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Georgia Tech's ShaperProbe Detects ISP Traffic Manipulation 113

Posted by timothy from the shaping-is-such-a-euphemism dept.
An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: "Two researchers at Georgia Tech can tell you exactly how American ISPs shape Internet traffic, and which ones do so. Bottom line: of the five largest Internet providers in the country, the three cable companies (Comcast, Time Warner, Cox) employ shaping while the telephone companies (AT&T, Verizon) do not — though that fact is less significant for the user experience than it might first sound."

Comment Re:Sad state of affairs for a once great company (Score 1) 210

by SpecTheIntro (#36124766) Attached to: Square Enix Facing Big Losses For 2010

For example, you figured that the bulk of EA's revenue was from traditional console/PC games. Nope. IIRC like 60 or 70% is all from micro transaction/mobile/DLC/PC. Insane!

Though one odd thing I can't understand is why PC is treated like garbage when not only is this the re-emerging market, but it represents a pretty significant revenue area for most publishers/developers. The PC actually generates revenues on par (or more than) the Wii, PSP, or even the DS's. So why the poor ports and missing DLC/features (which should be in considering this is where the $$$ is at). Any ideas?

I'm not sure where you're seeing that on their 10-K. I found this interesting myself, so I pulled down EA's annual report and I see the following:

Net Revenue by platform:

Consoles - 2342m
Wireless - 472m

That's the current breakdown, and mobile is really only half of that. The numbers add up to the total topline revenue EA reported, so it would seem that right now, wireless revenues only account for ~ 10-15% of their total revenue. Forecasts may paint it differently, but that's because everyone wants to be Zynga.
Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer 8 Delayed Until 2009 204

Posted by Soulskill from the ready-when-it's-ready dept.
Barence writes "Microsoft has confirmed that Internet Explorer 8 will not be officially released until 2009. According to a blog posting on the Internet Explorer 8 development site, a release candidate of the browser will be released in the first quarter of next year, to be followed by a final release at an unspecified date. This news comes on the same day that Google is considering bundling its Chrome browser with new PCs. Will the IE delay and Google's tactics help to steer users in Chrome's direction?"
Privacy

BT Silences Customers Over Phorm 196

Posted by Soulskill from the lalala-i-can't-hear-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Register reports that BT, the UK's dominant telecom and internet service provider, has 'banned all future discussion of Phorm and its "WebWise" targeted advertising product on its customer forums, and deleted all past threads about the controversy dating back to February.' Phorm is a controversial opt-out system for delivering targeted advertising that intercepts traffic passing through an ISP in order to profile subscribers via an assigned unique ID based on their online activities. Subscribers can opt-out at the Webwise website but are opted-in again if the Phorm cookie is cleared. Firefox users can install Melvin Sage's Firephorm add-on to manage their interaction with Phorm and Webwise."
Role Playing (Games)

Tabula Rasa To Shut Down 244

Posted by Soulskill from the another-one-bites-the-dust dept.
NCSoft announced today that it will be closing down Tabula Rasa on February 28th. The sci-fi shooter-flavored MMO struggled for quite some time, despite recent attempts to draw in new players by announcements of new features, price reductions, and using Richard Garriott's trip into space as a promotion. We discussed Garriott's departure from NCSoft a couple weeks ago. This is NCSoft's second failed MMO, and apparently layoffs are in the works. They seem to be making an effort to make the game's last few months as fun as they can for their remaining players, though. "Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009. We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while."
Space

Dark Matter Discovered Near Solar System? 179

Posted by Soulskill from the near-being-a-relative-term dept.
gpronger writes "The ATIC (Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter) has potentially discovered the presence of dark matter close (only 3000 light-years) to our solar system. The system detected a large-amount of high energy cosmic rays which match the theoretical signature of dark matter annihilating itself. The universe is believed to be composed of about 25% dark matter, but there has been little evidence of it. This discovery, if correct, would be the first." The paper was published in Nature , but it requires a subscription to see beyond the abstract.

Comment Re:WUBI? (Score 4, Informative) 214

by SpecTheIntro (#22818936) Attached to: Ubuntu 8.04 Beta Released
I think it's new enough that there isn't a lot of first-hand experience with it. The FAQ describes it in Alpha, although the download link refers to it as Beta... in any case, my suspicion is that it is likely not very stable yet. You may want to experiment with it on a home PC before putting it on your work laptop.

Comment Re:Kids are overrated (Score 1) 479

by badkarma001 (#22111024) Attached to: World of Warcraft Gold Limit Reached, It's 2^31
I can't believe anyone who is a father could say this about their own kids.

yeah kids are loud, smelly, take up loads of your time, eat up vast amounts of money and all that shit

But having said that, having children has been the most inspiring experience of my life, seeing my children being born was the one the most amazing, yet scary experience of my life. Coming home from a days tinkering with unix boxes, to my kids running around the house is great.

having said that, I love computer games and sometimes I would rather be on my computer playing eve online or UT, but I figure its like 10-12 years of them wanting all your time. What scares me the most is when they hit their teens and no longer want to spend all their time with their dad.

