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Censorship

Submission + - Two Thumbs Down in Hollywood Trademark Dispute (suntimes.com)

Submitted by
monxrtr
monxrtr writes: ""Two Thumbs Down"! Even though "Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down" is as old as the Romans voicing public approval or disapproval, it seems film review critiques Siskel and Ebert trademarked the symbols. Now that Ebert is in a dispute with Disney, last weeks episode featuring the influential "thumbs up, thumbs" down review, which Hollywood marketing relies on to advertise new release movies and DVDs, was notoriously missing from the lineup of films reviewed, reports the Chicago Sun Times. So it appears the "thumbs up, thumbs down" review method is a monopoly protected intellectual property; Disney has not been able to reach a relicense agreement with Roger Ebert and the estate of the deceased Gene Siskel, owners of the trademark, for their movie review show "At the Movies with Ebert & Roeper.""
United States

Submission + - Running trail mistaken for bioterrorism threat (msn.com)

Submitted by feuerfalke
feuerfalke writes: A flour-and-chalk trail marked out by Daniel Salchow and his sister Dorothee for their running club, the Hash House Harriers, sparked fears and evacuations Thursday night, and now the siblings are finding themselves in deep trouble with New Haven police. Police were called after they were spotted sprinkling "powder" in the parking lot of an IKEA furniture store, which was later evacuated. The "powder" was, in fact, flour, which the siblings have used plenty of times before, all across the country, to mark trails for their club. The Salchow siblings are now facing felony charges, and New Haven police seek "restitution" for the resources wasted in their mistake. This sounds familiar...
Businesses

Submission + - A&P Supermarket sues over spoof vid seek $1M (c-n.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: NJ Kids made a music video they called Produce Paradise, lost their jobs, and now A&P is suing them for 1 million dollars in damanges

CALIFON — It has already cost them their jobs. Now, the fictitious music video "Produce Paradise," created by two Hunterdon County brothers as a way to parody the outlandishness of gangster rap by using veggies as props, could cost them $1 million.

The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., parent company of the supermarket chain A&P, recently filed a defamation lawsuit in state Superior Court in Flemington against college students Mark and Matthew D'Avella, who until recently stocked shelves at the Califon A&P.

The full article: http://www.c-n.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/2007 0828/NEWS/708280303

The video in question: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5iDpxucNFE
Censorship

Submission + - [PIC] NSFW on the front page on Digg.com

Submitted by Shadow_139
Shadow_139 writes: I just noticed this this morning I don't know how long its been like this cause I normally don't notice ad's but have a look, It looks like a screen shoot from a video of a girls locker room taken with a hidden camera in a vent...... I'm no prude and have not problem with porn but this is weird image as a front page main ad.

http://digg.com/ — Have a look at the MetaCafe Ad just under the Top 10 on the left-hand side

Screen Shot — In case it is changed.

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p60/BOFH139/DIG G_METACAF_NSFW_CROP.jpg
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - RIAA violation

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Worst mail to open: A pre-litigation letter from the Recording Industry Association of America, which arrived for five people accused of illegally sharing music online while at UVA, the Progress reports. Violators could be charged $750 for each copyrighted song illegally shared. from The Hook http://readthehook.com/stories/2007/08/23/4BETTER- 0634-B.rtf.aspx
Red Hat Software

Submission + - Truth Happens | Dance on the grave of DRM with thi (redhatmagazine.com)

Submitted by
cdodd
cdodd writes: "http://truthhappens.redhatmagazine.com/2007/08/24/ dance-on-the-grave-of-drm-with-this-awesome-cartoo n-requiem-video-mashup-challenge/ Sure, it's probably too early to dance on the grave of Digital Rights Management (DRM), but we can certainly continue pounding nails in its coffin after Wal-Mart drove a stake through its heart this week. And that's not counting all the garlic, silver bullets, and hemlock showered on DRM recently by Apple, EMI, Amazon, and Universal (not to mention "consumers"). It's still twitching and gasping, and we may have some zombification ahead of us, but the tipping point is nigh. You can smell it. Download this video: [Ogg Theora] This is a prototype of a video designed to tell the story of DRM. The life and death, the rise and fall, the here today, gone-tomorrow story of DRM. So there;s human a heartbeat and a bird, and from there, we tell as much as we can. There's a lot more to say, so add to the story. We'll be posting music tracks later www.truthhappens.com, and if you need higher quality video, that can be arranged (email me for now tdodd@redhat.com). It's released under a CC Share Alike License, so have at it."
Censorship

Submission + - School board unanimouly votes for censorship (wausaudailyherald.com)

Submitted by flathom
flathom writes: Students and teachers in the Merrill Area School District this year could face discipline at school for on-line communications that came from the privacy of their homes. Disciplinary action for students ranges from a warning to expulsion until the age of 21. Employees can be fired for violating district policy.
Education

