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Comment Re:Hostile Action from Spammers (Score 3, Informative) 68

by Zonk (troll) (#26244211) Attached to: CastleCops Anti-Malware Site Closes Down

Excuse me, but what is the US Constitution's Second Amendment for, exactly?

"No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government." --Thomas Jefferson

"That the people have a right to keep and bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed of the body of the people trained to arms, is the proper. natural and safe defense of a free State. That standing armies in time of peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that. in all cases, the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the civil power." --George Mason

"The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms." --Samuel Adams

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed -- unlike the citizens of other countries, whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms." --James Madison

"Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" --Patrick Henry

"[A]rms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but, since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up." --Thomas Paine

Comment Re:Interesting... (Score 3, Informative) 376

by Zonk (troll) (#26159871) Attached to: Microsoft Rushes Internet Explorer Patch

Internet Explorer may not have an auto-update system, but Microsoft Windows has an update system rivaling that of Ubuntu and OS X in automaticness, if not scale.

Since Windows encourages users to allow automatic updates installed at 3am every morning and also by default installs any pending critical updates at system power down, it doesn't seem like any supported version of Internet Explorer should remain unpatched for too long.

Ubuntu and Mint, at least, check daily. In Ubuntu when there are security updates you see a red arrow in the notification area, when non-security updates are available you see a orange sun(?). Also, if you go to "System"->"Software Sources" and then the "Updates" tab you can set it to apply security updates automatically (this really should be default, IMHO).

I still think Ubuntu's update system rivals Windows and OS X as it not only updates the base OS and OS vendor applications, it updates everything on the system.
Medicine

Nanotech Paint To Kill Bacteria 208

Posted by kdawson from the any-color-as-long-as-it's-white dept.
ColGraff points out reporting at Science News about the possibility of killing bacteria with paint. Scientists in the UK have found that high concentrations of titanium oxide nanoparticles in paint can kill bacteria by creating hydroxyl radicals when exposed to ordinary fluorescent light. Titanium dioxide is present in most white paint at concentrations of 30% or so, but not always at nanoparticle scale. The researchers found that an 80% concentration of TiO2 nanoparticles worked well to kill E. Coli bacteria. There is hope that the technique could be used against "superbugs," which are resistant to multiple antibiotics. A researcher not associated with the UK team pointed out the problem with developing products based on this idea: "[A]nything that survives and sticks around grows greater resistance... ultimately [antibiotic paint] will be its own worst enemy and the bacteria could grow to be even stronger."
Education

Submission + - Multiple ways to view the August 1 solar eclipse (scientificblogging.com) 2

Submitted by
TaeKwonDood
TaeKwonDood writes: "Got some old CDs lying around? You can view a solar eclipse. Welder's glasses and black and white film too. There are plenty of ways to safely view a solar eclipse and you can find the spectral responses of commonly available solar filters here. Finally, a use for your old floppy disks! (You can make a pinhole proejctor too, but that will cost you some geek cred)"
Music

Submission + - Apple cracks down on the Hymn Project (hymn-project.org) 2

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ever since the initial launch of the iTunes Music Store, an intrepid group of programmers over at the Hymn Project have engaged in a marvelous cat-and-mouse game with Apple. Now they're finally being hobbled by Apple's lawyers.

The purpose of the project has always been to provide software that can be used to losslessly remove Digital Rights Management (DRM) protection from music purchased through iTunes, so that the buyer may exercise their right of fair use and play the music on non-Apple devices (Hear Your Music aNywhere).

The software has gone through many incarnations. The original hymn has been succeeded by JHymn, QTFairUse6, MyFairTunes, and others. Regardless of the program, the emphasis has always been squarely on fair use — not piracy. Any discussions of piracy have been strongly and actively discouraged on the site's forums.

For years now, Apple has been content to mostly ignore the Hymn Project. At worst, they would introduce subtle changes to new versions of iTunes that would break the Hymn software. Nobody really knows if this was done intentionally, but it was usually just a matter of time before a new solution was found. This seemed like a reasonable approach for Apple to take. After all, why should they care? The DRM was only in place to placate the record companies. Apple CEO Steve Jobs has even expressed his opinion that all music should be free of DRM.

