Comment Re:Badger badger badger (Score 1) 172
We don't need no stinkin' badgers. (UHF)
Comment Re:Story is from The Sun (Score 1) 572
Just like Linus said "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow", the same holds true here.
Ummm, it wasn't Linus that said that, it was Eric S. Raymond in The Cathedral and the Bazaar
But hey, this kind of proves your point!
Comment Re:RIP DNF (Score 1) 565
The term Crap came from John Crapper the inventor of the Toilet.
The mans name was Thomas Crapper and he didn't invent the toilet. No did the term "crap" come from his last name.
Cinder Mobile OS Lets Users Send More Power To Slow Apps 92
alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: "Stanford University researchers are designing an operating system from the ground up to handle the power and security requirements of mobile devices. The Cinder operating system is already working on an Arm chip, and members of the team are working on making it run on the HTC G1 handset, according to Philip Levis, a Stanford assistant professor. Levis spoke about Cinder at the Stanford Computer Forum on Tuesday. If an application isn't running as fast as the user wants, a Cinder-based phone could include a button to boost the energy allocated to that application, Levis said. Cinder also could allow users to download any code and run it safely on their phones in a 'sandbox' mode."
Comment Re:oookay. (Score 3, Insightful) 47
"...in the hopes of making it the defacto choice of search technologies used by companies within their products. 'The Lucene search library ranks amongst the top 5 Apache projects... According to Lucid Imagination officials, the Solr search server, which transforms the Lucene search library into a ready-to-use search platform for building applications...
I agree, it could have been more explicit in giving a brief description, but was it really that difficult to glean what it does from the summary?
LED Lighting As Cheap As CFLs Invented 553
mcgrew writes "New Scientist reports that a British team has overcome the obstacles to cheap LED lighting, and that LED lamps as cheap as CFLs will be on the market in five years. Quoting: 'Gallium nitride cannot be grown on silicon like other solid-state electronic components because it shrinks at twice the rate of silicon as it cools. Crystals of GaN must be grown at 1000C, so by the time a new LED made on silicon has cooled, it has already cracked, rendering the devices unusable. One solution is to grow the LEDs on sapphire, which shrinks and cools at much the same rate as GaN. But the expense is too great to be commercially competitive. Now Colin Humphreys's team at the University of Cambridge has discovered a simple solution to the shrinkage problem. They included layers of aluminium gallium nitride in their LED design... These LEDs can be grown on silicon as so many other electronics components are. ... A 15-centimetre silicon wafer costs just $15 and can accommodate 150,000 LEDs making the cost per unit tiny.'"
Comment Re:Short lifespan? I don't think so. (Score 1) 249
Is there some reason the version under Linux would be so comparatively fragile?
My understanding is that Silicon Graphics (now SGI) wrote XFS specifically for their hardware which was designed to handle power failures, and would maintain enough power to finish it's current I/O operations. Since almost none (if any) x86 hardware has this built-in feature, XFS isn't as robust as it was on native SGI hardware. I can't find the references for this tibit, though. So take it with a grain of salt. It's just what I remember being told when XFS was first appearing on the Linux scene.
Although, some of the issues that people see on XFS may be due to modified files that haven't been flushed to disk before the system loses power. XFS intentially zeros any unwritten data blocks to avoid possible security issues arising from residual data [1]. I believe XFS also uses out-of-order writes for both meta-data and data so a loss of power could mangle some data.
There are a couple of slightly older, but still well-written, roundups about file system comparions. One here and one here.
Comment Re:Short lifespan? I don't think so. (Score 4, Interesting) 249
I was wondering why it was omitted from this article as well. I believe that it's because JFS just doesn't seem to have the mindshare of ext3, XFS, or even ReiserFS. After reading various filesystem comparisons, I chose it as my FS and I have been using it for over a year without a single issue. I don't have to worry about long fsck times at reboot, my CPU has less load when deleting or copying a large volume of files (virtual machines or CD/DVD isos usually), never had any file loss or corruption, and it seems to complete large file operations quicker than ext3 (what I used previously). There are some things that ext3 does better than JFS, but overall I prefer the advantages of JFS over the advantages of ext3.
I know that if I were to rebuild an older computer that had lower specs, or perhaps a set-top box like MythTV that I wanted to be more power effecient then JFS is going to be my choice for the filesystem.
Encrypted Images Vulnerable To New Attack 155
rifles only writes "A German techie has found a remarkably simple way to discern some of the content of encrypted volumes containing images. The encrypted images don't reveal themselves totally, but in many cases do let an attacker see the outline of a high-contrast image. The attack works regardless of the encryption algorithm used (the widely-used AES for instance), and affects all utilities that use single symmetric keys. More significant to police around the world struggling with criminal and terrorist use of encryption, the attack also breaks the ability of users to 'hide' separate encrypted volumes inside already encrypted volumes, whose existence can now for the first time be revealed." The discoverer of this attack works for a company making full-disk encryption software; their product, TurboCrypt, has already been enhanced to defeat the attack. Other on-the-fly encryption products will probably be similarly enhanced, as the discoverer asserts: "To our knowledge is the described method free of patents and the author can confirm that he hasn't applied for protection."
