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Comment Re:Cryo! (Score 1) 47

by sveinungkv (#30710038) Attached to: NASA To Cryogenically Freeze Satellite Mirrors

I agree with Albert Pierrepoint who after hanging around 400 people (including a friend) came to the conclusion that capital punishment is not justice, it's formalised revenge.

Just to be clear: Are you saying that it isn't just to formally revenge the victim? (Of course given that the real murderer is executed, that he got a fair trial, that the murder wasn't an accident etc) If you are saying that: what do you believe is just in a murder case?

Comment Re:Meh. (Score 1) 409

by sveinungkv (#29319199) Attached to: Slow Oracle Merger Leads To Outflow of Sun Projects, Coders

I mean, how DARE they provide better health care for less money than we do and make our capitalist health care system look bad?

European here. I've been waiting almost a year now in a line to get an operation for a painful condition that I was told by the doctors could become permanent unless treated fast. So if "you will get treated fast" is in your definition of better I'm afraid I have to disappoint you.
Censorship

Woman With Police-Monitoring Blog Arrested 847

Posted by Soulskill from the there-are-better-hobbies dept.
Kris Thalamus writes "The Washington Post reports that a Virginia woman is being held in custody by police who allege that information she posted on her blog puts members of the Jefferson area drug enforcement task force at risk. 'In a nearly year-long barrage of blog posts, she published snapshots she took in public of many or most of the task force's officers; detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them; and, in one instance, reported that she had tipped off a local newspaper about their movements. Predictably, this annoyed law enforcement officials, who, it's fair to guess, comprised much of her readership before her arrest. But what seems to have sent them over the edge — and skewed their judgment — is Ms. Strom's decision to post the name and address of one of the officers with a street-view photo of his house. All this information was publicly available, including the photograph, which Ms. Strom gleaned from municipal records.'"
Government

$18M Contract For Transparency Website Released — But Blacked Out 384

Posted by timothy from the but-don't-worry-government-health-care-will-be-cheap dept.
zokuga writes "The US government recently approved an $18 million contract for Smartronix to build a website where taxpayers could easily track billions in federal stimulus money, as part of President Obama's promise to make government more transparent through the Internet. However, the contract, which was released only through repeated Freedom of Information Act requests, is itself heavily blacked out. ProPublica reports: 'After weeks of prodding by ProPublica and other organizations, the Government Services Agency released copies of the contract and related documents that are so heavily blacked out they are virtually worthless. In all, 25 pages of a 59-page technical proposal — the main document in the package — were redacted completely. Of the remaining pages, 14 had half or more of their content blacked out.' Sections that were heavily or entirely redacted dealt with subjects such as site navigation, user experience, and everything in the pricing table. The entire contract, in all its blacked-out glory, is here."
Microsoft

US Court Tells Microsoft To Stop Selling Word 403

Posted by Soulskill from the somebody's-not-having-a-good-day dept.
oranghutan writes "A judge in a Texas court has given Microsoft 60 days to comply with an order to stop selling Word products in their existing state as the result of a patent infringement suit filed by i4i. According to the injunction, Microsoft is forbidden from selling Word products that let people create XML documents, which both the 2003 and 2007 versions let you do. Michael Cherry, an analyst quoted in the article, said, 'It's going to take a long time for this kind of thing to get sorted out.' Few believe the injunction will actually stop Word from being sold because there are ways of working around it. In early 2009, a jury in the Texas court ordered Microsoft to pay i4i $200 million for infringing on the patent. ZDNet has a look at the patent itself, saying it 'sounds a bit generic.'"
Encryption

In UK, Two Convicted of Refusing To Decrypt Data 554

Posted by kdawson from the no-pleading-the-fifth dept.
ACKyushu clues us to recent news out of the UK, where two people have been successfully prosecuted for refusing to provide authorities with their encryption keys, resulting in landmark convictions that may have carried jail sentences of up to five years. There is uncertainty in that the names of the people convicted were not released; and without those names, the Crown Prosecution Service said it was unable to track down details of the cases. "Failure to comply with a section 49 notice carries a sentence of up to two years jail plus fines. Failure to comply during a national security investigation carries up to five years jail. ... Of the 15 individuals served, 11 did not comply with the notices. Of the 11, seven were charged and two convicted. Sir Christopher [Rose, the government's Chief Surveillance Commissioner] did not report whether prosecutions failed or are pending against the five charged but not convicted in the period covered by his report."
Censorship

