I'm going to try the rapid-response, no-formatting method again.

MacBook Hacked in Security Contest
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the caught-with-your-pants-down dept.
TheCybernator writes
"Macaulay, a software engineer, was able to hack into a MacBook through a zero-day security hole in Apple's Safari browser. The computer was one of two offered as a prize in the "PWN to Own" hack-a-Mac contest at the CanSecWest conference in Vancouver. The successful attack on the second and final day of the contest required a conference organizer to surf to a malicious website using Safari on the MacBook -- a type of attack familiar to Windows users. CanSecWest organizers relaxed the rules Friday after nobody at the event had breached either of the Macs on the previous day."

Links:

Story: http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/23/1457220
hack into a MacBook: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,39286793,00.htm

I'm too tired today to add the fancy formatting, sorry. I've got two other ghosts from last month sitting on my hard drive, and I don't want this one to join them for fear of ectoplasmic overload, or something. So here's the basics:

Science: "Smart Dust" to Explore Planets
Posted by ScuttleMonkey in The Mysterious Future!
from the new-but-not dept.
Ollabelle writes
"The BBC is reporting how tiny chips with flexible skins could be used to glide through a planet's atmosphere in swarms to gather data and report back. 'The idea of using millimetre-sized devices to explore far-flung locations is nothing new, but Dr Barker and his colleagues are starting to look in detail at how it might be achieved. The professor at Glasgow's Nanoelectronics Research Centre told delegates at the Royal Astronomical Society gathering that computer chips of the size and sophistication required to meet the challenge already existed.'"

Links: tiny chips with flexible skins

Article link: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/04/18/1925206

Update: Good thing I didn't go to all that trouble, because the article was only playing dead. It went to "Nothing to see here", but remained in red on the front page and eventually went live.

I can't believe I missed it. I had a ghost slip right through my fingers!

When I came to work, I fired up my list of morning bookmarks. After checking email and half a dozen news and message boards, I got around to Slashdot. I ctl-shift-clicked the two red links and went on to read another dozen or so sites, and even went and got some work done.

When I happened to click the Slashdot links in another window, I saw "Nothing to see here. Please move along." Yikes! That meant that between when I first fired up the browser and when I shift-ctl-clicked, the article met its untimely (or perhaps just-in-timely) demise.

But there's nothing left of the ghost. I'd already gone on to read other Slashdot articles, and Opera 9 no longer seems to keep cached versions of pages -- when you hit "Back", it reloads with the current version.

I don't even know the original title of the article. All I have is the URL... like a feeling of cold in a creaky old house on a warm summer night.

Rest in peace, http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl? sid=07/03/06/1227222

Ghosts of Slashdot: 02/08/2007
[This is the second ghost in two days, but this time it's likely to stay dead. It's a dupe of yesterday's OLPC security article -- which was still on the front page.]

The Radical OLPC Security System
Posted by kdawson in The Mysterious Future!
from the tighter-than-yours dept.

CHaN_316 recommends a Wired article about the One Laptop Per Child project entitled "High Security for $100 Laptop":

"The laptop... will premiere a security system that takes a radical approach to computer protection. Krstic's system, known as the BitFrost platform, imposes limits on every program's powers. Every program runs in its own virtual machine with a limited set of permissions... Krstic contrasts this approach to Microsoft's Windows XP where every program, including Solitaire, has the right to access the web, turn on the video camera, open spreadsheets and send e-mail... 'This kind of model makes it more difficult for glue between applications to be built,' Krstic said. 'But 99 percent don't need glue.'"

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 02/06/2007
[Wow, it's been a ghost-free new year up until now. Kinda dead, you know. (groan) But here's one, though it may come back from the dead -- I suspect it got pushed from the front page in favor of the news of the DNS Root Server attack. The DNS story is also posted by "kdawson" who, oddly, doesn't have a link for his/her name -- perhaps it's this one? :) ]

Ogg Vorbis Gaining Industry Support
Posted by kdawson in The Mysterious Future!
from the chicken-or-the-ogg dept.

An anonymous reader writes

"While Ogg Vorbis format has not gained much adoption 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 bit-rates. 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. See the Xiph wiki page for a list of Ogg Vorbis chips."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

In the early 1800s, sparsely populated southwestern Missouri was shaken by the largest earthquake recorded in the continental US: the New Madrid Earthquake, estimated at an 8.0 on the Richter scale. Since then, cities along the Mississippi River from Memphis to St. Louis have wondered when the next one would hit. Maybe never, say researchers at Northwestern University. The rock deep underground is cold and dead, and 1812 may have been the fault's dying gasp.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 10/02/2006
[Halloween month begins with a ghost sighting. Sucks that I don't know enough about the Mac world to know why it was banished. Maybe another editor saw "A research conducted by..." and reflexively hit the "kill" button. Update: Yaz found the original article from two weeks ago -- it's a dupe after all. Good catch by somebody in the Mac world. And as Kalak noted, it leaned towards the FUD side anyway.]

