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U.S. Government to Adopt IPv6 in 2008 284

Posted by timothy from the they-should-adopt-odf-too dept.
IO ERROR writes "The U.S. Government is set to transition to IPv6 in June 2008, according to Government Computer News: 'In the newest additions to the IPv6 Transition Guidance, the CIO Council's Architecture and Infrastructure Committee has provided a list of best practices and transition elements that agencies should use as they work to meet the deadline. The latest additions, (MS Word) released in May, are a compilation of existing recommendations and best practices gathered from the Defense Department, which has been testing and preparing for the transition for years, the private sector, and the Internet research and development community.'"

New Piracy Loss Estimate 480

Posted by samzenpus from the avast-ye-mateys dept.
An anonymous reader writes "WSJ reports on a new MPAA estimate losses due to piracy. "The study, by LEK Consulting LLC, was completed last year, and people familiar with it say it reached a startling conclusion: U.S. movie studios are losing about $6.1 billion annually in global wholesale revenue to piracy, about 75% more than previous estimated losses of $3.5 billion in hard goods. On top of that, losses are coming not only from lost ticket sales, but from DVD sales that have been Hollywood's cash cow in recent years."

Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3 Released 250

Posted by CmdrTaco from the get-your-patch-on dept.
Mini-Geek writes "Mozilla Firefox 1.5.0.3 has been released. As with previous 1.5.0.x patches, 1.5.0.3 can be downloaded as a small, incremental download. From the article: 'This update fixes a publicly disclosed denial of service weakness. All users are encouraged to upgrade to this version. The bugfixes previously planned for Firefox 1.5.0.3 were shifted to 1.5.0.4, and a quick update was released shortly after the recent to address the publicly reported issue.'"

Asus PW191 LCD Review 176

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the goes-with-your-designer-office-furniture dept.
Tom's Hardware has quite the flattering review of one of the latest LCDs coming from Asus, the Asus PW191. From the review: "I won't mince words. The PW191 is the handsomest monitor I've ever seen. It's true that people's tastes vary, but no one can deny that the Asus designers have talent. While a lot of their competitors are using a white Macintosh look for lack of better ideas, Asus is innovating, offering designs that are both personal and novel. And they've applied that know-how to good effect in designing the PW191. The monitor's lines are superb, and the choice of colors is elegant and restrained."

Dell's Marketshare Decline Due to Intel? 275

Posted by Zonk from the jump-ship dept.
timeOday writes "News.com reports that Dell's PC sales are growing more slowly than the overall PC market for the first time on record. Gartner's Charles Smulders blames Dell's decline on their allegiance to Intel, and cites Hewlett Packard's embrace of AMD as a key to their growing sales. Can Dell continue to shun AMD, or is a breakthrough imminent for the #2 chipmaker?"

Microsoft Bypasses HOSTS File 459

Posted by CmdrTaco from the they-know-what's-best dept.
whitehatlurker writes "Dave Korn announced on the Full Disclosure and Bugtraq security lists that Microsoft is bypassing local lookups for some hosts, meaning that you can't locally block some sites through your HOSTS file. All of these sites are MicroSoft controlled sites. The general feeling in the rest of the thread is that this was to obfuscate these hosts and prevent them from being blocked by malware. However, there are no non-MicroSoft hosts listed, giving a competitive advantage for MicroSoft's anti-malware tools over other brands."

Does Anyone Still Use Token Ring? 185

Posted by Cliff from the just-because-its-old-doesn't-make-it-useless dept.
blanchae asks: "Does anyone still use Token Ring, or is it dead? I remember hearing about 100 mbps TR a few years ago but nothing since. I remember that the strong point of TR over Ethernet was the QOS and the consistent response time. Does the banking community still use TR?"

