They are investigating whether the manufacturers of players have engaged in anti-competitive practices when doing deals with the movie studios and other
content providers. If it turns out that one or other of the consortia have strong-armed or bribed many studios into supporting their format exclusively then
then there isn't a proper free market in next-gen players and the best interests
of consumers are not served - consumers will choose to buy the players for the
format with the most content available for it, regardless of whether that is the
best format for consumers when judged on a level playing field.
And just how long will this magical content protection system last against the now angry black, grey and white hats of the world?
The (so called) "content protection system" under discussion was broken in 1999 (DeCSS). In some jurisdictions it
may not be legal to use the crack, of course (DMCA in the USA, and similar legal restrictions in other countries). The amendment being discussed is a change to the licensing agreement that manufacturer's of DVD playback hardware and software have to agree to in order
to be given "official" unscrambling keys.
The Content Scrambling System isn't really a content protection system, of
course. It is an attempt to create a cartel of DVD player manufacturers/authors
who all sign up to enforcing objectionable usage restrictions (region coding,
user operation prohibitions, etc), and excluding the manufacturers/authors
players that decline to co-operate.
Nothing happens. One is permitted to combine separate, incompatibly licensed programs together in a
distribution without breaking the licenses, because the FSF regards the
distribution as an "aggregate" of the works that comprise it, rather than a
single derived work. The licenses only conflict
if you combine several incompatibly licensed bodies of code into a single program.
GPLv2, section 2:
[...]
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
the scope of this License.
[...]
4th discussion draft of GPLv3, section 5:
[...]
A compilation of a covered work with other separate and independent works, which are not by their nature extensions of the covered work, in or on a volume of a storage or distribution medium, is called an "aggregate" if the compilation and its resulting copyright are not used to limit the access or legal rights of the compilation's users beyond what the individual works permit. Inclusion of a covered work in an aggregate does not cause this License to apply to the other parts of the aggregate.
Amigo, I was using 5.2 Release, 5.3 Release, and 5.4 Release. Is that what you call "early adoption"?
In part, yes. 5.2-RELEASE was cut from the development branch (as were 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2.1). The
release announcement mentions that it is "a 'New Technology' release and might not be suitable for all users", and includes a link to the
Early Adopter's Guide.
FreeBSD 5 only became "mainstream" with 5.3-RELEASE - and still had some rough edges. For anyone who's only experience has been with FreeBSD 5.X releases then I can sympathise if they have come away with a less than rosy view. The amount of development and change that went on between 4.X and 5.X is now widely accepted to have been a bad idea. If you give 6.2 a spin when it comes out then you might be pleasently suprised. A lot of the disruptive changes introduced during 5-CURRENT development have finally settled down and are paying dividends.
So to all of you who might use this, or some other flavor of BSD as a desktop, what advantages does it offer over Linux?
Unity and coherence of the system: A "Linux" distribution is an integration of many different packages from different groups of developers (the Linux kernel itself, glibc, numerous GNU utilities, and potentially thousands of end user applications - web browsers, mail programs, editors, office suites, etc). The creators of distributions generally do a fine job of this integration but occasionally the fact that it doesn't all fit together perfectly is exposed (particularly if things aren't working properly and one is trying to fault-find, or perhaps upgrade or change particular bits of the system). The FreeBSD developers
aren't (primarily) integrators. Most of the bits of the core system have no "upstream", the developers are working directly on a single project source tree for a complete, minimalist Unix-like system. This system a kernel, libc and the various other system libraries, all the command-line utilites you expect from a POSIX system, documentation (a man page for each program and system call), etc. If, for example, you run a/bin/sh script which contains a find command then the entire software stack up and down (sh, find, libc, kernel) comes from a single set of developers with a unified plan and architecture.
