Say what you like about Gates and Microsoft, but the fact remains that in dollar terms, he's done far more for worthy causes than the typical Open Source advocate
Sure, he is giving a lot of money to his foundation.
I don't think RMS, Linux, or ESR wealth or income will ever come close...
So, for Mr Bill Gates, giving US$ 1.2bn per year is... what? Giving away 1/50th of his total worth per year?? Now, that's pretty generous.
Don't misunderstand me: I truly thing it's generous. But you have to put this into perspective, especially when it comes to your comment about ESR. I personnaly think the article you referenced sipply means ESR is determined to enjoy his money... while we enjoy, for free, the software he created.
The "Digital Divide" (whatever that is) probably exists between "North" (wealthier) nations and "South" (poorer) nations but its ultimate causes are rooted in problems that exist in every country:
The power of large companies, forcing customers in inferior products, stupid EULAS and contracts that are detrimental to their (customer) interests. Think Microsoft here.
A lack of advanced education and communication, which prevents customers from researching and/or using alternatives to said inferior products. Think Linux desktop vs Microsoft desktop here. And yes, Linux is still below the radar for most people out there.
A lack of governmental intelligence, producing stupid laws (think... er... CBPTA?) which are ultimately detrimental to the customers. Think Panama vs VOIP here.
The massive amount of money most multinationals can drop in front of government officials and members of parliaments... to make sure said stupid laws are passed and entrenched interests are protected. Enron, anyone?
Think about it: intelligence and education (or a lack thereof) really is a source of problems for a lot of countries.
Digital Divide? No, Education Divide would be more like it.
Entering "Stormfront" in the "Internet Search" field gives me [hit n.1] "stormfront.org -- Stormfront White Pride" neo-nazi web site we all love to hate.
If I enter "http://www.google.com", I get re-directed to "http://www.google.fr" and "Stormfront" does not appear in the results anymore. Screenshots available upon request.
On the other hand, I can always go through my main (US) ISP and browse google.com without redirection.
What's the moral of the story? If you are a [French|German] neo-nazi, and you have a [French|German] ISP use Opera to go around the google limitations. Or get a USA-based ISP.
What's the moral of this moral? Geolocation does not work!!!!. Moronic solution such as this one are simply to easy to avoid. And, yes, UEJF, that one is for you.
Whether neo-nazi opinions are worth defending is left as an exercise to the reader...
Why did you choose Linux, instead of *BSD, to create a Beowulf?
This is a serious question, not a flame: why choose Linux over, say FreeBSD? Is it just because your employer already used Linux? Because you had used Linux before and had more experience working with it? Because you had tested both, and found Linux better than BSD? Or because Linux had tools the *BSD did not have?
Most OSs can be made secure. Even windows. By a good sysadmin.
No, sorry.
My point is this one: a secure OS does not exist. Even a top-notch sysadmin will only give you "reasonable" security.
For instance, reasonable security means patching up all known security holes, as they apply to your machine/OS combination, making sure all users have good passwords and that not every user of your machine has the "root" password, not allowing everyone physical access to your machine, backing up critical data and making sure you have some IDS installed, etc.
Reasonable security is not saying: "This machine is 100% secure", it is being able to say: "AFAIK, this machine should be able to resist hostile attacks for X minutes". (Bruce Schneier had a very interesting discussion on this last one -- take a look at the Cryptogram archives).
As far as my dad is concerned, he was still a security officer for this big Fortune 500 company when he retired, so he must have been doing something right... Like offering reasonable security to his mainframe users...;)
GSM allows for some (limited) form of triangulation of a call.
This is not very easy to do, but, if I remember well, a couple of years ago, the French emergency services were able to track down a small group of people, who were blocked in the mountains with nothing but a cell phone to call for help.
Apparently, it took a couple of phone calls (not easy to to as the weather was bad and the phone battery almost dead) to be able to triangulate their exact position, but it worked -- they were rescued after about 4 days and four nights lost out there in the woods. I am sure other European countries have seen the same thing happen.
Bottom line? Don't use a GSM cell phone if you are paranoid... and don't forget your nice and shiny tinfoil hat to protect your brain from all the microwaves... =)
This sentence from the article really drew my attention:
Mainframe operating systems, which have been perfected over decades, have very few security flaws. Security problems on mainframes tend to be caused by administrators' errors.
Obviously, this guy does not know what he is talking about.
My father used to be a mainframe security officer at a Fortune 500 company. He knew mainframes inside and out and was always pretty much on top of things -- and he started his career on old IBM with punch cards, if you see what I mean.
Anyway, his company would hire (once every three years) an external consultant to test the security of the systems my father took care of. This consultant could gain the mainframe equivalent of "root" access in 30 minutes or less.
