I hear that something called the "ping" attack is pretty common on Linux servers. Evil hackers, always pinging those Linux boxes! What's even worse is that Linux servers are vulnerable to it! You can even find out if a certain machine is online!
Sounds pretty dangerous to me. I mean, with all those Linux-based webservers, the entire internet is vulnerable! Something has to be done about it!
Then, take a look at the Computer Science department.
Give me the ratios you find there. Somehow, I don't think that the numbers are going to favor Macs. The people who most intimately use computers use PCs. What's that tell you?
I never said we should do anything illegal - I simply stated that we need to take a more proactive stance against spammers, rather than just kinda ignoring them and hoping that they'll go away.
For example, it's perfectly legal to use a spammer's "remove me" form to pollute his database of "sucker" email addresses. Is it nice? No. Is it legal. Yeah.
Why not? You're not going to harm anyone. You're just going to make it harder for them to do business. Spam costs me money and time, both of which are too valuable to be wasting downloading and deleting adverts for magic pills that will increase my (male) breast size by a cup. Spammers send my 14-year old brother and 12-year old sister email with hardcore porn in it. I have missed important emails on occassion because my inbox was too flooded with crap for me to easily recognize important email. Spammers offer absolutely nothing of redeeming quality to the net, and are a pain, an annoyance, an intrusion, and occassionally, in the case of scams, criminally dangerous. I see absolutely no reason why we should not fight them, and a lot of reasons why we should use every (legal) tool at our disposal to rid the net of them. Make it cost them severe time, effort, and money to send spam.
Tools such as blacklists and SpamAssasin are a great start, but there need to be more such tools at our disposal. I'm not suggesting we DDOS a spammer or hax0r their servers or install trojans on their computers, simply that we use the means within our reach to fight back. What they are doing is legal, albeit unsavory. Why not turn their own tactics against them?
I love SpamAssassin. However, it only treats the symptoms. It's doesn't address the cause.
What we really need is some tools that actively ATTACK spammers, their databases, and their means of mailing.
I've written a few such tools, and I'm sure there are others. What suprises me is that while it is quite possibly within our means to deal with spammers, we prefer to just filter them out and be done with it. I saw a stat earlier that about 30% of backbone traffic is spam-related. By ignoring spammers, we're just driving up the costs of net service.
Well, you could annoy your email address out of a spammer's DB.
I wrote a little script that uses a spammer's "remove" form against them. Provide a host, remove page, and the correct parameters, and it will generate a crapload of fake addresses and feed them to the spammer's "good list" database. Once you get a good half million or so into the DB, the data becomes worthless to the spammer, because he has such a little signal:noise ratio. He dumps the database.
Our complaint with spammers is that they force us to wade through crap to get to what we want. Do the same to them.
I completely agree. I recently got ahold of a copy of Quake III, and had it running at home (college student at home for summer). My 14 year old brother, who is a gamer himself, asked what I was playing. Upon my response, he promptly retorted "that's it?? People make this big deal over Quake III - it looks just like every other FPS out there!"
I remember when Quake 3 first came out - it was amazing. Now, it "looks like every other game out there". Utterly incredible. I remember the days of playing Dangerous Dave and Zaxxon on my 8088, and thinking that they were incredible. In past years, graphic quality has been critical because there has been so much room for expansion. However, now, there's only so much you can do with eye candy.
The next area of innovation will be in gameplay. FPSes were innovative...when Wolenstein and Doom came out. There have been a few definitive games, but for the most part, there has been little innovation in that arena. Now, there's room for it.
Doom 3, while looking amazing, will not do well if the gameplay isn't above par. It's possibly the best-looking game to date, but gamers are becoming increasingly disillusioned with graphic candy, and are craving better gameplay.
Password security. If all you need is a passport account to get into your bank account, people are going to start seeing a LOT of electronic theft. The majority of people on the internet are relatively clueless about password security, and it takes a minimal amount of social engineering to get passwords out of people. Boom, instant cash. It's MUCH easier to get a password out of someone than it is to get a CC #.
For example, set up a site that does X. Put a fancy "Passport Login" box on it. People try to log in and send their login info directly to your logging program, while getting an "internal server error - cannot log in" message.
