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Submission + - Assange speaks on WikiLeaks accomplishments (newmoov.com)

Submitted by newmoov
newmoov writes: Julian Assange says the main accomplishment of WikiLeaks has been the 'lionization' of journalistic sources, who are the real heroes in exposing truth. Seems like a valid point.

Submission + - Love it or hate it, we must defend Wikileaks (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by
WebMink
WebMink writes: "Whether you approve of Wikileaks or not (and the author clearly isn't a fan), the weakness it exposes in web and cloud service provision and the reaction it will provoke from legislators must concern us all. Despite the writer's distaste for Wikileaks (and The Pirate Bay) themselves, the article calls on us to defend their ability to exist against the coming onslaught of Internet-toxic legislation."

Submission + - My GPL code has been... patented! 4

Submitted by ttsiod
ttsiod writes: Back in 2001, I coded HeapCheck, a GPL library for Windows (inspired by ElectricFence) that detected invalid read/write accesses on any heap allocations at runtime — thus greatly helping my debugging sessions. I published it on my site, and got a few users who were kind enough to thank me — a Serbian programmer even sent me 250$ as a thank you (I still have his mails). After a few years, Microsoft included very similar technology in the operating system itself, calling it PageHeap. I had more or less forgotten these stuff, since for the last 7 years I've been coding for UNIX/Linux, where valgrind superseeded Efence/dmalloc/etc. Imagine my surprise, when yesterday, Googling for references to my site, I found out that the technology I implemented, of runtime detection of invalid heap accesses, has been patented in the States, and to add insult to injury, even mentions my site (via a non-working link to an old version of my page) in the patent references! After the necessary "WTFs" and "bloody hells" I thought this merrits (a) a Slashdotting, and (b) a set of honest questions: what should I do about this? I am not an American citizen, but the "inventors" of this technology (see their names in the top of the patent) have apparently succeeded in passing this ludicrous patent in the States. If my code doesn't count as prior art, Bruce Perens's Efence (which I clearly state my code was inspired from) is at least 12 years prior! Suggestions/cursing patent trolls most welcome.
User Journal

Journal Journal: Backscanner required for reentering USA? 7

Journal by Stargoat

Apparently, American citizens who re-enter the country are being required to pass through a backscatter X-Ray scanner - one of the nude scanners. A man, Matt Kernan, objected on the grounds that there was no security concern and that it was a violation of his 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure. It turns out the TSA cannot unreasonably detain an American citizen with hi

Submission + - Re-entering the country, skipping the TSA (noblasters.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: If you are a citizen, you cannot be denied re-entry to the country. The fourth amendment guarantees that you cannot be searched without probable cause. It took 2.5 hours, but blogger Matt Kernan proves it is possible to convince even the TSA of your constitutional rights.
Privacy

Submission + - Online Behavior Could Influence Insurance Rates (wsj.com)

Submitted by storagedude
storagedude writes: There seems to be no end to the ways your personal data and online behavior can be used against you. According to the Wall Street Journal, insurance companies are considering using online behavioral and social networking data to try to weed out insurance risks. What you read, what you buy, how much TV you watch, your credit, your fan pages ... it could all be used to predict your longevity and insurance risk. The practice, which appears to be in the early stages, could raise concerns with the FTC and insurance regulators, but insurance and data mining companies say they just plan to use it to speed up the applications of people who appear to be good risks; others would have to go through more rigorous traditional screening.

Submission + - China Defends its IP Practices: We Paid Up (google.com)

Submitted by hackingbear
hackingbear writes: Countering accusations that China's high-speed rail technologies are knock-offs, the head of China's Intellectual Property Administration said in a conference (Google translate; the original is here) that "We bought technologies from German, Japan, France, and Canada. We paid up. It is perfectly legal. We then innovate on top of them like most other inventions in the world. Why is that pirating?" He cited China's ability, the world's first, to build high speed in (high) mountain area as an example of the additional innovations.
Transportation

Submission + - A Giant Cargo Ship's Pollution = 50 MILLION Cars (greencarreports.com)

Submitted by thecarchik
thecarchik writes: One giant container ship pollutes the air as much as 50 million cars. Yes, that's 50 million. Which means that just 15 ships that size emit as much as today's entire global "car park" of roughly 750 million vehicles. Among the bad stuff: Sulfur, soot, and other particulate matter that embeds itself in human lungs to cause a variety of cardiopulmonary illnesses. Since the mid-1970s, developed countries have imposed increasingly strict regulations on auto emissions. In three decades, precise electronic engine controls, new high-pressure injectors, and sophisticated catalytic converters have cut emissions of nitrous oxides, carbon dioxides, and hydrocarbons by more than 98 percent. New regulations will further reduce these already minute limits.
But ships today are where cars were in 1965: utterly uncontrolled, free to emit whatever they like. Just one of many statistics: A car driven 9,000 miles a year emits 3.5 ounces of sulfur oxides--while the engine in a large cargo ship produces 5,500 tons.
Security

Submission + - Shocker - Press Make Up China Internet Hijack (arbornetworks.com)

Submitted by sturgeon
sturgeon writes: Yesterday, Slashdot and most of the world's major media outlets reported on China's April 2010 hijack of "15% of Internet traffic," including sensitive US government and defense sites. The alarm came following a US Government report on China / US economic and security relations released on Tuesday.

Unfortunately, no one much bother with fact checking or actually reading the report. The actual study never makes any estimate of Internet traffic diverted during the hijack — it only cites a blog post to suggest large volumes of traffic were involved. And curiously, the cited blog at the heart of the report never mentions traffic at all — only routes. You have to go to an interview with a third-party security researcher in a minor trade magazine to first come up with the 15% number (and this article never explains where the number came from).

In an amazing review of real data and actual facts, Arbor Nework's Craig Labovitz has a blog post looking at the traffic volumes involved in the incident (only a couple of Gigabits per second or a "statistically insignificant" percentage of Internet traffic).
Encryption

Submission + - 15% of the internet routed through China in April (washingtontimes.com)

Submitted by olsmeister
olsmeister writes: For 18 minutes this past April, 15% of the world's internet traffic was routed through servers in China. This includes traffic from both .gov and .mil US TLD's. Is this related to the recent hacking of gmail accounts that appear to have originated in China? Probably not ... but the moral of the story is, if you're sending sensitive information across the net, make sure it is encrypted.
Earth

Journal Journal: Totally cool!

Journal by countertrolling

But I sure hope nobody was flying through it! As far as I know their onboard radar still can't pick that up.

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"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like `Psychic Wins Lottery.'" -- Comedian Jay Leno

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