justin asks: "Earlier this week, I went into work I was met at my desk by upper management; they wanted to meet with me. I was not sure as to why but when we got into the office, they set a pile of paperwork in front of me, opened it up to a certain page and asked me what it was. The paperwork was a series of (gimpy) logs showing an internal IP address doing a combination of scanning, and then what looked like hacking, of various boxes on the internet (of these there was the US Treasury among other US Government Organizations). The internal IP address was that of the one I am normally (read: not always) assigned by DHCP. I told them I had no idea what this was, that I didn't do it and that I think I would remember hacking into the US Treasury. I was a contracted employee, so I don't think I have any recourse, I was just left high and dry accused of something that I did not do, and their basic sentiment was 'we will investigate this, do you want us to call you and give you your job back if you are innocent?', This seems rather silly to me since you'd think such things would be investigated, before they would decide to fire me. I'm looking to find out who else has been in this situation and how they dealt with it."

Huxley_Dunsany asks: "Yesterday, while attending the (super-duper cool and fun) Classic Game Expo here in Las Vegas, I was lucky enough to trade some old game stuff (Intelivision II, ZX-Spectrum, some Neo-Geo Pocket games) for a really neato black Sony Playstation 'Net Yaroze' edition. For those that don't know what I'm talking about, back in '97, Sony came out with a (very) limited edition of the plain old Playstation. Back in the day, the 'Yaroze' PSX ('Yaroze' supposedly means 'Lets do it together') came with some special cables and software for PC/Mac, and, given enough time and effort and programming talent, you too could create your own Playstation games! Unfortunately, the Yaroze I got yesterday came with nothing but the main CPU - no software, and none of the special PSX-to-PC/Mac serial cables. This morning, I hooked it up and hit the power button, and it fired right up with no problems! So, I'm just wondering if any of you have ever used this seemingly rare dev system, and if you could pass along any good ideas or advice. It seems that Sony has long since discontinued this program (and then recently started it again with the PS2 Linux kit), so I'm not sure where to turn for help if I actually wanted to use this thing to make some games, let alone finding/creating the cables and software."

Irvu asks: "The Register has a lengthy opinion piece today about IBM's lawsuit, and the GPL. Barring a settlement this case will see the first test of the GPL in a court of law. Previously the GPL has functioned as a social contract with the implicit (albeit untested) force of law behind it. Any ruling now could radically alter the free-software/open-source landscape for good or ill. Andrew Orlowski dwells on these possible ills in his piece. What does Slashdot think? Is this test a good or bad thing? Do you have faith in the justice system (or IBM's Lawyers) to draw the right conclusions? And, how do you see any outcome affecting you?"

LilJC asks: "I work at a company that does service work nationwide for a major chain. Our vendor requires a signature for every visit to every store. We have been running thus far from ICR on faxes and linking to the faxed signature image on our web site, but are having numerous problems trying to depend on a thousand+ faxes a month coming through perfectly. We are looking for an economical alternative that would allow a contractor in the field to get a signature and transmit it to us in an system I can idiot-proof. Something along the lines of the UPS guy's digital clipboard, but without the pricetag of a Telxon. Brainstorming myself, I wonder if there must be a cheap PDA/modem combo or the like that would allow a contractor to enter required visit information, get a store signature, go home, plug it into their phone line (without needing a computer), and hit send. I can code and am not afraid of doing some custom work for an app on a handheld. Does the Slashdot community know of any projects along these lines, or have ideas about a wise choice for hardware to homegrow the software on?"

garyebickford asks: "I recently learned that a company I co-founded a long time ago has degenerated to the point where the present principals have sold off most of the equipment and have moved 'operations' into their houses. Though the founding concept is almost two decades old, they still believe that they'll be able to pull something out of a hat. I'm pretty sure the two remaining true believers haven't been paid for several years, and have been working outside to support themselves. The company hasn't sold anything for years as far as I know, but they have kept it running through an amazing series of trials and tribulations including some of the most amazing legal shenanigans I've ever heard of. The stock was delisted a long time ago and is now valued at about $0.001. Of course, who knows? Maybe it will recover. It's happened before. I'm sure we all know of many others, like snakebit projects that have migrated from company to company, and 'entrepreneurs' who could raise money over and over but never quite get a company going, and of course, really cool technology that just never seemed to come out of development, or was almost done when the money ran out?So Slashdot, fess up - do you have a 'company in a box' downstairs? What kind of earth-shaking, irrelevant or worthless technology is sitting under your stairs? More interestingly, why are you, or they, still committed to the business?"

