Submission + - Beards of FOSS (wordpress.com)
kriegs writes: Too good to pass up — The beards of FOSS reviewed. Who's got the best facial hair in the open source community?
Comment Make them use it . . . . (Score 1) 5
Personally, I've found immersion works best when I'm trying to pick something up myself. I'd probably start with a bare machine and something much lower level than ubuntu (maybe a gentoo install?) and work their way up. Of course, that's easier said than done :)
Submission + - What happens when you steal a hackers computer... (defcon.org) 1
Agent__Smith writes: This is a presentation from DEFCON 18 in Las Vegas. Apparently some looser kicked in the door to Zoz Brooks appartment and stole his computer. Unfortunately for said looser, it was a MAC and as the thief had no MAC OS disks to wipe the system, he used it without modification. Zoz is a professor at MIT and as he travels and lectures all over the world, he had software installed so that he could log into the machine remotely. 4 months or so after the theft, the system showed up on the interweb, and Zoz began several months of detective work to get his system back. In so doing, he realized that the looser was using his system to fill out documents for government programs (now had his name address soc sec number etc...) and that he apparently has an affinity for Brazilian women with large rear ends. And as such was using the system to put pictures of himself (sans clothing) trying to hook up. (now we know what he looks like) It gets even better when this idiot uses the intact keychain to store all of his passwords (banking, facebook, ebay etc...) It is a hilarious story and well worth a listen. From the defcon.org website, you can hear the entire presentation, complete with slides of the things that Zoz found on this guy. I have to say that this was easily the funniest presentation of Defcon 18.
Submission + - New NASA Model Refutes Global Warming Alarmists (theregister.co.uk)
Dialecticus writes: According to an article by Lewis Page at The Register, NASA says that most theoretical models of global warming fail to take into account the cooling effects of how plant life would react to higher CO2 levels in the atmosphere. NASA's new model reportedly indicates that even something as extreme as a doubling of current CO2 levels would only result in a 1.64 degree Celsius increase in overall global temperatures, with temperature increases over land being even less than that. The article does not specifically mention whether increased photosynthesis would have a natural regulating effect on CO2 levels due to the commensurate increase in the rate of naturally occurring carbon sequestration.
Submission + - Scientists Discover Solar Powered Hornets (goodcleantech.com) 2
adeelarshad82 writes: The oriental hornet is more active during the day, and tends to become even more active as the temperature rises. And now scientists have discovered the reason: the hornets are solar powered. It turns out that the distinctive yellow stripe on the hornet's abdomen is actually full of tiny protrusions that gather sunlight and harness it for energy. The insect also features a special pigment, called xanthopterin, that helps with the process.
Submission + - Climategate fallout - climate data integrity bill
radioweather writes: Senator David Vitter's office has just released the draft of Senate Bill 4015, the Public Access to Historical Records Act. This comes due to some years long Freedom of Information reticence on the part of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies The bill if passed, will ensure that climate data from NOAA and NASA get rigorous quality control and would force NASA and NOAA's National Climatic Data Center to release the raw temperature data, sans adjustments to the US historical temperature record, and then compile a new historic official U.S. temperature record that would be compiled under NASA supervision but under a council of appointed meteorologists and statisticians. The goal is for the U.S. to have the best, most transparent historic temperature record in the world.
A Nude Awakening — the TSA and Privacy 728
DIplomatic writes "The Oklahoma Daily has a well-written editorial about the current state of airport security. Though the subject has overly-commented on, this article is well worth the read. Quoting: 'The risk of a terrorist attack is so infinitesimal and its impact so relatively insignificant that it doesn't make rational sense to accept the suspension of liberty for the sake of avoiding a statistical anomaly. There's no purpose in security if it debases the very life it intends to protect, yet the forced choice one has to make between privacy and travel does just that. If you want to travel, you have a choice between low-tech fondling or high-tech pornography; the choice, therefore, to relegate your fundamental rights in exchange for a plane ticket. Not only does this paradigm presume that one's right to privacy is variable contingent on the government's discretion and only respected in places that the government doesn't care to look — but it also ignores that the fundamental right to travel has consistently been upheld by the Supreme Court. If we have both the right to privacy and the right to travel, then TSA's newest procedures cannot conceivably be considered legal. The TSA's regulations blatantly compromise the former at the expense of the latter, and as time goes on we will soon forget what it meant to have those rights.'"
