Internet: The Ethernet card allows the X-Box to be hooked up for internet play over a cable modem / dsl. READ: Play with 8 - 32 people.
Lan X-Boxes can also be hooked up in a chain, for lan party type action. For the masses.
You can ALSO play console type multi player games. Best of both worlds.
For another previous message: I've got infiltration on my windows box. Quite a bit of potential there. Gotta keep in mind that it's a work in progress.
Well, the X-Box seems to have all the components that people envy high-end PC gamers for, in a tight little package.
New games coming out for it shouldn't have the litany of compatability problems, as they're aiming for a single piece of hardware. No "this game crashes out at this point, here's my configuration." "Ah, you have an certain NVIDIA card, you'll need to go back to the last driver to make it work with this game."
The most important thing is that 8 gig drive, though. PC's have a heavy advantage in certain areas. You can make games with complex controls, because there are lots of keys on the keyboards. And, as id discovered, additional user generated content sells games.
That drive should allow the download of additional levels and modifications, developed on PC's for games that have an existance on both systems.
I'll bet it helps out the Unreal engine to no end. Content is driven by UnrealScript, which compiles into machine independant bytecode, much like Java. So, if Unreal Tournament comes out for X-Box, you can download the most popular current mods, and won't get left out as new mods and levels come out.
Console FPS games have suffered by not having this capability.
Now if only the Linux version of UT would get patched to the latest level so my Linux box could play the Infiltration mod...
How many years will it be before a political party is formed in the US to represent internet concerns? They'd probably have an advantage once polls go online. It's hard to sustain voter apathy when you don't have to leave your machine to vote...
Borland bought out WATCOM C, and repackaged it as Borland C. They marketed Turbo C as being the product to use for development, and Borland C (WATCOM, that is) as the product to use for final compiles. Turbo compiled quickly, and WATCOM compiled well.
I have a large box of cassettes and a HUGE collection of albums. (The large round black vinyl things, for the youth impaired.)
Many MP3's I've acquired I own on these media. The equipment to move the tracks to digital is available to me here at work. However, it's easier (to say the least) to acquire music I wish to listen to (and have paid the fee to own) over the internet.
While compromises like this service are nice, they're not an absolute solution by a long shot.
The fact that they're grabbing an intrusive amount of information, however, is offensive. (I suspect I'm preaching to the choir here, though.) It's not enough for an organization to ask if you want to send information, they should disclose what's being sent.
(A co-worker just mentioned his extensive eight track collection to me...)
Katz's come up with a new paradigm. There's a blatant division of internet resources, though I hadn't looked at it like this before. (Where would someplace with a political agenda, like a campaign site fall? Certainly not News and Information...)
Dividing up the pie this way might be a precursor to "acceptable use" laws, though. Better never to have made the distinction, perhaps. Too much "us" and "them" as it is.
KATZ: Pleasantly short column. Does this count as a column? Are you making fun of our attention spans? Does your karma get you moderated onto the main page? I don't think anyone can complain, because you do generate more comments in your threads than anyone else.
Keith Schuler had similar ideas, except where they were different.
the author seems to completely miss the concept that many damaging attacks are not carried out by people with an agenda.
I agree that the author appears to trying to lump 'cyberterrorism' in with predigested wisdom related to CBN, there's a lack of understanding of his viewpoint among/.'ers, too.:-)
The article, in it's roundabout way, wants to tackle the idea of terrorist groups making use of 'cyberattacks' rather than attacks on computer security as a whole. It comes at it in the same way that it looks at terrorist use of other means (CBN in particular). The article outlines the willingness of terrorist groups to use chemical and biological means, and the lengths they go to in attempts to acquire nuclear weapons, but doesn't make parallels to cyberterrorism except as an afterthought. It also touches on the internet making information (on CBN methods) more readily available. (The role of the internet in making terrorist groups more savvy probably deserved a paragraph rather than a sentence.)
I haven't pondered enough to crystalize my analysis. I'll respond again when I do. However, here are a few points that jump out at me:
Attack types The article would probably do well to outline what a CT attack could do. Targets would include any primarily computerized system attached to a network that they could access. Many people go on about taking down power grids. While that would help in conjunction with another attack type, in and of itself it would be useless. Most grids suffer infrequent blackouts which are not terrorist related. More important would be targets that would cause genuine loss of life. (From their standpoint, this would get attention.) Corrupting hospital records, for example.
The problem is, most critical systems have both backup generators and backups of important data.
Types of attacks would probably fall into two categories. The first is DOS (denial of service) attacks. These would probably be used to shut down communications systems or services. Again, this is best used in conjunction with some other sort of attack. A coordinated attack to bring down a government's or a corporation's computer systems couldn't be maintained long enough to be more than a nuisance.
More dangerous would be gaining access to specific computer systems. (As opposed to DOS, which may either cut them off or overload them, each situation having the effect of making the system inaccessable/unusable.) By appearing to be a user, however, the terrorist could manipulate data or attached machinery. While this would not be quite like a bomb going off, it could have much worse long term percussions.
More likely, terrorists would have to settle in the near term for placing propaganda on the web sites of whomever they oppose. Again, merely a nuisance problem.
Willingness While some terrorists may not feel that CT will allow them to accomplish their goals, most terrorist groups would make use of CT if they believed they could. Most, like those not part of the 'network culture', believe such attacks to be outside the capabilities of laymen.
Don't expect this to last.
/. readers should understand by now how easy it is for someone with little experience but with a drive to learn and study to become capable of breaking into systems or performing 'Denial of Service' type attacks.
Ability A cheap computer and an internet connection, at the least.:-) Costs rise if it's necessary to access a closed network. But CT is cheap in terms of equipment, and not terribly expensive in terms of expertise.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd enjoy playing a stormtrooper, I think.
