Ooookay. I'm suprised nobody has posted this yet. Name one thing that a human can do that a machine cannot. Detect patterns. People have a remarkable ability to see patterns in data. Sometimes they are somewhat overzealous and see patterns where none exist. Computers are incapable of that. If they could, we would have the beginnings of *real* artificial intelligence. So what is this article about really? Symantec, Mcafee, and company just created a new buzzword. It's like "MMX" or "ActiveX" - mean-nothing phrases designed to lure people in.
Now, let's assume that they really *did* have technology to "detect" viruses... Define a virus' behavior for me. Ummmm.... okay. That was a tough question. Let me give you another one - define behavior that is considered "harmful" to a computer user. Yes, installing windows 98, but I need more than that. Oh. Can't come up with anything their either? Bummer. Now you see the problem. If you can't even define a virus' behavior, how are you supposed to tell the computer how, short of creating real artificial intelligence?
CNN today reported that a massive increase in tire production by the Russians has strained diplomatic relations. The situation has been made worse by the prospect that China may be retooling to produce even smaller and more efficient cars. The Whitehouse had no official comment today, but rumor has it that a new SUV will be released to combat the communist threat. "Citizens need to be aware that driving is no laughing matter! The future of democracy may well be at stake!" However, a random American was quoted as saying "I don't care, as long as I get my super-sized cup holders on time!"
Time devours all things. Fifty years ago, lasers were the realm of science fiction. Now they're used everywhere. People used to think the moon was a perfect sphere - until we landed on it and saw for ourselves it was not. Old technology will be cast aside in favor of better technology. What you've said could have been said in fewer words. This isn't about linux. It's not even about open source. It's more philosophical than that.
Of course linux will disappear. When it does, most people won't even care. Something new will have arrived. Only time will tell what that new "something" will be. In fifty years historians will laugh over the simplistic technology we have today, and wonder how we ever made it to where they are.
Live in the present, not the future. You can't change the past. You can't change the future. You can only change the present. So.. what are you waiting for? Go out and code. Make new friends. Change the world.
No, there is another outcome. Nobody takes the challenge. Challenges like this are generally dismissed in the security industry for a variety of reasons. Some of them are as follows...
- Real Crackers aren't going to spend their time trying to get caught on a high-profile site. - Script kiddies don't have any scripts for the "new" OS yet. - It's new - so of COURSE it's going to take time to find the vulnerabilities. You think "one stunt, and that's it" is going to fix all their problems? You're more naive than I thought. - Past record. How long does Microsoft take to acknowledge, let alone fix, the problems they find? W2K *will* have bugs. All major programs have bugs. The question is - will they efficiently and quickly inform their customers, and provide comprehensive support to them - like the 4-color glossies they distribute say? - Many vulnerabilities are discovered at the console - and by looking at the source. It could be wide open, but you'd never know that from a remote perspective. Breaking into a system you've never seen or used remotely has about as much of a chance of success as me getting away with being called Rob Malda in this post.
That's just what I can think of off the top of my head. Use your imagination. And most importantly: dismiss yet another one of Microsoft's tricks to get you to do their bidding. Clever Microsoft, but I thought you'd have learned by now that the 'net dispels FUD faster than a speeding salesman.
It's an excellent idea, but it has been proposed for the wrong reason. NASA is facing one of the darkest periods since it was chartered. The republicans want to cut out NASA's budget to help balance theirs - incredibly shortsighted, but that's what they're up to.
Why do I say they're shortsighted? NASA has basically pioneered the entire aerospace industry - fast jets, reliable and well-engineered engines, heat shielding. No, Tang doesn't count. The materials they use in the shuttle are now used for firefighters to help combat the high temperatures they deal with. There's scarcely a high-tech industry in the country that hasn't been given a boost by NASA's research.
Cutting their budget will have a subtle, but important, impact on the united states' ability to compete in the global economy. Which is ironically the same thing Congress is trying to encourage!
Wake up Congress! You're destroying a national heritage and possibly a competitive advantage just to save a few bucks!
Well, you can tell linux is going mainstream when the press starts commenting on the latest linux vaporware. 2.4 isn't out yet. It doesn't have all the features listed in the article in the kernel source. Reminds me of how the press treats a certain Redmond-based company - "w2k will have xyzzy feature - blowing away the competition!".
Okay, mark me down now - I've spoken blasphemy against the holy os...
It's worth mentioning that the chinese government may be similar like ours in that they are not a single organization, but a group of organizations.
What this means is that it may only be a small influential group that is trying to get rid of faul-gong-however-you-spell-it, and not representative of the whole. Just like when the NSA tries to ban crypto - you've got the Commerce Department going "huh?"
