×

Submission + - 15 year jail sentence for pirating movies. (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by
Xpo3
Xpo3 writes: ""The RIAA has welcomed a mind-boggling jail sentence handed to a man who sold pirated movies and music. The 37-year-old man pleaded guilty to six felony counts of selling counterfeit media after he sold five movies and one music CD to an undercover investigator without the permission of copyright holders. As a result he will go to jail in Mississippi for 15 years to be followed by three years of supervised release." -TorrentFreak"
Crime

Submission + - In Mississippi: 15 Year Jail Sentence For Movie and Music Copyright Infringement (torrentfreak.com)

Submitted by patella.whack
patella.whack writes: A guilty plea for six counts of selling counterfeit media gets a defendant 15 years in Mississippi. An undercover reporter from the Attorney General’s Intellectual Property Theft Task Force managed to buy a total of five copied movies and one music CD from the defendant who had 10,500 pirated discs at home and 2 prior convictions: one for assaulting a police officer 17 years ago and one for CD piracy that got him a year under house arrest.

          Says the RIAA: "[This] highlights the fact that the individuals engaging in these activities are frequently serial criminals for whom IP theft is simply the most convenient and profitable way they could steal from others."

          Frequently serial criminals? 15 years? I wonder how much of his sentence can be attributed to his priors rather than to other factors...

Submission + - Africa makers get energy from pee (makerfaireafrica.com)

Submitted by aglider
aglider writes: A few sources is reporting about this technology breakthrough.
A group of African students built a small generator where with

1 Liter of urine gives you 6 hours of electricity.

It's not 100% clear how much energy you can get out of that liter (you insensitive Imperial clod) though.
It's also not 100% clear whether the main aim of the setup is to purify water or to generate energy thanks to electrolysis.
In any case either aim would be a great thing in a continent like Africa. And the whole world as well.
Businesses

Submission + - Cyber Weapon Friendly Fire: Chevron Hit by Stuxnet (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
CowboyRobot
CowboyRobot writes: "The pioneering Stuxnet computer virus, which was designed to attack a single Iranian uranium enrichment facility, went on to infect PCs around the world. Security experts have identified thousands of resulting Stuxnet infections. On Monday, multinational energy giant Chevron became the first U.S. company to admit that it, too, was infected by Stuxnet.

"'Escaped' continues to be a puzzling term when applied to a virus that relied on numerous Microsoft zero-day vulnerabilities and propagation vectors," said Sean McBride, the director of analysis for Critical Intelligence, in a SANS newsletter. "On the other hand, if your system was not the single underground facility in Iran that Stuxnet was intended to disrupt, the infection was benign. Such collateral damage is part of the price industry gets to pay for — what was then — two more years of Iran [being] without a nuclear weapon.""
Microsoft

Submission + - Windows Chief Steven Sinofsky Leaves Microsoft (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
CWmike
CWmike writes: "Steven Sinofsky, the executive in charge of Microsoft's Windows 8 operating system and the driving force behind the new OS, is leaving the company effective immediately, Microsoft announced late Monday. Sinofsky was also the public face for Windows 8 and its new Metro interface, posting constant updates in a Windows 8 blog that charted its development. His last post, fittingly, was entitled 'Updating Windows 8 for General Availability.' The OS was officially launched at the end of last month. According to the All Things D blog, there was growing tension between Sinofsky and other members of the Microsoft executive team, who didn't see him as enough of a team player. But Microsoft's official position is that the decision was a mutual one. Sinofsky had only good things to say about his former employer."
Privacy

Submission + - Petraeus case shows FBI's authority to read email (yahoo.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Back in April, we discussed how the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act defines email that has resided on a server for more than six months can be considered abandoned. The recent investigation of General Petraeus brings this issue to light again, and perhaps to a broader audience. Under current US law, federal authorities need only a subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor — not a judge — to obtain electronic messages that are six months old or older. Do you know anyone these days who doesn't have IMAP accounts with 6+-month-old mail on them?
Microsoft

Submission + - Sinofsky leaves Microsoft, Julie Larson-Green now in charge of Windows Division (winbeta.org)

Submitted by BogenDorpher
BogenDorpher writes: Steven Sinofsky, the man who was behind the development and marketing of Windows (including the recently released Windows 8), Internet Explorer, Outlook.com, and SkyDrive had apparently left the company. In his place, Julie Larson-Green will run the Windows division while Tami Reller will take charge of the business of Windows.

