Open Source means that users have the freedom to see how software works, adapt it for the own needs, fix bugs and limitations and contribute back to the community.
InfoWorld: Top News reports Patches issued for Kerberos flaws. “The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has issued patches for three serious flaws in Kerberos v5, a widely used security authentication system. The worst of the flaws could allow an attacker to gain access to an entire authentication realm, according to MIT.”
Ouch! That’s a critical patch, too!
Jon’s Radio blogs LAMP and WAMP:
“Although LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/Python/PHP) is often synonymous with open source, Windows can be a solid leg supporting the platform. The rising popularity of PHP on Windows servers is one indication of this trend. To zealots in both camps this may look like an unholy alliance, but I live in both camps and it makes perfect sense to me…. In some ways Windows and open source are fellow travelers, and have been for a long time.” [Full story at InfoWorld.com]
OSNews points to a great TipMonkies piece on Writing Linux Firewall Rules With IPTables. “If you use Linux a good deal, you should know how to set up a firewall to help protect your system and your network. This tutorial will guide you through the steps you should take in order to makes IPTables work for you.”
I had the privilege last night of speaking to the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee Linux User Group, one of five chapters of the Greater New Hampshire Linux User Group on the installation, configuration and management of WebMin, a Perl-based, BSD-licensed tool for remote, secure, web-based management of many, many different modules in a Linux/Unix/HP-UX/Solaris system. This is a great tool, providing a simple, discoverable, explorable GUI for systems controlled by sometimes-obscure text configuration files. Text files are superior to an opaque “Registry” but having a GUI as well is the best of both worlds! My slides and notes are available for viewing from the tedroche.com whitepapers site, written in Eric Meyer’s great S5: Simple Standards-Based Slide Show System – a single HTML page, a couple of magic CSS files and a couple of images give you a slide show with keyboard shortcuts, a handout/slideshow view toggle and a popup menu (move your mouse to the lower right corner) to navigate to any slide. Slick stuff, elegantly simple to use.
Ars Technica notes Florida man charged with felony for wardriving. “Be careful accessing those unprotected WAPs, especially if you live in Florida. A man was recently arrested for accessing an open access point in an apartment complex.” By eric@arstechnica.com (Eric Bangeman).
So, receiving radio waves that someone else broadcasts is illegal? No. Responding to them? No. Using a device designed for connection that’s not encrypted? No. This isn’t the same as barging onto your neighbor’s property and plugging your appliance into his electrical socket. If the interceptor was attempting to break into a computer or perform some illegal act, well, maybe. It’s hard to even see this as a theft of services when they are being broadcast and the supplier isn’t paying any more for its use by others.
It will be interesting to see if this case goes anywhere…
Slashdot posts Project Gizmo Challenges Skype. valmont writes “The Register is offering an interesting introduction to Project Gizmo, a new player in the Voice over IP field, poised to challenge Skype with its ability to interoperate with others thanks to the SIP protocol it complies to. Whereas Skype has selectively licensed usage of an API that offers limited insight into a closed protocol, a closed ecosystem solely controlled by one organization, the SIP protocol is open. Free open-source proxy/server implementations are sprouting up, and many developers are actively working on SIP clients. The Gizmo Project is the first to bring a truly-usable, user-friendly, cross-platform SIP client (Mac, Windows, Linux coming soon) to market. Meanwhile, theappleblog.com is already offering a Gizmo Project Wish-List to promote better interoperability between current and upcoming SIP providers, to make it more practical for users of disparate SIP clients to communicate with one another.”
VOIP is hot and up-and-coming. Vonnage, Skype and Gizmo show some exciting promise to break the system of what ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe called the “teloply” – the phone company model of 30-year investment cycles on the huge telephone infrastructure. The telco’s lack of agility in deploying new functionality have slowed the rollout of technology in the US, leaving us behind Korea and Finland and others. The telcos have twisted pair copper wire into every home in America. Why aren’t they providing 100 Mbps Ethernet to the home at $20/mo?
VOIP isn’t an end-all and be-all just yet: be aware that 911 services are rarely available. Maintaining at least one landline to the home is wise. But moving your second or third phone line or SOHO business to VOIP is a no-brainer.
OSNews reports Sun ‘Distorts’ Definition Of Free Software. “Sun’s president Jonathan Schwartz has angered some in the free software community for appearing to misrepresent what open source is. In Schwartz’s opening keynote at the JavaOne conference on Monday he spoke about how free price is the most important feature of free and open source software.” It’s sad to see this myth continued, and a frustrating misunderstanding. Open Source Software is Free-To-Change, Free-To-Use-The-Way-You-Want, Modifiable, Manipulable, Free-From-Legal-Claims, Free-To-Share, Liberated. Free was such a loaded word to choose. Bummer