There are several technical solutions available to stop yahoo (or any other site), in their tracks. these guys run an anonymizing proxy, as do these people. Of course, you also have several CGI proxies out there too, but I don't have the URL's offhand. lucent also ran a proxy, but it has since been discontinued. Freedom now has the functionality - currently free, but will eventually be fee based.
In short, the moral of the story is - if you want anonymity... you need to make a meager attempt at getting it. But not much more - there's plenty of us out there willing to thumb people like yahoo and their court odors (or should that be orders?)
Patent #9448-220-1036 Anti-gravity pre-processor for FPU
Uses tri-parallel unidirectional buffering to achieve velocity sufficient to launch the processor into orbit. By utilitizing a integrated tcp/ip stack and a subminature subspace transmitter, the AGP-FPU can participate in the SETI@Home project and help find those pesky aliens that landed in Roswell some 50 years ago.
EMPs can be created by using a tesla coil. Basically just step the voltage up to the desired level, and then put an RF component (ie: a coil) into the circuit, and you have yourself a portable EMP.
In short, just ionize the shit out of an area, and then zap it with about 50mA and a few thousand volts, and you'll kill anything with an IC on it.
Try microwaving your walkman to get a good idea of how this works.
I'd have to agree with you there. I would also like to point out that the "statistically sound" view of linux is that it will have over 60% of the market by 2003, given the rate of doubling. It's doubled approximately 28 times to get to where it is now, and at a very predictable rate. It only needs to double 4 more times to reach 60%. Given that it's doubled 28 times without much trouble, well.. you do the math.
You know, the thing that has always facinating me about nature is it's incredible logic. The most facinating thing to me, is that the world functions at all. Now, I don't know what these physicists are arguing about, or how it could destroy the planet, but I find the entire idea foolhearty, and I'll tell you why -
(as I recall), in quantum physics, the probability of *anything* simply vanishing without a trace, for no known reason is a non-zero percentage. It's admittedly very small, but not non-zero. It's the same here. I could fart, and rearrange the quarks around me into some heretofore unknown configuration, and oblitherate the planet.So the solution is that I should never fart (and neither should anybody else!). Heh.
Seriously, we're in far more danger of our government deciding to do some "nuclear testing" on foreign soil and starting WWIII (thus ending the world), than we are of a bunch of physicists doing it.
Besides... it's the job of evil overlords and certain north-american based governments to cause the destruction of mankind - not a bunch of physicists. Everybody who reads comic books knows that.;)
Well, considering that mp3s are highly compressed and take up very little space on people's harddrives, I see no reason why the author / distributor couldn't pack in a hundred mp3s from that author. It doesn't cost them much (I believe hdd space is running at under $0.10/mb right now).
Seriously - it's so cheap for them to distribute that it makes no sense to only keep a small collection of "one-hit wonders" on a server.
Why does it take so long for the general media to pick up on this kind of thing? MP3s have been around for.. mmmm. 4 years? And only within the past few months have they been getting any exposure.
The RIAA has been trying to maintain a stranglehold on music.. well... longer than I've been around. Yet strangely enough, that's not an often-discussed topic. Now, it's been cast into the limelight.
Seriously now, I'd like to hear from journalists who work at newspapers - why can slashdot have a story up within a few hours of it becoming known, yet it takes weeks for a regular newspaper to "pick up" on the story?
I don't think non-internet means of communication are so slow that it takes that long for stories to reach newspaper offices...
Question for you - has anybody (independent of redhat) gone through all of redhat's current packages to make sure there aren't other license issues? I think you'd be the point-man to ask, given that you run a list dedicated to talking about licenses..
This is really directed towards the quantum physics geeks out there...
What is the theoretical maximum speed for a computer? I mean, we can't go faster than the speed of light - and that's quickly being approached. Where a single electron can mean off or on... the speed of a computer will be limited solely by the speed of light in the near future. Which means massive parallelism will be the *only* way to go faster. Moore's law will be broken eventually... I wonder when.
This kid definately has the hacker nature. Rewiring things, boldly going places where other kids only dream, and then getting arrested by the cops for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Ooookay. I'm suprised nobody has posted this yet. Name one thing that a human can do that a machine cannot. Detect patterns. People have a remarkable ability to see patterns in data. Sometimes they are somewhat overzealous and see patterns where none exist. Computers are incapable of that. If they could, we would have the beginnings of *real* artificial intelligence. So what is this article about really? Symantec, Mcafee, and company just created a new buzzword. It's like "MMX" or "ActiveX" - mean-nothing phrases designed to lure people in.
Now, let's assume that they really *did* have technology to "detect" viruses... Define a virus' behavior for me. Ummmm.... okay. That was a tough question. Let me give you another one - define behavior that is considered "harmful" to a computer user. Yes, installing windows 98, but I need more than that. Oh. Can't come up with anything their either? Bummer. Now you see the problem. If you can't even define a virus' behavior, how are you supposed to tell the computer how, short of creating real artificial intelligence?
