TheRedSeven - Slashdot User

Submission + - Register Your Fingerprints, Skip the Customs Line

Submitted by TheRedSeven on Wednesday November 12, 2008 @11:56AM

TheRedSeven writes: The US Customs and Border Protection has started a program at O'Hare Airport (ORD) in Chicago, apparently in operation for a month now, that allows US citizens arriving from abroad to bypass the passport-checking line if they are willing to submit their fingerprints and undergo background checks.
The Global Entry program, unveiled at O'Hare last month by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, is designed to let travelers get through the airport faster but also affords a key benefit for the Department of Homeland Security: It makes it easier to track who is coming into the country.
This seems to me to be a way to use convenience to erode privacy and other rights, and has the added bonus that proponents can use the old You-have-nothing-to-fear-if-you've-done-nothing-wrong defense. One frequent business traveler said:
I have nothing to fear. The only people who do either have issues with their background or with their government. I don't fear my government--yet.

Is this legitimate convenience, or just another way to gather information on people?

Submission + - Free File Hosting through File Savr

Submitted by TheRedSeven on Wednesday September 10, 2008 @07:21PM

TheRedSeven writes: File Savr, a file and image hosting company, is offering Free File Hosting (up to 250 GB).
As a thank you to the community we are offering free accounts on FileSavr.com to bloggers as well as members of Digg, Stumble, Reddit, Mixx, Del.icio.us. To get your free account fill out the form below to receive to get $10 monthly account (250 GB) absolutely free. Accounts created before September 15th will have lifetime membership for free. If you like the service we hope you will help us with small donations via paypal.

I just signed up, and noticed that the site says 'paid until Jan 18th, 2038,' so it's perhaps not quite for life. The only thing--apparently the "service is very slow due to extreme demand right now," which does not bode well for the future of the company's servers...

Submission + - e-Ink has Arrived in Mainstream Magazine

Submitted by TheRedSeven on Monday September 08, 2008 @09:21AM

TheRedSeven writes: With internet advertising and rapid updates making sales of traditional media slump, the editor of Esquire Magazine has a plan to keep more readers from leaving the magazine: electronic ink.
A 10-square-inch display on the cover of Esquire's October 2008 anniversary issue flashes the theme "The 21st Century Begins Now" with a collage of illuminated images. On the inside cover, a two-page spread advertising the new Ford Flex Crossover features a second 10-square-inch display with shifting colors to illustrate the car in motion at night.

Perhaps if magazines actually do enter the 21st century by staying relevant through update-able news, they may actually compete with online news sources.

Submission + - Patent System Broken! How do we fix it? 1

Submitted by TheRedSeven on Tuesday July 29, 2008 @08:16PM

TheRedSeven writes: Everyone on /. seems to be of the opinion that the patent/copyright system is broken and DMCA is a joke. I tend to agree. Yet I have heard http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/07/28/1711237">few ideas within this forum on feasible ways to reform the system. So here's the question — if you were starting over from the ground up, what would you do?

Remember that there are several categories to deal with (software/programming, digital music/movies/art, real world music/movies/books/art, standard mechanical/physical inventions, business methods, etc), and that you have to balance several goals (providing an incentive for creative people so they won't just get steamrolled by mega-corporations, prevent patent trolling, increase innovation, allowing others to use or refer to ideas for legitimate reasons — and define legitimate!) while creating a process that is cheap, quick, transparent, and has few barriers to entry.

Simply saying "GPLv3" is not an acceptable answer (though it might be part of an answer).

Submission + - Apple WWDC Keynote highlights

Submitted by TheRedSeven on Monday June 09, 2008 @02:50PM

TheRedSeven writes: The WWDC keynote has happened, Al Gore was in the audience of 5200 to witness the event, and several sites live blogged the presentation. While Steve Jobs mentioned several topics (the new OS X Snow Leopard, etc.) the most widely-anticipated was the new iPhone. The highlights are:
1) increased functionality for enterprise use,
2) the ease of using the SDK and the coming App Store (no charge to developers or users for free apps),
3) new software features on iPhone 2.0, including bulk message delete, contact search, MS Office support, and massive language support, and finally (after 90 minutes)
4) the new iPhone 3G itself which is even thinner, has a black plastic back, solid metal buttons, camera, flush headphone jack, dramatically improved battery life, GPS support integrated, and it has a price tag of only $199 for the 8GB version ($299 for the 16GB)!

However, it won't be available for sale til July 11. So for all you Apple junkies who have been waiting for this, wait a bit longer...

Submission + - Hackers attack Comcast.net

Submitted by TheRedSeven on Thursday May 29, 2008 @01:49PM

TheRedSeven writes: Looks like someone got fed up enough with Comcast to do something about it. They took over the comcast.net domain name and redirected it. I'm only disappointed that they didn't do something cooler with their efforts — it appears they only left a (pretty lame) message about Comcast getting "RoXed".

Submission + - Hack sends Obama users to Clinton site

Submitted by TheRedSeven on Thursday April 24, 2008 @10:46AM

TheRedSeven writes: A hacker (presumably a supporter of Clinton) took advantage of a XSS vulnerability on Barack Obama's campaign website, directing users who attempted to access the community blogs section of the site to Clinton's website instead. The vulnerability has reportedly been taken down.

The hackng appears to have been a prank, but researchers suggest that this breach exposes the vulernable underbelly of the candidates' online operations. Try this: A similar mechanism could be employed to redirect visitors a site that steals personal information from visitors — or maybe even make Obama contributions to Clinton.

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