July 26th

Battlefield 2 Stats Server Hacked!

A group of hackers has claimed that it found, and then warned EA Games, of a big security hole in the Stats Tracking system in the popular new game Battlefield 2. The group claims that because EA refused to respond to their emails, they decided to get their attention the new fashioned way; they hacked the server. Here is a quote from their post at a BF2 forum:

“Well, what a wonderful few days it has been. Since EA didn't take the time to respond (or maybe even read) our emails about various stats-server security holes, it clearly showed us how much they care. Therefore, we came to the conclusion that modifying 5 million accounts wouldn't be that big of a deal.

That being said, accounts with ids from 40,000,000 to 45,000,000 now have all of their weapons unlocked.

What will be next week? Perhaps they will give everyone their Distinguished Service Medal, or maybe elevate everyone to the rank of Sergeant Major."

Hell, I'm going to check my stats right now!! :)

                                          Dr. John

July 25th

Intel to Pay the Piper

Experts agree, Intel is potentially in big trouble over the AMD lawsuit, and the Microsoft antitrust case will provide the ammunition for the court to convict Intel. Arrogance go hand in hand with large corporations that begin to act and feel like semi-autonomous city-states, and both Intel and Microsoft fit that description. Both felt above the law. Microsoft got off easy (thanks Ashcroft), but the case settled antitrust law to indicate that "unwritten contracts" are still contracts, and that you can't hide behind clandestine contracts. Intel constantly threatens their best customers with parts shortages if they buy AMD chips. Sound like free trade to you? Of course not, they are corporate slime.

I haven't bought an Intel chip or chipset in almost 3 years, mainly due to my disdain for Intel's business practices, but also because I find their chips to be over-designed, and underperforming for their clock speeds. I've never been a fan of unnecessarily long instruction pipelines, an Intel is the king of excessively long pipelines. But it's their asinine strong-arm tactics that really put me off.

Intel, I hope AMD fries your butt in court. Happy roasting!

                                          Dr. John

July 24th

Republicans versus Scientists

Republican senators aren't legendary for their brilliance, so you'd think they might hesitate before going after scientists on the subject of their research. But no, some Republican senators are apparently so dumb that they think they know more about science than the scientists who do the work. Republican chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Joe Barton is demanding financial and other information from scientists who wrote a scientific paper on their work on global warming. The brilliant Mr. Barton of course knows that, unlike god-fearing senators, all atheist scientists are crooks, and should be investigated whenever they talk about global warming.

I'm not a big proponent of the idea that all global warming is human caused - we are coming out of a 100,000 year long ice age, where NY state was under almost a mile of ice. Obviously the world will be getting warmer now, until the next ice age starts. The question is how much of it is caused by human activity, and how much is the natural result of exiting from another cyclical ice age. But regardless of my views, I would never try to argue with the scientists in the field by demanding their financial records. I'd try to stick to scientific arguments. But Mr. Barton is not a scientist, and hasn't read any of the literature in the field, so he's basically clueless as to how to frame such an argument. His only other choice is to use intimidation techniques against the scientists he disagrees with. How Republican... how transparent... how stupid.

                                           Dr. John

July 23rd

What's On the OS Vista?

Microsoft "Vista", of course. What a retched name. And what gets me the most is that Microsoft keeps using common names! "Windows" are things that let you see out of your house, and what you  might see out there could be, if you have a nice view, a "Vista". Most large companies would rather not fight in court to keep their use of a common word a private trademark, it's just too tough. Most companies alter common words to avoid such potential problems (Itanium, Athlon, Linspire, etc.). But Microsoft seems to relish in these name games.

What has really got some people scratching their heads is, the name is already taken! I guess Bill likes to keep his lawyers busy.

Well, I guess we're stuck with it. "Hey, did you upgrade to Vista yet?" "Naw, I just picked up a copy of Longhorn".

