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The Internet

Telecom Rollouts Raise Ire Over Utility Boxes 284

Posted by Soulskill from the price-of-progress dept.
Anti-Globalism points out this AP story, which notes: "As cable and phone companies race to upgrade services or offer video for the first time, they're doing it by installing equipment in boxes on lawns, easements and curbs all over American neighborhoods. Telecommunications rollouts have always been messy, but several towns and residents are fighting back with cries of 'Not in my front yard!' AT&T Inc.'s nearly fridge-sized units, which route its new U-verse video product to customers, are drawing particular ire. A few caught fire or even exploded. AT&T said it has fixed that by replacing the units' backup batteries."
User Journal

Journal Journal: Carrefour bedreigt klanten

Journal by HansF

Graag had ik via deze weg melding gedaan van een vervelend incident.

Vorige zaterdag (5 juli) rond de middag ben ik met mijn vriendin en een vriend naar de Carrefour in Korbeek-Lo gegaan. We waren op zoek naar een luchtmatras.

Na het gamma bekeken te hebben en niet gevonden te hebben wat we zochten besluiten we de winkel zonder aankopen te verlaten. Er is geen "uitgang zonder aankoop" in voorgenoemde winkel.
Mozilla

Mozilla SSL Policy Considered Bad For the Web 897

Posted by kdawson from the among-these-shall-be-life-liberty-and-acces-to-https dept.
Chandon Seldon writes "The issue of digital certificates for SSL and the policies surrounding them comes up repeatedly. I've written an article criticizing the behavior in Firefox 3, which includes a serious comparison of the current Mozilla policy — restricting encrypted HTTP to paying customers — to a violation of net neutrality."
Encryption

When Is a Self-Signed SSL Certificate Acceptable? 627

Posted by kdawson from the how-about-never-is-never-good-for-you dept.
UltraLoser writes "When is it acceptable to encourage users to accept a self-signed SSL cert? Recently the staff of a certain Web site turned on optional SSL with a self-signed and domain-mismatched certificate for its users and encourages them to add an exception for this certificate. Their defense is that it is just as secure as one signed by a commercial CA; and because their site exists for the distribution of copyrighted material the staff do not want to have their personal information in the hands of a CA. In their situation is it acceptable to encourage users to trust this certificate or is this giving users a false sense of security?"
Microsoft

Submission + - Ballmer attacked with eggs.

Submitted by HansF
HansF writes: Ballmer got a surprising welcome when speaking at the Corvinus-university at Budapest. Nagy Gyorgy, an Hungarian student started to rant about "Microsoft stealing from the Hungarian people" and ordering them to give that money back, 'right now'. To underline that statement he threw eggs at the CEO of the worlds biggest software company. He missed the first egg and by the time his second en third egg were thrown Ballmer was safely tucked away behind the desk. When the throwing was over the activist left the room, shouting more slogans.
Steve replied jokingly with : "It was a friendly disruption". Of course youtube has multiple clips. This is reminiscent of the pie Bill Gates got ten years ago.
Google

Submission + - Google halts Ecocho service

Submitted by HansF
HansF writes: Ecocho, my favourite charitable search engine has had it's privilege revoked to use dont-be-evil search giant ad system. Specifically, Google says they do not permit sites that offer "non-monetary incentives to users to perform searches on (sic: or) click on ads".
Security

Recruiting Friendly Botnets To Counter Bad Botnets 127

Posted by kdawson from the was-an-old-lady-who-swallowed-a-fly dept.
holy_calamity writes "New Scientist reports on a University of Washington project aiming to marshal swarms of 'good' computers to take on botnets. Their approach — called Phalanx — uses its distributed network to shield a server from DDoS attacks. Instead of that server being accessed directly, all information must pass through the swarm of 'mailbox' computers, which are swapped around randomly and only pass on information to the shielded server when it requests it. Initially the researchers propose using the servers in networks such as Akamai as mailboxes; ultimately they would like to piggyback the good-botnet functionality onto BitTorrent."
Security

What Should We Do About Security Ethics? 244

Posted by kdawson from the try-wikileaks dept.
An anonymous reader writes "I am a senior security xxx in a Fortune 300 company and I am very frustrated at what I see. I see our customers turn a blind eye to blatant security issues, in the name of the application or business requirements. I see our own senior officers reduce the risk ratings of internal findings, and even strong-arm 3rd party auditors/testers to reduce their risk ratings on the threat of losing our business. It's truly sad that the fear of losing our jobs and the necessity of supporting our families comes first before the security of highly confidential information. All so executives can look good and make their bonuses? How should people start blowing the whistle on companies like this?"
Wireless Networking

