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Comment Who remembers it? (Score 3, Interesting) 120

Loph who?...
What cracks?
12 years? That's pretty old stuff. Who needs it?
Does it work on iPhone?
Can I crack my XBox with it?

Really people, I bet that 90% of slashdotters are still wondering what is L0phtCrack and how can you eat it.
I waited for 10 minutes. No replies. Mute reaction.

L0phtCrack, and their creators, the "L0pht Heavy Industries" group, were once shinning stars inside the Hacker community. Now who remembers them? There are not even scriptkiddies around, all society is a scripkiddy.

L0pht people also created the "tool that never got its true name" - "netcat", which can only be found in most *nix systems as "nc". Pretty great tool, just two weeks ago I used it, once again, for more than 11 years.

Hail to you guys, happy to see you around.

And Hail to the Cow!

The Internet

Submission + - The Homeless Stay Wired

theodp writes: "San Franciscan Charles Pitts has accounts on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. He runs a Yahoo forum, reads news online and keeps in touch with friends via email. Nothing unusual, right? Except Pitts has been homeless for two years and manages this digital lifestyle from his residence under a highway bridge. Thanks to cheap computers, free Internet access and sheer determination, the WSJ reports that being homeless isn't stopping some from staying wired. 'You don't need a TV. You don't need a radio. You don't even need a newspaper,' says Pitts. 'But you need the Internet.'"
Music

Submission + - Software Enables Re-Creation of 'Lost' Instrument

Hugh Pickens writes: "BBC reports that the Lituus, a 2.4m (8ft) -long trumpet-like instrument, was played in Ancient Rome but fell out of use some 300 years ago. Bach's even composed a motet (a choral musical composition) for the Lituus, one of the last pieces of music written for the instrument.. But until now, no one had a clear idea of what this instrument looked or sounded like until researchers at Edinburgh University developed software that enabled them to design the Lituus even though no one alive today has heard, played or even seen a picture of this forgotten instrument. The team started with cross-section diagrams of instruments they believed to be similar to the Lituus and the range of notes it played. "The software used this data to design an elegant, usable instrument with the required acoustic and tonal qualities. The key was to ensure that the design we generated would not only sound right but look right as well," says Professor Murray Campbell. "Crucially, the final design produced by the software could have been made by a manufacturer in Bach's time without too much difficulty." Performed by the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis (SCB) the Lituus produced a piercing trumpet-like sound interleaving with the vocals in an experimental performance of Bach's "O Jesu Christ, meins lebens licht" in Switzerland earlier this year giving the music a haunting feel that can't be reproduced by modern instruments. The software opens up the possibility that brass instruments could be customized more closely to the needs of individual players in the future — catering more closely for the differing needs of jazz, classical and other players all over the world. "Sophisticated computer modelling software has a huge role to play in the way we make music in the future.""

Comment Re:New military branch needed (Score 1) 131

As someone who had a face to face with Military Intelligence I would concord with your words on MI but I would note you that the question is not capability but crime. Crime is not capability. It is a process which, at least, degradates the very frame of society in every level and form.

If we have a crime gang going wild, we need to track not only their capabilities but also their relations motives and modus vivendi. And note, I am writing "capabilities" in plural. Now how in MI conditions can you give a solution to this problem? Sincerly? Not even the police forces have an answer for it! How the MI will have? The whole problem is to mitigate, as much as possible the threat. If you can take them down, great. If you are taking down a capability and giving them more strength... Hey, pal, you are probably creating a hurricane out of a cup of water.

If crime is the intent, we shall fight crime, not the means. Now I agree that the means, today, are pretty near to military capabilities. Anyway, Internet is DARPA's daughter isn't it? So I do agree that MI has something to do here. But not to rule the game. That's stupid if you just count for the fact that you are dealing with a foe with "capabilities".

And besides, military are very, very approachable by crime gangs of all sorts. You may try to tell me that these are unfortunate exceptions and sad cases. You may even stand high for your brass and state, straightforwardly, that such thing ain't possible on MI. Unfortunately I know of a MI group, in a certain country, that has been using cybergangs and being used by them. What I saw is too far from the usual MI task and looks like a pornographic variant of "Catch 22".

Oh, btw. An US staunch ally but likes to use US resources... Wonder what your cybercommand would do with them.

Comment Go to the very beginning of 'Evil' (Score 1) 253

It starts while you are graduating.

A big chunk, quite a huge piece of graduation diploms, certificates etc. (depends on each country) are based in the most rabid form of falsifications - "copy/past". They are presented as something new, at least as a "new" variation of a well known theme, however there is nothing new on it. Just the same stufff written in different words.

The sad fact is that faculties and science departments accept it.

The good thing is that the large majority of these graduates will stay well away from science. Yes, they still will make damage, ex. CEO I had to deal with. He claimed in every possible corner he finished Oxford in finances (he did study in Oxford) but was unable to calculate an average. The guy sent the company 2 million dollars directly under the bottom and we had a great time, full of all sorts of fun, to recover the damage.

But some of these people do enter science! And that's where things start to go boost. I saw some people getting high positions on faculties just for one fact - they write too much and speak a lot. Really, nothing else. A seminar costs money, you send this bla-bla-bla over there. It is not a big matter that he hasn't found nothing new except a new way to describe gravity in words and funny pics. He goes there, makes his new discovery a literature best-seller, puts everyone wondering about his colorful PowerPoint diagrams. That's all folks! Seminar's monny is in the safe. And your bla-bla-bla will be published in the next Annals. So, more monny-monny may come.

