ninja_assault_kitten - Slashdot User

Comment As usual.. missing information (Score 2, Informative) 637

by ninja_assault_kitten on Wednesday April 16, 2008 @08:43AM (#23088636) Attached to: Schoolboy Corrects NASA's Math On Killer Asteroid

"In April 2008 it was reported that 13 year-old Nico Marquardt from Potsdam, Germany had recalculated the odds as part of a science competition, and found the risk had been underestimated. Taking into account the possibility of the asteroid colliding with one or more of the estimated 40,000 artificial satellites orbiting the earth, possibly causing a shift in its orbit, increases the probability of a collision with [5] earth on its next fly-by in 2036 to 1 in 450. NASA was reported as confirming these results with the ESA[6], yet they have since apparently denied these claims, and on April 15, 2008 it was reported Nico Marquardt's calculations were incorrect." -- Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis/

Submission + - Leopard is the New Vista 4

Submitted by ninja_assault_kitten on Thursday November 29, 2007 @06:15PM

ninja_assault_kitten writes: Interesting rant from Oliver Rist of PC Magazine. He compares the catastrophy that is Vista to the recently released OSX Leopard. While clearly one is a lion and the other a cub, is does appear to be an apples to apples comparison and it's qutie sad. From the article, "...the fact that so many of the semi-important changes don't work, the fact that Apple turned a stable OS into a crash-happy glitz fest, or that the annoying, scruffy Live Free or Die Hard actor infecting my TV (and our Web site, by the way) is pretending that Leopard is better than Vista". Worth a quick read.

Graph of Linux Vs. Windows System Calls 302

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday February 06, 2007 @02:42PM from the linguini-or-angel-hair dept.

cgrayson recommends Richard Stiennon's blog on ZDNet — a post titled Why Windows is less secure than Linux shows a compelling graphical comparison between system calls on the two operating systems. The blogger tips Sana Security for the images. Quoting: "In its long evolution, Windows has grown so complicated that it is harder to secure... [T]hese images... are a complete map of the system calls that occur when a web server serves up [the same] single page of [HTML] with a single picture."

Why "Upgrade" To Office 2007 598

Posted by Hemos on Monday January 15, 2007 @10:50AM from the a-question-asked-everywhere dept.

walterbyrd writes "IMO: Office-2007 is a contender for the least useful upgrade in the history of computing. It's expensive, has a steep learning curve, and it's default format is even less compatible with anything else. Stan Beer discusses the "upgrade" in his article: Question: why do I need to upgrade to Office 2007?."

Sun Is Giving Away Solaris 10 DVDs 248

Posted by kdawson on Sunday January 14, 2007 @04:53PM from the what-is-this-free-you-speak-of dept.

Tarmas writes "For a limited time only, just like Ubuntu's ShipIt service, Sun Microsystems lets you order Solaris 10 absolutely free of charge. The operating system comes on a single DVD supporting both the x86 and SPARC versions. Also included is Sun Studio 11."

UK Schools At Risk of Microsoft Lock-In 162

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 11, 2007 @12:51PM from the apple-for-the-teacher dept.

Robert writes "UK schools and colleges that have signed up to Microsoft Corp's academic licensing programs face the significant potential of being locked in to the company's software, according to an interim review by Becta, the UK government agency responsible for technology in education. The report also states that most establishments surveyed do not believe that Microsoft's licensing agreements provide value for money." In a separate report, Becta offered the opinion that schools should avoid Vista for at least another year, since neither Vista nor Office 2007 offers any compelling reasons for schools to upgrade.

MS Monthly Patch Omits Word Zero-Days 80

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday January 09, 2007 @08:21PM from the swelling-botnets dept.

bungee jumper writes "Microsoft released four bulletins with patches for 10 vulnerabilities but there are no fixes for known MS Word zero-day flaws that are under active attack, eWeek.com reports. The January batch covers critical bugs in Excel, Outlook, and Windows. The first confirmed Windows Vista flaw, a denial-of-service issue that was publicly released on an underground hacker site in Russia, also remains unpatched." eWeek notes that Microsoft originally scheduled eight bulletins for release, but pulled four last Friday without explanation.

