All UK sewage works purify their sewage enough so that it can be safely discharged into the nearest river. In truth, where else could they dump it?
It (apparently) is not a myth that by the time the Thames has got to London, the water extracted from, to turn into drinking water, it has already been through an average of seven other people. And, whilst there is a reverse osmosis plant on the Thames Estuary, it is only used during times of drought and then to turn brackish (salty) estuary water into drinking water. Normal water treatment plants use traditional methods such as sand and/or trickle beds + UV purification. Reverse Osmosis is otherwise waaaaaaay too expensive.
But, but (splutter), since you have group access, then you can do rm -rf * anyway, so why bother with the cleverness? Especially as you have to leave a file there with your username handily stamped it ready for some more clueful person to catch you.
Er.. most of the exploits are only possible if one is root and/or the directory is writable for some other user (e.g. leon in this case).
Since one is root, one can do anything anyway so why bother with all this misdirection? If someone leaves world writable directories lying around (especially without the sticky bit set), then they deserve everything they get. Or is this some kind of "trap the (completely) unwary sysadmin" wake up call? If I see some strange named file (especially if I know I didn't put it there) I would investigate very, very carefully what is going on. I can't be alone in this - surely?
The engineers answer: ask someone who went to school before the zombies arrived. Mind you, an engineer probably wouldn't have to bother.
Rhetorical question: I wonder how Euclid managed?
It does not have "12KB" of ram. It has 2K of 48 bit words. Each word can contain 2 instructions. It is a decimal machine so each word can contain 12 digits. It also has (only) one accumulator (of 12 digits). Whilst this particular example has an indexing mechanism (actually a "pre-modify" instruction) which was added from a 1302, the standard way of indexing is by using "live code" i.e. doing arithmetic on the code on fly. The "2 instructions per word" structure actually makes this very easy to do.
It was designed in the late 1950s and built in 1961. One can program it in machine code (very easy instruction set), an assembler, various obsolete specialist languages and, of course, COBOL. There is no C compiler.
Flossie is very musical. She can play many tunes.
Did you know that, here, we can go to one of several websites and buy a new car from any manufacturer, usually with a significant discount over list, together with a mandatory manufacturer's warranty that has to be honoured by that manufacturer's service outlets?
Set one of these up, together with some surveillance, train the device to recognise the mark and where he is (in conjunction with the now mandatory CFL bulbs as well as the tv and computer screens) and when you gets to just the right place - let off the shaped charge. It's clean, capable of discerning whether there is any collateral damage potential (and wait until the mark is alone) and economical as well (only use just the charge you need).
I know that there are some pretty exotic coatings in use today, but I can't help feeling, considering the number of disks likely to be sold, that this is not going to help conserve the already overstretched usage of noble metals (e.g catalytic converters etc). If Seagate bring this to market at a competitive price, then that will would be another reason to invest in noble metal mining shares (or even metal, if one can stomach the ride).
After all, when one of these super volcanoes goes off, there will likely be some seismic consequences and if the other volcano is ready to pop, that might just provide enough omph to make it go too...
Some of us what are old enough see so many "new" things that are repackaged "old" things that have been either forgotten about or simply over looked. Methinks this is another example. The implementation details may be different, but this idea was first promulgated in *1960*!
http://www.xanadu.net/ refers...
The UK airlines flatly ban *all* electronic equipment from being switched on during take off or landing. Although the official excuse is always "to protect the delicate navigation equipment", this is demonstrably rubbish as aircraft equipment is pretty well screened and filtered.
It *is* true that in pre CE certification days, certain mobile equipment did have some unfortunate spurii, but CE testing got rid of all of them decades ago.
Which means that we are left with either a) the cabin crew need to demonstrate who's boss or b) the airlines don't want equipment flying about if there is any nasty tail waving or bumps during take off or landing.
Since I find myself on one of these every night, one side effect seems to be that I don't wake up with a hangover (I might get slightly more apnoea). Since I am getting some extra pressure, I must be getting more oxygen as well. So they may have a point.
In the UK there is case law that specifically makes this illegal. The case in question involved a farmer on whose land a very powerful broadcast radio station was located. He lit his cow sheds with fluorescents powered by picking up IIRC Radio 4 using bits of wire soldered to the contacts of the fluorescent tubes. He was fined quite a large amount of money for "stealing electricity".
Dunno. Too supine or there was a gun held to its head. We won't find out for at least 30 years (and then only if we are lucky and the reason is not too embarrassing to be embargoed for 50 or 100 instead).
