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Education

Submission + - Students Break Teacher's Neck Over iPod

Submitted by
theodp
theodp writes: "Philadelphia police arrested and charged two students Friday for attacking a 60-year-old math and photography teacher and breaking his neck after he took an iPod away from one of the students during class. 'This is really a very heinous act,' said Philly School CEO Paul Vallas. Germantown High's posted policy states: 'Beepers, walkmans, cellular phones and other electronic devices are to be left at home. (NO EXCEPTIONS)'. As GWB might say, Mission accomplished."
Space

Submission + - NASA Put Combo Locks On Shuttle Hatches

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: According to the SpaceRef story "The Curious Use of Combination Locks By NASA During Space Shuttle Missions" NASA put special combination locks on the Space Shuttle's main hatch during at least two missons becuase it was afraid that some of the scientist payload specialists might open the hatch by mistake. If these science types were that inept, why fly them in the first place? Did Lisa Nowak's shuttle have an extra lock on the hatch?
Security

Submission + - Can New York Times cause Identity Thefts ?

Submitted by
Vishal Mishra
Vishal Mishra writes: "This is regarding a recent and very well written New York Times story on SlashDot, about Identity Thefts. While the story provides a lot of useful information, it also directs users to a search site developed by a company TrustedID, that can help people know if they have already been a victim of identity fraud. This site can potentially steal social security numbers by the way it collects SSN for verification against its database. The site does not use hashing at all, but instead requires customers to send SSN or credit card information unhashed. Here is a link to the blog describing the attack and the right secured way to build such search sites — http://vmtech.blogspot.com"
Movies

Submission + - BitTorrent Inc Launches Digital Media Store

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: BitTorrent Inc announced that they will open their video store this Monday.

Movies will only be available for rental. Older titles will cost $2.99, while new releases will go for $3.99. Customers can take up to a month to watch a film. Once they start watching a title, they have up 24 hours to finish it. TV shows and music videos are "download to own" and cost $1.99 each.
All the content will be protected with Windows DRM, Ironically enough BitTorrent COO Ashwin Navin stated that DRM "will inspire people to pirate content".
Wireless Networking

Submission + - TV station transmits over kitchen wok

Submitted by nut
nut writes: A new local tv station at the bottom end of New Zealand, 45 South chose a $10 wok over a $20 000 commercial transmission dish. They claim better performance than their previous commercial aerials, as the solid metal of the wok prevents interference from behind the dish that plagued earlier wire mesh aerials.

The technology was originally developed by computer programmer Ken Jones to get broadband access at his rural property. Instruction on build your own Wok wireless acess point can be found here.
Linux Business

Submission + - when will Linux surpass windows' popularity?

Submitted by
thebytegrill
thebytegrill writes: "Linux's popularity has got nothing to do with Linux, the technology is already there to provide a canned and working system.

The crux of the matter lies in Microsoft's marketing policies. They use their monopoly to strong arm the industry into sidetracking the issue. Microsoft threatens OEM vendors with higher tariffs on licences and support, not to mention locked file formats and they got a cash reserve nobody can challenge at the moment. They make deals with governments, this is a completely different ball game, its not about the technology. What that means is that they will continue to hold the ball until such time legislation curbs unethical business practises, which is highly unlikely in a capitalistic market, people have no standards here and they make the rules. Sure the enterprise security applications industry favours Linux as its base operating system, but really look who these systems are protecting, they're vulnerable windows systems, so even that market exists as a support to make windows a viable solution for enterprise, it sounds crazy but its a fact.

If Microsoft finds a way to put its shell on Linux and sell it as Windows they will do it, they don't care, as long as they find a way to make money anything goes.

In the long term Linux may tip that balance as a parasite, when push come to shove its Linux that's the choice no doubt, vmware's ESX server uses Linux, zillions of embedded Linux devices, most enterprise security applications prefer Linux, all kinds of servers will move to Linux, database/file/web/etc., but all these are back end choices. Linux getting into the desktop space will have to overcome all the odds of capitalism (one who holds the most money is most likely to continue to hold that position, hardware innovations are more transparent for obvious reasons) by improving beyond a point people cant ignore any more, that means Linux has to get way better then ITSELF, technologically nobody can hold
a candle to it. Incompetent, ignorant or indifferent people (read masses with a capital A) need to sit up and notice it at some point, this is hard to to with people who wouldn't know a good thing even if it jumped out of a bush and bit them in the ass. People in power protect a boys club of collective incompetence so as to guard their memberships, values are cheap and are bought everyday. This is the world we live in, lets not lose focus on the real issues, the innovator has always been seen as a threat, any business manual will tell you that, its a dog eat dog world out their and you can never tell who's in bed with whom, its just politics in the end, no different.

You want games and other application that are missing from the current Linux world, don't expect to get stuff from closed source company's barring a few like idsoftware, they are short lived products and do not fit the model, in the long run these things will take on a life just as any other currently successful OSS project and have a life of their own. Like most current OSS projects they will become part of the infrastructure that the closed source will eventually not be able to compete against. We haven't seen nothing yet. OSS is running on a different time line, were in our infancy as far as consumer requirements go. Priorities will shift once the developers are sufficiently satisfied with the existing infrastructure, Linux is its own competition. That point when the masses take notice is irrelevant as far as the technology goes.

This sounds exceedingly like a communist treaties but what were talking about is purely information, may be this is the only place where people can compete for prestige with real innovation, prestige will buy you funds/merits. The danger here is that every successful idea is subject to the laws of economies (increasing/constant/diminishing). Say Linux were to achieve all this and came full circle, all we've done is replaced the current model with the OSS model. The same evils will exist but maybe at a more controlled rate, what are we left with then, the same system only here the sources are open, improvement but not quite what we hoped for, or is that another argument all together?

