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| 2004/12/1-3 [Computer/Networking] UID:35136 Activity:nil |
12/1 Anyone ever heard of a VPN service provider, e.g. someone who would
provide a well-connected endpoint for you to establish an IPsec or CIPE
VPN connection (over whatever consumer ISP and changing IP addresses
you have locally)? --karlcz
\_ I don't think I understand correctly, but you actually want a
middleman on your supposedly secure channel?
\_ no, I want a middleman to act as a virtual ISP that I
can tunnel to via some random podunk consumer ISP who thinks
the Internet is supposed to be full of anonymous client
nodes at the edges. security over this tunnel to the
gateway would be optional but nice. --karlcz
\_ If you're willing to pay, consider rolling your own by
putting a M0n0wall (http://www.m0n0.ch/wall on a
PCEngines WRAP 1D-2 (http://www.pcengines.ch and for about
$150 you have yourself an ace VPN endpoint at a hosting
provider of your choice. M0n0 supports most ipsec
implementations as mobile clients. -John |
| 2004/12/1-2 [Computer/SW/P2P] UID:35137 Activity:low |
12/1 any rec's for a free/open web-based document management/sharing
system? thanks.
\_ PHProjekt. http://www.phprojekt.com Or PHPGroupware. There
was a recent slashdot thread on web-based collaboration tools,
which may have some pointers to what you want. -John
\_ thanks... I couldnt seem to find the slashdot thread... is
this what you had in mind? - rory
On Collaborative Weblogs
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/05/31/1112234&tid=95&tid=146
\_ Nope sorry, my mistake, it was about calendaring tools:
http://tinyurl.com/6oxae
some good links, though. -John
\_ Mambo
\_ Mambo seemed pretty good when I looked into it. If you don't
need something light and fast, my co-worker is setting up
Plone, which is Zope-based. I'm not involved in the project,
so I don't know why Plone was chosen.
\_ please let me know which one you've decided. I tried ZOPE and
others, never find one that I really like. -kngharv |
| 2004/12/1-2 [Computer/SW/Unix] UID:35138 Activity:nil |
11/30 I've heard that finger is a security hazard, but it would seem to me
that any well-written finger would be at most a DOS liability. Why
do many institutions of all sorts either run no finger daemon or
block it at the firewall?
\_ Well, one obvious reason is it can give away information that can
be used for social engineering attacks.
\_ Not to mention simple email/login harvesting for brute force
attacks and spammers. -John
\_ So can personal webpages.
\_ False analogy. You control 100% of all info on your pubhtml
dir. You do not have this control over your finger info
on all systems.
\- There is a discussion of "amplification" DoS attacks
using finger at: http://csua.org/u/a5q --danh
\_ But the fact that there is a page at <DEAD>csua.berkeley<DEAD>
.edu/~foo implies that foo@csua.berkeley.edu is a valid
e-mail address.
\_ I think the parent post was referring to the fact that
it's your choice to create a public_html directory
at all.
\_ I see. |
| 2004/12/1 [Politics/Domestic/California] UID:35139 Activity:high |
12/1 Ah.. Michael Moore looked quite Republican the other night on Leno.
\_ care to describe the incedent?
\_ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1292105/posts
\_ Well, he's still pretty ugly, but at least he's
presentable. The shave and the haircut are big
impovements.
\_ Yeah, what's wrong with tailored suits? They look good,
and you don't have to be a mega-rich Republican to afford
one.
\_ Michael Moore is far more mega-rich than most
Republicans I know...
\_ So what you're telling us is that most of the
Republicans you know are poorly dressed?
\_ Pretty much everyone I know is poorly
dressed, I live in CA.
\_ You mean the Bay Area. Other parts of CA
are not nearly as bad. For some reason,
Bay Area folks think polar fleece is
appropriate attire at a fancy restaurant.
\_ For some reason, people from southern
California are assholes. This is my
unbiased opinion as someone born and
raised outside California who lives
outside California now. There are
exceptions, but I'm sure beyond a shadow
of a doubt that you're not one of them.
\_ Can you give specific examples, including
where you were?
Perhaps you are confusing this with
rich people in general?
