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Data Storage

Submission + - IP rights? Server hosting site hijacks content (therangerstation.org)

Submitted by
blanchae
blanchae writes: "Over at The Ranger Station (www.therangerstation.com), there is a battle over who owns the rights to the Ranger Station's online forum. The Ranger Station owner was unhappy with the service of OnlineSolutions.org and changed server hosting. Online Solutions have hijacked The Ranger Station's forums stating that they own the databases and content and started their own Ranger Station forum under www.therangerstation.org. This doesn't seem right to me and I want to know who owns the content on a hosted server?"
Music

Submission + - Record Industry Woes Aggravated by Years of Bad PR

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Richard Menta makes a strong case on MP3 Newswire that bad public relations stirred by the open conflict between the record industry and the consumer is a heavy contributor to the crumbling fortunes of the major labels. In his analysis he contrasts how the NFL and Major League baseball tread gingerly with the Michael Vick and steroids scandals respectively to avoid further raising the ire of sports fans, while the major labels and the RIAA openly antagonize music fans who dare embrace new technologies they don't have full control of. From the article" Today the major record labels don't have a positive brand image and the very public actions they have taken to control the rise of digital media and the Internet over the last several years is at the very heart of their fall from grace. To some the big labels are an anachronism. To others they are anti-consumer. The erosion of their image is dramatic..." Menta then lays out 17 public events that have chipped away at the image of the recording industry including those that show them as bullies (RIAA sues little girls), as incompetent (RIAA sues the dead), as oppressors of the artist (Courtney Love, Janis Ian, and Grey Tuesday), as greedy (that's what Steve Jobs called them), and as practitioners of unauthorized access (Sony rootkit scandal). Consumer perception can be a bitch and the end result here is that many consumers probably don't feel as good about buying a CD anymore.
Privacy

Submission + - UCLA Probe Finds Taser Incident Out Of Policy (ucla.edu)

Submitted by Bandor Mia
Bandor Mia writes: Last November, it was reported that UCLA cops Tasered a student, who forgot to bring his ID, at the UCLA library. While an internal probe by UCLAPD cleared the officers of any wrongdoing, an outside probe by Police Assessment Resource Center has found that the police actions on Mostafa Tabatabainejad were indeed out of UCLA policy. The probe was conducted at the behest of acting UCLA Chancellor Norman Abrams.

From the report:
"In light of UCLAPD's general use of force policy and its specific policies on pain compliance techniques, Officer 2's three applications of the Taser, taken together, were out of policy. Officer 2 did not take advantage of other options and opportunities reasonably available to de-escalate the situation without the use of the Taser. Reasonable campus police officers, upon assessing the circumstances, likely would have embraced different choices and options that appear likely to have been more consistent both with UCLAPD policy and general best law enforcement practices."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Mayor of San Diego Hates Comicon Attendees (pinkraygun.com)

Submitted by
Lisa Fary
Lisa Fary writes: "As we all know, 2007's Comicon International in San Diego ended this past weekend. Comicon is probably San Diego's largest, 4-day revenue generator, but that didn't stop the Mayor of San Diego, Jerry Sanders, from stating "We've put up the superheroes and now we're on to the people with actual talent." on the Cantore in the Morning show on 91X, the Monday morning AFTER the convention ended (presumably, when he thought that any of those pesky comics and sci-fi geeks were safely out of earshot). It's actually a pretty crappy thing to say about any group that brings such large amounts of hotel, restaurant, parking, transportation and retail revenue in to the city Can you imagine if something similar were said regarding almost any other group?"
Security

Submission + - Serious XSS vulnerability discovered in Facebook (virginia.edu)

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: A new XSS vulnerability was found in Facebook, allowing executable code to be injected in a user's profile; this compromises the security of both the profile owner and all profile viewers. The article includes a sketch of the attack, a white paper that gives a detailed explanation of how such an attack can be used, and a video demo. Facebook is set up so that once a single hidden value has been obtained, any form can be submitted with that user's credentials. One would think that XSS vulnerabilities are common and serious enough that Facebook would have set up their site so that the entire site is not laid open by a single attack. (The article does not disclose the location of the XSS hole since it has not yet been patched.)
Slashdot.org

