Isn't LOIC one of the preferred tools of Anonymous? It shouldn't be that difficult to track down the developers. The project has both SourceForge and Github accounts.
I know Chromium is open-source, but shouldn't Google or some open-source organization obtain the trademark for Chromium to prevent commercial entities from pulling tactics like this?
I am not a lawyer, but you would think there is precedent. Does Mozilla Foundation have a trademark for Firefox? Does TDF have a trademark for LibreOffice?
I think it is a cash cow for the traffic light camera companies and not the cities, and that more and more cities are just now waking up to that fact.
I'd like to say that some cities are doing away with traffic light cameras because it is the right thing to do, but the reality is that they really don't make much money (if at all) from the system.
I can't speak about L.A., but when they installed traffic light cameras in my city they shortened all the yellow lights as well. This makes it blatantly obvious that it is nothing more than a revenue generator.
All my data is stored at a data center, but we manage our own servers. The data center staff has login credentials for emergencies, but they have never abused this privilege.
I don't trust Google with my sensitive data because I assume it will be analyzed, packaged, and sold to marketers and advertisers. I have some faith that it is anonymized first, but even still I don't like it and you have to wonder how anonymous the data actually is.
I would rather retain 100% control of access to my data.
I understand Linux going to Linux 3.0.0, though. I have moved to a release-early-release-often model and it has made it where every release I do is either a minor release or a maintenance/patch release. So what I have started doing is incrementing the major version number after I the software has become much more advanced and updated than it was compared to the previous major version number.
So if I am at version 6.47.10 and compared to 6.0.0 it is a greatly different and improved product, I go ahead and up the next release to 7.0.0 even though it is a minor release.
In the release early-and-often model, you really don't spend a lot of time between releases working on major upgrades. You do all the major upgrades slowly and incrementally across several minor updates.
Chrome and Firefox, however, are just playing the version number padding game. Opera and IE have slowly built up to their major version numbers.
I understand some people do not care about version numbers, but when you develop against software and libraries they become important. Whether you prefer X.Y.Z or YYYY.MM.DD or YYYY.X as your versioning scheme, that is just personal preference. Personally if you are going to increment major version numbers just for the sake of it then I'd go with a YYYY.X version model (e.g.: 2011.1, 2011.2, 2011.3).
The cynical part of me says that we are headed towards locked down environments.
At least there will always be Linux/BSD.
I doubt Microsoft will completely ditch the generic personal computer in the foreseeable future, though, because much of their business depends on the enterprise. I can not picture corporate environments marching down the path of inflexible, mobile-focused interfaces.
Maybe that year is getting closer to us if Apple and Microsoft jump over their respective cliffs. At least Microsoft is offering a classic desktop option in Windows 8, but who knows if that will still be available in Windows 9.
The beauty of Linux is that the GUI and the OS are separate so you can run any GUI you wish on top of the OS. You want tablet UI? Go with Unity or Gnome Shell. You want a more traditional GUI? Go with KDE, XFCE, LXDE, or Enlightenment.
I really hate this trend of writing off desktops and being so focused on mobile and tablet devices. I seriously think people are overestimating mobile devices and underestimating desktops.
The beauty of email is you can determine when to reply to a message or send correspondence. Compared to talking on the phone, email is less stressful, especially if you are doing support.
This tool would make it where people could say, "Why haven't you responded to me? You don't look like you have a lot of other emails coming in so I am sure you read my message".
I do not know if I am alone, but I refuse to ever let my email client send those email-has-been-read notifiers to let the sender know I got the email. People do not know if you got their letter/bill/request/mailer in your postal mail box, and people do not know if you have listened to your voicemail or how full your voicemail box. Why the heck should I give them insight into my email inbox?!
I would never punish the people of China for the actions of their government.
If we cut them off from the internet, we only hurt the regular Chinese civilian who will find themselves cut off from outside information and opposing points of view.
... or because you can't backup licenses in Mario Kart Wii. After unlocking all the extra tracks, vehicles, and characters for my 5 year old daughter, she somehow manages to delete her license. It has happened twice now.
