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Apple

Underground Mac Community Foils a Coup 253

Posted by kdawson from the fortunately-bloodless dept.
An anonymous reader writes "In an attempted palace coup that would not have been out of place in a Shakespearian tragedy, a moderator faction at Mac Serial Junkie, one of the largest underground Mac communities, was shut out this weekend after it was discovered that many staff members were plotting a coup. The plans included a surreptitious takeover of the domain name macserialjunkie.com. In an Open Letter to the Community, the founders of MSJ explain how a number of people at the highest levels of the underground planned their takeover activities for almost two years, only to be foiled at the last minute."
AMD

AMD NDA Scandal 187

Posted by kdawson from the all-your-words-are-belong dept.
crazyeyes writes "Just two weeks ago, a Thai journalist walked out of the hush-hush AMD event in Singapore over a controversial NDA that required him to 'send any stories to the vendor before his newspaper can publish it.' AMD categorically denied it happened, but today, we not only have proof that it happened, we also have the sordid details of the entire affair. Here's a quote from the editorial: 'First off, the non-disclosure agreement covered everything confidential said or written over the next two years on the product, and had a duration of five years, during which anything published or used in marketing would have to receive written approval from AMD before it could be used. Worse, at the end of the five years, all copies of the information made would have to be returned to the chipmaker.'"
The Internet

Submission + - The Pirate Bay About To Relaunch Suprnova.org 3

Submitted by kungfujesus
kungfujesus writes: The Pirate Bay crew has been working on this secret project for quite some time now. Back in April they wrote a cryptic post on their blog announcing that something was coming. In a response to this announcement TPB admin Brokep told TorrentFreak: "The past, the present and the future. It's all the same, but one thing's for sure, we will radiate for weeks", today it became clear that he was referring to the resurrection of Suprnova. Article Here
Privacy

Submission + - Cell phone and internet phone privacy and security (catraptions.com)

Submitted by catraptions
catraptions writes: As most everybody these days, I have a modern cell phone with the latest digital technology. So I've been thinking about getting rid of my landline. I'm hesitant, however, because I really don't trust the security of telephone banking over a cell phone or an internet phone. Do you feel secure in communicating your most personal banking information (account numbers, SSN, birth date, mother's maiden name, password, etc.) over your cell phone or internet phone?
Biotech

Submission + - Chernobyl Mushrooms Feeding on Radiation

Submitted by cowtamer
cowtamer writes: According to a National Geographic Article certain fungi can use ionizing radiation to perform "radiosynthesis" using the pigment melanin (the same one in our skin that protects us from UV radiation). It is speculated that this might be useful on long space voyages where energy from the Sun is not readily available.
United States

Submission + - Forensics Expert says Al-Qaeda Images Altered

Submitted by WerewolfOfVulcan
WerewolfOfVulcan writes: Wired reports that researcher Neal Krawetz revealed some veeeeeery interesting things about the Al-Qaeda images that our government loves to show off.

From the article: "Krawetz was also able to determine that the writing on the banner behind al-Zawahiri's head was added to the image afterward. In the second picture above showing the results of the error level analysis, the light clusters on the image indicate areas of the image that were added or changed. The subtitles and logos in the upper right and lower left corners (IntelCenter is an organization that monitors terrorist activity and As-Sahab is the video production branch of al Qaeda) were all added at the same time, while the banner writing was added at a different time, likely around the same time that al-Zawahiri was added, Krawetz says." Why would Al-Qaeda add an IntelCenter logo to their video? Why would IntelCenter add an Al-Qaeda logo? Methinks we have bigger fish to fry than Gonzo and his fired attorneys... }:-) The article contains links to Krawetz's presentation and the source code he used to analyze the photos.
Privacy

Latest Revelations on the FBI's Data Mining of America 446

Posted by samzenpus from the just-forward-your-mail-to-homeland-security dept.
An anonymous reader writes "You probably already knew that the FBI was data mining Americans in the "search" for potential terrorists, but did you know that they're also supposed to be looking for people in the U.S. engaged in criminal activity that is not really supposed to be the province of the federal government? Now the feds are alleged to be data mining for insurance fraudsters, identity thieves, and questionable online pharmacists. That's what they're telling us now. What else could they be looking for that they are not telling us about?"
Space