Submission + - Is 'Quadroid' The New 'Wintel'? (computerworld.com)
CWmike writes: 'Wintel' is the term that for years defined Windows-based computers running Intel chips. Now a similar expression is emerging for smartphones: 'Quadroid,' a term that refers to the Qualcomm chips used inside smartphones running the Android mobile operating system. The term, recently coined in a report by the PRTM consultancy, could catch on, largely because Qualcomm provides 77% of the chips in phones running Google's Android, which is expected to take the No. 2 slot in 2010. And the Quadroid alliance is expected to grow. Like Wintel has been for PCs, Quadroid could push down profit margins for smartphone manufacturers, some analysts say. That might seem like a good thing to consumers, but may not be so good for many phone makers.
Submission + - Jailtime For Jailbreaking Phones
An anonymous reader writes: Remember how the Librarian of Congress announced that jailbreaking your phone was legal and not a violation of the DMCA? Yeah, well, tell that to Mohamad Majed, who has already spent over a year in jail and has now been pressured into pleading guilty to criminal DMCA violations for jailbreaking phones for use on other carriers.
Submission + - Moscow's bid to blow up Wikileaks (thedailybeast.com) 1
mark72005 writes: National-security officials say that the National Security Agency, the U.S. government's eavesdropping agency, has already picked up tell-tale electronic evidence that WikiLeaks is under close surveillance by the Russian FSB, that country's domestic spy network, out of fear in Moscow that WikiLeaks is prepared to release damaging personal information about Kremlin leaders. "We may not have been able to stop WikiLeaks so far, and it's been frustrating," a U.S. law-enforcement official tells The Daily Beast. "The Russians play by different rules."
Submission + - Tandberg attempts to patent open source code (multimedia.cx)
An anonymous reader writes: As if the current situation with software patents wasn't bad enough, it appears a new phenomenon is emerging: companies are watching the commit logs of open source projects for ideas to patent. In this case, Tandberg filed a patent that was step-by-step identical to an algorithm developed by the x264 project — a mere two months after the original commit. The particular algorithm is a useful performance optimization in a wide variety of video encoders, including Theora.
Submission + - Cybersecurity bill gives DHS power to punish tech (cnet.com)
suraj.sun writes: Cybersecurity bill gives DHS power to punish tech firms:
Democratic politicians are proposing a novel approach to cybersecurity: fine technology companies $100,000 a day unless they comply with directives imposed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Legislation introduced this week would allow DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to levy those and other civil penalties on noncompliant companies that the government deems "critical," a broad term that could sweep in Web firms, broadband providers, and even software companies and search engines.
"This bill will make our nation more secure and better positions DHS--the 'focal point for the security of cyberspace'--to fulfill its critical homeland security mission," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20023464-38.html
Democratic politicians are proposing a novel approach to cybersecurity: fine technology companies $100,000 a day unless they comply with directives imposed by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Legislation introduced this week would allow DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano to levy those and other civil penalties on noncompliant companies that the government deems "critical," a broad term that could sweep in Web firms, broadband providers, and even software companies and search engines.
"This bill will make our nation more secure and better positions DHS--the 'focal point for the security of cyberspace'--to fulfill its critical homeland security mission," said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20023464-38.html
Oregon Senator Seeks To Block COICA 81
jfruhlinger writes "The COICA copyright bill may have sailed through committee, but that doesn't mean it's a done deal. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, calling it the 'wrong medicine' to block copyright violations, is threatening to put a hold on the bill, which would block its adoption through at least the end of the year."
Senate Panel Approves Website Shut-Down Bill 390
itwbennett writes "The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted 19-0 in favor of a bill that would allow the Department of Justice to seek court orders to shut down websites offering materials believed to infringe copyright. 'Rogue websites are essentially digital stores selling illegal and sometimes dangerous products,' Senator Patrick Leahy, the main sponsor of the bill, said in a statement. 'If they existed in the physical world, the store would be shuttered immediately and the proprietors would be arrested. We cannot excuse the behavior because it happens online and the owners operate overseas. The Internet needs to be free — not lawless.' However, the internet will likely remain 'lawless' for a while longer, as there are only a few working days left in the congressional session and the bill is unlikely to pass through the House of Representatives in that short amount of time."
Submission + - Airports begin to go private, opt-out of TSA (wdbo.com) 4
Dthief writes:
Orlando Sanford International Airport has decided to opt out from TSA screening. "All of our due diligence shows it's the way to go," said Larry Dale, the director of the Sanford Airport Authority. "You're going to get better service at a better price and more accountability and better customer service."
