Slashback tonight brings updates and continuations of recent Slashdot stories including a continuation of the Massachusetts document format debate, a response from the US State Department on RFID passports, a unique celebration of Firefox's 100 millionth download, and more. Politics still muddying the water of the MA OpenDocument debate. The Commonwealth's Secretary of State William Galvin says he has "grave concerns" about the switch and told secretary of administration and finance Thomas Trimarco that "we will not be participating." Galvin is considered one of the strong candidates to run as a rival candidate for next year's gubernatorial race against incumbent Mitt Romney who supports the switch. RFID passports still the best option. The US State Department released a final ruling on the issue of RFID technology to be included in all US passports after October 2006 which also contained some of the reasoning behind their move. Other technologies were apparently looked at and discarded due to the difficulty of implementation and several security measures have apparently been taken to try and placate the opposition. Firefox fans at Oregon State celebrate 100 million downloads. CNet has a pictorial about a local OSU LUG that had a few interesting ways to celebrate the recent big numbers on the Firefox downloads page. Happy to show their support students both painted a giant Firefox logo and launched a weather balloon, I can't think of any better way to say congratulations. DrDOS didn't really break, it just reverted. The FreeDOS folks have an update on their webpage stating that DrDOS 8.1 no longer exists and all links on the DrDOS webpage apparently point to DrDOS 7.03. There were some negative reactions to the release or 8.1 stating that it included software that it shouldn't have so for now the "band-aid" fix appears to be in place. Flexbeta takes a look at Flock. Noting the roots of Flock in Mozilla's Firefox browser, the folks over at Flexbeta take a quick look at the additional functionality offered by this newcomer. This comes with the recent news that Flock has also decided to open source their browser. Looks like this Firefox offspring is fighting hard for some recognition of its own. iTunes continues to take over the world. With the recent release of iTunes Australia and Apple's continued growth in the industry a recent announcement brings us "Standford on iTunes". This new service will give alumni and the general public access to a wide range of Stanford-specific digital audio content. Slashback: OpenDocuments, RFID Passports, Firefox Celebration Log in/Create an Account | Top | 126 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 126 comments 0: 124 comments 1: 99 comments 2: 79 comments 3: 24 comments 4: 10 comments 5: 5 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. A note on OpenDocument... (Score:5, Interesting) by oldosadmin (759103) on Wednesday October 26, @08:02PM (#13885503) (http://www.oldos.org/) The new OpenDocument Fellowship is working with a petition to get Microsoft to implement the format. SIGN IT! http://www.opendocumentfellowship.org/petition/ [opendocume...owship.org] [ Reply to ThisRe:A note on OpenDocument... by Bellum Aeternus (Score:3) Wednesday October 26, @08:08PM RTFL (Score:4, Insightful) by oldosadmin (759103) on Wednesday October 26, @08:11PM (#13885569) (http://www.oldos.org/) Read the link.Quote: Microsoft has stated that they will support the OpenDocument format in MS Office if there is customer demand:http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200510161 05739574 [groklaw.net]The purpose of this petition is to quantify the customer demand for OpenDocument support.EndQuote [ Reply to This | ParentDefine "customers" by Z34107 (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @09:37PMRe:Define "customers" by michaeltoe (Score:2) Thursday October 27, @12:15AMSCHOOL PROFESSORS PLEASE SIGN! by Spy der Mann (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:52PMRe:RTFL by Quixote (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @11:57PMPetition form rejects valid e-mail addresses by tepples (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:37PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.3 replies beneath your current threshold. Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million downloads (Score:3, Interesting) by Maow (620678) on Wednesday October 26, @08:02PM (#13885504) (http://www.maow.net/) 100 million downloads is a good thing, but what exactly does it mean?For example, I've downloaded 10 myself - I'm sure many others have too.There's no way to compare these numbers to the main competition (IE), so I'm not celebrating much myself.ps First Post!?! [ Reply to ThisRe:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download by char1iecha1k (Score:3) Wednesday October 26, @08:10PM Re:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download (Score:5, Insightful) by CyricZ (887944) on Wednesday October 26, @08:11PM (#13885571) This comes up every time such stats are mentioned.First of all, they don't track downloads via the update feature of Firefox.Second, while you've downloaded it ten times, there are many businesses and schools who have installed it on hundreds of workstations from a single download. So it may be one of those things that balances out in the end.And finally, it's not so much about the exact number. It's about the general magnitude of the number. Even if they're 10 million downloads off either way, that's still an impressive number of people to reach. