Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - 400 scientist blast Bush and now face retaliation

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Over 400 prominent scientist, from around the world, recently signed a report contradicting a message from President Bush.
The distinguished scientists have already been referenced as being similar to those who "believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona." Some others have received mail saying that people are out to "destroy" them
Books

Submission + - How to Write Alternate History (associatedcontent.com)

Submitted by
MarkWhittington
MarkWhittington writes: "Alternate history, or as historians sometimes like to refer to it, counter factual fiction, is a sub genre of science fiction that tells a story set in a universe in which history proceeded on a different course. Lots of people like to read alternate history. Lots of people aspire to write it. There are, however, certain rules and guidelines one should follow if one is to write alternate history successfully. These go beyond the usual stuff about plot, characterization, and description."
Microsoft

Submission + - Samba Team Receives Microsoft Protocol Documentati (samba.org)

Submitted by
Jeremy Allison - Sam
Jeremy Allison - Sam writes: "Samba Team Receives Microsoft Protocol Documentation
                        —

December 20th 2007. Today the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation
(PFIF), a non-profit organization created by the Software Freedom Law
Center, signed an agreement with Microsoft to receive the protocol
documentation needed to fully interoperate with the Microsoft Windows
workgroup server products and to make them available to Free Software
projects such as Samba.

Microsoft was required to make this information available to
competitors as part of the European Commission March 24th 2004
Decision in the antitrust lawsuit, after losing their appeal against
that decision on September 17th 2007.

Andrew Tridgell, creator of Samba, said, "We are very pleased to be
able to get access to the technical information necessary to continue
to develop Samba as a Free Software project. Although we were
disappointed the decision did not address the issue of patent claims
over the protocols, it was a great achievement for the European
Commission and for enforcement of antitrust laws in Europe. The
agreement allows us to keep Samba up to date with recent changes in
Microsoft Windows, and also helps other Free Software projects that
need to interoperate with Windows".

Jeremy Allison, co-creator of Samba said, "Andrew did a superb job in
negotiating the agreement with Microsoft. We will be able to use the
information obtained to continue to develop Samba and create more Free
Software. We are hoping to get back to the productive relationship we
had with Microsoft during the early 1990's when we shared information
about these protocols. The agreement also clarifies the exact patent
numbers concerned so there is no possibility of misunderstandings
around this issue."

Volker Lendecke, head of the Samba Team in Europe said, "I am very
pleased to see that the European Commission acknowledged Free Software
as a valid competitor in the IT industry and that the License
conditions on the protocol information offered to the Free Software
world are indeed compatible with the GPL. This is much better than
what we have seen in similar cases in other countries and the
Commission has done a great job to push the case to this point."

Compatible with Free Software
—

After paying Microsoft a one-time sum of 10,000 Euros, the PFIF will
make available to the Samba Team under non-disclosure terms the
documentation needed for implementation of all of the workgroup server
protocols covered by the EU decision.

Although the documentation itself will be held in confidence by the
PFIF and Samba Team engineers, the agreement allows the publication of
the source code of the implementation of these protocols without any
further restrictions. This is fully compatible with versions two and
three of the GNU General Public License (GPL). Samba is published
under the GNU GPL which is the most widely used of all Free Software
licenses. In addition it allows discussion of the protocol information
amongst implementers which will aid technical cooperation between
engineers.

Under the agreement, Microsoft is required to make available and keep
current a list of patent numbers it believes are related to the
Microsoft implementation of the workgroup server protocols, without
granting an implicit patent license to any Free Software
implementation.

No per-copy royalties are required from the PFIF, Samba developers,
third party vendors or users and no acknowledgement of any patent
infringement by Free Software implementations is expressed or implied
in the agreement.

The patent list provides us with a bounded set of work needed to
ensure non-infringement of Samba and other Free Software projects
that implement the protocols documented by Microsoft under this
agreement. Any patents outside this list cannot be asserted by
Microsoft against any implementation developed using the supplied
documentation. Unlike the highly dubious patent covenants recently
announced by some companies this warranty extends to all third
parties. Also unlike past agreements, this agreement has been
carefully scrutinized by the Software Freedom Law Center, the premier
legal experts for the GPL and Free Software.

Microsoft must keep the documentation up to date with new products and
provide error correction assistance to parties signing the
agreement. Disputes will be resolved by the Trustee appointed by the
Commission as part of the court decision.

The Samba Team would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Carlo
Piana from the Free Software Foundation Europe and Eben Moglen of the
Software Freedom Law Center, who have been our legal representation on
this case. They have provided world-class legal services for many
years and we are sincerely grateful.

The Samba Team.
20th December 2007.

