file server upgrade in progress

Finally got the Debian install started on the file server. Installed the base using RC1 of the Debian Installer and was delighted to see that it correctly handled my disk configuration, recognized the existing RedHat install and put it in the Grub menu, and did a reverse DNS lookup (from my firewall) to correctly configure the hostname and domain.

So that gets the system to the point where it can reboot; I'll do the rest either tonight or tomorrow morning, when there's nobody around to be bothered by the lack of a file server.

Meanwhile, my nice new desktop system seems to be suffering from memory problems: emacs and firefox croak at random. If a memory test doesn't find a solidly reproducible problem, I'll try underclocking it slightly to see if that helps.

We're all doomed, I tell you!

Ed Felton reports on the work-in-progress session at the Crypto conference where the recent cracks of MD5 and SHA-0, and progress on SHA-1, were announced last night.

Depending on exactly what can be done in the near future, the consequences could range anywhere from just really bad to apocalyptic.