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Submission + - Senator files bill prohibiting phone calls on planes (bizjournals.com)

Submitted by SonicSpike
SonicSpike writes: U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander today filed legislation to prohibit cell phone conversations on commercial flights.

The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to hold a hearing today on a potential rule change, having recently eased restrictions on the use of other wireless devices during flights.

"When you stop and think about what we hear now in airport lobbies — babbling about last night's love life, next week's schedule, arguments with spouses — it's not hard to see why the FCC shouldn't allow cell phone conversations on airplanes," Alexander said in a news release. "The solution is simple: text messages, yes; conversations, no."

Submission + - NSA Head Asks How To Spy Without Collecting Metadata (itworld.com)

Submitted by jfruh
jfruh writes: NSA Director Keith Alexander, testifying before the Senate this week, got weirdly petulant, asking his critics how he was supposed to do his job without collecting metadata on American communications. "If we can come up with a better way, we ought to put it on the table and argue our way through it," he said. "There is no other way that we know of to connect the dots." He also implied that major U.S. tech companies might have greater capacities than his organizations, and that they should help him out with new ideas.

Submission + - Google Cuts Android Privacy Features, Says Release Was Unintentional (eff.org)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Peter Eckerlsey at the EFF reports that the 'App Ops' privacy feature added to Android in 4.3 has been removed as of 4.4.2. The feature allowed users to easily manage the permission settings for installed apps. Thus, users could enjoy the features of whatever app they linked, while preventing them from, for example, reporting location data. Eckersley writes, 'When asked for comment, Google told us that the feature had only ever been released by accident — that it was experimental, and that it could break some of the apps policed by it. We are suspicious of this explanation, and do not think that it in any way justifies removing the feature rather than improving it.1 The disappearance of App Ops is alarming news for Android users. The fact that they cannot turn off app permissions is a Stygian hole in the Android security model, and a billion people's data is being sucked through. Embarrassingly, it is also one that Apple managed to fix in iOS years ago.'

Submission + - Google Autocomplete Ruins Man's Life (ibtimes.co.uk) 1

Submitted by DavidGilbert99
DavidGilbert99 writes: Google's autocomplete function turned a mild-mannered man into a terror suspect and four years of sustained harassment by various US government investigators, according to a lawsuit filed today. Jeffery Kantor says that Google's autocomplete changed ""How do I build a radio controlled airplane?" to "How do I build a radio controlled bomb?" triggering a sequence of events which saw him lose his job. He is seeking $58million in damages.

Submission + - Huawei Using NSA Scandal to Turn Tables on Accusations of Spying (slashdot.org) 2

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecom giant banned from selling to U.S. government agencies due to its alleged ties to Chinese intelligence services, is trying to turn the tables on its accusers by offering itself as a safe haven for customers concerned that the NSA has compromised their own IT vendors. “We have never been asked to provide access to our technology, or provide any data or information on any citizen or organization to any Government, or their agencies,” Huawei Deputy Chairman Ken Hu said in the introduction to a 52-page white paper on cybersecurity published Oct. 18. Huawei was banned from selling to U.S. government entities and faced barriers to civilian sales following a 2012 report from the U.S. House of Representatives that concluded Huawei’s management had not been forthcoming enough to convince committee members to disregard charges it had given Chinese intelligence services backdoors into its secure systems and allowed Chinese intelligence agents to pose as Huawei employees. But the company promises to create test centers where governments and customers can test its products and inspect its services as part of an “open, transparent and sincere” approach to questions about its alleged ties, according to a statement in the white paper from Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei. Can Huawei actually gain more customers by playing off the Snowden scandal?

Comment Re:It's All About Incentives (Score 2) 167

by lostfayth (#41680489) Attached to: Ask Slashdot: How To Get Paid For Open-Sourcing Your Work?

In the case of a contractor or a comissioned work (in the US), a work qualifies as a work for hire only if all the following 3 conditions are met:

1. The work must be specially ordered or commissioned
2. The work must fall under one of 9 categories defined by 17 U.S.C. 101: contribution to a collective work, translation, supplementary work, compilation, instructional text, test, answer material for a test, atlas, or part of a motion picture or audiovisual work.
3. There must be a written agreement between the parties that the work is a work made for hire.

If these conditions are not met, the work is not a work made for hire and the ownership of the copyright remains with the creator of the work.

In any case, consulting a lawyer to understand your particular case (and review your contracts) is always a good idea. If you're in the position of propsoing that contract, you should have a lawyer draft the standard framework you then customize for the client.

Comment Re:Huh? (Score 1) 59

by lostfayth (#40931839) Attached to: Store Offers Kinect Body Scanner To Help You Find Jeans That Fit

Tape measures are expensive, minimum wage is somewhere between $20-30k/year. That cost increases quickly as you add locations or expand to a larger space, and require more expensive humans to operate these seemingly inexpensive tape measures. Now throw in the cost of management, hr, benefits, and so on.

The same $20-30k could see these deployed across a chain of stores. Turnover is limited to devices which break down and can be replaced for less than $200. There are fewer teenagers being irresponsible on the job or pissing off customers, and less need for management to play the role of babysitter.

It probably has its drawbacks, but cost is not one of them.

Comment Re:Slashdot has gone batsh*t crazy (Score 1) 190

by lostfayth (#40926629) Attached to: SUSE Slowly Shows UEFI Secure Boot Plan

They could refuse to certify their hardware, which would likely cost them any discounts on licensing. They would not be able to use windows update to update drivers. See: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/hh924782

Windows could be changed in such a way as not to allow installation on uncertified hardware. Likely not insurmountable, but not trivial for the average user.

The tinfoil hat could be screwed on too tight, but then again..

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