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Submission + - Would You Accept Google's Free Netbook? (linuxjournal.com) 2

Submitted by Glyn Moody
Glyn Moody writes: The response to Google's Chromium OS has been rather lukewarm. But supposing it's just part of something much bigger: a netbook computer from Google that would cost absolutely nothing. Because all the apps and data are stored in the cloud, storage requirements would be minimal; screens are getting cheaper, and the emphasis on lean code means that a low-cost processor could be used. Those relatively small hardware costs could then be covered by advertising *in the apps* — after all, they are just Web pages. Interestingly, Google has not only rolled out advertising to more of its services recently, it has also started running AdSense ads in the desktop application Google Earth. Would you accept a free Google netbook — or is the price you would pay in terms of the company knowing even more about what you do on an hour-by-hour basis just too high?

Submission + - Alan Ralsky Gets 51 Months in Prison (washingtonpost.com)

Submitted by tsu doh nimh
tsu doh nimh writes: Alan Ralsky, the 64 year-old dubbed the "Godfather of Spam," was sentenced to 51 months in prison on Monday, The Washington Post's Security Fix reports. According to anti-spam group Spamhaus.org, Ralsky has been spamming since at least 1997, using dozens of aliases and tens of thousands of "zombies" or hacked PCs to relay junk e-mail. Also sentenced — to 40 months in jail — was Ralsky's 48-year-old son-in-law, Scott K. Bradley and two other men named last year in a 41-count indictment for wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and violations of the CAN-SPAM Act.

Submission + - Wal-Mart, Amazon Battle for Online Retail's Future 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The NY Times reports that Amazon and Wal-Mart are waging an price war for the future of online retailing that is spreading through product areas like books, movies, toys and electronics. The tussle began last month over which company had the lowest prices on the most anticipated new books and DVDs this fall but has now spread to select video game consoles, mobile phones, even to the humble Easy-Bake Oven. “It’s not about the prices of books and movies anymore. There is a bigger battle being fought,” said Fiona Dias, executive vice president at GSI Commerce, which manages the Web sites of large retailers. “The price-sniping by Wal-Mart is part of a greater strategic plan. They are just not going to cede their business to Amazon.” Wal-Mart, with $405 billion in sales last year, dominates by offering affordable prices to Middle America in its 4,000 stores while Amazon with $20 billion in sales, caters mostly to affluent urbanites who would rather click with their mouse than push around a cart. But Amazon is expanding its slice of the retail pie at an alarming rate with Amazon sales shooting up 28 percent in the third quarter of this year while sales in Amazon’s electronics and general merchandise business are up 44 percent. “We have to put our foot down and refuse to let them grow more powerful,” says Dias. “I applaud Wal-Mart. It’s about time multichannel retailers stood up and refused to let their business go away.”"

Submission + - Inside England and Wales' DNA Regime (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Sockatume
Sockatume writes: The UK's Human Genetics Commission has published its report on the collection of DNA by the Police forces in England and Wales. Currently, Police collect DNA from every suspect in a case which could lead to a criminal record, and retain that material, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled illegal. The government plans to keep all DNA samples for suspects from England, Wales and Northern Ireland for up to six years, except for DNA from individuals arrested during terrorism-related investigations, which will be retained forever. The report states that the police frequently performed arrests solely to collect DNA, that certain demographics (such as young, black men) where "very highly over-represented", that there was "very little concrete evidence" that the DNA database had any actual use in investigating crime, and that the database contained material from individuals arrested in Scotland and Northern Ireland, outside its remit. Of the 4.5m individuals in the database, a fifth have never received any convictions or cautions from the Police. The report recommends that an independent advisory body oversee the database, and that laws be passed to limit the uses of the database, while tracking those with access to it, and making misuse of the information a criminal offence.
Security

Submission + - SPAM: The six greatest threats to US network security

Submitted by coondoggie
coondoggie writes: It's not a very good day when a security report concludes: Disruptive cyber activities expected to become the norm in future political and military conflicts. But such was the case today as the Government Accountability Office today took yet another critical look at the US federal security systems and found most of them lacking.
[spam URL stripped]
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Google removes Pirate Bay homepage results (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by aunt edna
aunt edna writes: The Register has:
"The Pirate Bayâ(TM)s homepage and seven other pages relating to the BitTorrent tracker website have been removed from Googleâ(TM)s search engine, following a DMCA complaint.

Anyone attempting to locate thepiratebay.org via Google will be greeted with some results to access the website, but none that point directly at its homepage.

Weâ(TM)ve asked Google if it could tell us more about removing some of the siteâ(TM)s pages from its search engine, but at the time of writing it hadnâ(TM)t got back to us with comment.

The Pirate Bay mouthpiece, Peter Sunde — who actually quit his position as the websiteâ(TM)s main spokesman a few months back — asked on his Twitter account this morning âoewhy is 'thepiratebay.org' (the frontpage) removed from your [Googleâ(TM)s] index?â

A DMCA notice at the bottom of a âoethepiratebay.orgâ search query via Google reveals that Mountain View has simply reacted to a takedown request.

âoeIn response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 8 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org,â reads a notice.

Interestingly, Microsoftâ(TM)s Bing returns the correct result on its search engine, so itâ(TM)s clearly not been slapped with a similar DMCA notice yet.

We'll update this story if Google offers us any further insight. Its policy on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is here. ®"

Comment Re:Shouldn't Judges remove themselves? (Score 2, Funny) 415

by aunt edna (#27686079) Attached to: Judge In Pirate Bay Trial Biased

IANAL/IANAJ..

Aren't Judges supposed to remove themselves from a case if there is a known conflict of interest or an arguable bias? Don't they get in trouble for presiding over cases with this bias?

Maybe someone with a background in law can answer this? Google didn't seem to want to give any definitive answers. Then again, maybe the laws in Sweden are different?

Congratulations on scoring 5 with this.
The Internet

Submission + - Pirate Bay Trial-Judge Biased? (theregister.co.uk)

Submitted by aunt edna
aunt edna writes: El Reg reports:
"The judge in The Pirate Bay trial has been accused of bias, after Sweden's national radio station revealed that Thomas Norström was a member of the same pro-copyright groups as several of the main entertainment industry reps in the case."

Comment Swap the OS (Score 1) 655

by aunt edna (#27473227) Attached to: How Do I Provide a Workstation To Last 15 Years?

There's a chance your father's PCs will need their OS reloading at some point ... because you have to rebuild (cpu/memory/motherboard gone west.)
That could present problems if by then the currently available hardware isn't useable by that version of Windows.
I suggest you try to swap to a version of Linux & run Windows in a virtual machine, using Parallels or whatever.

Best of luck!
Programming

Submission + - Indians or Cowboys?

Submitted by aunt edna
aunt edna writes: How about some sharing of direct, first hand reporting of projects that have been out-sourced?
There's plenty of experience in the /. community — what have you seen? What successes? What failures? Is it cheaper? Is it overall better? Come on — say it, please! Troublesome, amazing, a joke or purgatory ... the floor is open.

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