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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 110 declined, 54 accepted (164 total, 32.93% accepted)

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Google

Submission + - Dangerous: European Courts Considering Requiring Search Engine Filters Over Emba (techdirt.com)

concealment writes: "That did not stop Mosley, however, who first used the recent "Leveson Inquiry" (a response to the later story of News of the World hacking into phone lines) to push for new rules requiring search engines to delete the photos from ever being found online. And thus began phase two of Mosley's response to the article: he went on a campaign against search engines, believing that if he could somehow force search engines to ignore the photos from that original story, the world might forget about it. Even though, in the Leveson hearing, Mosley admits that he was warned that by taking this issue to trial in the first place, it would renew interest in the issue, including putting such private information into official public court documents:"
Businesses

Submission + - Canadian Game Developer Fired After Spoofing Call-Center Workplace (cio.com)

concealment writes: "An independent game developer recently got fired from his day job at the Canadian Revenue Agency after releasing a satirical depiction of his apparently aggravating and unfulfilling call-center job.

Entitled "I get this call every day," David Gallant's point-and-click "adventure" game highlights the dubious satisfaction of dealing with thoughtless, abrasive people on the phone every day.

Gallant has not confirmed that the game is the reason for his dismissal due to legal concerns. However, the site also notes that he has realized a not-inconsiderable silver lining from the loss of his job: Sales of "I get this call every day" have skyrocketed."

Businesses

Submission + - The Often Overlooked but Invaluable Benefits of Mentorship (forbes.com)

concealment writes: The value of a mentor can be doubly undervalued by many people – especially younger professionals and junior executives. We learn a great deal about management principles and practices in school. Leadership, though more popularly discussed in school now, is still more often learned outside of school. The value of a mentor who can help cultivate leadership skills one-on-one in real-time, reduce the anxiety in taking big steps, and focus leaders on achieving their goals – is huge. Many times it’s the first few years out of school that can shape the career path of an MBA, and that is determined by whether they create or are given an opportunity to demonstrate their leadership skill.
Crime

Submission + - Is The Line Between 'Hacker' And 'Criminal' Really That Fuzzy? (techdirt.com)

concealment writes: don't think there's a "line" — fuzzy, shifting or not — between "hacker" and "criminal." The two things are different. Can you be a criminal hacker? Sure. But the problem is that many non-techie folks seem to assume that any kind of hacking must be criminal. And that's the problem. It's not that some imaginary line is moving around, but that some people don't seem to understand that hacking itself is not criminal, and that there are plenty of good reasons to hack — including to expose security holes.
Google

Submission + - Your Own Private Google: The Quest for an Open Source Search Engine (wired.com)

concealment writes: "The company guards its search platform like the crown jewels. It’s not about to release a paper describing how it all works, so producing an open source clone is more difficult. But there are options, and the push toward open source versions of the Google search engine has gathered some steam in recent months, with the arrival of a new company called ElasticSearch.

These projects aren’t trying to compete with Google’s public search engine — the one you use every day. They’re trying to compete with Google’s search appliance and other products that help enterprises — i.e., big businesses — find stuff inside their own private networks."

Databases

Submission + - NoSQL: The Love Child of Google, Amazon and Lotus Notes (wired.com)

concealment writes: "As they grew their enormously successful online services, Google and Amazon needed new ways of storing massive amounts of data across an ever-growing number of servers, so each created a new software platform that could do so. Google built BigTable. Amazon built Dynamo. And after these internet giants published research papers describing these sweeping data stores, so many other outfits sought to duplicate them.

The result was an army of “NoSQL” databases specifically designed to run across thousands of servers. These new-age software platforms — including Cassandra, HBase, and Riak — remade the database landscape, helping to run so many other web giants, including Facebook and Twitter, but also more traditional businesses."

Censorship

Submission + - Report warns that censorship will not stop terrorism (cio.com)

concealment writes: "The report evaluates the challenge of curbing online radicalization from the perspective of supply and demand. It concludes that efforts to shut down websites that could serve as incubators for would-be terrorists--going after the supply--will ultimately be self-defeating, and that "filtering of Internet content is impractical in a free and open society."