There comes a point when convenience becomes TOO convenient. There's always the tradeoff between convenience and security. Too much convenience == too little security. The system can be 100% secure, but people are always the weakest link. If you make it too easy for the user, it will become easier for the cracker, too.
Sure, games might improve your situational analysis skills and such, to a degree, but once you hit something that wasn't covered in the game, you're toast.
ie, a social situation. People don't have pretty menus and interfaces, and you're not given a choice of three things to say.
People who constantly socialize and interact with others are much lighter on their verbal feet than people who play games all day long. Take your l33t interacting skills into a crowded (real life) room and see how well typing "t A/S/L??? " works.
Games aid your decision making skills withing a certain ruleset. They don't hone your decision making skills outside of that game. For example, if you were attacked by a gun-wielding maniac, based on your gaming, you should run around till you find a gun bigger than his, charge him head on, and pump a round of flak into his gut, and promptly find a health pack to heal your flesh wound. Somehow, I don't think that would work too well.
Not you, but some other guy mentioned Civilization. Playing Civilization makes you as qualified to make decisions that would affect the economy as a goldfish is qualified to be an ocean predator.
Games don't give you real-life skills or abilities - they give you a source of escape and relaxation.
Coding for all web browsers is a mofo, especially when you throw Netscape 4.x into the mix. However, in professional applications, it has to be and is done. For personal sites, and for internal tools with a controlled audience, browser-specific stuff is fine. However, when it comes to anything that you're being paid for, having it not be cross-browser compatible is not an option. It IS harder to write cross-browser code, but once you learn the tricks of the trade, it takes only 5-10% longer to make a site cross-browser compatible.
The problem is in all these AOLers and Front Page users who write all these "fancy" pages full of MS-specific javascript and styles. That's when stuff breaks. However, realize that these same people aren't even aware that there are different browsers. To them, they have "their internet" (IE), and that's that. They don't even realize that there are alternatives out there - they just have "the internet" and if it works on "the internet" it's good to go.
Personally, I use Trillian. It covers AIM, ICQ, IRC, MSN, and Yahoo messengers. Also, it provides such pleasantries as secure IM, contact aliasing, fully skinnable interface, no ads, and is completely free.
I've used both this and Jabber, and I must say I like Trillian better. The default interface is mediocre, but there are some wonderful skins out there. It's definately worth a look.
My BIOS does it - I imagine a lot of other BIOSes do it, too. If the temp hits a certain level, you get a warning. If it overheats, instant shutdown. Also, it can be configured to automatically power off upon fan failure.
I'm not a big fan of "soft" keyboards either, but when my girlfriend got me a Logitech wireless, I didn't hesitate to switch. It's very soft, and doesn't provide the tactile feedback of my trusty '98 HP keyboard, but the wireless is SO nice. It's got a 6 ft range, and weighs only a few ounces. It's great. Once you get used to the feel of the keyboard, it's not that hard to adjust to. Before you're used to it, you miss keystrokes and stuff, but once you're properly adjusted, it's one sweet piece of hardware.
Where I work, our programming dept. is actually managed by our senior programmer/sysadmin, which is wonderful because he understands our need to read slashdot. He's one of us:)
Yeah, I knew that. I switched gears without properly specifying. The upcoming release of PHP with the Zend engine is supposed to handle that transparently.
At least, I'm hoping so...
And finally, some decent object-oriented functionality...
Yeah...I've run into that too, particularly when writing XML classes and such.
Apparently, the new release with the Zend engine is gonna fix that up rather nicely. = is copy, =& is reference. Yeah, it's a pain, and rather counter-intuitive, but hey, whatever. You eventually get used to the quirks of any language.
Not a bad idea. I mean, downloading that 4k spam degrades my connection. Granted, not by very much, but it's still degraded.
By this logic, ANY communication over the net could be construed as a violation of this bill. You only have so much bandwidth, and the consumption of it will certainly degrade the connection. This is a very dangerous piece of legislation. It could have its uses, but it could be so broadly interpreted DMCA-style to make any Internet-using person a felon.
On the upside, I'm gonna set up an open relay in the UK and send any spammer that uses it (thereby degrading my connection and system performance) to jail.