Size of the default install: the core system is relatively small, uncluttered, yet highly functional. The PC-BSD review mentions Linux distributions where
the default install contains enormous amounts of sofware (several different office suits and
numerous text editors). Conversely "minimal" installs in the Linux distribution world often
really are minimal - lacking lots of basic stuff that I'd expect from a Unix system (vi, C compiler, man pages, etc). The FreeBSD default install is in many ways like a "complete
install" of a late 80s commercial Unix distribution such as SunOS or Ultrix - the basic Unix
toolset (vi, sh, csh, ls, awk, sed, grep, find, mail, man, make, cc,...) is all there, but
without much in the way of optional 3rd party free software. The whole thing, including
sources and documentation fits in 500-ish Mbytes. The sysadmin can use the Ports mechanism to
easily add any of about 15000 free software packages later, customizing the system applications
to taste.
Advantages of source based distribution: I have always found it strange that Linux culture is strongly free software / open source based, but other than Gentoo users, the vast majority of Linux people never actually use source code: 99% systems seem to be installed entirely from binary RPMs or DEBs or whatever provided by the distribution makers.
I use a FreeBSD CD set to do an initial install, then I track the STABLE source branch in
the project source repository. Every couple of weeks I resync/usr/src and rebuild the entire
core system from source code to make sure that I'm up to date with security fixes, bug fixes,
new drivers, etc. I know that the contents of/usr/src match the kernel, the libraries, the daemons and the POSIX utilities that I'm currently running, compiled with the options that I wanted. If I come across something that appears to be buggy behaviour I can load up the relevent part of the source tree in Emacs, run the binary under gdb and actually try to figure
out what is going on. If some bit of behaviour niggles me I can try changing the sources and
building a custom version (and easily diff the source tree and attempt to contribute back changes to the project if I think my hack is of some interest to others). Such an approach
is not for everyone, but any means, but if you do have the hacker mind-set then it can be tremendously empowering.
Familiarity: my first serious Unix experience was using commercial
Unixes derived from 4BSD (SunOS 4, etc). I've admined and us
the BBC was one of the first to Internet-broadcast their radio programs using OGG Vorbis (and continue to do so).
Do you have a reference for "continue to do so"? I was under the impression that the Vorbis trials had ended some time ago and never restarted. I would love to be mistaken about this...
[...] or the constant references to the UN as if it were a legitimate institution.
I don't think that this is wierdo social commentary by the programme makers - it's a cultural difference. We (the British) are no longer a global imperial power. On balance most of our TV writers / producers / directors / actors / viewers probably do regard the UN as a "legitimate institution".
Admittedly, the suggestion in the Aliens of London / World War Three story that within a couple of years the UN will hold the UK nuclear launch codes in escrow was not very plausable. I think it's forced on the writer by the requirements of the plot, rather than something that he thinks is really likely to happen.
Originally, I was going to ask if it is possible to make a Christmas special that doesn't suck
"Christmas Specials" on UK TV are rather different to US "Holiday Specials", I think. When the BBC say that they are doing a "christmas special" they mean they are producing a one-off episode of a popular series (probably an extended length / bigger budget episode) which will get its first broadcast as a featured highlight of their Christmas programming.
There often is nothing "christmassy" about the actual programme content - it's just a special treat for the viewer which is broadcast at Christmas time (or, if you're more cynical, a attempted ratings grab by the broadcaster, transmitted at a time when lots of people are sitting at home watching TV!).
If someone connects to your BT client using the protocol they can find out which pieces you are offering to your peers.
I don't see that it makes much odds anyway: if the file is copywrited work, and you don't have
have permission to redistribute that work, then copying parts of it is just as much an infringment as copying the entire file.
Actually, the "TTL" in an IP header is different from the "TTL" in a DNS response (though in both cases the acronym means "time to live" and is intended as a limit on how long data hangs around).
IP header TTL is basically a hop-count, to stop IP packets going round in circles indefinately in the event of routing loops in the network.
