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The Courts

Submission + - Copyright Wiretaps are Hollywood's "PATRIOT (arstechnica.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Ars is reporting that the CCIA is calling the copyright wiretaps requested by the IP Czar 'Hollywood's PATRIOT Act'. For those who don't remember, IP Czar Victoria Espinel recently wrote a report calling for more charges of felony copyright infringement under the NET Act, as well as felony charges for illegal web streaming, authorization for the use of wiretaps in going after copyright infringement cases, and several other measures. In short, this means that the copyright cops are coming online.
Botnet

Operation Payback and Hactivism 101 423

Posted by CmdrTaco from the tread-softly dept.
Orome1 writes "While individual acts of hacktivism are inconvenient, something else happens when hacktivists group together — they commonly perform a DDoS attack. Techniques have advanced to automate the process, making the attacks more powerful and thus more able to bypass security controls — the effect, however, remains the same. Let us take a look at the recent Operation Payback which has gained notoriety in the past few months."
Image

IT Worker's Revenge Lands Her In Jail Screenshot-sm 347

Posted by samzenpus from the bad-idea dept.
aesoteric writes "A 30-year-old IT worker at a Florida-based health centre was this week sentenced to 19 months in a US federal prison for hacking, and then locking, her former employer's IT systems. Four days after being fired from the Suncoast Community Health Centers' for insubordination, Patricia Marie Fowler exacter her revenge by hacking the centre's systems, deleting files, changing passwords, removing access to infrastructure systems, and tampering with pay and accrued leave rates of staff."
Privacy

The First Truly Honest Privacy Policy 119

Posted by CmdrTaco from the honesty-is-the-best-policy dept.
itwbennett writes "You want to know what really happens to your data? Dan Tynan has penned the first completely honest privacy policy — surprisingly free of legalese. We dare you to use it on your website."
It's funny. Laugh.

Tofu Activists Spoof Meat-Based Indie Game 420

Posted by Soulskill from the have-a-burger-to-celebrate dept.
Faulkner39 writes "In response to the recently released independently developed platformer Super Meat Boy, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has released a Flash-based spoof game titled Super Tofu Boy. The spoof attempts to mirror the original by featuring a protagonist made of tofu and an antagonist made of meat in a statement promoting animal rights. Ironically, however, the original game is about a human boy who is vulnerable because he lacks skin (Meat Boy), raising the question: 'is the spoof in reality really about cannibalism?'" The Super Meat Boy team posted a response on their Twitter feed.
Math

Fermilab To Test Holographic Universe Theory 166

Posted by samzenpus from the getting-some-answers dept.
eldavojohn writes "Scientists at Fermilab have decided that it's high time they build a 'holometer' to test the smoothness of space-time. Theoretical physicists like Stephen Hawking have proposed that space-time is not smooth but it's been a lot of math and no actual data. The Fermilab team plans to build two relatively small devices that act as 'holographic interferometers' to measure the shaking or vibration in split beams of light traveling through a vacuum. If the team finds the shaking in their measurements and records them, the theory of a holographic universe will have some evidence of non-smoothness in space-time and perhaps a foothold in bringing light to the heavily debated theoretical physics."
Hardware Hacking

Building a Telegraph Using Only Stone Age Materials 238

Posted by samzenpus from the from-scratch dept.
MMBK writes "It's the ultimate salvagepunk experiment, building a telegraph out of things found in the woods. From the article: 'During the summer of 2009, artist Jamie O’Shea of the organization Substitute Materials set out to test whether or not electronic communication could have been built at any time in history with the proper knowledge, and with only tools and materials found in the wilderness of New Jersey.'"

Comment Trademark infringement with FaceTime (Score -1, Troll) 1184

by edwardd (#32489430) Attached to: Apple Announces iPhone 4

I guess Apple is big enough that they no longer worry about infringing on other people's trademarks. FaceTime has been an instant messaging platform for years, it's not like they're new. Lots of large financial firms use them.

Come on Apple, how do you expect others to respect your trademarks if you don't respect other?

Comment Right move, wrong reasons (Score 1) 3

by edwardd (#30255738) Attached to: Archos releases Dev Edition firmware for Tablets

They've always been compliant in publishing the GPL'd source that they use or modify, but they're releasing this for the wrong reasons. One person on the archosfans forum (archilles) published code to jailbreak this model and get access to all the plugins, without publishing the details. Others have been very forthcoming with the internals they've reverse engineered.

