Slashback: Scrambled, Dreams, Stars

Welcome to another dose of updates and trivia, which tonight means: some more on the large glob of egg on the face of Egghead.com; how to connect to the satellite world a little cheaper, and an unlikely (or maybe not unlikely) source of interest in NetBSD on the Dreamcast.

Well, there is just one other little thing ... jmorse writes: "In light of the recent attack on Egghead.com, the company is sending this email to its registered customers, claiming that "...Egghead.com's existing security systems interrupted the intrusion while it was in progress, and that customer data has not been compromised." Yet, later in the same email, they admit that "...In addition, reports from the credit card companies with whom we work suggest that fewer than 7,500 credit card accounts registered with us have shown possible fraudulent activity. This is a very small fraction -- less than two tenths of one percent -- of the approximately three million credit cards registered with Egghead.com. " Now, if their security systems stopped the intruders cold, why were 7500 credit cards then used fraudulently? I think Egghead has some more explaining to do..."

I think we understand each other, Mr. Bond An unnamed correspondent writes: "This e-mail showed up on the NETBSD/Dreamcast mailing list. Interesting eh?"

Interesting, that is, because it comes (seems to come? can never be too careful these days ... ) from John Byrd, manager of the Developer Technical Support department at Sega of America, who expresses interest in the recent work on Net("runs on 2-stroke oil")BSD for the Sega Dreamcast. Here's the recent Slashdot story on that port.

In it, Byrd says: "Although I can't yet release proprietary technical information publicly, there are other ways we might be able to help out with this sort of project. For example, we may be able to help with testing or verification of compatibility with various revisions of Dreamcast hardware."

Nice to hear, eh?

Mr. Walker played by Jim Carrey Finally, thanks go out to the heroic Starband installer Winston Walker. Regarding the recent story on using Starband's two-way satellite service under Linux and other OSes, Winston expresses himself thusly: "USB to serial for starband is NOT needed. You can use a 9pin to 25pin modem cable. Get rid of ALL the usb stuff on the starband No point in paying 40-50 bucks for that stupid cable (grin)."

Must tend to agree; can anyone else confirm this? Things are looking good for the move to Alpine, Texas, which seems to have some southern sky to spare.

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Lest we forget The latest in our series of reprints and reactions to Jon Katz' Hellmouth columns is up.