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Open Source

De Raadt Doubts Alleged Backdoors Made It Into OpenBSD 136

Posted by timothy from the giving-away-all-our-best-tricks dept.
itwbennett writes "In follow-up to last week's controversy over allegations that the FBI installed a number of back doors into the encryption software used by the OpenBSD operating system, OpenBSD lead developer Theo de Raadt said on a discussion list Tuesday, that he believes that a government contracting firm that contributed code to his project 'was probably contracted to write backdoors,' which would grant secret access to encrypted communications. But that he doesn't think that any of this software made it into the OpenBSD code base."
Math

Mathematics As the Most Misunderstood Subject 680

Posted by timothy from the philosophical-engagement dept.
Lilith's Heart-shape writes "Dr. Robert H. Lewis, professor of mathematics at Fordham University of New York, offers in this essay a defense of mathematics as a liberal arts discipline, and not merely part of a STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) curriculum. In the process, he discusses what's wrong with the manner in which mathematics is currently taught in K-12 schooling."
Government

Hacking Neighbor Pleads Guilty On Death Threats and Porn 284

Posted by timothy from the wanna-go-for-a-ride-neighbor? dept.
wiredmikey writes "Another good reason to make sure your wireless is secured! 'Barry Vincent Ardolf of Blaine, Minnesota pleaded guilty to hacking into his neighbor's wireless Internet system and posing as the neighbor to make threats to kill the Vice President of the United States. Just two days into his federal trial in St. Paul, Ardolf stopped the trial to plead guilty. According to the US Department of Justice, in his plea agreement, Ardolf, 45 years-old, was indicted on June 23, 2010, admitted that in February of 2009, he hacked into his neighbor's wireless Internet connection and created multiple Yahoo.com email accounts in his neighbor's name." Ardolf's guilty plea included child porn possession, as well as the death threats.
Security

Recording the Police 515

Posted by CmdrTaco from the better-still-be-legal dept.
Bruce Schneier says "I've written a lot on the 'War on Photography,' where normal people are harassed as potential terrorists for taking pictures of things in public. This article is different; it's about recording the police: Allison's predicament is an extreme example of a growing and disturbing trend. As citizens increase their scrutiny of law enforcement officials through technologies such as cell phones..."

How a Leather Cover Crashes the Kindle 280

Posted by CmdrTaco from the still-no-antennagate dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Amazon has started offering refunds to Kindle owners who own the unlit leather case who claim that it causes their Kindles to reboot, but are playing dumb on the cause: "our engineering team is looking into this." People have been wondering how a leather cover could possibly crash an electronic device, and why is Amazon offering money back if they don't think there's a problem? It seems that some of the folks over at Connectify have figured it out, and it's a doozy!"
The Internet

Obama FCC Caves On Net Neutrality 853

Posted by CmdrTaco from the lets-go-spelunking dept.
An anonymous reader writes "...the rule, which will be voted on during tomorrow's FCC meeting, falls drastically short of earlier pledges by President Obama and the FCC Chairman to protect the free and open Internet. The rule is so riddled with loopholes that it's become clear that this FCC chairman crafted it with the sole purpose of winning the endorsement of AT&T and cable lobbyists, and not defending the interests of the tens of millions of Internet users."
Technology

Submission + - E-commerce payment solutions in Japan? 2

Submitted by jnubs
jnubs writes: I'm trying to help a friend set up an online store that caters to customers within Japan. I've got the site pretty much all set up but I realized I have no idea what e-commerce solution is widely used in Japan. I've looked around all over for this info but just haven't found anything. It seems like PayPal and direct merchant accounts are used a little bit but not nearly enough to support the site's payment system.
Help? Anyone know? There must be SOMETHING that people are using, but there seems to be no information out there to assist in setting up international localized commerce sites.
Censorship

Submission + - Vint Cerf, US Congresswoman oppose net regulation (itnews.com.au) 1

Submitted by schliz
schliz writes: Vint Cerf, Google, ICANN and California Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack have opposed a recently revealed UN initiative to regulate the internet. Congresswoman Mack put forward a US resolution that the United Nations and other international governmental organisations maintain a "hands-off approach" to the internet, arguing that "the internet has progressed and thrived precisely because it has not been subjected to the suffocating effect of a governmental organization's heavy hand".