Typically, when you look up a name like "www.example.com" your workstation consults a caching DNS server (on the local LAN, or offered by your ISP, or something). This DNS server goes off and talks to the root name servers, which refer it to the "com" name servers, which in turn refer it to the "example.com" name servers, from where it gets an IP address to go with the name. A couple of seconds later you ask for another page from "www.example.com". Your workstation asks the local DNS server for the information again, but the DNS server doesn't go and figure out the answer from scratch - it remembers the answer that it provided last time, and just repeats it. Time-To-Live is an "expiry date" that the authoritative name servers (like
the "example.com" name servers) can put on their answers, so that the caching name servers know how long the answer is good for without them rechecking with an authoratative source.
It might be a good idea to lift a replacement Soyuz into orbit before undocking the original one - that way the period when the ISS is without escape facilities is minimised.
Are you saying that you're routinely visited by guys to check if you have a TV license?!? For air broadcast?!?!?!?
Not routinely, but there are people who work as inspectors, and they do visit households. The licensing authority have a list of all the residential addresses UK, and they have a list of all the addresses to which current licenses have been issued. They do visits to addresses where the license has lapsed and the occupant doesn't respond to letters prompting them to renew, and possibly occasional spot checks on other addresses which are unlicensed. There also used to be a radio license at one time, but they don't collect that any more.
What's the difference between that and inspecting your computer to check if you have illegal stuff in it? What kind of law allows that?!?
Wireless and Telegraphy Act 1949 (as ammended), the Broadcasting Act 1990 and the Wireless and Telegraphy (Television Licence Fees) Regulations 1997. Those kind of laws.
The UK Parliament passed laws which say that operating television receiving equipment is an activity restricted by law, and that you need a license to do it
In my country you need a judge to order it. Nobody can enter your house if you do not give your permission (or have a judge order to do so).
Licensing inspectors don't have a right of entry. They can knock on your door and interview you. They will ask to inspect any equipment that you admit to owning, but you aren't obliged to let them do so. If you refuse access, and they have good reason to suspect that you do have equipment, then they can go to the local Magistrate's court
and ask for a warrant.
The first of these leaflets
(from an anti-license campaigning group) describes the inspection and prosecution process in some detail.
Re:More people need to try and use FreeBSD
on
The Case for FreeBSD
·
· Score: 2, Informative
The original vi wasn't by Sun. It was written by Bill Joy at Berkeley. The command-line version of the editor, ex, was in the very first "Berkeley Software Distribution". The first vi for display terminals was in 2BSD. (source: Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix, Marshall Kirk McKusick's chapter in the O'Reilly Open Sources book).
The vi that FreeBSD uses these days is nvi, a "bug-for-bug compatible" rewrite of the original, which was produced for 4.4BSD (presumably the original vi/ex was "encumbered", derived in some way from Bell Labs Seventh Edition Unix sources?).
I just have one problem. Could they possibly not run a full evening of Stargate SG-1 on the same evening as a a full run of West Wing?...
Dammit. I need a Tivo.
Nope. Sounds to me like you need two TiVos. Otherwise you'd have to watch a full evening of live broadcast TV! No pausing, no rewinding, no
commercial skipping. Barbaric!:-)
What would that have to do with producing upper-case text?
[fx: light slowly starts to dawn...]
Ohh! You mean there are really people that don't have:
# The following prevents me from going *insane* if have to
# type on a PC, SGI or Sun type-6 keyboard...
xmodmap -e 'remove Lock = Caps_Lock'
xmodmap -e 'keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L'
xmodmap -e 'add Control = Control_L'
The speed isn't a substantial fraction of C. It is however (I believe) far, far faster than any rocket propelled spacecraft that has ever been used or proposed, manned or unmanned.
A "conventional" manned Mars mission plan is normally a two and a half year round trip. The outgoing and return trips use a low-energy Hohmann transfer orbit during Earth/Mars close approach. This gives a 260-odd day outgoing transit for a delta-V of about 3km/s. This is followed by year and a bit on Mars doing science and waiting for the next close approach, then followed by another 260-day transit back to earth.
