Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Blockbuster (Score 1) 291

by Fez (#34226404) Attached to: Why There's Still No Netflix App For Android

So what is Blockbuster doing to appease the studio execs?

There is a Blockbuster app to stream movies on my Droid X, but I won't use it. They want to charge per movie instead of including access as part of my Blockbuster-by-mail subscription.

Seems Netflix is caving in more and more to the studios lately, between the delays in some new releases and this mess. I find it hard to believe this is a technical problem, someone is probably paying them to not do it.
Businesses

Market Data Firm Spots the Tracks of Bizarre Robot Trading 483

Posted by timothy from the tessier-ashpool-at-work dept.
jamie spotted a fascinating story at The Atlantic about "mysterious and possibly nefarious trading algorithms [that] are operating every minute of every day in" the stock market: "Unknown entities for unknown reasons are sending thousands of orders a second through the electronic stock exchanges with no intent to actually trade. Often, the buy or sell prices that they are offering are so far from the market price that there's no way they'd ever be part of a trade. The bots sketch out odd patterns with their orders, leaving patterns in the data that are largely invisible to market participants." Spotting the behavior of these bots was possible by looking at much finer time slices than casual traders ever see — cool detective work, but as the story points out, discovering it is just the beginning: "[W]e're witnessing a market phenomenon that is not easily explained. And it's really bizarre."
Programming

Submission + - Rakudo Star - "early adopter" Perl 6, released (rakudo.org) 4

Submitted by masak
masak writes: The developers of Rakudo, an actively developed implementation of Perl 6, give you their first "Rakudo Star" release. Quoting the announcement: 'These "Star" releases are intended to make Perl 6 more widely available to programmers, grow the Perl 6 codebase, and gain additional end-user feedback about the Perl 6 language and Rakudo's implementation of it.' It's been a long wait, and not everything is in place yet, but Perl 6 is definitely feeling less vapor-y today.

Comment Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score 1) 179

by Fez (#32931878) Attached to: Millions of Home Routers Are Hackable

We've got lots of good suggestions up here:

http://doc.pfsense.org/index.php/Boot_Troubleshooting

There are some problems with certain equipment, but it can usually be sorted out.

You can get an ALIX with no moving parts and only draws about 5W of power for under $200, but probably couldn't run snort. They make great firewalls though for most cases. An atom 330-based 1U Supermicro server barebones kit can be found at Newegg for about $280 or so. Those only draw about 35W.

A lot cheaper than replacing them with a desktop-class PC, unless you have spare parts laying around. :-)

Comment Re:MOD PARENT UP (Score 1) 179

by Fez (#32927484) Attached to: Millions of Home Routers Are Hackable

You're probably paying more in electricity to run that old box than it's worth :-)

There are DNS rebinding attack protections in pfSense 2.0, but it's still in beta. The changes may be backported or at least show up as a "package" that can be installed, but that would still require being on at least 1.2.3.

More info in the forum: http://forum.pfsense.org/index.php/topic,26368.0.html
Space

The Sun's Odd Behavior 285

Posted by Soulskill from the to-be-fair-it-was-a-little-tipsy dept.
gyrogeerloose writes "Most of us know about the sun's eleven-year activity cycle. However, relatively few other than scientists (and amateur radio operators) are aware that the current solar minimum has lasted much longer than expected. The last solar cycle, Cycle 24, bottomed out in 2008, and Cycle 25 should be well on its way towards maximum by now, but the sun has remained unusually quiescent with very few sunspots. While solar physicists agree that this is odd, the explanation remains elusive."
Security

India, China Try Import Regulations As Security Tools 108

Posted by timothy from the you-can't-enter-our-theme-park dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports that the Chinese government is forcing vendors to cough up the source code to their encryption alogrithms before they can sell their equipment to the Chinese government. The EU doesn't seem to like it, but if I were in their position I'd want the same thing." China's biggest neighbor goes further; another anonymous reader writes "Telco equipment from China could have spyware that gives access to telcom networks in India. The Indian government has officially told mobile operators not to import any equipment manufactured by Chinese vendors, including Huawei and ZTE. The ban order follows concerns raised by the Home Ministry that telecom equipment from some countries could have spyware or malware that gives intelligence agencies across the border access to telecom networks in India. The biggest gainers from the move could be Ericsson, Nokia, and Siemens, which have been losing market share to aggressive Chinese equipment-makers in India."
Wireless Networking

