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Submission + - Truckload of OAuth issues that would make any author quit (blogspot.com) 5

DeFender1031 writes: Several months ago, when Eran Hammer ragequit the OAuth project, many people thought he was simply being overly dramatic, given that he gave only vague indications of what went wrong.

Since then, and despite that, many companies have been switching to OAuth, citing it as a "superior form of secure authentication" but a fresh and objective look at the protocol highlights the significant design flaws in the system and sheds some light on what might have led to its creator's breakdown.

Government

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Should Nations Have the Right to Kill Enemy Hackers? (slashdot.org)

Nerval's Lobster writes: "Cyber-attacks are much in the news lately, thanks to some well-publicized hacks and rising concerns over malware. Many of these attacks are likely backed in some way by governments anxious to seize intellectual property, or simply probe other nations’ IT infrastructure. But do nations actually have a right to fire off a bomb or a clip of ammunition at cyber-attackers, especially if a rival government is backing the latter as part of a larger hostile action? Should a military hacker, bored and exhausted from twelve-hour days of building malware, be regarded in the same way as a soldier with a rifle? Back in 2009, the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (which also exists under the lengthy acronym NATO CCD COE) commissioned a panel of experts to produce a report on the legal underpinnings of cyber-warfare. NATO CCD COE isn’t funded by NATO, and nor is it a part of that organization’s command-and-control structure—but those experts did issue a nonbinding report (known as “The Tallinn Manual on the International Law Applicable to Cyber Warfare”) exploring the ramifications of cyber-attacks, and what targeted nations can do in response. It's an interesting read, and the experts do suggest that, under circumstances, a nation under cyber-attack can respond to the cyber-attackers with "kinetic force," so long as that force is proportional. Do you agree, Slashdotters? Should nations have the ability to respond to cyber-attacks by taking out the hackers with a special-forces team or a really big bomb?"
Android

Submission + - We did not need Google's Schmidt to tell us Android and Chrome would not merge (networkworld.com)

Steve Patterson writes: Thankfully, Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has announced that "Android and Chrome will remain separate." Rumors that the products would be combined emerged last week when leadership of Android and Chrome were consolidated under Google Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai. Schmidt stated the obvious, but if you are a developer and you took the bait and thought the rumors might be true, you already read enough of Google Chrome or Google Android documentation before Schmidt’s clarification and confirmed that consolidating the two products would be, well, stupid.

Comment I actually work at a virtual company (Score 1) 175

I personally work at a virtual company, and aside from a neighbor which also works there, I have rarely met my coworkers in person. We use WebEx in order to have online meetings, and work on things together. We use Groopex Integrated Conferencing to integrate WebEx with our corporate site to easily schedule meetings and launch them. We use Google Apps to share various office documents around. We use MediaWiki to keep track of current projects, todo lists, documentation, and other important information. Lastly, for source code, we use various version control system with nice web frontends so the managers can see that we actually work on things.

For quick conversation with coworkers, we have an IRC server, and if we really need someone else urgently, we just pick up this archaic technology known as the "telephone".

Comment Re:My first question. (Score 4, Interesting) 375

See Effective STL Item 5. If size() is constant, then splice() must be implemented in a slower manner. Therefore, whether size() for std::list is constant or not depends on whether you want a fast or slow splice(), and that's up to the implementation. So conversely, you'll see that splice() in Visual C++ is quite slow.

Comment They make products for this already (Score 2, Interesting) 50

I don't know about a book. But there's products out there for using Moodle 1.9 integrated with online learning for live interactive classrooms. See Groopex Integrated Conferencing for example, which integrates Moodle with WebEx. I've already seen some language schools using this. I think that supersedes just using Moodle by itself as a language learning solution as this book describes.

Comment Gilaad (Score 1) 170

I work for an online university, we use web conferencing software from these guys. They have easy to use online tools for scheduling classes, and easily joining them from a central location. They also offer integration with Moodle which many universities now use. Their software also integrates with Microsoft's Live Meeting and Cisco's Webex, which have whiteboards, VoIP, desktop and application sharing, viewing multiple webcams, polling, raising hand, and so on.
Google

Submission + - Google releases open source JavaScript tools (cio.com.au) 1

Dan Jones writes: Google has open sourced several of its key JavaScript application development tools, hoping that they will prove useful for external programmers to build faster Web applications. According to Google, by enabling and allowing developers to use the same tools that Google uses, they can not only build rich applications but also make the Web really fast. The Closure JavaScript compiler and library are used as the standard Javascript library for pretty much any large, public Web application that Google is serving today, including some of its most popular Web applications, including Gmail, Google Docs and Google Maps. Google has also released Closure Templates which are designed to automate the dynamic creation of HTML. The announcement comes a few months after Google released and open source NX server.

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