I really wish that I was born early so I've could witness the early years of Linux. What was it like being there when a kernel was released that would power multiple OSes and, best of all, for free?

I want know about everything: software, hardware, games, early community, etc.

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[–] 5 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Yes, and encryption had nothing to do with it (though I suppose it would have prevented it in this case).

A properly configured modem would ignore this coming from the Internet side, or escape the characters so that they didn't form that string.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    Encryption would prevent it - that's what I meant :)

    I think the trick is to convince someone to send that string, so the modem sees it coming from the computer. Similar to tricking someone into pressing Alt+F4, or Ctrl+Alt+Del twice on Windows 9x (instantly reboots without prompting).

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    encryption would prevent the modem from seeing it when someone sends it, but such a short string will inevitably appear once in a while in ciphertext too. so, it would actually make it disconnect at random times instead :)

    (edit: actually at seven bytes i guess it would only occur once in every 72PB on average...)

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