Micropayments, misc.

[George at Orwellian.Org]

There are 4+ reports at http://interactive.wsj.com/pages/smallchange.htm
regarding micropayments. (30-day registration is free)

----

From: Bill Stewart <bill.stewart at pobox.com>
#    
#    Akamai isn't a DoubleClick type of service -
#    it's a distributed caching system that allows web sites
#    to get better performance by caching static web content
#    on large ISPs and other sites likely to be nearer to readers
#    than the content owner's web site.

Thank you for the LART, apologies (or is that regrets ;-) to Declan.

Good thing porno sites don't use it, the URL would be hard to block
without taking out non-porno sites.

-----

One of the very few really cool URLs the Jimster sent to
the list was for a home-made plasma ball. I wanted to
tell others about it, but the URL stopped working shortly
after the Jimster gave it out. I heard he doesn't like to
receive mail from people (individuals), so I didn't email
him. Anyone have a working URL for the plasmoid ball?

----

NTP root security hole?

#    >Path: news.panix.com!panix1.panix.com!not-for-mail
#    >From:  elr at panix.com (Ed Ravin [staff])
#    >Newsgroups: panix.motd.system
#    >Subject: Unix_NTP_Advisory
#    >Followup-To: panix.questions
#    >Date: 5 Apr 2001 18:25:21 -0400
#    
#    (The following article has been automatically mirrored from MOTD)
#    
#    (Posted by Ed Ravin [staff])                   Thu, Apr 05 2001 --  5:57 PM
#    ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
#    All Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, and any other users who administer Unix
#    machines at their home or in their workplace please take note:
#    
#    The xntpd and ntpd daemons, which are used for synchronizing time between
#    multiple machines over a network, have a security vulnerability that
#    allows remote attackers to gain root access.
#    
#    If you are using NTP on your Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, or any other
#    Unix-ish operating system which you keep connected to the Internet
#    on a regular basis, you should shut down the NTP daemon now and
#    examine your machine for evidence of a remote attack.  We have already
#    received one report from a Panix customer who was probed Thursday night/
#    Friday morning.
#    
#    Users with commercial vendor versions of Unix (i.e. Solaris, AIX, HP-UX,
#    etc) should contact their vendor for more information to find out if
#    they are affected (I suspect they are, though it will take a while before
#    someone puts together an exploit).  In the meantime, you should stop
#    running xntpd/ntpd until your vendor addresses the problem.
#    
#    For further discussion, please post in panix.questions.
#    
#    Windows and Mac users can safely ignore this message.
#    
#    	-- Ed
#    
#    PS: We've received reports of Panix customers with Linux machines being
#    hacked at the rate of 1-2 per week for the couple of weeks - if you have
#    ANY Linux or *BSD system that you have not updated with security fixes
#    since January 1, or if you installed ANY Linux or *BSD system directly
#    from the CD and have not updated it (like RedHat 6.2 or 7.0), that system
#    is probably vulnerable to remote exploits.
#    
#    ---
#    Public Access Internet & UNIX                  [panix.com]