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Comment Re:indeed (Score 1) 1231

Y'know what this kind of bitching, hey download and test the beta builds, contribute to debugging; is fine for the technically inclined out there but you release it to the general public they won't even know what the hell you're talking about. Btw, why are there so many regressions anyway? Wifi worked in 8.04, I didn't expect to *break* in a clean install of 8.10 among numerous other issues. If you can really say "well expect things to break that already work, tough shit" you're a tool of unimaginable magnitude.

Comment Obscene (Score 1) 229

Well a lot of games involve violence of some sort as critical to gameplay, FPS being a favourite of mine where the objective is to annhilate occasionally with good strategy. Games with a sexual objective? Not so much. Of course there could be just as well. However apart from this it's interesting to note just what society calls 'obscene' in Indian movies a hint of sexuality gets a movie's rating bumped up a couple age groups but a movie I once saw which had systematic hunting down and killing people in crazy ways (including being decapitated by a flying car door from a car exploding) and having a head sheared off with brute force, this got a fucking G rating. While matrix 3 with it's tiny no parts visible sex in the beginning automatically gets that an R rating. There's hypocrisy for you.
Enlightenment

Submission + - How should dreamy but geeky girl look like?

Fotograf Stuttgart writes: I have been contracted to make a geeky calendar for one IT management company. They need basically girls in geeky environment but should not be clique like many others. Basically we are looking for fresh ideas for each month environment with one theme — cute geeky girl (with possibly some nerds around) rules the day of her coworkers while saving the world from cyber attack, etc. Following women in IT, Girl's day and other activities here in Germany. Girls will (except two) not be from IT, but will be H&Med to look like your ideas. Calendar will be R rated (so -partially — hidden nudity is fine) and B&W. Good submissions will be paid back to community by CC licensed PDF of final version. While we have many own ideas, we welcome your comments and want to use the "based on IT community dreams" subtitle. So question is, how would the best each month art photo from geeky environment look like? Thank You!
Privacy

Submission + - Why is anonymity stigmatized on slashdot?

An anonymous reader writes: Saying people on slashdot value privacy should be an understatement with the reaction any political invasion of privacy gets.
However, the attitude of slashdotters to the anonymous posters can be very hostile with several people saying they wouldn't read anonymous posts. Slashdot itself somewhat criticizes it with the title 'Anonymous Coward(on)' or the user preferences page where it refers to not "hiding..behind cowardly anonymity" and such. Granted anyone who really needed anonymity would not be bothered by that but still.
What's up with that?

Comment A business decision (Score 2, Insightful) 644

First I thought ASUS had crossed the line, it's one thing to promote MS and it's another to trash linux. Especially since it had become wildly popular because of its linux version and all the cool things you could now do with a open system on a tiny computer. Obviously I am outraged (damnit stupid think-of-the-children types have usurped that word). Then I thought about their point of view. They get cash from microsoft, free publicity and a 0.1% of population of outraged geeks and nerds. Looks like a great strategy to sell more laptops while burning any cred they had with the open source crowd. Fuck 'em.

Comment Misplaced Hysteria (Score 1) 445

"Google released a statement yesterday saying it was complying with the Brazilian court orders following a ruling Thursday by a Brazilian judge that threatened Google with a fine of $23,000 a day for noncompliance." from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/01/AR2006090100608.html They had a court order, it was fine. No need to get all pissy about it.
Security

Submission + - VM-based rootkits proved easily detectable (stanford.edu)

paleshadows writes: A year and a half has passed since SubVirt, the first VMM (virtual machine monitor) based rootkit, was introduced. The idea spawned two lively slashdot discussions: the first, which followed the initial report about SubVirt, and the second, which was conducted after Joanna Rutkowska has recycled the idea (apparently without giving credit to the initial authors). Conversely, in this year's HotOS workshop, researchers from Stanford, CMU, VMware, and XenSource have published a paper titled " Compatibility Is Not Transparency: VMM Detection Myths and Realities" which shows that VMM-based rootkits are actually easily detectable. The introduction of the paper explains that

"While commodity VMMs conform to the PC architecture, virtual implementations of this architecture differ substantially from physical implementations. These differences are not incidental: performance demands and practical engineering limitations necessitate divergences (sometimes radical ones) from native hardware, both in semantics and performance. Consequently, we believe the potential for preventing VMM detection under close scrutiny is illusory — and fundamentally in conflict with the technical limitations of virtualized platforms."