Contact: press@samba.org

Samba Web site: http://www.samba.org/

For more information on the agreement see:

http://samba.org/samba/PFIF/

An article on the history of the case:

http://samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_history.html

An article explaining some details of the agreement:

http://samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_agreement.html

The Protocol Freedom Information Foundation Web site:

http://www.protocolfreedom.org/

The PFIF agreement text:

http://samba.org/samba/PFIF/PFIF_agreement.pdf"
The Internet

Submission + - Bell Canada DSL service throttles P2P arbitrarily

Submitted by Dembonez
Dembonez writes: The fine folks over at P2Pnet.net have compiled some great details on a very dirty deed. That is, Bell Canada as a DSL ISP is following the lead of Comcast in the US and Rogers up in Canada by throttling P2P traffic. Beyond what the other two are doing, Bell are imposing bandwidth caps for 'unlimited' service subsribers, stating that they've gone over the allotted bandwidth restriction for the month. Of course, nowhere in their terms of service do they outline what that restriction is for unlimited users. It gets better, though! Bell being an ILEC have 3rd party reseller ISPs. If you were to leave Bell after being identified as a heavy user, they'll deny any of their 3rd party resellers from signing you up! Bell being as big as they are, they have 3 of the 5 seats on the committee for fair competition in Canada. This means that it's highly unlikely that any complaint about unfair business practices or false advertising would be quashed. If you're in Canada and using Bell, send them a message... and go elsewhere. Want to know more? TFA: http://www.p2pnet.net/story/13883
The Military

Submission + - Military has problem with proxy sites (uranium235.org)

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "After the military banned youtube and myspace from the DOD network 6 months ago a number of proxy sites have sprung up to deal with the new demand to free information. One such site is uranium235.org who also has a spin off site called "myspaceforsoldiers.com" coming online next week. No doubt The Man wasn't pleased. Most of the traffic from these sites are coming from .mil addresses, and they are coming in LARGE numbers (about a gig a day) You'll find very heated discussions between such operators and DOD sysadmins @ http://groups.google.com/group/us.military.army/browse_thread/thread/8bf30879c8c4b98e/92985b8d66aafee0?lnk=st&q=uranium235.org#92985b8d66aafee0 and by searching "uranium235.org" in google groups.."

Feed Science Daily: New Brain Mechanism Identified For Interpreting Speech (sciencedaily.com)

From feed by sdfeed
In conversation, humans recognize words primarily from the sounds they hear. However, scientists have long known that what humans perceive goes beyond the sounds and even the sights of speech. The brain constructs its own unique interpretation. Scientists have now identified brain areas responsible for this perception. One of these areas, Broca's region, is typically thought of as an area of the brain used for talking rather than listening.
Supercomputing

Submission + - Graphene-based transistors on the way?

Submitted by
Roland Piquepaille
Roland Piquepaille writes: "The idea of replacing silicon with carbon to make computer chips is not new. However, using graphene — a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice — wasn't feasible because it is not possible today to make wafers as big as ones made from silicon. But two researchers from Princeton University have found a very elegant solution to this problem. They've decided to put small crystals of graphene only in the active areas of the computer chip. Their graphene-based transistors are already '10 times faster than silicon transistors in moving electronic holes — a key measure of speed.' This technique could be applied to wireless communication devices within a few years. Read more for additional details and an illustration showing how this new technique allows to make high-performance working graphene transistors."
Security

Submission + - BitDefender Warns Of GoogleTextAd Hijacking Trojan (techluver.com)

Submitted by
Tech.Luver
Tech.Luver writes: "BitDefender announced that BitDefender antivirus analysts have detected a new trojan, which hijacks Google text advertisements, replacing them with ads from a different provider. The threat, which is identified by BitDefender as Trojan.Qhost.WU, modifies the infected computers' Hosts file (a local storage for domain name / IP address mappings, which is consulted before domain name servers and is considered authoritative). The modified file contains a line redirecting the host "page2.googlesyndication.com" which should point to an IP of the form 6x.xxx.xxx.xxx to a different address, of the form 9x.xxx.xxx.xxx, so that the infected machines' browsers read ads from server at the replacement address rather than from Google. ( http://techluver.com/2007/12/19/bitdefender-detects-new-trojan-that-hijacks-google-text-advertisements/ )"
Software

Submission + - Vista SP1 RNG may contain NSA backdoor (heise-security.co.uk)

Submitted by
William Ruckman
William Ruckman writes: "With its Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista, Microsoft is also adding the Dual_EC_DRBG random number generator. The US standard, released by the National Institute for Standards und Technology (NIST) in "Special Publication 800-90" (PDF) is suspected of containing a back door for the NSA. Programmers can access the new random number generator via an API. But security expert Bruce Schneier emphatically recommends against using it and repeats his suspicion that the algorithm could contain a back door. Cryptologists Nils Ferguson and Dan Shumow described a weakness of the algorithm at the Crypto 2007 conference. It is based on elliptical curves, described by a set of constants. The trouble is, no explanation has been given of how the constants are derived. The cryptologists demonstrated that the constants must be related to an unknown second set of numbers. This second number set could serve as a kind of master key."
Microsoft

Submission + - Is Windows defender spying on Spybot S&D? 2

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Recently I was working on a system that had been infected by spyware. The system was up to date with high priority patches (automatic updates were turned on and active), it was running an "Enterprise" anti-virus solution from a major vendor, yet had allowed an infestation to enter it simply by visitng a website (according to the user). One of the first things I did was to install Windows Defender, updated it and ran a scan. WD identified some malicious programs and claimed to have removed them. However, these programs were still present. Once the active malicious programs had been removed by booting from a live CD, I installed Spybot Search and Destroy and scanned once more. Spybot S&D found a few more files and, at the point that I asked Spybot S&D to delete them, Windows Defender popped up a window asking to send information about one of these files to Microsoft. This is either a massive coincidence, or Windows Defender is watching Spybot.

Slashdot Top Deals

The trouble with a lot of self-made men is that they worship their creator.

Close