City-Provided Wi-Fi Rejected Over "Health Concerns" 360

Posted by kdawson from the just-put-on-the-tinfoil-hat-and-it-will-be-all-better dept.
exphose writes "A small, hippie-friendly town in northern California, Sebastopol, had made an agreement with Sonic.net to provide free Wi-Fi across the downtown area. However, not everyone in town was pleased with the arrangement. According to Sebastopol Mayor Craig Litwin, citizens had voiced concerns that 'create enough suspicion that there may be a health hazard' and so they canceled their contract with Sonic.net. Some more details are at the blog of Sonic.net's CEO."
Censorship

The Cuban Memory Stick Underground 427

Posted by kdawson from the digital-samizdat dept.
circletimessquare writes "The NyTimes has an aticle describing how students and others in Cuba have taken to passing around media on memory sticks, as this is the only way they can get around state-controlled media. Also driving this phenomenon is the fact that there are so few places to get on the Internet. In Old Havana there is only one Internet cafe; getting online there for an hour costs 1/3 of the average Cuban's monthly wages. Local entrepreneurs get the memory sticks from European friends, since they are scarce to find in Cuba through normal channels, and expensive."
Google

Google Street a Slice of Dystopian Future? 325

Posted by Zonk from the they-see-you-man dept.
An anonymous reader writes "According to a recent CNET article, Google Street View 'is just wrong'. The short piece which makes up part of a larger feature about 'technology that's just wrong' goes on to explain that Google Street View is like a scene from George Orwell's terrifying dystopian vision of 1984 and that it could ultimately change our behaviour because we'll never know when we're being watched. 'Google? Aren't they the friendly folk who help me find Web sites, cheat at pub quizzes, and look at porn? Yes, but since 2006 they're also photographing the streets of selected world cities and posting the results online for all to see. It was Jeremy Bentham who developed the idea of the Panopticon, a system of prison design whereby everybody could be seen from one central point, with the upshot being that prisoners learnt to modulate their behaviour — because they never knew if they were being watched. And that doesn't sound like much fun, does it?'"
Patents

Ogg Vorbis / Theora Language Removed From HTML5 Spec 395

Posted by Zonk from the nice-while-it-lasted dept.
Rudd-O writes "It's official. Ogg technology has been removed from the HTML5 spec, after Ian caved in the face of pressure from Apple and Nokia. Unless massive pressure is exerted on the HTML5 spec editing process, the Web authoring world will continue to endure our modern proprietary Tower of Babel. Note that HTML5 in no way required Ogg (as denoted by the word 'should' instead of 'must' in the earlier draft). Adding this to the fact that there are widely available patent-free implementations of Ogg technology, there is really no excuse for Apple and Nokia to say that they couldn't in good faith implement HTML5 as previously formulated."
Microsoft

MS Awarded "Best Campaigner Against OOXML" 190

Posted by kdawson from the pull-gun-aim-at-foot-pull-trigger dept.
HansF writes "Microsoft itself is the surprise winner of the FFII's Kayak Prize 2007, offered by the FFII in its call for rejection of Microsoft's OOXML standards proposal. The software monopolist is honored as 'Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization.' FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, 'We could never have done this by ourselves. By pushing so hard to get OOXML endorsed, even to the point of loading the standards boards in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, and beyond, Microsoft showed to the world how poor their format is. Good standards just don't need that kind of pressure. All together, countries made over ten thousands technical comments, a new world record for an ISO vote. Microsoft made a heroic — and costly — effort to discredit their own proposal, and we're sincerely grateful to them.'" If Microsoft doesn't send a representative to claim their 2500-Euro prize at the FFII General Assembly in November, FFII will give the money to Peruvian earthquake relief.
Microsoft

Submission + - FFII awards Microsoft "Best Campaigner against (noooxml.org) 1

Submitted by HansF
HansF writes: Microsoft itself is the surprise winner of the FFII's "Kayak Prize 2007", offered by the FFII in its OOXML call for rejection of Microsoft's Office Open XML (OOXML) standards proposal. The software monopolist is honored as "Best Campaigner against OOXML Standardization".
FFII president Pieter Hintjens explains, "we could never have done this by ourselves. By pushing so hard to get OOXML endorsed, even to the point of loading the standards boards in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, Portugal, Italy, and beyond, Microsoft showed to the world how poor their format is. Good standards just don't need that kind of pressure. All together, countries made over ten thousands technical comments, a new world record for an ISO vote. Microsoft made a heroic — and costly — effort to discredit their own proposal, and we're sincerely grateful to them."

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