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Site Offers History of Torrent Downloads By IP 340

Posted by Soulskill from the exposing-the-obvious dept.
tsu doh nimh writes "You may have never heard of youhavedownloaded.com, but if you recently grabbed movies, music or software from online file-trading networks, chances are decent that the site has heard of you. In fact, you may find that the titles you downloaded are now listed and publicly searchable at the site, indexed by your Internet address. So far, youhavedownloaded.com has recorded more than 50 million unique Internet addresses belonging to file-sharing users. The site is searchable by file name and by Internet address. When you visit, it automatically checks and lets you know if your Internet address is in the database."
Security

Submission + - TSA Facing Death By A Thousand Cuts (house.gov)

Submitted by OverTheGeicoE
OverTheGeicoE writes: The Transportation Security Administration is getting a lot of negative attention, much of it from the US government itself. A recent congressional report blasted TSA for being incompetent and ineffective (PDF). A bill to force TSA to reduce its screening of active duty US military members and their families was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives. After a TSA employee was arrested for sexually assaulting a woman while in uniform, a bill has been introduced to prevent TSA from wearing police-style uniforms and badges or using the title 'officer'. The bill's sponsor calls these practices 'an insult to real cops.' The FBI is getting involved by changing its definition of rape in a way that might expose TSA's 'enhanced pat-down' screeners to prosecution. Lastly, public support for TSA's use of X-ray body scanners drops dramatically when people realize there is a cancer risk.
Google

Submission + - Google goes IPv6 for internal network (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "In a project that has taken longer than company engineers anticipated, Google is rolling out IPv6 across its entire internal employee network.

Google network engineer Irena Nikolova discussed the company-wide implementation and shared some lessons that other organizations might benefit from as they migrate their own networks to the next generation Internet Protocol."
Programming

Submission + - Java apps have most flaws, Cobol least (computerworld.com) 1

Submitted by dcblogs
dcblogs writes: An analysis of 745 applications for violations of good architectural and coding practices, found that Java applications had the most problems and Cobol-built systems, the least. Some 365 million lines of code were analyzed by Cast Software, which makes tools for this, to assess “technical debt,” or the cost to fix the violations. Java was calculated at $5.42 per line of code, while Cobol did best at $1.26. Cobol code had the least number of violations because programmers “have been beating on it for 30 years,” said Cast. As far as Java goes, “there are many people going into Java now that really don’t have strong computer science backgrounds,” said its chief scientist, Bill Curtis.
Science

Submission + - Higgs hunt enters final stage (nature.com)

Submitted by
gbrumfiel
gbrumfiel writes: "For forty years, the Higgs boson has remained a theoretical construct, but by Christmas, scientists may have a pretty good idea of whether it's real or not. Nature News reports that a new analysis has further narrowed the Higgs range, and data gathered this autumn at the LHC should be enough to show a faint signal from a Higgs, if it's there. (Already one signal has disappeared earlier in the year.) Physicists hope to finish their analysis of the autumn data by the year's end, but even if they come up empty-handed it won't be the end of the story. The Higgs is commonly referred to as the particle that endows others with mass, but its real appeal is the ability to unify the weak nuclear force with electromagnetism. If there is no Higgs, some other mechanism for creating a unified "electroweak" force should be found inside the LHC."
Games

Submission + - Galaxy Explorer, an experimental HTML5 video game (galaxy-explorer.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The latest venture from the LABS team at NYC ad agency mcgarrybowen is Galaxy Explorer, an experimental video game powered by HTML5 and CSS3 that debuted at Google Creative Sandbox in late October.

There's a hamster superhero. An evil pirate and his band of Arrrgonauts. And, yes, a galaxy made of pancakes. But levity aside, the true hero of this side-scrolling adventure is the original technology pioneered by the mcgarrybowen LABS team. Experimenting with animation and the communication between multiple browsers, they were able to create "transparent" windows with each individual element in its own browser, but with all of them responding to one another to create a cohesive experience.

Strap on your jetpack and get ready to explore the galaxy: http://galaxy-explorer.com/
Google

Submission + - Google dodges $3.1 billion in US taxes and payes o (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by MountainLogic
MountainLogic writes: Google 2.4% Rate Shows How $60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes
Google Inc. cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and the Netherlands to Bermuda.

Google's income shifting — involving strategies known to lawyers as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich" — helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.

Even the Brookings Institute says the system needs reform: http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/06corporatetaxes_clausing.aspx

Salon has more discussion: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/11/corporate_tax_open2011/singleton/
Android

Submission + - How much of your mobile data is yours? (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Concerned about the security of your mobile data? It's being logged, processed, and possibly sold. This article explains how it works with Android devices and what you can do abou it. From the article, "Data is sent, stored, and used by these companies at every level of your user experience. The carriers, manufacturers, ad companies, law enforcement, all have access to this information. You do not have the ability to turn it off, and once they have the information they store it for as long as they determine it is relevant, which is likely forever."
Technology

Submission + - Raspberry Pi PCB layout and scale model available (geek.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Yesterday, the final Raspberry Pi printed circuit board (PCB) layout was revealed. The word “packed” comes to mind as this is one very complicated looking board. The reason for that is just how much Raspberry Pi has strived to save money on the machine by using complex routing to keep things small and cheap.

The Raspberry Pi team don’t believe the design is going to change again unless they missed something. With that in mind, they revealed the final board is exactly the same size as a credit card, measuring 85.65 x 53.98mm.

Raspberry Pi has a very active community on its forums, and it didn’t take long for someone to print a 1:1 scale copy of the final design on a sheet of card. The images below give you a good idea of just how small this PC is going to be. Although once the ports have been added the thickness is obviously going to increase.
Technology

Submission + - True 3D Display Draws Pixels In Space (diginfo.tv)

Submitted by Lokitoth
Lokitoth writes: Burton demonstrated a technology to draw animated 3D images in space, rather than on a 2D screen, by exciting oxygen and nitrogen in the air to give off light. The developers say: "This system can create about 50,000 dots per second, and its frame rate is currently about 10-15 fps. But we're working to improve the frame rate to 24-30 fps." Maybe the Japanese proposal to project 3D players to soccer fields world-wide is not so far-fetched.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Steve Jobs eyed building Wi-Fi network (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Steve Jobs initially hoped to create his own network with the unlicensed spectrum that Wi-Fi uses rather than work with the mobile operators, said wireless industry legend John Stanton. Currently chairman at venture capital firm Trilogy Partners, Stanton said at a seminar in Seattle that Jobs "wanted to replace carriers... He and I spent a lot of time talking about whether synthetically you could create a carrier using Wi-Fi spectrum. That was part of his vision."
Facebook

Submission + - Despite Audit, Facebook Holds Back Personal Data (itworld.com)

Submitted by
itwbennett
itwbennett writes: "Facebook has reduced the amount of personal data it releases to users as required by European Union law. Due to the volume of requests since Europe v. Facebook began its campaign, Facebook is no longer sending CDs to people. Facebook said in a statement that the CD mailout 'contains a level of detail that is less useful for the average user — it is a much rawer collection of data.' Instead, users are now directed to a page where they can download their personal 'archive,' which according to Facebook is a copy of 'all of the personal information you've shared on Facebook.' But rather than the 57 categories of data early data requesters received, the new tool downloads just 22 categories."

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