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| Hacking Yahoo |
| Peeking at Pictures over a Wireless Shoulder |
| PhotoShop Tutorials I |
| PhotoShop Tutorials II |
| Netsurfer Recommendations |
| An Earnest Killer Flamingo Reflects on Life |
| Stallman's "Free as in Freedom" Free Online |
| Finding M-Class Planets |
| Colorful Hubble Story |
| Technology Disasters |
| You Can Lead a Horticulture, and You Can Make Her Think |
| NOVA Site for Teachers |
| Pool Players' Physics |
| Visual Media from Fermilab |
| Star Office 6.0: Finally a Microsoft Office Killer? |
| Some Answers about Perl 6 |
| Openssh 3.2.2 Released |
| A Wintry Blast from the Past |
| BOOK REVIEWS |
| LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| Contact and Subscription Information |
| Credits |
BREAKING SURF
Worm Infects Kazaa Network, Kazaa Calls it Quits
Kazaa, the Dutch company which created the file sharing network, will fold. Not because of the worm but because it can't afford to defend itself against copyright infringement lawsuits brought by the entertainment industry. However, the trading network it created is not going away, since it's now owned by Sharman Networks, based in Vanuatu, an island in the Pacific. At the same time, just as Brilliant's stealth Altnet network revs up for action, the Kazaa file-swapping network in which it lives has been infected by a new, targeted worm. Significantly, the Benjamin worm - which maybe should be called a Trojan since it requires human intervention to propagate - appears to be the first to specifically use a peer-to-peer network to distribute itself. Viruslist.com has details about the worm, but no information about preventing infections at presstime, other than the old standbys of not running executables you obtain through the network or shutting down your Kazaa client. By the way, the first application of Altnet will be to seed search results with links to paid content. CNET has the story about Altnet going live, and SFNet has the short wire story about the Dutch Kazaa going out of business.Viruslist.com: http://www.viruslist.com/eng/viruslist.html?id=49790
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-917348.html
SFNet: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/05/22/financial1929EDT0213.DTL
Kazaa: http://www.kazaa.com/en/index.htm
Creative Commons Wants to Apply Open Source Culture to Content
Intellectual property laws provide important protection for creative people but sometimes protection can go too far, as we've seen recently with the anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA and the music industry's aggressive use of digital locks and lawyers. In response, the Creative Commons people want to do for text, audio and visual material what Free Software Foundation's General Public License has done for software: make it readily available for use and modification by others. Right now, Creative Commons is developing a Web-based application to help people donate works to the public domain or license them flexibly, and to help those who want to use these works to find them. Creative Commons also plans to set up a public intellectual-property conservatory, to protect works of special public value from private copyright. It's nice to see bold plans with a strong measure of public good and sanity about them. After all, all human endeavor builds on the work of others, with further progress dependent on widespread access to that heritage. Creative Commons will help make it so.http://www.creativecommons.org/
The Fascinating Hourglass of Ancestry and Genealogy
John Lennon once sang about imagining a brotherhood of man. Recent genealogical reports indicate that it's not anything we need bother imagining; despite the continuing protestations of racists and tribalists, it's apparent that all of humanity is in fact interrelated. At least one researcher has noted that any two people alive should question not whether they have a common ancestor, but who was the most recent ancestor. That ancestor is far more recent than you might imagine, like somewhere during the past 600 years or so. The Atlantic Monthly has a readable article on the topic. Mark Humphrys, a subject of the article, has been putting material online since around the time the Web became the Web. We give you links to both, but suggest you read the article in the Atlantic Monthly before jumping into Humphrys's stuff.Atlantic Monthly: http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/05/olson.htm
Humphrys: http://www.compapp.dcu.ie/~humphrys/FamTree/Royal/famous.descents.html
Google Labs, a Technology Playground
Google continues its innovative exploration of search technology by launching this experimental site that lets you take a peek at Google's "favorite ideas that aren't quite ready for prime time." The first batch of applications includes a glossary, an application to automatically create sets of links from a few examples, a voice interface to Google, and keyboard shortcuts for navigating through search results. Consider this, and the innovative Google Toolbar (for Microsoft software only), and you have to conclude that Google is a company unafraid to take technology risks and actively seek input from its customers. All this is fun to play with, but remember that this is all prototype stuff - be prepared for the occasional glitch.Labs: http://labs.google.com/
Toolbar: http://toolbar.google.com/
Turning Off the Mega-ISPs - Painful, To Say The Least
