There are several ways spammers get emails. They can do massive internet searches for emails and harvest them that way (if you post on USENET with your email addy its almost gueranteed to be spammed). They also guess a username and if it doesn't bounce back they know they've got a hit.
Seriously, the BEST tool against botnets, virii, worms, etc. is Education. If all computer users understood basic key ideas about not downloading crap from emails, running firewall software and keeping their A/V software up-to-date there would be a huge reduction in the number of infections. The sad fact though is that only a select few people understand these basic ideas and arte actually VIGILANT about sticking to them.
My suggestion:
Setup a nationwide network of community educators. Local organizers in a particular community who get a group togeather to distribute pamflets, door-to-door visitations, etc. Sure its time consuming, takes money to print stuff. But simply sending letters in the mail or broadcasting this kind of information on the news media isn't going to hit it home. Develop small catch phrases that get the idea across and stick.
Sure, some people won't give a shit and will continue to download crap from spam messages even after being told not to. This is where I think ISPs should become vigilant about cutting access to their internet and give them help in cleaning their computer (either with patches, a live-CD, etc.).
This botnet has most likely infected hundreds of thousands of AMERICAN computers. Botnets are a global issue and the criminals may be in some foreign country, yes. But they're committing huge acts of cyber crime here in the US by infecting American computers. And the fact that the botnet owners are spaming the hell out of the internet with these American computers.
This botnet is also a massive cyber Weapon of Mass Destruction. DDOS attacks can take down important sections of the internet, and that includes government operations. I'm sure the FBI is keenly looking to stop any such possible attacks, which includes taking down the Storm Trojan net.
I have a stash of old computers (~dozen) I'm about to break apart and link the motherboards together in their own unified, air conditioned rack...
What's going to be used for? Well, Prime number hunting, pi crunching, computing obscure mathematical constants 99.995% of the US hasn't heard of before....creating my own fractal Deep Field images...trying my hand at cracking RSA numbers with GGNFS.
The students should be informed on both sides of the fence. You can bet for sure that Rich Taylor is going to push the MPAA case. So be it. Give the students a discussion that presents the opposite side as well. I agree with the poster above that this is an AWSOME situation for your students to discuss a deeply controversial issue of the Internet Age so intimately as this opportunity will provide. And chances are, most of the students understand at least a basic understanding of the issue. I mean, this is college in the internet age, most of them have probably heard or tried P2P software. I would recommend providing a forum for them to discuss and learn from each other as well.
Project Gutenberg has been in the business of hosting public domain books and other literary works for many years, long before either Google or this new thing. Gutenberg is much more of an "Open Source" project in that it is more distributed to volunteers. I wonder if there has been any coordiation between Gutenberg and these "big boy" projects?
with the anti-wiretapping laws passed several decades ago? Please fill me in, do those have any effect or did they just sweep past them and make them irrelevent?
* The same level of scrutiny placed on debugging the Space Shuttle computer code was placed on something arguably as important, if not more so: the national election
*Make the code as open and freely viewable as possible. This will ensure maximum review.
* There was a NATIONAL standard. None of this spotty state-by-state Quality Assurance hooplah. Utilize the standard Southwest Airlines uses: find one rock solid, simple standard and stick to it across the board.
* Minimalism over Featurism: Make the system as simple as possible hardware/software wise. The more complex a system, the more room there is for error.
* Hardwired hardware vs software. Once a system has been hammered out to the quality level of Space Shuttle computer code, burn it into a chip. Utilize as little software as possible, as it is much harder to manipulate physical hardware then it is to flash a memory card
* Make the hardware as hard-wired as possible. Utilize ROM-only memory. No memory cards, no FPGAs, no flashable BIOS, but straight up hard-coded hardware. This will greatly reduce the ability to tamper with the system before an election.
* Make physical security an absolute top priority. Physical security is one of the major complaints against Dibold systems.
* Any upgrades needed would go through just as much review as the original code, and would be published just as freely and openly. Also, upgrades could only be made within a certain amount of time before an election. Once this time period has passed leading up to an election, the hardware could not be changed at all. This would help reduce any last minute changes to the code.
* Make the manufacturing of this electoral system completely governmental. Yes, it may be bloated as other government projects, but it will not be controlled by private interests which have profit interests and would likely copyright parts the system. It will be a system for the people by the state. No middle man.
* Setup an independent commission to oversee the entire roll out of this system, at every single stage. From the infancy of the code to election day and beyond.
* A physical paper trail MUST be incorporated, and be reviewed by the citizen ballot caster on election day. It MUST also be a federal offense, punished with heavy penalties, for tampering with this trail. Also, it must be a punishable offense for not auditing the election against the paper trail.
Under these points, I would support a digital voting system.
One small step in the right direction for internet justice! (and the loss to quick-to-the-draw prosecutors)
The Software is AWSOME! However the delivery...
on
Photosynth Demo
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I decided wade through the hype/ads/blah, and came across a really cool piece of software. It takes thousands of flickr images stitches them into a 3-dimensional mosaic, all just through software. No special on-site 3d imaging hardware, just a program compiling everyday images of something. It does this through some very advanced image recognition. If you can brave the ads, it IS worth it.
But rather of rational actions. As I said above, they can impose whatever censorship or editing they wish. Nonetheless, their actions smell of rash decision making and that is what this is about. Not a legal question, but a question about the morality of censoring one of Flickr's top submitters.
Slashdot Mirror
There are several ways spammers get emails. They can do massive internet searches for emails and harvest them that way (if you post on USENET with your email addy its almost gueranteed to be spammed). They also guess a username and if it doesn't bounce back they know they've got a hit.