Well, now things have changed. Recently, a new program called Requiem was announced that appears to be a complete crack of the iTunes DRM scheme. Previous programs had relied on various forms of trickery or memory hooks to access the unencrypted audio data — none had ever completely cracked the encryption algorithms.

Requiem seems to have been the last straw. Earlier this week, the ISP hosting the site received a Cease and Desist order from Apple Legal, demanding that all downloads be removed from the site, and that the site post no links to any programs that could remove DRM from Apple music or video. Reportedly, similar C & D orders were also sent to at least one of the project's developers, and to another ISP where Reqiuem had been hosted. Ironically, Requiem was never actually hosted on the Hymn site — merely mentioned and linked to in one of the forums. Nevertheless, the Hymn Project has now come into the crosshairs of Apple's lawyers and, lacking legal resources, has seen no choice but to comply with the order.
Power

Startup Claims to Make $1/Gallon Ethanol 456

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the get-ready-to-fight-the-lobbies dept.
gnick writes to mention Wired is reporting that an Illinois startup is claiming they can make ethanol from most any organic material for around $1/gallon. Coskata, backed by General Motors and several other investors, uses a process that is bacteria based instead of some of the other available methods. The bacteria processes organic material that is fed into the reactor and secretes ethanol as a waste product.
Security

DoS Attacks on Estonia Were Launched by Student 184

Posted by Soulskill from the modern-techniques-for-making-people-hate-each-other dept.
As_I_Please alerts us to the fact that a 20-year-old Estonian student has been fined for participating in DoS attacks against various Estonian political and governmental websites last May. The situation was notable because it escalated tensions between Estonia and Russia when the latter was accused of initiating the 'cyber-attack'. Quoting: "The fact that a single student was able to trigger such events is particularly ominous when you consider just how many potential flashpoints exist between various countries all over the world. The DoS attack against Estonia is an excellent example of how a cyberattack carried out by a 20-year-old student in response to real-life events further exacerbated an existing problem between two nations."
Networking

Submission + - Comcast Blocking all SMTP 7

Submitted by JoeRandomHacker
JoeRandomHacker writes: Comcast has long blocked outgoing traffic on port 25, forcing users to go through their mail servers, on the grounds that it causes too much spam, but allowed incoming traffic on port 25 for those wishing direct email delivery. Today I found that even port 25 on their mail servers was rejecting traffic, and no incoming mail has gotten through. Online chat with Comcast customer support indicates that this is a new policy, and all users are forced to go through port 587 and use authentication for email. I didn't get a specific answer on incoming email.
So much for having my own private webmail (via Squirrelmail), free from the control of corporate giants. Time to see if Verizon can do better over FIOS.
KDE

KDE's Version Timing Drops It In Ubuntu Support Priority 187

Posted by Zonk from the not-tomorrow-but-soon dept.
News.com is reporting that the next version of Ubuntu will see KDE unsupported, but only for the time being. Because of the dramatic changeover from KDE 3.5 to 4.0, Ubuntu sponsor Canonical is unwilling to initially support the popular Linux GUI. Gnome will still be supported, and the company expects to return support to kubuntu soon. "Developer interest is focused on KDE 4.0, but it's not mature enough yet to use in the next KDE-based variation of Ubuntu, called Kubuntu, Scott James Remnant, leader of the Ubuntu Desktop team, said in an explanation to a Kubuntu mailing list. But most Kubuntu developers adding features "upstream" of today's products are focused on KDE 4.0, meaning that it's risky to release a long-term support version based on 3.5."

Facebook Beacon Privacy Issues Worse Than Previously Thought? 138

Posted by Zonk from the can't-win-guys dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Further developments in the Facebook Beacon affair ... According to PC World, a Computer Associates researcher claims that Beacon, when installed on participating sites, is sending data about users' activity back to Facebook, even when a user is logged out of Facebook - despite Facebook's claims to the contrary."

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