Wednesday, March 31, 2004
Vendors under pressure to drop AMD notebook plans
Vendors under pressure to drop AMD notebook plans: "A STORY ON Digitimes today suggests that large Taiwanese vendors Acer, Asustek and Benq are resisting pressure by Intel to stop them making notebooks using AMD chips.
The article doesn't say what kind of pressure Intel is putting on the Asian giants, but one thing is for sure, AMD has an Achilles' Heel in its underfunded notebook division.
At the introduction of the Athlon 64 at the Computex show in Taiwan last September, AMD was unable to show anything other than token notebook machines. It's currently putting its limited marketing funds into selling desktop and server chips, and faces big hurdles in making a breakthrough on the notebook front."
Vole ticked off for not fixing critical flaw
Vole ticked off for not fixing critical flaw: "SECURITY COMPANY eEye has attacked Microsoft for not fixing two critical security flaws it was warned about 200 days ago.
The flaws appear in all versions of Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. They affect core services in the operating system and can be remotely exploited."
University sues Peoplesoft
University sues Peoplesoft: "PEOPLESOFT has been sued for alleged fraud by Ohio State for its role in a software project at Cleveland State University.
The state wants more than $130 million because Peoplesoft 'misrepresented the capabilities of its software and failed to provide promised features'.
Peoplesoft was chosen by the state for the revamp of the universities its student administration systems in 1996.
But the University was less than impressed with Peoplesoft as some of the features pushed by sales people turned out to be 'little more than vapourware' and that the programs had trouble administering student financial aid, keeping student records in synch and running properly on the IBM DB/2 database.
The state has also sued Peoplesoft's supplier Kaludis Consulting Group, a Washington-based consulting firm, for failing to fulfil its contractual duties. ?"
Tuesday, March 30, 2004
Encryption and Security Tutorial
Encryption and Security Tutorial: "This page contains my godzilla crypto tutorial, totalling 704 slides in 8 parts, of which the first 7 are the tutorial itself and the 8th is extra material which covers crypto politics. Part 8 isn't officially part of the technical tutorial itself (much of it is now also rather dated, the material is extensively covered elsewhere so I haven't spent much time updating it)."
Peter Gutmann's Home Page
Peter Gutmann's Home Page: "Professional Paranoid
Department of Computer Science
University of Auckland
Private Bag 92019
Auckland, New Zealand"
"Building a fully featured, smart robot with sight, hearing, radar and many other nice features, when you only have $50."Copyright (C) 2002 by Michal Zalewski
...and other contributors...
Some photos of the robot are here:
http://lcamtuf.misantrop.net/bocio/
Last revision: 8/28/2002
1) Introduction - why and how?
==============================
I decided to build a robot. This is something I wanted to do for a longer
while, so the decision just happened, don't expect me to give you any good
explanation =) Since you are here, chances are, you are or were thinking
about it at some point.
[strike out]
[strike out]: "This is not an exciting story: I happened to be browsing aimlessly through case studies and other publications released by Microsoft as a part of their 'Get the facts' initiative. At one point, I stumbled upon a Word file I wanted to read - and as soon as I ran it through wvWare, I noticed there is a good deal of amusing change tracking information still recorded within the document. Naturally, publishing documents with 'collaboration' data is not unheard of in the corporate world, but the fact Microsoft had became a victim of their own technology, and had failed to run their own tools against these publications makes it more entertaining. On a more serious note, it serves as a good warning it is really difficult to manage this, and that inline filtering tools on SMTP gateways and in web publishing systems may be necessary in some corporate environments.
A pointless idea came to my mind that instant: why not run a gentle web spider against all Microsoft sites in English, specifically looking for other instances of tracking data not removed from documents? I coded a bunch of scripts and let them run through the night, fetching approximately 10,000 unique documents; over 10% was identified as containing change tracking records. I decided to collect only those with deleted text still present, yielding a crop of over 5% of all documents. Quite impressive. Below, you will find a brief (and rest assured, incomplete) list of the most entertaining samples I've run into, along with some speculation (and only speculation) as to the reasons we see them."
Music sharing doesn't kill CD sales, study says | CNET News.com
Music sharing doesn't kill CD sales, study says | CNET News.com: "A study of file-sharing's effects on music sales says online music trading appears to have had little part in the recent slide in CD sales.
For the study, released Monday, researchers at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina tracked music downloads over 17 weeks in 2002, matching data on file transfers with actual market performance of the songs and albums being downloaded. Even high levels of file-swapping seemed to translate into an effect on album sales that was 'statistically indistinguishable from zero,' they wrote."
Ars Technica: The PC enthusiast's resource
Ars Technica: The PC enthusiast's resource: "The Recording Industry has spent a prodigious amount of effort on manipulating statistics in order to shroud the industry in the shadow of doom and gloom. In recent years, the push has been to villainize P2P users, often to such an extent that the serious career criminals are ignored when the discussion of piracy is brought up. To make matters worse, the industry has been caught playing fast and loose with consumption data, all the while ignoring the opportunity that's been in front of their face. Sadly, the trend continues. The Australian market has had its best year ever, but they're trying to cover it up to rhetorical ends."
Saturday, March 27, 2004
Janklow sentenced to 100 days in jail for killing motorcyclist Randy Scott
Janklow sentenced to 100 days in jail for killing motorcyclist Randy Scott: "William Janklow was sentenced to 100 days in jail.
The statute under which 64-year-old Janklow was convicted for second-degree manslaughter sets no mimimum sentence. The range of possible sentences that Judge Rodney Steele could have imposed on Janklow ranged from nothing to 11 years behind bars and/or a an $11,400 fine. Options included probation, loss of drioving priviledges, restitution and community service. The average sentence is around seven years. The judge had a detailed presentencing report to help determine the sentence. He also heard from Scott's family and Janklow supporters.
Scott's family has also filed suit for unspecified damages.
Motorcyclists who feel that the sentence was excessively lenient may attempt to boycott South Dakota's largest tourist event, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally."
Friday, March 26, 2004
Slashdot | What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft?
Slashdot | What Would The World Be Like Without Microsoft?: "Seriously, you'd be hard pressed to find a more unscrupulous group than building developers. Because of the incorporation techniques that they use, getting sued is essentially no problem. They hide behind the corporate veil and just declare bankruptcy for the shell corporation that built that 30 story condo building that now leaks like a sieve. That's if the company hasn't been wound down by the time the problem crops up."
• Key Players in the Plame Affair