David Adams Archive

Update: It appears that we mischaracterized the conclusions in our title and our summary on this story. Greg KH was referring only to the ELF vulnerability in this story. Whether we were deliberately mislead by the submitter of this story or not, we regret the error.

The original story: According to "Greg KH," co-maintainer of the 2.6.x.y series of important stability and security fixes, the Linux kernel does not suffer from the much-hyped hyper threading vulnerability that affected the BSDs: " The main reason there have not been any updates, is that there really isn't a problem for the 2.6 kernel. The original author has admited this finally, no one was ever able to reproduce it on a 2.6 kernel. The only reason I released a kernel update, was at the time, we thought there was an off-chance that there was a problem. However in further testing, it has not been the case." This confirms Linus's earler assertion.

If you though the subject of DRM and Trusted Comouting had gone away, think again. Intel is adding DRM capabilities to its new Pentium D chipsets, but as with AMD, they're not that keen on talking about it. Aside from DRM, there's also this gem: Additionally, AMT also features what Intel calls "IDE redirection"...allow administrators to remotely enable, disable or format or configure individual drives and reload operating systems and software from remote locations, again independent of operating systems.

IBM Corp. has revealed a prototype blade server board featuring the Cell microprocessor jointly developed with the Sony Group and Toshiba Corp. The company demonstrated the prototype in front of only a few clients at a hotel room outside Los Angeles, US, at the 2005 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), game tradeshow.

Because firewalls and other defensive security measures are not failsafe, you need additional tools to detect and respond to security breaches as they occur. A network analyser can detect known (and even some unknown) virus attacks and make the cleanup process much more efficient.

After 30 years, the venerable VMS operating system is showing no signs of going away. How is it holding on to its position at the heart of some of the world’s most mission-critical systems?

Nokia Corporation announced that it allows all its patents to be used in the further development of the Linux Kernel. Nokia believes that open source software communities, like open standards, foster innovation and make an important contribution to the creation and rapid adaptation of technologies. Nokia also committed not to assert any of its Patents against Linux Kernel.

Although Linux is growing meekly when it comes to end-user usage and interaction, the overall experience of using a Linux distribution has turned out to be a positive one for numerous beginners. In recent years, Linux has made advancements in leaps and bounds, which has led to its adoption by many corporate users as well as regular desktop users. Though it’s still not in a perfect state, the rapid pace of development in numerous areas of Linux promises a bright future, nonetheless.

palmOne has acquired the Palm brand from PalmSource. New products from, formally, palmOne should be released as just "Palm" in near future. PalmSource will probably change it's name (let's wait for more news). Some rumors talk about palmOne's PDAs running Windows mobile and PalmOS 6 doesn't get industry support, what's the next chapter of the "Palm" soap-opera?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Apple and Intel executives have been in discussions about Apple using Intel chips in its hardware. Apple's only official response at this point is that it's "rumor and speculation," but the Journal implies that it's nearly a done deal. No word on whether Apple would use Intel chips across its product line or just in one or two products, like the Xserve. And this could all just be maneuvering to extract a better deal out of IBM. Losing Apple would be a major blow to IBM's chip business.

IGN has details on Nintendo's next-gen console: "Revolution will be 'two-to-three times more powerful than GameCube,' according to Nintendo, which also acknowledges that the next-generation race isn't solely about new technologies. By contrast, Microsoft's Xbox 360 console is 13-15 times more powerful than the first, according to the publisher. And Sony says it's PlayStation 3 is roughly 35 times more powerful than PlayStation 2." Pictures of the system can be found here

Developers on the Windows compatibility project Wine have been forced to abandon an important feature due to the existence of a Borland patent.