Genral Web Comments
Friday, September 30, 2005
CCC | How to fake fingerprints?
CCC | How to fake fingerprints?: "How to fake fingerprints?
October 26, 2004 (starbug)
Simple instructions how copy and fake fingerprints
In order to fake a fingerprint, one needs an original first. Latent fingerprints are nothing but fat and sweat on touched items. Thus to retrieve someone elses fingerprint (in this case the fingerprint you want to forge) one should rely on well tested forensic research methods. Which is what's to be explained here. (Figure 1)."
Zimbra™�- Home
Zimbra™�- Home: "Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite Open Source Project Beta Launch
Zimbra is a community for building and maintaining next generation collaboration technology. Currently, this technology is available as a beta version. At Zimbra, our goal is to make e-mail, calendar, contacts and other communications technologies the best they can be. We believe that by opening the technology to the community we will ensure that we can maximize innovation, scale and the ability to co-exist with existing messaging systems.
We encourage you to check out the demo of our beta to see why we are so excited:"
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Wired 13.10: Building Your Own Air Force, One Mig at a Time
Wired 13.10: Building Your Own Air Force, One Mig at a Time: "n a cavernous airplane hangar in Quincy, Illinois, two hours south of Chicago, Don Kirlin paces beneath the gold hammer and sickle of a large Soviet flag. Around him are the military bulwarks of the once-formidable Evil Empire: four Czech Aero Vodochody L-59 Super Albatross fighter jets, perched in two rows. In another Kirlin hangar next door sits a Soviet MiG-21 Mongol, the bane of US pilots in Vietnam. Outside, on the flight line, are seven Czech L-39s, still bearing red Communist stars. And just beyond them, almost invisible in dusky-gray and sky-blue paint, two MiG-29 Fulcrums. The pride of the hallowed -Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau, the Russian equivalent of Lockheed Martin, the Fulcrum has a top speed of Mach 2.4 - hundreds of miles per hour faster than an American F-16 Eagle or F/A-18 Hornet - and remains one of Russia's preeminent fighters."
Wired News: Mighty Mice Regrow Organs
Wired News: Mighty Mice Regrow Organs: "Genetically altered mice discovered accidentally at the Wistar Institute in Pennsylvania have the seemingly miraculous ability to regenerate like a salamander, and even regrow vital organs.
Researchers systematically amputated digits and damaged various organs of the mice, including the heart, liver and brain, most of which grew back."
Wednesday, September 28, 2005
WebMail Client / WebMail Server for Linux , Unix and Windows
WebMail Client / WebMail Server for Linux , Unix and Windows: "Software Description
Innovating within the email server industry since 1998, Calacode develops @Mail, a robust integration of Open Source Technology, Unix, Strong Encryption, and industry-standard Groupware Features in a centralized messaging platform.
The software can be used as a WebMail interface to an existing mailserver, a complete Email Server platform, or an Exchange replacement.
Seamlessly unifying messaging components, @Mail simplifies migration from outdated legacy systems. Filtering out the white noise of growing open-source options, @Mail is a reliable and complete messaging platform that includes full source code for complete control.
The optional @MailServer Appliance is a complete turn-key hardware solution with the @Mail software pre-loaded for rapid deployment and system reliability."
Zimbra™�- Home
Zimbra™�- Home: "Zimbra™ Collaboration Suite Open Source Project Beta Launch
Zimbra is a community for building and maintaining next generation collaboration technology. Currently, this technology is available as a beta version. At Zimbra, our goal is to make e-mail, calendar, contacts and other communications technologies the best they can be. We believe that by opening the technology to the community we will ensure that we can maximize innovation, scale and the ability to co-exist with existing messaging systems."
TCS: Tech Central Station - Confessions of an Engineering Washout
TCS: Tech Central Station - Confessions of an Engineering Washout: "I am an engineering washout. I left a chemical engineering major in shame and disgust to pursue the softer pleasures of a liberal arts education. No, do not pity me, gentle reader; do not assuage your horror and dismay at my degradation by flinging a filthy quarter into my shiny tin cup. Instead, hear my story, and learn why the United States lacks engineers.
Not long ago, I showed up for my first year at Smartypants U., fresh from a high school career full of awards and honors and gold stars. My accomplishments all pointed towards a more verbal course of study, but I was determined to spend my college days learning something useful. With my strong science grades and excellent standardized test scores, I felt certain that I could handle whatever engineering challenges Smartypants U. had to offer. Remember: Kern = real good at math and science. You will have cause to forget that fact very soon."
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
CCC | How to fake fingerprints?
CCC | How to fake fingerprints?: "How to fake fingerprints?
October 26, 2004 (starbug)
Simple instructions how copy and fake fingerprints
In order to fake a fingerprint, one needs an original first. Latent fingerprints are nothing but fat and sweat on touched items. Thus to retrieve someone elses fingerprint (in this case the fingerprint you want to forge) one should rely on well tested forensic research methods. Which is what's to be explained here. (Figure 1)."
RFC-Ignorant.org Home
RFC-Ignorant.org Home: "rfc-ignorant.org is the clearinghouse for sites who think that the rules of the internet don't apply to them.
We maintain a number of lists (at present 'dsn', 'abuse', 'postmaster', 'bogusmx', and 'whois') which contain domains or IP networks whose administrators choose not to obey the RFCs, the building block 'rules' of the net.
It is important to note that NOTHING requires ANYONE to comply with an RFC (pedantically a 'Request for Comments'), however, the 'cooperative interoperability' the net has enjoyed is based upon everyone having the same 'rule book' and following it. A listing here simply implies that a site has chosen not to implement the conditions described in a particular RFC. It is, of course, up to other sites to decide for themselves whether or not they wish to communicate with sites that have not chosen to implement, say, RFC2142, and have a working 'abuse@domain' address.
Put another way, rfc-ignorant.org does not block anyone. We document who has chosen not to implement certain protocols described in the RFCs, and provide a means for allowing people to determine for themselves if they wish to communicate with non-compliant systems.
The links to your left under 'Listing Policy' detail the criteria for any given zone, and also include the specific RFC numbers that are used for determining the policy contained therein."
The Web100 Project
The Web100 Project: "While the national high-performance network infrastructure has grown tremendously both in bandwidth and accessibility, it is still common for applications, hosts, researchers and other users to be unable to take full advantage of this new and improved infrastructure. Without expert attention from network engineers, users are unlikely to achieve even 10 Mbps single stream TCP transfers, despite the fact that the underlying network infrastructure can support data rates of 100Mbps or more. On unloaded networks, this poor performance can be attributed primarily to two factors: host system software (principally TCP) that is optimized for low bandwidth environments, and the lack of effective instrumentation and tools to diagnose performance issues.
