Gud - Slashdot User

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Hungry students, how common ? 1

Submitted by Gud on Thursday April 10, 2014 @10:50AM

Gud writes: Opening the newspaper this morning this story hit me like bricks, as I recalled a number of these experiences from my time as grad student. http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

I remember choosing between eating, living in bad neighborhoods, putting gas in the car, etc. Me and my fellow students still refer to ourself as the "starving grad students." Today we laugh about these experiences because we all got good jobs that lifted us out of poverty, but not everyone is that fortunate.
I wonder how many students are having hard time concentrating on their studies due to worrying where the next meal comes from. In the article I found the attitude of collage admins to the idea of meal plan point sharing, telling as how little they care about anything else but soak students & parents for fees and pester them later on with requests for donations.
Last year I did the college tour for my first child, after reading the article, some of the comments I heard on that tour started making more sense. Like "During exams you go to the dining hall in the morning, eat and study all day for one swipe" or "One student is doing study on what happens when you live only on Ramen noodles!"
How common is "food insecurity in college or high school" ?
What tricks can you share with current students?

Submission + - Stung By File-Encrypting Malware, Researchers Fight Back (itworld.com)

Submitted by itwbennett on Thursday April 10, 2014 @10:36AM

itwbennett writes: When Jose Vildoza's father became the victime of ransomware, he launched his own investigation. Diving into CryptoDefense's code, he found its developers had made a crucial mistake: CryptoDefense used Microsoft's Data Protection API (application programming interface), a tool in the Windows operating system to encrypt a user's data, which stored a copy of the encryption keys on the affected computer. Vildoza and researcher, Fabian Wosar of the Austrian security company Emsisoft, collaborated on a utility called the Emsisoft Decrypter that could recover the encrypted keys. In mid-March Vildoza had launched a blog chronicling his investigation, purposely not revealing the mistake CryptoDefense's authors had made. But Symantec then published a blog post on March 31 detailing the error.

Comment Re:http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/ (Score 1) 445

by Gud on Friday February 21, 2014 @07:14PM (#46307397) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How Do You Manage Your Passwords?

I use it a well and use Dropbox (looking for something safer to replace it) to keep my database synced among a bunch of machines
PasswordSafe has the best password generators you can specify exactly what are the rules you want for each site

DOJ Often Used Cell Tower Impersonating Devices Without Explicit Warrants 146

Posted by Unknown Lamer on Thursday March 28, 2013 @05:11PM from the bending-the-rules dept.

Via the EFF comes news that, during a case involving the use of a Stingray device, the DOJ revealed that it was standard practice to use the devices without explicitly requesting permission in warrants. "When Rigmaiden filed a motion to suppress the Stingray evidence as a warrantless search in violation of the Fourth Amendment, the government responded that this order was a search warrant that authorized the government to use the Stingray. Together with the ACLU of Northern California and the ACLU, we filed an amicus brief in support of Rigmaiden, noting that this 'order' wasn't a search warrant because it was directed towards Verizon, made no mention of an IMSI catcher or Stingray and didn't authorize the government — rather than Verizon — to do anything. Plus to the extent it captured loads of information from other people not suspected of criminal activity it was a 'general warrant,' the precise evil the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent. ... The emails make clear that U.S. Attorneys in the Northern California were using Stingrays but not informing magistrates of what exactly they were doing. And once the judges got wind of what was actually going on, they were none too pleased:"

Submission + - NSA Building Spy Center (wired.com)

Submitted by AstroPhilosopher on Friday March 16, 2012 @08:06AM

AstroPhilosopher writes: The National Security Agency is building a complex to monitor and store 'all' communications in a facility to be larger than DC. One of its secret roles? Code-breaking your private, personal, information. Everybody's a target.

Comment Time to short AAPL stock ? (Score 2) 279

by Gud on Wednesday June 08, 2011 @11:54AM (#36375904) Attached to: Apple Plans New Spaceship-like Campus

If history has any lesion for us it is that when a company decides to build a statement building it frequently coincides with the decline of the company. Mr. Cringley talked about this few months back
http://www.cringely.com/2010/12/edifice-complex/

Sound As the New Illegal Narcotic? 561

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday July 15, 2010 @12:46PM from the you-ever-see-the-back-of-a-$20-bill-on-sound? dept.

ehrichweiss writes "The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics is warning parents and teachers of a new threat to our children: sounds. Apparently kids are now discovering binaural beats and using them to get 'physiological effects.' The report goes on with everyone suggesting that such aural experiences will act as a gateway to drug usage and even has one student claiming there are 'demons' involved. Anyone who has used one of those light/sound machines knows all about the effects that these sounds will give and to state that they will lead kids to do drugs is nonsense at best. It seems the trend in scaring the citizens with a made-up problem has gone to the next level."

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Internet 92

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday July 13, 2010 @09:17AM from the vicky-who? dept.

