The Null Device

Linux for the PlayStation 2. Mind you, it only works with early Japanese PlayStations and you can only buy it from Sony. Um, hang on, doesn't the last bit violate the GPL?

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The age of "black ice" is nigh, as firms wary of crackers are reportedly installing "counter-offensive" software for automatically retaliating against crackers. Mind you, I suspect that the software is more likely to end up crashing hijacked machines than flatlining rogue console cowboys; also, I suspect that once some crackers figure out how it works and how it selects targets, coaxing it into attacking innocent bystanders will become a new extreme sport for script kiddies.

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Dennis Ritchie, one of the inventors of the UNIX operating system, maintains a list of sightings of UNIX in odd places; like Unix-brand food containers in Japan, and a Unix barber shop in Costa Rica.

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The SDMI incident: Did Professor Felten bend over on command from the RIAA, or has the RIAA shot itself in the foot over the SDMI paper? Salon's Janelle Brown suggests that the RIAA's silencing of a prominent academic is likely to get the DMCA thrown out or seriously emasculated; that is, of course, discounting the possibility that the RIAA's all-star legal team persuades the judge that the research in question was of the sort that should not be publicised, much like the NSA's cryptography research.

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