The Web100 project was created to address these problems. The first is addressed with automatic TCP buffer tuning. The Web100 work in this area has been merged with main-line Linux kernel, and is contained in recent releases. To address the other problem, we have created a set of TCP instruments, defined in an IETF internet-draft. These instruments are implemented in Linux with the Web100 kernel patch."
Torvalds & Linux Dev Process
Torvalds & Linux Dev Process: "Some already exists.
(Score:5, Informative)
by jd (1658) on Monday September 26, @01:10PM (#13651791)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday July 30, @01:33AM)
The Linux Test Project, Web100 (which profiles the network stack) and the TAHI IPv6/IPSec Test Suite should be usable to give you a starting point for validating the kernel. HOL may be usable as a component in formal proofs of components with well-defined behaviour (such as busses, networks, etc). Both TAU and the Performance Application Programming Interface would allow you to create profiles of kernel components running in User-Mode Linux, so allowing developers to spot the causes of things like latency.
These wouldn't solve ALL problems, or even the majority of them, but they would solve some and they would make life easier on developers in the long-run. Are these being used? Well, a glance at the Freshmeat graphs for Web100 shows that it is getting downloaded. This doesn't mean it is getting used, though. The same is true of virtually all of the other code I've mentioned. People have copies, but if the code being submitted is flakey and taking a long time to fix, then maybe the code is not being used as much as it could/should be.
The tools exist, the tools exist on people's hard drives, but unless the tools are being used in practice, that's not going to do any good."
Job Burnout—Part 1
Job Burnout—Part 1: "A Personal Story
I’ve experienced job burnout. Before this job I worked for a small high-tech firm that provided complicated programs for companies nationwide, including a very well-known company that would kill my firstborn if I divulged its name. I was responsible for this and other major accounts.
The technology-based programs we provided were supposed to function nonstop. I found myself monitoring programs and heading back into the office late at night or in the wee hours of the morning to reset systems or alert technicians to do so. This was on top of assisting the president’s overworked assistant in managing the company during the two weeks each month he spent at his vacation home, managing two departments, and taking on whatever else needed to be done.
I thrived on the responsibility. What led to my burnout were the inability to give our customers the service I thought they deserved and promised, my strong reluctance to go along with the president’s instruction to be less than honest with our clients, and the organization’s failure to resolve certain issues. The job conflicted with my values. I was mentally and physically exhausted and suffered from chronic stomach problems.
Before finally making the decision to leave the job, I identified the issues that were contributing to my burnout, came up with suggestions for what both the company and I could do to make things better, and discussed my ideas with the president. Eight months after our meeting, nothing had changed. I gave notice and left both the job and my chronic stomach problems behind."
Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "OSLO (Reuters) - Burying heat-trapping gases emitted by power plants and factories could play a big role in fighting global warming but would be a costly fix needing strong government backing, a U.N. report said on Monday.
The survey by 100 experts said greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide can be filtered from chimneys of plants burning fossil fuels then piped and stored in disused mines or oilfields. The gases might also be dissolved in the oceans.
The hitch was the cost.
Electricity prices could typically rise by 25-80 percent if power plant operators, the most promising users, adopted the technology, according to the report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
'While the most important solutions to climate change will remain energy efficiency and cleaner energy sources ... capturing and storing carbon dioxide can supplement these other efforts,' said Klaus Toepfer, head of the U.N. Environment Programme."
Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Scientists say it's not easy to tell if global warming caused hurricanes Katrina and Rita but on Monday they forecast more unpredictable weather as Earth gets hotter.
Even skeptics agree that global warming is under way and that human activity is at least in part responsible. Climate experts also agree that this warming is likely to make the weather more extreme -- colder in some places, hotter in others, with droughts and severe rainstorms both more common.
'Global warming, I think, is playing a role in the hurricanes,' said Kevin Trenberth, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
'But a lot of what is going on is natural. What global warming may be doing is making them somewhat more intense,' said Trenberth, a member of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - The lawsuit over whether intelligent design should be taught in schools alongside evolution began in federal court on Monday with defendants' attorneys calling it a scientific theory and opponents saying it was an effort to put God in the classroom.
In the first such legal battle, lawyers sparred during opening arguments at Federal District Court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, over whether the teaching of intelligent design -- an alternative to evolution that involves a God-like creator -- violates the U.S. Constitution.
The trial over teaching man's origins in U.S. schools pits Christian conservatives against teachers and scientists in what is seen as the biggest test of the issue since the late 1980s.
'Intelligent design isn't science. It's old theology,' said Eric Rothschild, lawyer for 11 parents who sued the Dover school district of central Pennsylvania over including intelligent design in its ninth-grade biology curriculum.
'It's a clever tactical repackaging of creationism,' he said, telling a packed courtroom that the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed teaching creationism -- the belief that God created the world as told in Genesis -- in public schools in 1987."
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk: "SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore schools have begun a clampdown on students who insult teachers in online journals by punishing them with suspensions, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
In August, five junior college students who posted derogatory remarks about their teachers and vice-principal on their blogs, or online journals, were suspended for three days, the Straits Times reported.
Seven secondary schools and two junior colleges have also got tough on penalised students for making offensive remarks about teachers on blogs: one secondary school student who called a teacher a 'prude' and a 'frustrated old spinster' on her blog was ordered to remove the remarks."
Sunday, September 25, 2005
A collection of Articles & Reports by Mr. Robert Fisk Audio & Video
A collection of Articles & Reports by Mr. Robert Fisk Audio & Video
ZNet |Repression | U.S. BARS ROBERT FISK FROM ENTERING COUNTRY
ZNet |Repression | U.S. BARS ROBERT FISK FROM ENTERING COUNTRY: "The internationally renowned correspodent for The Independent -- the great British journalist Robert Fisk -- has been banned from entering the United States. Fisk has been covering war zones for decades, but is above all known for his incisive reporting from the Middle East for more than 20 years. His critical coverage of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq, and the continuing occupation that has followed it, has repeatedly exposed U.S. and British government disinformation campaigns. He also has exposed how the bulk of the press reports from Iraq have been 'hotel journalism' -- a phrase Fisk coined."
Saturday, September 24, 2005
compartment: "compartment is a security tool for running privileged and/or network services in a compartment. This tool supports dropping privs to a user and/or group, chrooting and Linux Capabilities, plus initialization scripts. Example scripts, e.g. for bind8, are included."