Linux can go from a simple kiosk mode to a spaceship controller and everything in between. Windows is a locked down system, frozen, with a package manager of rigid rules, dictatorship as its main theme. The point is Linux can be made to be a commodity in a shrink-wrapped box, frozen on a feature set, and not provide any evolutionary updates other than for security and bug fixes. Feature updates should only be provided once a year. Such is the windows user mindset, the solace and comfort of knowing things are going to remain as they are for some time is imperative to them. They are not your typical Linux user chasing rainbows.

Linux can and must provide such a system for your typical windows user. Sell stability and security. Don't confuse them with philosophies they know nothing about. If they notice an improvement, let their own curiosity bring them into the fold.

The rest of us can have our cake and eat it too, ride the wave of innovation and satisfy our egos ever which way.

The main hurdle that people don't get and is hard to explain is the business model surrounding OSS. People don't always understand how the GPL can be valid in the current technology market. People think of software as a commodity and not a service. Herein lies the conflict. Eric S Raymond made this quite clear to us () but can the people with the buying power accept this, they crave accountability, responsibility, dependability and their corporate lawyers want somebody to point a finger at when the shit hits the fan. Microsoft is so big that they make the industry submissive to its rules, lawyers love to keep things in bondage, S&M is their style of modus operandi. And I kid you not that its the lawyers who need to give us their stamp of approval. Business schools need to have it in their curriculum. People need to be educated on the new economy. The current software industry needs to be replaced by individual projects. This is a hard sell. To tell a corporation to shove off is quite impossible, they can only be made redundant. Can any one project be competent enough to own the whole stack? No, the laws of economies don't permit this. Its is a slow process that started with the birth of GNU and Linux.

The people who use and buy software are willing to put the cash forward, give them the right reasons. Don't expect them to jump onto the open source bandwagon immediately, let that transition be gradual and padded. Shock treatment only lengthens this transition.

Its imperative that the F/OSS world accept the middle ground of public infrastructure (service) while respecting private property (commodity). Lets not be fanatical on the subject. Products in the category of entertainment, business applications (those that give a business an edge over their competitors) and other such niche areas need their privacy. We are not advocating a communist style of operation. But infrastructure what of which is commonly required needs to be done well and without duplication, a fork is a fork for technological reasons, not economic.

These positional differences will be determined by the interactions within the technology market, if a product in the private realm gets increasingly popular there will be no reason to imagine such a project wont be duplicated and competed with by an open source project and vice versa, again let the best man win, either way, and this is the key to the transition already at play.

The world is changing, lets be reasonable and try to enjoy the best of both worlds for now.

There is a lot of confusion over funding and marketability in the F/OSS world. Let me say this first, Linux would not have evolved at the rate is has if money wasn't being exchanged, however indirectly. The first thing required to be understood is the difference between a service and a commodity. A service is rendered for a price whereas a commodity is bought and owned privately. Secondly, in the OSS community the technology is decoupled from the funding agencies.

Lets take it from the top, a developer or group of developers start a home brewed open source application project. Opens a project page up to provide the sources, information and a point of collaboration for other developers to join or for users to download and by that participate in its progress. Before it gets noticed, the project needs to have created a user base of a seizable volume enough to imply a potentially commercial project has been born. Until such point its entirely self funded by its members, in terms of time, effort, equipment and any other resources consumed. The project is useful either by either being a potential alternative to an existing commercial product or opening up a new category all by itself. Either an existing complementary project or an interested business can then consider adopting the project by various ways providing funding, infrastructure, man power, know how, etc. Needless to say such a party, commercial or not is only interested when they see a potential to better reach their own goals. A point to keep in mind is that the project usually remains under its own identity unless adopted by another open source project or by any of its enabling parties. The code these projects generate then make their way into commercial services by way of value addition, they complement or take the lead position of the core technology used in providing a commercially sold service. This is where the decoupling takes place, the front end is a sales/services company that leans on various projects. Some if not most of that money finds its way back into the projects' foundation. A commercially sold service could be anything from a customized solution or service. The generic products get bundled up into distributions for the free users, again which may or may not have a commercial market. The open source angle of it allows the code to be used by anybody willing to configure it for them selves as its freely available. The developers are left to their own devices without middle the men ruling them, people who work in Open source are there because they want to be, as a contrast most IT Corporations are run as body shops. However there is a sizeable number (I cannot comment on the ratio) of developers working without any monetary gains whatsoever for their efforts, take the case of the developers bending backwards reverse engineering drivers primarily for the free users, at the same time this massive and potentially well informed user base provides an uncompromising quality assessment (Q&A) service back to the developers.

Every body wins.

The projects get real world testing, peer code reviews, massive code re-usablitity, think Lego, less duplication of efforts, specialization and no more reinventing the wheel unless its absolutely necessary for the right reasons. This translates directly into better software for the commercial users. They are going to pay for a particular piece of software anyway. Those instances where they actually need that code to be private is only a small percentage of what they actually pay for and peculiar only to them.

The grey areas are when you combine closed and open source projects. Its up to the GPL to make or break that deal!"
The Courts

RIAA Appeals Award of Attorneys' Fees 156

Posted by kdawson from the first-up-against-the-wall dept.
Fishing Expedition writes in with a story in Ars reporting that the RIAA has decided to appeal a judge's decision to award attorneys' fees to defendant Debbie Foster in Capitol Records v. Foster. If the award stands, the RIAA could find itself in trouble in numerous other cases, and they know it. Their real fear, more than the attorneys' fees, is the judge's finding that the RIAA's arguments for contributory and vicarious infringement claims in cases like this one are not viable.

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