A mainframe operating system is not secure -- it's very stable (uptime=99.9999%), though, but that's a different thing.
My advice? If you want security, get OpenBSD. If you want the latest gizmo, get Linux (a real Linux) and invest some time in securing your installation...
Yes, NetBSD is a good choice, especially if you have odd hardware lying around, waiting to be put back to good use.
If you stick to old i386 PC and want to keep Linux on all machines, I suggest Slackware, or something like Tiny Linux, which is based on an old version of Slackware.
To state the obvious, the major news sites would have to have not only leaner pages, but also have the infrastructure to withstand a slashdotting-with-hair-on-it.
Slashdotting-with-hair-on-it?
You mean... A horde of rabid Cowboy Neals attacking innocent news web sites???
I think this DMCA craziness will stop with one "scapegoat": take a cute, innocent and doe-eyed teenager. Let's name her Jane Doe.Imagine said teenager has downloaded her very first MP3 Britney Spears song (shudder) from Kaazaa.
Have 20 armed-to-the-teeth RIAA goons kick down the door of her bedroom, drag her to court and prosecute her for 20 years for music piracy. If some high-powered RIAA lawyer claims US$ 20 Mil. for IP theft, from her hapless parents, that's even better. Lock Jane Doe in prison. Cut to Jane's parents crying over both the tragic destiny of their daughters and over the lawyer's bill.
Then, plaster her (cute, innocent, doe-eyed) face all over the net and all over CNN and every other TV network in the world and have Linus Torvalds himself explain that "this terrible injustice could happen to your teenager! And all this just for downloading a music file!!".
Then stand back, relax, and watch the public outrage, roused by the suffering of poor cute little Jane Doe, sweep away the RIAA, the MPAA, the DMCA and whatever else is bothering you.
This is very effective. But not very nice for the poor "Jane Doe"...
Since when has any crypto been considered even remotely permanently unbreakable?
Since the one-time pad, that's when. This has been mathematically proven, as well, as early as 1910 or 1920, if I remember well.
OTOH, it is true that a one-time pad is symmetric (sp?) crypto. modern crypto, such as AES, DES, Serpent and others mentioned in Cryptogram are assymetric, and, as such, more susceptible to cracking methods.
...why? I'm genuinely curious why you need to be hidden.
Because I don't want some stupid marketer to know everything about me. And because I don't want to lose a job just because some idiot HR person is able to type my real name into google and come up with my honest appraisal of the intelligence of my former, or current, boss. See my Slashdot journal for more information.
See the article in the NYT: you'll find exactly the reasons why I want to keep a certain degree of privacy.
Why do you think I use a nickname when posting on Slashdot?
Why do you think my "homepage"on Slashdot resolves to a free web page that has not been updated for years? A web page that contains no real tangible personal information whatsoever?
Why do you think my "email address" resolves to a free email address on Yahoo?
Why do you think I do the same for almost every forum I participate in?
Only a few people, using Google or other search engines, would be able to guess who I am -- and these are probably my closest friends. And even them would probably have a hard time guessing it was me.
Come on, people, blaming Google for a lack of privacy is as stupid as saying that Microsoft will save us from wily hackers with Palladium.
No Privacy? No problem. Just maintain a couple of anonymous online clone and post using "their" names. And, yes, I did register with the NYT using the same nickname... =)
The end of the world was predicted. Nothing happened. Why? Because good people worked their asses off and prevented the Y2K "damage".
Hint: want to avoid 90% of all problems on the Internet? Follow this three step program:
1. Avoid ALL M$ products like the plague. 2. Whatever system you use, keep it up-to-date, apply the patches and the security upgrade religiously. 3. Whatever system you use, lock down all un-necessary services and ports. 4. Whatever you do, don't put everything on the Internet! Pacemakers, energy grid and air-traffic systems don't have anything to do on the Internet. period.
And no, I won't buy Palladium just because it's the One True Technology That Will Save Our Sorry Asses From Evil Hackers!;)
Slashdot Mirror
Say what you like about Gates and Microsoft, but the fact remains that in dollar terms, he's done far more for worthy causes than the typical Open Source advocate
Sure, he is giving a lot of money to his foundation.
On the other hand, according to this source, he is worth more than US$ 60bn.
And, according to this other source, our charitable friend Bill Gates makes about US$ 31 per second.
I don't think RMS, Linux, or ESR wealth or income will ever come close...
So, for Mr Bill Gates, giving US$ 1.2bn per year is... what? Giving away 1/50th of his total worth per year?? Now, that's pretty generous.
Don't misunderstand me: I truly thing it's generous. But you have to put this into perspective, especially when it comes to your comment about ESR. I personnaly think the article you referenced sipply means ESR is determined to enjoy his money... while we enjoy, for free, the software he created.