Open Source Router To Replace WRT54GL? 344

Posted by timothy from the need-a-beamer dept.
jeremyz writes "With the inclusion of 802.11n in more and more Wi-Fi devices, the WRT54GL is losing its usefulness, even though it's still the de-facto standard for open source, Linux-running wireless routers. I've been looking around for a 802.11n router to replace the WRT54GL, but haven't really found anything besides the Netgear's WNR3500L. At first look, the WNR3500L looked great, but after some further investigation, I found that Netgear hasn't released all of the source, as they should have to comply with the GPL. Are there any good 802.11n routers to replace my aging WRT54GL?"
The Media

C-Span Posts Full Archives Online 115

Posted by kdawson from the but-no-perl-libraries dept.
An anonymous reader sends word that C-Span has completed its project of making all of its footage available online. "The archives, at C-SpanVideo.org, cover 23 years of history and five presidential administrations and are sure to provide new fodder for pundits and politicians alike. The network will formally announce the completion of the C-Span Video Library on Wednesday. Having free online access to the more than 160,000 hours of C-Span footage is like being able to Google political history using the "I Feel Lucky" button every time,' said Rachel Maddow, the liberal MSNBC host."
Earth

Breaking the Squid Barrier 126

Posted by timothy from the calimari-for-the-5000 dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Steve O'Shea of Auckland, New Zealand is attempting to break the record for keeping deep sea squid alive in captivity, with the goal of being able to raise a giant squid one day. Right now, he's raising the broad squid, sepioteuthis australis, from egg masses found in seaweed. This is a lot harder than it sounds, because the squid he's studying grow rapidly and eat only live prey, making it hard for them to keep the squid from becoming prey themselves. If his research works out, you might one day be able to visit an aquarium and see giant squid."

Comment Re:PFSense (Score 1) 268

by Fez (#30784378) Attached to: Powerful Linux ISP Router Distribution?

The act of building your own CD or install image is covered here:

http://devwiki.pfsense.org/DevelopersBootStrapAndDevIso

If you're just interested in the tools, patches, and scripts that build the system, they can be found in the pfSense "tools" repo here:

https://rcs.pfsense.org/

The code for the different pfSense branches is also there, as well as the code for the livecd repo based on freesbie2.

If you have a spare FreeBSD box (or a VM) it isn't too hard to follow the how-to and make an image, but the instructions only cover a fraction of what it is capable of doing. That one tools repo contains the scripts to build everything: LiveCD ISOs, Firmware update files, Embedded images, you name it.

If you want to know more, check out the forums or ask on freenode, someone is usually around who is familiar with the process.

Comment Re:Just use any Linux distro (Score 1) 268

by Fez (#30778744) Attached to: Powerful Linux ISP Router Distribution?

Jar,

The DNS issue sounds like a good question for the pfSense forums (http://forum.pfsense.org) or if you are on freenode, try ##pfSense.

A little more information about your setup would be needed to say much of anything for certain (e.g. DNS configuration on pfSense, use of the DNS forwarder, DNS servers specified in the DHCP config, etc.)

Comment Re:PFSense (Score 1) 268

by Fez (#30778710) Attached to: Powerful Linux ISP Router Distribution?

crunchgen is not used anywhere in pfSense (in fact the crunchgen binary is removed as part of its build process).

Yes, you can get the same functionality by manually installing all of the included software on a bare OS, but you lose the GUI, configuration code, backup system, ease of use, extra patches used by pfSense, and lots of other functionality. Incidentally you also gain other functionality by using the base OS, but it's always a trade-off.

I'm not saying pfSense is the answer to everything, but it's been more than capable of anything I've tossed at it from lots of wacky scenarios, and then some.

(As stated elsewhere in this topic, I am one of many pfSense developers, so I am a little biased :-)

Comment Re:Mutually exclusive (Score 1) 268

by Fez (#30777808) Attached to: Powerful Linux ISP Router Distribution?

They're good in the EU, and if you are in the US, http://www.netgate.com/ also sells systems pre-loaded with pfSense or m0n0wall.

I typically prefer the build-it-myself path for the larger systems, but we've bought several ALIX kits from Netgate. Their ALIX cases are nice (reversible lid that can hide/expose antenna holes for wifi is a nice touch)

Comment Re:Screw Linux (Score 2, Informative) 268

by Fez (#30773106) Attached to: Powerful Linux ISP Router Distribution?

pfSense 2.0 will solve the multi-wan traffic shaping limitation, and it's in beta right now. As for the multi-wan glitches, I'm not sure when the last time you tried it was, but the outbound load balancer was redone in 1.2.3 and 2.0 will have even more changes as well.

I run an ISP and we use a pfSense CARP cluster in front of our servers and it's worked great for us, but admittedly we are a small ISP. We also use it at more than a dozen customer sites. Everyone loves it.

Slashdot Top Deals

Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.

Close