20576058
submission
muckracer writes:
It's true! Slackware 13.37 has been released, featuring the 2.6.37.6 Linux kernel, btrfs support, the Nouveau open-source Nvidia driver and a PXE install server right off the CD.
11497542
submission
muckracer writes:
The formerly free Microsoft Office OpenDocument Plugin, developed by SUN Microsystems, now carries a price tag of $90 per user "to obtain a Right to Use (RTU) license", after Oracle took over the company. Whether the plugin, which enables Microsoft Office programs to read and write the ISO-standardized ODF document format, will continue being developed at all remains to be seen. Oracle is currently "reviewing the Sun product roadmap" which they state no longer represents "a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality".
9059172
submission
muckracer writes:
With recent discussion about passwords and their obvious deficiencies
I've been wondering, why we don't use GPG authentication as a common
way of logging into sites:
During the initial registration at some site like Slashdot the user
gets asked to upload his public GPG key. On each subsequent login the
site sends an encrypted challenge that gets locally decrypted with
the user's secret key. A signed (and optionally encrypted) response
gets sent back to the server, verified against the stored public key
of the user and voila...login succeeded. If the site itself has a
public 'site' GPG key it would also allow for mutual authentication,
basically eliminating any phishing possibilities.
All that'd be needed for this to work is browser/plugin support and,
of course, server-side support (the user should only ever see a local
window asking for the GPG passphrase on logging in). But the payoff
would, unless I am missing something entirely, be tremenduous: secure
single sign-on for all web sites needing a login and one at that,
that's locally administered. No passwords ever hit the wire nor do
they need to get stored server-side. The same key/passphrase would
also handle e-mail and help make having a GPG key worthwile for the
rest of us. What's your take on this?
