Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Awwwww crap (Score 1) 211

This has me more concerned than some of the other recent bugs, primarily because it's so easy to exploit by script kiddies.

Plus, there are huge, vast, barely conceivable numbers of network-attached embedded devices that use the gethostbyname() call. What percentage of these are remotely update-able? What percentage of these will have their firmware re-flashed?

This one seems like it gives black-hats the ideal way to get a swarm army of (relatively) weak and/or dumb devices. Yet even these weak, dumb devices should be sufficient to set up warrens of ssh tunnels, nodes for DDoS attacks, etc.

Yuck.

Comment Already Better Than New Opera (Score 3, Interesting) 158

The original dream we hardcore Opera users had was replacing the Presto engine with Blink, but wrapping it with the feature-full Opera interface experience. That was more a pipe dream. Vivaldi already has more of the old Opera features than the new one does. It's a technology preview, so it's got a lot of rough edges, but the spirit of the old Opera is there.

Comment Re:Damn, nannies are hypocritical idiots (Score 1) 154

Someone else who hasn't bothered actually reading stuff written in support of minimum wage legislation. They make up all sorts of specious claims as to how employers really do have all that money lying around unused, or how the increased pay will spark improved productivity, or how employers will invest in more training for their suddenly-expensive employees .... yada yada yada. All so very simple, by their reckoning, and they are super smart and know so much more about how to run businesses than the actual owners and employers do.

Here's an interesting insight: If I knew of a simple way to make money that required so little investment, I could make a fortune doing so and help others in the process. Yet not a single one of these know-it-alls, these nannies who claim to want to help the poor and unskilled, is willing to put their efforts where their mouth is both make money and help the poor.

Not a single one.

I guess I know how much they believe in their own theories.

Comment Re:Encrypted External Drive in a Fire Safe (Score 1) 251

But generally, my archive set is large (3+TB) and sensitive (taxes, bank statements, account numbers, passwords, etc) so this solution works best for me.

My guess is that most of that 3+TB is not at all sensitive. The vast bulk of most people's data is stuff like photos and videos that are primarily of interest to them. The amount of really sensitive information like taxes, account numbers, etc. is probably small enough to put on an encrypted thumb drive that you keep on your person. If you really trust encryption- including your ability to select a secure password- you could even encrypt it and store it on the cloud. It still makes sense to keep copies of your bulk data- also encrypted unless you're confident in your ability to keep the sensitive data off it- some place safe, but it would give you an extra level of protection against losing your really precious information.

Comment Re:It's global warming man! GLOBAL WARMING! (Score 3, Funny) 397

The following bulletin has just been received on the WKRP teletype!

Monster lizard ravages east coast! Mayors in five New England cities have issued emergency requests for federal disaster relief as a result of a giant lizard that descended on the east coast last night! Officials say that this lizard, the worst since '78, has devastated transportation, disrupted communication, and left many hundreds homeless!

Comment Re:Damn, nannies are hypocritical idiots (Score 1) 154

You haven't been paying attention if you really believe " I don't think anyone believes the minimum wage will increase demand for workers." There are quite a few who believe exactly that. They seem to think that business owners throw all their profits into a pool like Scrooge McDuck so they can swim in it, and all the pay hikes will come out of those Scrooge McDuck pools.

Comment Re:Escaping only helps you until a war. (Score 2) 339

So if we followed that suggesting, and took 10% of the wealth from everyone in America, including corporations, then spread it around to each person in the US evenly, it would be about $70k per person. Most people would spend it quickly and be back where they started.

This is wrong for two reasons:

1) Many, many people would use a big chunk of the money to pay down debt or to buy capital goods that would last them a good long time. Both of those things would have very large, positive, long-term effects for poor people.

2) The money that people spent wouldn't just disappear. It would wind up in other people's pockets as wages, giving those other people more money to spend. The net result would be a larger overall benefit than just the straight value of the cash handed out.

Comment Re:A call for Write Protect (Score 1) 95

For those old enough to remember them, changing a BIOS required an EPROM burner and UV eraser. Changing CMOS settings required setting the write protect jumper.

Well, I had an IBM PC-1, and yes and no respectively.

Clearing CMOS settings is still done with a jumper. I do wish that all flash BIOS devices had a write protect jumper, though, and it would cost little to add them.

Comment Damn, nannies are hypocritical idiots (Score 3, Insightful) 154

They tax booze, tobacco, and anything fun, and raise tariffs, expressly to reduce demand. They subsidize whatever they want more of, to nudge people and to reward cronies.

Yet they think raising the minimum wage will increase the demand for low skill workers, they think wage and price controls will reduce demand and increase supply, they think capping surge pricing will increase supply and reduce demand, on and on the hypocrisy goes.

Just go away, nannies. Go away.

Comment Re:Saddest line ever (Score 3, Funny) 141

You are *so* cool! I bet you have a neckbeard too!

I sure do, but any time I go visit a new contract or even just go on vacation, I shave it. It's not an attachment or an affectation, I just don't measure my value by the cleanliness of my neck. It's not my fault I was born hairier than the average bear.

But hey, thanks for recognizing how great I am. I could use the publicity.

Comment Re:There should be a law (Score 1) 181

The emblems would be sooooo small because there are so many you wouldn't be able to read them :-)

Only the top ten or so even get space.

Here's another way to handle it. Whenever they appear on television, block out x% of their face and words based on their campaign contributions. Whoever gets least comes through at 100%, whoever gets most is just a wall of ads, and everyone else falls somewhere in-between

Slashdot Top Deals

"May your future be limited only by your dreams." -- Christa McAuliffe

Working...