Ballmer's Replacement Needs to Break Up Microsoft; Security Researchers Reverse-Engineer Dropbox

To view a web version of this message, click here Send this message to a friend Ballmer's Replacement Needs to Break Up Microsoft   Security Researchers Reverse-Engineer Dropbox Guido van Rossum on Python, Google and Facial Hair Measles Outbreak Tied To Texas Megachurch The World Fair of 2014 According To Asimov (From 1964) Hot Comment: "This reminded me of last year's massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, where..." From the Vault: Stallman: Don't Follow Linus Torvalds If You Want Freedom Watch It: Why We Need to Keep Our Night Skies Dark Poll Booth: What percentage of the software you use regularly is open source? Ballmer's Replacement Needs to Break Up Microsoft The only way to get around the entrenched culture that has made Microsoft a graveyard for the kind of big ideas that have inspired companies like Apple, Google, and Amazon is to split the company up so as to remove conflicts between new and old products, Tom Worstall writes in Forbes. And there is a perfect opening for that to happen now that Steve Ballmer is gone.   Sound Off>> Security Researchers Reverse-Engineer Dropbox Two developers successfully reverse-engineered Dropbox to intercept SSL traffic, bypass two-factor authentication and create open-source clients. They also presented a paper that explained step-by-step how they were able to succeed where others failed in reverse-engineering a heavily obfuscated application written in Python. Sound Off>> Guido van Rossum on Python, Google and Facial Hair You asked. He answered. Python's BDFL (Benevolent Dictator For Life) Guido van Rossum addressed your questions about his move from Google to Dropbox and all things Python, including what growing a beard means to the future of the programming language. Sound Off>> Measles Outbreak Tied To Texas Megachurch An outbreak of measles linked to a (formerly) anti-vaccine megachurch in Texas has sickened at least 21 people, including a 4-month-old infant -- and it's expected to spread further, state and federal health officials said. In the wake of the outbreak, one of the pastors has urged followers to get vaccinated and the church has held several vaccination clinics. Sound Off>> The World Fair of 2014 According To Asimov (From 1964) Proving further that Isaac Asimov was a genius at extrapolating future technology from limited data is his 1964 article in which he predicts what we'll see at the 2014 world's fair. For instance: "Robots will neither be common nor very good in 2014, but they will be in existence." Also, that mankind will "become largely a race of machine tenders." Sound Off>>    The sheer level of ignorance "This reminded me of last year's massacre at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, where the gunman thought he was attacking a mosque. Not that Muslims deserve to be targeted for hate crimes and unconstitutional detention any more than non-Muslims, but detaining a Hindu on suspicion of being a radical Muslim? It would be like detaining an Episcopalian on suspicion of being an IRA terrorist. After all, Whitey all looks the same..." --by barlevg Read More>>   Stallman: Don't Follow Linus Torvalds If You Want Freedom Six years ago during an interview about a range of free software topics, Richard Stallman said, "The fact that Torvalds says "open source" instead of "free software" shows where he is coming from. I wrote the GNU GPL to defend freedom for all users of all versions of a program. I developed version 3 to do that job better and protect against new threats. Torvalds says he rejects this goal." Read More>> Why We Need to Keep Our Night Skies Dark SlashTV: Having been on the staff of Sky & Telescope magazine for nearly 40 years, Kelly Beatty has a unique perspective on the world of astronomy. Timothy Lord recently caught up with Beatty in dark-skied rural Maine and talked about why you should care about ubiquitous light pollution, even if you don't have a deep interest in star-gazing. Watch the Video>>   What percentage of the software you use regularly is open source? 0% - 20% 20% - 40% 40% - 60% 60% - 80% 80% - 100% Less than I had assumed, now that I think about it More than I had assumed, now that I think about it Do the things I fix on my parents' computer count? Cast Your Vote>> Follow Slashdot on Twitter and Facebook. To unsubscribe, click here or send an email to: unsubscribe-213087@elabs10.com To ensure delivery of this newsletter to your inbox and to enable images, please add slashdot@newsletters.slashdot.org to your e-mail address book or safe senders list. Slashdot | 594 Howard Street, Suite 300 | San Francisco, CA 94105 To view our Privacy Policy click here.