Decent Co-Location or Virtual Server Hosting? 145
gclef writes "Speakeasy announced recently that they're being bought by Best Buy. Despite all the promises to the contrary, I suspect my ability to host servers in my home is going away soon. Does anyone have hints as to where I can get a reasonable co-lo space or virtual hosting? I don't want to outsource the management of my domains entirely, nor will 'webhosting' be good enough, since I like having control of my own stuff (and like running my own DNS, IMAPS, and other assorted network services). Is there some place that will give me a blank box with an unfiltered connection to the net?"
Feed Analyst Says Yahoo Not Buying Facebook Is Akin To It Passing On Google (techdirt.com)
Late last year, takeover talks between Yahoo and Facebook fell apart after the social-networking site rejected Yahoo's $1 billion offer. Yahoo was reportedly prepared to offer up to $1.62 billion, but a Wall Street analyst says that valuation was based on far too conservative estimates, and that Yahoo's failure to seal the Facebook deal could be on par with its infamous decision to not buy Google when it had the chance. His analysis is based on Facebook's high levels of traffic and the demographics of its users, and based on that he says "Facebook is no doubt one of the most important Internet companies to have been created in the last five years." He apparently avoids mentioning how much he thinks the site is worth, but numbers from $3.2 billion to the previously mentioned $8 billion get tossed around. Noticeably absent, however, is any mention of the revenues Facebook is generating. Like fellow social-networking site MySpace, Facebook has plenty of traffic, but it's really not clear how successfully the sites can monetize it, even when they're under the arm of a bigger corporate parent. What's even less clear is if these sites will have any more staying power than previous social-networking stalwarts, which have turned out to be little more than fads over the longer term. While Yahoo's shareholders probably do regret it passing on buying Google, it's pretty doubtful all that many of them would regret the company not dropping a few billion dollars on Facebook.
Submission + - Modern Java web development
Dr.X writes: "I've recently decided to take the plunge back into the Java world after spending the better part of the last decade in the Perl and .NET world. As part of my CompSci degree, we covered Java applets back in the late nineties in one of our courses but taking a look at what is available today is like drinking from a fire hose of information!
JSP,JSF,Eclipse,Struts,Spring,Hibernate,GWT,EJB3,J DBC,J2EE,JBoss,Servlet,etc...
My question to the slashdot community is "What are some of the more practicle approaches to modern Java web development and how does all this new technology fit together?""
Submission + - Wep security cracked even quicker
Madas writes: Researchers in Technical University Darmstadt have managed to crack Wep security faster than ever before. It's all done with some tool called aircrack-ptw. They only need 40,000 packets to find the key and that only takes a minute (it used to take about 40 minutes). Is anyone still using WEP? They shouldn't be after reading this!
Submission + - Security update for VMWare ESX
tinkertim writes: "VMWare has issued patches for its ESX 3.* line as reported by the French FrSIRT advisory. Oddly, this has yet to grace Secunia (at the time of this submission), so I'm submitting it. The advisory reports that unspecified double-free and buffer overflow errors have also been addressed. These issues could be exploited by attackers to cause a denial of service, disclose sensitive information, or execute arbitrary commands. Anyone using VMWare ESX is strongly advised to update."
Feed Real ID is bad? Compared to what? (com.com)
CoreStreet founder Phil Libin says the absence of a meaningful debate has hindered a serious discussion about the implications of a controversial new technology.
Submission + - Dragon's Lair - The first full Blu-Ray Java title
Nostalgic Video Game Nerd writes: "HCW Tech Blog has reviewed Dragon's Lair on Blu-Ray. The first full BD-J title is here in the form of a game that pushed boundaries much in the same way 25 years ago. Dragon's Lair is a full 1080p HD release, and makes use of BD-J to make for seamless transitions between its many sequences. It will play on standard Blu-Ray players, including the PS3. Fans of nostalgia will love this one!"
Submission + - Surveillance society must be managed
An anonymous reader writes: People think there has to be a choice between privacy and security; that increased security means more collection and processing of personal private information. However, in a challenging report published on Monday 26 March 2007, The Royal Academy of Engineering says that, with the right engineering solutions, we can have both increased privacy and more security. Engineers have a key role in achieving the right balance.