A Stark Warning On Climate Change 926

Posted by Zonk from the that's-not-good dept.
cliffski writes "In a report based on computer predictions, UK government advisor Professor David King said that an increase of even three degrees Celsius would cause drought and famine and threaten millions of lives The US refuses to cut emissions and those of India and China are rising. A government report based on computer modeling projects a 3C rise would cause a drop worldwide of between 20 and 400 million tonnes in cereal crops, about 400 million more people at risk of hunger and between 1.2bn and 3bn more people at risk of water stress."

Contact Lenses for Computer Professionals? 171

Posted by Cliff from the that-invisible-second-pair dept.
LxDengar writes "For anyone who uses a computer around 10-plus hours a day, eye strain can become a serious issue. According to the American Optometric Association, 70-75% of computer workers experience eye and vision problems. Although I've tried contacts in the past, I found that my eyes dried out very quickly, and so switched back to glasses. Recently, my eye doctor mentioned a series of new contacts with better hydration for the eyes, and targeted to computer professionals (Acuvue, Ocular Sciences, etc). Do you wear contacts when staring at your screen for long periods? What contacts does community recommend for long periods at the computer?"

Yahoo's Amazing Disappearing Mail Servers 139

Posted by Zonk from the here-then-gone dept.
Golygydd Max writes "A Techworld story reveals that the reason Yahoo email has delivery problems is that the company's mail servers mysteriously close once in a while." From the article: "According to trimMail's Email Battles site, which recently monitored 16 of the company's advertised email hosts 240 times over a half hour period, only 133 of its probes were answered. Many of the servers were closed and unavailable. Overall availability ranged from 25 percent to 75 percent over the admittedly short test period. The average availability was 55 percent, with the worst of the servers available only 7 percent of the time."

Britain's 400 Years of Cyber Law 225

Posted by Zonk from the ye-olde-email dept.
corbettw writes "There's a news piece in The Register this morning about a British high court ruling about email signatures, and whether they constitute binding contracts. Apparently, the 1677 Statute of Frauds dictates what constitutes a contract, so an email with a disclaimer in the sig could qualify under the language of the statute. Since the statute predates the Constitution of the U.S., a clever lawyer could argue it applies here equally. Maybe there's some truth to the Internet joke 'take off every sig for great justice!'"

Alleged British Hacker Fears Guantanamo 661

Posted by Zonk from the rational-response dept.
Magnifico writes "The BBC is reporting that Gary McKinnon, a British man accused of breaking into the U.S. government computer networks, could end up at Guantanamo Bay. His lawyer is fighting his extradition to the United States arguing, 'The US Government wants to extract some kind of species of administrative revenge because he exposed their security systems as weak and helpless as they were.'"

Aero To Be Unavailable To Pirates 630

Posted by Zonk from the no-shiny-for-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Users thinking of pirating the next version of Windows may have a surprise in store: no Aero for you. The upcoming Microsoft OS will run a check to ensure the copy was legally purchased. If it comes up short, the shiniest part of the OS will not be available." From the article: "At first an optional program, the piracy check eventually became mandatory for many types of Windows XP downloads, but was not required to run any aspect of the operating system itself. Microsoft has identified reducing piracy as a key way for the company to grow its sales of Windows, which is already used on more than 90 percent of personal computers. But it's not just pirates who will be blocked from Windows' fanciest graphics. The Aero display also won't be available to those who buy Windows Vista Basic, the low-end consumer version of the operating system."

Open Source For Perimeter Security 56

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the people-still-afraid-of-oss dept.
An anonymous reader writes "IT Observer has a look at some of the perceived problems with an OpenSource approach to security and what could be done to improve the situation. From the article: 'There is a widespread and wholly inaccurate impression that open source development is somehow haphazard and undisciplined, a free-for-all among brilliant but uncoordinated individuals. In fact, most major open source projects are very tightly managed highly disciplined teams. This article gives examples of very successful Open Source security projects -- netfilter and Snort -- and also describes some weaknesses that need to be addressed by IT organizations or vendors.'"

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