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Windows

Submission + - OSX Leopard has a PE Loader?

Submitted by
drfreak
drfreak writes: "Apparently, OSX Leopard now has the skeleton of a PE Loader in it. Check out this article on OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=18982 Rumors are spreading that maybe Leopard will include native Win32 support in the future. Myself, I think it would be more possible that .NET may be ported to it, as the CLR requires a PE loader."
Security

Submission + - Teenage Cybercriminal Arrested by NZ Police (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by
JohnStJohn
JohnStJohn writes: "According to BBC-

"The teenager, who is 18, cannot be named for legal reasons but his cyber identification was "Akill". Police allege that he was the whizzkid kingpin behind what they called an international spybot ring... In this global hacking spree, the FBI estimates that 1.3 million computers were infiltrated and infected and more than US$25m (£12.5m) was illegally embezzled."

The story goes on to say he is co-operating with athorities and may be facing up to 10 years in prison."
Networking

Submission + - Cisco's legal problems in Brazil: a timeline (networkworld.com) 1

Submitted by whitehartstag
whitehartstag writes: Cisco on Thanksgiving last week fired its former top dog in Latin America after he was charged by Brazilian authorities with tax fraud and other crimes related to the alleged evasion of $845 million in import duties and other taxes. The firing is the latest in a running saga involving executives from some companies in Brazil setting up a scheme to avoid taxes and import duties to the benefit of Cisco. Here's a time line of events leading to the firing.
Government

Submission + - Swiss DMCA quietly adopted (boingboing.net)

Submitted by roady
roady writes: We have seen a lot of talk about the Canadian DMCA. But few know about the Swiss version recently adopted by law makers, not even the Swiss people. The government and media have been very quiet, probably to avoid a referendum. Indeed, Switzerland is a direct democracy and if 50'000 citizens sign a referendum, the whole country will have a chance to vote against the new copyright law. In this version of the DMCA, sharing a file on P2P networks will land you one year in jail, even though the law mandates a levy on blank media. The history of the law can be read here.
United States

U.S. House Says the Internet is Terrorist Threat 457

Posted by CmdrTaco from the so-is-my-chilli dept.
GayBliss writes "The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill (H.R. 1955) last month, by a vote of 404 to 6, that says the Internet is a terrorist tool and that Congress needs to develop and implement methods to combat it."
Linux Business

Fork the Linux Kernel? 455

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the bad-ideas dept.
Joe Barr writes "Fork the kernel? Are you crazy? A blog entry on InfoWorld.com urged the Linux community to fork the kernel into desktop and server versions because, according to the author, all Linus Torvalds cares about is big iron. Sorry, but that's both wrong and stupid."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Scientists:Artificial life likely in 3 to 10 years (cnn.com)

Submitted by CapedOpossum
CapedOpossum writes: Let the voices chanting apocalyptic visions once again be heard! Playing God? Hell, we're re-inventing the concept! From the article: "Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they're getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of 'wet artificial life.' ... 'It's going to be a big deal and everybody's going to know about it,' said Mark Bedau, chief operating officer of ProtoLife of Venice, Italy, one of those in the race. ... Bedau said there are legitimate worries about creating life that could 'run amok,' but there are ways of addressing it, and it will be a very long time before that is a problem."
Bug

Submission + - Giant spider web spurs sticky debate (www.cbc.ca) 1

Submitted by
Raver32
Raver32 writes: "Entomologists are debating the origins of a massive spider web, which runs more than 180 metres and covers several trees and shrubs, found in Texas. Officials at Lake Tawakoni State Park, near Willis Point, find the web both amazing and somewhat creepy. "At first, it was so white it looked like fairyland," park superintendent Donna Garde said. "Now it's filled with so many mosquitoes that it's turned a little brown. There are times you can literally hear the screech of millions of mosquitoes caught in those webs." Experts are debating whether the web is the work of social cobweb spiders working together, or a mass dispersal where the arachnids spin webs to move away from one another."
Space

Submission + - Ice Age Triggered by Proximity to Sun (geologytimes.com)

Submitted by
webdoodle
webdoodle writes: "Analysis of Antarctic ice cores shows that the last four great ice age cycles began when Earth's distance from the sun during its annual orbit became great enough to prevent summertime melts of glacial ice. The absence of those melts allowed buildups of the ice over periods of time that would become characterized as glacial periods."
Portables (Apple)

Submission + - Mobile-Review attacked supposedly by Apple fanboys

Submitted by
Etinin
Etinin writes: "Over the last few days, the www.mobile-review.com website has been continually under a DDoS attack. The attack begun shortly after the site posted a negative review on the iPhone, and someone emailed them saying it's a revenge from Apple fans. It seems that some folks really need to learn to have some respect for other people's opinion. Below is an open letter by the editor-in-chief of the website who kindly requested me to publish it to the community.