Submission + - Finnish Boy Sued for Karaoke Video

Submitted by Zatchmort
Zatchmort writes: There's a tense legal climate in the US regarding students' use of social networking sites such as MySpace, but it's not unique to America. The AP reports that a Finnish boy was sued for $4,000 for posting a video on YouTube of his teacher at a party. From the article: 'In the first case of its kind in Finland, Nurmes District Court found Toni Vesikko guilty of intentional defamation and fined him 90 euros, or about $120. He also was ordered to pay 800 euros ($1,000) in damages for "causing harm and suffering" and 2,200 euros ($3,000) in court costs... The video, which Vesikko called in English "Karaoke of the mental hospital," named the teacher and said she was "a lunatic singing at the karaoke of the mental hospital." ' The teacher's lawsuit alleged that the video, which was seen about 600 times, caused her "anxiety, depression and insomnia." Teachers often get made fun of by their students, but how many lose any sleep over it?
Privacy

Submission + - Unions come out against patent reform (techdirt.com)

Submitted by
Christopher Blanc
Christopher Blanc writes: "The latest news is that Riley has convinced the AFL-CIO to come out against the latest attempt at patent reform. Now there's a lot to dislike in the latest attempt at patent reform, and we'd be upset if it passed as is. But the two specific things that the unions are complaining about are the two most reasonable things in the reform package.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070824/170344.s html"
Privacy

Submission + - Google unveils prototype of personal health record (memag.com)

Submitted by Dances With Volts
Dances With Volts writes: Medical Economics Magazine, a publication for physicians, is currently running this story: "Imagine a computerized healthcare system in which insurers, pharmacies, hospitals, retail clinics, and doctors upload clinical information as it's generated to a patient's personal health record, or PHR. Then imagine that Google, king of search engines, is somehow at the center of this data network." — Am I being paranoid, or does this give anyone else the creeps.
Media

Submission + - Intellectual Property & Corps: match made in h (functionalisminaction.com)

Submitted by unfragable_admin
unfragable_admin writes: Recently Blogged by a libertarian Technophile: Intellectual property is a necessary and vital element to the modern economy — globally and locally to the US. Unfortunately, to most people "Intellectual Property" is now synonymous with the RIAA and music pirating. Of course, IP Law covers so much more than simply who gets the money for the song you're possibly listening to at this very moment. And it is the colorization of the abuses of the RIAA in its efforts to eliminate music piracy that has caused much of the complaints against IP law in general. Studies have been flung back and forth in this debate about how piracy actually increases sales, or how piracy is costing artists money — etcetera, etcetera. This has essentially gotten to the point where only the "fanatics" on either side of the issue seem to even care anymore; the common public just complains a little bit "at the water cooler" and then goes back to their desk to drink their morning coffee. So it is with this in mind that one can understand exactly why things like Antigua's request of the WTO to allow it to ignore American IP aren't catching any real headway in the eye of the public. After all; what harm could a little more music piracy do? click the link at bottom to hear more
Security

Submission + - Severe security flaws on large danish newspaper (michaellykke.com) 1

Submitted by
Michael Lykke
Michael Lykke writes: "One of the largest danish newspapers, Nyhedsavisen, has severe security flaws on their website(http://www.avisen.dk), allowing everybody to edit every single blog, comment and newsarticle written.
The flaws compromise peoples freedom of speech and destroys the trust to everything written on http://www.avisen.dk/

The security holes where discovered by Danish webdeveloper, Michael Lykke, who has written an article about the problem.

http://michaellykke.com/security_avisendk.html"
Security

Submission + - ls considered harmful

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: OMFG! Like, wow! Infoalert security stylee!! Using my awesomely 1337 5k1ll5 I have discovered a security scam on a monumental scale: ls, the familiar UNIX directory listing tool is a 3v1l trojan, unleashed by Bill Gates, Skype, Google, Bin Laden and SATAN!!!!

Check my "analysis":

$ strace /bin/ls -lu 2>&1|grep passwd

open("/etc/passwd", O_RDONLY|0x80000 /* O_??? */) = 4

Clear, incontrovertible evidence of 3v1l!!! U have been warned!! Listing your files is not safe!

/me goes to grab the crAppArmour wizard and cook me a policy! No more shall there be usernames in MY listings!
Privacy

Submission + - England's Database Of Children COmes Under Fire (timesonline.co.uk)

Submitted by
Mike
Mike writes: "A comprehensive database of every single child in England is slated to go live next year amid growing doubts as to the system's security and safety. Possible misuse by unauthorized users is only one concern. Ian Brown, a computer security research fellow at the Oxford Internet Institute, summed it up nicely: "When you have got more than 300,000 people accessing this database, it's just very difficult to stop the sale of information." With an estimated 330,000 "vetted users" and over 11 million children listed, can there be any doubt that this database will be a virtual magnet for pedophiles, spammers, and scammers?"

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