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Submission + - Egypt's Mordor becomes a torrent of leaks

Submitted by Weezul
Weezul writes: In what Egyptian ex-pats are calling the Egyptian Bastille Day, protesters stormed the Egyptian state security services on Saturday 5 March, freeing victims of torture there, detaining security personnel, and have started publishing secret documents on facebook and twitter.
An Egyptian Twitter poster wrote "I almost can't believe I'm witnessing this. We're inside the fortress of terror, our very own Mordor..."

Among the more amusing discoveries has been a room full of sex tapes, including Arab royals like Kuwait's Princess.
Space

Making the Case For Microscopic Life In Meteorites 103

Posted by timothy from the told-my-sister-she-was-an-alien dept.
An anonymous reader writes "NASA scientist Dr. Richard Hoover claims he discovered evidence of extraterritorial life in a meteorite. He published his results in the March issue of Journal of Cosmology. In front of the article there is an official statement form the editor in chief: 'We believe Dr. Hoover's careful analysis provides definitive evidence of ancient microbial life on astral bodies some of which may predate the origin of Earth and this solar system. Dr. Richard Hoover is a highly respected scientist and astrobiologist with a prestigious record of accomplishment at NASA. Given the controversial nature of his discovery, we have invited 100 experts and have issued a general invitation to over 5000 scientists from the scientific community to review the paper and to offer their critical analysis.'"
Patents

DOJ Anti-trust Investigation of MPEG-LA 149

Posted by Unknown Lamer from the pay-the-fees-or-else dept.
thomst writes "The Wall Street Journal's Thomas Catan reports that the Department of Justice has launched an anti-trust investigation of MPEG-LA's purported efforts to prevent Google's VP8 codec from widespread adoption. According to the article, the California Stare Attorney General's office is also investigating MPEG-LA for possible restraint of trade practices."
Wikipedia

Old Man Murray Entry Deleted From Wikipedia 432

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i-miss-you-omm dept.
shoptroll writes "In what can be best described as an unfortunate interpretation of the 'notability standards' at Wikipedia, Rock, Paper, Shotgun reports that the entry for Old Man Murray, once a mainstay of PC Gaming reviews and commentary, has been deleted. A sad day for gaming journalism everywhere." This is notable both because Old Man Murray was completely and totally awesome, but also because it was notable and influential on countless writers.
The Internet

