This law was always a bad idea created by politicians as an election platform. As usual, the incredibly intelligent U.S. populace fell for it.

Justices debate three-strikes law

Simply put, it's time to quit Slashdot, once and for all."

Woo Hoo! Use Memestreams!

Quit Slashdot.org Today!

"samhain is an open source file integrity and host-based intrusion detection system for Linux and Unix. It can run as a daemon process, and and thus can remember file changes - contrary to a tool that runs from cron, if a file is modified you will get only one report, while subsequent checks of that file will ignore the modification as it is already reported (unless the file is modified again). "

Well, I looked through a lot of open source HIDS and this is the first one I found that supports a client/server model. Also, it looks like the server will accept standard syslog packets as well.

Now, if I could only find a tool that would make the data useful...

Samahin HIDS & Centralized Logging System

If you have a pair of adidas, wear them proudly today.

[ This sucks. --Rek ]

Jam Master Jay Dies (from Run DMC)

Without open source, the report says, the Defense Department would lose access to powerful security analysis and detection applications, which would "have immediate, broad, and strongly negative impacts on the ability of many sensitive and security-focused DoD groups to defend against cyber attacks."

...

This story was linked a while back on SlashDot. This article is showing up in Google news now. Interesting analysis from a "not-for-profit" war contractor.

From what I can tell, it looks like the Mitre Corp provide highly skilled IT labor for the US War Department (sorry, I'm not going to call it the Dept. of *cough* Defense.) If anyone has clue, it's these guys.

As an aside, here's my favorite standout from the Slashdot thread:

"Isn't anybody gonna mention that RMS is going to say that FOSS should really be referred to as Dental/FOSS?"

We have YANTRAF (Yet Another Acronym To Remember And Forget:)

Free and
Open
Source
Software

FOSS FOSS FOSS FOSS

Defense Contractor Says Open Source Is Widely Used, Beneficial To DoD

Roll your own. Firewalls are going to be crushed in the next couple of years by robust opensource competition.

[Hijexx: Excellent work, wow... BSD licensed active/active with the IPSEC flexibility of a NetScreen or a PIX would *KILL* Check Point dead. Oh yeah, and we'd finally get CHAINS!!! :) ]

[Rek: Actually, it seems like dropped connections aren't a big connection. Most people will live with this as long as they can reconnect and everything is running. It only seems like certain kinds of usage (e.g. financial transactions) require full state failover. ]

High Availability OpenBSD pf Firewalls!

"George W. Bush and his henchmen stole the presidency. They threw thousands of innocent people into prison without even charging them with a crime. They're gearing up to invade Iraq without bothering to come up with a substantial justification. Now some Democrats and progressive Americans are asking the unthinkable about an administration they increasingly believe to be ruled by thugs and renegades. Did government gangsters murder the United States' most liberal legislator?
...
Ronald Reagan (news - web sites) may have been a hard line conservative, but had Wellstone died during his watch you wouldn't have heard liberals asking whether the Gipper had had him offed. Bush is different. Asking mailmen to spy on ordinary Americans, creating military tribunals for anyone deemed an "enemy combatant," locking prisoners of war in dog cages, spending a decade's worth of savings in six months, allowing journalists to die rather than provide them with help in a war zone, smearing Democratic politicians as anti-American, invading sovereign nations without excuse--these are acts that transgress essential American reasonableness. A man capable of these things seems, by definition, capable of anything. "

[ Originally from w1ld. At another time with a different government I would be hard pressed to buy it. Frankly, I think Dubya is just stupid enough to do something like this. --Rek ]

THE (POSSIBLE) ASSASSINATION OF PAUL WELLSTONE

Good read on how a stateful filter works plus some pragmatic information about the general state of the space in open source.

Interview: Daniel Hartmeier - OpenBSD 'pf' (packet filter) developer

"Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters circled the White House on Saturday after Jesse Jackson and other speakers denounced the Bush administration's Iraq policies and demanded a revolt at the ballot box to promote peace."

Large anti-war protests this weekend.

Marchers in Washington, elsewhere protest plans for war against Iraq

Big business complicity and political laisser faire is the only way that large-scale organised crime can launder and recycle the fabulous proceeds of its activities. And the transnationals need the support of governments and the neutrality of the regulatory authorities in order to consolidate their positions, increase their profits, withstand or crush the competition, pull off the "deal of the century" and finance their illicit operations. Politicians are directly involved and their ability to intervene depends on the backing and the funding that keep them in power. This collusion of interests is an essential part of the world economy, the oil that keeps the wheels of capitalism turning.

...

Interesting read.

[ Who says crime doesn't pay?? --Rek ]

Crime, The World's Biggest Free Enterprise