Comment Strong passwords are a red herring... (Score 1) 247
I wonder a bit why people/companies/etc are fussing a lot about the strength of passwords. Is it because security experts get anxious about all the ways that they can seemingly be hacked?
Though, it seems rare to me that the weakness of passwords contributes a lot to the actual damage that hackers actually do. Maybe it's because I am a tech layman, but I've never even heard of a company/etc having problems because the passwords were too weak. Rather, it's almost always a malicious worker, someone bringing viruses in via a laptop, keyloggers, hackers impersonating IT staff on the phone, or even the very simple shuffling through the garbage. NONE of which a strong password will do anything against, ever.
After all, trying to brute force, hack, or guess a password is generally very hard.
Though, it seems rare to me that the weakness of passwords contributes a lot to the actual damage that hackers actually do. Maybe it's because I am a tech layman, but I've never even heard of a company/etc having problems because the passwords were too weak. Rather, it's almost always a malicious worker, someone bringing viruses in via a laptop, keyloggers, hackers impersonating IT staff on the phone, or even the very simple shuffling through the garbage. NONE of which a strong password will do anything against, ever.
After all, trying to brute force, hack, or guess a password is generally very hard.
Comment Re:A good development (Score 1) 67
Problematically, the comparison between 'liberal' and 'conservative' is a false dichotomy anyway.
This is because the terms don't have any specific meaning, and are just flung onto people as some sort of arbitrary separation or disparaging remark (Oh, he's a liberal and you know what that means.)
Even within the ambiguity of the terms, people like Michael Moore wouldn't be well classified into them. 'Liberal' simply doesn't describe anything notable about him as compared to 'Bush hating' and 'anti-corporate;' neither of which are necessary for liberalism or progressivism as they are basically defined. Fox News also doesn't fit into any traditional sense of the word 'conservative,' and it would make more sense to think of terms like 'pro-Republican' and 'sensationalist.'
This is because the terms don't have any specific meaning, and are just flung onto people as some sort of arbitrary separation or disparaging remark (Oh, he's a liberal and you know what that means.)
Even within the ambiguity of the terms, people like Michael Moore wouldn't be well classified into them. 'Liberal' simply doesn't describe anything notable about him as compared to 'Bush hating' and 'anti-corporate;' neither of which are necessary for liberalism or progressivism as they are basically defined. Fox News also doesn't fit into any traditional sense of the word 'conservative,' and it would make more sense to think of terms like 'pro-Republican' and 'sensationalist.'
UK Can Now Hold People Without Charge For 42 Days 650
the_leander writes "Prime Minister Gordon Brown has narrowly won a House of Commons vote on extending the maximum time police can hold terror suspects to 42 days. There is talk of compensation packages available for the falsely accused. The chances of you getting that money however are slim to none, lets not forget, this is the same country that charges prisoners who have been falsely accused for bed and boarding costs."
Comcast Puts the Screws To HDTV 317
Todd Spangler writes "Comcast, like every video distributor, compresses its digital video signals. But to fit in more HDTV channels, Comcast is squeezing some signals more than others. The cable operator claims it is using improved compression techniques, so that most subscribers won't see any drop-off in picture quality. But A/V buff Ken Fowler claims the differences between some of Comcast's more highly compressed channels and Verizon's FiOS TV are indeed noticeable. He's posted his comparative test results on AVSForum.com — and the results are not pretty."
Statue of Galileo Planned for Vatican 333
Reservoir Hill writes "Four hundred years after it put Galileo on trial for heresy the Vatican is to complete its rehabilitation of the scientist by erecting a statue of him inside Vatican walls. The planned statue is to stand in the Vatican gardens near the apartment in which Galileo was incarcerated. He was held there while awaiting trial in 1633 for advocating heliocentrism, the Copernican doctrine that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The move coincides with a series of celebrations in the run-up to next year's 400th anniversary of Galileo's development of the telescope. In January Pope Benedict XVI called off a visit to Sapienza University, Rome, after staff and students accused him of defending the Inquisition's condemnation of Galileo. The Vatican said that the Pope had been misquoted and since the episode, several of the professors have retracted their protest."
Linux Foundation Calls for 'Respect for Microsoft' 486
kripkenstein writes "Jim Zemlin (executive director for the Linux Foundation) gave a talk at LinuxWorld saying that the open source community should stop poking fun at Microsoft. From the VNU article: 'Open source vendors have to recognize that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems. This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it. "There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.'"
Bookmark Q&A: Torvalds on Linux, Microsoft, software's future - LinuxWorld (linuxworld.com)
Bookmark Slashdot | The Heretical Freeman Dyson (slashdot.org)
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