Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Opposite Experience with Adobe Download (Score 1) 348

by windex (#34723402) Attached to: Beware of Using Google Or OpenDNS For iTunes

I have not read a more ignorant comment on how DNS works on slashdot in my entire history of reading slashdot.

Akamai is doing DNS geolocation. The solution is to use a combination of DNS geolocation combined with http redirects (also based on client IP geolocation) to attempt to find a good close server. If an end-user is using a remote DNS server. This can even be mostly invisible with a CDN like Akamai. DNS servers do not decide which 'Akamai' IP to give anyone. Akamai's forward resolving DNS servers return a response they have crafted as 'close' to the requesting DNS caching server (e.g. Google DNS, OpenDNS, your ISP, etc). The caching server caches the result and sends it to the DNS client on your local system. End of story. DNS does not forward or proxy the DNS client's address through the caching server to the forward resolving server. Ever.

For the record, using Akamai DNS *without* their CDN service (e.g. load balance/geolocate only) when redundant sites, AnyCast, and BGP should be standard operating procedure in enterprise network deployments is fucking stupid.
Television

Submission + - contact info.

Submitted by
Michelle Isaacs
Michelle Isaacs writes: "Hi! My name is Michelle Isaacs and I am writing on behalf of CBS Television Studios. I would like to get the direct contact information for this website. We have an upcoming show NCIS:LA that features the latest technology from the OSP (Office of Special Projects) division of NCIS. Please provide me with a name, email address, and phone number so I can send the latest tech information about the show. Thanks! Michelle"
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Pre does not get US tethering either (theregister.co.uk) 1

Submitted by fermion
fermion writes: The Register is reporting that the Pre Dev Wiki has been sent a note asking it to stop discussing tethering. Evidently Sprint is none to eager to have users tether the game changing tetherable smart phone. The development forum is evidently eager to avoid lawsuits, so has rapidly agreed. Perhaps, like the iPhone, the Pre is going have a vigorous underground. What is interesting is that the Pre, like the iPhone(allegedly), can be tethered in the non-US domain, but even those customers are being denied apparently lawful information to satisfy the US exclusive agents.
Java

Submission + - Can Oracle be trusted with Java? (interopnews.com)

Submitted by
AlexGr
AlexGr writes: "What will happen when Oracle assumes Sun's role as the strategic power behind the throne in the JCP? Will Oracle try to manipulate the Java standards making process or, more plausibly, leverage its control over Java IP and TCK licenses to gain advantage for itself, or maybe — just maybe — do the right thing and set Java free? http://interopnews.com/analysis/can-oracle-be-trusted-with-java.html"
Government

Submission + - California wants open source ebook textbooks (go.com)

Submitted by
Death Metal
Death Metal writes: "By next fall, Governor Schwarzenegger intends to make free, open-source digital textbooks available for high school math and science classes throughout California, a move that he says will help reduce the more than $350 million the state spends annually on educational materials."
Programming

Submission + - Is a CS Degree Needed to be a Great Developer? (earthweb.com)

Submitted by
jammag
jammag writes: "The owner of a software development firm realized that one of his coders didn't actually have a college degree — but this programmer turned out to be really great. Which prompted the owner (himself a developer) to ponder the fact that a university degree and truly top-notch coding chops are two fully independent variables. He concludes that he'll still require a four-year degree (mainly because the job market is to tough he's deluged with applicants) but now realizes that this policy is causing him to miss some great talent."
Security

Journal SPAM: 5-Year-Old Boy Detained as US National Security Threat 1

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius

It's a case of a mistaken identity for a 5-year-old boy from Normandy Park. He had trouble boarding a plane because someone with the same name is wanted by the federal government. "When his mother went to pick him up and hug him and comfort him during the proceedings, she was told not to touch him because he was a national security risk. They also had to frisk her again to make sure the little Dilling
Music