Meanwhile, the so-called "father of the internet", Vint Cerf, called on stakeholders to sign a petition to mobilize opposition of the UN's plan. "Today, I have signed that petition on Google's behalf because we don't believe governments should be allowed to grant themselves a monopoly on Internet governance," said Cerf, who is also Google's chief internet lobbyist.
Google

Submission + - Google donates $5M Windowbuilder and Codepro to Ec (theinquirer.net)

Submitted by h00manist
h00manist writes: Words have officially leaked out on the InterWebs, via The Inquirer, that

Google is donating Windowbuilder Pro and Codepro Profiler to the Eclipse project. Google acquired the software when it bought Instantiations, relaunching the Java graphical user interface building tool Windowbuilder Pro shortly after. Now the outfit has decided to donate both Windowbuilder Pro and the code analysis tool Codepro to the open source Eclipse project. Although Google has announced its intention to donate the software, it needs go through a rigorous filtering process to ensure that no intellectual property rights will be breached. Once those formalities are dealt with, it is likely that both Windowbuilder Pro and Codepro will tip up in the Indigo release of Eclipse sometime in June 2011.

Read more: http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1933248/google-donates-windowbuilder-codepro-eclipse

Submission + - USTR Requests Comments on ACTA (keionline.org)

Submitted by
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes: "After secretly performing the real negotiations with the industry insiders and governments, the USTR is now requesting public comments on ACTA. You have until mid-February to file a comment. This way, whenever someone complains about the way this treaty was drafted secretly with input from lobbyists but little from the general public, they can point to the fact that the public was given a chance to complain about it at the very end."

Submission + - FBI defend raids on Texas Datacenter. (wired.com) 1

Submitted by Aryden
Aryden writes: Wired Reports: "The FBI on Tuesday defended its raids on at least two data centers in Texas, in which agents carted out equipment and disrupted service to hundreds of businesses.

The raids were part of an investigation prompted by complaints from AT&T and Verizon about unpaid bills allegedly owed by some data center customers, according to court records. One data center owner charges that the telecoms are using the FBI to collect debts that should be resolved in civil court. But on Tuesday, an FBI spokesman disputed that charge."
Security

Spamhaus Under DDoS Over Wikileaks.info 295

Posted by timothy from the you-got-the-wrong-idea-mister dept.
achowe writes "Steve Linford of Spamhaus sent this to a private anti-spam list and asked that the message get out far and wide: 'For speaking out about the crime gangs located at the wikileaks.info mirror IP, Spamhaus is now under ddos by AnonOps. As our site cannot be reached now [actually sporadic], we can not continue to warn Wikileaks users not to load things from the Heihachi IP. ... AnonOps did not like our article update, here is what we said and what brought the ddos on us.'" At the conclusion of this message: "Spamhaus continues to warn Wikileaks readers to make sure they are viewing and downloading documents only from an official Wikileaks mirror site. We’re not saying 'don’t go to Wikileaks' we’re saying 'Use the wikileaks.ch server instead.'" Here is Spamhaus's full warning.
Cellphones

Exposing the Link Between Cell Phones and Fertility 112

Posted by timothy from the social-network dept.
ApharmdB writes "We frequently gripe about the poor quality of science reporting by the media. A Guardian blogger from the mathematics department at Queen Mary, University of London has made a honeypot press release to see how bad it can get. (Or maybe to have some fun trolling the media?) The statistic used is the strong link between the number of mobile phone masts in an area and the number of live births. Of course, there is no causal link because they are both instead based on a 3rd variable, the local population size. Slashdot readers can keep on eye on news sources over the weekend to see just how much traction the story gets and watch the train wreck in real-time!"
Software

Yahoo! Says Delicious To Get the Boot, Not the Axe 84

Posted by timothy from the welcome-to-erewhon dept.
geegel writes "In a statement on their Delicious official blog, Yahoo now claims that: 'No, we are not shutting down Delicious. While we have determined that there is not a strategic fit at Yahoo!, we believe there is a ideal home for Delicious outside of the company where it can be resourced to the level where it can be competitive.' What that means can be everyone's guess, but at least for now, your delicious accounts are safe."

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