Hand guns are infact banned in DC. (I'm pretty sure I told both of you and ya'll didn't believe it.) It of course hasn't really helped because DC is right up there in murdah.

Interesting that they're trying to repeal the ban... wonder if crime will go down because of it.

--timball

Repeal Of D.C. Gun Ban Urged (washingtonpost.com)

From speech_freedom2002@yahoo.com Wed Jul 16 10:59:47 2003
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2003 06:14:52 -0400
From: Rockit [speech_freedom2002@yahoo.com]
Reply-To: root@se2600.org
To: root@se2600.org
Subject: [se2600] Interz0ne Press Release re: Blackboard Settlement

Interz0ne Press Release:

Censorship via lawsuit wins again.

Lawyers working for Blackboard Inc., the maker of a card transaction, vending and ID system used by approximately 275 colleges and universities globally, as well as an undiscosed number of government and military installations, succeeded in silencing two college students who have found numerous flaws in Blackboard's flagship product over the last two years.

Georgia Tech student Billy Hoffman, along with University of Alabama student Virgil Griffith, initially kept the discoveries quiet while attempting to report them to Blackboard engineers, along with possible fixes. Traditionally, the discoverers of such flaws allow the vendors time to fix problems before going public; this provides the vendors with essentially free quality control labor while the discoverers get later bragging rights and items to pad their resumes. This unofficial system has worked well in the past, to the extent that Blackboard even boasts of working with the hacker community on their website.

Instead of taking an interest in news of these flaws, however, Blackboard engineers first dismissed Hoffman as a know-nothing "kid", then attempted to have him expelled from Georgia Tech after he voiced his concerns about Tech's Blackboard system to campus administrators and student organizations. Hoffman responded by first publishing his (and later Griffith's) findings, and then updating his articles via talks at various vendor and security conferences.

It was at such a conference, Interz0ne II in Atlanta, that Hoffman and Griffith were planning to discuss the most severe problems they had uncovered to date, including a demonstration of several easy-to-assemble hardware devices that could supposedly allow anyone with malicious intent free reign on a Blackboard system.

Hoffman and Griffith never gave their talk.

Instead, they and the convention organizers were served with both restraining orders and cease and desist orders. Court dates soon followed, along with legal threats. Several months after the convention, both Hoffman and Griffith settled out of court. They refuse to discuss the issue, so one can assume that the settlement includes an NDA.

Blackboard spokesdrone Michael Stanton stated to AP reporters on Monday, July 14th (a day before the settlement was officially filed) that "...the claims [Hoffman and Griffith] were making were silly," that "...they really didn't do a lot of the things they were claiming to [have done]" and that the settlement reaffirms that Blackboard's systems are secure.

Bullshit.

The settlement does nothing of the sort.

If Hoffman and Griffith's clai... [ Read More (0.4k in body) ]

Interz0ne Press Release - re: Blackboard Settlement

Okay it's not security... I just don't have misc on my list.

EVIL DEAD 1 & 2 - The Musical

Lots on the math... very interesting results. I'm still reading it but it's cool.

[cond-mat/0307352] How many different parties can join into one stable government ?

Using statistical methods of Physics lets play with more data sets... how about something that'll make some money. A very very interesting read indeed.

[cond-mat/0307341] Applications of physics to economics and finance: Money, income, wealth, and the stock market

] Blackboard said the settlement shows its systems are
] secure but the whole case is better understood as a
] successful attempt to protect the firm's reputation
] against the possibly exaggerated claims of a pair of
] student hacker/crackers

The register got caught up in the spin as well.

Since when is using the law an appropriate way to silence critics? Thats the very definition of censorship.

Can we accept that this is really the final word on the story, given that its coming from blackboard, and that Acidus and Virgil are injoined from responding?

Is Blackboard's technology secure?

We may never know. What we do know is that Blackboard has effectively silenced their critics, with extreme prejudice. My lawyer is bigger then your lawyer should not trump the first amendment. In this case it has. These student settled because they did not have the means to defend themselves.

Acidus and Virgil owe $20,000 in (clears throat) "legal fees." They are college students. They can't really afford this and they need help. If you would like to contribute, you can paypal the following email address: gte344p@prism.gatech.edu

The Register - Blackboard press release

Just caught this one in my inbox.. Psyiode has started up a site to keep track of the Blackboard case.

Its important to note that Psyiode has no connection to Acidus, Virgil, or any of the Interz0ne con staff. Blackboard may decide to come after him too.

I like the domain. :)

www.fuckblackboard.com

] Two computer hackers admitted in a settlement Monday that
] they never completed a device that could cheat university
] campus debit card systems out of food, laundry machine
] use or sports tickets.

Spin Spin Spin...

More on this in a minute...

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: BlackBoard press release

Oh joy. More XP-worship.

I wonder if anyone's yet considered that if we keep "borrowing" the flashy and artistic bits from other people's desktop environments (mac pinstripes, windows drop shadowing) we're going to wind up with something that looks like crap...

Still, this is a nifty bit of patching.

Drop Shadow Effect for GTK -2.2.x Menus

Oh hell yes. I knew eventually something like this would hit the market. Glow in the dark fish that aren't made of plastic or things that look like they might be distant cousins of C'thulu.

'Fluorescent fish' give the green light to GM pets