Friday, September 23, 2005
LSB Referenced Specifications
LSB Referenced Specifications: "The LSB 3.X Specification
The LSB Specification evolution continues with the 3.x release. Built on the same structure as the 2.x specification, this version of the LSB is based on a new C ABI, and includes many improvements through out the specification."
Windows Beat Unix, But It Won't Beat Linux
Windows Beat Unix, But It Won't Beat Linux: "Twelve years ago, I oversaw a PC Magazine feature on Unix on Intel. My team and I reviewed at Unixes from Consensys, Dell, Interactive, SCO, Univel, Sun, and NeXT.
We also looked at, but didn't review, Unixes from UHC, Microport and other companies most of you have never heard of.
Today, most of those companies are dead. Only two of them—Sun and SCO—are still in the Unix business.
So what happened?"
Top Gun ssh
Top Gun ssh: "Top Gun ssh for PalmOS
Top Gun ssh is an ssh (version 1) client for palmtops running PalmOS and having a TCP/IP stack. This includes the Palm Pilot Pro, Palm III, Palm V, the corresponding models of Workpad and Visor, as well as the Treo. It does not include the Palm VII or the i70x; those machines apparently have no way to do TCP/IP.
The current version is 1.3. This version fixes a bug in 1.2 that prevented Top Gun ssh from connecting to newer sshd version 2 servers, even when those servers has a version 1 fallback mode enabled.
The easiest thing to do is just to get the binary package and install all the .prc files contained in it. If you like, you can also grab the source, but be warned that it assumes a really out-of-date Unix cross-compilation toolset.
Some people have reported problems using Top Gun ssh with keyboards, and with Kyocera Smartphones. With keyboards, the problem is that the keyboard driver, when you press a key, inserts the KeyDown event into the event stream, but fails to wake up any program blocked on user input using select(). The result is that your keystrokes only show up when you do some other UI event, such as tapping on the screen. With the Smartphone, the problem is that the phone's implemention of NetLibReceive() has a bug which will cause it to wait the entire length of its timeout argument, even if some data is available right away. Here's a version of TGssh.prc which works around these two bugs. Just install it on your PalmOS device over top of the existing one. Note that it works around the select() problem by polling more often, and so there may be battery-draining issues. "
Top Gun ssh
Top Gun ssh: "Top Gun ssh for PalmOS
Top Gun ssh is an ssh (version 1) client for palmtops running PalmOS and having a TCP/IP stack. This includes the Palm Pilot Pro, Palm III, Palm V, the corresponding models of Workpad and Visor, as well as the Treo. It does not include the Palm VII or the i70x; those machines apparently have no way to do TCP/IP.
The current version is 1.3. This version fixes a bug in 1.2 that prevented Top Gun ssh from connecting to newer sshd version 2 servers, even when those servers has a version 1 fallback mode enabled.
The easiest thing to do is just to get the binary package and install all the .prc files contained in it. If you like, you can also grab the source, but be warned that it assumes a really out-of-date Unix cross-compilation toolset.
Some people have reported problems using Top Gun ssh with keyboards, and with Kyocera Smartphones. With keyboards, the problem is that the keyboard driver, when you press a key, inserts the KeyDown event into the event stream, but fails to wake up any program blocked on user input using select(). The result is that your keystrokes only show up when you do some other UI event, such as tapping on the screen. With the Smartphone, the problem is that the phone's implemention of NetLibReceive() has a bug which will cause it to wait the entire length of its timeout argument, even if some data is available right away. Here's a version of TGssh.prc which works around these two bugs. Just install it on your PalmOS device over top of the existing one. Note that it works around the select() problem by polling more often, and so there may be battery-draining issues. "
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
QDB: Quote #181581
QDB: Quote #181581: "#181581 (819)- [X]
The U.S. Government today changed its emblem from an eagle to a condom because it more accurately reflects the government's political stance. Condoms stand up to inflation, halt production, destroy the next generation, protect pricks, and give a sense of security while actually screwing you!"
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Business (The Write Stuff)
Urban Legends Reference Pages: Business (The Write Stuff): "Claim: NASA spent millions of dollars developing an 'astronaut pen' which would work in outer space while the Soviets solved the same problem by simply using pencils.
Status: False.
Examples:
[Collected on the Internet, 1999]
Thought for the day.
During the space race back in the 1960's, NASA was faced with a major problem. The astronaut needed a pen that would write in the vacuum of space. NASA went to work. At a cost of $1.5 million they developed the 'Astronaut Pen'. Some of you may remember. It enjoyed minor success on the commercial market.
The Russians were faced with the same dilemma.
They used a pencil.
[The Moscow Times, 2000]
There is a charming anecdote that roams from e-mail box to e-mail box around the world about how, at the height of the space race, the Americans and Soviets approached the same problem: how an astronaut (or cosmonaut) could use a pen to write in zero gravity.
As the story goes, the Americans spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on an ambitious, gravity-immune ballpoint pen; they successfully developed such a pen; and this pen went on to become a massive commercial success in the private sector. The Soviets - with the simple elegance their scientists are so rightly famed for - opted instead to use a pencil. "
Sunday, September 18, 2005
: "SYN cookies
Mail service for Panix, an ISP in New York, was shut down by a SYN flood starting on 6 September 1996. A week later the story was covered by the RISKS Digest, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and many other newspapers.
SYN flooding had been considered by security experts before. It was generally considered insoluble. See, for example, ``Practical UNIX and Internet Security,'' by Garfinkel and Spafford, page 778:
The recipient will be left with multiple half-open connections that are occupying limited resources. Usually, these connection requests have forged source addresses that specify nonexistent or unreachable hosts that cannot be contacted. Thus, there is also no way to trace the connections back. ... There is little you can do in these situations. ... any finite limit can be exceeded.
Large SYN queues and random early drops make SYN flooding more expensive but don't actually solve the problem.
SYN cookies use cryptographic techniques to solve the problem. I pointed out how easy this was on 16 September 1996; Eric Schenk and I worked out the gory details over the next few weeks. Jeff Weisberg released a SunOS implementation in October 1996, and Eric Schenk released a Linux implementation in February 1997.
SYN cookies are now a standard part of Linux and FreeBSD. They are, unfortunately, not enabled by default under Linux. To enable them, add
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/tcp_syncookies
to your boot scripts. "
TCP/IP Stack Hardening
TCP/IP Stack Hardening: "TCP/IP Stack Hardening
If you run a UNIX-like operating system, you can make it more secure by modifying behavior of the TCP/IP implementation. This page lists modifications for the various TCP/IP protocols. For the most part, these are commands that would go into a boot script such as /etc/rc.sysinit or /etc/rc.local.
