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Submission + - English High Court bans scientific paper (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The High Court — England's highest civil court — has temporarily banned the publication of a scientific paper that would reveal the details of a zero day vulnerability in vehicle immobilisers and, crucially, give details of how to crack the system. Motor manufacturers argued that revealing the details of the crack would allow criminals to steal cars. Could this presage the courts getting involved in what gets posted on your local Bugzilla? It certainly means that software giants who dislike security researchers publishing the full facts on vulnerabilities might want to consider a full legal route.

Comment Re:That is the worst article I ever red (Score 1) 349

by 00_NOP (#43822169) Attached to: World's Biggest 'Agile' Software Project Close To Failure

Sorry you didn't like the article. I have written a few other pieces on UC on the blog and maybe they make it clearer (or maybe not! De gustibus non est disputandum).

For background in late 2010 the DWP announced at an Institute of Government seminar in Whitehall (that I attended) that they would use "agile" to deliver UC. The seminar was a real Emperor's New Clothes affair as lots of small development companies were in the room and they all thought/hoped they'd get a chunk of the action - nobody (including me - I was just a lowly computer science MSc student) dared to say what seemed obvious to me - that this was a massive mission criticial project that it was a mistake to use an experimental (for the government) development methodology on to meet a political - as opposed to evidence - defined timetable on.
My gripe is not with agile per se - strip away the corporate hoopla and it seems to make a lot of sense to me. My fear is that "agile" was seized upon by politicians who know nothing about software development as a way of solving their problems and defining themselves positively against the previous Labour government (declaration of interest: I worked in a political role for that government).

Submission + - World's biggest "agile" software project close to failure (wordpress.com)

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: "Universal Credit" — the plan to consolidate all Britain's welfare payments into one — is the world's biggest "agile" software development project but it is now close to collapse the British government admitted yesterday. The failure, if and when it comes, could cost billions and have dire social consequences.

Submission + - End of the line for Linux in Norway's educational system?

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Recently, in the organization "UNINETT", in an executive meeting from the 13. May 2013, a decision was taken under the title "UNINETT felles IKT-verktøykasse". For explanation: UNINETT is some government-sponsored institute for providing IT support for higher education in Norway (universities and university colleges (called høyskole in Norwegian)). The title of the project means: ``common ICT-toolbox". It's the attempt to "harmonize" (their words) IT systems throughout education Norway.
The core basically is an ``office solution'' for everyone (with perspective to cloud outsourcing), based on Microsoft office software, Microsoft exchange etc. This will be forced throughout all universities and colleges. The announcement also states (I quote): En eventuell brukerstøtte for
Linux-plattform er ikke en del av dette prosjektet... which translates: a potential support of the Linux-platform is _NOT_ part of this project... (emphasis by me).

This seems currently not public information, it's decided a few days week ago (behind closed doors, it seems).

Submission + - Is Nestle Patenting the Fennell Flower? (yahoo.com)

Submitted by wreckignize
wreckignize writes: Nestlé's international patent number WO2010133574 claims the company "discovered" what has been known for thousands of years. That Thymoquinone, the extract from the Fennell Flower's seeds, is a natural analgesic (pain relief) and stimulates the Opioid receptors in the human brain, thereby preventing or reducing allergic reactions in foods. Nestlé' researchers demonsrated this effect by inducing an egg allergy into rodents, then feeding them black seed oil, which contains the compound Thymoquinone. With the addition of black seed oil into their diet, the researchers were discovered the mice exhibited a less severe allergic reaction to the eggs.

Submission + - Brits to be forced on to IPv6? (wordpress.com)

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: The British government today outlined its legislative programme for the year ahead. Gone was a plan for a "snoopers' charter" that would have mandated all internet communications being logged for the benefit of law enforcers and in was a plan to match connections to IP addresses in some (unspecified) way. Surely the only way to do this is via IPv6 and noone is mad enough to enforce a transition to IPv6 by law, are they?!

