Comment Jonathan James (Score 1) 312
Is that you?
Submission + - Venezuela's Last Opposition TV Owner Arrested (ap.org)
WrongSizeGlass writes: AP is reporting the owner of Venezuela's only remaining TV channel that takes a critical line against President Hugo Chavez was arrested Thursday. "Guillermo Zuloaga, owner of Globovision, was arrested on a warrant for remarks that were deemed "offensive" to the president", Attorney General Luisa Ortega said. This comes on the heels of last week's story about Venezuela's Chavez To Limit Internet Freedom.
Submission + - Journalism Students Assigned to Write on Wikipedia
Hugh Pickens writes: "eCampus News reports that at the University of Denver journalism students are assigned to write Wikipedia entries as part of a curriculum that stresses online writing and content creation and students have so far composed 24 Wikipedia articles this year, covering everything from the gold standard to San Juan Mountains to bimettalism, an antiquated monetary standard. Journalism instructors Lynn Schofield Clark and Christof Demont-Heinrich say students are told to check their sourcing carefully, just as they would for an assignment at a local newspaper. “Students are leery about mentioning Wikipedia, because they might be subjected to criticism. But I tell them it’s an online source of knowledge that just has some information that might be questionable, but that doesn’t mean you have to dismiss all of [its content]," says Demont-Heinrich, who first assigned the Wikipedia writing to students in his introductory course taught during the university’s recent winter semester. Demont-Heinrich said the Wikipedia entries didn’t require old-school shoe leather reporting—because the online encyclopedia bars the use of original quotes—but they teach students how to thoroughly research a topic before publishing to a site that has over 350 million unique visitors and gets over 10 billion page views a month. “I see journalism as being completely online within the next two to five years,” says Demont-Heinrich. “If you’re not trained to expect that and write for that, then you’re not going to be ready for the work world.”"
Submission + - Did Google Disregard Net Neutrality in India? (newteevee.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Google has been arguing for net neutrality in the US, but it might be willing to look the other way when it's convenient in other markets. According to this story in NewTeeVee, one of Google's advertisers promised its subscribers faster broadband speeds to watch cricket matches on YouTube's Indian Premier League channel. Bharti Airtel said subscribers would get 2Mbps broadband for live video streams from youtube.com/ipl — but if they went to another site, their Internet connections would return to their normal speeds. YouTube benefited from the increased speeds (and the advertising), but is it complicit in allowing a partner and advertiser to forgo net neutrality and give preferential access to its sites?
Submission + - How Safe is SSL? (wired.com)
Stohn writes: Wired reports, "That little lock on your browser window indicating you are communicating securely with your bank or e-mail account may not always mean what you think its means.
Normally when a user visits a secure website, such as Bank of America, Gmail, PayPal or eBay, the browser examines the website's certificate to verify its authenticity.
At a recent wiretapping convention, however, security researcher Chris Soghoian discovered that a small company was marketing internet spying boxes to the feds. The boxes were designed to intercept those communications — without breaking the encryption — by using forged security certificates, instead of the real ones that websites use to verify secure connections. To use the appliance, the government would need to acquire a forged certificate from any one of more than 100 trusted Certificate Authorities."
Normally when a user visits a secure website, such as Bank of America, Gmail, PayPal or eBay, the browser examines the website's certificate to verify its authenticity.
At a recent wiretapping convention, however, security researcher Chris Soghoian discovered that a small company was marketing internet spying boxes to the feds. The boxes were designed to intercept those communications — without breaking the encryption — by using forged security certificates, instead of the real ones that websites use to verify secure connections. To use the appliance, the government would need to acquire a forged certificate from any one of more than 100 trusted Certificate Authorities."
Submission + - How do you extend your wireless connection?
ganjadude writes: "So I am moving to a location where the cell signal is very poor, (I don't get signal inside my house) and I have been looking at wireless extenders such as the ones that sprint and Verizon have. I am brought down by the cost (Sprint charges monthly, Verizon 250$ up front AT&T.... well they are AT&T) Being that this is Slashdot, and a lot of us live in basements, (I kid!) I assume that some of the crowd has had this issue in the past. My question is what have you done or what alternatives are available to someone in such a situation without bending over and taking it from the phone company?"