                                           Dr. John

July 20th

Hot Coffee Burns Rockstar

You may have heard about the the so-called HotCoffee "hack" of GTA San Andreas, where you can unlock cartoon porno scenes in the game. The maker of the game, Rockstar games, has sworn that this is a 3rd party mod/hack of the game, and is in no way a product of Rockstar. But the same unlockable scenes have turned up in the un-hackable PS2 version of the game, implicating Rockstar in its production. My guess is that there may be a few Rockstar game programmers or artists that are going to lose their jobs shortly. Chances are also now improved that Congress will pass laws regulating video games.

                                            Dr. John

July 18th

World's Coolest Keyboard

A Russian design company has taken on the task of making the world's best keyboard. "Art. Lebedev Studio" is working on the Optimus Keyboard, wherein each key is a mini-display, and the layout changes with the programs you load. So if you're playing a game, the mapped keys show as distinct icons or text descriptions of the key functions.

This works for programs like Photoshop as well, where each key function is described while the program is running. The Optimus has the added bonus that you can see what each key is in the dark.

They Optimus keyboard should be available sometime in 2006. I can't wait!

 July 15th

SCO Smoking Gun Found in Wrong Hand

   Below is a letter from the outside consultant hired by SCO to find Unix code in Linux:

Date: Tue, 13 Aug 2002 13:26:51 -0700
From: Michael Davidson
Organization: Caldera International
To: Reg Broughton
Subject: Re: Patents and IP Investigation


The actual investigation itself was done by an outside consultant (Bob Swartz) hired by SCO. I worked with him and reviewed his findings.

My recollection is that Bob produced an initial proposal for the project which outlined the methodology to be used, and he *may* have also provided a final report, but I don't have copies of either.

The project was a result of SCO's executive management refusing to believe that it was possible for Linux and much of the GNU software to have come into existance without *someone* *somewhere* having copied pieces of proprietary UNIX source code to which SCO owned the copyright. The hope was that we would find a "smoking gun" somwhere in code that was being used by Red Hat and/or the other Linux companies that would give us some leverage. (There was, at one stage, the idea that we would sell licenses to corporate customers who were using Linux as a kind of "insurance policy" in case it turned out that they were using code which infringed our copyright).

Note that the scope of the project was limited to looking for evidence of copyright infringement (we didn't consider patents because SCO didn't own the rights to any patents, and more general IP issues were just too vague - besides SCO was *sure* that it was going to find evidence of copyright violations which are comparatively straightforward to prove once you have found them)

An outside consultant was brought in because I had already voiced the opinion (based on very detailed knowledge of our own source code and a reasonably broad exposure to Linux and other open source projects) that it was a waste of time and that we were not going to find anything.

Bob worked on the project for (I think) 4 to 6 months during which time he looked at the Linux kernel, and a large number of libraries and utilities and compared them with several different vesrions of AT&T UNIX source code. (Most of this work was automated using tools which were designed to to fuzzy matching and ignore trivial differences in formatting and spelling)

At the end, we had found absolutely *nothing*. ie no evidence of any copyright infringement whatsoever.

There is, indeed, a lot of code that is common between UNIX and Linux (all of the X Windows system, for example) but invariably it turned out that the common code was something that both we (SCO) and the Linux community had obtained (legitimately) from some third party.

md

   Clearly, the extortion racket that SCO ended up working corporate Linux users with was pre-planned, with the full knowledge that no infringing code would be found in the end. Kind of reminds me of Bush and Co. using phony WMD claims to justify attacking Iraq, but not nearly as egrigious.

                                          Dr. John

July 14th

How Can People Be So Dumb?

In a recently released survey by an Internet security firm, it was found that 11% of the people receiving spam have actually bought products through the web sites that spammed them.  As many as 9% claim they lost money by responding to phony e-mail scams.  A whopping 39% admit to clicking on links embedded within the spam!

