I know WinAmp for Windows does CD's and MP3 (among others), and I know XMMS and WinAmp are virtually identical. I seems almost logical that all XMMS would need is a CDRom plugin....
Just as a side note: KDE and Gnome are slower than MICROS~1 Windows on the same computer, but that is not necessarily the fault of either of these two libraries. The XWindows protocol is incredibly powerful but has a huge amount of overhead.
When the next version of XFree86 comes out later the year, I believe the performance difference will be night and day. Much of the XWindows overhead is supposed to vanish for localhost displays.
But if I am wrong, I have found that some of the crazy Gnome skins did trash my system resources beyond usability. But that is avoidable.
First, wouldn't such a daemon have to be proxing a lot of ports to be affective or is it just a packet sniffer?
If there is a DoS attack, would it only log IP (which maybe bogus) addresses after your system has be comprimized or can it actually prevent such attacks?
Wouldn't a properly configured firewall be more effective using things like connection to connection limits and log files/grep/wc?
Besides the security issues of installing closed-source FBI software on mission critical servers, is there any advantage to using such software or is it only to help FBI nab script-kiddies not necessarily in the US?
Also, is it possible that guys like Amazon.com and Yahoo have nothing more than poorly configured firewalls?
No, Junkbuster (JB) does a lot of things really well. This is how it works: First: the browser sends the headers. This includes a server and file name, and the location of current url. JB reads this. If the server or file name look like an ad, the real web server (for example DoubleClick) never gets contacted and a dummy file is sent from JB to your browser; a couple byte html page or 1x1 transparent gif. Second: if the server and file name are cool, the headers are sent MINUS (this is important) the referrer tag. This prevents the web server from knowing what url you came from. Third: if the server requests cookie information, JB can decide whether or not to allow it. Depending on JB's settings, you can make that decision based on server. For example, cookies are good for Slashdot so you don't have to log in each time. Others are not allowed by default. In another words, DoubleClick doesn't even know you exist if JB is set up. As a side note, Altavista's and the Simpsons Free Internet ads are blocked by JB because they use the Internet Exploder ActiveX control to show the ads on the screen. Just an ironic side note is all. Ozwald
That's because Redhat, Caldera, Debian, SuSe and Mandrake (and Corel) actually contribute to Linux. LinuxOne relies on someone else to create a product that they can put their sticker on. On top of that, they do a make-shift job of that too.
If they are a truly serious company, they will understand one thing: competition. To make a competing product, it must be better at atleast one thing than everyone elses'. Redhat has support. Corel as ease of use. Caldera ties Microsoft up in court. And so on. Plus every one of these has full time staff dedicated to improving their distro and creating GPL programs. In another words, name me at least one reason why I should use LinuxOne instead of Mandrake.
But that's only one argument... there's another. A lot of good programmers work late into the night for free, only so that they can make their contribution to the Linux community. To see someone attempt IPO for millions while doing minimal amounts of work is insulting. That is why/.ers are upset.
It comes down to "do you trust the source/developer/ftp server?". Fortunately all (that I have seen) Linux developers are trust worthy. Either they do not have the evil tendancies that Windows developers do or the fact that available source code gives downloaders an ass to kick if something is malicious.
I know nothing about microbiology, but this drug seems a tad off the wall. In the past, drugs were (and still are) a lot more brute force. They contained things like antibodies or poisons. Antibodies are an obvious solution because the have existed since living organisms contained more than a single cell. Poisons like ozone, chlorine, ethanol, etc, are also obvious because they destroy anything weak enough.
That's why I wonder if this may be an exception to the rule. Aids is smart enough to disable our immune systems, but is it smart enough to bend to reflect this drug? Or will research have to continue like mad to build new versions of the drug like a Windows antivirus program?
But that's my point! People are unsafe drivers for many reasons, speeding is only one of them. If visibility is low, people should slow down. But photo radar nor gps can do squat about that. A good speed has NOTHING to do with speed limits, its about what speed is safe. If this means driving 20km/h in a 50km/h zone or 130km/h in a 100km/h zone, it doesn't matter.