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download by Bogtha (Score:3) Wednesday October 26, @09:48PMPlease don't misquote me. by CyricZ (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:55PMRe:Please don't misquote me. by mobets (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @10:29PMThat's not good enough by LeonGeeste (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:38PMRe:That's not good enough by CyricZ (Score:3) Thursday October 27, @12:24AM Re:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download (Score:4, Funny) by Carnildo (712617) on Wednesday October 26, @08:12PM (#13885573) (http://secondlife.com/ | Last Journal: Monday December 27, @09:12PM) It means somewhere between 1 and 99,999,991 users. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download by damiam (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @09:35PMRe:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download by netkid91 (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @08:15PMRe:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download by fatboyslack (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:19PMRe:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download by NoGuffCheck (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @08:38PMRe:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download by dtfinch (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:00PMRe:Firefox fans ... celebrate 100 million download by ztirffritz (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @11:18PMFirefox, Flock and Flexbeta by hackwrench (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @11:37PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. OSU Celebration (Score:5, Funny) by mctk (840035) on Wednesday October 26, @08:03PM (#13885509) (http://www.livejournal.com/users/mctk) I can't think of any better way to say congratulations.Seriously? Man, you're not planning my birthday party. [ Reply to ThisRe:OSU Celebration by fatboyslack (Score:3) Wednesday October 26, @08:24PMRe:OSU Celebration by drinkypoo (Score:3) Wednesday October 26, @11:46PMRe:OSU Celebration by fatboyslack (Score:2) Thursday October 27, @12:18AM Too much controversy. (Score:4, Insightful) by CyricZ (887944) on Wednesday October 26, @08:04PM (#13885513) Indeed, if there's one thing that we can learn from this whole OpenDocument debacle, it's that we should instead use LaTeX and plaintext.Plaintext emails and memos work just fine. LaTeX is fantastic for more complex documents. And you can even output PDFs of documents, if you really want to make viewing easy and exact.These new technologies seem to bring nothing but problems, especially when the existing formats work so well. [ Reply to ThisRe:Too much controversy. by TWX (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:16PMRe:Too much controversy. by CyricZ (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:19PMFile Conversion by Noksagt (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:22PMIt's OpenDocument, not OpenDoc. by CyricZ (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:48PMRe:Too much controversy. by laughingcoyote (Score:3) Wednesday October 26, @08:19PMRe:Too much controversy. by Thing 1 (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:10PMRe:Too much controversy. by drinkypoo (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @11:51PMRe:Too much controversy. by Jambon (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:39PMRe:Too much controversy. by rco3 (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:17PMRe:Too much controversy. by Anonymous Coward (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:42PM Re:Too much controversy. (Score:4, Informative) by Noksagt (69097) on Wednesday October 26, @09:30PM (#13885983) (http://arc.nucapt.northwestern.edu/) This is the minimum of what's needed in an office suiteRight--you are arguing different philosophies. LaTeX could certainly be part of some monolithic Office Suite, but it is already very good at what it does. It may even be better than you give it credit for.SpreadsheetsSee the EMACS file [fi.upm.es] as a proof of concept. Something similar could be written in TeX.graphsPSTricks & other packages let you add graphs which are generated on the fly.presentationsI actually like LaTeX Beamer quite a bit--the PDF presentations are fantastic.Does LaTeX excel at any of these? Probably not. But why not do, as others do, and choose tools which DO excel at them.a single-file container format so exchange is easy. OpenDocument has it. HTML and LaTeX fails it;Just zip the needed files together, as OpenDoc does....