Comment Re:Guns And Abortion (Score 1) 1719
It's already illegal to shoot guns at people.
Comment Matthew Garrett FTW! (Score 1) 274
And here's to hoping coreboot renders UEFI obsolete someday!
Comment Re:I'm still trying to wrap my brain around... (Score 1) 346
a lot of OK suggestions, but urandom is slow and not designed for essentially writing junk to disk.
mkpasswd -n 512 | cryptsetup create 0 /dev/sda && badblocks -wst random /dev/mapper/0
1. writes a random, but repeating string to the drive really fast
2. verifies random string which tests disk readability & reliability, but encrypted so the random string doesn't repeat if the drive is read raw.
3. can be done from the livecd, but you have to install expect to get mkpasswd.
4. you can crank up the mkpasswd length, but cryptsetup included in the F18 beta is limited to 512 character passwords.
5. easy enough to remember (mkpasswd, cryptsetup, and badblocks) that you just need to open up another terminal to do the other drives in the system.
i normally start with hdparm's --security-erase-enhanced && --security-disable so I know that the drive started blank, is written to the maximum, and I won't get a disk I'll have to unlock on the next reboot.
mkpasswd -n 512 | cryptsetup create 0
1. writes a random, but repeating string to the drive really fast
2. verifies random string which tests disk readability & reliability, but encrypted so the random string doesn't repeat if the drive is read raw.
3. can be done from the livecd, but you have to install expect to get mkpasswd.
4. you can crank up the mkpasswd length, but cryptsetup included in the F18 beta is limited to 512 character passwords.
5. easy enough to remember (mkpasswd, cryptsetup, and badblocks) that you just need to open up another terminal to do the other drives in the system.
i normally start with hdparm's --security-erase-enhanced && --security-disable so I know that the drive started blank, is written to the maximum, and I won't get a disk I'll have to unlock on the next reboot.
Comment Re:Monopoly muscles (Score 1) 350
Many commenters here oversimplify the problem. Do not forget that Google is in a monopolistic position. Deindexing newspaper web pages could be considered as Google using their monopoly as an advantage.
They would be deindexing at the request of the French legal system, not at the request of management.
The monopolistic position you're referring to is search, which is equivalent to Bing's search (which Bing has the data to show). Continuing with the Bing-Google equivalency hypothesis, adds will be removed from the French news page, creating no ad revenue.
Submission + - B.C. woman sues Apple over iPhone data (www.cbc.ca) 1
Maow writes: A B.C. woman is suing Apple Inc. alleging the company has violated the privacy and security of users of its iPhones, iPads and iPods that are using the iOS4 operating system.
(Yeah, IOS4. Continuing:)
Amanda Ladas, of Surrey, has filed the lawsuit under the Class Proceedings Act in Supreme Court of B.C. Ladas’s claim alleges that in addition to the violation of security and privacy, Apple has “engaged in deceptive acts or practices” that entitle her and anyone who joins the suit “to aggravated, punitive and/or exemplary damages.”
Ladas said in a release Tuesday that she is concerned that, without her permission, anyone with moderate computer knowledge can find out where she’s been.
According to a report by digital forensics technologist Francis Graf, whose report is filed with the lawsuit, Ladas’s iPhone 4 contains location data, going back approximately one year, which was easily accessible using free tools readily available on the internet.
(Yeah, IOS4. Continuing:)
Amanda Ladas, of Surrey, has filed the lawsuit under the Class Proceedings Act in Supreme Court of B.C. Ladas’s claim alleges that in addition to the violation of security and privacy, Apple has “engaged in deceptive acts or practices” that entitle her and anyone who joins the suit “to aggravated, punitive and/or exemplary damages.”
Ladas said in a release Tuesday that she is concerned that, without her permission, anyone with moderate computer knowledge can find out where she’s been.
According to a report by digital forensics technologist Francis Graf, whose report is filed with the lawsuit, Ladas’s iPhone 4 contains location data, going back approximately one year, which was easily accessible using free tools readily available on the internet.
Submission + - The First Native WinRT Viewer for MS SQL Server Reporting Services is Available! (perpetuumsoft.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Perpetuum Software We is proud to announce the official release of a WinRT Viewer for Reporting Services, the first native WinRT component that allows seamless integration of MS SQL Server Reporting Services reports into Windows 8 XAML & WinRT based applications.
Comment Re:Eclipse - the IDE not the movie (Score 1) 124
This is my experience with dash in 12.10 as well. By default it crams as much useless information in as possible. It posts magazines from the Ubuntu software center before it posts the programs those magazines reference.
I don't mind it searching Amazon, however posting Amazon searches in full view unless entirely disabled is moronic.
I don't mind it searching Amazon, however posting Amazon searches in full view unless entirely disabled is moronic.