Have you ever wondered, even for a moment, how you might disentangle yourself from services you've signed up for electronically? It might be harder than you could ever imagine. It was for Jon Katz recently, when he tried to terminate his Earthlink dial-up and AOL services, as he recounts at Slashdot. Both companies pride themselves on making it easy to sign up and on their customer friendliness, but if Katz's experience is typical, that approach doesn't extend to helping customers to terminate subscriptions. Katz's AOL story is particularly incredible, as a belligerent employee repeats that his reasons for wanting to unsubscribe aren't acceptable or convincing. The wasted time, the ghastly music, the snippy employees, the telephone merry-go-round are all hellish hassles we can do without. Let Katz's tale be a warning: maybe next time you sign up for something you should first ask where the off button is and whether it actually works. On a related note, a Wired article on AOL user satisfaction quotes a survey director who says AOL inspires "the most overwhelming, and negative, response to a company or technology we have ever seen."Katz: http://features.slashdot.org/features/02/05/14/0138249.shtml
Wired: http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,52693,00.html
Appeals Court Says Online Anti-Abortion Threats Are Not Free Speech
The anti-abortion crowd lost a big court decision recently, as the Ninth US Court of Appeals split in ruling that posting online "Wanted" posters is not protected free speech. In the decision, the judges note a similar case in which a protestor parked a Ryder rental truck in front of a clinic. That protestor was convicted of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinics Entrances Act because a Ryder truck was used in the Oklahoma bombing of a federal building, a fact that provided context that implied the truck was a threat rather than protected freedom of speech. In this case, the court ruled, the Web publication of names, home addresses, telephone numbers, and other data in the "Wanted" format also constitute a clear threat, and was understood by both site owners and victims as such. They returned the case to the trial court in Portland, Ore. to reassess the $108 million punitive damages award. This case is probably headed for the US Supreme Court, but we'd bet the decision won't be overturned in that venue. CNET has the story.Decision: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/9th/9935320p.pdf
CNET: http://news.com.com/2100-1023-917077.html
Ford Motor Credit Warns Customers of Privacy Breach
It's 10:00 pm. Do you know who you are? With the rate of identity theft growing nearly exponentially, this isn't just a rhetorical question. The Ford Motor Credit Co. (FMC) recently sent letters to some 13,000 lucky winners, notifying them that they were at risk for credit fraud and identity theft, due to what the company called an "unauthorized inquiry". Thieves got hold of FMC's access code for Experian, one of the top three credit reporting agencies in the USA. The code let them download credit files, complete with Social Security numbers, payment histories, account numbers, and all kinds of neat stuff. This might be a good time for everyone to check their credit reports. Do you remember buying a wide-screen HDTV system? The Boston Globe has more.Globe: http://tinyurl.com/6d8
Hey! What's Up with That Tiny URL?
The Boston Globe URL for the story above is a line-and-a-half long. It's far too cumbersome for our purposes. Fortunately, we've just learned of a new service called TinyURL. Paste an exceedingly long URL into TinyURL's entry field, press a button, et voila - it spits out a small, manageable URL that redirects to the longer URL you supplied. Simple idea, super implementation - we like it.http://tinyurl.com/
Librarian of Congress Rejects Onerous Webcaster Royalty Rates
The US Librarian of Congress, who gets to rule on such matters, rejected a proposal that would impose expensive royalty rates on webcasters. That's not a permanent reprieve, however, as final rates won't be determined until June 20. The Copyright Arbitration Royalty Panel had proposed the high rates in response to a federal law that requires webcasters to make royalty payments to the entertainment industry, a cost that would have put many webcasters out of business. Both sides, webcasters and the music industry, are waiting to see what the regulators come up with. CNET summarizes the story so far.http://news.com.com/2100-1023-919468.html
One day in the summer of 2000, student Matt Goyer got to thinking about the ethics and economics of free music downloads. He wondered how bands could survive in the face of free downloads. It worried him so much, he quit his summer job at IBM and built Fairtunes, a Web site that lets you send money directly to your favorite artists. The site tracks down artists and cuts a check for the royalty donations periodically. So far, over 3,000 users have paid about $20,000. It's not the music labels Goyer's interested in paying and preserving, just the bands. He says each dollar sent to an artist is equivalent to what they get from each sold CD. Send a buck and you can download an artist's music with a clear conscience, he argues. While he may have a point morally or ethically, it's a vulnerable legal argument. The Winamp player/client recently added Fairtunes links to its downloads to prompt users to pay and play. We suspect this nice, insidious idea will only increase the self-inflicted paranoia of the music industry. Time has the tale - legally free to download, and no need to send a contribution.