Submission + - Lithium ion battery prices to drop? (anl.gov)

Submitted by
mtrachtenberg
mtrachtenberg writes: "A California company working with Argonne National Labs is talking about a new anode for lithium ion batteries; it claims a 300%+ increase in energy density and is talking about volume manufacturing by 2014.

The company, California Lithium Battery, is talking about a potential 70% price drop in the cost of EV battery packs. If this happens, EVs suddenly begin to make sense."
Firefox

Submission + - The Shumway Open SWF Runtime Project (mozilla.org)

Submitted by theweatherelectric
theweatherelectric writes: Mozilla is looking for contributors interested in working on Shumway. Mozilla's Jet Villegas writes, 'Shumway is an experimental web-native runtime implementation of the SWF file format. It is developed as a free and open source project sponsored by Mozilla Research. The project has two main goals: 1. Advance the open web platform to securely process rich media formats that were previously only available in closed and proprietary implementations. 2. Offer a runtime processor for SWF and other rich media formats on platforms for which runtime implementations are not available.'
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft makes Direct X 11.1 a Windows 8 Exclusive! (theverge.com)

Submitted by BluPhenix316
BluPhenix316 writes: Microsoft has made Direct X 11.1 a Windows 8 Exclusive. I think this is merely a update to make Direct X more integrated with Windows 8. Is this going to be the trend? To lock you into the OS updates so Windows 7 doesn't last as long as Windows XP has?
Math

Submission + - Your Unconscious Brain Can Do Math, Process Language (ieee.org)

Submitted by the_newsbeagle
the_newsbeagle writes: It's hard to determine what the unconscious brain is doing since, after all, we're not aware of it. But in a neat set of experiments, researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's consciousness lab found evidence that the unconscious brain can parse language and perform simple arithmetic. The researchers flashed colorful patterns at test subjects that took up all their attention and allowed for the subliminal presentation of sentences or equations. In the language processing experiment, researchers found that subjects became consciously aware of a sentence sooner if it was jarring and nonsensical (like, for example, the sentence "I ironed coffee").
Education

Submission + - "Clandestine" UK Database keeps Records on 8 Million School Children (rt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Russia Today reports: 'A newly uncovered clandestine computer network, known as the ‘One System,’ can reportedly share children’s personal details across different UK agencies, including age, sex, address and their school behavior records – all without parents ever knowing. One of Britain’s biggest government contractors has created a database containing the personal details of 8 million children, the Sunday Times revealed. The database was created by Capita – a company specializing in IT systems – and includes information on a child’s sex, age, exam results, if they have special needs, bad behavior like absenteeism and how many minutes late they are to lessons. This information can then be shared with numerous agencies, including the police, the NHS and child protection units and charities, all without parental consent. Teachers collect data on all children, not just ones deemed to be at risk. This includes recording how many minutes late they are for class. The One System is already employed by about 100 local authorities, and was created two years after Contact Point – a similar database which was set up by the then-Labour government, but scrapped by the current coalition because of security concerns. Documents obtained by the Sunday Times revealed that classroom information is gathered by teachers and submitted to the One System up to six times a day to provide a “golden thread of data” that can be accessed by anyone working with children. In an Orwellian twist, the firm hires photographers to take pictures of schoolchildren, which they then offer for sale to their parents before uploading them onto the database.'
Businesses

Submission + - Amazon Donates 2,000 Kindles to Wounded Veterans (beyond-black-friday.com)

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "Amazon's just announced that they're donating 2,000 Kindles to a charity for wounded soldiers and their families. And they're also promising to hire at least 1,200 more veterans within the next year at fulfillment centers around the country through Amazon's
Military Talent Program. As the U.S. prepares to celebrate Veterans Day, Amazon's press release notes that they've been named one of the top military-friendly employers for two years in a row, by U.S. Veterans magazine, and one Kindle blog also notes that Amazon has even quietly created a special program which allows some customer service employees to work from home, for which Amazon has actively recruited military spouses for the program, as well as wounded veterans"

Slashdot Top Deals