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NASA

NASA To Cryogenically Freeze Satellite Mirrors 47

Posted by Soulskill from the ain't-it-cool dept.
coondoggie writes "NASA said it will soon move some of the larger (46 lb) mirror segments of its future James Webb Space Telescope into a cryogenic test facility that will freeze the mirrors to -414 degrees Fahrenheit (~25 K). Specifically, NASA will freeze six of the 18 Webb telescope mirror segments at the X-ray and Cryogenic Facility, or XRCF, at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, in a test to ensure the critical mirrors can withstand the extreme space environments. All 18 segments will eventually be tested at the site. The test chamber takes approximately five days to cool a mirror segment to cryogenic temperatures."
The Military

Man Pleads Guilty To Selling Fake Chips To US Navy 327

Posted by timothy from the vinegar-was-ersatz-too dept.
itwbennett writes "Neil Felahy of Newport Coast, California, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and counterfeit-goods trafficking for his role in a chip-counterfeiting scam. Felahy, along with his wife and her brother, operated several microchip brokerage companies under a variety of names, including MVP Micro, Red Hat Distributors, Force-One Electronics and Pentagon Components. 'They would buy counterfeit chips from China or else take legitimate chips, sand off the brand markings and melt the plastic casings with acid to make them appear to be of higher quality or a different brand,' the US Department of Justice said in a press release. The chips were then sold to Naval Sea Systems Command, the Washington, DC group responsible for maintaining the US Navy's ships and systems, as well as to an unnamed vacuum-cleaner manufacturer in the Midwest."
Businesses

Submission + - Dell IS offering complete hardware support

Submitted by somegeekynick
somegeekynick writes: According to this DesktopLinux.com article, a Dell spokesperson has stated that, "Due to an ordering system glitch during the weekend, we inadvertently removed extended warranty and CompleteCare options from our 'configurator.' We're working to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible and those options will be reinstated this afternoon [June 5]. If customers ordered systems when extended warranties weren't available, they will have the option of upgrading at the original price. There will be more details on that program soon."
Spam

Submission + - How to Sue a spammer in the UK

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "In what is believed to be the highest damages award an individual has received in the UK and thought to be the first case in Scotland, an Edinburgh man has successfully claimed damages from a sender of unsolicited commercial email.

Gordon Dick was granted decree in Edinburgh Sheriff Court against Transcom Internet Services Ltd (Transcom) of Henley-on-Thames. The judgement, in January, awarded Mr Dick damages and, unusually for a small claim, lifted the normal £75 cap on expenses the defender was ordered to pay.

For receiving spam email from Transcom, the court awarded Mr Dick :
Damages: £750 plus 8% interest per annum from 10th May 2006 until paid
Expenses: £618.66
Total: £1368.66 (plus interest)

If all 72,000 recipients of this particular spam were eligible to claim the same damages then the spammers bill could total over £54,000,000!

Anti-Spam Law

The EU e-Privacy directive was incorporated into UK law by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 ("PECR"). The law gives individuals the right to not receive unsolicited commercial email, faxes and text messages.

When he was openly sent spam by a company advertising anti-spam solutions on their web site, Gordon Dick, decided they should not be allowed to get away with breaching the law.

Mr Dick wrote to the group of companies in Henley-on-Thames run by a Mr William Smith of Reading (the sole director of Transcom Internet Services Ltd is also a director of Transcom ISP Ltd, Transcom Satellite Services Ltd, Nowdance Ltd and Design Technology Ltd which trades as Transcom ISP, all of which are based at the same address). He asked them to explain their actions and required them to cease using his personal data. Transcom Internet Services Limited wrote back confirming they were responsible for the email but denying their actions were unlawful and challenging Mr Dick to take legal action.

Mr Dick gave them a final warning that legal action would follow if they did not make good damage done and give undertakings not to breach the regulations again. Transcom reiterated their challenge to take legal action, so Mr Dick followed their request and filed a small claim in Edinburgh Sheriff Court.

Transcom instructed solicitors and filed a defence in court. Evidence and case law was submitted to the court which resulted in an offer to settle out of court for £500, Mr Dick rejected the offer and requested £750 plus an apology and undertakings not to breach the law again. The day before proof hearing they agreed to pay £750 but refused to undertake not to breach the regulations again in an out of court settlement. This settlement never completed and Transcom's solicitors withdrew from acting for them. The Sheriff awarded decree and lifted the normal £75 cap on small claim expenses due to Transcom's actions during the case.

Mr Dick commented: "The courts have now sent a clear message, spam will not be tolerated and individuals rights to not have their mailbox filled with unsolicited advertising will be upheld. It has been clear to me throughout my case and in front of each Sheriff that they have little time for spammers and their anti-social actions."

Mr Dick went on to say: "While most spam comes from countries such as the USA and China and therefore is difficult to apply European laws to, UK internet users can at least drive local spammers out of business. I'd now like to see the mass market internet providers and media throughout the UK provide help to the British public with pointers, resources and support in legal claims against UK based spammers and perhaps we can clean up our little part of the internet."