One of the issues that Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance — challenges of technological change looks at is how we can buy ordinary goods and services without having to prove who we are. For many electronic transactions, a name or identity is not needed; just assurance that we are old enough or that we have the money to pay. In short, authorisation, not identification should be all that is required. Services for travel and shopping can be designed to maintain privacy by allowing people to buy goods and use public transport anonymously. "It should be possible to sign up for a loyalty card without having to register it to a particular individual — consumers should be able to decide what information is collected about them," says Professor Nigel Gilbert, Chairman of the Academy working group that produced the report. "We have supermarkets collecting data on our shopping habits and also offering life insurance services. What will they be able to do in 20 years' time, knowing how many donuts we have bought?"
Another issue is that, in the future, there will be more databases holding sensitive personal information. As government moves to providing more electronic services and constructs the National Identity Register, databases will be created that hold information crucial for accessing essential services such as health care and social security. But complex databases and IT networks can suffer from mechanical failure or software bugs. Human error can lead to personal data being lost or stolen. If the system breaks down, as a result of accident or sabotage, millions could be inconvenienced or even have their lives put in danger.
The Academy's report calls for the government to take action to prepare for such failures, making full use of engineering expertise in managing the risks posed by surveillance and data management technologies. It also calls for stricter guidelines for companies who hold personal data, requiring companies to store data securely, to notify customers if their data are lost or stolen, and to tell us what the data are being used for.
"Technologies for collecting, storing, transmitting and processing data are developing rapidly with many potential benefits, from making paying bills more convenient to providing better healthcare," says Professor Gilbert. "However, these techniques could make a significant impact on our privacy. Their development must be monitored and managed so that the effects are properly understood and controlled." Engineering solutions should also be devised which protect the privacy and security of data. For example: electronic personal information could be protected by methods similar to the digital rights management software used to safeguard copyrighted electronic material like music releases, limiting the threat of snooping and leaks of personal data.
The report also investigates the changes in camera surveillance — CCTV cameras can now record digital images that could be stored forever. Predicted improvements in automatic number-plate recognition, recognition of individual's faces and faster methods of searching images mean that it may become possible to search back in time through vast amounts of digital data to find out where people were and what they were doing. The Royal Academy of Engineering's report calls for greater control over the proliferation of camera surveillance and for more research into how public spaces can be monitored while minimising the impact on privacy.
"Engineers' knowledge and experience can help to 'design in privacy' into new IT developments," says Professor Gilbert. "But first, the government and corporations must recognise that they put at risk the trust of citizens and customers if they do not treat privacy issues seriously."
The full report is at http://www.raeng.org.uk/policy/reports/pdf/dilemma s_of_privacy_and_surveillance_report.pdf
One of the issues that Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance — challenges of technological change looks at is how we can buy ordinary goods and services without having to prove who we are. For many electronic transactions, a name or identity is not needed; just assurance that we are old enough or that we have the money to pay. In short, authorisation, not identification should be all that is required. Services for travel and shopping can be designed to maintain privacy by allowing people to buy goods and use public transport anonymously. "It should be possible to sign up for a loyalty card without having to register it to a particular individual — consumers should be able to decide what information is collected about them," says Professor Nigel Gilbert, Chairman of the Academy working group that produced the report. "We have supermarkets collecting data on our shopping habits and also offering life insurance services. What will they be able to do in 20 years' time, knowing how many donuts we have bought?"
Another issue is that, in the future, there will be more databases holding sensitive personal information. As government moves to providing more electronic services and constructs the National Identity Register, databases will be created that hold information crucial for accessing essential services such as health care and social security. But complex databases and IT networks can suffer from mechanical failure or software bugs. Human error can lead to personal data being lost or stolen. If the system breaks down, as a result of accident or sabotage, millions could be inconvenienced or even have their lives put in danger.
The Academy's report calls for the government to take action to prepare for such failures, making full use of engineering expertise in managing the risks posed by surveillance and data management technologies. It also calls for stricter guidelines for companies who hold personal data, requiring companies to store data securely, to notify customers if their data are lost or stolen, and to tell us what the data are being used for.
