Comment Re:The REAL Story (Score 1) 397
Erm, it already *is: http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/09/05/1951204/nsa-foils-much-internet-encryption
Submission + - Official: Microsoft to acquire Nokia Devices and Services (technet.com)
symbolset writes: REDMOND, Washington and ESPOO, Finland – Sept. 3, 2013 – Microsoft Corporation and Nokia Corporation today announced that the Boards of Directors for both companies have decided to enter into a transaction whereby Microsoft will purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, license Nokia’s patents, and license and use Nokia’s mapping services.
Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will pay EUR 3.79 billion to purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, and EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia’s patents, for a total transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion in cash. Microsoft will draw upon its overseas cash resources to fund the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to approval by Nokia’s shareholders, regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.
Under the terms of the agreement, Microsoft will pay EUR 3.79 billion to purchase substantially all of Nokia’s Devices & Services business, and EUR 1.65 billion to license Nokia’s patents, for a total transaction price of EUR 5.44 billion in cash. Microsoft will draw upon its overseas cash resources to fund the transaction. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014, subject to approval by Nokia’s shareholders, regulatory approvals and other closing conditions.
Comment Re:ISP is ok-ish, Mobile ISP is bad (Score 1) 290
Actually, I lied, it's about 60 Mbit/s. Still pretty good though...
Comment Re:ISP is ok-ish, Mobile ISP is bad (Score 1) 290
Heh, I'm in Sweden and I pay about €30/month for a 100GB cap on my mobile ISP. 80Mbit/s.
Submission + - Bradley Manning Sentenced to 35 Years (firedoglake.com) 1
An anonymous reader writes: After a long and protracted trial, Judge Denise Lind has handed down a sentence in the Bradley Manning case: 35 years and a dishonorable discharge. Manning initially faced a maximum sentence of 135 years, which was reduced to 90 years when Manning was found not guilty of Espionage Act offenses and certain other charged were merged. He has already served over 1000 days in prison, and his sentence will be reduced by 1,274 days.
Submission + - Manning given 35 years (bbc.co.uk)
An anonymous reader writes: he US soldier convicted of handing a trove of secret government documents to anti-secrecy website Wikileaks has been sentenced to 35 years in prison.
Pte First Class Bradley Manning, 25, was convicted in July of 20 charges against him, including espionage.
Last week, he apologised for hurting the US and for "the unexpected results" of his actions.
He will receive credit for three and a half years, but be dishonourably discharged from the US Army.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23784288
Pte First Class Bradley Manning, 25, was convicted in July of 20 charges against him, including espionage.
Last week, he apologised for hurting the US and for "the unexpected results" of his actions.
He will receive credit for three and a half years, but be dishonourably discharged from the US Army.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23784288
Submission + - Google: Don't Expect Privacy When Sending Emails To Gmail (theguardian.com) 3
dryriver writes: People sending email to any of Google's 425 million Gmail users have no "reasonable expectation" that their communications are confidential, the internet giant has said in a court filing. Consumer Watchdog, the advocacy group that uncovered the filing, called the revelation a "stunning admission." It comes as Google and its peers are under pressure to explain their role in the National Security Agency's (NSA) mass surveillance of US citizens and foreign nationals. "Google has finally admitted they don't respect privacy," said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog's privacy project director. "People should take them at their word; if you care about your email correspondents' privacy, don't use Gmail." Google set out its case last month in an attempt to dismiss a class action lawsuit that accuses the tech giant of breaking wire tap laws when it scans emails sent from non-Google accounts in order to target ads to Gmail users. That suit, filed in May, claims Google "unlawfully opens up, reads, and acquires the content of people's private email messages". It quotes Eric Schmidt, Google's executive chairman: "Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it." The suit claims: "Unbeknown to millions of people, on a daily basis and for years, Google has systematically and intentionally crossed the 'creepy line' to read private email messages containing information you don't want anyone to know, and to acquire, collect, or mine valuable information from that mail." In its motion to dismiss the case, Google said the plaintiffs were making "an attempt to criminalise ordinary business practices" that have been part of Gmail's service since its introduction. Google said "all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing."
Submission + - Google: Gmail users have no expectation of privacy (cbsnews.com)
PatPending writes: FTFA: Google has made it clear that people who send or receive email via Gmail should not expect their messages to remain private.
In a 39-page motion filed in June to have a class-action data-mining lawsuit dismissed, the Web giant cites Smith v. Maryland, a 1979 Supreme Court decision that upheld the collection of electronic communications without a warrant.
"Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient's assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails are processed by the recipient's [email provider] in the course of delivery. Indeed, 'a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.'"