Malaysian Government Wants Internet Filtering 113

Posted by Soulskill from the it's-fashionable-these-days dept.
adewolf tips news that the government of Malaysia is looking into the development of an internet filtering program. According to a Reuters report, "A vibrant Internet culture has contributed to political challenges facing the government, which tightly controls mainstream media and has used sedition laws and imprisonment without trial to prosecute a blogger." The Malaysian government insists that such a filter would only be used to block pornography, though critics of the plan expect it would be wielded as a political tool, censoring websites that are critical of the current administration. "An industry source says the government could impose the filters late this year or in 2010, coinciding with the rollout of a high-speed broadband network run by Telekom Malaysia. Malaysia aims to increase broadband penetration to half of all homes by 2010 as part of its drive to boost economic efficiency."
GNOME

Submission + - The Battle Between Purists and Pragmatists (computerworlduk.com)

Submitted by
Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: "While debates rage around whether Mono is good or bad for free software, and about "fauxpen source" and "Faux FLOSS Fundamentalists", people are overlooking the fact that these are just the latest in a series of such arguments about whether the end justifies the means. There was the same discussion when KDE was launched using the Qt toolkit, which was proprietary at the time, and when GNOME was set up as a completely-free alternative. But could it be that this battle between the "purists" and the "pragmatists" is actually good for free software — a sign that people care passionately about this stuff — and a major reason for its success?"
GNU is Not Unix

Submission + - Coreboot with native VGA support

Submitted by sveinungkv
sveinungkv writes: Coreboot, a free software BIOS replacement, now has a patch that adds native VGA support. From a blog post from it's author, Luc Verhaegen:

Until now, if you wanted working graphics with coreboot, you were still tied to the PCI option rom of your graphics card. This code i just pushed out makes even this last vestige of non-free software disappear.

So if you happen to have a VIA motherboard with a K8M890 Northbridge (AMD PCI-Express) with a Chrome 9 IGP, that is supported by coreboot; then you can have native VGA textmode today.
Government

Computerized Election Results With No Election 433

Posted by kdawson from the why-bother-with-mere-tampering dept.
_Sharp'r_ writes "In Honduras, according to breaking Catalan newspaper reports (translations available, USA Today mention), authorities have seized 45 computers containing certified election results for a constitutional election that never happened. The election had been scheduled for June 28, but on that day the president, Manuel Zelaya, was ousted. The 'certified' and detailed electronic records of the non-existent election show Zelaya's side having won overwhelmingly."

Comment Re:Except IE is the only one that works with YouTu (Score 1) 481

by sveinungkv (#28715407) Attached to: YouTube Phasing Out Support For IE6

I thought the whole point of HTML5 video was to have it work in every standards-compliant browser...

It was. It was specified that browsers playing HTML 5 video should support Ogg Theora, the codec that Firefox 3.5 among others uses. But it was removed after pressure from Apple and Nokia.

On the bright side Ogg Theora is supported by Firefox 3.5, Opera say they will support it, Google Chrome is on board, Safari can be made to support it by installing Theora codecs for QiuctTime and there are ways to make other browsers support it as well. So the problem is solved on the publisher side: publish in Ogg Theora. Hopefully this will put enough content coded in Ogg Theora out there to make it a de facto standard that solves the problem on the viewer side as well by pressuring webpages like Youtube to offer it and Safari and IE to implement it.
Privacy

India To Issue Over a Billion Biometric ID Cards 167

Posted by timothy from the might-be-a-few-hitches dept.
angrytuna writes "The Unique Identification Authority is a new state department in India charged with assigning every living Indian an exclusive number and biometric ID card. The program is designed to alleviate problems with the 20 current types of proof of identity currently available. These problems range from difficulties for the very poor in obtaining state handouts, corruption, illegal immigration, and terrorism issues. Issuing the cards may be difficult, however, as less than 7% of the population is registered for income tax, and voter lists are thought to be inaccurate, partly due to corruption. The government has said the first cards will be issued in 18 months."

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