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Politics

Submission + - Senate Candidate Sued by Copyright Troll (yahoo.com) 2

The Iso writes: Las Vegas based company Righthaven found two articles from the Las Vegas Review-Journal about Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle reprinted on her web site without permission, so it did what it always does: bought the rights to the articles from the Review-Journal and sued the alleged infringer, seeking unspecified damages.
The Internet

Submission + - 4chan Does Something Nice (nytimes.com)

Hugh Pickens writes: "Members of 4chan aren't known for doing things that are cute and heart-warming and when they decide to go after someone, it's typically to subject them to ridicule. But not this time. Someone at 4chan decided that the Internet should get together and wish 90-year-old WWII veteran William J. Lashua a happy birthday, and soon Lashua's local branch of the American Legion was deluged by birthday calls from people as far away as Sweden. The account someone set up for Mr. Lashua's birthday on facebook had 3,956 "likes" and over 500 comments, most of which wished him a happy birthday and thanked him for his military service. It's not clear how 4chan originally came across a photo of Lashua, but a member of the site posted a snapshot of a flyer that was on the bulletin board at a store in Ashburnham, Massachusetts asking for guests to attend the nonagenarian's birthday on at the American Legion hall and the post took off. In contrast to their usual behavior, 4chan members "were giving him nice phone calls and sending him nice notes" and discouraging those who wanted to do something stupid or mean. "They were all being.. well, shucks, awful nice.""
Iphone

Submission + - Cox Business Webmail Bans iPhone

pallmall1 writes: Cox Communications business service recently "upgraded" its web based email, and it now requires that the Adobe Flash plugin be installed. That's right, Cox has "improved security" by requiring the Adobe Flash plugin be installed. There is no mention of this on their support pages, or any of their announcements touting the "improved" web interface. When asked about iphone users, Cox support replied they must use an imap client because the new webmail interface will not work on the iphone, or any other browser that does not have the required Adobe Flash plugin installed. Linux 64-bit users are similarly affected.

Submission + - Flash on Android Is 'Shockingly Bad' (newteevee.com)

Hugh Pickens writes: "Ryan Lawler writes on GigaOm that although many have touted the availability of Flash on Android devices as a competitive advantage over Apple's mobile devices, while trying to watch videos from ABC.com, Fox.com and Metacafe using Flash 10.1 on a Nexus One over a local Wi-Fi network connected to a 25-Mbps Verizon FiOS broadband connection, mobile expert Kevin Tofel found that videos were slow to load, if they loaded at all, leading to an overall very inconsistent experience while using his Android device for video. "While in theory Flash video might be a competitive advantage for Android users, in practice it’s difficult to imagine anyone actually trying to watch non-optimized web video on an Android handset," writes Lawler. "All of which makes one believe that maybe Steve Jobs was right to eschew Flash in lieu of HTML5 on the iPhone and iPad.""

Submission + - Flight Data Recorders, decades out of date (ieee.org)

Tisha_AH writes: "For the past fifty years the technology behind aircraft flight data recorders has remained stagnant. Some of the advances of cloud computing, mesh radio networks, real-time position reporting and satellite communications are held back by a combination of aircraft manufacturers, pilots unions and the slow gears of government bureaucracy. Many recent aircraft loss incidents remain unexplained with black boxes lost on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, buried under the wreckage of the World Trade Centers or with critical information suppressed by government secrecy or aircraft manufacturers.

http://spectrum.ieee.org/aerospace/aviation/beyond-the-black-box/0

Many recorders still rely upon tape recorders for voice and data that only record a very small sampling of aircraft dynamics, flight and engine systems or crew behaviors. For many aircraft the recorders can only log a hour or two of data before overwriting the tape. All recording stops if the main electrical system fails and there is the ever present circuit breaker in the cockpit that can shut the system down.