Think about it: intelligence and education (or a lack thereof) really is a source of problems for a lot of countries.
Digital Divide? No, Education Divide would be more like it.
Just my (un)educated opinion, of course.
Two of these students have been seen driving BMWs with stickers saying: "I burned 20 M$ in VC financing and all I got was this lousy gas-guzzler"...
Ten other students declared personal bankruptcy after failing the IPOs of their start-up, citing the lousy performance of the financial market...
And two former CS professors have seen panhandling outside the University with carboard signs saying: "will teach Java programming for food".
So what else is new? =)
(as if giving someone a leather chair was going to transform him/her overnight into a PHB with a clue... Sheesh...)
This story should be in the it's funny: laugh section.
This is based on Declan's article (Hi Declan!)
I am using Opera 6.03 uner Linux.
Entering "Stormfront" in the "Internet Search" field gives me [hit n.1] "stormfront.org -- Stormfront White Pride" neo-nazi web site we all love to hate.
If I enter "http://www.google.com", I get re-directed to "http://www.google.fr" and "Stormfront" does not appear in the results anymore. Screenshots available upon request.
On the other hand, I can always go through my main (US) ISP and browse google.com without redirection.
What's the moral of the story? If you are a [French|German] neo-nazi, and you have a [French|German] ISP use Opera to go around the google limitations. Or get a USA-based ISP.
What's the moral of this moral? Geolocation does not work!!!!. Moronic solution such as this one are simply to easy to avoid. And, yes, UEJF, that one is for you.
Whether neo-nazi opinions are worth defending is left as an exercise to the reader...
This is sooooooooo fishy. Especially if question 1 has a positive answer!
Kudos to all the UK ISPs who refused to obey this ridiculous government order...
I just hope all the ISPs will have the courage to do the same with their respective governments... But I seriously doubt it!
(And this is a serious one!)
Why did you choose Linux, instead of *BSD, to create a Beowulf?
This is a serious question, not a flame: why choose Linux over, say FreeBSD? Is it just because your employer already used Linux? Because you had used Linux before and had more experience working with it? Because you had tested both, and found Linux better than BSD? Or because Linux had tools the *BSD did not have?
Just a question...
Most OSs can be made secure. Even windows. By a good sysadmin.
;)
No, sorry.
My point is this one: a secure OS does not exist. Even a top-notch sysadmin will only give you "reasonable" security.
For instance, reasonable security means patching up all known security holes, as they apply to your machine/OS combination, making sure all users have good passwords and that not every user of your machine has the "root" password, not allowing everyone physical access to your machine, backing up critical data and making sure you have some IDS installed, etc.
Reasonable security is not saying: "This machine is 100% secure", it is being able to say: "AFAIK, this machine should be able to resist hostile attacks for X minutes". (Bruce Schneier had a very interesting discussion on this last one -- take a look at the Cryptogram archives).
As far as my dad is concerned, he was still a security officer for this big Fortune 500 company when he retired, so he must have been doing something right... Like offering reasonable security to his mainframe users...
GSM allows for some (limited) form of triangulation of a call.
This is not very easy to do, but, if I remember well, a couple of years ago, the French emergency services were able to track down a small group of people, who were blocked in the mountains with nothing but a cell phone to call for help.
Apparently, it took a couple of phone calls (not easy to to as the weather was bad and the phone battery almost dead) to be able to triangulate their exact position, but it worked -- they were rescued after about 4 days and four nights lost out there in the woods. I am sure other European countries have seen the same thing happen.
Bottom line? Don't use a GSM cell phone if you are paranoid... and don't forget your nice and shiny tinfoil hat to protect your brain from all the microwaves... =)
This sentence from the article really drew my attention:
Mainframe operating systems, which have been perfected over decades, have very few security flaws. Security problems on mainframes tend to be caused by administrators' errors.
Obviously, this guy does not know what he is talking about.
My father used to be a mainframe security officer at a Fortune 500 company. He knew mainframes inside and out and was always pretty much on top of things -- and he started his career on old IBM with punch cards, if you see what I mean.
Anyway, his company would hire (once every three years) an external consultant to test the security of the systems my father took care of. This consultant could gain the mainframe equivalent of "root" access in 30 minutes or less.
A mainframe operating system is not secure -- it's very stable (uptime=99.9999%), though, but that's a different thing.
My advice? If you want security, get OpenBSD. If you want the latest gizmo, get Linux (a real Linux) and invest some time in securing your installation...
Just don't believe any corporate BS. They are out to get you.
Scientists say 50 grammes of sugar would keep a 40-watt light bulb lit for eight hours.
Two questions:
This being said, this is truly interesting!
Yes, NetBSD is a good choice, especially if you have odd hardware lying around, waiting to be put back to good use.
