Indeed, Christians have a very long history of atrocities, conquest, genocide, repression, and the list goes on. Even the US President talked about a crusade after the 9/11 atrocity.
> How a person behaves is strongly influenced by their culture. Unfortunately, in many parts of > the world, intolerant and short-sighted religious beliefs are a significant contributor to > culture.
Indeed! Many would include USA.
This profiling reminds me more of racism than anything.
You sound like a script kiddie trying to rationalize his actions.
The fact is that an _employee_ of a party (Folkpartiet) hacked into their _political opponents_ networks to spy upon them, and that was done many times over several months.
Your comments about "misleading statements" are nothing but a deception to draw the attention away from the above fact and start slandering the reporter.
> The "break in" was basically the use of a username and password they had gotten from one of > the Socialist Democrat employees... Not the 1337-ass hacking one might expect!
Social engineering is a very well known way to hack into a system. Of course, this type of attack is beyond the average script kiddie that barely is able to download a script they don't understand.
> yeah except that in the case "liberals" are the most right-wing, they'd be equivalent to US' > GOP, except that Sweden's politics (and all of Europe's politics in fact) have a gravity > center much farther "left" than the US'.
In USA, anything to the left of Atila the Hun is a raving liberal;-)
> I think they forgot to mention all the other bullshit as well. [snip] > - Not being able to burn as a non-root user. WTF?
You need root privileges to write to a cd burner. If you don't like that, you can change the write permissions on the device, but that is a security risk. Blaming the author of cdrecord for this is not correct.
> How is this worse than all those "search engine" sites squatting on unused and misspelled > dowmains?
Those "search engines" are not "squatting" ALL unused and mispelled domains. And do keep in mind that the squatters are actually owning the domains they are "squatting".
> At least earthlink is trying to provide some meaningful info to their customers.
> That is nothing new. Linus fills that position for the kernel. Mark has the potential to be that > for the whole Linux OS. Lets hope he is into Ubuntu for the long haul.
Oh my God, I never hope that Mark becomes that! Ubuntu main goal is to increase market share, and to achieve that he actively encourages inclusion of binary-only drivers and other propertiary software. He don't care about hardware manufactures releasing documentation or not.
With people like Mark in charge of "Linux OS" there will come a time where it is very difficult to use Linux on modern hardware without binary blobs. At that time there is not much "free" about Linux anymore, except the "freedom" to use blobs.
This, of course, is the fault of the majority of Linux users that are clamouring for the latest and greatest blob.
See Peter Gutmann's analysis of open source VPNs back in 2003.
That has the following great suggestion:
Whenever someone thinks that they can replace SSL/SSH with something much
better that they designed this morning over coffee, their computer speakers
should generate some sort of penis-shaped sound wave and plunge it
repeatedly into their skulls until they achieve enlightenment. Replacing
the SSL/SSH data channel is marginally justifiable, although usually just
running SSL/SSH over UDP would be sufficient. Replacing the SSL/SSH control
channel is never justifiable - even the WAP guys, with strong non-SSL/SSH
requirements, simply adapted SSL rather than trying to invent their own
protocol.
> [oblig eve post]Eve-online just this _week_ made Win2k the minimum OS version (which blew me > away that they were still supporting Win98 clients until this week). How long will XP remain a > eminently useful OS to the majority of us (or for gaming?)
My wife's Windows 2000 Pro works just fine, and I presume that will not change just because Microsoft relases Vista. Windows 2000 Pro works quite well, have no annoying activation and will continue to recieve security updates for a few more years.
> Well, I tried the signup but to my surprise "England is not a recognised country". Even though > I picked it from their drop down box and it was quite clearly visible and zoomed in on the map.
When SuSE was bought by Novell, I thought that this might not be to the advantage of the existing userbase nor to the various open source projects that SuSE previously (still?) contributed to.
When I used Linux, SuSE was my distribution of choice due to a) documentation (two books), b) good quality and b) that it was made by an European company. In contrast to many (most?) Slashdotters - that just want to download for free without ever contributing - I bought several versions of SuSE.
