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Networking

Submission + - Cisco Customers Seeing VMware's Charms (informationweek.com)

Submitted by
gManZboy
gManZboy writes: "Back in 1983, the Ethernet market was led by 3Com, Digital Equipment Corp., and possibly Intel. Cisco was still just a gleam in the eyes of Leonard Bosack and Sandy Lerner. TCP/IP was far from the leading protocol that used Ethernet as its underpinnings. Apple had AppleTalk, DEC had DECnet, Novell had IPX/SPX, 3Com had its own protocol. Multiprotocol routers were mostly a theory. Cisco jumped into this void with the promise that it would route just about any protocol that could be routed. Its hardware was robust, it performed well, and Cisco's engineering team would find a fix to practically any problem its customers had.

IT pros would like that Cisco back.

When InformationWeek asked 588 IT pros what they think about Cisco, and what they think the company needs to do to remain competitive, the top two responses were lower product prices and focus on your roots.

The real shocker: Among respondents looking to use less Cisco gear in the future, 38% mentioned interest in VMware. Should Cisco worry about the software-defined data center rhetoric? You bet."
Mars

Submission + - Rover Finds Ancient Streambed on Martian Surface (nasa.gov)

Submitted by
sighted
sighted writes: "NASA reports that its Curiosity rover mission has found evidence that a stream once ran vigorously — and for a sustained amount of time — across the area on Mars where the rover is driving. There is, of course, earlier evidence for the presence of water on Mars, but NASA says this evidence, images of rocks containing ancient streambed gravels, is the first of its kind."
Hardware

Submission + - Future of Data Center Processors: No Wimpy Cores? (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "Analyst Paul Teich writes:

I’ve often been asked to compare big, sophisticated Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron processors against Intel Atom variants, potential AMD “cat” derivatives, and a handful of ARM parts seeping into the server market at the low end. The usual request is to perform an apples-to-apples comparison of “brawny” vs. “wimpy” cores by theoretically removing the big-cored Xeon and Opteron parts from a two-socket or 4-socket server and replace them with “equivalent” small core parts.

That request doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, and it’s a manufactured argument designed to favor the incumbent big-core parts over a short-term time horizon. Here’s why."
Iphone

Submission + - Innovation is a dead horse at Apple (patexia.com)

Submitted by ericjones12398
ericjones12398 writes: The iPhone 5 debuted this week, causing underwhelmed responses to the latest toy from Cupertino. As the first big iPhone release since the death of Steve Jobs, Apple was under a lot of pressure to wow their audience and the general public. The result? An iPhone 4S with a slightly larger screen, mostly, but also a little more juice under the hood, lighter weight and a longer battery life. The Internet quickly took to calling the device "the iPhone 4SS."
Crime

Submission + - DEA Lack of Data Storage Results in Dismissed Drug Case (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "Dr. Armando Angulo was indicted in 2007 on charges of illegally selling prescription drugs. He fled the country in 2004, with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and U.S. Marshals Service eventually finding him in Panama.

As the case developed (and Panama resisted calls to extradite Angulo back to the United States), the DEA apparently amassed so much electronic data that maintaining it is now a hardship; consequently, the government wants to drop the whole case.

“These materials include two terabytes of electronic data (which consume approximately 5 percent of DEA’s world-wide electronic storage capacity),” Stephanie M. Rose, the U.S. attorney for northern Iowa, wrote in the government’s July motion to dismiss the indictment. “Continued storage of these materials is difficult and expensive.” In addition, information associated with the case had managed to fill “several hundred boxes” of paper documents, along with dozens of computers and servers.

As pointed out by Ars Technica, if two terabytes of data storage represents 5 percent of the DEA’s global capacity, then the agency has only 40 terabytes worth of storage overall. That seems quite small for a law enforcement agency tasked with coordinating and pursuing any number of drug investigations at any given time."

Submission + - Can't Pass the Cybersecurity Bill? Sign an Executive Order (thehill.com) 2

Submitted by
Mephistophocles
Mephistophocles writes: "What do you do when you can't get a bill through congress? Why, you just get the president to sign an executive order, of course! The Hill reports that Senator Jay Rockefeller of Virginia is doing exactly that:

"[B]ecause it is very unclear whether the Senate will come to agreement on cybersecurity legislation in the near future, I urge you to explore and employ every lever of executive power that you possess to protect this country from the cyber threat," Rockefeller wrote in a letter to Obama on Monday. "We must act to address our cyber vulnerabilities as soon as possible and many components of the Cybersecurity Act are amenable to implementation via executive order, normal regulatory processes, or other executive action under the authorities of the Homeland Security Act."

