poorly designed captcha implementations can be circumvented 100% of the time, without having to use OCR. more info regarding this is available here http://puremango.co.uk/cm_breaking_captcha_115.php (shameless self promotion - it's my site..)
also, it's no wonder that people are annoyed by CAPTCHAs - half the time they don't explain why the user has to enter the text, and almost all CAPTCHAs are developed around making the text hard to read. At the moment, it's only a few geeks who have managed to bulk-OCR CAPTCHA scripts. Generally even the presence of a totally insecure captcha is enough to stop spam dead in it's tracks - spammers just use a set script and fire it at a bunch of blogs, guestbooks etc; they are not currently targetting scripts at specific websites, and they're certainly not smart enough to perform bulk OCRing.
no, VB6 is no longer supported, but i'm sure will still be capable of using vista's interface dlls, and VB.net is sure to have vista support. Also, it's hardly fair to criticise VB for not being capable of producing interfaces of an OS that hasn't even been released yet.
"I've never seen a VB interface that looked, "professional" because Windows itself no longer looks that way."
what? Which apps exactly are you talking about? Last time I checked, 90% of windows apps have tabs, checkboxes, buttons, pull down menus, toolbars, MDI, panes, or frames, all of which interface widgets VB6+ provides as standard components. Also, any time the look of windows changes (which incidently it hasn't done significantly since 1995), a new dll will be released that will allow VB coders to use that new interface enhancement.
I'm guessing that by "VB interface" you're talking about those few incredibly ugly programs that use bright yellow backgrounds and massive coloured buttons, which are prime examples of beginner VB coders playing with pretty things, and are not a true reflection of VB at all.
I must say, I admire their motives, copying censored content all over the web to make it effectively impossible to censor. But their implementation is totally flawed; From the site:
"If you have a website, myspace page or blog, help us spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by publishing censored material from our database directly onto your site."
.. but then they invite you to include a javascript file from a central server - what happens when that server gets blocked by a censoring country? All the copies go offline. Great, amnesty, really great. The cynic in me just wants to say that all amnesty want is to have people "spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by driving more people to our website, not by publishing censored material"...
I think you're right. In fact more than that, I think you're undeniably right - Food, shelter, healthcare and education are more important than laptops.
However, the people involved in this scheme are not going to very useful in helping developing countries get food or healthcare (etc). Instead, they're doing what they're best at. There isn't a limited amount of "charity" that forces us to decide "Shall we give people laptops or food" - we can easily give them both. All it requires is people in the right places to get together and make it happen. In this case, the technology people got together before the (more important) food and healthcare people.
Yes the priorities are out of whack, but it's not the same people who are responsible for all the things that are needed. If it had been red cross or oxfam who decided to put all their energy into making cheap laptops then your priority question would be very relevent indeed, but as it is, this effort was the work of groups of people who realised they could realistically make a difference in one area, and did it. I say: "rock on".
The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display--both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data.
indeed. I've been put off ubuntu since I subscribed to bugtraq. The amount of ubuntu holes is frightening. Of course, I don't know if the fact they're on bugtraq is a Good Thing meaning they've got an active developer community concentrating on "finding the holes before the hackers do", or a Bad Thing because it means I'll have to keep updating...
if there's not, I'm storing all my encryption keys in a combination locked briefcase... If they break it open, I'll wish we had a DMCA-like law so I could sue the govt for 'reverse engineering' my briefcase..:)
In related news, the UK police say they will shortly be making home visits to every house in britain, requiring copies of front and back door keys for businesses, homes, apartments and garages..
yup yup yup. I currently use keywords for google, google images, traceroute, whois, ebay, wiki, xe.net, php.net, mysql.com (though their website is mostly useless (in comparision with the brilliantly useful php.net)), amazon, archive.org, a file extension search page, and ip2country. yay for bookmarks! your suggestions welcome.
it's a bit of both. In high-risk areas like town centers, they actively monitor; in a large town where I live, the police watch CCTV every night. As soon as a fight starts they know about it, and have dispatched cops to deal with it. On industrial estates and less populated areas, i imagine the tapes are gathered for evidence rather than active monitoring.
i'm just waiting for a gpg FF extension for gmail.