The tables only list the possible commands -- some tuning steps are not possible (at least as far as I know) on certain UNIX implementations. If there is a dangerous type of packet that might be allowed under a strict interpretation of the protocols, but which is currently considered to be risky, the listed commands frequently list how to both ignore inbound packets and refuse to send outbound packets. This prevents your host from being victimized and prevents it from being used to launch attacks.
This page only describes how to harden the TCP/IP stack on UNIX-like operating systems. It is based on the recommendations found in the following pages, plus my commentary and explanation:
On a Linux system, see the file /usr/src/linux/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt
http://docs.sun.com/db/doc/816-0607
http://secinf.net/info/unix/ip-stack-tuning.html "
Hardening the TCP/IP stack to SYN attacks
Hardening the TCP/IP stack to SYN attacks: "Most people know how problematic protection against SYN denial of service attacks can be. Several methods, more or less effective, are usually used. In almost every case proper filtering of packets is a viable solution. In addition to creating packet filters, the modification of the TCP/IP stack of a given operating system can be performed by an administrator. This method, the tuning of the TCP/IP stack in various operating systems, will be described in depth in this article.
While SYN attacks may not be entirely preventable, tuning the TCP/IP stack will help reduce the impact of SYN attacks while still allowing legitimate client traffic through. It should be noted that some SYN attacks do not always attempt to upset servers, but instead try to consume all of the bandwidth of your Internet connection. This kind of flood is outside the scope of scope of this article, as is the filtering of packets which has been discussed elsewhere.
What can an administrator do when his servers are under a classic, non-bandwidth flooding SYN attack? One of most important steps is to enable the operating system's built-in protection mechanisms like SYN cookies or SynAttackProtect. Additionally, in some cases it is worth tuning parameters of the TCP/IP stack. Changing the default values of stack variables can be another layer of protection and help better secure your hosts. In this paper I will concentrate on: "
Hardening the TCP/IP stack to SYN attacks
Hardening the TCP/IP stack to SYN attacks: "We can also count how many half-open connections are in the backlog queue at the moment. In the example below, 769 connections (for TELNET) in the SYN RECEIVED state are kept in the backlog queue.
# netstat -n -p TCP | grep SYN_RECV | grep :23 | wc -l"
Bash.org XML / RSS Feed
Bash.org XML / RSS Feed: "Bash.org XML / RSS Feed
Please point all bootleg/scraped bash.org feeds to http://bash.org/xml. If yours was more robust, email me feature requests and I'll be glad to add them. "
Saturday, September 17, 2005
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Using nanotechnology, researchers have taken the first step toward developing a fully functioning artificial kidney for patients with end-stage renal disease, possibly eliminating the need for dialysis or kidney transplantation. The device is small -- about the size of a paperback book -- and therefore portable or implantable.
In the journal Hemodialysis International, Dr. Allen R. Nissenson, from the University of California at Los Angeles, and colleagues note that the equipment consists of two membranes operating in series within one cartridge. The membranes mimic filter structures found in a real kidney."
Amount of data I save daily
Amount of data I save daily: "Jesus Saves (Score:5, Funny)
by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 15, @01:55PM (#13567630)
If Jesus saves, I wonder how much, and if he makes daily backups."
Friday, September 16, 2005
Hilton hacker sentenced to juvenile hall: Builder AU: Program: At Work
Hilton hacker sentenced to juvenile hall: Builder AU: Program: At Work: "accessing T-Mobile USA's internal systems and posting data from Paris Hilton's mobile phone on the Web will serve 11 months in a juvenile facility.
The teenager pleaded guilty last week to a series of hacking incidents, the theft of personal information and making bomb threats to high schools in Florida and Massachusetts, according to a statement from the U.S. attorney for the district of Massachusetts.
All crimes took place over a 15-month period, beginning in March 2004. Victims suffered a total of about US$1 million in damages, according to the statement."
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Fortune 75 - The Law of Unintended Consequences - FORTUNE - Page 1
Fortune 75 - The Law of Unintended Consequences - FORTUNE - Page 1: "Even in the mute efficiency of international wire transfers, $540 million makes a noise when it lands in your bank account. To Kent Alexander, that sound was a thud—and in this case 'not one single thud, but a lot of different thuds.' All afternoon on July 21, 2005, Alexander, who is Emory University's general counsel, president Jim Wagner, and other senior members of the school's administration were receiving e-mailed reports from the finance de- partment: '121 million just hit!' And then, 50 minutes later, '183 million just hit!' Half an hour after that, an even richer stash arrived. Thud. 'It was an out-of-body experience,' says Alexander, 46. 'By any definition, it's a huge deal. As one of our trustees was saying, 'It doesn't get any bigger than this on Wall Street.' '
The deal in question had closed only days earlier, when a pair of biotech companies, Gilead Sciences of Foster City, Calif., and Royalty Pharma of New York City, outbid several other parties for Emory's roughly 20% stake in the powerful anti-retroviral drug Emtriva, which is used to treat HIV. The drug was developed more than 15 years ago by three of the university's scientists, working on federal research grants, but received FDA approval only in July 2003. Now, however, Emtriva (a modest seller in its own right) was being married to another antiviral in a single pill. The combination drug, called Truvada, was expected to have a worldwide market of nearly $1 billion in 2006. Emtriva was becoming a blockbuster. Citigroup set up the auction and hammered out the terms with bankers from Lazard. A white-shoe law firm, Covington & Burling, calculated the drug's projected royalty streams through the year 2021, when the patent life was scheduled to end."
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk: "LONDON (Reuters) - Brain size matters if you are a bird, according to a new study published on Wednesday.
Birds with bigger brains adapted better to the environment and therefore did better, according to scientists from The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, Liverpool University and Birmingham University.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, found that populations of birds like grey partridges and corn buntings -- all with relatively small brains relative to their size -- had dropped sharply."
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk: "BERLIN (Reuters) - A German inventor said he has developed a method to produce crude oil products from waste that he believes can be an answer the soaring costs of fuel, but denied a German newspaper story implying he also used dead cats.
Christian Koch, an inventor and patent holder of the 'KDV 500' that he said produces high quality fuel, said he can transform waste products such as paper, rubbish and plastic materials into fuel.
But Koch, 55, said there was no truth to stories published in Bild newspaper on Tuesday and Wednesday that suggested he used dead cats as part of the mix for his organic diesel fuel.
'I use paper, plastics, textiles and rubbish,' Koch told Reuters."
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk: "BERLIN (Reuters) - A German inventor has angered animal rights activists with his answer to fighting the soaring cost of fuel -- dead cats.