In a 39-page motion filed in June to have a class-action data-mining lawsuit dismissed, the Web giant cites Smith v. Maryland, a 1979 Supreme Court decision that upheld the collection of electronic communications without a warrant.
"Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient's assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their emails are processed by the recipient's [email provider] in the course of delivery. Indeed, 'a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.'"
Comment Re:Practicality? (Score 1) 230
That's pretty snarky from someone who either doesn't know what a citation is or hasn't read the articles he's linking to.
I did find the results of a poll on the subject, but that was by looking through the polls "related" by subject matter. If you think that is a citation, I know a lot of authors "citing" each other by virtue of being on the same shelf at my local library.
If you meant *your* citations, neither of those links said anything of the sort. I did both scroll and read all three pages of the linked poll, and the wikipedia article didn't deal with opinion on abortion at all. I suppose the article from the American Journal of Medical Genetics might have some interesting information, but I'm not going to go through a paywall to read a long article just because you say so.
Especially since it won't affect my original point, which was to say that 90% in one poll and 20% in another doesn't mean there's any overlap between those two groups. At all.
Comment Re:Practicality? (Score 1) 230
a) The gallup link says nothing about the genders of the people questioned in that poll. they're not citations if you do not provide them.
b) I used only a very extreme example to show a flaw in your reasoning when combining two different statistics
c) There is no limit of one aborted pregnancy due to down's syndrome per woman. There are genetic factors.
d) What's the general fertility rate among people opposed to abortions? I'm willing to bet there's an age component as well.
I could go on listing these for a while, but suffice to say there's no hypocrisy needed to explain the gap, although it's certainly possible(and probable, given that people who are against abortions often support the death penalty as well).
Comment Re:Oblig Dune reference (Score 2) 105
The scary part is that if they looked anything like the ones in the David Lynch movie adaptation, I'd back that project in a second.
Comment Re:Practicality? (Score 4, Interesting) 230
That's not necessarily true. What if those 20% were all men, for instance?
Comment Here's the form (Score 5, Funny) 273
Apologies to the author of the original(can be found at http://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt):
Your law advocates a
(x) technical (x) legislative ( ) market-based ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting piracy. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws which used to vary from state to state before a bad federal law was passed.)
(x) Legitimate bittorrent uses would be affected
(x) It is defenseless against VPNs
(x) It will stop piracy for two weeks and then we'll be stuck with it
(x) Users of netflix will not put up with it
( ) Microsoft will not put up with it
( ) The police will not put up with it
(x) Requires too much cooperation from pirates
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(x) Many internet users cannot afford to lose business or alienate potential employers
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
Specifically, your plan fails to account for
( ) Laws expressly prohibiting it
(x) TOR endpoints in foreign countries
(x) Asshats
(x) Jurisdictional problems
(x) Unpopularity of net restrictions
(x) Pop-up blockers
(x) Eternal arms race involved in all filtering approaches
( ) Extreme profitability of piracy
(x) Joe jobs and/or identity theft
(x) Technically illiterate politicians
(x) Dishonesty on the part of pirates themselves
and the following philosophical objections may also apply:
(x) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have ever
been shown practical
( ) Any scheme based on opt-out is unacceptable
( ) IP headers should not be the subject of legislation
(x) Blacklists suck
(x) Whitelists suck
(x) We should be able to watch youtube without being permanently disconnected from the net
( ) Countermeasures should not involve wire fraud or credit card fraud
( ) Countermeasures should not involve sabotage of public networks
( ) Countermeasures must work if phased in gradually
(x) Why should we have to trust you and your servers?
(x) Incompatiblity with open source or open source licenses
( ) Feel-good measures do nothing to solve the problem
(x) I don't want private corporations suing me for downloading my own files
Furthermore, this is what I think about you:
( ) Sorry dude, but I don't think it would work.
(x) This is a stupid idea, and you're a stupid person for suggesting it.
( ) Nice try, assh0le! I'm going to find out where you live and burn your
house down!
Comment Re:So tablets at PCs now? (Score 1) 577
Well, I use an external sound card to get multiple separate audio outputs from my iPad, does that count?
Submission + - This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For (whitehouse.gov)
fractalVisionz writes: The White House officially responded to the petition to secure resources and funding to begin Death Star construction by 2016, as previously covered by Slashdot. With costs estimated over $850,000,000,000,000,000 (that's quadrillion), and a firm policy stating "The Administration does not support blowing up planets" the US government will obviously pass. However, that is not to say that we do not already have a death star of our own, floating approximately 120 miles above the earth's surface.
The response ends in a call to those interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields of study:
The response ends in a call to those interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) fields of study:
If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us! Remember, the Death Star's power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
