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Security

"Back Door" Cheating Scandal Rocks Online Poker 427

Posted by kdawson from the know-when-to-hold-'em dept.
AcidAUS sends us the story of an online poker cheating ring that netted an estimated $10M for its perpetrators over almost 4 years. The article spotlights the role of an Australian player who first performed the statistical analyses that demonstrated that cheating had to be going on. "In two separate cases, Michael Josem, from Chatswood, analyzed detailed hand history data from Absolute Poker and UltimateBet and uncovered that certain player accounts won money at a rate too fast to be legitimate. His findings led to an internal investigation by the parent company that owns both sites. It found rogue employees had defrauded players over three years via a security hole that allowed the cheats to see other player's secret (or hole) cards." The (Mohawk) Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which licenses the two poker companies, has released its preliminary report. MSNBC reporting from a couple of weeks back gives deep background on the scandal.
Wireless Networking

Researchers Identify Wi-Fi Dead Zones Cheaply 37

Posted by kdawson from the can-you-hear-me-now dept.
schliz writes "A new technique developed by HP Labs and Rice University could lower the cost of identifying 'dead zones' in large wireless networks. The technique '[combines] wireless signal models with publicly-available information about basic topography, street locations, and land use.' This enables Wi-Fi architects to test and refine their layouts cheaply before a network is deployed by focusing measurement efforts on areas that potentially could be dead zones. The technique requires only about one-fifth as many measurements as a grid sampling strategy."
Government

Submission + - Free use of codecs petition (sourceforge.net)

Submitted by
Justin Breithaupt
Justin Breithaupt writes: "Some people say they don't think that this will work but we can't know unless we try.

Free use of codecs petition. http://sourceforge.net/forum/message.php?msg_id=4691436

Instructions. Read this petition, Click the link above, and add the following as a reply to this topic.

Name:

Country:

State/Location:

Then please foward this message on. Then Click Here and digg it. We The People believe that anyone should have the right to play any Digital Media in the form of Music, Videos, or other content on any device in any format that we wish such as but not limited to DVD format using the libdvd codec, MP3 files with the lame codec, and Microsoft formated content using the win32 codecs.

Just because a company comes out with new proprietary codec to govern what devices can play their music, video, and other content does not mean that We The People should be restricted from viewing, listening to, or by other senses accessing the digital media or information we may have purchased or produced legally.

No entity should have the right to restrict how people should be able to access the data / media that they purchase.

We The People have certain inalienable rights. Being able to access our media with non-commercial software is a freedom that has been taken away from us by Micro$oft and other companies and devisions of the US Government such as the RIAA. The Government does not have the right to suppress freedom of speech or self expression in any way. By limiting the way that documented media or data can be accessed you are taking away the freedom of listening to free speech, the freedom of watching broadcasts, and of reading certain materials.

Please restore our rights and freedoms."
Government

Submission + - Feds halt best medical practices program (zdnet.com)

Submitted by modapi
modapi writes: Even common medical procedures can have their success rates dramatically improved by having doctors use checklists. But the Fed's Office for Human Research Protections of the Department of Health & Human Services has halted the practice, claiming the checklists are actually "human subject research" requiring informed consent. ZDnet's Robin Harris comments

"Human subject research requires the patient's informed consent for good reason. But once a "best practice" is defined, asking patients if they want it is, in effect, giving them the option to accept substandard care. How would this work in the ICU? I can see it now: Researcher: "Ms. At-Death's-Door? I need your informed consent for some human subject research. We're requiring doctors to perform procedures correctly by using checklists. You can also opt for our standard level of ineptitude."

He includes contact info and a suggested letter for people who want better health care practice.
Wii

Submission + - Nintendo Wii Fully Exploited

Submitted by Croakyvoice
Croakyvoice writes: The 24th Annual Chaos Communication Congress was the launchpad for the unveiling of the hacking of the Nintendo Wii via an exploit to allow homebrew to run in native Wii mode ( previously only Gamecube Homebrew was available on the Wii) which will allow access to the Wiimote, WiFi and SD Cart Slot. Tehskeen a Wii scene site has today posted an interview with the author of the exploit who has discussed the release to the public and linux amongst other things.
Power

Submission + - Microwave Converts Waste to Fuel (peswiki.com)

