Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:You Just Don't Know When to Shut Up, Do You? (Score 1) 705

by ethan0 (#30338074) Attached to: Woman Filming Sister's Birthday Party Gets Charged With Felony Movie Piracy

The law here is slowly shifting in the other direction. Good example: bulletproof vests. Who's allowed to own them? Govt and police only. The founding fathers would be rolling over in their graves if they heard that. If it had been up to them it'd be the other way around. Make the government's "soldiers" resistant to citizen gunfire and not vice-versa? Defeats the purpose of the amendment to a degree.

Citation? I've never heard of any ban on these in the US. wikipedia seems to indicate there is no such thing except for convicted violent felons.

Comment Re:Wow (Score 1) 502

by ethan0 (#30152954) Attached to: Fedora 12 Lets Users Install Signed Packages, Sans Root Privileges

I'm seeing lots of comments on the security of this, but I'm not seeing how it is insecure. Users can currently install any software they want into their home directory - how is this any different? it goes into a system directory, sure, but that doesn't give the user any more privileges with regard to it.

An possible exception is if the package is setuid root, is runnable by any user, and has some exploit to get the user root. Does this happen? I can't think of what could have this, and it doesn't seem like the package manager should install such things (regardless of known exploitability - bugs do happen) Perhaps if this functionality is applied only to software that does not escalate privileges at all? I would consider that a sensible default, but don't know if that is the case here.
Privacy

German Killers Sue Wikipedia To Remove Their Names 859

Posted by Soulskill from the aim-for-foot-and-pull-trigger dept.
Jason Levine writes "Wolfgang Werlé and Manfred Lauber killed a German actor in 1990. Now that they are out of prison, German law states that they can't be referred to by name in relation to the killings. Therefore, they have sued to get Wikipedia to remove their names from the Wikipedia article about the killings. The German edition of Wikipedia has already complied, but the English edition is citing US freedom of speech and a lack of presence in Germany as reasons why they don't need to remove the name. In a bit of irony, their lawyer e-mailed the NY Times: 'In the spirit of this discussion, I trust that you will not mention my clients' names in your article.'"

Comment Re:Xmarks, KeePass and Encrypted Zip combination (Score 1) 1007

by ethan0 (#30055940) Attached to: Best Tool For Remembering Passwords?

I do something not far off from this, but replace the Xmarks synchronization thing with the portability of the firefox password hasher extension.

1. about the same, make a long master password.
2. use the fiirefox Password Hasher extension: http://wijjo.com/PasswordHasher . It makes a hash using your master password with a site tag to come up with an individual password for each site you're on. So each site doesn't know the password for any other site, and you can either use the extension, or an html file (which calculates the hash with javascript) + copy/paste in order to get the password for any site, portably.

Comment Re:Out of web paper ? (Score 1) 109

by ethan0 (#29868535) Attached to: Anonymous Browsing On Android Phones Using Tor

good question. as far as I can tell:

- story about tor on android goes up at http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/10/26/0130200/Anonymous-Browsing-On-Android-Phones-Using-Tor
- story about tor disappears - that url gives "The item you're trying to view either does not exist, or is not viewable to you."
- story about at&t congestion shows up at http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/10/25/1316233/A-Possible-Cause-of-ATampTs-Wireless-Clog-mdash-Configuration-Errors
- comments from tor story are on at&t story
- a few minutes later, the tor story reappears at the url of the at&t story, but now in the mobile section instead of yro. at&t content disappears from that url.
- at&t story appears as a new story at http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/09/10/26/0152214/A-Possible-Cause-of-ATampTs-Wireless-Clog-mdash-Configuration-Errors

weird.
Businesses

When Do You Fire a Headhunter? 344

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the truth-will-set-you-unemployed dept.
Captain Sarcastic writes "I have been a contract programmer for a few years (with some time off when a contract-for-hire paid off and made me a full-time employee). Currently, I'm between projects, but I'm a little worried about one of the contracting companies who's helping me. First off, a little history. "Zeke" (not his real name) was with ABC Contractors (not their real name) when I first met him, and he took my resume and started processing me through the jobs that ABC had available. A bit later, Zeke left, and his replacement Yvonne (standard disclaimer) submitted me to a company (call them "Acme") for a contract-for-hire. Everything looked like a good fit, and she E-mailed me a copy of the resume they submitted to Acme. Came the interview, I realized that Zeke had left out part of my history and had mis-dated other aspects, to keep me from appearing unemployed. Like an idiot, I tried to correct this at the interview, to find out that Acme had decided that I had fabricated all of my experience, and chewed out the rep for ABC for sending an unqualified applicant. Fine, learning experience for me — double-check what the contracting company says about you, and don't try to correct things in the middle of the interview." Read below for the rest of the story. What other difficulties have others gone through with headhunters and when is it time to leave one behind?
Networking