Fairtunes: http://www.fairtunes.com/
Time: http://www.time.com/time/globalbusiness/article/0,9171,1101020520-237030,00.html
Open Content P2P Network Proposed
The Open Content Network (OCN) is a proposed peer-to-peer (P2P) network dedicated to the distribution of open-source and public-domain software. By using P2P technology, the OCN plans to deliver content at high speed by distributing all downloads across many sites. Volunteers will donate spare bandwidth and disk space to the network. All this is done through extensions to the HTTP protocol that create a content-addressable web, as opposed to the location addressable Web of today. A paper explains the technology at the OCN Web site. At this stage, the project is only an early concept, with no implementation yet available, but it's still of interest to those who follow P2P developments.OCN: http://open-content.net/
Paper: http://open-content.net/specs/draft-jchapweske-caw-03.html
Rebel Scum Propaganda Colors Star Wars Epics
Attention Star Wars fans! We've been rooting for the wrong guys for years! Or so claims this article in the Weekly Standard. Far from being the good guys, the Rebel Alliance is simply interested in restoring a constitutional monarchy at best, and anarchy at worst. Mind you, this essay has a profoundly conservative perspective and claims that General Pinochet was a benign dictator, but it does make for interesting reading. It also makes you wonder if some people are taking the movie series a bit too seriously. A Slashdot discussion really attacks the claim about Pinochet, and dreaws the inevitable parallels with the current world political situation.Weekly Standard: http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/248ipzbt.asp
Slashdot: http://slashdot.org/articles/02/05/17/1019250.shtml
"The Matrix": Trailer for Sequel, Spot on the Wired Sci-Fi Film List
"The Matrix" came in at number three on Wired's list of the top 20 sci-fi movies. The Wired list is fairly respectable, though you might quibble over an omission or two. It's an odd list, to say the least - it contains "Barbarella" and "Sleeper" but not "ET: The Extraterrestrial" (Laurie, how could you! The archetypical chick-flick of sci-fi movies. Still makes me gag. And yes, I'm donning my flameproof protective cup - Arthur) or "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" (best use of bright lights and mashed potatos in a movie), or the classic "Forbidden Planet" (best id monster ever). It's also definitely a list of sci-fi and not SF (which stands for and encompasses all speculative fiction) movies. We lead with "The Matrix" to segue into telling you about a newly released trailer for the rabidly anticipated sequel to that film. It's cool and all, but it didn't blow our socks off - all style, no substance. It's at the Matrix Web site. Now break into small groups and discuss.Wired: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.06/scifi.html
Matrix: http://whatisthematrix.warnerbros.com/
A Peek behind the Bnetd Curtain
Bnetd was an open-source attempt to reverse engineer Battle.net, Blizzard Software's online gaming system for players of Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft. It's probably about to succumb to legal action. This article is a technical discussion of how coders reverse-engineered the Battle.net host and the legal problems involved. What started as a way for friends to play a game online is going to become another test of copyright law.http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2002/05/09/bnetd.html
Online Grocery Shopping Not Dead Yet
The demise of the ambitious Webvan has not entirely killed off the online grocery industry. Two large grocery chains, Albertson's and Safeway, continue to offer online grocery shopping and delivery within limited markets. Neither is making money on their service, but both companies view it as a customer-building exercise. This San Francisco Chronicle article states that between 120,000 and 145,000 people visited the chains' Web sites in April. That's not many, but people are actually ordering and paying the extra $10 delivery fee. The average online shopper at Albertson's spends $110 plus the delivery charge. Oddly to us, the most popular products are produce and meat - those products that are most subjective in appeal, as opposed to milk or packaged goods.http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/05/20/BU208344.DTL
Found and Fixed: Ten Bugs in Anonymizer.com Service