Note to self: spend points on blaster accuracy.
Or maybe "Young Jabba"...
- Internet: The Ethernet card allows the X-Box to be hooked up for internet play over a cable modem / dsl. READ: Play with 8 - 32 people.
- Lan X-Boxes can also be hooked up in a chain, for lan party type action. For the masses.
You can ALSO play console type multi player games. Best of both worlds.For another previous message: I've got infiltration on my windows box. Quite a bit of potential there. Gotta keep in mind that it's a work in progress.
New games coming out for it shouldn't have the litany of compatability problems, as they're aiming for a single piece of hardware. No "this game crashes out at this point, here's my configuration." "Ah, you have an certain NVIDIA card, you'll need to go back to the last driver to make it work with this game."
The most important thing is that 8 gig drive, though. PC's have a heavy advantage in certain areas. You can make games with complex controls, because there are lots of keys on the keyboards. And, as id discovered, additional user generated content sells games.
That drive should allow the download of additional levels and modifications, developed on PC's for games that have an existance on both systems.
I'll bet it helps out the Unreal engine to no end. Content is driven by UnrealScript, which compiles into machine independant bytecode, much like Java. So, if Unreal Tournament comes out for X-Box, you can download the most popular current mods, and won't get left out as new mods and levels come out.
Console FPS games have suffered by not having this capability.
Now if only the Linux version of UT would get patched to the latest level so my Linux box could play the Infiltration mod...
That's not to say that it wasn't fun....
How many years will it be before a political party is formed in the US to represent internet concerns? They'd probably have an advantage once polls go online. It's hard to sustain voter apathy when you don't have to leave your machine to vote...
IIRC:
Borland bought out WATCOM C, and repackaged it as Borland C. They marketed Turbo C as being the product to use for development, and Borland C (WATCOM, that is) as the product to use for final compiles. Turbo compiled quickly, and WATCOM compiled well.
I have a large box of cassettes and a HUGE
collection of albums. (The large round black
vinyl things, for the youth impaired.)
Many MP3's I've acquired I own on these media.
The equipment to move the tracks to digital is
available to me here at work. However, it's
easier (to say the least) to acquire music I
wish to listen to (and have paid the fee to own)
over the internet.
While compromises like this service are nice,
they're not an absolute solution by a long shot.
The fact that they're grabbing an intrusive amount
of information, however, is offensive. (I suspect
I'm preaching to the choir here, though.) It's not
enough for an organization to ask if you want to
send information, they should disclose what's
being sent.
(A co-worker just mentioned his extensive eight
track collection to me...)
Katz's come up with a new paradigm. There's a blatant division of internet resources, though I hadn't looked at it like this before. (Where would someplace with a political agenda, like a campaign site fall? Certainly not News and Information...)
Dividing up the pie this way might be a precursor to "acceptable use" laws, though. Better never to have made the distinction, perhaps. Too much "us" and "them" as it is.
KATZ: Pleasantly short column. Does this count as a column? Are you making fun of our attention spans? Does your karma get you moderated onto the main page? I don't think anyone can complain, because you do generate more comments in your threads than anyone else.
Keith Schuler had similar ideas, except where they were different.
I'd really like to see Paginitsu too. And Realms of Chaos. Keith is one of my favorite designers, right after Dan Bunten. -John Chapman
At least George Lucas hasn't decided that he doesn't want the films on that format, but rather wants to add content.
I agree that the author appears to trying to lump 'cyberterrorism' in with predigested wisdom related to CBN, there's a lack of understanding of his viewpoint among /.'ers, too. :-)
The article, in it's roundabout way, wants to tackle the idea of terrorist groups making use of 'cyberattacks' rather than attacks on computer security as a whole. It comes at it in the same way that it looks at terrorist use of other means (CBN in particular). The article outlines the willingness of terrorist groups to use chemical and biological means, and the lengths they go to in attempts to acquire nuclear weapons, but doesn't make parallels to cyberterrorism except as an afterthought. It also touches on the internet making information (on CBN methods) more readily available. (The role of the internet in making terrorist groups more savvy probably deserved a paragraph rather than a sentence.)
I haven't pondered enough to crystalize my analysis. I'll respond again when I do. However, here are a few points that jump out at me:
The article would probably do well to outline what a CT attack could do. Targets would include any primarily computerized system attached to a network that they could access. Many people go on about taking down power grids. While that would help in conjunction with another attack type, in and of itself it would be useless. Most grids suffer infrequent blackouts which are not terrorist related. More important would be targets that would cause genuine loss of life. (From their standpoint, this would get attention.) Corrupting hospital records, for example.
The problem is, most critical systems have both backup generators and backups of important data.
Types of attacks would probably fall into two categories. The first is DOS (denial of service) attacks. These would probably be used to shut down communications systems or services. Again, this is best used in conjunction with some other sort of attack. A coordinated attack to bring down a government's or a corporation's computer systems couldn't be maintained long enough to be more than a nuisance.
More dangerous would be gaining access to specific computer systems. (As opposed to DOS, which may either cut them off or overload them, each situation having the effect of making the system inaccessable/unusable.) By appearing to be a user, however, the terrorist could manipulate data or attached machinery. While this would not be quite like a bomb going off, it could have much worse long term percussions.
More likely, terrorists would have to settle in the near term for placing propaganda on the web sites of whomever they oppose. Again, merely a nuisance problem.
While some terrorists may not feel that CT will allow them to accomplish their goals, most terrorist groups would make use of CT if they believed they could. Most, like those not part of the 'network culture', believe such attacks to be outside the capabilities of laymen.
Don't expect this to last.
A cheap computer and an internet connection, at the least.
Blindfolded lawyers against a wall, stretching into the distance...