Open letter by Mobile-Review.com Editor-in-Chief, Eldar Murtazin

Dear colleagues, friends and readers of Mobile-Review.com!

Over the last few days Mobile-Review.com has been under continuous DDOS attacks coming from unidentified individuals. Several tens of thousands of computers across the globe are supporting the attack — these are "infected" terminals, or, as they call it, bot-nets. Since the first wave, which disabled the site,as all the channels were being jammed, the algorithms of the attack have been altered numerous times — from individual computers to the entire subnetwork housing Mobile-Review.com in particular.

The attackers hope that by crushing Mobile-Review.com, they won't let our visitors get unbiased information on events in the mobile industry, read independent reviews and share their opinions on forums. In light of the fact that similar attacks can be performed by individuals or small groups of people, we regard this incident as an attempt to impose censorship in the Internet. More than 200.000 of our readers from all over the world, visiting Mobile-Review.com every day to find up-to-the-minute information or just talk to other users, have been robbed of this opportunity. These culprits oppose themselves to the society. There is only a small step separating censorship of undesirable resources and articles from an attempt to get hold of mass media, dictating own viewpoints for the sake of personal benefits or political goals. The threat of such scenario can't be underestimated. Since all tools required for a DDoS-attack are available for free, it can be carried out by individuals favoring some particular brand, or any company having sufficient resources to set an attack going. Regrettably, it is not possible to track attackers in this case, nor can they be proven guilty in a court of law. Earlier this year, in spring, similar attacks were aimed at other resources, specifically, "Echo of Moscow",site of the Kommersant.

When the first attack was unfolding, the Editor-in-Chief of Mobile-Review.com received an anonymous message on his Internet-pager, which read that fans of Apple were behind the attack, as this was a sort of revenge forthe iPhone and the treatment it got over at Mobile-Review.com. Possibly, it is true, however there is a chance that the message was sent in order to put us off the track. It is not a secret that we release "burning", critical articles that many don't like. There have been many of these of late — we think of this as our duty to notify the readers and subscribers not only of events and new offerings in the mobile industry, but also of certain facts marring usability of various gadgets, or capable of affecting consumers.

The attack aimed at Mobile-Review.com is unprecedented in scope and persistence. That is why we believe it is essential to attract attention of the community and our readers to the attempt of censoring unwanted points of view. If you don't express your opinion on what is currently taking place today, tomorrow you will be down to consume only the informationsomeone needs and sees appropriate to offer you. This statement might sound grotesque or made-up, but this is how it stands. Great deeds start with the first step. Today, it is Mobile-Review.com, and our readers, who can't get to us; tomorrow there will be more targets and so on. Only together can we stop this disaster from spreading further.

We don't have turnkey solutions that would make the Internet a better place, with readers and resources protected from this type of censorship. We will be more than happy if our colleagues, readers and other users express what they think of this problem — on his/her resource, forum or any other place on the Web they visit. It is worth defending yourself from this kind of censorship in future.

For the time being, the staff of Mobile-Review.com doesn't have a complete strategy for countering these threats in future. The technical side of our current activities is obvious, and we are doing everything possible to get the site back as soon as possible. We engage the site occasionally, and hope to get over this attack shortly. You can share your personal point of view here — http://eldarmurtazin.livejournal.com/37978.html.

Since it is a DDoS-attack and the attackers can't be tracked online, we offer 10.000 USD (ten thousand USD) to any individual or group of individuals who can provide documented information on the mastermind of this attack. You can send all reports to my email.

Editor-in-Chief,

Mobile-Review.com

Eldar Murtazin

eldar@mobile-review.com

August 17, 2007

Mobile-Review.com was founded on September 2, 2002. Mobile-Review.com has a daily audience of more than 200.000 visitors, viewing 500,000-700,000 pages.1. The daily traffic generated by Mobile-Review.com exceeds 500 Gb. Being the biggest resource on the mobile industry in Russia, the site also ranks first in the world among English sites.


1 Data taken from the log-files of mobile-review.com in July, 2007; independent statistics systems indicate 130,000-135,000 visitors a day.
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