Submission + - Sun explosion: emission from gas at 1M degrees (blogspot.com)

Submitted by
Wrik
Wrik writes: "A gorgeous picture (90 degrees rotation, North is to the left) shows a red hot filament lifting off from the Sun's surface. At it's peak, this growing structure measures approximately 75 thousand miles."
Businesses

Is Cash No Longer Legal Tender? 719

Posted by Cliff from the plastic-now-worth-more-than-paper dept.
An anonymous reader asks: "I attend the University of Illinois at Chicago. Last semester my housing arrangements went smoothly. I put down my application fee, and my deposit just fine, got a room for the semester and life went on. This semester, because there was supposedly a large number of students who did not check into their rooms last semester, we were required to make a $100 prepayment, in addition to the application fee and deposit. No problem, I think, I see the university is trying to make a quick buck off people who don't follow through with their plans. Now I do NOT have a checking account, a credit card, or anything. I don't trust the banks, or the credit card companies, so I am one of the few people who do EVERYTHING in cash. However, they refused to take the cash. Is it legal for a state-owned university, let alone any business to not take legal tender?"
Censorship

Submission + - Illegal Monitoring at School

Submitted by
WyllDez
WyllDez writes: "I had an incident today an a high school in Toronto (Northern Secondary School), and I am unsure how to act. The computers in our library are monitored using Net Support School (http://www.netsupportschool.com/ ). I was completely unaware until our librarian came up to me, showed me a print out of my browsing history, programs I ran, and all of my key strokes, including my passwords to several websites. I have talked to quite a few students at our school, and all of them where unaware that they have been monitored. I looked throughout the library, and there are no signs anywhere mentioning that they are being monitored. In our usage agreement, it said that we would be monitored at the board level, and only browsing history would be monitored through the board proxies. It should also be noted that all of the key logs are available to anyone who finds the folder! What can we do about this?"
Math

The Fallacy of Hard Tests 404

Posted by kdawson from the do-the-math dept.
Al Feldzamen writes in with a blog post on the fallacious math behind many specialist examinations. "'The test was very hard,' the medical specialist said. 'Only 35 percent passed.' 'How did they grade it?' I asked. 'Multiple choice,' he said. 'They count the number right.' As a former mathematician, I immediately knew the test results were meaningless. It was typical of the very hard test, like bar exams or medical license exams, where very often the well-qualified and knowledgeable fail the exam. But that's because the exam itself is a fraud."
United States

Congress Considers Forcing Travel Registration 321

Posted by Zonk from the looking-forward-to-travel-visas-for-interstate-trade dept.
macduffman writes "Congress and the Department of Homeland Security are considering several new visa restrictions, including forcing some foreign travelers to register their travel plans online 48 hours in advance. Business advocacy groups are worried about both foreign relations and the economic impact of such legislation, while privacy concerns see this as another possible 'in' for identity thieves. From the article: 'Along with online registration, the updated program would require new and existing member countries to improve data-sharing; more rigorously report lost and stolen passports (not just blank passports); and guarantee they will repatriate nationals if those people are ordered out of the United States. "It's really a 21st-century model," said James Carafano, a Heritage Foundation analyst who specializes in homeland security. "It'll all be done electronically and biometrically. And it really doesn't compromise your privacy."'"

GNU Coughs Up Emacs 22 After Six Year Wait 500

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the hopefully-worth-waiting-for dept.
lisah writes "After keeping users waiting for nearly six years, Emacs 22 has been released and includes a bunch of updates and some new modes as well. In addition to support for GTK+ and a graphical interface to the GNU Debugger, 'this release includes build support for Linux on AMD64, S/390, and Tensilica Xtensa machines, FreeBSD/Alpha, Cygwin, Mac OS X, and Mac OS 9 with Carbon support. The Leim package is now part of GNU Emacs, so users will be able to get input support for Chinese, Tibetan, Vietnamese, Thai, Korean, and other languages without downloading a separate package. New translations of the Emacs tutorial are also available in Brasilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, simplified and traditional Chinese, Italian, French, and Russian.'"

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