Besides, I have had probably hundreds of close calls, mostly people carelessly lane changing into my lane. Never does someone drive 100 km/h in a residential zone. If that were true, people would be constantly crashing into peoples' yards and homes. Atleast in Canada, it's unheard of.
But then again, maybe Europe wants "Thought Police".
I used to drive for a living a couple years ago. In that time, I realized that it is not speeders that are the problem. Speeders are relatively safe drivers compared to many others, such as:
- drunk drivers, - people who don't check mirrors or shoulder check when lane changing, - people who don't signal when turning, - people who repeatedly forget to turn off their signal lights, - people who go into panic mode and freeze up when something goes awry, - people who drive excessively fast
It's not the end of the world if a group of cars are going 115km/h in a 100km/h highway, nor is it certain death if a car is going 120km/h while others are going 110km/h. I don't mind this at all. It's the bad drivers I am afraid of. And Big Brother cannot prevent you from cutting off another car.
Not necessarily. If a simple compiler is written in machine code (like the assember would have to be), it could be used to compile a C program used to compile a more complicated compiler. And that compiler used to compile an even more complicated compiler. And so on. No assembly required.
You're right. The web page says "simulated". If you've ever been in a car that has a Heads Up Display, you would know that it doesn't replace a section of the view with a computer screen but creates a sort of hologram approximately 6 inches past the bottom of the windshield.
The screen shots are inaccurate. Unless the HUD can completely block out light on a square inch of windshield, the car approaching must have had its headlights turned off to be invisible.
But that asside, I grazed a deer by a couple inches only a couple weeks ago. Worst is that was not even the first time. I hope this technology becomes as common as air bags and antilock brakes.
I think that the concept of putting a human being on Mars would be the ultra cool and all, but now is not the right time.
There are two reasons: first of all, they have to perfect travel to Mars first. I could not push someone on a rocket and assume that the fuel pump has it's standard/metric conversion set properly.
Second, I don't believe technology is ready. For example, it takes (if I am right) two years to get there, one way. And this must be done when Earth and Mars are relatively close together. Why don't we wait until we invent warp speed or something.
Not that I am against traveling there. I just think that it's not the right time. Try this: before signing the petition, consider it a volunteer signup sheet that you CANNOT back out of.
You're right, it did work. But could you imagine if this was you? The FBI calls you threatening all kinds of things. I would have done the same thing: take if off until I figure out if they can fulfill their threats. Free speech is wonderful but jail sucks.
I don't think this is right. When moving air hits a round object (or an object boing through air), it tries to go around and continue on its original path. This is like the old experiment with the candle and coffee can.
Ever drive down a highway at 100 km/hour behind a truck/trailer? Being directly behind one causes your car to bounce side to side from the truck's turbulance until you finally get atleast beside the cab of the truck.
A aerodynamic object like a plane, submarine, trout, etc. are designed not to cause turbulance from movement alone, but it is impossible not to if it is maintaining a speed or accelerating. They must move by taking air or water in front of them and pushing it back. As long as it is coasting, turbulance will be minimal, possible for a sub, a little difficult for an airplane.
I'm sure he didn't mean to insult anyone. What I think he means is that open source projects don't tend to be radical new concepts/services, just free versions of a commercial product.
This is not always true, LDAP for example was Open Source long before Netscape and Microsoft implemented it. The entire Internet existed decades before Microsoft's first TCP/IP stack.
But others such as Samba are in a constant rush to keep up with Microsoft's "extending". AOL is another annoying example. AOL rules their messaging protocol, and there is nothing we can do about it. It's our fault for not doing it first.
But prove me wrong. Do something outragous, something that makes Microsoft say, "crap, not another billion dollars". Make the next killer app.
I've said it before, and nobody will listen this time either. But here goes anyway:
This guy figured out how to break in to a location that should be impossible to get to. And the first thing that comes to the governments' minds is smack the guy around fooling themselves that he will automagically reform.
Instead, they should be promoting his talents. Put him on salary. Tell him to hack into government networks. Because if he can do it, someone from a less friendly country can too. Who would you rather have breaking into your computers?
