Random Brain Dump

I had yet another case of insomnia last nite so I stayed up channel surfing and caught a few HBO documentaries. One of them, Unknown Soldier, is particularly powerful. It’s a story of a son’s quest to re-assemble the life and death of the soldier father he has never known.

In 1969, Lieutenant Jack Hulme was blown to pieces in Vietnam, just days short of ending of a tour that’d bring him home to his wife and his newborn son. 30 years later, John Hulme pieced together the life of a father he’s never known through personal accounts. Particular touching was the interviews of Jack’s father, a normally stoic 80+ year old man. It was clear Jack was the apple in his eyes and his death was a huge loss for the old man. Through the process, the son came to terms with the life and death of his soldier father. Very powerful stuff…

Watching that reminds me of my parents’ generation and the trying times they had to endure through the war. My dad and my uncles were soldiers in the Vietnam conflict. My uncle Ty went MIA in the early 70’s. I was too young to retain any meaningful memories of him. Like John Hulmes, I only remember him through pictures. One thing I do remember however was a blue/gray sweater with a large print of a racing car in the front. It was, according to my mom, my uncle’s gift to me after a trip abroad. That was probably the only thing that represents any real connections between him & I.

I imagine that it’d be very interesting for me to find out more about my uncle through the personal accounts of my mom & my other uncles. And one of these days, I might just do it!

My server has been a target of a DOS attack as of this morning. My hosting provider is working on fighting it at the moment. Access to the site will be unreliable until the attack is averted.

UPDATE (11/4/05):
Looks like the attacks subsided somewhat, while everything isn’t yet back to normal now, web access seems okay. There’s still some weird behavior with the databases…

In a demo of Visual Studio 2005, Microsoft claims that it is more expensive to use Eclipse (an open-source & free development tool) than buy Microsoft tools.

What a bunch of crap! Mike Milinkovich of the Eclipse Foundation recognizes that claims like this from Microsoft represent the highest compliment for Eclipse. I couldn’t agree more…

…
Repeating the Microsoft mantra that “free is not really free,” the programmer showed that while the basic development environment for Eclipse is free versus a basic Visual Studio 2005 license, which costs $8,200, the cost of using Eclipse increases as users tap into load testing and other advanced features.

When he added it up, the cost of using VS 2005 was over $30,000 versus more than $100,000 for Eclipse-based applications.

ZDNet reports that Firefox topped 10% of the browser market, though I’ve read reports that growth is slowing. It gives you an idea how hard it is to topple IE dominance.

On a related note, Firefox 1.5 release candidate is out… Navigation seems a bit quicker in the new version.

This is a fascinating finding by Mark Russinovich. His painstaking investigation reveals that a Sony Audio CD install some malware on his PC. It’s a really interesting read. He details the whole process step-by-step. Check it out as Mark’s investigative techniques are very impressive.

The anti-copy protection software is based on Rootkit which is used by hackers of viruses. It goes deep into the operating system and make itself “invisible.” It basically prevents uninstallation or deletion of itself and is therefore extraordinarily difficult to uninstall. In this particular case, removing it manually could shut off access to the computer’s CD player itself. It installed without the user permission nor notice. So it’s basically a virus, it is an intrusive compromise and it is nasty!

The length the record company goes through really infuriates me. While they have the right to protect their content, I have a problem when their tactic crosses the line of fairplay and infringe on consumers’ rights.

UPDATE #1 (11/2/05):
Looks like Sony is bowing to consumer pressure and will be working with anti-virus software makers to provide a patch to remove the software.

UPDATE #2 (11/11/05):
The first malicious trojan horses that piggy-backed on Sony CD walware were spotted yesterday. They enable the attacker to have complete control over the infected host. So the reality is the software from Sony CDs isn’t just about content protection anymore, it’s also enable PCs to be taken over by hackers!

California has already filed a class action lawsuit.