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Government

Obama & McCain Conflicting On Net Neutrality 427

Posted by CmdrTaco from the of-course-they-do dept.
longacre writes "For all their incessant bickering in the first two presidential debates over conflicts of interest and government regulation, PopMech columnist Glenn Derene is puzzled that the candidates have yet to be challenged on a vital issue directly related to both those topics: Net neutrality. John McCain and Barack Obama have stated elsewhere their opposing views on the issue, with McCain being opposed to Net neutrality and favoring light regulation of the Internet, while Obama is in favor of neutrality and seeks Government involvement. In any case, since there is no standard accepted definition of 'network neutrality,' until the candidates elaborate on their positions (which they both declined to do for this piece, nor anywhere else so far, for that matter), 'both sides can make a credible case that they're the ones defending freedom of innovation and open communication.'"
Linux

Why Is Adobe Flash On Linux Still Broken? 963

Posted by kdawson from the where-there's-a-will dept.
mwilliamson writes "As I sit reading my morning paper online I still cannot view the embedded videos due to auto-detection of my Flash player not working. One in every three or four YouTube videos crashes the browser. I remember sometime back reading that Adobe has a very small development team (possibly only one) working on the Linux port of Flash. It has occurred to me that Flash on Linux is the one major entry barrier controlling acceptance of Linux as a viable desktop operating system. No matter how stably, smoothly, efficiently, and correctly Linux runs on a machine, the public will continue to view it as second-rate if Flash keeps crashing. This is the worst example of being tied down and bound by a crappy 3rd-party product over which no Linux distribution has any control. GNASH is nice, but it just isn't there 100%. I really do have to suspect Adobe's motivation for keeping Flash on Linux in such a deplorable state."
Spam

Where Has All My Spam Gone? 597

Posted by kdawson from the yesterday-upon-the-stair dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I have my own domain, which has its own email server, where I receive all my personal email. I've been getting about 800 emails a day, of which perhaps 20 are real. Suddenly, Sunday or Monday evening, the spam pretty much stopped. My volume of mail has plummeted to less than 100 a day, and as far as I can tell, I'm not missing any real mail — I'm still getting the email list subscriptions I'm expecting, and every time I ask someone to send me a test message, it gets through. My domain host insists that it doesn't do any spam filtering before mail gets to my inbox, and that they've changed nothing about their configuration. I run SpamAssassin on my server to mark, but not delete, spam, and download the whole mess to my home client, and I'm still seeing the occasional message tagged by SpamAssassin. But it's virtually all gone. And I haven't changed anything about my own mail configuration, or the harvestability of my site (my personal email has been harvestable for almost a decade). So what's going on? I can't believe that several major botnets would have vanished overnight. Any ideas?"
Networking

US Broadband Won't Catch Up With Japan's For 101 Years 708

Posted by timothy from the all-other-things-being-equal-which-they-never-are dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Internet speeds of users nationwide shows that the United States has not made significant improvements in deploying high-speed broadband networks in the past year, and if the average US Internet speed continues to improve only at the same rate it did from 2007 to 2008, the country won't catch up with Japan's current download speed for another 100 years, according to findings released by the Communications Workers of America's (CWA's) Speed Matters campaign." With enough statistical mangling, nearly anything can be presented as plausible, but that's not enough to cover up my envy of Asian broadband speeds.
Biotech

Submission + - Genetic Based Match Making (okcupid.com)

Submitted by
Cirvam
Cirvam writes: "According to this article, the online dating site okCupid is now requiring users to submit a blood sample to be matched properly with their new matching system. Supposedly it will provide better compatibility and matching by analyzing your genetic predisposition to the other people on the site. While it is free, it is not an optional service so all new users and all existing users will be required to submit their blood sample. While I'm not sure that this will actually help people match up better it seems like this really forces Match.com and other dating sites to up their ante."
Biotech

Submission + - Genetic Based Match Making (okcupid.com)

Submitted by
Cirvam
Cirvam writes: "According to this article, the online dating site okCupid is now requiring users to submit a blood sample to be matched properly with their new matching system. Supposedly it will provide better compatibility and matching by analyzing your genetic predisposition to the other people on the site. While it is free, it is not an optional service so all new users and all existing users will be required to submit their blood sample. While I'm not sure that this will actually help people match up better it seems like this really forces Match.com and other dating sites to up their ante."
X

Submission + - LinuxBIOS with X Server Inside

Submitted by
acassis
acassis writes: "LinuxBIOS is a BIOS replacement. You can use it to start Linux from Hard Disk or even using Linux inside BIOS flash. This work show LinuxBIOS with Linux and graphic mode inside the BIOS flash. There is used a tiny X Server known as Kdrive (formely tinyx). The graphic mode and window manager (MatchBox) starts in 8s.
See yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuzRsXKm_NQ
More info about this system: http://www.linuxabordo.com.br/wiki/index.php?title =LinuxBIOS_Graphical"
Security

Submission + - Amazon... we have a (password) problem...