To me this is truly shocking, because I had assumed that Internet users were getting at least a little more savvy about scams and viruses than that.  I guess I was wrong.  There seems to be something about the human brain where higher cognitive functions are shut down whenever the person thinks they're going to get a good deal.  Let's give this phenomena a new name: "dealabotomy". I've actually seen it happen to people, where they see an email subject line that would make me either laugh or cringe, but they are desperate to open it and click on all the links. To me, this is akin to waking around the tuberculosis ward of a hospital, and licking everyone's spoon after dinner. But that's just me.

I don't know how it will be possible to prevent dealabotomy as it pertains to the persistence of virus-laden spam. As long as there are ignorant internet users who actually respond to the virus writer's pleas for admission to their computers, viral spam will be everywhere. I get about 150 spams a day, and approximately 10 to 20 of them carry viruses. The thought that someone would get this in their inbox:

????? ?.? ÒÀÌÎÆÅÍÍÎ-ËÎÃÈÑÒÈ×ÅÑÊÈÅ ÓÑËÓÃÈ ð

and would actually open it scares the hell out of me.

                                           Dr. John

July 12th

Karl Rove is a Traitor

Harsh words, but now we know that "Bush's Brain" was behind revealing a CIA operative's name to political hack Robert Novak and others for partisan political reasons. Since it was Rove himself who insisted that Bush 'play up the war in Iraq' to win the last election, his treasonous act was committed at a time of war by his own admission. But I don't think he should get the death penalty, as the law allows for treason in wartime, but he should have his security clearance revoked, and he should be fired, and never be allowed to work in the government ever again. He probably should get some jail time too, considering that a journalist is in prison right now trying to protect sources such as Rove. Only a despicable person would let another go to jail in their place. Rove is a heartless, gutless wonder, and it's no wonder why the US is in such deep shit right now with this jerk acting as "Bush's Brain" (and Lord knows, Bush seriously needs a brain). With a brain like that in the White House, who needs terrorists?

Remember how much Republicans found Presidential lying offensive when Clinton was in office? Their silence now is deafening.

                                            Dr. John

July 6th

Though the Courts of the US Grind Slowly, Yet They Grind Exceeding Sluggish.

To paraphrase the 17th century poet Friedrich Von Logau (who was paraphrasing the ancient Greek philosopher Sextus Empiricus) in his poem entitled 'Retribution: "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small". And while I would like to apply this quote directly to the SCO vs. IBM case over Linux, I was forced to alter it accordingly. Nearly two years after the case against IBM was filed by SCO, and after SCO amended it's claims twice, SCO attempted to amend the case again, but their request was refused by the judge.

The original meaning of the quote might be considered appropriate nonetheless, as it basically is suggesting that what you do in life will come back to bite you in the butt on judgment day.

As it stands now, the SCO case is scheduled for court in February of 2007. Yes, that's with a 7. I have no idea how finely the grinding wheels of US justice grind, but I do know that they grind exceeding sluggish.

                                            Dr. John

July 2nd

Official: Microsoft Sleaziest Company in World

A decade long legal dispute between Microsoft and IBM has been resolved.  Microsoft has agreed to pay IBM $775 million to settle the antitrust lawsuit.  This case stemmed from a joint venture between IBM and Microsoft to develop OS/2.  As usual, in the middle of the project Bill Gates decided to take his ball and go home.  Microsoft came out with Windows, and used every dirty trick in the book to squelch IBM's OS/2 operating system.  After years of legal wrangling, Microsoft decided it was easier to pay three quarters of $1 billion to settle.

Microsoft's actions were typically egregious, but that is their modus operandi. With such deep pockets, Bill has found it easier to flaunt laws, win the fight, and then pay out some pocket change to quiet down the offended parties. But because Bill's pocket change is so huge, it has become somewhat of a cottage industry to sue Microsoft and hope they decide to settle.

In a very odd twist, IBM also gets $75 million worth of credit toward... you guessed it, Microsoft software! Whatever happened to IBM's support for Linux?

                                            Dr. John

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