Submission + - Unisys investigated for covering up cyberattacks
Stony Stevenson writes: Unisys, a major government IT contractor, reportedly is being investigated for allegedly failing to detect cyberattacks, and then covering up its failings. Two US congressmen have called for an investigation into cyberattacks aimed at the Department of Homeland Security, along with a contractor charged with securing those networks.
In the letter they say the House Committee on Homeland Security's investigations led them to believe the department is under attack by foreign powers, and could be at risk because of "incompetent and possibly illegal activity" by a U.S. contractor. The congressmen didn't name the contractor in the letter. However, the Washington Post on Monday reported that the FBI is investigating Unisys, a major information technology firm with a US$1.7 billion Department of Homeland Security contract, for allegedly failing to detect cyber break-ins traced to a Chinese-language Web site and then trying to cover up its deficiencies.
In the letter they say the House Committee on Homeland Security's investigations led them to believe the department is under attack by foreign powers, and could be at risk because of "incompetent and possibly illegal activity" by a U.S. contractor. The congressmen didn't name the contractor in the letter. However, the Washington Post on Monday reported that the FBI is investigating Unisys, a major information technology firm with a US$1.7 billion Department of Homeland Security contract, for allegedly failing to detect cyber break-ins traced to a Chinese-language Web site and then trying to cover up its deficiencies.
Submission + - Today is System Administrator Appreciation Day (mcox.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Today is the 8th annual System Administrator Appreciation Day. It is always the last Friday in July and is the one day that SysAdmins are supposed to get the respect they deserve to be getting the other 364 days of the year.
Today is the day that we wish everyone would considering the daunting tasks, small budgets, and ridiculous timelines that many SysAdmins face all year. Please thank them for everything they do for you and for your business. If you think you have a great SysAdmin today would be the day to nominate them for SysAdmin of the Year.
The idea for System Administrator Day was inspired by a print ad for a Hewlett-Packard laser jet printer. The ad showed lines of employees bringing gifts for the IT guy who made the purchase.
System Administrator Appreciation Day has, over the years, garnered support from many organizations, such as the League of Professional System Administrators (LOPSA), Friends In Tech (FIT), Sunbelt Software, and 'In The Trenches', a podcast for SysAdmins. Many geek-inspired websites, such as ThinkGeek.com (also a sponsor) designed special gift guides devoted to the new day of appreciation.
Submission + - Leonard Nimoy to play Spock in next Star Trek movi 1
mcgrew writes: "The AP (via the Chicago Tribune) is reporting that Leonard Nimoy will 'don his famous pointy ears again' in the next Star Trek movie, due out Christmas of next year.
I've lost track, is this an even numbered Trek movie or an odd numbered one?""This is really going to be a great movie. And I don't say things like that lightly," Nimoy told a gathering of 6,500 fans Thursday at Comic-Con, the nation's largest pop-culture convention.
He greeted the crowd with a Vulcan salute.
Nimoy was joined by the newly named young Spock, "Heroes" star Zachary Quinto, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Nimoy.
Both Spocks were introduced by the film's director and co-producer, J.J. Abrams.
Submission + - US Feds expose thousands of SSNs
msblack writes: The New York Times is
reporting
that an Office of Management and Budget exposed over 30,000 SSNs on its
website
which now notes that information has been removed. As many as 100,000 to 150,000 individuals may have been affected. Taxpayer cost for notifications and credit monitoring is $4 million.
Submission + - Airships to patrol Venezuela's skies
bprime writes: "The BBC reports that officials in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, have bought three airship UAVs to keep tabs on the local populace. FTA: "The 15 metre (49 foot) long air ships are emblazoned with government slogans. Written in bright red are the words, 'We watch over you for your security'." They're not exactly black helicopters, but how long do you think until we see similar measures in high-crime American cities?"
Submission + - March is the Month of PHP bugs
PHP writes: "Stefan Esser is the founder of both the Hardened-PHP Project and the PHP Security Response Team (which he recently left).
During an interview with SecurityFocus he announced the upcoming "Month of PHP bugs" initiative: "We will disclose different types of bugs, mainly buffer overflows or double free(/destruction) vulnerabilities, some only local, but some remotely trigger-able (for example, because they are in functions usually exposed to user input). Additionally there are some trivial bypass vulnerabilities in PHP's own protection features. [...] As a vulnerability reporter you feel kinda puzzled how people among the PHP Security Response Team can claim in public that they do not know about any security vulnerability in PHP, when you disclosed about 20 holes to them in the two weeks before. At this point you stop bothering whether anyone considers the disclosure of unreported vulnerabilities unethical. Additionally a few of the reported bugs have been known for years among the PHP developers and will most probably never be fixed. In total we have more than 31 bugs to disclose, and therefore there will be days when more than one vulnerability will be disclosed.
The Month of PHP bugs will take place in March 2007.""
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