gr7 - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Optimistic concurrency (Score 4, Informative) 283

by gr7 on Thursday September 24, 2009 @11:26PM (#29536457) Attached to: Data Locking In a Web Application?

What shimmer says is exactly what you should do with 2 possible additions. Often people leave themselves in a web page for an hour and then start to make edits. So when the user makes the first edit, use ajax to see if there was already an edit done in the meantime so they know before they make lots of changes.

Also you should consider using sequences instead of checking if the data changed. Both are good ideas in certain situations. For example with a table that is only edited once every few months, I use a sequence on the whole table. For a table that is changed 100 times per day by 3 different users, either do row based sequences or check to see if the 'from' part of the changes match the database.

Social Security Numbers Can Be Guessed 268

Posted by timothy on Monday July 06, 2009 @07:14PM from the oh-there's-a-scheme-all-right dept.

BotScout writes "The nation's Social Security numbering scheme has left millions of citizens vulnerable to privacy breaches, according to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, who for the first time have used statistical techniques to predict Social Security numbers solely from an individual's date and location of birth. The researchers used the information they gleaned to predict, in one try, the first five digits of a person's Social Security number 44 percent of the time for 160,000 people born between 1989 and 2003. A Social Security Administration spokesman said the government has long cautioned the private sector against using a social security number as a personal identifier, even as it insists 'there is no fool-proof method for predicting a person's Social Security Number.'" Update: 07/07 00:01 GMT by T : Reader angrytuna links to Wired's coverage of the SSN deduction system, and links to the researchers' FAQ at Carnegie Mellon, which says that the research paper will be presented at BlackHat Las Vegas later this month.

Palm Pre "iTunes Hack" Detailed By DVD Jon 338

Posted by timothy on Thursday June 04, 2009 @01:32PM from the role-playing-game dept.

CNETNate writes "As the reviews of the Palm Pre start to roll in, DVD Jon expands on previous coverage of the Pre showing up in iTunes as some sort of an iPod, by publishing the offending code Palm has used to enabled the feature. As suspected, in regular USB mode, the phone addresses itself as a standard peripheral. But in 'Media Sync' mode, it claims to be an iPod ... from a vendor known as Apple."

What to Do With a $99 Wall Wart Linux Server 346

Posted by kdawson on Friday May 22, 2009 @10:26AM from the best-computer-is-an-invisible-computer dept.

Guanine writes in with a follow-up to our discussion a few months back on the SheevaPlug: 1.2-GHz ARM-compliant processor, 512 MB DDR2, 512 MB flash, USB 2.0, gigabit ethernet, in a package the size of a wall wart, for $99. Saul Hansell's Bits Blog in the NY Times talks about a few applications for such a device, whose price point Hansell claims will drop to $40 before too long. "The first plausible use for the plug computer is to attach one of these gizmos to a USB hard drive. Voila, you've got a network server. Cloud Engines, a startup, has in fact built a $99 plug computer called Pogoplug, that will let you share the files on your hard drive, not only in your home but also anywhere on the Internet. ... [Marvell's CEO said] 'Eventually you won't see the plug. We want this device to be in your TV, your stereo system, your DVD player.'"

California Sec. of State Wants Open Source E-Voting Systems 112

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday September 27, 2008 @09:12AM from the nowhere-to-go-but-up dept.

Lucas123 writes "California's Secretary of State, Debra Bowen, was among a group of e-voting experts at MIT yesterday who said the nation's electronic voting systems are still not secure and many run on faulty software. Among the suggestions offered to fix the problem: use open source software, stop delivering e-voting machines to polling places weeks in advance of an election, and keep a paper trail for auditing purposes. Bowen also believes that a ubiquitous Internet voting system could not work without the use of a national ID card system."

Google To Fund Ideas That Will Change the World 165

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Friday September 26, 2008 @05:20PM from the we-should-all-become-deities-the-end dept.

Peace Corps Online writes "This week, as part of their tenth birthday celebration, Google announced the launch of project ten to the 100th, a project designed to inspire and fund the development of ideas that will help to change the world. They have called on members of the public to share their ideas for solutions that will help as many people as possible in the global community, offering a $10 million prize pool to back the development of those chosen as winners. 'We know there are countless brilliant ideas that need funding and support to come to fruition,' says Bethany Poole, Project Marketing Manager for Google. 'These ideas can be big or small, technology-driven or brilliantly simple — but they need to have impact.' The project's website asks entrants to classify their ideas into one of eight categories listed as Community, Opportunity, Energy, Environment, Health, Education, Shelter and Everything Else. Members of the public have until October 20th to submit their ideas by completing a simple form and answering a few short questions about their idea."

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