Submission + - Scientists Move Closer to a Universal Flu Vaccine
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Vaccines for most diseases typically work for years or decades but with the flu, next fall it will be time to get another dose. Now Carl Zimmer writes that a flurry of recent studies on the virus has brought some hope for a change as flu experts foresee a time when seasonal flu shots are a thing of the past, replaced by long-lasting vaccines. “That’s the goal: two shots when you’re young, and then boosters later in life. That’s where we’d like to go,” says Dr. Gary Nabel predicting that scientists would reach that goal before long — “in our lifetime, for sure, unless you’re 90 years old." Today’s flu vaccines protect people from the virus by letting them make antibodies in advance but a traditional flu vaccine can protect against only flu viruses with a matching hemagglutinin protein. If a virus evolves a different shape, the antibodies cannot latch on, and it escapes destruction. Scientists have long wondered whether they could escape this evolutionary cycle with a universal flu vaccine that would to attack a part of the virus that changes little from year to year so now researchers are focusing on target antigens which are highly conserved between different influenza A virus subtypes. “Universal vaccination with universal vaccines would put an end to the threat of global disaster that pandemic influenza can cause,” says Dr. Sara Gilbert."
Submission + - Motif Toolkit is now Free Software
ParryHotter writes: Well, last august CDE was open sourced. Now, Motif itself followed. It is being distributed under the LGPL license. You can read the announcement here: http://motif.ics.com/
Here is the link to the project's page on Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/motif/
Richard Stallman can now declare Lesstif officially deprecated
Here is the link to the project's page on Sourceforge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/motif/
Richard Stallman can now declare Lesstif officially deprecated
Submission + - Sandy Delivers "Substantial and Serious" Hit To Telecom infrastructure (securityweek.com) 1
wiredmikey writes: According to FCC chairman Julius Genachowski, superstorm Sandy this week delivered a "substantial and serious" hit to the telecom infrastructure in the northeastern United States.
The Chairman warned that communications outages could get worse before they get better, particularly for mobile, as flooding and snow in some areas could slow efforts.
FCC officials said that approximately 25 percent of wireless towers were out of service in a "core" region in 10 states from Virginia to Massachusetts. Many homes and businesses have lost cable television and Internet services as well.
Genachowski said that some wireless cells had switched to backup electric power after outages, but that "many sites were running out of backup power."
The major wireless carriers including Verizon, AT&T, Spring and T-Mobile said they had outages and were working to restore service. Sandy had also knocked out data centers in the New York City area, knocking some popular sites offline.
The Chairman warned that communications outages could get worse before they get better, particularly for mobile, as flooding and snow in some areas could slow efforts.
FCC officials said that approximately 25 percent of wireless towers were out of service in a "core" region in 10 states from Virginia to Massachusetts. Many homes and businesses have lost cable television and Internet services as well.
Genachowski said that some wireless cells had switched to backup electric power after outages, but that "many sites were running out of backup power."
The major wireless carriers including Verizon, AT&T, Spring and T-Mobile said they had outages and were working to restore service. Sandy had also knocked out data centers in the New York City area, knocking some popular sites offline.
Submission + - Grid Cells in Monkeys Opens Path to Treat Neurodegenerative Diseases in Humans
An anonymous reader writes: For the first time, scientists have detected grid cells in primates while performing a visual memory task. Grid cells are a type of neurons that fire at multiple locations forming triangular patterns. Scientists had earlier identified grid cells in rats in 2005. But this is the first time that researchers have noticed grid cells in rhesus monkeys.
Submission + - NASA's newest Spaceship, Orion, schedules a test flight! (scientificamerican.com)
ThorGod writes: From the article:
"The Orion space capsule is designed to carry humans farther into the solar system than they've ever been by taking trips to the moon, asteroids and Mars."
"The Orion space capsule is designed to carry humans farther into the solar system than they've ever been by taking trips to the moon, asteroids and Mars."
Submission + - Ask Slashdot: How to wirelessly monitor my old analogue utility meters? 3
SoftwarePearls writes: Ever since our water company hit us with a shock water bill that was about five times the average, and completely inexplicable (by all adults in the household, hint) I've wanted to install a wireless monitoring system that would monitor our last century analogue water, gas and electricity meters so that I could run some software on my PC that would swiftly alert me when there's any sign of abnormal consumption. The monitoring would have to sample at least a few times per day, ideally every 5-10 minutes. Our utility meters are in a dark, humid, spiderweb-infested basement. Has any Slashdotter come up with a cheap, reliable mechanism? Do I need to become an Arduino wizard to achieve my simple goal?
Submission + - NYT profiles Peter G. Neumann -- the first white-hat hacker -- who is now 80 yea (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The New York Times is carrying a fascinating article on Peter G. Neumann discussing SRI and Cambridge's DARPA-sponsored secure CHERI processor, which Slashdot covered two weeks ago in an ACM interview with his collaborator Robert Watson. Peter, who grew up around Albert Einstein, is one of the original authors of the Multics security model, and inventor of file system access control lists — he also originated the term "UNIX", a pun on Multics. The article also interviews Howie Shrobe, a DARPA program manager directing work on secure clean-slate computer research.
Submission + - Public and remote DNS usage without the web performance cost (networkworld.com)
mas939 writes: Northwestern University researchers have found that public Domain Name System (DNS) services could slow down users' Internet connections, and have developed namehelp, a solution that could speed up Web performance by as much as 40 percent. The Northwestern researchers, led by professor Fabian Bustamante, found that users' Web performance can suffer due to the hidden interaction of DNS with Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), which help performance by offering exact replicas of Web site content in computer servers around the world. The namehelp system runs personalized benchmarks in the background, from within users' computers, to determine their optimal DNS configuration and improve the Web experience by helping sites load faster.
