Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Security

Submission + - OpenOffice Virus Found in Use (zdnet.com.au)

Submitted by
eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: "Remember the 'SB/Badbunny-A' virus that wasn't in the wild yet? Well, according to Symantec, it is and it's not caring what platform you're running. The respective behaviors of the designated worm in the wild: "On Windows systems, it drops a file called drop.bad which is moved to the system.ini in the user's mIRC folder, while executing the Javascript virus badbunny.js that replicates to other files in the folder. On Apple Mac systems, the worm drops one of two Ruby script viruses in files called badbunny.rb and badbunnya.rb. On Linux systems, the worm drops both badbunny.py as an XChat script and badbunny.pl as a Perl virus.""
Wii

Submission + - Wii to Get New Hardware: Possibly Hard Drive

Submitted by
HoboBob
HoboBob writes: "It has been suggested that Nintendo will be unveiling some new hardware for the Wii at E-3, and some are speculating that it could be a hard drive. According to the article: 'Confirmation back in April that Neo Geo games will begin being added to Wii's Virtual Console download service adds weight to the speculation, considering Neo Geo games are huge — some clocking in it at up to 330MB. One of those bad boys would put serious strain on the Wii's memory.'"
Windows

Flawed Survey Suggests XP More Secure Than Vista 235

Posted by Zonk from the no-knee-jerking-here dept.
SkeeLo writes "One of Vista's big selling points is security, but a report from CRN concludes that Vista offers little in the way of security advancements over Windows XP. Ars Technica analyzed the report and found some methodological problems. 'The report faults Vista for "providing no improvement in virus protection vs. XP," but of course Windows Vista does not ship with antivirus software — something the reviewer fails to mention. Faulting an AV-less Vista for not stopping viruses is a bit like faulting a door without a lock for opening when the handle is twisted.' That's not all: 'It was also disappointing to see CRN completely ignore the issue of buffer overflows, which has been addressed well in Vista by most accounts. This was a major weak spot with XP, and so far, Vista looks strong in this area, strong enough that Vista may never get its own "SQL Slammer." Why CRN didn't address this is a mystery, as it is no minor matter.'"
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - FSF Releases "Last Call" Draft of GPLv3 (fsf.org)

Submitted by
mw13068
mw13068 writes: "From the FSF Website: http://www.fsf.org/news/gpl3dd4-released

The new draft incorporates the feedback received from the general public and official discussion committees since the release of the previous draft on March 28, 2007. FSF executive director Peter Brown said, "We've made a few very important improvements based on the comments we've heard, most notably with license compatibility. Now that the license is almost finished, we can look forward to distributing the GNU system under GPLv3, and making its additional protections available to the whole community."

The FSF has also published an essay by Richard Stallman on the benefits of upgrading to GPLv3. "Keeping a program under GPLv2 won't create problems," he writes. "The reason to migrate is because of the existing problems which GPLv3 will fix, such as tivoization, DRM, and threats from software patents. . . . Further advantages of GPLv3 include better internationalization, gentler termination, support for BitTorrent, and compatibility with the Apache license.""
Television

Submission + - MLB Says Slingbox Illegal, CEA Thinks Otherwise (slingcommunity.com)

Submitted by The Tie Guy
The Tie Guy writes: Sling Media's Slingbox allows consumers to watch and control their home television programs from a remote PC or smartphone — a process called "placeshifting". Content owners are typically edgy when it comes to the placeshifting topic. However, most don't view Slingbox as the imminent threat that will destroy the commercial broadcast model.

Major League Baseball is going against the grain by saying that Slingbox owners who stream home games while traveling are breaking the law because it allows consumers to circumvent geographical boundaries written in to broadcast deals. This has sparked a huge debate that has the MLB, baseball fans, and the CEA up in arms. CEA President Gary Shapiro doesn't agree, and is coming to the defense of Sling Media and place-shifting in general.
United States

Submission + - The art of keeping business morale high. Recess? (networkworld.com)

Submitted by
coondoggie
coondoggie writes: "Who didn't look forward to recess in school? Well at least a few companies are running a recess for employees in an attempt to boost morale and in general brighten up sour dispositions. A story in the Philadelphia Inquirer today looks at one company that offers a 15 minute recess once a week where team-building exercizes and other activities are offered to help relax workers. Meanwhile a staffing service company recently asked 250 executives for challenging or inventive methods of building camaraderie at work. The suggested: team skydiving, agroup Segway tour, lne dancing on the beach in matching outfits and a variety of other activities... http://www.networkworld.com/community/?q=node/1572 4"
Privacy