Technologically simple solutions like battery backup, continual telemetry feeds by satellite and hundreds of I/O points, monitoring many systems should be within easy reach. An example of an extensive (but still primitive) recording system was during the loss of the NASA Columbia space shuttle. This vessel was equipped with a much larger assortment of monitoring points as it was used as a test-bed during shuttle development. Without the extensive forensic analysis of the telemetry data it would have been nearly impossible to reconstruct the accident in such detail. http://spaceflightnow.com/columbia/report/030826crew/

Pilots unions have objected to the collection and sharing of detailed accident data, citing privacy concerns of the flight crew. Accidents may be due to human errror, process problems or design flaws. Unless we can fully evaluate all factors involved in transportation accidents (aircraft, maritime, rail, transit) it will be difficult to improve the safety record. Recommendations by the NTSB to the FAA have gone unheeded for many years. http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/bitstreams/3687.pdf

With all of the technological advancements that we work with in the IT field what sort of best practices could be brought forward in transit safety?"

Submission + - Bill Gates Invests In Monsanto (techdirt.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is spending an awful lot of money trying to make the world a better, healthier place. And for that they should be commended. But it caught a lot of people off-guard to find out that the Foundation has now decided to invest in Monsanto. If you don't remember, Monsanto has used "mafiaa-like tactics" to dominate the seed business. That Slashdot post also compared Monsanto's actions to Microsoft's... so perhaps this investment isn't a huge surprise. But seeing as there are reports of organ damage from Monsanto products, and Monsanto modifications are spreading to wild plants (for which you might get sued for patent infringement), it seems like Monsanto goes against what the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is supposed to stand for. But, don't worry about it. Monsanto thinks you're all being overly fussy.

Submission + - h264 permanent royalty moratorium announced. (arstechnica.com) 1

vistapwns writes: MPEG LA has announced that free h264 content (vs. paid h264 content which will still have royalties) will be royalty free forever. With ubiquitous h264 support on mobile devices, personal computers and all other types of media devices, this assures that h264 will remain the de facto standard for video playback for the foreseeable future.
Firefox

Submission + - Firefox theme installs Bing search without consent

An anonymous reader writes: Recently, I started Firefox and found that a Bing search bar add-on had been installed without my consent. It startled me quite a bit. After some sleuthing, I discovered that the culprit was the Aero Fox XL Firefox theme, and users were complaining about it loudly. Inspection of the theme source code reveals that Aero Fox XL's developer, Virtus Designs, is a Bing partner. On the add-on reviews page, the theme developer defends his position: "If you choose to uninstall everything by me, that is your choice but it is also my choice to ask users to support my development efforts by offering a customized search plugin. There is nothing unreasonable about this."

I visited Mozilla's irc support channel and was offered the following insight by contributor Kevin Brosnan: "sadly it was decided that as long as they disclose that they are adding a toolbar it is ok", but he quickly corrected: "i was mistaken about that, the decision was that since the user moved to self hosted for his themes there was nothing that could be done". The problem with this though, is that the theme does appear to be hosted by Mozilla, and the user has to read through the "More about this add-on"-section to learn that this theme comes bundled with Microsoft Bing. Moreover, as previously mentioned, the opt-in feature is apparently buggy and installs Bing regardless. As for me personally, I don't recall being asked permission to install Bing search at all. The question now becomes: even if this bug is fixed, is the Aero Fox XL theme in violation of Mozilla's add-on policies, and if not, why not?

Submission + - Newspaper guilty of copyright entrapment? (lasvegassun.com)

mijkal writes: From the article: "A website operator is accusing the Las Vegas Review-Journal of entrapment for inviting readers to share its stories online — and then participating in lawsuits against readers who post that material online. ... (He) said the portion of the six-paragraph column that was displayed on his website — four paragraphs with credit to and a link to the R-J — was provided automatically through a syndication arrangement through Real Simple Syndication (RSS). ... As in most of the Righthaven lawsuits, the lawsuit demanded $75,000 in damages and forfeiture of Burrage's website domain name, www.jerryryburg.com."
Biotech

Submission + - Court rules against stem cell policy (msn.com)

An anonymous reader writes: WASHINGTON — A U.S. district court issued a preliminary injunction Monday stopping federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research in a slap to the Obama administration's new guidelines on the sensitive issue. The court ruled in favor of a suit filed in June by researchers who said human embryonic stem cell research involves the destruction of human embryos. Judge Royce Lamberth granted the injunction after finding that the lawsuit would likely succeed because the guidelines violated law banning the use of federal funds to destroy human embryos.