> I think the conclusion that he draws is probably correct, but he doesn't really seem > to explain why. The reason that systems like OS X and Linux are safer than Windows is > not that launchd runs a shell, but that both Linux and OS X tend to run processes > that don't need privileges as root.
It is common to run as "not administrator" on a UNIX like system without much pain, but that is not the case for Windows where users often can do pretty much what they like. Running as an ordinary user on Windows (yes, it is possible) really increases security from some types of exploits (many viruses and other malware).
> It sounds like the hack he's describing occurred because he'd installed third-party > software that ran as a service with an open port, as SYSTEM (i.e., with full > privileges) and that took over his machine.
You will see many UNIX applications that is difficult to run without root privileges, and exploitable bugs are quite bad then. OpenBSD has put much effort into making several applications run with less privileges and chrooted, for instance Apache httpd.
Even if an application is not running with elevated privileges you may still be hacked. Linux is regulary plagued with local root kernel exploits, for instance, that ordinary users can use....
> The reason this is less likely (not impossible, just less likely) is because if you > are running a third party server process on OS X, it's probably a piece of open > source software like Apache, which has been vetted to within an inch of its life, > because it is open source, and the many people who care that it is secure have the > freedom to check that it is secure.
Note that the developers of Apache httpd refused MANY security fixes from OpenBSD, and you will note that many open source projects are more focused on features than bugfixing (Ethereal, renamed as Wireshark, comes to mind). Many projects are so big that checking it thoroughly is out of the reach for just about anybody.
> If you are on 802.11b and are happy with the speed it provides, then stay with what you have. > If you're unhappy with it, upgrade to 802.11g. If you are are unhappy with 802.11g, well, tough > luck: as someone else already mentioned, 802.11n isn't coming out until 2008.
802.11a is generally much less crowded than 802.11 b/g and as fast as 802.11g. Wireless in a crowded area can suck quite bad.
> Why upgrade at all? Unless you can really use the extra speed of 802.11g because you have an > insane internet speed it's just a waste.
Many places there are quite simply too many nearby using 802.11b/g along with wireless phones on the same frequency. It is too crowded.
"Upgrading" to 802.11a (different frequencies used than 802.11b/g) will help as there generally are far fewer 802.11a users. The range may not be the same, though.
Furthermore, THG's article claims to have tested large file sizes but their graphs dont show it. In order for a filesystem to be correctly benchmarked, the test file size must be at least twice the size of RAM. If it isn't then the test is only testing RAM speed, algorithm speed, and Linux's page cache system. According to THG, LUKS can sustain > 100MB/sec on a 20GB laptop drive from 2002. Hmmm, I think not.
The speeds reported are not believeable for a Pentium III M 1.2 GhZ even for just encryption. For comparisons,
below is the output of "openssl speed" using a Opteron 170 (dual core, 2 GhZ):
> When they open AIX and their Power chips like Sun has done with Solaris and SPARC, then > they can compare and see how things stack up. For now, its just alot of sour grapes from > an aging dinosaur to one that has recently been seen rising up again.
Sun could start with releasing hardware docs for SPARCIII and their chipsets.
> Video news releases are packaged stories paid for by businesses or interest groups^W^W^W^W the tax payers.
> The Bush administration has been doing this since day one.
Or held press conferences lying about some subject (like Iraq had WMD) and the press just parrots that as the truth without any reflection about evidence or credibility.
> And that's the problem right there. You have to learn, and read, the syntax yourself. That's a lot of work for > just marking up documents, especially since Word or WordPerfect can do a decent job with a lot less of a learning curve.
Depends what you want to mark up;-)
For mathematical oriented papers, nothing beats LaTeX with additional packages. Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice et al does a lousy job here.
> And if you are laying out lots of documents professionally, Quark or a competitor is probably worth the investment. > The learning curve is about the same, and it has more cred outside the geek-world.
Yeah, all those math and physics researchers live in the geek-world;-)
It is disappointing to see a free software project dismissing threats as "theoretical". Today's "theoretical" vulnerabilities are tomorrow's exploits. Worse, the article hints that these threats are fundamental design flaws - the developers should be working to fix these and not issuing PR speak to cover them.