Feed Tom's Hardware: Ruiz: AMD Profitable Again By Q3 2008 (pheedo.com)

From feed by thfeed
AMD faced critical analysts once again at its December analyst meeting, but chief executive officer Hector Ruiz sees the company on a road of continued recovery, which he believes will result in a return to profitability in the third quarter of 2008. However, the company appeared to be unsure whether it can deliver on a previous statement that it may be able break even in the current quarter.
Networking

Submission + - Linux Networking Cookbook 1

Submitted by
stoolpigeon
stoolpigeon writes: "As a dba, I'm constantly looking to learn more about networking and system administration. Both can have quite an impact on the performance of my piece of the puzzle. A welcome addition to the materials to help me learn about networking is Carla Schroder's "Linux Networking Cookbook". This book is just right for the person like myself who enjoys learning by getting hands-on experience with the technology. The scope is wide and so someone with a great depth of networking experience may find that the treatments of each is a bit shallow. On the other hand, that wide scope means this book may hold something new, even for someone with some level of experience.

This is not the kind of book that one sits and reads in the evening to gain new knowledge. I think of it more as a lab book or exercise guide. The user who has this open on the desk beside them, as they work through the 'recipes' is the one who will gain the most. The cookbook also assumes a basic level of ability in working with Linux from the command line.

The book follows a consistent format throughout the chapters. It truly is a cook book with the recipes taking the form of problems and solutions. There are eighteen chapters containing these recipes, the first chapter is a brief overview of networking in general. I think that Schroder's experience in implementing Linux networks or working with Linux in heterogenous networks really shows in the types of solutions and scenarios presented in the book.

Often as I worked through exercises, I kept thinking that what this book gave me was what I would have after hours of Googling and sifting through the results. Schroder has boiled that kind of hunting down to the necessary steps from installation, through configuration and use. For the person who values their time, or is not sure where to start searching for answers, this is a great resource.

The limitation of a recipe format is that modifying the solution or moving away from the detailed plan requires more experience and knowledge the further the reader departs from the given formula. Schroder has dealt with this issue in many chapters by giving instructions appropriate to Fedora and Debian. There are a couple exceptions to this which I will explain below.

I think that a strength of the book is that Schroder has not limited herself to desktop PC hardware. She is presenting a true overview of networking and so if the reader intends to work through every solution in the book, they are going to need to purchase some hardware. Some may object to this, and it is not absolutely necessary. Someone with enough experience or willing to do the research could shift things around and use say, an old desktop machine, but at that point they would be really doing things on their own and not needing the book.

There are 2 chapters that focus on building network devices with Pyramid Linux on a Single-Board computer. The hardware Schroder uses to write the solutions is a Soekris 4521, which retails for about $150. I think it is good that a person who might want to use this book knows that up front. To me, this is a much more economical solution than suggesting that one get their hands on a commercial device, and allows much more flexibility. Schroder could have shied away from asking for the reader to go to this step, but I think the choice reflects her commitment to making the book useful in real world situations.

The chapter on building an Asterisk VoIP system would probably also work best with some nice headphone/microphone sets that may be a necessary purchase for many. They are not required, a soundcard, microphone and speakers would work as well.

Having parallel solutions for Fedora and Debian side by side is very nice. After each solution there is also discussion of pertinent issues and reference to applicable resources. The other resources include pointing out appropriate man pages, web sites and other books. Schroder's style throughout is relaxed and very succinct. The nineteen chapters do cover such a wide array of technologies and issues, this book could easily be twice as large if she were wordy, instead it is very portable.

The chapters on network devices, routing, network monitoring and using linux to manage a network would be most valuable I think to network administrators or the person wearing that hat in a smaller shop. The chapters that revolve around connecting to systems remotely and using linux to manage windows machines could be a real boon to anyone who works in a mixed environment that includes more than just Linux machines. I've found all of it to be of value because I interact with all these pieces every day. It is nice to have a better grasp of how subnets are built and how routers work. I look forward to not relying on a gui or searching endless forums to get a good grasp on managing my iptables firewall.

Following the body, the book has three appendices. The first is a list of other resources. This is primarily other O'Reilly books, but there are books from other publishers and some resources available on the web. The second is a glossary of networking terms. The most useful to me was the third, a kernel building reference. I found the index to be decent. It isn't great, but it isn't bad either. The book comes with free access to it through Safari for 45 days, I thought that was a nice plus. O'Reilly has all of the examples available for download and the author's website is also a good launch point for related articles and information.

Slashdot often posts questions about Linux training. This book is a great way for the self learner to have a relatively unobtrusive guide while they gain direct experience in networking. Reading it alone wont do it, and there is still much to learn after completing each exercise, but a large part of the core competencies are there and thoroughly covered. I think there is also a lot here for that reader who has lobbied to get Linux in the door and now faces the task of getting their Linux machine to play nice with the rest of the network."
Operating Systems

Submission + - Commodore 64 Still Beloved After All These Years (cnn.com)

Submitted by
techsoldaten
techsoldaten writes: "CNN is running a story about the Commodore 64 and how people are still devoted to it after all these years. From the article, "Like a first love or a first car, a first computer can hold a special place in people's hearts. For millions of kids who grew up in the 1980s, that first computer was the Commodore 64. Twenty-five years later, that first brush with computer addiction is as strong as ever." Now if they will only come talk to me about my 8088."

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