Submission + - US Gov.t Seeking Inputs on IANA

Submitted by Demerara
Demerara writes: As a member of ISOC, I just got this circular asking for inputs on an important review of IANA functions. I though it would be useful to broaden it to /.
The email reads: "Dear Chapter Delegates and Members, As you are probably aware, the Government of the United States released its long-awaited Notice of Inquiry on the IANA functions on Friday last week. I'm attaching a pdf version that is easier to read than the Federal Register version on their web site http://www.ntia.doc.gov/>. The deadline for comments is 31 March 2011, so we need to begin developing our response now. The evolution of the IANA function is an issue of immediate and great interest to all parts of ISOC and our companion organizations. I am seeking views from our membership on this important topic to use as inputs when developing the ISOC response to the NOI. I will also be drawing on the Board discussions of the IANA function that have taken place over the past few years. And finally, I will be coordinating with the other I* organizations. I do not believe we should try to develop a joint response to DoC, but we will want to ensure there are no surprises and, ideally, that there is broad general agreement in what we provide to the decision making process. It is my believe that the US government is sincerely hoping to get a broad range of responses from the US and elsewhere with concrete suggestions for improvement of the way the IANA function is handled. For example, they are hoping to hear clear statements about what this community wants; e.g., whether and why there should be changes to how the .arpa and/or the .int are treated in the contract, what should be the arrangements for the protocol parameters, etc. If the Internet technical community would like to see the US government make changes, we need to participate in this process to build a record of those recommendations. Thus I encourage you to send me your inputs by end of day Friday, 18 March, 2011. The NOI is quite detailed, as you will see. It describes the IANA function, and then goes on to ask questions in six areas. To paraphrase, those are: 1/ Whether the interdependent technical functions performed under the IANA should continue to be treated as interdependent, or if there should be changes to the present grouping? 2/ Recognizing that other Internet technical organizations' policies (e.g., IETF, IAB, RIRs, ccTLDs) impact on the performance of the IANA functions, should those be referred to and specified in the IANA functions contract and how? 3/ Should there be changes in the handling of root zone management requests requests pertaining to ccTLDs to address the concerns of some governments and ccTLD operators? 4/ Are the current performance metrics and reporting by the IANA functions operator adequate, or should there be changes? 5/ Are there improvements that should be made to the IANA functions contract to better address the needs of users of the IANA functions? Here the NOI specifically asks if additional information on the performance and administration of the IANA function would make the process more transparent? 6/ Should additional security considerations or enhancements be included in the requirements in the IANA functions contract? In every case, the NOI requests *specific* information and *specific* suggestions for improvements in the IANA contract. This may be an area where ISOC can contribute to the process in a very positive way. I would especially like to hear from you if you are in some direct way a participant or user of the IANA functions, and if you have any specific experience that indicates a need for improvement or alteration of the contract, and if so, what your specific recommendations would be. That kind of input would improve the depth and credibility of the ISOC response. Of course, as always, you are welcome to make your own direct comments to the process, but I would still very much appreciate hearing about your experiences and views. While I have not prepared text for the submission, in general, I would like to see ISOC explain how important it is to rely on the native Internet institutions to play appropriate roles where their expertise contributes to the smooth functioning of the Internet overall. Thus it is important that the roles of the IETF, IAB, RIRs, and ccTLD operators be recognized in the system, and that there is a need to build international confidence in how the IANA function is operated and administered. That includes the need to be more open, transparent and thus accountable in the administration of the process, to match the openness and transparency provided by the operator's extensive reporting. I also foresee suggesting that the stability of the IANA functions could be improved under different process than the current redrawing and renewing of relatively short term IANA functions contracts. I hope that you will read the full NOI, and I look forward to hearing your views on the questions it asks, your experiences, and your recommendations for improvement. Once again, to make it possible for me to prepare the ISOC input, please send me your inputs before end of day on March 18, 2011 or earlier if possible. Thank you in advance Bill"

Submission + - PayPal's Unethical Rolling Reserve (paypal-community.com)

Submitted by phx_zs
phx_zs writes: I recently became one of the many disappointed and unsuspecting victims of PayPal's dark secret, the "Rolling Reserve" system they impose on merchant processing accounts. For those unfamiliar with this, PayPal requires from merchants that a certain percentage of each day's transactions be held for a long time before it's released to the merchant (usually 30% per day, released after 90 days). I was frustrated by this and their support's unwillingness to bend on the issue, but I really became disgusted when I did a quick search of their message board and found post after post of horror stories from small businesses, charities, and others who literally have tens of thousands of dollars locked in "Pending" that they're unable to access. One guy was even losing his home and belongings because he needed the reserved money but PayPal wouldn't release it.

What makes this unethical is that PayPal is making money off the reserves. While a non-profit can't operate because $75,000 is being held from them, PayPal is earning guaranteed interest on it for 90 days. This is all on top of some of the highest monthly fees and transaction charges in the industry that merchants pay for a PayPal account, adding insult to injury.

PayPal's side of the issue is that the rolling reserves are "for their protection and ours" from customers who want a refund but the merchant can't cover it. But read through the message board and you'll find that many merchants say they've never had a refund in years. PayPal's argument is obviously an absurdity and though this practice is legal (we agreed to the small print) and not unheard of, it's truly a slap in the face to all of the users and businesses who have helped PayPal become as successful as it is. With things like this coming to light in addition to their obviously poor moral judgement as shown by the Wikileaks debacle, it begs the question: Is it time for a widescale boycott of PayPal?
Games

Submission + - Futureproofing artifacts-Spacewar! 1962 in HTML5 (oversigma.com)

Submitted by
trebonian
trebonian writes: "In 1997 we posted a playable version of the Spacewar!, the first graphical computer game. Spacewar! was written by Russell et al at MIT in the early 60s.

We did not re-implement the game. Rather, we found the original source code, rebuilt it to get an authentic binary and ran it on a PDP-1 emulator that we wrote in Java.

