Slashback: AMD/ATI, Tokamak Fusion, Laptop Privacy

Slashback tonight brings some clarifications and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: An inside look at the AMD/ATI merger, school admins backing down on cell phone invasion policies, a new launch date for Scotty's ashes, a second test for China's Tokamak fusion device, Forbe's missed the mark on IBM destruction of evidence, Skype for Mac 1.5 released, and the courts rule that customs can still rifle through your laptop - Read on for details.

An inside look at the AMD/ATI merger. Spinnerbait writes "HotHardware spent some sit-down time with a few folks close to the AMD and ATI merger, asked some probing questions and received a few insightful answers in return. They dug in deep with AMD Execs, learned all there is to know currently and even got a hint of what the future might hold for the dynamic duo (no pun intended), now joined as one. A tighter coupling of the CPU and GPU is in our future perhaps?"

School admins back down on cell phone invasion policy. Reverberant writes "In a follow up to earlier coverage about school admins wanting access to students' cellphones, Framingham officials have decided to hold off on the policy for now because they need school committee approval. The head of the school policy committee has 'no interest in bringing it up.'"

New launch date for Scotty's ashes. wolfdvh writes "The BBC reports that Star Trek actor James Doohan, who played the engineer Scotty in the original TV series, will now have his remains blasted into space in October. The actor's ashes were supposed to be sent into orbit last year, but the flight was delayed as tests were carried out on the rocket."

Second test for China's Tokamak fusion device. Haxx writes "The first plasma discharge from China's experimental advanced superconducting research center dubbed 'artificial sun' is set to occur next month. The discharge, expected about Aug. 15, will be conducted at Science Island in Hefei, in east China's Anhui Province. The experiment will test the world's first Tokamak fusion device of this kind. The new device will be an upgrade of China`s first superconducting Tokamak device. The plasma discharge will draw international attention since some scientists are concerned with risks involved in such a process"

Forbe's missed the mark on IBM destruction of evidence. An anonymous reader writes "It turns out that Forbes.com was wrong and, based on analysis of Pacer no motion has been filed against IBM for destruction of evidence. Shortly following from a major collapse in SCO's share price, a recent article Slashdot reported Forbes.com's claim that a motion had been filed against IBM for destruction of evidence. In fact, Groklaw, the main site covering the SCO vs. IBM lawsuit, now reports that SCO has filed no motions of this type whatsoever in March."

Skype for Mac 1.5 released. Billy C writes "A few weeks after warez versions made the rounds on the Internet, the official Skype for Mac with video is here." While still only a preview version, brave users can now give it a shot.

Courts rule customs can rifle through your laptop. monstermagnet writes "On Monday, a unanimous three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that the files of a person's laptop may be searched at U.S. borders [PDF] without probable cause or even reasonable suspicion."

ATI + AMD != Linux driver?

[gigne]

No mention of where the Linux drivers are going with the merger of ATI and AMD. Maybe they will get their act together and give us working drivers for the 200 express card.

Scotty

[p33p3r]

Being on the Enterprise myself, working in the engineroom, I understand the technical aspect of fusion reactions, I wish Scotty could have explained matter - antimatter to me.
Where ever you go Scotty, I hope it's GREEN.





Enterprise CVAN 65 that is...

Fusion power

[Adrian Lopez]

I'm surprised by the stupid comments found on the page concerning China's Tokamak device. I'm eager for the day when scientists finally manage to create a working fusion reactor. Here's what asimov had to say [www.unb.ca] back in 1975.

Re:Probable Cause

[CraigoFL]

But in the end you're going to do yourself in with your attempts to protect yourself. If they can't get at your files to see that you're free of child porn, they're going to get upset, and they're going to make things difficult for you. They could prevent you from crossing, impound your laptop, and possibly even detain you.

Meanwhile, someone who is *actually* smuggling in illicit data simply has to:
1) Encrypt/obfuscate the data, so it's not obvious what that data is.
2) Make it look mundane... hide it in the windows swap file maybe?
3) Gladly offer up full access to the laptop when asked. Customs will probably not bother with a deep search, since it's "obvious" that the smuggler has nothing to hide. They're too busy trying to get figure what to do with the other guy who won't give up the BIOS password to his laptop anyway.

Paedo-hysteria

[Anonymous Coward]

If you are wondering why the court decided to ignore the constitution, it's probably because they were Thinking of the Children. I quote:

Based on 40 images deleted from his internet cache and two images deleted from another part of his hard drive,2 Romm was convicted of knowingly receiving and knowingly possessing child pornography in violation of 18 U.S.C. 2252A(a)(2), (a)(5)(B). Romm appeals both of these convictions, as well as his concurrent mandatory minimum sentences of ten and fifteen years.

Apart from the absurdity of valuing locking away a single paedophile over the basic rights granted to everybody by the constitution, what the hell is going on with the sentence? Fifteen years for looking at forty-odd photos that he deleted afterwards? Some of them were just thumbnails too! What the hell?