I could be wrong on this, but I believe that the problem is that copyright law allows you to buy a cd (or movie) and play or show it only to you and your friends/relatives. Not to an public audience.
For example, a school teacher cannot rent Barney (the purple freak) and show it to his/her students. The idea being that each one of those kids may have been ready to rent the video themselves, but since the teacher just did, why bother?
Not that I am for or against ripping purchased CDs, its just that the music industry wants to limit the possibility of lost revenue.
Being from Alberta, I remember when Disney threatened to sue the owners of West Edmonton Mall because its amusement park was called "Fantasy Land". This always annoyed us because you can't accidently end up in West Edmonton Mall when you really wanted to go to Disney Land.
You guys are trying to compare apples and oranges. A Sun box is not at all like and Intel. Why? Suns are made for one purpose only: moving data from the hard-drive to and from the network card really fast. This is why they make great file servers. Intel is talented at CPUs. They make great processors but they are not in the business of making buses. Sun is.
There are other CPUs out there too: Digital Alphas are cleaning up on Seti@home. This makes them better at things like CGI scripts. G4's are supposed to have incredible floating point processors. This makes them better at things like render farms and engineering workstations.
If you want my advise, shop around before you spend piles of money on hardware. Don't buy and F18 if you need to take out enemy radar.
I heard a story a few years back where a [cr|h]acker broke into a bank's computers and deposited small sums of money over a period of time into his account. The bank found this person by total coincidence (I think a teller saw that he was loaded and was curious how he made his fortune).
So, what did the bank do? Sue him? Destroy his reputation/credit rating? Nope. They hired him. It made perfect sense, he knew more about their computer security than they did and he was more valuable as an ally than enemy.
I wish the entertainment industry understood this. I'm sure there is a solution that will allow movies to be secure without denying Linux users the right to see them. But they are not interested. Instead they are stuck with their screw up and Linux is still without DVD support.
You're right, it does exist. But, I think it could be better.
Delphi has had sites like this for years and they are huge in both size and importance. For example, lets say I want my application to do Blowfish encryption. I do a search on the "Delphi Super Page" for a freeware with source blowfish component. And viola, 3 show up. They literally have thousands of components and several dozens uploaded daily.
If you want to see this for your self, check out: main site: http://delphi.icm.edu.pl/ or mirror sites: ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/delphi_www/index.htm http://community.borland.com/homepages/dsp/ I'm not suggesting a copy of this site. I think the interface is awkward and there is a lot of shareware crap, but it has been an invaluable on many occasions.
There has also been other sites out there that had programming FAQ. Kind of a dejanews except dedicated to Delphi only. I think that programming *nix in general could massively benefit from centralized knowledge/component base.
But be warned. It is a lot of work to maintain sites like this. Several Delphi such sites have vanished for unknown reasons, such as www.delphi32.com and www.delphiexchange.com, among many others. The Delphi Super Page and Torry's Delphi page from Russia are the few good ones left.
There's a few things I just don't quite understand:
First, why encrypt it? What is stopping someone from doing a disk image copy from DVD to DVD (assuming the writer supports the size) or playing the DVD and recording it onto an older VCR?
Second, wouldn't encrypting the data then saving only specific vendor keys on the disk make it impossible for someone else to design and build a DVD player? They would only be able to play movies after a certain date manufacture date and would be up to their eyeballs in nondisclosures.
Even then, the only reason this is important to us is that finally open source software can now finally play DVDs. This encryption has been nothing more than an inconvenience to us simply because a handful of people are greedy. I say good riddance.
There may be a silver lining in this. There is plenty of proof of prior art on this. Software has been doing this since the early seventies and this is done large scale in much of the Y2K kludging these days. Maybe this will be the event that proves to the government that the patent office is incompentant, especially when it comes to issuing software pantents.
Slashdot Mirror
I know WinAmp for Windows does CD's and MP3 (among others), and I know XMMS and WinAmp are virtually identical. I seems almost logical that all XMMS would need is a CDRom plugin....
Ozwald
Just as a side note: KDE and Gnome are slower than MICROS~1 Windows on the same computer, but that is not necessarily the fault of either of these two libraries. The XWindows protocol is incredibly powerful but has a huge amount of overhead.
