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Businesses

Submission + - Water is The New Oil

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: Newsweek reports on a company called True Alaska Bottling that has purchased the rights to transfer 3 billion gallons of water a year from Sitka, Alaska’s bountiful reserves. If all goes according to plan, 80 million gallons of Blue Lake water will soon be siphoned into the kind of tankers normally reserved for oil and shipped to a bulk bottling facility near Mumbai. From there it will be dispersed among several drought-plagued cities throughout the Middle East. Think of it as a proof of concept for turning life's most essential molecule into a global commodity. By definition, a commodity is sold to the highest bidder, not the customer with the most compelling moral claim, so it's little surprise that the transfer of so much water from public hands to private ones troubles some. 'Water has been a public resource under public domain for more than 2,000 years,' says attorney James Olson. 'Ceding it to private entities feels both morally wrong and dangerous.'

Comment Re:WTF? (Score 1) 527

by whitesea (#33847854) Attached to: Facebook Billionaire Gives Money To Legalize Marijuana

Apparently, you don't have illegal aliens living in your nearby forests dumping pesticides, trashing the place, poaching and running around with AK's. Well, it exists here in Northern California and we don't like it.

I am confused. Apparently, there is a free giveaway of Kalashnikov's to everybody illegally crossing the border, but where do your illegal aliens get pesticides for dumping?
Security

Submission + - Government Randomly X-Raying Citizens (counterpunch.org)

Submitted by shahidg
shahidg writes: You might want to think twice about going out the door from now on. Homeland Security is apparently now performing random x-rays on highways, border crossings and even city streets. The public can only hope that these random and uncontrolled doses of radiation being unknowingly administered on them will not cause any serious health effects.
Government

Mexican Senate Votes To Drop Out of ACTA 96

Posted by samzenpus from the outta-acta dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The Mexican Senate has voted unanimously to drop out of ACTA negotiations, saying that the process has been way too secretive, left out many stakeholders and appears to deny access to knowledge and information. Of course, it's not clear if this 'non-binding resolution' actually means much, as the negotiators are not under the Senate's control. At the very least, though, it appears the Mexican Senate is going to fight to keep the country from agreeing to ACTA."

Comment Stolen certificates? (Score 1) 1

by whitesea (#33753080) Attached to: Stolen Certificates Now Standard for Malware
This sounds meaningless. Certificates are public and they are used to verify someone, not to prove you are that someone. To impersonate the owner of the certificate you need either their private key that is NOT part of the certificate or you need a falsified certificate (for which you possess a private key) claiming that you are them.
Google

Submission + - Google URL Shortener Opened To The Public (searchengineland.com)

Submitted by Anonymusing
Anonymusing writes: Just what the world needs, another URL shortener, right? Google seems to think to, and it’s making its own widely available to anyone — complete with tracking and statistics — for free. As noted on its blog: "There are many shorteners out there with great features, so some people may wonder whether the world really needs yet another. As we said late last year, we built goo.gl with a focus on quality. With goo.gl, every time you shorten a URL, you know it will work, it will work fast, and it will keep working. You also know that when you click a goo.gl shortened URL, you’re protected against malware, phishing and spam using the same industry-leading technology we use in search and other products." Is bit.ly shaking in its boots?
Censorship

Submission + - White House Pressuring Registrars To Block Sites (techdirt.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: While the Senate is still debating a bill that would force registrars and ISPs to block access to sites deemed "infringing," it appears that the White House's IP Czar is already holding meetings with ISPs, registrars and payment processors to start voluntarily blocking access to sites it doesn't like. Initially, they're focused on online pharmacies, but does anyone think it will only be limited to such sites? ICANN apparently has refused to attend the meetings, pointing out that they're "inappropriate." Doesn't it seem wrong for the US gov't to be pushing private companies to censor the internet without due process?
Bug

Submission + - Oh nos: Hole in linux kernel exploited in the wild

Submitted by formfeed
formfeed writes: Heise (http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Hole-in-Linux-kernel-provides-root-rights-1081317.html) reports about a new hole in the linux kernel, that allows a local user to get root access. A proof of concept exploit is available. The hole has apparently been fixed years ago, but reopened recently. Hmmm..
Piracy

Submission + - BSA Piracy Witch-hunt (bsa.org)

Submitted by Vexo
Vexo writes: The BSA has launched a new web campaign asking users to report piracy via a web form. They're even offering bounties for juicy submissions. Surprisingly, none of the forms appear to utilize captchas.

Submission + - DHS Requires Your Travel Plans 72 Hours in Advance (aa.com) 9

Submitted by
corbettw
corbettw writes: "I haven't seen this anywhere yet. I got an email from American Airlines detailing a new requirement imposed on them by the Department of Homeland Security. Starting November 1, all passengers in the US will have to submit their personal information (including full name, date of birth, and gender) to DHS, through their airline or travel agent, at least 72 hours in advance. This means you can no longer fly anywhere in the US with less than three-days notice. Did your mother have a stroke and you have to rush to be by her side? Too bad. What about that client two states over who needs some facetime or else they'll bolt to your competitor? Kiss them good-bye. Or do you just want to go to Vegas and have a wild weekend on the spur of the moment? Well, maybe next weekend, instead. Don't you feel so much safer now?"
Security

Submission + - 4chan DDoS Takes Down MPAA and Anti-Piracy Website (torrentfreak.com) 1

Submitted by ACKyushu
ACKyushu writes: Say what you like about 4Chan, when they want something done, it gets done. Following a call to arms yesterday, the masses inhabiting the anonymous 4chan boards have carried out a huge assault on a pair of anti-piracy enemies. The website of Aiplex Software, the anti-piracy outfit which has been DDoSing torrent sites recently, is currently down having been DDoS’d. They are joined in the Internet wasteland by the MPAA’s website, also currently under huge and sustained attack.