But it is as it is. The US can extradite from the UK without probable cause even if the alleged offence does not exist in English Law or even if the offence was committed in the UK on UK people.
I would hope that he would be treated in the same way as everyone else. He would be prosecuted under the Computer Misuse Act (1990) and he would get 2 or 3 years.
The sad part is that he committed the offences in the UK and should prosecuted here. If he were a US citizen, accessing the UK military, he would be prosecuted in the US (and get 2 or 3 years for poking about looking for "secret" UFO info).
The only reason that he is being extradited in this way is because the US can request it, without showing any probable cause, and the treaty is retrospective.
The treaty is designed to allow easy access to "terrorists", but has overwhelmingly been used for white collar crimes (eg Enron). Whilst the US can request extradition for whomsoever they decide, the reverse is not true for the UK.
So prosecutors are asking for 5 years for stealing 1000's of bank details by a professional security consultant. Yet for that dastardly foreigner (MacKinnon) and complete amateur that embarrassed the military and did not steal or actually damage anything other than the US Government's pride with his dial-up modem - he is in line for 70 years.
Is it just me or is there something wrong here?
The problem is, of course, that UK Gov seems to think that everyone uses an ISP's mail server. And it is true that many (most) ordinary netizens do. However, many companies run their own smtp servers and configuring an encrypted SMTP server is very easy (exim is a wonderful thing) - I have done it for years. One of the features of this is that the actual smtp conversation is encrypted - the senders and recipients are not visible.
Given that my MXs are not any ISP, how is GCHQ going to monitor my email senders/recipients - even with fancy deep packet inspection?
This is not exactly new. Most mainframes built by UK companies, from the late 1950s until the 1980s, had a loudspeaker attached to a piece of logic (via an op-amp) somewhere or other in the machine (the "successful jump" logic being a favorite). The idea being that an operator could tell, simply by listening, whether the machine / program running was behaving itself
This meant that nobody had to actually watch the console and could get on with doing the myriad other jobs needed: like changing tapes, paper, etc
Slashdot Mirror
It (apparently) is not a myth that by the time the Thames has got to London, the water extracted from, to turn into drinking water, it has already been through an average of seven other people. And, whilst there is a reverse osmosis plant on the Thames Estuary, it is only used during times of drought and then to turn brackish (salty) estuary water into drinking water. Normal water treatment plants use traditional methods such as sand and/or trickle beds + UV purification. Reverse Osmosis is otherwise waaaaaaay too expensive.
But, but (splutter), since you have group access, then you can do rm -rf * anyway, so why bother with the cleverness? Especially as you have to leave a file there with your username handily stamped it ready for some more clueful person to catch you.
Er.. most of the exploits are only possible if one is root and/or the directory is writable for some other user (e.g. leon in this case).
Since one is root, one can do anything anyway so why bother with all this misdirection? If someone leaves world writable directories lying around (especially without the sticky bit set), then they deserve everything they get. Or is this some kind of "trap the (completely) unwary sysadmin" wake up call? If I see some strange named file (especially if I know I didn't put it there) I would investigate very, very carefully what is going on. I can't be alone in this - surely?
The engineers answer: ask someone who went to school before the zombies arrived. Mind you, an engineer probably wouldn't have to bother. Rhetorical question: I wonder how Euclid managed?
Everybody knows that that vital million to one chance happens nine times out of ten.
George 2 ???? George 3 for me! That's what Galdor moved onto after Flossie left and we moved on ICL 1905Fs.
It does not have "12KB" of ram. It has 2K of 48 bit words. Each word can contain 2 instructions. It is a decimal machine so each word can contain 12 digits. It also has (only) one accumulator (of 12 digits). Whilst this particular example has an indexing mechanism (actually a "pre-modify" instruction) which was added from a 1302, the standard way of indexing is by using "live code" i.e. doing arithmetic on the code on fly. The "2 instructions per word" structure actually makes this very easy to do. It was designed in the late 1950s and built in 1961. One can program it in machine code (very easy instruction set), an assembler, various obsolete specialist languages and, of course, COBOL. There is no C compiler. Flossie is very musical. She can play many tunes.
Did you know that, here, we can go to one of several websites and buy a new car from any manufacturer, usually with a significant discount over list, together with a mandatory manufacturer's warranty that has to be honoured by that manufacturer's service outlets?
The Health Service is creaking a bit though...
Depends on how paranoid you are and whom you think is out to get you :-)
Set one of these up, together with some surveillance, train the device to recognise the mark and where he is (in conjunction with the now mandatory CFL bulbs as well as the tv and computer screens) and when you gets to just the right place - let off the shaped charge. It's clean, capable of discerning whether there is any collateral damage potential (and wait until the mark is alone) and economical as well (only use just the charge you need).