Submission + - Slashdot References in Popular Culture? 1

Submitted by
The Living Fractal
The Living Fractal writes: "So I'm reading Century Rain, a great SF book by Welsh author Alastair Reynolds, and at about page 80 or so I stumble onto a hidden Slashdot reference. Reynolds' character "Niagara" runs a finger diagonally across his chest then 'dots' next to the slash, then goes on to talk about a community of progressive thinkers on one of the earliest computer networks (today's internet) who eventually founded his society. They're even called Slashers! Maybe old news to some of you, but a nice surprise for me nevertheless.
Does anyone else have /. easter eggs they've found that they can share with us?"
Upgrades

Submission + - Dell blocks installation of standard components 1

Submitted by
Loh Phat
Loh Phat writes: "Hardware vendors voiding warranties or not providing support is a standard caveat across the industry, but yesterday Dell showed that withholding a $5 part is more important that future sales or bad press.

Our company purchased a Dell PowerEdge 3250 (Dual CPU Itanium) less than two years ago (still under warranty BTW) for cross platform development (yes, our customers demand support for that platform). So we purchased a unit with a single drive in a two drive system.

Its spec sheet specifies U320 SCSI drive support — a standard. See for yourself http://www.dell.com/downloads/global/products/pedg e/en/3250_specs.pdf

So when we wanted to add storage we purchased a standard U320 compatible drive and went to install it, however when we pulled the hot-swap drive sled out we noticed that it lacked mounting facilities for the drive; it curiously didn't match the existing sled in the occupied bay. They are 99% identical except for the lack of facility to actually attach a drive.

During a call to Dell "support" it seems that a year ago (a year after we bought the server and before the warranty expires) they stopped selling the drive sled capable of mounting a drive as a separate component — you can only get them, wait for it, attached to a Dell SCSI drive.

So it seems that it's OK to advertise the compatibility with industry-standard components, you just can't use them. With no pre-sales caveat that you will not be allowed to install anything standard unless it comes from Dell. Funny, the drive sled has its own part number H7206 but Dell *refused* to sell it to me.

The term "bait-and-switch" comes to mind. I'm all for caveat emptor, but a full declaration of terms is not unreasonable.

I don't mind having the freedom to be denied service or support of using non-vendor supplied parts (well, I do actually but I least know that before I buy) but in this case I'm physically prevented from doing so after the purchase.

So the question remains: are there grounds to file an anti-trust or some other complaint with the State regarding this deceptive business practice?

Regardless, they're now off the vendor list (actually I inherited the server as I would have selected another vendor in the first place). Good forward thinking there guys."
Privacy

Submission + - FIOS customer names/addys in public ARIN database (squirrelfish.org)

Submitted by
Tom Haines
Tom Haines writes: "Anyone with a verizon fios business account w/ static IPs will love to know that their account name and address are in the ARIN database associated with their IP address(es). maybe it's just me, but as a residential customer who only signed up for the biz service to get static IPs, this sucks. I didn't want my home address linked with my IPs. Not to mention, you can query ARIN using the term "FTTP" and get back a list of fios customers, including addresses. Hooray verizon!"
Enlightenment

Submission + - Rolling my own parental controls in Linux

Submitted by ZekeSMZ
ZekeSMZ writes: It's been a year since I made the switch from windows to Ubuntu, and I can safely say I'm never going back. One of the best things I've done is to set up an Edubuntu system for my kids — ages 4 and 2. With applications such as Supertux, TuxPaint, G Compris, Stellarium and even Kolf, they amuse themselves for hours with the machine and can't damage it like they can a Windows box.

Now that my 4 year old is learning to read and type, I'd like to set up some form of parental controls on my network. I consider myself a moderately competant Linux user, but I do not have anything approaching the skills of the talented sysadmins I've worked with over the years. So, I'd like to reach out to the Slashdot community for advice on how to lock down my network so that they won't accidentally bump into the seedier side of the web.

