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372453 submission

Submission + - US Botmaster admits infecting 250,000 computers

Submitted by Stony Stevenson on Saturday November 10, 2007 @10:09AM

Stony Stevenson writes: A Los Angeles man on Friday admitted infecting 250,000 computers and stealing the identities of thousands of people by wiretapping their communications and accessing their bank accounts. John Schiefer, 26, agreed to plead guilty to four counts of fraud and wiretap charges that could lead to a US$1.75 million fine and send him to prison for up to 60 years, the Los Angeles U.S. Attorney's office said. Prosecutors said Schiefer and an unspecified number of conspirators installed malicious computer codes that acted as a wiretap on compromised computers and intercepted messages to www.paypal.com and similar Web sites. He retrieved usernames and passwords and used them to access an unknown number of bank accounts. Prosecutors said they were still investigating how much money was stolen and the number of victims.

372093 submission

Submission + - FCC Planning Rules to Open Cable Market (nytimes.com)

Submitted by quanticle on Saturday November 10, 2007 @12:02AM

quanticle writes: According to the New York Times, the FCC is planning to unveil new regulations for the cable market that will lower barriers to entry for independent programmers.

The rules would be aimed at stopping the growth of existing cable giants like Comcast and Time Warner, while seeking to encourage more small companies to get into the field. Also, earlier this month, the FCC struck down the practice of having exclusive contracts between cable providers and apartment owners.

All in all, this looks like a welcome infusion of competition into an otherwise stagnant market. The impact that this will have on the network neutrality debate is unclear.

371603 submission

Submission + - MD To Tax Computer Services (baltimoresun.com) 2

Submitted by Mr. C on Friday November 09, 2007 @04:38PM

Mr. C writes: The Maryland Senate added an ammendment to the tax code during a special session which imposes a 6% Service tax on all computer related services and activities effective Jan 1. The Budget and Taxation Committee scrapped the expansion to real property management services and tanning, massage, physical fitness, sauna, or steam bath facilities or services that would have generated an estimated $60 million. They replaced those services with computer services, landscaping and arcades, which will generate an estimated $300 million. The bill is facing some flak in the Senate but it's going largely unnoticed by the public since the new industries that are targeted were given no warning about the language which was inserted Wednesday. amendment (pdf)

356997 submission

Submission + - Ohio University finds key to getting RIAA to stop 7

Submitted by

NewYorkCountryLawyer

on Wednesday October 31, 2007 @03:26PM

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "Ohio University, in Athens, Ohio, has found the key to getting the RIAA to stop inundating it and its students with "settlement" letters. According to the university's student online publication, the university paid $60,000, plus $16,000 per year "maintenance", to Audible Magic, the business partner of the RIAA's all-purpose expert witness Dr. Doug Jacobson, for its "CopySense" filtering software. Once it made the payments, the letters stopped. This of course raises a lot of questions as to the 'disinterestedness' of Dr. Jacobson, whose deposition in the UMG v. Lindor case was the subject of interesting Slashdot commentary."

342173 submission

Submission + - A New Resource for Teaching about Evolution (mcgill.ca)

Submitted by

Jason R. Wiles

on Monday October 22, 2007 @04:35PM

Jason R. Wiles writes: "The McGill Journal of Education, a long-standing, internationally respected, and fully peer-reviewed journal, has just released a special issue dealing with the teaching and learning of biological (and geological & cosmological) evolution. The issue, freely available online, features articles, opinions, and reviews by well known experts on evolution education. PZ Meyers of Pharyngula calls it a "must-read for science educators"."

333509 submission

Submission + - Brazil police arrest Cisco executives on tax fraud (reuters.com)

Submitted by

rootguy

on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @06:53PM

rootguy writes: "Brazilian police arrested at least 40 people on Tuesday, including senior executives at Cisco Systems Inc, in a massive tax fraud investigation targeting the U.S.-based technology and network company."

333493 submission

Submission + - Staph Superbug Becoming More Common (geeksinaction.org)

Submitted by

stoolpigeon

on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @06:45PM

stoolpigeon writes: "MSM outlets are running an AP story about drug resistant staph infections that are causing an increasing number of deaths. The story says that these infections may be killing more people in the United States than AIDS. Good hygiene and limiting the use of antibiotics are listed as methods of controling the problem."

333437 submission

Submission + - Brazilian police arrests top Cisco execs

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 16, 2007 @06:06PM

An anonymous reader writes: According to various Brazilian news agencies, top executives from local Cisco operation have been arrested today in what was called "Operation Persona". There's evidence of huge tax fraud (at least R$1,5B, roughly US$830M) involving Cisco (mostly) and others companies. Hardware was imported below its price to evade customs taxes. There's already many links covering this story, as it's still developing (just portuguese for now, sorry).

330353 submission

Submission + - Australian On-Line Poll Based Senator, Dangerous?

