Slashback: Taplight, Handheld, Samba

Slashback is packed tonight with updates and clarifications on several fronts: read on below for, among other things, BitTorrent download stats after the recent Red Hat 9 release, the BSA's questionable statistical methods when it comes to calculating incentives and losses in the source-secret software world, and (can you believe?) yet another way to assemble an eerie pulsing light fixture.

Click on through for some impressive graphs ... . bramcohen writes "Since RedHat 9 got /.'ed last week there have been over ten thousand complete downloads using BitTorrent. Initial traffic got very high, transferring over a gibibit a second. All throughout the BitTorrent servers, run by volunteers using stock tools, held up just fine. Meanwhile downloads from RedHat Network, only available to subscribers, transferred at a crawl. The third Animatrix also got quite a few downloads. Thanks to everyone who left their downloaders running, and David Stutz and Eike Frost for setting things up."

If you exaggerate enough the first time, subsequent revisions sound like concessions. Russell McOrmond writes "An article in ITBusiness.ca includes references to the methodology of the BSA studies, and how it confuses Free/Libre and Open Source Software with piracy. There are some related articles talking about CAAST/BSA on my work weblog from the past."

Tap, Tap, Tap. feagle814 writes "Recently, I saw a question on Ask Slashdot that intrigued me. The person was asking for ideas relating to building your own glowing and color-changing ball. Being the kind of person to take such a general request for comments and turn it into a personal reason for living, I quickly skimmed the description on ThinkGeek and came up with these requirements for my project:

1. It must meet the generic description of the Ambient Orb,
2. It must cost less than $50 to make,
3. It must be wireless, with at least a 30-foot range, and
4. It must be controllable by home computer.

After much deliberation, I came up with the following solution. I've included pictures and instructions, as well as a recounting of my experiences."

Not just a simulation. Olmy's Jart writes "This is a followup to yesterday's article on "Samba Exploit Discovered, Fixed". Digital Defense has posted an apology to the Samba Team for posting a complete live working exploit (not even a mere "proof of concept", but a zero day rooter) on their site for this vulnerability. The exploit has been taken down, for what that's worth now. This is being reported in an article on ZDNet AU. Digital Defense now claims that this was done without the approval of their management."

Funny, CompUSA is finally selling duplicators, too. Unominous Coward writes "According to this article, the man who planned to install CD copying machines around Australia has withdrawn from the idea. Not surprisingly, this was after a lawsuit by the music industry."

Anyone who would like to buy me one is free to do so. prostoalex writes "Sharp Zaurus deal is back at Home Shopping Network. Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 is $199, but a coupon code HSN4897 knocks the price down by 15%. With standard shipping the order comes to around $173."

We need both more Korean food and more Korean electronics. Jo "directhex" Shields writes "HEXUS.net has completed its extensive messing around with GamePark's GP32 Handheld, which recieved a mention a couple of days ago on Slashdot (and recieved the usual thrashing from members too busy to read the article but not too busy to post trashy ill-informed comments about it).

It should help to clear up a few myths about what the unit is, what it tries to do, and what it succeeds at doing. Read the review, and pass mighty Slashdot Judgement."

Re:sad

[momovt]

What disturbing to me is that they made him sign these statements:

Mr Moore acknowledged: "It is not and has never been the case that [a] person has the right to make a 'back-up' copy in any digital media of [any] commercially released sound recording."

Would this hold up in US court since there is actual written law about the right to "back-up" / "Fair-use"????

Music Industry Piracy Investigation Unit spokesman Michael Speck said the case confirmed use of CD burners constituted a breach of copyright.

"Any legitimate use of them is purely incidental to their main purpose which is to infringe copyright," he said.

How can these people be considered "experts" when they make statements like this!!!

Good to see a company taking responsiblity

[sQuEeDeN]

I was glad to see Digital Defense owning up to their mistake. It's a testament to the strength of a sense of courtesy in the security community. People f*ck up, but they feel bad afterwards.

See ma, even blackhats have emotions!

But it's a 3rd party

[mmol_6453]

Which means they're not likely to get pissed off when people mod it.

You're going to see overclocking, Linux game ports, probably a project for a gcc backend.

Someone's going to hack on a wireless adapter, and get it to run Opera.

When the manufacturers are supportive, or when they don't have billions of dollars, there's all sorts of things you can do.

Re:sad

[cranos]

Umm I hate to tell you this, but rather than this spreading "to" America its spreading "from" America. Ever since the US passed the DMCA RIAA clones around the world have been jumping up and down trying to get their own version installed. Once again America leads the way.

Linear Extrapolations.

[rrsipov]

Unfortunaly, the BSA results are flawed in more ways that the one mentioned in the article. For instance how many of the users who are being listed as pirtates, actually are, but simply would make due without either: a) the pirated software (zero economic gain for piracy reduction) or b) the computer system, useing someone elses (net economic loss). Also what are the economic gains being contributed by people who are using pirated software and who otherwise would, by doing something less productive, or having less money to do other productive things, contributing to the economy. I'm sure others could find many other issues; like what would the price reduction in the pirated software that would convience 10% of pirates to pay.

I'm not saying piracy is "right", although it often is treated as typical theft; that is if I steal a car from a car dealership, not only did I not pay for the car, no one else can buy that particular car. With software piracy you aren't paying, but you don't take away the ablity of someone else to pay, because you don't destroy, or physically make unavailable the original. Again this doesn't mean it isn't wrong, just that it is different, and needs to be discussed with those differences in mind.

Re:To be fair...

[Cutriss]

Oh...and to expand on my MP3 comment...considering the parts/tech that was used in this thing, and its price, these guys are in the wrong business. Microsoft and Clarion never got the AutoPC to take off because they priced it *way* out of the market ($1000 on original release, IIRC), and it had very limited functionality, even with an open SDK. The GP32 is made for under $150, and could *easily* be remounted in a metal casing with a redesigned front-end and stuck in a dash. It'd be a *fabulous* base-unit for a car-computer, and at that price (Let's just say $200), I'd be willing to bet that they'd rack up 10,000 Slashdotters alone waiting, drooling, trying to get their hands on one.

I'd be one of them too. :D

Re:Under $50??

[Koyaanisqatsi]

As he said, if you mess with this stuff you already have it anyway, no need to account for it.