Submission + - Workaround for Comcast Domain Hijacking? 1

Submitted by beadfulthings
beadfulthings writes: Comcast introduced its "Domain Helper Service" about a year ago with much fanfare and much fuming from the technical community. It essentially intercepts your fat-fingered URLS and redirects them to a page with advertising. As a residential subscriber, I opted-out immediately. I recently moved and switched from Comcast residential to Comcast "Home business" service. In process of purchasing and installing a brand-new Mac, I noticed that the hijacking had returned. Thinking that I just needed to follow the opt-out procedure, I went to my account and found that I had no opt-out procedure available to me. Since then I've learned that (a) This bad idea is still alive and kicking after a year; (b) There is no "opt out" available for business subscribers; and (c) Computers and browsers that had been previously opted-out are re-hijacked if you move to business service.

Slashdot readers discussed this whole thing pretty thoroughly last year: with 300-plus comments . But I need advice now. After two weeks of trying, I've been insulted ("I want to be sure you haven't plugged your computer into your phone line..."). I've been ignored ("I can't chat with you because you are a business customer.."). I've been stonewalled ("Sorry, I can't help you because you have a Mac..."). I've been kicked upstairs to the president's office, where they are very polite but totally ineffectual. My question is: Is there a way to get rid of, circumvent, or mask this unwanted "service?" I generally browse with Firefox, and my Firefox fits me very comfortably. I haven't totally moved into the new Mac, so it still just has Safari. And contrary to what the technicians stated, there's an older HP mini-Netbook here running Firefox and XP, and it's been re-hijacked as well.
Businesses

Submission + - Alcatel-Lucent Built Network in Chattanooga: Faste (informationweek.com)

Submitted by tetrahedrassface
tetrahedrassface writes: Information Week has picked up the story of Chattanooga, Tennessee's recent debut of 1 Gbps residential and business broadband service.Google has been pushing for this type of service and has received over 1,100 applications from communities around the country. Since Chatty is the first to offer this service, making it the fastest in the United States, there are some growing pains already. Harold DePriest, the CEO of the Electric Power Board that has been running fiber out for over 4 years now states 'We don't know how to price a gig in this country, and no one does, so these rates may come down.' As as test bed for other communities across the country, what is the fair price of 1 Gbps? Noting the investment that EPB has taken on in the face of the economy, when asked why they have built this network Mr. DePreist said, 'Because we can.' It may take a while for applications to catch up to this level of speed on a consumer level, but as other communities look to mirror this service costs will come down, but what time frame are we looking at for widespread adoption nationwide?
Google

Submission + - Google employee fired for snooping users data (gawker.com)

Submitted by odies
odies writes: Gawker has a story involving privacy violations done by a Google employee on the massive amount of data the company stores on its account holders and Internet users. "We entrust Google with our most private communications because we assume the company takes every precaution to safeguard our data. It doesn't. A Google engineer spied on four underage teens for months before the company was notified of the abuses. It's unclear how widespread Barksdale's abuses were, but in at least four cases, Barksdale spied on minors' Google accounts without their consent, according to a source close to the incidents. In an incident this spring involving a 15-year-old boy who he'd befriended, Barksdale tapped into call logs from Google Voice, Google's Internet phone service, after the boy refused to tell him the name of his new girlfriend, according to our source. After accessing the kid's account to retrieve her name and phone number, Barksdale then taunted the boy and threatened to call her. In other cases involving teens of both sexes, Barksdale exhibited a similar pattern of aggressively violating others' privacy, according to our source. He accessed contact lists and chat transcripts, and in one case quoted from an IM that he'd looked up behind the person's back. (He later apologized to one for retrieving the information without her knowledge.) In another incident, Barksdale unblocked himself from a Gtalk buddy list even though the teen in question had taken steps to cut communications with the Google engineer. A self-described "hacker," Barksdale seemed to get a kick out of flaunting his position at Google, which was the case when, with a friend's consent, he pulled up the person's email account, contact list, chat transcripts, Google Voice call logs—even a list of other Gmail addresses that the friend had registered but didn't think were linked to their main account—within seconds. It's unclear how many accounts Barksdale inappropriately accessed while employed by Google, or if the company has conducted a thorough investigation into possible privacy abuses by other employees."

Submission + - Swedish Manga Collector Convicted of Child Porn (stilnocturnal.com)

Submitted by
Tangaroa
Tangaroa writes: "First there was Chris Handley in the US, then a conviction in Australia over Simpsons cartoons, and now a manga collector in Sweden was found guilty of possessing child pornography. These are three liberal countries where what had been thought to be unambiguously lawful, as free expression and private property causing no harm to anybody, has been ruled to be exactly the same under the law as child porn involving the abuse of an actual child. The Swedish police even take the position that a cartoon constitutes documented abuse of a child."

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