OpenOffice is quite buggy, as porting it to OpenBSD shows that OpenOffice
has many stupid bugs
Slashdot Mirror
> However, the same cannot be said of religion.
Indeed, Christians have a very long history of atrocities, conquest, genocide, repression,
and the list goes on. Even the US President talked about a crusade after the 9/11 atrocity.
> How a person behaves is strongly influenced by their culture. Unfortunately, in many parts of
> the world, intolerant and short-sighted religious beliefs are a significant contributor to
> culture.
Indeed! Many would include USA.
This profiling reminds me more of racism than anything.
You sound like a script kiddie trying to rationalize his actions.
The fact is that an _employee_ of a party (Folkpartiet) hacked into their
_political opponents_ networks to spy upon them, and that was done many times
over several months.
Your comments about "misleading statements" are nothing but a deception to draw
the attention away from the above fact and start slandering the reporter.
> The "break in" was basically the use of a username and password they had gotten from one of
> the Socialist Democrat employees... Not the 1337-ass hacking one might expect!
Social engineering is a very well known way to hack into a system. Of course, this
type of attack is beyond the average script kiddie that barely is able to download
a script they don't understand.
> yeah except that in the case "liberals" are the most right-wing, they'd be equivalent to US'
;-)
> GOP, except that Sweden's politics (and all of Europe's politics in fact) have a gravity
> center much farther "left" than the US'.
In USA, anything to the left of Atila the Hun is a raving liberal
> I think they forgot to mention all the other bullshit as well. [snip]
> - Not being able to burn as a non-root user. WTF?
You need root privileges to write to a cd burner. If you don't like that,
you can change the write permissions on the device, but that is a security
risk. Blaming the author of cdrecord for this is not correct.
> How is this worse than all those "search engine" sites squatting on unused and misspelled
> dowmains?
Those "search engines" are not "squatting" ALL unused and mispelled domains. And do keep in mind
that the squatters are actually owning the domains they are "squatting".
> At least earthlink is trying to provide some meaningful info to their customers.
Meaningful? Abuse of position, you mean.
Did you read that article you linked to?
Advertisement is another word for deception.
> That is nothing new. Linus fills that position for the kernel. Mark has the potential to be that
> for the whole Linux OS. Lets hope he is into Ubuntu for the long haul.
Oh my God, I never hope that Mark becomes that! Ubuntu main goal is to increase market share, and
to achieve that he actively encourages inclusion of binary-only drivers and other propertiary
software. He don't care about hardware manufactures releasing documentation or not.
With people like Mark in charge of "Linux OS" there will come a time where it is very difficult
to use Linux on modern hardware without binary blobs. At that time there is not much "free"
about Linux anymore, except the "freedom" to use blobs.
This, of course, is the fault of the majority of Linux users that are clamouring for the latest
and greatest blob.
That has the following great suggestion:
> I dunno. there's the whole DX10 thing. I still have a feeling, however unfounded, that DX10 will eventually be back-ported to XP.
;-)
That may be, but as I wrote, we don't use XP. Our multimedia needs are modest, so she dont miss XP
> [oblig eve post]Eve-online just this _week_ made Win2k the minimum OS version (which blew me
> away that they were still supporting Win98 clients until this week). How long will XP remain a
> eminently useful OS to the majority of us (or for gaming?)
My wife's Windows 2000 Pro works just fine, and I presume that will not change just because
Microsoft relases Vista. Windows 2000 Pro works quite well, have no annoying activation and will
continue to recieve security updates for a few more years.
> Well, I tried the signup but to my surprise "England is not a recognised country". Even though
> I picked it from their drop down box and it was quite clearly visible and zoomed in on the map.
And SuSE used to be an European company...
When SuSE was bought by Novell, I thought that this might not be to the advantage
of the existing userbase nor to the various open source projects that SuSE previously
(still?) contributed to.
When I used Linux, SuSE was my distribution of choice due to a) documentation (two books),
b) good quality and b) that it was made by an European company. In contrast to many (most?)