When the next version of XFree86 comes out later the year, I believe the performance difference will be night and day. Much of the XWindows overhead is supposed to vanish for localhost displays.
But if I am wrong, I have found that some of the crazy Gnome skins did trash my system resources beyond usability. But that is avoidable.
Ozwald
I'm not sure why (or how) they are doing this.
First, wouldn't such a daemon have to be proxing a lot of ports to be affective or is it just a packet sniffer?
If there is a DoS attack, would it only log IP (which maybe bogus) addresses after your system has be comprimized or can it actually prevent such attacks?
Wouldn't a properly configured firewall be more effective using things like connection to connection limits and log files/grep/wc?
Besides the security issues of installing closed-source FBI software on mission critical servers, is there any advantage to using such software or is it only to help FBI nab script-kiddies not necessarily in the US?
Also, is it possible that guys like Amazon.com and Yahoo have nothing more than poorly configured firewalls?
Ozwald
No, Junkbuster (JB) does a lot of things really well. This is how it works: First: the browser sends the headers. This includes a server and file name, and the location of current url. JB reads this. If the server or file name look like an ad, the real web server (for example DoubleClick) never gets contacted and a dummy file is sent from JB to your browser; a couple byte html page or 1x1 transparent gif. Second: if the server and file name are cool, the headers are sent MINUS (this is important) the referrer tag. This prevents the web server from knowing what url you came from. Third: if the server requests cookie information, JB can decide whether or not to allow it. Depending on JB's settings, you can make that decision based on server. For example, cookies are good for Slashdot so you don't have to log in each time. Others are not allowed by default. In another words, DoubleClick doesn't even know you exist if JB is set up. As a side note, Altavista's and the Simpsons Free Internet ads are blocked by JB because they use the Internet Exploder ActiveX control to show the ads on the screen. Just an ironic side note is all. Ozwald
That's because Redhat, Caldera, Debian, SuSe and Mandrake (and Corel) actually contribute to Linux. LinuxOne relies on someone else to create a product that they can put their sticker on. On top of that, they do a make-shift job of that too.
/.ers are upset.
If they are a truly serious company, they will understand one thing: competition. To make a competing product, it must be better at atleast one thing than everyone elses'. Redhat has support. Corel as ease of use. Caldera ties Microsoft up in court. And so on. Plus every one of these has full time staff dedicated to improving their distro and creating GPL programs.
In another words, name me at least one reason why I should use LinuxOne instead of Mandrake.
But that's only one argument... there's another. A lot of good programmers work late into the night for free, only so that they can make their contribution to the Linux community. To see someone attempt IPO for millions while doing minimal amounts of work is insulting. That is why
Ozwald
or:
su
rpm -i aprogram.rpm
It comes down to "do you trust the source/developer/ftp server?". Fortunately all (that I have seen) Linux developers are trust worthy. Either they do not have the evil tendancies that Windows developers do or the fact that available source code gives downloaders an ass to kick if something is malicious.
Ozwald
I know nothing about microbiology, but this drug seems a tad off the wall. In the past, drugs were (and still are) a lot more brute force. They contained things like antibodies or poisons. Antibodies are an obvious solution because the have existed since living organisms contained more than a single cell. Poisons like ozone, chlorine, ethanol, etc, are also obvious because they destroy anything weak enough.
That's why I wonder if this may be an exception to the rule. Aids is smart enough to disable our immune systems, but is it smart enough to bend to reflect this drug? Or will research have to continue like mad to build new versions of the drug like a Windows antivirus program?
Time will tell.
Ozwald
But that's my point! People are unsafe drivers for many reasons, speeding is only one of them. If visibility is low, people should slow down. But photo radar nor gps can do squat about that. A good speed has NOTHING to do with speed limits, its about what speed is safe. If this means driving 20km/h in a 50km/h zone or 130km/h in a 100km/h zone, it doesn't matter.
Besides, I have had probably hundreds of close calls, mostly people carelessly lane changing into my lane. Never does someone drive 100 km/h in a residential zone. If that were true, people would be constantly crashing into peoples' yards and homes. Atleast in Canada, it's unheard of.