\_ Perhaps in Berkeley. Certainly not in
San Francisco. You sound like a provincial
spoiled Orange Country brat who spent
four years on campus and thinks that
what he saw on Telegraph Ave represents
"Northern California." |
| 2004/12/1 [Computer/HW/Drives] UID:35140 Activity:high |
12/1 I think getting 72GB 10K RPM SATA drives at $160 a piece was a bad
idea. You could have gotten much larger 7200RPM drives for that price.
Most people would take larger quotas over slightly better performance.
Besides, a RAID controller with a reasonable amount of write cache
memory should have provided a decent write speed even with relatively
slow drives. Read speed should also be fairly decent with so many
drives and any RAID level. My $0.02
\_ Gee, let's just kvetch about the call after it's been made. Now,
this comment might just possibly have been constructive if you'd
been able to deliver it beforehand, but what purpose does it
serve now? Seems like you're just biting the hand that feeds you
because you didn't get fed exactly what you wanted. As for me,
hey current CSUA admins: thank you for doing anything at all
for me. I realize I'm entitled to nothing, and what you're doing
for me is much better than that. What you have done may, or may
not have been optimum, but the call was yours to make and I don't
think what you did was unreasonable. Please ignore
bozos like o.p., who decided to deliver criticism above the thanks
we all owe you for your efforts on everyone's behalf. --PeterM
\_ Gee, let's just jump all over someone for giving a valid
opinion, why don't you. I agree with OP, paying $160 US is
too much for 72 GB disks. Maybe it is too late to do something
about it, but that still doesn't mean the opinion isn't valid.
I don't know what the time schedule was for getting parts, but
you could've gotten at least twice the capacity for SATAs
in the past two months. Granted, any improvement is better than
no improvement, but the OP wasn't demanding anything, just
offering advice. -williamc
\_ You are making the assumption that we were going for capacity.
What we would have liked were SCSI disks. Those are too damn
expensive. However, the Raptor (which is 74GB) is a 10K RPM
SCSI internals w/ SATA connector disk. This gives us very
good performance, without the huge cost. Yes, we could have
purchased a 200GB disk, probably even for less than the 74GB
ones we invested in, but on a system that has 200+ simultaneous
logins, spindle speed and seek times becomes more important
than raw storage space. In any case, the CSUA is *not* a
data storage facility...if you want lots of storage, buy
yourself a drive and put it in your own damn case.
--njh (one of the SAs putting in much more time running
the CSUA's systems than the motd complainers)
\_ PeterM is right, the horse has left the barn.
The CSUA SA's have been pretty good over the years, and
the uptime at soda beats a lot of commerical systems.
AND SODA IS FREE! Instead
of bagging on the SA's, make a paypal contribution. If everybody
who complained on the motd sent in some money, we'd have a
CSUA jet named soda instead of a PC. They've made reasonable
decisions in the past, and I'm sure they had one for their choice
of disks. -ax
of bagging on the SA's, make a paypal contribution.
If everybody who complained on the motd sent in some
money, we'd have a CSUA jet named soda instead of a PC.
They've made reasonable decisions in the past, and I'm
sure they had one for their choice of disks. -ax
\_ Yes, please contribute to the CSUA! There's a
paypal link on the main page now. I did. --allum
\_ no dropcash progress bar?
\_ I want my lottery-scheduling system! CPU cycles for everyone!
-lazy sl0da h0z3r
\_ I am putting a box together with a bunch of 200GB SATA
drives--any opinions on 5+ disk RAID-5 controllers that are
happy with FreeBSD? Also, should I be looking at CPU power
management? The thing should be as quiet/cool as possible. -John
\_ Think about this for a moment. You're planning to stick five
or more > 72K RPM drives in the box, and you're worried about
the the heat/power that the CPU is going to generate/consume?
The drives are going to suck WAY more power and generate WAY
more heat than the CPU. -dans
\_ Fair enough, I'm looking at an Antec P160. Will low-rpm
drives make any difference? -John
\_ Actually, this is wrong. Hard drives these days only pull
about 10W each. Processors pull on the order of 100s
of Watts. --njh
\_ I think you're an idiot. Want to make specific objections? At
least sign your name.