Christian Koch, 55, from the eastern county of Saxony, told Bild newspaper that his organic diesel fuel -- a home-made blend of garbage, run-over cats, and other ingredients -- is a proven alternative to normal consumer diesel.
'I drive my normal diesel-powered car with this mixture,' Koch said. 'I have gone 170,000 km (106,000 miles) without a problem.'"
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk: "VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Orthodontists have national conventions, as do lawyers and computer salespeople. So, some might say, why not exorcists?
At the end of his weekly general audience on Wednesday Pope Benedict greeted Italian exorcists who, he disclosed, are currently having their national convention, presumably in Rome.
The Pope encouraged them to 'carry on their important work in the service of the Church.'
Problem was, that until the Pope spoke, few people outside the inner circle knew that a convention of Beelzebub busters was going on, presumably in Rome.
And where are they holding it? A church, a hotel, a graveyard?
'They try to keep these things quiet,' said a Catholic professor who has dealings with exorcists."
Wednesday, September 14, 2005
ttylinux Homepage
ttylinux Homepage: "You have arrived at the homepage of ttylinux, a minimalistic GNU/Linux distribution. The distribution aims to fit into 4 megabytes of space and run even on 386 class computers, but provides a rather complete command line environment and is prepared for Internet dial-out.
The current version of ttylinux is 4.8. Please visit the news page for more information.
Mission statement
The goal of the ttylinux project is to provide a small, up-to-date Linux distribution that runs on the smallest x86 system possible, yet does provide an environment very similar to a larger distribution. The key features are listed below."
Computer Laboratory - XenoServer Open Platform
Computer Laboratory - XenoServer Open Platform: "The XenoServer platform is a public infrastructure for wide-area distributed computing, aiming to provide access to a number of XenoServers scattered around the world. XenoServers are machines that can safely execute potentially unsafe client code from members of the public in exchange for money."
Schneier on Security: Snooping on Text by Listening to the Keyboard
Schneier on Security: Snooping on Text by Listening to the Keyboard: "Or you could use one of the Tempest shielding techniques. Put your keyboard in close proximity to a whole pile of other keyboards... Now I finally have a use for that room full of an infinite number of monkeys with keyboards!"
Keyboard-emanations.org
Keyboard-emanations.org: "[Keyboard-emanations.org]
This is the temporary home of a website describing research by Li Zhuang, Feng Zhou, and J. D. Tygar on the privacy of typed material in the presence of microphones. This site contains links to our paper, and will shortly be supplemented with raw versions of our experimental data and setup.
(Please reference this web page as keyboard-emanations.org -- its location will shortly move to its own server.)
We show that using a generic microphone, we can successfully recover almost all text typed on standard keyboards. Unlike previous research our method works even if we have no information about the typist, the keyboard, and no 'training data' (examples of the typist typing known text). Simply put a microphone in a room with a typist, record 10 minutes of data, and our algorithms recover the typed text ... including arbitrary text, such as passwords. Our work breaks even 'quiet' keyboards that are designed not make sounds. Our results suggest that recovery is possible even if microphones are outside the room (using parabolic microphones).
Paper: Keyboard Acoustic Emanations Revisited (to appear at the November 2005 ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security)"
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk: "NEW DELHI (Reuters) - An Indian college girl has temporarily married her teenaged boyfriend's elder brother so she can live in the same house as her lover until he is old enough to marry her, the Indian Express reported on Tuesday."
Schneier on Security: Snooping on Text by Listening to the Keyboard
Schneier on Security: Snooping on Text by Listening to the Keyboard: "Fascinating research out of Berkeley. Ed Felten has a good summary:
Li Zhuang, Feng Zhou, and Doug Tygar have an interesting new paper showing that if you have an audio recording of somebody typing on an ordinary computer keyboard for fifteen minutes or so, you can figure out everything they typed. The idea is that different keys tend to make slightly different sounds, and although you don't know in advance which keys make which sounds, you can use machine learning to figure that out, assuming that the person is mostly typing English text. (Presumably it would work for other languages too.)
Read the rest."
Freedom to Tinker � Blog Archive � Acoustic Snooping on Typed Information
Freedom to Tinker � Blog Archive � Acoustic Snooping on Typed Information: "Li Zhuang, Feng Zhou, and Doug Tygar have an interesting new paper showing that if you have an audio recording of somebody typing on an ordinary computer keyboard for fifteen minutes or so, you can figure out everything they typed. The idea is that different keys tend to make slightly different sounds, and although you don’t know in advance which keys make which sounds, you can use machine learning to figure that out, assuming that the person is mostly typing English text. (Presumably it would work for other languages too.)
Asonov and Agrawal had a similar result previously, but they had to assume (unrealistically) that you started out with a recording of the person typing a known training text on the target keyboard. The new method eliminates that requirement, and so appears to be viable in practice.
The algorithm works in three basic stages. First, it isolates the sound of each individual keystroke. Second, it takes all of the recorded keystrokes and puts them into about fifty categories, where the keystrokes within each category sound very similar. Third, it uses fancy machine learning methods to recover the sequence of characters typed, under the assumption that the sequence has the statistical characteristics of English text.
The third stage is the hardest one. You start out with the keystrokes put into categories, so that the sequence of keystrokes has been reduced a sequence of category-identifiers — something like this:"
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Using hydrolyzed casein or whey formulas when breast milk is inadequately produced may help prevent at-risk infants from developing allergies, according to a review of studies on the topic.
'Both partially hydrolyzed whey formulas and extensively hydrolyzed casein formulas have been shown to reduce the incidence of allergy in high risk infants,' study author Tiffani Hays told Reuters Health.
Hays, a senior pediatric nutritionist at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore, Maryland, recommends that these two types of formula be used by mothers who are 'unable to breast feed,' or those who need 'to supplement breast feeding and ... are interested in reducing their child's risk of developing allergies.'"
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - One out of every ten imported oysters screened in Hong Kong showed evidence of contamination with norovirus -- the term for Norwalk-like viruses that cause severe diarrhea and vomiting -- according to researchers.
Senior investigator Dr. Wilina W. L. Lim told Reuters Health that 'it appears that oysters may be an important vehicle for introducing novel strains of norovirus.'
Outbreaks of gastric illness caused by norovirus are often linked to eating oysters and contamination appears to be widespread, note Lim, at the Public Health Laboratory Center, Kowloon, and colleagues in the Journal of Medical Virology."
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - One out of every ten imported oysters screened in Hong Kong showed evidence of contamination with norovirus -- the term for Norwalk-like viruses that cause severe diarrhea and vomiting -- according to researchers.
Senior investigator Dr. Wilina W. L. Lim told Reuters Health that 'it appears that oysters may be an important vehicle for introducing novel strains of norovirus.'