I'm not condoning paedophilia (and I think it's fucking stupid that I have to add disclaimers like this), but something is seriously fucked up if looking at a few pictures means you are such a threat to society that you need to be locked up for the best part of two decades. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that over-the-top punishment like this is a worse crime than looking at the pictures in the first place. The kids aren't even going to be aware that he committed this crime, and yet the state is forcibly taking away a huge chunk of his life. The harm of the punishment is clearly out of all proportion to the harm caused by the crime.

Apparently, the excuse they used was a precedent set by an older case:

Instead, " 'searches made at the border . . . are reasonable simply by virtue of the fact that they occur at the border.' " United States v. Flores-Montano, 541 U.S. 149, 152-53 (2004) (quoting United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606, 616 (1977)).

Er, what? A border search is reasonable because it's a border search? Last time I checked, the constitution didn't say:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Oh, except when it's at the border.

Re:Thank heavens for crypto.

[iminplaya]

And if they demand the key? If I bring a safe into the country, they're going to want to see inside or it stays at the impound, no? Convince 51% of the voters that freedom and privacy are good things, and you just might get some. Otherwise it ain't gonna happen, because now they believe that only terrorists want those things.

Re:Paedo-hysteria

[Tekzel]

The thing I find most disturbing about the kind of conviction Romm got was, whos to say he willfully downloaded those pictures? Hell most of them were in his internet cache, who here has never accidently typoed a URL and got one of those domains the prey on typos? So if I type in www.amazan.com and accidently get a child porn site and they find evidence of the pictures in my cache I can go to jail for 15 years? That seems a little insane to me.

And, on that note, I think it is sad that a nonviolent offender can get near 20 years in prison when a murderer or rapist can walk with less time. There are some really disturbed people making up these laws.

Re:Ah yes

[ezratrumpet]

That's one of the realities of private institutions. Whoever is in charge, is in charge.

If you agree to go to a private school, you effectively sign away the Bill of Rights as a condition of admission. The school doesn't *have* to let you do anything - all of your rights are actually courtesies.

Most administrators know the difference between reasonable and unreasonable, but it's a fine distinction that too easily lends itself to broad rules and sweeping determinations.

Re:Probable Cause

[couchslug]

Meanwhile, someone who is *actually* smuggling in illicit data simply has to:
Drop it into a throwaway webmail account from overseas, then retrieve it from that account after returning to the US. A bit of warwalking to unsecured APs keeps the process untraceable.
If I carried the laptop I used for the purpose with me, its drive would have been wiped and it would have a nice clean install, with l3m0nparty wallpaper for Customs enjoyment. :)

Yeah, TrueCrypt !!

[HangingChad]

If they were smart enough to find the encrypted partition and demand the pass phrase, you give up the normal partition phrase and they never even know about the hidden partition. It can also run off a USB device. As usual this will snare hundreds of stupid people.

Not that I don't think it's totally retarded you have to go to those lengths to keep the government from spying on your laptop. Ah, what do you expect from Republicans?

It wasn't Forbes.

[Jaywalk]

It turns out that Forbes.com was wrong...
In an article written by Daniel Lyons?

Technically, it wasn't Forbes making a claim; it was SCO. I noticed that neither Groklaw nor Slashdot linked to the original article [forbes.com]. If they had, it can be seen that Lyons refers to the SCO suit as "ever more desperate--and ever more weird." He also asked IBM for their side of the story but they -- true to form -- declined to comment. Gone are the insults and gratuitous references to "Linux zealots" which graced earlier articles. [forbes.com] Also significant is that he actually wrote to PJ pointing out that he was reporting SCO's claims, not supporting them. He's obviously beome a great deal more sensitive about Groklaw's influence on the community following the case.

This is just the latest climb down in the SCO peanut gallery as their media allies find other things to write about. Before this article Rob Enderle already moved from his SCO Should Win [eweek.com] article to predicting that SCO's litigation, against IBM or anyone else, is all but done. [linuxpipeline.com]

The story here isn't that SCO has come up with another lame excuse in another vain attempt to flog the dead horse of their court case back to life, but that even their most ardent supporters are starting to see what's going on.

Re:Probable Cause

[asuffield]

They'll just strip your car down to the frame, then reject your entry to the country and leave you standing there with a pile of mechanical parts. Customs is fucked up and has no proper appeals process or oversight of these things.

Re: Hiding Flash

[chill]

What I've done in the past is:

1. Purchase a 1 Gb flash drive. Stick a label on it so the size isn't advertised.
2. Partition it 512 Mb FAT-32 / 512 Mb Ext-2
3. Put innocuous stuff all on the FAT partition -- anything hidden gets encrypted and put on the Ext-2

Any one that sticks the flash drive into a Windows box will automount the first partitions. Nothing to see there -- move along. The Ext-2 won't show up unless they look at it with a partitioning tool.

I've never had anyone look twice. Of course, I've never been under close scrutiny, but it certainly passed casual inspection.

The 1 Gb PQI Intellistick is so small it easily fits between credit cards in my wallet without being seen. It doesn't trigger metal detectors, so I leave my wallet in my pocket when going thru those in airports. I don't let it get x-rayed and it just never shows up. The card costs like $45.