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The Internet

Submission + - CRIA forces Demonoid offline 1

Submitted by duh P3rf3ss3r
duh P3rf3ss3r writes: Popular bittorrent site Demonoid.com, still smarting from a recent agreement with the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) to block all traffic from Canadians, appears to have been forced entirely offline. Attempts to contact the main or the secondary server result in the message: "The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding." Is this the end for the demonoid folks?
Mandriva

Microsoft Denies Sabotaging Mandriva Linux PC Deal 161

Posted by Zonk from the fair-market-etc-etc dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Microsoft has denied sabotaging Mandriva's deal with the Nigerian government to supply Classmate PCs from Intel along with a customized Mandriva Linux operating system. 'From Microsoft's perspective it's a matter of choice. In the statement sent to InternetNews.com, Microsoft said it believes individuals, governments and other organizations should be free to choose the software and other technologies that best meet their needs. "We are seeing strong market demand for Windows on low-cost devices to help governments in the areas of education, local innovation, and jobs and opportunity," the Microsoft spokesperson said in the statement.' The company's denial is in response to Mandriva's CEO Francois Bancilhon expression of disappointment with Microsoft."
Security

Submission + - Mac OS X users targeted by in-the-wild porn Trojan 1

Submitted by Anonymous
Anonymous writes: The Register is reporting a sophisticated Trojan has been released into the wide that targets Mac users. The malicious Trojan, dubbed OSX.RSPlug.A, is making the rounds on several porn websites. When Mac users try to view some videos, the site feeds them a page that says QuickTime is unable to play the file unless a special codec is installed first. If the user proceeds, a form of DNSChanger is installed that hijacks some web requests sent to eBay, PayPal and some banking websites, according to security firm Intego. Is this a sign that OS X is finally a big enough to be attractive to professional attackers?
Space

Submission + - Astronomers Again Baffled by Solar Observations

Submitted by SteakNShake
SteakNShake writes: Once again professional astronomers are struggling to understand observations of the sun. ScienceDaily reports that a team from Saint Andrew's University announced that the sun's magnetic fields dominate the behavior of the corona via a mechanism dubbed the "solar skeleton". Computer models continue to be built to mimic the observed behavior of the sun in terms of magnetic fields but apparently the ball is still being dropped; no mention in the announcement is made of the electric fields that must be the cause of the observed magnetic fields. Also conspicuously absent from the press releases is the conclusion that the sun's corona is so-dominated by electric and magnetic fields because it is a plasma. In light of past and present research revealing the electrical nature of the universe, this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing.
Movies

Jack Valenti, Dead at 85 650

Posted by CowboyNeal from the man-behind-the-ratings dept.
saforrest writes "Jack Valenti, a man whose influence in both Washington and Hollywood was profound, died today at age 85. He first became famous as special assistant to Lyndon Johnson: he can even be seen in the famous photo aboard Air Force One. In 1966, he quit this job to become president of the MPAA, from 1966 to 2004."
Data Storage

Farewell To the Floppy Disk 616

Posted by kdawson from the first-they-came-for-the-Morse-code dept.
s31523 writes "Those of us who have been in the IT arena for a while remember installing our favorite OS, network client, power application, etc. by feeding the computer what seemed an endless supply of 5.25" soft floppy disks. We rejoiced when the hard 3.5" floppies came out, cutting our install media by 1/3. We practically did backflips when the data CD-ROM arrived and we declared: we will never need any other disk than this! It is with sadness that I report the beginning of the end for the floppy: computer giant PC World has announced it will no longer carry the floppy disk once current supplies run out."

How Google Manages Click Fraud 130

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the making-advertisers-warm-and-happy dept.
Finin writes "In February 2005, Google was sued by Lane's Gifts & Collectibles in a class-action lawsuit over click fraud. The company alleged that Google had been improperly billing for pay-per-click ads that were not viewed by legitimate potential customers. As part of a settlement earlier this year, Google agreed to have an independent expert examine their click fraud detection methods, policies, and procedures and make a determination of whether or not they were reasonable measures to protect advertisers. The report of the expert, NYU Information Systems Professor Alexander Tuzhilin (a Professor of Information Systems at NYU), is now available." Update 07/26/2006 at 12:52 GMT by SM: Fixed the link to Tuzhilin's report.
Editorial

Journal Journal: false advertising online ?= legal

Journal by FrankDeath

Recently a link for SuicideGirls has been appearing in the MarketPlace Links section of Slashdot. I had heard of the site before, and I was surprised that the advertisement described it as "The online Men's Magazine for Geeks." If you've seen the site you know that the advertised description is horribly incorrect.

In the brick-and-mortar world, advertisers are only allowed to make absurdly false claims if the average person can tell that it's not meant to be taken seriously.

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