Archos' response has been to put out an Angstrom Linux distribution, while wiping the DRM keys from the device. Even though they are distributing this, installing it will immediately void the warranty. This is certainly not a sign of good will. The only reason this being published is to try to stop people from hacking their boxes.
Linux

Submission + - Archos releases Dev Edition firmware for Tablets (archosfans.com) 3

Submitted by Charbax
Charbax writes: While Archos current "Archos 5 Internet Tablet with Android" is a 4.8" WVGA Tablet hardware that runs Android 1.5 and soon 2.0 with the full Google Marketplace Experience (according to rumors), users of last year's 4.8" and 7" Archos Linux Tablets have been complaining that Archos firmware updates of its proprietary embedded Linux OS were too rare and added too little of the requested functionality. Under pressure from hackers demonstrating jailbreak methods, Archos has just now officially released the open-source Special Developer Edition firmware based on Angstrom Linux generated from a customized open embedded build for last year's Archos 5 and 7 Internet Media Tablets. If many talented developers join the community of Archos hackers to make software for this new Archos SDE firmware, Android, Angstrom Linux, Maemo Mer, Qt and Ubuntu Linux could be expected to run smoothly on it soon. Which could make it the ultimate pocket Linux Internet Tablet for Linux hackers. Installing Archos new SDE firmware permanently disables DRM playback and voids the warranty. The Archos 5/7 Internet Media Tablets are running on a 600mhz ARM Cortex A8 processor, with 60GB to 320GB of built-in hard drive storage and powerful hardware acceleration for 720p video playback and even HDMI output. The advantage of this open-source firmware working on last year's model is that the 250GB 4.8" Archos 5IMT Tablet now sells for $199 at Amazon.com and the 160GB 7" Archos 7IMT version is $209 and those are to be found even cheaper on ebay.
Sci-Fi

Submission + - SPAM: "Surrogates" author describes deleted SciFi hooker

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "In an interview titled "Love Thy Surrogate Self," Robert Venditti describes a deleted scene from his graphic novel where Detective Greer (Bruce Willis's character) requests a "skinjob" from a virtual prostitute — that is, real-life body-to-body contact. "The prostitute rebuffs him, offended that he'd think she was that kind of girl." (Greer plays surrogate sex games with his wife in a newly-released prequel.) And Venditti also answers the question whether he'd ever use a surrogate himself. "I'd like to think that I wouldn't... But technology can be a very seductive thing, which is probably why we all welcome it into our lives without really thinking about what its ramifications are going to be. So as much as I want to believe that I'd eschew the surrogate lifestyle, the iPhone/TiVO/computer side of me realizes that probably wouldn't be the case." And if he had to choose a surrogate? "To be onboard Serenity in Joss Whedon's Firefly"."
Link to Original Source

Submission + - Next Wheel of Time book: Chapter 2 for free (keepingthedoor.com)

Submitted by
daria42
daria42 writes: "Publisher Tor Books has made the second chapter of the next Wheel of Time book, The Gathering Storm, available for free in audio format only, following the release of the book's first chapter and prologue online. The book itself is slated to be released next month."

Comment Re:Check out twinhan DVB-S cards for an alternativ (Score 5, Informative) 345

by edwardd (#29223749) Attached to: An End To Unencrypted Digital Cable TV and the HTPC

DVB-S cards can use smart cards to get premium (encrypted) channels as long as you have a subscription. They don't lock you out like cable does.

Unfortunately for American viewers, there is no legal way to do this. Although DVB-S is an international standard and widely adopted, current laws within the US prohibit using off the shelf hardware to decrypt the video signal. Doing this is considered signal theft.

Dish Network uses Nagra 3 encryption, as do some other providers in Europe. There are no legal conditional access modules available for this crypto system, so any use of these smart cards in devices other than what the provider supplies is considered theft, as well as a violation of the DMCA.

DirectTV uses it's own proprietary system and can only be legally used with their hardware.

It really sucks paying to loose control.
Space

Submission + - US Report: NASA Can't Track Deadly Asteroids (spacefellowship.com) 1

Submitted by
xp65
xp65 writes: "A new U.S. government report says the U.S. space agency does not have enough money to find asteroids that could destroy life on Earth. The National Academy of Sciences said Wednesday that Congress has yet to give NASA the money it needs to build telescopes to track the potentially deadly space objects. Congress passed a law in 2005 ordering NASA to find 90 percent of asteroids bigger than 140 kilometers by 2020. The academy report says NASA cannot meet this goal under its existing budget."
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - Virtual property is a bad idea; here is why

Submitted by pacergh
pacergh writes: Many legal commentaries on virtual property argue that it should exist. Others argue why it can exist. None seem to explicitly spell out what virtual property will look like or how it will affect online worlds.

Lost in the technology love-fest are the problems virtual property might bring. The Virtual Property Problem lays out a model for what virtual property might look like and then applies it to various scenarios. This highlights the problems of carving virtual property out of a game developer's rights in his creation.

From the abstract, "'Virtual property' is a solution looking for a problem." The article explains the "failure of property rights to benefit the users, developers, and virtual resources of virtual worlds."

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I tell them to turn to the study of mathematics, for it is only there that they might escape the lusts of the flesh. -- Thomas Mann, "The Magic Mountain"

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