Outbreaks of gastric illness caused by norovirus are often linked to eating oysters and contamination appears to be widespread, note Lim, at the Public Health Laboratory Center, Kowloon, and colleagues in the Journal of Medical Virology."
Wired News: In France, Push Comes to SUV
Wired News: In France, Push Comes to SUV: "PARIS -- A band of eco-vigilantes is taking a firm but gentle stand against fast-growing SUV sales in France and Europe, deflating the tires on gas guzzlers in a protest against conspicuous waste.
Members of a group called Les D�gonfl�s say they recently let the air out of tires on about half a dozen SUVs parked in the upscale VI arrondissement using bicycle pumps -- a technique that they say causes no lasting damage -- and plastered windshields with leaflets proclaiming that 'nearly everyone needs an oxygen mask.' A spokesman for the group said they hope to recruit new foot soldiers to the cause by demonstrating their technique in an internet broadcast next month."
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk
Oddly Enough Article | Reuters.co.uk: "SARAJEVO (Reuters) - The ethnically divided Bosnian city of Mostar has agreed to erect a new symbol of unity -- a statue of kung fu legend Bruce Lee, worshipped by Muslims, Serbs and Croats.
A group of enthusiasts came up with the idea of honouring the childhood hero of the city's ethnic groups in 2003, on the 30th anniversary of his death. They launched the project, found donors and waited a year for the city's approval."
nvoption
nvoption: " Option 'NoLogo' 'boolean' Option 'CursorShadow' 'boolean'
Disable drawing of the NVIDIA logo splash screen at Enable or disable use of a shadow with the hardware
X startup. Default: the logo is drawn. "
: "Etymotic makes the world's finest in-the-ear headphones. We invented the technology in 1983 and have been perfecting it ever since through our extensive research and patented technologies. Etymotic in-the-ear earphones reduce noise naturally. They slide in your ears like earplugs to block out external noise, allowing you to hear every recorded detail. Etymotic earphones will transform your MP3 player into the world's best portable music system. more>"
Arrow's impossibility theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arrow's impossibility theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "In voting systems, Arrow’s impossibility theorem, or Arrow’s paradox, demonstrates that no voting system meets all of a certain set of criteria when there are three or more choices. These criteria are called unrestricted domain, non-imposition, non-dictatorship, monotonicity, and independence of irrelevant alternatives, and are defined below.
The theorem is named after economist Kenneth Arrow, who proved the theorem in his Ph.D. thesis and popularized it in his 1951 book Social Choice and Individual Values.
The original paper was entitled 'A Difficulty in the Concept of Social Welfare' and can be found in The Journal of Political Economy, Volume 58, Issue 4 (August, 1950), pages 328-346.
Arrow was a co-recipient of the 1972 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (popularly known as the “Nobel Prize in Economics”)."
Wired News: Young People With Old Ears
Wired News: Young People With Old Ears: "Researchers fear the growing popularity of portable music players and other items that attach directly to the ears — including cell phones — is contributing to hearing loss in younger people.
'It's a different level of use than we've seen in the past,' says Robert Novak, director of clinical education in audiology at Purdue University. 'It's becoming more of a full-day listening experience, as opposed to just when you're jogging.'"
Tuesday, September 13, 2005
sourcefrog : Is swap space obsolete?
sourcefrog : Is swap space obsolete?: "Is swap space obsolete?
There was a thread on the CLUG list recently about whether it was still useful to have swap space, now that it's quite affordable to have a gigabyte or more of memory on a desktop machine. I think it is.
Some people have the idea that touching swap space at all is a sign that the machine is very overloaded, and so you ought to avoid it at all costs, by adding enough memory that the machine never needs to swap. This may have been true on Unix ten years ago, and may still be true on some systems for all I know but it's not true for Linux.
The meaning of the term swap has changed over time. It used to mean that entire tasks were moved out to disk, and they'd stay there until it was necessary to run them again. You can do this on machines without paged MMUs, and perhaps it was simpler to implement. However, these days almost all machines have MMUs, and so we use paging instead, where particular chunks of the program (typically 4kB) can move in or out independently. This gets more use out of the memory you have, because many programs run quite happily with only part of their virtual memory in RAM. Linux doesn't implement old-style whole-program swapping at all, and there does not seem to be any reason to add it.
I'll recapitulate the way VM works, and in particular the ways it is different on Linux from in your average computer science textbook. The basic idea is that we have a relatively small fast RAM, and a slower larger disk, and we want to get the best performance out of the combination. I will skip some details and special cases for simplicity."
Wired News: Teeny Phones for Tweety Birds
Wired News: Teeny Phones for Tweety Birds: "Humans may not be the only animals using cell phones in the near future.
Ornithologists and engineers at Oregon State University are planning to strap tiny mobile phones to songbirds and monitor the birds' migration with unprecedented accuracy."
Real-time Linux claims single-digit microsecond responsiveness
Real-time Linux claims single-digit microsecond responsiveness: "FSMLabs will demonstrate its real-time Linux operating system delivering single-digit microsecond timing on 64-bit dual-core AMD Opteron processors, at ESC this week in Boston. The company says its RTLinuxPro, Carrier Grade RTLinux, RTCore real-time nano-kernel, and Eclipse-based development tools (currently beta testing) all support 'a wide range' of AMD processors.
FSMLabs added AMD64 support in July, including AMD Opteron, Athlon 64, and Turion 64 chips. The company launched it's Carrier Grade product in May. AMD began shipping it's dual-core 64-bit Opteron processor in April.
According to FSMLabs, an AMD Opteron 265 dual-core system running RTLinux can deliver guaranteed interrupt latencies of no more than five microseconds, with scheduling jitter of no more than eight microseconds, even with Linux under a heavy load. Scheduling jitter can be limited to less than two microseconds, the company claims, using its 'processor reservation' technology. Additionally, the company's 'timer advance' technology can further improve real-time responsiveness, the company claims. "
Monday, September 12, 2005
Guardian Unlimited | Life | Don't dumb me down
Guardian Unlimited | Life | Don't dumb me down: "OK, here's something weird. Every week in Bad Science we either victimise some barking pseudoscientific quack, or a big science story in a national newspaper. Now, tell me, why are these two groups even being mentioned in the same breath? Why is science in the media so often pointless, simplistic, boring, or just plain wrong? Like a proper little Darwin, I've been collecting specimens, making careful observations, and now I'm ready to present my theory."
