Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Submission + - Comcast and Rogers block The Pirate Bay (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by
iONiUM
iONiUM writes: "Starting yesterday, it seems Comcast and Rogers have blocked access to the pirate bay. This would not be the first time Comcast has blocked the pirate bay (and denied it). From the article: "The traceroute from Comcast connections stops at thepiratebay.piratpartiet.se, as it’s supposed to, but The Pirate Bay website does not appear. Further tests show that the blockade is not DNS related. What is actually causing the issue is uncertain at this point.""
The Media

Submission + - AP Files FOIA Request for Bin Laden Photos

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens writes
Hugh Pickens writes writes: "The Atlantic reports that President Obama's decision to withhold the visual evidence of Osama bin Laden's death has created a fundamental disagreement between the White House and the Associated Press, one of the largest journalism organizations in the world, prompting the news organization to file a Freedom of Information request for the bin Laden photos. "This information is important for the historical record," says Michael Oreskes, senior managing editor at The Associated Press. "That's our view." AP's FOIA request includes a reminder of the president's campaign pledge and a plea to be more transparent than his predecessor. "The Obama White House 'pledged to be the most transparent government in U.S. history," writes the AP, "and to comply much more closely with the Freedom of Information Act than the Bush administration did.'"The AP isn't alone in wanting more insight on the specifics of the raid. When it eventually surfaced that bin Laden was not killed in a firefight, his wife wasn't used as a human shield, there was no live footage of the event and the "mansion" where he lived was only worth between $250,000 and $480,000, many became skeptical of the White House's narrative. Other organizations that have filed FOIAs include Politico, Fox News, Judicial Watch and Citizens United. Oreskes sympathizes with the president. "This is obviously one of his most difficult decisions and we understand that.""

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Content Filter my Colleagees 11

Submitted by Metabolife
Metabolife writes: So I'm running a small network with less than 50 workstations. Lately I've been noticing a lot of employees posting on Facebook and playing games during working hours. I'm on pretty good terms with everyone, but I feel it's my duty to do something for the sake of the company. Should I enable the content filter? I would be included of course.
Government

Submission + - Does China's Cyber Offense Obscure Woeful Defense? (threatpost.com)

Submitted by Gunkerty Jeb
Gunkerty Jeb writes: The official line in Washington D.C. is that there's a new Cold War brewing, with an ascendant China in the place of the old Soviet Union, and cyberspace as the new theater of war. But work done by an independent security researcher suggests that the Chinese government is woefully unprepared to fend of cyber attacks on its own infrastructure.
Apple

Submission + - iPad-like Tablet from 1994 - Should Apple Sue? (gawker.com)

Submitted by
Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: "Back in 1994, Knight Ridder put together an amazingly prescient video about a tablet device for reading the news. Interestingly, it is rectangular, with rounded corners and has a black border — all elements that Apple is claiming Samsung’s Galaxy Tab "slavishly copies" from the iPad. Perhaps Apple should sue Knight Ridder retrospectively..."
Canada

Submission + - Pirate Party of Canada Starts VPN for Freedom (slipslurp.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Pirate Party of Canada has announced that it will extend a VPN originally set up to allow people in Tunisia to browse freely while internet censorship was imposed there. Canada may soon be added to that list since the ruling Conservative Party has vowed to introduce a bill hat would provide unprecedented systematic interception and monitoring of Canadians’ personal communications. So the Pirate Party of Canada has announced it will extend that service to Canadians.
Science

Submission + - Mass Killings Marked Rise of Human Civilization (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit
sciencehabit writes: The mass killing of wildlife by humans is not a modern phenomenon. A new study concludes that around the time the first cities were founded in the Near East, people herded hundreds of gazelles into long stone passageways that ended in circular pits, where they would slaughter every animal. These massive hunts may have been rich with symbolism at the time, yet the authors argue that they have left the gazelles of the Near East a highly endangered species today.

Submission + - If Crypto is outlawed: confidentiality gone?

Submitted by
frog51
frog51 writes: "In certain jurisdictions, use of cryptography by the private sector is limited: e.g. there are reports that in the UAE and other countries not all of the encryption capabilities of the BlackBerry are permitted.

This removes a mainstay of current IT confidentiality. Are there workarounds in place? Or does this potentially break a major modern assumption — that we can secure information wherever we are?

In the 1990s the U.S. government tried to force the use of SkipJack, an encryption mechanism that would have led to all private sector encryption keys being escrowed. That escrow would have been a major target for espionage and terrorism. The US learned from this mistake, but are other regions doomed to repeat it?"
News

Submission + - Goldman Sachs email archives thrown open by govt (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by DMandPenfold
DMandPenfold writes: The internal email archives of ratings agencies and banks have been thrown open as part of a major government investigation, demonstrating the risk appetite of large Wall Street institutions before the global economic crash.

Frank Parisi, managing director of the global structured finance unit at Standard & Poor’s, wrote in an email as early as 2005 that the ratings agency chose to “massage” sub-prime mortgage numbers in order to “preserve market share”.

The emails emerged in a report by the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which also made public "aggressive" emails by Goldman Sachs urging traders to grow profit through causing "maximum pain" in the market.
Technology

Submission + - Up To 900 killed in Drone Attacks (blogspot.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has issued its annual report which states that over 900 people were killed due to American Drone attacks in the tribal areas of Pakistan, DawnNews reports.
Canada

Submission + - Conservatives Commitment to Internet Surveillance (michaelgeist.ca) 1

Submitted by alexo
alexo writes: Dr. Michael Geist writes that Canada's Conservatives committed to pass "lawful access" legislation that would fundamentally reshape the Internet in Canada within the new Parliament's first 100 days if they win a majority.

The legislation includes new laws that would establish massive Internet surveillance requirements and the potential disclosure of personal information without court oversight.

The proposed bills were never debated in parliament nor subjected to committee hearings, yet the Conservatives election platform promises to bundle all the crime and justice bills into a single omnibus bill and to pass it within a new Parliament's first 100 days.

With the elections looming, it is time to fight for your rights.

Submission + - HTC Rising: Why Nokia and RIM Have Something to Fe (i4u.com) 3

Submitted by i4u
i4u writes: HTC is a perfect example of the kind of market power Android has these days. A few years ago, they were a small upstart manufacturer with a penchant for touchscreen devices. While the young Taiwanese corp pulled off a few coups- like the first Microsoft smartphone and the Palm Treo- they were not a major force until 2008. The G1 put HTC on the map. And they haven't stopped making their voice heard since.

Slashdot Top Deals

If it has syntax, it isn't user friendly.

Close