Mac OS X Market Share Declining?
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the more-for-me dept.

tommm writes

"A research conducted by Net Applications suggests that Mac OS X market share has declined compared to last year. From the article: "With the way things are going, is that even possible? Well, according to Net Applications, it sure is. While OS X appeared to be having a small increase in usage during the later part of last year, the numbers show that OS X market share fell from 4.35 percent in December 2005 to 4.33 percent in August 2006, and that figure includes the usage of Mac Intel machines. If you subtracted the increase in that area, then you'd actually be left with a lower number that would sit right at 3.71 percent."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

Another day, another rejected article. Well, we can't all be Roland Piquepaille (aka "tag as pigpile"), can we? :)

While the rest of the world was watching Space Shuttle Atlantis dock with the International Space Station, the Chinese space agency was sending 474 pounds of seeds and fungi into orbit. The craft is due to return to earth in two weeks. Mission planners may be setting themselves up for an Ig Nobel prize, though, for the mission's stated goal: 'Chinese officials contend that seeds exposed to space radiation and microgravity contain more vitamins and other crucial minerals.'

Ghosts of Slashdot: 09/07/2006
[This particular issue, in particular the part about using Facebook's Groups as a protest mechanism, was covered a couple of days ago -- as a YRO rather than an Ask Slashdot, and rather more concisely to boot. Hadn't seen any ghosts in a while, so it's good to hear their mournful moans again. One strange note: there is no "from the X dept." quip, at least not one that I was able to retrieve.]

Facebook and Online Privacy?
Posted by Cliff in The Mysterious Future!

Donal writes

"Over the last year, the social networking site Facebook has become well known, both for it's popularity among students in the United States, United Kingdom and elsewhere and for it's use by law enforcement for information gathering. However, new non-optional features introduced today, in the form of 'news feed' and 'mini feed' allow all friends of any given person to follow that persons actions on an hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis, in what many people are describing as 'stalker-ish' descriptions of people's activities. This has produced widespread outrage, including petitions such as this, and countless people using Facebook's own 'groups' feature to protest against the site's new features. Whilst acknowledging that people using Facebook actively sign up and contribute information about themselves to the site, are social networking sites becoming the stuff of data miner's dreams, and is it becoming too easy for organizations to gather information on people's whereabouts and activities, without those people necessarily being aware of how much personal data is being collated?"

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

By the way, any Subscriber can join the Ghost Hunt, but so far only morcheeba has shown the requisite sensitivity to ectoplasmic vibrations.

Oops... I forgot that you can submit from your journal! That's ok, 'cause the resulting articles look rather lame, anyway. Anyway, here's my latest submission, in case the situation is too common to bother reporting any more.

Update: Rejected. But it took almost 12 hours, and from what I hear, that's almost as good as being accepted! Maybe it'll show up in a Slashback or something.

While some librarians are fighting for individual rights, others appear to be welcoming Big Brother with open arms. In suburban Dallas, a library patron requesting Internet access was given a choice, of sorts: Censored, or Extra Censored. One filters out "obscenity only", while the other filters out both "obscenity" and "material considered to be unlawful". As a helpful aside, the library's Internet policy acknowledgement form notes that both terms "are defined by the Texas Penal Code". The librarian's reaction to his request for "No Censorship" would be funny, if it weren't so telling.

You know, I never thought it would be possible to pwnxxor CmdrTaco, founder and User Number 1 of Slashdot. So when I put the domain name cmdrtaco.com on my Watch List at DomainTools.com (formerly whois.sc), I figured I'd just get to watch as CmdrTaco himself, or one of the nearly-a-million Slashdotters snagged it from domain limbo. The only question, I thought, was whether it would be used for good (like a pointer back to Slashdot) or for evil (personal attacks against CmdrTaco, malware trap, etc), or for something entirely unrelated.

Imagine my surprise when I come back from a 2-week vacation and find that the domain has become available! I didn't even grab it right away, because I figured the data was outdated -- DomainTools doesn't always have the latest information, though they do better on .com than on .org. But sure enough, I went to Gandi and voila, it worked! So now I pwn CmdrTaco. Kinda. At least I totally pwn CmdrTaco.com. Until he asks for it back.

I'm a collector, not a poacher or a squatter. Other domains I own include RCDV.org, a domain that made national headlines when a women's shelter forgot to renew it and it ended up as a porn portal. The squatter dropped the offensive content almost immediately and let the domain slip -- and I snagged it and made it a pointer to the correct site. Since the folks at the shelter aren't terribly web-savvy, I just keep renewing it.

The esteemed Father of Slashdot still has his own site at the nominally geekier domain name CmdrTaco.NET. The all-new CmdrTaco.COM points to Slashdot. Well, kinda. Remember OMG!!! PONIES!!!? bwa ha ha!