Slashdotters - that just want to download for free without ever contributing - I bought several
versions of SuSE.
> I help Linux by purchasing and promoting Microsoft products.[/sarcasm]
Even better: http://www.openbsd.org/orders.html
> He will, in short, learn what it is like to be Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Oh my God! The next Governor of California will be a 16 year old spammer?
> I think the conclusion that he draws is probably correct, but he doesn't really seem
> to explain why. The reason that systems like OS X and Linux are safer than Windows is
> not that launchd runs a shell, but that both Linux and OS X tend to run processes
> that don't need privileges as root.
It is common to run as "not administrator" on a UNIX like system without much pain,
but that is not the case for Windows where users often can do pretty much what they
like. Running as an ordinary user on Windows (yes, it is possible) really increases
security from some types of exploits (many viruses and other malware).
> It sounds like the hack he's describing occurred because he'd installed third-party
> software that ran as a service with an open port, as SYSTEM (i.e., with full
> privileges) and that took over his machine.
You will see many UNIX applications that is difficult to run without root privileges,
and exploitable bugs are quite bad then. OpenBSD has put much effort into making
several applications run with less privileges and chrooted, for instance Apache httpd.
Even if an application is not running with elevated privileges you may still be
hacked. Linux is regulary plagued with local root kernel exploits, for instance, that
ordinary users can use....
> The reason this is less likely (not impossible, just less likely) is because if you
> are running a third party server process on OS X, it's probably a piece of open
> source software like Apache, which has been vetted to within an inch of its life,
> because it is open source, and the many people who care that it is secure have the
> freedom to check that it is secure.
Note that the developers of Apache httpd refused MANY security fixes from OpenBSD,
and you will note that many open source projects are more focused on features than
bugfixing (Ethereal, renamed as Wireshark, comes to mind). Many projects are so big
that checking it thoroughly is out of the reach for just about anybody.
> If you are on 802.11b and are happy with the speed it provides, then stay with what you have.
> If you're unhappy with it, upgrade to 802.11g. If you are are unhappy with 802.11g, well, tough
> luck: as someone else already mentioned, 802.11n isn't coming out until 2008.
802.11a is generally much less crowded than 802.11 b/g and as fast as 802.11g. Wireless
in a crowded area can suck quite bad.
> Why upgrade at all? Unless you can really use the extra speed of 802.11g because you have an
> insane internet speed it's just a waste.
Many places there are quite simply too many nearby using 802.11b/g along with wireless
phones on the same frequency. It is too crowded.
"Upgrading" to 802.11a (different frequencies used than 802.11b/g) will help as there generally
are far fewer 802.11a users. The range may not be the same, though.
The speeds reported are not believeable for a Pentium III M 1.2 GhZ even for just encryption. For comparisons, below is the output of "openssl speed" using a Opteron 170 (dual core, 2 GhZ):
One major change is that KDE is switches to a new build system
> When they open AIX and their Power chips like Sun has done with Solaris and SPARC, then
> they can compare and see how things stack up. For now, its just alot of sour grapes from
> an aging dinosaur to one that has recently been seen rising up again.
Sun could start with releasing hardware docs for SPARCIII and their chipsets.
> Video news releases are packaged stories paid for by businesses or interest groups^W^W^W^W the tax payers.
> The Bush administration has been doing this since day one.
Or held press conferences lying about some subject (like Iraq had WMD) and
the press just parrots that as the truth without any reflection about evidence
or credibility.
> And that's the problem right there. You have to learn, and read, the syntax yourself. That's a lot of work for
;-)
;-)
> just marking up documents, especially since Word or WordPerfect can do a decent job with a lot less of a learning curve.
Depends what you want to mark up
For mathematical oriented papers, nothing beats LaTeX with additional packages. Word, WordPerfect, OpenOffice et al
does a lousy job here.
> And if you are laying out lots of documents professionally, Quark or a competitor is probably worth the investment.
> The learning curve is about the same, and it has more cred outside the geek-world.
Yeah, all those math and physics researchers live in the geek-world
OpenOffice is quite buggy, as porting it to OpenBSD shows that OpenOffice has many stupid bugs