(some notes).
The transfer orbit in a 90-day round trip is something like six times shorter duration. Kinetic energy rises with the square of velocity. So you're going to need a monsterous fuel supply to attempt rocket deceleration at the far end. Then you're going to need to take account of the mass of the fuel in your deceleration plans, on top of the velocities involved!
I haven't bothered to figure out what the unbreaked approach speed to Mars would be... but if you want to be the first to try an aerobreaking manoeuver at however many (many many) kilometers a second it is then don't let me stop you...:-)
Using this system means that you can't use conventional rockets and air-breaking to slow you vessel? Why can't the craft get a massive push from Earth orbit, then slow down using another form of propulsion once it gets to its destination?
If you've used a super-duper acceleration system at the Earth end then you need a super-duper deceleration system at the Mars end.
A 90-day return trip implies speeds much faster than "traditional" propulsion systems would give. The "burn" that pusher-start/rocket-stop ship would need for Mars orbital insertion would be enormous.
I don't recognise the description of the problem at all. Normal shared object handling in Linux and other Unixes seems to have this covered entirely. If you need versions 3 and 4 of shared library "libfoo" then you typically have something like:/usr/lib/libfoo.so (symlink to libfoo.so.4)/usr/lib/libfoo.so.3/usr/lib/libfoo.so.4
When you run a binary which which was originally dynamically linked against version 3 or version 4 ldd loads either.so.3 or.so.4, as appropriate.
The libfoo.so symlink tells ld which version to default to using when compiling new binaries with a "-lfoo" on the link command line.
www.netbsd.org has been working fine for me recently. I've been consulting the pkgsrc pages frequently this week, and the last, and have not noticed any problems.
Do you perhaps have a browser with (possibly broken) IPv6 support, but no connection to the 6-bone?
www.netbsd.org is slightly unusual in that it has a AAAA DNS record (IPv6 address) as well as a A record (IPv4 address). I recall seeing some older Mozilla builds that tried to contact www.netbsd.org over IPv6 and failed to fall back to using IPv4. When I looked into it it seemed to be a "known problem" in the Mozilla bug tracking database and I haven't seen this behaviour recently, so I assumed that it was fixed.
[I am an IT professional at University of Oxford, but I'm not associated with the College concerned - just passing on what I've heard locally].
One thing that doesn't come out very clearly in the Oxford Student article, or the subsequent press coverage, is the nature of the "hack".
As I understand it, the college that the students attend uses still uses some ethernet hubs, rather than switches (this is where the quote about the "cost" of security comes from), and the students just packet-sniffed the traffic that was going past on their local network segment. They found exactly what anyone who knows a bit about networks would expect to find.
The problem (as so often!) is more social than technological: the users of the network have expectations of privacy which the implementation doesn't provide.
The failing on the part of the University not so much in the area of technology and IT security, is more in the area of user education: people using the facilities need to be made aware that the ethernet that you share with a couple of hundred other students is in no way private, any more than a conversation held in the JCR (college bar) is...
The University is on the whole, very security concious. The mail servers, shell machines, web servers, etc, provided by the central Computing Service all provide access via SSH or SSL encrypted connections (and frequently for anything that requires a username and password, only via such connections).
One thing that does puzzle/concern me is the allegation that a CCTV feed was accessed. So far as I know, all the CCTV systems operated by the University security service run over seperate fibre optics and are kept strictly segregated from the general purpose data network.
By 'losing' I mean "theoretically could have made but didn't". I'm sure there's a proper term for it, but I haven't the slightest idea as to what that may be.
If you want to be fancy about it, an economist would use the term "opportunity cost".
At beta-1, the format of the Theora bitstream will be "frozen and fully documented". The reference software that implements the format will continue to be bugfixed/improved/tweaked, but they will not make any incompatible changes to the data format. Ogg files encoded using the beta software will be compatible with v1.x decoders - this isn't necessarily true of the alpha releases.