Slashdot Mirror
Melt grease? Heck, if you park a car in the sun, your engine (and seatbelt buckle) will be carrying enough heat to start a small foundry.
Remember the Windows Update/Code Red fiasco?
If the fish was big enough, SOMEONE would find a way in, and r00t to every Windows box in the world is a fairly big fish.
I hear that something called the "ping" attack is pretty common on Linux servers. Evil hackers, always pinging those Linux boxes! What's even worse is that Linux servers are vulnerable to it! You can even find out if a certain machine is online!
Sounds pretty dangerous to me. I mean, with all those Linux-based webservers, the entire internet is vulnerable! Something has to be done about it!
Then, take a look at the Computer Science department.
Give me the ratios you find there. Somehow, I don't think that the numbers are going to favor Macs. The people who most intimately use computers use PCs. What's that tell you?
True, but this only applies if they are recording remote IPs. I get the feeling that spammers aren't too thorough with their apps.
Even so, IPs can be spoofed. It's not like you need the data coming back, anyway.
I never said we should do anything illegal - I simply stated that we need to take a more proactive stance against spammers, rather than just kinda ignoring them and hoping that they'll go away.
For example, it's perfectly legal to use a spammer's "remove me" form to pollute his database of "sucker" email addresses. Is it nice? No. Is it legal. Yeah.
Why not? You're not going to harm anyone. You're just going to make it harder for them to do business. Spam costs me money and time, both of which are too valuable to be wasting downloading and deleting adverts for magic pills that will increase my (male) breast size by a cup. Spammers send my 14-year old brother and 12-year old sister email with hardcore porn in it. I have missed important emails on occassion because my inbox was too flooded with crap for me to easily recognize important email. Spammers offer absolutely nothing of redeeming quality to the net, and are a pain, an annoyance, an intrusion, and occassionally, in the case of scams, criminally dangerous. I see absolutely no reason why we should not fight them, and a lot of reasons why we should use every (legal) tool at our disposal to rid the net of them. Make it cost them severe time, effort, and money to send spam.
Tools such as blacklists and SpamAssasin are a great start, but there need to be more such tools at our disposal. I'm not suggesting we DDOS a spammer or hax0r their servers or install trojans on their computers, simply that we use the means within our reach to fight back. What they are doing is legal, albeit unsavory. Why not turn their own tactics against them?
What we really need is some tools that actively ATTACK spammers, their databases, and their means of mailing.
I've written a few such tools, and I'm sure there are others. What suprises me is that while it is quite possibly within our means to deal with spammers, we prefer to just filter them out and be done with it. I saw a stat earlier that about 30% of backbone traffic is spam-related. By ignoring spammers, we're just driving up the costs of net service.
It's time to fight back.
I wrote a little script that uses a spammer's "remove" form against them. Provide a host, remove page, and the correct parameters, and it will generate a crapload of fake addresses and feed them to the spammer's "good list" database. Once you get a good half million or so into the DB, the data becomes worthless to the spammer, because he has such a little signal:noise ratio. He dumps the database.
Our complaint with spammers is that they force us to wade through crap to get to what we want. Do the same to them.
Get the source at http://tachyonsix.com/spamdeath.txt
I remember when Quake 3 first came out - it was amazing. Now, it "looks like every other game out there". Utterly incredible. I remember the days of playing Dangerous Dave and Zaxxon on my 8088, and thinking that they were incredible. In past years, graphic quality has been critical because there has been so much room for expansion. However, now, there's only so much you can do with eye candy.
The next area of innovation will be in gameplay. FPSes were innovative...when Wolenstein and Doom came out. There have been a few definitive games, but for the most part, there has been little innovation in that arena. Now, there's room for it.
Doom 3, while looking amazing, will not do well if the gameplay isn't above par. It's possibly the best-looking game to date, but gamers are becoming increasingly disillusioned with graphic candy, and are craving better gameplay.
This will flop HUGELY, and here's why:
Password security. If all you need is a passport account to get into your bank account, people are going to start seeing a LOT of electronic theft. The majority of people on the internet are relatively clueless about password security, and it takes a minimal amount of social engineering to get passwords out of people. Boom, instant cash. It's MUCH easier to get a password out of someone than it is to get a CC #.