The paper concludes by saying that

"Perhaps the most concise argument against the utility of VMBRs (VM-based rootkits) is: "Why bother?" VMBRs change the malware defender's problem from a very difficult one (discovering whether the trusted computing base of a system has been compromised), to the much easier problem of detecting a VMM."

Security

Submission + - Hackers Unite For Burmese Freedom (thesietch.org)

farnishk writes: "The Burmese military government (junta) has held 50 million Burmese people under an iron fist for 20 years, and effectively under a dictatorship since 1962. Free communication with the outside world is strictly controlled and filtered, and all media is effectively state controlled: "The state controls Burma's main broadcasters and publications. For the most part, the media are propaganda tools and tend not to report opposing views except to criticise them. Editors and reporters are answerable to the military authorities." (BBC News) Bloggers and other cyber activists within Burma risk their lives by publishing any information counter to the government line, but they still do it because they believe that freedom of expression is worth that sacrifice. You don't have to make such a sacrifice, but if you have computer skills, can breach firewalls, routers and web site security then you could greatly assist the people of Burma. By taking down official Burmese government propaganda and posting pictures, information about the protests, information about the lies of the Burmese junta, and news of the huge support being offered by the rest of the world — preferably in Burmese — then you could help free the people from this terrible regime. The suggested targets — which are perfectly legal to hack into from most countries — are listed on the page http://www.blog.thesietch.org/2007/09/29/hackers-unite-for-burmese-freedom/."
Programming

Submission + - How to be a better programmer without college 1

Joshua_15 writes: I've worked as a developer for about 10 years now. I have several certifications but not a lot of college or computer science training. What options are out there for those of us who can not afford to go to college (or do not have the time) to pick up on some more advanced programming and computer science principles? How do you go from self taught programmer to kernel hacker? What comes after teach yourself PHP in 24 hours?
Security

Submission + - Oft-Burglarized Store Uses Hidden GPS (wpxi.com)

dave981 writes: This story takes RFID tag security to the next level — GPS tags that call home: After five burglaries at his store this summer, Chris Rowland decided to plant Global Positioning System devices in some of his merchandise. The decision paid off with burglary No. 6. The devices informed Rowland that the stolen items were at an apartment complex less than half a mile from his store. Later, the devices showed the merchandise had been moved to a house in Lawrence. Rowland called police, who recovered the merchandise.
Linux Business

Submission + - OpenSource Revenue Model Flawed 4

An anonymous reader writes: If the standard revenue model for OpenSource software is to charge for the support of the software, what incentive is there to produce truly reliable products? Obviously if the software worked perfectly and easily there would be little need for product support.
Competition alone is clearly not enough to ensure companies pursue perfection. As the current closed source market shows, consumers are more than happy to use buggy, poorly designed wares as long as its familiar and common place.
Intel

Submission + - End of Moore's Law in 10-15 years? (wired.com) 1

javipas writes: "In 1965 Gordon Moore — Intel's co-founder — predicted that the number of transistors on integrated circuits would double every two years. Moore's Law has been with us for over 40 years, but it seems that the limits of microelectronics are now not that far from us. Moore has predicted the end of his own law in 10 to 15 years, but he predicted that end before, and failed."
Biotech

Submission + - Researcher plans on sperm-based LEDs (uc.edu)

Wandalf writes: A press release by the University of Cincinnati reveals that professor Andrew Steckl, in his search for top quality biological material used for LED technology suggested salmon sperm as trap in LEDs. "Biological materials have many technologically important qualities — electronic, optical, structural, magnetic," says Steckl. "But certain materials are hard for to duplicate, such as DNA and proteins." In his search for a source that's widely available, and not subject to any organization or country he suggested salmon sperm, which is considered a waste product.

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