Journal Journal: How to dress for a coding interview 24
Show some confidence - don't wear a suit to the interview. What you wear sends a message as to what your core competencies are. A suit says "Sales," not "Development".
Journal Journal: Freddie macs taxpayers, whips them on the Fannie? 3
At this very moment, Freddie Mac is down more than 48% on the week, and Fannie May is down over 46%.
If you're an American taxpayer, and that doesn't scare the ever-loving hell out of you, you have no idea where your money goes each April.
Package Managers As Achilles Heel 263
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers from the University of Arizona have released a study that takes a look at the security of ten popular package managers. They were able to show all ten were vulnerable to attacks from a mirror or man-in-the-middle that allow an attacker to (along with other things) crash the system or obtain root access. Furthermore, the researchers created a fictitious administrator and company name and were able to lease a server and get it listed as an official mirror for all the distributions they tried (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, and OpenSUSE). This raised the question: What keeps you up at night, the thought of attacks on your package manager or previously discussed and patched vulnerability in DNS?" justin samuel (one of the Arizona researchers) also points out a synopsis on CERT's blog.
Feed Macworld: Band brings creating music to the iPhone (macworld.com)
Submission + - Windows Mobile trouncing iPhone?
nerdyH writes: Apple sold 1.7 million iPhones in Q1. Meanwhile, 4.5 Windows Mobile phones shipped, up 1.8 million over the same quarter last year. The figures were cited by Microsoft's top Windows Mobile exec in a speech yesterday, and reportedly come from IDG. Meanwhile, WindowsForDevices's massive Windows Mobile Showcase now lists over 300 Windows Mobile models, including 50 launched this year.
Submission + - Scientists pave way for 25nm CPUs (custompc.co.uk)
arcticstoat writes: Scientists at the Space Nanotechnology Laboratory at MIT have potentially found a new way of extending Moore's law into the future, and have succeeded in etching a grid of 25nm lines into a silicon wafer.
The new technique creates an 'interference pattern' using a light with a wavelength of 351.1nm. The interference pattern alternates dark and light zones, repeating them every 200nm. This allowed the scientists to etch 25nm lines into a silicon wafer, each of which were spaced 175nm apart. The process was then repeated three times, with a 50nm shift with each repeat, which resulted in an even grid of 25nm lines, spaced 25nm apart.
Submission + - Vulnerabilities Found in All Package Managers 1
justin samuel writes: "CERT has posted to their blog about vulnerabilities found in all popular package managers (apt, yum, YaST, etc.) by University of Arizona researchers. The researchers have released a study that discusses the many security problems they discovered. Among these vulnerabilities, exploitable by malicious mirrors or man-in-the-middle attackers, are some which take advantage of poor usage of cryptographic signatures, leaving the package managers vulnerable to replay attacks. An attacker could use the discovered vulnerabilities to crash a user's system or potentially obtain root access. The researchers showed how easy it is to gain control of an official mirror. Using a fictitious identity, they got their own server listed as an official mirror for all of the distributions they tried (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, and openSUSE). — Disclaimer: I'm one of the researchers."
Wikipedia To Host Human Gene Repository 73
schliz writes "US scientists are developing a 'Gene Wiki' with the aim of fostering a flexible, organic archive of human genetic information. The project exists within Wikipedia, and is expected to speed up the process of deciphering genome sequences."
Moon May Have Once Had Water 89
Smivs writes "US scientists have found
evidence that water was held in the Moon's interior, challenging some elements of the theory of how Earth's satellite formed.The Moon is thought to have been created in a violent collision between Earth and another planet-sized object.
Scientists thought the heat from this impact had vaporised all the water.
But a new study in Nature magazine shows water was delivered to the lunar surface from the interior in volcanic eruptions three billion years ago.
This suggests that water has been a part of the Moon since its early existence."
Submission + - Anti-Game Crusader Jack Thompson to be Disbarred
spielermacher writes: GamePolitics is reporting that Jack Thompson — the lawyer every gamer loves to hate — has apparently lost his court case and is facing disbarment. The Referee in the case has gone beyond the Florida Bar's request for a 10 year disbarment and is recommending a lifetime ban. From the Final Report issued by the court:
"...the Respondent has demonstrated a pattern of conduct to strike out harshly, extensively, repeatedly and willfully to simply try to bring as much difficulty, distraction and anguish to those he considers in opposition to his causes. He does not proceed within the guidelines of appropriate professional behavior..."