Update: I offered CmdrTaco the domain for the price I paid, and because he's an all-around cool dude, he accepted! Either that or because the poneys filled him with ph34r. w00t. It's for the best, really... pwning such a k3wl d0ma1n was just too much 1337n355 for one man to bear. Makes me tired just typing it.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 04/26/2006
[I heard about this on the (non-techie) radio this morning. I figure it got pulled because it's a dupe, but I'm busy at work and can't research it at the moment. Darned work. Gets in the way of my surfing.]

750GB Hard Drives from Seagate
Posted by CmdrTaco in The Mysterious Future!
from the enough-for-everyone's-mp3s dept.

duckets writes "Just when you thought you were running out of room to store all your music/movies/code/etc, Seagate announced on Wednesday April 26, 2006 that will introduce a 750 gig hard drive. Thats 375 hours of standard-definition television programming, about 75 hours of high-definition video, or more than 10,000 music CDs converted to the MP3 digital audio format. According to the Associated Press article the Barracuda 7200.10 will sale for a suggested retail price of $599."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 04/14/2006
[I'm posting this journal entry while the article is still alive... because it's *got* to go away. I knew this one was a dupe right away -- because I scored a +5, Informative on it (before some bozo called it "Flamebait" -- if anything, it should have been "Offtopic"...). But it's from a week ago, so it's understandable. I sent a note to DaddyPants, so give me an Assist if you're keeping score at home. Update: I guess I jinxed it by posting this entry too soon, because the article went live! I guess DaddyPants is taking a 3-day Easter weekend... maybe I'll see him at sunrise service.]

Microsoft Tool To Help Users Avoid Typo Domains
Posted by Zonk in The Mysterious Future!
from the slashdot-is-not-a-typo dept.

blueZ3 writes "ZDnet is running a story on a new tool from Microsoft that aims to inform users when they reach 'typo domains'. Apparently, there's concern in Redmond that IE users are being exploited by companies running ad farms on typo domains. The tool uses an automated search routine to look for domains with particular types of typographical errors--transpositions, incorrect TLDs, missing letters--and then adds the domains to a database. The eventual goal (though this isn't clear from the article) seems to be something akin to Verisign's URL redirecting, where typo domains are blocked."

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 04/11/2006
[How strange -- this is the second "States Gone Wild!" story by ScuttleMonkey to be terminated prematurely, in just the past week. Was it judged too "local", or too paranoid? Update: It's back on the front page after all. Timing is everything, I suppose.]

Microsoft Helps Write Oklahoma's Anti-Spyware Law
Posted by ScuttleMonkey in The Mysterious Future!
from the things-not-to-farm-out dept.

groovy.ambuj writes "The Inquirer reports that Microsoft has developed Oklahoma's 'Computer Spyware protection Act'. The law will supposedly protect people from unwarranted hackers or virus attacks and can fine individuals up to $1M who are found guilty of breaking into a computer without the owners knowledge. At the same time, it also allows some of the better known capable companies to 'look' into your computer for possible virus/spyware and fix the problem without informing you. And, while these friends are doing their job, they can also take the moment to do other things. "

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.

Ghosts of Slashdot: 04/07/2006
[Darn it! I just completed a detailed explanation of why this may be a tempest in a teapot, but also why it's an indictment of our current governor. I hit Refresh, and poof! The article disappeared into the great beyond. Well, I guess I'm left with posting my +5, Informative reply in the comments of this journal. If this ghost returns from the dead, I hope someone could copy it into their own reply -- enjoy the Karma! Oh, and Go Kinky! ]

Texas Governor Outlaws Peer-to-Peer Software
Posted by samzenpus in The Mysterious Future!
from the I'm-sure-this-will-work dept.

servergott writes "Texas Governor Rick Perry issued Executive Order RP-58 relating to peer-to-peer file-sharing software. The most interesting items are A) his definition of p2p software: "For purposes of this executive order, "peer-to-peer file-sharing software" means computer software, other than computer and network operating systems, that has as its primary function the capability of allowing the computer on which the software is used to designate files available for transmission to another computer using the software, to transmit files directly to another computer using the software, and to request transmission of files from another computer using the software." This overly broad definition could easily include HTTP and FTP. And B) the fact that the University systems are included in this Order (UT Austin, UT Dallas, etc.) P2P used for academic purposes has just been deemed illegal! Just another issue of poorly informed politicians jumping on the "Bad Internet" wagon. SG"

What are the Ghosts of Slashdot?
As a Slashdot Subscriber, I get to see stories before they're posted to the general public. This means that I get to see the mistakes -- the articles that almost made it, but got sent to the cutting room floor at the last minute. They become the Ghosts of Slashdot, a URL that points to nothing.

Note that this is NOT the same as whining about article submissions that didn't get accepted! These stories were accepted, posted for subscribers, and then pulled from the site. Their brief existence gives us a glimpse into the Slashdot post-submission process, for those who are interested in what's going on behind the curtain.