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Comment Re:You couldnt Pick a Worse Crowd to pick on (Score 1) 121

by JoGlo (#20580617) Attached to: Software Company Sues Popular Australian Forum
Yes, there are a lot of kiddies there, but there are more kiddies in Oz than there are movers and shakers. Just because the ankle biters get underfoot at times doesn't mean that they are the only ones watching Whirlpool. I'm also an IT manager, and a member of Whirlpool. I wonder just how many Whirlpool members also come over here to /.? And how many of the dual group are IT bods? Although I tend to regularly get sin-binned over there, I see it as an extremely useful set of forums to have around, and if it went down the gurgler, would like to think that there might be some way of resurrecting it - perhaps as a "specialc interest group", here at /., where Australian laws couldn't touch it.
Quickies

Submission + - Big 'Ocean' Discovered Beneath Asia

Submitted by anthemaniac
anthemaniac writes: Seismic observations reveal a huge reservoir of water in Earth's mantle beneath Asia. It's actually rock saturated with water, but it's an ocean's worth of water ... as much as is in the whole Arctic Ocean. How did it get there? A slab of water-laden crust sank, and the water evaporated out when it was heated, and then it was trapped, the thinking goes. The discovery fits neatly with the region's heavy seismic activity and fits neatly with the idea that the planet's moving crustal plates are lubricated with water.

Audio Watermark Web Spider Starts Crawling 173

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the now-it-just-needs-to-serve-you-papers-automatically dept.
DippityDo writes "A new web tool is scanning the net for signs of copyright infringement. Digimarc's patented system searches video and audio files for special watermarks that would indicate they are not to be shared, then reports back to HQ with the results. It sounds kind of creepy, but has a long way to go before it makes a practical difference. 'For the system to work, players at multiple levels would need to get involved. Broadcasters would need to add identifying watermarks to their broadcast, in cooperation with copyright holders, and both parties would need to register their watermarks with the system. Then, in the event that a user capped a broadcast and uploaded it online, the scanner system would eventually find it and report its location online. Yet the system is not designed to hop on P2P networks or private file sharing hubs, but instead crawls public web sites in search of watermarked material.'"
Security

Submission + - Solaris Telnet Worm

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The previously discovered Solaris telnet vulnerability is now being used by a worm to spread. In addition, the worm opens up a /bin/sh backdoor and has a payload of sending funny system broadcast messages related to security researchers including one that says "Theo deRaadt SUCKS!" in ASCII art.
XBox (Games)

Submission + - XBOX360 Hypervisor Security Protection hacked

Submitted by
ACTRAiSER
ACTRAiSER writes: "A recent Post on Bugtraq claims the hack of the XBOX360 Security Protection Hypervisor. It includes sample code as well. "We have discovered a vulnerability in the Xbox 360 hypervisor that allows privilege escalation into hypervisor mode. Together with a method to inject data into non-privileged memory areas, this vulnerability allows an attacker with physical access to an Xbox 360 to run arbitrary code such as alternative operating systems with full privileges and full hardware access.""

Patent Office Head Lays Out Reform Strategy 253

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the long-overdue dept.
jeevesbond writes to tell us that Jon Dudas, the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the US Patent and Trademark Office has laid out a plan for patent reform. "Speaking at the Tech Policy Summit in San Jose, Dudas said that characterizing the patent system as hurting innovation is a 'fundamentally wrong' way to frame the debate. 'I have traveled around the world, and every nation is thinking how it can model [intellectual property governance] after the U.S,' Dudas said. 'It's a proven system, over 200 years old. The Supreme Court, Congress and policy makers are involved [in cases and legal reforms] not because the system is broken. It's not perfect, and we should be having the debate on how to improve.'"
Google

Submission + - Gmail let's you get mail from other POP3 accounts.