What are the best firewall apps to use for internal filtering? Do (or could) any of them support pro-active whitelisting, where I could get an email with a blocked URL that my kids tried to visit, and in response — I set up a rule to allow or deny access to the URL. This is a fairly mainstream feature of various parental control software out there, how could a similar solution be set up in Linux?

I'm going to assume that my kids are smarter than me and will one day figure out how to own the network. You get bonus points if you can give pointers on setting up a dual system, one that they can hack, and one that is running in the background in silent or stealth mode to monitor activity. My intent here is not to be big brother, but rather a responsible parent.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - NFL Will Force Press To Wear Sponsor Logos

Submitted by i_like_spam
i_like_spam writes: In a story covered by the National Press Photographers Association, photojournalists are protesting a new rule for the upcoming NFL season that will force them to wear red vests emblazoned with the corporate logos of Reebok and Canon during televised games. The chair of the NPPA's Ethics & Standards Committee responds

'It totally goes against our Code of Ethics to force photographers to advertise as if they were some sort of NASCAR vehicle. We are independent gatherers of news, storytellers with no agendas. Our integrity comes from objectivity. Do reporters put up with this kind of disrespect from the NFL?'

In a related incident, photographers covering the Fiesta bowl earlier this year were told to wear vests with the Tostitos logo. They retaliated by wearing the vests inside out.
The Almighty Buck

Submission + - Hotels equip mini-fridges with weight sensors (com.com) 1

Submitted by
prostoalex
prostoalex writes: "Hotel mini-fridges, known for carrying mini-bottles of various beverages for non-mini-prices, are now getting weight sensors that charge the hotel customer as soon as any item is picked up: "...the fridges are now equipped with motion sensors, the helpful woman at registration told me. That is, if I move a drink to make room for something of my own, it'll charge me. If I accidentally knock something over, it'll charge me. If I put something of my own on top of something, it'll charge me.""
Security

Submission + - Fingerprints at School 2

Submitted by
Inda
Inda writes: "My daughter, 7, is about to start at a new school that likes to think they excel in technology. They use an interesting system for checking out library books using a single thumb print. When I first heard this, alarm bells rang. The way I understand it, once a fingerprint is compromised, it is compromised forever.

I'm told the children enjoy using the fingerprint system and I would not want to single my daughter out as being different. The alternative to fingerprints are library cards, with barcodes, that are scanned manually.

I am not confident that the school's security is up to scratch. Their website is poorly written in FrontPage by the headmaster, all the staff use the Comic Sans MS font; I'm sure you get the picture. At the end of the day, they're teachers, not security experts. Security is not my field of expertise either.

Should I be concerned? Have I been reading Slashdot too long? Should I put the tinfoil hat down?"
Editorial

Submission + - Psychiatry from a Geek's Perspective?

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: Slashdot has covered articles about Asperger's syndrome, autism, and how it might relate to the (somewhat stereotypical) geek mindset. I've been diagnosed as borderline autistic, so in a similar vein, I've found myself in an unusual position when it comes to getting therapy. I'm very analytical, investigative, and detail-oriented, so when I'm the patient of a psychiatrist, psychologist, or therapist, I feel like I'm coming in at a very different angle than other patients. I want to fully grok the pharmacology of the medications prescribed to me and how they interact with my nervous system. I analyze all of the methods and suggestions my therapist offers. I'm told that working with me as a patient is quite interesting (and often enjoyable), contrasted against many patients who are unaware of the therapy process or have no interest in it or its effects. I see the brain as the machine that coordinates my life, therapists as debuggers, and pharmaceuticals as hardware tweaking.

I'm extremely curious to know if other geeks have this mindset, or have any interesting experiences or viewpoints. There are other questions that can be considered, as well: are you very self-analytical? Perhaps you avoid therapists and attempt to diagnose and debug your own mis-programming?

There's a book online about hacking your body's energy management system. Meditation is also along the lines of hacking your psyche, and there's the OpenEEG project, which is worth noting.

I think there's a lot of unexplored territory here, at least considering that it hasn't been explored by people with a coding/hacking mindset. Do you hack your own mind? If so, then how?

Providing a lot of detail would probably generate the best discussion, so be careful; anything that you might not want future employers to know about you, post anonymously!

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