* a user interface that regular users can migrate to. OpenDocument has it. HTML has it. LaTeX fails it;These are file formats. Not interfaces. There are friendly HTML and LaTeX authoring tools.* macro language (admitedly not standardised in OpenDocument). OpenDocument has it. LaTeX fails it;This is laughable. LaTeX is VERY scriptable.* integration with other office formats such as OleDB datasources. OpenDocument has it. LaTeX fails.No, again--the programs that grok OpenDoc have it. Not the format itself. There are LaTeX tools which can pull data from a database. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Too much controversy. by Noksagt (Score:2) Thursday October 27, @12:33AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Too much controversy. by Coryoth (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @11:56PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.How have we learned this again? by Noksagt (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:35PMRe:Too much controversy. by Saanvik (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:41PMRe:Too much controversy. by iabervon (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:19PMRe:Too much controversy. by Geoffreyerffoeg (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:06PMRe:Too much controversy. by UtucXul (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @11:13PMThree letters: X, M, L. by Spy der Mann (Score:3) Wednesday October 26, @10:13PMRe:Too much controversy. by alan_dershowitz (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:42PMDING DING DING! by Trigun (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @10:59PMRe:Too much controversy. by Foobar of Borg (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:49PMRe:Too much controversy. by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @08:54PMRe:Too much controversy. by CyricZ (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:52PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. About ODF, Mass. (Score:3, Insightful) by GreyWolf3000 (468618) on Wednesday October 26, @08:05PM (#13885520) (Last Journal: Monday November 22, @10:06AM) The Commonwealth's Secretary of State William Galvin says he has "grave concerns" about the switch and told secretary of administration and finance Thomas Trimarco that "we will not be participating." Galvin is considered one of the strong candidates to run as a rival candidate for next year's gubernatorial race against incumbent Mitt Romney who supports the switch I hardly think this will be a big issue in the election for Massachusetts voters, but if it becomes one, this will be a huge way to get non-techies to identify problems with the Microsoft monopoly. If this issue somehow becomes a big (if not the biggest) factor in this election, we can expect ODF to come up in elections all over the place. [ Reply to ThisRe:About ODF, Mass. by max born (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:41PMRe:About ODF, Mass. by techno-vampire (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @11:42PMRe:About ODF, Mass. by CyricZ (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:05PMmoney by zogger (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @11:14PM RFID justification is BS (Score:3, Interesting) by Dr. Zowie (109983) <slashdot AT deforest DOT org> on Wednesday October 26, @08:06PM (#13885535) I read the text [gpo.gov] of the passport release earlier, and they claim to have addressed the privacy concerns but really haven't. The biggest problem is that a criminal could very easily grab all of your identity information without your knowledge. They assert that (I'm paraphrasing) "since the chip has no internal power source, it can't broadcast your identity". But that is a canard -- anyone who wants to read out your identity can simply use the same high-gain antenna to beam power your way as to pick up your passport's readout. Of course the protocols will be discovered -- at least by the people you don't want reading your passport.All the more reason to stick your passport in the microwave with your new shirts from Wal-Mart.Meanwhile, bop on over to www.house.gov [house.gov] and send a quick note of outrage to your representative! [ Reply to ThisRe:RFID justification is BS by CyricZ (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:09PM Re:RFID justification is BS (Score:4, Insightful) by TWX (665546) on Wednesday October 26, @08:21PM (#13885652) (http://www.blacksatin.net/) Supposedly they've come up with a cover that is effectively a Faraday cage. When the passport is closed it will severely impede RFID operation. If it works then it'd be much more effective for someone to come out in front of you with a knife and mug you for your passport than it would be to try to overpower the defenses built into the passport cover.As far as I'm concerned, making it 'hard enough' to where it's more cost effective to resort to old fashioned brute force is just as good as not putting it in.I'm not advocating in favor of this particular device either, but I'll admit that I'm kind of surprised that passports have been the way that they are for so incredibly long, when they're easily forged, easily modified, and probably fairly easily fraudulently applied for. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:RFID justification is BS by Main Gauche (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @08:39PMRe:RFID justification is BS by Daengbo (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @08:47PMWhy RFID? by sasha328 (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:43PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:RFID justification is BS by temojen (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:24PMRFID are so cheap now... 0.5 cents a piece! by Lord Satri (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:54PMRe:RFID justification is BS by jfengel (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:05PMRe:RFID justification is BS by gpw213 (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @09:52PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. come on... (Score:5, Funny) by mscnln (785138) on Wednesday October 26, @08:10PM (#13885561) Standford engineers have discovered..."Standford on iTunes" It appears ScuttleMonkey didn't just make a typo, but just has no clue that it is actually Stanford not Standford... [ Reply to ThisRe:come on... by The Amazing Fish Boy (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:14PMYour sig by temojen (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:29PMRe:come on... by bhsx (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:17PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Would it be possible... (Score:2, Interesting) by mymaxx (924704) on Wednesday October 26, @08:18PM (#13885616) For Flock to not open source their browser? By basing it on Firefox, doesn't the Mozilla Public License [mozilla.org] require that the changes to the source be distributed? [ Reply to ThisRe:Would it be possible... by ikkonoishi (Score:3) Wednesday October 26, @10:17PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. re Firefox (Score:1) by Daevad (62067) on Wednesday October 26, @08:18PM (#13885618) I celebrated by taking an old PC out in the driveway, putting a fox plushie on top of it and setting it in fire. That's what I call a Firefox! [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. For people living in Massachussets (Score:1) by JavaTHut (9877) on Wednesday October 26, @08:19PM (#13885628) (http://www.langwidge.com/) So, I live in Boston and am an American citizen. Does anyone know of a site that lays out very clearly who I need to write to, what I need to tell them and who I need to keep in mind come voting time? [ Reply to ThisRe:For people living in Massachussets by Jaywalk (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:35PMRe:For people living in Massachussets by B4L1STA (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @10:35PM Technology Fetish (Score:1) by LostBurner (916484) on Wednesday October 26, @08:21PM (#13885651) I read about the RFID passports. Seems like an unecessary use of technology. "Computers and electronics will make us safer!" Paper passports work fine; why not have a barcode and scanner if you want to scan it quickly? [ Reply to ThisRe:Technology Fetish by TWX (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:27PMRe:Technology Fetish by temojen (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:43PMRe:Technology Fetish by temojen (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @08:33PMalso smudge-able by davidwr (Score:1) Wednesday October 26, @09:05PM you're a mess (Score:2) by Internet_Communist (592634) on Wednesday October 26, @08:23PM (#13885661) (http://www.xeron.cc/) "Recreational hazard: One group member shows the downside that comes with using their chosen artistic medium (temporary paint made from a mixture of corn starch, food coloring, Kool-Aid, and water)."You COULD have just painted the firefox logo with sidewalk chalk, but nooo, you had to be fancy and now look what you've done! [ Reply to This Huh? (Score:2) by sH4RD (749216) on Wednesday October 26, @08:31PM (#13885700) (http://waste.sourceforge.net/) This comes with the recent news that Flock has also decided to open source their browser. They had a choice? [ Reply to This Wait.....Confused by parties.... (Score:5, Funny) by jabster (198058) on Wednesday October 26, @08:38PM (#13885739) Hold on....The Democrats are opposed to ODF.....supporting a big business....thought....only.....Republicans....did that....Damn. This must be Bush's fault somehow....