Submission + - UK Gov to 'monitor' child rearing (dailymail.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Those wacky moral busy-bodies are at it again! A new 9million pound UK government plan will 'encourage' parents to track their child's development in a 'learning diary'. Now children will have a maintenance plan, kind of like getting your tranny serviced every 30k miles and your tires rotated! The unmarried, childless, government experts will make sure your children grow up to be shining examples of servants to the state...err...fine upstanding citizens!
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - USB daisy-chaining

Submitted by simplypeachy
simplypeachy writes: According to the Wikipedia entry:

A USB system has an asymmetric design, consisting of a host controller and multiple daisy-chained peripheral devices. Additional USB hubs may be included in the chain, allowing branching into a tree structure, subject to a limit of 5 levels of branching per controller. No more than 127 devices, including the bus devices, may be connected to a single host controller.
There are all sorts of crazy hardware hackers out there. I had a look around and couldn't find anyone who has tried this before — surely someone has!
Censorship

Submission + - Domain Registrars Censoring the Internet

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Domain registrars and hosting providers routinely take sites off line when the contain illegal content, or are involved in spamming or fraud. These companies assert an absolute right to make these decisions without oversight, and we just assume they are right.

So, what happens if they are wrong?

Writing here the owner of a bittorrent site describes how two different Registrars/DNS Hosts have blocked the site, even though the actual host has no problem with it.

No big deal, right? Because bittorrent is illegal, and anybody using it must be involved in piracy. At least that is apparently the logic of the DNS providers DynDNS and Sitelutions.

In fact, the owner, who goes by the handle "Dr.E," says that the site is a "bittorrent news site. We do not operate a tracker, we do not host any torrent files, or directly link to any torrent files." He says that "I personally am a strong advocated for copyright law reform, and the site does encourage users to take full advantage of their rights to use material within the law, but those positions are completely legitimate, and espousing them is constitutionally protected free speech."

There is a big difference between opposing piracy and supporting censorship, and when some of the largest registrars are actively involved in censoring the internet, it should make people take notice.
Data Storage

Submission + - No more free storage (computerworld.com)

Submitted by
Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: "It's time to end the free ride. Too many companies fail to implement accounting practices for storage capacity, according to an article written by Jim Damoulakis at Computerworld. Damoulakis makes the point that without charge back, there's no incentive to economize resources and improve utilization. 'Being able to accurately justify and explain the cost implication of why it takes 50TB of storage to deliver 10TB of usable capacity for a given service level will raise awareness and perhaps even begin to modify behavior.'"
Movies

Video Game Documentary Stirs Up Controversy 49

Posted by Zonk from the wonder-what-game-the-submitter-is-running dept.
Game Master writes "Billy Mitchell has long been one of the gaming industry's most recognizable players. He appears in a new documentary, King of Kong, which has been screening to very positive reviews at film festivals around the country, and has been picked up by a major motion picture distributor. The movie, which portrays Billy in a very negative light, has come under fire recently in an article posted at MTV.com, where Billy and others spoke out about what they believed to be an unfair portrayal in the film. 'Ultimately, the documentary hasn't settled the Mitchell/Wiebe debate, which has been going on for nearly a half-decade. Mitchell, Day, Mruczek and several other arcade aficionados are now compiling a response to the film, a timeline they plan to post on TwinGalaxies.com in June. An early draft of the document lists [what they refer to as] KOK fiction, like, "Billy Mitchell will stop at nothing in order to keep his DK score," and promises facts that will prove those assertions wrong.' The end of the article seems to imply that legal action may follow."
The Media

Submission + - Al Gore talks about his book, confesses to read /.

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Al Gore has come out with his new Book — The Assault on Reason, and has generated quite a media buzz. Everybody asking is he going to run for president, and one of the more interesting interviews is available at Politico — where he confesses to be occasionally reading Slashdot.

"[Mr. Gore] has a Google news page and regularly reads about two dozen sites that range from traditional outlets like USA Today as well as new media venues like Slashdot.org, a technology site, and Huffington Post."

Al is also voicing himself in the upcoming Futurama movie.

Slashdot Top Deals

The Tao is like a glob pattern: used but never used up. It is like the extern void: filled with infinite possibilities.

Close