The bill in question failed to pass congressional vote earlier this year. So much for due process."
DRM

Submission + - DRM'd Steam for Linux games is 'unethical' Says Richard Stallman (paritynews.com)

Submitted by hypnosec
hypnosec writes: Richard Stallman, the founder of GNU and Free Software Foundation (FSF), has issued a statement putting forward pros and cons of Steam for Linux as was proposed by Valve recently. Citing closed nature of Windows platform, Gabe Newell of Valve had announced plans of Steam for Linux with the company having already ported Steam’s source game engine and the popular title Left 4 Dead 2 on the newly built platform. Historically, Linux has never been a prime platform for commercial game developers for want of larger audience and presence of high fragmentation due to a variety of Linux flavors. But, Valve’s move may just act as the initial spark that might just the gaming wildfire on Linux. Richard Stallman though is not quite impressed with this development. In his statement, Stallman said that having closed source games on an open platform are “Unethical because they deny freedom to their users.” On a positive note, “if you're going to use these games, you're better off using them on GNU/Linux rather than on Microsoft Windows.” said Stallman.

Submission + - Teenager arrested in England for criticising Olympic athlete on Twitter (guardian.co.uk) 14

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: A teenager from Dorset, England was arrested for sending a Twitter message to Olympic athlete Tom Daley saying: "You let your dad down i hope you know that." Police arrested the 17 year old boy as part of an investigation into "malicious tweets" after Daley and his team mate missed out on a medal. Daley's father died from cancer last year.

While it is rarely used and the police have not indicated whether they are pressing charges, the Communications Act 2003 s.127 covers the sending of improper messages. Section 127(1)(a) relates to a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. Shaun duffy was convicted and sentenced earlier this year under Scots law.

I look forward to tens of thousands of arrests across England over the next few days as all public remarks which may cause offence, regardless of their target, are investigated by the law.
News

Submission + - Lenovo CEO gives his $3M bonus to 10k workers (dailytech.com)

Submitted by
ndogg
ndogg writes: "Lenovo CEO, Yang Yuanqing, has decided to give his $3,000,000USD to his workers instead of keeping it. Those 10,000 employees include receptionists, production line workers, and assistants. That works out to about 2,000 yuan or $300 per employee which is about a month's worth of salary."
IT

Submission + - Strong and economical VPS hosting for small-to-mid-size sites 2

Submitted by
hessian
hessian writes: "Because everyone I know thinks of me as "the computer guy," I've ended up hosting a half-dozen community, family, and novelty web sites. These are small to mid-size sites, getting 5k-10k visitors per day. I love my old web host but it had a change in management and now I'm exploring new options. I think a Virtual Private Server (VPS) is probably the best option, since it gives the most flexibility without the time and complexity overhead of just buying a box and slamming it into the rack somewhere. But my question is what hosting company should I use, in the $40-70 per month price range? I ask Slashdot because of any group on the internet or off, you all are the ones who come in contact with this stuff daily and know what you're talking about. Any help appreciated. — Dave Hessian"
Facebook

Submission + - Facebook systematically restricting access to fans unless you pay up (tumblr.com)

Submitted by sparkydevil
sparkydevil writes: Today I wanted to post an update to ALL of my 3800 Facebook fans telling them that I had just updated my karaoke business website when I saw the Promote button: For $5 I can increase the "reach" of my posts to 1100 fans, for $10 FB would increase the reach to 2200 fans, for $15 it would increase the reach to 3300 and for $20 I would have the benefit of being able to reach all of my fans. This essentialy confirms what many fan page owners have suspected — that FB has been systematically restricting reach over the past year so that they could "fix" the problem by introducing the promote feature.

This is a slap in the face to people like me who have spent many thousands of dollars getting those fans to sign up to their page — Facebook is effectively restricting access to my own fans unless I pay up. Basically Facebook is saying those fans don't belong to me, but belong to them.

Submission + - My host gave a stranger full access to my cloud server, what to do? (google.com)

Submitted by zzzreyes
zzzreyes writes: I got an email from my cloud server to reset the admin password, first dismissed it as phishing, but a few emails below I found one from an admin, telling me that they had given this person full access to my server and revoked it after realizing their mistake, but moved 2 domains from my account. I logged into my account to review the activity and found the form the perpetrator had submitted for appointment of new primary contact and it infuriated me, given the grave omissions committed. I wrote a letter to the company hoping for them to rectify the harm and they offered me half month of hosting, in signs of good faith! For weeks I've been struggling with this and figure that the best thing to do is to ask my community for advice and help, so my dear slashdotters please share with me if you have any experience with this or know of anyone that has gone through this. What can I do? I truly do feel horrible about it and have let the issue rest for a couple of months, but still keeps me up at night :(

Submission + - GPS Jammers Threaten Air Traffic Navigation (bloomberg.com)

Submitted by rv28390
rv28390 writes: Bloomberg's Sheila Dharmarajan reports that GPS jamming devices used by truckers to prevent their employers from locating them are up to 1 billion times more powerful than GPS transmissions, blanking out airport landing systems and endangering air traffic navigation.

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