Suitable Naming Conventions For Workstations? 688

Posted by kdawson from the tune's-my-own-invention dept.
spectre_240sx writes "We've discussed server naming a fair amount in the past, but I haven't seen much about workstations. Where I currently work, we embed a lot of information in our workstation names: site, warranty end date, machine type, etc. I'm of the opinion that this is too much information to overload in the machine name when it can more suitably be stored in the computer description. I'd love to hear how others are naming their workstations and some pros and cons for different naming schemes. Should computers be logically tied to the person that they're currently assigned to, or does that just cause unnecessary work when a machine changes hands? Do the management tools in use make a difference in how workstations are named?"
The Internet

English Wikipedia Reaches 3 Million Articles 192

Posted by CmdrTaco from the next-version-will-have-140-char-limit dept.
FunPika writes "It has taken more than eight years and the work of vast numbers of people around the world, but the English version of Wikipedia has finally amassed more than three million articles. The site broke through the 3 million barrier early on Monday morning UK time, with the honors taken by a short article about Norwegian actor Beate Eriksen — a 48-year-old cast member of a popular local soap opera."
The Almighty Buck

The Outing of Pranknet 543

Posted by timothy from the richly-deserved dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Smoking Gun recently published a story on their investigation and outing of Pranknet, an online cabal that aims to take pranks to the next level. Their legacy includes thousands of dollars of damage, and many harassed souls. Many of the pranks have clear criminal implications. Reading their report may send chills down your collective spines." From the linked article: "Coalescing in an online chat room, members of the group, known as Pranknet, use the telephone to carry out cruel and outrageous hoaxes, which they broadcast live around-the-clock on the Internet. Masquerading as hotel employees, emergency service workers, and representatives of fire alarm companies, 'Dex' and his cohorts have successfully prodded unwitting victims to destroy hotel rooms and lobbies, set off sprinkler systems, activate fire alarms, and damage assorted fast food restaurants. But while Pranknet's hoaxes have caused millions of dollars in damages, it is the group's efforts to degrade and frighten targets that makes it even more odious ..."
PlayStation (Games)

Ads Retroactively Added To Wipeout HD, Soon Others 299

Posted by Soulskill from the brought-to-you-by-frungy,-the-sport-of-kings dept.
An anonymous reader writes "American users of Wipeout HD might have noticed that there's an advertisement showing up all of a sudden during loading, both during online and offline play. This, according to a poster on the well-known gaming forum NeoGAF, is being done covertly. The writer suspects that the display software was installed during update 2.01, and the ad-content is now being snuck in. Gamasutra has a story on the company responsible for the software to deliver these ads, Double Fusion, which said it plans to launch in-game advertising in 'another handful' of PS3 games by the end of the year. So, what's next? Can we look forward to fighting the Kool-Aid Man and zombified Mars bars in Uncharted, or is there anything that can be done to hinder companies from adding advertisements retroactively, without the customer's prior knowledge?"
Games

Ubisoft Working On a New Anti-Piracy Tool 377

Posted by Soulskill from the surely-to-be-welcomed-with-open-arms dept.
Ubisoft recently revealed that their game sales have seen a 50% drop over the past quarter, blaming the overall market slowdown and piracy (particularly on the DS) for the low numbers. They also announced that four of their games, including Splinter Cell: Conviction and Red Steel 2, would be delayed until 2010. The company's CEO, Yves Guillemot, now says they are working on a new anti-piracy tool that should be ready by the end of 2009. He didn't offer any details about how it would be implemented.
Books

Jeff Bezos Offers Apology For Erasing 1984 437

Posted by timothy from the always-been-sorry-about-erasing-1984 dept.
levicivita writes "From the down-but-not-out NYT comes an article (warning: login may be required) about user backlash against Kindle's embedded DRM: 'Last week, Jeffrey P. Bezos, chief executive of Amazon, offered an apparently heartfelt and anguished mea culpa to customers whose digital editions of George Orwell's "1984" were remotely deleted from their Kindle reading devices. Though copies of the books were sold by a bookseller that did not have legal rights to the novel, Mr. Bezos wrote on a company forum that Amazon's "'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles."' Bezos's post is here."
Businesses

Reasons To Hesitate On Zer01's Unlimited Mobile Offer 122

Posted by timothy from the past-performance-no-guarantee-but-it's-a-big-hint dept.
alphadogg writes with an excerpt from Network World that might save you some money: "Imagine downloading a two-hour HD movie in three minutes to your new cell phone, then plugging the phone into your TV to watch the film. Make unlimited phone calls, surf online as much as you like and send unlimited text messaging for $70 a month, without a contract. Sign up to sell the same service to other people and get $10 a month for each person you sell to. That's what a group of related companies including Zer01 Mobile, Buzzirk, Global Verge and Unified Technologies Group are promoting heavily online and at industry trade shows. The offer is attractive enough to garner coverage in top business and technology publications, at least one positive review from an analyst and even a 'best in show' award from a magazine at the CTIA wireless industry trade show earlier this year. Does it all sound too good to be true? If so, that's because it probably is. What little information is available about the services is technically inconsistent, and doesn't match up with public records."

Slashdot Top Deals

If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it. -- Stanley Garn

Close