1/1     [CensorBot was here]

1/1     How come there hasn't been as much motd-nuking lately?
        Is it a kindler-gentler MOTD this year?
        \_ paolo hasn't logged on since November

1/1     Where are the motd archives?
        \_ I have this question about how to use pine...

1/2     So what can be done to try getting H1-B abusers in hot water?
        I know this company comprised entirely of Indians with a large
        proportion being H1-Bs who at this point are not provided with
        insurance. They also agree to work for free instead of being
        sent home.
        \_ One of the various California labor boards would probably do it.
           Also, since H1b is a Federal program, you can look up which agency
           runs it and contact them anonymously on the phone.
        \_ One of the various California labor boards would probably
           do it. Also, since H1b is a Federal program, you can look
           up which agency runs it and contact them anonymously on the
           phone.
        \_ Call the INS (and/or Dept. of Labor) and report what you
           know. Make sure you have some sort of evidence to back up
           your claim, since most of these places have fake docs for
           I hope that you get the greedy bastards who run that company
           stuff like insurance and pay. Also the employees are scared
           shitless that they will be arrested, tortured and deported
           \_ hmm, my only evidence is what an employee there has told me.
              getting anything more would be hard unless i could convince
              this employee to rat on them but he works there himself and
              is also Indian... I didn't get the feeling he'd do it.
              actually he didn't "tell" me, he told my s.o. who blabbed to me.
           so you can't rely on them giving truthful statements to the
           authorities.
           I hope that you get the greedy bastards who run the company
           thrown in jail. They deserve to spend sometime with others
           of their kind.
           \_ hmm, my only evidence is what an employee there has told
              me. getting anything more would be hard unless i could
              convince this employee to rat on them but he works there
              himself and is also Indian... I didn't get the feeling
              he'd do it. actually he didn't "tell" me, he told my s.o.
              who blabbed to me.
                \_ boy that sounds like reliable information
                   \_ that's the only information that would ever exist
                      in such cases. the h1b program is bs and needs to
                      be scrapped. you think they're going to publicize
                      their crimes?
                        \_ There may be emails and/or financial records
                           that contain sufficient evidence for the INS
                           or Dept. of Labor to begin an investigation.
                           If OP worked at the company he might be able
                           to gather enough information to take to the
                           authorities. In this case it will be hard for
                           him to get the information.

1/02    How would I go about finding out the name of someone who
        lived in Chateau co-op, wrote for the daily cal, was
        a double major in two humanities subjects, and graduated
        in 1992? - danh
        \_ let her go danh.  If you missed the boat, you missed the boat.
        \_ Is she a lesbian?
        \_ '92? that's only 11 years ago!  go to chateau and ask to
           speak to the oldest student there, and then ask them.
        \_ let her go danh.  If you missed the boat, you missed the
           boat.
        \_ do you know which humanities subjects? male or female?
           Are you sure they are a double major? not any minor? and
           when in 1992? Spring/summer/fall?
        \_ male.  it's the guy behind this:
           http://www.geocities.com/yatrimblo/index.html - danh
           \_ apart from wanting to sign him up for subscriptions
              to motherjones and hightimes, why would you want to
              know more about a guy whose email address is
              smashtheleft@hotmail.com?
                \_ maybe I have realized the errors
                   of my liberal ways and want to party with him?
                   actually I'm just curious who the hell this guy
                   is, he has a lot more free time than just about
                   anyone and spends most of the day spewing out
        \_ Just ask the DC front desk if you can look up old issues in their
           morgue (library) for research purposes. -Daily Cal alum
                   vast amounts of bile (and sometimes it's
                   pretty funny in its complexity, leading me to
                   believe maybe he was a rhetoric or English major)
                   about the evils of liberalism, his caustic
                   postings got the Daily Cal message boards shut
                   down. - danh
        \_ You know all this but *not* their name??
                \_ this sounds typical of what you would know of
                   a dailycal reporter (based on the tiny blurb
                   of information they reveal at the bottom of
                   their columns, or the topics that they write
                   about).
        \_ ask the dailycal. make up some (semi)important story
           about needing to find and get in touch with this person.
           \_ Or better yet, just ask for the info without giving a
              reason.  Lying just draws attention to the request.
        \_ Just ask the DC front desk if you can look up old issues
           in their morgue (library) for research purposes.
           -Daily Cal alum
        \_ Go ask the Castro contingent at Sleater Kinney.

1/02    What could cause my linux box to go into "promiscuous mode" all by
        itself.  I've run a tripwire stored on cd and nothing has changed.
        \_ AFAIK, tripwire only tells you that the stuff it knows
           about hasn't changed. An '1337 h4x0r can still 0wnz your
           box and install rpms and kernel modules that will put
           your interfaces in promiscuous mode.
           Or it might just be someone running tcpdump or ethereal.
            \_ Sure tripwire doesn't cover everything but it gives
               me faith that my ps and who commands are correct and
               i don't see anyone running tcpdump or anything else
               like that.  Besides, i'm the only root on this box.
               I was hoping that perhaps other services sometime cause
               the interface to go into periscuous mode.  Like dhcp
               or samba or iptables or...  (funny thing though is that
               it is only my outside interface that is doing this :(
                \_ I'm not aware of any normal services that
                   require interfaces to be placed in promiscuous
                   mode.
                   BTW, I hope that you realize that while your
                   who and ps binaries might be unaltered they
                   may not be providing you complete or correct
                   information (kernel modules pretty much have
                   full access to all kernel data structures and
                   can easily hide programs and users from user
                   land pgms).
                   Do you have a network sniffer? If so, try and
                   stick it on the same segment as the promiscuous
                   interface on your linux box and see what sort
                   of traffic is being generated. If something
                   looks abnormal, you've probably been hacked.
        \_ your linux box is horny and you're not satisfying its needs.

1/02    Is there a generally accepted way to embed a URL into a GET
        request?  I want to put a url such as "foo.jsp?cmd=1&id=2"
        into a GET request as a parameter, eg:
        http://bar.com/index.jsp?pageId=34&URL=foo.jsp?cmd=1&id=2
        but I'm worried that the parameters in the main page will be
        parsed as
        pageId == 34
        URL == foo.jsp?cmd=1
        id == 2                 //wrong
        So is there a "good" way to do this, or do I have to muck about
        with quoting and string substitution?
        \_ You'd have to HTML-escape the ?'s and &'s, or else use different
           delimiters and have your program parse them.  -tom
           \_ tom designed the HTML spec.
              \_ I heard it was Jesus who gave it to him.

1/02    Happy Belated 20th Birthday to TCP/IP:
        http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/02/1041196726476.html

1/02    I have a circuit that has 32 channels (chips) being switched
        on/off. When a channel is switched on, the chip connects one of
        its pins (connected to a constant voltage source) to the chip's
        output pin. But it turns out that the outputs all need to be
        constant current rather than a constant voltage, so I need a
        voltage-to-current converter. I want to know if I put a v-to-c
        converter in front of each channel's output (i.e. use 32 of
        them) is equivalent to just using one converter in front of the
        constant voltage source. Oh, the chip is just a Maxim analog
        switch. TIA.

1/2     When a slope is described as 60%, how steep is it in terms of
        degrees from horizontal?  Thx.
        \_ % is rise-over-run, or dy/dx.  Use inverse tangent to get degrees.