\_ bigger, faster, more reliable. for a given amount of money,
pick any 1.5
\_ yermom can't afford me |
| 2004/12/1 [Uncategorized] UID:35141 Activity:nil |
12/1 for those of you going christmas shopping
read my repeat post from yesterday:
http://csua.com/?entry=35126 |
| 2004/12/1 [Health, Recreation/Celebrity/MichaelJackson] UID:35142 Activity:moderate |
12/1 Speaking of fat shambling types getting a new look, has anyone seen a
picture of Peter Jackson lately? Did motherfucker go on the Atkins diet
or something?
\_ Peter Jackson kinda looks like my boss. (Or he did when he was
fat.)
\_ link??
\_ He's still not skinny, but compare it to LotR era pictures:
http://img-nex.kongisking.net/kong/movies/day51-480x270-mpeg4.mov |
| 2004/12/1-3 [Computer/HW/IO] UID:35143 Activity:nil |
12/1 The MS wireless mouse and keyboard have quite a large range, does
anyone know if it has any security feature at all? What if some
nutcase decides to take the keyboard up my drive way and do
win-r, cmd, format c:?
\_ This is why you do not login as 'Administrator' unless you
have to.
\_ Aren't the mouse and keyboard tied to the specific receiver?
Otherwise no one could use more than one set in an office.
\_ You mean if my keyboard/mouse/receiver broke, I cannot just
get a replacement? Anyone know what the button on the receiver
does?
\_ Does Microsoft sell the keyboard/mouse/receiver separately?
How would you buy a replacement?
\_ They generally use static identifiers. Like a lot of bluetooth
devices that have '1234' or '1111' hardcoded as peering code.
Have a look at Max's Auditor cd at http://www.remote-exploit.org
for some interesting wireless analysis tools. -John
\_ Anyone know if they make one that's like the Elite wireless but
wired? I like the Elite's key layout and wheels, but I don't like
wireless...
\_ I think you should worry about the other side - tapping keystrokes
from your keyboard and stealing your bank passwords. |
| 2004/12/1-3 [Computer/SW/Apps, Computer/SW/OS/Windows] UID:35144 Activity:nil |
12/1 I have Acrobat Reader 5.0.1 on NT and 5.0.5 on XP. In the Preferences
dialog, I can go through different categories freely except "Web Buy".
When I try to go to "Web Buy" for the first time since I bring up
the Preferences dialog, Acrobat Reader locks up for up to a minute
before it works again. After than, I can leave "Web Buy" and go to it
again freely. Has anyone else seen this problem? If I close the
Preferences dialog and bring it up again, the same problem happens
again. I've already de-selected "Enable Web Buy" but it didn't help.
Thanks.
\_ I have seen similar behavior when it tries to update itself but
can't reach whatever Adobe cave it's trying to get to. Consider
sniffing traffic to see what it's sending. -John |
| 2004/12/1 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:35145 Activity:nil |
12/1 Very interesting interview with Chalmers Johnson, author of
"The Sorrows of Empire."
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/global/cj_int/cj_int1.html |
| 2004/12/1 [Computer/HW/CPU, Computer/SW/OS/Solaris] UID:35146 Activity:high |
12/1 open source sadness, SUN being destroyed by linux..
\_ More like Sun stupidity by refusing to either
A) Make Solaris x86 free until it was too late.
B) Give up on the stupid "java thin client" crap
C) Open Source Solaris and let people actually write
drivers for 3rd party peripherals.
D) Standardize on a PC architecture instead of dragging
on forever with a dying USPARC platform.
\_ Re: C), Why does it need to be open source for people to write
drivers for 3rd party peripherals? XP is not open source, but
people can write drivers.
\_ Obviously you don't understand software/hardware economics.
Unless your OS has a large entrenched user base (such as
Windows) nobody is going to spend money on writing
drivers for it. It's economically unsound, especially
if you have to buy the tools. Solaris didn't even come
with a free cc compiler (SunOS did). As for writing
drivers for XP, it costs in the neighborhood of $10,000
to develop a driver for it (I know, I've been involved
in one). Solaris needs to be open sourced so that OSS
people can port Linux drivers to it (which has been done
before) or write drivers from the ground up, especially
on an X86 platform. Apple's OS X would have faced the same
problem if it had jumped onto the X86 platform.
