Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Software

Submission + - Download.com now wraps downloads in bloatware (extremetech.com) 1

Submitted by
MrSeb
MrSeb writes: "At Download.com, page designs have been repeatedly tweaked over the years to push its updater software (now called TechTracker), TrialPay offers, and the site's mailing list. Bothersome, perhaps, but certainly not inexcusable. They've got to make money off the site somehow, after all, and banner ads don't always do the job. Now, things have taken a turn for the worse: Cnet has begun wrapping downloads in its own proprietary installer.

Not only will this cause the reputation of free, legitimate software to be tarred by Cnet's bloatware toolbars, homepage changes, and new default search engines — but Cnet is even claiming that their installer wrapping is 'for the users.'"
China

Submission + - Chinese Propaganda Accidentally Reveals Cyberwar (theepochtimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A Chinese military propaganda video aired in mid-July inadvertently showed a Chinese military university launching cyberattacks against U.S. websites. The Epoch Times reports the video shows 'custom-built Chinese software apparently launching a cyber-attack against the main website of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, by using a compromised IP address belonging to a United States university.' A screen in the video also reveals 'the name of the software and the Chinese university that built it, the Electrical Engineering University of China's People's Liberation Army.'

Submission + - Web host disables accounts due to twitter argument (reddit.com)

Submitted by
asto21
asto21 writes: "Quoting a reddit post by "berfarah":

I found myself engaged in a dispute with a rep of This* after he DMed my friend on Twitter saying this. I told them they had just lost a customer. He replied saying:

        Fantastic. Perhaps you can sign up with a hosting provider who doesn't take privacy seriously then. Enjoy.

It irked me that he didn't seem to care about lost customers, and I replied that it was supremely unprofessional, and now found myself in an argument as to why.

What followed was the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen a company do. He said it had nothing to do with unprofessionalism — and then suspended my account, that of my friend's, and I got an email saying I could ask for backups if I wanted, but that all of my sites were now down.

Clearly whoever runs This* cannot deal with their customers — they can't separate the personal from the professional, and if they get pissed, they delete you — the specific reason in my friend's email for termination? "Twitter nonsense".

I'm still shocked by this exchange..."

Submission + - Web host disables accounts due to twitter argument (reddit.com)

Submitted by
asto21
asto21 writes: "Posted on reddit, "berfarah" complains that his hosting account was disabled after he had a brief argument about a friend's account with his provider on twitter. From reddit:

I found myself engaged in a dispute with a rep of This* after he DMed my friend on Twitter saying this. I told them they had just lost a customer. He replied saying:

        Fantastic. Perhaps you can sign up with a hosting provider who doesn't take privacy seriously then. Enjoy.

It irked me that he didn't seem to care about lost customers, and I replied that it was supremely unprofessional, and now found myself in an argument as to why.

What followed was the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen a company do. He said it had nothing to do with unprofessionalism — and then suspended my account, that of my friend's, and I got an email saying I could ask for backups if I wanted, but that all of my sites were now down.

Clearly whoever runs This* cannot deal with their customers — they can't separate the personal from the professional, and if they get pissed, they delete you — the specific reason in my friend's email for termination? "Twitter nonsense".

I'm still shocked by this exchange..."

Comment Re:Yeah, welll ... (Score 1) 553

by asto21 (#36974844) Attached to: Facebook Exec: Online Anonymity Must Go Away
You're overestimating them. The only reason everybody's still there is because everybody's still there. The reason everybody got there in the first place was not because it was amazing, but because it was better than Orkut. Most who've tried Google+ think it's better than facebook. Deja vu? Perhaps the same can be said of congress. I'm not American so I'm not familiar with your politicians. But it could well be that they get re-elected because there's nobody better.

Submission + - The Epidemic of Digital Distraction (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by
asto21
asto21 writes: "Almost no one does just one thing anymore. The screens won't let us. And in an incredible burst of human evolution, our minds have grown accustomed to monitoring multiple inputs at once. Yeah, you're reading this post. But we're nearly three paragraphs in. So if you're anything like me, it's about that time to check Twitter, count the additions to your Google Plus circles, read a handful of new incoming email messages, and chime in on a couple of ongoing instant message conversations. But wait."

Comment Re:Yeah, welll ... (Score 2) 553

by asto21 (#36970754) Attached to: Facebook Exec: Online Anonymity Must Go Away
No no. Randi Zuckerberg is a dipshit whose business model revolves around getting hired by family! Regardless of her opinion on the matter or Facebook's vested interests in such a move, that was a stupid thing to say. Not something you would typically expect from a "marketing director".
The Internet

Submission + - Internet Explorer IQ bashing was a hoax (itpro.co.uk)

Submitted by
twoheadedboy
twoheadedboy writes: "Earlier this week, a report claimed Internet Explorer users received lower IQ tests than those running other browsers. We now know it was a hoax. The biggest giveaway was the fact that AptiQuant – the 'company' responsible for the purported research – had information on its website copied from another company called Central Test. After further investigations, it emerged AptiQuant does not appear to be a real company. Central Test is now planning action against those responsible for taking info from its site. This leaves us with the question of why such an elaborate rouse was carried out, fooling hundreds of writers from trade journalists to nationals like the BBC? Was it just a big joke? Or was it a PR smear campaign against IE?"

Comment Re:Does this matter (Score 1, Informative) 230

by asto21 (#36958546) Attached to: Are We Seeing the End of Big Oil?
Of course it does. You encrypt using a somebody's public key. They decrypt with their private key. The client applications would manage the keyring and encryption/decryption without the user having to do much. In any case, chuck it. I don't want to run a parallel discussion on my article on this thread. The point I was making is that something (even if rather sketchy) that is tech related and quite relevant now is shot down but this story was posted.

Slashdot Top Deals

SCCS, the source motel! Programs check in and never check out! -- Ken Thompson

Close