('twas the same with Vorbis audio, as it was developed, if I recall correctly).
Slashdot Mirror
From TFA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Entertainment_ and_Copyright_Act
I disagree - the regulators are ... regulating.
They are investigating whether the manufacturers of players have engaged in anti-competitive practices when doing deals with the movie studios and other content providers. If it turns out that one or other of the consortia have strong-armed or bribed many studios into supporting their format exclusively then then there isn't a proper free market in next-gen players and the best interests of consumers are not served - consumers will choose to buy the players for the format with the most content available for it, regardless of whether that is the best format for consumers when judged on a level playing field.
The (so called) "content protection system" under discussion was broken in 1999 (DeCSS). In some jurisdictions it may not be legal to use the crack, of course (DMCA in the USA, and similar legal restrictions in other countries). The amendment being discussed is a change to the licensing agreement that manufacturer's of DVD playback hardware and software have to agree to in order to be given "official" unscrambling keys.
The Content Scrambling System isn't really a content protection system, of course. It is an attempt to create a cartel of DVD player manufacturers/authors who all sign up to enforcing objectionable usage restrictions (region coding, user operation prohibitions, etc), and excluding the manufacturers/authors players that decline to co-operate.
Nothing happens. One is permitted to combine separate, incompatibly licensed programs together in a distribution without breaking the licenses, because the FSF regards the distribution as an "aggregate" of the works that comprise it, rather than a single derived work. The licenses only conflict if you combine several incompatibly licensed bodies of code into a single program.
GPLv2, section 2: 4th discussion draft of GPLv3, section 5:In part, yes. 5.2-RELEASE was cut from the development branch (as were 5.0, 5.1 and 5.2.1). The release announcement mentions that it is "a 'New Technology' release and might not be suitable for all users", and includes a link to the Early Adopter's Guide.
FreeBSD 5 only became "mainstream" with 5.3-RELEASE - and still had some rough edges. For anyone who's only experience has been with FreeBSD 5.X releases then I can sympathise if they have come away with a less than rosy view. The amount of development and change that went on between 4.X and 5.X is now widely accepted to have been a bad idea. If you give 6.2 a spin when it comes out then you might be pleasently suprised. A lot of the disruptive changes introduced during 5-CURRENT development have finally settled down and are paying dividends.
Where from?? I've been (unsuccessfully) looking for such a thing for years ...
RichiP wrote:
Do you have a reference for "continue to do so"? I was under the impression that the Vorbis trials had ended some time ago and never restarted. I would love to be mistaken about this ...
Perhaps competing DRM systems are something that the world can make use of: consumer acceptence goes to the format that gets cracked first?
I don't think that this is wierdo social commentary by the programme makers - it's a cultural difference. We (the British) are no longer a global imperial power. On balance most of our TV writers / producers / directors / actors / viewers probably do regard the UN as a "legitimate institution".
Admittedly, the suggestion in the Aliens of London / World War Three story that within a couple of years the UN will hold the UK nuclear launch codes in escrow was not very plausable. I think it's forced on the writer by the requirements of the plot, rather than something that he thinks is really likely to happen.
"Christmas Specials" on UK TV are rather different to US "Holiday Specials", I think. When the BBC say that they are doing a "christmas special" they mean they are producing a one-off episode of a popular series (probably an extended length / bigger budget episode) which will get its first broadcast as a featured highlight of their Christmas programming.
There often is nothing "christmassy" about the actual programme content - it's just a special treat for the viewer which is broadcast at Christmas time (or, if you're more cynical, a attempted ratings grab by the broadcaster, transmitted at a time when lots of people are sitting at home watching TV!).
If someone connects to your BT client using the protocol they can find out which pieces you are offering to your peers.