Submitted by
snower1313
snower1313 writes: "Gmail has just added a new feature for a limited number of users that allows 3rd party POP3 account emails to be retrieved into your Gmail Inbox. "You can retrieve your mail (new and old) from up to five other email accounts and have them all in Gmail. Then you can even create a customized 'From:' address, which lets you send messages from Gmail, but have them look like they were sent from another one of your email accounts.""
The Internet

Submission + - Software For Virtual Teams

Submitted by
Ricmac
Ricmac writes: "Virtual team technology has evolved a lot over the past few years, enabling more and more companies to go virtual. But in order for working from home to be effective, certain things need to be in place. The most critical is technology — a set of tools, along with the infrastructure, that can replace the traditional office. Using these tools it is possible for team members to connect, communicate and execute as effectively as a traditional company. This Read/WriteWeb article looks at software that makes virtual companies possible — examples include Skype, GoToMeeting, Basecamp, Google Calendar, CVSDude, ElephantDrive and QuickBooks."
Education

Submission + - BBC Micro: Britain's First PC Hit

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: North American children grew up with the Apple II. Across the Atlantic, the BBC gave its blessings to the unreleased Acorn Proton (another 6502 micro) and it became the standard in education and home for almost a decade as the BBC Micro, even though there were cheaper, more capable machines on the market. Read about how Acorn won the lucrative contract and slowly disintegrated after their RISC home computer (released in 1987) failed to catch on.
Privacy

Submission + - DHS Abandons RFID

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The Department of Homeland Security has abandoned plans to embed RFID chips in arrival and departure forms carried by foreign nations in the U.S. The decision comes shortly after a General Accounting Office report found that the chips often were not properly scanned by sensors, and that they provided no additional assurance that the person arriving in the country was the same as the person leaving the country. Privacy groups had criticized the plan to embed the chips out of fear that they would allow people on the street to be scanned for forms that would identify them as non-citizens.
Windows

Journal Journal: Is it time to upgrade?

Journal by ProfessorJerk
I've been using Windows 2000 for just over 7 years now with no real compulsion to change. I'm wondering if there is any compelling reason that anyone can think of to upgrade to XP?
United States

Submission + - DHS testing new Data Mining program

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: According to an article in the Washington Post, the Department of Homeland Security is testing a data-mining program that would attempt to spot terrorists by combing vast amounts of information about average Americans, such as flight and hotel reservations. The GAO is unhappy with the privacy violations involved. They criticize the government's use of citizens' private information without proper notification and using the data for a purpose different than originally envisioned.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft: Google Was `wake-Up Call'

Submitted by wooha
wooha writes: Watching Google Inc. rake in advertising revenue was a wake-up call within Microsoft," the company's top technical executive, Ray Ozzie, said Tuesday. But he said Microsoft plans to do more than simply mimic Google by rolling out Web-based versions of desktop programs or following its particular search and advertising model. Ozzie, who has only made a handful of appearances since his promotion last June to replace Bill Gates as chief software architect, told analysts and investors at a Goldman Sachs conference in Las Vegas that he has been laying the groundwork for programmers across the company to build Internet-based software.
Media

Submission + - RIAA Prepares to Sue 400 College Students

Submitted by
An anonymous reader writes: The RIAA sent out "pre-litigation settlement notices" to 400 network users at 13 U.S. universities today, continuing a PR blitz that began last week with a much-publicized list of the 25 most notified universities for copyright infringement. Once again, Ohio University tops the list, with one out of every eight notifications. From the press release: "The RIAA will request that universities forward those letters to the appropriate network user. Under this new approach, a student (or other network user) can settle the record company claims against him or her at a discounted rate before a lawsuit is ever filed."
PlayStation (Games)

Submission + - European PS3 Won't Carry Chip for PS2

Submitted by Goodasitgets
Goodasitgets writes: The PlayStation 3 going on sale in Europe next month will play only some of the games for its predecessor video game machine — a move designed to cut costs and speed up production. Backward compatibility with PlayStation 2 has been billed as a major feature for the PlayStation 3 that went on sale late last year in the U.S. and Japan But packing the machine with two expensive computer chips to play both PS2 and upgrade PS3 games has been racking up costs for the money-losing PS3, a big reason behind Sony Corp.'s flagging earnings lately.

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