security

Running students' submitted programs is a security challenge for any university Computer Science department. When Harvard University contacted me about some work they are doing with the "sandbox" tool on Fedora 17, we decided it would be a great opportunity to see how they could get more out of it and share our findings with the community. 

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Meet David A. Wheeler. He's a Research Staff Member for the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) and a well-known speaker, author, and expert on open source software and security. He helped develop the Department of Defense's open source software policy and FAQ and has written other guidance materials to help people understand how to use and collaboratively develop open source software in government. He has a Ph.D. in Information Technology, an M.S. in Computer Science, and a B.S. in Electronics Engineering. We hope you enjoy getting to know David. » Read more

One of the frequent comments about the third-annual Developer Conference (held at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic) concerned the structure of the talks. This year we grouped talks by theme. The schedule was more understandable and those who wanted to follow just one specific area didn’t have to switch rooms or wait for the next talk in their area of interest.

Here’s a quick look at some of the most interesting talks, by topic. » Read more

Part I:  History and planning

The third-annual Developer Conference took place February 17 and 18, 2012 at Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. This conference, organized by Red Hat Czech Republic, JBoss.org, and Fedora.cz, hosted important and interesting talks about topics including security, kernel, desktop, cloud, and middleware. This report will also highlight other event activities--such as hackfests and networking--and provide information about the organization and purpose of the event, and the plans for the event in the past and in the future. » Read more

Drupal is a huge software project by any measure, with thousands of developers writing code for it and deploying websites and applications on it. Alongside Linux, Apache, and Mozilla, it is one of the largest open source projects in the world. This infographic helps explain the important work of Drupal's Security Team. » Read more

GOG.com wins points for openness by being a distributor of DRM-free games, but now they're going even further by choosing to protect their customers' data over the convenience of a faster checkout.

After the wide security breach of the Playstation Network, GOG surveyed its users about the issue--"68 percent said they would rather GOG.com not even have the option of storing personal information," wrote Ben Kuchera in the Ars Technica story. » Read more

Yesterday Peter Eckersly posted at eff.org about the EFF's coming Open Wireless Movement. Here's what he had to say:

If you sometimes find yourself needing an open wireless network in order to check your email from a car, a street corner, or a park, you may have noticed that they're getting harder to find. » Read more

I'm setting up a new computer. I get through the registration screens, install my software, change my wallpaper, and everything's working fine. I'm left, though, with a lingering, uneasy feeling: I don't know if this machine is secure. I'm a computer guy, so I know how to set up strong passwords and firewalls, but I'm still not sure if I've done everything right. I turn to my vendor, who has hopefully published a hardening guide. If I'm very enthusiastic, I might even follow the NSA's Security and Network Analysis Center Guides. If I do any of these things, I'm already being more diligent that 95% of users out there. And that's a problem. » Read more

When I hear people talk about how awesome their organizational culture is, I often find myself wondering what sort of “great” culture it is.

For me, great cultures fall into two categories: entitlement and mission-driven. Those “best places to work” lists don't usually make a distinction, but I do. Here is the difference:

Entitlement cultures

The surest sign of an entitlement culture? When someone tells you why they like their work, they give you an example of a benefit not related to the work itself. Some examples:
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