Uwe Hermann | A slightly paranoid Debian developer

Somebody got hacked by a complete fool without any sort of clue. What the attacker (i.e. script kiddie) tried to do (and how he failed) is actually quite funny IMHO.

E.g., after trying

rm -rf bash_history

(notice the missing dot in the filename) he wanted to be really sure and issued

unset HISTFILES

Surely, his tracks are perfectly covered now. Nobody will ever know.

(via EDV - Ende Der Vernunft)

I'm way too tired to write something longer than a few lines right now, but before I go to bed, here's a quote by Sean McGrath which Made My Day™:

Emacs is like a laser guided missile. It only has to be slight mis-configured to ruin your whole day.

Yes, I use vim. Yes, I always put on my asbestos underwear at night.

(via the law of averages)

A few hours ago, Heise reported that the EU parliament rejected the software patents directive. A majority of 648 (out of a total of 680) members of parliament voted against the directive.

This may not be the end of the software patents debate, but I definately feel relieved now.

(via Die wunderbare Welt von Isotopp)

Hmm, Pizza ...

Two very handy scripts for your Debian boxes:

• apt-listchanges shows you the changelog of packages you're about to install or upgrade. This allows you to abort the installation if you don't like some of the changes.
• apt-listbugs shows you a list of open bugs against the package(s) you're about to install. It does this by querying the Debian bug tracking system at runtime and displaying the results. You may abort the installation / upgrade if there's a grave bug which would break your system.

Both tools are very useful and can save your ass. Use them.