My suggestion:
Setup a nationwide network of community educators. Local organizers in a particular community who get a group togeather to distribute pamflets, door-to-door visitations, etc. Sure its time consuming, takes money to print stuff. But simply sending letters in the mail or broadcasting this kind of information on the news media isn't going to hit it home. Develop small catch phrases that get the idea across and stick.Sure, some people won't give a shit and will continue to download crap from spam messages even after being told not to. This is where I think ISPs should become vigilant about cutting access to their internet and give them help in cleaning their computer (either with patches, a live-CD, etc.).
This botnet is also a massive cyber Weapon of Mass Destruction. DDOS attacks can take down important sections of the internet, and that includes government operations. I'm sure the FBI is keenly looking to stop any such possible attacks, which includes taking down the Storm Trojan net.
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2 CPU $67.50 * 4 = $270
Main Memory: Kingston DDR2-667 1GByte RAM $48.49 * 8 + $4.99sh = $392.91
Power Supply: (can't beat price): $76.00
Network adapter (node to switch): (cant beat their price) $164.00
Network adapter (switch to node): (cant beat their price) $15
Switch: Trendware TEG-S80TXE 8-port Gigabit Ethernet Switch $46.99+$7.04sh = $54.03
Hard drive: Seagate 7200 250GB SATA hard drive $69.99
DVD/CD drive: (can't beat their price): $19
Cooling: (can't beat their price): $32
Fan protective grills: (can't beat their price): $10
KVM: (can't beat their price): $50 Grand total (incl. 15 in hardware): 1416.89 $1000 saved by using Newegg!
Not all the comps are old, old. Several are Ghz boxes.
What's going to be used for? Well, Prime number hunting, pi crunching, computing obscure mathematical constants 99.995% of the US hasn't heard of before....creating my own fractal Deep Field images...trying my hand at cracking RSA numbers with GGNFS.
to name a few
The students should be informed on both sides of the fence. You can bet for sure that Rich Taylor is going to push the MPAA case. So be it. Give the students a discussion that presents the opposite side as well. I agree with the poster above that this is an AWSOME situation for your students to discuss a deeply controversial issue of the Internet Age so intimately as this opportunity will provide. And chances are, most of the students understand at least a basic understanding of the issue. I mean, this is college in the internet age, most of them have probably heard or tried P2P software. I would recommend providing a forum for them to discuss and learn from each other as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_S._Raymond
who had the bridge to nowheres built. But since this article doesn't pertain to that, I won't go there...
Monopolies are at best bad for the market, and at worst bad for Humanity. In this case, Monsanto's monopolizing has caused a lot of grief for many traditional farmers who save the previous year's crop seeds. This kind of thing really makes me sick.
Project Gutenberg has been in the business of hosting public domain books and other literary works for many years, long before either Google or this new thing. Gutenberg is much more of an "Open Source" project in that it is more distributed to volunteers. I wonder if there has been any coordiation between Gutenberg and these "big boy" projects?
We will have Subspace communication!/a
with the anti-wiretapping laws passed several decades ago? Please fill me in, do those have any effect or did they just sweep past them and make them irrelevent?
*Make the code as open and freely viewable as possible. This will ensure maximum review.
* There was a NATIONAL standard. None of this spotty state-by-state Quality Assurance hooplah. Utilize the standard Southwest Airlines uses: find one rock solid, simple standard and stick to it across the board.
* Minimalism over Featurism: Make the system as simple as possible hardware/software wise. The more complex a system, the more room there is for error.
* Hardwired hardware vs software. Once a system has been hammered out to the quality level of Space Shuttle computer code, burn it into a chip. Utilize as little software as possible, as it is much harder to manipulate physical hardware then it is to flash a memory card
* Make the hardware as hard-wired as possible. Utilize ROM-only memory. No memory cards, no FPGAs, no flashable BIOS, but straight up hard-coded hardware. This will greatly reduce the ability to tamper with the system before an election.
* Make physical security an absolute top priority. Physical security is one of the major complaints against Dibold systems.
* Any upgrades needed would go through just as much review as the original code, and would be published just as freely and openly. Also, upgrades could only be made within a certain amount of time before an election. Once this time period has passed leading up to an election, the hardware could not be changed at all. This would help reduce any last minute changes to the code.
* Make the manufacturing of this electoral system completely governmental. Yes, it may be bloated as other government projects, but it will not be controlled by private interests which have profit interests and would likely copyright parts the system. It will be a system for the people by the state. No middle man.
* Setup an independent commission to oversee the entire roll out of this system, at every single stage. From the infancy of the code to election day and beyond.
* A physical paper trail MUST be incorporated, and be reviewed by the citizen ballot caster on election day. It MUST also be a federal offense, punished with heavy penalties, for tampering with this trail. Also, it must be a punishable offense for not auditing the election against the paper trail.
Under these points, I would support a digital voting system.
One small step in the right direction for internet justice! (and the loss to quick-to-the-draw prosecutors)
I decided wade through the hype/ads/blah, and came across a really cool piece of software. It takes thousands of flickr images stitches them into a 3-dimensional mosaic, all just through software. No special on-site 3d imaging hardware, just a program compiling everyday images of something. It does this through some very advanced image recognition. If you can brave the ads, it IS worth it.
Why spend only whats needed, when you can spend 10x as much and make it sound more impressive?
Then the sparks will really fly!
Copyright this!
It sports a Core 2 Duo processor along with WiFi, WiMAX and Bluetooth connectivity.
photos of the new laptop
put a toll meter on one of the Tubes. Voila!
Like, um...this guy.
if I had seen this I would have included it in the article. Sigh, at least there are comments to help further the understanding of the situation.
But rather of rational actions. As I said above, they can impose whatever censorship or editing they wish. Nonetheless, their actions smell of rash decision making and that is what this is about. Not a legal question, but a question about the morality of censoring one of Flickr's top submitters.