WhyDoYouWantToKnow - Slashdot User

Submission + - Australian gov't seeks to circumvent privacy laws

Submitted by i-reek on Thursday August 09, 2007 @03:31PM

i-reek writes: "The Australian" newspaper online is carrying a story that the Prime Minister, John Howard , has announced his government will be extending its "internet safety scheme" to "find ways of getting around privacy laws that protect sexual predators", expand the checks on internet chatrooms to detect child predators and protect children from online pornography. $43 million will be provided immediately to double the size of the online child sex exploitation branch of the Australian Federal Police to this end. This new pledge of funds brings the total cost of the program to $189 million. The government has also committed to provide internet filters to every Australian family through internet service providers who will have to provide a filtered service on request. The program also includes the setup of a family support hotline, internet safety officers to help schools and community groups and free software provided to parents to prevent children downloading pornography. The cynical might note that it is an election year, that no real detail has been provided on how ISPs would filter services and that John Howard is noted for successful scaremongering before elections. Shame on the cynical.

Submission + - Russia relighting the flames of the cold war (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by on Thursday August 09, 2007 @03:17PM

An anonymous reader writes: Russia has been provoking many countries in recent weeks. Firstly the USA and NATO with its disagreement over the placement of anti missile defenses. The incident involving an assassination using polonium, then the claims it made on the north pole, The alleged missile attack on its neighbor Georgia and lastly the mission to exchange 'smiles' with US pilots.

It would appear we are slowly being drawn into a new cold war which is not so cold.

Submission + - Intro to Reverse Engineering, No Assembly Required (ethicalhacker.net)

Submitted by

ddonzal

on Thursday August 09, 2007 @03:17PM

ddonzal writes: "Great intro to reverse engineering for someone with no experience whatsoever on the subject. In this continuing series on coding essentials for those programmatically-challenged InfoSec Pros (ethical hackers), we build on the knowledge learned in the first article, "Intro to C." No prior knowledge of Assembly is Required! http://www.ethicalhacker.net/content/view/152/2/"

Submission + - Five reasons why Linux hasn't made it big

Submitted by Flames_o_War on Monday May 21, 2007 @02:38PM

Flames_o_War writes: An article on ZDNet examines the reasons behind why, after more than a decade, the Linux is still not making any serious inroads into the Windows/Mac market share:

The PC market is extremely cut-throat. It has to be because consumers will go to great lengths to save a few bucks when buying their latest system. But it seems that this thriftiness hasn't resulted in hordes of users choosing to buy PCs without Windows installed and instead choosing to install Linux instead. In fact, there are plenty of users who would rather break the law and install pirated copies of Windows than go the legal route and install a Linux distro. On the whole, most people would rather spend the money on Windows (or Mac) than take the time to experiment with Linux.

Why?

The article goes on to list five reasons:

1 — On the whole, users aren't all that dissatisfied with Windows
2 — Too many distros
3 — People want certainty that hardware and software will work
4 — As far as most people are concerned, the command line has gone the way of the dinosaur
5 — Linux is still too geeky

I'm a big Linux fan but after years of listening to the Linux fanboy community promise that the Linux big break is just around the corner, I'm starting to feel that the article is right, the demand for a non-Microsoft OS is not that big outside of geek circles.

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