NEW YORK, NY - January 31, 2005 - An international group of PHP experts today announced the official launch of the PHP Security Consortium (PHPSC), a group whose mission is to promote secure programming practices within the PHP community through education and exposition while maintaining high ethical standards.
"As PHP has transitioned from personal projects to enterprise application development, the need to educate the community about secure programming practices has risen," said Chris Shiflett, the group's founder.
The PHPSC web site (http://phpsec.org/) provides a variety of security resources for PHP developers, including the group's flagship project, the PHP Security Guide.
"PHP application security is a topic of growing importance," said Andi Gutmans, one of the group's charter members. "The launch of the PHP Security Consortium is a landmark event for the PHP community, and because
most web development technologies face similar security concerns, we believe that developers using other solutions can also benefit from our efforts."
About the PHP Security Consortium
Founded in January 2005, the PHP Security Consortium (PHPSC) is an international group of PHP experts dedicated to promoting secure programming practices within the PHP community. Members of the PHPSC seek to educate PHP developers about security through a variety of resources, including documentation, tools, and standards.
In addition to their educational efforts, the PHPSC engages in exploratory and experimental research in order to develop and promote standards of best practice for PHP application development.
I mirrored a file that got posted to Slashdot today, really just to see what would happen. Take a look at this months bandwidth utilization graph. If I hadnÂ’t told you it was today, do you think you could figure it out?I remember quite a while back, probably link from Slashdot, a researcher posed the question, what do you want from a search engine, which it doesnÂ’t currently provide. I didnÂ’t have a great question then, but I think I do now.
I want a search engine that is deeply integrated with my web browser, definitely deeper than the Google Toolbar in IE, or search box in Firefox. This search engine is capable of combining the power of the engine itself, and an advanced local history database, to help me find information I have seen before.
Case Example:
Some time ago, probably within the past two months I read a story somewhere, probably Slashdot, that sent me to someoneÂ’s personal home page, which linked to a few of the projects they were working on, one of which was a directory syncing utility. The pages there had a black background with white or grey text.
For a traditional search engine the information I can recall is near useless.
- There are tens if not hundred of directory syncing utilities.
- Knowing I have been to the page before is meaningless
- Knowing the page is probably less than three jumps from Slashdot is meaningless
- Page attributes arenÂ’t all that easy to search under.
For the combined search engine I have proposed, this is a wealth of information
- A couple of key words should help narrow down the local history database
- A major search engine should be able to follow the links in either direction, to determine proximity (link wise) to Slashdot, or other sites I read with frequency
- Page attributes such as colour may be indexed by the search engine, or locally.
A powerful Firefox extension could probably handle a lot of that, worry not, the search engine still has more to add. Take a more academic search, where a researcher looks for a paper on particle physics they remember reading a couple weeks ago, the local utility can probably find it, but the major search engine goes the extra step of providing the papers that it references, and those that reference it, all with a side of a New York Times article mentioning the changing image of physicists.
I really feel this is an area where more work needs to be done. Honestly, I believe that in approximately half the searches I perform I am seeking information that I have seen before. That knowledge drastically narrows the search, but is completely ignored by every search engine I know of.
Hey all, I need some help, I need a decent listing of programs (Windows or otherwise) that are used to consume web feeds (RSS, ATOM, whatever). I have always just used my email client Bloomba, so I am really out of the loop when it comes to other solutions. Please leave a comment letting me know what aggregator you use and the URL for it, if you would be so kind.
thanks
paul
Procrastination has a new champion, it is World of Warcraft. I took steps today to ensure my book gets out on time, I emailed the primary executable to a friend, and asked them to hold onto it for a minimum of two weeks. When she comes to visit I will also give her the install CDs to completely remove access to the title. Extreme games call for extreme measures.
On the topic of World of Warcraft, I would like to bitch for a moment, about my personal pet peeve from the game. First, allow me to digress. Those of you familiar with Slashdot, are probably familiar with the term ‘RTFA’ (Read the freaking article). This is often posted when someone posts either a question or statement that would obviously not be posed by one who had read the article in question. I am working hard to introduce a sister of that term in WoW, RTFQ (Read the freaking quest). People relentlessly ask questions like ‘Where is the troll cave’ or ‘Where is Bill Thunderbeard’ in an attempt to gain more specific information to resolve a quest they have embarked upon. What they apparently don’t know, is that the quest they are on already contains specific information with regards to the location of the required places or people. I don’t mean vaugue directions either, they are often quite explicit, and require nothing more than literacy. As you progress further in the game, you would expect people to have discovered that the required information is already in front of them, generally they have. However, as the game progresses, the instructions get less specific, so they continue to ask. At which point, I feel they need to look up the words ‘Quest’ and ‘Handout’ in the dictionary. They are called quests for a reason people, keep looking. Or, failing that, at the very least, pose the question as your character would (I do play on a Role Playing server after all), instead of saying ‘Dudes, where the heck can I find this funderbeard prick, I’ve been searching for seconds!’, try ‘Fellow Adventurers! Where might I find the fabled Bill Thunderbeard, I know he is somewhere in these mountains, but alas, his location eludes me’ (or something sounding a little less fruity, you get the idea).
