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Operating Systems

Submission + - NetBSD boosts MySQL performance (feyrer.de)

Submitted by
hubertf
hubertf writes: "Andrew Doran, who was recently hired by the NetBSD project to work on NetBSD's SMP implementation, has done a lot of good work, and he has merged some of his work from the vmlocking-branch into NetBSD-current. Effects of this are that time for build.sh on a quad-Opteron went down by ~10%.

Andrew also updated his previous benchmarks, and posted about his recent results: ``Most of the sysbench runs that I've seen to date have sysbench running on the same machine as the database. That's a good test but with the exception of small installations and out-of-band activity, production setups rarely look like that. So I ran sysbench itself on a seperate dual core system.''

There are images that compare NetBSD 3 with NetBSD-current (where most of Andrew's changes are now), and NetBSD-current compared to Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD.

The original benchmarks didn't include Solaris/x86, so Jaime Fournier sat down and repeated the test (on a single system). The results show that NetBSD beats Solaris by ~25% in the ReadOnly test, and that they're about on par in the ReadWrite test, with NetBSD kicking in earlier WRT the number of client threads, but Solaris keeping up longer before they both degrade. The courves are quite similar, and my guess is that there is some room for finetuning there."
Operating Systems

Submission + - NetBSD starts Fundraising Campaign 2007 (netbsd.org)

Submitted by
hubertf
hubertf writes: "The NetBSD Foundation would like to announce its 2007 fundraising campaign. Thanks to donations from earlier this year, we were able to fund a developer to work on NetBSD and we would like to extend that opportunity. We are aiming to raise $50,000 US by the end of the year. Every donation, both major and minor, is welcome and will be put to good use!

We will spend the money with a focus on improving NetBSD's SMP, real-time computing and embedded capabilities. This task requires a lot of work to be done by the NetBSD developers, as well as the provision of the most modern hardware. Thus the main goals are:
  • provide necessary hardware for developers.
  • continue funding developers to work on improving NetBSD.
  • sponsoring developers to work on BSD-related events.
  • focused development, with specific developers funded to work in their areas of expertise.
  • offer bounties for long standing, hard to solve, problems.
We are inviting the NetBSD community and organizations using NetBSD to help us in achieving these goals. This fundraising campaign is an excellent opportunity for everyone to contribute to the NetBSD project and to help us improve NetBSD.

Please read this link more information how to donate. Thanks a lot for your support of the NetBSD project!"
Operating Systems

Submission + - NetBSD Fundraising Campaign 2007

Submitted by
weinem
weinem writes: "The NetBSD Foundation has announced the 2007 fundraising campaign, with the goal to raise at least $50,000 US. The money will be spent to improve and extend the possibilities for NetBSD developers to work on innovations, necessary features and overdue problem solutions. "Every donation, both major and minor, is welcome and will be put to good use!" See the The NetBSD donations web page for the full announcement."
Announcements

Submission + - NetBSD Fundraising Campaign started (netbsd.org)

Submitted by
Daniel Sieger
Daniel Sieger writes: "The NetBSD Foundation would like to announce its 2007 fundraising campaign. Thanks to donations from earlier this year, we were able to fund a developer to work on NetBSD and we would like to extend that opportunity. We are aiming to raise $50,000 US by the end of the year. Every donation, both major and minor, is welcome and will be put to good use!

A lot of work is currently underway in various areas of the NetBSD operating system, the most important focus being the improvement of NetBSD's SMP and embedded capabilities. This task requires a lot of effort on the part of the NetBSD developers, as well as the provision of the most up to date, modern hardware.

We would like to invite the NetBSD community and organizations using NetBSD to help us achieve these goals. This fundraising campaign is an excellent opportunity for everyone to give something back to the NetBSD project and to help us improve NetBSD even more!"
United States

Submission + - Hackers given shot at California voting machines

Submitted by
pilsner.urquell
pilsner.urquell writes: "Sequoia, Hart InterCivic and Diebold have failed to submit voting machines for security review.

WorldNetDaily

Under the state's constitution, [California Secretary of State Debra] Bowen has until Friday, Aug. 3, to certify voting machines for California's February 2008 presidential primary election. California counties have invested millions in acquisition of electronic voting devices and would be hard pressed, both financially and time-wise, to replace equipment within six months.
"
Security

Submission + - Walmart Schooled: Basic Online Security (ghettowebmaster.com)

Submitted by
LoLo
LoLo writes: "In Walmart's infinite wisdom, they didn't bother registering the most common domain typos for their new Walmart MoneyCard website. Being the sweetheart that I am, I went ahead and grabbed a couple of them: wwwwalmartmoneycard.com and almartmoneycard.com. And, I linked both of them to the correct web address and a blog entry explaining all the evil evil bad bad things I could have done with them. I'm not positive but I think this is the first time anyone has used a typo domain in a way that could be argued as "fair use". So, I'm not giving them up."
PHP

Submission + - Open source Timekeeping software

Submitted by sujit
sujit writes: Can the slashdot community throw some light on some simple and open source web-based timekeeping software that allows employees to keep track of their Shifts, apply for time-offs, and other features that would be useful? I've looked for some modules and plugins that could be added to Joomla or Mambo or Drupal but came up with nothing. I wouldn't mind writing one from scratch, but I'd like to find out if there's anything available on the internet that I could use.
Windows

Journal Journal: Microsoft's Real Plan?