Bennett Haselton, famous for founding the Peacefire anti-filtering Web site, looked into the popular Anonymizer service and found ten bugs that could disclose a user's identity. To its credit, Anonymizer fixed all the bugs before Haselton published his report, and tossed him three free years of the service as a reward. Nevertheless, the relative ease with which Haselton found the bugs says something unflattering about the quality control at Anonymizer. All the bugs revolved around either forcing the browser to connect directly to the target Web site or forcing it to execute JavaScript. Either option will reveal your originating IP address to the Web site.Bugs: http://www.peacefire.org/security/anonymizer/
Anonymizer: http://www.anonymizer.com/
ONLINE CULTURE
Udi Manber, chief scientist at Yahoo, recently gave a presentation on the kinds of attacks the service has to endure. The number of hacks, scams, and frauds launched against Yahoo is simply staggering, not only in volume but in cleverness. The attacks range from things as simple as screen-scraping (using Web output to manipulate remote pages on a client) to complex schemes such as manipulating auctions or social-engineering the disclosure of IDs and passwords. Many of the hacks are automated, and Manber says that his biggest problem is how to distinguish robots from real users. It's a fascinating glimpse into the ingenuity that goes into these hacking attempts and a cautionary tale for anybody who is considering building a complex Web service. Ultimately, Manber says, legislation is completely ineffective in solving such problems, and only technical solutions will do the job. The interview should be required reading for all webmasters.http://www.ddj.com/news/fullstory.cgi?id=5887
Peeking at Pictures over a Wireless Shoulder
Privacy is gone, at least if you use a wireless connection in populated areas. At the recent ETech conference, Rob Flickenger decided to see what people were surfing with their wireless connections during a panel discussion. He ran a Mac program, EtherPEG, that can intercept and display JPEGs and GIFs flying over wireless networks, and learned a little about the surfing habits of his fellow conferees. Flickenger reports that what he saw is not a pretty picture in any sense. The best way to avoid EtherPEG is to run application layer encryption; something else to learn.Flickenger: http://www.oreillynet.com/1414.html
EtherPEG: http://www.etherpeg.org/
ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
If you have PhotoShop, you're probably keeping an eye open for tips that will help you get the most from your imaging investment. We ran across a couple of places that offer some free, easy tutorials. Want to do transparent GIFs, slice up some some images, do text effects? Try these tutorials at Absolute Cross. Step-by-step instructions. Easy. Absolute Cross offers all of that, plus Macromedia Flash tutorials, and some tips for webmasters and for users of Paint Shop Pro. Free scripts, free art, free icons. Links to all. But don't visit unless you love, or at least can stand, popping ads. The tutorials and the tips are excellent and the ads, confined to pops, don't directly intrude. Do check out the tutorial forums; there's material of interest to Illustrator users, programmers, and game developers as well.http://www.absolutecross.com/tutorials/photoshop/
We said that we ran across a couple of sites, and if you're into PhotoShop and primarily PhotoShop, you'll want to bookmark this one. PS Workshop covers basic tips, imaging, texturing, and a lot of other stuff. It serves as a clearinghouse of links to sites where some really talented people have constructed tutorials for creating certain effects, for using PhotoShop tools, and, on occasion, for third-party plug-ins. Whether you've been using PhotoShop for years or happen to be new to it, you'll find techniques here that you've never thought of. The site features the usual forum and newsletter options, as well. Bring a sack of cheap bread along, so you can find your way back out. You can spend weeks in the place. The more adventurous may opt not to drop a crumb trail, and just use that sack of bread as cheap eats while you continue exploring.
http://rainworld.com/psworkshop/
BOOKS & E-ZINES
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Items our staff likes and you might too. Click on the image or title to order at a hefty discount from our affiliate Amazon.com, and send a few pennies our way as well.
