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Censorship

Australian AvP Ban Reversed 71

Posted by Soulskill from the people-have-spoken dept.
Earlier this month, we discussed news that Sega's new Aliens vs. Predator video game had been refused classification in Australia, effectively banning it. After a scathing response from the developer saying they wouldn't censor the game, and later news that the classification scheme may be updated to include an R18+ rating, it now seems that the Classification Board has seen fit to give the game a green light after all. Sega's Darren Macbeth told Kotaku, "We are particularly proud that the game will be released in its original entirety, with no content altered or removed whatsoever. This is a big win for Australian gamers. We applaud the Classification Review Board on making a decision that clearly considers the context of the game, and is in line with the modern expectations of reasonable Australians."
Linux

Submission + - Decreasing cost of IT in the Federal Government. (dremspider.net)

Submitted by
dremspider
dremspider writes: "How the federal government could save money on IT by increasing collaboration of federal agencies through Open Source. By requiring agencies to open source their products it will be possible to quickly lower costs across the board for all agencies. This details why the government needs to be considering opening up their applications."

Comment Re:No, it's the stupidest tech startup (Score 1) 148

Being that I work as a contracter for the government and have worked a bit on the bid process, this is normal. Numerous companies go to a large agency, let's say the treasury and bid for a contracting vehicle. This will often contain numerous contractors, in fact it is garunteed by law to. In this situation quite often contractors will band together to fill in areas they may not be very good at. The contract vehicles will then go to a few groups (consisting of the multiple companies). This contract vehicle process takes a long time as the parent said, but it is important to note that it gets the winners NO money at all. Once this is done a smaller division in the government can "hire" or request for bids using these contract vehicles. For smaller amounts they don't have to go through any bidding process. For larger contracts they must go through a shorter process then the original contract vehicle. I am not saying nothing was fishy in this contract, but I am saying that this is normal.

Comment Really useful? (Score 2, Insightful) 81

by dremspider (#27520715) Attached to: New CASMOBOT Lawnmower Controlled By a Wiimote
Does it make it more efficient? First of all I am pretty sure it is going to take longer. Second, for the cost to make one of these I am pretty sure you can make one of those lawn mowers that cut grass BY ITSELF with NO HUMAN INTERVENTION. I don't care if it takes 5 days for the machine to do it, if it is automatic and I don't need to be there. Finally, all this does is requires a human to still attend to the grass, but not get the side benefit of exercise... While this invention is cool, don't pawn it off as something useful when their is clearly little to no market for something like this...
Security

Submission + - A technical career in information security?

Submitted by
dremspider
dremspider writes: "I have been working as the life as a System Administrator since getting my undergrad degree for a few years. I really enjoy what I do and I like the hands on life of being an SA. I have been enrolled in a Information Security Masters which I attend part time. The master's is very technical (under the CS dept.) with a lot of programming. The problem I have is a lot of jobs I have been seeing in security seem to be more managerial/pencil pusher. My question is if I want to remain technical will I do better not continuing to pursue a degree in Information Security?"

Comment Anyone else seeing a point in this? (Score 2, Interesting) 52

by dremspider (#26985895) Attached to: VMware Demos Two Operating Systems On Mobile Phone
I can see it being useful for application development, maybe. That is stretching it though because usually you emulate the phone on your computer when developing, rather then using the phone itself. How many people are going to do this? Virtualization is great for somethings, but this I would say is pointless. I want my phone to work, the less the interface is relevant the better the interface is. Why would I want two different interfaces that do the exact same thing? You don't have multiple users with a phone, so that doesn't help. You aren't consolidating phones because everyone is still going to want their own phone. What can I do with this?

Comment Re:router (Score -1) 242

by dremspider (#26482719) Attached to: 1 In 3 Windows PCs Still Vulnerable To Worm Attack
NAT must be set for a router to work. The very nature of a router is to use NAT. Ironically though it is a bigger issue on corporate networks as they are more likely to forward off ports. Not that NAT is a panacea by any means, but it is better then nothing. All routers need to do some type of NAT period, it is how a router works.

Comment Re:State Govt. requires Blackberry... (Score 0) 374

by dremspider (#26450099) Attached to: Solving Obama's BlackBerry Dilemma

It does "phone home", but to the server that you point it to, not some other server. If you use the enterprise features, you say I am going to point it to this server, and that is all that it ever looks at. Then you can kill the blackberry from that server. Once you move the server it points to, ATT or RIM or whoever can't kill the phone. It is your choice to do so as the admin of the server.

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