MMBK writes "Our friends at JESS3 have unveiled The Ex-Blocker. It's a Firefox and Chrome plugin that erases all name and likeness of your ex from the Internet, even if they become a meme, or the president. You'll no longer have to threaten to delete your Facebook account or concoct an elaborate e-hoax to assuage the reality-shattering complications that are born from break-ups. Simply construct an Internet that omits bad vibes all together."

Submission + - Sun Pushes Emergency Java Patch (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Trailrunner7 on Thursday April 15, 2010 @03:05PM

Trailrunner7 writes: In a sudden about-face, Sun has rushed out a Java update to fix a drive-by download vulnerability that exposed Windows users to in-the-wild malware attacks.The patch comes less than a week after Sun told a Google researcher it did not consider the issue serious enough to warrant an out-of-cycle patch and less than a day after researchers spotted live exploits on a booby-trapped Web site. The flaw, which was also discovered independently by Ruben Santamarta, occurs because the Java-Plugin Browser is running “javaws.exe” without validating command-line parameters. Despite the absence of documentation, a researcher was about to figure out that Sun removed the code to run javaws.exe from the Java plugin. The about-face by Sun is another sign that some big vendors still struggle to understand the importance of working closely with white hat researchers to understand the implications of certain vulnerabilities. In this case, Google’s Tavis Ormandy was forced to use the full-disclosure weapon to force the vendor into a proper response.

Submission + - Need to fix a grade, a 3'rd grader can help 1

Submitted by Gud on Thursday April 15, 2010 @03:03PM

Gud writes: In the Washington Post this morning there is a story about a 9 year old that was able to do anything he wanted to grades in his school in a system supplied by Blackboard.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/14/AR2010041404159.html?hpid=newswell

This comes on the heals of an other story about high-school students installing key loggers at their high school and going back and changing grades.

The question now is when will all the applicants to Harward submit transcripts that only have A's ?

Submission + - Iceland Volcano Ash Grounds European Air Travel (cbsnews.com)

Submitted by Ch_Omega on Thursday April 15, 2010 @02:51PM

Ch_Omega writes: From the article at CBSNews:
"An ash-spewing volcano in Iceland emptied the skies of aircraft across much of northern Europe on Thursday, grounding planes on a scale unseen since the 9/11 terror attacks. British air space shut down, silencing the trans-Atlantic hub of Heathrow and stranding tens of thousands of passengers around the world.

Aviation officials said it was not clear when it would be safe enough to fly again and said it was the first time in living memory that an ash cloud had brought one of the world's most congested airspaces to a standstill. "

BBC News, Deccan Herald and Barents Observer has more coverage.

Comment Re:Vendor promises (Score 1) 190

by Gud on Monday January 11, 2010 @06:42PM (#30730206) Attached to: Asus Promises 12-Hour Battery Life In New High-End Laptop

I have ASUS UL80VT and have had it for over a month, it promised 10 hours, I have used in the office whole
day without charging, that is email, web, coding, jabber, and meetings using WiFi, my guess is I used the
computer for about 6 hours, and 3 hours standing idle/sleeping and there was still some juice left and I got
2 hours at home out of the same charge, that is close enough to 10 hours for me, this was in power saver mode.
I like the switching between the two graphics chips, works like a charm, for most applications there is no
need for the fast one.
I have got about 5 hours of game playing in on battery with the fast graphics on.
My only issue with the machine is that I do not care for the "mouse" buttons, but a USB mouse
solved that problem when lots of clicking is needed.

In short I like this machine a lot and highly recommend it.

US Air Force Buying Another 2,200 PS3s 144

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday November 25, 2009 @05:02AM from the quick-who-knows-a-good-ps3-flight-sim dept.

bleedingpegasus sends word that the US Air Force will be grabbing up 2,200 new PlayStation 3 consoles for research into supercomputing. They already have a cluster made from 336 of the old-style (non-Slim) consoles, which they've used for a variety of purposes, including "processing multiple radar images into higher resolution composite images (known as synthetic aperture radar image formation), high-def video processing, and 'neuromorphic computing.'" According to the Justification Review Document (DOC), "Once the hardware configuration is implemented, software code will be developed in-house for cluster implementation utilizing a Linux-based operating software."

Eve Online's New Chief Economist 52

Posted by Zonk on Tuesday August 21, 2007 @12:15AM from the getting-serious-about-serious-money dept.

eldavojohn writes "Recently CCP, the folks behind the online game Eve Online, hired a real world economist to advise them on their in-game economy. Says the new hire, Dr. Eyjolfur Gudmundsson, 'There's a lot of discussion in the game about inflation and that is my job, to find out if inflation is going on. This makes the consumers behave in a more natural way because they are competing against each other on multiple levels, not only on a tactical level in combat but for logistics and resources. That builds consumer behavior and patterns that you see in the real world.' Is this a serious step to keep Eve Online competitive in the virtual land of MMOs despite scandals, Ponzi schemes & scams?"

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