Net Security: “Updated stunnel packages are now available for Red Hat Linux 7.2. These updates close a format-string vulnerability which is present in some earlier versions of stunnel.”

From The Register:

“Copy protection tracks implanted in CDs are a violation of the right to fair use of
purchased music, US Representative Richard Boucher (Democrat, Virginia)
wrote in a letter to recording industry lobbyists Monday.”

A Byte.com article by Jerry Pornelle discusses the pros and cons of Windows alternatives, primarily Linux. “If you’re a tinkerer, you should by all means have a look at Linux. My friend Roland Dobbins uses Slackware Linux because it’s the most UNIX-like of all the distributions out there; but for beginners, he generally recommends Mandrake. The relative newcomer Redmond Linux ? no irony in that name, what? ? also deserves your attention.”

Mario Rodrigues writes of a commentary at Van’s Hardware: “If implemented, the proposed settlement that the DOJ has succumbed to will not change the industry for the better, but will continue to leave the consumer, government, and business, over a barrel, to suffer Microsoft’s continued exploitation, whose ill-gotten gains (profits) continue to line the pockets of those company officers responsible for creating this illegal monopoly. This can only be seen as ‘payback’ for breaking the law, and sets a terrible precedent for future antitrust litigation. Let’s hope that Judge Kollar-Kotelly has the courage to turn payback into blowback.”

Jeff Gerhardt writes, Tuesday, January 8th, 2002 from the home of Wayne’s World, Aurora IL:
Tonight LIVE on
www.thelinuxshow.com At 6pm pt, 7pm mt, 8pm ct, and 9pm et…. Kevin Hill, Jeff Gerhardt, Doc Searls(Linux Journal), Arne Flones and Russ Pavlicek; have another interesting show lined up tonight on The Linux Show!!

In Segment One – Hot News: We will be covering the hot Linux news of
the last few (several) weeks. In particular we will discuss the news about the plethora of PDA’s and consumer grade appliances that are starting to see the light of day.

In Segment Two- Running Applications Under Wine
Tonight we start a new era in the FIVE year history of The Linux Show. Actually, we are going BACK to an old role that we had during our first couple years. Back in the early days we did a large number of product reviews. As the popularity of Linux grew there was an explosion of Linux Information Web Sites doing product reviews. Soon there were a whole bunch of people doing reviews. S0, TLS started to take on its present political and news roles, and we stopped doing regular reviews.

Tonight we return to our role of providing reviews of products as a regular part of our schedule. The initial thread we will be following is the wide assortment of programs available to Linux users using Wine the Unix Windows Emulator. Tonight Kevin Hill will discuss the process of getting Wine set up properly on your Linux Machine. In subsequest weeks we will discuss several different applications.

Other opinions are welcome at GeekCast. If you would like to join us on the show, check our IRC Chat(irc.thelinuxshow.com #linuxshow).

Remember tune in at 6pm pt, 7pm mt, 8pm ct, and 9pm et.
Catch the Linux show at www.thelinuxshow.com.

jeffy124 writes, “ComputerWorld: Microsoft Corp. said it’s investigating an alleged flaw in recent versions of its Internet Explorer (IE) browser software that could allow attackers to spoof legitimate Web sites, steal content from browser cookies and gain access to certain types of files on a victim’s system.”

Turbolinux, Inc., the high-performance Linux company, announced that Sacramento State’s computer science department, one of the largest CS departments in the California State University system, has standardized on a Turbolinux Server and IBM xSeries platform to teach its upper division systems programming class to 130 students.

All of the course work conducted in the computer science class is uploaded onto the IBM xSeries Server running Turbolinux Server. The students access a password-protected Web page on the school’s intranet, download assignments and then send back the work via e-mail. Once the work is graded, each student’s results are available for review on the site, stored in a database located on a xSeries server running Turbolinux.

Students in the “Introduction to Systems Programming” class conduct large software downloads from the xSeries running Turbolinux for their assignments. Despite the added stress and large downloads on the system, the server’s performance has never degraded.

“I’d give Turbolinux Server and IBM’s xSeries an ‘A+’ in terms of performance and reliability,” said Dr. Senad Busovaca,
Professor of Computer Science at CSU, Sacramento. “The Turbolinux based system is an invaluable part of my computer science class here at Sacramento State University.”

“Turbolinux is proud to be the choice for leading universities throughout North America and around the world,” said Bill Peterson, director of marketing for Turbolinux. “Universities play a key role in developing the worlds future decision makers and they are an excellent incubator for emerging technologies like Linux. We’re pleased to partner with companies such as IBM to help grow student knowledge of Linux.”

“IBM has a long history supporting higher education,” states Nancy Williams, Director of Solutions, eServer xSeries Servers. “This is one of many solutions we will deliver with Turbolinux as a parter. We are proud to be a part of the future of our nation through these students.”

About Turbolinux Server
Turbolinux Server is engineered as a secure, high performance backend server for business workgroups in the enterprise. Turbolinux Server includes robust e-commerce software for business-to-business transactions; Apache (secure Web server), Tallyman (e-commerce suite) and OpenMerchant (shopping cart). Pre-configured install options allow for quick and easy set up and a comprehensive set of network connectivity tools seamlessly integrate into almost any IT environment. For more information on Turbolinux Server please visit: http://www.Turbolinux.com/.

About Turbolinux, Inc.
Founded in 1992, Turbolinux is a market leader in Linux software clustering solutions and Linux internationalization, with investment backing from more than 20 global computer companies, including Compaq, Dell, Intel, NEC, Novell and Oracle. Headquartered near San Francisco with offices around the world, Turbolinux solutions are supported globally by Compaq, Hewlett-Packard and IBM. The company’s home page is located on the Internet at www.Turbolinux.com, in Japanese at www.Turbolinux.co.jp and in Chinese at www.Turbolinux.com.cn.

Augustus writes, “LinuxHardware.org has put together their picks for the best Linux hardware of 2001: ‘What goes into a system designed ultimately for the most kick butt Linux performance possible? There are a lot of things we’ve learned this year that make some of these choices quite easy, while other developments led to us second guessing ourselves. We analyze the what and why of almost all major system components as we do our own hardware year in review and come up with the most awesome system we can build that will be our benchmark of all components in the year to come. Note that this computer is a single processor system. Our dual processor picks are coming soon.’
Full story at LinuxHardware.org.”

Slashdot has a bunch of links to Samba information, including what’s upcoming for the project.

LinuxDevices.com has the story/press release. “Royal’s new ‘Lin@x’ PDA sports a
full-color graphic LCD display and is based on a 206MHz Intel StrongARM processor with
16MB of Flash ROM and 32MB of system RAM. This latest Linux-based PDA is expected to
hit store shelves by mid-2002 and be priced at $299.”