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Comment Expose SSH over VPN only (Score 1) 349

by thenendo (#42928923) Attached to: SSH Password Gropers Are Now Trying High Ports
My solution is to not even expose SSH to the public internet. Instead I run OpenVPN on the server, and only expose SSH access to hosts who have joined the virtual network (which itself requires a client certificate). Even then, SSH access is pubkey/Kerberos only.

Now I get zero ssh gropes, and nobody even tries to get into the VPN. The OpenVPN port doesn't even show up in an out-of-the-box nmap -v -A scan.
Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Mark Cuban Chair To Eliminate Stupid Patents 121

Posted by Soulskill from the he-should-literally-hit-patent-trolls-with-a-chair dept.
l2718 writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation announced today a large donation by Mark Cuban and Markus 'Notch' Persson to the EFF Patent Project. Notably, part of Cuban's donation is for the creation of the 'Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents' (the first holder is current staff attorney Julie Samuels). Time will tell if the new title will help her advocacy work. Cuban said, 'The current state of patents and patent litigation in this country is shameful," said Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks. "Silly patent lawsuits force prices to go up while competition and innovation suffer. That's bad for consumers and bad for business. It's time to fix our broken system, and EFF can help.' Notch added, 'New games and other technological tools come from improving on old things and making them better – an iterative process that the current patent environment could shut down entirely. '"

Comment The Forum Matrix (Score 5, Interesting) 259

by thenendo (#41950065) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: What Is the Best Way To Add Forums To a Website?
I recently had to select a forums solution for my company, and this site proved extremely useful: http://www.forummatrix.org/

It catalogues tons of closed and open-source forum products coded by dozens of variables, and lets you compare them in a big matrix. Very useful if you have constraints/preferences like "works with SQL server" or "isn't PHP", etc.

My main complaint about it is that some of the data are out-of-date, but it is still a great starting point.

Comment Re:NoScript (Score 0) 108

by thenendo (#41638291) Attached to: An Overview of the Do Not Track Debate
I fully agree, and furthermore... The thing that pisses me off the most about most (even supposedly reputable) programs these days, is the eye opener you get if you run ldd. The fact that the binaries of supposedly reputable programs are trying to pull in code from like a dozen or more unrelated libraries is just fucking inexcusable, and it seems to get worse every day.

Worse yet is that some of those simply don't work at all unless you resort to "echo -e '/usr/lib\n/usr/local/lib' >> /etc/ld.so.conf", in which case I tend to just bail and never go back. I mean seriously...WTF??? I can't tell you how that burns my ass.
United States

Submission + - Thomas Jefferson: Scientist, Inventor, Gadgeteer 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence whose signing we celebrate today, was considered an expert in architecture, civil engineering, geography, mathematics, ethnology, anthropology, mechanics, and the sciences and although Jefferson never failed to acknowledge that in science he was "an amateur," Jefferson's home at Monticello was filled with examples of his scientific philosophy. An inventor and gadgeteer of great ingenuity, Jefferson's practical innovations or improvements on others inventions included: the swivel chair, the polygraph, letter press, hemp break. pedometer, mouldboard plow, sulky, folding chair, dumb-waiter, double acting doors, and a seven day clock. Throughout his life Jefferson experimented in agriculture with studies in crop rotation, soil cultivation, animal breeding, pest control, agricultural implements and improvement of seeds. Jefferson promoted science as President by recommending to Congress a coast survey to accurately chart the coast of America that later evolved into the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey. The Lewis and Clark and Pike expeditions were the precursors of the United States Geological Survey and stands as one of the outstanding feats of Jefferson's administration. Jefferson's expert testimony before Congress led to the establishment of the Naval Observatory and the Hydrographic Office and Jefferson's report to Congress on a plan of coinage and weights and measures based on the decimal system was expanded into the National Bureau of Standards. As Secretary of State Jefferson laid the cornerstone of our patent system and is considered to be the father of the Patent Office but the majority of patent applications during his tenure were rejected with only 67 patents granted, among them a patent to Eli Whitney for the cotton gin. Jefferson, an inventor himself never applied for a patent, which was consistent in his belief in the natural right of all mankind to share useful improvements without restraint."

Comment Re:EULAs, Terms of Use and the Like (Score 1) 114

by thenendo (#37458712) Attached to: Ask Jennifer Granick About Computer Crime Defense
Regarding minors and contracts, wikipedia is your friend. In most states, minors certainly can enter into contracts, but have a special privilege to disaffirm/void the contract at any time, in which case they must disaffirm the entire contract and return any consideration. In the case of an EULA, this is probably not much different from anybody's right to stop using the software if they don't like the EULA. https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Capacity_(law)
Microsoft

Microsoft Apologizes To Rival 151

Posted by kdawson from the it's-the-software-stupid dept.
Geoffrey.landis writes "Microsoft apologized to rival software vendor Corel Corp. for saying that Corel's file format posed a security risk, and issued a set of tools to unblock file types that had been blocked by default in the December Office 2003 service pack. In his blog on the Microsoft site, David Leblanc says 'We did a poor job of describing the default format changes.' He goes on to explain, 'We stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but this is actually not correct. A file format isn't insecure — it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure.' As noted by News.com, 'it is the parsing code that Office 2003 uses to open and save the file types that is less secure.' Larry Seltzer at pcmag.com also blogs the story."
NASA

NASA Spacecraft Set to Shine Spotlight on Mercury 71

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the long-lead-time dept.
coondoggie writes to tell us Network World is reporting that NASA will this month see the realization of a mission launched in 2004, sent to explore the planet Mercury. "MESSENGER, launched in 2004, is the first NASA mission sent to orbit Mercury, the planet closest to the sun. But on Jan. 14 it will pass close by the planet and use Mercury's gravity for a critical assist needed to keep the spacecraft on track for its ultimate orbit around the planet three years from now. Still, the spacecraft is also expected to throw back some never-before -seen images, NASA said. The flyby also will gather essential data for planning the overall mission. After flybys of Earth, Venus, and Mercury, it will start a year-long orbital study of Mercury in March 2011, NASA said. "

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