I don't see that it makes much odds anyway: if the file is copywrited work, and you don't have have permission to redistribute that work, then copying parts of it is just as much an infringment as copying the entire file.
Actually, the "TTL" in an IP header is different from the "TTL" in a DNS response (though in both cases the acronym means "time to live" and is intended as a limit on how long data hangs around).
IP header TTL is basically a hop-count, to stop IP packets going round in circles indefinately in the event of routing loops in the network.
Typically, when you look up a name like "www.example.com" your workstation consults a caching DNS server (on the local LAN, or offered by your ISP, or something). This DNS server goes off and talks to the root name servers, which refer it to the "com" name servers, which in turn refer it to the "example.com" name servers, from where it gets an IP address to go with the name. A couple of seconds later you ask for another page from "www.example.com". Your workstation asks the local DNS server for the information again, but the DNS server doesn't go and figure out the answer from scratch - it remembers the answer that it provided last time, and just repeats it. Time-To-Live is an "expiry date" that the authoritative name servers (like the "example.com" name servers) can put on their answers, so that the caching name servers know how long the answer is good for without them rechecking with an authoratative source.
Good question.
It might be a good idea to lift a replacement Soyuz into orbit before undocking the original one - that way the period when the ISS is without escape facilities is minimised.
Not routinely, but there are people who work as inspectors, and they do visit households. The licensing authority have a list of all the residential addresses UK, and they have a list of all the addresses to which current licenses have been issued. They do visits to addresses where the license has lapsed and the occupant doesn't respond to letters prompting them to renew, and possibly occasional spot checks on other addresses which are unlicensed. There also used to be a radio license at one time, but they don't collect that any more.
Wireless and Telegraphy Act 1949 (as ammended), the Broadcasting Act 1990 and the Wireless and Telegraphy (Television Licence Fees) Regulations 1997. Those kind of laws.
The UK Parliament passed laws which say that operating television receiving equipment is an activity restricted by law, and that you need a license to do it
Licensing inspectors don't have a right of entry. They can knock on your door and interview you. They will ask to inspect any equipment that you admit to owning, but you aren't obliged to let them do so. If you refuse access, and they have good reason to suspect that you do have equipment, then they can go to the local Magistrate's court and ask for a warrant.
The first of these leaflets (from an anti-license campaigning group) describes the inspection and prosecution process in some detail.
The original vi wasn't by Sun. It was written by Bill Joy at Berkeley. The command-line version of the editor, ex, was in the very first "Berkeley Software Distribution". The first vi for display terminals was in 2BSD. (source: Twenty Years of Berkeley Unix, Marshall Kirk McKusick's chapter in the O'Reilly Open Sources book).
The vi that FreeBSD uses these days is nvi, a "bug-for-bug compatible" rewrite of the original, which was produced for 4.4BSD (presumably the original vi/ex was "encumbered", derived in some way from Bell Labs Seventh Edition Unix sources?).
Nope. Sounds to me like you need two TiVos. Otherwise you'd have to watch a full evening of live broadcast TV! No pausing, no rewinding, no commercial skipping. Barbaric! :-)
[fx: Neil looks puzzled ...]
What would that have to do with producing upper-case text?
[fx: light slowly starts to dawn ...]
Ohh! You mean there are really people that don't have:
# The following prevents me from going *insane* if have to ...
# type on a PC, SGI or Sun type-6 keyboard
xmodmap -e 'remove Lock = Caps_Lock'
xmodmap -e 'keysym Caps_Lock = Control_L'
xmodmap -e 'add Control = Control_L'
in their .xinitrc file?
:-)
The speed isn't a substantial fraction of C. It is however (I believe) far, far faster than any rocket propelled spacecraft that has ever been used or proposed, manned or unmanned.
A "conventional" manned Mars mission plan is normally a two and a half year round trip. The outgoing and return trips use a low-energy Hohmann transfer orbit during Earth/Mars close approach. This gives a 260-odd day outgoing transit for a delta-V of about 3km/s. This is followed by year and a bit on Mars doing science and waiting for the next close approach, then followed by another 260-day transit back to earth. (some notes).