In my system it prepends {SSHA256} to the hash in the database. When authenticating, it grabs the hash from the database and uses the stored prefix to denote how to hash the authenticating input to compare against the stored value.
So if someone somehow manages to pass in, "{SMD5}aa64fc8e163669ba598fb3fff8c57741", then it fails on two fronts. First, any prefixes in user input is flagged as a potential attack. Second, it doesn't matter if they pass me "{SMD5}" if the stored value has "{SSHA256}" prefixed, because the stored value is the only one that is consulted.
The end-user, either through manual entry or via API, can not dictate the algorithm used. So there is no way for an attacker to ever be able to store a password in a weaker format. Once I move to a new algorithm, either it be {SSHA256}, {SHA3...}, or what ever, then every password operation from that moment forward is forced to use the new algorithm. All existing accounts are then flagged to prompt the user to change their password upon next login to try to get as many passwords switched over to the new algorithm.
I would not be surprised if I am overlooking something, or if there is an even better way to do it.
I use SSHA-256 (salted/seeded SHA-256). I haven't even looked at going to 512.
One thing I do, though, is store a prefix to all my hashes denoting the algorithm used. That way if anything better comes along down the road I can start using the better algorithm for new accounts and password changes and will hash user input during login based upon that prefix. That way legacy passwords do not break.
I do not know if I weaken my security by prefixing the hash with something like "{SSHA256}", but I am not one to rely on obscurity for security.
Don't put that all on the shoulders of the government. The corporations want all of our information and metrics as well, so that they can better tailor their advertising, marketing, and sales. Not to mention that information is very, very valuable and people need to realize that in many cases we're the products being sold. Our information is the product.
I perform some lazy browser fingerprinting and generate a hash for that visitor. I mainly use it for traffic purposes (tracking new visitors vs. returning visitors). I understand that it isn't foolproof and will generate some false results in some cases, but that is not important to me. I don't store any personal identifying information, just a hash.
It also is a way for my sites to stop trying to give cookies to visitors who have cookies disabled. It checks the hash and if that hash has been seen recently and did not have cookies enabled, then I don't waste the resources or requests to try to send them a cookie. Again, I do no client-side checking for cookies and it is all server-side. I assume that is more agreeable than trying to set a cookie stating that they do not want cookies... which is hilarious that many sites do just that.
I am sure some people may use browser analytics for darker purposes, but I doubt I am the only person using it in a harmless manner.
Perhaps in time the issues with Unity will be addressed, like the ability to customize some aspects of the UI. However, Mark Shuttleworth has said that he dislikes choice, so I don't see very much in the way of Unity customization in the future.
In theory is sounds nice, but in practice it doesn't seem very feasible. You end up with something like No-Child-Left-Behind, where teachers teach to the lowest common denominator and the best and brightest are held back, bored, and done a disservice.
Maybe we're just experiencing the initial stage of the new paradigm which is why everything is so awful. In a few future iterations the OS will be more intelligent on what sort of device it is installed on and choose a suitable default UI to best take advantage of the hardware configuration. The key will be the ability to extensively customize the UI to suit your needs.
A major problem with Unity is that they removed a lot of choice and customization, so you are pretty much stuck with their UI, even if you are using a desktop PC with a large monitor. It is too early to tell how customizable Windows 8 will be, but if they hope to keep their corporate/enterprise business, they will need a solid traditional desktop UI option and not a desktop-as-a-big-mobile-device UI.
As long as there is a way to mix-and-match widgets, customize widgets, move widgets, and so forth then I think a unified UI would be ore palatable. The key is not making one UI that works for everything, but perhaps one OS that works for many different types of devices and different UI configurations to handle each type.
The idiot generation seems to be the target of the new OS UIs.
I guess menus are hard.
I am a cynical person, but even I didn't see the day where the desktop would be treated as oversized mobile devices with respect to interface and functionality.
I think there is too much hype behind the desktop-is-dying phenomenon.
It looks like they will provide optional toggle to switch to a more traditional desktop... for now.
