Terrible news, the actor James Doohan, who played Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott in the TV sci-fi series Star Trek, is diagnosed with the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Sadly, he also suffers from Parkinson's disease and diabetes.
In August, he'll bid farewell to the still thriving Trek convention circuit, with "Beam Me Up Scotty...One Last Time," a three-day fest that's billed as his last-ever con appearance.
(Yeah, lets see the
Eric S. Raymond has recently written a wonderful piece explaining to the linux zealot why it may not be the operating system of choice of all users. (Or what user aspects open source developers need to focus on to further Linux World Domination.) The op-ed specifically focuses on the CUPS printing system. (But it would be a mistake to dismiss it as a screed against CUPS.) The CUPS authors surprisingly acknowleged ESR's points, and he wrote a followup to the article.
What do you do when you just can't get your co-workers to see eye-to-eye with you? The Boston Globe reports that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee stole confidential memos from their Democratic counterparts by cracking into their computer files. The memos highlighted Democratic strategies concerning Republican Judicial nominees. Its suspected that some of them were leaked to Republican shill Robert Novak, who then disclosed their contents in a February 2003 column.
What can we learn from Republicans when accused of cracking?
(Blame the victim.)
"As the extent to which Democratic communications were monitored came into sharper focus, Republicans yesterday offered a new defense. They said that in the summer of 2002, their computer technician informed his Democratic counterpart of the glitch, but Democrats did nothing to fix the problem."
(Feign ignorance and indignation.)
"Judiciary Chairman Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, made a preliminary inquiry and described himself as "mortified that this improper, unethical and simply unacceptable breach of confidential files may have occurred on my watch."
("I'm shocked, *shocked* to find cracking in this establishment." "Here are their memos." "Ah, thank you...")
Novell quietly submitted conflicting copyright claims on System V UNIX a few months ago. SCO's lawyers appears to have been unaware of this. Now SCO will have serious problems going forward with its copyright infringement suits on IBM and other major Linux users. The immediate result of Novell's actions is that SCO's lawsuits will probably be deferred, so no windfall quarters for SCO to report in the following year. SCO could even suffer legal penalties by submitting flawed DMCA suits.
Ahhh, nothing like a nice holiday story to warm the cockles of a penguinista's heart...
After 12 rejections and the "de rigeur" absence of explanations, I've decided to post each story I submit to
...and given the nature of this story, it should be interesting to see if
The soon to be rejected submission:
Dan Geer Jr., is now the former CTO of @Stake, Inc. (a security consulting group), after participating with six other security experts in a report (released yesterday) critical of the US Government's over-reliance in Microsoft products. The report, entitled "CyberInsecurity: The Cost of Monopoly" argues that a "monoculture" of OS software makes gov't computers more vulnerable to computer viruses and hacker attacks.
``The values and opinions of the report are not in line with AtStake's views,'' the company said in a statement. It said Geer's participation working on the report was ``not sanctioned.''
Bruce Schneier, the chief technology officer for Counterpane Systems Inc., worked with Geer on the report. He said security experts contacted to help work on the report critical of Microsoft indicated their support but couldn't participate publicly. ``There is a huge chilling effect based on Microsoft's monopoly position,'' Schneier said. ``It's unfortunate that AtStake put its private agenda ahead of intellectual integrity.''
More sordid details can be gleaned here and here.
Lets hope Schneier still has a job by the end of the week. (And any
The use of money is all the advantage there is to having money. -- B. Franklin
