- RT @Garden27: 1st paper on Climate Change "Note on the Transmission of Radiant Heat through Gaseous Bodies" John Tyndall PhD FRS May 26 1859 #
- RT @HPC_Guru @jwb713: Considering a list of high-performance computing twitter'ers. Shoot suggestions my way. Please RT #HPC #
- #Mozilla #Firefox Mobile on #N900 – includes tab + awesome bar sync using Weave from your desktop – http://bit.ly/3G0DTf #
- [1PF peak, not measured] RT @insideHPC: China Daily reports 1 PF Intel/AMD hybrid super http://bit.ly/44ihrF #
- [Under development by Skype] RT @lwnnet: Open source Skype client under development http://lwn.net/Articles/359925/rss #
- RT @bbart: If Lord Mandelson's "three strikes and you're off the net" goes through it'll really be "connection reset by peer". #
- RT @GetUp Take GetUp's mythbuster sheet to cup day lunch and become a champion of tolerance and truth for asylum seekers http://ow.ly/yJR2 #
- If you think that #2012 is going to be something special you *really* need to go read this site – http://bit.ly/no9M2 #
- RT @elakdawalla: OMG Run to Cassini raw images site http://bit.ly/fpw4W for new pics from Enceladus flyby e.g. http://bit.ly/2ctwes WOW! #
- Spectacular raw images of Enceladus coming from Cassini, including some of it against the rings, eg http://bit.ly/3z32SY #
- A very artistic (and beautiful) #Saturn shot from #Cassini – http://bit.ly/4rW3N9 #
- To finish up, two great shots of the surface of #Enceladus from #Cassini – http://bit.ly/3nbf1j + http://bit.ly/2XbFGL #
- #Linux.Conf.Au #LCA2010 Early Bird Registrations have almost sold out; you have been warned! #LCA #
- Been updating Donna's list of events for the US (and Geelong), including adding online ticket sales for the Geelong show! #
- You can find @donna_williams list of forthcoming events here – http://bit.ly/2gU6Wn #autism #music #
- Joe Bonamassa – Blues Deluxe – http://bit.ly/2TOwHv – excellent #blues guitarist #
- RT @astronomyblog: "Arrogant gods of certainty" says Daily Mail about scientists http://bit.ly/45lLmJ Certainty?! […] #
- mercury? RT @cosmos4u: Observation made by LAMP on LRO during LCROSS impact measured strange chemistry: http://is.gd/4M3xX #
- RT @HPC_Guru: RT @jwb713: Considering a list of high-performance computing twitter'ers. Shoot suggestions my way. Please RT #HPC #
- RT @adriana872: serious #SSL issue RT @BenLaurie: Another broken protocol: http://www.links.org/?p=780 #
- RT @VAXHeadroom: Happy Flux Capacitor Day!! http://bit.ly/1R0xhD #
- RT @adriana872 what data is stored with your google account? google dashboard tells you: http://bit.ly/45KdHK #dataliberationfront #MINT #
- Fed up of #Zimbra not warning you if people you book into meetings are busy? Vote for bug 23551! http://bit.ly/myTnG #
- RT @Internode We've just launched Australia's first national native IPV6 trial for ADSL customers. Find out how to play http://bit.ly/19JLQS #
- RT @AsteroidWatch: At its closest approach asteroid 2009 VA was about 8700 miles above the Earth's surface. #
- Matt Porter's #Android Mythbusters presentation now available online as PDF, well worth a read! http://bit.ly/2eiKQp #
- [store now down] RT @whoami1975: Nokia USA changed #N900 availability to "Out of stock" … after some downtime today … can it be true?! #
- Hmm, Nokia's online store fall down go boom ? #
- http://data.australia.gov.au/ – appears to be a portal to various Australian #government data sets under CC-BY license #
- Nokia store back up and reverted to saying the #N900 is due at the end of November. http://bit.ly/2VTesU #
- [ #2012 ] RT @NASA: Relax, the world is still going to be around: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012.html #
- Another good #2012 FAQ on the #NASA Astrobiology site: http://bit.ly/2AKY4M #
- RT @guardianeco: "It is an insult to science to rule that belief in man-made climate change is a religious conviction" http://bit.ly/2ZJfBG #
- RT @donna_williams: The 1995 autism documentary, Jam Jar, featuring Donna Williams just released on DVD http://bit.ly/4CyrqN #autism #
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Microsoft patents sudo system used in Mac OS X, Linux?
updated 07:40 pm EST, Thu November 12, 2009
Tech used to elevate user rights
The USPTO recently granted Microsoft a patent, No. 7,617,530, which describes a method for running a command as an administrator. The filing has sparked outrage by many, including Groklaw blogger Pamela Jones, who believe the company has simply rebranded the sudo Unix command developed in the 1980s by members of the Computer Science department at SUNY/Buffalo.
The “rights elevator” patent covers “systems and/or methods… that enable a user to elevate his or her rights.” Microsoft focuses on an embodiment utilizing a graphic user interface presented when the current account lacks the proper privileges for an operation. The interface then identifies accounts that have administrative privileges required for certain tasks.
The patent terms have lead to speculation that Microsoft may be attempting to receive licensing revenue from companies utilizing forms of sudo in their operating systems. The technology is currently integrated into GNU/Linux systems and Mac OS X.
Others argue that, while the patent includes sudo references, it is actually based on the graphic interface which only pops up after the user attempts to perform a task outside of their account’s rights. Similar systems, however, are common to most operating systems.