--
Russians Develop New Tires to Combat US Threat
CNN today reported that a massive increase in tire production by the Russians has strained diplomatic relations. The situation has been made worse by the prospect that China may be retooling to produce even smaller and more efficient cars. The Whitehouse had no official comment today, but rumor has it that a new SUV will be released to combat the communist threat. "Citizens need to be aware that driving is no laughing matter! The future of democracy may well be at stake!" However, a random American was quoted as saying "I don't care, as long as I get my super-sized cup holders on time!"
--
Time devours all things. Fifty years ago, lasers were the realm of science fiction. Now they're used everywhere. People used to think the moon was a perfect sphere - until we landed on it and saw for ourselves it was not. Old technology will be cast aside in favor of better technology. What you've said could have been said in fewer words. This isn't about linux. It's not even about open source. It's more philosophical than that.
Of course linux will disappear. When it does, most people won't even care. Something new will have arrived. Only time will tell what that new "something" will be. In fifty years historians will laugh over the simplistic technology we have today, and wonder how we ever made it to where they are.
Live in the present, not the future. You can't change the past. You can't change the future. You can only change the present. So.. what are you waiting for? Go out and code. Make new friends. Change the world.
--
I'm already working on this with a few of my friends. We will post something if/when we can find a ISP with the guts to try it.
--
No, there is another outcome. Nobody takes the challenge. Challenges like this are generally dismissed in the security industry for a variety of reasons. Some of them are as follows...
- Real Crackers aren't going to spend their time trying to get caught on a high-profile site.
- Script kiddies don't have any scripts for the "new" OS yet.
- It's new - so of COURSE it's going to take time to find the vulnerabilities. You think "one stunt, and that's it" is going to fix all their problems? You're more naive than I thought.
- Past record. How long does Microsoft take to acknowledge, let alone fix, the problems they find? W2K *will* have bugs. All major programs have bugs. The question is - will they efficiently and quickly inform their customers, and provide comprehensive support to them - like the 4-color glossies they distribute say?
- Many vulnerabilities are discovered at the console - and by looking at the source. It could be wide open, but you'd never know that from a remote perspective. Breaking into a system you've never seen or used remotely has about as much of a chance of success as me getting away with being called Rob Malda in this post.
That's just what I can think of off the top of my head. Use your imagination. And most importantly: dismiss yet another one of Microsoft's tricks to get you to do their bidding. Clever Microsoft, but I thought you'd have learned by now that the 'net dispels FUD faster than a speeding salesman.
--
It's an excellent idea, but it has been proposed for the wrong reason. NASA is facing one of the darkest periods since it was chartered. The republicans want to cut out NASA's budget to help balance theirs - incredibly shortsighted, but that's what they're up to.
Why do I say they're shortsighted? NASA has basically pioneered the entire aerospace industry - fast jets, reliable and well-engineered engines, heat shielding. No, Tang doesn't count. The materials they use in the shuttle are now used for firefighters to help combat the high temperatures they deal with. There's scarcely a high-tech industry in the country that hasn't been given a boost by NASA's research.
Cutting their budget will have a subtle, but important, impact on the united states' ability to compete in the global economy. Which is ironically the same thing Congress is trying to encourage!
Wake up Congress! You're destroying a national heritage and possibly a competitive advantage just to save a few bucks!
--
Well, you can tell linux is going mainstream when the press starts commenting on the latest linux vaporware. 2.4 isn't out yet. It doesn't have all the features listed in the article in the kernel source. Reminds me of how the press treats a certain Redmond-based company - "w2k will have xyzzy feature - blowing away the competition!".
Okay, mark me down now - I've spoken blasphemy against the holy os...
--
It's worth mentioning that the chinese government may be similar like ours in that they are not a single organization, but a group of organizations.
What this means is that it may only be a small influential group that is trying to get rid of faul-gong-however-you-spell-it, and not representative of the whole. Just like when the NSA tries to ban crypto - you've got the Commerce Department going "huh?"
Now, having said that; Bad china. Baaaad. ROOM!
--
There are several technical solutions available to stop yahoo (or any other site), in their tracks. these guys run an anonymizing proxy, as do these people. Of course, you also have several CGI proxies out there too, but I don't have the URL's offhand. lucent also ran a proxy, but it has since been discontinued. Freedom now has the functionality - currently free, but will eventually be fee based.
In short, the moral of the story is - if you want anonymity... you need to make a meager attempt at getting it. But not much more - there's plenty of us out there willing to thumb people like yahoo and their court odors (or should that be orders?)
.
