Dekortage - Slashdot User

Amazon to Sell E-Books for iPhones-> 0

Submitted by Dekortage on Wednesday March 04 2009, @10:18AM

Dekortage writes "Amazon's e-books aren't just for the Kindle anymore: they will be supporting Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch as well. Available today, Amazon now offers Kindle for iPhone (note: App Store link) for free. Among other features, existing Kindle customers can access previously purchased e-books on all of their devices at no additional cost, and synchronize bookmarks back to Amazon's servers so they can pick up where they left off, regardless of device. However, it only supports books, not magazines or newspapers. An early review from CNET suggest one advantage of the iPhone over Kindle: comic e-books in color."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:Try TYPO3 (Score 1) 240

by Dekortage on Tuesday March 03 2009, @08:16AM (#27049745) Attached to: Open Source Usability — Joomla! Vs. WordPress

I've had to administrate sites in Typo3, Joomla, Drupal, and other CMSs. I've written some Typo3 extensions because there was nothing out that did exactly what I needed. Nonetheless, I cannot stand Typo3 and its irritating TypoScript psuedo-language. I'll take Joomla any day over that.

Secret Government Legal Memos Released to Public-> 0

Submitted by Dekortage on Tuesday March 03 2009, @08:10AM

Dekortage writes "After the September 11 terrorism attack in 2001, U.S. government lawyers provided broad interpretations of the law authorizing President Bush to use military within the U.S., conduct raids and wiretaps without obtaining search warrants, suppress freedom of speech and the press, abolish foreign treaties unilaterally, ignore the Geneva Conventions, and more — all in the name of fighting terrorism. "Too often over the past decade, the fight against terrorism has been viewed as a zero-sum battle with our civil liberties. Not only is that thought misguided, I fear that in actuality it does more harm than good," said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. before releasing the previously-secret documents on Monday."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Umm... it worked nicely for Apple (Score 1) 227

by Dekortage on Friday February 27 2009, @04:50PM (#27016713) Attached to: Book Publishers Making the Same Mistakes as Record Labels?

It may be a mistake from our perspective, but Apple shareholders don't mind too much that the iPod and iTMS are incredibly successful.

Many other companies have tried to break into the same markets (hello Microsoft?) with not much success. And they had even better DRM than Apple's! (from a lock-in perspective)

Google's Charity Chief Steps Down-> 0

Submitted by Dekortage on Tuesday February 24 2009, @07:03AM

Dekortage writes "Dr. Larry Brilliant is stepping down as executive director of Google.org. He also suggested on his blog that Google may cut back on funding charity projects that aren't closely aligned with Google's own internal projects, although they remain committed to spending 1% of Google's value on philanthrophy. Google.org will now be run by Megan Smith, who will juggle that job while staying vice president of new business development."
Link to Original Source

Comment: Re:Your tax dollars at work (Score 1) 325

by Dekortage on Tuesday February 24 2009, @06:49AM (#26967631) Attached to: Microsoft Unveils "Elevate America"

My favorite line from the MS site is: "If you would like to receive information when the Elevate America resources become available in your state, please follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/elevateamerica."

Oooh boy, I'm standing by for my Microsoft Tweet!

Comment: Re:Alternatives (Score 1) 208

by Dekortage on Monday February 23 2009, @06:11PM (#26962671) Attached to: SSLStrip Now In the Wild

No, If any part of a page is not encrypted then an attacker can effectively strip all encryption from the entire page.

You're right, and thanks for the links. Though, this seems to be more a problem with scripting vulnerabilities and MITM attcks than with HTTPS specifically.

I also thnk that browsers just should not allow a form on a not-fully-HTTPS page to submit to a HTTPS URL.

Comment: Re:Huge pet peeve (Score 1) 208

by Dekortage on Monday February 23 2009, @02:08PM (#26959645) Attached to: SSLStrip Now In the Wild

Designers then started breaking this. To avoid an extra https serve, particularly on a front page or popular page. For the sake of "Design", including putting a sign in form on the front page.

Errr... you really think the DESIGNERS cared about extra HTTPS hits??? They were probably told to put the login on the home page. Then, the sysadmins balked at the idea of an increased SSL load, but still said the login could be done securely if the form action was HTTPS.

The real problem is browsers. They should have been designed so that only HTTPS forms could submit to HTTPS actions. No HTTP form should be accepted.

Comment: Re:Alternatives (Score 2, Interesting) 208

by Dekortage on Monday February 23 2009, @02:01PM (#26959553) Attached to: SSLStrip Now In the Wild

Really, you should already be wary when a site asks you for login information over HTTP rather than HTTPS.

Maybe. The login form might be located on an HTTP page, but as long as the form submits to an HTTPS page, your login credentials are still SSL-encrypted. Conversely, if you have an HTTPS login form, but the form action goes to an HTTP site, your credentials are NOT encrypted.

Comment: it's actually a fantasy game! (Score 4, Funny) 293

by Dekortage on Monday February 23 2009, @10:24AM (#26956991) Attached to: A Real Bill Gates Rant

FTA: "In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations."

Finally, someone at Microsoft admits that you have to use magic to make Windows work right... I would comment more, but I am on my way to my daily Ballmer goat and bull sacrifice.