Archive 16. October 2003

Toll basket for the Bundestag

Hold on: the company has a contract with the federal government, but refuses to let parliamentarians (who are, after all, a not entirely insignificant part of the federal government that has the contract with Toll Collect) see the contract? Can it get more absurd? How much evidence does it take to show that more than just stupidity is at play here? And why doesn't the federal government, as the second party to the contract, simply make its copy available to Parliament? Given the sum of money involved, it surely can't be the case that the government is operating without public oversight by Parliament (and with an explicit refusal to allow such oversight!).

I found the original article at TAZ.

Phonak: Seville becomes Hamilton's right hand

That promises a lot for the next tour. After all, Hamilton was fourth in the tour despite injuries, and Sevilla is no slouch either.

At RADSPORT-NEWS.COM - Nachrichten-Gesamtübersicht you can find the original article.

Saban conducts string concert on N24

And in a flash, Rupert Murdoch could also secure broadcasting slots in Germany. Not exactly a pleasant thought. But probably almost predictable if you consider the connection between Saban and Murdoch (P1359). I found the original article at dotcomtod.

Vulnerabilities in Exchange Server

Interesting that Microsoft assumes that no one is crazy enough to connect an Exchange server directly to the Internet without a firewall - To protect against attacks from the Internet, port 25 should be blocked on the firewall

Teufelsgrinsen

At heise online news there's the original article.

Stopping Spam

Paul Graham examines and evaluates all known methods of responding to spam. As an overview of possible (and also possible future) solutions and an initial assessment, it's quite useful.

Here's the original article.

The Resurrection of SimplyGNUstep - OSNews.com

SimplyGNUStep is now based on Debian Sarge (the upcoming Debian version). So it's simply just a collection of Debian packages with current GNUStep applications. The previous project of the same name aimed to be a full distribution, with its own directory structure, just like NextStep was organized. I find the current incarnation much more sensible though - having yet another package system and yet another distribution doesn't really make sense, especially when Debian already offers everything in very usable form...

Here's the original article.