"(Embryonic stem cell) research is clearly research in which an embryo is destroyed," Lamberth wrote in a 15-page ruling. The Obama administration could appeal his decision or try to rewrite the guidelines to comply with U.S. law.

The unusual suit against the National Institutes of Health, backed by some Christian groups opposed to embryo research, argued that the NIH policy violates U.S. law and takes funds from researchers seeking to work with adult stem cells.

The U.S. Department of Justice and NIH had no immediate comment.

Open Source

Submission + - Nmap Developers release a picture of the Web (nmap.org)

iago-vL writes: The Nmap Project recently posted an awesome visualization of the top million site icons (favicons) on the Web, sized by relative popularity of sites. Once again proving that they're the kings of scanning, this project used the Nmap Scripting Engine, which is capable of performing discovery, vulnerability detection, and anything else you can imagine with lightning speed. We saw last month how an Nmap developer downloaded 170 million Facebook names, and this month it's a million favicons. I wonder what they're going to do next?
Apple

Submission + - NAB, RIAA seek mandate FM radio in mobile devices (arstechnica.com) 1

Trintech writes:

Music labels and radio broadcasters can't agree on much, including whether radio should be forced to turn over hundreds of millions of dollars a year to pay for the music it plays. But the two sides can agree on this: Congress should mandate that FM radio receivers be built into cell phones, PDAs, and other portable electronics. The Consumer Electronics Association, whose members build the devices that would be affected by such a directive, is incandescent with rage. "The backroom scheme of the [National Association of Broadcasters] and RIAA to have Congress mandate broadcast radios in portable devices, including mobile phones, is the height of absurdity," thundered CEA president Gary Shapiro. Such a move is "not in our national interest." "Rather than adapt to the digital marketplace, NAB and RIAA act like buggy-whip industries that refuse to innovate and seek to impose penalties on those that do." But the music and radio industries say it's a consumer-focused proposition, one that would provide "more music choices."


Security

Submission + - Malicious Widget Hacked Millions of Web Sites (computerworld.com)

CWmike writes: As many as five million Web sites hosted by Network Solutions have been serving up malware, probably for several months, a security expert said on Monday. 'This is one of the biggest infections for drive-by download attacks that I've seen,' said Wayne Huang, co-founder and CTO of Armorize Technologies, a Web app security company. Network Solutions disputed Huang's estimate of between 500,000 and 5 million infected sites, but was unable to provide its own count. Huang said his firm's researchers initially tracked the infection to a widget installed by Network Solutions on its GrowSmartBusiness.com site, then later discovered that the same widget was installed by default on all 'parked' domains hosted by the hosting giant. The widget turned every infected domain into a drive-by attack site that launched the multi-exploit 'Nuke' toolkit against users running IE, Firefox, Chrome and Opera. If the kit successfully hacked the browser, a Trojan downloader hit the Windows PC, searches were redirected and pop-up ads appeared.
Games

Submission + - Help Defend Video Games In The Supreme Court! (youthrights.org) 1

An anonymous reader writes: The State of California has passed a law banning the sale of violent video games to minors. The National Youth Rights Association seeks testimonies that detail the social, artistic, and especially political value of video games to convince the Supreme Court to overturn the law.
Government

Submission + - Obama Abolishes Position Of Transparency Czar (washingtonexaminer.com)

bonch writes: The Obama administration has abolished the position of government transparency czar, transferring the duties to an ex-lobbyist with a history of anti-disclosure views. Bob Bauer, White House Counsel, will be taking over many of the duties of former 'ethics czar' Norm Eisen, who has been sent to the Czech Republic as a U.S. ambassador. Bauer has previously defended circumventing contribution limits, lobbied for Democrat 527 group America Votes, Inc., and wrote on his blog in 2006: 'Disclosure is a mostly unquestioned virtue deserving to be questioned.'

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