Saturday, September 10, 2005
New Scientist Breaking News - Soil may spoil UK�s climate efforts
New Scientist Breaking News - Soil may spoil UK�s climate efforts: "Unexpectedly vast quantities of carbon released from British soils since 1978 may be critically reducing their effectiveness as carbon sinks, claims a rigorous new survey. The phenomenon effectively cancels out the UK's recent successes in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and the finding could have wider global implications.
It suggests that so-called terrestrial sinks across the planet are mopping up much less carbon than predicted, on balance, and so the planet may warm at an even faster rate than expected. Most climate models assume that forests and soils absorb about 25% of the greenhouse gases humans produce. "
Slashdot | Securing Mac OS X Tiger
Slashdot | Securing Mac OS X Tiger: "Stephen de Vries writes 'Mac OS X is one of the most secure default installations of any OS. But it is still possible to lock the OS down further, in order to meet corporate security guidelines or to securely use network services. Corsaire has released a guide to Securing Mac OS X Tiger (long pdf) which addresses the new security features introduced through Tiger and presents some security good practice guidelines.' "
Developing Firefox Extensions with GNU/Linux : Page 1
Developing Firefox Extensions with GNU/Linux : Page 1: "I'm sure many of you are excited about today's GNOME release and the release of Firefox 1.5 beta 1. Kris and I decided to write Linux.Ars sections about GNOME and Firefox customization in order to celebrate the releases. In this edition of Linux.Ars, Kris will teach you how to use command line build tools to construct a complete Firefox extension, I will teach you how to add context menu items to Nautilus using the Nautilus Actions extension, and Ian introduces an LDAP utility called Luma. "
Developing Firefox Extensions with GNU/Linux : Page 1
Developing Firefox Extensions with GNU/Linux : Page 1: "I'm sure many of you are excited about today's GNOME release and the release of Firefox 1.5 beta 1. Kris and I decided to write Linux.Ars sections about GNOME and Firefox customization in order to celebrate the releases. In this edition of Linux.Ars, Kris will teach you how to use command line build tools to construct a complete Firefox extension, I will teach you how to add context menu items to Nautilus using the Nautilus Actions extension, and Ian introduces an LDAP utility called Luma. "
Developing Firefox Extensions with GNU/Linux : Page 1
Developing Firefox Extensions with GNU/Linux : Page 1: "I'm sure many of you are excited about today's GNOME release and the release of Firefox 1.5 beta 1. Kris and I decided to write Linux.Ars sections about GNOME and Firefox customization in order to celebrate the releases. In this edition of Linux.Ars, Kris will teach you how to use command line build tools to construct a complete Firefox extension, I will teach you how to add context menu items to Nautilus using the Nautilus Actions extension, and Ian introduces an LDAP utility called Luma. "
BBC NEWS | Health | Q&A: Two mother embryo
BBC NEWS | Health | Q&A: Two mother embryo: "UK scientists have won permission to create a human embryo that will have genetic material from two mothers. "
Thursday, September 08, 2005
General comments
General comments: "The natural sciences have a reputation for posing special challenges to the way we think and learn: they are a form of “extreme thinking”. In this essay physicist Michael A. Nielsen discusses some of the challenges facing researchers in the natural sciences, and how those challenges shed light on other tough learning situations. (4800 words, viewgraphs and text online at www.qinfo.org/talks/)"
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Tuesday, September 06, 2005
6 ways to survive major Internet attacks
6 ways to survive major Internet attacks: "6 ways to survive major Internet attacks
Facing the difficult task of securing systems, experts offer their advice
ADVERTISEMENT
BY Brian Robinson
Published on Sep. 5, 2005
Given the increasing importance of the data stored on agency computer networks, perhaps one of the most important chapters in Federal Computer Week's Survivors Guide is on securing those networks.
We decided to go to the experts. FCW editors recently met with seven information technology security officials from government and industry to discuss what they are doing to help their agencies and customers secure their networks.
Those experts said they are focused on the most cost-effective ways to protect government and business data. Creating a mindset of risk management for dealing with
IT security threats is challenging, they said. Their attention is increasingly on what they call endpoint security, which is finding ways to make desktop PCs, laptop computers and handheld devices more secure. Software configuration standards and firewalls that can be configured remotely are a few of the tools and techniques they find useful.
In addition, hiring trustworthy and competent IT security employees is an ongoing challenge, they said. Finally, they discussed some promising next-generation security technologies.
FCW's Rutrell Yasin, technology editor, and Florence Olsen, associate editor, acted as moderators of the roundtable discussion.
The participants were:
* Kenneth Ammon, president of MCI NetSec Global Security Services, an MCI company.
* Bob Dix, executive vice president of government affairs and corporate development at Citadel Security Software.
* Edward Giorgio, a principal and senior systems engineer at Booz Allen Hamilton.
* Dennis Heretick, the Justice Department's chief information security officer.
* Donald 'Andy' Purdy, acting director of the Homeland Security Department's National Cyber Security Division.
* Edward Schwartz, a senior architect at NetForensics.
* David Thomason, Sourcefire's director of security engineering.
The roundtable members suggested six ways to avoid disruptive network attacks."
Wired News: Haunting Images From Mercy Ships
Wired News: Haunting Images From Mercy Ships
There's a hospital in West Africa that may list a bit and rock back and forth, but it's definitely not on its last legs. Visitors, however, would do well to watch their own legs -- their sea legs, that is.
The hospital is located aboard a ship called the Anastasis. It's part of a Christian organization called Mercy Ships, which, since 1978, has been working to bring free medical care to those who have no access to surgical procedures like cleft-lip correction, or cataract and facial tumor removal. In Western countries, these conditions are usually obliterated before posing a threat to the patient's health and appearance. But in developing countries they're often left untreated, causing disability and disfigurement and leading to social ostracism.
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Doctors commonly view excessive daytime sleepiness as a cardinal sign of disturbed or inadequate sleep. But a new study suggests it could also signal depression or even diabetes, regardless of whether an individual doesn't sleep well.
Among a random sample of 16,500 men and women ranging in age from 20 to 100 years old from central Pennsylvania, 8.7 percent had excessive daytime sleepiness."
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - New research indicates that a high percentage of patients with migraine or tension-type headaches experience remission on long-term follow-up.
The findings, which appear in the medical journal Neurology, are based on an analysis of 549 patients who participated in a Danish headache study in 1989 and were reevaluated in 2001. Patient interviews at both time points were conducted by physicians and standard criteria were used to diagnose headache."
Spam Slayer: My Pet Peeves - Yahoo! News
Spam Slayer: My Pet Peeves - Yahoo! News: "You can create a mailing list in Microsoft Outlook Express that allows you to send a message to an entire group--be it your book club or softball team--simply by typing the group name in the address field.
