CNET News.com interviews SRI International principal scientist Peter Neumann on computer security issues, past work projects, and other events: “COTS–commercial off the shelf. That was a meeting ostensibly trying to see how you could take
off-the-shelf software and plug it into an environment that was mission critical and still have the
system be robust. My conclusion was that this was the wrong solution to the wrong problem. The
correct solution is to have robust solutions to begin with… One of the conclusions is that the open-source program could be a
wonderful driving force on the commercial developers. That’s already happening with the network
routers and servers, which are already over 50 percent nonproprietary products–Linux and
various BSD systems. That’s a foot in the door for the open-source movement.”

PC World (via CNN): “In order to use the service, which costs $16 for printing out 24 images, users
pick up a specially designed 310,000-pixel Pentax digital still camera, take their
photos, and then return the camera to the store they picked it up from. At the
store, they can view all the photo images on a display screen and choose any
24 images to be printed.”

VIAHardware reviews the SV24, a petite new computer from motherboard manufacturer Shuttle. VIA liked it so much that gave the system its Editor’s Choice for a barebones system. I’ve had toasters that were bigger than this thing.

EFF offers up its public interest position on spam: “Blacklisting is interfering with the delivery of a significant amount of non-spam email. Systems administrators who will not adopt the suggested anti-spam policies
find themselves unable to deliver their non-spamming users’ mail to recipients who are on systems that participate in blacklisting. This blocking is being done at too
high a cost. Ultimately, civil rights and the ability of non-spammers to communicate cannot be sacrificed to serve the goal of blocking unsolicited bulk email.” They’re not too thrilled about legislative attempts, either.

Slashdot discusses peer-to-peer-oriented networking: “What will society do, when there are kits in every computer store and mall, for
802.11a neighborhood routers? What if you could buy a kit with four pole-mounting 15DB
directional antennas, and a router in a sealed case that maintains mesh networks? … There will
be a great blooming of local gaming, IM, and voice/video telephony … a lot of sharing of music
and video on these NANs (neighborhood area networks)…”

CNET News.com: “AOL Time Warner on Thursday confirmed Gecko sightings in test versions of CompuServe
7, a sign that the technology could replace Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as the online
service’s default Web browser.

The tests will allow the media giant to determine whether the upcoming CompuServe version will
come packaged with browser technology from the company’s own Netscape Communications unit.
CompuServe, like the America Online flagship service, uses Microsoft’s Internet Explorer as its
default browser.”

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.-October 18, 2001-Red Hat Inc. (Nasdaq:RHAT), the leader in developing, deploying, and
managing open source solutions, today announced the Red Hat Linux Desktop Productivity Essentials training course. The new
three-day course is designed for people with no Linux experience who want to achieve maximum productivity at home or work
using Red Hat Linux desktop-based application suites for common office productivity tasks.Aimed at corporations, businesses, and home users, the course requires only experience with use of mouse, use of menus,
and use of any graphical user interface or window-based application on any computer system.

Red Hat Desktop Productivity Essentials helps new users make a smooth and rapid transition to using Red Hat Linux graphical
user interfaces and applications for traditional office tasks such as word processing, spreadsheet creation, graphic design, file
management, email, and internet access.

The course is designed to facilitate large corporate and government rollouts of Red Hat Linux to the desktop, as well as
providing small business and home users with immediate and comfortable transition to Red Hat Linux and Linux-based
applications for all their favorite tasks.

“Red Hat Linux provides enormous value for desktop use since it comes with powerful office productivity applications that
otherwise would have to be purchased separately,” said Peter Childers, Vice President, Red Hat Global Learning Services.
“This new course helps organizations and individuals maximize this value, and establishes what is already being proven every
day: that anyone can become more powerful, productive, free and happy using Red Hat Linux for all their computing.”

Details on the RH007 Red Hat Linux Desktop Productivity Essentials can be found at
http://www.redhat.com/training/skills/courses/rh007.html.

Please see http://www.redhat.com/training/ for class schedules and pricing.

Posted at Debian: ”
In SNS Advisory No. 32 a buffer overflow vulnerability has been reported in the routine which parses MIME headers that are returned from web servers. A
malicious web server administrator could exploit this and let the client web browser execute arbitrary code.

w3m handles MIME headers included in the request/response message of HTTP communication like any other web browser. A buffer overflow will be occur
when w3m receives a MIME encoded header with base64 format.

This problem has been fixed by the maintainer in version 0.1.10+0.1.11pre+kokb23-4 of w3m and w3m-ssl (for the SSL-enabled version), both for Debian
GNU/Linux 2.2.

We recommend that you upgrade your w3m packages immediately.”

“Ironically, as [Linux] finds increasing market share and support among large IT
companies, the smaller concerns which package and sell Linux have been experiencing
difficulties. In the last months, Corel, the software company, has spun off its solutions
provider or “distribution” as it is called in the Linux world. SuSE has announced redundancies,
particularly affecting its US office, and MandrakeSoft, makers of the well-regarded Mandrake
distribution, lost many members of its senior management including the chief executive.
Linuxcare, Turbolinux and VA Linux Systems have also laid off staff.” Financial Times.

Terra Soft Solutions, Inc., the leading developer of Linux
solutions for PowerPC(tm) microprocessors, is pleased to announce the immediate availability of
Yellow Dog Linux version 2.1.

                    YDL 2.1 offers both incremental and monumental improvements to deliver a more solid, speedy, and
                    easy-to-use Linux operating system. 

                    "While on the surface, version 2.1 might seem like a minor update, there are some substantial
                    improvements. The 2.4 kernel is now default and we are pleased to be the first PowerPC Linux vendor
                    to provide NVidia GeForce 2 video support," states Dan Burcaw, CTO of Terra Soft Solutions, Inc. 

                    YDL 2.1 offers the following updates and improvements:
                    - YDL installer now supports individual package selection
                    - KDE 2.2.1
                    - XFree86 4.1.0
                    - 2.4.10 (default) and 2.2.19
                    - Mac-on-Linux 0.9.60 which automatically grabs the ROM image from your Mac OS
                    partition--reducing setup to a minimum. - Webmin web-based system administration tool
                    - Mozilla 0.9.4
                    - Ext3 journaling file system
                    - Sound support on iBook 1 and iBook 2 (2001)
                    - Sleep support on full range of Apple portables (include all iBooks)
                    - Improved support for Apple Network Servers
                    - ... and support for NVidia GeForce 2 & ATI Radeon video cards (Apple Display Connector not yet
                    supported).

                    YDL 2.1 is immediately available from select resellers (call first to verify availability) and from our
                    online store. Please support your local reseller (http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/resellers/) whenever
                    possible. 

                    Pre-orders of the "Getting Started with Yellow Dog Linux", which will include the YDL 2.1 Install CD,
                    are being taken now. 'Getting Started' is expected to ship before the close of October. 

                    About Terra Soft Solutions, Inc.
                    Terra Soft Solutions, Inc. is a leading developer of innovative technologies and provider of integrated
                    HPC solutions for PowerPC Linux. Yellow Dog Linux, the flagship product, has boosted viability of
                    Linux on PowerPC microprocessors. Black Lab Linux provides an advanced Linux environment for
                    embedded and high performance, parallel computing systems. And Terra Soft now offers the Yellow
                    briQ Node, a high-density PowerPC Linux computer. 

                    For more information, visit www.terrasoftsolutions.com