tom6a - Slashdot User

Submission + - Patterns in Lottery Numbers (omninerd.com)

Submitted by

markmcb

on Thursday November 01, 2007 @01:32PM

markmcb writes: "Most everyone is familiar with the concept of the lottery, i.e., random numbers are selected and people guess what they will be for a cash prize. But how random are the numbers? Matt Vea has conducted a pattern analysis of the MegaMillions lottery, which recently offered a sum of $370M (USD) to the winner. Matt shows that the lottery isn't as random as it may seem and that there are 'better' choices than others to be made when selecting numbers. From the article, 'A single dollar in MegaMillions purchases a 1 in 175,711,536 chance of landing the jackpot ... a player stands a mildly better chance of winning a partial prize through the selection of weighted numbers.'"

Submission + - Top 12 Operating Systems Vulnerability Summary

Submitted by

markmcb

on Tuesday March 27, 2007 @10:30PM

markmcb writes: "Have you ever wondered how vulnerable your computer is from the first bit you write to the hard drive all the way until you have a fully patched system? If so, Matthew Vea has posted a concise summary of security strengths and shortcomings for twelve of the major operating systems of 2006/2007. In his summary, Matt tests each OS with widely available tools like nmap and Nessus, and notes responses at install, pre-patch, and post-patch times for each system. After the tedious job is done, he produces results that will make both the Apple and Windows communities cringe with regards to security. From the article, 'As far as "straight-out-of-box" conditions go, both Microsoft's Windows and Apple's OS X are ripe with remotely accessible vulnerabilities. ... The UNIX and Linux variants present a much more robust exterior to the outside. Even when the pre-configured server binaries are enabled, each [Linux] system generally maintained its integrity against remote attacks.'"

Submission + - SPAM: 1 million $130 laptops already ordered

Submitted by

alphadogg

on Thursday February 15, 2007 @10:59AM

alphadogg writes: "Quanta Computer has confirmed orders for 1 million notebook PCs for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project. The machines cost $130, though the goal is to get them down to $100. [spam URL stripped]m illion-olpc-laptop-orders.html"

Comment What does Google record? (Score 3, Informative) 234

by tom6a on Thursday August 10, 2006 @08:59AM (#15879828) Attached to: Google to Continue Storing Search Requests

What information could Google release/lose/etc if the data was not protected? According to their privacy policy Google records the following information in their server logs:

Here is an example of a typical log entry where the search is for "cars", followed by a breakdown of its parts:

* 123.45.67.89 - 25/Mar/2003 10:15:32 - http://www.google.com/search?q=cars - Firefox 1.0.7; Windows NT 5.1 - 740674ce2123e969
* 123.45.67.89 is the Internet Protocol address assigned to the user by the user's ISP; depending on the user's service, a different address may be assigned to the user by their service provider each time they connect to the Internet;
* 25/Mar/2003 10:15:32 is the date and time of the query;
* http://www.google.com/search?q=cars is the requested URL, including the search query;
Firefox 1.0.7; Windows NT 5.1 is the browser and operating system being used; and
* 740674ce2123a969 is the unique cookie ID assigned to this particular computer the first time it visited Google. (Cookies can be deleted by users. If the user has deleted the cookie from the computer since the last time s/he visited Google, then it will be the unique cookie ID assigned to the user the next time s/he visits Google from that particular computer).

See http://www.omninerd.com/2006/01/25/news/489?highli ght=c4171#c4171

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