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Security

AI Could Power Next-gen CCTV Cameras 173

Posted by samzenpus from the the-unseen-mechanized-eye dept.
Barence writes "UK researchers are working on fitting CCTV cameras with artificial intelligence, allowing them to more quickly respond to crimes. The technology, being developed by University of Portsmouth scientists, would allow cameras to "hear" violent sounds and react, swiveling quickly in the direction of a broken window or somebody shouting abusively for example, before alerting an operator. The artificial intelligence powering the camera would also be able to respond to visual cues such as fights, or violent behaviour."
Censorship

Proposed Legislation Would Outlaw "Cyberbullying" in US 532

Posted by timothy from the keep-hands-and-arms-inside-the-handbasket dept.
physman_wiu writes "We all remember the recent incident of 13-year-old Megan Meier. Now legislation is set to be passed at least in Missouri (and possibly through Congress) that would make cyberbullying illegal. The new legislation (PDF) reads: 'Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated, and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.' Now, this seems like a great piece of legislation — until I get put in jail for some kid on WOW calling the Feds on me." Eugene Volokh is not impressed.
Censorship

Behind China's Great Firewall 148

Posted by timothy from the draws-attention-to-what's-blocked dept.
DigitalDame2 writes "In light of the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, more scrutiny is being placed on China's Web-filtering practices. In May, China's technology minister, Wan Gang, told Reuters China he would 'guarantee as much [access] as possible,' defending Web limitations as necessary to protect the country's citizens. Truly understanding this cat-and-mouse game means taking a close look at what exactly the government filters out, how the Great Firewall works, and how others have found ways around it."
The Internet

EBay Pressured To Block Sales of Ivory Products 261

Posted by timothy from the first-they-came-for-the-ivory-guys dept.
RickRussellTX writes "eBay is being pressured by an animal welfare group to ban sales of ivory and animal tooth products on its site. Although eBay is in compliance with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species when it warns users that such postings may be inviolation of national and international law, the International Fund for Animal Welfare is demanding that they go a step further to search for and delete any posting of ivory products."
Microsoft

Bill Gates's Last Speech 389

Posted by kdawson from the complete-with-ballmer-bot dept.
Ian Lamont writes "Bill Gates, in an address to the TechEd Developers conference, talked about Microsoft's plans for hosted services, and revealed that the company is planning data centers on 'a scale that we haven't thought of before' that will apparently enable the company to offer all of its server-based products over the Internet. The talk did not include details in terms of capacity or scale. This was Gates's final publicly scheduled speech as a full-time Microsoft employee, and he acknowledged that Microsoft's success is 'due to our relationship with developers.' On July 1, he will start spending most of his time at The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation." After that date he will be devoting his "20% time" to Microsoft.
Amiga

Submission + - Minimig: Build Your Own Amiga 500 Clone 1

Submitted by lazyeye
lazyeye writes: Retro Thing has a story about Dennis van Weeren, an electrical engineer who began a project to build an Amiga 500 clone using existing modern parts. The result? The Minimig. He's even released the board design and software under the GNU GPL. From the Retro Thing post:

The Amiga 500, released in 1987, was Commodore's most successful Amiga model, thanks to its all-in-one good looks and reasonable $595.95 price tag. Dutch electrical engineer Dennis van Weeren never forgot his Amiga 500 and launched an ambitious project to build an FPGA-based version of the machine in early 2005. The end result was the Minimig, a 12cm x 12cm board based on a modern 3.3V version of the Motorola 68000 processor. The Amiga's custom chipset was implemented in a Xilinx Spartan-3 FPGA chip, and the board includes 2MB of RAM and an MMC flash memory card connector for program storage. van Weeren thoughtfully included a standard PS/2 keyboard and mouse connectors, along with a 9-pin joystick port.

Comment Hacking Google = Credibility on the Streets (Score 1) 106

by JeffHunt (#23029394) Attached to: Google Shares Its Security Secrets

Quoted from the story:

If you have bad intentions and want to get a reputation, hacking Google is the best way to get credibility on the streets.

I don't know if you've ever been to West Oakland, but I seriously doubt that hacking Google is going to win me any credibility on the streets here.

... unless hacking Google gives you gold chains a bulletproof Buick.
Censorship

China's Battle to Police the Web 171

Posted by Zonk from the losing-battle dept.
What_the_deuce writes "For the first time in years, internet browsers are able to visit the BBC's website. In turn, the BBC turns a lens on the Chinese web-browsing experience, exploring one of the government's strongest methods of controlling the communication and information accessible to the public. 'China does not block content or web pages in this way. Instead the technology deployed by the Chinese government, called Golden Shield, scans data flowing across its section of the net for banned words or web addresses. There are five gateways which connect China to the internet and the filtering happens as data is passed through those ports. When the filtering system spots a banned term it sends instructions to the source server and destination PC to stop the flow of data.'"
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft apologizes to rival and to users (msdn.com) 1

Submitted by
Geoffrey.landis
Geoffrey.landis writes: "Microsoft apologized to rival software vendor Corel Corp. for saying that Corel's file format posed a security risk, and issued a set of tools to unblock file types that had been blocked by default in the December Office 2003 service pack.

In David Leblanc's web log, LeBlanc says "We did a poor job of describing the default format changes," and goes on to explain "We stated that it was the file formats that were insecure, but this is actually not correct. A file format isn't insecure — it's the code that reads the format that's more or less secure." As noted by Richard Thurston "it is the parsing code that Office 2003 uses to open and save the file types that is less secure."

Larry Seltzer at pcmag.com also blog the story."
Security

Top 15 Free SQL Injection Scanners 103

Posted by kdawson from the looking-for-trouble dept.
J.R writes "The Security-Hacks blog has a summary of the 15 best free SQL Injection scanners, with links to download and a little information about each one. The list is intended asan aid for both web application developers and professional security auditors."
Patents

Submission + - SCO Delisted

Submitted by Technician
Technician writes: I have been following the fall of SCO stock. When I checked their stock tonight I found the anouncement of the delisting instead of a chart. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=SCOX "SCOX has failed to meet NASDAQ Capital Market continued listing requirement(s)."

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