Submitted by
sterlingda
sterlingda writes: "Global Resource Corp's High-Frequency Attenuating Wave Kinetics (HAWK) recycler extracts oil and gas in seconds from most everyday objects like tires, plastic cups, as well as from shale, coal, and tar sands. Microwaves tuned to an optimum frequency separate the component parts which can be burned or condensed into liquid fuel, using only a small portion of the energy produced."
Censorship

Submission + - Burma Shuts Down Internet 3

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "MIT Technology Review reports that in the aftermath of pro-democracy protests, Burma's military rulers have physically disconnected their country from the internet:

Last week — after images of the beatings of Buddhist monks and the killing of a Japanese photographer leaked out via the Internet — Burma's military rulers took the ultimate step, apparently physically disconnecting primary telecommunications cables in two major cities, in a drastic effort to stop the flow of information from Burma to the rest of the world. It didn't completely work: some bloggers apparently used satellite links or cellular phone services to get information outside the country.
One Burmese blogger reported last week that "Myanmar main ISP has been shut down by so-called "maintenance reasons" and most of the telecommunication services have been cut off or tapped. ""
The Courts

Journal SPAM: Judge Voids California Election Over E-Voting Flaws 177

Journal by Jeremiah Cornelius

A judge in Alameda County, California, has voided some election results after the e-voting tallies from Diebold machines couldn't be audited. The vote was on a controversial ballot measure addressing the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries, and the expected result was a close margin. Activists went to court to demand a recount, but elections officials had
Security

Submission + - Undocumented Backdoor in PGP Whole Disk Encryption (blogspot.com)

Submitted by A non-mouse Coward
A non-mouse Coward writes: PGP Corporation's widely adopted Whole Disk Encryption product apparently has an encryption bypass feature that allows an encrypted drive to be accessed without the boot-up passphrase challenge dialog, leaving data in a vulnerable state if the drive is stolen when the bypass feature is enabled. The feature is also apparently not in the documentation that ships with the PGP product, nor the publicly available documentation on their website, but only mentioned briefly in the customer knowledge base (PGP customer account required). Jon Callas, CTO and CSO of PGP Corp., responded that this feature was required by unnamed customers and that competing products have similar "dangerous" functionality. There is still no official word from PGP as to why the public documentation withheld recognition of this risky option.
The Courts

Submission + - Sony Exec Admits RIAA Lawsuits Are A Money Pit (arstechnica.com)

Submitted by
Billosaur
Billosaur writes: "Interesting testimony came out of the first RIAA lawsuit to go to trial in Duluth, Minnesota (Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas). Under cross-examination yesterday, Jennifer Pariser, the head of litigation for Sony BMG, admitted that the RIAA's lawsuit campaign is a gigantic net loss for the music industry. The admission occurred during questioning regarding the damages Sony BMG was seeking against the defendant; as with all these suits, the RIAA is seeking punitive damages only, but Pariser could not in fact come up with a figure as to how much was actually being lost to downloading in this case or any other. Further, she did not know how many people were alleged to have downloaded music from the defendant. She was rather vague on the number of lawsuits that had actually been filed, but did admit that the record comapnies have spent millions on them and have recouped very little."
Space

Submission + - Dark Matter Of The Universe Has A Long Lifetime (sciencedaily.com)

Submitted by
Tjeerd
Tjeerd writes: ""New research from the Niels Bohr Institute presents new information that adds another piece of knowledge to the jigsaw puzzle of the dark mystery of the universe — dark matter. Signe Riemer-Sørensen has analysed the one of the two clusters of galaxies that are in the process of colliding. The analyses show that it is a very heavy cluster with many galaxies, and measurement of the gravitation show that there is a very big amount of dark matter, up to 85 per cent of the collective mass. However, no x-ray of any consequence was measured.""
Music

Submission + - Radiohead with "name your own price" LP7

Submitted by
JP
JP writes: "Radiohead have announced a new record http://www.inrainbows.com/ via their blog http://www.radiohead.com/deadairspace. The album is to be released ten days from now. What is particularly novel is that you can choose whatever price you wish to pay for the digital download only version of the record or you can purchase an LP/CD combo box. It's already sorta "slashdotted" via pitchfork and a million other news sites. Merge records also has seemed to follow this pattern of giving fans inexpensive downloads (with merge it's via emusic.com) or premium physical goods with high grade vinyl and artwork etc. I'm sure we are seeing the intermediate future of popular music distribution, although Radiohead have an obvious unique existing "marketshare" to be able to pull this off more easily."

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