\_ I am glad. I was a big, big Sun customer who kept telling my
reps that we were going to move to Linux mostly because of cost
since we actually prefer Solaris. Most of us don't care
about the OS price (cheap) or whether it is open source.
It's the Intel hardware that was much cheaper and drove the
decision. My reps had the attitude that we were small potatoes
since we didn't buy lots of E10Ks and that it was fine for
client-side to be Linux as long as they could sell their
expensive servers. Now they are paying the price for not
listening to their customers...
\_ Not just that--I've encountered some pretty serious
incompetence here. They had the chance to take a really huge
services contract away from a major outsourcer--they threw a
half-wit project manager and two untrained sysadmins without
work permits at it, because "hey, we're Sun, nobody would ever
refuse us". -John
\_ Sun's proposal to replace uclink was pathetic; the people
who came to do the presentation had no idea what was in
it, and no idea of the Berkeley environment. -tom
\_ it's like the mama spider whose babies eat her once their born
\_ As long as someone eventually beats Micro$oft, I don't care.
\_ and linux is going to do that?? hahahaah
\_ Incidentally, why do people rave about Ed Zander? What exactly
did he accomplish at Sun?
\_ Four sysadmins administer a 400 server webfarm, along with
a database server, email server, all the corporate servers
and all the networking equipment. We can do this because
we run all Sun hardware and software. Tell me a place that
runs linux and does this. -Sun fan
\_ Any place that runs Linux on an AS400, dorkus. It's called IBM,
they are going Linux, it's well supported, and runs like a
charm.
\_ You know, administering 100 (likely similarly configured)
machines is not really _that_ hard for any competent sysadmin as
long as they run some form of *nix.
\_ Sun is out to destroy itself. Sun Service's new trick is to come
in, declare all the SA's overpaid, and replace them with Sun Service
H1-B's making $20/hr. -ax
\_ It is more like.. if they get destroyed, it would be because of
their own stupidity. They should have seen the Linux/x86 threat
coming a long time ago. Granted, they're ARE embrassing Linux and
x86 now and have plans to open source Solaris. So, it's possible
they're not a toast yet. Though, their sales people STILL don't
understand that the time when they could have made thousands and
thousands of profit per machine sold are over. The other day I was
looking at their education promotions page, and the best deal for
"low-end" server is a dual USIIIi rack box that costs $7000. Say
what? I can get a Dell twice as fast with storage 5 times the sun
for half the price. If that's the best they can offer, I feel really
really sorry for them. |
| 2004/12/1-3 [Academia/UCLA] UID:35147 Activity:moderate |
12/1 Here's the complete list of top 200 universities in the world:
http://www.coe.berkeley.edu/newsroom/2004/rankingsTimes.pdf
\_ Rankings are lame. All I want to say is, UCLA _better not_ be
#26 overall. That would make me very sad. -- ilyas
\_ UCLA is a world-class institution in many fields. What's
your gripe?
\_ The CS department? Well, that and the 'soul of UCLA.'
-- ilyas
\_ What is your gripe with the department? Poor quality
research being done?
\_ There is some decent research that comes out of UCLA
CS ... sometimes, but I think the dept. is sick.
I am just comparing to how I remember the Cal CS
dept. was. -- ilyas
dept. was. If you honestly care, send me an
email, and I ll ramble more. -- ilyas
\_ We're #2: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1343642,00.html
\_ I'm assuming you just got that email from Newton, too?
\_ Yup. When I last mentioned the ranking on the motd, I couldn't
locate the complete list.
\_ let's see how many people think this is a bogus ranking.
\_ It depends on how you look at it. It is almost certainly bogus
for the purposes of choosing a school for studying a particular
degree in a particular career..
\_ You are obviously not a Korean (or Chinese) mother.
\_ And obviously never served.
\_ BUD DAY didn't send HIS kids to Berkeley!
\_ What if you don't have definite plans for a degree or a
career when you're choosing the college to attend?
career when you're choosing the college to attend? Then
wouldn't picking the highest ranked (whatever your favorite
list may be) college be a reasonable strategy?
