Comment "News for nerds"?? (Score 0, Offtopic) 438
Since when did Slashdot turn into a competitor of CNN and Fox News?
Comment It's now semi-official... (Score 1) 393
May 26th will now be known as "Face-Palm Day".
Or "May Fool's Day".
Just one day after Towel Day, too.
Comment Re:BFD (Score 1) 175
Step 1: Install Wireshark
Step 1.5: Install HttpFox (Firefox on any OS) or HttpWatch (IE or FF on Windows).
For HTTP traffic, both will supplement WireShark by giving you a clear browser-level picture of what data your browser is sending and receiving.
For HTTPS (or other SSL/TLS tunneled protocol spoken by your browser), it's also the practical way to get a cleartext version of the communication.
Submission + - Economy tanked while government surfed porn (google.com) 1
unixan writes: In a report by the SEC Inspector General that smacks of fiddling while Rome burns, 33 recent ethics investigations all showed that the government employees responsible for keeping an eye on the economy were instead obsessed with surfing porn — while the economy was tipping over.
One cited example:
One cited example:
A senior attorney at the SEC's Washington headquarters spent up to eight hours a day looking at and downloading pornography. When he ran out of hard drive space, he burned the files to CDs or DVDs, which he kept in boxes around his office.
Comment Re:For a program so hard to turn off (Score 1) 472
Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones
This is an ancient Israeli wish for bitter revenge against invaders. Here is more context (in alternate translation):
8 People of Babylon, you will be destroyed.
The people who pay you back for what you did to us will be happy.
9 They will grab your babies and throw them against the rocks.
Comment Re:Bad Astronomy, Bad Taxonomy (Score 1) 93
2. The definitions refers to our the sun. Not the star which the planet orbits but 'the sun'. That makes it sound like extrasolar planets are not planets either.
Given that we don't have much information about extrasolar planets yet, making up such definitions is bad science in general, not just bad astronomy.
We aught to survey another system by probe before determining whether our local definitions apply to other systems. Especially, for example, rules for small objects determined by politics.
Comment Re:In Soviet Russia capitalism owns YOU. (Score 1) 370
Actually, yes, luggage as well as shipped items are "lost" all the time. Police, security guards, customs, inspectors, etc. are rampant with corruption.
This is why Russia has yet to have a true capitalist recovery: every lucrative business attempt is nickeled and dimed to death by thefts and rackets.
Comment There's nothing nerd-worthy here (Score 1) 19
So, why is this article on /. ?
Comment Re:Reply (Score 2, Interesting) 462
Not for long.
Comment by a factor of X times (Score 1) 98
increase by a factor of more than ten times
Just like the x times less phrase, the "by a factor of X times" phrase just makes me wish that Slashdot would implement last-chance review before an editor is allowed to post.
For reference, "ten times" is a factor of 1.
Comment Re:Video Games (Score 1) 447
--but from then on, I always opened my cartridges at the register after paying.
Unnecessary if you are in the US, or a country with similar consumer-protection laws. You are allowed to open the product at the store to inspect it prior to purchase.
If they object to having to repackage (e.g. shrink wrap it again), tough cookies, especially if you fully intended on purchasing the product and found it to be faulty.
Comment Embargo (Score 3, Interesting) 220
Legerov said. For example, he said, “there will be published two years old Realplayer vulnerability soon, which we handled in a responsible way [and] contacted with a vendor.”
I think that apparently the vendors aren't doing a damn thing to patch a good amount of these reported vulnerabilities if they are being reported in a proactive manner. Seems as if once the exploits are running rampant in the wild then the vendors scramble to develop patches
It's most likely a case of resource management and insufficient resources available.
One word can solve the difference between responsible reporting and 0-day motivation:
embargo
The reporting security group still goes through responsible reporting methodology, but add proposed date the details will be reported more fully to the public.
I work for an enterprise-level network device manufacturer, and anyone in that line of work knows damn well that remote vulnerabilities are the harbinger of death if they're not addressed in a timely fashion. Yet, motivation to assign resources to fix it still relies (in part) on whether there is a public exploit or not. So it's with that background that I can say that embargoes work.
We don't know the details, but apparently Intevydis didn't give embargo dates along with their reported vulnerabilities. Now they see what kind of motivation that produces, and so they've set a pseudo-embargo: any time between Jan. 11th and Feb. 1st.
Comment Re:Seriously, preview your own posting editors! (Score 1) 186
Seriously, preview your story summaries editors!
"...so we'll have to watch closely to see what the company puts it back on its servers."
Who thinks that "it" makes sense?
What are you, a Grammar N... dammit
Submission + - Microsoft Borrows GPL Code for Windows 7 Utility (withinwindows.com)
Goatbert writes: "Rafael Rivera over at WithinWindows.com has found evidence that Microsoft has potentially stolen code from an open source/GPL'd project (ImageMaster for a utility made available on the Microsoft Store to allow download customers to copy the Windows 7 setup files to a DVD or USB Flash Drive. If Rivera's evidence holds up, this could be some serious egg in the face for Microsoft at a time when they're getting mostly good press from the tech media."
