Slashdot readers talk about IBM’s new wireless security auditor running on a Compaq
iPAQ with Linux. Here’s theIBM announcement.

Slashdotters discuss a Reuters story saying Napster has settled with two of the artists most critical of its business model.

From IDG News Service: “When he goes to Washington, D.C. next week
to testify before the U.S. Congress on
computer and Internet security, Bruce
Schneier, the CTO of Counterpane Internet
Security, would like to tell them that such
efforts are currently done poorly and with the
wrong goals.”

ZDNET: “Within the last few months
we have seen the
emergence of new
distribution releases based
on the Linux 2.4 kernel as
well as new releases of
XFree86, KDE, Samba,
and other packages. When
2.4.0 was released in
January I said it wasn’t
time to cheer yet. Well,
that time has come. Red
Hat, SuSE, and Caldera
all have released major
upgrades. Corel and Storm
are gone, but Progeny
seems more than capable
of filling in with a capable
Debian-based commercial
OS. Even Slackware
received a major update
recently. And I can’t say
enough good things about
Mandrake 8.0, which
provides a clean install, and seamlessly supports a host of both GNOME and KDE apps. On top
of that, work on the 2.5 kernel is well underway, and the current kernel is at 2.4.6 with 2.4.7
ready soon.”

Augustus writes: “LinuxHardware.org has just posted a full review of the Intel Pentium 4 Processor under Linux. In this review there is a brief technical overview, stability analysis, performance comparisons, and discussion of support issues for the Pentium 4 at the kernel level and in GCC. For the performance portion, the Pentium 4 is compared to a Pentium III 1Ghz processor and an AMD Athlon 1.2GHz processor in the areas of integer performance, floating point performance, application performance (Quake 3), and compilation performance. On the support front, there are several questions answered by Alan Cox on kernel issues and Jan Hubicka on GCC issues. If you’ve been considering buying a Pentium 4 for use under Linux, read this first.”

The Register: “It’s going to be one of those days. I can tell as soon as I note the
presence of one of the contract service engineers in the Boss’
doorway, preventing me from bringing in the ultra-important order I
need have signed off. It’s for a 34in rear-projection monitor with Dolby
sound, because I can fit more open windows on it than a normal
desktop.”

Wired: “The congresswoman who represents Silicon Valley introduces a bill to control smut spam sent to kids. Critics — and there are many — say it either does too much or too little.”

“Telnet and ftp send passwords over the network in clear text that can be easily sniffed. You should replace them with more
modern tools such as ssh and scp. SSLtelnet/SSLftp are also available but do not seem to be in such wide use.” More at FreeOS.com.

BBC: “I was introduced to the internet six years ago the
same way most teenagers are – by surfing for porn.

I heard about hacking in net chatrooms and I’d seen the
film Wargames [in which a teenager breaks into a
military computer] and it seemed like a lot of fun.

I messed around with all kinds of stuff, military stuff.
You’d be surprised what they leave laying around.
Budgets. Minutes. It can’t be that “top secret” if they
can’t be bothered to lock it up.”

PCWorld: “Americans want more rules to tame behavior on the Internet but are conflicted about handing over too much control to the
government, according to a recent study.

The study, conducted by the nonprofit Merkle Foundation, finds Americans expressing a host of often-contradictory opinions
about life in cyberspace.

While 63 percent of those surveyed, and 83 percent of Internet users, say they have favorable opinions about the Internet, 47
percent say they see it as a “source of worry.” Leading concerns include pornography, violence, privacy, and lack of
accountability.

More than half, 54 percent, say they believe they do not have the
same protections online as they did offline, and 59 percent say they
do not know who to turn to if they encounter a problem online.”