All I can say is that it's about time.
Submission + - World map of 1001 different web 2.0 applications
tHe sYtS writes: Dot-com is dead, long live the web 2.0 king. Every day another web 2.0 application launches to take over the world. How long can this last or is this the beginning of the real revolution? The battlefield is mapped in a world map showing 1001 unique web 2.0 applications. They span the globe and are taking over the globe. Hover over a mosaic to get the logo, click to go to the website.
Submission + - Contacting a company hoping to get security work? 1
funnyguy writes: Recently, I was watching my wife show off a web application her company authored and they are apparently partnering with some other companies to share code, etc from this application. It is Internet-based, and from previous experience with her company, was destined to be littered with security flaws. From an initial quick look, the site does seem to be seriously flawed. I want to inform them of the flaw but I also am searching for new clients in my field, computer security, as a consultant. What is the best way to let this company know about the flaw with the possibility of getting a contract (paid!) to do further security analysis and remediation? I basically don't want a "Thanks, we'll look at it" or a "Why are you testing our security?!!!".
Submission + - Develop iPhone Apps with Ruby and Eclipse Part 2
LinucksGirl writes: Although Mobile Safari is more than adequate at rendering normal Web pages, many Web developers created versions of applications aimed at the iPhone. Here in Part 2 of this series learn the common use of drill-down lists as a navigation method. Part 1 of this series took an existing Ruby on Rails Web application and began the process of augmenting it to serve iPhone users.
Feed Techdirt: Too Much Ownership Can Be Bad For The Economy (techdirt.com)
When we talk about intellectual property around here, one of the popular responses from those who disagree with what we say is that "property rights are a central tenant of capitalist economies, and you're trying to take away property rights." That's not quite true. Property rights are indeed an important part of capitalist economies, and we are supporters of property rights -- but only for things where property actually makes sense and is necessary. The whole reason why property rights exist in the first place is to manage the efficient allocation of scarce resources -- that is to make it clear who controls a specific scarce resource. Property rights don't make much sense when a resource isn't scarce, because there need not be any question of how to best allocate it, since anyone who wants it can have it. In those cases, adding property rights actually makes the market less efficient by limiting the allocation.
With that in minds, it's great to see that there's apparently a new book that touches on this very subject. Against Monopoly points us to economist Tyler Cowen's brief review of a new book called: The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives. The book apparently focuses on the "tragedy of the anti-commons," which is the situation when too many limitations are placed on how certain goods can be used. Sounds like an interesting book to add to the collection of books recognizing the economic problems that can come with putting property rights where they don't belong.
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With that in minds, it's great to see that there's apparently a new book that touches on this very subject. Against Monopoly points us to economist Tyler Cowen's brief review of a new book called: The Gridlock Economy: How Too Much Ownership Wrecks Markets, Stops Innovation, and Costs Lives. The book apparently focuses on the "tragedy of the anti-commons," which is the situation when too many limitations are placed on how certain goods can be used. Sounds like an interesting book to add to the collection of books recognizing the economic problems that can come with putting property rights where they don't belong.
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Submission + - Teradyne founder and tech titan Alex d'Arbeloff di (masshightech.com)
An anonymous reader writes: http://www.masshightech.com/stories/2008/07/07/daily35-Teradyne-founder-and-tech-titan-d'Arbeloff-dies.html
Teradyne Inc. co-founder Alexander d'Arbeloff died peacefully yesterday at the age of 80, according to his alma mater, MIT.
A 1949 graduate of MIT, d'Arbeloff was serving as honorary chairman of the MIT Corp., taking the lead in the school's Calculated Risks, Creative Revolutions fundraising campaign. According to MIT officials, that campaign helped launch such facilities as the Ray and Maria Stata Center.
Along with his wife, Brit SM, class of 1961, d'Arbeloff established the d'Arbeloff Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, and created the Fund for Excellence in MIT Education to support teaching innovations in science and engineering. The couple also supported a professorship in the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering.