 For more selections, check out the Netsurfer Library at http://www.netsurf.com/nsl/ |
Take My Advice: Letters to the Next Generation from People Who Know a Thing or Two
A Brief Guide to the End of the World
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and in Life
Learning Unix for the Mac OS XAn Earnest Killer Flamingo Reflects on Life
Killer Flamingo may sound like a mob dandy's nickname or reactionary environmental site, but the more informative subtitle of this wide-ranging yet inoffensive e-zine is "A cynical attack on the mainstream culture." It focuses on mainstream culture, all right, through informal first-person essays that often seem less cynical than bemused. "Full Moon and Blue Jeans", in the Faith section, is a good example. A suburbanite of 38 reflects on an evening of mall-walking and shopping for jeans: "The young clerk, who in the horror film would already be splattered across three racks of clothing and scattered throughout the rest of the shopping mall and three parking deck levels, looked up at me with a contemptuous smile. 'No sir, I meant your age. Guys your age just don't look good in those tight jeans. They tend to show too much.'" Cheek recurs in the "I Love Britney!" piece in the Music section, in which author Rex Manning praises a blues band nominated for a Grammy and defends Britney Spears: "She is the styrofoam that protects my mail order item. She is the egg carton that protects my egg.... she is the pop queen that protects my music from the stupid people and I love her for it." The main ingredient here is wit. As the call for submissions states, "Killer Flamingo is... run by people with a passion to be heard and the illusion that they can make a difference." No flaming birds out for vengeance here - rather, earnest reflection coated with a little wistfulness and sass.http://www.killerflamingo.com/
Stallman's "Free as in Freedom" Free Online
True to the subject matter, book publisher O'Reilly has placed the entire text of its recent Richard Stallman biography, "Free as in Freedom", online. The book is lavishly footnoted with hyperlinks to the cited references. It's a good read for anyone interested in the background of the free/open source software movement. And yes, you can still buy your own dead tree copy at Amazon.Free as in Freedom: http://www.oreilly.com/openbook/freedom/
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596002874/netsurferdigest
SURFING SCIENCE
Finding Earth-like planets - M-class planets, in Star Trek lingo - circling other stars is a difficult task, but NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has decided to pursue two different space-based approaches to the problem as part of the Terrestrial Planet Finder (TPF) program. One method requires the development of a space-based infrared interferometer. The other needs a powerful coronagraph with a mirror larger than the Hubble's. The TPF program is part of NASA's larger quest to learn the basic dynamics of the galaxy, including the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The JPL site includes, among other tantalizing bits, a searchable database of all extrasolar planets. It should prove of great interest to educators as well as amateur astronomers. Space.com has more.TPF: http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.html
JPL: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/2002/release_2002_113.html
Space.com: http://www.space.com/searchforlife/new_approach_020510.html
Like the blonde with dark roots showing, or the tan applied from a bottle, the color in those awesome Hubble shots isn't natural. Hubble takes its glorious pictures in black and white, which is fine for science but not much of a wow in public. The man responsible for colorizing those breathtaking shots is Zoltan Levay, an image processing specialist with years of experience. He says that solid science guides most of his choices, but others are based purely on guesswork and aesthetic judgment. Worrying whether the result is true to life is pointless, though, because the human eye wouldn't see anything like these images, even up close, partly because we can't see some of the wavelengths shifted for capture on film. Also, the human eye doesn't do time exposures, necessary to record the faint, diffuse light of these deep space objects and provide the rich, intense images Hubble produces. The Hubble site and the Ottawa Citizen provide details.
http://www.canada.com/national/story.asp?id=%7B57E7532E-9DB2-416B-A743-30A9D5589A09%7D
Hubble: http://hubblesite.org/sci.d.tech/behind_the_pictures/
In this technology gone bad compendium, the truth (as they used to say on "The X-Files") is out there. Easily accessible, yet still out there. Now, it's here - here being this article at Technology Review. This article looks at ten technology disasters, and drops more famous disasters like Titanic and Challenger in favor of more obscure yet equally deadly failures of technology. The Challenger shuttle failure was new technology. This article discusses how trusted technologies can fail, and what happens when they do. Writing this was rather like the six degrees from Kevin Bacon exercise: one of us worked for a time with the son of one of the engineers who designed the Hyatt Regency skywalks - the collapse of which is one of this site's spotlighted disasters.