acone asks: "Have any national governments taken measures to subsidize open source projects? I'm aware that many have endorsed Linux in particular, and free software in general, but I was wondering about actual funding. I ask because the notion of a good built and maintained by the community almost inevitably suggests that such be treated as a public good. Many of the public goods we now take for granted--such as police, public libraries, and public fire departments--were historically provided either by private enterprises or by loosely-organized volunteers, neither of which have proven nearly as effectively for the common goods as their current government-run equivalents. An excellent example is the organization of the police force, libraries and fire department in colonial Philadelphia, in which these services became established in a very grassroots manner, then gradually gained acceptance as something that the state should provide. This pattern looks temptingly applicable to free software. In addition to the current, community-based mechanisms in which free software is developed, wouldn't it be beneficial to have dedicated groups of professional free software developers, paid by national governments to serve the overall interests of society? Seems to me like such would be a Good Thing."

greenrd writes "Ever spent hours trying (and failing) to get a printer driver to work on Linux? Struggled to configure something ever-so-slightly out-of-the-ordinary? What have been your biggest annoyances when using Linux? Three O'Reilly authors are compiling a book on Linux annoyances - and their suggested solutions - and they've started a mailing list here. I can't help but think, though, that such a book will be dated quite quickly. Sure, some problems do languish unfixed for years - but equally, I suspect many of the problems will be fixed before, or soon after, the book's publication date. Still, increased visibility might motivate developers to create fixes or workarounds for some of the problems, so maybe this is an ideal opportunity to get your pet peeve finally addressed!"

Bob Bitchen asks: "I have had the current TV set for 10+ years and really haven't put any thought into a new one. The current set is having some problems and I'm thinking of getting a new larger set or possibly a projector, with a budget of $1000. What's the best thing to get these days? HDTV ready might be nice but it's not mandatory. I don't know enough about the projector technology to feel comfortable about buying them but I might be convinced, if I hear from enough converts. Do the projectors perform as well as conventional displays? If I do go with a conventional display TV, what models are preferred and why? I am also looking for some good sites for comparing and learning more about the current state-of-the-art in televisions. I found a good site for projectors but haven't found a similar site for TVs."

school-hacker asks: "I am a U.S. university student who has recently come across 2 remote exploits for a homework program used by colleges nationwide. Both vulnerabilities allow students to give themselves arbitrary scores, and possibly execute arbitrary code. To further emphasize the scope of this vulnerability, I have written and -selftested proof-of-concept exploit code. Naturally, I want to share this information with their software engineers, and would even be nice enough and suggest a means to fixing it. However, with the state of current intellectual property and reverse-engineering laws, I hesitate to do so out of fear of litigation or academic disciplinary action. As an ethical geek, what do -you- do?" While the responses from an earlier story might prove useful, here, there is always the possibility of the university making things harder for the person reporting the problem. How can students avoid both legal and academic trouble, when trying to notify their university of security problems?

rw2 asks: "So I run a little political website and have had problems for years with users basically trolling the place. This is a problem that sites like Slashdot deal with through the familiar moderation scheme. Unfortunately that doesn't scale well to smaller sites. There are a couple reasons for this: a smaller sample size makes it easy to mess with the system; and with only several hundreds of people visiting everyday, it's hard to get regular enough moderation. So the question goes back to one of trust metrics. Advogato has a neat hack to deal with this, but even they have barely enough users to make it Work. Surely I'm not the first to desire this. I can think of several stumbling blocks sociologically. But technologically this is a dead simple idea. Has someone looked into developing such a system?"

flyingember asks: "I am considering purchasing an iPod, since they are so cool looking. I then came across the new Nomad Zen NX. Size isn't an issue, my current MP3 player being a MP3-CD player. The big thing is price. In the US the 30GB Zen costs $300, the 30GB iPod costs $500. Or you can get a 10GB iPod for $300 or a 20GB Zen for $250 on the low end. Has the iPod got better design and layout of controls to make the price difference worth it?"

pfleming asks: "Several months ago I began a maintenance fork of some niche software. Essentially, these are PHP/MySQL scripts for real estate offices. The original developer moved on to an incompatible version to what I was using. Upgrading for me and many other users was not the easiest option. Luckily the software is GPL'd and so continued work on the fork is not a big deal. I have set up a site, made it available for download, announced the availability of the fork on Freshmeat and the forums for the original software. Now I have a few people subscribed to the project on Freshmeat, and a few on a mailman list set up for the project. This project has been listed on the GNU Website and other mirror sites but doesn't get much discussion on the mailman list and nothing from the Freshmeat subscribers. There is usually an increase in interest (indicated by a short term increase in site hits) when new releases are announced but this fades back to regular traffic of ~40 visits per day as measured by webalizer after a short period of time. Is this an anomaly? Should I be thankful that there aren't tons of bug reports and feature requests?"