Submission + - Judge Says RIAA "Disingenuous", Decision S

Submitted by
NewYorkCountryLawyer
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Judge Lee R. West in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, has rejected the arguments made by the RIAA in support of its "reconsideration" motion in Capitol v. Foster as "disingenuous" and "not true", and accused the RIAA of "questionable motives". In the decision (pdf), reaffirming his earlier decision that defendant Debbie Foster's is entitled to be reimbursed for her attorneys fees, the Court, among other things, emphasized the Supreme Court's holding in Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc. that "because copyright law ultimately serves the purpose of enriching the general public through access to creative works, it is peculiarly important that the boundaries of copyright law be demarcated as clearly as possible. Thus, a defendant seeking to advance meritorious copyright defenses should be encouraged to litigate them to the same extent that plaintiffs are encouraged to litigate meritorious infringement claims." Judge West also noted that he had found the RIAA's claims against the defendant to be "untested and marginal" and its "motives to be questionable in light of the facts of the case"; that the RIAA's primary argument for its motion — that the earlier decision had failed to list the "Fogerty factors" — was belied by unpublished opinions in which the RIAA had itself been involved; that the RIAA's argument that it could have proved a case against Ms. Foster had it not dropped the case was "disingenuous"; and that the RIAA's factual statements about the settlement history of the case were "not true". This is the same case in which an amicus brief had been filed by the ACLU, Public Citizen, EFF, AALL, and ACLU-Oklahoma in support of the attorneys fees motion, the RIAA questioned the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's lawyer's fees and was then ordered to turn over its own attorneys billing records, which ruling it complied with only reluctantly."
Games

Human Head Offices Destroyed, Company Bands Together 49

Posted by Zonk from the warning-games-may-be-flammable dept.
Yesterday, Gamasutra reported the sad news that the offices of Human Head studios were destroyed in a fire. Based out of Madison, Wisconsin, the indie developer recently signed up to do the next Mark Ecko game, riding high on their success with Prey from last year. Today, thankfully, Next Generation has the news that the company has survived more or less intact. "[Office Manager Carol] Smith said, 'I work with an incredible group of guys, and as soon as we got over the shock of oh my gosh, we had a fire--what if we lost data, what if we lost art? ...the next words out of everybody's mouths were, What can we do to help?' An update on Human Head's website confirmed that there were no injuries in the blaze that occurred at 2:30 a.m. on Friday and that the Prey developer 'suffered no significant data loss.'"
United States

Submission + - Facist America in 10 Easy Steps

Submitted by zyl0x
zyl0x writes: What would you do if your country was secretly being turned into a fascist regime? An article at The Guardian outlines the 10 steps taken by all fascist countries to rob their citizen's of freedom. Apparently, we're already at step 8. How far will they have to go before we start standing up for ourselves? Or is it too late?
From the article:

It is very difficult and arduous to create and sustain a democracy — but history shows that closing one down is much simpler. You simply have to be willing to take the 10 steps. As difficult as this is to contemplate, it is clear, if you are willing to look, that each of these 10 steps has already been initiated today in the United States by the Bush administration.
Businesses

Submission + - How an Email Rant Jolted a Big HMO

Submitted by Radon360
Radon360 writes: From the WSJ Article:

On a Friday morning last November, Justen Deal, a Kaiser Permanente employee, blasted an email throughout the giant health maintenance organization. His message charged that HealthConnect — the company's ambitious $4 billion project to convert paper files into electronic medical records — was a mess.

Mr. Deal signed the email. Before sending it, he says, he printed out a copy and handed it to his boss. Soon afterward, his office phone was ringing off the hook. IT staffers later arrived to seize his computers, and Mr. Deal was placed on paid leave from his $56,000-a-year job.

Despite Kaiser's efforts to squelch and downplay the incident, the email episode shows that, in the digital age, flicking away whistle-blowers isn't as easy as it once was.
Security

Submission + - The 2007 Underhanded C Contest is Online

Submitted by
Xcott Craver
Xcott Craver writes: "The Third Annual Underhanded C Contest is underway. This is a contest to write innocent-looking C code that conceals malicious behavior — behavior that is not obvious under casual inspection of the source. This year's challenge is to write an encryption program that unnoticeably fails on about 1 percent of all files, suitable for an eavesdropper. The prize is a gift certificate to ThinkGeek.com."

Feed Another Day, Another Set Of Prior Art Discovered Against Verizon's VoIP Patents (techdirt.com)

From feed by techdirtfeed
It seems like every day people discover even more prior art concerning the patents Verizon is using to cut off Vonage. First there was evidence from the VoIP forum that came out before Verizon applied for its patents. Then people turned up some evidence of a patent from 3Com that predates the Verizon patents that appears to cover the same thing. Now, Jeff Pulver has been reminded that the work he did on Free World Dialup (FWD) also appears to predate Verizon's patents by quite some time. Of course, all this prior art is great... but it likely comes way too late for Vonage. The process to get the Patent Office to even begin reviewing the patents in question will take some time, as will various responses and reviews. So don't think that just because there's a ton of prior art means that the patents are toast. Of course, the fact that these patents were granted in the first place despite all this prior art should get people to question how the patent office (doesn't) work, but it seems that few people are actually interested in digging deep into that question.

Slashdot Top Deals

If you think the system is working, ask someone who's waiting for a prompt.

Close