\_ No way. Depending on your personality type, your chances
of figuring out what you want to do and succeeding at it
might be much higher at a small liberal arts college or
might be much higher at a huge state school. There are
both of this type of school that are similarly ranked
in most rankings, and I think this is a very important
choice to make, regardless of what level of ranking
school you've gotten into. For me, a huge state school
was exactly the right place to be, but I've definitely
seen people get lost in the system at Cal who would probably
have done a lot better at some little liberal arts school
where they're not just a number.
\_ Then at least see the rankings based on your career
choice. For example, they have Harvard listed at the
top but that doesn't imply that Harvard is the best
engineering or say CS school. Just like Caltech and
MIT (listed no 4 and 3 respectively) are not the best
schools for many social sciences or humanities.
\_ Anyone who hasn't settled on a degree yet is not
likely to have settled on a career, and in any case I
stipulated "... don't have definite plans for a degree
or a career...".
\_ The criteria used for those rankings, makes those
rankings even less relevant to undergraduate education.
On the other hand, if you're considering going to grad
school, then at that point you certainly already know
what to study.
\_ Agreed. I implicitely limited the choice to undergrad
when I said "choosing the college [vs. grad school] to
attend". |
| 2004/12/1 [Reference/Military] UID:35148 Activity:very high |
12/1 Yay! http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,65885,00.html As early as March or April, 18 units of the Talon -- a model armed with automatic weapons -- are scheduled to report for duty in Iraq. ... Four cameras and a pair of night-vision binoculars allow the robot to operate at all times of the day. It has a range of about a half-mile in urban areas, more in the open desert. And with the ability to carry four 66-mm rockets or six 40-mm grenades, as well as an M240 or M249 machine gun, the robots can take on additional duties fast, said http://GlobalSecurity.org director John Pike. \_ The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots. Thank you. \_ it has begun. The robots are going to take over the world. \_ Don't be silly. The dolphins will do that first. \_ Dolphins have been secretly stealing our H07 CH1X in beach waters with their long hard beaks. \_ ob: I, for one, welcome our new robotic overlords. \_ future wars will be robot vs. robot. Smart bullets will try to reduce collateral damage. Smart gun systems will try to reduce collateral damage. Hackers will be the warriors of the future. Video Games are a conspiracy to create the new breed of warriors. The internet will be used to help fight wars. \_ The Internet was *DESIGNED* to help fight wars \_ No silly, Al Gore invented it to start the dot-com economy. \_ eat shit \_ Sorry, I don't live in the dorms anymore. \_ OOOOHHHHH AAAAUHHHHhhhhhhhhhh...*geek splooge* \_ Monkey hate robot |
| 2004/12/1-3 [Uncategorized] UID:35149 Activity:nil |
12/1 A while back, some folks expressed opinions regarding prolog
implementations. I didn't find them grepping the motd archive.
I'm looking to embed some logic system into a larger product,
any recommendations? -- Marco
\_ I like yap and xsb. -- ilyas |
| 2004/12/1 [Politics/Domestic/Gay] UID:35150 Activity:high |
12/1 "Republican Alabama lawmaker proposes banning gay books from
public libraries" -- http://csua.org/u/a66
\_ Will that include the Bible? -tom
\_ I'm sure the ACLU will like that.
\_ Gay man should be lined up and shot. -gay hater
\_ Gay men should be lined up and shot. -gay hater
\_ Does it arouse you to think about a bunch of gay men all lined
up?
\_ There is only one gay man? Damn he gets around a lot |
| 2004/12/1 [Uncategorized] UID:35151 Activity:nil |
12/1 <DEAD>makelovenotspam.com<DEAD> |
| 2004/12/1-3 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:35152 Activity:high |
12/1 Required reading for anyone that thinks we are winning the war on
terror. And before any of you jerk your knees, note the .mil address.
"Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic
Communication"
http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2004-09-Strategic_Communication.pdf
\_ One can infer that you are trying to say that we are not winning
the war on terror based on this single report. If that presumption
is correct then you are merely fact-finding for your own case
instead of attempting to really understand the situation at hand.