The transfer orbit in a 90-day round trip is something like six times shorter duration. Kinetic energy rises with the square of velocity. So you're going to need a monsterous fuel supply to attempt rocket deceleration at the far end. Then you're going to need to take account of the mass of the fuel in your deceleration plans, on top of the velocities involved!
I haven't bothered to figure out what the unbreaked approach speed to Mars would be ... but if you want to be the first to try an aerobreaking manoeuver at however many (many many) kilometers a second it is then don't let me stop you ... :-)
If you've used a super-duper acceleration system at the Earth end then you need a super-duper deceleration system at the Mars end.
A 90-day return trip implies speeds much faster than "traditional" propulsion systems would give. The "burn" that pusher-start/rocket-stop ship would need for Mars orbital insertion would be enormous.
I don't recognise the description of the problem at all. Normal shared object handling in Linux and other Unixes seems to have this covered entirely. If you need versions 3 and 4 of shared library "libfoo" then you typically have something like: /usr/lib/libfoo.so (symlink to libfoo.so.4) /usr/lib/libfoo.so.3 /usr/lib/libfoo.so.4
.so.3 or .so.4, as appropriate.
When you run a binary which which was originally dynamically linked against version 3 or version 4 ldd loads either
The libfoo.so symlink tells ld which version to default to using when compiling new binaries with a "-lfoo" on the link command line.
www.netbsd.org has been working fine for me recently. I've been consulting the pkgsrc pages frequently this week, and the last, and have not noticed any problems.
Do you perhaps have a browser with (possibly broken) IPv6 support, but no connection to the 6-bone?
www.netbsd.org is slightly unusual in that it has a AAAA DNS record (IPv6 address) as well as a A record (IPv4 address). I recall seeing some older Mozilla builds that tried to contact www.netbsd.org over IPv6 and failed to fall back to using IPv4. When I looked into it it seemed to be a "known problem" in the Mozilla bug tracking database and I haven't seen this behaviour recently, so I assumed that it was fixed.
Does a numeric IPv4 address work for you?
http://204.152.184.116/
[I am an IT professional at University of Oxford, but I'm not associated with the College concerned - just passing on what I've heard locally].
One thing that doesn't come out very clearly in the Oxford Student article, or the subsequent press coverage, is the nature of the "hack".
As I understand it, the college that the students attend uses still uses some ethernet hubs, rather than switches (this is where the quote about the "cost" of security comes from), and the students just packet-sniffed the traffic that was going past on their local network segment. They found exactly what anyone who knows a bit about networks would expect to find.
The problem (as so often!) is more social than technological: the users of the network have expectations of privacy which the implementation doesn't provide.
The failing on the part of the University not so much in the area of technology and IT security, is more in the area of user education: people using the facilities need to be made aware that the ethernet that you share with a couple of hundred other students is in no way private, any more than a conversation held in the JCR (college bar) is ...
The University is on the whole, very security concious. The mail servers, shell machines, web servers, etc, provided by the central Computing Service all provide access via SSH or SSL encrypted connections (and frequently for anything that requires a username and password, only via such connections).
One thing that does puzzle/concern me is the allegation that a CCTV feed was accessed. So far as I know, all the CCTV systems operated by the University security service run over seperate fibre optics and are kept strictly segregated from the general purpose data network.
If you want to be fancy about it, an economist would use the term "opportunity cost".
At beta-1, the format of the Theora bitstream will be "frozen and fully documented". The reference software that implements the format will continue to be bugfixed/improved/tweaked, but they will not make any incompatible changes to the data format. Ogg files encoded using the beta software will be compatible with v1.x decoders - this isn't necessarily true of the alpha releases.
('twas the same with Vorbis audio, as it was developed, if I recall correctly).