IE7 Compatibility a Developer Nightmare 416

Posted by CmdrTaco on Sunday January 07, 2007 @01:21PM from the one-better-than-six dept.

yavori writes "Internet Explorer 7 has kicked in at last on all MS Windows OS running PCs because of the fact M$ decided to force it's users to migrate through update. In fact this has started a IE7 Web Developers Nightmare. The article actually explains that most of the small company B2C sites may just fall from grace because of IE7 incompatibility. One of the coolest thing IE7 is unable to do is actually processing form data when clicked on an INPUT field of TYPE IMG... which is pretty uncool for those using entire payment processes with such INPUT fields."

IE6 Was Unsafe 284 Days In 2006 137

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 04, 2007 @01:34PM from the barn-door-of-vulnerability dept.

An anonymous reader sends us to the Washington Post's Security Fix blog, where Brian Krebs has toted up the total vulnerability days for IE6 users in 2006. From the article: "For a total 284 days in 2006 (or more than nine months out of the year), exploit code for known, unpatched critical flaws in pre-IE7 versions of the browser was publicly available on the Internet. Likewise, there were at least 98 days last year in which no software fixes from Microsoft were available to fix IE flaws that criminals were actively using to steal personal and financial data from users... In contrast, Internet Explorer's closest competitor in terms of market share — Mozilla's Firefox browser — experienced a single period lasting just nine days last year in which exploit code for a serious security hole was posted online before Mozilla shipped a patch to remedy the problem."

Office 2007 — Better But a Tough Switch 484

Posted by kdawson on Thursday January 04, 2007 @12:14PM from the bound-by-ribbons dept.

Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Office 2007, coming out Jan. 30, is a 'radical revision,' writes the Wall Street Journal's Walter S. Mossberg. 'The entire user interface, the way you do things in these familiar old programs, has been thrown out and replaced with something new. In Word, Excel and PowerPoint, all of the menus are gone — every one. None of the familiar toolbars have survived, either. In their place is a wide, tabbed band of icons at the top of the screen called the Ribbon. And there is no option to go back to the classic interface.' He adds, 'It has taken a good product and made it better and fresher. But there is a big downside to this gutsy redesign: It requires a steep learning curve that many people might rather avoid.'"

Another Denial of Service Bug Found in Firefox 2 206

Posted by samzenpus on Thursday November 02, 2006 @03:05AM from the be-more-secure dept.

An anonymous reader writes "A second security flaw that could cause the new Firefox 2 browser to crash has been publicly disclosed. The vulnerability lies in the way the open-source browser handles JavaScript code. Viewing a rigged Web page will cause the browser to exit, a representative for Mozilla, the publisher of the software, said Wednesday. Contrary to claims on security mailing lists, the bug cannot be exploited to run arbitrary code on a PC running Firefox 2, the representative said. This flaw in the JavaScript Range object is different than the denial-of-service vulnerability in Firefox 2 that was confirmed by Mozilla last week. That bug is related to a more serious security hole, which was fixed in earlier versions of Firefox, the organization has said. The two 'crashers' are the only publicly released vulnerabilities that have been confirmed by Mozilla in the week since Firefox 2 was launched. The issues are only minor, the organization has said."

Windows vs Mac Security 513

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Wednesday August 23, 2006 @01:27PM from the lauchded-into-a-fit-of-rage dept.

sdhorne writes "There is a good technical discussion over at InfoWorld on the merits of launchd and what is lacking in a comparable Windows secure solution. It is a throw back to the UNIX vs Windows security discussion that has been hashed out for many years." From the article: "it always traces back to Microsoft's untenable policy of maintaining gaps in Windows security to avoid competing with 3rd party vendors and certified partners. Apple's taking a different approach: What users need is in the box: Anti-virus, anti-spam, encryption, image backup and restore, offsite safe storage through .Mac, and launchd. Pretty soon any debate with Microsoft over security can be ended in one round when Apple stands up, says 'launchd', and sits back down."

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