Submitted by
poodlehat
poodlehat writes: "I was on Amazon.com earlier today to check on an order I placed. I went to log in, and accidentally appended some extra characters to the end of my password. Me, being a lazy typist, decided to hit enter and re-enter my password on the inevitable login rejection screen. Well, imagine my surprise when the site let me straight into my account! I logged back out and intentionally typed something completely wrong in the password field and got rejected, so it it definitely only checking up to the number of characters in the stored password. This seems totally unacceptable to me — the two "keywords" should have to match exactly, right? Or is this behavior considered acceptable in the security world? I tried to find a technical contact at Amazon.com, the customer service page just doesn't feel like it would cut it on this one... anyone have a contact?"
Biotech

Mice Cured of Autism 233

Posted by CowboyNeal from the of-mice-and-men dept.
noahisaac writes "My brother just sent me an article he posted for the Rett Syndrome Research Foundation about a cure for Rett Syndrome, a form of autism. According to the article, researchers successfully re-introduced a fully functional version of the MECP2 gene into mice that had been born with damaged MECP2 genes. Contrary to their expectations, the mice improved. In the article's words, 'restoration of fully functional MECP2 over a four week period eradicated tremors and normalized breathing, mobility and gait in mice that had previously been fully symptomatic and, in some cases, only days away from death.' The ramifications for people suffering from Rett Syndrome are obvious, but mutations of the MECP2 gene are also believed to be the cause of 'classic' autism, and a number of other neurological disorders."
Security

Six Rootkit Detectors To Protect Your PC 108

Posted by samzenpus from the rate-them dept.
An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek has a review of 6 rootkit detectors.This issue became big last year when Sony released some music CDs which came with a rootkit that silently burrowed into PCs. This review looks at how you can block rootkits and protect your machine using F-Secure Backlight, IceSword, RKDetector, RootkitBuster, RootkitRevealer, and Rookit Unhooker."
Education

Global Warming Only a Theory, Says School Board 1089

Posted by Zonk from the i'd-think-seattle-would-know-about-rain dept.
BendingSpoons writes "A Seattle school board has placed a moratorium on screenings of 'An Inconvenient Truth', having found its subject matter too controversial. Echoing the language of the evolution debate, the school board found that students must be told that global warming is only a theory and presented with an opposing viewpoint. The ban was prompted by the complaints of a parent: '"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."'"
Privacy

Acer May Be Bugging Computers 396

Posted by Zonk from the might-want-to-look-into-this dept.
tomjen writes "What if a well known laptop company had silently placed an ActiveX Control on their computers that allowed any webpage to execute any program? Well Acer apparently has and they have (based on the last modified-by date of the file) been doing this since 1998. 'Checking the interface of the control reveals it has a method named "Run()" as shown below. The method supports parameters "Drive", "FileName", and "CmdLine". Isn't it strange for a control that's marked "safe for scripting" to allow a method that is suggestive of possible abuse?'"
Announcements

Submission + - Seagate Founder Al Shugart Passes Away

Submitted by xocp
xocp writes: Seagate Founder Al Shugart Passes Away

From the press release:
For those who had the rare and wonderful opportunity of knowing him, it's hard to imagine our world without Al Shugart in it to challenge the status quo, say things that were outrageously honest and achieve the remarkable.

He passed on December 12th, 2006.
Power

Submission + - Tesla's plan in action

Submitted by
parcanman
parcanman writes: "In North Attleboro Massachusetts, this house was built about 25 feet from 345,000-volt power lines. The house isn't connected to power service, but touching any metal object will still give you a shock. The guy even hooked a multimeter up to his metal sink and got 58 volts."
United States

Submission + - Electronics Help Amazon Post Record-Setting

Submitted by wndmltudtkd
wndmltudtkd writes: The Web retailer Amazon.com's 2006 holiday season peaked with more than four million orders placed on Dec. 11, the company said Tuesday. That broke last year's single-day record of more than 3.6 million orders, set on Dec. 12 In its 12th holiday season, Amazon.com said that it again had its "best ever" sales and that it shipped more than 99 percent of orders in time to meet deadlines worldwide. As many as 3.4 million units went out in a single day.

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