--
Patent #9448-220-1036
Anti-gravity pre-processor for FPU
Uses tri-parallel unidirectional buffering to achieve velocity sufficient to launch the processor into orbit. By utilitizing a integrated tcp/ip stack and a subminature subspace transmitter, the AGP-FPU can participate in the SETI@Home project and help find those pesky aliens that landed in Roswell some 50 years ago.
--
This is a test. I am writing this in an article that has long since disappeared off the main page. Hope it doesn't offend anyone.
fuck,bitch,ass,crap,shit,whore.
If the above is blank, slashdot has implimented a "cursing" filter. Foo.
--
Most sunglasses are "polarized" these days. You could probably use them to spy on the person's screen without drawing any attention to yourself.
Another form of security through obscurity?
--
Usually those places have stickers somewhere near the entrance saying "Smile! You're on hidden camera", or a legal warning saying the same thing.
I do know that video survellance is inadmissable as evidence in any federal court unless the subject knew of it beforehand.
--
EMPs can be created by using a tesla coil. Basically just step the voltage up to the desired level, and then put an RF component (ie: a coil) into the circuit, and you have yourself a portable EMP.
In short, just ionize the shit out of an area, and then zap it with about 50mA and a few thousand volts, and you'll kill anything with an IC on it.
Try microwaving your walkman to get a good idea of how this works.
--
I wonder if they also tell their would-be spies that using such equipment in some states is illegal (without telling the party being spied on).
--
I'd have to agree with you there. I would also like to point out that the "statistically sound" view of linux is that it will have over 60% of the market by 2003, given the rate of doubling. It's doubled approximately 28 times to get to where it is now, and at a very predictable rate. It only needs to double 4 more times to reach 60%. Given that it's doubled 28 times without much trouble, well.. you do the math.
--
And he was telling *me* to obtain a clue... yesh.
--
You know, the thing that has always facinating me about nature is it's incredible logic. The most facinating thing to me, is that the world functions at all. Now, I don't know what these physicists are arguing about, or how it could destroy the planet, but I find the entire idea foolhearty, and I'll tell you why -
;)
(as I recall), in quantum physics, the probability of *anything* simply vanishing without a trace, for no known reason is a non-zero percentage. It's admittedly very small, but not non-zero. It's the same here. I could fart, and rearrange the quarks around me into some heretofore unknown configuration, and oblitherate the planet.So the solution is that I should never fart (and neither should anybody else!). Heh.
Seriously, we're in far more danger of our government deciding to do some "nuclear testing" on foreign soil and starting WWIII (thus ending the world), than we are of a bunch of physicists doing it.
Besides... it's the job of evil overlords and certain north-american based governments to cause the destruction of mankind - not a bunch of physicists. Everybody who reads comic books knows that.
--
Well, considering that mp3s are highly compressed and take up very little space on people's harddrives, I see no reason why the author / distributor couldn't pack in a hundred mp3s from that author. It doesn't cost them much (I believe hdd space is running at under $0.10/mb right now).
Seriously - it's so cheap for them to distribute that it makes no sense to only keep a small collection of "one-hit wonders" on a server.
--
Why does it take so long for the general media to pick up on this kind of thing? MP3s have been around for.. mmmm. 4 years? And only within the past few months have they been getting any exposure.
The RIAA has been trying to maintain a stranglehold on music.. well... longer than I've been around. Yet strangely enough, that's not an often-discussed topic. Now, it's been cast into the limelight.
Seriously now, I'd like to hear from journalists who work at newspapers - why can slashdot have a story up within a few hours of it becoming known, yet it takes weeks for a regular newspaper to "pick up" on the story?
I don't think non-internet means of communication are so slow that it takes that long for stories to reach newspaper offices...
--
Question for you - has anybody (independent of redhat) gone through all of redhat's current packages to make sure there aren't other license issues? I think you'd be the point-man to ask, given that you run a list dedicated to talking about licenses..
--
This is really directed towards the quantum physics geeks out there...
What is the theoretical maximum speed for a computer? I mean, we can't go faster than the speed of light - and that's quickly being approached. Where a single electron can mean off or on... the speed of a computer will be limited solely by the speed of light in the near future. Which means massive parallelism will be the *only* way to go faster. Moore's law will be broken eventually... I wonder when.
--
Well, since we're on the topic of backups.. does anybody know of a backup program that supports multi-volume CDRW backups and backup levels?
... CD's are an unexplored area for unix in general...
Linux seems sadly lacking in the area of backups - it's all based around backup-to-tape
--
I'd have to agree, they aren't impressing anybody overseas. "Hmm, you have a degree in science fiction... take cab #7 over there."
--
This kid definately has the hacker nature. Rewiring things, boldly going places where other kids only dream, and then getting arrested by the cops for it.
--