Really I think that analysis are terribly skewed. My belief is that we have a lot more crap going around, desguised in small and very specific publications that no ones take into account. Why? Because it's crap from the very start! So why to take the task to read it? But such attitude hides the real dimension of the problem.

Comment Re:hurt the wrong people more (Score 1) 173

I would note that during both Iraq wars there were reports that US & Allies could not completely take down Irak's network grid. There was even some anecdotical evidence due to fiber optics being used.

"As far as it can be cut off"... Well the last on the list will probably be those with the weapons, which makes such moves rather unproductive. Civilians loose phone and network links while the military or terrorist keep browsing Google Maps.

One doesn't need to go so far as to Iraq... Pakistan, Swat. Taliban carries a whole spectra of communication devices, they even directly call CNN for their "daily comment". Meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of civilians stranded in the valley nearly without anything. Each time any one of them reaches a working phone it is a call of despair and anger.

Comment Re:"U.S. Enemies"? (Score 1) 173

Agree. But one shall take into account that Syria, while helping organisations clearly linked to terrorism, does not make threats against the US. On the contrary it has a policy to avoid directly harassing the US. On the other side, there is that interesting country of Libya.... That did not only made threats... Right?

Where are they now?

BTW, no long ago I took a look at a large book made in the US about Libya's mineral resources. Really fantastic, a super-detailed report on the best of the best Libya has "to offer" the Am... the world, the world.

So, it seems that the question is no only about who supports what.
 

Comment Re:"U.S. Enemies"? (Score 2, Informative) 173

The problem is purely economical. If one gets the chronology right, things went bad between US and Cuba when Fidel wanted to get a little bit of Cuba for cubans themselves. Back them 99,9% of Cuba was US, the "little garden" on the Caribbean.

Was it a burst of emotion or something else? The fact is that Fidel nationalized all Cuba! And the US made a pretty messy fuss out of that. Upon which Fidel answered with a fuss of world proportions. Remember the Missile Crisis?

Now the fact is that not only Fidel, or the Castros don't want the US in Cuba. Every single cuban I talked with, strongly stated - everything but the US back. Till now they cannot forgive the US what happened till the Castros. Also they cannot forgive the US what happened later, in the way on how it happened. The word "Pigs" are usually strongly remarked when a cuban talks about a specific bay.

They will support the Castros even if the US becomes communist. Really. Because their wish is nil economic US presence on Cuba. That's how they see things after what happened. Yes it is mostly allergy but that's the way things came into what we have now in Cuba.

But can the US even imagine to accept this?

Comment Re:"U.S. Enemies"? (Score 1) 173

There were and probably still are several american interests in Myanmar/Burma. Not matter the presence, the regime there is still the same. And the response they made to the huge cyclone that slashed nearly all the country is, at least, barbaric.

Cuba, with its record, had recently to deal with a no less damaging hurricane. Their response was such that I read, a few months ago, that Texas officials were eager to go to Havana to get acquainted with their methods.

Comment Silly rules (Score 2, Interesting) 173

Anyway that will not impair Fidel Castro of browsing Google News through Chavez's personal proxy, right?
Or it will not stop Ahmenidjad of reading all those funny books on US rocket programs he already got from googling... Besides he already bookmarked all the stuff.
Anyway I think it will be more damaging the fact that information, on what people think of these countries, is being blocked to them...

Eeeee, stop... North Korea was taken out of terrorism support list a little before they started to mess around with missiles and nukes. Well, missiles and nukes, they already had isn't it? Yes, it could be possible that Kim just decided to google a little bit and found the reason for that litlte meany bug that was plaguing his rockets. But the man went really mad, he is blasting a rocket every day and scrapping every piece of paper he signed. He's cursing the whole world and threatening pure harakiri. Maybe because of such things as this?:

http://www.nkeconwatch.com/north-korea-uncovered-google-earth/

So long for secretive North Korea...

Censorship

Microsoft Not the Only Firm Blocking IM Service To US Enemies 173

ericatcw writes "It was reported last week that Microsoft had cut access to its Windows Live Messenger instant messaging service to citizens of five countries with whom the US has trade embargoes. Now, it turns out that Google and, apparently, AOL have taken similar actions. According to a lawyer quoted by Computerworld, even free, downloaded apps are viewed as 'exports' by the US government — meaning totally in-the-cloud services such as e-mail may escape the rules. Either way, there appear to be a number of ways determined citizens of Syria, Iran, and Cuba can get around the ban."
Power

Submission + - Future of LED Lighting is Looking Bright

Hugh Pickens writes: "LED lighting was once relegated to basketball scoreboards, cellphone consoles, traffic lights and colored Christmas lights but the NY Times reports that as a result of rapid developments in the technology, LED lighting is now poised to become common on streets and in buildings, as well as in homes and offices. Some American cities, including Ann Arbor, Mich., and Raleigh, N.C., are using the lights to illuminate streets and parking garages and dozens more are exploring the technology as studies suggest that a complete conversion to the lights could decrease carbon dioxide emissions from electric power use for lighting by up to 50 percent in just over 20 years. LEDs are more than twice as efficient as compact fluorescent bulbs, currently the standard for greener lighting and unlike compact fluorescents, LEDs turn on quickly and are compatible with dimmer switches. Thanks in part to the injection of federal cash, sales of the lights in new "solid state" fixtures — a $297 million industry in 2007 — are likely to become a near-billion-dollar industry by 2013. Wal-Mart Stores has started selling a consumer LED bulb that uses just seven watts of electricity and claims to last for more than 13 years. It costs around $35 — a daunting price tag for a light bulb. "We're kind of testing the waters," says Rand Waddoups, Wal-Mart's senior director of strategy and sustainability. "This is a behavior change, and that requires some work.""

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