-john [ Reply to ThisRe:Wait.....Confused by parties.... by LGagnon (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:25PMRe:Wait.....Confused by parties.... by killjoe (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @11:33PM Oops Someone dosn't have a clue (Score:1) by jfmiller (119037) on Wednesday October 26, @08:42PM (#13885755) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Tuesday December 09, @02:25AM) Pacheco expressed his concern that OpenDocument would not be usable by people with disabilities, and his committee is holding a hearing at the State House to discuss the format. However, it's not clear whether Pacheco's moves will have any effect.If he thinks that the closed format of MSOffice is usable by people with disabilities he has another thought coming.JFMILLER [ Reply to This 100 million downloads? I guess numbers do lie (Score:1) by deep_zeus (926001) on Wednesday October 26, @08:42PM (#13885757) (http://maddkarma.com/) I'm a happy Firefox camper, but I've dl'ed at least 6 versions (relatively new adopter :(), so I guess the milestone is symbolic. Symbolic or not, it's pretty impressive. Now if only they can stop it from choking on a certain crop of sportsline.com's sinister pop-unders.Evil knows and loves evil because I.E. displays them without a glitch. [ Reply to ThisRe:100 million downloads? I guess numbers do lie by chrisgeleven (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:01PMRe:100 million downloads? I guess numbers do lie by TinyManCan (Score:3) Wednesday October 26, @09:44PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. DrDOS rolled _everything_ back (Score:3, Funny) by dtfinch (661405) * on Wednesday October 26, @09:03PM (#13885855) (http://www.mytsoftware.com/dailyproject/ | Last Journal: Wednesday June 08, @07:22PM) Even their website says "Copyright 2004" and their latest news item is dated 2003. Or has their site always been like that? [ Reply to This Passports get tinfoil hats - no, really (Score:2, Interesting) by davidwr (791652) on Wednesday October 26, @09:09PM (#13885896) (Last Journal: Monday October 24, @05:04PM) From the RFID passport link in the main article: Based on that testing, the Department, in cooperation with the GPO,will include an anti-skimming material in the front cover and spine ofthe electronic passport that will mitigate the threat of skimming fromdistances beyond the ten centimeters prescribed by the ISO 14443technology, as long as the passport book is closed or nearly closed.        The Department will also implement Basic Access Control (BAC) tomitigate further any potential threat of skimming or eavesdropping. BACrecently has been adopted as a best practice by the ICAO NewTechnologies Working Group and will soon be formally added to the ICAOspecifications. BAC utilizes a form of Personal Identification Number(PIN) that must be physically read in order to unlock the data on thechip. In this case, the PIN will be derived from the printed charactersfrom the second line of data on the Machine-Readable Zone that isvisibly printed on the passport data page. The BAC also results in thecommunication between the chip and the reader being encrypted,providing further protection.There you have it - with an off-the-shelf reader you have to be within inches OR trick the user into opening the book, AND you have to type or scan in the encryption code.This won't stop dishonest border guards from hiding a 2nd reader under their jacket and memorizing the secret codes, but it will stop the guy sitting in the row behind you on the airplane.Now who was the wise guy who said only North Koreans needed RFID-enabled passports? [ Reply to ThisRe:Passports get tinfoil hats - no, really by John Hasler (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @09:24PMRe:Passports get tinfoil hats - no, really by ikkonoishi (Score:2) Wednesday October 26, @10:26PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Who will patent Passport Protectors? (Score:2, Interesting) by davidwr (791652) on Wednesday October 26, @09:41PM (#13886052) (Last Journal: Monday October 24, @05:04PM) The built-in RFID leak-protection mechanism is a good start but it's not nearly enough for the Truly Paranoid [TM].Who will be the first to try to patent a passport wallet made out of aluminum foil?Who will trademark the name Passport Protector [TM]? [ Reply to This FlexBeta likes ads (Score:2) by MilenCent (219397) <johnwh@g m a i l .com> on Wednesday October 26, @09:59PM (#13886138) (http://www.hiddenglade.com/blog/) And how! Four annoying ads at the bottom of the page, a Google Ad sidebar, those green underline ad links, and three more pages left to click through. Someone's getting paid for *this* Slashdotting.... [ Reply to This Big "Kidnap Me" Sign (Score:2) by Jah-Wren Ryel (80510) on Thursday October 27, @12:04AM (#13886741) RFID's in passports are one of the dumbest anti-terrorism ideas to make it past the drawing board. It has already been demonstrated [technologyreview.com] that so-called "short-range" RFID tags can be read up to 70 feet away with easily attainable current technology, the tools will only get more sensitive as time passes.The "anti-skimming material" that the Dept of State references will make it harder to get exact bits off the RFID, but it sure won't stop someone from being able to at least tell if you have one of these RFID passports in your pocket.Carrying your passport around with you (as you are required to do in most foreign countries) will be the equivalent of wearing a big sign on your back that says, "Get Your Grudge On! Kidnap Me! I'm an American!"Short of sending hundreds of legit blank passports directly to Osama, I can't think of a passport plan likely to enable more terrorism than this cockamamie scheme. [ Reply to This6 replies beneath your current threshold.