LostSinner asks: "My mother, who is blind, called me recently and asked if I'd be up for a challenge. She is supremely fed up with trying to use her current cellphone (a StarTAC) and is looking for a new one. Recently, she has heard about the newer Java-enabled phones. She wants me to write a Java program which will allow her to navigate the menus, place calls, and generally use everything available to us sighted folks that she can't currently use. Though there are a few aftermarket pieces of software somewhat geared towards this, the price and the functionality (or lack thereof) are both sticking points... and what's the use of having a geek son if you don't get any benefits, right? I plan to release the code and either give the software away for free or charge a nominal fee for it. It's new ground for me, but I love a challenge. So, is a Java enabled phone the best way to go? Are there already phones out there with this functionality built in? If Java is the best way to go, what service provider and/or phones does Slashdot recommend? Thanks."

gmhowell asks: "With the popularity of USB pen drives, I've thought it time to join the crowd and get one. But I'm curious as to what is so important that you should always have a copy. Clearly PuTTY or your favorite SSH client is important. Perhaps with some keys. But what else? A copy of your browser cookies? MP3s? Pictures? What other software is smart enough to run from a portable medium without need for an installation? (Yup, MAME and z26 seem like likely candidates)."

Nice2Cats asks: "So I'm reading all over about how companies are desperate for people who know how to work mainframes, especially now that IBM is shipping them with Linux. But how -- short of a course with Big Blue or some other exercise in expensive formal education -- can I acquire even the most basic information or experience with big iron? There doesn't seem to be many tutorials or introductions online; what would be nice, but I can't seem to find either, would be a simulator that would run on a PC. All I want to know is if I like enough to be seriously interested."

Berend de Boer asks: "To celebrate the upcoming encounter of The Mars Kind, I like to watch a DVD about Mars with my kids. Is there something worthwhile people can recommend? It should be suitable for younger kids (max 10), so Total Recall 2070 is out the question. It does not necessarily have to be an action film...something educational will be fine as well."

Mark Tobenkin asks: "Early in the new century legislation was passed, allowing for medium-sized FM transmitters in the United States. The objective was to empower local communities in the face of growing media consolidation. However, in early 2001, Congress curtailed this new project. The fresh political climate following the rejection of the FCC's new regulations seems to offer hope. Does the Slashdot Community know of a movement to give LPFM a second shot in Congress?"

pipeb0mb asks: "A few years ago, I worked for Chilliware, Inc. as the 'Technical Development Manager'. Some of you may remember us for the software iceSculptor, Mohawk and Mentor. Chilliware folded rather quickly and harshly back in May of 2001 due to money issues. Within days of the first layoff, everyone was gone, from the CEO and VP's to the receptionist. Now, years later, I've been digging through some old CDs, and am reminded that I still have the final production source code for the products we released in the retail channel. I've attempted to contact several folks over the past couple of years to gather information about the software and who owns it now. To no avail though. Either I get an 'I don't know' or 'No one' from the dis-interested parties. I feel like these programs are my children that never got a fair shot. I hate to see so much work wasted and lost to the ages. So, Slashdot: What do I do with this source code? It's a great deal of well commented and well written code, performed by over 100 developers in a former Soviet Republic (who formerly worked with Boomerang Software). Where do my binary children go now?" As things are now, if a company folds, the code is buried and forgotten unless someone buys the rights to it, before the source code is lost. This issue was discussed a long time ago and there didn't seem to be much in the way of answers. Have 3 years made any difference?

BWJones asks: "How does one represent online texts to best convey information to the reader as there are a number of issues related to online textbook reading and interpretation that are quite different from reading a standard textbook. We have a site dedicated to retinal vision education that went online a number of years ago and is due for a major rewrite/re-creation. This site was one of the original online textbooks and its design attempted to be of use in the early graphical navigation of the web. However, as the content has increased and will continue to do so, navigation has become more cumbersome. I am looking for suggestions to increase its usability while content increases and will entertain all ideas. I am loathe however, to make the browsing requirements too steep as there are folks from all over the world who access this site (about 30k/hits per day) and they do not always have the latest in computer technology."

rajinder asks: "What are the experiences of Slashdot folk when it comes to including the source code of a security tool in their final year dissertation? I have a project in mind that I want to submit that can be used by admins to evaluate the security of their wireless network(s), but it could just as easily be used for their nefarious purposes. Before I submit the idea, I wanted to see if anyone knew of potential hurdles I would have to face. Anybody ever done something similar? The official rules about what is allowed is available in this PDF [or the HTML version], but I don't see anything relevant to my dilemma (the relevant section is 2.4, page 9) UK university-system specific info would be appreciated, but I plan on carrying on my education in the US, so info from either side of the pond would be good. Does anyone know if I would be able to GPL the code afterwards and put it out there? Would it remain property of the University or the student that wrote it?"