I think Microsoft is seriously underestimating how this is going to hurt their upgrade sales in the corporate world. It is hard enough to get people off of XP to 7, I can't imagine what this will do for people resisting upgrading from Windows 7. Of course Microsoft will pull, "Latest version of X only works on Windows 8 or higher shenanigans", to try to force people to upgrade.
I agree with you that Rory should be given more room to shine. The only other companion in the new series that has experienced as much life and time as Rory is Captain Jack and he got his own spinoff show. Granted, Rory is not as charismatic as Captain Jack, but he is no slouch and they could make him more seasoned and competent now.
I thought LibreOffice was a temporary name? It seems like they are sticking with it, which is unfortunate.
No matter how good the product is, you need brand recognition. While LibreOffice is a unique name, it is not very catchy and does not roll off the tongue very well.
I know it is all subjective, but it needs a more polished and professional name and then perhaps you will see more market penetration, especially in business environments.
I wish OpenOffice and LibreOffice would un-fork and all the brain power stay behind one unified product.
I know Oracle is sketchy so I understand the fork, but if Oracle is trying to offload OpenOffice back to the open source community it would be nice to put politics aside.
Am I missing some underhanded scheme by Oracle that keeps their foot in the door on causing legal or support issues down the road?
The current Rory is human. His auton duplicate was destroyed during the 2nd big bang.
I think his character has matured some, but you also have to realize that he spent those 2,000 years being a guardian over the box. It is not likely that he went off traveling the world and having many opportunities to interact and learn.
He showed his maturity during the Rebel Flesh two-parter. He didn't look down on the flesh humanoids and he seemed to be very in-sync with the Doctor about respecting their lives. I suspect he was very sympathetic to the flesh because he has memories of being an Auton. When he was an Auton he felt like he was still Rory, so he can understand how the flesh have to wrestle with having the memories and personality of a person, but in fact be their duplicates.
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Isn't LOIC one of the preferred tools of Anonymous? It shouldn't be that difficult to track down the developers. The project has both SourceForge and Github accounts.
I know Chromium is open-source, but shouldn't Google or some open-source organization obtain the trademark for Chromium to prevent commercial entities from pulling tactics like this?
I am not a lawyer, but you would think there is precedent. Does Mozilla Foundation have a trademark for Firefox? Does TDF have a trademark for LibreOffice?
I think it is a cash cow for the traffic light camera companies and not the cities, and that more and more cities are just now waking up to that fact.
I'd like to say that some cities are doing away with traffic light cameras because it is the right thing to do, but the reality is that they really don't make much money (if at all) from the system.
I can't speak about L.A., but when they installed traffic light cameras in my city they shortened all the yellow lights as well. This makes it blatantly obvious that it is nothing more than a revenue generator.
All my data is stored at a data center, but we manage our own servers. The data center staff has login credentials for emergencies, but they have never abused this privilege.
I don't trust Google with my sensitive data because I assume it will be analyzed, packaged, and sold to marketers and advertisers. I have some faith that it is anonymized first, but even still I don't like it and you have to wonder how anonymous the data actually is.
I would rather retain 100% control of access to my data.
People are so thin-skinned these days and are prone to playing the offended/victim card. Tennessee must be a great state to be a lawyer.
Even though Firefox is a completely different beast than Netscape, it is the successor to Netscape so I agree with you to some extent.
What is really sad is my traffic analytics still report the occasional Netscape 4.x visitor. Poor, poor bastards.
I understand Linux going to Linux 3.0.0, though. I have moved to a release-early-release-often model and it has made it where every release I do is either a minor release or a maintenance/patch release. So what I have started doing is incrementing the major version number after I the software has become much more advanced and updated than it was compared to the previous major version number.
So if I am at version 6.47.10 and compared to 6.0.0 it is a greatly different and improved product, I go ahead and up the next release to 7.0.0 even though it is a minor release.
In the release early-and-often model, you really don't spend a lot of time between releases working on major upgrades. You do all the major upgrades slowly and incrementally across several minor updates.
Chrome and Firefox, however, are just playing the version number padding game. Opera and IE have slowly built up to their major version numbers.