We chose Java to implement the PDP-1 because we believed at the time — correctly as it turned out — that a Java version would survive the browser wars. Also, it would not require any effort to keep it running on all platforms well past the turn of the millennium, and through the traffic peaks of Spacewar's 40th and 45th birthday.

It's now getting close to 15 years later. We would not want to bet that in another 15 years a Java program will still run on the latest popular platforms.

As a hedge to the future, and in an effort to continue the preservation of this significant digital artifact, we've now ported the PDP-1 emulator to Javascript/HTML5.

It's posted at http://spacewar.oversigma.com/html5/. This should see the game through Spacewar!'s 50th (and hopefully 60th) birthday.

Expect another update around 2025."
Facebook

Submission + - Does Facebook Violate RFC2142? (facebook.com) 2

Submitted by
nuckfuts
nuckfuts writes: "An e-mail sent to abuse@facebook.com resulted in an automated response saying:

Unfortunately, the email address you are using to reach us is no longer available. In order to best assist you, we have provided avenues of support for specific issues that are located in our Help Center. Please follow the link that best suits your problem.

All the provided links require logging in to Facebook. Since I don't have a Facebook account, it appears I cannot report abuse. Is this not a violation of RFC2142 ?"
Open Source

Submission + - Gameduino gets a GPU (excamera.com)

Submitted by
beckman101
beckman101 writes: "My background is in games and graphics — I wrote games for 8- and 16-bit consoles — and later built fast graphics systems at SGI, 3dfx, and NVIDIA. I currently use the Arduino at an open source robotics company. In my spare time I have been putting these two together, and the result is the Gameduino: essentially a GPU for the Arduino. http://excamera.com/sphinx/gameduino/ What it lacks in horsepower it makes up for in hackability: it is completely open source. Signups for the first production run are over at Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2084212109/gameduino-an-arduino-game-adapter"
Security

Submission + - Paypal Accounts compromised? (overclockers.com.au)

Submitted by cpaluc
cpaluc writes: I received an odd spam message today. It was odd because, unlike most spam, it included my real name. I searched the address that the message was inviting me to visit and within the first 10 results was a forum discussion involving other people who had received the same message, also with their own real names. It may be too early to draw any conclusions yet, but the common element appears to be everyone's Paypal accounts. If Paypal is indeed the source, then it has some serious explaining to do.
Government

Submission + - Feds Help You Find Your Fastest Internet Service (itworld.com)

Submitted by
jfruhlinger
jfruhlinger writes: "Slashdot previously covered the National Broadband Map, designed by the U.S. Federal government to illustrate where the "digital divide" between those with access to high-speed Internet and those who don't. But, as blogger Ryan Faas points out, you can use it for a much more individualistic purpose: to find your fastest local wired or wireless ISP. Just plug in your name and address and you'll soon see what your options are."

Submission + - Author of Anarchist Cookbooks Speaks Out (thedailybeast.com)

Submitted by
Anonymous Coward
Anonymous Coward writes: "In the 12 months after the book was published, bombings increased to an average of five a day, according to FBI data. Citizens who blamed Powell stuffed his Vermont mailbox with death threats. Anarchists weren't happy, either, accusing him of war profiteering, and setting off stink bombs at his only press conference in New York. "I didn't anticipate the ramifications," Powell says. "I don't think I was as emotionally intelligent as I might be now.""
Government

The Inner World of Gov-Sponsored White-Hat Hacking 146

Posted by samzenpus from the good-guy's-bad-guys dept.
romanval writes "Anonymous leaked emails of white-hat hacker firm HBGary shows how it develops and markets products to government agencies. From the article: 'In 2009, HBGary had partnered with the Advanced Information Systems group of defense contractor General Dynamics to work on a project euphemistically known as "Task B." The team had a simple mission: slip a piece of stealth software onto a target laptop without the owner's knowledge. They focused on ports—a laptop's interfaces to the world around it—including the familiar USB port, the less-common PCMCIA Type II card slot, the smaller ExpressCard slot, WiFi, and Firewire. No laptop would have all of these, but most recent machines would have at least two.'"

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