Comment Iceweasel (Score 1) 172
Mozilla might want to add more tracking of its users.
And some people wonder why Debian wants permission to distribute modified versions of Firefox.
I run Iceweasel.
Comment Free Dmitry Sklyarov! (Score 4, Informative) 118
At the time of his arrest, Dmitry Sklyarov was a 27-year-old Russian citizen, Ph.D. student, cryptographer and father of two small children (a 2-1/2 year old son, and a 3-month-old daughter).
Dmitry helped create the Advanced eBook Processor (AEBPR) software for his Russian employer Elcomsoft. According to the company's website, the software permits eBook owners to translate from Adobe's secure eBook format into the more common Portable Document Format (PDF). The software only works on legitimately purchased eBooks. It has been used by blind people to read otherwise-inaccessible PDF user's manuals, and by people who want to move an eBook from one computer to another (just like anyone can move a music CD from the home player to a portable or car).
Dmitry was arrested July 17, 2001 in Las Vegas, NV, at the behest of Adobe Systems, according to the DOJ complaint, and charged with distributing a product designed to circumvent copyright protection measures (the AEBPR). He was eventually released on $50,000 bail and restricted to California. In December 2001, was permitted to return home to Russia with his family. Charges have not been dropped, and he remains subject to prosecution in the US.
Although Dmitry is home now, the case against Elcomsoft is continuing (to the detriment of the company), Dmitry's actions in Russia are controlled by a US court, and DMCA is still the law (to the detriment of everyone). This site will carry updates as they come...
Source: http://www.freesklyarov.org/ (for those who don't remember 2001's Defcon incident)
Canon's Image Verification System Cracked 118
TJNoffy writes "The H Security's H-online reports that 'Hacker Dmitry Sklyarov has succeeded in extracting the secret signing key from numerous digital SLR cameras and has used it to sign modified images which Canon's latest OSK-E3 security kit verifies as legitimate. Canon's Original Data Security System is intended to show whether changes have been made to photographs and to verify date and location information. The system is primarily used for ensuring the integrity of evidence, for reporting accidents and for construction records.'"
Comment Re:The one thing missing (Score 1) 182
It's actually baked into the curriculum -- it's not missing. If you read the announcement website, you can see that it's really about teaching how to contribute, not just be a passive user.
We had 51 applicants for 20 slots. We expanded it to the 30 most enthusiastic people.
Comment Re:great meeting you at the summit (Score 1) 182
:D
You followed me all the way from California, back to Slashdot.... I will put it on the list soon! (Or you can, probably, given this Slashdot post.)
Comment Yuvi Masory and Felice Ford played a huge role too (Score 2, Informative) 182
In my late-night Slashdot writing, I forgot to mention this the summary: Yuvi Masory and Felice Ford played a huge role in organizing the workshop. Yuvi and Felice handled all the logistics, getting all the details down to a T -- that included asking Github for sponsorship, staying up late the night before to organize the students into groups, reserving rooms, and earning the support of Penn computer science.
The workshop was just a pipe dream until Yuri and Felice nailed down all the pieces. My hat's off to them!
Further thanks go out to John Stumpo, Jonathan Simpson, and Zach Goldberg, who all came in from out-of-down to help these students get their feet wet in open source.
Comment If you want to help run a similar event... (Score 4, Informative) 182
Hey all! I'm going to be working on organizing more, similar events going forward.
If you want to stay on top of that, or try to organize an event near you, join the mailing list for OpenHatch events: http://lists.openhatch.org/mailman/listinfo/events
This is part of the OpenHatch project, an ongoing effort to help new contributors get involved in open source. If you want to stay in touch with OpenHatch, join us on #openhatch on irc.freenode.net or follow the links on our "About" page, http://openhatch.org/about/.
Introducing Students To the World of Open Source 182
paulproteus writes "Most computer science students never see a bug tracker, and very few learn about version control. Classes often don't teach the skills needed for participation. So I organized a weekend workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. Total newbies enthusiastically spent the day on IRC, learned git, built a project from source, and read bugs in real projects. I learned that there's no shortage of students that want to get involved."
Submission + - Bringing students to Free and Open Source. (opensource.com)
jargon82 writes: Bringing new, intelligent minds to the ranks of the Free and Open Source community is an important task, and recently some members of this community got together to help spread the knowledge. Asheesh Laroia of the openhatch knows this better than most. The project's goal is to make it easier for anyone with an interest to jump right in and contribute to Free and Open Source Software projects.
To this end, and with some help, an event was held in Philadelphia to bring undergraduates into the FOSS world.
This event took place at the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and involved thirty students from Penn and beyond. These students were hand picked: Each of them applied for a spot at the event, and the only those who were the most excited were chosen to take part. The 2 day long event (the article only covers the first day) aimed to teach these students how to be a part of the community and apply their own skills to the myriad of projects out there, through four modules in online communication, how to get, build, and modify source, project organization, and basic Linux and command line skills.
Events like this point towards a bright future for Free and Open Source software.
To this end, and with some help, an event was held in Philadelphia to bring undergraduates into the FOSS world.
This event took place at the University of Pennsylvania campus in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and involved thirty students from Penn and beyond. These students were hand picked: Each of them applied for a spot at the event, and the only those who were the most excited were chosen to take part. The 2 day long event (the article only covers the first day) aimed to teach these students how to be a part of the community and apply their own skills to the myriad of projects out there, through four modules in online communication, how to get, build, and modify source, project organization, and basic Linux and command line skills.
Events like this point towards a bright future for Free and Open Source software.
Submission + - Introducing students to the world of open source (opensource.com)
paulproteus writes: "Most computer science never see a bug tracker, and very few learn about version control. Classes don't teach the skills needed for participation. So I organized a weekend workshop at the University of Pennsylvania. Total newbies enthusiastically spent the day on IRC, learned git, built a project from source, and read bugs in real projects. I learned that there's no shortage of students that want to get involved."
Submission + - Make your open source project more human (lydiapintscher.de)
paulproteus writes: "For most open source projects, just one new contributor would mean a huge increase in energy. But it's exhausting as a project maintainer to file bugs and watch the patches not flow in.
If you want new team members, try these strategies that focus on one contributor at a time. They're not designed to "scale"; they're designed to feel human."
Submission + - Four days is long enough to wait for a reply (nyud.net)
paulproteus writes: "When you're a new Debian contributor, you send your work to the Debian mentors email list. Then you wait. Maybe you'll get a reply; maybe you'll get feedback; maybe your work will be incorporated into Debian. To make the process less stressful, I'm instituting a deadline: we'll always reply within four days."
Submission + - Thanking new contributors with chocolate cake (openhatch.org)
paulproteus writes: "When your open source project gets a new contributor, it's good to say thanks. For really good work, we sent a chocolate cake to the latest committer to OpenHatch."
Comment Re:Here its the other way around, (Score 1) 151
Two suggestions for you on that front.
- Use a tag to mark certain bugs as "good for newcomers." GNOME has been doing this for years, and a bunch of other projects do it, too. If you want you can get them included in the OpenHatch index.
- Make sure your web page says you want help! If you want to make this really easy, just add a big button for prospective helpers to click. One way to do that is to grab our big green button.
Comment Re:OpenHatch, an "open source involvement engine" (Score 1) 151
Yikes, so we have. Fixing it now, hopefully....
Fixed!