I understand some people do not care about version numbers, but when you develop against software and libraries they become important. Whether you prefer X.Y.Z or YYYY.MM.DD or YYYY.X as your versioning scheme, that is just personal preference. Personally if you are going to increment major version numbers just for the sake of it then I'd go with a YYYY.X version model (e.g.: 2011.1, 2011.2, 2011.3).
The cynical part of me says that we are headed towards locked down environments.
At least there will always be Linux/BSD.
I doubt Microsoft will completely ditch the generic personal computer in the foreseeable future, though, because much of their business depends on the enterprise. I can not picture corporate environments marching down the path of inflexible, mobile-focused interfaces.
Maybe that year is getting closer to us if Apple and Microsoft jump over their respective cliffs. At least Microsoft is offering a classic desktop option in Windows 8, but who knows if that will still be available in Windows 9.
The beauty of Linux is that the GUI and the OS are separate so you can run any GUI you wish on top of the OS. You want tablet UI? Go with Unity or Gnome Shell. You want a more traditional GUI? Go with KDE, XFCE, LXDE, or Enlightenment.
I really hate this trend of writing off desktops and being so focused on mobile and tablet devices. I seriously think people are overestimating mobile devices and underestimating desktops.
The beauty of email is you can determine when to reply to a message or send correspondence. Compared to talking on the phone, email is less stressful, especially if you are doing support.
This tool would make it where people could say, "Why haven't you responded to me? You don't look like you have a lot of other emails coming in so I am sure you read my message".
I do not know if I am alone, but I refuse to ever let my email client send those email-has-been-read notifiers to let the sender know I got the email. People do not know if you got their letter/bill/request/mailer in your postal mail box, and people do not know if you have listened to your voicemail or how full your voicemail box. Why the heck should I give them insight into my email inbox?!
I would never punish the people of China for the actions of their government.
If we cut them off from the internet, we only hurt the regular Chinese civilian who will find themselves cut off from outside information and opposing points of view.
... or because you can't backup licenses in Mario Kart Wii. After unlocking all the extra tracks, vehicles, and characters for my 5 year old daughter, she somehow manages to delete her license. It has happened twice now.
In my system it prepends {SSHA256} to the hash in the database. When authenticating, it grabs the hash from the database and uses the stored prefix to denote how to hash the authenticating input to compare against the stored value.
So if someone somehow manages to pass in, "{SMD5}aa64fc8e163669ba598fb3fff8c57741", then it fails on two fronts. First, any prefixes in user input is flagged as a potential attack. Second, it doesn't matter if they pass me "{SMD5}" if the stored value has "{SSHA256}" prefixed, because the stored value is the only one that is consulted.
The end-user, either through manual entry or via API, can not dictate the algorithm used. So there is no way for an attacker to ever be able to store a password in a weaker format. Once I move to a new algorithm, either it be {SSHA256}, {SHA3...}, or what ever, then every password operation from that moment forward is forced to use the new algorithm. All existing accounts are then flagged to prompt the user to change their password upon next login to try to get as many passwords switched over to the new algorithm.
I would not be surprised if I am overlooking something, or if there is an even better way to do it.
I use SSHA-256 (salted/seeded SHA-256). I haven't even looked at going to 512.
One thing I do, though, is store a prefix to all my hashes denoting the algorithm used. That way if anything better comes along down the road I can start using the better algorithm for new accounts and password changes and will hash user input during login based upon that prefix. That way legacy passwords do not break.
I do not know if I weaken my security by prefixing the hash with something like "{SSHA256}", but I am not one to rely on obscurity for security.
Don't put that all on the shoulders of the government. The corporations want all of our information and metrics as well, so that they can better tailor their advertising, marketing, and sales. Not to mention that information is very, very valuable and people need to realize that in many cases we're the products being sold. Our information is the product.
I perform some lazy browser fingerprinting and generate a hash for that visitor. I mainly use it for traffic purposes (tracking new visitors vs. returning visitors). I understand that it isn't foolproof and will generate some false results in some cases, but that is not important to me. I don't store any personal identifying information, just a hash.
