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Submission + - Firefox 3.5 Most Popular Browser In The World (statcounter.com) 1

Submitted by gQuigs
gQuigs writes: According to StatCounter Global Statistics the most used browser version on the web is Firefox 3.5. Congrats to Mozilla (and the open web)!

But we can use this as a rallying call to do more. Let's Finish Off IE6 (remove the links to IE8 and Safari if you want, and maybe add one for Opera). And how many of you end up upgrading your family's browsers over the holidays? Good job keeping them safe, but bring everything you need this time on a USB stick, and then get back to enjoying the holidays.
Censorship

Submission + - Galilei was to be burned at the stake

Submitted by orzetto
orzetto writes: Italy's leading newspaper La Repubblica published today (Google translation) the original documents of the prosecution against Galileo Galilei, which are part of a large collection of documents related to Galilei's trial due to be released next month by the Vatican's Secret Archive.
According to these, it was Galilei's prosecutor himself, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who stated that Galilei was no heretic, even though his theories were. Galilei subsequently escaped the burning at the stake, and got away with a relatively mild sentence. Giordano Bruno, for similarly revolutionary astronomical theories—in his case, the existence of multiple planets—was sent to be burned at the stake by the same Cardinal Bellarmine: Bruno, however, did not recant.
Software

Submission + - EFF legal council abandons Shareaza case (pantheraproject.net) 1

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes:

Shareaza's EFF appointed legal counsel has been paid off by Discordia and has abandoned the case. The legal counsel was "pro bono" (free) as the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) asked Barbara Friedman's firm, Hanson Bridgett, to take on the case. It is unethical that she stops giving us counsel while we are in the MIDDLE of a settlement of getting the original domain back. However, I applaud the Electronic Frontier Foundation for helping us in the first place and continuing to help us through this difficult time. All donations to us and to them, are appreciated.

The Shareaza team is urging users to call Barbara L. Friedman (the FORMER Counsel) or to call the EFF and complain that the team urgently needs new council

Comment Re:Woah... (Score 1) 632

by J0nne (#24952175) Attached to: Why Mozilla Is Committed To Using Gecko

Why do you even need to prefetch images? I haven't needed to do that in years. If you use it for rollovers, look into using css sprites. If it's for some fancy javascript stuff, use the javascript image object. If it's something else, please share.
Security

Submission + - Mac, BSD prone to decade old attacks 7

Submitted by BSDer
BSDer writes: An Israeli security researcher published a paper few hours ago, detailing attacks against Mac, OpenBSD and other BSD-style operating systems. The attacks, says Amit Klein from Trusteer enable DNS cache poisoning, IP level traffic analysis, host detection, O/S fingerprinting and in some cases even TCP blind data injection. The irony is that OpenBSD boasted their protection mechanism against those exact attacks when a similar attack against the BIND DNS server was disclosed by the same researcher mid 2007. It seems now that OpenBSD may need to revisit their code and their statements. According to the researcher, another affected party, Apple, refused to commit to any fix timelines. It would be interesting to see their reaction now that this paper is public.
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Ten Storage Strategies for the Home (extremetech.com)

Submitted by
ThinSkin
ThinSkin writes: "Many computer users store data on their computers without a safety net, that is, without properly backing up important information onto an additional storage device. Loyd Case over at ExtremeTech has come up with ten storage strategies for keeping that crucial digital information safe in case of a hard drive failure, fire, and so forth. Some strategies are cheap or cost nothing (storing data online) while other methods will cost you some money, such as setting up a RAID or a NAS (network attached storage)."
The Courts

Submission + - RIAA's Sherman Attacks NewYorkCountryLawyer 4

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "When questioned by a journalist on the viability of the RIAA's "making available" theory of copyright law, Cary Sherman, the organization's Chairman and CEO, responded by saying "It basically comes down to, who ya gonna believe, Ray Beckerman, or the Register of Copyrights?". Beckerman (alias NewYorkCountryLawyer on Slashdot) replied on his blog "I'm sure my readers know what the correct answer to the question is. Question: Who are you going to believe, Ray Beckerman, or the Register of Copyrights? Answer: Neither. I'm going to read the statute and believe what the statute says"."
Security

Submission + - Linux Network Access per User 1

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "I'd like to offer shell access to my users, but have been surprised at the lack of restrictions that I can place on them. Disk space quotas are trivial. But what about bandwidth quotas? What about allowing listening but not outgoing sockets, or perhaps the other way around? Disallowing net access for certain groups? I've found no way to do these things, and the 'ports over 1024' restriction for regular users simply doesn't cut it these days.

I should think that my users could be allowed to run their own server programs if so desired without being allowed to run rampant. It seems that I can either block >1024 incoming at the firewall, or let it be abused.

What would you do?"

Submission + - Keeping track of all your systems

Submitted by FrodoTeeBagins
FrodoTeeBagins writes: Managing multiple servers, programs, and updates is something that IT professionals do everyday. Keeping track of all the servers, passwords, software versions, update history, and logs is becoming a chore that builds up and becomes more complex day by day. What program or method do you use to keep track of all your systems information?
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Ghostly Tech Experiences

Submitted by
thechanklybore
thechanklybore writes: "Earlier today someone logged into one of our systems using my username, and proceeded to alter Apache configuration files. Being a security conscious guy, my boss instantly noticed and notified me.

The strangest thing was that the user was logged in from my IP address. As it turned out in the end, this wasn't some malicious phantom, but a keyboard wedged between my (headless) development machine and my desktop machine, running through my SSH command history!

My question is, have any other Slashdotters had any ghostly technology experiences such as mine?"
Security

Submission + - Is Anti-Virus software dead?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: After stumbling over several unanimous recommendations against using viral scans for your email (which somewhat shattered my security world view), I started to notice a bigger and bigger movement which argues against the use of anti-virus software altogether, as it is ineffective against the main threats of malware, counter-productive (as it eats up system resources), and seems to be more of a "good-luck charm" than anything else.

I have to admit that, even though I deal with loads of suspicious software, I can't even remember when I got the last real virus warning.

So — is it time to dump your anti-virus software, go "commando", and free yourself from the shackles of these system drags?

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