http://www.techreview.com/articles/scigliano0602.asp
You Can Lead a Horticulture, and You Can Make Her Think
In 1968, while the US was agonizing over war in Vietnam and other burning issues, Professor Freeman S. Howlett must have made quite an impression with his course, "The History and Literature of Horticulture: From Earliest Times to the Present", at Ohio State University. It obviously impressed someone, as it has reappeared on the Web as a large, text-based site called History of Horticulture. Academics familiar with the subject will appreciate the site's search engine. Others might find it more instructive to explore piecemeal across a century or span of centuries in the browsable directory, where you're sure to recognize the names of at least some historical figures. Howlett emphasized individual accomplishment. His brief biographies are accompanied by a link or two to external research resources. Students may want to check out this dry but authoritative site before they start a class project. Howlett's section on the 19th century includes Gregor Mendel and Charles Darwin, of course, but many will never have heard of Emmett Stoll Goff, say, or Julius Von Sachs. Sadly, the 20th century is underrepresented, but the site notes, "Our hope is to expand this resource over time into a fuller history."http://hcs.osu.edu/hort/history.html
If you live in North America, you've likely encountered the PBS content on your airwaves. The ever-popular PBS program NOVA has launched a Web site primarily directed toward teachers. It's publicly accessible - so all those home-schoolers out there can benefit - and NOVA makes a lot of content available: program transcripts; teaching guides; and much more. The content has been designed to minimize download time while maximizing teaching resources. Responsible parents should find the material useful, as well - particularly the "This week" on NOVA links, which typically provide interesting content for kids from grades three through 12. Parents and teachers will likely want to bookmark the site, and return frequently.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/teachers/
If you've ever shot a rack, you're going to be taken with this site on pool physics. We're not talking swimming lessons, here - this is the table game. And it isn't just a game. It's more like an ongoing exercise in applied mathematics and physics. The best of the best don't have to solve the equations; they just see the solutions intuitively. That's some impressive intuition, when you actually run the math against the shot. Pros and amateurs alike will fall in love with the descriptive "Amateur Physics for the Amateur Pool Player" link alone. The content here may not improve your game, but at least you'll know why you suck.
http://playpool.com/apapp/
You'll need more than a passing interest in physics or technology to get the most out of the Visual Media Services (VMS) division of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). If you're looking for a photograph of, say, a BTeV Straw Twister (whatever that is), you'll find a thumbnail and high-res JPEG in the VMS's large Photo Database. Journalists can easily search for recent photos of, say, a "Wine and Cheese Talk on Second Floor Crossover" or employees at work in various control rooms. (There must be demand for this kind of stuff, or Uncle Sam wouldn't spend tax dollars to post and maintain it, would he?) There's also a searchable database of streaming video with titles such as "D-zero Collaboration Meeting Archives" and "Nature of Science Symposium". You'll need RealPlayer 7.0 or higher for the streams. In effect, this site is a public portfolio of services offered as a sideline in high-energy particle research. Does your company or organization need to document equipment development or produce training reports? Need public address systems, overhead projectors, or satellite down-linking service? Want to route video signals to classrooms or stream video for replay on the Web? Uncle Sam is open for business.
http://www-visualmedia.fnal.gov/VMS_Site/active.html
SOFTWARE
Star Office 6.0: Finally a Microsoft Office Killer?
Sun has released the latest version of its office suite, which runs on Solaris, Linux, and Windows. Yes, it does read Microsoft Office documents, but don't expect complex .docs to render entirely correctly. But then, do you know anybody who takes advantage of all that Microsoft feature bloat anyway? At a reasonable $76 per copy, this is a real alternative to Microsoft, especially for low-budget Linux shops.http://wwws.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/6.0/
Larry Wall and Damien Conway answer some deep questions about Perl 6. The answers are aimed mostly at advanced programmers, though the last few questions touch on the philosophy behind the language redesign.
http://use.perl.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/21/0519220
Given the importance of this software, the premier method of secure connection between machines, it's always worth noting when a new version is out. It's the usual batch of bug fixes, and some esoteric new features. Read the changelog for details.
http://www.openssh.com/
CORRECTIONS
Betsy Norton, webmaster for the Cape Fear Christmas House in Wilmington, N.C. wrote to thanks us for including her site in NSD, and to chastise us for using an incorrect URL. Standard stuff for the Corrections subhead, right? Well, it would be, if we hadn't written about the site... seven-and-a-half years ago. Yep, apparently we porked the URL of the Cape Fear Christmas House in NSD 1.04, back in December 1994. No doubt her Christmas 1994 holiday gift for us is right around the corner....Christmas House: http://www.christmas-noel.com/
NSD 01.04: http://www.netsurf.com/nsd/sub/v01/nsd.94.12.18.html#TH3#TH3