The World is Open Source
I guess this blog is back, brought to you in part by Covid-19. Here are some things I’m currently working on that I hope to write about at some point:
1. My PC upgrade
2. The hosting service I’m now using for this site and the setup process.
3. My work-at-home experience as a Linux user.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/67.0.3396.79 Safari/537.36
For the better part of my career, my areas of concentration and expertise have been intellectual freedom, copyright (and copyleft), free and open source software, open access and net neutrality. But because I also have expertise in technology, people often ask me if I think e-books should replace print. They assume I would be a fan of digital books replacing paper and ink.
Personally, I prefer print books, but let us put my personal feelings aside for a moment.
If you have decided to use Linux or another Unix-like operating system for your dedicated server, you probably factored in security into your consideration. Linux, BSD, and similar OSes are renowned for their inherent security features. Nevertheless, is still important to be diligent and make sure your server is as secure as possible. A unprotected Linux server can fall victim to security flaws just as easily as any other. This is especially true for servers connected to the Internet.
There is unfortunately no single security tool that will make Linux rock solid for you, but with the right combination of free and open source tools you can find online, you can make your server virtually impenetrable.
Inflammatory rhetoric has typified Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and his unusual post-election campaigning. Many of his outlandish remarks in his speeches and tweets have at least suggested elements of racism, sexism, anti-LGBTQ and anti-Muslim sentiments.
His defenders, both inside and outside his inner circle, argue that it is just his style of speaking and is not actually indicative of his true feelings. Through a series of executive orders, memos and even a pardon, however, Trump has now provided his detractors with well-documented evidence of his racism, anti-transgender and anti-Muslim agenda.
As an alternative to Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox once reigned supreme. Over the past couple of years, however, Google Chrome has risen to claim its spot. Firefox had become more bloated, slower and less innovative. Someone at Mozilla finally realized that, however, and they have been working hard to increase Firefox’s speed, slim down the interface and be more proactive with its innovative development. Moreover, as far as Linux web browsing is concern, I now believe Firefox to be more effective for my uses than Chrome.
Steam has announced that the Witcher 3 will be available for pre-order on SteamOS (a.k.a. Linux). The big question Linux gamers want to know is: Will this be another poorly wrapped Windows port or a native implementation of CD Projekt RED’s REDengine 3? We might have to wait until much later to find out, and you’ll have to wait until February 2015 to get the game, even if you pre-order it now.
At any rate, the game looks like it will be awesome, “built exclusively for next-generation hardware: PlayStation4, Xbox One and PC”.
The wait is over. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition is now on Linux and SteamOS. Best of all, to celebrate the debut, Steam has it available for only $3.99. I highly recommend you pick it up (unless you have an AMD card *sad face*). Let’s hope The Witcher 3 will also find its way on Linux.
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Update: The Steam forums have been lit up with talk and complaints about this port. Apparently, CD Projekt hired a company called Virtual Programming to get the Windows TW2 running in a wrapper called eON, rather than creating a native Linux port.
DDoS attacks on major corporations, popular websites and even governments of countries often make big news in the tech industry. Often times sites that seemed to be on top of security are brought to their knees and find themselves totally at the mercy of their attackers. Of all the types of security violations against a website, DDoS is one of the most powerful and effective.
What is DDoS?
DoS stands for Denial of Service and is a type of attack that seeks to flood a web server with so much traffic that it either causes the server to shut down or simply prevents legitimate users from accessing it. A DDoS or Distributed Denial of Service is one that involves multiple machines all attacking a single victim. The initiators of DDoS attacks often used covert methods, such as malware to infect other machines and use them to unwillingly carry out their attacks. In many cases the agents of these attacks are not even aware that they are being used.
