Linux Mint 15 "Olivia" Xfce Edition Approaches Perfection

by Dietrich Schmitz I don't heap high praise on a Linux Distribution very often.  In fact, I have taken aim at various camps' Distros with regularity to the point of seeming rather harsh.  But, that criticism isn't undeserved.  No, too often I see 'me too', 'me too', 'me too' cookie cutter mania. When one of the major Linux Distributions goes into general release there is an ensuing outbreak 'like a bad rash'...

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Wanna Get Your Point Across...? Show 'Em The "Magic"

My Uncle Ernie was a jokester and a magician. When he and my cousins would make the drive down from Wisconsin, I waited patiently at the kitchen table, hoping he'd show me some of his tricks before we ate dinner. Uncle Ernie rarely disappointed us. Simple magic really...misdirection to make stuff disappear, card tricks, quarters found in your ear.  It's all stuff we roll our eyes at as adults, but to a 10 year old kid... My Uncle Ernie...

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Is NIST History?

by Dietrich Schmitz In my last story, Is OpenSSL's Cryptography Broken?, I reported the ongoing developments surrounding a suspect security problem with the implementation of openssl. The story, unfortunately, continues to unfold with suspicion now turning to confirmation in a NY Times report that the NSA inserted altered random number generator code into the Dual Eliptic Curve Deterministic Random Bit Generator so as to...

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Is OpenSSL's Cryptography Broken?

by Dietrich Schmitz Last month, in early August, a colleague Friend of mine, +Scott Doty contacted me.  He expressed his concern regarding Red Hat's implementation of OpenSSL. The issue brought to my attention by Scott concerns a specific bugzilla ticket which was opened in 2007 and has never been addressed. I offered Scott to reach out to Red Hat's public relations the same day he contacted me.  The answer returned...

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