31.12.2005 18:37

Open Source from business perspective (2005)

Business Week writes about five things they think are most important when thinking about Open Source in business in 2005. I'd add OpenOffice.org (especially after version 2 released), which is becoming more and more popular.


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Science and technology

27.12.2005 20:28

DRM once again

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is the topic I wrote about from time to time. After a number of discussions in the real life and online I started searching for studies showing benefits of DRM. Yes, benefits. And detailed studies, what means real research, not wishful thinking or marketing. And you know what? I couldn't find any... Still searching, however. If you know one, share a link to it with me.


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Security, Software

24.12.2005 13:04

Blender 2.40 is out

New version of Blender, 3D modelling tool is out and ready for download. From the features list it looks interesting.


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Software

19.12.2005 23:11

17 mistakes

A good read for everybody who may think about making secure equipment: a story of one product that failed. Explained in details why.


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Security

16.12.2005 23:26

Portscans before attacks

Recently performed research shows that attacks come after about five per cent of portscans.

It's more than I through (taking the amount of scans every machine online gets a day). It would be interesting to see how it looks for a 'desktop' machines (the research was made for honeypots, which were, probably, configured as servers), then compare the results and see if there's a pattern.


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Security

11.12.2005 15:53

Survival time

SANS shows how much it takes for an unpatched system to be attacked. That should be shown for every new Internet user, but unfortunatelly they usually learn about security after they have a compromised machine (or much later, in many cases).


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Security

08.12.2005 22:27

Data retention again

The time when the data retention directive will be passed or rejected is comming. That reminded me about it and cause me to read the text. Well... disaster. From technical point of view it's just a disaster. Many possible ways to interpret it, especially my favourite, 'connection' used when talking about IP (there are *no* connectons at the IP level, there are connections at TCP level, but, technically, not on UDP one).

As a side note, strange ideas can be founc everywhere, an Australian senator wants ISPs to use filters to filter 'inappropriate' materials. Apart from the fact that implementing such thing is nearly impossible...

I stop here.

apt-get install tor


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Security

06.12.2005 20:04

Wikipedia articles

Wikipedia has just changed its policy on creating new entries. Now you need to be a member (but you can still edit when beeing anonymous). The change one made after an issue with an unchecked article that made it to USA Today (not sure what's the point in that, through).

The move made won't help much and everyone knows that. Wikipedia is just an unauthoritative source and when using data from it, you should check it. That's how I do...


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Science and technology

03.12.2005 20:41

End of Linux philosophical debates?

Iain Ferguson writes at ZDNet:

Ideologues have to fade into the background and keep their philosophical debates within the the community.

The author clearly states that he wants the Linux and FLOSS community to finish all idealogical debates and just do business. The thing is that it's hard to find the borders of the community and, more important, no way to control it. It's not a company where the management can agree on the way to go. No. It's community, with hundreds of people with their own ideas.

There are people who use Linux and FLOSS to make money. Nothing wrong with that. There are also people who deal with it for different reasons and like the debates, in fact. I don't want them to go and I don't think I'll see that in the near future. That's good.


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Software, Science and technology

01.12.2005 20:39

Firefox 1.5

New Firefox can be downlaoded from its mirrors. Firts thing that you notice is the automatic update that starts first, just after you unpack a and run FF. And then... well, it's working nicely, but I have a big, fat grey bar below the status bar. It was reported in the RC series, but should be gone before final version. Tried all suggestions and nothing, probably need to dig more..


Posted by Mara | Permalink | Categories: Software