possibly completely unworkable idea follows: In fact, it would (i imagine) be fairly simple to write an extension that would gpg any selected text. You might think tis impossible as it would require a javascript port of gpg, but you could have a slim local webserver that called out to gpg to encrypt and return anything posted to it, then the extension would just need to send out a request to localhost and paste the response back in. *wanders off to see what he can cook up - if anyone beats me to it let me know:)*
I live in the EU, so naturally I'm concerned about this.. But: I don't care who reads my sms messages because frankly I expect them to be insecure. My phone calls themselves, yes I worry a little over that because it would enable social networks to be drawn up. But by far the biggest thing I was concerned about was my email, which accounts for well over 90% of my communications.
Then I remembered that I use web based email from a well known search engine who are based in the US. Isn't my data already within US jurisdiction?
(yes, I know TFA is refering to EU-ISP-owned data, but I think it's less of a sudden move than many realise)
you can get malicious code from deliberately corrupted files playing in, eg, WMP. But I.. um.. 'know someone'.. who'se been downloading films for years and I have^H^H^H^H^H^H he has -never- seen either a virus or malicious code in an avi file. This sounds like FUD-mongering on WB's part.
Slashdot Mirror
I wonder if it comes with built in homeplug support?
poorly designed captcha implementations can be circumvented 100% of the time, without having to use OCR. more info regarding this is available here http://puremango.co.uk/cm_breaking_captcha_115.php (shameless self promotion - it's my site..)
also, it's no wonder that people are annoyed by CAPTCHAs - half the time they don't explain why the user has to enter the text, and almost all CAPTCHAs are developed around making the text hard to read. At the moment, it's only a few geeks who have managed to bulk-OCR CAPTCHA scripts. Generally even the presence of a totally insecure captcha is enough to stop spam dead in it's tracks - spammers just use a set script and fire it at a bunch of blogs, guestbooks etc; they are not currently targetting scripts at specific websites, and they're certainly not smart enough to perform bulk OCRing.
no, VB6 is no longer supported, but i'm sure will still be capable of using vista's interface dlls, and VB.net is sure to have vista support. Also, it's hardly fair to criticise VB for not being capable of producing interfaces of an OS that hasn't even been released yet.
"I've never seen a VB interface that looked, "professional" because Windows itself no longer looks that way."
what? Which apps exactly are you talking about? Last time I checked, 90% of windows apps have tabs, checkboxes, buttons, pull down menus, toolbars, MDI, panes, or frames, all of which interface widgets VB6+ provides as standard components. Also, any time the look of windows changes (which incidently it hasn't done significantly since 1995), a new dll will be released that will allow VB coders to use that new interface enhancement.
I'm guessing that by "VB interface" you're talking about those few incredibly ugly programs that use bright yellow backgrounds and massive coloured buttons, which are prime examples of beginner VB coders playing with pretty things, and are not a true reflection of VB at all.
found it: http://www.amnesty.org.uk/
additionally, a search on amnestry.org for "irrepressible" returns 0 documents.
I must say, I admire their motives, copying censored content all over the web to make it effectively impossible to censor. But their implementation is totally flawed; From the site:
.. but then they invite you to include a javascript file from a central server - what happens when that server gets blocked by a censoring country? All the copies go offline.
"If you have a website, myspace page or blog, help us spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by publishing censored material from our database directly onto your site."
Great, amnesty, really great. The cynic in me just wants to say that all amnesty want is to have people "spread the word and undermine unwarranted censorship by driving more people to our website, not by publishing censored material"...
"Any new file format is most welcome as long as they are open and not controlled by propritery licences."
yes, that's why gif, flash, pdf, and real audio aren't popular.
I think you're right. In fact more than that, I think you're undeniably right - Food, shelter, healthcare and education are more important than laptops.
However, the people involved in this scheme are not going to very useful in helping developing countries get food or healthcare (etc). Instead, they're doing what they're best at. There isn't a limited amount of "charity" that forces us to decide "Shall we give people laptops or food" - we can easily give them both. All it requires is people in the right places to get together and make it happen. In this case, the technology people got together before the (more important) food and healthcare people.
