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Submission + - Note to Criminals: Don't Call Tech Support (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
Billosaur
Billosaur writes: "Darwin Awards, here he comes: according to Ars Technica, a would-be identity thief did himself in by calling tech support about printer drivers. It seems that Timothy Short hit the mother-lode when he stole a PC and a Digimarc printer from the Missouri Department of Revenue, perhaps with dreams of cranking out thousands of fake ids. Problem: he could not unlock the computer he stole and without the necessary drivers, he couldn't use the printer. Ever resourceful, Short called Digimarc tech support a couple of days later (twice), which brought him to the attention of a Secret Service agent, who recognized his voice from a recording of the calls. Short now faces a $250,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison."
Security

Submission + - SANS reporting ssh brute force attacks (sans.org) 1

Submitted by
HangingChad
HangingChad writes: "Yesterday SANS highlighted 4 separate reports of an increase in ssh bruteforce attacks. From the article: "The isc.sans.org port 22 graph supports this as there has been a large increase in the source hosts seen in ssh scans during this month." There is speculation that this is part of a distributed, coordinated attack. I'm getting hearsay reports from some of my admin buddies that they're seeing ssh dictionary attacks today. Anyone else experiencing unusual ssh traffic the last couple days?"
Media

Submission + - South Africa adopts ODF as a Standard (oss.gov.za)

Submitted by
kmf
kmf writes: "ODF has become the STANDARD WAY that the South African Government interacts between Departments and between the Pubilc! Grab the MIOS (MINIMUM INTEROPERABILITY STANDARDS )Policy Document ... South Africa loves Open Source! Maybe this will inspire other Countries!"
Microsoft

Driver Update Can Cause Vista Deactivation 875

Posted by CmdrTaco from the thank-god-we're-all-safe-from-pirates dept.
KrispySausage writes "After weeks of grueling troubleshooting, I've finally had it confirmed by Microsoft Australia and USA — something as small as swapping the video card or updating a device driver can trigger a total Vista deactivation. Put simply, your copy of Windows will stop working with very little notice (three days) and your PC will go into "reduced functionality" mode, where you can't do anything but use the web browser for half an hour."
Music

Submission + - Brazilian pop music scene thrives on piracy (cnn.com)

Submitted by langelgjm
langelgjm writes: When people talk about the failing business model of the traditional record company, they often only offer vague suggestions as to how things would work otherwise. But a concrete example of a music scene that thrives on piracy is to be found in Brazil, in the form of tecnobrega. From the article: 'While piracy is the bane of many musicians trying to control the sale of their songs, tecnobrega artists see counterfeiters as key to their success. "Piracy is the way to get established and get your name out. There's no way to stop it, so we're using it to our advantage," explains Gabi Amarantos... Ronaldo Lemos, a law professor at Brazil's respected Getulio Vargas Foundation, an elite Rio de Janeiro think tank and research center, says tecnobrega and other movements like it represent a new business model for the digital era, where music is transformed from a good to a service.'
Wireless Networking

Submission + - A technology report from San Diego fire shelter

Submitted by
netbuzz
netbuzz writes: "Retired journalist and mobility expert Jim Forbes is among the quarter-million San Diego-area residents driven out of their homes by the horrific wildfires. Forbes has taken the opportunity to "fire blog" from his shelter and discuss via e-mail with Network World how his personal technology and the shelter's wireless networks are holding up under the strain. "The shelter set up a dedicated computer room with an 802.11 a,b, and g network which worked like a charm," says Forbes.

http://www.networkworld.com/community/node/20911"
Wireless Networking

Submission + - SPAM: Cisco gives WiMAX big boost via $330M buyout

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: The rumors were right: Cisco has signed a deal to buy WiMAX radio vendor Navini Networks for $330 million. The buy is a milestone and it changes the competitive landscape, says Daryl Schoolar, senior analyst, networking group, In-Stat, a market research firm. "First the ITU [International Telecommunications Union] accepts WiMAX as a 3G standard, and now one of the largest networking vendors in the world shows its faith in the technology and in business models behind WiMAX."
Link to Original Source
Music

Submission + - Oink.cd, shut down ! (ifpi.org)

Submitted by mvictoras
mvictoras writes: The biggest music private tracker shut down! Ifpi.org reports, 'British and Dutch police today shut down the world's biggest source of illegal pre-release chart albums and arrested a 24-year old man in an operation coordinated between Middlesbrough and Amsterdam. The raids, which were coordinated by Interpol, follow a two-year investigation by the international and UK music industry bodies IFPI and BPI into the members-only online pirate pre-release club known as OiNK. OiNK specialised in distributing albums leaked on to the internet, often weeks ahead of their official release date. More than 60 major album releases have been leaked on OiNK so far this year, making it the primary source worldwide for illegal pre-release music. The site, with an estimated membership of 180,000, has been used by many hardcore file-sharers to violate the rights of artists and producers by obtaining copyrighted recordings and making them available on the internet. It is alleged that the site was operated by a 24-year-old man in the Middlesbrough area, who was arrested today. The site's servers, based in Amsterdam, were seized in a series of raids last week. OiNK's operator allegedly made money by setting up a donations account on the site facilitated by PayPal. Cleveland Police and the FIOD-ECD SCHIPOL branch of the Dutch police undertook the raids, supported by Interpol, as part of a carefully-planned international investigation with anti-piracy investigators from IFPI and BPI.'
Censorship

Submission + - Interpol Raids Oink.cd (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Faust
Faust writes: A flat on Teesside and several properties in Amsterdam were raided as part of an Interpol investigation into the members-only torrent website OiNK early Tuesday morning as part of a two-year investigation by music industry bodies the IFPI and the British Phonographic Industry (BPI). The site has a claimed 60 major leaked pre-release albums this year alone and the bust is being touted as a victory against the "biggest source of illegal pre-release chart albums".
It's funny. Laugh.

Submission + - Weird Al turns 48 (yankovic.org)

Submitted by
Skip
Skip writes: "It's Weird Al Yankovic's 48th birthday today. I can't imagine that there's anyone reading Slashdot that doesn't know Weird Al, but just in case, here's some video links. One of the genius artists of our generation."
Power

Submission + - SOA could change the way you buy electricity (computerworld.com.au)

Submitted by
StonyandCher
StonyandCher writes: "Researchers at the US Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), with IBM as a partner, have built a demonstration network called GridWise that showed how an event-driven service-oriented architecture (SOA) can be used to build a power marketplace that lets residential and commercial customers change their electricity consumption nearly in real time, based on price and other factors. During the yearlong, Energy Department-sponsored marketplace demonstration, customers spent less money on power, and utilities easily accommodated spikes in demand without affecting service levels. The marketplace ran on an IBM WebSphere Application Server at PNNL and received data in real time from various Web services about electricity's current wholesale price and most recent closing price, as well as whether those prices were trending up or down. It communicated with specialized, "smart" appliances at participants' sites via IBM-developed middleware built within what IBM calls its event-driven architecture (EDA) framework and running on the WebSphere server. The EDA middleware provided the link between the transaction-oriented marketplace and the more physical world of the controls-based appliances."

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