But then again, maybe Europe wants "Thought Police".
Ozwald
I used to drive for a living a couple years ago. In that time, I realized that it is not speeders that are the problem. Speeders are relatively safe drivers compared to many others, such as:
- drunk drivers,
- people who don't check mirrors or shoulder check when lane changing,
- people who don't signal when turning,
- people who repeatedly forget to turn off their signal lights,
- people who go into panic mode and freeze up when something goes awry,
- people who drive excessively fast
It's not the end of the world if a group of cars are going 115km/h in a 100km/h highway, nor is it certain death if a car is going 120km/h while others are going 110km/h. I don't mind this at all. It's the bad drivers I am afraid of. And Big Brother cannot prevent you from cutting off another car.
Ozwald
Not necessarily. If a simple compiler is written in machine code (like the assember would have to be), it could be used to compile a C program used to compile a more complicated compiler. And that compiler used to compile an even more complicated compiler. And so on. No assembly required.
Delphi was written in Delphi.
Ozwald
You're right. The web page says "simulated". If you've ever been in a car that has a Heads Up Display, you would know that it doesn't replace a section of the view with a computer screen but creates a sort of hologram approximately 6 inches past the bottom of the windshield.
The screen shots are inaccurate. Unless the HUD can completely block out light on a square inch of windshield, the car approaching must have had its headlights turned off to be invisible.
But that asside, I grazed a deer by a couple inches only a couple weeks ago. Worst is that was not even the first time. I hope this technology becomes as common as air bags and antilock brakes.
Brendan
Actually, velcro and microwaves are alien technology. Didn't you see "Men in Black"?
Ozwald
I think that the concept of putting a human being on Mars would be the ultra cool and all, but now is not the right time.
There are two reasons: first of all, they have to perfect travel to Mars first. I could not push someone on a rocket and assume that the fuel pump has it's standard/metric conversion set properly.
Second, I don't believe technology is ready. For example, it takes (if I am right) two years to get there, one way. And this must be done when Earth and Mars are relatively close together. Why don't we wait until we invent warp speed or something.
Not that I am against traveling there. I just think that it's not the right time. Try this: before signing the petition, consider it a volunteer signup sheet that you CANNOT back out of.
Ozwald
You're right, it did work. But could you imagine if this was you? The FBI calls you threatening all kinds of things. I would have done the same thing: take if off until I figure out if they can fulfill their threats. Free speech is wonderful but jail sucks.
Ozwald
That would be so exciting to be there! Could you imagine the eclipes? Instead of a few seconds, they could last a few days.
Ozwald
I don't think this is right. When moving air hits a round object (or an object boing through air), it tries to go around and continue on its original path. This is like the old experiment with the candle and coffee can.
Ever drive down a highway at 100 km/hour behind a truck/trailer? Being directly behind one causes your car to bounce side to side from the truck's turbulance until you finally get atleast beside the cab of the truck.
A aerodynamic object like a plane, submarine, trout, etc. are designed not to cause turbulance from movement alone, but it is impossible not to if it is maintaining a speed or accelerating. They must move by taking air or water in front of them and pushing it back. As long as it is coasting, turbulance will be minimal, possible for a sub, a little difficult for an airplane.
Ozwald
I'm sure he didn't mean to insult anyone. What I think he means is that open source projects don't tend to be radical new concepts/services, just free versions of a commercial product.
This is not always true, LDAP for example was Open Source long before Netscape and Microsoft implemented it. The entire Internet existed decades before Microsoft's first TCP/IP stack.
But others such as Samba are in a constant rush to keep up with Microsoft's "extending". AOL is another annoying example. AOL rules their messaging protocol, and there is nothing we can do about it. It's our fault for not doing it first.
But prove me wrong. Do something outragous, something that makes Microsoft say, "crap, not another billion dollars". Make the next killer app.
Ozwald
I've said it before, and nobody will listen this time either. But here goes anyway:
This guy figured out how to break in to a location that should be impossible to get to. And the first thing that comes to the governments' minds is smack the guy around fooling themselves that he will automagically reform.