Yes the priorities are out of whack, but it's not the same people who are responsible for all the things that are needed. If it had been red cross or oxfam who decided to put all their energy into making cheap laptops then your priority question would be very relevent indeed, but as it is, this effort was the work of groups of people who realised they could realistically make a difference in one area, and did it. I say: "rock on".
http://www.laptop.org/map.en_US.html gives a colour coded map of planned distribution areas
and from the FAQ (laptop.org/faq.en_US.html):
The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display--both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data.
the site's not loading for me in firefox (it says infinite redirect loop, though it works in *spit* MSIE)/ Stickybot_040106.mov
here's the video URL:
http://bdml.stanford.edu/twiki/pub/Main/StickyBot
indeed. I've been put off ubuntu since I subscribed to bugtraq. The amount of ubuntu holes is frightening. Of course, I don't know if the fact they're on bugtraq is a Good Thing meaning they've got an active developer community concentrating on "finding the holes before the hackers do", or a Bad Thing because it means I'll have to keep updating...
Oh wait, the entire article is nonsense. now I get it.. except, why is it on... oh never mind.
Is it just me or is that article summary complete and utter nonsense?
if there's not, I'm storing all my encryption keys in a combination locked briefcase... :)
If they break it open, I'll wish we had a DMCA-like law so I could sue the govt for 'reverse engineering' my briefcase..
In related news, the UK police say they will shortly be making home visits to every house in britain, requiring copies of front and back door keys for businesses, homes, apartments and garages..
nya nya! I can beat you! I'm on 60,000kb of memory! we should hold a competition. :)
yup yup yup. I currently use keywords for google, google images, traceroute, whois, ebay, wiki, xe.net, php.net, mysql.com (though their website is mostly useless (in comparision with the brilliantly useful php.net)), amazon, archive.org, a file extension search page, and ip2country. yay for bookmarks! your suggestions welcome.
u bmit3=Go!i on=web&url=%25sh =%25sm =USD&To=GBPe =%25s&ht=1&sokeywordredirect=&from=R8&fkr=1&soloct og=9- form/026-9212734-6757257
FYI:
http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/tracert.ch?ip=%25s
http://filext.com/detaillist.php?extdetail=%25s&S
http://whois.webhosting.info/%25s
http://web.archive.org/archive_request_ng?collect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?searc
http://www.xe.com/ucc/convert.cgi?Amount=%25s&Fro
http://www.ezwhois.net/index.php
http://search.ebay.co.uk/search/search.dll?satitl
http://www.php.net/search.php
http://www.mysql.com/search/?q=%25s&charset=
http://puremango.co.uk/ip2country.php?ip=%25s
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/search-handle
... but does it run Linux?
:D
(and if so, imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!)
(sorry, truly.)
it's a bit of both. In high-risk areas like town centers, they actively monitor; in a large town where I live, the police watch CCTV every night. As soon as a fight starts they know about it, and have dispatched cops to deal with it.
On industrial estates and less populated areas, i imagine the tapes are gathered for evidence rather than active monitoring.
i'm just waiting for a gpg FF extension for gmail.
:)*
possibly completely unworkable idea follows:
In fact, it would (i imagine) be fairly simple to write an extension that would gpg any selected text. You might think tis impossible as it would require a javascript port of gpg, but you could have a slim local webserver that called out to gpg to encrypt and return anything posted to it, then the extension would just need to send out a request to localhost and paste the response back in.
*wanders off to see what he can cook up - if anyone beats me to it let me know
I live in the EU, so naturally I'm concerned about this.. But: I don't care who reads my sms messages because frankly I expect them to be insecure. My phone calls themselves, yes I worry a little over that because it would enable social networks to be drawn up. But by far the biggest thing I was concerned about was my email, which accounts for well over 90% of my communications.
Then I remembered that I use web based email from a well known search engine who are based in the US. Isn't my data already within US jurisdiction?
(yes, I know TFA is refering to EU-ISP-owned data, but I think it's less of a sudden move than many realise)
actually no, not since "national security" became synonymous with "business interests".
you can get malicious code from deliberately corrupted files playing in, eg, WMP.
But I.. um.. 'know someone'.. who'se been downloading films for years and I have^H^H^H^H^H^H he has -never- seen either a virus or malicious code in an avi file. This sounds like FUD-mongering on WB's part.