Journal by TemporalBeing
What's Microsoft's real plan? With the advent of .Net, the Microsoft/Novell deal, the splitting of Microsoft into three major groups internally, and the impossibility of Windows being developed the same way that Vista was for the the generation of Windows it becomes quite possible that Windows as we know it - with an NT Kernel and all - is no longer the future of Windows. Just how might Microsoft surive? Check out my full blog describing

Chinese Prof Cracks SHA-1 Data Encryption Scheme 416

Posted by Zonk from the mad-math dept.
Hades1010 writes to mention an article in the Epoch Times (a Chinese newspaper) about a brilliant Chinese professor who has cracked her fifth encryption scheme in ten years. This one's a doozy, too: she and her team have taken out the SHA-1 scheme, which includes the (highly thought of) MD5 algorithm. As a result, the U.S. government and major corporations will cease using the scheme within the next few years. From the article: " These two main algorithms are currently the crucial technology that electronic signatures and many other password securities use throughout the international community. They are widely used in banking, securities, and e-commerce. SHA-1 has been recognized as the cornerstone for modern Internet security. According to the article, in the early stages of Wang's research, there were other data encryption researchers who tried to crack it. However, none of them succeeded. This is why in 15 years Hash research had become the domain of hopeless research in many scientists' minds. "
Media

Submission + - Italian judge says P2P OK if it's not for money

Submitted by Paolo DF
Paolo DF writes: Two italian students have been recently condemned (at a three months and ten days confinement) for creating a p2p network sharing movies and music with other students, because they violated two articles of the Italian Copyright Law. Now, the "Corte di Cassazione" wikipedia entry (court of last resort, born to "ensure the observation and the correct interpretation of law") cleared their charges, since that law is about copying for profit, while they weren't making money out of the p2p network.
Here is the story, from the major Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera"
Microsoft

Submission + - Submitting Federal Proposals Requires Windows

Submitted by Petronius Arbiter
Petronius Arbiter writes: The US federal government is requiring that proposals for grants etc be submitted using a common system at http://grants.gov/ . That's would be a good idea, except that, effectively, you must use Windows and Explorer. See http://www.grants.gov/resources/download_software. jsp :

To operate PureEdge Viewer, your computer must meet the following system requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP... PureEdge on Grants.gov will not run within the Firefox browser.


They do have a Citrix substitute for non-Windows users. However:

Note that a limited amount of users can access the Citrix Server at any one time... Finally, you will find the best time to work and submit an application via Citrix is during off-peak hours, usually between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., EST.


Finally, if your organization has more than 10 non-Windows users, they want you to add a dedicated Windows box to handle the traffic.

Why is it legal for the federal government to require applicants to use an expensive, proprietary system with terrible security? This is particularly surprising because many technical people, from program officers to computer administrators, in the government personally like open source and detest MS.

As a crazy guess, over 100,000 different people each year submit proposals. That's 100,000 people who must have MS Windows licenses whether they want to or not.

Anyone who was concerned about the open format fight in Massachusetts last year should be concerned about grants.gov.

Finally, for National Science Foundation clients, this is a big step backwards. NSF has had an excellent online system, http://fastlane.nsf.gov/ for years. Fastlane has no bias towards MS. However, by federal edict, NSF people must also use grants.gov.
Privacy

Submission + - Big brother tracking (and taxing) on UK roads

Submitted by Thanster
Thanster writes: The British government is working on plans to introduce pay per mile with GPS trackers in your car, this has massive big brother implications. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6160877.stm The government's proposal to introduce road pricing will mean you having to purchase a tracking device for your car and paying a monthly bill to use it. The tracking device will cost about £200 and in a recent study by the BBC, the lowest monthly bill was £28 for a rural florist and £194 for a delivery driver. A non working Mum who used the car to take the kids to school paid £86 in one month. On top of this massive increase in tax, you will be tracked. Somebody will know where you are at all times. They will also know how fast you have been going, so even if you accidentally creep over a speed limit you can expect a For any concerned UK slashdotters, a petition has been raised here: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/traveltax/

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