Instead, they should be promoting his talents. Put him on salary. Tell him to hack into government networks. Because if he can do it, someone from a less friendly country can too. Who would you rather have breaking into your computers?
Ozwald
I could be wrong on this, but I believe that the problem is that copyright law allows you to buy a cd (or movie) and play or show it only to you and your friends/relatives. Not to an public audience.
For example, a school teacher cannot rent Barney (the purple freak) and show it to his/her students. The idea being that each one of those kids may have been ready to rent the video themselves, but since the teacher just did, why bother?
Not that I am for or against ripping purchased CDs, its just that the music industry wants to limit the possibility of lost revenue.
Ozwald
Being from Alberta, I remember when Disney threatened to sue the owners of West Edmonton Mall because its amusement park was called "Fantasy Land". This always annoyed us because you can't accidently end up in West Edmonton Mall when you really wanted to go to Disney Land.
Ozwald
You guys are trying to compare apples and oranges. A Sun box is not at all like and Intel. Why? Suns are made for one purpose only: moving data from the hard-drive to and from the network card really fast. This is why they make great file servers. Intel is talented at CPUs. They make great processors but they are not in the business of making buses. Sun is.
There are other CPUs out there too: Digital Alphas are cleaning up on Seti@home. This makes them better at things like CGI scripts. G4's are supposed to have incredible floating point processors. This makes them better at things like render farms and engineering workstations.
If you want my advise, shop around before you spend piles of money on hardware. Don't buy and F18 if you need to take out enemy radar.
Ozwald
I heard a story a few years back where a [cr|h]acker broke into a bank's computers and deposited small sums of money over a period of time into his account. The bank found this person by total coincidence (I think a teller saw that he was loaded and was curious how he made his fortune).
So, what did the bank do? Sue him? Destroy his reputation/credit rating? Nope. They hired him. It made perfect sense, he knew more about their computer security than they did and he was more valuable as an ally than enemy.
I wish the entertainment industry understood this. I'm sure there is a solution that will allow movies to be secure without denying Linux users the right to see them. But they are not interested. Instead they are stuck with their screw up and Linux is still without DVD support.
Ozwald
You're right, it does exist. But, I think it could be better.
Delphi has had sites like this for years and they are huge in both size and importance. For example, lets say I want my application to do Blowfish encryption. I do a search on the "Delphi Super Page" for a freeware with source blowfish component. And viola, 3 show up. They literally have thousands of components and several dozens uploaded daily.
If you want to see this for your self, check out:
main site:
http://delphi.icm.edu.pl/
or mirror sites:
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/delphi_www/index.htm
http://community.borland.com/homepages/dsp/
I'm not suggesting a copy of this site. I think the interface is awkward and there is a lot of shareware crap, but it has been an invaluable on many occasions.
There has also been other sites out there that had programming FAQ. Kind of a dejanews except dedicated to Delphi only. I think that programming *nix in general could massively benefit from centralized knowledge/component base.
But be warned. It is a lot of work to maintain sites like this. Several Delphi such sites have vanished for unknown reasons, such as www.delphi32.com and www.delphiexchange.com, among many others. The Delphi Super Page and Torry's Delphi page from Russia are the few good ones left.
Ozwald
There's a few things I just don't quite understand:
First, why encrypt it? What is stopping someone from doing a disk image copy from DVD to DVD (assuming the writer supports the size) or playing the DVD and recording it onto an older VCR?
Second, wouldn't encrypting the data then saving only specific vendor keys on the disk make it impossible for someone else to design and build a DVD player? They would only be able to play movies after a certain date manufacture date and would be up to their eyeballs in nondisclosures.
Even then, the only reason this is important to us is that finally open source software can now finally play DVDs. This encryption has been nothing more than an inconvenience to us simply because a handful of people are greedy. I say good riddance.
There may be a silver lining in this. There is plenty of proof of prior art on this. Software has been doing this since the early seventies and this is done large scale in much of the Y2K kludging these days. Maybe this will be the event that proves to the government that the patent office is incompentant, especially when it comes to issuing software pantents.
Ozwald