This paper is merely one of thousands of proposals that go in
front of government bodies and the opinions stated in it are
policy strategies that are suggested. They may or may not
be correct. Merely drawing up one study group paper and saying
that it proves your point that we are not winning the war
against terror is fallacious at best. Politics, unlike
computer science, does not have one definitive answer. It is
a complex interplay of socio-economic dynamics. One should
never presume to know definitively whether one is "winning"
or "losing" something based on one opinion or one report.
Take, for example, the Cold War. There are pundits who claim
that we won the cold war and there are those who claim that
we did not but instead the Soviets merely imploded due to their
own internal conflicts. You can argue either way based on which
papers you select and which facts you wish to draw up. That
doesn't mean you are more correct than any other pundit. It merely
means you found what you are looking for in a myriad of facts.
Anyway, the document is some 100+ pages. If you actually did an
in depth study of the paper I doubt that you would find that
it conclusive can tell you whether the war on terror is won or
lost. It is also beyond the scope of the motd and probably
the majority of the CSUA members to determine this on their
own without a true context. It would be as silly as trying to
give a CS major a case book and tell him/her to defend
Scott Peterson in trial. -williamc
\_ you win the award for longest post that doesn't say anything.
\_ pshah! Maybe second place. read this:
/csua/tmp/motd.kinney
\_ Easy with the axe-grinder there, dude. Did you read what
the PP wrote? It is clear
s/he thinks we are not winning the "war
on terror", but he never claims that he came
to this conclusion because of this one report. -nop
\_ And who exactly would benefit from a report saying we're not
winning the war on terror?
\_ anyone in the "reality based community"
\_ Are you really this mired in partisan stupidity? It would be
of benefit to anyone that wants to see terrorism stamped out
of existance. If our tactics aren't working then we need to
change them, but this sort of presumes that the policy makers
REALIZE they're not working. It also helps to understand WHY
they're failing or why they're not working as well as they're
supposed to. I hope I've missed your point(and I'm sorry if I
did), but if not, then I find myself wondering how someone as
stupid as yourself even manages to dress himself in the
morning....this all ought to be kind of self evident.
\_ You're a moron if you think terrorism can be "stamped out
of existence." So who dresses *you* in the morning?
\_ I didn't say it could be. -4hp for poor reading
comprehension.
\_ And I never said anything partisan. -9hp for poor
reading comprehension for you, dumbass
\_ I think I already covered this. Feeling a little
defensive, are we? If you'd actually read what I
said instead of hysterically knee-jerking, you'd have
realized that.
\_ Okay, let me spell it out for you, dumbfuck.
A sales consultant for a network security services
company gives you a report telling you that your
network isn't secure. Who exactly would benefit
from such a report? How is this knee-jerk? Because
I'm not as gullible as you are? Idiot.
\_ Uhm, so you're saying that you just assume
he's obviously biased and is therefore full of
shit? So, on that basis, you do no
due-diligence, but sit back and tell yourself
how clever and world-wise you are for avoiding
*that* pitfall? That's just stupid.
\_ No. No.
\_ I bet you also scoffed at Kerry's "nuisance" comment..
\_ His thinking may be partisan, but he's not necessarily
stupid. A classic political tactic for poo-pooing opposition
to your plans is to point to threats ("we have always been
at war with Eurasia!") I agree with you, objectively
speaking it is best to pragmatically go about analyzing
your mistakes and weaknesses so you can do a better job, but
let's face it, recent US politics has, more than at any time
I can recall, relied on "terrorism" as a threat to grant a
blank check for "the government" to commit questionable
actions. It's easy to take a cynical view. -John
\_ Hmm. I think it's much less depressing to just assume that
the guy is a partisan moron.
\_ And that would be the incorrect assumption. FYI- the
election ended a month ago.
\_ FYI, partisanism exists and causes issue with or
without an election going on.
\_ how does this report say we are not winning the war on terror?
\_ You really should just read it. Essentially it says we are
making a collosal "strategic mistake."
\_ Thank you for pointing me to this report. I have been saying
more or less these exact things for at least a year now and
had decided that the US was hopelessly going to screw things up,
at least for the next four years. At least somebody in
government is starting to think about these issues in the
right way. -ausman |
| 5/16 |