I know that there are some pretty exotic coatings in use today, but I can't help feeling, considering the number of disks likely to be sold, that this is not going to help conserve the already overstretched usage of noble metals (e.g catalytic converters etc). If Seagate bring this to market at a competitive price, then that will would be another reason to invest in noble metal mining shares (or even metal, if one can stomach the ride).
Toshiba have demonstrated fuel cells for laptops since at least 2006. They may not be pretty, but the principle should not be patentable (at least by Apple). http://www.pcworld.com/article/157606/toshibas_fuel_cell_laptop.html
After all, when one of these super volcanoes goes off, there will likely be some seismic consequences and if the other volcano is ready to pop, that might just provide enough omph to make it go too...
Afterall it is now being done with a rather blunderbus approach. With all that extra processing power we could target people so much more effectively.
Some of us what are old enough see so many "new" things that are repackaged "old" things that have been either forgotten about or simply over looked. Methinks this is another example. The implementation details may be different, but this idea was first promulgated in *1960*! http://www.xanadu.net/ refers...
The UK airlines flatly ban *all* electronic equipment from being switched on during take off or landing. Although the official excuse is always "to protect the delicate navigation equipment", this is demonstrably rubbish as aircraft equipment is pretty well screened and filtered. It *is* true that in pre CE certification days, certain mobile equipment did have some unfortunate spurii, but CE testing got rid of all of them decades ago. Which means that we are left with either a) the cabin crew need to demonstrate who's boss or b) the airlines don't want equipment flying about if there is any nasty tail waving or bumps during take off or landing.
One wonders how light stable this system will be compared to existing DVD coatings. My suspicions would suggest that it may be worse.
And the Japanese have had them even longer...
Since I find myself on one of these every night, one side effect seems to be that I don't wake up with a hangover (I might get slightly more apnoea). Since I am getting some extra pressure, I must be getting more oxygen as well. So they may have a point.
In the UK there is case law that specifically makes this illegal. The case in question involved a farmer on whose land a very powerful broadcast radio station was located. He lit his cow sheds with fluorescents powered by picking up IIRC Radio 4 using bits of wire soldered to the contacts of the fluorescent tubes. He was fined quite a large amount of money for "stealing electricity".
Dunno. Too supine or there was a gun held to its head. We won't find out for at least 30 years (and then only if we are lucky and the reason is not too embarrassing to be embargoed for 50 or 100 instead).
But it is as it is. The US can extradite from the UK without probable cause even if the alleged offence does not exist in English Law or even if the offence was committed in the UK on UK people.
I would hope that he would be treated in the same way as everyone else. He would be prosecuted under the Computer Misuse Act (1990) and he would get 2 or 3 years.
The sad part is that he committed the offences in the UK and should prosecuted here. If he were a US citizen, accessing the UK military, he would be prosecuted in the US (and get 2 or 3 years for poking about looking for "secret" UFO info).
The only reason that he is being extradited in this way is because the US can request it, without showing any probable cause, and the treaty is retrospective.
The treaty is designed to allow easy access to "terrorists", but has overwhelmingly been used for white collar crimes (eg Enron). Whilst the US can request extradition for whomsoever they decide, the reverse is not true for the UK.
So prosecutors are asking for 5 years for stealing 1000's of bank details by a professional security consultant. Yet for that dastardly foreigner (MacKinnon) and complete amateur that embarrassed the military and did not steal or actually damage anything other than the US Government's pride with his dial-up modem - he is in line for 70 years. Is it just me or is there something wrong here?
The problem is, of course, that UK Gov seems to think that everyone uses an ISP's mail server. And it is true that many (most) ordinary netizens do. However, many companies run their own smtp servers and configuring an encrypted SMTP server is very easy (exim is a wonderful thing) - I have done it for years. One of the features of this is that the actual smtp conversation is encrypted - the senders and recipients are not visible. Given that my MXs are not any ISP, how is GCHQ going to monitor my email senders/recipients - even with fancy deep packet inspection?
This is not exactly new. Most mainframes built by UK companies, from the late 1950s until the 1980s, had a loudspeaker attached to a piece of logic (via an op-amp) somewhere or other in the machine (the "successful jump" logic being a favorite). The idea being that an operator could tell, simply by listening, whether the machine / program running was behaving itself
This meant that nobody had to actually watch the console and could get on with doing the myriad other jobs needed: like changing tapes, paper, etc
Plus ca change