Submitted by exeme on Monday October 15, 2007 @06:29AM

exeme writes: The 2007 Australian election was recently announced and a new completely on-line based political party is running for election to the Australian Senate. Senator On-Line will give Australian residents eligible to vote a chance to vote in on-line polls for every piece of legislation that comes to the Senate. The senator will then blindly vote in accordance with the majority.

The party has no position on anything until it is voted on and has been approved by the Australian Electoral Commission as a legitimate party. The party will be running two candidates in each Australian state.

It's a new and interesting idea, but is giving the unwashed masses the chance to vote on party positions in this way a wise idea or something fraught with danger?

326737 submission

Submission + - First Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Li 2

Submitted by

walterbyrd

on Thursday October 11, 2007 @10:29PM

walterbyrd writes: "According to the blog post on groklaw: IP Innovation LLC has just filed a patent infringement claim against Red Hat and Novell. It was filed October 9, case no. 2:2007cv00447, IP Innovation, LLC et al v. Red Hat Inc. et al, in Texas. Where else? The patent troll magnet state — Texas."

326629 submission

Submission + - Story on spammer Alexey Tolstokozhev a fake (taint.org)

Submitted by

wolfeon

on Thursday October 11, 2007 @07:40PM

wolfeon writes: "The story http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/11/2157244 posted today is a fake, sorry. After doing a simple google search, the facts were very clear on the following, http://taint.org/2007/10/11/203243a.html Please ignore the story and lets move on, this is a very bad practical joke. I was very excited and happy until I performed a google search and looked on the ROSKO list.

The story originated from this site, http://loonov.com/russian-viagra-and-penis-enlargement-spammer-murdered.htm The creation date of loonov.com is "11-oct-2007". Did anyone else see this before making comments or giving a thumbs up on firehose?"

325113 submission

Submission + - College Applicants Resorting to Thank-You Notes

Submitted by

theodp

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:20PM

theodp writes: "Think there couldn't be anything less sincere than the post-job interview thank-you note? Think again. The NY Times reports that post-college visit thank-you notes are all the rage amongst desperate 17-year-old college applicants. Take the prospective Lehigh coed, whose thank-you note asking admissions officials to 'Keep me on the tip of your tongue' was accompanied with Lehigh-brown-and-white M&Ms inscribed with her name. To their credit, MIT admissions officials toss such drivel."

325095 submission

Submission + - AT&T issues formal 'censorship' mea culpa

Submitted by

netbuzz

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @09:05PM

netbuzz writes: "AT&T this evening has issued new terms of use language that it hopes will cap a firestorm of protest over the original version that appeared to give the company freedom to pull the plug on anyone who had the temerity to criticize AT&T or its affiliates. Whether you believed that threat to be real or overblown, the new language would seem to put the issue to rest.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20460"

324787 submission

Submission + - Mom blasts Ballmer over kid's crappy Vista OS (computerworld.com) 6

Submitted by

Lucas123

on Wednesday October 10, 2007 @04:57PM

Lucas123 writes: "While on stage at a Gartner's ITxpo conference today, Ballmer got an ear-full from the mother of a 13-year-old girl who said after installing Vista on her daughter's computer she decided only two days later to switch back to XP because Vista was so difficult. Ballmer defended Vista saying: "Your daughter saw a lot of value"; to which the mother replied: "She's 13." Ballmer said that Vista is bigger than XP, and "for some people that's an issue, and it's not going to get smaller in any significant way in SP1. But machines are constantly getting bigger, and [it's] probably important to remember that as well." Says the mother: "Good, I'll let you come in and install it for me.""

323273 submission

Submission + - Radiohead's "In Rainbows" pre-release e-ma (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

routerl

on Tuesday October 09, 2007 @09:46PM

routerl writes: "Rolling Stone reported on this about a week ago, and the album's website has been up for a while. Then, at 4:26 pm, I received (as I'm sure did many others) the following e-mail:

THANK YOU FOR ORDERING IN RAINBOWS. THIS IS AN UPDATE.

YOUR UNIQUE ACTIVATION CODE(S) WILL BE SENT OUT TOMORROW MORNING (UK TIME). THIS WILL TAKE YOU STRAIGHT TO THE DOWNLOAD AREA.

HERE IS SOME INFORMATION ABOUT THE DOWNLOAD:

THE ALBUM WILL COME AS A 48.4MB ZIP FILE CONTAINING 10 X 160KBPS DRM FREE MP3s.

MOST COMPUTERS NOW HAVE ZIP SOFTWARE AS PART OF THE OPERATING SYSTEM; IF YOUR COMPUTER DOES NOT, YOU NEED TO GET WINZIP OR ZIPIT INSTALLED PRIOR.

YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THEM HERE:

PC: http://www.winzip.com/ MAC: http://www.maczipit.com/

IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR PROBLEMS DOWNLOADING YOUR FILE, PLEASE CONTACT OUR DOWNLOAD CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAM AT downloadinrainbows@waste.uk.com

Solely as an experiment (I intend to buy the album at least once more), I paid zero pounds. But, sure enough, the DRM free MP3s would still be available, accompanied by friendly assistance with compression formats (not every Radiohead fan reads /.)."

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