Comment From the institute of Duh? (Score 0) 542
It's pretty much common knowledge that cheaper substitute ingredients are almost always unhealthy. Did we really need scientists to tell us about it? Next they'll be spending federal funding to study how diet soda is making us fatter...
Submission + - Whatever happened to programming? (wordpress.com)
Mirk writes: "In a recent interview, Don Knuth wrote: "the way a lot of programming goes today isn't any fun because it's just plugging in magic incantations — combine somebody else's software and start it up." The Reinvigorated Programmer laments how much of our "programming" time is spent pasting not-quite-compatible libraries together and patching around the edges."
Submission + - Popular Science Looks at Cellphone Radiation (popsci.com)
pgn674 writes: Popular Science has published a feature article looking at the current state of cellphone radiation and its research. It touches on people who claim to be electro-hypersensitive, "who are reluctant to subject themselves to hours in an electronics-laden facility" for studies. The limited research on that is still showing that sufferers are unable to detect radiation in blind tests. Electromagnetic fields causing cancer is also reviewed, with the conclusion that while it seems likely that high frequency fields in consumer devices don't directly cause cancer, they might promote it, and may also indirectly cause other health detriments beyond simply heating nearby tissue.
Submission + - Interview with the UK Pirate Party leader (pirateparty.org.uk)
VJ42 writes: With the 2010 UK general election fast approaching, The Pirate party of the United Kingdom will be fielding elections for the first time. With the Digital economy bill and ACTA being hot topics for UK geeks, the Pirate party looks to pick up votes. Their leader Andrew Robinson has agreed to answer your questions. Normal Interview rules apply.
Comment Oh come on now (Score 1) 366
Do you think if Google fails that the search engine is just going to disappear? Or GMail? No, they'll be sold to the highest bidder to pay Google's debts, but they won't themselves be liquidated. Life will go on for the rest of us.
Relax, and stop screwing with the market already. If they make dumb business decisions, let them fail. There are mechanisms in place to deal with that.
Comment Re:So Iran's standards then? (Score 1) 697
If Congress doesn't change a bill, they're "not listening to the people!" If the do change a bill, it "keeps mutating every week", and how is Joe the Plumber supposed to keep up with that?
Maybe then gigantic all-in-one bills are just bad ideas in principle. Maybe health care reform should be tackled piece by piece instead.
Comment Re:So Iran's standards then? (Score 1) 697
Here's why loser-pays is a horrible idea: "Mr. Jones, you claim that Atoyot Motors was negligent in failing to adequately test the accelerators in its cars, leading to an accident that killed your family. The jury has -- just barely -- decided that your evidence wasn't strong enough, and found in Atoyot's favor. You owe them $500,000 in legal fees." After that, nobody else dares to sue, and Atoyot keeps making defective product that kills people.
How is that worse than today? "Mr. Jones, you might have a case, just maybe, but it's not a sure thing so I'll need the fees up front. We'll start with a $10,000 retainer but that will get used up fast, so have more ready. You may or may not win it back."
It's a matter of degree. I find the current system to have FAR less of a chilling effect for seeking redress for grievances from the powerful.
Comment Re:Badgered (Score 1) 204
I find these badgers so compelling that I will consent to the content on the rest of the page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger_Badger_Badger
Submission + - What are your experiences with SELinux?
An anonymous reader writes: I am working on trying to configure SELinux to control what types of files users in our office can read. I want to incorporate SELinux file labeling using the Multi Category Security (MCS) option with NFSv3, because it seems like a great way to keep different groups out of each other's files no matter where the files might end up on disk. But, it looks as though a re-write of nfsd to suppor xatr might be in order (...and that's a tall order from what I can tell). Has anyone ever tried making nfsv3 work with SELinux before?
Also, in general, what have your experiences with SELinux been, good, bad, ugly? Have other people also felt like smashing their heads in with a rock trying to figure out how to make SELinux do what you want? What tools have helped you get 'er done?
And finally, can someone, anyone, I beg you, recommend a good reference for learning how to write policy modules (such as a description of what the hell all of the objects and classes are)?