ADVERTISEMENT
Select Tools, then choose Address Book, File, New Group. In the 'Group Name' field, type the name for your mailing list, then click OK. You can add addresses by highlighting the list, clicking Properties, and typing the new e-mail addresses.
It's a problem: You return from a summer vacation and have to spend hours over the course of days deleting the hundreds of spam messages that have piled up. I know the feeling because that's what happened to me last week.
Sadly, plenty of junk and phishing e-mail made it through my spam filters during my two-week vacation. Much of the crud I deleted was unmistakably garbage of the Viagra and EBay account cancellation type. But a great deal of what I deleted was what I call 'just-as-bad-as-spam e-mail.' You know what I'm talking about. Not overtly spam, these unwanted e-mail messages are from business acquaintances, colleagues, and friends."
FindLaw's Writ - Leavitt: Danger Ahead? Why America's Governors are Declaring States of Immigration Emergency and Why Congress Should Listen, and Act
FindLaw's Writ - Leavitt: Danger Ahead? Why America's Governors are Declaring States of Immigration Emergency and Why Congress Should Listen, and Act: "During the past two weeks, the world has watched a state of emergency unfold in the southern part of the United States as a result of Hurricane Katrina, and the ensuing chaos.
A few weeks before that storm devastated Louisiana and Mississippi, though, and a thousand miles to the West, the governors of New Mexico and Arizona were declaring a different type of emergency. Their warning was about immigration. And the situation of which it warned, was the direct result of the combination of America's chaotic immigration policy and Congress's foot-dragging in carrying out its Constitutional responsibilities in this area.
In this column, I will argue that Congress and the White House should take heed of these governors' warnings, and should take action on carrying out a comprehensive immigration reform package. I will also suggest the major components such a package ought to include."
Legal worries led Massachusetts to open standards - ZDNet UK News
Legal worries led Massachusetts to open standards - ZDNet UK News: "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has cited legal concerns over Microsoft's software as a factor behind its decision to only use document formats based on open standards.
Eric Kriss, Secretary of Administration & Finance for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, told CRN on Friday that Massachusetts had concerns about the openness of Microsoft XML schemas as well as with potential patent issues that could arise in the future."
Saturday, September 03, 2005
Wired News: Sonic 'Lasers' Head to Flood Zone
Wired News: Sonic 'Lasers' Head to Flood Zone: "EDWARDS AIR FORCE BASE, California -- Air-raid sirens, Frank Sinatra songs and Muhammad Ali trash talk blared over the Southern California desert in a demonstration of new acoustic technology for crowd control and disaster communications."
Friday, September 02, 2005
The Interdictor
The Interdictor: "This journal has become the Survival of New Orleans blog. In less perilous times it was simply a blog for me to talk smack and chat with friends. Now this journal exists to share firsthand experience of the disaster and its aftermath with anyone interested. "
Recording Industry vs The People: More News Coverage of Elektra v. Santangelo
Recording Industry vs The People: More News Coverage of Elektra v. Santangelo
Modern humans, Neanderthals shared earth for 1,000 years. 01/09/2005. ABC News Online
Modern humans, Neanderthals shared earth for 1,000 years. 01/09/2005. ABC News Online: "New evidence has emerged that Neanderthals co-existed with anatomically modern humans for at least 1,000 years in central France.
The finding suggests Neanderthals came to a tragic and lingering end.
Few chapters in the rise of Homo sapiens, as modern mankind is known, have triggered as much debate as the fate of the Neanderthals.
Smaller and squatter than Homo sapiens but with larger brains, Neanderthals lived in Europe, parts of central Asia and the Middle East for about 170,000 years.
But vestiges of the Neanderthals stop about 28,000 to 30,000 years ago.
At that point, Homo sapiens, a smart, ascendant sub-species of humans originating in eastern Africa, became the undisputed masters of the planet.
So what happened to the Neanderthals?
One intriguing school of thought is that the Neanderthals did not suddenly disappear off the map but gradually melded in with Homo sapiens culturally and possibly sexually.
Interbreeding resulted, meaning that what we, today, supposedly carry some of the genetic legacy of the Neanderthals."
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Breaking out of a chroot() padded cell
Breaking out of a chroot() padded cell: "How to break out of a chroot() jail
This page details how the chroot() system call can be used to provide an additional layer of security when running untrusted programs. It also details how this additional layer of security can be circumvented.
An introduction to chroot()
chroot() is a Unix system call that is often used to provide an additional layer of security when untrusted programs are run. The kernel on Unix varients which support chroot() maintain a note of the root directory each process on the system has. Generally this is '/', but the chroot() system call can change this. When chroot() is successfully called, the calling process has its idea of the root directory changed to the directory given as the argument to chroot(). For example after the following line of code, the process would see the directory '/foo/bar' as its root directory."
Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online
Britain, UK news from The Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online: "A young girl has been saved from drowning in a swimming pool by new high-tech underwater safety cameras and dramatic footage of the rescue was released today.
The 10-year-old girl lost consciousness in the deep end of the Bangor Swimming Pool, North Wales, last Wednesday and dropped quickly to the floor of the pool, 12ft 6ins under the surface.
Within 10 seconds, one of four underwater safety cameras spotted the girl and alerted lifeguards via a pager message. A lifeguard dived into the water and pulled the girl to safety. She was given mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and made a full recovery in hospital."
New algorithm for learning languages | Science Blog
New algorithm for learning languages | Science Blog: "Cornell University and Tel Aviv University researchers have developed a method for enabling a computer program to scan text in any of a number of languages, including English and Chinese, and autonomously and without previous information infer the underlying rules of grammar. The rules can then be used to generate new and meaningful sentences. The method also works for such data as sheet music or protein sequences.
The development -- which has a patent pending -- has implications for speech recognition and for other applications in natural language engineering, as well as for genomics and proteomics. It also offers new insights into language acquisition and psycholinguistics."
The Australian: It's a miracle: mice regrow hearts [August 29, 2005]
The Australian: It's a miracle: mice regrow hearts [August 29, 2005]: "SCIENTISTS have created 'miracle mice' that can regenerate amputated limbs or damaged vital organs, making them able to recover from injuries that would kill or permanently disable normal animals.
The experimental animals are unique among mammals in their ability to regrow their heart, toes, joints and tail.
And when cells from the test mouse are injected into ordinary mice, they too acquire the ability to regenerate, the US-based researchers say.
Their discoveries raise the prospect that humans could one day be given the ability to regenerate lost or damaged organs, opening up a new era in medicine.
Details of the research will be presented next week at a scientific conference on ageing titled Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, at Cambridge University in Britain."