It also is a way for my sites to stop trying to give cookies to visitors who have cookies disabled. It checks the hash and if that hash has been seen recently and did not have cookies enabled, then I don't waste the resources or requests to try to send them a cookie. Again, I do no client-side checking for cookies and it is all server-side. I assume that is more agreeable than trying to set a cookie stating that they do not want cookies ... which is hilarious that many sites do just that.
I am sure some people may use browser analytics for darker purposes, but I doubt I am the only person using it in a harmless manner.
Ubuntu Unity is still more fail than Windows 8.
Perhaps in time the issues with Unity will be addressed, like the ability to customize some aspects of the UI. However, Mark Shuttleworth has said that he dislikes choice, so I don't see very much in the way of Unity customization in the future.
In theory is sounds nice, but in practice it doesn't seem very feasible. You end up with something like No-Child-Left-Behind, where teachers teach to the lowest common denominator and the best and brightest are held back, bored, and done a disservice.
Maybe we're just experiencing the initial stage of the new paradigm which is why everything is so awful. In a few future iterations the OS will be more intelligent on what sort of device it is installed on and choose a suitable default UI to best take advantage of the hardware configuration. The key will be the ability to extensively customize the UI to suit your needs.
A major problem with Unity is that they removed a lot of choice and customization, so you are pretty much stuck with their UI, even if you are using a desktop PC with a large monitor. It is too early to tell how customizable Windows 8 will be, but if they hope to keep their corporate/enterprise business, they will need a solid traditional desktop UI option and not a desktop-as-a-big-mobile-device UI.
As long as there is a way to mix-and-match widgets, customize widgets, move widgets, and so forth then I think a unified UI would be ore palatable. The key is not making one UI that works for everything, but perhaps one OS that works for many different types of devices and different UI configurations to handle each type.
The idiot generation seems to be the target of the new OS UIs.
I guess menus are hard.
I am a cynical person, but even I didn't see the day where the desktop would be treated as oversized mobile devices with respect to interface and functionality.
I think there is too much hype behind the desktop-is-dying phenomenon.
It looks like they will provide optional toggle to switch to a more traditional desktop ... for now.
I think Microsoft is seriously underestimating how this is going to hurt their upgrade sales in the corporate world. It is hard enough to get people off of XP to 7, I can't imagine what this will do for people resisting upgrading from Windows 7. Of course Microsoft will pull, "Latest version of X only works on Windows 8 or higher shenanigans", to try to force people to upgrade.
I agree with you that Rory should be given more room to shine. The only other companion in the new series that has experienced as much life and time as Rory is Captain Jack and he got his own spinoff show. Granted, Rory is not as charismatic as Captain Jack, but he is no slouch and they could make him more seasoned and competent now.
I thought LibreOffice was a temporary name? It seems like they are sticking with it, which is unfortunate.
No matter how good the product is, you need brand recognition. While LibreOffice is a unique name, it is not very catchy and does not roll off the tongue very well.
I know it is all subjective, but it needs a more polished and professional name and then perhaps you will see more market penetration, especially in business environments.
I wish OpenOffice and LibreOffice would un-fork and all the brain power stay behind one unified product.
I know Oracle is sketchy so I understand the fork, but if Oracle is trying to offload OpenOffice back to the open source community it would be nice to put politics aside.
Am I missing some underhanded scheme by Oracle that keeps their foot in the door on causing legal or support issues down the road?
The current Rory is human. His auton duplicate was destroyed during the 2nd big bang.
I think his character has matured some, but you also have to realize that he spent those 2,000 years being a guardian over the box. It is not likely that he went off traveling the world and having many opportunities to interact and learn.
He showed his maturity during the Rebel Flesh two-parter. He didn't look down on the flesh humanoids and he seemed to be very in-sync with the Doctor about respecting their lives. I suspect he was very sympathetic to the flesh because he has memories of being an Auton. When he was an Auton he felt like he was still Rory, so he can understand how the flesh have to wrestle with having the memories and personality of a person, but in fact be their duplicates.