"Technologies for collecting, storing, transmitting and processing data are developing rapidly with many potential benefits, from making paying bills more convenient to providing better healthcare," says Professor Gilbert. "However, these techniques could make a significant impact on our privacy. Their development must be monitored and managed so that the effects are properly understood and controlled." Engineering solutions should also be devised which protect the privacy and security of data. For example: electronic personal information could be protected by methods similar to the digital rights management software used to safeguard copyrighted electronic material like music releases, limiting the threat of snooping and leaks of personal data.
The report also investigates the changes in camera surveillance — CCTV cameras can now record digital images that could be stored forever. Predicted improvements in automatic number-plate recognition, recognition of individual's faces and faster methods of searching images mean that it may become possible to search back in time through vast amounts of digital data to find out where people were and what they were doing. The Royal Academy of Engineering's report calls for greater control over the proliferation of camera surveillance and for more research into how public spaces can be monitored while minimising the impact on privacy.
"Engineers' knowledge and experience can help to 'design in privacy' into new IT developments," says Professor Gilbert. "But first, the government and corporations must recognise that they put at risk the trust of citizens and customers if they do not treat privacy issues seriously."
The full report is at http://www.raeng.org.uk/policy/reports/pdf/dilemm
IBM Doubles CPU Cooling With Simple Change 208
Ars Technica is reporting that IBM has discovered a new cooling breakthrough that, unlike several other recent announcements, should be relatively easy and cost-effective to implement. "IBM's find addresses how thermal paste is typically spread between the face of a chip and the heat spreader that sits directly over the core. Overclockers already know how crucial it is to apply thermal paste the right way: too much, and it causes heat buildup. Too little, and it causes heat buildup. It has to be "just right," which is why IBM looked to find the best way to get the gooey stuff where it needs to be and in the right amount, and to make it significantly more efficient in the process."
Submission + - StatCounter Says NO to spam advertisers!
Aodhan Cullen writes: "A few months back, StatCounter was approached by an advertiser, offered lots of $$$, and asked to include a spyware cookie on all of our member sites...we refused on the spot.
You install StatCounter to track visitors to your site NOT to open yourself and your visitors up to being spied upon by phantom advertising corporations.
It appears, however, that other players in the world of webstats were happy to take up this offer
We were shocked to discover just today that another well known stats provider is allowing up to 9 cookies to be installed in the browser of every visitor that hits one of their member websites. This means that the provider is making money by transmitting data on you and your visitors to a third party advertiser. Not only that, but to add insult to injury, the cookies are causing the member websites to load very slowly too.
In light of this, StatCounter wants to assure you that we track your visitors for you, only you and not any one else.
Which provider would you prefer?? Story continued ..."
You install StatCounter to track visitors to your site NOT to open yourself and your visitors up to being spied upon by phantom advertising corporations.
It appears, however, that other players in the world of webstats were happy to take up this offer
We were shocked to discover just today that another well known stats provider is allowing up to 9 cookies to be installed in the browser of every visitor that hits one of their member websites. This means that the provider is making money by transmitting data on you and your visitors to a third party advertiser. Not only that, but to add insult to injury, the cookies are causing the member websites to load very slowly too.
In light of this, StatCounter wants to assure you that we track your visitors for you, only you and not any one else.
Which provider would you prefer?? Story continued
Submission + - Smashing The "Modern" Stack For Fun And Pr
Donald C. Donzal writes: "Craig J. Heffner writes in his article on the Ethical Hacker Network, "When it comes to buffer overflows, 'Smashing The Stack For Fun And Profit' by Aleph One is still the first resource many people are directed towards, and for good reason; it is thorough, well written, and chock-full of examples. However, the GNU C Compiler (gcc) has evolved since 1998, and as a result, many people are left wondering why they can't get the examples to work for them, or if they do get the code to work, why they had to make the changes that they did. Having these same problems myself, and being unable to find an updated version of Aleph One's document on the web, I set out to identify the source of these variations on my own.
I have taken the liberty of writing this paper to share my findings with others who are experiencing the same problems I did, but it is meant only to be a modern supplement to Aleph One's paper. You should read Smashing The Stack first, as it is assumed that you understand the concepts and code presented there, as well as some standard buffer overflow techniques."
http://www.ethicalhacker.net/content/view/122/2/"