Mr Dick has launched a web site to help others make legal claims at http://www.scotchspam.org.uk/ and is encouraging ISPs, email and SMS providers to get in touch to work together."
Music

Submission + - RIAA going after Internet Radio

Submitted by scopius
scopius writes: As reported this morning in The Wall Street Journal, the RIAA is now pushing Congress to hike royalty rates for Internet Radio. Tim Westergreen, co-founder of Pandora.com, claims that this action will shut down Pandora, along with many other internet radio stations. The rates set by the board are .08 cents per song per listener, and this rate is in addition to royalties already paid to the songwriters of the works. Up until this point, these stations had been paying a flat fee, but these new rates will be much larger than revenues for most stations. One interesting point is that normal radio doesn't have to pay anything like this rate, they only pay the songwriters royalties, according to the article.
Programming

Submission + - F-22 Raptor Gets Zapped by International Date Line

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "Lockheed's F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighter in the world with its stealth capabilities, advanced radar, state of the art weapons systems and ultra-efficient turbofans.

But while the simulated war games were a somewhat easy feat for the Raptor, something more mundane was able to cripple six aircraft on a 12 to 15 hours flight from Hawaii to Kadena Air Base in Okinawa, Japan. The U.S. Air Force's mighty Raptor was felled by the International Date Line (IDL).

When the group of Raptors crossed over the IDL, multiple computer systems crashed on the planes. Everything from fuel subsystems, to navigation and partial communications were completely taken offline. Numerous attempts were made to "reboot" the systems to no avail.

http://www.dailytech.com/Lockheeds+F22+Raptor+Gets +Zapped+by+International+Date+Line/article6225.htm "

Feed Royalty Hike Panics Webcasters (wired.com)

From feed by wiredfeed
Internet radio gets ready for a fight after the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board quietly releases a retroactive rate hike that could mean financial disaster from music streamers. By Eliot Van Buskirk.


Microsoft

Submission + - FAA May Ditch Vista For Linux

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: In what could be the start of a government wave away from Microsoft, last week's news that the U.S. Department of Transportation is putting a halt on upgrades to Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Internet Explorer 7 is followed today by word that the Federal Aviation Administration may ditch Vista and Office in favor of Google's new online business applications running on Linux-based hardware. FAA chief information officer David Bowen told InformationWeek he's taking a close look at the Premier Edition of Google Apps as he mulls replacements for the agency's Windows XP-based desktop computers. Bowen cited several reasons why he finds Google Apps attractive. "From a security and management standpoint that would have some advantages," he said. Do you think that Vista's cost could finally put a crimp in what's been an automatic upgrade cycle to Microsoft and spur Linux adoption? Is this the start of some kind of anti-Vista groundswell?
Music

Submission + - FCC Boosts Indie Music with 'Payola Probe'

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "The FCC has fined four of the largest radio station corporations for $12.5 million under FCC laws & rules against "pay for play" air time of record label's bands. There have been many 'payola' scandals in which labels have lavished & gifted the big four broadcasters through independent record promoters — who have often blatantly delivered payments to radio stations for airplay. In addition to the fine, "a separate voluntary side deal between the station groups and the American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) would set aside 8,400 half-hour blocks of time for independent music." One thing is for sure, you can expect the market to be a lot fairer to smaller bands now that the FCC is cracking down on what is text book bribery and destroying the role a free unbiased market could play in music."
Portables

Submission + - OLPC has kill-switch as theft deterrent

Submitted by Sid
Sid writes: Ars reports that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) XO has an anti-thieft daemon in the OS that can be used to remotely disable machines, much like WGA. The Project added the kill switch at the behest of a few countries concerned laptop theft. From the report, "OLPC has responded to such concerns by developing an anti-theft daemon that the project claims cannot be disabled, even by a user with root access. Participating countries can then provide identifying information such as a serial number to a given country's OLPC program oversight entity, which can then disable the devices in certain scenarios."
PHP

Submission + - Month of PHP bugs

Submitted by
PHP
PHP writes: "Stefan Esser is the founder of both the Hardened-PHP Project and the PHP Security Response Team (which he recently left). During an interview with SecurityFocus he announced the upcoming "Month of PHP bugs" initiative: "We will disclose different types of bugs, mainly buffer overflows or double free(/destruction) vulnerabilities, some only local, but some remotely trigger-able (for example, because they are in functions usually exposed to user input). Additionally there are some trivial bypass vulnerabilities in PHP's own protection features. [...] As a vulnerability reporter you feel kinda puzzled how people among the PHP Security Response Team can claim in public that they do not know about any security vulnerability in PHP, when you disclosed about 20 holes to them in the two weeks before. At this point you stop bothering whether anyone considers the disclosure of unreported vulnerabilities unethical. Additionally a few of the reported bugs have been known for years among the PHP developers and will most probably never be fixed. In total we have more than 31 bugs to disclose, and therefore there will be days when more than one vulnerability will be disclosed. The Month of PHP bugs will take place in March 2007.""
User Journal

Journal Journal: Boycotting Broken Gadgets

Journal by MattSparkes
I've become bored of my gadgets, because they don't seem to do what I want them to do. A few years ago I had a smart phone, which let me download and listen to MP3 tracks via bluetooth, carry files from computer to computer and lots of other tricks that were very useful. Now I have 'upgraded', and my phone does none of those things. My MP3 player looks very good, but I can't just drop MP3 files on and listen to them, and I can't sync with my work PC as well as my Mac at home. What are the option

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