Submission + - How common is malicious code in Wordpress themes and widgets? (rawcell.com)

Submitted by Cypher, Lou
Cypher, Lou writes: I ran afoul of the recent "social-media-widget" plugin malicious code and after googling around looking for a fix I found more reports not just of widgets but even themes Malicious Theme
It was my understanding, or maybe silly assumption, that in order to submit a theme or a widget to Wordpress there was a code review process.
Is this getting what you pay for or is it reasonable to expect that free software should not contain little surprises that hijack your website to feed objectionable material or is it buyer beware?

Submission + - Thousands protesters in Beijing street, Chinese media and websites in lockdown

Submitted by centralcommittee
centralcommittee writes: Thousands of people, mostly migrant workers from Anhui province, held protest today (5/8/2013) on the 2nd Ring Road of Beijing, south of Temple of Heaven. The protest is in response to Beijing police's mishandling of the death of a girl from Anhui province, who was alleged to be gang-raped by shopping mall security guards and fell to her death last Friday. The government has deployed hundreds of police plus helicopters against the protesters, traffic near the protest site was blocked for miles. Currently the name of the shopping mall "Jingwen" has become a restricted word in major Chinese websites, user cannot post anything containing this word. The Chinese search engine Baidu also refuses to display any result for this word while Google returns more than 800,000 results for this word.

Submission + - British press fulminate over "big brother" technology

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: One of Britain's biggest selling newspapers, the Mail on Sunday, today launches into what it calls the "sinister" idea that refrigerators should be fitted with technology — such as that promoted by Dynamic Demand — which would automatically switch devices off for a few seconds if the UK's unified National Grid showed signs of severe overloading (such as those seen commercial breaks in big TV events when tea-loving Brits rush to switch their kettles on). The claim that this is "Big Brother" technology surely does not stand up to examination, but the Mail On Sunday and its sister Daily Mail already have an unenviable reputation as highly effective anti-science publications.

Submission + - Schrödinger's cat: how difficult is that to stage? (wordpress.com)

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: If you know anything about quantum mechanics you'll almost certainly have heard of "Schrödinger’s cat" but will also regard it as little more than a thought experiment to demonstrate the strage ways in which quantum uncertainty shapes physics and measurement. But at the heart of quantum theory is the claim that all objects, of unlimited size, can demonstrate the "superimposition" the experiment describes (in this case the cat is both alive and prowling about and dead at the same time) and physicists have indeed been able to superimpose ever larger objects. Now two German physicists, Klaus Hornberger and Stefan Nimmrichter of the University of Duisberg-Essen, have proposed a logarthmic index for the scale of successful superimposition experiments. We've advanced by about six or seven orders of magnitude since the first superimposition experiments, but would have to get through another 45 OMs to have an undead cat, it seems. Could happen though?

Submission + - British security service hacks into unsaved documents (mi5.gov.uk)

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: The British domestic security service, MI5, has successfully contributed to the conviction of three would-be terrorists by recovering portions of documents the three had thought were unsaved. The three discussed possible terrorist targets by typing into a laptop but did not save the document. Yet MI5 were able to recover substantial portions of the document which was used as evidence. But why didn't MI5 use a Unicode capable hex editor?

Submission + - Why more men should be spending time in the gym (wordpress.com)

Submitted by 00_NOP
00_NOP writes: The scientific results are in and a paper published by the US National Academy of Sciences reports it is true that women really do prefer men with larger penises. There are a couple of compensations for those with penises on the smaller size: that tallness is around as attractive as a large penis and if you are neither tall nor have a large penis then getting ripped — or having broad shoulders and slim hips naturally — also helps.
I just hope this doesn't give the spammers more energy!
Twitter

Submission + - Hashtag war has begun in British House of Commons (wordpress.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Today is a big day in Britain — the annual Budget (actually the government's tax plans rather than spending) was announced in the House of Commons in a televised debate.

The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Ed Miliband, used his televised reply to suggest tweeters used the hashtag #downgradedChancellor in their responses and within the hour this was trending worldwide. Seems the Parliamentarty Twitter Wars have begun.

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