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Veteran tech entrepreneur Bob Bickel has let out a whisper of his new venture, Ringside Networks, which will aim to make social networking applications work outside the network.
Version 3.0 of BackTrack has been released. BackTrack is a Linux-based distribution dedicated to penetration testing or hacking (depending on how you look at it). It contains more than 300 of the world's most popular open source or freely distributable hacking tools.
Ubuntero.com is a one-of-a-kind social network designed by and for Ubuntu users, developers, and evangelists. Registration is finally open! (The site is down at the moment because they got dugg, but it might be worth a look)
Elgg is an open source application for rolling out a social network. It installs like any Web-based software, but instead of a blog or a wiki, it gives you all the components of a social networking site -- your own MySpace!
Google's OpenSocial initiative to establish common, standard APIs for creating social-networking applications is still in its early days. But its impact for end users, developers, Web site owners, social-network operators and even business application vendors could be huge in the long run.
The popular social networking site Facebook just announced a Chinese version, but similar Chinese-based Web sites such as Xiaonei and Hainei have been struggling there. However, since April, UCenter Home, an open source social network service based on PHP and MySQL, is pushing open social networking in China.
The only real exchange between peers in a traditional peer-to-peer network is limited to the files being transferred. Tribler is a new P2P network that's introducing social networking concepts to facilitate better interactions between users. Its users will also be able to cash in on their generous uploads for faster downloads.
How much would you pay for an Internet connection from an ISP that guarantees a neutral network, bills itself as a "social enterprise" instead of a traditional business, and sends free Ubuntu CDs to every new customer?
ESR: "These are people (mainly adolescent males) who get a kick out of breaking into computers and phreaking the phone system. Real hackers call these people ‘crackers’ and want nothing to do with them.