For example, set up a site that does X. Put a fancy "Passport Login" box on it. People try to log in and send their login info directly to your logging program, while getting an "internal server error - cannot log in" message.
There comes a point when convenience becomes TOO convenient. There's always the tradeoff between convenience and security. Too much convenience == too little security. The system can be 100% secure, but people are always the weakest link. If you make it too easy for the user, it will become easier for the cracker, too.
Yeah, I am. Check the sig. Quite American for a non-American.
I'm also a UT player.
Sure, games might improve your situational analysis skills and such, to a degree, but once you hit something that wasn't covered in the game, you're toast.
ie, a social situation. People don't have pretty menus and interfaces, and you're not given a choice of three things to say.
People who constantly socialize and interact with others are much lighter on their verbal feet than people who play games all day long. Take your l33t interacting skills into a crowded (real life) room and see how well typing "t A/S/L??? " works.
Games aid your decision making skills withing a certain ruleset. They don't hone your decision making skills outside of that game. For example, if you were attacked by a gun-wielding maniac, based on your gaming, you should run around till you find a gun bigger than his, charge him head on, and pump a round of flak into his gut, and promptly find a health pack to heal your flesh wound. Somehow, I don't think that would work too well.
Not you, but some other guy mentioned Civilization. Playing Civilization makes you as qualified to make decisions that would affect the economy as a goldfish is qualified to be an ocean predator.
Games don't give you real-life skills or abilities - they give you a source of escape and relaxation.
IMO, this rates fairly high on the Duh-O-Meter.
Chickens on weed, man. Dope the chicken, and the feathers follow :)
The problem is in all these AOLers and Front Page users who write all these "fancy" pages full of MS-specific javascript and styles. That's when stuff breaks. However, realize that these same people aren't even aware that there are different browsers. To them, they have "their internet" (IE), and that's that. They don't even realize that there are alternatives out there - they just have "the internet" and if it works on "the internet" it's good to go.
I've used both this and Jabber, and I must say I like Trillian better. The default interface is mediocre, but there are some wonderful skins out there. It's definately worth a look.
My BIOS does it - I imagine a lot of other BIOSes do it, too. If the temp hits a certain level, you get a warning. If it overheats, instant shutdown. Also, it can be configured to automatically power off upon fan failure.
I'm not a big fan of "soft" keyboards either, but when my girlfriend got me a Logitech wireless, I didn't hesitate to switch. It's very soft, and doesn't provide the tactile feedback of my trusty '98 HP keyboard, but the wireless is SO nice. It's got a 6 ft range, and weighs only a few ounces. It's great. Once you get used to the feel of the keyboard, it's not that hard to adjust to. Before you're used to it, you miss keystrokes and stuff, but once you're properly adjusted, it's one sweet piece of hardware.
Yeah, I've been needing something to load test my machine with.
Wish I was the salesman who sold this setup. Even though I despise them, think of the COMMISSION he made!
Where I work, our programming dept. is actually managed by our senior programmer/sysadmin, which is wonderful because he understands our need to read slashdot. He's one of us :)
Yeah, I knew that. I switched gears without properly specifying. The upcoming release of PHP with the Zend engine is supposed to handle that transparently.
At least, I'm hoping so...
And finally, some decent object-oriented functionality...
Yeah...I've run into that too, particularly when writing XML classes and such.
Apparently, the new release with the Zend engine is gonna fix that up rather nicely. = is copy, =& is reference. Yeah, it's a pain, and rather counter-intuitive, but hey, whatever. You eventually get used to the quirks of any language.
Not a bad idea. I mean, downloading that 4k spam degrades my connection. Granted, not by very much, but it's still degraded.
By this logic, ANY communication over the net could be construed as a violation of this bill. You only have so much bandwidth, and the consumption of it will certainly degrade the connection. This is a very dangerous piece of legislation. It could have its uses, but it could be so broadly interpreted DMCA-style to make any Internet-using person a felon.
On the upside, I'm gonna set up an open relay in the UK and send any spammer that uses it (thereby degrading my connection and system performance) to jail.
Gandalf's been Gunmanned...or something like that.
How about pulling a Lone Gandalf?
Once again proving, it's not the size of your index, it's how you use it!
*ahem*