If you stick to old i386 PC and want to keep Linux on all machines, I suggest Slackware, or something like Tiny Linux, which is based on an old version of Slackware.
To state the obvious, the major news sites would have to have not only leaner pages, but also have the infrastructure to withstand a slashdotting-with-hair-on-it.
;)
Slashdotting-with-hair-on-it?
You mean... A horde of rabid Cowboy Neals attacking innocent news web sites???
*shudder*
I think I am going to be sick...
I think this DMCA craziness will stop with one "scapegoat": take a cute, innocent and doe-eyed teenager. Let's name her Jane Doe.Imagine said teenager has downloaded her very first MP3 Britney Spears song (shudder) from Kaazaa.
Have 20 armed-to-the-teeth RIAA goons kick down the door of her bedroom, drag her to court and prosecute her for 20 years for music piracy. If some high-powered RIAA lawyer claims US$ 20 Mil. for IP theft, from her hapless parents, that's even better. Lock Jane Doe in prison. Cut to Jane's parents crying over both the tragic destiny of their daughters and over the lawyer's bill.
Then, plaster her (cute, innocent, doe-eyed) face all over the net and all over CNN and every other TV network in the world and have Linus Torvalds himself explain that "this terrible injustice could happen to your teenager! And all this just for downloading a music file!!".
Then stand back, relax, and watch the public outrage, roused by the suffering of poor cute little Jane Doe, sweep away the RIAA, the MPAA, the DMCA and whatever else is bothering you.
This is very effective. But not very nice for the poor "Jane Doe"...
That can be seen running around, screaming: "Give it to meeeeeeeeeee!!" in an MPEG file that has been mirrored all over the world... =)
Who can take anything Ballmer says seriously after seeing this movie clip? Certainly not Linus Torvalds, that's for sure!!
The first web page with detailed instructions on "How to hack the XBox MkII" has just been by M. Joe Schmoe, of Peoria, Ill.
Film at 11.
I honestly hate both. They are both treating customers as clueless children, that must be beaten into submission.
Also, I am not surprised the Clean Flicks company is based in Utah.
Since when has any crypto been considered even remotely permanently unbreakable?
Since the one-time pad, that's when. This has been mathematically proven, as well, as early as 1910 or 1920, if I remember well.
OTOH, it is true that a one-time pad is symmetric (sp?) crypto. modern crypto, such as AES, DES, Serpent and others mentioned in Cryptogram are assymetric, and, as such, more susceptible to cracking methods.
We 0wnZ uR S0ckS!!
Sorry, could not resist... Seriously, I hope your launderette VPN is seriously firewalled... =)
Because I don't want some stupid marketer to know everything about me. And because I don't want to lose a job just because some idiot HR person is able to type my real name into google and come up with my honest appraisal of the intelligence of my former, or current, boss. See my Slashdot journal for more information.
See the article in the NYT: you'll find exactly the reasons why I want to keep a certain degree of privacy.
Why do you think I use a nickname when posting on Slashdot?
Why do you think my "homepage"on Slashdot resolves to a free web page that has not been updated for years? A web page that contains no real tangible personal information whatsoever?
Why do you think my "email address" resolves to a free email address on Yahoo?
Why do you think I do the same for almost every forum I participate in?
Only a few people, using Google or other search engines, would be able to guess who I am -- and these are probably my closest friends. And even them would probably have a hard time guessing it was me.
Come on, people, blaming Google for a lack of privacy is as stupid as saying that Microsoft will save us from wily hackers with Palladium.
No Privacy? No problem. Just maintain a couple of anonymous online clone and post using "their" names. And, yes, I did register with the NYT using the same nickname... =)
Am I the only one who thinks the ISO should stand up and fight the good fight?
Maybe this would be a way to stop this patent / Intellectual Property nightmare once and for all.
What about patents not applying if the implementation is open source and not-for-profit?
Well, I guess I can keep on dreaming... =(
He he he he he he
OK, I'll have to admit, this one is excellent!
Thanks for the laugh.
This is what I have to say to Mr Schmidt:
;)
Y2K
The end of the world was predicted. Nothing happened. Why? Because good people worked their asses off and prevented the Y2K "damage".
Hint: want to avoid 90% of all problems on the Internet? Follow this three step program:
1. Avoid ALL M$ products like the plague.
2. Whatever system you use, keep it up-to-date, apply the patches and the security upgrade religiously.
3. Whatever system you use, lock down all un-necessary services and ports.
4. Whatever you do, don't put everything on the Internet! Pacemakers, energy grid and air-traffic systems don't have anything to do on the Internet. period.
And no, I won't buy Palladium just because it's the One True Technology That Will Save Our Sorry Asses From Evil Hackers!