The latest version of Mint is Petra (16). Olivia is 15. You'd think criticaly security updates would be backported at least.

Well I wrote it in Fishburne's voice, but I guess the real oscar here goes to Edward Snowden and the Wachowskis.

Teach Girls Coding, Get $2,500; Teach Boys, Get $0

Bait Slashdotters with programming themed battle of the sexes discussion: Priceless.

I'm running Linux Mint Olivia -- the next to current version -- an no openssl patch is yet available as of this afternoon. I image there are quite a few similar distros. Since I have actual work to do, and can't risk wasting two hours on a potentially borked upgrade, I'm stuck to trying not to use programs affected by the exploit for the duration.

While something tells me this exploit is somewhat overblown, what really ticks me off is that this is all the result of delegating memory management to C pointers and basically mmap. As far as I'm concerned, in this day and age, that amounts to spaghetti code and I can't say it endears me to the reliability of openssl.

Please, we need SSL to be secure, not fast. Just use a less efficient method to make things more secure.

All they have to do is sell the data to private companies then buy it back later, or buy an option to have permanent access to it. ...The merger of state and corporate power.

You don't need to simply imagine it:

http://hackaday.com/2013/05/21...

Complete with blinkenflashen!

Morpheus: The Link-bait is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very article summary. You can see it when you load up your RSS feed, or when you log into Slashdot. You can feel it when you're skiving off at work... when you're tweeting during church... when you're moaning online about politics and taxes. It is the distraction that has been pushed into your eyes blind you from the truth.

Neo: What truth?

Morpheus: That You are the Product, Neo. Like everyone else you have logged into a panopticon. Into a marketing scam that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your attention-span.

Some time later...

"My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the Armies of the North, General of the Felix Legions, loyal servant to the true Admin, Jon Postel. And I will advertise Cheap Affordable Cialis and Nigerian investment opportunities, in this life or the next."

How much did all of this cost?

Let's be blunt here. The purpose of this program was never to in any way seriously affect the Cuban regieme. The purpose of this program, like so many others at the NSA, was to "legitimize" bonuses and to buy new Cadillacs for NSA managers and senior officers. If General Alexander's Star Trek office revealed one thing, it is that the NSA has a culture of gorging at the public trough.

Corporations and commerce are basically run by elementary school-yard rules. Essentially the CEO runs up, takes something belonging to you, and runs away yelling "Nally-nally-neener-cakes! I get what you make!". There are no take-backsies unless you are willing to call a teacher/lawyers and get engaged in a huge fuss.

In fact, our modern system of commerce has become so efficient and automated that you do not even need to enter into a prior agreement or even a school in order for your property to "neener-caked". This will be the next step in the evolution of rent-seeking.

That's not freedom, that's power.

That's not a tautology, that's a platitude.

And if you don't want to be a victim of paparazzi and vindictive newspaper editors, black out all of your windows and never go outside again.

if you don't want to be a victim of the NSA or ad tracking companies, never go online again.

And if you don't want your pension scalped, don't invest it in the stock market where HFTs and Goldman rule the roost.

One the one side of all of these arguments, we have victims, and on the other, we have predators of all kinds who happily proclaim "It's legal. I'm allowed to exploit you. Freedom of Speech!! Small government!!.....Ignore the man behind the curtain I paid to have laws changed in my favor."

I have a different philosophy. I believe that the Law can be used to shape societies; to encourage behaviors we would like to promote, and discourage behaviors we would like to see curtailed. As long as we can have a debate about what Laws are legal and reasonable -- and not devolve into a Dogmatic ideological shouting match about commas in constitutions -- and as long we can apply Reason and wisdom, over emotion and ignorance when doing so, the Laws we develop stand a good chance of shaping society to make it a better place.

In short, I don't think a young girls smile in a photograph constitutes sacred, inalienable grounds for the bearer to upload said photograph to the Internet whenever he feels like 'sperging out would make him feel better.

The people who are waiting for you to develop secure password login libraries.

If you send too few people out then production won't be high enough in the beginning. You need to send a fair few billion out to at least the first few star systems so that the population can grow, then once the colony is establish, you need to ship people back to maintain production levels on the home world. This is basic stuff people.

I, and others, can relate story after story about people like this,....

I can also related dozen of stories of people who drove dangerously, passed me out, and flew passed the lights ahead before they went red.

So called "bad" or dangerous drivers are more often than not rewarded for accellerating quickly and swerving dramatically. Those of us foolish enough to stay within the speed limit, and not take risks, are left waiting at the red light.

There are only so many times you can see this happening before one say, you decide to speed up as well.