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Comment Re:This firewall monitor non internet activities? (Score 1) 164

by sherpajohn (#36021920) Attached to: Marlinspike's Droid Firewall Kills Tracking

These same folks have a SMS encrypter and yes, a call scrambler application, the latter does not even require an unlocked phone, though WhisperCore and WhisperMonitor (which is part of the former I think), require you unlock and replace the Android on your phone with thier custom kernel. Interesting that they can scramble calls outside the kernal or firmware.

Comment Re:This firewall monitor non internet activities? (Score 4, Interesting) 164

by sherpajohn (#36021584) Attached to: Marlinspike's Droid Firewall Kills Tracking

What do you mean "the phone itself"? What else is sending out information but applications? Little elves hiding in the keypad? Sorry, I don't understand what you mean...an android phone is a device running the android OS - I would expect everything to be an application, even the part that connects to your mobile provider. Maybe I am looking at it the wrong way.

Comment Hats off! (Score 2) 138

by sherpajohn (#35079460) Attached to: Pub Patrons Down Under Subject To Biometric Datamining

I was told that I could not enter a pub in Worcester this spring as I was wearing a Tilly Hat. "Dress code" I asked? "No, we just need to be sure the CCTV gets good images of your face in case anything bad happens". This was not even a club per se, though they did have a DJ, there was no dance floor. I have heard there's live music club in Worcester that requires photos, but have not been there yet. I am not one of the - "if you have nothing to hide, why ask for privacy" lot, but on the other hand, if its a requirement of a venue, I'll follow it if I really want to be there.

Comment Re:THey should house a server farm in it (Score 0) 239

by sherpajohn (#33962226) Attached to: Boeing 747 Recycled Into a Private Residence

If you sunk it in a lake, it would rapidly fill up with water - aircraft are *not* air tight...

O'rly? Makes me wonder why they seal the doors, and how they deal with the half normal atmospheric pressure at 35,000ft or so? I guess something that's not air tight can still experience http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_decompression right?
Games

EVE Online Battle Breaks Records (And Servers) 308

Posted by Soulskill from the blame-it-on-the-torrents dept.
captainktainer writes "In one of the largest tests of EVE Online's new player sovereignty system in the Dominion expansion pack, a fleet of ships attempting to retake a lost star system was effectively annihilated amidst controversy. Defenders IT Alliance, a coalition succeeding the infamous Band of Brothers alliance (whose disbanding was covered in a previous story), effectively annihilated the enemy fleet, destroying thousands of dollars' worth of in-game assets. A representative of the alliance claimed to have destroyed a minimum of four, possibly five or more of the game's most expensive and powerful ship class, known as Titans. Both official and unofficial forums are filled with debate about whether the one-sided battle was due to difference in player skill or the well-known network failures after the release of the expansion. One of the attackers, a member of the GoonSwarm alliance, claims that because of bad coding, 'Only 5% of [the attackers] loaded,' meaning that lag prevented the attackers from using their ships, even as the defenders were able to destroy those ships unopposed. Even members of the victorious IT Alliance expressed disappointment at the outcome of the battle. CCP, EVE Online's publisher, has recently acknowledged poor network performance, especially in the advertised 'large fleet battles' that Dominion was supposed to encourage, and has asked players to help them stress test their code on Tuesday. Despite the admitted network failure, leaders of the attacking force do not expect CCP to replace lost ships, claiming that it was their own fault for not accounting for server failures. The incident raises questions about CCP's ability to cope with the increased network use associated with their rapid growth in subscriptions."
Wireless Networking

Cool-Tether Links Phones' Bandwidth To Make High-Speed Hotspots 102

Posted by timothy from the broadish-band dept.
Barence writes "Microsoft Research has found a novel way of beating the deplorably slow speeds of mobile broadband, by combining several phones together to make one high-speed hotspot. Dubbed Cool-Tether, the system harnesses the mobile data connection of multiple mobile handsets to build an on-the-fly Wi-Fi hotspot. 'To address the challenges of energy efficiency, Cool-Tether carefully optimises the energy drain of the WAN (GPRS/EDGE/3G) and Wi-Fi radios on smartphones,' Microsoft's research paper claims. 'We prototype Cool-Tether on smartphones and, experimentally, demonstrate savings in energy consumption between 38%-71% compared to prior energy-agnostic solutions.'"
Image

Jetman Attempts Intercontinental Flight Screenshot-sm 140

Posted by samzenpus from the a-jetwing-and-a-prayer dept.
Last year we ran the story of Yves Rossy and his DIY jetwings. Yves spent $190,000 and countless hours building a set of jet-powered wings which he used to cross the English Channel. Rossy's next goal is to cross the Strait of Gibraltar, from Tangier in Morocco and Tarifa on the southwestern tip of Spain. From the article: "Using a four-cylinder jet pack and carbon fibre wings spanning over 8ft, he will jump out of a plane at 6,500 ft and cruise at 130 mph until he reaches the Spanish coast, when he will parachute to earth." Update 18:57 GMT: mytrip writes: "Yves Rossy took off from Tangiers but five minutes into an expected 15-minute flight he was obliged to ditch into the wind-swept waters."
Idle

Police Arrest Man For Refusing To Tweet 550

Posted by samzenpus from the when-they-say-tweet-you-better-tweet dept.
RichZellich writes "Police arrested a senior vice president from Island Def Jam Records, saying he hindered their crowd-control efforts by not cooperating. The crowd at a mall where Justin Bieber was appearing got out of control, and police wanted the man to send a tweet asking for calm; he refused and they arrested him on a felony assault charge 'for putting people in danger.'"
Security

Easing the Job of Family Tech Support? 932

Posted by Soulskill from the shock-collars-and-a-willingness-to-yell dept.
DarkDevil writes "Ever since I was introduced to computers at a very young age, I've been the resident tech support for a household of 7 users. I've been in a cycle for the last ~8 years where something happens to my parents' computer, I spend a week or two trying to non-destructively fix the problem (and try to explain to the users what caused it and how to avoid it), and then if it's not easily fixed I'll reformat and start from scratch. Most often, the level of infection warrants a reformat, which usually ends up taking even more time to get the computer back to how my parents know how to use it. 4-8 months later, it happens again. Recently, I found ~380 instances of malware and 6 viruses. I only realized something was wrong with their computer after it slowed down the entire network whenever anyone used it. My question for Slashdot is: are there any resources out there that explain computer viruses, malware, adware, and general safe computer practices to non-technical people in an easy-to-digest format? The security flaws in my house are 9, 26, and ~50 years old, with no technical background aside from surfing the internet. Something in video format would be ideal as they are perfectly happy with our current arrangement and so it'll be hard to get them reading pages and pages of technical papers."

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