandma could use it. Unfortunately, whenever I use it it's annoyingly preschoolish to me.
So, what can be done? Well, there's two things. First, we can start making all software dumbified. tar -xvIf? No.... tar, please extract this tar with bzip2 compression. Some of it simply isn't possible, and the experienced users (meaning the people who write the software) aren't going to like it. Scratch the move everything to dumb idea.
So, that leaves a partial dumbification. Programs need dumb modes. Even Windows XP's search as I mentioned earlier has a someone un-dumbified mode. It's not perfect, but it's the right idea. We need different modes of programs for different types of users.
All of this can be applied to electronics in general too. Think stereos, think play buttons.. couldn't they just write 'play'?
Well, when I saw the tidbit on /., I thought, wow, a billion dollars worth of software in a Linux distro? That is not what this article says. It simply says that RedHat (would have) had to pay the developers a billion dollars to complete that much work. To find out how much it should probably cost, add some money for profit, and divide that by how many probably users there are. This would only make sense for Linux as a whole, and not just RedHat.
This is an interesting idea.. and I agree that open and closed source are almost equally secure. What does this mean? The amount of public vulernabilities discovered is just about the same. Open source is better, because it contains less problems, however. Closed source software probably has tons of vulnerabilities just waiting to be discovered. Even Microsoft admits it :)
Putting something on the web is 'opt-ing in' to allowing people to look at it, index it, and save it if they wish. Do you have a problem with search engines? If not, you shouldn't be complaining about this. Personally, I think the WBM is a good thing (tm), but I think webmasters should be able to opt out if they want.. for whatever reason. I don't know for sure, but maybe the WBM reads robots.txt?
First of all, building from source makes things a lot easier. Gentoo/ports style package databases should be the future.. the compatibility is much better. Still, if you manually upgrade something (without the package), the package manager is still clueless that you have installed a new version.
So, what can we do? For instance, a few weeks ago when I was trying out Gentoo, I got the BitchX package and installed it. Unfortunately, the latest version was old and still had a number of bugs. The solution is very simple, have something monitor the files as you install! Imagine something like INSTALL_CMD="make install" emerge --manual --version 3.2.1 BitchX And emerge would monitor file changes, new files, and then update the package database. Obviously the details recorded for this wouldn't be as great as from a manual package, and the package might even be compiled with the wrong options. Still, it's definately an improvement. Comments/ideas?