sideh - Slashdot User

Submission + - McDonalds DNA Spray to Stop Thieves (news.com.au)

Submitted by Nyder on Thursday January 19, 2012 @07:06AM

Nyder writes: McDonalds is testing out a new DNA spray in some of it's Australian outlets. Developed by an UK Cop & Chemist, it's a synthetic DNA solution, invisible under normal light, visible under UV. If the tests go well, they'll deploy it to all 730 outlets across Australia.

While I can see the use of this for somethings, McDonalds? Is people stealing napkins and straws that bad down under? Not surprised by people making this though. Just waiting on my fake DNA crime covering spray.

Submission + - Screensaver lock useless in X.Org 1.11 (by default (aeroxteam.fr)

Submitted by MojoMax on Thursday January 19, 2012 @06:56AM

MojoMax writes: Currently the default setup for X.Org Server 1.11 as used by Fedora 16 and Debian Wheezy renders the screensaver lock entirely ineffective. All that is required for a user with malicous (or pranktastic) intent is to enter the CTRL+ALT+Keypad-Multiply key combination and they would be immediately returned to the desktop. Obviously this takes all the fun out of hacking, which we all know involves guessing anywhere between 10 and 15 passwords before ultimately gaining access to the target system. However, do not fear it seems that the fix is very simple and it shouldn't take long for the major distros to close this little hole in security.

Submission + - Will secure boot cripple linux compatability (dreamwidth.org)

Submitted by MojoMax on Wednesday January 18, 2012 @07:24AM

MojoMax writes: The advent of Windows 8 is drawing ever nearer and recently we have learned that ARM devices installed with Windows 8 will not be able to disable the UEFI secure boot feature that many of us a deeply concerned about. However, UEFI is still a very real danger to linux and the freedom to use whichever OS you chose. Regardless of information for OEMs to enable customers to install their own keys, such as that published by the linux foundation (http://www.linuxfoundation.org/publications/making-uefi-secure-boot-work-with-open-platforms), there are still very serious and as yet unresolved issues with using secure boot and linux. These issues are best summarised quoting Matthew Garrett's words in his article "Why UEFI secure boot is difficult for Linux":

"Signing the kernel isn't enough. Signed Linux kernels must refuse to load any unsigned kernel modules. Virtualbox on Linux? Dead. Nvidia binary driver on Linux? Dead. All out of tree kernel modules? Utterly, utterly dead. Building an updated driver locally? Not going to happen. That's going to make some people fairly unhappy."

Comment Not so easy (Score 5, Interesting) 442

by sideh on Saturday September 18, 2010 @07:50AM (#33618978) Attached to: Swiss Canton Abandons Linux Migration

Replacing windows with Linux using centralised authentication isn't that easy. We tried it recently where I work where we run both Linux and WIndows 7. This meant it had to be AD.

Using ldap for web services was easy enough as was getting win 7 desktops joined up. The hard part was getting Ubuntu machines on the domain...

The first thing I tried was likewise-open which I had a number of problems with. We eventually settled on winbind which worked incredibly well for a samba file server joined to the domain, but for desktops it wasn't ideal. If the domain controller became inaccessible for whatever reason, the whole machine would freeze up even with cached credentials turned on. The other caveat was user's inability to change their domain passwords from Linux. Well.. it was possible but whenever they changed their password, both the new and old passwords would still work. (see http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Samba_&_Active_Directory#password_changes) It was also impossible to force a user to change their password, it would fail constantly.

If I weren't so determined I would have likely just gone with Windows 7 for ease of use despite the extra cost. There is one more commercial product I need to try and that's centrify. Fingers crossed.

Comment Re:All this (Score 2, Insightful) 100

by sideh on Wednesday August 11, 2010 @04:28AM (#33212970) Attached to: <em>Quake Live</em> Beta Ends, Optional Subscription Plans Added

While I agree with you, I see quakelive as a revival of the quake genre. Yes, qw/q2/q3 is still played but it's a nightmare getting all the patches required to play. All these new fangled "realistic" shooters drive me up the wall. QL makes it easy which opens up the game to a wider audience. I signed up for the "pro" package immediately just to support them, although one thing I will say is the servers all seem to be 6v6, which results in a massive spam fest. Hopefully they'll fix this. Incidentally, I was very impressed with the Linux version of the game. Installed and ran flawlessly in ubuntu 10.04 x86_64. Didn't even have to edit a config file :)

Submission + - Private database of student info open to Google

Submitted by deeceent on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @12:07PM

deeceent writes: A community college student who was Googling himself last month found some disconcerting information when he typed his name into the popular Internet search engine: a database file from his college popped up that included his name, birth date and Social Security number. The file also contained data on about 2,000 other students.

"We didn't think the information was open to Google," said Susie Williams, a spokeswoman for the Los Rios schools. "It was a shock to learn they were able to do it."

Google's Academic TB Swap Project 190

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @12:00PM from the hey-look-it's-chris dept.

eldavojohn writes "Google is transferring data the old fashioned way — by mailing hard drive arrays around to collect information and then sending copies to other institutions. All in the name of science & education. From the article, 'The program is currently informal and not open to the general public. Google either approaches bodies that it knows has large data sets or is contacted by scientists themselves. One of the largest data sets copied and distributed was data from the Hubble telescope — 120 terabytes of data. One terabyte is equivalent to 1,000 gigabytes. Mr. DiBona said he hoped that Google could one day make the data available to the public.'"

Submission + - Anti-Matter's Potential in Treating Cancer

Submitted by

eldavojohn

on Wednesday March 07, 2007 @11:39AM

eldavojohn writes: "The BBC is taking a look at how atomic physicists are developing cancer treatments. A step past radiotherapy, the CERN institute is publishing interesting results: "Cancer cells were successfully targeted with anti-matter subatomic particles, causing intense biological damage leading to cell death." The press release from last year is finally sparking interest in the medical community."

Submission + - The Web is leveling the "paying field"

Submitted by

netbuzz

on Sunday March 04, 2007 @08:45AM

netbuzz writes: "Only those holdout professional athletes can say "it's not about the money" and keep a straight face. The rest of us want to know if we're earning what we deserve, or at least that we're making what others who do similar jobs make. That's why sites that provide pay-scale information and salary calculators are becoming all the more popular. The New York Times has a roundup on them this weekend, and that account is the paper's "most e-mailed" item.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1205 4"

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