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Submission + - WGA - hide in plain sight

Submitted by RickJ
RickJ writes: At it again. Microsoft wants to update their WGA again, this time they don't hide it, just market it like something a user would want:
Software Upgrade for Some Windows Components Required
To use Microsoft Update, you must first install the latest version of some Windows components. This will allow your computer to work with these new features on the site:

More updates: Get updates for Windows and for popular Microsoft programs such as Microsoft Office in one place.
Faster updates: The latest Windows Installer (MSI) improves the way updates are installed, delivering updates in the smallest possible packages in the shortest amount of time.
Easier navigation: Now you can find updates by priority or by product while helpful links and important messages help ensure you are installing all high-priority updates for your computer.
Details

Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool (KB892130)
1.1 MB , less than 1 minute
The Windows Genuine Advantage Validation Tool enables you to verify that your copy of Microsoft Windows is genuine. The tool validates your Windows installation by checking Windows Product Identification and Product Activation status.


Total: 1.1 MB , less than 1 minute
Download and Install Now
Programming

Submission + - What every programmer should know about memory (lwn.net)

Submitted by
mrcgran
mrcgran writes: "LWN.NET has just finished publishing an excellent series about memory, by Ulrich Drepper:"What every programmer should know about memory". Wonder the difference between PC100 and PC1600? Challeges of NUMA systems, access optimizations for L1 and L2 caches? Want to write code which performs well in several memory contexts? Then this series is probably what you should read first. There is also a PDF version available from Ulrich's home page. While at it, why not do a combo grabbing a copy of Goldberg's classical paper "What Every Computer Scientist Should Know About Floating Point Arithmetic"?."
Math

Submission + - Open Source Mathematical Software

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The American Mathematical society has an opinion piece about open source software vs propietary software used in mathematics. From the article : "Increasingly, proprietary software and the algorithms used are an essential part of mathematical proofs. To quote J. Neubüser, 'with this situation two of the most basic rules of conduct in mathematics are violated: In mathematics information is passed on free of charge and everything is laid open for checking.'"
Businesses

Submission + - JBoss sales data reveals secrets of its success (cnet.com)

Submitted by
mjasay
mjasay writes: "For those who insist that open source only works as a high-volume, low-ASP (Average Sales Price) game, they've obviously never worked for an open-source company. At least, not long enough. As leaked JBoss ASP numbers show, open-source companies like JBoss are rapidly moving beyond departmental implementations (small dollars) to enterprise-wide deployments (big dollars). This is the natural progression for any successful commercial open-source project. Invade the enterprise through free downloads and let the positive experience percolate throughout an enterprise until the CIO pushes a site-wide license. Importantly, it all starts with a website (from which 84% of JBoss' sales leads came) and developers, and the process continues to revolve around writing great code that developers will want, download, and propagate."
Security

Hushmail Passing PGP Keys to the US Government 303

Posted by Zonk from the this-would-be-nonoptimal dept.
teknopurge writes "Apparently Hushmail has been providing information to law enforcement behind the backs of their clients. Billed as secure email because of their use of PGP, Hushmail has been turning over private keys of users to the authorities on request. 'DEA agents received three CDs which contained decrypted emails for the targets of the investigation that had been decrypted as part of a mutual legal assistance treaty between the United States and Canada. The news will be embarrassing to the company, which has made much of its ability to ensure that emails are not read by the authorities, including the FBI's Carnivore email monitoring software.'"
The Media

Submission + - Journalists Can't Hide News Anymore 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Robert Niles at the Online Journalism Review comments on the story about the 13-year-old girl who took her own life after making friends with a boy she'd met on MySpace who turned on her. The boy didn't exist. 'He' was the creation of the mother of one of the girl's former friends. But the newspaper didn't name the woman, citing concerns for *her* teen daughter. Bloggers went nuts, and soon uncovered the woman's name, her address, phone number and business registration records and plastered them all over the Web. "The lessons for journalists? First, we can't restrict access to information anymore. The crowd will work together to find whatever we withhold," wrote Niles. "Second, I wonder if that the decision to withhold the other mother's name didn't help enflame the audience, by frustrating it and provoking it to do the work of discovering her identity." Here are links to the original story on the girl's suicide, to one of the bloggers who uncovered the woman's identity, and to another look at the journalistic issues involved in naming names."
Movies

Submission + - Star Trek Home Theater (slashfilm.com)

Submitted by
Critical Facilities
Critical Facilities writes: "I stumbled across this story which should make any "Star Trek: The Next Generation" fan drool uncontrollably with envy. From TFA:

Someone thought it would be a good idea to model their home theater after the Enterprise NCC-1701D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. The result is super geeky, but actually rather cool. Named the best theme theater installation at CEDIA 2007, this Palm Beach County, FL home features motion-activated air-lock doors with series sound effects, and a "Red Alert" button on the Crestron TPMC-10 controller to turn all of the LEDs bright red and flashing.
I'm just interested as to whether or not the bartender has to dress like Guinan and if Starfleet Uniforms are required for access."
Security

Submission + - Cryptography experts sounding alarms

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "First we learn from Bruce Schneier that the NSA may have left itself a secret back door in an officially sanctioned cryptographic random-number generator that would allow the good guys to easily decipher encrypted messages sent between bad guys (not to mention anyone else). Now Adi Shamir is warning that a math error unknown to a chip maker but discovered by a bad guy could lead to serious consequences, too. Remember the Intel blunder of 1996?

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/22026"
Google

Submission + - Google: Leave No E-Mail Behind

Submitted by thanosk
thanosk writes: Google has taken another step in the attempt to convince users from relinquishing their precious Microsoft Office applications. With Outlook being the one that holds most users captive to the Microsoft suite will the release of an API for Outlook migration to Gmail convince executives to move to an on-line Office suite ?
Networking

Submission + - Internet2 completes year-long transition to Level3

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Internet2 announced today that they completed their year-long network upgrade. The IP network and new DCN network are provisioned atop Level3-managed Infinera optical equipment. The optical network has an initial capacity of 100Gbps and can scale up to 400Gbps with minimal hardware augmentation. The engineers at the Indiana University Global Research NOC have been keeping the community updated with a blog to document the upgrade process. The announcement of the upgrade was originally covered in 2006 here and here.
Education

Submission + - Re-Engineering Engineering

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "In its College Issue, the NYT Magazine profiles tuition-free Olin College, which is building a different breed of engineer, stressing creativity, teamwork and entrepreneurship — and, in no small part, courage. But questions remain as to whether the industry is ready for the freethinking products of Olin, and vice versa — few of the class of 2006 are going on to grad study in engineering or jobs in the field."

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