"Approaches aimed at restricting freedom of speech and removing content from the Internet are not only the least desirable strategies, they are also the least effective," writes Peter Neumann, founding director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King's College London and the author of the report.

Note to /. editors: I have editorialized the title to reflect actual interesting content, not the somewhat sensationalistic and generic original title."

China

Submission + - China Mafia-Style Hack Attack Drives California Firm to Brink (bloomberg.com)

concealment writes: "For three years, a group of hackers from China waged a relentless campaign of cyber harassment against Solid Oak Software Inc., Milburn’s family-owned, eight-person firm in Santa Barbara, California. The attack began less than two weeks after Milburn publicly accused China of appropriating his company’s parental filtering software, CYBERsitter, for a national Internet censoring project. And it ended shortly after he settled a $2.2 billion lawsuit against the Chinese government and a string of computer companies last April."
Books

Submission + - Here's Why Digital Rights Management Is Stupid And Anti-Consumer (consumerist.com)

concealment writes: "Yesterday, I tried to download an ebook I paid for, and previously put on my Nook, a few months ago. When I tried, I got an error message stating I could not download the book because the credit card on file had expired. But, I already paid for it. Who cares if the credit card is expired? It has long since been paid for, so the status of the card on file has nothing to do with my ability to download said book. I didn’t see anything in the terms of service about this either, but it’s possible I missed it.

        This is just one more reason to either not buy ebooks, or strip the drm off of the ones you purchase so you can [use] the book you BUY on all your devices without having to purchase multiple copies for no reason and have access to something you already bought when you want it."

Mars

Submission + - Curiosity may have found precursor of life on Mars (lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it)

concealment writes: "NASA's Curiosity rover may have found a precursor to life on Mars, the director of the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said Wednesday.
"Perhaps Curiosity has found simple organic molecules," Charles Elachi said at the fringes of a conference at Rome's La Sapienza University.
"It's preliminary data that must be checked (on) organic, not biological, molecules"."

Government

Submission + - Richard O'Dwyer strikes US deal to avoid extradition (guardian.co.uk)

concealment writes: "Richard O'Dwyer, the university student who created a website which linked to programmes and films online for free, has reached an agreement to avoid extradition to the US over copyright infringement allegations, the high court has been told.

The 24-year-old Sheffield Hallam undergraduate has signed a draft "deferred prosecution" agreement in the past two days which requires him to travel to the US and pay a small sum of compensation but will mean he will not face a trial or criminal record, the court was told."

Idle

Submission + - Geek Researcher Spends Three Years Living With Hackers (wired.com)

concealment writes: "Coleman, an anthropologist who teaches at McGill University, spent three years living in the Bay Area, studying the community that builds the Debian Linux open source operating system and other hackers — i.e., people who pride themselves on finding new ways to reinvent software. More recently, she’s been peeling away the onion that is the Anonymous movement, a group that hacks as a means of protest — and mischief.

When she moved to San Francisco, she volunteered with the Electronic Frontier Foundation — she believed, correctly, that having an eff.org address would make people more willing to talk to her — and started making the scene. She talked free software over Chinese food at the Bay Area Linux User Group’s monthly meetings upstairs at San Francisco’s Four Seas Restaurant. She marched with geeks demanding the release of Adobe eBooks hacker Dmitry Sklyarov. She learned the culture inside-out."

Businesses

Submission + - Silicon Valley's dirty secret - age bias (reuters.com)

concealment writes: "Of the 18,335 employment cases filed in 2010 with California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing, one-fifth cited age. That puts age below retaliation as a discrimination claim, but above racial discrimination, sexual harassment, and sexual orientation.

Nationally, retaliation is also the most frequently cited discrimination claim, according to the federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission. But age comes much lower down on the national list, below race, sex, and disability.

The federal agency says age is cited in 26 percent of total complaints in California, compared to 22 percent in New York and 21 percent in Texas. Among large states, Illinois had the highest ratio of age-related complaints, at 37 percent."

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