Solaris Enterprise System gone FREE

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/get.jsp

... and there's a link there on how to get S.E.S. for yourself. Only pay S&H and the actual media [10 DVD option, here I come] and get it. They also advertise that it will become open sourced soon - which is unbelievably good news. And that still means I want to work for them, heck, more than ever maybe :) Another victory for F.O.S.S. !

As Solaris' support for x86 is increasing I wonder how the competition is feeling. There are 4 systems out there, out of which 3 have enough applications for the desktop and I am sure Solaris will have more and more people porting software to it. A look out at SourceForge.org should reveal interesting projects that could be ported.

Unfortunately, rki of RootContest and HackThisSite! fame has decided to stop activity on RC for now. The site is still up until the end of the week and depending on discussions there might be a new lead stepping up soon enough. There seems to be a strong support to keep the site running in one form or another and as such there might be no downtime at all. Either way, if you want a "rush run" this is your chance, while boxes are still online. Nothing is known on the fate of the site and the domain come March 1st - the date rki announced he is shutting down. As a staff member I cannot but regret this fact. I am looking forward to some communication with the rest of the staff to see whether we can still go on. rki said he is going to support and help out as much as possible. I understand, I guess, time issues that we all have are a factor in this.

Until next time... hack the planet!

News Updates?


Well not much really. I need a few hours to spare soon so that I might possibly get status updates from people on http://www.rootcontest.org and their boxes. It is a shame that the site is kind of... on a decline. I know there is already rootthisbox.org and they do well what they do. We are not competing. Basically, there are an infinite amount of set-ups that could be done. We - and rtb - are nowhere near that yet :) These are just training grounds.

I whipped together a simple script to act as a cron job and fetch torrents for me [on a different box.] Simple idea, really, but possibly I will post it/link it when I get a chance. That is just so that there is no need to keep a ssh term open... just drop a torrent and when the hour hits it will start downloading.

A quick rant on the issue of the Danish cartoons and the retaliatory defacements. Well, actually on the defacements only and what I think is wrong with them.

I was, once before, confronted with the idea of 'taking down' a neo-nazi website. That, however, would be denying someone their free speech rights. Many people would mistakenly consider that hate speech should not be protected in any shape or form. If we begin censoring hate speech it will be only a step until they consider government criticisms as a negative influence too. Not long after that more and more countries are faced with China's problems. Where hate speech is troubling to many, the counter should be a way to inform people on the truth about the issue. Not shut down or deny access to these sites [I'm taking the Internet as an example because this is where we function at this level.]

Website defacements are used as a tool of 'advertisment' if you will. It is a cyber-guerilla form of political militantism and very effective at that. So why do I think these particular defacements are/were not a good idea? Most of them did not try to 'clear the story' but continued what could be considered a 'flame war' [in 'Net terms.] This only amplifies hate directed towards Islam [at this point] because the Western World still fails to understand the subtleties of the Eastern cultures. I guess, in a way, both sides are guilty of this ignorant behaviour.

Cheers!