Beolach - Slashdot User

Backdoors, Anyone?

Submitted by Anonymous Westley on Wednesday March 14 2007, @06:37AM

Anonymous Westley writes "Watched WarGames for the nth time recently, and got to the scene where Jim and Malvin (the "hackers") tell David (Broderick) about backdoors. Which got me thinking: Do people still do this? What about OSS? Is there anyone who has written a backdoor recently, in an OSS or other project? Have you ever found one (in code or on a live application) left by someone else?"

Linux vs. Windows System Calls Graphed

Submitted by

cgrayson

on Tuesday February 06 2007, @07:25AM

cgrayson writes "On Richard Stiennon's blog on ZDNet, a post titled Why Windows is less secure than Linux shows an interesting graphical comparison between system calls on Linux and Windows.

In its long evolution, Windows has grown so complicated that it is harder to secure. Well these images make the point very well. Both images are a complete map of the system calls that occur when a web server serves up a single page of html with a single picture.
"

Ogg Vorbis gaining industry support

Submitted by on Tuesday February 06 2007, @06:26AM

An anonymous reader writes "While Ogg Vorbis format has not seen much popularity in music sales and portable players, it is not an unsupported format in the industry. Toy manufacturers (e.g. speaking dolls), voice warning systems and reactive audio devices exploit Ogg Vorbis for its good quality at small bitrates. As a sign of this, VLSI Solution Oy has just announced VS1000, the first 16 bits DSP device for playing Ogg Vorbis on low power and high volume products. Earlier Ogg Vorbis chips use 32 bits for decoding which consumes more energy than a 16 bit device does. This enables high volume manufacturing of small Ogg Vorbis devices. A list of Ogg Vorbis chips can be found from the Xiph wiki page."

Journal: Cancer Cured? 2

Journal by Todamont on Saturday January 27 2007, @08:36PM

Here's the deal. Researchers at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada found a cheap and easy to produce drug that kills almost all cancers. The drug is dichloroacetate, and since it is already used to treat metabolic disorders, we know it should be no problem to use it for other purposes.

Nokia developing diamond-like gadget casing

Submitted by space_pingu on Tuesday January 23 2007, @05:28AM

space_pingu writes "In the future, all gadgets could be coated with tough, diamond-like material. A patent from Nokia — featured in the latest patent round-up from New Scientist — describes a way of infusing plastic cases with a material, structurally similar to diamond, made from coal. Not only is it more scratch and grime-resistant, but it's also cheap and biodegradable. Apparently it also shines like a metal. Nice."

Nigerian Kitten Spam

Submitted by

Chris Dolley

on Tuesday January 23 2007, @04:44AM

Chris Dolley writes "I thought you might like this. It's the kitten version of the Nigerian spam letter.

"I am Fluffy, the favourite kitten of the late president of Nigeria. As you know my late master was very very rich man and he left me all his tuna..."

The rest is here: http://chrisdolley.livejournal.com/65951.html

Chris

Resonance (Baen, 2005)
Shift (Baen, 2007)"

The most intense source of light on Earth

Submitted by coldcell on Tuesday January 23 2007, @04:24AM

coldcell writes "In the Oxfordshire countryside, a giant Synchrotron called 'The Diamond' is about to become the most intense source of light on Earth.

From the article: "It looks like a million dollars, though it is worth a lot more. It dazzles, shining more brightly than anything else on the planet. And it is surrounded by the ultimate in boffin bling... The facility has become a world leader, helping to study the resistance-defying properties of superconductors, revealing how catalysts become "poisoned" so they stop making chemicals, providing clues on how to tackle pollution, unveiling some of the metalworking secrets of the ancients, unravelling the stretchy properties of polymers and shedding light on how viruses defend themselves against dehydration.""

Agere Systems' BluOnyx rocks open-source insides

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 15 2007, @12:00AM

An anonymous reader writes "The Agere Systems BluOnyx Personal Server was announced a month ago but ThoughtFix, an Internet Tablet blogger, had an interview with Agere at CES in which drills he the engineers over the use scenarios and hackability of the device. Apparently the whole pocket sized device is open-source (Linux and VxWorks) and can serve media to multiple clients over multiple platforms at once over Bluetooth, WiFi, USB, and SDIO. We'll have to keep an eye on this."

RFP Site for the Tech Industry

Submitted by AdkTrek on Saturday January 13 2007, @02:20AM

AdkTrek writes "I've recently started my own software company. 99% of my work comes through word of mouth but I was thinking of ways to bring in even more work and take it to the next level.So I figured I would try to find some sites that let companies post RFPs and maybe respond to a couple. The thing is I couldn't find many and the ones I did find were not tech related. Does anyone out there know of good RFP posting websites related to the tech industry? The only thing I found remotely close was Elance.com but that seems more offshore focused and not as legit as I would like."

Author of Illuminatus! has died.

Submitted by

OmnipotentEntity

on Saturday January 13 2007, @02:17AM

OmnipotentEntity writes "Robert Anton Wilson, or RAW as he was known, a coauthor of the Illuminatus! trilogy (which was the basis of quite a bit of hacker humor) has passed beyond this mortal plane. Some last words posted onto his blog are "Please pardon my levity, I don't see how to take death seriously. It seems absurd." Have fun on your fnord, and dream of Eris good buddy. You'll be missed."